Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Crawling into a 9'' x 9'' hole... That's Kanifnath cave!

Every weekend is a good one for me.
This one turned out to be better and one of its kind.

Kanifnath cave is a place situated near Pune, India.
It's about 20/25 kms from Kothrud, a suburb in Pune.

Kanifnath was a great Saint and belonged to the Navnath clan. The locals told us that Kanifnath visited this place and discovered this cave.

The cave has now turned itself into a temple. It's situated atop a mountain. It took me and my friend around 45 mins of climb to reach to the temple.

The bizarre thing about the cave is, you need to crawl inside the cave through a 9-inch by 9-inch square!

Initially we were apprehensive on getting stuck. It is just hard to digest that you can crawl yourself through such a small frame. Then we saw a middle-aged man do it skillfully without any problem.

Ah, forgot to tell one more thing. Before you crawl in, you have to take off your shirt/t-shirt. Bare it all on top, pants must stay :).

Women are not allowed to get into the cave. Some temple's in India have that restriction. Here it is not possible due to the aforementioned clause.

So people crawl in with their heads going in first. Once you are in, there is room for about 10 people to stand comfortably. The cave does not have any other opening apart from the 9'' hole. So people with claustrophobia should refrain from going inside. There is a Samadhi like structure inside and a lantern burning.

Coming out of the cave is a difficult task too...
The legs must come out first...
That's the established protocol.

This way you never end up turning your legs towards to holy Samadhi structure within the cave, either while going in or while coming out.

Having done this once, we felt a sense of achievement.
It's a great feeling that you go inside and come out from there.

The climate was amazing too, windy and cloudy which made the trek even more heartening.

How to get there:
Take Pune-Hadapsar-Saswad road.
From Hadapsar GadiTal go further 10kms.
On Saswad road, you would see some snack outlets.
Turn right, Kanifnath temple is visible right on the top
of the mountain.

You would have to climb your way up...

In case you want to reach up using your vehicle, go further to
Saswad and there is a road directly from Saswad to Kanifnath cave at the top.

Cheers,
Manish.

Monday, July 18, 2005

Sansani

'Sansani' is a Hindi word which roughly translates in English
as "something causing an uproar"... (I'm not that good translater)

Sansani is name of one of the TV shows started in the "Star News" channel in India.

Once while skipping through the channels I came across this show.
The compere's appearance and his way of speaking caught my attention.

He has quite an unorthodox look being in India.
He sports a moustache and a beard (okay, people in India have that), with a pony tail (rarely seen).

His voice is characterized by his effort to command the audience :)
Tries to speak too loud and in higher pitch.

Now about the show.
The show focuses on carrying 'sting operations' against -
* Self proclaimed Sadhu's (Saints) who claim to have a panacea for any worldly problem
* Government departments taking bribes etc

In short they ask people who have been duped to approach them.
Sansani would try to help these people by bringing the injustice caused to them in public...

Wonderful idea!
These 'sting operations' are not a new thing per-se.
However, the way Sansani does it is something which I really hated.

There was one Baba (Sadhu/Saint) who claimed to have remedies to cure ailments of some girl. Baba took some money and did not lay-by his claim. Girl approached Sansani. Sansani was all set to carry out the operation.

Baba's false claims were open in public, which forced Baba to wrap-up his store and quit.
Okay till here... This is done for the good.

What followed next was horrible.
Baba was punished in front of camera.
He was told to bend down his knee and do some stuff our teachers asked us to do in school. Why humiliate a person so much? Sansani did what it wanted to and Baba's shop did close. But this stuff was really bad and not upto the taste of a channel like Star News.

Few days later I noticed a similar program on Zee News, another news channel in India. This guy's tone was similar to the Sansani guy. The show did the same buisiness as Sansani.
However, Zee news did something real disgusting.

One such Baba was approached and when Zee News made their identity known to him, the poor fellow was frightened so much that he peed in his pants! I came to know about this because, Zee News camera person shot his pant and the commentator was giving a whole-hearted commentary on their latest kill. Shucks!

Is this the new trend in journalism ??? or something we would like to see ???
Sorry, Nope!

It is okay for Sansani or the other program to help public by doing good to them and exposing such false Baba's or whoever they want to. However, it should be done with decency and flair.

Manish.

Why Reach ?

The word Reach fascinated me ever since long.
No matter wherever we are, we always try to expand our Reach.

Blog in its own way serves as a medium to allow everyone know
about you, your thoughts, your likings and more importantly know only things you would like to tell ;) No questions asked.

Till now I used Blog as a medium to Reach people.
This is my effort to have people Reach me.

Manish.

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