End of days 2006

The earth has once again completed her revolution around Sun and we witnessed the coming of 2007 with cracking sound of some noisy crackers. When i retrospect about the year that has just become a part of history i found it as most stagnant. This year i left my first job and ventured around for some sort of illusion known as salvation. I found that in T-Systems and dont know whether it is ephemeral or permanent. Time will tell. This year i have some very good books and visited some very good places in the form of Ajanta, Ellora, Puskar, Ajmer, Jaipur, Qila Rai Pithora and many small but important places.
Well nothing much to write about 2006 i am still un clear about my future and i dont know when i will be able to clear all the clouds that are so prevalent over me. I know that "The biggest depravity in human life is the life without any purpose". Hope to solve the riddle in 2oo7.

Wish you a very happy and prosperous new year 2007.

P.S. We got a much deserving gift from Team India... After getting so many chances to thrash RSA out of the test match... They gifted the match as a new year gift to RSA'ans. A great act of charity. I think there were two stages where match was inclined to india's favor (1. Tendulkar and Ganguly got out in quick sucession in India's first innings and 2. RSA was able to score 265 in their 2nd innings after having a dead score of 143 for 6) but our great players are univeral donors as they justified the suffix of "DIA" in the name of our country INDIA on a lighter part of it. Good luck Team India for 2007 mission.

The road to time immemorial -- My Ajanta Ellora Visit

I am not a great fan of bacchanalia so this weekend i decided to go for a spiritual quest to the Ancient Indian Civilsation to get a shade under the rubble and wreckage of the caves carved into the great mountain range of Sahyadri in Aurangabad ( A city that is around 220 km from
Pune and 410 km from mumbai).
I took a seat in a bus from Pune and reached Aurangabad at around 5 in the morning. So immediately i decided to go Ellora as this is very near to Aurangabad (some 35 kms). I first gave my religious bow to the one of the 12 Jyortilinga in Shri Ghrishneshwar (1 km from Ellora). After that i started for Ellora. Well words are not enough to describe the greatness of the architecture that was at its peak at around 2000 years from now. Ellora has around 34 caves sheltering the statues of God Shiva, God Vishnu, Lord Buddha and many other deities of Hinduism.
The most majestic cave belong to the most potent God of the mother of all religion. This cave is known as Great Kailash cave. Apart from this cave there are other caves belonging to Lord Buddha and major figures from Jainism.
The raw cemetery of "Great Mughal Aurangzeb the Austere" also lies near Ellora caves (some 5-6 kms from Ellora).
The trip to Ellora was followed by a trip to "Biwi Ka Maqwara" that was able to ignite some ephemeral feelings. This is an exact replica of the so called Paragon of all modern indian monument (TajMahal) and it reserves the same very cause in its foundation.

The next day i took a Tourist bus to Ajanta caves to satisfy my alacrity. The Ajanta caves are around 110 kms from Aurangabad and bus takes around 3 hours to reach there. All buses have to stop at T-Junction. From there one has to pick a Pollution free bus in order to reach Ajanta caves (around 4 kms from T-Junction). Ajanta caves have paitings that are in a very pathetic situation. These paintings albeit in bits and pieces but they can allure any persom by just a gaze. These murals tell us how great our painters were in those days! All these frescos give a detailed representation of the various frames of Lord Buddha as well as Bodhisatva life. I was totally agaped by the magnificient aesthetic art of great painters who thrived in that region and in that epic time.
After covering and enriching myself with this experience i started for Pune. This weekend reserves a highest place in all the weekend i had till time memorial.

Interested people can take a view of some snaps from here.
They can also download pics from here.



Merry Christmas and a very happy new year to all my well wishers as well as to others.

The picture says it all "India and Ganguly both did the Phoenix"

Well, nothing to be worried about at the wanderers, things were amost perfect save some heroic innings from Prince and Pollock. India has successfully repeated the Adelaide and give us all some thing to cheer about. Kudos to Ganguly, what a fighter he is ! No word in my dictionary to describe his stoical attitude. Just as raw gold has to go through some extreme conditions and so Ganguly had to. He has made his point clear by the grace of his attitude and his never say die spirit.

S'Santh did the same work as done by Agarkar in 2003. Laksman played a superb knock in his 28 and 73. Tendulkar was scintillating in his first inning knock and the drama reached his epitome by some consummate swinging skills of Sreesanth. Merry Christmas Team India.

Happiness is the agent of Purification

Well, after having quite absorbing session in this conundrum (title) i gave a thought to some of my happiest moments and favorite items. Well last weekend some body asked me to rate my top ten Bollywood movies and top ten books. He caught me offgaurd no doubt about it but after giving quite a bit of time i came to enumerate my favorite movies and books well they are not in any strict order because i dont believe in less favourites and more favourites.
Favourite Movies
1. Deewar (1975)
2. Muqqadar ka Siqandar (1978)
3. Mughale Azam (1960)
4. Swades (2004)
5. Guide (1975)
6. Sarkar (2005)
7. Aankhen (1968)
8. Border (1997)
9. Sarfarosh (1999)
10. Hum apke hain Koun (1994)

Favorite Books/Stories
1. Fountain Head (Ayn Rand)
2. Vayam Rakshamah (Acharya Chatursen Shashtri)
3. Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
4. Vaishali ki Nagar Vadhu (Acharya Chatursen Shashtri)
5. The God Father (Maria Puzo)
6. Purushkar (Jai Shankar Prasad)
7. No Full Stops in India (Mark Tully)
8. Freedom at Midnight (Dominique Lapierre and Lorry Collins)
9. Main Kamf ( The Fuehrer aka Hitler, Adolf)
10. Volga se Ganga Tak (Rahul Sankrityyan)

Well the list cant be exhaustive but these are the books any one can fall in love.

Signing off to see the furore on Prime Minister speech by the Rights.

The pathetic indian showing: a mosaic of jumping jokers

When you all will read this post, 4th ODI between India and her predator South Africa must be in real time or in past time. I dont understand the fuss created by the MPs/Medias and angry supporters. Why these people are protesting? All are giving credits to Greg Chappel for this pathetic show but no body is contemplating about the power given to him in the past by us. The person (who deposed the most successfull indian captain, who is having an outstanding record in South Africa) is driving the team india to The Promised land. Some says that India has always struggled in South Africa thats true but struggle means fight and Team india has surrendered without even giving fight save in some bits and pieces just like the dazzling flame of soon to be extinguished candle.
And look at the preference of Laxman ( who never considered a good ODI batsman) as a replacement for Rahul Dravid over a person who has a great record against South Africa even better than the bellwether of all batsmen, Sachin Tendulkar and who is considered as one of greatest ODI batsman along with Sachin, Richards, Ponting and many others (Wisden)

Let us compare the showing of Team india when Ganguly's team visited South Africa in late 2001.
1. First match India scored 279 runs in 50 overs Ganguly scored 127 runs with 5 massive sixes all around the ground. India lost the match with a fight.
2. India won the second match comprehensively.
3. India lost the 3rd match by 46 runs, india was dooing good when Ganguly, whs scored 85 runs of 95 balls with 4 sixes and Dravid were at crease.
4. India lost the final.

The lowest score of India in that tour was 180 odd runs which is far better than the highest score of 168 runs so far (I hope it will improve).
I consider indian tour of South Africa in 2001 as a success as we fought each match with full enthussiasm and zest.

I dont know why the Indian Cricket clergy is making fool of us. Lets hope the victory of india today but omens are premoniting a different outcome. Lets hope time will solve the antipodal situations amen.