An era..

I have been hovering around the idea of writing a new post. Given the amount of time between now and my previous post, I had plenty of topics to write on. Let me start on the first one.

This semester, I got a chance to read some books from our library. Unlike previous course-loaded semesters, this time I got the luxury of doing something I always long for. Many of the Mr.  Poirots and Miss Marples or even Tuppences which I had read earlier were quite blur...so..I read almost all of the Agatha Christie available. An amazing marathi play 'Khara Sangaycha Tar..' which is based on 'Witness for the prosecution' still remains on my reading list though. William Dalrymple's book on mughals, Lala Lajpatrai's Shivaji were some of the books on my issued list. A book which I enjoyed for most of the time was 'A Suitable Boy' by Vikram Seth. Part of the reason was the amount of time taken to finish the 1300+ pages. I guess it took me around 30% of all my reading time this sem. As the book is based on the day-to-day life of a few families probably its best if it is read in small steps...just like a TV soap.

I have always wondered where would I go if I were given a time machine. I would probably have visited the magnificient hall of a king...may be his coronation ceremony....or may be obtain a bird's eye view on the Battle of Thermopylae....or may be see the glittering city of Tenochtitlan just as the Spanish conquistadors did. But after reading this, I would have wanted to visit the just-independent India. An era when everything was new, everything was developing, when entire country was transforming. Ofcourse there were own set of post-partition problems, but there was an air of freshness around. Rather than being just an answer for 'Who is our first prime minister?', Pandit Nehru would have been governing the nation. 

Going with the title, it is but obvious that an Indian arranged marriage system would be depicted. But the important part according to me is the era in which this story is set. I was amazed by the imagination of the author to depict the details of urban as well as rural life in India in very early 1950s. The story revolves around Lata, a middle-class girl for whom a suitable boy is being searched.  Along comes the narration of Lata's family- the Mehras, the affluent Chatterjis, the freedom fighter turned politician Mr. Kapoor's family. A glimpse of all factors existing during that time is cleverly put on by the author. For e.g. the existence of Nawabs, the zamindari issue, the caste problem, partition grievances, the existance of courtesans and pompous princely states. Several events which have been happening for generations like the Kumbh mela, election campaigns are handsomely written for this time period. 

Each character in this book is unique. Lata the middle-class girl with hopes and aspirations, bold Malati, reckless but soulful Maan, hardworking and ambitious Haresh, serene and calm Pran, wicked Prof. Mishra, bubbly Kakoli, spiritual Dipankar, poetical Amit, arrogant Arun and the list goes on. 

An interesting thing I always do while reading a book is searching for a character which epitomizes the author and I have been successful almost everytime. In this case though, I thought the author would share qualities of both Amit and Dipankar.

Anyways the bottomline is that this is an awesome book and would recommend it strongly.

An hour of mesmerizing cricket!

The final moments in the final test of the three-tests series Aus-SA were indeed mesmerizing. With Ntini and Steyn battling the Aussie bowlers and then G. Smith coming out in a super-hero fashion trying to save his team and then finally the Kangaroos winning the match with a narrow margin...everything was so dramatic. This is what we miss in the ODIs or the T-20s. The preseverence, the endurance put to test.

The pitch was a wrinkled one with cracks and grey spots all over. The bounce was uneven. But really there wasn't much in it for the bowlers too. I could see them struggling to bowl a bouncer with the withered ball. 

There was a countdown after every ball bowled. Ntini played with awesome courage and sophistication. After Steyn left, Smith joined the ring with a right arm broken and a left arm holed with injections. Every ball survived was cheered and congratulated. Every emotion known to human-being was sensed. There were comic moments when Ntini hit the bowler over mid-on...there were tragic moments when Hayden dropped. 

With 10 balls to spare, Austrialians won the third test. Having lost the earlier two tests, this win certainly meant a lot for them. With two amazing teams fighting, true cricket was on display.

On a journey to campus- Pilani

This post is purely inspired from my previous one. I could not resist my temptation to write something about Delhi-Pilani journeys throughout my under-grad life after writing the Goa post.

Well..its a sad story and noone other than Bitsians would sympathesize each other as they are the only ones who overcome this journey of life. 

Travel once through the ordinary bus service from Delhi to Pilani and you can travel any other bus route anywhere in the world. Note here I am talking about the bus-service alone that too the ordinary one. Had a Merc journey too  this enduring...there would have been 0% placements.

Anyways..it started with the ISBT-Delhi. Finding the bus was not hard but relying that the bus will take us to the destination was extremely hard. In the event of very few passengers to Pilani or a town on the same route ahead...the bus wouldn't go further. So it was always better to travel in a gang and that too with some bully guys so that atleast money was spared. 

The actual distance was 200 Kms. In normal circumstances, it used to take 6-7 hrs reaching Pilani. Part of the reason was the pitiable condition of the roads and buses devoid of any shock-absorbers.  Passengers occupying every inch of the bus brought with them stuff having horrible odors. In addition to that were the street-vendors selling cut-fruits, coconuts. Dust as it is in any part of India was always omnipresent...n then those pathetic hindi movies on yellow-colored TV screens added to the pandemonium. The volume used to be so loud that it was hard to hear each other. 

Even reaching Pilani was no fun until you reach your bhawan. Fighting your way through the rickshaw-wallahs who sealed the bus-door was the most grueling task. The rickshaw used to very cheap..not even a quarter. Riding through the campus on a mounted rickshaw was the best part of the tiresome odyssey. Had Alexander, who was keen to see his home again, reached Macedonia back after conquering the world....he would have experienced the same feeling. 

On a journey to the campus - Goa

Today I happened to read in the news about the New Year's party in Goa..n suddenly I was reminded about my 4-hours stay there back in 2006. It would have been the shortest stay for anyone in Goa. 

I had gone there to take Recos from my professor who had shifted from Pilani to Goa recently.

The journey however was not that short as I had taken a volvo from Bangalore. Today its hard for me to understand why on earth I took a volvo and not fly there. May be I was testing my endurance. Reaching Goa was not the only hurdle....reaching the remote isolated BITS campus from the station turned out to be worse.

The campus is on a major highway. There isnt any train/bus/taxi stop in the radius of 2 kms. I really had no clue whatsoever. Having no other option...I was about to rent a vehicle. But after some enquiry, got to know that there was a bus-stop on a road nearby..just that no vehicle would go from that road to the main-highway where the campus was located as I had to cross a hill-type pathway. If anyone has seen Amol Palekar's Choti Si Baat in which in sheer desperation he climbs up the hill to meet Ashok Kumar..I too staggered through. Though I should say that this option of clambering the path was selected knowingly as I kind of was curious to see how students, if they travel by bus, reach the campus.

I do not know about other things but overcoming impediments-on a journey to the campus is certainly the facet shared by BITS-Pilani and BITS-Goa students