Srinagar

never come to srinagar single. Its an absolute waste of an adventurer’s time though there is some very beautiful scenery one the way there. I reached at around 8 in the morning at the tourist centre where the usual commission agents were all around, swarming with deals. I didn’t quite mind since I was already dead tired and my phones were out of charge too. Though he took me to a very comfy looking houseboat initially, I rather preferred a normal room with an attached bath and geyser for 700. It was a good room with a good view afterall.

Srinagar, is a very beautiful city, with good roads, and even more beautiful huge sprawling parks and gardens. But after all the adrenaline rush and breathtaking scenery in ladakh, I wasn’t much impressed, though a lot of families seemed to be having an awesome time. :p

The biriyani I had from a store near the park was mediocre to say the best. Over all I was just resenting my srinagar plan. The only saving grace probably would be the immensely beautiful women everywhere.

My experience though took a radical turn after lunch, when I went to visit the hazrat bal. It was my first visit to a mosque and of mughal architecture and I was totally bowled over. The beautiful carvings on the white marble, the sense of peace in which doves were settled in the adjacent ground, the opulence in the silver drinking urn all just made me fall in love with the place.

Outside, there is a bustling market where I had some sweets from irfan punjabiwala, a very courteous and nice man. My impression that kashmiris were boneheads was totally changed. Following that, I set off for my first visit to a gurudwara before moving to the jami mazjid.

The jami masjid is the oldest masjid in kashmir, built in nearly 1406 AD and doesn’t look anything like a mosque, but more like a buddhist building with pagodas in the middle of each side instead of minars from corners. Inside, there were 4 prayer halls on each side lined with columns of huge pillars of solid wood almost nearly 130 pillars in all.

After, I went out to meet shabrooze who took me to Delinz for dinner. Definitely, THE BEST mutton biriyani I’ve had, along with some other mutton dishes that were simply exquisite. Anyone who goes to srinagar should certainly visit this restaurant. After that we went to my hotel, and sat at the banks of jhelum with shabrooze and a couple of other friends singing songs,talking about the civil unrest and about their kashmir.

But all the colours mix together To grey…

Avial in Kochi

Well, finally I got to attend a show by Avial, one of my favourite bands,  at the Kochi Muziris Biennale innauguration last night.

I should say …. it was better than expected Expecting a drunk Tony to go haywire with his rendition, I actually found a drunk Tony ( nonetheleass) but with unbelievable stage presence. Nobody cared what he was singing !!

Mithun went crazy on the drums while Rex was in his element .. The female vocals by Neha Nair was excellent too … Only feeling was that the show was a li’l too short though

…..

sometimes it gets lonely .. too lonely i guess .. i officially dont have an unofficial life

DONT DOs

1) Dont let your ubuntu resolve any “dependency issues/errors” with relation to ttf-opensymbol related to openoffice fonts. It just basically removes every program on your system with the slightest usage of fonts:) I learned it the hard way .. thanks:)  

2) Don’t bring in politics as a topic of discussion for a small-talk with a prospective client/partner and especially NEVER with a prospective employer. I learned that the hard way too

Run up to the Elections

India is in election mode and there’s lot happening in the IPL (Indian Political League) and as usual all is not good. The weeks saw Varun Gandhi’s rabid comments at an election rally that invited flak from various corners including EC. The BJP which initially distanced itself from the comments is now seen backing Varun Gandhi. Almost unkown to most people beore 2 weeks, Varun has suddenly become the saffron poster boy for BJP and is eagerly sought after for election campaigning.

Many would have forgotten the attrocities that happened in Orrissa last year. Thought the visible violence have subsided, the area is far from normalcy. More than 200 families still live in refugee camps because they are afraid to return to their villages. The sangh parivar factions have given decree that they are not to return to the villages unless they convert back to Hinduism. Most of the refugees have lost all identification cards and have not received any new voters identity cards to register their votes in the coming elections. As such they are still sidelined since their sentiments wouldn’t matter much in the elections.

The christians in Kandhamal may have been persecuted due to lack of any political power. However, the situation is entirely different in Kerala where christians wield great political and social powers. However, the power seems to have gone to the head for the catholic church which has issued guidelines to its cmmunities on who to vote for(the church is anti-left and right) . Why the hell does the church have to stick its head in the political process. The bishops and clergy should just stick to addressing the spritual and religious needs of its followers and should just stay out of politics.

But, all is not bad I guess. The Jagore and Lead India campaigns have gained lot of momentum and are doing a great job in coaxing all educated Indians to vote and hopefully it will be a success. We also see a lot of middle class professionals like Mallika Sarabhai, Shashi Tarur, Meera Sanyal, etc are taking part in the elections as candidates, which is a great sign. Newly independent India had intellectuals elite and thought-leaders at the helm of affairs which slowly gave way to dynasty politics and corruption.Hope what we see now is a reversal of trends.

Ubuntu !!!:)

it’s pretty late that i have found the heaven called open ( and i mean free) software. I just filled up my address and within around 2 weeks delivered to my doorstep was the cd for ubuntu 8.10 installation absolutely free of cost!!:)

The basic installation looks nondescript and plain. But once you start exploring a bit and tweaking things, you’re in for a real surprise:)…. Most of the software any normal user runs in the windows have an ubuntu/linux version too.. so thats not an issue. So over the past couple of days i’ve been experimenting and exploring this whole new world…. The graphics and utilities are simply awesome — one eye candy for example is the Avant windows manager that gives a MAC OS kinda feel to the desktop…check it out..There’s one more too by using a tool called compiz.. but i cant seem to take a screenshot of it.. will upload as soon as it figure out:)