A trip to home - Part 1

Hurray!! It was a long weekend. And quite naturally with some last minute hurry-burry I managed to reach my home town on a beautiful Saturday morning. After quite some time, I had an opportunity to visit my home town during the Independence Day weekend. And the trip became just perfect with the ‘season’ being at its very best this year. Courtallam (a place nearby our town) is famous for its ‘Saaral’ apart from its waterfalls – you have to be there to realize this experience. It would rain, the sun would be out, and you feel that you are getting wet, but as you reach home you would see that you are quite dry! And you would feel like giving away all yourself to enjoy that wonderful breeze that gently caresses your body and you tend to lose your soul for that! This is one of the very unique gifts of nature that I was privileged to enjoy throughout my life. With our place fastly losing its identity of being one of the serene places around, in the name of ever expanding tourism, this year Mother Nature still showed her mercy on this cute little town. I captured some of those moments and here are they for your views and comments…

The ever imposing Rajagopuram from our terrace. The pegions are offering their prayer by flying round the gopuram. Its about to dawn...




And a picture perfect sun rise...








Rays of the Sun God glorifies the majesty of the Rajagopuram. With dark clouds lurking in the back, you feel divinity!




Will post some more snaps in the next one...
... to be continued ...

Those Nostalgic Years - Part 6

Festivals

Temple festivals dominated our lives as children at Tenkasi. There were so many of them throughout the year. As a group of kids we were extremely busy during those days. Decorating our street with festoons, used to be so much fun! We required tender palm leaves for making those small articles. We would ear mark certain homes at the street, whose owners would have got into rift with us at some point in time for plucking the tender palm leaves!

Most of the times, the problems would start with we shouting during calm lazy afternoons, hitting the cricket balls into their homes or our cricket ball breaking their tiles (Glass windows did not form a part of Agrahaaram homes). The common reaction mostly would be that the uncle (owner of the house) would come out with a stick and land a couple of blows on the nearest target (usually somebody who would be watching the game!), or abducting our play things or complain to our parents! Each of these would hurt us! These things would be discussed in our afternoon meetings and we would plot for revenge plans. Normal revenge plans would include puncturing cycle/scooter tyres, throwing cow dung rolled in a paper at their door steps so that when they open their door in the morning their first step would land on cow dung, tearing their cycle/scooter seats with our compass, stealing coconuts and Guavas from their trees etc. In some extreme cases we would also damage their water meters!

Such houses would become our primary target to steal tender palm leaves! We would plot a plan, a day before the festival day! We would gather at around Ten at the night and two of the courageous souls would venture out into the dark backyards! Before the dawn we would have done with the palm festoons and so nobody could exactly claim that their trees were stolen!
We had heavy duties during the Tamil month of ‘Marghazi’! The weather would be at its fantastic best as we lived near the Western ghats. Air would be so fresh and smell nice! Trees, plants, flowers would blossom around our street! The entire street would wear a divine look!

All of us used to get up very early in the morning. The ladies and girls would spend atleast an hour in decorating the street the big ‘kolams’ (Rangolis) as we walk around the street. In the center of the kolam would sit a set of flowers (usually Hibiscus) inserted into a small lump of cow dung. We would bathe early, and be at the temple as early as 6am. The bhajans would start! Before us, group of young girls reciting ‘Thirupaavai’ (a Tamil verse by Andaal on Lord Vishnu) would walk through the street! The group of men would walk through the street singing Bhajans.

Each one of the families in the street would bear the Pooja expenses for one day during the month of Marghazi. Some well to do families would provide the Bhajan party hot coffee! (In the picture). The female group used to be lucky that they would get some nice small gifts ranging from hair clips to bands to bangles to what not! We had to be satisfied with the coffee! Bhajan sessions used to be fully engrossing. The main competition would be on who would get to play the ‘Harmoniam’!

K used to dominate on this as well! We would also compete to get the best pair of ‘Jalras’! Jalras are bronze or brass plates bent to a concave shape and attached to the ends of a string – these were used as the percussion in all the Bhajans. Those who come early would get the best one! We learnt good music, a lot of songs on various gods and we had loads of fun! The Bhajans and the Thriupaavai groups would reach the temple with a grand Archana and Deepa aaradhana. Then the distribution of prasaadams would start and we would compete for that also. At the evenings we would recite ‘Vishnu Sahasranama’ & some other exerts from Vedas at the temple and would close the show with Prasaadams!

(Very recently, there are not many people around at the street as of today but in my childhood days these were really big events - Missed to preserve them as snaps :-( But truly happy that atleast the practice is not still lost!)

... to be continued ...

It's Me!

Those Nostalgic Years - Part 5

Inspection Times

It was inspection time at the school. We were asked to clean the entire class room after the regular school hours. The black board received a fresh black coat and we decorated the board with flowers and other stuff using colored chalks. Girls were busy drawing rangolis on the floors. We prepared ‘science’ charts and pasted them on the walls! I was given fresh badges for my ‘first rank’ and ‘class rep’ positions which I wore with great pride! I came up with a brilliant idea of ‘showering the DEO (District Educational Officer) with flowers as he entered the class’. We discussed about girls showering the flowers on him but decided against it as there was no ‘surprise’ element to it.

As usual S gave the innovative idea of hanging a cardboard box with flowers from the ceiling and open it using strings attached to the lids so that the flowers would be showered on DEO. We all accepted it and overnight we made the arrangements. There were two strings – one to lower the box to fill in with flowers and the other one to open up the lid. I didn’t take permission for this from our class teacher – to keep up the surprise! We made the arrangements and tested the system with paper balls and everything worked perfectly! K assumed the duty of pulling the strings at the right moment as I had to stand with the class teacher greeting the DEO! We were satisfied with our arrangements!

The next day, the DEO came in! Our plan was to pull up the string just before the DEO would leave the class. We were very well prepared, neatly dressed and we managed the usual Q & A session very well! DEO was extremely happy with our performance and openly voiced the same to the principal. The moment arrived; the DEO was standing up bidding ‘bye’. I hinted K to pull the string! He pulled the string and there was the moment we were waiting for! The cardboard box came down with full force and exactly landed at the center of the bald head of DEO – it opened up then and the flowers showered all over the place! K pulled the wrong string! The class could not control the laughter! But as class rep I had to act. I cleaned up everything and apologized.

I was terrified as this was an arrangement without permission and K managed to screw things up again for me! I could sense the fire on our principal’s and class teacher’s eyes! But to our surprise the DEO was also laughing and he said the idea was great but execution was wrong! He went away. The entire class was still laughing, I was furious over K! But he was never bothered! He was laughing with the class and claimed that he purposefully pulled the wrong string! In the next five minutes I was summoned to principals’ room! Suddenly the class also stopped laughing and gave me that pathetic look. K said ‘all the best’! Shivering with fear, I followed the attendant to the princi’s room.

DEO was sitting on the center with princi & vice prici next to him. My class teacher was standing in a corner and their sights were unbearable. DEO asked me ‘whose idea was that?’ ‘Mine’ I replied and I begged for his pardon again. He rose from his chair, came near to me. To my surprise, he started clapping! The others in the room also joined him! He congratulated me and awarded the ‘Best Class’ award to our class! He said the award was not for the execution screw up, but for the enthusiasm demonstrated, the way we behaved during the inspection and the sincerity we had shown in our chart preparations! I was on top of the world and so were my friends! That night we collected some money from the class and prepared a ‘Best Class’ Banner and hung it at the entrance of our class! This was again another thing which nobody had done before – the principal stopped by and congratulated the class the next day! And also warned about executing things on our own without permission. But who cared? K managed to give us another memory to laugh!

… to be continued …

Aam Admi - Who?

As the congress pundits claim, the very basis of the existence of the current UPA government is to live for the ‘Common Man’ – Aam Admi. Closely watching all the happenings in the recent past, one wonders who form the part of this ‘Common Man’ group as defined by the UPA. In any business company that is geared towards growth everything is based on ‘ROI – Returns on Investment’. And as an employee if you fail to deliver to the ROI expected out of you, you would be chucked out. And the company would hail all those who perform and deliver the ROI.

Extrapolating the same concept to our country, I think those who pay the TAX are the persons who qualify to be hailed and nurtured by the government. Afterall, they are the very reason for the existence of the government. And what is happening today is the exact opposite! And ironically this happens under the helm of one of best economists in the world and one of the best known Finance brain in the country in the name of P Chidambaram!

For me, as per the above definition, the tax payers should form the ‘Common Man’ bastion for the government. But it looks like the definition of Aam Admi is mapped to the people who live below the ‘mystic’ poverty line and flourish under the Quota raj! All the government policies should be devised based on the welfare of the tax payers rather than the welfare of the ‘non-tax-payers’.

So do I intend to say that we should ignore all those who don’t fall under the ‘tax payers’ category? – Absolutely not. Again mapping to a business company scenario, those who are not ‘sellable’ in the market place, or those who do not show up the ROI, the companies invest on them atleast once – in the form of rigorous trainings to get them into the ROI category. Similarly the government should invest heavily in making eligible the Non-tax-payers community to Tax-payer community – by ways of providing compulsory free education, Changing the current ‘bookish’ education system to something what Rajaji dreamt off – vocational courses forming basic part of schooling system. This would ensure that the next generations of students do not solely depend on their bookish degrees to earn – rather they are ‘skilled’ workers at the end of their schooling that would enable them to earn right away and to elevate themselves to the ‘Common Man’ (tax payers) cadre.

This is what our HRD, PMO & FM should work together. Such things are called ‘Visions’. But what is the current focus of the ‘renowned reformists’ at the helm? Our FM is busy trying to find out ways to impose more taxes, double & triple taxes on the already squeezed out salaried class, where as they should form the Aam Admi cadre and policies should give them benefits! One of worst curses on our nation after VP Singh is what today we have in the form of HR minister. When it is so evident that reservations would only divide the country and would ruin the progress – our HR minister is so adamant that our mother nation should die and he would prosper with the cheap visibility.

And it is better left unsaid about the plight of our beloved PM! I think even the lowest level of congress party man has more saying than PM. Every minister in his cabinet takes him for granted. Let it be the backdoor boys from TN, Anbumani & Dayanidhi or seniors like Pranab & Arjun singh – nobody cares for PM’s words. And another curse on our countries growth is in the form of the Left! Some of the recent incidents where I felt PM’s hands are tied down by his own party men and his coalition partners:

1. The recent oil price hike and the subsequent charge that UPA has failed to keep the prices of agricultural products. Normally the case should be that the PM calls for the CMs meet and advise them on how they should be controlling the prices in their respective states. But what happened in the recent CMs meet is the exact reverse! The Vishalrao Deshmuks and YSRs were advising the world’s best economist on how to keep the prices under control! Could there be a bigger embarrassment than this to PM?

2. Then the modernization of Delhi and Mumbai airport has been strongly resisted by the left. Airports form kind of ‘face’ of the nation to a lot. We all knew the popularity of airports of Singapore, Heathrow and other such countries. And the plight of the airports of our nation’s capital and the economic capital could not even be compared to the rest rooms of those international standards! The left are so engrossed to make sure to keep the first impression of our nation to that of a garbage container.

3. And the most recent one is on the cabinet approved Nalco & NLC divestment! Again PM is stranded alone in the middle of his own cabinet! The CM of Tamil Nadu first suggested selling the stocks of NLC to the employees! The PM said okay – when it is a known fact that the employees could never afford to buy 10% of stocks of a giant in ranks of NLC! Threatened by the mileage gained by former TN CM Jayalalithaa on this issue, M Karunanidhi again threatened to quit from the coalition if the divestment plan is not scrapped! And what do you expect our PM to do – agree for this as well!

The pressures created by reservation policies of HRD minister, by Anubumani ramadoss over the AIIMS row with Venugopal Rao’s sacking – in all these events our PM is left stranded to take all the criticism and the brunt of the major public. Is that what ‘Aam Admi’ all about? How long Mr. Singh could survive with all such embarrassments? It is time to step back and think!