I have voted, have you?

Yes, I did manage to cast my vote (my first time ever) today morning. The polling booth was in a college right across the street from my apartment complex. We went around 7.45 AM to avoid crowds and the exercise took hardly 15 minutes. But of course there was a bit of drama - when I saw the voting machine & read all the names listed, I didn't find the name of the candidate who I had zeroed upon (after doing research through this very helpful website - http://www.smartvote.in/. Or for that matter names of any of the main candidates for Bangalore South. I must have appeared quite confused because the poll official told me twice - Press the blue button, madam. But the real question I had was - against whose name?? So I asked them - Why are the names of Bangalore South candidates not listed here? They told me that my Assembly Constituency is Bangalore South (#176) but my Parliamentary Constituency is Bangalore Rural. And all candidates from Bangalore Rural were indeed listed there. Why on earth do they have the same name for assembly and parliamentary constituencies!!! So much for all my research :(

Anyway, at least this time I made a progress from being a chronic non-voter. I wasn't very sure of inclusion of my name in the electoral rolls after submitting my application so late in the game. But fortunately things fell into place for me. Also, I saw a lot of awareness among the usually indifferent middle class - partly due to the awareness campaigns like Jaago Re, Lead India (and its antithesis Bleed India) and partly because we are tired of who we get as so-called leaders and in turn the country we live in. I am keeping my fingers crossed for a better India ..

TV Tales

I am not a TV person. I can live without watching any TV for weeks. When I say TV, I actually mean TV series, reality/talk shows or even TV news. The only TV I watch is when I have to catch a film (even that is quite a painful indulgence with all these hour long commercial breaks!!). And well, I wasn't entirely truthful when I said I don't watch TV series - I still watch Sex and the City and Friends every time. This, in spite of owning all seasons of both of them on DVD! Anyway, since I mostly watch movie channels, it was interesting to see that many of the movie channels have started showing subtitles for the past 2-3 months. I found it interesting, but soon realized that there was one hell of an editing going on in these subtitles. So every time someone says fuck or shit in the movie, it conveniently becomes darn or crap (depending on the context) in the subtitle. Ass becomes behind (for god's sake, behind?!!?) and words like sex, gay or lesbian completely disappear. What's the rationale here - we can hear these words but can't read them? What exactly are these people trying to do? Oh wait, I already know the answer - preserve Indian culture, right?

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Recently I have discovered that 9X channel shows old-ish (mostly 60's through 80's) Hindi film songs from 10.30 PM to midnight almost everyday. The program is cheesily titled Chandni Raatein but I can live with that. The songs are such a welcome change from the repetitive songs/visuals of new releases every other channel seems to be airing all the time. The good thing about these songs is they bring back memories from the past especially when my sister and I watch them together. Like songs from Aa Gale Lag Ja remind us of how Sharmila Tagore saved Shashi Kapoor's life by providing him body heat and got herself pregnant in the process :). Baton Baton Mein is a reminder of how I so liked Tina Munim's dresses in the film and had sketched her red and white stripes dress for our tailor to copy it. Then there are some songs that remind me of hostel days - aajkal paaon zameen par and pal pal dil ke paas used to be the favorite of those who had just fallen in love whereas karvatein badalte rahe and tumhein yaad karte karte were of those longing for their love...

Image courtesy: http://www.countrysidecodewales.org.uk/

Are you observing Earth Hour this Saturday?

This year's Earth Hour will be observed this Saturday, 28th March from 8.30 PM to 9.30 PM IST. All that needs to be done during this hour is to keep the lights and other electrical appliances switched off during this hour - at home, work place ... wherever possible. This would be our little contribution towards controlling global warming. I have signed up for it, so can you - here (for people in India) and here (for everywhere else). More information on earth hour is available here.

During this hour I am planning to have a candle-lit dinner on my balcony, what are your plans?

Update (28th Mar'09, 9.45 PM): The Earth Hour is officially over; I haven't switched on the lights in my home yet. I was on the roads for most part of this hour, so the candle-lit dinner did not happen. But I was glad to see many commercial and residential buildings in the city with minimal lighting - including my own apartment complex. None of the campus lighting (there are around 300/400 of them!) were switched on during this hour. Way to go, Bangalore!

Picture courtesy http://www.earthhour.org/

Holi .. Then and Now

Holi has always been my favorite celebration - mainly because it does not involve any religious rituals and secondly because you can play colors and have fun with complete strangers. This is exactly what we did this year at Colin's apartment. Since offices were open here in Bangalore on the day of Holi (11th March), the celebrations were held on the weekend prior to it - the 8th. And no one was complaining as long as it was fun. It was a fun Holi - playing with gulaal, being splashed with buckets full of water, dancing in groups to the tune of marjaani & desi girl, couple of breezers, hours of scrubbing ourseleves clean followed by poolside lunch with other residents.

The last Holi I had celebrated prior to this 3 years ago - I don't even remember what I was doing during Holi in the 2 years in-between! But the other Holi was equally fun which I had celebrated with Rohit, Neha & Chitta and which we played inside my house . We used everthing in sight - colors, ketchup, green & red chutneys and had turned the floor of my home into a slush of indistinguishable color.

All of us later scrubbed the floors for 2 hours, finishing two bottles of cleaning liquid and leaving the house cleaner than it originally was!

The First Step

All these years I have been one of those people who keep complaining about the system failure in India, about corruption and general apathy everywhere, about corrupt politicians and public servants. I have also been one of those people who have never voted in their entire life; to be precise about me - even after turning 18 over 15 years ago. The excuses (I thought of them as genuine reasons at that time, but in hindsight they really seem only excuses) I have had for not getting myself registered as a voter were many - I kept moving from one place to the other quite frequently (initially due to my dad's job and later due to my own studies and job), I was not home when the electoral staff came to enroll , the thought that all politicians are corrupt and what difference it would make if I have to choose between many bad candidates, and above all my phobia of government offices - I try to avoid going there unless it is absolutely necessary.

But the recent happenings in and around my beloved city Bangalore have made me sit up and introspect. Do we really deserve the kind of roads/drains/infrastructure (or the lack of them) that we have today? Do we, especially women, need to be told by some goon in the garb of a saviour of Indian culture what I should/should not wear or drink/not drink? Do people need to be arrested and kept in jail for days when their only crime was to go to a party to unwind? I definitely don't think so. And I definitely don't deserve a leader or head of state/country who does nothing except making long speeches, make empty promises and acquire wealth in kickbacks for the duration he/his party is in power.

So, as a first step - I submitted Form 6 at the electoral registration office to get enrolled as a voter. Even this small process wasn't very easy, but I managed to do it after making 2 rounds of the office (as we had not carried the address proof documents the first time). I hope they finish the rest of the formalities in time for me to vote in the upcoming general elections. And I promise to myself that I will always vote in future for the right candidate - by making an informed decision and without any bias. I also promise that I will never vote for a person with criminal background.

I have taken a small step towards being a responsible citizen of India today, and I feel happy about it. I sincerely wish I had done this many years ago ..

Image courtesy: http://www.voteindia.com/

To Wayanad and Back

So we did make it to Wayanad after all, in spite of some glitches - we left around noon instead of the original plan of early morning. The drive to Mysore was much shorter than we had anticipated; thanks to the new NICE road. We had planned to take the route Bangalore - Mysore - Nanjangud - Gundulpet - Maddur - Sultan Bathery - Kalpetta - Chundale. When we were driving through Bandipur forest just before Karnataka-Kerala border the landscape looked extremely dry. The trees were standing leafless and the ground underneath seemed parched.

But the landscape changed drastically after entering Kerala - coconut and banana groves, beautiful palatial houses even in the smallest towns, winding roads. Two things that stood out were these houses - in all kinds of color (canary yellow, sea green, orange, peach, pink, lilac/lavender, many shades of blue) and the huge number of gold shops in each town .. it appeared to me that every fourth shop in each town center was a gold shop!! What took our breath away was the magnificent homestay Serenity where we spent the next two days in utter bliss. Nestled quietly in the midst of 60 acres of coffee plantation 6 kilometers off Chundale main road , this 200 years old rustic house offered us all we could wish for ... and more!

Its rustic ambiance and earthy interiors were so refreshing, we forgot all about our the 7-hour long journey and got ready to eat & drink around the bonfire that our wonderful host Reji had kept ready for us. We called it a night around 2 AM after gulping many breezers and tucking in a sumptuous Kerala meal.

We woke up next morning to some not-so-familiar sounds of birds like wild hen, crane, kingfisher & woodpecker and decided to explore the coffee plantation. It was a misty morning indeed and Vandana was all geared to battle it :). Thene there were coffee blooms, pepper creepers, touch-me-nots, palm trees etc.

After a heavy breakfast of pootu and curry, we headed to Banasura dam about 30kms away. It is the largest earth dam in India. On our way, we stopped for some photos at the tea gardens adjacent to our coffee plantation. After a 1 hr drive, thirty minute wait and a 20 minute speedboat ride in the dam, we were already itching to go back to our welcoming abode. We decided to leave in the evening for View point about 10 kms away from our home to capture the sunset. We never managed to make it as we slept like logs till 7.30 PM and it was already getting dark.

And Reji, our host, had a surprise ready for us when we woke up - barbecue!! More breezers and food followed - dinner special was Kerala Parotta with Chettinad Chicken/veg curry. Yummm!! We kept eating and drinking around the bonfire until we could feel the wetness of mist on our hair.

We planned to go to Edakkal caves the next morning on our way back to Bangalore. In the morning we decided to explore a different trail and ended up discovering a temple and some tribal houses in the plantation. By the time we got ready after having mouth-watering appams, it was almost noon. We had to drop the idea of Edakkal caves in the interest of time and had to leave for Bangalore. But I don't regret it as this will give us a reason to go back to this amazing place again and do rest of the things next time around.

Wayanad Blues

So we are heading to Wayanad tomorrow morning. This is one trip which we did not know of until 3 days ago. We have gone back and forth at least 4 times to decide if we are actually going or not. The list of people who are/were supposed to go has changed thrice. I had to choose between the Aero Show and Wayanad this weekend and I chose the latter (with a heavy heart of course). I have submitted, cancelled and re-submitted my leave application earlier today.

Our plan of leaving at 3 in the afternoon changed to morning 10 making me do the most important pre-travel things like painting toe-nails, coloring the hair at 11 PM tonight instead of tomorrow morning. Of course my not doing this before 11 PM has nothing to do with the 3 or more hours I spent reading random blogs and watching random videos on youtube.

Just when I thought things were finally falling into place, my sister realized that she had forgotten all about arranging for someone to take care of our pet birds while we are gone. The solution - either she stays back to take care of the birds & rest of us will go OR we will cancel the trip and she will buy me the Aero Show tickets! Hello?? Whatever happened to the good friends who could pet-sit? I had started debating in my head whether to go back to work tomorrow (I had even written an 'I-am-going-to-be-away-for-a-day' message to everyone for the first time in my life!!) or stay home and just do nothing. Miraculously, some angelic friends did materialize around midnight to pet-sit our birds and we seemed to be back on plan.

But not yet, my sister suddenly felt that she needed to take only a certain bag and nothing else. All our baits of offering other (and definitely better) bags have gone in vain. She is still standing on the Batla ladder rummaging through lofts of all rooms looking for that precious bag while I type this. Hopefully she will find something by tomorrow morning. As for me, I haven't even started packing but that's what the morning is for. Now that I have painted my toe-nails and colored my hair besides having decided which sunglasses and cap to carry, I guess half my work is already done, no? :)

Picture courtesy: http://fudocom.com/

Solar Eclipse = Govt Sponsored Pooja

There is a partial solar eclipse today afternoon and in India it will be visible in Southern India, the eastern coast, north-east, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadeep. Guess what the Karnataka government is doing to "ward off evil influences of the eclipse"? It has asked temples to perform special pooja after the eclipse.

That sure is a very proactive government, no? And what exactly is a government-run temple as mentioned in the TOI report?

First they came...

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

- Martin Niemöller

This simple and haunting poem is amongst the most popular translated version of the German original written in the 1940s by anti-Nazi pastor Martin Niemöller.

Can someone tell me...

How spending long hours at work (not necessarily working but being inside office premises) translates into customer delight?

Or how not being allowed to carry forward your leaves from one year to the next ensures a work-life balance?

Or having limiting parking space for vehicles at workplace contributes towards a green cause?

Or how mugging up some technology fundas that have no connection whatsoever to the actual work you do (but helps you pass a test) makes you a competency champion?