Sab Maya Hai

The Swami Vivekananda book is a DAMN interesting read. May not be easy for most to accept or even practise, but for those who can...it works as a shining beacon in the darkness.

I also realized that I have been sub-consciously following most of the principles laid down there. Seems eerie? I would rather say that it's only because it's so logical.

SV has talked about priniciples such as 'work' and 'un-attachment' in such lucid terms and with such reasoning, that it is hard not to accept the values propounded.

Planning to carry it to office and read it between breaks. Oh did I mention that I am working this Sat/Sun? :(

I have so many things to say, but they all seem so bloody inconsequential.

Back In Blue

I have wanted to do this for a long time, and I finally managed to get it done today. So hey, here's the 'new' layout of the blog. Back in blue.

A coupla weeks ago, we celebrated Arya's birthday. That's when Vikram got his digicam (Canon Powershot A80) along. It's a fairly nice thing, and that's when I decided to buy the Powershot A95.

The pics from that day (April 9th) are here.

Discovery of the week has been Michael Kamen. The first time I heard of this guy was when Metallica released S & M - a recording of their duet with the San Francisco Symphony. The latter was conducted by Kamen.

Some time later, I watched Lethal Weapon 2 (the one starring Patsy Kensit as the pretty South African). Throughout the movie, I was struck by the fabulous, mellow blues guitar that accompanied most of the scenes. When the movie ended (and I make it a point to watch the credits - crazy huh? Some of the best music happens during the credits... You Could Be Mine at the end of T2, Sway in Shall We Dance.. the list goes on), I was pleasantly surprised to see that my good friend Eric Clapton had done the score alongwith the said Michael Kamen.

And then, on Sunday night I decided to look up the guy. The first thing I found was his official site. And it declared that Michael Kamen left us in 2003.

The man's a marvel. He's composed for some amazing movies - Band of Brothers, Die Hard, X-Men, the Lethal Weapon series... just to name a few. The sucker for OSTs that I am, I intend to get my hands on as much of his work as possible. Especially, his work with Eric Clapton (also heard in the BBC's Edge of Darkness). I have seen very few people with such an all encompassing command over music.

Gels so much with my own goal of knowing everything about everything.

Jewels In The Dust

It was quite a seedy looking outfit, this shop. No different from any traditional raddiwaala that you often encounter on Mumbai roads. The typical heap of Alistair Macleans, John Grishams, Robert Ludlums and of course Harold Robbins (and all their clones) formed the facade of this non-descript tenement.

A few 'readers' stood outside, picking up books while stealing glances at the scantily clad women on the covers of Gladrags and Cosmo magazines that hung from the 'clothes line'.

I sidestepped a stack of newspapers and ventured carefully inside. A rat kept pace with me, scurrying over the shelves of 'thrillers' that lined the walls. I made towards the stack of books rotting in a forgotten corner, covered with that fine layer of dust that you find only on memories.

I spent the better part of an hour rummaging through the stacks of books, drawing back occasionally whenever my back started worrying me too much. I had selected two books when the shopkeeper noticed my interest and materialized himself next to me.

"Carlo ka book hai hamare paas" (We have Carlo's book), he muttered excitedly. With a will, he set himself to task, going through the motley collection for Carlo's book. Shortly, he stood up triumphantly holding the volume in question.

"Didn't I tell you?"', he beamed. I nodded in agreement.

"How much for these?", I asked, motioning towards the books I had selected. Arya had also finished browsing through the books meanwhile.

The man did a rough calculation and came up with a figure. It really was pointless to haggle, though we did give it a shot. The man acquiesced and gave us a 10% discount. As we fished out our wallets to pay him, he said "I reduced it so much because you young boys are reading good books. All that young people want to read nowadays are these", he motioned towards the hacks and magazines. "They have lost interest in dharmik (religious/spiritual) books". He laughed in the direction of Arya's younger brother who was accompanying us and was already turning a shade red.

"Ever since I opened this shop eight years ago, this old man visits me. He has bought over a lakh rupees worth of books already". There was pride in his voice as he continued, "This man has opened a small library in his village for other old people to read and pass their time. It's always good to give books to such people", he concluded.

"Where are you from?", I asked. "From the earthquake torn part of Gujarat, but I was born and brought up here." The conversation continued. "I got married years ago but we couldn't have children. I spent lakhs of rupees on all kinds of tests, I went to doctors and pandits alike, but they could not help me. After the earthquake, my sister gave birth to their seventh child - a daughter. They had no money for her upkeep so I decided to adopt her. I got it done from the court and she came to my house when she was 3 months old. Now she is 4 and a half years old." The man's smile said everything, as he told us how precocious and intelligent she was.

"That was the only time I went to Gujarat", he concluded.

"Ah, we are planning to visit Dwarka", I mentioned.

"You must also visit Somnath then", he ventured. We nodded our heads in agreement. There was not much point in talking about i-Divine to him right then.

Keep such books aside when you find them', I told him, referring to the dharmik books. 'We will come again', promised Arya. "Yes, yes!" our man said happily.

"More books!", my mom was aghast. "Oh they are excellent books!", I replied as I displayed the spoils of the day - Selections from the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, The Poetry of Robert Frost (in mint condition!!!) and Karl Marx' Das Kapital (English edition). "Good choice, but how much did you pay for them?", she enquired.

"Rs.150", I smiled.

Unexpectedly Spiritual - The Aurangabad Trip

Our trip to Aurangabad started on a rather eventful note. We decided to have dinner at R-Mall in Mulund and some shopping for travel items before that. As we were leaving, we saw a commotion around Big Bazaar. Soon, the familiar white smoke (so significant of an electrical fire) wafted into view and pandemonium broke out. Arya and I calmly munched on a paneer frankie roll as some people ran about, ran down while security guards watched dumb founded. The fire engines arrived as we left the premises. More details on that here.

We caught the 2230 bus for Aurangabad from Thane. The seats were plush and comfortable. We also watched a cheap quality pirated version of the movie 'Tango Charlie'. If it weren't for the fact that the movie was about Indian soldiers, I would have happily missed it.

Aurangabad and Mr.Rajguru (man-friday for the trip) greeted us at 7 am on Saturday. We had reached as scheduled. After checking into the hotel and breakfasting on cold bread-omlette, we bit into the main course of the journey.

The pics are here.

Our schedule was roughly as follows:

Saturday, April 16 2005
0700: Arrival at Aurangabad
1000: Start on trip
1100: Arrival at Daulatabad
1300: Lunch at a dhaba
1400: Arrival at Ghrishneshwar
1430: Arrival at Ellora
1530: Arrival at Bhadramaruti Temple
1630: Back in the hotel
~~~~ Rest & Relaxation ~~~~
1900: Commenced tour of city
2200: Dinner
2345: Back in the hotel

Sunday, April 17 2005
1045: Check out fro hotel
1130: Meet friends, move to Ajanta
1300: Reach Ajanta 'base camp', Lunch
1430: Ajanta explorations begin
1730: Back to 'base camp'
1815: Shopping, Tea, Leave 'base camp'
2000: Reach Aurangabad, Dinner at Rajasthani resto
2130: Reach Aurangabad station
2310: Boarded train

Monday, April 18 2005
0700: Touchdown at home, Thane

Salient Points
1. The water in Aurangabad tastes and feels very different from any other water I have known
2. The food may be of the same name; but it tastes very different than usual (because of the water perhaps?)
3. It's DRY and HOT in Aurangabad, especially in summer. The place tends to suck you dry quite literally. Dehydration is a potential problem. Travel is not recommended for those who can't bear too much heat. Also, better keep at least 5-6 litres of cold water handy!
4. The best means of transport within and outside the city is the ubiquitous 'Kaali Peeli' (black n yellow) three wheelers. They are quite cheap but not very time efficient. Good to ride in (or squeeze in?), if you want a free tour of the whole city.
5. I didn't really expect the trip to be too high on the spiritual side. However, I was pleasantly surprised when both Ajanta and Ellora provided plentiful placebos in terms of spirituality. I got solid and excellent vibes in the Kailash temple at Ellora and some of the meditation rooms in Ajanta. Indeed, I spent some time meditating in the latter. Also had spiritual discussions with Arya and our companions (though I was largely quiet and even got labelled as an INTROVERT(!!!)) throughout the journey.

Tips: Visit Ajanta in the summer. That way you get to see the caves at your leisure. The tourist season sees long queues outside the caves and you are liable to lose a lot of time as well as not 'experience' the rich treasures therein.

Alrighty then, back to work :)

Chalo Aurangabad

Arya and I were discussing our holiday plans and checking the office calendar when we realized that Monday is a holiday on account of Ram Navami.

The next holiday falls only on August 15!!

So we had to make the most of this 'long' weekend. And that's how the plan to go to Aurangabad materlialized, quite literally out of thin air.

On the way back home, we bought our bus tickets to Aurangabad. The bus leaves Thane at 2230 on Friday and reaches Aurangabad at 0700 on Saturday. We will then check in to a hotel and dump our bags there. That gives us the whole of Saturday to explore. On the agenda is Ellora and Daulatabad fort. After a rest at night, we plan to check out Ajanta on Sunday. We are catching the night train/bus on Sunday and will be back in Mumbai on Monday early am.

Hopefully, we will get to rest on Monday unless we have to go to office in the afternoon to conduct some more interviews for a few vacancies here.

I really need to get the digicam. WIth my meagre resources in mind, I have decided on the Canon Powershot A95. It's a fairly decent chap who gives me 5 MP with 3X optical zoom and also allows me to customize the aperture settings, focal length et al. Semi-professional stuff. Of course, I will upgrade to higher cams once my budget allows me to.

Alrighty then, see you all on Monday. Have a good weekend!

Wee Update

Blue Moon Monday is here and I am still recovering from a weekend bout with flu. Pity it ruined my Sunday. But then I did get time to lie in bed and read T Lobsang Rampa's Cave Of The Ancients from cover to cover. Interesting book this, with decentish information on Tibetan Buddhism.

Of course there are some who claim that he is a fraud. I guess the internet makes it really easy to publicize opinions with impudence, with little thought for right or wrong. Anyway in today's 'information age', it's easy enough for all and sundry to air their views and even make instant judgements and declare a person guilty without trial. Opinions have become louder with more and more people jumping on the bandwagon to have themselves heard.

Strange, how we complicate things for ourselves. Sometimes, I wonder if we have advanced at all.

Oh well, what the hell!

Here's one more.

And the pics from my trip to Konkan are here.

Snippets From Today

1. Bought a book: Business Management - The Gita Way, though I gifted it to someone.
2. Went to Prithvi Cafe:Had a wonderful evening as we munched on french fries and sipped a delicious, brandy-spiked Irish Bailey coffee.
3. Met Shashi Kapoor: Spoke with him for a lil while, got his autograph on the book as well. Incredibly dignified guy. Has a great aura about him.
4. Talked to a rickshaw wallah: Practised my Marathi skills and the conversation turned to family and he mentioned that his 11 yr old daughter was adopted. Spoke about how smart she is and how proud a father he is. I bought some chocolates for her.
5. Gave a lift: For the first time in my life! These guys were standing near SEEPZ. They insisted on paying but I didn't charge a penny... didn't know people paid for this :S They made good travel companions on what would have been a very, very lonely drive otherwise.
6. Finished composing about half of a song!!!