10 Oct

Biking across Thailand – Bridge over the river kwai

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After our brief encounter with wild cats concluded, we headed to River Kwai bridge. River Kwai bridge was constructed under Japanese command during world war 2, to enable Japanese troops to cross across Thailand to Burma and eventually India. Thousands of PoW (Prisoners of wars) were deployed for construction work, without adequate food, rest or medical care. This resulted in deaths in thousands and being alive for one more day was a luxury at that time. Our generation isn’t really exposed to such life and death hardships and all we complain about is traffic, high fuel prices and slow internet. But life back then was very different. A visit to the museum and war memorial will remind us of harsh realities of life in the times of war. River Kwai bridge stands as a testimony to the fact that thousands had to die to satisfy greed of few emperors. The movie by its name, which was pictured in Srilanka has made this bridge immortal.

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My trip to Garh Mukteshwar

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Finally, we had arrived at Unchagaon. We stopped in front of a stable. For a moment I thought this was where we were going to stay. Thankfully they took us to neat and clean rooms. The rooms were quite big. We stayed in room no 16. My roomies were some boys from my section. In that room the bathroom door was of frosted glass. You could see through the door! The bed was so high they could have given us a ladder to climb it. In the night we would go to the girls room and scare them. We would knock, make scary sounds and then run away. We’d keep our lights off so that the teacher wouldn’t discover us.Two or three times teacher would come and check if we had slept. When they would come, then we would run and get into our beds, swith off the lights and pretend to be asleep. Sometimes we’d fall in the process.

In Unchagaon, there was a big garden in which there were lots of lounge chairs. Sitting on them was real fun. I wish I had one of these in our balcony back home. There was small shed in which there were balls, bats, rackets etc. We were very careful with the equipment, because if we broke anything we’d have to pay for it. Sehej is going to pay for a bat. There were two terraces. From one we could see a beautiful lake. On the other side we could see a village.

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Baha’i House of Worship – The Lotus Temple

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The figure of “9 “ seems to have some significant meaning as we could see the temple surrounded by nine pools and there were nine archways into the temple. Another interesting thing is that a simple nine-pointed star is generally used by the Baha’is as a symbol of their faith. At the Information center, we were told that “nine” is chosen because it is the highest single-digit number and in many countries symbolises comprehensiveness, oneness and unity.

The most astounding thing is that this beautiful edifice has no pillars or beams. The petals are made of white concrete and are covered by marble (the same quality of marble as used in the Parthenon, mined in Greece, cut and polished in Italy and 10,000 pieces were brought to the site and assembled as a jig saw puzzle).

The volunteers at the entrance tell the visitors to maintain absolute silence in the temple, though every one is free to meditate or pray as per one’s religious practices.

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झीलों का शहर और बारिश की रिमझिम (उदयपुर में दो दिन)

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सिटी पैलेस का भ्रमण पूर्ण करने के पश्चात अगले आकर्षण गुलाब बाग़ जाने के लिए सिटी पैलेस से बाहर निकलते ही ऑटो तैयार खड़े थे, उनमे से ही एक ऑटो पर सवार होकर गुलाब बैग कि सैर पर चल पड़े. गुलाब बाग़ का नाम सुनने में तो केवल बाग़ का ही परिदृश्य आँखों में घूमता है, पर इस बाग़ में पर्यटको विशेषकर बच्चों को लुभाने के लिए जन्तुशाला (zoo), टॉय ट्रैन कि सवारी, झूले, जलपान आदि कई अन्य मनोरंजक सुविधाएं भी उपलब्ध हैं. बच्चों के लिए तो गुलाब बाग़ कि सैर बहुत ही आनंददायक लग रही थी. इस समय बारिश भी रुक गयी थी. लेकिन झूले अभी भी गीले थे और उनके आस-पास पानी भरा होने के कारण बच्चे झूलों का पूरा मज़ा नहीं ले सके. इस कमी को टॉय ट्रैन कि सवारी ने पूरा कर दिया. ट्रैन में बैठे-बैठे ही पूरे बाग़ के भ्रमण के साथ ही जन्तुशाला (zoo) देखते हुए बच्चे-बड़े सभी रोमांचित हो उठे.
गुलाब बाग़ कि सैर के बाद हमारा अगला पड़ाव दूध तलाई नामक स्थान था. दूध तलाई उदयपुर का एक बहुत ही सुन्दर आकर्षण है. दूध तलाई नाम का एक छोटा सा ताल लेक पिछोला से सटा हुआ है. इसके आस पास का दृश्य बहुत ही सुहाना और मन को मोह लेने वाला है. यहाँ के मुख्य आकर्षणों में पैदल बोट, मोटर बोट, कैमल राइड, सनसेट पॉइंट, करनी माता मंदिर, रोपवे ट्राली आदि हैं. यहाँ चारों और मनोरंजन, रोमांच और प्राकृतिक सौंदर्य फैला हुआ है. दिन भर के सैर-सपाटे के बाद दूध तलाई कि ये शाम बहुत ही आरामदायक लग रही थी.

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Rain Fury in Chakrata, Uttarakhand in June 2013 (Part II)

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With loud jaikaras of mighty Lord, journey was resumed. It was going good for 10 odd kilometres, our car was leading the show with Atit car following us. Soon the task of clearing boulders and rocks from road started as they were all on the road due to landslides. We all were going mad by getting out of the car in the rain after every 200 m to get various kinds of blockages cleared. We were actually afraid by not seeing any human existence in the entire stretch of road and having not seen any vehicle crossing us in the past 3 hours. It was not a journey of 22 kms, it was manifolds, and appearing to be never ending due to disastrous hurdles coming our way. To add to our fear and bring our jaws out of the mouth, we saw a mighty river flowing over a bridge that we were supposed to cross. There was no point of going back, and crossing that flooding river over the bridge was a task we have never ever imagined, so after much courage both the cars decided to keep accelerating without any thought of applying brakes. Both the cars managed to cross the river but that courage comes with a price, and the bumper of our car was washed off by the river flowing perpendicularly to the motion of car with mighty pace. Had we even thought of applying brakes, we could have been flowing in river along with cars. We celebrated our victory of crossing the hurdle by clicking a photograph and moved ahead.

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Some Days in Gujarat…. Adalaj Ni Vav and GandhiNagar sojourn

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Legend says that Mahmud Begara was mesmerised by the beauty of the Queen Roopoba, the wife of the chieftain and had promised to complete the structure if the queen marry the ruler as the Vaghela ruler had died till then. Structure was completed by Mahmud but the queen instead of marrying him, committed suicide by jumping from the uppermost story of this step well.

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Kareri Lake ~ a poetic trail

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Gaddis are basically a nomadic tribe who mainly lead a pastoral life depending on their cattle for their livelihood and wander in the high altitude alpine meadows for green and protein rich grass for their cattle and the nectar like pure water. These gaddis seem to be the happiest souls in the world without any worry cheering and living life happily in the lap of mother nature enjoying her eternal and purest beauty to the fullest. You envy at their life for a moment and then wish if you were born a gaddi, maybe in your next life…:)

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Road Journeys – Somnath to Diu – Sea and Sand

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On the way, we deliberately stopped at one point sighting a very unusual Palm-Tree with multiple branches. Later we found jungles of such trees in entire Diu and its adjoining areas. Browsing, it revealed, those were the Hokka-Trees, African specie of Palm brought by the Portuguese which in due course adapted Diu’s atmosphere and grow in plenty throughout. Locals call it Hokka, not found any where else in the country and also bore edible fruits that have medicinal properties.

Unlike Daman it was pleasing to notice a decent surrounding without the chaos of liquor shops and drunken-brawls instead, the hard drinks were available in much civilized and socialised manner. The places worth a visit in Diu are the Ghoghla Beach, Diu Fort, St. Paul’s Church, Nagoa Beach, Gangeshwar Mahadev Temple, Shell Museum, Naida Caves and Fortim-do-mar (Panikota).

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Road Journeys – Towards Somnath, In search of enlightenment

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Soon, we reached at my fourth Jyotirling, Somnath. Parking the car a few meters away in a very large space with unorganized parking facility though I hurriedly jogged to have the glance of the magnificent temple about which I have read so much in our history books during school and also in visual media. Soon a right turn left me in awe with eyes wide open to see the magnitude and glamour of the historical and mythological grand shrine at the shores of Arabian Sea, an architectural marvel standing erect in pride.

A large boundary around the shrine, with many visible vigil eyes, armed guards, innumerable CCTV cameras and steel barricading with metal detectors, scanners besides checking physically to every entrant beyond the permissible limit, reminds the history of destructions of the shrine in the past and its prone to vulnerability in the future.

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Sanchi – of Serene and Secluded Stups

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After wandering around the hill, you are drawn back to the crown jewel that is the Stup 1. The four magnificent gateways with their exquisite carvings are the main attraction of Sanchi and its trademark. The stup was embellished with the eye-popping carved torans in the 1st century BC by the Satavahans. Satavahans were the right people with the right credentials for the job. They gave us the glorious Ajanta temples. You are just relieved that the torans have survived for over two thousand years in almost pristine condition. Of course credit goes to Cunningham and Marshall for the restoration efforts.

The four gateways are installed at four cardinal directions of the stup. They have a common design – two square pillars with capitals and surmounted by three parallel architraves. All sides of the columns and the rear and front of the architraves are profusely carved. You could mistake the carved panels for wood or ivory. A lot of carving is overlapping and would require highly skilled workers. Reportedly, the workers were ivory carvers of Vidisha.

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Some days in Gujarat : Kankaria lakefront (Part 2)

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Exit gate of the glass cabin led us into the park in real with various species of flowers thrown in great abundance and small placards indicating to us that a particular flower catered to which particular species of Butterfly. As the weather was quite hot, we could not find the butterflies in a significant number though.

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एक यात्रा ऐसी भी… पीरान कलियर, पुरकाजी और रुढ़की का सफरनामा

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समय की सुईयां,  अपनी रफ़तार से आगे सरक रही हैं, अत: रात मे एक बार दुबारा से लौटने का वादा कर, पुरकाजी से विदा लेकर हम रूढ़की की तरफ बढ़ चले | रूढ़की शहर पार करके हरिद्वार की तरफ लगभग 24 किमी दूर पीरान कलियर गाँव पड़ता है जो यदि हरिद्वार की तरफ से आया जाये तो वहाँ से 12 किमी के आसपास है | सब कुछ ठीक चलते चलते अचानक ही हमारी गाड़ी की अगली खिड़की के पावर विंडो ने काम करना बंद कर दिया | सारे यत्न करके देख लिये, शीशा बीच में ही अटका पढ़ा था, फौरन रूड़की शहर वापिस लौटकर एक कार मैकेनिक को ढूँढा, जिसने अगले दरवाजे की सारी पैकिंग वगैरह खोल कर, सिद्ध किया कि इसका प्लग खराब हो गया है, अब ये तो बड़ा और झंझट का काम था, मगर उसने किसी तरह शीशा ऊपर चढ़ा दिया और कनैक्शन हटा दिया, जिससे कोई गलती से शीशा नीचे ना कर दे, क्यूंकि शीशा एक बार नीचे उतर कर ऊपर नही जा पाता | बहरहाल, चलताऊ काम हो गया, मगर इस सब में एक महत्वपूर्ण घंटा निकल गया | लेकिन अब हम निश्चिंत होकर अपनी कार कहीं भी खडी कर सकते थे | इस अकस्मात हुये अवरोध की वजह से हमारे पीरान गाँव पहुंचते-पहुँचते, शाम की धुंधिलका छानी शुरू हो गयी थी, अब समर समय के साथ भी था, अत: रुकने की जगह सब कुछ जल्दी जल्दी करना था | तमाम तरह के झंझावातों से पार पाते हुये, आखिरकार गौधूली की  बेला में हम इस गाँव में पहुंचे | बिल्कुल साधारण सा गाँव है, यूपी के तमाम दूसरे गाँवों की तरह ही, तरक्की से बिल्कुल अछूता, गाँव में अंदर की तरफ जाती कच्ची-पक्की सढ़क और दूर तक फैला मिटटी का मैदान | हाँ, गाँव के प्रवेश स्थान पर पत्थर का बना एक बड़ा सा गेट, इस गाँव की कुछ विलक्षणता की मुनादी सा करता प्रतीत होता है, मगर इतना समय नही निकाल पाये कि चंद पल रुक कर, इस गेट की फोटो उतार पाते, क्यूंकि जंग अब घड़ी की सुईओं के साथ भी थी, और इधर शाम अब अपना सुरमई रूप बदल, कालिमा की तरफ़ बड़ने को अग्रसर थी | अत: फोटो का मोह छोड़ सीधे इमाम साहब की खानकाह में सजदा करने पहुंचे | ऐसी रवायत है कि हजरत साबिर अली की दरगाह पर दस्तक देने से पहले इमाम साहब और शाह बाबा की दरगाह पर हाजिरी भरनी पडती है, और दोनों जगहें एक दूसरे से लगभग 2 किमी की दूरी पर हैं | पहले हमने यहीं इमाम साहब की दरगाह पर अपना सजदा किया और अपनी मन्नत का धागा बाँधा | बाहर सेहन में कितने ही धागे और अर्जियां लोग अपनी मनोकामनायों की पूर्ती हेतु बाँध गये थे |

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