Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Vagabond


When I came to England. I came with a determination of traveling places and doing lot of site seeing in this country. I was accompanied by a super enthusiastic friend, Youvraj. So almost every alternate weekend we used to hire a car used to go around many places. This time we decided to go to Cornwall. It is God's own country next to Kerala. Picturesque beaches, blue lagoons and misty mountains.
More over there are many small islands in the sea. The isles of scilly is the most famous one. These are the last pieces of land of the British coast before you enter the mighty Atlantic. It is the most enchanting place on earth. All you can hear is your waves, quacking of seagulls and your breathing.
We had only 2 days at our disposal so we couldn't visit Isles of Scilly. So, after along days drive from Dartmoor national park and after enjoying view of cayaking in the river dart we cam to Penzance the most central place in Cornwall. We have booked at 'Penzance backpackers' that was the cheapest accommodation available out there. Only £10 per night. There was a common roomarrangedd with 6 bunker beds. one above another in pairs. So inall 6 beds werearrangedd. We were told that there is oneFrenchh man already sleeping there so be quiet while entering the room. We tookat mostt care not to make any noise and entered the room.
I could see that thisFrenchmann was sleeping in one of the bunker bed and was smiling in his sleep. I think he was a true backpacker, I could see his hiking shoes, bigruck sackk and a book for reading. We went to sleep as it was a tiring day and we had to get up early next morning so that we could visit many places.
Next day morning we got up and went to the backpacker's kitchen to cook our breakfast. Good thing about these backpackers is, they are like hostels you are provided with everything, Gas, oven, allutensilss. As we were having our breakfast, thisFrenchh man also joined us in kitchen.
We started chatting with him.



Gilbert Mingam speaks very good english and you cannot guess that he is aFrenchmann. But he is . He is a teacher by profession, must be in his 50s. Gilbert comes to visits Cornwall every year. Isles of Scilly is hisfavoritee place. He comes alone to spend some time with nature. Particularly in winter, when there are very few people in Isle. He is fromFrancee. Lived in Paris for many years. Then moved to Japan to learnJapanesee. After one years of stay in Japan and seeing most of the Asia, he moved to ChristchurchNewzealandd. There he continued his teaching of Japanese andFrenchh.
To me he is a person of great wisdom. It was a very short chat that we had with him. He is so simple, modest and down to earth person, a person with courage and true vagabond spirit to see to go places and see thisbeautifull earth. Lot to learn from this man. Atleast we should see and visit our own India atleast.
Taking few bits of inspiration and wisdom from this 50 year old ever young chap we started our journey to seashores. We wished him a happy journey or rather happyOdysseyy as he was going to Paris from England to stay with his brother for few days and then was about to catch flight toNewzealandd to enjoy end of summer at Christchurch...

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm! the word itself is enthusiastic. My mind gets filled with new energy when I pronounce this word. It is a key to life. I met a person here in England, Dr. Paul Richardson, an icon of enthusiasm.
He is tall, typical British look, pink skin, has always big smile on his face till his teeth are seen. brown hair and a big brown mustache and he speaks with unique accent. He pronounces O as U and U as U in all English words. So Bus stop becomes boos stop, Monday becomes Munday.
I met him first when he came to India to meet our project team. When he starts speaking you cannot stop laughing, As he speaks, he takes you on ride of laughter. Well I cannot capture his personality in my words. One should meet him to know him.
He must be in his late 40s or early 50s. In office you will never find him sitting at one place. He is always here and there talking to people, discussing strategies, having meetings or looking out of the window and saying ...hmm, nice and sunny weather.During lunch break if you see him, you will find himself in black scuba diving suit and with his bicycle. He will go for cycling during the break. Even if weather is bad you will always find him cycling during the break and if it is sunny he will cycle more.
Over years of experience he has becomes a people oriented person. He loves Indian curries. He took our team to Indian restaurant in UK. He know some hindi words too. 'Guram Chai' 'Thunda Paani'. His grand father was posted in India during British rules. Paul kept us rolling with laughter when he told his stories of college days. As he spoke we could see all the expressions of a student to a teacher as he became during his PhD. He enacted his students who failed to complete his assignment.
He spoke about his earlier days when he used to cycle a lot... He had cycled 120 miles in 5.25 hours in a single stretch. I did some calculations in my mind, "Oh! that means you cycled at speed of 20 miles per hour that is 36 kmph approximately" then He said, "Yah I was quite young and fit at that time but now I am only young". What a reply!
He still cycles. 50 miles per weekend. Hats off to Dr. Paul Richardson. Hats off.

Monday, April 03, 2006

पॅनकेक संस्कृती

साहित्य: २ अंडी,१ वाटी गव्हाचे पीठ,मीठ, अर्धा कप दूध, २ ते ३ प्रकारचे जॅम, थोडे तेल.
कृती: प्रथम एका पातेल्यात अंडी फ़ोडून चांगली फ़ेटून घ्यावीत. त्यात नंतर थोडे थोडे गव्हाचे पीठ घालत गुठळ्या मोडत फ़ेटत रहावे. मिश्रण एकजीव झाल्यावर त्यात चवीनुसार मीठ घालावे. नंतर दूध घालून पुन्हा एकदा मिश्रण एकजीव करावे.आता गरम तव्यात तेल घालून त्यावर धिरडं घालतात त्या प्रमाणे पीठ घालावे. काळजी नसावी सुंदर पोळीसारखा पॅनकेक आकार घेऊ लागेल. दोन्हीबाजूने भाजून घ्या. पोळीसारखा जास्त खरपूस भाजू नये.आता या पॅनकेक वर तुमच्या आवडीचा जॅम लावा. छान पुंगळी करून ( मराठीत ज्याला रोल म्हणतात ) कपभर दुधाबरोबर सर्व्ह करा. गोड खाणाऱयांना हा पदार्थ विशेष आवडतो.

Religion - Part 2

As Esther, my next door neighbour promised me to have a discussion about the 'Miracle maker' the movie about Christ, I asked her if she had time of Friday evening. I was free as usual on Friday evening.

So, I gathered my laptop and Bhagvat Geeta and reached her house at 8pm. We decided a cut off time at 9:30pm just to restrict ourselves as discussion may prolong to any time of length as the topic was religion. I too agreed to that as I was looking forward to my cycle trip next morning.

So, my aim of discussion was to talk about the movie and seek some explanation about various events that occur in Jesus's life. The concept of Satan and all. As we started the discussion we started in different note. Father, Son, Holy spirit.. I started pointing out the similarities between the Hinduism and Christianity. It is not that I am very religious person and know all about Hinduism. But in front of me was a person who had studied the Bible for many years. Well instead of taking non conformist's attitude and boasting about how Geeta is revelation of God I started on similarities, We discussed about Atma, Paramatma, Avtar (Krishna was Avatar of Vishnu) and I tried to relate that to Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Let's not discuss everything in details here. We talked about rebirth versus resurrection. we tried to find the answers to many questions. Why Animals are not food of man according to Geeta. But bible says you can eat animals. The most important difference ( after similarities we came on to differences) Geeta talks about Karmayoga, i.e. कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन. That means every human has a choice of doing karma. A free will to choose what to do and what not to do, but s/he doesn't have a choice in the consequences that are caused by the deed that s/he has done. in nutshell, everyone is responsible for the consequences of his or her own karma and everyone has to face those consequences. Now Jesus came upon this earth and took sufferings, and go crucified so that entire earth will be free from sins, this is something like holding somebody else responsible for somebody else's sins. Making Jesus a scapegoat. This word scapegoat has come from the same ritual where in they take goat, send it to the desert to die, offered as sacrifice so that sins of entire community will be washed away. Jesus did the same thing. Esther was not able to give me a satisfactory answer. Let's not consider this as victory of Hinduism over Christianity. We also have funny concept that if you take a dip in Ganga or take a dip in Kushawarta kund, Tryambakeshwar,Nashik, all your sins of 7 births will be washed away ( and you are free to make more and more brutal sins) where water is so dirty people don't take head to toe dip but merely sprinkle some water on them...See everywhere there are loopholes and runaways.
All this discussion went on and on, final a question cropped up. Which none of us could answer. Geeta says there is only one God and 'Sarvashaktiman Vishnu' is the figure in which we saw it. Christianity also says one God. Then I said, why there are two (two is just exemplary, there are many religions with many different thoughts ) different principles or religions? Why the God has given two (many) altogether different revelations about itself? Which is the true revelation of God? This could be the spark of argument. She kept her hand on bible and said this is true revelation of God. I kept my hand on Geeta and I said this is true revelation of God.
We both appreciated and respected each other's religion and concluded that religion is 'partially' psychological concept.
Esther complemented my for having such a wonderful discussion. It was first time in her life that a discussion about religion ended without any argument. I also wondered about my awareness about Hinduism...probably as you go away from your country the bonds of religion grow more stronger, I guess.
So with that we ended our discussion at 12:30 at night instead of 9:30 cutoff time.

Friday, March 31, 2006

World is changing...

This world is changing...this air bits and bytes..outsoucing has mixed and migrated many cultures together. It had been a long and gradual process I am just part of it. My awareness has woken up recently.

Great Britain has become the land of opportunities for 'sensible people' who can speak English. This country has lost their younger generation to hip hop culture. Year and year population is decreasing. What is the reason? Is it the adverse weather? No! it is the freedom. The freedom has backfired these western countries. America and Great Britain are just examples.

In GB by law boy or a girl who are 16 years and above are considered as adults versus 18 years in India. Countries are technological advanced. 'You don't need your parents to grow up' is the philosophy of a boy who met me on new year's eve on London Tube. smoking, drinking alcohols, adultery, gluttony and thwarting religion are the rules of this young generation. They are just eating the fruits of the prosperity that their uncensored brought to them.

There is no control over younger generation. For a child to have both his blood parents living together in a same house is a luxury. Years have passed and now they facing the problems.

Around one third of the population here smokes. (for accurate results visit http://www.statistics.gov.uk/) Women smoke more than men. This is one of the cause of decreasing the fertility rate. It was shocking to know about my British colleague here. He said he quit smoking after his wife got pregnant ...Feels good to hear this now hear this ... And his wife reduced to 20 cigarettes per day after being pregnant.

Majority of the youths in this country have lost there senses. Girls are more aggressive than boys...Girls hook boys up. There is weird law of all these EH countries. You cannot harm anybody not event as a act of self defense who is below 16yrs of age. Even police cannot do any thing to such vandalizes caused by young people who are less than 16 yrs of age. They have give sweet name to this law...'Human Rights'. Parents cannot beat their children by law. undersixteen feel that they have freedom. They do whatever they like. They can even kill you but if you retaliate then by law you are the criminal.

These young people are racist too. They attack, threat even beat non white people. but they don't appeared the fact that their country is being run by most of the Non-white people or migrants who are now citizens of this country. 45% of NHS doctors ( National Health Service) of this country are migrants.

NHS is already backrupt. Government has no funds to sustain NHS. No fund for pension schemes. No work force is generated within the country. Falling population, youths dieing at younger age. More and more jobs and less man power. Increased inflation and increasing cost of everything in the economy.

But hey..wait...there are some countries in the east who offers services at economical rates. So why not outsourcing? Outsourcing is triggered as solution for this chronic problems. Government has opened the door for migrants. Wherever possibles services are exported and migrants are welcome. Migrants give more taxes to government funds are waxing again.

What does this mean to all of us. More opportunities to work with this country. More chances to earn money and more chances to reap the benefits of currency difference. One can say it as a pay back time... It is the time to take back what our ancestors lost 100 years ago. Times are such that they cannot survive without us.

So, I was not surprised to see a young Japanese or Chinese or simply Asian girl who greeted me at Lord's the home of cricket.

Finally,

The cost of schooling in international schools in India for 10 years including air trips twice a year to and fro from India and UK, is less than the cost of schooling in UK... think about it..:-)

Religion

Yesterday,I saw a movie 'Miracle Maker'. It is a story of Jesus Christ. A simple story triggered many thoughts in my mind. Everyone talks about his or her own religion and boast how best it is. Let's not get in to that. That will be an un-ending discussion.

There are many differences amongst all the religions and there are similarities too. Jesus is considered as Son of God. In Christianity God is considered in three forms. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Which is very similar to Hindutva, 'Atma' 'Paramatma' which is analogous to the Father and Son concept. 'Paramatma' is 'Ishwar' or the God and we all humans are 'atma' which is a part of the 'Parmatma' ( को अहं...अहं ब्रह्मास्मि..) (Ko Aham ?.. Aham Bramha-asmi.. Who am I ? I am God) Let's try to fit the concept of Son more perfectly. Son is nothing but another 'Avtar' of God. 'Srikrishna' is Son of God.

Going ahead 'Gita' says, Every 'Atma' is a smallest conceivable part of 'Paramatma' and it is duty of every human being is to worship God and purify one's soul or spirit so that his 'atma' joins the 'parmatma' and 'moksha' is achieved.

The concept of Father, Son and Holy spirit is as confusing as the concept of 'Atma' 'Paramatma'
'Chaitanya'. There is one more concept in Christianity that is: 'Trinity' or union of three forms of God, Father, Son and Holy spirit. Which also resembles with 'Bramha' 'Vishnu' and 'Mahesh'. Geeta says that, ultimately Vishnu is the only God rest all various forms of God which are originated from Vishnu. Trinity: It sees these persons as constituted by their mutual relations, yet does not mean that God in his essence is Father, or a male deity. Jesus spoke of a relation of mutual giving and love with the Father, which believers could also enjoy through the Spirit.

Jesus was God in the form of human being, So all the rules of the human life are applied to him as well. When he was traveling though the deserts, he was hungry for days and there was no food for him to eat. Being God he could have converted the stones and sand into bread and water could have quenched his hunger and thirst. Even Satan tempted him to do so, but Jesus had to control his mind and move away form Satan's temptation. Satan is nothing but a nonconformist. Nonconformist is personified as Satan. One who always contradicts Jesus and his sayings. As a normal human being Jesus feared pain, the pain of crucification, he knew beforehand that he was going to get crucified. So he asked God, "Father! Is this the way! Isn't there any other way...?" and again Satan tempted Jesus to run away as he was a god and a powers of his own. he could have prevented his death. This shows that Jesus was normal human being like you and me who had to overcome temptation, fear. On similar lines Geeta also talks about 'Shadripoo' and what is called as 'Prakriti' who try to control human mind with lust, fear, in short 'Maaya' which will keep you away from God. This is personified as Satan in Christianity. Then further ahead Geeta talks about 'KarmaYoga' 'BhaktiYoga' and 'DnyanaYoga'. Three different ways to reach God.

The essence is the same, one has to worship God and purify one's soul by thinking about the God and imbibing his holy name his spirit in oneself. - Hindutva.

Where as Christian's follow a ritual called as holy communion where they obey what Jesus said at the last supper. "This bread is my flesh and this wine is my blood. Eat my flesh and drink my blood. Imbibe the spirit of God in thyself."

This is quite interesting...after all religion is interpreted by many ways hence there are different beliefs in the same religion as well, there are different followers of same religion who keep fighting saying there belief their interpretation is the best and the most correct one. In all these fights actual religion and the God always ignored by us all.

Monday, March 27, 2006

King Lear

Hi allThis Saturday was a great day for me. I saw the Shakespeare's play, 'King Lear' . It was a classic experience. Actually I spoke to Esther long time ago that I want to watch a Shakespeare play or a ballet or Opera... One good thing to learn from British or rather western people is, if they commit anything...they will do it. You will come to know what I mean after a while. Esther said yes for going the play. And then one day when few weeks ago I went to see the oxford city on the same day evening we decided to go for the play. I spend whole day sight seeing the oxford. Esther was in Oxford. She was attending the annual quiz that takes place between Cambridge and Oxford, ( Cambridge won ! She is from Cambridge) well, Then in the evening we met and decided to go for the play and caught the bus that to go to the theatre. As we were on the bus we realized that the last train to Didcot from Oxford is 11:55 p.m. and show ends at 12:15 at night. We had to dump the plan and return home.I forgot about the play after that, as we decided to go for some other time as we do many times with the movies. Several weeks after that Esther told me that there is one show in the afternoon at 2:15 on Saturday and we can go for the same. She called up the theatre and booked the 3 tickets. One for me, one for her and one for Anna her friend. Anna is her friend who has read and studied all Shakespeare and Esther thought she will be of great help to understand the play. I have been told that Shakespeare's English is difficult to understand even for an adult British in-spite of English being their mother tongue. Another advantage of Anna was: she had a car so we would have got a pickup and drop.But.... she couldn't make it at the final moment so Esther called her parents to join us. So, Instead of going in Anna's car we went to show with Richard ( Esther's father ) Christine (Esther's mother). I had to call them Richard and Christine as here elder people are called by there names only. I was pleased to meet them and they are quite friendly. Richard, white skinny personality, round face with round spectacles and long nose. He appears quiet until he starts talking about drama, play and Shakespeare and Bible. :-) Christine is short white lady with curly hair and has big smile on her face all the time. I don't make any attempt here to guess their ages as all my previous attempts to guess people's ages have failed. so assume that they are quite old as Esther is the youngest of their four children.Richard was pleased to know about my interest in Shakespeare. He told me many things about the plays ballets and operas and he was constantly talking after the initial enquiries where I come from and what I am doing in England. He reiterated about the difficulties in understanding the Shakespeare English, So for my understanding he said that he would sit beside me while watching the play and whisper in my ears whenever there in any difficulty in understanding.. I was impressed by this willingness...Then he told me the plot in brief so that I can understand the play. He has taken enough care that he won't spoil the entire show, he didn't reveal the entire plot. We went to the theatre and to my surprise this show was held not in the theatre but was in the BMW showroom's basement. The basement was converted temporarily in to theatre. There were some chairs around 50 of them on each side of the staircase. The was a temporary stage at the centre and the huge basement behind. So it was kind of big hall ... There were some poly-ethene blinds for actors to changes the drapes. So no curtains, no costumes, no microphones. Good thing was there were light and sound effects. So, as the play started I couldn't make anything out that old english full of thou, thee,thine,thy and thou shalt diest kind of sentences... But the actors were acting very well. There was lots of shouting in the play and since it was not the proper theatre the sound was getting echoed and reverberation was not proper so I couldn't catch the words and even the lip movement, as I was sitting far behind. So, after every five minutes Esther used to tell me the plot.The King Lear is Shakespeare's one of the greatest plays. It is tragic story of a king Lear who was growing old and decides to divide his kingdom in to 3 parts and give it to his daughters. So, he calls these daughters and asks them how much each of them love him. Eldest and the middle one say many sugar coated words for the king and the get their shares of the kingdom and the youngest one who is quite honest says that she doesn't say anything about the king. King gets angry and says 'Nothing comes for nothing' and he doesn't give anything to the third daughter. This is the start of the play and there are many plots and sub plots ahead in the play. Both the kings daughters are married to Dukes, and they try to make conspiracies against the king. There is another king, King of Gloucester who is loyal to the king Lear. but he has two sons. One is Edger and the other is Edmund. Edger is son and Edmund is a bastard. So Edmund makes another plot and tells his father ( King of Gloucester ) that Edgar is trying to kill him. Edger runs away in the jungle to save himself. Mean time King Lear with one of his loyal servant and another character call Fool starts his journey in to the jungle. Fool is another interesting character shown in the play. I think it is king Lear's mind that is personified. I asked Richard about the fool. He said that is the mystery that nobody knows what happens to the fool as This characters disappears from the play in the second half....anyways the story continues with many twists and turns and ends very tragically. There is rise and fall of the kingdoms... Kings daughters try to find their father and kill them. They try to kill King of Gloucester who comes know about the plot. Meanwhile king Lear in the jungle finds a mad man who is Edger. It is very interesting to watch the play the see the actors hear their dialogues. Since there were no microphones they used to shout ....It amazing to hear so loud voice.So after the interval both of us, myself and Esther were frustrated as couldn't understand much out of the play. Esther being British couldn't understand the play...This english is true Tigress' milk. What we speak is probably the skimmed milk.. :-) Well, since the tickets were booked at different times we got the seats at different location, So in that 20 minutes of interval Richard helped us. We all heard the entire plot with a cup of coffee. Then Christine went and complained to the theatre manager about the poor sound quality and she also told that her guest ( that is me) has come from India to watch this play. The manager apologized and she offered us the seat in the front row. Now Richard sat in the middle and Esther and myself sat on the either side of Richard, we all are set to understand the remaining part of the play. It was good to move to the first row, now I was able to understand the much better but still it was old english and with that kind of voice modulation and fast pace it was difficult to catch the words. Anyways it was a good experience to watch the Shakespeare's great play with a British family in a theatre at Oxford in the cultural capital of England. It is an honor ...I am felt lucky for myself. On our back home we were discussing about the play. One more thing I noticed about the play which pointed out to Richard. These plays are modernized that is the king in the play wears simple formal clothes ...I was expecting the king with King like costume. may this production of the play was small hence they didn't think about the drapery and costume. Even the swords in the play were small knives...So that way even smallest theatre in India is much better presented than this British theatre...Well then on our our way back we went to Richard and Christine's house or rather Esther's parent's house. It is between Didcot and Oxford. It is small is village...Their house was a big house. white in colour. There was a small nice garden ....Let me not describe this here as I will get some photos. I received a warm welcome at their house. Richard straightaway took me to his study. where on section was full of DVDs. He gave all the Shakespeare's DVDs...I was surprised and I have no words to explain what I felt at that moment. He told me watch all these DVDs with subtitles on. Then we discussed about India..and then I told him about indian cinema and Indian theatre...talked about Janata Raja... He also said the We focus more on hollywood. He said that he saw on historical serial on TV it was about Indian king and he liked it. He appreciated the fact that people only concentrate on hollywood and ignore rest of the world.. Then I started taking about mahakavi Kalidasa...though I didn't know much about him. Then Richard showed more interest and he wanted to see the work of Kalidasa and wanted to see indian ballets, Operas and theatre...He asked me about internet sites where he can buy some DVDs..I promised that I will look for him and let him know..The Christine took me to the kitchen and introduced me to their big family. The kitchen was beautifully decorated with lots of pots and crockery. There were photos of entire family were pasted on Kitchen wall.. They have a big family. Richard and Christine have one son and three daughters. eldest two are married. They have grand sons too... They have a big family. Second last daughter is getting married end of this summer in July. So all this was too much for me.. I didn't expect a grand welcome from a British family..I told that this is a pleasant surprise for me. Christine said, she works a councilor at Church and she has seen people from many cultures and she know how good one feels if one is welcomed in foreign country....So all my pre conceptions about British changed at that moment... So, the point to be noted is: Don't rely on what people say...People say that British have stiff upper lip...they are rude....my friend...your experience will tell you something different...let me digress here a little bit....There is racism. There are some rude people in Britain but all of them are not like that...wherever I went till now I have received warm welcome. People talk sweetly they admire Indians....They talk about Indians as very industrious people. I met many Americans, I met Polish people..I met Bangladeshi, Pakistatni people everybody is different...only at 1% times I felt unsafe here and that too in london....Some boys threw empty bottles at me. but I think British are very quiet people and they speak and talk if you approach them...They won't come to you to talk ...they will respond if you approach...this world is changing...anyways...then Richard was about to drop us back to our house. Christine stayed back and started cooking for their dinner...and as expected she pulled out gunny bag of potatoes and started baking them in the oven...my God they eat potatoes and potatoes all the time.Well on our way back home Richard and I talked about Kalidasa and Shivaji and other about Indian culture...We reached home. I said good bye to Esther and Richard. Hmm I forgot to tell you that I am invited on Easter Sunday for lunch by Christine at their house. So, I will be able experience the Easter Celebration at Millers...I early waiting for the long weekend from Good Friday to Easter Monday to celebrate Easter....and Ofcourse I am looking forward to celebrate Easter at Millers' on Easter Sunday.... with the entire Miller family....

Sunday

I woke up late as I was watching cartoon film saturday night that Esther gave me... I woke up at 8:00 and started typing this huge letter and my experience about saturday....then I had called up Maciek my polish freind...He said he will visit me by midday...I cooked rice and spinach potato soup and was waiting for Maciek...my laptop clock showed me 11:30 and stared reading the Richard Branson that I got from the library....after a while I though I should finish my lunch before Maciek comes, so that we can straight go out somewhere. well the I saw my wrist watch it showed my 10:45 I didn't notice problem with the times....I waited 15 minutes till 11 and went to Microwave to heat my food. the Microwave clock was showing 12...I was mad...I though my watch is slow. Still I didn't do anything...I had my food and maciek came at 12:00 it was 12:00 in my wrist watch... he came and apologized for the 1 hour delay...then it ocurred to me that something is terribly wrong with the time.... so then Maciek told me about the Summer time... today the clocks are to be advanced by one hour as this is start of spring....So my laptop and Microwave clocks were intelligent enough to advance themselves by 1 hour on 26th march 2006. I think on the last week of March they advance the clocks by an hour. so that is good thing so there going be more overlap with indian time....I am now 4:30 hours behind India. one hour is reduced. all these things are funny for me..anyways then Maciek and I went for walk....we walked walked and walked we must have walked about from 1 to 5 we went to many villages we walked through fields my photos will speak better than me....It was amazing...next week end we have planned a cycle trip via national cycle network....I am tired today...Talking to Maciek is fun...he is polish...he thinks he can't speak better english but he speaks...better and we talk about his country my country...we think alike....only thing differs is culture....we exchange many views and it is fun talking...we visited 3 villages on foot and visited a church...all these villages are dull and sleepy villages on sundays...constant rain made them even silent and deserted. but It was fun walking through platues and fields and see horse and sheep grazing down the hill side... here in Britain man is very close to the nature....with that note I end my huge letter...see you in next huge letter....bye for now....Mandar