Monday, July 07, 2008

Even Faculties need Quota in India?

On the other day when I was reading newspaper, one particular news caught my attention. It was talking about introducing Faculty quota for IIT professors and lecturers. It seems the HRD minister is not happy with the OBC student’s quota implemented in elite institutes and wants to implement quota even for faculties.

I don’t understand did the minister lose his mind or is he purposely trying to weaken the rich human capital of India from within? The idea behind student quota for elite institutes was to let the less privileged children get quality education. At least that is what was communicated by the ministry. But, practically that would be impossible if this new quota is implemented. So the equation would be weak students getting taught by weaker faculties!

Now let’s look at what could be the reasons for this decision;

Securing vote banks? Just that? I don’t think so. Looks like that’s just tip of the iceberg. Something else is there. It could be;

- That the minister did not realize what he was doing, or he is short sighted? Now if he did not realize and created this out of seer imagination and without any actual thoughts, research and analysis wasn’t there anyone who is smart enough to get this corrected. Are all our ministers this short sighted?

- Or he realized but does not bother about a wholesome social enrichment? If he realized and does not bother about it then it’s more crucial. Is it because his future is secured so he is not bothered, or it is because he does not know his job, or he doesn’t want the country to become developed from developing? Is it a full fledged agenda of these men to weaken India in these 5 years of rule? Or is it some developed country has asked for it and did some personal favor? It could be also because IIT’s and IIM’s are considered one of the best in the world and some selfish giants did not like it. And these are the steps to permanently bring down the status!

I may sound like Sherlock Holmes, however I can’t help but think this way. I too hope most of the above is not true, what if they are true?

I am sure young students are capable of fighting against this, but is this fight only of the young students? Shouldn’t we join hands? After all we are part of the same society and would be affected some way or the other if this evil thing is brought to implementation.

View Srijata Bhatnagar's profile on LinkedIn

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Re-living the College days

*** This post is dedicated to all my old friends!

Recently my sister got admission in Bangalore for +2 and shifted base here. She is staying with us now.

In Karnataka +2 is called Pre University, which one is supposed to study under the University syllabus unlike major part of India where it’s under school curriculum. Therefore practically she entered college 2 years earlier than we did :-).
Initially I was a bit skeptical as to how she would cope with the co-ed college environment. She has been a Girl’s school student all her life and is known to be more ‘girly’ in nature unlike me. [Probably I was trying to be a protective elder sister!]. However I was pleasantly surprised seeing her being comfortable in the new environment, in fact enjoying it.

It is very interesting to see her enthusiasm for anything related to college; be it studies, friends, activities or daily incidents. Once she comes back home after the classes, first thing she would do is to give a detailed report of what happened in the college, which girl did what, which boy said what. Who proposed to whom, who is very friendly with boys, who is shy blah blah. To be very frank I enjoy these talks and get a feel, I am back to college again! These talks have not changed since I have passed college. I tend to compare them with my college days, and find that they haven’t changed much. Back then I thought they were so important in life, now I know these are all silly stuffs but still enjoy them and fall prey for a gossip even without my knowledge!

Everyday she would come up with a new story, like; yesterday it seems they were playing ‘Truth & Dare’. I got so involved in the discussion that I started asking her enthusiastically who opted for truth, who for dare, who said what, who did what etc. Later when I thought of this, I was laughing at myself. One more interesting story was a boy trying to ask for a girl’s phone number, and she was not interested in sharing it with him. A typical college scene and how my sis helped her to give a fake number etc. Funny thing is she keeps asking me, what the right approach to solve various issue is. And I feel amused at the triviality of it but still love to solve it for her. Only advantage is now I can solve them from the perspective of an adult not an adolescent’s perspective. For this reason I feel sis has got an advantage, she has someone who she can get genuine help from, where as my learning was all trial and error.

I am liking this new fascination and enjoying every bit of it. Thanks to sis I am re – living my college days. Wish I could have brought back those days again and had all old friends around. Have those silly ‘Coffee House’ sessions for hours and still have energy to walk back to the Hostel to save some money for next day’s ‘Coffee House’ session.

*** This post is dedicated to all my old friends!

View Srijata Bhatnagar's profile on LinkedIn

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Dasaavatharam – The Movie

I went to watch Dasaavatharam yesterday. Was not expecting too much from it, as I had already read review on one of my friends blog. The movie started inside a stadium, where Kamal Haasan – the Bio Scientist addressing a pool of people regarding a 12th century incident. The 12th century scene was quite strong and full of drama. I liked Kamal’s acting as the Vishnu – devotee Bhramin, however could not understand why a scientist had to talk about such an incident which has nothing to do with the rest of the story.

After the 12th century episode it suddenly returns to current time and shows a research center in USA where Kamal is a researcher. From here the movie turns to be a thriller, minus 12th century incident. But there were lots of lose ends;

- The date pointer in the screen showed 2004. Now if it is current time, why not 2008 or 2007?
- How the Fake CIA agent knew that the actual parcel had reached Chidambaram?
- How did he reach the same hospital where Kamal (scientist) had come with the Muslim woman?
- And the top of all, what was the significance of showing the Avatar Sing’s post operation scene and post Tsunami scene in the beginning of the movie?

Editing of the movie was so bad that there was not relation between a scene and the other. I think they should have paid a little more to the editors. Looks like as if the editors were not happy, and screwed it up knowingly or carelessly.
Last half was too dragging. You won’t believe I even felt sleepy for a while. Asin’s character was so dumb, she kept saying ‘Nan Perumal’ I think after every sentence! Even when they were trying to escape from the fake CIA agent, she kept saying it! As if nothing was more important than ‘Perumal’!

Some of the action scenes were more hilarious than ‘Shivaji’. I didn’t know how Avatar Singh was able to jump out of the stage and come back without any support! Make up for few characters were not very seamless, in fact they were looking pretty odd, like the Japanese, Afghan and the fake agent.

However, Kamal’s acting as the 12th century priest and Balram Naidu was awesome. Some timely comic dialogues are good to nullify the drag. Hats off to him to carry off the whole movie in his sole hands. He is a genius and will remain so.Probably my expectation from any Kamal venture is so high that it gets difficult unless all the crew is equally talented. After seeing Hidustani and Chachi 420 I feel make up would have been better. Top of all Kamal should have directed the movie himself, I am sure it would have turned out much better.

View Srijata Bhatnagar's profile on LinkedIn

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Is it passive petting or pure love, care and trust?

Both me and my husband (Aneesh) are animal lovers and always like to have animals (dogs, cats, birds etc) around us. However, we do not keep pets in the house as there is no one who can take care of them, while we are away on the job during the day. One fine evening when I came back from work, I could hear a kitten crying somewhere around the house. I was alert immediately and wanted to find him. Even after searching for quite a while I could not spot him, by then Aneesh was back too. We searched the whole area outside the house once more, yet could not find him. We decided to try our luck once in the morning as there was not much light there. Whole night we could hear the kitten crying.

We searched the area in the morning again, found him inside a carton box which was lying in one corner outside the house. He was trying to come out of it, as the height was too long for him to climb up; he was not able to come up. Seeing us he was quite frightened but when I slowly started patting him, he calmed down. I slowly took him out of that box, took him inside the house and gave some milk for drinking. The way he drank milk showed that he had not eaten anything for the whole night. Ideally he should have been accompanied by his mother, as he was very small. Definitely he would have got lost, or the mother would have abandoned him. After feeding him we gave him a box to sleep in just outside our door and left for office.

Evening when I came back, I saw there were 3 more kittens along with the mother just outside the main door. I was so happy to see the mother feeding all the 4 kittens. I don’t know how she found one of her kitten was with us, but there was a sense of relief on her face.


After some time she started communicating with me, meaow meaow! Though I didn’t understand what she was saying, I thought probably she was hungry. I gave her some milk… kittens also started sipping in from there. I was right, she was very hungry. Her eyes were thanking me when I served her milk. By that time Aneesh had also came back, and he was delighted seeing the new visitors. However, neither the mother nor the kittens allowed us to touch them. I expect that’s natural characteristic of cats, they don’t allow anyone to get too close to them, unless they are fully confident that the person is harmless. We kept the door open to see if they come inside and to let them know we were harmless. We just wanted make friends with them.



Initially the kittens were afraid of coming inside the house; however they started getting more comfortable as time passed. Their mother would sit just outside the door and the kittens would come inside the house, play with carpet, wires etc. They were obsessed with any kind of moving object, therefore would try catching everything which is moving. Once they caught my toe finger as I was moving it! Within few days they grew up quite a bit and became friendlier than earlier.


They are playing hide and seek!



This is called affection for your sibling!

One evening when I came back home I found the mother missing… the kittens were all curled up just outside the door. The moment they saw me they started calling meaow meaow. I knew they were hungry so quickly gave some milk to them, called their mother for quite some time but she never came. Kittens would not stop meaow – ing even after drinking milk. I wasn’t sure what the reason was, may be because their mother was not around that why.

Mother cat never came back till date. As if she wanted to find a nice caring home for her kittens and leave them there. Now all four kittens live just outside our door and come inside the house occasionally. All four have become so friendly that they don’t mind us touching, patting or adoring them. They sit on the carpet with us and watch TV. They adore us by licking and rubbing their face against us. They don’t stay inside the house but have become integral part of the family. We know even if they go somewhere, at the end of the day they will come back to us.

I am not sure what to call it. Technically this is passive petting, but I think this is pure love, care and trust.

Monday, June 09, 2008

Trip to God's own Country (I know why they call it so!)

I am sorry for the delayed post, actually was pretty busy after I returned, and therefore could not update it. Though this was not my maiden Kerala experience, this was the first time I was visiting the famous back waters. So had few expectations in mind… Planning was far better than the Goa trip, we had learnt from our mistakes (not bad I must say, keeping the track record in mind :)), had booked train tickets well in advance… still didn’t get tickets for Kanyakumari express! We had to book tickets for Kochuvelli express from Yeswanthpur, however the timing (Yeswanthpur 11.30 pm – Cochin 12 pm) was good. We wanted to visit couple of places; therefore thought having a combo package would be logical and opted for an accommodation + travel package for 3n/4d and got the whole deal in 30k for 5 pax.

Day one: Left Bangalore by Kochuvelli express (11.30 pm) and reached Cochin (Ernakulam) next day at around 12.30 pm. An A/c Tavera was assigned for our local travel for the whole trip. Hotel (Sealord) was about 4km from the station facing Cochin marine drive and had an excellent view of the sea.
2 a/c deluxe rooms were assigned for us. Rooms were very comfortable and A/c was apt for the hot and humid weather. After freshening up we decided to have typical Kerala lunch [including Karimeen fry, Hmmm Yummy!], rested for a while and headed for a Cochin city tour… Cochin is a typical harbour city and I found quite a bit of similarities with Kolkata! We visited some old churches, had hands on experience of the ‘Chinese Fishing Nets’, and discovered a snake charmer…. I was thrilled! Evening was for lazing around and bonding.



Day Two: We had decided to visit Veegaland (a water theme park), and left in the morning after breakfast… on the way, saw some nice rubber plantations, cute small churches, temples and a political procession! Veegaland experience was very exciting for my sister as she was going to a water theme park for the first time.
We headed for Kumarokom in the evening; it was about 2-3 hours of drive. When we were approaching Kumarokum, saw the stretches of back waters, I was very excited. When we reached our destination, we were told to take a boat ride to reach the resort. That was a pleasant surprise, we never expected it! Cocobay resorts had lived up to its name; it was really beautiful and serene. It was on the bank of Vembanad Lake with loads of coconut trees around… we reached there after dark, yet we knew a great view was waiting for us in the morning. All the rooms were a mix of traditional Kerala house and a modern architecture. Though it had A/c, the ceiling was wooden. We could hear pigeons chirping (not sure if this is the right word)!

Day Three: Morning was an absolute treat for eyes… around us was greenery of tender grasses and famous Coconut trees and in front of us was endless blue patch of the Lake! We spent the day lazing around enjoying the view and swimming.
Houseboat picked us up from the resort in the afternoon, and we were on the way to experience another spectacle, as we sailed through the lake we were at admiration of such unadulterated greenery, blue waters and local people… Attendants had prepared us traditional Kerala lunch along with Karimeen Fry, it tasted heaven (I am a huge Karimeen fan!). It took us about 5-6 hours to reach Alleppy.
As the boat needed to be decked during nights, it was decked near the World Famous Nehru Trophy Kerala Boat Race venue. Evening was bonding time with the family. We also watched some random movie in the boat’s DVD player. I still cannot believe that we had dinner at 9pm! (Usual dinner time is 11pm :))




Day Four: It felt really nice to wake up to the noise of kids jumping into the water and practicing water sports! We had our morning refreshments and breakfast on the boat… they had made us Puttu and Kadla Curry (No sure if I have spelled it right). It was time to bid good bye to the houseboat and check in to the Ayurveda Resort for some authentic Kerala Massages. After showing the finishing point of the Nehru Trophy Kerala Boat Race boat dropped us to the resort.
I must say I had never experienced anything like this resort, before. I felt like as if I had gone back the pre-independence time. All the cottages were made of wood and other natural elements. Apart from the split a/c everything else was made of natural ingredients. There was mosquito net in the room, not repellent! I have seen similar net in Jodha – Akbar! (Remember the song ‘In lamho ke’?) After relaxing for a bit we went in for a nice massage, then had some typical Kerala food and spent rest of the day relaxing.



Evening we were dropped to the Alleppy Railway station and left Kerala after 4 days of absolute relaxation. We reached Bangalore City station at around 10 am in the morning.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Goa Trip Diary

We had a 2N/3D trip to Goa recently. Thought should share my experience with you all. Here this goes;

As usual we started planning the Holiday last minute! Therefore, could not get Train tickets and Flights were too costly to book. So, we settled for Bus for Bangalore – Goa. Luckily train tickets were available on our way back (Goa – Bangalore). Then came selecting a good and budget resort; Aneesh (My husband) was very particular that we book a ‘beach’ resort and it should have a private beach. Hunt for a good, clean and budget beach resort started. As my parents and sister were joining us, therefore we wanted a whole package (A/c rooms for 5 of us inclusive of breakfast, a day’s tour, pick up and drop). After looking at more than 100 hotels and resorts we short listed 4-5 of them. At the end we got a deal of Rs 12,500/- for 2N/3D package from Estrela – Do – Mar beach resort in Calangaute just 2 days before our scheduled departure.

Day 1: We started our journey for Goa in Paulo Travel’s A/c sleeper Volvo bus. We already got various negative feedback from our friends on their buses, therefore was not sure what to expect. The bus we were shown on our arrival didn’t have an A/c and it was not Volvo definitely! We were wondering what to do, the representative told us it was not our bus, and we were relieved hearing this. The bus which was supposed to carry us looked good from outside. However, when we went inside we found space was very less inside for walking and moving around. Also, it was 2+2 sleeper unlike the usual KPN 2+1 sleeper. It was not so clean, we could see layers of dust on the windows, curtains were dirty, A/c was not on, and therefore it was suffocating. Just before leaving they switched on the A/c, half the regulators were not working properly, therefore either it was too hot, or too cold. They didn’t give blankets by default; we had to pay 50 bucks for each blanket we took. We left Bangalore at around 10 pm and reached Goa next day afternoon around 12pm.

Our resort pick up was awaiting us in the bus stand and it took us 20 mins to reach resort from Panjim Bus stand. On our arrival we were served nice cold lemon juice, which acted as energizer. We were allotted 2 rooms as per promise. Rooms were very nice; all had milky white bead sheets and soft white blankets. The A/c was quite strong and it felt really nice as we didn’t have a good journey and it was hot and humid outside. We freshened up, had lunch and decided to rest for a while. In the evening we went out to the beach (5 mins walk from our rooms), witnessed a lovely sunset, spend time walking on the soft sand, enjoyed some water sports. After dark we sat on the beach with a glass of ‘Fenny’ and casual chit chat. Thought this was the best time I have ever spent with Family. We were in the beach till late in the night. Finally we decided it was time to go to bed.







Day 2: As we had a whole day’s city tour to avail, we choose to utilize it. We were told to be ready by 8.30 am sharp as it was a group tour and we had to catch a bus from the main road (5 mins drive). After having a nice breakfast the car dropped us till the bus stand. The bus came in about 5 mins and we were on our way to South Goa tour. It was a hot and humid day and we were in a non A/c bus, therefore it was a bit tough to sit through the ride. However, we got accustomed to the heat in a while and were enjoying every bit of the journey. Our first destination was Miramar beach in Panjim, and then we headed for Old Goa St Francis Xavier Church and Basilica. Apparently the Church in the biggest in Asia, can hold 30 weddings together! I was a bit disappointed though, as we were not taken to the ghost village in Old Goa which was deserted after recurring outbreaks of epidemics like cholera and malaria in 1843.





After this we went to see couple of temples, the Mangeshi temple (Siva temple) and Santha Durga temple. Both had a strong Portuguese touch in the design. We had lunch at a very ordinary restaurant on the way to Ancestral Goa village. This is a village which has about 30 houses made in early Portuguese style, out of which one is conserved for tourists. It was amazing to experience the way they led their lives.





Our next destination was Colva beach which in South Goa (Margaon). I didn’t like this beach, as it was dirty and too crowded; this beach reminded me of Marina beach, Chennai. I thought it was overtly commercialized. We had to spend 1 hour here, in the mid of a very hot afternoon (3.30 – 4.30 pm)! I thought this was ridiculous! We didn’t enjoy this halt; luckily we found a shade and sat there without bothering to go to the beach.




Our last destination was Panjim, for a boat ride in the Mandovi River. This was the BEST part of the entire day’s tour, timing of the ride was perfect, the sun was setting, there was a nice breeze and there were live performances by the locals to top it all! We loved it.





We got dropped at our respective resorts after this. Rest of the evening we spent lazily in the beach, enjoying the sea and the pleasant breeze.

Day 3: We had our return tickets booked from Vasco in the afternoon, which is about 55 km from Calangaute beach. However, we were not game for a lazy morning. We planned to do water sports, therefore left the resort after a early breakfast. He decision proved to be right, and we had a good experience of water scooter rides, Para sailing and boat cruise in the mid sea. In fact we got little late for check out as well, however the guys in the resort were very accommodating.





Finally, it was time to bid goodbye to Goa and we found ourselves sitting in the train suddenly. I was very sad, however when I had a view of Goa, its beaches and the western ghats in the light of setting sun, all sadness disappeared. We reached Yaswathpur station around 7am next morning, and it was time to go back to the daily routine.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

What a great traffic and civic sense Bangalore crowd has!

Date: 4th April 2008

Here goes another nice example of worst traffic sense of Bangalore drivers. This happened today in the morning on my way to office. I come from Queens Road and usually hit Cubbon Road from Minsk Square. Therefore I need to take left which is ‘Free Left’. Usually other cars/autos/two wheelers, those who want to go towards Kasturba road, clog up the space which I have got used to now. However, there was a BUS in front of me today, and he was indicating he wants to turn left, so I had to wait for the traffic signal to turn green. Once the traffic signal turned green, this bus goes to the extreme left of the road, and then suddenly cuts right! Actually he wanted to go towards Kastuba Road, but was showing left indicator, so the vehicles which wanted to go left didn’t honk him!

Date: 2nd April 2008

This is first time I have experienced something like this in my whole life. I have stayed in cities like Kolkata (for 4 years) and Chennai (for 5 years), however never seen or experienced something like this ever.

The story goes like this: I was waiting in Doordarshan junction, (those who are not aware this junction, it’s a T junction, all the approaching roads are narrow) to turn to my left. Signal was RED, and my indicator was on. As I had to turn left, therefore I was standing very close to the footpath. There was about 15 inches gap between the footpath and my car. Suddenly I noticed a two wheeler trying to sneak through that 15 inches space! I was quite confident he can’t pass through that space, and was watching him keenly.
What I saw after this was a seer spectacle, I was in utter shock! So, this guy with a FAT aunty as pillion was trying to slip through that space … my car’s left rear view mirror was blocking him. But, he was in real hurry, I must say! To my surprise he promptly closed the mirror and zoomed through! Not even bothering to look back when I objected! As if this was not enough, he also jumped Signal… Now I am wondering with these kinds of riders on the road how TOI will ever be able to ‘Unlock’ Bangalore?

Friday, March 28, 2008

Holi celebrations 2008

Holi, a festival of colour, always had a special place in my heart. I loved the festival since childhood, and made sure I never missed a single Holi. I have so many remembrances associated with it.

As a kid my only aim was to put colors on a clean person and make him/her part of us. When I grew up as teenager, saw there were other attributes attached to it as well. I remember guys used to plan how they would smear color on the girl they like, as girls used to plan how to get away without color smeared on their face. People used to eagerly wait for Holi so that they can come closer to his/her beloved and have prank filled fun time. Even those who didn’t have crush on anyone played and enjoyed Holi with friends.

As adults we became a bit more cautious about Holi and along with the above excuses came more seriousness associated along with it. We stopped forcing someone from applying colors and didn’t do those children like acts. However, we still loved the festival. And then came the days where we stopped actively participating in the festivities and became silent lover.



This time was I think after long 3-4 years I played Holi. Though this was nowhere close to the old festivities, I enjoyed my active participation. It was such a refreshing and lovely feeling. I felt I was in back in my childhood. It was a great feeling playing with colors.

I hope every year I am able to celebrate the festivities in much better way.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Route to a noise pollution free world?

Yesterday while roaming around in Commercial Street, saw a bunch of mute individuals talking among themselves. That actually made me conscious of the amount of noise around me. Suddenly I realized there were too many people talking, chit chatting and bargaining as loud as they can, including me and my partner. Everyone was speaking loud because they wanted to make their voice heard to their companion, the shop keeper etc, which threaten to get unheard because of the already loud noise that prevailed.

When I looked back at them closely, I was surprised to see neither they were anxious or annoyed by the noise around them, nor were they tensed of getting unheard! They were very calmly talking to each other without even contributing to the noise around. They were able to communicate as effectively as we do that too without being heard by others who need not hear them.

I was thinking what if everyone in this world would have been mute? What if none of could speak or listen? World would have been saved from noise pollution and other side effects of it! Each one of us would have been so calm and clear while talking to others. We could have made our point clear to the person, just to whom we wanted to. We didn’t need to let the whole world know what we want to tell an individual.

To top it all, we would never know what a scream is! We would never know how annoying it is when someone honks persistently on the road! What a loud speaker is all about! What it feels when we hear something we are not supposed to!

Monday, March 10, 2008

What a great weekend it was!

It was a great weekend....after a long time had a good, relaxing weekend. Saturday was lazy day. Whole day i was busy watching Jodhaa Akbar over and over again. You must be feeling heights of joblessness....yes, it was! But, nothing feels so great when you try to find a flaw in such a nicely made movie. Whole afternoon i slept through, evening was time for having some nice chaats....Panipuri being the flavour of the day. Evening i went out, had a lazy evening drive....by the time i got back it was time to sleep :)

Sunday was no different.....got up pretty late, after having a late breakfast watched couple of movies in the afternoon and evening, went on to relax and read some casual stuff....

Coming back to office after a relaxing weekend like this, it feels so good...i feel more charged up and ready to jump into the weekly grind :)