I Quit

 

I am the author of my love;

I have heard my mademoiselle’s cry,

Who live in dilemma and pain,

My love will retain.

 

Here I am come Cupido,

Remember me Cupido…The ace lover,

I have heard my arrival…Here I come.

 

I who embellished stars at night,

I who made their unilluminated shine,

I who gave my light to them,

Where do I go?  

 

Here I am come Cupido,

Remember me Cupido…The ace lover,

I have heard my arrival…Here I come at night.

 

I am the king and missing my queen,

I have absorbed all her plague.

I who cupped and lipsed her tears,

They turned away; Whom shall I send?

 

Here I am come Cupido,

Remember me Cupido…The ace lover,

I have heard my arrival…Here I come…in Abraham’s bosom.

 

I, the invisible umbrella to her,

Shielded against heat and storm.

I who burnt and saved her grace,

Not for you…I am firm, I heard.

 

Here I am come Cupido,

Remember me Cupido…The ace lover,

I have heard my arrival…Here I come…Here, I Quit.

 

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Life And Times Of Michael K- J.M. Coetzee

Author: J.M.Coetzee

ISBN No.:9780099479154

No. Of Pages: 184 Pages

My Rating: 4/5

Life And Times Of Michael K is a novel by South African writer J.M. Coetzee. The book was extolled in 1983 when it bagged the title of the prestigious Man Booker Prize. Another Jewel was brought to the book when Coetzee was awarded The Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003.

As the novel opens we learn about the protagonist’s (Michael k) deformity of a hare lip. His mother doesn’t allow him to play with the other boys of the society because of his aberrancy. Thus, we learn about his solitude life since childhood. In order to support his mother financially, he starts working as a Gardener. A war riot breaks out in the city and Michael decides to quit his job in order to fulfill his mother’s wish of taking her to her birth place: Prince Albert. On the way of their hard and tough journey, she dies in a hospital at Stellenbosch. She ironically dies without seeing her birthplace. Rest of the novel is all about the descriptions of the remaining journey of Michael without his mother and about all the endeavors he uses to gain supremacy over his calamitous fortune.

This is a novel which will compel you to ruminate hard about the price of human life on earth. I enjoyed reading the same as the theme on which the novel was written was entirely new for me and I always extol innovation in my reading life. I recommend it as the story will hammer you heart and will let you conceptualize the darkside of life. I rate it 4/5.

Here is the original review from the book. Hope it helps.

“In a South Africa torn by civil war, Michael K sets out to take his mother back to her rural home. On the way there she dies, leaving him alone in an anarchic world of brutal roving armies. Imprisoned, Michael is unable to bear confinement and escapes, determined to live with dignity. Life and Times of Michael K goes to the center of human experience – the need for an interior, spiritual life, for some connections to the world in which we live, and for purity of vision.”

Life Of Pi – Yann Martel

Author : Yann Martel

ISBN No : 9780857865533

No. Of Pages: 352

My Rating: 4/5

I had bought “Life Of Pi” way back in 2010 seeing that it has won the prestigious Man Booker Prize but the other books in my stock kept me swamped until I saw the movie posters of the same book which said, “One Boy, One Boat, One Tiger…” and it was that line and hype that compelled me give this book a priority.

“Life Of Pi” is a fable of a Tamil boy named ‘Pi”. His father owns a zoo in Pondicherry (India) but due to some happenstance their family decides to migrate to Canada. Many birds and animals of their zoo also travel with them on the same ship. During the voyage, a nocturnal hurricane gain supremacy over the ship and leave Pi as the only human survivor. He finds himself on a life boat with a hyena, a zebra (with one leg broken), a female Orang-utan and 450 Pound Bengal tiger named, Richard Parker. The rest of the pages of the book tells about the struggle and adventure, hunger and hope, loneliness and belief & defeat and determination. Pi, who explores the deep affairs of spirituality in his early age helps him in his exertion and endeavour.

I really loved the book as the book circumnavigates around elements like desire, belief, motivation, hope, expectation, determination, God, nature, invisible forces etc. Some people say that the ending was not good but according to my notion it was exquisite. I completed the book in 3 days. I rate it 4/5.

Some more Information about the book-The novel, which has sold over ten million copies worldwide was rejected by at least five London Publishing houses before being accepted by Knopf Canada, which published in September 2001. The UK edition won the Man Booker Prize the following year. It was also chosen for CBC Radio’s Canada Reads 2003 where it was championed by author Nancy Lee. The French translation was chosen in the French version of the contest, Le Combat Des Livres, where it was championed by Louise Forestier. The novel won 2003 the Man Booker Prize, a South African novel award. In 2004, it won the Asian/Pacific American award for literature in Best adult fiction for years 2001-2003. In 2012, it was adapted into a theatrical feature film directed by Anglee and Screen play by David Magee. (Source: Wikipedia)

Eleven Minutes – Paulo Coelho

Author: Paulo Coelho

ISBN: 9788172235635

No. Of Pages: 304 Pages

My Rating: 3.5/5

Eleven Minutes is the most contentious work by the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho. The story Circumnavigates around juvenile Brazilian girl, Maria who dwells with her parents in a remote hamlet. After a calamitous poignant episode in her life, she focuses her.

mind that she’ll never find a true mate in her life. Later in her life, she decides to explore the world and thus sojourn life in Switzerland. As a nightclub dancer she starts making earning money but ironically she starts running out of money after she gets fired from the bar. Initially told that she would be an actress she ends up is a profession of prostitution.

As a whore, she gains success. She masters her mind and body as how to gain supremacy over her clients. But one day her  success is scrutinized by a painter with whom she falls in love. He explains Maria about the taboo relationship between love and sex through various examples. Here, I specially admire Paulo Coelho who embellished the story with a statement ie. “Sex is like a glass of overflowing wine. It means that sex is just an expression of overflowing feelings of love and gratitude for  the other person. You are so full that you want to share with others and the most basic instrument for sharing these overwhelming feelings is your own body.” Another statement which I encountered while reading an interview of the author, “By accepting that sex is a physical manifestation of God, a love and that it is not a sin – its a blessing. And then by understanding that except for two things that I consider to be really sick – rape and pedophilia –  You are free to be creative. Its up to you how you do it. Sex was always surrounded by taboos, and I don’t see it necessarily as a manifestation of evil. I think sexuality is the first and foremost the way that God chooses for us to be here on earth, to enjoy this energy of love in the physical plane.” (The latter statement, you won’t find in the book as I encountered it while reading an interview of the author.)

Eleven minutes is all about taboo topics such as love, sex, prostitution and masturbation. What all I can say is that the book is an honest endeavour by the author. It is a book that will compel you to ruminate deep about these taboo cum sensitive topics. The only thing which I didn’t like was that it was over stretched, could have been some pages less but don’t worry you’ll enjoy, if you love reading.

Published in 2003 by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho the book gives many ways through which sex can be perceived. The book was originally published in Portuguese and was extolled highly by the world public. My edition had 275 pages and it took me 8 days to complete the work. I too praise it thus rate it 4/5.

I hope you enjoyed reading the recapitulation of Eleven Minutes. Moreover, below, I have also wrote the summary of the same, which was printed on the original book. Hope it helps. Take care. Lots Of love.

“Eleven Minutes tells the story of Maria, a young girl from a Brazilian village, whose first innocent brushes with love leave her heart-broken. At a tender age, she becomes convinced that she will never find true love, instead believing that ‘Love is a terrible thing that will make you suffer…’ A chance meeting in Rio takes her to Geneva, where she dreams of finding fame and fortune yet  ends up working as a prostitute. In Geneva, Maria drifts further and further away from love while at the same time developing a fascination with sex. Eventually, Maria’s despairing view of love is put to the test when she meets a handsome young painter. In the odyssey of self discovery, Maria has to choose between pursuing a path of darkness, sexual pleasure for its own sake, or risking everything to find her own “inner light” and the possibility of sacred sex, sex in context of  love. In this gripping and daring novel, Paulo Coelho sensitively explores the sacred nature of sex and love and invites us to confront our own prejudice and demons and embrace our own inner light.”

Last Man In Tower – Aravind Adiga

Author: Aravind Adiga

ISBN: 9789350295199

No. Of Pages: 419 Pages

My Rating: 3.5/5

Last Man In Tower is the second book (his first book, The White Tiger won Booker Prize in 2008) by Indian author Aravind Adiga. Vishram society consisting of two edifices; “Tower A” and “Tower B”. Tower A is narrated as an old dilapidated tower while Tower B is said occupied by professional people. The whole story circumnavigates around the protagonist, Yogesh Murthy, a retired school teacher who is commonly known as “Masterji” among the members of Tower B and Dharmen Shah, a builder. Masterji, who is described as an atheist and widower passes his days by bestowing free tuition to the children of the Vishram society.

The peace and lives of the residents of the society are tested when Dharmen Shah, a powerful and dangerous builder approaches them with his dream project. He offer to buy and vandalize a tower that will make every resident of the society rich but if all together agrees to the offer. The inception of the problem arises when some of the dwellers rejects the offer as many have lived there for a lifetime. But since the amount offered by the “Confidence Construction Group” owned by Dharmen Shah was zenith high and enough for a person to dissolve his memories for the sake of 1.5 crore, everyone agrees to the proposal of Mr. Shah except one man, the last man in tower; Masterji. All his friends in the society try to convince him but he shows his firmness which they fell can become dangerous and can even annihilate their future. As the day of acceptance shows proximity in the calender, Masterji increases his visit to his lawyer and even write letters to his ex- student, Noronha who works as a writer in The Times Of India but all his efforts prove futile and he achieves nothing but only squander his time, money& energy. So, here it is where I’ll leave and if you want to discover more about the story then you have to start leafing through the pages of The Last Man In Tower.

I enjoyed reading this book as it is written well and describes how man changes his mind when money comes in the scenario. How materialistic things gain more supremacy when money starts generating illusions. How relationships are ruined when money starts playing its pejorative role. This book is all bout Mumbai, Real State, Money and the darker side of mankind. I hope the review was fine but still, below I am posting the original recapitulation which the original paper back book has got. Here it is:

“Twenty-first-century Mumbai is a city of new money and soaring real estate, and property kingpin Dharmen Shah has grand plans for its future. His offer to buy and tear down a weathered tower block, making way for luxury apartments, will make each of its residents rich if all agree to sell. But not everyone wants to leave; many of the residents have lived there for a lifetime, many of them are no longer young. As tensions rise among the once civil neighbours, one by one those who oppose the offer give way to the majority, until only one man stands in Shahs way: Masterji, a retired schoolteacher, once the most respected man in the building. Shah is a dangerous man to refuse, but as the demolition deadline looms, Masterji’s neighbours friends who have become enemies, acquaintances turned conspirators may stop at nothing to score their payday…”

Ajmal Kasab……Why India Celebrated?

Ajmal Kasab in the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai

My comprehending tendency capitulated when I witnessed the celebrating stance of Indian clientele after Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab was pendulously annihilated on 21 November, 2012. Ajmal Kasab (25) was the lone hypercritic who was apprehend alive by Indian police in 2008 for Mumbai assault in India. His only atrocious malfeasance, according to me was; he committed that illegality unconsciously. Yes, indeed unconsciously. He was castigated by the entire humanity which stupefied me but I really felt for him. As every minuscule tiny little flesh, he too was reproduced angelic but ironically among Lucifers, which mutilated him. He was brainwashed and trained to slaughter in the name of God. He died the same day when Lashkar-e Taiba Islamist group came as dark clouds in his life. Unaware of all the ramifications, he became the victim of their wretched and abominable teachings. No one taught him the indispensable Religion ie. Humanity. And thus, he committed illegality unconsciously and NOT deliberately. The indubitable time to rejoice will be when people will cease killing in the name of God Or Religion Or Jihad. Coming 21st will mark his 2nd death anniversary, have we allowed metamorphosis of our psyche or tendency ?

Heat And Dust – Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Author: Ruth Prawer Jhabwala

ISBN No.: 9780349000138

No. Of Pages: 181 Pages.

My Rating: 4/5.

Heat and Dust is one of the best attempts of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala at English Literature. The content of the story is very limited but compellingly, two stories shows parallelism in the entire book. The story’s inception is when Olivia, newly married to Douglas, who is describes as a civil servant abscond England for India in 1923. Olivia there comes in contact with the Nawab at a dinner party and later she elopes with the Indian Prince ie. Nawab. Douglas gets married to Tessie and they become the grandparents of the first-person narrator in the story. Fifty years later, the narrator decides to land India to solve the puzzlement of Oliva’s elopement. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala wrote two stories simultaneously with splendid akiness between them though the time of both stories are different.

Rest of the book is fine and yes, I won’t expose the thrill by writing more. All I’ll do is provide you some more detail of the book so you can develop an inclination towards it. The summary of the story which the original book has: “to a civil servant, outrages society in the tiny, suffocating town of Satipur by eloping with an Indian Prince. Fifty years later, her step granddaughter goes back to the heat, the dust and the squalor of the bazaars to solve the enigma of Olivia’s scandal.”

Promulgated in 1975, the book won the prestigious Man Booker Prize in the very same year. The story in so intriguing that a drama film has been made with the screen play by the author herself. I completed the book in two days and both the story and narration is the Jewel of this book. Later, I came to know that the author is the only person in the world who has won an oscar and a Booker Prize. So, what an intellectual personality she was. I don’t think anybody reading this would like to dodge reading Heat and dust.

The Sense Of An Ending- Julian Barnes

Author : Julian Barnes

ISBN : 9780099570332

No. Of Pages: 150 Pages

My Rating: 4/5

The Sense Of An Ending is a 2011 fictitious work by British author Julian Barnes. The book, though very short is divided into two parts; entitled “One” & ‘Two”. The first part tells the story of four friends; Tony Webster, Alex, Colin which are later joined by Adrian. The first part is basically a re assemblage of the narrator, Tony Webster’s adolescence and college life. Adrian Finch is described more inclined and intelligent towards life, expected to win a scholarship and attain stability. The first part also informs us about Adrian love life with a girl named Veronica who was his (Tony) girlfriend when he was in college. The second part begins 40 years later when Tony receives a letter from Veronica’s mother’s lawyer. It informs Tony about Finch’s diary who committed suicide while he was in a relationship with his exgirlfriend Veronica.

After reading The Sense Of An Ending, I kept ruminating hard about the whole story and it really impressed me to the core. I felt like I need to share what treasure I have read. So, I posted a status on facebook which I would like to share here too. So here it is:

“Many books are good, some are appreciable but only few books are pulchritudinously sublime, and The Sense Of An Ending is among those exiguous works. The book won The Man Booker Prize in 2011 and is authored by Julian Barnes.
Here are some quotes from the book:

1. History is certainly produced at a point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.

2. The thing Literature was all about: love, sex, morality, friendship, happiness, suffering, betrayal, adultery, good and evil, heroes and villains, guilt and innocence, ambition, power, justice, revolution, war, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, the individual against society, success and failure, murder, suicide, death, God. And barn owls. Of course there were other source of Literature; theoretical, self referential, lachrymosely autobiographical but they were just dry wanks. Real Literature was all about psychological, emotional and social truth as demonstrated by the actions and reflections of its protagonists.

3. We live in time, it holds us and moulds us but I have never felt I understood it very well.

4. What you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed.

5. Life will teach you reality and realism.

6. Marriage is long dull meal with pudding served first.

7. There was, apparently, some secret masculine code, handed down from suave twenty year old to tremulous eighteen year old.

8. Same old story,same old oscillation between tyranny and rebellion, war and peace, prosperity and impoverishment.

9. Is there anything more plausible than a second hand? And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time’s malleability”

“The narration of the story is the Jewel of the book”, is what all I can say and conclude about this splendid work.

I hope you enjoyed reading the recapitulation of The Sense Of An Ending. Moreover, below, I have also wrote the summary of the same, which was printed on the original book. Hope it helps. Take care. Lots Of love. Harshit Chauhan.

“Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumor and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they all swore to stay friends for life. Now Tony is in middle age. He’s had a career and a single marriage, a calm divorce. He’s certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer’s letter is about to prove.”

Chronicle Of A Death Foretold – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

ISBN No. 9780140157543

No. of Pages: 122 Pages

My Rating: 4/5

In a very jolly stance Santiago Nasar leaves his bed 5:30 in the morning to greet the boat in which the bishop was about to arrive. Santiago, in order to control is headache approaches Placide Linero, his mother, to get an aspirin. Santiago who was killed on the very same day, is the only child of Ibrahim Nasar and Placide Linero. After Ibrahim’s death Santiago abandoned his studies to take over the inheritance profit in form of a Ranch. Victoria Guzman, the cook and her daughter, Divana Flor were at their relevance in their house as servants. Both of them had heard the rumours about his death but were not certain and for the very same reason they did not made the indispensable conversation rolling and moreover no one glimpsed the message in the form of an envelope under the door informing Santiago about his coming death. Santiago leaves the house when he hears the voice of a the bishop’s steamboat.

Two men or brothers, Pedro Vicario and Pablo Vicario, wearing their dark wedding suits with knives wrapped in newspaper are waiting at the local milk shop to kill Santiago Nasar. The crowd assembles and wait for the bishop with amassed roosters and firewood to give to Father Carmen Amador but he does not get off the boat and passes away standing on the deck of the boat. The narrtor’s sister, Margot invite Santiago to her house for breakfast and after accepting the invitation he prefers to go home first to change his outfit. Everone ruminates that Nasar is aware about the deadly warning and thus does not discuss it elaborately with each other and ironically with Santiago. Margot discovers the incident about the first wedding night of Angela Vicario and Bayardo San Roman and when she reaches her home she narrates the same to her mother and Luisa, her mother promptly makes a verdict to inform Placida but someone running by update her that he has already been killed.

Since Gabriel Garsia Marquez has embellished the story in non linear form, the second chapter of the book starts with the narration of 30 years old  Bayardo San Roman who appears in the story in the month of August to marry a girl and eventually finds Angela Vicario six months before their marriage and Santiago’s death. He starts to establish a good rapport with the Vicario family and specially with his desired spouse but Angela Vicario who is the youngest and prettiest member of Vicario family does not show any interest in him and their engagement lasts for only four months. Bayardo asks Angela what house she likes best, and she replies that she liked the farmhouse belonging to the widower Xius. The widower initially does not show any interest in the agreement but Bayardo keeps offering more and more money until Xius gives up. They get married and on the very first night of their wedding Bayardo discovers that his wife in no virgin and this gives a traumatic shock to him. He takes her spouse to Pura Vicario at eleven o’clock in the night to Pura Vicario and she beats her without any mercy to know the violator whom she names Santiago Nasar. The two Vicario brothers takes a prompt verdict to kill Nasar and leaves the house in their dark wedding suits itself.

The two brothers with two knives wrapped in newspaper goes to Clothilde Armenta’s milk shop, which was near Santiago’s house, to wait for him to come out. In the meat market, Faustino Santos, a butcher talks to them about the wedding and there Pablo proclaims that they are going to kill Santiago Nasar but since of their good image no one pays any  meticulous attention to them and considers it as the alcohol effect on the Vicario brothers. A police officer casually comes to the butcher’s shop after they depart and he then narrates the conversation to the officer. Bad destiny prevails for Santiago and he goes to sleep before the bishop arrives while everyone goes to fetch breakfast for them.

The Mayor orders Father Carmen Amador to perform the autopsy on Santiago since Doctor Dionisio Iguaran is absent and they do it at the public school with the bid of a druggist and a medical student. After anatomizing the dead body, Vicario brothers are placed behind bars and Pablo Vicario gets into a serious case. And thus, the complete Vicario family migrates the hamlet, they wrap the face of their youngest daughter so that the scars of beating on her skin does not become a sensation in the town. The Vicario brothers are to a prison in Riohacha. After three years, Pablo Vicario is released out of jail and gets married to Prudencia Cotes. Life do justice to him and he later becomes a goldsmith after learning the metal work while the other brother goes back to the armed force. The narrator’s family goes to Guarija to meet Angela where she died as an embroiderer. The narrator ask Angela about Santiago Nasar and is astonished that the whole town remained unaware of their love affair. Angela wrote to Bayardo a weekly letter for seventeen years and one day he arrives with a suitcase filled with all her love of letters that she had send to him. They were all sealed and unopened 😦   The mayor goes to check Bayardo San Roman a week after the murder and finds him lying in his bed in an unconscious state with liquor smell all around. Petronio San Roman with his wife later takes Bayardo in a boat. The narrator learns that Angela after she was carried to the new home starts loving Bayardo and also reveals that she was crying for him when her mother thrashed her and not because of any physical pain.

In the last and fifth chapter of the book, chronicle of a death foretold, twelve days after Santiago’s death, the investigating magistrate arrives and he remains astonished that there is not a clue that Santiago Nasar has taken Angela Vicario’s virginity. Angela herself never specified how and where but said that he was the violator. In the last chapter you’ll encounter many twist and turns of this non linear book. Santiago, finally get the news of his future killing by Nahir Miguel, father of his fiancée (Flora Miguel) but he fails to comprehend it and said, “I don’t understand a god-damned thing”.

Chronicle of a death foretold was first published in Spanish in 1981 and after two years it was translated in English language. The story was good but the way of writing the story amazed me more. The book is written in non linear form, you may find it difficult to comprehend the story initially but concentration is the key, I feel. I did not encountered with the problem of non linearity as I have already read such books, for example, The God Of Small Things, Heat And Dust etc. One more notable feature of the book was the number of pages, only 122 pages and thus, I completed it in eight hours.

The Valkyries – Paulo Coelho

Author: Paulo Coelho

ISBN No.: 9788172235406

No. Of Pages: 245 Pages

My Rating: 2.5/5

After reading The Alchemist and Eleven Minutes I developed an inclination towards Paulo Coelho’s cognitive speculation. The novel is very incommensurable from his other works. Paulo Coelho has himself revealed his utterance in the Author’s note at the cessation of the book: “Anyone who has read The Valkyries, will know that this book is very different from The Pilgrimage, The Alchemist and Brida”. And yes, Indeed it is indubitable.
The story mark the inception in 1988  when Paulo Coelho’s Master, J., gives him a task to “break the curse” by speaking with his angles. To triumph the mission he with his wife, Christina begin their journey of self discovery in the dangerous Mojave desert. The whole novel revolves in the vicinity of searching the networks of interacting with the Angles. Before making up my mind to read this one, I anatomized the recapitulations and the eye catching word, “Angles” caught my attention. Finally I placed the order of The Valkyries to fulfill my contentment.
The book started well but later I relinquished comprehending the central point of the story. It said that “Why do we destroy the things we love the most”. It became a dragging kind of thing for me to maintain my lingerness in the book. I was clueless, I had no notion, I could not generate the hypothesis about the author and his spouse’s sojourn in the vast desert. Still I kept my enthusiasm high and made the termination of the book in greed that I may encounter something stimulating the could increase the synaptic transmission in my brain.
But Yes, the thing which I consider worth extolling in the book is the magical lines and quotes akin to the quotes in The Alchemist and Eleven Minutes. Some of them are:

1. Angles remove the seals placed on prohibited books, and they sound the trumpets on the day of the Final Judgement. They bring light, as Michael did, or darkness, as Lucifer did.

2. We begin to create a kind of film in which we are the main character, and we are certain that someone is observing our actions . But then, as we grow older, we begin to think that such things are ridiculous. We think of it as having been just a child fantasy of being a movie actor. We forget that, at those moments in which we are presenting ourselves before an invisible audience, the sensation of being observed was very strong.

3. In order to penetrate the invisible world and develop your powers, you have to live in the present, the here and now. In order to live in the present, you have to control your second mind. And look at the horizon.

4. Human being my forget their origin, but nature, never.

5. I want to tell you a story my father told me, he said. A master and his disciple were walking together in the desert. The master was teaching his charge that he could always trust in God, since he was aware of everything. Night fell and they decided to pitch camp. The master raised the tent, and the disciple was given the assignment of tethering the horses to a rock. But, as he stood by the rock, he thought to himself: The master is testing me. He said that God is aware of everything, and then asked me to tie up the horse. He wants to see whether or not I believe in God. Instead of tethering the animals, he said a long prayer, and left the fate of the horse in God’s hands. Next day when they awoke, the horses were gone. Disappointed, the disciple complained to the master, saying that he no longer believed in him, since God had not taken care of everything, and had forgotten to watch over the horses. You are wrong, the master answered. God wanted to take care of the horses, But in order to do so, he needed to make use  of your hands to tether them to the stone.

6. That’s what infatuation is: the creation of an image of someone, with out advising that someone as to what the image is.

7. Don’t fight your thoughts. They are stronger than you are, Paulo said for the thousandth time. If you want to rid yourself from them , accept them. Think about what they want you to think about until they grow old.

8. Men had risked their lives in war for Gold and women.

9. Someone once said that the Earth produces enough to satisfy needs, but not enough to satisfy greed.

10. The desert had its laws, and killed those who did not respect them

11. Faith is a difficult conquest, and it requires daily combat in order to be maintained.

12. Channeling has generally been considered a superficial practice. Nothing of the kind! Since the beginning of the humanity, people have know that, if they wanted to enter into contact with God, they had to make room in their soul. They had to allow their spiritual energy to manifest itself, and to create a bridge between the visible and the invisible. How can one create such a bridge? Various mystical processes address the importance of “not being”. Relax, allow the mind to become empty, and surprise yourself with the great treasure that begins to follow from your soul. The word inspirations means exactly that: the bringing in of air, allowing oneself to drink from an unknown source. Channeling required no loss of awareness during the contacts with the spirits; it was a more natural process for a person to use in order to plunge into the unknown. It allowed for contact with the Holy Spirit, with the soul of the world, with the enlightened masters. No ritual was needed, no incorporation, nothing. Every human being knew, subconsciously, that there was a bridge available to the invisible, a bridge one could cross without fear.

Before terminating, I would like to present the summary which the original book have:

This is a modern-day adventure story featuring Paulo’s supernatural encounter with angels – who appear as warrior women and travel through the Mojave desert on their motorbikes. Haunted by a devastating curse, Paulo is instructed by his mysterious spiritual master to embark upon a journey – to find and speak to his guardian angel in an attempt to confront and overcome his dark past. The Valkyries is a compelling account of this forty day quest into the searing heat of the Mojave Desert, where Paulo and his wife, Chris, encounter the Valkyries – warrior women who travel the desert on motorcycles, spreading the word of angels. This exotic spiritual odyssey is a rare combination of truth, myth, imagination and inspiration. Ultimately it is a story about being able to forgive our past and believe in our future.

The Man Eater Of Malgudi- R.K. Narayan

Author: R.K. Narayan

No. Of Pages: 216 Pages

ISBN: 9780143414964

No. Of Pages: 240 Pages

The Man-Eater Of Malgudi is a story of a South Indian printer baptized Nataraj, who dwells in his ancestral house; in the fictitious hamlet, Malgudi. He enjoys his living with his bosom friend circle, such as a poet, a journalist and his employee, Shastri. Their lives are provoked by the astound and deliberate entry of an authoritarian taxidermist. They feel that their solitude and seclusion are sabotaged when Vasu, the taxidermist starts living with them by renting a roof on attic. And thus this give birth to a great story and many hilarious anecdotes.

The Man Eater Of Malgudi with 240 pages was published in 1961. I love reading R.K.Narayan’s efforts. Hilarity is maintained all along the book and the same will compel you leafing. But if someone ask me to vote for R.K. Narayan’s best two books, I’ll vote in favour of “The Bachelor Of Arts” and “Swami And Friends“. If you want to read Narayan, I’ll ask you to read these two books first. I rate it 3/5.

I hope you enjoyed reading the recapitulation of  the book. Moreover, below, I have also wrote the summary of “The Man Eater Of Malgudi”, which was printed on the original book. Hope it helps too. Take care. Lots Of love.

“This is a story of Nataraj, who earns his living as a printer in he enchanted world of Malgudi, that slumbering Sothern Indian Village whose peace has been so often amusingly and outrageously disturbed by Narayan. Nataraj and his close friends, a poet and a journalist, find their congenial days disturbed when Vasu, a powerful taxidermist; moves in with his stuffed hyenas and pythons, and brings his dancing women up the printer’s private stairs. When Vasu, in search of lager game, threatens the life of a temple elephant that Nataraj has befriended, complications ensue that are both comic and calamitous. A not unwelcome death occurs; murder is suspected and Nataraj and his friends point guilty fingers at each other and those around them. The suspense never slackens in the bizarre. yet moving tale”

A Tiger For Malgudi – R.K Narayan

Author: R.K Narayan

ISBN No: 9788185986111

No. Of Pages: 176 Pages

My Rating: 3/5

“A Tiger for Malgudi”, is a story of a tiger who dwells in a wild jungle of South India. One day he discovers that hunters have killed his entire family and in order to take revenge he attacks the goats and livestock of the nearby hamlet but ironically he gets captured by a circus owner. The trainer, known as “Captian” in the book teaches him tricks to impress general public. The Captain starves him and forces him do learn the tricks. But one day his anger gain supremacy over his hunger and he eventually kills the Captain. Later a drastic change take place in him and he passes the rest of his life with a monk guru.

The story was good but is was the narration by R.K Narayan that I admire the most. What all I can conclude is that the book is good but if you are reading R.K. Narayan for the first time then I”ll suggest you to read “Swami and Friends” or “The Bachelor Of Arts” or “Malgudi Days” as I think them far better than this one. Over all the book is good, I recommend and rate it 3/5.

Malgudi Days- R.K Narayan

Author: R.K. NARAYAN

ISBN: 9788185986173

No. Of Pages: 246

My Rating: 4/5

The efforts in the field of Indian English Literature by R.K. Narayan are always extolled by the humanity. Before reading Malgudi Days, I was well perceptive about its acclaimed conspicuousness and influential narrations. I remember, well, in no particular order, many people around me use to talk about the same book,including my mother. So, this book was always in my psyche that one day I’ll surely encounter with. I was glad when I started leafing it. Malgudi days is all about assortment of short stories of different types. You will find every story unique and entertaining. There were in total 32 short stories. “The Axe”, “The Missing Mail” and “Ishwaran” were the three stories I loved the most.

In crux, Malgudi days (246 Pages) is the most iconic work by R.K. Narayan. Some stories will give you a glimpse of post India Independence. I recommend it and rate it 4/5. As it is not possible to give the recapitulations of all short stories, I would like to at least empower you and my blog with the titles of each short stories.

FROM ASTROLOGER’S DAY

1. An Astrologer’s Day

2. The Missing Mail

3. The Doctor’s Word

4. Gateman’s Gift

5. The Blind Dog

6. Fellow Felling

7. The Tiger’s Claw

8. Ishwaran

9. Such Perfection

10. Father’s Help

11. The Snake Song

12. Engine Trouble

13. Forty Five A Month

14. Out Of Business

15. Attila

16. The Axe

FROM LAWLEY ROAD

17. Lawley Road

18. Trail Of The Green Blazer

19. The Martyr’s Corner

20. Wife’s Holiday

21. A Shadow

22. A Willing Slave

23. Leela’s Friend

24. Mother And Son

NEW STORIES

25. Naga

26. Selvi

27. Second Opinion

28. Cat Within

29. The Edge

30. God And The Cobbler

31. Hungry Child

32. Emden

Malgudi Schooldays- R.K. Narayan

Author: R.K. Narayan

ISBN No. : 9780143330981

No. Of Pages: 264 Pages

My Rating: 4.5/5

Malgudi school days is a story of Swami, his friend Rajam and Mani. The book is full of amazing anecdotes of Swami and his friends. The biggest anecdote of the book is the formation of M.C.C (Malgudi Cricket Club). Rajam come to Swaminathan’s home to grandly announce the axiom of M.C.C. (the Malgudi Cricket Club) and ask favour from him and when he see Swami’s bowling attack he consider him the big enchilada and his team members baptize him “Tait”, the paramount cardinal fast bowler of M.C.C. Rajam, Mani and their team members accredit a lot of time, patience, sweat and money in raising the M.C.C so that they take the chequered flag. But Swami, due to his school timings is not able to attend everyday’s dose of practice and for this reason Rajam remain on pins and needles. Rajam increases his insist for his indispensable presence and after many damp squibs he bunks the school which ironically marks the end of his school life, he gets banished from his second and the only last school in Malgudi. Fearing of his punctilious father he absconds in the vast jungle of Malgudi. And on the day of the match, M.C.C keenly feel the paucity of their Tait, the whole enchilada goes opposite to Rajam’s desire and they loose the match to Y.M.U (other cricket team). Rajam, completely traumatic circumvent Swami when he returns. But in the last chapter of the book, they patch up with Mani’s endeavour 🙂

Malgudi School Days is nothing but only the abridged version of R.K. Narayan’s Swami and Friends. You can read any one you wish to. It can also be said that only title of the two books are different, story is same. I had already read Swami and Friends before reading Malgudi School Days. So, I was little disappointed when I found the akiness. But believe me, the story is that much amazing that you can surely read it again as I did. But if you want me to be precise then, I’ll advise you to read Swami and Friends. I recommend and rate it 4.5/5.

Swami And Friends- R.K. Narayan

Author: R.K Narayan

ISBN: 9788185986005

No. Of Pages: 184 Pages

My Rating: 5/5

Swami and Friends is a story of a ten year old lad, Swaminathan or Swami, who plays the protagonist in the novel. He dwells in Malgudi, a small fictitious town in South India with his adoring mother, punctilious father and adulating grandmother and a new born minuscule sibling. He receives academic wisdom in Albert Mission school, a British decreed academy. The second episode of the book,”Rajam and Mani” introduces the reader to his bosom pals who are described as antagonistic to each other. Mani is a barbarous type brusque boy, and his amity is loved by Swami. While Rajam who wears a white fur cap and resplendent tweed coat, belongs to upper class of the society as his father is a police superintendent. After their exams, in the holidays R.K Narayan has embellished the novel with some astounding stupendous anecdotes with respect to childhood of the trio.

On 15 of August 1930, two thousand residents of the town protest against the arrest of Gauri shankar, a political leader. Swami join the resistance, saying with the crowd,”Bharat Mata ki Jai, Gandhi ki Jai, Gauri Shankar ki Jai” against the British rule. Engulfed with the essence of patriotism, Swami shatters the window panes of his school but to his misfortune the Principal of the British school glimpses him and on the very next day abolish him from the academy. After his father’s scoldings, he is again admitted to the High board school which eventually isolate him from his two bosom pals.

Some weeks later, Rajam come to Swaminathan’s home to grandly announce the axiom of M.C.C. (the Malgudi Cricket Club) and ask favour from him and when he see Swami’s bowling attack he consider him the big enchilada and his team members baptize him “Tait”, the paramount cardinal fast bowler of M.C.C. Rajam, Mani and their team members accredit a lot of time, patience, sweat and money in raising the M.C.C so that they take the chequered flag. But Swami, due to his school timings is not able to attend everyday’s dose of practice and for this reason Rajam remain on pins and needles. Rajam increases his insist for his indispensable presence and after many damp squibs he bunks the school which ironically marks the end of his school life, he gets banished from his second and the only last school in Malgudi. Fearing of his punctilious father he absconds in the vast jungle of Malgudi. And on the day of the match, M.C.C keenly feel the paucity of their Tait, the whole enchilada goes opposite to Rajam’s desire and they loose the match to Y.M.U (other cricket team). Rajam, completely traumatic circumvent Swami when he returns. But in the last chapter of the book, they patch up with Mani’s endeavour 🙂

Promulgated in 1935, Swami and Friends which has 19 chapters, was Narayan’s first novel. I completely the book in seven days and as the book is authored by R.K. Narayan, vocabulary was superb and you’ll encounter with several new words and phrases. I enjoyed reading it as it helps in comprehending the psychology of a child and also made me remember my childhood.  I, also do agree with Graham Greene (Narayan’s friend) verdict,” It is a book in ten thousand” and I rate it 5/5.

The Bachelor Of Arts- R.K. Narayan

 

Author: R.K Narayan

ISBN No: 9788185986012

No. Of Pages: 166

My Rating: 4/5

The bachelor of arts written by R.K Narayan, is a story which traverse the transmutation of an adolescent psyche into manhood. The novel opens when Chandran is in final year at college pursuing B.A. Maelstrom life, half planned is before him. He maintains a very ecstatic and cinch life with his creators_ younger brother; educators; friends and acquaintances like a typical Indian boy. In the starting pages of the book, the debate of ‘whether historians have to be slaughtered first’ is fantastically presented. Convincingly, progressing into difficult situations which every student faces he gets his graduate degree, B.A (History).

After graduation- whether to continue studies or not, you must go for civil services or what you’ll do next?, these types of question arises in his life. His life takes a sharp turn when he sees the captivating smile and alluring looks of a girl (Malathi) in fleeting green colour saree on the river bank and from that day (i dare not say from that day, its the matter of love :D) i must say, from that particular moment he turns exile from Malgudi (an imaginary town in South India where Chandran dwell), family, friends and from life itself. Unaware of the ramifications, he tries to develop optical communication with her, tries to gather more information about her and constantly ponders about her at home.(If you are in love, you will comprehend it better :D). It was a herculean task for him to inform his parents about his romance. Finally, one day he summon up the determination and explain his father about his future plan of marrying Malathi. They (Chandran’s parents) try to accomplish their son’s wish but due to superstitious belief of horoscope not matching he comes to know that he is a manglik, a condition in which a manglik can only marry a manglik and if not, the non manglik will die.His susceptibilities are badly hurt when the girl’s parents refuses to make him their son -in-law. After the damp squib, he gets completely tarumatic and marriage of Malathi to some other person adds fuel to fire.

He runs to Madras where at the railway station he slips away the ambiguity from his cousin’s eyes who was there to receive him.Frustrated by the traumatic experience he embarks on a journey as a sanyasi where some rural people misunderstand him as a noble sage as he was dressed up like a typical sanyasi in apricot dhoti with a shaven head. He becomes vagabond, from hamlet to hamlet and village to village. He experience the kaleidoscopic stance of life. And after squandering about eight months, thinking about his parents and other positive factors he returns home. His parents were amazed and worried to see their son so transformed. Even after returning, images and memories of Malathi haunts him for a long time.Then he tries to pace up with life and with the sand of time getting thicker day by day gets an edge to it. He starts up with a business of  Newspaper and emerge as a successful entrepreneur. At this particular point of time in the story, Narayan has embellished the story with a wonderful incident between father and son. Afterwards, his father comes to him with a proposal of marrying another girl, Sushila. He initially refuses but later decides to see the girl and when he goes to see the girl he finally fall in love with her.

Promulgated in 1937, the 166 pages novel gives a glimpse of the period of post independence India. I completed it within 5 days, and I must tell you that if you are leafing through the pages of books written by R.K Narayan then get ready to swim in the ocean of vocabulary. I love the book as it takes and informs us about the stunning realities of life and what it takes to erase the memories of the person you loved. Moreover it also tells that love sharpens the wits of a person(especially of boys :D)extraordinarily. I rate it 4/5. The last thing which i would like to share, when I completed the book the very first thought which penetrated in my mind was, “If in three words I were to sum up everything I have learned about life,”IT GOES ON”.

Bharat Ratna for Sachin Tendulkar…..Really?

We have illustrious personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, DhyanChand and many more of much greater supremacy and admiration, but ironically, still they kept on whooping “ThankYouSachin”, “SachinSachinSachin” and no vociferation. But when I see names of Grandfather, Daughter and Son already in the list from one dominating family, I guffaw, faintly ruminating….Whatever happened, is happening or will happen will be for good!!

Jai Ho India !!

How I Braved Anu Aunty and Co- Founded A Million Dollar Company- Varun Aarwal

Author: Varun Agarwal

ISBN : 9788129119797

No. Of Pages: 256 Pages.

My Rating: 0/5.

I bought the book prior corroborating the reviews and in order to luxuriate the hilarious ingredients of the author’s bid. The title on the top of the book finally inclined me to capitulate on hold of my purse strings.  But ironical to my serendipity, all my toil squandered as I stroked the inception of the book. In the initial pages of the book, the author openly proclaimed not to have much positive probability with his book and yes that was there I  got miscomprehend and finally got lapsed. Here are ten Reason as why NOT to read “How I barved Anu aunty and Co-founded A Million Dollar Company” by Varun Agarwal.

1.  I was zenithly expecting it to a inspirational story but the author has narrated himself as a highly lethargic personality who keeps on consuming liquor and abusing is high in his stance.

2. The paucity of grip which the author has over English.

3. Poor Vocabulary.

4. Every Tom, Dick and Harry has a story akin like him but that does not mean you start writing a book 🙂

5. In the story, all the gossips and confabulation between the author and his friends are superfluously wretched.

6. While leafing the pages of the book you’ll fell as if reading a 4th grade lad school book, which I ruminate, is turpitude.

7. People say , it is a motivational entrepreneurship fable but I say, If we have biographies of people like Steve Jobs than why read Varun Agarwal.

8. This book is all about squandering money, energy and precious time.

9. Wretched Story.

10. Lastly, the narration is entwining, ie. the story is highly overstretching which generates lackadaisical ambiance in the reader’s mind.

I never recommend such crap work and thus rate it 0/5.

An Unproclaimed Leader

The Galaxy Cinema hall was quite famous when it was established and inaugurated in Mansarovar area of the Jaipur district. The Galaxy Cinema hall was embellished with two screens, resplendent edifice and zillions of other hi-fi things. Ironical to the fate of its owner, innovativeness by the other entrepreneurs extirpated it to a humongous extent for, they compelled their competitor to hold the purse strings on the augmentation of the cinema hall. Other monstrous investors came with gargantuan capital and within two years many other more resplendent edifices were constructed with the title, “Cinema Hall” in the mind of “The Common Man”. Repercussions were certain. The Galaxy hall was taken over by The Reliance Industries Ltd. But the change in ownership did not mean the competition vanished.

The estimate of admissions were pauperized. Many other schemes were also innovated, out of which a new show timing was the gargantuan of all. A morning 10:00 AM show was started to magnetizely intrigue the general plebeian. I look back well the movie poster was of “1920: The Evil Returns”. The morning price of the ticket and eagerness to ambiance some horror made us roll in the vicinity of the ticket counter. I saw many children dressed up in their school uniform who were there for the same reason, probably they came bunking their respective schools. I was not astonished when I witnessed the madding crowd and formulate my psyche and my body to fell some heat and exertion. A fat man who serendipitously got his ticket was not happy and when he passed near by me, I inquired about his abominable stance. To my precipitousness , he said, “Chu*** ho gae hai salley bahen k lo**….bol te hai ki ticket k sath 60 Rs. ka popcorn+ Pepsi ka combo lena jaruri hai!!”
“To tum ne kya kiya?”, I asked.
“Le na pada yaar, kya karta? Subhe Subhe dimak kharab kar diya Mada* Chood** ne” was his rejoinder.
My friend who was in other line to bag the ticket asked me what to do. I calculated that a 50 Rs. ticket will merge into 110 Rs. And moreover we had only accurate currency to get infront of the big screen. I knew I have to do something, something BIG and unique and infact daring. I saw all most everyone resisting when their turn came to pay the money and own the ticket against the combo pack.

“The person who is sitting inside and distributing the ticket is firm and rigid”, I thought.
“What you’ll do now?”, I asked myself.
And finally, my turn came. Like others I also resisted against the Combo pack. But the ticket distributor showed his anger and firmness. A prompt idea penetrated my mind.
I said boldly, “Today is my fast and I cannot have popcorn and moreover I don’t eat outside food when I fast in the name of Lord Hanuman.

The person behind me was even more blunt. He intelligently said,”Yes, today is Tuesday and today is my fast and I cannot eat popcorn and drink cold drink.”

But the distributor did not move and said, “you have to”
I said, “I can’t”.

While I was squabbling with him, I didn’t knew that my excuse was gaining popularity among the crowd. A group of 3-4 people came forward and protested against the management. They too gave the same reason against the combo. The ticket distributor left his chair to call some higher authority. The group of 3-4 person extolled me for my excuse.

Then the ticket distributor came with a higher authority. The crowd screeched to its zenith yielding cacophony in the ambiance and one of them gave a bang with his palm on the ticket counter limpid glass. Security help was called by the person who was named in my mind as “a higher authority person with more supremacy”
The crowd was gaining lustiness physique and vigor and thus the higher authority person asked the crowd to keep calm. He asked any one from the crowd to speak. I started but my voice could not gain supremacy and was zilch when compared with the crowd. The he shouted and asked any one of the crowd to enter the ticket counter in order to make a conclusion. The whole crowd gazed at me and thus unproclaimed I became their leader. One of them said,”Bhai sahab aap jao”.

I, as a leader, holding the responsibility of the entire crowd on my shoulder entered in. He inquired about the demand of the crowd. I told the reason as why the crowd is against the combo pack. He asked, ” all of them are having fast today?”
I said.” I don’t know about entire crowd but I and many among us are fasting today. Please cancel the scheme of the combo pack”.
The man said, “Well, we don’t have any other option then”.
I happily said,”Yes, you don’t”
He instructed to the ticked distributor to only distribute the ticked and not the combo 🙂

I egressed and disseminated the intoxicated verdict to the crowded public who were packed like sardines!! They extolled my dextrous heroism through their cacophonic sounds and then got engaged in their business. I too collected the tickets for my friends with whom I came to luxuriate the movie. Even they felicitated me and extolled me for, I saved their 60 Rs. We all rushed towards the big screen and on the way to the screen, a group of boys again thanked me.
This was how I became an unproclaimed leader. Hope you enjoyed reading.

Take care,
Lots Of lOve
Keep visiting,
Regards, Harshit Chauhan

Anything For You,Ma’am – Tushar Raheja

Author: Tushar Raheja

ISBN: 9788188575862

No. Of Pages: 230 Pages

My Rating: 0/5

Anything for you, Ma’am tells the story of Tejas Narula, an IITian (IIT Delhi) who fall in love with a girl, Shreya. And for her sake, he with his friend’s moil manage to visit her home town in Chennai by skipping the mandatory Industrial tour. The book is all about the the college life in IIT, the journey of the protagonist, Tejas from Delhi to Chennai, his mental skirmishes with Mr. Fate and lastly, the Biobull, a revolutionary bus. Interestingly, all the above proved fruitless to me 😦

“Anything for you Ma’am” , was my second misinterpretation which I committed after ‘I too had a love story.” The second worst book which I read and was totally unsatisfied. At least, I too had a love story had some sense, the paucity was in its narration but Anything for you Ma’am lacked both, the narration and story line. After completing the book, I felt that I should ask Tushar Raheja to return my money 🙂 I am not a parsimonious or a stingy guy but am only showing my peevishness. Writers akin to him give Indian writers’s fraternity an abominable name. The sentence construction was again akin to “I too had a love story” ie. pathetic. If I talk about story, I’ll only say that the book hardly made me ruminate. People say that the book is hilarious but I fail to comprehend their stance. I also witnessed that the book was over stretched, and thus insipid. People like Raheja, Ravinder Singh, Chetan Bhagat are real threats to English Literature. I would also like to share a thought which penetrated my mind when I completed the book; “ENGINEERS CANNOT WRITE GOOD BOOKS”, my psyche thought. I never applaud such imbecilic endeavor and thus rate it 0/5.

I too had A Love Story – Ravinder Singh

Author: Ravinder Singh

ISBN: 9780143418764

No. Of Pages: 206 Pages

My Rating: 0/5

‘I too had a love story” is a love tale of both, the author and protagonist, Ravinder Singh. He registers himself on a matrimonial website and after four months he receives an SMS from a girl, Khushi. He eagerly check her profile on the same matrimonial website and likes her. They try to know each other and remain in touch by talking over the phone. Their telephonic conversations get converted into love, without then having personally met each other. They then eventually greet. Their love progress and after greeting each other’s parents their relationship takes a quantum leap; they decide to get engage. But their calamitous dark fortune does not approve of their relation and Khushi encounters with a massive and severe accident in which she dies, ironically.

Why I did not appreciated, “I Too Had A Love story”.

1. What disappoints me the most is the lack of grip the author has over English Literature.

2. Poor sentences. Their construction is ridiculous as Ravinder singh is NOT a professional writer, he only presumes to be.

3. While reading the book, you’ll fell like a fifth grade child is narrating the story. A childish endeavour I’ll say.

4. Poor Vocabulary. His vocabulary is akin to a school going kid.

5. Though people, including the author say, “It is a true love tale” but while reading the book I didn’t felt any glimpses of close association with the reality.

6. There are several sub and small plots added in the book which have ruined the book totally.

7. All the telephonic conversations between Ravinder Singh and Khushi are idiotically wretched.

8. The end of the book was trio, boring, predictable and pathetic.

9. When we have authors like Erich Sehgal than why read I too had a Love Story.

10. Thousands of book get published everyday and this book is one of them which only make money and burden the reader’s pocket.

Every Tom, Dick and Harry has a story like this. Ravinder Singh should have stopped with this book (he has published his second book too) and not let Idiots allow him to waddle in its fame and glory. I wonder, why he titled the book, “I Too had a Love Story”, it should be named, “I too had a wretched Love Story” 🙂 I do not recommend reading this book as it is all about squandering time, money, energy and sweat.

A Minor Surgery

My Histopathology/ Cytology report said :

Name : Harshit Chauhan
Age: 21 Years
Referred by: Dr. Nandini Sahani
OPD No. 12076131
Accession No.: 71650/12
Registration date: 22/09/2012
Report Date: 25/09/2012

Specimen: CYST- BACK

Gross: The specimen consists of cyst measures 0.5 cms. On cutting filled with pultaceous material. Entire pieces taken for embedding in 1 cassette.

Microscopic: Biopsy reveals a cystic lesion by stratified squamous epithelium. The lumen is full of keratinous material. The surroundings tissue shows inflammatory reaction.

Impression: Epidermoid Cyst.

                                                 *** End   of    Report***

There was nothing terrifying about the above report, Doctors declared it ‘Normal’. But before this report was developed, I underwent a minor surgery at Santokba Durlabhji Memorial Hospital, Jaipur. It was a painless experience and is worth narrating too. I complained of a minuscule wart near my neck, behind my shoulders and for the same a operation was conducted on September 22 2012 after anatomizing by Dr. Nandini Sahani on September 18 2012. I woke up in the morning and saw a text on my cell from one of my bosom pal, Dinesh Lalwani.

It said, “don’t worry it is just a minor one and you’ll surely cope up and if you want me to come with you to the hospital, do tell me before 6;30 AM, I’ll accompany you and take leave from college”

I was engulfed and replied, “No, you follow your regular routine and thankx for your love & concern”.

I was instructed not to have any kind of food before the operation but was allowed to have tea before surgery. On that day I followed my regular morning routine of paying my respect and offerings at the temple but on that day, I did special prayer to  God to bless my surgery with success. I came home with a religious mark on my head and sat on facebook to upload a status, which then said:

“Harshit Chauhan, will be facing a minor operation today 😦 Hoping to pace up with life soon after the surgery :)”

We (my parents and I), egressed our home for the hospital at 0900 hours. After making a payment of about 3500 Indian Rupees, a compounder took us to the operation theater. Soon my name was called and I entered in. A nurse gave me dark green operation clothes and advised me to wear them. I did as instructed. I went in an isolated room and it was really a damn difficult task to cope up. Somehow I managed to wear and then the same nurse gave me a cap akin to a shower cap which she herself put on my head. I was instructed to wait. Sitting in a unique dark green colour outfit with shower cap on 🙂 , it was really a different kind of feeling which I never experienced before.

“Are you going to fight a fancy dress competition, they have made you dressed like a Doctor or I feel, like a compounder 🙂 ? “, a thought penetrated my mind.

Soon I was called in. I saw operation theater the very first time in my life and it was a damn tidy dangerous site. BIG machines surrounding one bed. I was made comfortable and they adjusted me on the bed according to their convenience. They together were three members and when Dr. Nandini came in, their total touched 4. One of them tied a cloth strip on my eyes and after that I observed zilch.

“Is it going to be that dangerous and painful “, my psyche commented to me, personally.

Then they took one of my finger of my right hand and attached it with something for which I asked, “for what it is?”, they didn’t answer. I asked them to remove the strip of cloth tied on my eyes, they resisted 😦  Then came the big enchilada, Dr. Nandini. She asked how I was feeling and advised me to relax. I asked, “will I suffer any pain…you’ll be using anaesthesia, I guess. They all bursted into laughter.

“Just relax, we do not aim to give you unnecessary pain or trouble”, a female voice dominated.
“You people will use anaesthesia, please make a mental note of it and if you don’t have it then please let me go, I’m in no mood to undergo any surgery”, I showed my concern very seriously.

They all guffawed radiantly 🙂

To my relaxation, Dr. Nandini said, “We don’t perform any surgery without anesthesia in this operation theater”.)

I was relaxed to my core 🙂

Immediately one of them said, “We are now going to operate you.”

“What about Anesthesia ?”, I commanded in a tone of phobia.

We are giving you the same, Just relax.

“We are beginning with an anesthesia injection, I’m now applying the injection on your shoulder.” one of them said.

I felt the pain as well as a feeling which reminded me of presence of some sharp foreign material in my shoulder. Deep in my mind I also started with the Holy words of Hanuman Chalisa:

Jai Hanuman Gyaan Gun Sagar,
Jai Kapis Tinhu Log Ujyaggar…..

They were busy operating me and I kept worrying about the pain but I was not experiencing it. Magic…No, it was not. I knew anaesthesia is doing the job for me. Blood was pouring out of my body, I could not see but was experiencing the flow on my shoulder. They kept swiping my shoulder for, the blood was pouring out. I knew it was blood but in order to verify it, I started breathing hard so I could smell the same and prove my sensing capability to be good. It all took about 20 Minutes. The part which they operated was bandaged and I was advised to slowly get up. The compounder removed the strip from my eyes and I saw all Doctors smiling at me. I smiled backed too.

One of them said,”You speak too much”. 🙂

I nodded.

Dr. Nandini Sahani showed me the root cause for which I was there in the operation theater. She showed me the extra part or wart which they operated out of my body. The minuscule wart, about 0.5 cms was floating in the transparent liquid material.

“Now I have finally got rid of you”, I said looking at the wart.

They all again bursted into laughter. I egressed the theater by thanking the Doctor and their team and was greeted by my mother who showed her love and concern by hugging me. I was instructed not to apply water to that part and was advised to take rest and again come back for a check up after one week.

My Ex Fell In Love- Shubham Choudhary

Author: Shubham Choudhary

ISBN: 9789382473022

No. Of Pages: 204

My Rating: 3/5

My Ex fell in love is a hilarious love tale of Yatharth, the protagonist in the book. He collides with a girl, Sanchita when he is expelled from the class and from that anecdote he becomes inclined towards her. With the endeavour of his two sociable bosom pals; Sudeep and Vikalp and Samantha (Sanchita’s friend) he some how manages to date her after showing his unconscious accidental inclination through a facebook status, which said, “Dear Sanchita tum meri Zindagi mei khushiya le kar aayi ho, Meri life rasgulle ki duniya hai aur tum uski mithat ho!” in which he tagged her after alcohol consumption…and guess what? Sanchita proposes to him…. Unique na. From soda to hock, the narrator (Yatharth) is shown befuddled and unaware of the ramifications, he breaks up with his love to continue with his dream project of trajectory of electrons with Sudeep. Life continues and later he discovers that Sanchita starts loving Raunak, her family friend and he experiences the lowest ebb when they are blacklisted from the world of atomic theory.

Even after break up he takes utmost care of Sanchita and always desire to see her happy as a friend. His bleeding life gets a tourniquet when he and Sudeep are invited to Switzerland for their dream project and Vikalp takes the financial responsibility for the same. Vikalp, Sudeep and Samantha endeavours to stop Raunak when they ruminate he is going to propose Sanchita while, Yathartha and Sanchita are described obliviously inconversant of the same anecdote. So this was a brief recapitulation of the book and I recommend it to read it if you extol, admire and appreciate humor work.

Authored by Shubham Choudhary, I loved the book because of the character; Vikalp who took the responsibility to maintain humor in the entire book and was successful too. Though Yathartha is the protagonist in the story but I loved reading where Vikalp’s part appeared. One more reason to extol the work of Shubham was that the book was not boring when compared to books like; I too had a love story, Anything for you Ma’am and Trust me it’ll work etc. The two main elements of the book ie. humor and love story perpetuate and prolong a hilarious parallelism and Shubham Choudhary has never, I think, failed to cover each and every page of the book with hilarious work especially with Vikalp’s endeavour. Though love story of Yatharth and Sanchita was monotonous and colloquial like other hindi movie love stories but you won’t be able to succumb to your temptations when you’ll sojourn the hilarious territories of My Ex Fell In Love. Shubham Choudhary is a talent to follow.

Chintan Shirvir by INC…What was that??

January 18 2013, Indian National Congress inaugurated their Chintan Shivir but I failed to comprehend the genesis of their assemblage. They rejoiced, hugged and garlanded after Rahul Gandhi was proclaimed the Vice President of the party but why they celebrated, I mean there was not even an iota of competition to him. Even a government peon undergoes some sort of examination before getting recruited but the way they rejoiced seemed that he has made the country corruption free or has made it to the Vice President’s post without the help of his mother. Some people extolled the endeavour for their own political benefits say Ashok Gehlot, as he don’t want Pilot to replace him in the next elections and Sachin Pilot supported Sonia’s verdict as he is now fed up being an MP and want to kick off as the CM of Rajasthan. In short, he is zilch but an unemployed person who is now the VP of Indian National congress, Ironically.

101 Things to See and Do In Oman

Here are two very informative links which I discovered while I was surfing the internet. The first one have got the content of the tourism book launched by the Ministry Of Tourism, Oman. On this link you just have to mouse over the pictures in order to gain the information. And the latter one is a website owned by a Canadian Teacher who dwells in Muscat. Both the links will provide you almost all the indispensable information about the country. Till Then, take care. Lots Of love. Regards, Harshit Chauhan.

The Two Links :

http://explore101.com/101-things-to-see-do-in-oman.html

http://andyinoman.com/

20 Things That You’ll Witness In Muscat, Oman

1. You’ll see all the Omani Men wearing dishdash, their national dress with anklelength, collarless gown with long sleeves. The dishdash are usually white but you’ll also see men wearing brown dishdash. In addition to this they also wear a resplendent turban on their respective heads. And, you’ll find Omani women all covered with black cloth, with their “Hijab” on.

2. Sulatn Qaboos Bin Said Al Said, The Sultan Of Oman enjoys pinnacle social prestige from the people of Oman. You’ll notice his portrait hung in each and every Mall, Hotels, big or small shops etc. People Of Oman worship him. So, if you have anything against him, I’ll advice you to keep your mouth in your pocket 🙂

3. As far as perfumes are taken into consideration, Omani Men and Women are very passionate. Each time when you’ll pass any Omani men or women,  your nostrils will compel your mouth to say, “WOW” 🙂

4. Roads Of Oman are fabulous. Forget about ditches, you won’t experience any patches on the roads Of Oman.

5. Don’t get astonished if you see a door with a name plate,”The Prayer Room” anywhere in Oman. Oman is a Muslim eclipse piece of land in the world and in Holy Quran they are said to offer respect to Allah five times a day. So, you’ll see separate paryer rooms for men and women in every mall, petrol filling stations etc.

6. Petrol is very Cheap. If you ask for help to a good samaritan for one liters of water, he may say,”No” but his answer  for one liters of petrol would be YES*. Moreover, Petrol in Oman is not only cheap but also shares a unique relation with diesel. Diesel is more costly than petrol.

7. You’ll hardly notice any traffic police on roads but still they have one of the finest Traffic systems.

8. Oman is also for resplendent cars. Huge, massive and powerful cars are seen more.

9. The ‘Khanjar” which is the traditional dragger of Oman. It is similar to the Yemeni jambia. The khanjar is curved and sharpened on both edges. It is carried in a sheath decorated in silver, on a belt similarly decorated in silver fifigree.  A khanjar appears on the flag Of Oman as part of the national emblem Of Oman. (Source :Wikipedia).

10. You’ll perceive more Indians than the Omanis. Quit strange but true.

11. Zillions Of date trees.

12. The water and ectricity bill of a normal house in Oman is almost same. Water is costly and electricity is cheaper.

13. Since electricity is cheap, you’ll find AC everywhere.

14. You’ll find most of the shops or offices motionless or closed between 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM.

15. Zillions Of coffee shops.

16. You’ll also witness several women waiting for one Omani man outside malls. shops etc. Actually, they all are wives of that fortunate man.

17. Almost all the houses and buildings in Oman are painted white.

18. You’ll also have a glimpse of the Omani Flag which you’ll see waving on Government buildings, Schools, Colleges and Universities.

19. Mosques are good in numbers but there you can also find some Churches and Temples.

20. Last but no the least, The Omani people are well known for their hospitality and offers of refreshment. To be invited into someone’s home will mean coffee (kahwa), a strong, bitter drink flavoured with cardamom, and dates or halwa, a sticky sweet gelatinous substance which is made from brown sugar, eggs, honey and spices. It can be flavoured with many different ingredients, such as nuts, rosewater or even chocolate. Lokhemat is another accompaniment to coffee, which are balls of flour and yeast flavoured with cardamom and deep fried until golden then served with a sweet lime and cardamom syrup. The sweetness of this dish often counteracts the bitterness of the kahwa. (Source: Omannet.com).

Omani Men Wearing Dishdash, The National Dress of Omani Men

Omani Women wearing Black Hijab, The National Dress Of Omani Women.

Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said, The Sultan Of Oman

Omani Khanjar, The National Emblem Of Oman

A view Of Date Trees and Roads In Muscat, Oman. I captured the Image.

A view of cluster of Houses in Muscat, Oman

Day14: From Muscat International Airport, Seeb to Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Mumbai.

My last day in Muscat was motionless, I did not sojourned. I got up in the morning and wished every member a fab morning. I turned on my laptop and connected it with wi-fi. On the url I wrote, WWW.GOOGLE.COM
The page showed me “Google Oman”, with google embellished with erratic colours. I opted facebook as my second option. Was glad when I saw Manisha Rathore, my school time chemistry teacher, on facebook. I requested her to join my facebook network. Then I started collecting precious pics from the cameras of other two families, on my laptop. Bunty and my mother went to Lulu mall to buy some frozen eatable items. My father, Anand mausa and Pratap mausa went to Samsung shop to own a microwave and a smart TV. Time passed quickly. It was 3’o clock and I decided to pack up for India. All four of my family joined me, too. I was worried regarding the weight of our accoutrements for, we were allowed 120 Kgs (30 kgs per person) and I was ruminating the weight more than the legal one. Moreover, Urmila mausi displayed her love and plethora emotions by providing us with zillions of items.

I said, “Don’t burden us, our luggage weight will increase and the airport authority people won’t understand your love.”

“We’ll be penalized”, I competed my concern.

But she was firm and said,”You won’t face any problem, your luggage won’t increase”.

I then went to Mars mall alone, just five in distance from Bait Muscat to buy a thnkx giving card for my mausi. I cursed myself for not bringing the same from India and for the same reason I paid heavy price for the card. I was astonished to discover the damn high price of a normal small card but its importance was zenith and I, without any delay made the payment of 500 Baisa or 75 INR (at that time). I showed my respect by handling her both, my card and emotions. Hugs, past 15 days recapitulations, wishes, thank you were some elements which we experienced and celebrated in that last moments in Bait Muscat. All other members wished us Godspeed. We wished them too and thanked our host for organizing the trip. Pratap mausa accompanied us to the Muscat International airport. He too, wished us safe journey and captured last two images of my family in his Nokia cell phone at the airport. Blessings played their role and our luggage weight stopped at 119.786 kgs 🙂 (120 Kgs. was allowed) otherwise, 4 OMR per Kg. was the penalty and to our good fortune, we escaped it.

Quite easily with patience, progressing into various stages (security check, visa check, passport stamp, check in counter) which every passenger encounters, officialismly we cleared all legal ritualities and after some hours we reached Mumbai, India and with that, a fabulous tour came to its end.

Pratap mausa and Urmila Mausi. Our host of Muscat trip

Day13: Dell Inspiron N5110 from LuLu Mall, Muscat.

A laptop means a lot to a student and when it comes by happenstance, its magnitude of alleviation is gigantic and the same pinnacle felicitous alleviation I acquainted in Muscat. This day brought me a new resplendent Dell laptop 🙂

In the morning, I wrote on a piece of paper :

– 500 Gb harddisk
– 4 Gb RAM
– i5 processor
– 1Gb Graphic Card

“At least this configuration you must aim”, my mind commented to me, personally again 🙂

In the afternoon, my family and Anand mausa went to Samsung showroom with Mausin, which was present at our relevance for the last time 🙂 We went to finalize a Samsung microwave oven for us and a smart television for Anand mausa and family. After anatomizing we made the final choice of both the products and returned to Bait Muscat.

In the evening, Pratap mausa, bunty and I went to Lulu mall to buy my laptop. I told Pratap mausa about my configuration requirements and he bestowed me with the best of his experience while we were on the way to Lulu in Grand Vitara car. Again we began to scrutinize the laptop and its accessories and in the end after beating the puzzlement between two dell laptop models, a Dell Inspiron N5110 model was selected for my future entertainment and studies too 🙂 A cooling pad caught my attention and my brother also extolled the product and thus we purchased two cooling pads.  A Filipino, who was assisting us showed us a trio pack of speakers, mouse and headphone and that too was put in the cart. For all this we paid 281 OMR or 281.900 OMR, to be precise. We entered home and every member of my family congratulated me and I gave gargantuan thanks to my creators and thank you to other family members. When I opened the flap of the device, the very first thing which captured me was the Arabic language printed on my keyboard buttons. I laughed. “You won’t get sleep today”, Anand mausa commented 🙂

On that day, the dinner was offered on the behalf of my family and meat batti was the dish. Ice cream was served on my behalf as laptop treat 🙂 I don’t know what the others were doing after that, as I got engaged in my laptop treasure 🙂

Day12: Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque and Science Museum

After visiting the populous dimensions of Muscat, we paid homage to The Grand Mosque in the capital city of Oman. The Mosque is named Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque by the Oman Government. We reached there and were amazed to see the structure.

Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, Muscat

A major feature of the design of the interior is the prayer carpet which covers the floor of the prayer hall. It contains, 1,700,000 knots, weighs 21 tonnes and took four years to produce, and brings together the classical Tabriz, Kashan and Isfahan design traditions. 28 colors in varying shades were used, the majority obtained from traditional vegetable dyes. It is the second largest single piece carpet in the world. This hand-woven carpet was produced by Iran Carpet Company (ICC) at the order of the Diwan of the Royal Court of Sultanate of Oman to cover the entire floor of the main praying hall of the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque (SQGM) in Muscat. The carpet measures over 70 × 60 meters, and covers the 4,343 square meter area of the praying hall, all in a single piece. The chandelier above the praying hall is 14 meters tall and was manufactured by company Faustig from Germany. The Mosque is built on a site occupying 416,000 square metres and the complex extends to cover an area of 40,000 square metres. The newly built Grand Mosque was inaugurated by Sultan of Oman on May 4, 2001. Source: Wikipedia.

After the Mosque we went to the Science Museum, the last spot of that day. And after sacrificing 1 OMR per person & 500 Baisa for children we entered the Museum. The population inside the museum was dominated mainly by children. All sort of science experiments were described and concepts were given for every experiments. That was the end, we returned Bait Muscat.

Day11:Indelible Sojourn to Ostrich park,Nakhal Fort,Sawadi beach,Al Sahwa Park and Hot Water Spring

“Ostrich, I’m going to see today”, my psyche thought in the morning. On that day, we took only Yukon and now you can well comprehend the monstrous dimensions of that car for, we twelve peoples were packed like sardines. I, bunty, Ashie amma and Guddu sat on the last portion of the Yukon and as always, Guddu occupied the Benjamin’s portion again 🙂

“How fat he is….and how much more weight he’ll gain in future…”, my mind ruminated 🙂

I said, “Guddu, you wanna loose and I wanna gain, give me some and we’ll both be profited.”

He said, “What?”

Ashie chimed, “yes, bhaiya what ?”

I said, “your weight” 🙂

After covering a approx distance of about 200 Kms. we reached Barka Ostrich park and after making a nominal sacrifice of 2-3 OMR we were at the main spot where we saw 10-15 ostriches, some sitting and some standing in an irregular pattern. It seemed that some of them got up in our respect 🙂 “Birds resembling camels”, I thought. Cameras and other photo capturing devices were on high duty at that time. One ostrich became magnetized toward us and thus, we also became excited to see the world’s largest bird with an arms distance. Urmila mausi took out some biscuits and we all began to feed the ostrich. The snake resembling neck of the creature was worth looking. Then we saw some eggs of the same creature and that too we captured in our respective cameras. We took turns to click our respective images with the ostriches. It was a damn hot day and that compelled us to have a refreshment and after the break we preferred to continue our sojourn and thus, we rolled to our next spot: Nakhal Fort.

Nakhal Fort is akin to the Nahargarh Fort of Jaipur. After sacrificing 500 Baisa per person we made our entrance. Some ancient guns which were increasing burden on the walls of the fort caught our attention and we kids desired to have some pics with the ancient treasure. The scorching heat of the sun continued to our misery and everyone was advised to keep their gaugles, caps, hats on. There was no public on that day and you can imagine how solitude the fort was. Although the place was fab and I was enjoying too, the fort failed to amaze me…because I have already visited certain place akin to Nakhal Fort and moreover I belong to Rajasthan, which is famous for such forts in the whole word.  The thing which I loved the most was the date farm which I observed from the fort. So, don’t forget to climb a certain height in measure to see the date farm.

The third spot in our list was the hot water spring. The first priority on reaching that spot was to have lunch. All members enjoyed non vegetarian food and I, a turnout vegetarian ate curry. I was the first one to finish my food. I folded my jeans to my knees and preferred to luxuriate in water. I saw water running on the bead of polished erratic coloured stones. To my surprise, many minuscule fishes came to greet me and showed their hunger by eating the dead skin of my feet. I flashed my hand in the water and they swam  in erratic directions but soon they came again to provide me massage therapy, in fact, free massage therapy. I extolled their heroism. Soon, Bunty and Guddu joined me and then I thought to catch some minuscule fishes. Initially, I went to Urmila mausi and brought a plastic disposal glass to capture the creature but it was a damp squib. Bunty and Guddu, too were unsuccessful. I went to Manju Mausi and she provided me a  plastic poly bag. Ashie wished me good luck. I did which was not appreciated initially by Guddu & Bunty.

Bunty said, “abey, yeh  kya kar raha hai?”

Guddu commented, “bhaiya, aise nahi pakak saktey aap fish ko”

Now, I’ll tell you what I did and what was not accepted by them, though they were later proved wrong by me 🙂
I entered my feet in the poly bag and then finally placed it in the water. Some people near by the kept on watching my act I kept my eyes glued in the water. They were roaming in irregular pattern everywhere in the vicinity but none was entering in the poly bag. But my patience was rewarded when a minuscule fish entered the polythene to eat the dead skin on my feet. I rejoiced.
“Very good, bhaiya”. Ashie complimented.
“Very good”, Guddu chimed.
“Immediately put your feet out”, Bunty proclaimed.
I did as Bunty instructed.
And I became the owner of a tiny creature. My capture caused consternation in the mind of the fish, I assume. We all rejoiced. The happy news was also delivered to our elders.
“Its time to jail another fish now”, I thought.
To do the same it was indispensable to locate the fish in a safe place as I was having a single poly bag. So, I placed it in the same disposal glass which was first used as a fish catching instrument.
In the same manner I caught two more and was responsible for isolating three fishes from their family & friends.

Bunty then came with a bigger idea. He brought a rectangular piece of cloth and requested me to hold from one end. We generated a trap by locating the cloth inside water on the polished stones. Guddu was instructed to compel fishes to swim in the direction of the trap. So he ran in the water on the polished stones and generated a stampede among fishes. Unaware of the repercussions they swam in our direction and when the passed above the cloth, I and Bunty pulled the cloth up in the air. The collection of that endeavour was vaguely about 10-15 fishes. The captured fishes were then transferred in the disposal glass. Pratap Mausa also came to join our team. And with the same technique we again isolated some fishes. The technique was used two more times. Urmila Mausi proclaimed, “hurry up, we’ll leave now.” It was time for us to take a prompt verdict. Urmila mausi helped us. She transferred our hardwork in a 2.5 or 3 liters empty juice bottle. More water was added in the bottle. It was a fab felling when we saw about 40+ fishes swimming in a consternation style.”When we came to this spot we were twelve members and now as we are leaving, we are 50+, tremendous increment in the population”, my mind commented, personally.

Sawadi beach. I always wanted to enter sea water and my desire was accomplished at Sawadi beach, Oman. I was the first one to change my clothes, followed by Bunty and other of my family members. I was ready to enjoy and saw other members getting out of the car. “Snails”, I thought. I saw Guddu changing, and and to convert the same moment into an anecdote I managed a camera from Urmila mausi and shouted,

“Guddu, see here”. With only blue colour cloth, tied with the help of an elastic on his waist, he shouted even  more louder than me.
“Are stop, aap bhaiya, aise kyu kar rahe ho?” 🙂

Bunty joined me too.

“We will show this to your Omini Girlfriend  🙂 “, Bunty chuckled.
“hunnn, we will”, I chimed.
Ashie, who was watching the scenario also bursted into laughter. Guddu had no option, he was embarrassingly laughing and we were happy.
In small  different groups we entered the water. From soda to hock, Urmila mausi showed his concern regarding the our safety. Guddu and Tunnu were luxuriating wearing swimming gaugles. In a short period of time, all twelve members of our family were in the sea water. Our enthusiasm got feathers, everytime a tide came and collided with our bodies. I saw the Sun. The sky was tinged orange and the sun was beginning its departure. “Say good bye to the Sun….he is going  to USA’s side”, my mind commented to me. We found some shellfish clams when we dug the sand under water, with our hands. Then began the competition. “Collect clams”, was the proclamation. All of us showed true team spirit. Tunnu was among the biggest collector of clams. The collected clams were safely placed in my shorts for, I was the only one to have a pocket in my costume. It saddened me to same extent that I was unable to collect clams as I holding the responsibility of their storage. I said, “I am a truck, load your clams in me 🙂 ” When my pocket was full, I went to the shore and placed the clams in a polythene. I returned. Again the truck went to the shore and again he joined his team. Some of our members began their crawl towards the shore. Then I also tried to catch some but after collecting few, I got a cut on my index finger through the sharp edge of a clam 😦  I began my crawling too. In this manner we collected many clams. The first thought which penetrated my mind was to get rid of the salinity of the water which was sticking to all my body. It was a dirty felling. I came to know about the bathroom cum changing room in the vicinity. The male and female members of our group marched towards the male and female changing room respectively. We changed. It was a fab and fresh. Tunnu and me were among the first one to exit the bathroom cum changing room. I was out bare body but jeans on 🙂 And soon the all male members of our  family were out (except Bunty). Anand mausa was the only one who came fully dressed and the rest came bare body. Some came wrapping their lower part of body in a towel. Some exited in underwear. Mean while I helped Tunnu in changing his clothes. Pratap mausa, who came out in his underwear was changing with the help of a towel, tied around his waist. Unaware of the future ramifications, of the enviroment we were engaged. Then came an Omani man wearing brown dishdash(national dress for Omani men, anklelength, collarless gown with long sleeves) and started shouting which we could not comprehend, for he was showing his anger in Arabic, a lingo for us. But from his tone it was limpid that he was not happy with us. He shouted:

ماذا تفعل هنا؟
لا يكون لديك أية اداب؟
لك كل البلداء تتغير الملابس أمام أحد المساجد.
وعلاوة على ذلك هناك نساء أيضا غرفة تغيير الملابس.
تصل الرياح سريعة.
أو سأتصل الشرطة.
البلهاء.

He was more then 6 feet plus and with a giant monstrous dimensions. No one spoke to him. His anger compelled us to comprehend him. My imagination landed on the correct area. He must have shouted :

“What are you people doing here?
Don’t you have any manners?
You all morons are changing clothes in front of a mosque.
Furthermore there are also women dressing room.
Wind up fast.
Or I’ll call the police.
Idiots.”

He was still there and repeating his angry words. Now Bunty came in the scene. To our misery he too came bare body with only towel tied on his waist. But he knew what was the scene going on at that time. He showed his intelligence and asked my father, who too was standing half naked with only jeans on his lower part, to provide him with his clothes which were lying near him.

My father said, “Come and take”.

Bunty shouted,”give me the clothes, he is seeing me, I don’t want to come in front”

Father replied,”come and take”.

“What are you doing? Pass my clothes”, Bunty demanded in a bold voice.

My father while handling the clothes to him pretended to be a hero. He said, “wear your clothes, all of you wear your clothes.”

I whispered,”You are standing like Salman Khan, first you wear your clothes 🙂 “

Pratap mausa, who too was in my father’s club in displaying muscles, bare body, also made the inception with T-shirt followed by Jeans. By that time the Omani went. We stared starring at each other faces. Then came another man and said, “Do you know what he (Omani Man) was saying ?”
We said, “NO”.

He was saying that you people are changing clothes near a mosque. Moreover there is also a ladies changing room near by 🙂

I tried my best to control my laughter and all of us too, I guess. We began our departure towards Yukon. While we were marching, we recalled that anecdote.

I started, “Why he was worrying too much about the mosque?”
Anand mausa said, “He was not. He has many wives and he was worrying about them”

“He was afraid that one of us may impress any of his wives by his muscles and take her away from Omani man”, Anand mausa completed the hilarious sentence.

I said looking at my father,”Why were you standing like Salman Khan?”

To this my father had no rejoinder and he too bursted in laughter.

Tunnu started, “Bhaiya was changing and towel came out 🙂 “

Anand mausa joined,”Which bhaiya?”

Tunnu skipped that question and started another fake one.
“Papa was changing and two ladies were seeing him changing the clothes” :), Tunnu siad.

All laughed.

We came to Yukon where the female members of our group were eagerly waiting for us. We narrated the anecdote. They too enjoyed. Urmila mausi provided sprite cans to all the members. We sat in Yukon and drove to our last spot.

Al Sahwa Park was the last place we sojourned on that day. The park is located between Muscat International Airport and Muscat City Centre. It was already dark when we entered the park. Though tired, we began to explore the massive park. Guddu took me to the territory of park where there were some swings. We took dinner and relaxed. Since the park was situated near the Muscat International airport, we saw many Aeroplanes passing above are heads. Vaguely speaking, the time interval between them was not more than three minutes. After dinner, Ashie, Tunnu, Anshu, Guddu, Bunty and me went to enjoy again. We returned Bait Muscat.

Barka Ostrich park, Oman.

    

My mother posing with an ostrich

My father and Pratap mausa with the guns at Nakhal Fort

Harshit Chauhan. Date farm behind

My parents @ Sawadi beach

Me, Harshit Chauhan @ Sawadi beach

Day10:Bait Al Baranda, Muttrak Souk and Riyam Park

Mausin stopped the Yukon in front of  Bait Al Baranda. It was akin to Bait Al Zubair. 1 OMR for adult and 500 Baisa for children were charged from us. It was related to museum and you’ll know about the history, climate, traditions, geology,art, metals, minerals, resources (both renewable and non renewable), tradition of Muscat in relation to Arab territory and world. If you are crazy about the same then both, Bait Al Zubair & Bait Al Baranda are indispensable. After roaming the Baranda we came out and visited Muttrah Souk.

Muttrah Souq is one of the oldest marketplaces in the Arab world because Muscat is the world’s largest natural harbor and has seen immense trade in the age of sail, being strategically located on the way to India and China. It has been named after darkness because of the crowded stalls and lanes where the sunrays do not infiltrate during the day and the shoppers need lamps to know their destinations. The name of the market has been drawn specifically from the part that extends from Al Lawatiya Mosque to Khour Bimba where the place is really full of stores and stalls and the narrow area of lanes does not allow the sunlight to enter. The market was a source of supply for Omanis where they can buy their needs in the 1960s when life requirements were simpler than today. Most of the goods were imported, in addition to local products like textiles, fruit, vegetables and dates. (Source: Wikipedia)

We were there for the second time and in full swing to shop the resplendent products. “Hold your purse strings”, my mind commented to me, personally 🙂 “Life does not have a guarantee scheme…don’t show your parsimonious stance, you won’t get chance in future to be here….so shop with all your strength” 🙂 We made group and started exploring the oldest market in Arab world. The most notable part of the Souk apart from the products was, Bargaining. “A bit of India in Oman :)”, was my personal comment. So you can learn and save some OMR, if you visit there. I was the first one among my family members to exit the market and I smiled when I saw almost every member coming out with poly bags in their hand. “Come, we’ll take refreshments”, Urmila mausi proclaimed. I was unique there with the eatable item, egg sandwich while other members preferred juice. After having refreshments we reached the last spot of the day, Riyam park.

Riyam park is located opposite to sea and is admirable for its massive dimension. But we visited the park in the noon time and the scorching heat of the sun melted our strengths is seconds and this was the worst verdict we took. So learn the lesson again, always prefer to sojourn Riyam park in morning or in the evening. And I must appreciate the Omanis and their government for the superb maintenance of the park. We were there for a short time and soon egressed in order to circumvent the heat.

I f you see the white dome shape architecture anywhere in Muscat…it is The Riyam Park.

Day9: KM Hypermarket and Carrefour Mall

This will be a short post. Initially, I hesitated to post but since I’m trying to write with some personal warmth……… I’m here now.
In the afternoon, Mausin took us to Carrefour mall in Ruwi and there we find nothing unique. Anand mausa and family went to anatomize a lcd tv, but to their misfortune they did not find a single piece !!. Actually, I would like to update you that they saw a lcd tv. as they were before us in Mucsat and that too with a fabulous and eye catching offer, free sony music system on a purchase of a lcd tv !! But they missed as the INS Viraat population which was there on the previous day, utilized it fully 😦 Wonders of modern science never cease to amaze me and for this reason I began to anatomize the laptops and to my surprise I discovered that laptops were cheap there in Oman in comparison with Indian rates. “If you purchase laptop here, you’ll be in huge profit”, my mind commented to me. After shopping we came home and I made a proclamation, “I won’t go to India without a laptop 🙂 “.

In the evening, Urmila mausi took us to another mall, KM Hypermarket. But before that we went to see Tunnu’s swimming learning place. He, on that day was not passionate to swim and his coach scolded him several times. He said, “Shashank, four more lap….two more….”, and I laughed hilariously. “How difficult it is to do a work when you are not permitted by your heart”, my mind commented to me, personally again.

From KM Hypermarket, we bought many items but one eatable stuff which I bought became a butt of joke and gained popularity among my family members. I bought a massive bottle of mayonnaise…1 gallon was the quantity 🙂 and the it’s label said, “Sohar Mayonnaise”. Every member started pouring his/her suggestions and comments on how to make maximum utilization of it.   And that was the end.

Day 8: Radiant Morning @Sur Turtle Beach

Someone patted on my head, “get up, put your shoes on…get up, we are about to abscond”. I left my indolent slumber and was prompt on my legs. The clock showed me 0200 hours  I rubbed my blow and went in the territory where I was expecting huge traffic ie. in the wash room but to my surprise and good fortune, I discovered it vacant. “In approaching 15 minutes, the two wash rooms will be in great demand”, though no one heard, my mind said to me. I was the one who took the chequered flag. Manju mausi told me to wake her daughter up and I knew I have to summon up great muscular power to wake her damn heavy body  Somehow I managed her, to her legs. Though no one extolled me but I praised myself for that muscular task but there was Guddu who needed more power to disturb his slumber. He was lying on the sofa. I badgered him but failed  My future prediction came true and other members of my family wished for vacant washroom

One by one we came out of the hotel. Urmila mausi showed her anger and concern as her spouse was not present but soon her anger got abated, Pratap mausa was the last person to exit. We inaugurated that day early to sojourn the turtle beach. If you are planning to visit the same then make sure about the timings. We knew that the entry to the turtle beach will get closed by 0400 hours and that was the only reason we inaugurated that day before sur birds made their inauguration. We, haplessly took a wrong turn and after a damp squib we were finally at our desired destination. Navigator in Yukon and in Ambu’s phone helped us in our endeavour. I saw many other turtle fans waiting there and after making a surrender of 3 OMR per person we too joined them.

Then came an Omani men wearing anklelength, collarless white gown with long sleeves and a resplendent turban on his head. He was the guide who enlightened us and took the responsibility to carry us to the beach where a fortunate encounter with the turtles was awaiting us. We were allowed to capture photos but the camera or mobile flash should not spark. That caught my attention,”digital cameras won’t get success without indispensable flash”, my mind commented, personally again  Then we did dandi march with an Omani Gandhi  Surprised….In dilemma I’ll elaborate for you. Actually, “dandi march with an Omani Gandhi” was my assume which my mind developed during that crawl from reception of turtle beach to the turtle beach. Our Omani guide made me feel him, Gandhi. At that time he was our leader and we did as he ordered. Mechanically, by our respective legs, we made the inception of our march to the beach where we were expected by some turtles. Omani men, with a small torch in his hand was leading us and we all followed. It was still dark and I even couldn’t see the nearby environment or surroundings but could feel the noises of the tides. Initially, during that march no one spoke anything to each other. “Itni raat ko turtle dekh ne ke liye 2 baje jag gaye aur khas baat, koi chu tak nahi kar raha, Anshu tak chup hai  “, my mind commented to me, personally   My eyes caught a sight of a water bottle and that developed a thirsty sensation in my Adam’s apple. I took it from bunty and satisfied my thirst. Guddu’s Adam’s apple also got the thirsty sensation and he took the bottle from my hand and began to carry it after satisfying his thirst. I said to Guddu,”give this bottle to someone else, give it to Ashie amma”. He said, “why ?”. I said, “it is not giving the proper feeling…this bottle is giving birth to many other dirty thoughts”. He bursted into laughter ( Here,Indians will comprehend better, the reason why Guddu laughed  ) He, quite intelligently passed the bottle to Ashie amma and did not took it again and soon that water bottle became a problem  The national dress of Omani men was the only visible object that I could see from far behind. We followed him just as the followers of Gandhi followed Mahatma Gandhi in his world famous historical Dandi march, without much questioning. So, that march was termed by me as “Dandi march by an Omani Gandhi”.

We reached near sea shore and he (Omani man)  showed us a turtle. We remained astonished to see the massive dimension of the turtle. People took their respective cameras and looking that, the Omani mam proclaimed,”no flash please”.”It is  dangerous for the eyes of the turtle, don’t use flash”, was the reason given behind not using the camera on flash mode by that same Omani man. We then visited another turtle and captured it in our cameras. Photos, obviously were not coming clear and for the same reason some people started clicking with flash and for the same they were punished, their cameras were taken by the turtle beach authority. I  was also among them but it was an accident and not a deliberate endeavour. The turtle began its departure by crawling towards sea and I wished him bon voyage. The sun was gaining supremacy and within no time we saw the vast sky and the deep blue sea. Urmila mausi updated me with the best time for visiting the turtle beach ie. September and you should also make a mental note, if you wish to explore the turtle beach in Oman. After clicking several pics we egressed the turtle beach. We came to the hotel again to gain some slumber and after succeeding we made the final checkout.

Trails of a turtle. Pic not mine, took from some other source. See how honest I’m 🙂

After gain some energy and sleep we visited a beach (can’t recall the name now  ) The most notable feature of that beach was it’s fabulous blue water. We then reached Wadi Tiwi and statistically speaking, we captured zillions of pics. We did not enter water as we did in Wadi Shab (see Day: 2) but Ambu luxuriated in water  . Now it was time for us to leave for Muscat, and we did.

In Muscat, an Indian Naval ship was halted and we came to know about the same. INS Viraat and it’s importance got feathers  when we came to know that it was the same ship in which our nucleus, Pratap Mausaji used to work when he was serving the Indian Navy. ” An ex- INS Virrat fellow”, my mind commented, again personally. We glimpsed it from far and saw some planes, helicopters and many crew members on INS Viraat. A unique kind of glow embellished Pratap Mausa’s face. We then, took help of some Ice creams to beat the scorching heat of the sun.

We entered Bait Muscat and in the the evening, after church we went to have dinner outside. Bahadur uncle joined us too. End.

Turtle and Ashie Amma. We all remained astonished to see the gargantuan size of the turtle.

 

 

 

Day 7: Charlatan 1000 Nights Camp’s people :(

Afternoon, 1400 hours, everyone inside Bait Muscat was running hither and thither. “Take your gaugles, caps or hats and other heat resistant stuffs, we’ll sojourn the vast desert today”, second banana, Urmila mausi announced. Everyone got assembled in Guddu’s room to say a small invocation and after getting spiritually recharged we were all equipped to sojourn the land golden sand dunes. 1000 Nights Camp was verbally booked for 190 Rials for eight elder people including me and Bunty. Yukon, a 6.2 cc  monstrous car and Envoy was at are service. Pratap mausaji, the nucleus with his spouse, their children, Ashie, Anshu, Bunty and me captured Yukon for our journey, while the remaining, including Ambu, again making our group, a bakers dozen preferred Envoy. After covering a distance of  200 Km. we reached Bidiya and at Bidiya petrol pump, we satisfied our respective bellies by taking lunch.

Picture clicked after having lunch @ Bidiya Petrol pump with Yukon car & and person who is missing captured it. Can you guess who clicked it?

The surface area between the tyres and the desert sand was augmented by abating the air pressure from the tyres of both cars. Soon we began to sail in the desert sand tides. It was really an indelible drive for, my eyes explored the hot desert sun but my body was experiencing the cold of AC, as is was in Yukon 🙂 My brother and I kept our cameras on video mode to jail the journey. With the help of a map, which we downloaded from 1000 nights camp website, we finally reached the spot. Traditional kawa, coffee and dates were served to us by 1000 Nights people. Happiness were to be seen on our faces. We were as excited as if a financial bill before the legislative assembly in New Delhi 🙂 And my post of desert will be incomplete if I do not mention the ship of the desert, we saw camels chewing and preferred to have pics with them. Urmila mausi, Tunnu, Guddu, Anshu and I went far inside the camp to explore. But it really saddens me, when we came, we heard a verbal skirmish between 1000 Nights’s people and Pratap Mausa. Actually, they cheated us 😦 Despite of proper verbal communication and booking they made no systematized arrangements and moreover they demanded extra Rials for sand bashing and many other desert activities, which they initially approved within 190 OMR !!! As far as the power of my sub conscious mind is considered, I remember that person was charging 25 OMR for sand bashing per person or per 4 members 😦 Pratap Mausaji, my father, Anand Mausaji and Ambu were skirmishing with that bastard wretched idiotic character but he was rigid to loot us. “190 Rials for only dinner and one night accommodation”, Urmila Mausi scolded. While skirmishing was on zenith my mind said,”a bit of India in Oman” personally to me. At that time, Urmila Mausi’s perspicaciousness was highly extolled by all other family members. She said directly to that imbecile, “adjust all in 190 Rials or we’ll abscond”. I crawled towards Manju Mausi and whispered in her ears, “have we paid the currency to this bastard ? “. To my amelioration, she said, ‘NO”. I sighed. We were 200 Kms. away from Muscat and won’t return, keeping this is his mind he did not gave up the loot endeavour. But thankx to sagacious Urmila Mausi for her sagacious and instant verdict, we began our departure. Interestingly, that spineless worm followed us and while jotting the number of our cars said that we had done wrong to him. Now, I’m damn agitated to curse 1000 Nights Camp more….so If you are planning to visit the camp do learn lesson from our visit 😦 I’m not saying that that camp was zilch but would like to add that the place was perfect to enjoy the desert life but the management was pathetic. We, without hesitatingly activated our journey again. I kept looking 1000 Nights camp and within seconds it melted in darkness, dust and heat. Sitting inside the Yukon, we took turns to criticize him 🙂 Bunty said, “chalo kum se kum kawa, coffee aur dates to free mei mil gaye” 🙂 “Bhai, free nahi petrol to laga hai apna”, Pratap Mausaji retorted. 🙂 Envoy and Yukon were freezed for sometime so that we capture images with the vast desert and sun.

Freezed Yukon :)The gargantuan Monstrous Yukon on golden sand dunes of the vast and endless desert. I, Harshit Chauhan (in bark blue shirt, expanding my arms).

The complete group photo…3 families representing one BIG Family 🙂

The sun began his departure and now it was again our turn to again make a sagacious verdict. Returning 200 Kms., without visiting zilch would become abominable and it was then decided that we’ll stay in a hotel tonight and in the morning we’ll explore turtle beach in Sur. We took a break to have shawarma(s) and finally marched to Sur, 70 Kms. from Bidiya. It took some time to find a good accommodation but our patience was rewarded in form of a good hotel. And after bargaining, we hired an apartment with two big rooms, two bathrooms and one kitchen for 28 OMR. I forgot the title of the hotel, so can’t mention it 😦 While taking dinner, it was proclaimed that we all have to leave the room early morning  by 0200 hours as entry for turtle beach will close vaguely by 0400 hours. And that was the end. “One thing is impeccable, the coming 24 hours will be adventurous”, my mind commented to me, personally.

Day6: In Muscat, Oman

In the evening, we went to explore Lulu mall, just 5 minutes in distance from Bait Muscat. There was nothing unique there but one thing which captured my attention was “The Prayer Room”. Don’t get astonished if you see a door with a name plate,”The Prayer Room” anywhere in Oman. Oman is a Muslim eclipse piece of land in the world and in Holy Quran they are said to offer respect to Allah five times a day and that was a sublime indication to  me. “Highly sophisticated people, never take their religion for granted” was my savoir-faire for the Omanis, my mind comment to me, personally. My phone rang, Urmila mausi asked me if I would like to go for swimming with my cousins. I, without giving it a thought said, “Yes”. Making the payments we egressed the mall. Urmila mausi escorted us and we were there in the pool. All the little ones, including me 🙂 luxuriated the blue pool water. Tunnu got a fortune to show his ingenuity, for he is a splendid swimmer. The foursome, including me, Bunty, Guddu and naturally, Tunnu went deep in the water. Guddu guided me in the improvement of my swimming stance. Ashie amma and little Anshu preferred to luxuriate in one corner of the swimming pole where water was not a risky business to them. The pool people charged 1/2 Rial per candidate, which Urmila mausi initially paid. While we were in the water, the three sisters went somewhere in the near by area where some lemon trees were planted. They plucked green lemons and when I came to know about the “lemon anecdote” on the next day, “Indians will continue as Indians, no matted where they land,Oman, Russia or America” 🙂 , my psche ruminated.  After getting exhausted and a proclamation from the pool manager we exited the deep water.  My mother gave me one Rial note to hand it over to Mausi. I did as instructed. I saw Anand Mausa giving Urmila mausi a payment of 1 Rial, I followed him to do the same. She accepted the bank note from him but did not approved my payment. I increased my insist but she was firm and said, “rak rak Bittu, mummy ko mat batana, tere kaam ayange, keep it on my behalf”. I was overwhelmed into plethora of kindest emotions. And that became an anecdote for me  which I’ll capture for long time 🙂

Day 5:Silver Jubilee Jubilation

June 19, 1987 to June 19 2012, 25 years indeed.  Twenty five Years…..

That was the day when my Parents became One and holds, for which the reason I’m present on this Earth. The below few lines contains some lovely elements which I saw my Parents sharing for nearly about two decades. Hope you’ll enjoy reading….:)

25 Years of  Togetherness,
25 Years of Consistency.
25 years of  love,
25 years of Joy.
25 years of specialness,
25 years of Gala.
25 Years of Completion,
25 years of Integralness
25 years of Remembrance,
25 Years of Admiration
25 years of Gala,
25 years of Amity.
25 years of Inclination,
25 years of Attachment.
25 years of Desire,
25 years of Belief.
25 years of Fondness,
25 years of Involvement
25 years of Interval,
25 years of Time.

I was asleep while my cell phone screamed, “Jai”, my only uncle. I knew why he took the trouble to call from India…I ran to my parents room for two simultaneous adduce . 1. To wish them a very happy and prosperous silver jubilee anniversary and 2. to help my uncle, Jai. I did. On that day, in the morning we did not went out…we egressed Bait Muscat in the evening. When the sun(though we did not see) began its departure, we dressed ourself for the ball, at home first and then at Khyber Restaurant. But as I belong to a family in which every auspicious work is initialized by Blessings of the Creator of universe, a voice announced, “hurry up, we are getting late for the mass”. We made a dash to the church. All my family members went in to pay their offerings, I did not crawl in, and payed my respect from outside the church. After requesting for my wishes to God, I knew I have some time to investigate the surroundings. The top of the church was flat(I was expecting to be a dome like shaped), I noticed. At the cafeteria I asked for a cup of coffee and found it zilch, in consideration with coffee at GMC, but quite interestingly, I enjoyed making a sacrifice of 200 Baisa for the coffee.  The mass reached its end and people started pouring out of the Holy place. And after making a small get together at Mother Mary’s grotto, we came home via collecting Anniversary cake and some other stuff from “Muscat Bakery”. Inside the home, everyone ran hither and thither to make the  arrangements. A Cake, knife, a candle, a casio, a champagne bottle, two sprite bottles, six champagne glasses and six erratic coloured plastic glasses were embellished on the table. Guddu sat on the drum which was placed juxtapose to the table and Tunnu occupied the keyboard. Ashie kept herself engaged in a discussion of a song with Tunnu. Bunty was busy making soup. You must be wondering, at that time where I was, mean, What was i doing? Actually, I am not able to recall where i was sweating my sweat at that time 🙂 I noticed that Urmila mausi was dressed in an outfit which my mother gave just 4 days before. Here, I must praise my mausi for her intelligence and loving stance for her sister (my mother). My parents began the ceremony but cutting the cake and we all joined them. Some sunged.”happy anniversary to you”, Urmila mausi added,”happy chandi anniversary to you”, Guddu and Tunnu were busy playing drum and casio respectively,  Ashie and I,started,”congratulations and celebration, I want to tell the world that i’m happy as can be”. After the cake ceremony and greetings, came the champagne tradition. My father with help from Pratap Mausa opend the Champagne bottle, urmila mausi shouted,”hey, don’t dirty my home” at which all of us bursted into laughter. I opened the apple juice champagne shaped bottle for my cousins. “Cheers, Cheers” all around. Both my Mausi(s) and mausaji(s) showed their respect with a resplendent bouquet which they handed to my parents. I remember, at that time I was recording their respect with my camera. Urmila mausi handed me their handycam and escaped into her room, Pratap Mausa, Guddu and Tunnu joined her. Then they came with an object covered with a green towel. They handed it to my parents but did not remove the towel. Guddu, generating a dilemma, went below the object so that other members think that it is damn heavy. I was still recording the whole act and from the handycam scerne i saw them removing the green layer and there came out a Samsung DVD home theater.
We reached Khyber, one big table with twelve chairs were made  systematized for us and the the steward removed the “reserved tag” from the table. Chicken lollipop and hara bhara kabab as starters, were served. Beer and wine glasses were on the table. I being a vegetarian enjoyed vegetarian food while others ate non-veg. Ice creams with gulabjamuns was served to us as sweet dish. That was the end of that memorable day.

Day 4:Bait Al Zubair,Al Safeer Mall & Scrumptious Coffee @GMC Office.

June 18 2012. Circumventing the pejorative of the previous day we absconded Bait Muscat to reach Bait Al Zubair Museum located near the Ministry of Information on Al Saidiya Street. We sacrificed 2 OMR per person to get in, as a ticket. “No cameras allowed”, a voice proclaimed. It was noting but all about traditional and cultural presentation of Oman. khanjar collection, swords of different kinds, Art collections, coin & metals et al. If you want to gather information about the post Omani culture, tradition and history, this place then indispensable. You’ll get all sort of enlightenment and erudition @ Bait Al Zubair. Later I came to know that is was a private museum and once a house which later turned into a museum. The clock at the museum said, “1300 hours”. It was time for Oman to get motionless, we came home. In the evening, Urmila mausi took me, bunty and Ashie to a mall named, Al Safeer. It was just 1 km. from our home. On the way she left her two sons Guddu and Tunnu to their music class. She absconded us and gave me a 20 OMR bank note. I initially hesitated but later accepted it in order to circumvent any anecdote. It was also a nice two storey mall but zilch in front of carrefour mall. I purchased a champagne resembling bottle of apple juice!!!. We explored all the corners of the mall but I was too forlorn to consummate any verdict of what to buy for my parents who were to jubilate their Silver Jubilee. Time flew without any cognizance and i couldn’t fetch anything fab for that day. But we(me and my brother, Bunty) had already planned a surprise. Urmila mausi phoned me and confirmed that Pratap mausaji with other members of our family will come to Safeer to escort us. Ashie, Bunty and me, as instructed by mausi, assembled at the main exit. Soon we were at GMC office, Pratap mausa’s work place. We all enjoyed the prestige of having scrumptious coffee at his office. What a coffee it was…the aroma is still retained in my saliva 🙂 After coffee, he took us to have a glimpse of some unspoiled new cars. We remained astonished to explore the gargantuan massive dimensions of the cars. At the same office, we also greeted Bahadur uncle, who was also there in Muscat to serve the same company. Then Pratap Mausa took us to some restaurants to make a final choice for the coming next day. I don’t remember the name of all but two still are in my psyche. One was “The kabab factory” and the other which was selected by my parents was “Khyber”. We returned Bait Muscat and made a proclamation, “tomorrow anniversary at Khyber” to Urmila Mausi, Guddu and Tunnu, who were at home.

 

 

 

Day 3: Muttrah Souk, Barr Al Jissah and Carrefour mall

Antecedently the  day 2 was really creme de la creme. Now after visiting places far from the madding crowd it was time to explore populous dimensions of Muscat. We egressed our house and on that day(June 17, 2012), Mausin(wearing anklelength white collarless gown with full hand sleeves), another colleague of pratap mausaji was there at our service and acted as a guide too. We went to Muttrah Souk, the oldest market in Oman and found it on the verge of closing since it was 1300 hours, time(from 1300hrs. to 1600 hours) in Oman where you’ll find most places motionless. A prompt verdict was taken  to proceed to Sultan’s Palace, known as Al Alam Palace via fish market. There was nothing new there in fish market, we saw varieties of different fishes and that’s all that spot was all about. You can surely give it an omission. Al Alam palace was really resplendent was here its time to raise The Indian flag high!! Sultan Qaboos’s palace was zilch in comparison with The President’s residence at Rashtrapati Bhavan (India’s President). We only had a glimpse of the palace and did not pay our homage, another date was decided for visiting Al Alam. Sagacious verdict was promptly taken by scrupulous Urmila mausi. She used her senses to visit that place which was in motion at that time: Barr Al Jissah, again a 5 star hotel. We went in, Ashie, Anshu and Manju mausi preferred to stay back in the lobby area of the hotel as they were not able to beat the heat, and now you can well comprehend the hot in Muscat. Remaining of us went at back side of the spot and clicked pics. We saw the vast sea and some island shaped land there. My Brother, making it the list of  mausi, Ashie and Anshu, started shivering, in fact he topped the list!! Though it was damn hot but he was shivering, don’t know what it was but one thing was limpid  that he was sick and needed medical attention. We came home for our nourishment. Heat affected people took medicines and we slept. In the evening we left Bunty at home with Urmila mausi. Guddu & Tunnu also did not joined us as they were engaged in their regular routine schedule. Mausin was there at are relevance again. He took us to Carrefour Mall and while going through, he acknowledged us about the future airport of Muscat which was in the way. Now before i proceed it would be fab enough to explain you about the currency system of Oman. The Omani Rial is the currency of Oman with OMR being its code. It is divided into 1000 baisa ie, 1 Rial= 1000 Baisa. Various denominations for bank notes are, half Rial, 1Rials, 5Rials, 10 Rials, 20Rials, 50Rials(highest denomination). Coins include, 5 Baisa, 10 Baisa, 25 Baisa, 50 Baisa, 100 Baisa, 1/4 and 1/2 Omani Rials.
We made groups. My father, Anand Mausaji, me and Ashie in one and mother and Manju mausi in another. Ashie  and me were further divided into a sub group. Gargantuan, massive, tremendous, enormous, i guess, these words combined, can explain the size of the Carrefour mall better. It was really BIG. One word would would be insufficient 🙂 We perceived zillions of items of zillion categories. Individually, we brought many utilities. It was time to leave now. I took out my cell phone and it said, “OMAN MOBILE, 8:30 pm. We assembled at the main exit and this time Pratap Mausa and Bunty were there for us. At home, Urmila Mausi was pleased to see the shopping progress. And this was the end of that day.

 

 

 

Day 2: Indelible sojourn to Marina Bandar Al Rowdha, Al Bustan Palace, Sink Hole park, Quantab beach and Wadi Shab and Wadi Tiwi

As admonished and exhorted by our host and moderator, we, adroitly aroused people were all accessible by 0700 hours and absconded  Bait Muscat. We were running short of time and in computation to not to miss the booked charter boat at Marina Bandar, we preferred to carry our breakfast stuff with us instead of having at home. On that day one more person joined our group, his name was Ambu and was a colleague of Pratap Mausa. Including him, we made a baker’s dozen. Two GMC cars, Acadia and Envoy were at our relevance. Pratap mausa drove Envoy and Ambu, Acadia.It was a hot sunny day. The climate for most part of Oman is sunny with very less rainfall. Omanis and other foreign tourists experience the scorching heat of the sun, temperature reaching about 50 degree. I preferred to sit in Acadia and we drove from Al Ghubra to Marina Bandar. It was about 25 km. drive from our home at Al Gubra. I could not resist myself from capturing images of the scenes outside the car. I clicked many pics of the natural beauties of the city, including mountains, clean roads, greenery gardens and flowers planted on the sides of the road and divider. The thing of that day which i admire the most was the roads or you can say the traffic system of the country. Wonderfully groomed, tranquil, tidy serene and smooth roads were really a center of attraction for us. Ironically, these types of roads and traffic system is not seen in India. We made the inception of our sojourn by visiting Marina Bandar Port Al Rowdha, which is the main marina in Muscat in old fishing area of Sidab, between Mutrah Port and Al Bustan Palace. Inside the car we were perfectly protected and relaxed with AC turned on. We quit our respective cars and and the scorching heat made us realized the reality of outside temperature. Everybody was instructed to keep their hats/caps on. The sight of zillions of charted boats caught our attention. Ashie said, “Wow, Bhaiya, apan kya in boats me jaenge ?”. I said, “Yes”.

a view of charter boats at Marina Bandar Al Rowdha.

I, as always, could not resist myself from clicking pics of the gargantuanly resplendent boats. Someone(can’t recall it now,who the person was) said,” if you wish you can go for a toilet option as you won’t be able to grab the opportunity inside the charter. I followed Ambu to the toilet as i thought it would be an intelligently fine claim. I have only a vague idea about the rates of the tickets, they charged about 30 OMR (Omani Rials)  for four persons. We captured a charter boat and began to sail and explore the vast sea. The charter boat left the port leaving a “BIG Y” behind. I was informed that we’ll also be catching some glimpses of the dolphins present in that area. My father and brother, Anand mausa and me, preferred to sit at the end of the charter. While rest of us occupied the front of it. For about more than half an hour the boat went with splendid speed. The heat of the sun got reduced as the wind’s velocity and our curiosity to know the sea and dolphins got high. The sight of “Y”, which was generated by the water as the engine of the charter boat whirpolled the sea water to sail foarward was notable. And i had a fab experience, as i was sitting at the last end of the boat. I saw about 4-5 other charter boats which seemed to be in frisk and chase of something in the sea. Soon we came near to the area where the other boats with other tourists were halted. I was not aware about their halt and indeed wanted an answer to why we were also at halt. My desperate answer was given by a dolphin who came up for just about a fraction of seconds making a imaginary arc or small opposite “U” in the air.”Waooo”, the crowd exclaimed. People took their cameras, handycams and mobiles out to capture the images of the sea creature. We(including other visitors on other boats) all were astounded at the sight of the dolphin and soon we caught many glimpses on other dolphins too. And whenever our eyes caught the glimpse of any  dolphin, we all together said, “waooo”. After hours long journey we returned to the port but missed one spot, which i came to know from some other source when i came India :(. “The Cats Island”, that was the island we blundered and at that time nobody informed about it. You must be wondering about an island where cats dwell but i’ll love to tell you that not a single cat will be discovered by you if you wish to explore that place :). Actually i was informed that it is an island in the shape of a cat and that shape compelled the locals to name it “The cats island” :). Now if you visit Marina Bandar Port, don’t forget to pay homage to that island which we people calamitously passed up :(.

Chauhan brothers, as people say, me and my younger brother. A “big Y” is also seen behind in the water.

The next place which was ardent for our visit was Al Bustan Palace. A seven star hotel in Oman, only 4-5  km. from Marina port. We visited it quickly as there were  many other destinations which were to be connected. The paramount pieces of attraction at the Al Bustan Palace were the charming chandeliers. If you are passionate for chandeliers and its types you should not miss that and if you are not crazy for the same you can afford to miss the palace. There is nothing unique to follow and remember there. We made ourselves busy by clicking pics. While we all were clicking, a visitor of some other country came and captured our group photographs. She said, “one two three, smile”. She repeated the process three times using three  different cameras of ours. Thankx to her that we all three families have a group photograph in our respective cameras. I missed to see the portrait of  Sultan of Oman, Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said at the entrance of the palace. Guddu reminded me of my loss and then and there somebody in our group of a bakers dozen, clicked a snap of mine and Guddu with the portrait. It was indeed a respectable click. We egressed the palace and ate our breakfast, mayonnaise sandwich in our cars itself. I being a non vegetarian was given a veg sandwich while others enjoyed non veg stuff. Then drove to the next spot, Qantab beach. We halted there for only 10 minutes for capturing some pics. If you visit there you can ask the local fishermen to carry you to the near island. We were in hurry and thus couldn’t do so 😦 Moreover if you are beckoned to the sea water you can surely go in the water for enjoyment. I also wanted to go in, not to enjoy but to beat the scorching heat of the sun:). Urmila mausi told me that there is another beach which we’ll be later exploring.

After hours of distance we were at Hawiyat Najim Park. Myriad parables are amalgamated with this spot. Local people claim that it was meteorite which was authoritative for the formation of the sink hole. It would be here notable that  this park is alternatively also known as Sink Hole Park. That park was our lunch spot. We made ourselves comfortably relaxed and cozy for the lunch and after filling our respective bellies we marched to scrutinize the sink hole. The sun was at its strongest. Descending a flight of stairs we reached the destination. As the name states, it was really a cavity, a massive one, breathtaking and wondrous. Moreover greeny yet clear water added a feather to its beauty. I, strikingly my legs were fatigued(though i have superb stamina :)) and was the first one to naked my feet and pull my jeans up to my keens. Yes, i were to put my feet in the water for sometime as i thought it would be a natural verdict. Following me, other members of my dynasty did the same, in fact my father, brother and Anshu went deep in the hole for their enjoyment. My description would be fragmented and infallibly inadequate if i do not stress here on the fishes present in the sink hole. We saw zillions of minuscule yet brave fishes which gave us foot massage, removing dead skin on the foot area. I was stupefied by their hardwork and heroism.

Sink hole park.

Now it was time to sojourn the last place of  our day, Wadi Tiwi and Wadi Shab. We approached Wadi Shab and succeed. Wadi Tiwi is 2 km. along the coast after Wadi Shab. We preferred to enjoy at Wadi Shab. Prawns coming out of mud hole caught my attention and i made their family or i can say the entire hamlet angry 🙂 by disturbing them by my feet. When i marched ahead, prawns behind me, my feet became active and when i returned to my previous position they went back to their respective mud holes or their houses and the prawns ahead of me came out of their houses again to challenge me. Soon I was joined by my cousins in the act. Following the ceremony, our respective cameras came out :). We asked a local boatmen to carry us to the other end so that we can march our visit ahead. After bargaining he took us to the other end for 100 baisa per person. Now it was time to walk 2 km to be at sufficient water level for the enjoyment. We made groups and started walking. Few of us, including me had opened their shoes before and it became troublesome to walk. To pace up, mechanically i wore my shoes again.  We encountered many visitors who were coming opposite to us, after visiting the Wadi. From every coming tourists i asked about the distance left and water level present. I always got positive stock rejoinder. And after facing many detours and adjustments we all were in water of the Wadi. That was the moment of enjoyment so profound. “Mazza a raha hai”, i said to myself with certainty 🙂 Anand mausaji and Urmila mausi did not came in and preferred to relax sitting on the massive stones. I could feel the biting of small fishes on my body but this time they were not visible. Urmila mausi captured our pics. We, after getting wet came out and wore up our clothes again. The horizon was tinged red and gradually the sun began its departure. We set our face homewards. While Ambu was driving the car(i was sitting next to him, in front), i made a gaze on the odometer. It said “180”. I looked outside the window and found everything normal. I said to him, “can we touch 200″. He said,”220, not an issue”. He accelerated and now the odometer said,”210″. It was really a sophisticated exposure. After having evening tea at a petrol filling station we reached heaven(after all home always seems to be a heaven for ennui people) 🙂 On reaching Bait Muscat, “I must get some sleep “, i made a mental note. It was all that happened on that assiduous day. It was a profoundly enriching experience. A hectic yet fabulous and indelible day in our lives eventually came to an end.

Day:1 First Glimpses of Muscat, Oman

It was on June 15 2012, and we (I,my parents and one younger brother) were all equipped to sojourn the land of the desert sands, resplendent beaches, adventuresome wadis, perilous mountains…The jewel of Arabian countries: Sultanate of OMAN. The country is in the Middle East, on the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula  and shares its  international borders with United Arab Emirates (UAE) in northwest, Saudi Arabia in west, and Yemen in southwest. Muscat is its capital city.
We emerged at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Mumbai at 1700 hours to board a direct indigo airlines flight (6E081) to Muscat. I and my brother (Bunty) went to fetch three trolleys to carry our accoutrements, while our parents were making payment to the taxi driver. Airport-  certainly, a damn crowded place :(.  After waiting for 15 minutes the entry for our flight were opened and we entered the airport through “Gate C” and approached the Indigo counter which fortunately was in front of “the Gate C”. At the counter, an exquisite women (i dare not call her a lady :D), i must say an exquisite girl wearing a dark purplish-blue outfit with a small elegant cap of the same colour gave me four emigration form and requested me to fill them. At that point of time indigo people weighted our main luggage bags and told us to collect them at Muscat International airport. The weight was 67 kg.  Now we had only our four handbags with us. “We have got rid off our heavy luggage bags and they are still in safe hands” , my mind said to me. 😀 Quite easily with patience, progressing into various stages (security check, visa check, passport stamp, check in counter) which every passenger encounters, officialismly we cleared all legal ritualities. We then stepped in the pulchritudinous duty free territory of the Mumbai airport. The clock at airport showed me 2000 hours and i knew it was time to relax and enjoy shopping as we had captured the boarding passes to board the plane. My experience about the duty free section was awesome and if you visit the same then i must tell you that you can enjoy buying liquor, wine, champagne, fragrances, books, chocolates, sunglasses, watches, tobacco and zillions of other things. Time passed quickly. We clicked many pics. A proclamation was made by the airport people on the behalf of indigo airlines, “passengers travelling to Muscat through indigo are requested to appear at gate no. 7″  We heard the announcement and did as instructed. We were instructed to keep our passports handy, we did, and the same were checked to ensure that every passenger carries an official seal. One by one, we entered the plane. I searched for seat no. 8A,8B,8C and 8D and became successful. An air hostess present there helped me in my bid. My enthusiasm helped me to capture seat no. 8A, the window seat. Other passengers kept on pouring. Just as minuscule granules of sand settles down below in a glass filled with water, the passengers too settled in their respective seats. I, my parents and brother smiled on each other but did not said a single word. Happiness were to be seen on our faces.

Inside the Indigo, I(extreme right) with my parents…my brother clicked it.My heart was saying..Go Indigo Go!!!! 🙂

Outside the window , i saw variegated aeroplanes of different airlines including Srilankan Airlines, Jet India, Air India, British airways, Lufthansa, Air France, Emirates, Air Canada, US Airways, Oman Air, Turkish Airlines, Tam Airlines, Egypt Air, etc. Since it was my first flying experience, i kept glued to the window and was astonished to see the gargantuan size of the planes.  “We our only two hours from Muscat,two hours from Mausi,two hours….” my mind commented personally to me again” It was 2130 hours and time to fly high in the sky. Abruptly, I found that the plane has made the inception and has started moving slowly. Four beautiful air hostess, which were in the hospitality of the passengers gave some useful instructions but i didn’t paid them any of my attention. I kept meditating outside the window and realized that it can take off any time. Assumingly, the airport wished me bon voyage. The plane started running like anything and a powerful force compelled us to rest our heads on the back on our respective seats. I developed an illusion that the front seats were going to fall on us and within no time i found myself flying. I wished to open the window and say good bye to Mumbai :). Juices inside my stomach overreacted, for they gave me an unique experience which i could feel inside my stomach. The Scenario outside the window was really awesome. It reminded me of diwali, the whole city seemed to be embellished with yellow bulbs  just as some gold coins are kept over a black cloth. After some time i witnessed zilch outside the window. Air hostess started their services. I kept on ruminating about Muscat. The plane was flying and so was time. After two hours i perceived the same category of yellow bulbs scenes which i captured in my mind just two hours before. Yes, it was time for the plane to land. It landed and we landed too. I switched on my Vodafone, internationally activated cell phone. I was expecting some signals but to my surprise, did not appear. One Omani wearing white dishdash(national dress for Omani men, anklelength, collarless gown with long sleeves) inquired about our visas and passports. Since i’m going through visa stuff, i would like to inform that a visiting visa costs 20 OMR(Omani rial is the currency of Oman) per traveler. My mausi and mausa dwelling there had made the arrangement for the same. He(Omani men) kept the original pink colour visas with him and punched a seal on our respective passports. Presence of that men made me to think that we were miles away from India. We waited patiently for our accoutrements on belt no. 2. and after collecting, clearing all legal formalities egressed the area. I was expecting my relatives to come to receive us but they were not there and moreover my sim card was also not working. Adding to all this i regretted myself for not carrying Rials, i did not even had coins to make a call. I tried to change the currency from currency change counter but to reach the counter i had to wait for approx. 20 peoples who were already engaged in the same business :(.  And here you can learn a lesson, i request to carry some currency of the country you wish to explore. But things worked out for us, I encountered a good samaritan there and requested him to help me. He without hesitatingly, gave me his cell phone. I called mausi and she told :” sorry, stay there only we are comming in 5 minutes.” . God Bless to him. I thanked that person for his kind generosity. I noticed Arabic written everywhere, “Arabic: just some dots and scratches”, my mind commented to me. I saw mausi approaching towards us. Two sisters greeted each other. I handed a rose bookey to her and she was delighted to accept them. Anand mausaji, who were there before us, also came to receive us. We greeted Pratap mausaji and there was a feeling of satisfaction.

Mausi with bookey in her hand came to receive us at airport. Anand mausa clicked it.

We had the privilege to sit in a white car whose name plate said: “1717 HW”. Acadia it was, a 3.6 cc GMC resplendent car. We drove from Muscat international airport, which is 32 km. from Muscat, to Al- Ghubra. Anand Mausa challenged me to guess the speed of the car,(i with my brother was sitting far behind and was unable to notice the odometer) i guessed 70 but he announced 140 km/hr. We,new arrivals, were all stunned to notice that. Acadia stopped in front of Bait Muscat, a three storey building. Mausi and Mausa told us that they have arranged a 4-star hotel(Bait Muscat) for our accommodation. In the lobby area near lift, mausi called her son(Guddu) to help her by providing some information about the location of  the switch plug, to switch on the light. That telephonic conversation made me think:” How Guddu is known to this area….he even knows from where to switch on the light of an alien hotel!!!!!”. I knew something was vague and they were trying to generate an optical hallucination for us, and to abate the effect i increased my stupendous stamina. We went to the third storey and entered a room. They too entered with us. A portrait of Jesus Christ with His twelve Disciples, had such momentum that it cleared all my doubts. It was crystal clear that it was not a hotel(though i appreciate their endeavour) it was my mausi’s home. I must mention here that my mausi’s home was synoptic to a 4-star hotel with all the opulent and sumptuous adroit proficiency. While my parents and brother preferred to have an aquatic break, i adopted to anatomize the home. I went near store room and heard some whisperings . Then and there, one by one, enthusiastically, all my rambunctious cousins; Guddu, Tunna, Ashie and Anshu sprang on me and vociferously howled: Surprise Surprise Surprise!!!!! A voice proclaimed: “It is our home”. Their endeavour got a shock when they saw no expressions on our face :). I guess, my parents and brother were too prepared to not to react. There came an instant energy in the environment. We all greeted each other. My cousin, Guddu showed his respect by lifting me high in the air:). I met my another mausi(who did not came to airport to maintain the hallucination) and on that day she celebrated her B’day. She got annoyed with us, especially with me and said to me: “i was expecting a call, atleast from you”. Though i texted her on the same day but i regretted myself for not making the conversation strong. I blushed,she forgave. I went in the kitchen and said: “I am in Muscat and still i cannot believe it”. Both mausis pinched me. Guddu enquired me about books which he told me to bring from India. I advised him to cultivate some patience :). My mother handed all the love to Guddu, Tunnu, mausa and her younger sister, love including many materialistic things. Guddu was happy to see the books in his hand. We celebrated the reunion. We took dinner, my mausi remained worried about my abstainance from non-veg stuff. Pratap mausa instructed all of us to sleep early(though it was June 16, 0100 hours). He told we were going to visit Marina Bandar Port in the morning. I wished all members good night and good morning simultaneously. This is how that day went. :).

My mother(not in pic) distributing her love, Pratap mausa(with hat on), mausi, Tunnu(in purple T-shirt) and Guddu(in spectacles). Bunty is also visible. Guddu’s books in mausi’s hand got lucky enough to appear in pic 🙂

Before i publish my next post, in order to circumvent confusion i’ll briefly describe about our 3 families.

1. The Rawat family: They were the host. A four member team. Pratap mausa, Urmila mausi, Guddu(14) & Tunnu(9)(their children).

2. The Chauhan family: Here I am, in this family with my parents and one younger brother, Bunty(19). 4 members.

3. Last but not the least, The Singh family: Anand mausa, Manju mausi, Ashie(12 years old and our only sister, we all call her “Ashie Amma” which interestingly mean “old lady”) & Anshu(6). Again a 4 menber family.  (Singh family landed Muscat before us ie. on June 7, 2012.)

So, we were all together 12 members and represented ONE FAMILY.

Calamitous Parallelism

When the results of my final class of the school were declared, on that day (May 20,2009) I was taken by my friend Dinesh Lalwani, to a place, where a single railway line was made parallelised, just as above.On that day this poem came to my subconscious mind. While rest of my friends were busy talking about the results, I kept ruminating about that railway track and now after 3 years, I have tried to embellish those ruminations in the form of a poem. Enjoy it and feel the painful torment of the hapless and calamitous railway track. 🙂

We never twiddle,
we never tweak.
We never contact,
we never collide.
We never clash,
we never cross.
We never grapple,
we never greet.
We never connect,
we never converge.
We never coincide,
we never cover.
We never wrestle,
we never tussle.
Yet we share:
Ditto stamina, Duplicate strength.
Identical latitudes, Indistinguishable longitudes
Constant hot, Consistent heat.
Synonymous distance between us, Self-same displacement.
Correspond looks, Carboncopy leer.
Synoptic loneliness, Steady lonesomeness.
Same Destination, Similar Destiny.

The Alchemist- Paulo Coelho

The Alchemist

“When you really want something, the whole universe conspires in helping you achieve it”
The whole fable circumnavigate in the vicinity of the above adduce.”The Alchemist” is an audacious and cogitative story (written as fable) of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy,who like all of us, is in search for his destiny. Unaware of all the contingencies he takes the risk and travel in search of a treasure from his home in Spain to the alien markets of Tangiers and then into the Egyptian desert, where a fortunate encounter with the alchemist awaits him. Paulo Coelho has embellished the story with many provoking thoughts through minuscule incidents which Santiago encounters in his struggle. The book also lay emphasis on many variables such as positive invisible forces, wisdom of listening to our heart, dreams as languages of God, nocturnal cold, elixir of life, central role of every individual in history of earth, beauty as the greatest seducer of men etc.

Published in 67 different languages, highly extolled by the critics, the book was originally written in Portuguese in the year 1988 and has now sold 65 million copies!!! The alchemist has made it to the bestsellers list in 74 countries and thereby has attained the status of modern classic. What else you want? A book with such a brilliant record. I strongly recommend this book specially for people seeking their path in life. I completed the book in 3 days time, a cinch book, about 160 pages, with very less difficult words. The most notable feature of the book despite of OK type vocabulary was that it is highly inspirational and increases the motivation level from nadir to zenith, of the reader. Some sentences in the book will compel you to think how to go beyond the rock walls of perceptions, prejudice and conditioning to achieve splendid success and your true heart’s desire.

Rampant Bomb blasts in India.

I Remember a poem which my hindi teacher taught during my childhood days, describing the superb physical geographical features of INDIA which NATURE has gifted,

HIMALAYAS in NORTH,
THAR in WEST,
BAY of BENGAL in EAST &
INDIAN OCEAN in SOUTH,…….

which i was told , holds responsibility for INDIA’S SECURITY & protect it’s assets from enemies,
BUT BUT BUT. . . .
looking these rampant BOMB BLASTS in INDIA, I now feel….,
SHE WAS JOKING WITH ME !!!!!!!!!

Serendipitous

What a parallelism!!!
Without any meticulous endeavour, @ d midnight, when the clock hands join palms in respectful manner to greet India’s Independence, I made the inception of  the most distinguished, booker prize winner, booker of bookers 1993, booker of bookers 2008, James Tait Black Memorial Prize winner and one of the most controversial yet splendid book…Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie.
The first page of the novel opens exactly 65 years ago, and coincidentally I made the inception at the same time. 
While Indians were sending greetings to each other, I was lost in a story that took me accurately 65 years back. Was it a Coincidence or Destiny!!! What do u think?