POETIC RUMBLINGS

hi ppl. Takng a break frm my autobiography as i am busy travelling. Howeva i have made up a poem and here it comes

I lived a life of single ready to mingle
Until I met u at the Christmas jingle
When you walk past fore  
U usher in a freshness never felt before
U leave a fragrance behind
That ll remain long to remind
u are the most beautiful person
That I have stood to see under the sun
I might seem drunk
But the truth is I am sunk
In the ocean of Love
For you my dear dove

BHARATH-A 20yr Sojourn

CHAPTER 3
 After 3 years of schooling(UKG-2nd) at ARLM , I adjusted to the new place and people . I enjoyed my schooling @ cuddalore. Though my home was near the quite and deserted sea shore I did not like venturing near the shore. I used to watch only English movies in the only AC theatre over there. For some unknown reasons I feared the waves and never dared go close to it. However I did garner courage and venture into the shores with some of my relatives when they came down to my house. But I slipped and fell down and the waves completely overwhelmed me. I thought I was drowning but it was just a high tide. This scared me out of my pants and my fear heightened.
 
 My dad got me lovebirds from Pondicherry. We got a large blue customized cage for the two birds. I enjoyed watching them play around and fight among each other. Apart from that I liked torturing the Ants(Both red and black). I liked trapping them in transparent boxes and feed them with sugar and other eatables. I then poured water into the boxes and saw them drowning to death. With the black ants it was much more fun. The black were aggressive then the red ants and i used to force them to fight against each other. I used to play around with gi-joes which I had bought on my trips to Chennai. During my summer holidays after my 2nd standard I went on my first flight(Air India) from Chennai to hyderabad. Though a short flight the experience was exhilarating. Today after som many flights , that first flight still remains special . 
 
After 1 month into third standard, I got a jolter. My dad got transfer orders to move to Cochin. I was shocked by this sudden change that was going to come in my life. The fact that I had to leave the wonderful place and people should have saddened me. But somehow the joy of moving to a new place was more than the sorrow of leaving of Cuddalore. I packed my things and set out on a journey to my new residence. I forgot to mention about the vehicles that we had. When we came to cuddalore we had a customized maruti car with a wonderful AC and power windows making it one of the very few luxury cars in town. After a few years we bought a second hand Fiat(premier padmini). It was a car that was used by Rajiv Gandhi during his campaigning in Tamil Nadu. We drove all the way from cuddalore to Cochin in our new fiat car. The AC was so powerful that after a few hours ice particles started coming out of it during our journey to Cochin. We reached Cochin after a 14 hour long journey. As the academic year had already started, getting seat in a school was tough. However my dad managed to get me a seat in one of the prestigious schools in City. My school was Chinmaya Vidyalaya. It was a school run by Chinmaya Mutt . It was mutt formed my H H Chinmayananda Swamiji. We managed to get a home near the school. My school was in vaduthala. My home was in SRLM cross roads near pachalam market. The area where we were staying was known as Ernakulam. I believe Cochin was far from there. 
 The House we were staying in was a two storey house with a slanted roof which was characteristic of houses in Kerala. We stayed in the first floor. Our owners stayed in the ground floor . The birds enjoyed seemed tired after the long journey and didn’t chirp much for the first few days. My school was just a few meters away from my home. So not much travelling had to be done. Even my dad’s office was nearby but he had to go through a railway crossing which was closed most of the time which resulted in him being late most of the times.  
In the next chapter I will discuss about my schooling and the exciting times that I spent at cochin.

BHARATH- A 20yr sojourn

CHAPTER 2:

1991-1995

I had to undergo some tough times at NSM with the strict regimen in place over there. The bad handwriting that I possess, I have to put the blame on the teachers of NSM. However the times I spent at home was wonderful. My mama(Mom’s brother) who was doing his engineering at Nagpur used to bunk his classes and kept coming back to Vijayawada to spend time with me. I enjoyed the times I spent with him. Eventually he ended up discontinuing engineering and a part of the blame has to be taken up by me. Having toiled for two long years at NSM I moved out when my dad got transferred to Cuddalore. A small town with an amazing sea shore. I got myself admitted into the best school over there. It goes by the name of Arcot Rama Linga Mudhaliar public school. It was a school that reflected the sorry state of the place. Small rooms covered with thatched roof made up the class rooms. I resumed my schooling over there and started off with UKG. Those were very long days at school. I was at school from 8 Am to 4 PM. My home was pretty large and had a large back and front yard. The backyard was a regular visiting place for frogs and snakes. I was brave enough in those times as I used to roam around in backyards all alone even at nights. At times frogs managed to creep into the bathroom and I enjoyed killing them by pouring some hot boiling water on them. My neighbors were very kind and helpful. I spent most of my evenings in their homes. I learnt how to play carroms from them. My mode of communication with my friends was English and I don’t know how much they understood of what I said. In classrooms every bench was occupied by a boy and a girl. I ended up sitting beside a fat girl. I don’t remember her name, however I remember the nickname(Jayalalitha) that I gave her. We used to fight with each other and frequently disturbed the class and ended up most of the times out of the class. At home, my mom forced me to sit down and study daily.

As a result I ended up with some impressive report cards which I still preserve.I studied over there till 2nd standard. Since Tamil was a compulsory subject at school. I ended up learning Tamil. During weekends I forced my dad to take me to Pondicherry(now puducherry) which was around 20 Kms from there. I enjoyed my weekends at Pondicherry. I spent most of the time at boat club where I got a chance to ride a speedboat. It was wonderful to zip through in the high seas of bay of Bengal. For diwali holidays I went to hyderbad to celebrate diwali with my cousins. Celebrating diwali with my cousins was a customary and I enjoyed de diwalis at Hyderabad. For summer holidays I ended up most of the times at ooty or kodaikanal. Kodaikanal was a boring place for me as there was nothing over there for me to play or enjoy. Ooty was a place I still enjoy. The resorts over there were amazing and the weather in those times sans global warming was cool. I enjoyed the rides in the toy train over there.

Occasionally I made visits to madras. I hated the weather and traffic over there. However toys available over there were nice, my favourite being the remote controlled cars. Also I started off with a hobby and that was stamp collection. I also went for some tennis coaching though never mastered the game. I am not able to recollect the names of my friends however they were all very nice people .

BHARATH –A 20yr Sojourn

So far I have talked about general topics in my blog. Today I am going to start off a series of osts about me and my life. Hope it makes an interesting read.
I am dividing it into 3 parts:
Ancient Bharath(1989-1995)
Medieval Bharath(1995-2001)
Modern Bharath (2001-present day)


Ancient Bharath is a period which I don’t remember. Whatever I know is by way of what my parents told me.
Ancient Bharath:
1989-1991:

On 24th may 1989 I was born In Kakinada at a hospital whose name I don’t remember. Kakinada being the place where my great grandparents were staying. After a week of my birth I set off on a journey to Vijayawada to my home sweet home. I have been told that it was a long difficult journey in a stormy weather.

In fact after a few days the road which we came by was completely inundated. After a few months I shifted to an apartment where I became connoisseur of all eyes. All my neighbours made regular visits to my house to play around with me. Unlike most toddlers of present day I was fond of milk. This earned me de nick name of Milk Tanker.

My first birthday was celebrated in a grandway on a rooftop restaurant. All my far, near and dear came down to celebrate my completion of first revolution around the fireball called sun. 

 My second year was spent in playing around with toys and breaking stuff at home. I was giving my parents tough times. As they say idle mind is devils workshop. Probably I was behaving devilish. This made my parents decide on putting me in school as early as possible.

Very soon my 2nd birthday was nearing and this time my birthday celebrations were subdued because of Rajiv gandhi’s assassination just days before my birthday. As a result there was curfew and somehow my dad managed to get a plum cake and celebrate in the best way possible. This birthday marked the end of my jolly and free life. I was sent into a Christian missionary school called NSM public school. The teachers were all scary with their long white gowns. They resembled devils and I was petrified and terrified by them.  

This was how my 1st bday party invitation looked like:

"Dear uncle,

As i am completing 365 days of my arrival on 24th May 1990. I am inviting you to my birthday party  along with aunty and my sweet little friends at Vijaya Krishna roof top restuarant .

I promise not to wet your clothes

Note:  I do not like gifts 

Bharath Vaishnov"

THE ELECTION FESTIVAL

Its election time again. The banners are out, all roads are decked up with placards of different parties vying for space on the sides of roads. The netas are busy trying to woo their voters and at the same time their high command to secure a ticket for themselves. The people of lower strata are all busy going from one meeting to another earning the dearest thing FOOD and alcohol. There is no better time for the poor in India than in election time. It opens up a plethora of opportunities to make money. Every party woos them by way of money or morsel. It is truly festival for the poor. I am sure they must be hoping for elections to be held every day .

    Thanks to our lethargic middle class and biased upper class who stick to their own parties irrespective of the prevailing situation, the only segment left out to exploit is the poor. Its amazing to see how the life of people changes come election season. My parents stay at Anantapur , a place 250Km off Bangalore in Andhra Pradesh. Usually whenever I go home , I return back by cab. This cab guy always used to crib about getting no business in anantapur. But with elections at the helm , he is completely busy chauffeuring nethas and attending their functions.

    There are many more instances where people who were jobless are now juggling between various election works for various parties. The cropping up of myriad parties has done them a world of good as their value is heightened. The poor have become items of auction with various parties throwing in their bids by way of promises and perks.

    The alliance dynamics has brought on a new dimension to this already vibrant elction season. The various permutations and combinations that are coming up has left people in a discombobulation. The coming together of yadavs and paswans in UP-BIHAR segment is a classic example. The traditional rivals have all of a sudden forged friendly ties. This election for sure is turning out to be a colorful canvas. But my only worry is will this canvas give us clear picture ?. Come 16^th May we will get to know what the canvas has to show us.

SLUMDOG:A dilemma for India

Slumdog Millionaire won the Oscars. Congrats to both Rahman and Rasul for winning the same. It was a well made film and good creativity was seen in the entire film. It’s also possibly the best marketed film but the question is how did the film project India?
The moment I think about SM, the scene that strikes my mind is the kid jumping into the shitpool for the autograph of an actor .It is completely absurd and it clearly shocked me not because it doesn’t happen here but how it shows India in poor light. The film’s entire narration seems like the germination of a terribly sadistic and complex mind with the sole aim of satisfying the western idea of India – and its new found growth instincts at their cost - and it is done through a combination of illogical happenings in order to show everything in a disgustingly negative vein. The accolades of the Oscar projecting the movie as “the world taking note of India”. Is this what we wanted to show them? doesn’t a country with leading space technology, nuclear power and IT excellence deserve more?
In truth, about 65 million Indians live in slums around India and this includes migrants from neighbouring countries. It is a sad reality, and undoubtedly something to be moved by and ashamed of. But, taken in the context of a billion Indians, it is easy to see that India has a lot more to it than abysmal poverty and mindless villainy that the movie uses as a leitmotif.
In the past we were the land of maharajas,philosophers and sages. Now we have a new status. We are land of beggars, stealers and child racketeers.
So if a foreigner tomorrow asks me whether children swim in shit-ponds in India what can I say, for it is the image created in the western world.
Surely we can take pride of Rahman who is extremely talented and Rasul too. But was this the right way to win an Oscar? Danny Boyle’s film had brought some cheers to the foreigners reeling under recession and wanting to blame India for all their worries.
Director Danny Boyle’s tributes to the Mumbai spirit and the Indian artists in the movie has been generous. His career and those of the lucky winners will be star-studded. And as the flavour of the season, Bollywood itself is living its own “Bollywood dream” at the moment – of making it big in Hollywood.

But for the little Indian “slumdogs” who have given the movie its soul, this is a fleeting moment. For when the clock strikes midnight, these people who have helped create many millionaires around the world will return to their tarpaulin-roof homes, to take their usual place beside their colleagues, too proud and too dignified to “ask for more”. City of Joy has done little for Kolkatta (Calcutta), and Slumdog Millionaire will do little for Dharavi.

LOVE*

 
Tomorrow happens to be the Valentine's Day. It's a day dedicated to the goddess of love. Love certainly is a wonderful thing. It brings immense pleasure and joy. The feeling of love flows through all living beings. It's one of the few traits that can be observed in all sorts of beings. The interesting thing is this feeling can be expressed across different species. It's a well known fact that dogs show their love and affection to their masters in a very animated manner. Love apart from air is a pre-requisite for any creature. Without love and affection it's impossible to endure the tough challenges in life.
    When I say love, I mean the unconditional love(The love that a mother shows to her child) Unfortunately such love is rare to come by in this present scenario. As we get more mechanical day by day wearing different masks of expression we are also losing our natural ways of expressing emotions- A boon bestowed on humankind. Today there is selfishness everywhere. Every act is scrutinized from the angle of profit and loss.
    Even the religion that is supposed to spread love and peace across the width and breadth of human race is getting diverged from its motives and purposes due to some vilifying agents. People are fighting among themselves in the name of religion. Religion has become a medium to fragmentize the society.
    Much to the chagrin of our society, people like Pramod Muthalik keep cropping up who take upon themselves the task of moral policing and vandalizing the youth of our country. Youth are very important part of our yet to be developed society. Times have changed and so have the customs and traditions. Clinging on to the obsolete standards of society and trying to compare with the present day is senseless and flawed. Mr. Muthalik needs to realize that Hinduism is a very tolerant religion that has space for everyone and anyone. Our manuscripts are humongous and one requires a complete understanding of it to get the essence of Hinduism. Reading a part of it and formulating own opinions may prove detrimental and disastrous.
    

 
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