Wednesday, July 21, 2010

They Helped Us !


When my Father Joined Bank Service in early 1980s all he was having to commute was a Red Coloured Hero Jet Bicycle, he was very fond of his Bike. In winters all Suited Booted he used to sat on the Saddle and with his right hand on that Mechanical Buzzer(Trin- Trin) he used to clear away the traffic. Sometimes he was not the lone passenger, my mom also used to sat behind him. Thinking back all these things amazes me that how much has changed now , things like this are from past now.


Some 6,7 years after one fine evening we were waiting , looking curiously out of our Balcony and in came Green Colour Bajaj Chetak Scooter, but where is Papa ? He is sitting behind the Driver as he did not know to ride it. Now every evening my Father used to learn driving it and in the Morning   
he used to worry if he would be able to finish the journey to his Bank safely or not. Later on he became perfect. Now as Bike was not used any more it was transferred to my Paternal Uncle who coincidentally joined Bank Service at that time only. After Few years he too got a Scooter and can you imagine where did the Bike went ? It went to my Grand Father who used to use it for his daily commute. The Irony is that the Bike lasted long much more then the two Scooters.


Now Coming to our Scooter, it gave luxury for the whole family(Mom,Dad,Sis nd Me) to be on it at same time. I used to stand in front , my Father on front seat , mom on rear and my sis in Between Dad and Mom. At that time only we got shifted to Delhi. As being Ghumakkar at every Holiday all four of us and our Scooter used to go to Explore Delhi. In 5 years that we lived in Delhi we roamed at most of the places be it India Gate,Rashtrapati Bhavan,Red Fort,Old Fort,Qutub Minar,Delhi Zoo,Pragati Maidan,Birla Mandir and many more places not once but several times. But our Scooter never disobeyed us except once when we were going to NOIDA and it started to spill Black Smoke and we were all embarrassed as everybody was seeing us as we had commited some murder.


Again my Dad got transferred to Madhya Pradesh(Betul) and we shifted there, now our Scooter was aging so this time we purchased CD 100SS Hero Honda Bike and the Colour was Red, when it comes to choose the colour the Power of Attorney goes to my Dad, if he says Red then it has to be Red. First experience on Bike was wonderful, it was so smooth and cozy and with its trademark sound it feels so good. I guess CD 100SS is one of the remarkable Bike we ever had i know people will go with Splendor but for me our Bike is the Best, i call it no maintenance Bike. But as we siblings were growing it was difficult for whole family to go in one time, for some time we manged but later it was not possible, but as Betul was a small town we came out with an Idea, When all 4 of us have to go i used to use my Bicycle and rest of them on Bike, it used to be fun for me as i used to race with my Dad on my bike on which he used to scold me for driving fast.


Now in came the new Century and we were in Uttar Pradesh(Meerut), we were planning for a 4 wheeler. Long discussions used to be in our home, first we thought to purchase old Maruti 800 but it was declined then we thought for new Maruti 800 again it got declined at last we Zeroed in on New Santro Xing , Car was booked and we got it after 15 days. As usual Dad didn't know to drive it and car was driven to our home by a hired Driver, but this feeling of having a new car strangely was not able to match the feelings that we had on our earlier vehicles. It took about 15 days for him to learn it and now we were covering cities with it. About 6 years have passed after this and our Car has covered little over 25000 Kms.


Our Vehicles are like family members to us, you got attached to them and when some Bruise or dent is created on them it hurts a lot. So this was my Story with the Vehicles we had over a period of time. I know all of you there must be having there stories also.


And yes my Father still use his Hero Honda CD 100SS bike daily for going to his Bank and that too on Delhi roads and our Bike is more than 12 years old and still working fine.






Sunday, July 11, 2010

Rare Pictures - Before Independence !


Well I have this in mind from many days to post these Pictures but as this is not my Original work i was hesitating in posting them. One day i was searching on the net for some Old Pictures and specially which were clicked before Independence, i searched lot but was not successful and then i landed on a website which were having some nice Old Pictures. But there was no explanation given on the time they were shot and which place they belonged to , so i searched again and after some struggle got little explanation about them and posted on the Original Post so that the readers there could be benefited. As these Pictures are not Copyrighted hence i am posting on my blog also.


Train Inspection , 1885



Ambulances, Chennai,1940



Bank Of Madras , 1935



Car Show, Madras , 1913


Port Blair , 1917(Kalapani Jail or Cellular Jail)


Karachi , 1917


Departmental Store , 1883


Ford Automobiles , 1917


Hoogly( Calcutta ) , 1915


Madras Market(Kothaval Chavadi) , 1939


Lahore , 1864


Madras Library , 1913


Marina Beach , Madras , 1913



Bombay , 1894



VT Station , Bombay , 1894



Mylapore , Madras , 1939



Ooty , 1905


Sorry no Explanation, looks like some Engines !


Karachi Theatre , 1917


No Explanation , What can you say about him ?


No Explanation again, some random Home !



So , now as you had gone through these Pictures , how did u liked them ? If you are known to some better explanations to these pictures feel free to share them here. I don't know how many of these monuments shown here are in existence if you have any knowledge about them of them being still existing please do tell in the comment section.

P.S. - To go through the Original post do visit here



Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Maggi ! Maggi ! Maggi !!!



One of my biggest passion is to eat, when i am hungry and i don't have to eat something good i generally switch on my TV set to find some cookery show going on and if i don't found one i just imagine myself eating my favourite food but that increase my hunger and i have to search for things which are present in my home like Namkeens or some leftover in my fridge.

If i am still empty handed then i go to the nearest shop and bring back Rs 10 Masala Maggi with myself. But as i am very bad at cooking and knows only Maggi to cook i just add water in the pan, wait for water to become hot and then add Noodles and Maggi Masala, after some stirring my Maggi is ready. I know there are people who make many kinds of Maggi with tomatoes,onions,Capsicums and other things and they taste so yumm !! but i don't know how to cook with them, so i have to contend with my simple Maggi. Yesterday i tried to make it with tomatoes(cause i found them only in my fridge) but i just spoiled it and i was left with some sort of mess which i finished with lot of hard work.

I guess the Masala Maggi is the real epitome of all the instant Noodle family and nobody is even close to it. I generally look out for its replacement but had never found one. Have tried Maggi Curry,Atta,Dal variants the Top Ramens(Curry and Masala),Smith & Jones and many other variants but every time have to come back to Masala Maggi. Its in their masala that attract us to eat it again and again.

Now how i started to eat it ? It was like some 16,17 years back when i first saw it, the Yellow wrapper and was curious to saw it as i had never eaten something like noodles or Chinese before, so in came it in our home and my Sis and I was delighted to have a taste of it, the honour of cooking was given to my Mom, she tried to experiment with it and didn't followed the rules of making it and we landed up in a Soup, what the heck is it ? and the Maggi was shown the doors from our home and off it goes from our Menu list. Time passed away and my hunger increased and once again i landed upon Maggi but the Cook this time was different, the task was given to the most talented guy who by the way happens to be the owner of this blog also and yes this time Maggi was perfectly cooked and enjoyed thoroughly, since then as millions of us eat it regularly, i have also followed that tradition.

In Meerut where i live and work, we get it outside every Office and in all education institutes but you have to wait for your turn as you find its lovers amongst all of us. They charge you 20 Rs and put some chillies,onions and little Butter in it also, obviously it tastes way better then my hand cooked one. So strangely it helps in earning living of some also.

So Maggi has become the Front leader in easing human hunger, when they don't have time to cook or they are living outside their homes and don't know anything about cooking.In fact there was my one Friend who was a Maggi freak and went to London for further studies and was surprised to see it their also in same flavour.

Now my empty tummy is suggesting me to fed it with something and i don't find anything except Maggi in my Kitchen so i am going to prepare it maybe with some experiment lets see how it goes and do tell in comments how u fared with Maggi, maybe any secret recipe of it.

P.S. - Today i started to write about some other topic but as i started, Maggi came to my mind and i wrote about it. But credit for this post goes to Deepak Mashaal whose this post tempted me to write about Maggi.


Saturday, July 3, 2010

What was his Fault ?


As i was busy in my work since many days, it didn't gave me any chance to post on my blog. So today i am narrating you an incident which happened with me two days back.

As usual i left home for office at around 9:30 am in the morning after sleeping late till 9 am in the morning. I just took the Auto(here in my city Auto is a three wheeler where around 10 people can sit) which was half filled. I was busy in typing message from my Cell to my Boss and realised that Auto had stopped as some passenger has reached his destination.

The next thing what i heard was sound of a slap, i turn around and saw a man(in his mid 20s) slapping the Auto Driver(who was in early 20s) one after another without any sympathy. I was shocked to see this and shouted on the man "Issko Thappad kyun maar rahe ho?"(why are you slapping him) he replied instantly "Issne Auto se cut mara, mai apni Bike se marte marte bacha ! "(I nearly died  as this Auto Driver took a cut)
I replied that you didn't died na ? then now leave him, but to my surprise he slapped him again and said to me do whatever i will slap him and again gave him 4,5 slaps.

Me in shock could not have any answer to him, as the next target of him could be me also. The guy left the Auto Driver after verbally abusing him, and staring at me with his eyes as if saying to me that you tiny fellow keep quiet otherwise tyranny could fall on you.

Poor Auto Driver could not utter a single word to him, and all his fault was that a passenger wanted to get off the Auto and he stopped it on sideways and couldn't see the Mighty Biker who was coming behind the Auto. I was ashamed of myself that i could do nothing for the Poor man as i was afraid of that pathetic person who was brutally beating him.

But the dejected Auto Driver again continued driving his Auto as nothing has happened, may be he is used to this kind of brutality thats been forced upon him by people who still treat poor people like any other Animal. The Auto was moving on and soon i completed my journey and paid him 5 Rs(the auto charge), thats all he gets per passenger on one trip. He was unable to see in my eyes as i looked in his eyes , but his fault was nothing. 

I moved along and thought " what was his fault ? ", " How could have we helped him at that time ? ". But there were other people who were also on that Auto, why were they dumb ? They all knew that it was no big offence that  Auto Driver has committed, they could have raised their Voice with me, but they didn't. If all of us had called to that dirty human being in oneness, he could have got no chance to Slap Auto Driver, a single man could not withstand in front of so many people.

But that didn't happened, i guess its in our society now to just mind our own Business and be on the safer side. This will just increase confidence in these kind of people and they will continue to deal in these kind of deeds. This will result in a bigger gap between Poor and the Strong.

So, all those people who are reading this incident from now onwards please raise your voice against such cowardly acts and people like this Auto Driver will know that there is someone on their side also.


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