Long Cherished one!

http://sidin.blogspot.com/2004/05/travails-of-single-south-indian-men-of.html
AND

http://sensorcaine.blogspot.com/2005/12/travails-of-ssiw-single-southie-women.html

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.

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.