We painted the Weekend in Moradabad :)

Saturday Morning: 0300 hrs... my alarm goes off!!! And then the alarm on the other phone goes off too... I had just slept at like midnight... but getting up was important... I did... Woke up Ashu (my cousin) called up Tushar to wake him up and checked with Aro to make sure he was on his way to my place...

Why get up this early on a Saturday morning?
Valid question :)

We four were going to Sankalp, Moradabad... The same place I had visited in Feb'07... and wrote about it HERE!

Me and Aro had been discussing this trip for a while now, and last week when I realised that my travel plans were still very unclear I decided to go to Sankalp and do what was long due... So a few phone calls over the week, some bit of planning and we were all set... Roped in Ashu and Tushar as well... so we were four of us who were traveling to Sankalp and organise the painting competition...

The weather was good, the roads were good too wit a few exceptions... It did rain almost throughout the drive and at times it was too heavy to drive as well, however with one pit stop just about 10 kms after Gajraula (Reliance A1 Food Plaza) we reached Sankalp around 0800 hrs...

Found these beauties together on the grass @ A1 Plaza...

A Bunch of Happiness :)

I discussed the plan with Kalpana and Santosh who take care of the centre and we were all set to start the painting competition around 1030 hrs... The main centre has 100+ students and it was difficult to involve everyone in the competition, so we decided that we would let the teachers select some students from all the classes and have about 40 students participate...

We started on time around 1045 hrs and the kids finished their work around 1215 hours...

Our goodies for the Painting Competition :)

The kids could use the water colors, or the Crayons or Sketch Pens...

During the Painting Competition...

During the Painting Competition... (She went on to win a prize, for the strong message presented in a simple and very effective way)

During the Painting Competition...

One of the other winners in progress...

All done :) ready for a picture :)

We did manage a riot of colors :) and spread happiness :)

Some of the winners :) It was tough to decide what was better than the other... so we did not differentiate between the winning entries.. We could not have anyway :)

Post this we played "Stuart Little" (Hindi Version) for all the kids... (We had arranged for a LCD Projector, a laptop, the speakers and the DVD last night)... It was an amazing feeling to hear the kids laugh together and react to various scenes in the movie... One of the best experiences that I personally had EVER... So much so that I don't have enough words to write about the entire event!!! Now there was something for the kids after the movie too... We had prepared some questions from the movie, and the kids who answer those questions right were to get prizes...

The movie in Progress !!!

Once we finished the movie, we distributed the prizes for the Painting Competition and followed by the overwhelming question answer round!!!

The post movie huddle :) Had a great time here :)

We had asked everyone to first raise a hand and then we would pick who answers the question :) but as you might have already guessed for 100% of the questions everyone first answered the question and then raised their hands :) by the end of it we had exhausted all our questions and had to make a few set with our own knowledge of the movie :) it was fun...

Everyone would answer and then raise their hand :) It was tough to decide the winners :)

One question we asked was the name of Stuart Little's father... Well no one knew the answer, but one boy very confidently stood up and said "Daddy" :) I even asked the duration of the movie :) when we did not know what to ask :) and kids answered that too without raising any hands :) too bad it did not have a prize :)

I participated too :)

And then moved back to what I was slightly better at :) Capturing the moments :)

Managed to capture a game of Kho Kho too on the terrace :)

Windows XP :) Professional :)

Did I forget to mention that Gupta ji (The caretaker at the centre) also arranged for some Aalu, Pyaaz, and Palak Pakodas for us and the Chatney with Raw Mango and fresh Mint was just too good to resist... Don't know if I was eating the Pakodas with the Chatney or the Chatney with the Pakodas :)

What yummy Pakodas were they !!! Heaven !!!

Only one :) Love the way water rests on Rose Leaves :)

Once we were done at the Centre we moved around in the Community to get a first hand feel of the workshops...

The melting/moulding workshop... and smoke all around!

Molten Brass on fire...

Still from the same workshop...

An Art on its way towards extinction... The artist spends about 4-5 hours on every piece and gets around Rs. 50 per piece...

From the electroplating workshop...

Did not even realise how the time flew by and it was already 1645 hours when we started back for Delhi!!! All in All a wonderful day, an experience which words cannot express, and a feeling of satisfaction...

We have brought back the winning entries from the painting competition and the plan is to sell them with support from Online friends, and people we can reach via other mediums too... In one of my next posts I am going to post the paintings and if you are interested in buying one of them please do write to me @ prashantbhardwaj@gmail.com. I am currently in the process of finding out a place where I can get them framed for a decent price.

More about Sankalp:

Sankalp is an initiative of ASK (ASKINDIA.ORG) which aims at providing educating to the children who are involved in Child Labour in Moradabad... An initiative that is not 500+ children strong and going strong with its committed workforce... The teachers for the schools also come from the local community itself, and hence help the educated local women as well.

You can read more about Sankalp, ASK and my previous visit by clicking the following links:

ASK

Sankalp on ASK Website (The page also has a few photo essays that I did the last time I visited Sankalp)

My earlier visit to Sankalp (http://rightmore.blogspot.com/2007/02/ask-me-how.html)

Pictures from Sankalp and Moradabad (http://flickr.com/photos/prashantbhardwaj_ut/sets/72157594564953401/)

My last picture of the day :) All smiles... all happiness :) All Funn !!! Loved it !!!

What WE (might) want...

Lives have become so mechanical these days...

Conversations have translated to monologues where one speaks, other listens, and when the monologue is over, the other one is allowed to speak... And if there is no agenda, there are no conversations...

Your expressions are dependent on time-tables and distances...

The amount of talking is a function of how good or bad your day at office was...

The amount of attention you need is in direct proportion to how busy one is...

And more and more...

But that’s not what I really wanted to write about... A few days back one of my friends had asked me, "Prashant, what makes a man feel superior?" Initially I did not get the question, however further discussion revealed that the question was around what a man feel good about and will make him feel better than peers...
We talked about better salary, better communication skills, better skins ( yes ! as per her more and more men are buying fairness creams and other cosmetics these days... she even shared some statistics with me), a nicer looking girlfriend and so on and so forth...

The conversation was over but the thought stayed... After all, what is it that men really want...? Here are a few things that we want... Now this list is basis my interactions with friends, strangers, myself etc etc and is not necessarily a complete list... can never be one anyway... but an honest attempt to write down a few things, that I feel are necessary...
Please agree, disagree, ignore, react, as per you like... (Oh and most of these are what we want from women...)

What Men want?

1. Wear a seat belt when you are at the co-driver seat...
2. Be concerned about safety, but not hyper about it...
3. When you say you love, show it... No, not prove it, but show it... and explicitly, most men don't read hints very well, though they are good at reading between lines...
4. Show confidence in your man...at least once in 3 days... It boosts his willingness to be with you like crazy...
5. Let him speak too... We might not be the best listeners or speakers, but we still like to be heard and talked to...
6. Don't do something just after he complained about you not doing it... You might think you are doing it with genuine feelings, but he, more often than not, would think that you have been forced into it...
7. Don't make I love you, just one of the sentences in your conversations...
8. If he is far away, show concern about his well being but know before the concerns start tilting towards pestering...
9. Hug from behind when he is least expecting it...
10. Let conversations be like conversations, and not like emails... where you write an email, wait for a response and the other one writes back etc etc... Leave office in office and let home and personal life be that way...
11. Send an eCard... (Greetings are great to share... nothing beats a handwritten note... and nothing will EVER beat it either, so if you can send that handwritten note... it WOULD be great)
12. Offer to drive him around one day...
13. When you are in a party, and have too many people to deal with... Once in a while, which can be 1 time in 30 minutes... make eye contact with him... Come and hold his hand or pat him on the shoulder or do something that tells him you are there...
14. Show respect... If you don't have anything that you can respect in your man, too bad!!! You probably made a mistake when you got with him, or this is high time that you do something about it...
15. Don't ask him how the food tastes... if its ok, he would not say anything... If it’s bad, he would still eat... but if its good and he was hungry... He would silently thank God for you being in his life... some of us might even give a compliment :) Actually on second thoughts, most of us would compliment :)
16. Talk to his parents... or someone he is close to... Your comfort level with his close ones increases his comfort and his faith in you a lot...
17. Know how to change a flat tyre... Though he would be ok doing it for you, but you still need to open the boot and hand him one of the tools... Do it together :) You never know changing tyres can be funn too...
18. Buy him his favorite candy at times...
19. Once in a while treat him like a kid... It gets too tiring to be an adult all the time...
20. FLIRT with him....


Will stop here!!! Though there are more that I can think of... but the list would become boring (it might already be)...

I just read this post again... Felt that Men can also do a lot of things that we expect women to do !!! I should take a note :)

One of my friends said to me after she read this - I want a lot of these from my Man too ! I wish her luck :) and am sure she would get all she wants !!!

I guess on a basic level all of us still want the smaller things in life to make ourselves happy, and these smaller things we preach and and still miss out on all the time !!! God bless you and me and everyone and give us enough opportunities to do the smaller nothings in your life for your man or woman !!!

Input - Output

The apples were a little too red to be real... I thought I should keep a record :)

Jelly always makes a nice object to click :) and eat of-course :)

And the Yummo Coldie Coldie Custard... Fulll of Stuff and Taste !!!!

चाय की दुकान पर मीठे की बहार

I might be a sucker for a few things but some I do well... and one of those is

1. Making Custard and Jelly... Primitive for the chefs and cooks all around, but more like a Bharat Ratna for someone like me :) so dinner, and lunch tomorrow would have some custard and Jelly for Dessert... Care to Share?

2. and the second one is my favorite Cold pasta salad... I have pasta sauce for it today and I have the same veggies again :) but no fotos :) Looked around for pineapple, but did not find it anywhere :( I am sure I did not look enough !!! Lazy ass !!

Oh and the pasta is different today as well... Not using Penne but Spirali...

Off to the kitchen now :) a whole lot of work to do !!

Trick Question...

white white face dekhe...

I think being emotional about some people is one the best ways to fukk up your life...

I seem to be reaching the day when someone would give me a graduate degree in making a complete fool out of myself with people!!!

Neva mind...

Thankfully...

White white face dekhe, dilwa beating fast sasura chance maare re !!!
Oh very happy in my heart, dill dance maare re !!!

Dil dance maare dance maare daaance maare re !!!

I have heard this song for like 10 times already... and looks like this is going to be a part of the amazing list of Chichora songs !!!

Life is not that bad afterall !!!

Oh wait...

tohra dil ke threatre ma, dil deewana booooking advance maange re !!!

Oh very happy in my heart !!! dil dance maare re !!!

On a serious note,

I need to get back to the usual self !!! It should not be that difficult, eh! After all its just me that I am trying to be !

The 28 hour Recharge

Just around midnight on Saturday, me and Tushar leave home for somewhere... During our walk on the road, while looking for an auto to ISBT, we discussed our options to go in all possible directions, but froze on Rishikesh ... His responses to a 24 hour trip to Bharatpur, Agra, Jaipur were funny, keeping in mind the Gujjar agitations happening around these areas :)

And it was interesting how our families let us go... with a disclaimer that we had lost it !!! and that nothing could be done !!! what else would you say about two guys, who just pack and go somewhere at midnight !!!

Just then, an auto stopped, we hopped on, reached the ISBT and took the bus after a few difficult choices of a bad bus, a not so bad bus, a not so good bus, the UP Roadways or Uttarakhand Roadways bus stared at us in the face... We finally took a decision and took the UK (Read UttaraKhand) Roadways for Rishikesh :)

Tushar did overhear a small issue when we boarded the bus, but too bad that we did not take it seriously... We realized after 15 minutes that one of the twin tyres at the back of the bus had a puncture and we could not move at more than 30 kmph till the time it gets fixed.... Which was a major disappointment as this clearly meant that our plan of reaching Rishikesh around 0600 hrs was fukked up pretty bad !!!

Li'il that we could do, but laugh at the situation :) for some reason we did enjoy the slowness on the road... Every vehicle honked and passed us while we were cruising at a top speed of 30-40 kmph on the HIGHWAY !!!

The first pit stop was at some Nataraj Restaurant, in front of the Cheetal Grand, Khatoli ( some 40 odd kms ahead of Meerut)... This is where the driver found a Puncture Shop and decided to give the tyre for a repair... It was around 0415 hours that the guy removed the tyre, and though the conductor said we should be good to go in some 30 minutes, I had a feeling it was not going to take anywhere less than 60 minutes, maybe more !!!

Me and Tushar walked around the place, discussing the entrepreneur skills of the guy at the tyre shop, who was managing the operations, the finances, and infrastructure etc etc all by himself !!! I had a cup of warm sugar with bits of coffee in it !!! We also discussed taking a different bus to Haridwar just to save sometime, but did not do it thinking that it would make a difference of about 30 odd minutes only... the slower part of the journey was already over... We finally moved at 0545 hrs ( as expected ) and dozed off almost immediately.. All I remember was that the driver suddenly had changed the entire tempo of the journey... It was his turn now to honk and pass !!! and he made a full generous use of the pressure horn in the otherwise not so quiet bus :)

The Laxman Jhoola...

We reached Haridwar around 0800 hrs and had to wait for another 20 odd minutes before we got another bus to Rishikesh... We reached Rishikesh, and then took a Tempo to Ram Jhoola... Breakfast was planned at Govindji's Prasadam (one of our favorite eating places in Rishikesh, for its hygiene and tasty food at decent prices, but extremely slow service and a strange combo of Tea, Lassi, and Curd in the same combo breakfast)... Unfortunately the quality has deteriorated over the last 3 years... Anyway... this is where Uncle God decided to start playing a few games :) and it started raining... Our entire plan could have been washed out, had it not stopped raining in a while... It thankfully did, and we were now ready to move too... A long walk and we were on the other side of the Ganges at the taxi stand for Neelkanth Mahadev Temple...

The Rains left us with some lovely pearl like momentos ready to be captured :)

A very interesting door I saw while walking around... this ladder is the only way to reach the door...

Buddhist Prayer Flags on the Laxman Jhoola

Neelkanth is about 25 kms (drive) and 14 kms (Trek) away from Rishikesh... The taxis are available near the Ram Jhula and Laxman Jhula, near the Choti wala Restaurant and Trayambkeshwar Temple respectively... It's a little tricky to get a taxi here, because the drivers/operators are not keen on any empty seats and because a lot of people travel in groups, it's tough to get the exact number of seats in a cab... We were lucky and an operator helped us get an Amby shared between the two of us and family of 3... The travel time to and back from Neelkanth was not much thanks to the good quality car and very efficient driver...

Pooja Thalis at a shop near Neelkanth Mahadev...

Pooja Thalis at a shop near Neelkanth Mahadev...

Tushar's Thali... The Plastic glass has Gangajal, Honey, Gulab Jal and Milk mixed in it...

We however were stunned to see the amount of people who were there at the temple... We took the pooja thalis and moved towards the end of the queue, walked for about 10 minutes before we saw the last person in the queue... And this meant that there were at-least 200 people in the queue ahead of us...

A part of the loooong queue....

Just a tap... nothing specific... I click leaking taps...

It was already pretty hot by then, and I was in no mood to stand there... Tushar did not either, and we turned back towards the temple where we offered our prayers at a different Shivling, lucky us that we realized there was a view of the main temple and Shivling... and offered our prayers through that window :) smart US :)

The place for Incense Sticks and Dhoopbatti...

Another view...

A lady tying the Holy Thread (Kalava) on a grill...

A Lady looking at the interesting roof of the Neelkanth Temple... Though it's in the north, the temple's roof and top resembles the temples in the South a lot...

Kids need Papas and Mamas to ring the Temple Bells :)

Friends of all ages were around too :)

Tired, and yet managed to smile a bit :) Tushar must have said something cheap :P

We moved back from Neelkanth, got down at the Laxman Jhoola, took a few pictures and walked for about a km or more in the heat looking for a Tempo towards Ram Jhoola... we finally got to enjoy the best ride of the trip with our bags inside the tempo and we standing outside with the cool breeze whooshing past our faces drying up all the sweat and fatigue :)

The Trayambkeshwar Temple, near Ram Jhoola, has 11 floors in all, here is a list of all the Gods you can meet there :)

A view from the top of Lakshman Jhoola

The motor boat near the Laksham Jhoola... The same As#$%#le had hit our raft head on at full speed on one of my rafting trips... It's only Gods grace that I am alive right now, otherwise he had made sure that the people on the left of the raft had their heads ripped off from the bodies... No idea how we managed to survive... Thank you Uncle God :)

We reached the Ram Jhoola, and spent sometime trying to figure out which beach/Ghat we could go to take a bath... It was not a very difficult decision, however once we were there, getting inside the water which seemed freezing cold was tough !!! took us a while before we decided to give up all our fear of the current, and cold water and just jumped in !!! spent some gooood 45 odd minutes before we decided to leave...

I could try some splashes too after clicking some on the recent trip to Kurukshetra :)

And I emerge a winner :) against the current and the cold water !!! Omie you rock !!!

Some relaxing time pass too :) By this time I was ok with the water :)

And then I made Tushar do some chapaak chapaak :) He is lighter... you can see his head going in... with me being atleast 100 kgs heavier than him :) my fall was quicker :D

But the two brothers were very happy after the 20+ dubkies, the throwing water at each other, the running out of water because it was cold, and the chapaak chapaaks :)

Had good food at the Chotiwala... waiting for a bus at the bus stand... thought of coming via Dehradoon for the charm of AC buses running between Delhi-Dehradoon, but finally took a decent Pawan Gold to Delhi... slept most of the way in awkward positions on the seat :) just to wake up at times with a painful lower back, or a pulled musled in the neck, or legs :) change the position and sleep again :) This time as well the journey took much longer than usual, thanks to the freaking jam at the border near Dilshad Garden... must be about 2 kms long and it took about 100 odd minutes to pass !!! We managed to reach the ISBT, Kashmiri Gate around 0400 hrs and then home around 0445 hrs....

The Ram Jhoola...

What a trip it was !!! just the perfect 24 hour recharge that my mind required... I can now wait for some 10 days before I start getting itchy about another travel :) hehehe...

I did not know that Lakshman Jhoola was this old... Now I do...

Some more information, not necessarily about this trip but for the Delhi- Haridwar- Rishikesh Route:
1. Distance
Delhi - Haridwar : 208 kms; Delhi- Rishikesh : 230 kms
2. Approximate Time :
Delhi - Haridwar : 4-5 hours, Depending on the time of the day you are driving
3. Best way to travel:
Hire a cab or drive yourself...I would say hire a cab, its better to be driving around on the bad roads instead of punishing your own vehicle... The 4 lane highway is under progress for good on the stretch, however it would take a good couple of years before it can get fully operational..
4. Eating options enroute and on location:
Cheetal near Khatoli, Moolchand just before the Muzaffarnagar bypass; Mohanji Poori wale near Har Ki Paudi, Chotiwala Restaurant near Ram Jhoola, Govindji's Prasadam near the parking in Rishikesh
5. Bus Tickets and other fare : Rs. 150 per person (Delhi Rishikesh in the UP Roadways bus); Rs. 5 for the boatride one way near the Ram Jhula; Rs. 5 for Tempo per person from the bus stand to Ram Jhula in Rishikesh; Rs. 600 for the Amby ( Seats 5) for Rishikesh-Neelkanth and back
6. Staying options: Many hotels ranging from Rs. 500 per night for a double occupancy to Rs. 2500 double occupancy

Of Aha's and Ouch's...

Back from a quick trip !!! Loved it...

Also realized that the quickest way to throw a friend miles away from you is to ask : " Who are you to tell me what should I be doing? "

Anyway....

More coming soon...