Sachin

Nice interview of Sachin on cricinfo.

dichotomy of life

I believed as we grow older we solved mistry of dichotomy nature of life. In fact we get more and more confused and wonder what exactly we wanted in life and is it correct we led our life? When you land up in urban life, you crave for rural life. In my case I wish for jungle life!! But if you go close to rural/jungle life you wonder when you will return to urban life.
When you are alone you want to be with many people and other way round.

Why we always feel something missing all the time? I think this is the irony of human life which in one sense helps to conquer odds which are lied on his way and other hand makes him reckless to get it.

Bird Sanctuary

Watching birds in tranquil setting of nature is heavenly experience. Finding such a places is tough task considering rampant urbanization and havoc caused by humans all around. Surprisingly I found one  while visiting  old temples. First place I didn't expect water nearby that temple since it was not monsoon season. But because of back water from one of dam ahead there was ample of water around. This backwater caused swamped region around temple region. So there were many types of birds around like different types of duck, goose, king fisher etc.
Hope to visit many places like this..

 

 

 

Pravara Sangam

When you visit some ancient place which is not public known, it throws you back into ancient times... Huge temples using boulders, walls at least 2 feet thick on which you can easily walk around. Recently visited similar place. Because of back water from nearby dam temples which was located displaced town are almost in water. To visit few temples you have to use boat to reach there.
Because of swamp it also attracts many birds, along with ancient temples we were able to see many migratory birds in that area.



















Prashant

Visit to Sugar Factory

It's been while I visited any industrial plants. I like to watch gigantic machineries in plants but some how never got chance to visit any factory. One of friend wanted to show sugar factory to his kid, that made me to think why shouldn't visit sugar factory which is close to my town? It will be also nice for Adwait to watch how sugar cane is turned into sugar. Last time I visited same plant was 30 years back.. It's been long time to go to that place..
We just wonder how socio-economical, political power houses withstands time. Our towns economy, politics always remained involved around this factory.
Back to industry, watching sugar lifting cranes, massive  crushers, boilers is eye popping. Once juice start thickening at each stage, technicians working their will show us samples of syrup. At final stage when we see crystalline sugar after washing is just fun.

My First FIR

Never in life you feel like you have balanced your activities and can live routine life without disturbing peace of mind. More you try to adjust with your environment, your own strengths and limitations, some of ugliness will
eventually pop up once in while.
Same happened with us few days back, I always hoped I won't have to deal with police, burglars, lawyers. That exactly happened on 12th, whjen mother was  travelling from Pune to Sangamner, her valuables got stolen at hotel where bus halted for few minutes. Since valuables were not in small number we have
to rush to police station. First police refused to lodge complain since we come to know crime next day. So we have to rush to other police station.  Eventully they registered complained. After few days we got call from police station to come for statement and PI asked us to come with all family members. Meantime we called few more top ranking police officer and because of their pressure, things started moving slowly. Few more cops took statement from us. But anybody could guess nobody is working whole heartedly, it's more of saving  their jobs and creating reports. We almost spent 8 hrs in police station just to give our  statment!!

You just feel helpless already you are victim because of  culprits and no cooperation from system in place to protect us. With rampant corruption, nexus between politics-criminals-bureaucrats don't takes us back to foreign rule.

discipline

It's been more than month no blog entry.. Almost felt like I was not existing during this period. What I was doing? Nothing special, why not a single entry to diary? It is obvious nothing special happened during this period but being brain dead for complete month is something everyone has to ponder about. Is it just mood swing or just lack of discipline? I will blame it to discipline. Most of the time we will try to adjust to it when it is with in reach and we wilt  when it start to burden us. No wonder we find people enjoy fruits of hard labor and discipline in their lives.

ignorance is better than knowledge

Above statement must be dangerous in today's world. Today's world, nobody can survive without knowledge. Recently I also started acquiring knowledge about medicine just to be risk free and to avoid going to doctor or hospital. It really helps at least with minor health issues, some home remedies especially aurvedic are really good. 

As my study increase, I started looking inside body parts and trouble started from here only. Body internals have many parts and they do vast functions.. glands -- Endocrine, Exocrine. different joints, ligament,   cartilage, tendon, nervous system and other systems which causes our body to function.

Previous to study I generally had simple problem like cough, headache, some body pain but with new vocabulary .. I started feeling about my illness are more complicated touching internal organs of the part which is affected. I wish now I shouldn't have studied internal organs.. at least I would be peaceful with my body problems. 

Living thousands of lives

When you grow up in secured small towns (in 80s), your world seems very closed loop. You new very few people and by the time you start exploring town, there are hardly any person left who you don't know. Town's boundary are with in 5 km radius and there is vastness of agricultural land beyond that limit. Advancing beyond this radius was considered adventurous, but it used to give great joy walking around serene fields, streams and patches of trees. It was like our own "life form" shaping up in remote.

And now suddenly with internet and other technical advances no matter where we have got connected across globe. Earthquake, flooding  somewhere in corner but because of constant streaming pictures, started affecting us. Some movie star start blogging or twitting, we know what he is doing daily or sometimes hourly. Some one posting their pictures of travel, I feel like I also visited that place! Same is true with scientist, historians, architects. These online people have capacity to ride us in past or in future without time machine.  

In short we lives others life virtually, considering thousands of know, unknown people we interact, I feel like living thousands of lives.

Paleontology

How many science streams exists in academic world? By the time I finished 12 th I was only aware of A group (physics, chemistry, mathematics ) and B group (physics, chemistry, biology ) some variants around these four subjects. Once in a while I will read about excavation and always wonder how these people know where exactly to dig to find out some million year old fossil. It is still mystery to me,  but I came to know science branch anthropology .  This new science gave way to creation of film "Jurassic Park". To my opinion it is one of the best film, taking us back to Jurassic era. Geological time line itself is very difficult to understands since it discusses time line from 50 crore years on ward!

Scientists are not contented with discovering fossils but also study other elements to find out origin of life on earth! So paleontology is science which study entire history of life on earth. What a task, we have hard time to figure out what happened in our life while this science with dynamic biosphere of earth, extinct animals try to find out  prehistoric life.

Gondeshwar Temple

Watching historical monuments itself is sheer joy. Monument withstanding test of time, sustaining extreme weather for hundreds of years, intentional/non intentional damage by humans itself tells monument's greatness.
Near my hometown I recently came to know about very old temple. It is spectacular with 2 big temples in center and 4 small temples at corner and whole area is well fenced with wall.

Like most of good historical site, reaching to this place was pain. Road leading to temple is very narrow and congested with crowd. There is no clear sign from main road to reach this place. Anybody from archeological department or MTDC (Maharashtra tourism development  corp.)is listening?

Linguistic World

In this wicked world we get biased immediately based "visuals" we observe. No wonder we immediately pay attention to highly visualized commercials, movies or flashing online news. I often found that daily bombardment of "visuals" which most of the time are related to negative news, affect us badly -- at least deep inside our mind. We get "used to" it and get along with our lives but somewhere it has caused damage to our inner self.
In place of spending our large amount time reading/watching these kind of visuals, if we spend more time with quality book which has good narration in addition to proper usage of language,  it is very motivating and enriching experience even with our language skills! That also get reflected in our speaking, writing!!

Monsoon

Monsoon makes such a difference with environment, we actually can't visualize because while watching any scenery we  can't compare what exactly place was few days back. So this time I decided to capture same scenery at different months.

Inception -- can we do it to our mind?

Watched Inception accidentally, what a movie!!! I don't recollect watching sci-fi movie with such depth or levels. Creation of real and dream world is fabulous and person's struggle for "fixing" mistakes/events in past conscious and unconscious state of mind is just fantastic. Rather than explaining movie, I will strongly recommend to watch this movie.

While watching Leonardo DiCaprio, I also wondered our struggle to fix things in past and looking better future. But past events, relationship, again and again ambush memory activations of those events .. deliberately, knowing and unknowing by our mind or some extend by people and environment, makes sure we live in circle of depressing past.

PAST activities which has no reference other than some memory imprints not only destroys presents but sows perfect battle ground for future. Worse thing is no matter how hard you try to change that environment, you can't eradicate past. I think I am in limbo -- rightly mentioned in movie ONLY problem is in movie characters goes in limbo in their dreams while I am in reality.

Being Amitabh Bachchan

No.. I haven't started acting. Unlike rest of professionals I was very sure from school days, acting is not a my cup of tea. I do love watching characters developed on screen and real life scenarios. Sometime in school days I was hypnotized by angry young man -- Amitabh Bachchan. But I was sure I loved him more because of his characters in his movies. Days passed, watching movies become regular and you slowly shifts towards English movies because of travel, story, technical effect etc. I little bit lost track of AB career when I was out of India.

Few years back, he started writing blog and I really felt instantly connected to him because I never expected direct connection to fan. Best part of his blog is we can comment on it and I am glad he has occasionally replied to my comments. I started following him on blog and noticed that because of him my life has changed immensely.

Because of his blog remembered  one weird movie "Being John Malkovich" in which one person virtually enters into head of famous actor and then he can see/feel what  actor is doing for few minutes. I liked the story but really felt it's very weird. What this has to do with BigB's blog? One thing is sure like movie, I get access of his life for few minutes -- I get chance to see his way of thinking, his ethics, standards and above all I get to see world through his eyes. He travels around glob because of his profession and with him I also get free ride with him. Because of him I was able to see fantastic places at kanyakumari, Paris, NY, Rome without tiring myself.

I just wish he keeps blogging for many many years!

Class War

We live in different worlds even though we are habitated on single planet -- earth.  In school days it took years for me to understand caste system at our town since we lived in priviledged campus of college area. Apart from college activities there was not many other activities involved so couldn't able to know that people are borned in particular work related families.

College, job where you start understanding depth of caste system since you get to know how many seats are "reserverd" for YOU. Depending on what category you are you start blaming your failure at admission based on your caste. Whatever admission you get in, you look forward since you have college and think that this can only happen in India.

This perception also changes when you step out of India, you start watching discrimination based on race, nationality, religion, gender. Even so called developed countries are not behind it, if not rest of discrimination but based on financial status -- social classes do exist. So we can safely assume that we live in classified world.

Once we are aware of this classified world, our approach throughout our life is fight for our own "class" be it our belief, way of thinking, cooking, talking. We try to admently stick it to preserve our class. Once this happen within family also class war begins...  for trivial matters. It is very important to understand person - "class"wise before interacting with him.

Respecting History

HISTORY.. how often we love our history or sometime hates it because some of incident are not good. Anybody loves royal, wealthy, gallant  lineage but it is matter of chance which family we born. This is just our genetic history. Even if we are not born in particular great family there are so many historical and existing people who are masters in their own field and we can always learn something from them. One of the towering example is Gandhiji and values he followed..self sufficient,  persistence, mind controlled , non violence.

Apart from people  there are so many systems which we get for FREE because of history.

Town we live in. Town we live is not overnight built, there has to have some kind of activities so that people get attracted to place. I was always amazed by growth of Mumbai, New York, Chicago. How many people in past must have contributed to reach such metropolis? Planning such a large population on restricted area is difficult.
Same is true with food, cloth we use. How many trial and error humans might have gone through to come with each culture's eating habits. They might have died tasting some poisonous fruit!

Motivation

How much motivation takes part in our daily lives? We generally don't notice it because of everyday work involving our struggle. Mo matter how intellectual, talented you are, without motivation, energy and little bit of vision you won't lead a life which you dream of.

We trend make our day based on routine and past experience. Failure in past damages our confidences to bottom. This is where motivation -- self or induced (like religious following, mentor )  plays big role. How we tackle moment of depression is most important decision of life. If we remain remorseful, eventually we will lead to abyss of depression while remaining cheerful and motivated at least can reduce ill effect of depression as well as give us second chance to do something.

Generally we are very realistic person and try to see things or events in very practical purpose but we notice few optimistic things  in world and even pessimistic can feel optimistic. Be it story of handicapped achieving success at work, sport etc or some poor student achieving   great success at academic circle.

Recently I came across similar type of story of motivation. One of my cousin who studied in remote ancestral village is flying to USA for job! I know now a days going to work abroad is not a big deal with information technology, but which path someone follows is key. Someone has personal link, business contacts  etc. but with my cousin everything was self made .. lost her father while she was studying, so not much family support. Manage her own marriage etc, lost abroad opportunity because of .com burst, but she never stopped, she kept on working and motivating her self and now she is in USA.

Her path could have been anything but this one if she had lost her motivation at any struggling period of her life and could have ended up in my own ancestral village worrying about shortage of water!!

S.T.

Sometimes we don't really appreciate which see ordinary and obvious. In fact we get irritated to see ordinary, common things around us. It is true with Maharashtra State Transport. I never enjoyed it or at least till date. When I was child long journey to my ancestral place by ST would take 12 HOURS .. I would never able to eat anything because of smell in ST and always worried about throwing up.. Later during college days going from Pune to hometown was big hassle because crowded buses and stops it will take.. and suddenly one day ST was vanished from my life because of job outside state. Even after returning back to state because of car couldn't get chance to go by bus. Now a days driving car has become taxing to my knees and started to look for alternative.

So I started going by ST again.. and I noticed few things which I never able to noticed in college days.

1. People: We get chance to see locals very closely. Most of the time they will be following their local culture .. dress, language. Just listening to so many dialects of Marathi is melodious to ear. Some old traditional dress will remind you not existing old family members.

2. Demographics variation is very even in ST we almost forget our own age watching it.

3. When you go to very remote areas, ST bus will stay overnight.. if you don't have any safe place for accommodation (especially for trekking ) ST is safest place to sleep overnight.

4 .and finally Network of ST is amazing.. it almost goes to very remote parts of Maharashtra.. according to Wikipedia 16,000 buses,17,000 routes and 70 lakh passengers daily. I feel ST needs it due recognition for such a massive operation along side with Mumbai Local

(Not) Best Of Both World

One of my best friend is planning to come back from USA after staying there for 12 years. With american citizenship,JOB all his friends asking him to stay back!!But right now he looks firm to come back for a while, rest of us are very sure you will go back with in few months.

He might have his own personal reasons to come back but what intrigue me more is global phenomenon, people are just not happy where they stay.. Western civilization has few things to give while indian has it's own. It might be little less compare to US but we really not able to compare much if someone has rest of family here. In this case no matter how you manage to stay any place, something from other place always keep you calling and as usual not having that very moment cause immense dissatisfaction.

I think our generation who stayed both places for more than 2 years never able to satisfied since they are never able to get best out of both world.. and ultimately end up getting worse out of both world.

CTR+ALT+DEL

How many times we get up and feel like life should have CTL+ALT+DEL, so
that we can delete all mess caused in our past life. Day after day, month
after month, year after year we carry baggage of wrong decisions we made,
associations we choose. Fact of life is thre is no hard reset button to it. But
we can try some of soft resets ..
1. Finish the transactions as early as possible be it business or emotional
turmoil.
2. Carry forward good memories from past, remove evidence which causes you trouble
like bad events etc.
3. Find like minded people. This is tough since with age people also changes, so do us.
So once upon good friend may not be good today.
4. Bank on positive thoughts and deed.
5. NEXT GENERATION : Here is our altimate solution to our CTL+ALT+DEL, if we can keep AWAY OUR
PERCEPTION of world/life from them, we can see result of CTL+ALT+DEL with our next generation.

Generation Eraser

Today went to meet one of family friend who was ill for few days. I had impression she had some minor surgeory. Although they didn't disclose what illness is but from her discussion it looks like she had some major problem. I had tough time to see her bedridden
since lady was in very good health just two months back -- very discipline, active, health consious.

Last couple of years whatever place I visit, I see lot of people from parents generation just vanished.. or whoever is alive are hardly active. We say life span has increased from 60-80 or 90s but I see so many relatives in their sixties getting wiped out.

If we look back be it native place, work place you notice same thing, giant erasor has removed some people from scene along with your memories, they shared with you. It gives me big void in my brain. New generation busy with their new technological world, while my generation keeping pace with new generation + solving their own issues.

In short place is becoming very align to me ..

Fashion

Can you image what dress you will be wearing in next 30 years? I never imagined that Dada Kondke's half pant or 3/4th will be prominent this decade. While watching Dada Kondke's movies I wondered who might be wearing this kind of pant other than him? I had been to remote villiages but never able to saw that short. But look out now you will hit with 3/4th all over places .. malls, drivers, theaters. How about unisex vests? Who might have come up with this idea?

I will define fashion as "most comfortable weirdest thing"

I won't be surprised if we see 'ld stripped underpants becoming as regular pant in coming years!

Monsoon.. Floating Life Line

There is some magic about word monsoon.. whenever I hear this word.. I feel cool moist breeze around me. After scorching summer, I eagerly wait for monsoon to arrive from mid of may. If it arrives as schedule my body get rejuvenated instantly. Suddenly I get energy to survive (literally) otherwise feels very depress with heat and surrounding yellow and dry land. Once you get drenched in rain all personal problems just washes away.

Phenomenon must be because of natural cycle.. rain causing ending "old" and start of new season.. new life..     

Monkeying Around

We almost get lost in our day to day routines and worrying about what we have and not have. But hardly we get chance to look 98.9% of DNA which is believed to be exact replica of our ancestor - Chimpanzee. Finding chimpanzee in western ghat is out of question but we do see lot of it's distance cousins -- MONKEY.

While visit to one of temple, I saw many monkeys around tree .. having peaceful meal of Jambul Even my instinct of eating Jambul got activated and I feasted on dusty jambul lying on road. What a test!! Later spent time chasing them for photos, monkeys might be wondering why I was acting like them!

Feel sad photographing them, once ample creatures around our patan home. We used to through stones, mango seeds, in return we will also used to get mango or sometime chasing by monkey.

min(e)d trap

Life has such infinite paths, if we can't manvour it properly, we end up
standing on mind trap. After wrong moves by us through out our lives especially with eduction, career, relationship we come to stage we don't see any positive moves left to explore.. ANY move in any direction causes mine we are standing on to explode and we left strangled in same position to some miracle to happen and get us out of this situation. But in reality we know we know there is no out ..
As famously said in Star Trek by Spock: If there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else's.

Hills And Valleys

Sometimes in our long life we wonder how we survive. Especially for me I never had great ambition to do anything.   with no aim sometimes is very tough to roam around especially in competitive world, at least we have to struggle to make ends meet. Aimless survival became my ultimate life. Said definition itself is frightening and I always wondered how I survived till date without going mad or dead. Answer lies in beautiful land of western ghat - Each formation of hills and valleys are unique throughout ghat. Fortunately both my parents came from Koyana Valley and I spent most of my life in city Pune which is also in middle of ghat. Beautiful scenery around your daily living is really blessing. I tried to capture beauty of ghat so many time but because of my inadequate knowledge of photography, lack of patiences, I never able to capture beauty of it. 


Sometimes I tried to create panoramic images but image merging, stitching was painful and end image was worse than single images. But now with photoshop cs4, you can automatically stitch images!!  Because of that I am able to capture some of location around my places..

From panorama-pune

Kothrud Pune

From panorama-pune

Pashan Lake, Pune

From panorama-pune

Cricket @ Shikshak Nagar, Kothrud, Pune

From panorama - valley

Koyana Valley from Urul Ghat

From panorama - valley

Auspicious Mountain of Rudreshwar

From panorama - valley

Scenic Route to Patan

From panorama - valley

Koyana River -- Life Line of Region

From panorama - valley

Valley

From panorama - valley

Ridge

Satara City - Ajinkya Tara Fort






  

Jatra

When you grow with confusion where you would like to live in urban or rural area without consequences
you live in fantacy world. Being lived in colonised college area, I had similar fantacy of my ancestrial area - Patan.

We used to go there once in a year, so desperation to see cascade of mountains, picturesque river and most important densely spread trees of mango, jackfruit. Our small patan home was like paradise.
Nearby relatives will be always flocking in house so continuous stream of hot tea will be going on. Most of relatives will leave house after having cup of tea and mostly invite members to village their Jatra. I always feared Jatra since I thought I might get lost in sea of people and never able to find family members because everybody looked same because of Gulal. I loved it because of its unique color. Then people will throw dry coconut as God's offering and everybody will ran to catch it.

Best part of Jatra was food.. once I remembered plate of cooked goat blood! It took time to know what I was eating but considered it as challenged and ate. It's been while I attended any Jatra so eagarly waiting for a chance..

Bureaucracy

There are very few occasions in life you get pleasant surprise. Most of the time we know different consequences of any particular action item or events. But this particular action result was complete surprise.
We wanted to get passport for one of relative who got selected for Saudi job. We submitted passport papers along with tatkal scheme so that we will get passport faster, but lady over counter didn't even bother to look tatkal papers. So passport got applied in normal process. Because of pressure from Saudi employer we thought of using our link in Police Dept who was student of papa and currently serving top post in Maharashtra police dept.
Since I was unaware of his current location I called number which I had 6-7 year back. Top officer after calling promised me to help and told what to do and whom to meet in Satara. Because of his help my relative got immediate police clearance. So I thought of calling to thank him. When I called him, his PA told me that this person is not the same person I was knowing since he was transferred to other position long back. This was big surprise for me since I got help from top bureaucrat who had no relationship with me. He  didn't  demand  anything or flatly refused it.

In current world of bureaucratic corruption, this incident will remain in my memory for many years to come.   

Cash Flow -- Life Line

One of my friend who was average in his school studies, now a days tycoon in his business. I always wondered simple, average, lower middle class guy how he got ambition to build a group of companies and become such a leader. I asked him how do you manage all these thing?

He said it's all about cash flow -- I suffered because of lack of it when I was in school and now I run around just to keep cash flow -- flowing.. ..  how smart.. my middle class mentality never came out of "reserve" for rainy days in future .. God knows which future day we talk when we say it.. We don't even know whether we do have future, considering road accidents, modern health related ailment because of changing life style and food.

In summary if you want to be happy with personal life -- plan cash flow, you will make family happy. It doesn't matter how you are at heart or what you feel for anybody .. what matters is you have very good cash flow tactics for each family member.

Cofidence

One of my best friend hides from his past friends. I always wonder what might be matter with him. He was a such joy to be around. Life bubbling with enthusiasm, very sporting and very talkative to any subject.

Years passed and our friend slowly started detaching from us... numerous personal issues, professional failures extracted enthusiasm from his life. No more sporting and funny nature. Old days he was very confident  but that is what exactly he is missing especially after many personal failures.

I would like to quote following two quotes for failures..

If you're stuck with something and can't see a way out... change your paradigm... solutions magically appear.

"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty six times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

—Michael Jordan

Out of Context

Explosion of communication and damages done by it is presidential .. We do enjoy advantages of it tremendously since we can keep in touch with near and dear once who are thousands of miles away. But sometimes unnecessary , cross talk conversions can be very damaging. Especially who is not on phone call but silently listening 50% conversion. His/Her mind start guessing work immediately while other one is communicating .. More and more conversion becomes lengthy, other persons try to fabricate story out of it.

Same is true with other communication medium, be it verbal, writing. People try to find meaning out of context and comes to conclusion about their thoughts.. If you read carefully amitabh's blog, he devotes almost 20% of time defending such out of context media reports based on his blogging, interviews etc. For such a problem even Amitabh has no solution, what we can do?

Common Sense and System

Last three days I was wondering around all over Kothrud to find drop box for stand chart credit card deposit . I searched 3 near by drop box locations found on net, but all drop box shops were close. Considering  info might be outdated I searched ATM information about same card. I was very glad to see map of ATM locations given by web site. Since map location was nearby I spent half an hour to find mysterious location exactly shown by map. That location finally ended somewhere in hill occupied by ARDE!! Finally found ATM on Karve Road.

How comfortably we blindly follow System, we just don't use common sense. While I was searching ATM, it is most obvious it won't be in secluded part of town -- hill or residential  area.

Anyway moral of story is using common sense in any situation is far better than blindly following system and later   writing stupidity on blog.

Chess Unsolved Sport

There are hardly people who doesn't enjoy sports. If people can't play at least they like to watch game. CHESS is only game which is very tough to play as well as watch. This world championship I tried to understand moves by Topalov and Anand and it's beyond my tiny thinking power. But I  do understand that it's great game of skills, psychology and patience. Much like life predictable openings at start of game, middle game shaping the game and game closing based on what happened in middle game.

What makes this game tough is number of moves. One of mathematician said consider average 40 moves game and average player can choose 30 moves, that gives total outcome of game to 10 raised to 120.
I think I will never able to understand chess because of many permutation and combination, so does life..

Anyway congratulations to Anand for hard fought 12 round world championship against Topalov.

Frustation x Mind Control

One of my acquitant always use to do everything in excess... be it eating food, work out, work, study.
Even his emotional swings were extreme, he will be ecstatic about small pleasure or sometimes extreamly annoyed about trivial matters. I always use to ask him what is reason behind all his peak ups and down and he will always blame it to frustation in life. He will always tell, you won't even able to visualize frustation I am going through. I can understand in frustation people getting desparate about things which they didn't or at least keep sulking for over period of time for not getting what they want. In process loosing their appetite for food,activity etc. But how can anybody say that I eat too much because I was frustated!!

I think underneath frustation lies very weak will power. Will power to curb unnecessary body/mind demands. No will to overcome frustation, in fact using frustation as tool to boost our wrong doing to our body, mind or extreme cases to society.

IPL , Pollard and Contracts

Last couple of years IPL has created buzz which is unparallel to any events in India. Media, people, politicians, businessmen all are obsessed by phenomenon. Mind blogging amounts of prize money, players contract, revenue projections, cost of franchieses etc. caused me forget any poverty do exist in India. At least from electronic, print media report I don't think anybody is thinking about povery, unemployment, water/electricity shortage. Like US, we are also moving towards virtual world, where people are kept happy with bit of reality and lot of more entertainment. Constant Propaganda of non trival issues always bury important one. I think politicians are successeding in it.

Leaving apart about current IPL fight between top guys, let us see zero down to player's contract since exorbitant numbers which Modi discussed are at company level and lets compare something which we can compare at personal level.

Pollard, 22 year west indian got $750000/-!! If we calculate per match fee it's coming around appx. $54000/- If we consider average he bats for 5 overs and fields for 15 overs, so for each over he is getting around $2700. So whenever he fields, bats/balls he earns $450 or Rs 18000/- !!! No wonder he considered sueing West Indies board for not leaving him early from WI-ZIM match. As far as I am concern, I wildest  dreampt of max $200 / hr contract when I was in USA. Even just thinking about $200/hr considering h1, green card gave me goose bumps.

I wonder if I just salute his talent or luck.

Dull Life

It's been few days, I felt like writing something. Routine dull life is causing no particular excitement to body/mind. When brain start to question each of our action, we can consider life is stalled or we have something wrong in head. I feel completely sick and isolated when this stage occurs, thoughts are random, actions are erratic and there is no purpose to life. During this stage you just want to end existence.
Whenever I get into this stage first I look into how I tackle this kind of situations in past, in past I used to exercise to get any cobwebs out of my mind, but heavy exercise looks difficult now a days.
Reading some good book is other good option but headache makes it more difficult to relax.
Listening to good bhakti songs was also one of my favorite.. today also I came across couple of good poems from Tukaram and I started feeling little better..

जेथे जातो तेथे तू माझा सांगाती । चालविसी हात धरुनिया ।।

चालो वाटे आम्ही तुझाचि आधार । चालविसी भार सवे माझा ।।

बोलो जाता बरळ करिसी ते नीट । नेली लाज धीट केलो देवा ।।

अवघे जन मज जाले लोकपाळ । सोइरे सकळ प्राणसखे ।।

तुका म्हणे आता खेळतो कौतुके ।जाले तुझे सुख अंतर्बाही ।।

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हेचि दान देगा देवा । तुझा विसर न व्हावा ।।

गुण गाईन आवडी । हेचि माझी सर्व जोडी ।।

न लगे मुक्ती आणि संपदा ।  संतसंग देई सदा ।।

तुका म्हणे गर्भवासी । सुखे घालावे आम्हासी ।।

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पापांची वासना नको दांवू डोळा । त्याहुनि आंधळा बराच मी ।।

निंदेचे श्रवण नको माझे कानी । बधिर करोनि ठेवी देवा ।।

अपवित्र वाणी नको माझ्या मुखा । त्याजहुनि मुका बराच मी ।।

नको मज कधी परस्त्रिसंगती । जनांतुन मातीं उठता भली ।।

तुका म्हणे मज अवघ्याचा कंटाळा । तू एक गोपाळा आवडसी ।।

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जे का रंजले गांजले । त्यासि म्हणे जो आपले ।। १।।

तोची साधू ओळखावा ।। देव तेथे चि जाणावा ।।धृ.।।

मृदू सबाह नवनीत । तैसे सज्जनाचे चित्त ।। २।।

ज्यासि अंपगिता नाही । त्यासि घरी जो हृदयी ।। ३।।

दया करणे जे पुत्रासी । ते चि दासा आणि दासी ।। ४।।

तुका म्हणे सांगू किती । तो चि भगवंताची मूर्ती ।। ५।।

Inert Elements

When I studied periodic table in school. I liked column of few elements which is called "inert elements".

These are elements which are inert to everything! They don't show any characteristics - alkaline, acidic or don't form any kind of chemical bonding with any other elements.

I marveled these elements. These elements are like my nature, please don't disturb and I won't disturb you as well. But in this world everything is REACTIVE, so it is tough to be remain inert!

These elements wondering in world without getting affected by things happening around them.. I wished we could have able to make ourselves inert -- not affecting our state of mind when we go through emotional or physical turmoil. If we manage to keep brain cells intact without getting into voilent reactions to some events.

कविता- हरिवंशराय बच्चन

जीवन की आपाधापी में
जीवन की आपाधापी में कब वक्त मिला
कुछ देर कहीं पर बैठ कभी यह सोंच सकूँ,
जो किया, कहा, माना उसमें क्या बुरा भला।

जिस दिन मेरी चेतना जगी मैने देखा
मैं खड़ा हुआ हूँ इस दुनिया के मेले में,
हर एक यहाँ पर एक भुलाने में भूला
हर एक लगा है अपनी अपनी दे-ले मे
कुछ देर रहा हक्का बक्का, भौचक्का-सा,
आ गया कहाँ, क्या करूँ यहाँ, जाऊँ किस जा?
फिर एक तरफ़ से आया ही तो धक्का-सा
मैने भी बहना शुरू किया उस रेले में,
क्या बाहर की ठेला-पेली ही कुछ कम थी,
जो भीतर भी भावों का ऊहापोह मचा,
जो किया, उसी को करने की मजबूरी थी,
जो कहा, वही मन के अन्दर से उबल चला,
जीवन की आपाधापी में कब वक्त मिला
कुछ देर कहीं पर बैठ कभी यह सोच सकूँ,
जो किया, कहा, माना उसमें क्या बुरा-भला।

मेला जितना भडकीला रंग-रंगीला था,
मानस के अन्दर उतनी ही कमज़ोरी थी,
जितना ज़्यादा संचित करने की ख़्वाहिश थी,
उतनी ही छोटी अपने कर की झोरी थी,
जितनी ही बिरमे रहने की थी अभिलाषा,
उतना ही रेले तेज़ ढकेले जाते थे,
क्रय-विक्रय तो ठण्डे दिल से हो सकता है,
यह तो भागा-भागी की छीना-छोरी थी,
अब मुझसे पूछा जाता है क्या बतलाऊँ
क्या मान अकिंचन बिखराता पथ पर आया,
वह कौन रतन अनमोल मिला ऐसा मुझको,
जिस पर अपना मन प्राण निछावर कर आया,
यह थी तकदीरी बात मुझे गुण दोष न दो
जिसको समझा था सोना, वह मिट्टी निकली,
जिसको समझा था आँसू, वह मोती निकला।
जीवन की आपाधापी में कब वक्त मिला
कुछ देर कहीं पर बैठ कभी यह सोंच सकूँ,
जो किया, कहा, माना उसमें क्या बुरा-भला।

मैं कितना ही भूलूँ, भटकूँ या भरमाऊँ,
है एक कहीं मंज़िल जो मुझे बुलाती है,
कितने ही मेरे पाँव पडे ऊँचे-नीचे,
प्रतिपल वह मेरे पास चली ही आती है,
मुझ पर विधि का आभार बहुत-सी बातों का।
पर मैं कृतज्ञ उसका इस पर सबसे ज़्यादा--
नभ ओले बरसाये, धरती शोले उगले,
अनवरत समय की चक्की चलती जाती है,
मैं जहाँ खडा था कल उस थल पर आज नही,
कल इसी जगह पर पाना मुझको मुश्किल है,
ले मापदंड जिसको परिवर्तित कर देतीं
केवल छूकर ही देश-काल की सीमाएँ
जग दे मुझपर फ़ैसला उसे जैसा भाए
लेकिन मैं तो बेरोक सफ़र में जीवन के
इस एक और पहलू से होकर निकल चला।
जीवन की आपाधापी में कब वक्त मिला
कुछ देर कहीं पर बैठ कभी यह सोंच सकूँ,
जो किया, कहा, माना उसमें क्या भला-बुरा।
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जो बीत गई सो बात गई
जो बीत गई सो बात गई

जीवन में एक सितारा था
माना वह बेहद प्यारा था
वह डूब गया तो डूब गया
अम्बर के आनन को देखो
कितने इसके तारे टूटे
कितने इसके प्यारे छूटे
जो छूट गए फिर कहाँ मिले
पर बोलो टूटे तारों पर
कब अम्बर शोक मनाता है
जो बीत गई सो बात गई

जीवन में वह था एक कुसुम
थे उसपर नित्य निछावर तुम
वह सूख गया तो सूख गया
मधुवन की छाती को देखो
सूखी कितनी इसकी कलियाँ
मुर्झाई कितनी वल्लरियाँ
जो मुर्झाई फिर कहाँ खिली
पर बोलो सूखे फूलों पर
कब मधुवन शोर मचाता है
जो बीत गई सो बात गई

जीवन में मधु का प्याला था
तुमने तन मन दे डाला था
वह टूट गया तो टूट गया
मदिरालय का आँगन देखो
कितने प्याले हिल जाते हैं
गिर मिट्टी में मिल जाते हैं
जो गिरते हैं कब उठतें हैं
पर बोलो टूटे प्यालों पर
कब मदिरालय पछताता है
जो बीत गई सो बात गई

मृदु मिटटी के हैं बने हुए
मधु घट फूटा ही करते हैं
लघु जीवन लेकर आए हैं
प्याले टूटा ही करते हैं
फिर भी मदिरालय के अन्दर
मधु के घट हैं मधु प्याले हैं
जो मादकता के मारे हैं
वे मधु लूटा ही करते हैं
वह कच्चा पीने वाला है
जिसकी ममता घट प्यालों पर
जो सच्चे मधु से जला हुआ
कब रोता है चिल्लाता है
जो बीत गई सो बात गई।।
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अग्नि पथ
अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ!
वृक्ष हों भले खड़े,
हो घने, हो बड़े,
एक पत्र-छॉंह भी मॉंग मत, मॉंग मत, मॉंग मत!
अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ!
तू न थकेगा कभी!
तू न थमेगा कभी!
तू न मुड़ेगा कभी!
कर शपथ! कर शपथ! कर शपथ!
ये महान दृश्य है, चल रहा मनुष्य है,
अश्रु श्वेत् रक्त से,
लथ पथ, लथ पथ, लथ पथ !
अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ!

Big Bang and Us

In my opinion Big Bang experiment in Genva is second most important man made experience (in terms of device) after landing man on moon. Recreating what might have happen at start of universe is such a overwhemling conceptually itself. Quest of human being to find answers of pasts or predict future needs great mind. I am happy there are societies/countries who pay lot of attention to these kind of experiments. To generate energy or accelarate particles, scientists have build circular tunnel of 27 km which ran across multiple nations! What this experience is about to get tinnest particles present in universe. Commonly people know about atom or we get little more details up to electrons, neutrons, photons. These elementry particles also can be divided upto quarks. Current physics stops here what Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is trying to do is divide quark as well. It might prove curently hypothetical element Higgs boson or God's particle. Scientists are considering this is smallest particle exist in Universe!

On backdrop of human nature to find unknown intriguing, at the same time news about human sacrifice in my state Maharashtra for baby doesn't make sense. At one place man is trying to become God to answer our existence while blind faith is causing human to kill harmless innocent kids. We need to somehow channelize faith of later society to better their lives.

Malik Ambar

Being born to parents from Satara region, where people are extremely proud of their lineage. Until my end of college days, I was also extremely proud of past glory of 96k maratha clan. There is nothing wrong in it since region is paradise considering unique beauty of Sahyadri, major rivers like Koyana, Krishna and almost 200-300 years of glorious history of Maratha empire. More I read about history and being born in good family is just chance (or luck?) I started to accept greatness of  historical people (other than Chatrapathi Shivaji)

One of name I would like to take is Malik Ambar. He was child slave from ethopia (North/East Africa). He got sold 3 times before coming to Deccan. Later in nijamshahi he became a prime minister of Ahmadnagar. A black habashi (people from central ethopia) person becoming prine minister of Deccan region! I just can't imagine valor of this person.

I liked this person for couple of reason
1.  He kept powerful moguls away from Deccan. He was inventor of guerilla warfare in Deccan Region. First time he used farming marathas and trained them guerilla warfare. Shivaji's father (Shahaji) helped him assembling and training marathas. In my opinion this was ground work for Shivaji's guerilla warfare. No wander Shivaji used it effectively since he doesn't have to reinvent it.

2.  He build and architect new city called Khadki (now  Aurangabad ). He made it capital. He not only build great architecture for city but also water system (neher system). Today also it is considered as a miracle. Since Khadki (Aurangabad) didn't had dam and because of hard rock couldn't construct columns for ity.
So he used subterranean water from mountainous elevated valleys in north. He manipulated that water to get constant supply of it to 7 lakh people.

He was actively fighting war even if he was 80 years old. I think he was instrumental for building maratha nationality.

Gourmet food -- brinjal/Eggplant

We don't realize how some of daily vegetables we miss unless we don't eat for some time because of variety of food available immediately. As usual special occusions/guest needs non vegetarian delicacy like biryani, butter chicken, tandoor, fish etc. once in a while continental, Chinese.  Also normal share of vegetables are occupied by easy to cook noodles or south indian dishes. We generally don't miss tomato and potato since it is used abundantly in every culture. But after few days I really miss simple two vegetables (curry/dry), chapati and rice. Among vegetables missing brinjal  makes me dizzy.

Purple colored brinjal is like royal member of vegetable family. How many variety of items you can make and each taste differntly and mouth water.
To start with Stuffed Brinjal -- bringle stuffed with coconut, garlic, crushed ground nuts with chilly powder is not only mouth watering but if combination is right (perfect balance of spices + size of bringle) along with winter condition it tests much better than spicy chicken dishes.

Bharit - Big sized brinjals. Grill it on stove or coal shegdi till the skin is black on all sides. Remove from the stove. Remove the blackened skin . Mash the the pulp to a fine paste. Add fried chopped onion. Smelling roasted bringle aroma is wonderful while cooking itself.

Sliced Brinjal- Fried slice bringle along with salt and chilli powder. I used to eat 20-30 crispy slices in a stretch!

Brinjal is not only famous in subcontientent. Once I was dining at italian restarunt and ordered Eggplant Parmesan. To my own surprised I loved taste of it! It is a sliced eggplantwith tomato sauce and mozzarella and Parmesan cheese, along with basil etc. Eggplant is breaded and fried then topped with sauce and cheese and baked.

As a side note, purple colored vegetable fruits has  lutein, zeaxanthin, resveratrol, ellagic acid, and quercetin. I don't know most of it but it causes lower LDL cholesterol, boost immune system activity, limit the activity of cancer cells. So watch out meat lover!

Cyber Victims

Now a days We live in digital world. Everything which was on paper few years back is now stored digitally somewhere in world.  Be it our correspondence, financial transactions, socialization. Most obvious adventage we take is interacting with people which are physically out of reach. We like to chat, email or share pictures with these members. We feel their presence around us since we can watch "real time" appearence of those people and even if we don't meet those people we don't miss them as we used to decades back.

As any technology has it's other side. There are many people who can use this technology for their adventage and attack innocent users. So we have to careful about our digital life. We should be most careful about what pictures we store on computer/ post on line. Online we are careful since we know it's a public domain but at home laptop we feel like it's private and little carefree about it's content.. Private data such as pictures, finance we store it without thinking if anybody will access it. But that's not true, even though we use "our" computer 98% time, there are chances others will access it mostly if computer fails. When we send it to repair, technician has complete control of hard disk and if he is not busy, he won't hesitate to explore. I know few people who are victim of such a case.

Same is true with online storage, we have to careful what information we are storing and sharing with people. For "core" data we should have strategy to keep it safe either physically or electronically.

cartoons/caricatures

Accidentally I found Schulz strip used in previous post. I wonder how few pencil sketches and  cartoonist/caricaturist able to portrait particular individual, social/political situations so precisily. If we watch carefully  any cartoon strip tells story of complete book. Expressions of characters are unimaginable. It can express any emotions human can possess.

My favorite cortoonist are R. K. Narayan and Charls Schutz. I never realized when I become R.K. Narayan fan because I was watching his cartoon strip from my school days . In those days daily  Maharashtra Times  used to publish it. I understood little  about common man but when I become more and more common  I realized how powerful that character he has created.
I also saw common man sculpture at symbiosis dedicated to R.K. Narayan but I felt common man sketches are more expressive than 3D-physical format.

And what to say about sketches he has drawn for his brother's book Malgudi Days. Book itself is great narration of childhood, which can resemble to any child who lived in rural India. Whenever I read or see Malgudi Day's cartoon, I remembered all those nostalgic remeberance of Sangamner.

Same is true about "Peanuts" by Charles Schultz. When I first noticed his cartoon strip in USA, I was skeptical it won't affect me since it will be mostly to do with american life. But slowly I got absorbed with it.  Personal incidents narrated by his characters don't have any national boundary!!

As I reflect back and think why we love such fine art. Simplicity is obvious reason, nobody wants complex life. But beyond simplicity it also reflects positive side of life/humanity especially it is apparent considering other depressing negative news around news paper. 

It reminds me one of famous quote shared by Charles Schultz 

" Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. "

Book Publication

Publishing book in India is not easy task. First thing  nobody cares about author unless you are already famous. I tried to publish couple of papa's books but it's tough to get into market if you are new. Publishers will not entertain you or simply ignore you. Very few I have noticed are very good in their evolution process, they have panel and panel will evolute book and give review. If anybody accepts your book, that publisher will take his own time to publish, use low quality standards select papers and most important printing. Even one of my friend duped me for same reason. So after struggling for 3 years, I came to following conclusion..

1. If you want to be writer, start writing for magazine, news paper and build some kind of reputation over period
2. Learn to type-- it's always good to have typed manuscript. We can communicate electronically and easy for proofing.
3. In word, set page set up as landscape, multiple pages option as "Book Fold" since we want book in book format and each A4- page should print proper folded page on other side.
4. Write grammar/spelling correctly at first place. Proof reading is very time consuming.
5. Cover design can easily be done using Photoshop and images from Google. Make sure you provide space for binding area (spine).
6. Export cover page project jpeg once you are finish with cover page design. Print book and see if everything is correct  like size of cover page, font selection etc. This copy can be used for physical proof reading and circulating among friends.
7. While you are proof reading you can make synopsis and send it to targeted publishers if any body has any take for book.
8. Even after proof reading you don't get publisher, publishing ourself is not a bad idea.
9. E-publishing is most cost effective, just convert word to pdf file and upload it to sites which host ebook.
10. Other option is going through physical printing processes.
11. Select printing shops. Get quotation for papers, printing. Since papers cost 50% of cost, buying our own paper  is not a bad idea.
12. Paper quality is measured in terms of GSM. 70 GSM is good for inner page and 170 GSM for cover page (Info by Mitesh Take).
13. After printing cover page, laminate it so that it will look glossy.
14. Book printing is available in various format but perfect binding is best for book.
15. Selling Skills: This is most important step, try little marketing tricks. If you can afford make a event with some renowned celebrity  or  start from libraries, provide sample copies at book fair, book store.

Chicxulub Crater

Any celestial phenomenons are mind boggling. Impact craters are one of those, when we watch it, we just awed
by it's presence. Out of no where you notice huge circular impact on uniformly placed land. We love watching clean water lake formed no where because of these craters.


Most of craters exist on earth are in range of 20-300 km in diameter. Since we are talking about period of more than million years ago,  there is good chance most of craters are reduced in size or simply vanished because of geographical changes occurred on earth. That way it's good that no major impact had happen recently otherwise human race would have lost before making any impact on earth.

While looking for such a vanished craters, I came across very interesting crater --  Chicxulub crater in Mexico. We can't watch image of it since it's 65 million years old and large part of it is in Gulf of Mexico and so is covered by sea. Since there is no visible mark and obviously there is not any pictures available to image this crater but more I read about this crater, more I feel impact of it.

Scientist claims this crater caused by huge fireball from space. Impact was 2 million times greater than any man made nuclear device. Imagine destruction (or changes!) caused by this impact or more with natural term it was much more higher than any volcanic activities happened recently (400 times). It is said that this impact caused mass extinction including dinosaurs!!!!!

One celestial disaster and in one stroke vanished millions of microscopic life! I can't even imagine scope of it, what is purpose of creating such a life forming world for million years and later destroying it. May be creator (if exist or just events ) also doesn't want stagnant life and wants to experience change.

Wealth & Population

Wealth	Population

Recently I found very interesting maps.These are logical maps of wealth accumulated by nations/population with reference to geography. As we see inequality in nature similarly we do see in man made world of richness.
No matter how hard india and china try to elevate their respective countries just because of sheer size of population we can't match with Europe and USA. As my theory goes we always have advantage in disadvantage in our case too. In past if we were less populated, sea bound europeans would have grabbed our land similar to USA, South America, South Africa, Australia. We would have ended up like aboriginals or red Indians or worse case mixed race similar to South America. So what we are now almost saved because of population.

 Europe/US might have higher per capita income but because of population  we don't feel lonely. People might be wondering what is use of so many people if they are not able to earn enough money. That's true till some extend but if you see problems caused by loneliness is western countries is much higher compare to average earning person in India.

We see people desperately trying to meet people. If you watch some of Hollywood movies such as Silence of Lamb, we wonder how person can do anything what is shown in that movie, I think it is because of advance stage of psychological problem of lonely world and movies some extends reflects society.