Reach

Never quite remember whether I have ever seen an advertisement on Television, as a kid, promoting tourism in India. Kerala was the lone state with punch line- God's own Country. That started some couple of years back I believe.

Times have changed. It's raining tourism ads these days. Incredible India or Atulya Bharat, Incredible Northeast - a separate advertisement specifically for the North East India. Incredible India has an advertisement devoted for every part of India under its banner. Then there is a advertisement shown by Maharashtra Tourism - Maharashtra Unlimited.

Just hope that these advertisements are shown abroad, the way Malaysian Tourism advertises the motto Malaysia Truly Asia, in India.

Tourism is finally been taken seriously and advertised seriously in India. And why not! You name it and India has it. India has Snow, Rains, Desert Safaris, Beaches, Mountains, Forts, Caves, Big Temples, Huge Churches, Wildlife Sanctuaries and so on...

What else does one require to promote tourism ?
A democratic government, which we have and good, amicable people of which there is no dearth of :)

The summer temperatures are very high in some parts though. Visitors from outside India must check local temperatures before visiting since India experiences a tropical climate in South and temperate in North.

Here are the websites:
Incredible India
Maharashtra Unlimited

Cheers,
Manish.

It was one of those rare times when one gets prize for doing nothing extraordinary. Someone just comes and knocks on the door and hands over a prize...

Something similar happened with me couple of days back. I was at my home, getting ready for office. Someone knocked on my door. I opened it to saw a seemingly senior college boy dressed in Red T-shirt at the door. He enquired if I'm a regular buyer of Times of India (TOI). I was aware of the "Win With Times" contest since the snaps of people winning are in TOI.

In the Win With Times contest, the only thing one has to do is, carry along the TOI copy everywhere they go. If the TOI employees ask for paper and we have a copy, we get a free gift.

I handed over my copy to the guy at the door. And Voila! I was offered a free gift sitting at home! He stamped the paper and gave me a wrapped gift box. It had 6 different flavors of Lijjat Masala. Not much use to me since I do not cook food at home however, the sense of getting a good gift was a nice one.

Cheers,
Manish.

माझ्या मराठी मीत्रान्नॊ
माझ्या एका मीत्रानी लीनक्स मिधल KDE चे मराठी अनुवाद करायचे यॊजीले आहे.
तरी आपण सरवांन्नी जमल्यास हातभार लावावा ही वीनंती.

त्याचे webpage.

मराठी अनुवाद येथ करावा.

मला हे blog मधे मराठी लीहीण्याचे software नीट वापरता येत नाही. त्यामुळे बरेचसे रस्व दीर्घ मध्ये दीसतात. एवढे वाचल्या बद्दल आभारी आहॆ.

मराठी लीहीण्याचे software येथे मीळेल: baraha

धन्यवाद
मिनष.

This article briefly deals with the issues that can come up during a Baba Ramdev training course of Pranayam (breating exercises).

National Geographic Channel celebrated Microkiller week in India. The programs were related to killer bacteria and viruses. The programs seemed to be well researched as they always are in case of a channel like NatGeo.

I happened to see a recent program on NatGeo which dealt with Tuberculosis (TB). The program was a story about a foreign national who visited India. On his visit he caught TB. The doctor gave him a course of antibiotics. He took the course partially as the symptoms of TB started to wither away thinking that his TB is cured. However, there were mutated bacterias still in his body. Since he did not take his full course, the TB bacterium survived. During his visit he learnt the breathing exercises in Yoga, known as Pranayam.

He then went back to his country thinking he had his TB cured by the antibiotics. With all noble intentions, he started to evangelize the science of Pranayam to his friends. Pranayam consists of breathing exercises supposed to keep a human mentally and physically fit.

However, in this case, the person was exhaling Mycobacterium TB. Within a month, the channel said, all the 5 people in the room caught TB.

I'm a great fan of Baba Ramdev. Baba Ramdev preaches Yog in India. Pranayam was always thought to be a divine art until Ramdev Baba popularised it to everyone and anyone in India who wanted to practise it. I regularly used to watch his television programs on Aastha channel and did the exercises he taught on television. Ramdev Baba's classes are filled with not 100 or 200 but by 10,000s of people at a time. The classes are conducted on huge grounds.

After viewing NatGeo program, I was a bit concerned about the implications of such a case on these classes. My friend had done Baba Ramdev's classes and he said there is no medical checkup prior to attending these classes.

The solution is not to do away with Pranayam class that benefits people more than it harms. Baba Ramdev must in this case be notified to take due cognisance of findings by such a reputed channel and its implications on his classes that we, people of India so much love.

Manish.

I'm trying to compare how these two words often used for the same ceremony, ironically differ.

VastuShanti is a ceremony by Hindus to sanctify a new house before moving into it.

Recently I received an invitation for VastuShanti. My friend had sent the invitation in English and hence the subject line read:
"Invitation for Housewarming".

VastuShanti is a Marathi word which is a combination of two words:
* Vastu meaning House
* Shanti meaning Peace

Hence, roughly it means, a ceremony that is supposed to bringing peace into the house. In other words, it means we are trying to cool off the house.

Whereas, Housewarming is exactly the opposite :)

Just thought this as interesting. Two words, seemingly the same and having different etymological meaning.

Cheers,
Manish.

NOTE: Got the yagya pic from http://www.vedic-yagya.com

Recently I had a chance to visit Kolkata. I was very excited. The only place I've visited outside Maharashtra being Goa. So just the thought of visiting a place on the other coast of India was enough to cause excitement :)

I was wondering about the Bengali people because I had a Bengali friend who used to get angry quite often :) Then the Bengali language... The English Bengalis speak has a lot of Bengali accent in it. And then, I had read about Kolkata a lot in my history books at School. After all, the then Calcutta and its people played significant role in India's freedom struggle. Netaji was one of the cardinal players in Indian freedom struggle. All this arose in me huge excitement about Kolkata.

We (me and colleagues from my company, Persistent Systems) landed in Kolkata on a Friday evening. We were visiting Kolkata for campus recruitment activity. The Professor of the college had arranged for our accommodation and travel within Kolkata. We went straight to the Indian Institute of Hotel Management - Kolkata (IIHM-K) and shrunk into the bed. The IIHM-K doubles-up as Business Hotel and College for Hotel Management. This gives the students a field experience by training them directly through client interaction. Campus interviews were scheduled next day, Saturday, early morning.

From my interaction with Professor so far, I found him a very cool and supportive guy, quite contrasting to the previous opinion about my friend :) Maybe since we were here for interviews, we were pampered a bit :)

Me and one of my colleague, Ashutosh, went for a walk around the hotel. There was still some time left to start the interviews. The place we were staying was Salt Lake City. This is the IT hub of Kolkata. However, since we were from Pune, which is only second to Bangalore in IT for India, we felt Kolkata has still a long way to go. TCS and IBM were the two major companies in the vicinity.

We started the interviews from 9am on Saturday. The first session went on up to 2pm. Professor called us for lunch.

The lunch was simply superb. Me being a non-vegetarian pounced on everything that was non-veg. There was chicken, the regular dish and Bengali fish. The fish was Bedgi as it is called in Kolkata. I had lots of Bedgi, Roti and Rice. Then came the desserts and it was the famous Rasgulla. I had tried Rasgullas before but none tasted so great. After all, I was having the authentic Rasgullas in the city where it is supposed to be! Rasgullas are pronounced by Bengalis as Rashogollaas. Basically, Rasha means syrup and gollas means spheres. Then came the Mishti Dohi. Mishti is sweet in Bengali and Dohi in Bengali is Dahi in Hindi or Curd in English. Since I don't like curd, I did not have it. The Professor thought I did not like the preparation and I convinced him that I do not like the basic curd itself. Forget sweet curd. I instead made a deal to have another Rashogolla :) During this period I ate a lot and almost forgot that we still had to interview our candidates. Aaah... That was going to be tough with so much food in my tummy! We all were very much pleased with the hospitality showed by the Professor. And in the end, Bengali food esp. Rashogollas is one of the best rendition of a chef. God bless the people who invented Rashogollas (see wikipedia link to check who created this recipe).

The interviews started again. They went on up to 7 in the evening. 7pm is very late in Kolkata! The sun rises early and sets early. We all in India follow the same timezone and hence this odd behavior. I saw outside the window at 5pm and it was like 7pm in Pune. The city gets up early and closes early.

The interviews went fine and there were some offers made, not much. The Professor told us that we were visiting late, hence most of the toppers were already placed.

Since all the interviews were over on Saturday, we were all excited by the thought of being able to get a glimpse of Kolkata on Sunday. Our return flight to Pune was at 6 in the evening on Sunday.

Kolkata is famous for its Kolkata Sarees. We requested Professor, on Saturday evening to let us know about any shop nearby. It was already 7:30pm by now. The Professor told us that he would take us to one of the most famous shops for Kolkata Sarees. We went with him and spent an hour and half at a shop named Basak in Kolkata. Sarees are inexpensive in Kolkata. Most of them were at Rs.300 and the the highest of the one I liked was at Rs.800. The girls in our group told us that Rs.300 saree in Kolkata was almost equivalent to Rs.800 saree of similar make in Pune. So everyone ended up buying a lot of them, some for their spouse and me for my mother.

So, Saturday, the interview day was a very nice experience. Ahh... I forgot to mention one thing. The eyes of Bengali women. Bengali women, in this matter, are really gifted. I've seen many people around but none with such beautiful eyes as Bengali women. Their eyes resemble the goddess Durga that we see in Durga puja pictures from Kolkata. The accompanying picture will give a better idea.

The Professor was very kind to arrange a taxi for us on Sunday. We had told him about our travel plans and he advised us to visit a few places in Kolkata on Sunday. The taxi driver Naimuddin was a 60+, aged man. He knew Kolkata as if he had spent his life there! He took us first to the Belur Math. This Math has memories of Sri. Ramakrishna Paramhansa and Swami Vivekanand. Ideally, it would require almost 3 hours minimum to see and read all that is present there. However, we quickly went through everything as we had to visit Dakshineshwar, the Maa Kali Temple in Kolkata. We then went to Dakshineshwar temple where the security procedures were similar almost similar to an airport!

Both, Belur Math and Dakshineshwar temple are located on the bank of sacred river, Ganga. The legends says it that a bath in Holy Ganga would wash away all the sins committed by a mortal. We went and washed our hands and feet hoping that our counter was reset :) Jokes apart, but this river, I felt had something in it. I had never seen a river big as this. Its width was almost a kilometer or maybe more. Rivers in Maharashtra that I've seen are not so big. This was almost like an ocean to me...

We then drove over the Howrah brigde, the one on which the fight sequence of the Hindi movie Yuva is filmed. We got a glimpse of Eden Garden, the world's highest capacity cricket stadium and then the Howrah station. We then took Rashogollas for home from K. C. Dass, one of the best makers of Bengali sweets as Naimuddin said.

One thing I noticed about Bengalis is, they eat lot of sweets. The preparation is undoubtedly the best in India as Bengali sweets are preferred anywhere in India. While we just had our lunch, two college students came on a bike, stopped by a Rashogolla shop, ate a few Rashogollas as if they have just had Wada paav and left. Wada paav is a famous recipe in Maharashtra.

Finally, it was near about 5pm and we headed to IIHM-K hotel. We packed up and headed for the airport. Naimuddin took us from hotel to the airport. It was time to say goodbye to Kolkata which is such a lovely city and has so convivial people. This memorable experience would not have been possible without my company, who gave me a chance to come here, the Professor and Naimuddin.

We were offloading our luggage from taxi with Naimuddin's help. We offered Naimuddin some tip. He had really been very helpful to drive us in Kolkata and telling us what we should visit and in which order. My colleagues had just started walking to the airport gate. I said to Naimuddin, "Phir Milenge" (English: We will meet later again). Naimuddin smiled back, pointing a finger at himself and said, "Agar Jinda Rahe to Jarur Milenge" (English: Certainly, If I'm alive). I was deeply moved by that statement. Naimuddin was a old man, probably in his late 60s and I did not realise his age until he said this...

Manish.