the solitary reaper

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

-- William Wordsworth

sound advice indeed

i meet MARK in PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA. we were working together on a project. he was a part of the EPMO (external project managment office) team appointed by our client. extermely smart and intellectual, his face brimming with almost 3 decades of work experience. i had joined my team in south africa a little later. the delay was due to my MALAYSIAN assignment, which was unfinished when this project started. the first day i was formally introduced to the south african team. the same day, during a coffe break with one of my colleagues, i was been told "the andar ki khabar" about the south african team like "who is who in the zoo" and what care to take, etc. about MARK she said "bada moohffut hai wo, usse dur he rehna!". i realised later, it was very difficult to sell him anything, unless he was 110% convinced. he being a part of the same subteam which i belonged to, we had a regular interaction. to be true, i always thought twice, prepared twice, before going and waking up this giant for a discussion. we always had this who-the-hell-will-bell-the-cat situation before going in front of MARK.

by the end of that project, the same MARK had became a very good friend of mine. we are still in touch. although most of our communication is via emails, but we get to share the happenings in each others lives. i share my deepest secrets with him, i turn to him for advice, i share with him my happiness, i share with him my grief, a real good friend, almost the age of my dad.

last week i had asked him for some advice. below is the excerpt from the mail in which he responded (its a copy & paste of the original mail).

*me* do get back soon with you valuable advice bout the point LIFE!! :-)

*mark* My inputs on life probably not great. Christians have a concept which is universal. They call call it AGAPE love. Basically it means to love the world and whats in in unconditionally. Obviously an idyllic situation. I've only come across a few people that seem to strive to live their lives in this way. From my side your team of guys who came to SA were a lot closer to being like this that i'd seen in any other group. We never discussed religions then but I always wondered if indeed your religions (i don't know who fitted into which group) had a similar concept to which you all subsribe or endeavour. Any way - to my mind the concept is indeed universal and indeed I would like to think that i try to live my life in a way which displays this concept in a small way. Might sound silly or strange i know but i've managed in the last couple of months to successfully conclude some really sensitive business negotiations with suppliers! and also with our trade unions and one or two members of my staff by looking at my opposition and trying to really understand and 'love' them instead of just being antagonistic like some of my colleagues. In each instance I've managed to get what i want out of the situation wihout being 'soft' and have built some significant relationships along the way. I saw a note in a paper recently - it said - everyone has two ears and one mouth so try to use them proportionately. Sound advice indeed.

Guess thats enough on life from one who tends not to think to much about these issues.

You take care to. You'r a really special lad.

*me* take care.
*me* tot siens!

*me* eish.
*mark* PS 1: there a new ad on TV - it uses the word 'eish' in many creative ways. Whenever we see it we think of you. Its very south africanised and would not be well understood elsewhere but its a classic that combines the best of english, afrikaans and african culture into one. You should have stayed here - u could have been famous.
PS2: sorry my cricket team is a bunch of cheats and losers - from now on i support Sachin and his boys

my first camera

i have always observed, people are sometimes emotionally attached towards things; those things might range from a refrigerator to a bicycle to a radio and so on. and the best part about this attachment is that even after a decade if you ask them about those things, they will be able to relate you with exact date, time, punctuations, commas, and question marks, the whole story of the purchase.

recently i bought a new camera, a NIKON D50, and i am really excited about it. this is the second camera i own. but i admit, i am emotionally attached to my first one, the KODAK KB12.

i was scheduled to travel to KANPUR, UTTAR PRADESH, for a couple of weeks during winter of 2001 on an implementation rollout in one of the GODREJ factories at UNNAO, a place 40 odd kilometers from kanpur. i remember i was the one who was chosen to be extradited to KANPUR, as nobody in our team was ready to go to this remote place. i never had any issues in going to anyplace in india, but then i had heard a lot of things about the remoteness of this place, which made me a bit concerned. anyways the ordain was already out against me, and i had to go.

after two weeks of stay i was supposed to travel back to KHANNA, PUNJAB, which was our temporary base for this project. i always grab the opportunity to see nearby places, especially historic, whenever time permits in a project. this time, even if the government of india would have proposed a free royal tour on an elephant back, to see historic places nearby, i too would have royally said “NO”. those were the toughest two weeks i had ever spent in my career, and i was eager to go back without any more adventures. the daily adventure was more than satisfying - from hotel to GHANTAGHAR in a cycle rickshaw (sometimes i felt guilty, seeing the lean guy pull the rickshaw. some more time in kanpur and i think i would have asked the guy to sit at the back and i would have pulled him till the place i wanted to go, and would have paid him too!!), approx 2 km, from ghantaghar to UNNAO PHATAK in a state transport bus (before commissioning for people transport these buses might have been used for transporting animals for sure), approx 35 km, from unnao phatak to DAHI CHOWKI in an auto rickshaw (theoretical capacity of the vehicle was 7 persons, practically more than 20 people would be in it), approx 7 km, from dahi chowki to the factory by walk (inhaling the fragrance of the dead animals from the leather factories around), approx 1 km, plus no lunch during the day (as there were no hotels as far as 5 km from the factory).

no adventure? there was lot of arguments between my heart and my brain, outcome - my heart won 6-0, 6-0, 6-0, 6-0, 6-0, in straight sets. amazing! we three(my heart, my brain and me) made a plot. the day i was supposed to travel back to khanna from kanpur was a SATURDAY. why not break the journey? we thought. lets travel to AGRA on SATURDAY, see the TAJ and if possible FATEHPUR SIKRI on SUNDAY, catch a train on SUNDAY night for khanna and be in office on MONDAY morning. now the practical problems as we saw were the train timings and the saturday night stay. i did some findings on the internet and fortunately everything was perfect. fortune favors the brave, you see. i could proceed with the plan. i woke up early on saturday, went to kanpur railway station, and booked the tickets. i jumped in a cycle rickshaw hurriedly to reach the hotel, i still had to pack up my things. the train to agra was in the afternoon. alas! suddenly i realized i did not have a CAMERA!! how was i going to capture the memories of the WONDER of this WORLD?

for the two weeks, i had saved on lunch (without any intentions), sometimes dinner (too late to get back to hotel, everything closed, even the hotel kitchen), i had also saved by buying a second class train ticket to agra instead of an air-conditioned one. it came to around 800 rupees, 299 rupees from here and there, and i bought a brand new KODAK KB12 for 1099 rupees at a KODAK shop on MALL ROAD, KANPUR. this amount may seem less today, but it was too huge for me that time.

as planned i did visit TAJ, AGRA FORT and FATEHPUR SIKRI and still enjoy seeing those pictures captured by my first camera. since then i have traveled almost half of india and few other countries, capturing memories.

i realize now the reason for such emotional attachments.

sol kadi

i meet ATUL after a long time. i always felt, meeting him is like discovering a book you own, a book even you have forgotten about, kept locked in the shelf for a long time, away from all eyes, a book you liked the most, each page of the book a memory of the college days.

he was going to his village during the GANESH festival, which was around the corner. and he asked me the same question he had been asking since college days “jaya, chal yetos ka gaavi? dhamaal karu.” it was always in my heart to visit his village, but it could not happen so far. i made sure it happened this time. i booked my tickets to KUDAL.

destination MALVAN. a small coastal town on the western coast of MAHARASHTRA. atlya (as i call him) picked me up from KUDAL station. as we traveled in the rickshaw towards malvan, i could feel the immense joy within. in the next half hour i got a chance to appreciate all the lovely things god created on this earth. i never ever think of looking at the azure sky while in bombay, or the twinkling stars at nigh. too busy to see, is it? i questioned myself. the mountains with a green shawl, the creeks playing with the fishing boats, the smiling flowers, the shy trees, the birds, i wished i had been introduced to this “paradise” earlier. still there were seven days to go, i was overwhelmed.

we reached atlya’s house at noon. i received a warm welcome from his dad, his mom and his wife. i was seeing them after a long time. his father said “just the right time to have a hearty lunch”, we all laughed. i never experiment atleast with food, i prefer and stick to vegetarian. but too my surprise i was served with four different kinds of fishes!! even though my reservation on food, i had already made my mind this time to try the local cuisine, and here was the chance! in india, they say “the taste lies in the fingers of the one who prepares the food”, very true i thought. it was the courtesy of atlya’s mom. i simply relished on the food. later in the afternoon, when we all were having a casual chat, i came to know that the house had completed 100 years of existence this year. i had a closer look at the house, it was really amazing, i have stayed in so called five star hotels, with the best interiors and best architecture, but the simplicity here was incomparable.

each day i spent was full of adventure and introduction to new things. an insight to the malvani culture, malvani cuisine and the lovely malvani people. we hired bicycles to roam in and around the village. we visited the TARKARLI beach and OZHAR on the bicycle, a wonderful ride indeed. also on the tarkali beach we saw RAPAN, a method of fishing, where one end of the net is being holded on the shore while the other is taken in the sea for some distance inside in a semi circular path, and brought back to the join the other end on the shore, the net is then pulled on the shore by a group of fishermen. once we spent half a day at SINDHUDURG fort, the boat ride included. that fort is awesome by all means and a history in itself. the ROCKY shore and CHIVLYACHI VEL(beach) was just minutes walk from his house, going there for watching the sunset was a daily affair.

i was taught to eat CRAB by atlya’s mom. it is difficult believe me, for a starter! other delicacies included GHULE (shells), MAKHLE (squid), MOHRI (small shark), KAPA, and another 7-8 varieties. i would have never imagined eating so many varieties of fishes in my whole life.

i enjoyed the ganapati AARTI sessions held at his uncle’s place. especially this aarti “jay jay jay jay jay vithoba jay panduranga”, it was fast paced and needed you to take your voice to the highest pitch. we attended the aarti sessions twice a day, till the GANESH VISARJAN. we were treated with some snacks after the aarti sessions, and my favourite was the MALVANI MISSAL! the ganapati visarjan was quite notable, it was a huge procession, the whole family and friends included in it, dancing to the tunes of the band, till we reached the shore. the night sky was lit with fire crackers of all sorts. there was a last aarti on the shores in front of the ganesh idol, after which the idol was immersed in the sea. i could see the enthusiasm among the children’s shouting loudly the slogans “GANPATI BAPPA MORAYA, PUDCHYA VARSHI LAVKAR YA!!”

after the visarjan the DHAKKA (jetty) was not as peaceful as it used to be, it was the time when all the boats/trollers on the shores rested during the rainy seasons, are dragged back into business, into the seas. we once watched a group of fishermen dragging their boat in sea, inch by inch, singing along while pulling the ropes tied to their boats. it takes days to drag one boat into the sea, since the process involves sheer men’s and their strength.

the seven days i spent in malvan were one of the best times of my life. i felt the freedom, i always search for. i felt as if i was in the lap of the beautiful nature. i felt free like a bird.

it’s almost a month past after the trip but the taste of SOL KADI is still mingling on my tongue!