These days going to a Mall has become a tiresome exercise.
About ten years back it used to be such fun to go to these big shopping malls and just roam around window shopping.
Now a days we go to Mall only if we have some specific shopping to be done. But this post is not about the shopping experience. This is about some construction marvel which I am witnessing at this particular mall.
This Mega Mall came into existence about five years ago if my memory serves me right. It was just some vacant space filled with lot of greens and hubby dear remembers seeing these vacant places, while he was inspecting the nearby railway track by foot.
Suddenly lot of construction activity started and first a big mall true to the name mega came into existence. Simultaneously a big hotel came into existence and within few years a big housing Condominium came into being. There was a Railway station built near the Mall. (yes same old railway track inspected by hubby dear). Then people started pouring in by different modes of transport and mainly it was by car.
A big underground parking was built in the beginning itself and there were some A/B/C/G and E/F parking areas with two levels P1 and P2. I don't know how many cars, these parking lots could accommodate but it was real huge. Then it became impossible to get parking on week ends unless one went to the mall in the morning itself. So we stopped going to the mall on week ends.
Now comes the construction marvel part. Then suddenly one day a few months back we noticed a new entrance saying parking and we drove through it. Hey and presto they had virtually dug out under the building so to say and constructed new parking lots. We could see the walls on both sides without plaster (looking kind of rock) while going inside. It was kind of eerie. But there was quite a lot of parking spaces. When we went there next time, to my surprise I could see them linking these new parking spaces to the building above by building escalators. (kind of reverse building order) . Everything was plastered and coloured and painted neatly. All these days we had to walk through the old parking lots to get into the escalators in the northern or southern side of the mall. Probably the new escalator will lead us to the east and west of the Mall. The mall is kind of linear and it extends from North to South with a Centre court and this centre court has small extension on Western and Eastern Side.
I am curious to see now where this new escalator will lead. I really appreciate the kind of building activity going on without causing any disturbance to the shoppers and the crowd seems to grow bigger by the day and it has an appearance of a fair or Mela going on every time we go there.
We always wonder how much the Mall must be making money by way of collecting the parking charges. Previously it was just a standard charge without any time limit. (may be that was why it was full all the time as parking charges are really high in a city like Kuala Lumpur). Now wisely the parking charges are levied based on the time of entry and exit.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Language
Tejas is learning Mandarin. A teacher comes home to teach him. I watch him learn the language. It appears very tough as it does not look like any other language which I have learnt.
I know quite a few languages. Tamil being my mother tongue I can speak fluently and can read very fast, but when it comes to writing I am not very comfortable and I wish I had learnt to write my mother tongue well. Still I have time and I will learn how to write properly soon. Kannada an Indian language I can read, write and speak very fluently as I learnt that language till my High School in Bangalore. I can understand and read and write Hindi our National language well. I am not that fluent speaking hindi since my accent gives others creeps when they hear me speak . Sanskrit is another language which I learnt in school/ college as second language. (the reason being it is a scoring subject) I know the meanings of many words in Sanskrit but I can not form complicated sentences of my own, but can make out the general meaning of a sentence if you know what I mean. Reading is no problem being the same script(Devanagari script) as Hindi and pronunciation is perfect. Malayalam is yet another language which I can understand and communicate quite well and read bits and pieces as my daughter studied the language till she finished her school. Of course it goes without saying I am quite comfortable in English, though again my pronunciation gives my kids creeps some time, though not always.
Well after all this background let me tell you that when I first came to Malaysia I was kind of surprised to read boards written in English but the spellings were really horrible. For example a clinic was spelled as klinik. I thought they were poor at spelling the words. It took me couple of visits and a serious thought to this subject to realize that it was not English but the boards were written in the local language the Bhasa Melayu. The language Bhasa Melayu had adopted the Roman script and the words were Malay words written phonetically. For example 'c' was to be pronounced Cha all the time and K is Ka sound and so on. Even though I get very little chance of communicating in Malay, I know the meaning of many words since I can read them because of the Roman script.
Coming back to the beginning, I find it easier to follow Tejas studying communication malay as I can read with him and test him, it just floors me to see his Mandarin. I understand that each character represents words and the meaning changes diabolically when the characters position is changed in a sentence.
All this set me into thinking. My children and many children in India do their schooling in English medium. They have second language as Hindi or many times, Sanskrit for reasons said above and never get a chance to learn their mother tongue. My children can speak Tamil my mother tongue very well. But when it comes to reading and writing they don't know. Every summer holidays when they were young, I tried to teach them some words and we never proceeded beyond writing all our relatives names in Tamil! So now they can recognize some letters and words in Tamil. That is all.
Whenever I read classics in Tamil and some lovely articles, it saddens me that I can not share the experience with my kids. We discuss many things we read in English and these are the conversations I enjoy most with my children. Some of the Tamil articles make me feel like wanting to share with the kids, as they being brought up in India and being Tamil, the artilces are very relevant to them and they can give me so many different ideas about the article or books or what ever I read. I feel sad and feel guilty for not teaching them how to read and write properly.
This again sets me in thinking that if Tamil also can be written phonetically in Roman scripts, my children and many like them can enjoy so many things written in Tamil which is a very ancient language like, Sanskrit, Latin and Greek. I know that even such an idea will make the Tamil scholars to pounce on me for even thinking like this.
I feel since German and French have Roman scripts many people are able to learn them fast and there are so many German and French classes going on in India. A thought can be given to the idea of Romanizing the Scripts of Indian language.
Coming back to Mandarin again Tejas has to cross many hurdles before he even can speak the language since writing it is so different from other languages.
I know quite a few languages. Tamil being my mother tongue I can speak fluently and can read very fast, but when it comes to writing I am not very comfortable and I wish I had learnt to write my mother tongue well. Still I have time and I will learn how to write properly soon. Kannada an Indian language I can read, write and speak very fluently as I learnt that language till my High School in Bangalore. I can understand and read and write Hindi our National language well. I am not that fluent speaking hindi since my accent gives others creeps when they hear me speak . Sanskrit is another language which I learnt in school/ college as second language. (the reason being it is a scoring subject) I know the meanings of many words in Sanskrit but I can not form complicated sentences of my own, but can make out the general meaning of a sentence if you know what I mean. Reading is no problem being the same script(Devanagari script) as Hindi and pronunciation is perfect. Malayalam is yet another language which I can understand and communicate quite well and read bits and pieces as my daughter studied the language till she finished her school. Of course it goes without saying I am quite comfortable in English, though again my pronunciation gives my kids creeps some time, though not always.
Well after all this background let me tell you that when I first came to Malaysia I was kind of surprised to read boards written in English but the spellings were really horrible. For example a clinic was spelled as klinik. I thought they were poor at spelling the words. It took me couple of visits and a serious thought to this subject to realize that it was not English but the boards were written in the local language the Bhasa Melayu. The language Bhasa Melayu had adopted the Roman script and the words were Malay words written phonetically. For example 'c' was to be pronounced Cha all the time and K is Ka sound and so on. Even though I get very little chance of communicating in Malay, I know the meaning of many words since I can read them because of the Roman script.
Coming back to the beginning, I find it easier to follow Tejas studying communication malay as I can read with him and test him, it just floors me to see his Mandarin. I understand that each character represents words and the meaning changes diabolically when the characters position is changed in a sentence.
All this set me into thinking. My children and many children in India do their schooling in English medium. They have second language as Hindi or many times, Sanskrit for reasons said above and never get a chance to learn their mother tongue. My children can speak Tamil my mother tongue very well. But when it comes to reading and writing they don't know. Every summer holidays when they were young, I tried to teach them some words and we never proceeded beyond writing all our relatives names in Tamil! So now they can recognize some letters and words in Tamil. That is all.
Whenever I read classics in Tamil and some lovely articles, it saddens me that I can not share the experience with my kids. We discuss many things we read in English and these are the conversations I enjoy most with my children. Some of the Tamil articles make me feel like wanting to share with the kids, as they being brought up in India and being Tamil, the artilces are very relevant to them and they can give me so many different ideas about the article or books or what ever I read. I feel sad and feel guilty for not teaching them how to read and write properly.
This again sets me in thinking that if Tamil also can be written phonetically in Roman scripts, my children and many like them can enjoy so many things written in Tamil which is a very ancient language like, Sanskrit, Latin and Greek. I know that even such an idea will make the Tamil scholars to pounce on me for even thinking like this.
I feel since German and French have Roman scripts many people are able to learn them fast and there are so many German and French classes going on in India. A thought can be given to the idea of Romanizing the Scripts of Indian language.
Coming back to Mandarin again Tejas has to cross many hurdles before he even can speak the language since writing it is so different from other languages.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Mother
One of my mails to my friend about my mother triggered lots of memories about my mom. Suddenly it dawned on me that the coming sunday is mothers' day.
Well all moms are special is an often used cliche. My mom was also very special in her own way. As a child I was very close to my dad. Even though I loved my mom very much, it was always my father to whom I used to run for every little thing.
When I completed my high school, like any other school girl I bought an autograph book so that I could get the signatures of my teachers and friends. I wanted the first page to be written by my mother. She wrote lovely advice in tamil asking me to be a nice girl. In school one of the teachers, who knew tamil read the lines to whole class and said it was very nice of me to have made my mom write. (it is an another story, that my brother took my autograph book without my knowledge and made my dad also write which I some how did not want , and he had written a 'tirukural' and which made me so angry with the lovely brother of mine). One of the professor in college wanted to know if my mother was a famous personality as I had taken her autograph. she had signed Lakshmi and within brackets had written ,amma, in tamil. I was so livid with anger just like any other teenager getting angry for no reason and said proudly ' for me my mom is a famous personality'.
I could see our relationship changing and I became much more closer, after I got a daughter of my own and I felt I could understand her better.
The real mother I could see only when she went through lot of crisis in life . The mother who controlled her cries, when my dad died in hospital so that it would not disturb other patients.
The mother who took care of my kid when I went away for training in Mumbai Jullundar without any complaint.
The mother who had lost almost sight in one eye due to glucoma and wrong diagnosis of a doctor, never complained but continued her simple hand works and reading of magzines.
Then suddenly without warning , she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She took it in the right spirit and listened to the doctor like a dutiful pupil and went through all the cycles of chemo thearapy and radiation without complaining, of course with great help from all my sisters in law ( 'mannis' ) and sister(God bless them). I had lost my father by then, but my aging grand parents were alive and my mom was their only daughter. She recovered remarkably well and became normal. I was so proud of her, that I took her back to our railway colony where she was diagnosed with the disease, and showed her off to the world , that my mom was well and most normal. She never spoke of her ailments and except for the near relatives and friends many did not even know that she was treated for cancer. So she lived to take care of her aging parents very well.
She was diagnosed with secondaries thirteen years later. By then she had seen grand kids from all her children and also great grand kids from a daughter as well as a son. This time also she bore the disease very strongly. But I never understood that she will succumb to it and I thought like first time she will recover fast. My sister in law and myself always joked when we took her for chemo saying no body will know who the patient is as she looked more healthy and cheerful than us.
I had seen her on January 8th when she was perfectly ok without knowing it was the last time I was seeing her. She was deteriorating by end of March, but was moving around the house on her own. I had my own family to take care and last time when I spoke to her over phone she insisted that my kids are more important to me, and I should visit her only when I was free which was just ten days away. But that was not to be. She died on April 4th, and was conscious till almost the end and died very peacefully. It was a miracle that she did not feel much pain which is so dreadful about cancer and did not even take powerful painkillers which was given to her. I was told that she must have been aware that she is losing time but she never showed it or spoke about it. But at least I was fortunate that I could come to Bangalore before cremation, which I could not do for my dad.
Only one thing I regretted. Even though I made her feel that I loved her very much, I still don't know whether I told her HOW MUCH I LOVED HER. I should have told her I loved her as much as I loved my father if not more. May be she knew it heart of heart.
I learnt from her to face the crisis of life with smiling face, and never to let her guard down and keep her sorrows to herself. amma at least let me tell you now loudly that I love you very much.
Well all moms are special is an often used cliche. My mom was also very special in her own way. As a child I was very close to my dad. Even though I loved my mom very much, it was always my father to whom I used to run for every little thing.
When I completed my high school, like any other school girl I bought an autograph book so that I could get the signatures of my teachers and friends. I wanted the first page to be written by my mother. She wrote lovely advice in tamil asking me to be a nice girl. In school one of the teachers, who knew tamil read the lines to whole class and said it was very nice of me to have made my mom write. (it is an another story, that my brother took my autograph book without my knowledge and made my dad also write which I some how did not want , and he had written a 'tirukural' and which made me so angry with the lovely brother of mine). One of the professor in college wanted to know if my mother was a famous personality as I had taken her autograph. she had signed Lakshmi and within brackets had written ,amma, in tamil. I was so livid with anger just like any other teenager getting angry for no reason and said proudly ' for me my mom is a famous personality'.
I could see our relationship changing and I became much more closer, after I got a daughter of my own and I felt I could understand her better.
The real mother I could see only when she went through lot of crisis in life . The mother who controlled her cries, when my dad died in hospital so that it would not disturb other patients.
The mother who took care of my kid when I went away for training in Mumbai Jullundar without any complaint.
The mother who had lost almost sight in one eye due to glucoma and wrong diagnosis of a doctor, never complained but continued her simple hand works and reading of magzines.
Then suddenly without warning , she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She took it in the right spirit and listened to the doctor like a dutiful pupil and went through all the cycles of chemo thearapy and radiation without complaining, of course with great help from all my sisters in law ( 'mannis' ) and sister(God bless them). I had lost my father by then, but my aging grand parents were alive and my mom was their only daughter. She recovered remarkably well and became normal. I was so proud of her, that I took her back to our railway colony where she was diagnosed with the disease, and showed her off to the world , that my mom was well and most normal. She never spoke of her ailments and except for the near relatives and friends many did not even know that she was treated for cancer. So she lived to take care of her aging parents very well.
She was diagnosed with secondaries thirteen years later. By then she had seen grand kids from all her children and also great grand kids from a daughter as well as a son. This time also she bore the disease very strongly. But I never understood that she will succumb to it and I thought like first time she will recover fast. My sister in law and myself always joked when we took her for chemo saying no body will know who the patient is as she looked more healthy and cheerful than us.
I had seen her on January 8th when she was perfectly ok without knowing it was the last time I was seeing her. She was deteriorating by end of March, but was moving around the house on her own. I had my own family to take care and last time when I spoke to her over phone she insisted that my kids are more important to me, and I should visit her only when I was free which was just ten days away. But that was not to be. She died on April 4th, and was conscious till almost the end and died very peacefully. It was a miracle that she did not feel much pain which is so dreadful about cancer and did not even take powerful painkillers which was given to her. I was told that she must have been aware that she is losing time but she never showed it or spoke about it. But at least I was fortunate that I could come to Bangalore before cremation, which I could not do for my dad.
Only one thing I regretted. Even though I made her feel that I loved her very much, I still don't know whether I told her HOW MUCH I LOVED HER. I should have told her I loved her as much as I loved my father if not more. May be she knew it heart of heart.
I learnt from her to face the crisis of life with smiling face, and never to let her guard down and keep her sorrows to herself. amma at least let me tell you now loudly that I love you very much.
Monday, February 26, 2007
ASHANKURA
This again happens to be an article written and sent to me by Dr. Ramamani. She wanted me to publish it in my blog. So here it is.
I happened to receive an invitation card from Ashankura school for inauguration function of Annual sports. Ashankura is a special school for spastic and mentally challenged children. I had not really made up my mind whether to go or not as I had work. But arrival of a friend and common interest of we two, tilted my decision in favour of attending the function.
I never regret going there for it turned out to be an experience of different sort. The inauguration was arranged in outdoor space of Ashankura School. There was a dais meant for Chief guest and other dignitaries. School children both boys and girls in the age group of 8-16 were dressed up in sports uniform of red T-shirt and black shorts.
I had a look at these children with faces so different, faces with different features, faces with different expressions. Some had slanting eyes, some had mouths gaping, some had their tongues hanging out, some had a funny grin. Many children had a different bone structure, loose limbs, thin weak legs and walked with halting gaits. One boy had a mass of tissue in place of right ear. A boy perched on a chair had both his legs in knee length braces. His supporting walker had fallen off by the side. He drew my attention to get him back the walker. With the help of walker he joined the crowd of other children.
Probably not aware of the world, not aware of what is in store for the future these children just giggled .
These anomalous children are innocent victims of errors. Errors not of their own but of nature, of nature passing on the genes wrongly coded, of genes which do not give the right command for development of brain, bones or muscles, or errors during the birth process, often stranded while coming out of mother’s womb resulting in brain damage.
I went up to them and said ‘hello,’ wished them luck in sports and extended my hands towards them. Out came twenty hands with eyes peering curiously at me, some smiled also.
Apparently sports teacher was trying to arrange the children in columns of three for March past. A lady teacher who was holding the hand of a boy to keep him well with in line.
Chief guest and dignitaries arrived and sat on raised dais . They were welcomed and there were speeches. Lamp was lighted and sports was declared open.
Sports oath was taken by a tall girl on behalf of all children, oath meant for special Olympic participants. "I want to win, if I dont win I want to learn". She looked so normal and even graceful. I asked teacher how this girl happened to be a schoolmate of Ashankura.. I was told that she looked quite different some years back, now with training she has mastered many body movements and speech. That was an optimistic note.
A tall boy who had many medals to his credit from Special Olympics in Europe was leading the group for march past. It was proudly announced that he was expected to go to China for special Olympics later. He was the flag bearer.
The march past moved in a circle. All children marched past to the rhythmic beat of band and ‘ left right , left right’ command of leader not so rhythmically. Their hands flailed forward and backward as their legs stomped in strides of different lengths. March past was so asynchronous, yet looked so beautiful coming from them! As it went on, column of children grew wider and wider. Finally the leader saluted the guest of honour and planted the flag in front of him.
There was a sense of achievement in children’s face as they looked at their parents and onlookers who smiled back with encouragement. I could see the pride in parents eyes.
Then there was a drill. It was fashioned in accordance with different movements of cricket game. A girl brought a placard written ‘ bowling’ and children swung their arms in circles bowling an imaginary ball. Another girl brought another placard written ‘batting.’ Children batted virtually from both sides as a left hander or a right hander would do. Then came the placards ‘four’ ‘six’ ‘ catch’ ’out’ ‘ lbw’ ‘ wide’ ‘out’ ‘catch’ Mimicking of all these actions were done by children.
Spectators and guests clapped On the whole inauguration was a great event.God bless these children. God’s children .
I happened to receive an invitation card from Ashankura school for inauguration function of Annual sports. Ashankura is a special school for spastic and mentally challenged children. I had not really made up my mind whether to go or not as I had work. But arrival of a friend and common interest of we two, tilted my decision in favour of attending the function.
I never regret going there for it turned out to be an experience of different sort. The inauguration was arranged in outdoor space of Ashankura School. There was a dais meant for Chief guest and other dignitaries. School children both boys and girls in the age group of 8-16 were dressed up in sports uniform of red T-shirt and black shorts.
I had a look at these children with faces so different, faces with different features, faces with different expressions. Some had slanting eyes, some had mouths gaping, some had their tongues hanging out, some had a funny grin. Many children had a different bone structure, loose limbs, thin weak legs and walked with halting gaits. One boy had a mass of tissue in place of right ear. A boy perched on a chair had both his legs in knee length braces. His supporting walker had fallen off by the side. He drew my attention to get him back the walker. With the help of walker he joined the crowd of other children.
Probably not aware of the world, not aware of what is in store for the future these children just giggled .
These anomalous children are innocent victims of errors. Errors not of their own but of nature, of nature passing on the genes wrongly coded, of genes which do not give the right command for development of brain, bones or muscles, or errors during the birth process, often stranded while coming out of mother’s womb resulting in brain damage.
I went up to them and said ‘hello,’ wished them luck in sports and extended my hands towards them. Out came twenty hands with eyes peering curiously at me, some smiled also.
Apparently sports teacher was trying to arrange the children in columns of three for March past. A lady teacher who was holding the hand of a boy to keep him well with in line.
Chief guest and dignitaries arrived and sat on raised dais . They were welcomed and there were speeches. Lamp was lighted and sports was declared open.
Sports oath was taken by a tall girl on behalf of all children, oath meant for special Olympic participants. "I want to win, if I dont win I want to learn". She looked so normal and even graceful. I asked teacher how this girl happened to be a schoolmate of Ashankura.. I was told that she looked quite different some years back, now with training she has mastered many body movements and speech. That was an optimistic note.
A tall boy who had many medals to his credit from Special Olympics in Europe was leading the group for march past. It was proudly announced that he was expected to go to China for special Olympics later. He was the flag bearer.
The march past moved in a circle. All children marched past to the rhythmic beat of band and ‘ left right , left right’ command of leader not so rhythmically. Their hands flailed forward and backward as their legs stomped in strides of different lengths. March past was so asynchronous, yet looked so beautiful coming from them! As it went on, column of children grew wider and wider. Finally the leader saluted the guest of honour and planted the flag in front of him.
There was a sense of achievement in children’s face as they looked at their parents and onlookers who smiled back with encouragement. I could see the pride in parents eyes.
Then there was a drill. It was fashioned in accordance with different movements of cricket game. A girl brought a placard written ‘ bowling’ and children swung their arms in circles bowling an imaginary ball. Another girl brought another placard written ‘batting.’ Children batted virtually from both sides as a left hander or a right hander would do. Then came the placards ‘four’ ‘six’ ‘ catch’ ’out’ ‘ lbw’ ‘ wide’ ‘out’ ‘catch’ Mimicking of all these actions were done by children.
Spectators and guests clapped On the whole inauguration was a great event.God bless these children. God’s children .
Aeroshow 2007
This article was sent to me by Dr. Ramamani, who is the CMD (Chief Medical Director) with BEL Bangalore. With her permission I am publishing this as a blog.
I witnessed Aero show 2007 on .8.02.07 with the free pass issued by our management. Jet aircrafts Manufactured in USA, Russia, France, Syria and of course India were on display. F16, Sukhoi, Grupine, Suryakiran were some of the aircrafts I saw. There were exhibition stalls from BEL, HAL, DRDO and some foreign companies. BEL had displayed warfare equipments like distance target measuring, night vision equipments etc.
Coming back to Aero show, even though I have been witnessing the spectacular event for the third time, I never feel tired of watching it any number of times. Aircraft exercises and aerobatics are simply awesome. Just watching leaves my pulse racing with excitement, with fear whether the pilot can control.
While in Aero show it so happened I met a senior executive officer from BEL who was good enough to take me to a sit out meant for VIPs and customers. It was a vantage point as I could watch the jets right from take off and witness the breathtaking and awesome events.
There was an initial hiccough though. The first jet had a tyre puncture while landing. Smoke started rising from the ground which gave rise to panic among watchers. Actually nothing much had happened and the runway was cleared in an hour
The first display was that of Sukhoi. It took off., was air borne in no time and zoomed up vertically. As it went up it became a speck, took a vertical backward U turn and came down at 2 MAC speed in addition to gravitational force. Later it changed to a horizontal course, rolled and somersaulted from left to right and right to left .It zoomed up again and repeated the aerobatics before it came down. The show was a perfect harmony between man and machine built on perfect technology and a perfect co ordination between man and machine. What a combination in defying the laws of gravity and aerodynamics!! Man made split second decision and controlled the machine which in turn responded obediently.
Then there was the spectacular show of fleet of Suryakiran consisting of 9 aircrafts/jets all painted red. It was a beautiful ballet in sky by the Suryakiran fleet.- dancers in red skirt against blue sky. The fleet went up together, arranged themselves in various figures keeping a distance of 3 to 5 feet, changed the geometrical figure from V to arrow, from triangle to diamond. As they flew they left a trail of tricoloured smoke of green, white and saffron in the trajectory. Then four of them separated from others and flew towards each other in opposite direction criss-crossed their paths giving an optical illusion of touching .
Then other 2 jets flew in another pathway separately and each left a heart shaped smoke in their trajectory. One more aircraft cut across the path of these two leaving a horizontal trail of smoke which pierced the smoky heart in air with an arrow !!
Finally the parachute jumpers!! A helicopter took 8 of them high up and paratroupers jumped with the help of tricoloured parachutes. Each one maneuvered the parachute by moving the legs and descended slowly from a height of 30,000 feet .
It left me exhilarating and breathless
I witnessed Aero show 2007 on .8.02.07 with the free pass issued by our management. Jet aircrafts Manufactured in USA, Russia, France, Syria and of course India were on display. F16, Sukhoi, Grupine, Suryakiran were some of the aircrafts I saw. There were exhibition stalls from BEL, HAL, DRDO and some foreign companies. BEL had displayed warfare equipments like distance target measuring, night vision equipments etc.
Coming back to Aero show, even though I have been witnessing the spectacular event for the third time, I never feel tired of watching it any number of times. Aircraft exercises and aerobatics are simply awesome. Just watching leaves my pulse racing with excitement, with fear whether the pilot can control.
While in Aero show it so happened I met a senior executive officer from BEL who was good enough to take me to a sit out meant for VIPs and customers. It was a vantage point as I could watch the jets right from take off and witness the breathtaking and awesome events.
There was an initial hiccough though. The first jet had a tyre puncture while landing. Smoke started rising from the ground which gave rise to panic among watchers. Actually nothing much had happened and the runway was cleared in an hour
The first display was that of Sukhoi. It took off., was air borne in no time and zoomed up vertically. As it went up it became a speck, took a vertical backward U turn and came down at 2 MAC speed in addition to gravitational force. Later it changed to a horizontal course, rolled and somersaulted from left to right and right to left .It zoomed up again and repeated the aerobatics before it came down. The show was a perfect harmony between man and machine built on perfect technology and a perfect co ordination between man and machine. What a combination in defying the laws of gravity and aerodynamics!! Man made split second decision and controlled the machine which in turn responded obediently.
Then there was the spectacular show of fleet of Suryakiran consisting of 9 aircrafts/jets all painted red. It was a beautiful ballet in sky by the Suryakiran fleet.- dancers in red skirt against blue sky. The fleet went up together, arranged themselves in various figures keeping a distance of 3 to 5 feet, changed the geometrical figure from V to arrow, from triangle to diamond. As they flew they left a trail of tricoloured smoke of green, white and saffron in the trajectory. Then four of them separated from others and flew towards each other in opposite direction criss-crossed their paths giving an optical illusion of touching .
Then other 2 jets flew in another pathway separately and each left a heart shaped smoke in their trajectory. One more aircraft cut across the path of these two leaving a horizontal trail of smoke which pierced the smoky heart in air with an arrow !!
Finally the parachute jumpers!! A helicopter took 8 of them high up and paratroupers jumped with the help of tricoloured parachutes. Each one maneuvered the parachute by moving the legs and descended slowly from a height of 30,000 feet .
It left me exhilarating and breathless
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Pongal
Today is Pongal. Yesterday I had been to Brickfields to buy some Groceries. That is the place here in KL where majority of Indian (read it South Indian) shops and eateries are situated. Here there is a concentration of Indian population both locals and expatriates.
The main thing which struck me was the crowd and the wares which were on sale. First there was plenty of sugar cane (karumbu), then lot of 'manjal kottu' (turmeric leaves) whose leaves were the size of a small banana plant. There were, the new pongal panais (earthern pots), fruits, vegetables, betel leaves, sweets, plastic thoranams, flowers, garlands and so on.
Few years back garlands meant some jasmins tied together here and there with a woolen thread. But now the garland making has been mastered and each garland vies with another beautifully done with so many lovely flowers available here. There were temporary shops all around the platforms in front of the grocery and magzine shops.
I remembered the days when I used to search and search to get betel leaves for navarathri festivals. There never used to be so many wares sold for any festival. Now I can see every year the wares are also increasing and so does the crowd.
I think the media (visual) has a role to play in this consumerism. (yes I do equate these festivities to consumerism) I find the tamil programs which are aired in the TV , (previously there was no separate tamil channels only some few tamil movies aired thrice a week or so) showing great emphasis on these festivals. Every now and then I see advertizements shouting for some wares and talking about 'tamilar tirunal' ulavar tirunal' . There is an indirect suggestion that being a tamilian one should celeberate this festival with gusto, following certain tradition. Again and again they show people making pongal in new earthern pots, shouting pongalo pongal with a background decorated with fresh sugar cane, turmeric plants and what not. This in effect makes people throng to the market to buy these things.
I am not saying all these are bad or good but this is just an observation.
Any way I did feel I was in a Chennai street especially 'ranganathan street' in T Nagar, jostling around people to move forward. There was one more similarity which made me sad. Like the little India of Singapore and the market places of India the whole place needed lot of cleaning and maintenance.
The main thing which struck me was the crowd and the wares which were on sale. First there was plenty of sugar cane (karumbu), then lot of 'manjal kottu' (turmeric leaves) whose leaves were the size of a small banana plant. There were, the new pongal panais (earthern pots), fruits, vegetables, betel leaves, sweets, plastic thoranams, flowers, garlands and so on.
Few years back garlands meant some jasmins tied together here and there with a woolen thread. But now the garland making has been mastered and each garland vies with another beautifully done with so many lovely flowers available here. There were temporary shops all around the platforms in front of the grocery and magzine shops.
I remembered the days when I used to search and search to get betel leaves for navarathri festivals. There never used to be so many wares sold for any festival. Now I can see every year the wares are also increasing and so does the crowd.
I think the media (visual) has a role to play in this consumerism. (yes I do equate these festivities to consumerism) I find the tamil programs which are aired in the TV , (previously there was no separate tamil channels only some few tamil movies aired thrice a week or so) showing great emphasis on these festivals. Every now and then I see advertizements shouting for some wares and talking about 'tamilar tirunal' ulavar tirunal' . There is an indirect suggestion that being a tamilian one should celeberate this festival with gusto, following certain tradition. Again and again they show people making pongal in new earthern pots, shouting pongalo pongal with a background decorated with fresh sugar cane, turmeric plants and what not. This in effect makes people throng to the market to buy these things.
I am not saying all these are bad or good but this is just an observation.
Any way I did feel I was in a Chennai street especially 'ranganathan street' in T Nagar, jostling around people to move forward. There was one more similarity which made me sad. Like the little India of Singapore and the market places of India the whole place needed lot of cleaning and maintenance.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
week end trip to singapore
We had been to Singapore last week end. Singapore being a very small country, I thought I had seen every thing which a tourist/visitor should see and so would spend time with my son at home.
But this Singapore never stops surprising me. Last year when I went there and visited Sentosa Islands for a fifth or what ever time, I had not expected to see so much change and new things, but I did see lot of things , which really impressed me. Singapore is short of land, being a small island and it's space being limited.
This time when my son offered to take us to a new mall I thought it will be yet another mall.
But this vivocity which is near the harbour is really a different one. This was opened just two months back I was told. First the structure was very unique with so many curves and levels added to it. The location was also very good. It is just facing the Sentosa islands. In each level there is an open terrace from where you can just sit and watch the island and the view is superb. These terrace(s) have eating places, some small water parks for kids and lots of place to sit and relax.
The Sentosa island was connected to the main land by ferrys and ropeways when I visited it in the 90s. Later two or three years back it was connected by road and we could just drive inside.(by paying entry fees of course). Now this time from this mall Sentosa can be reached by monorail. I sat in the terrace and was looking at the rope way on one side going up and down, the mono rail moving like a caterpillar, the ferry fetching and dropping people, and also some cars and buses moving along the road. What improvement over the years. Who said malls are places where you shell out your hard earned money. It is a place to sit and relax also. Of course you do spend for reaching there and the drinks and eats you have also cost money, but that is not wasting your money. The concept and the execution is superb.
My blog would not end without comments about railways. We went and came back by train, managed by Malaysian Railways. The coach in which we travelled was AC 2 tier compartment. The berths are very uncomfortable. It is perpendicular to the coach unlike ours (in India) which is horizontal. Both sides are berths and there is place in the middle to walk. (our trains have space in the side for a meter gauge train also) The berths here are fixed unlike our side berths in the broad guage which can be folded. So the upper berth person has to be in his berth all the time as the lower berth is designated to the person travelling in it. Even though it is over night journey invariably the train is late and it reaches both ways only around 8 a.m. There is no space under the berth to keep one's luggage (as the fixtures for fixing the berth abstructs the space, bad design) and so one has to keep it in the next to the berth in the walking spce provided. We both were appreciating the design of our coaches back in India (though there is lot of things to be said about the maintainance of these coaches back home). Looks like it is a great period for Indian Railways and its minister too, getting appreciated all around.
But this Singapore never stops surprising me. Last year when I went there and visited Sentosa Islands for a fifth or what ever time, I had not expected to see so much change and new things, but I did see lot of things , which really impressed me. Singapore is short of land, being a small island and it's space being limited.
This time when my son offered to take us to a new mall I thought it will be yet another mall.
But this vivocity which is near the harbour is really a different one. This was opened just two months back I was told. First the structure was very unique with so many curves and levels added to it. The location was also very good. It is just facing the Sentosa islands. In each level there is an open terrace from where you can just sit and watch the island and the view is superb. These terrace(s) have eating places, some small water parks for kids and lots of place to sit and relax.
The Sentosa island was connected to the main land by ferrys and ropeways when I visited it in the 90s. Later two or three years back it was connected by road and we could just drive inside.(by paying entry fees of course). Now this time from this mall Sentosa can be reached by monorail. I sat in the terrace and was looking at the rope way on one side going up and down, the mono rail moving like a caterpillar, the ferry fetching and dropping people, and also some cars and buses moving along the road. What improvement over the years. Who said malls are places where you shell out your hard earned money. It is a place to sit and relax also. Of course you do spend for reaching there and the drinks and eats you have also cost money, but that is not wasting your money. The concept and the execution is superb.
My blog would not end without comments about railways. We went and came back by train, managed by Malaysian Railways. The coach in which we travelled was AC 2 tier compartment. The berths are very uncomfortable. It is perpendicular to the coach unlike ours (in India) which is horizontal. Both sides are berths and there is place in the middle to walk. (our trains have space in the side for a meter gauge train also) The berths here are fixed unlike our side berths in the broad guage which can be folded. So the upper berth person has to be in his berth all the time as the lower berth is designated to the person travelling in it. Even though it is over night journey invariably the train is late and it reaches both ways only around 8 a.m. There is no space under the berth to keep one's luggage (as the fixtures for fixing the berth abstructs the space, bad design) and so one has to keep it in the next to the berth in the walking spce provided. We both were appreciating the design of our coaches back in India (though there is lot of things to be said about the maintainance of these coaches back home). Looks like it is a great period for Indian Railways and its minister too, getting appreciated all around.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
pot-pourri
It is quite some time since I wrote anything. This heading gives me a liberty to jump randomly from topic to topic which I tend to do while talking.
Well I had been to India and thanks to Vasu could visit Mahabalipuram. It was sort of illogical that I , who has seen many places, like Great Wall of China, the Terracoata Warriors of China, the Angkor Wat in Cambodia to name a few, had not seen Mahabalipuram just an hour's drive from Chennai. I have been visiting Chennai for so many years for summer holidays as a little girl and later had the opportunity to live in the city for nearly 7 to 8 years, had not seen this place in spite of having a deep desire to see it. May be that is what happens to places near where we live and we tend to think we can do it tomorrow and the morrow never comes.
This was the first trip to Mahabalipuram for hubby also , who has seen much more places than me,
Well the structures really impressed me. I could very well understand why this place has been considered as a school of architecture rather than a place of worship. I could really hear the sounds of 'uli' the instrument which is used to make the 'shilpas' (stone icons) . I could understand what the great writer 'kalki' wrote in his famous novel 'Sivagamiyin Sabadham' where he describes this place as having many ' shilpis' working under a great master.
Though the place is quite well mainatained to our Indian standards, one thing which was very much lacking was the place for parking. Since now a days many Indians own cars, more and more people come to these places in their own vehicles. Organized big parking areas would help the visitors to go back from the place with the euphoric feeling rather than with a bad taste in the mouth having caught up in one of the worst traffic jam of one's life.
I did visit another place in Coimbatore which is called Isha dyana yoga centre. This is a place which is set up by 'jakki vasudev' whose writings in ' anandha vikatan' are really good. The writings have made me feel he is not just another guru who talks about God , but rather talks about the way of living. Here in this place there is a big dyana linga in a circular hall which has a big dome constructed just by bricks without any support and the hall itself is considered as a civil engineering marvel. Any body can go inside and sit there and do meditation. A strict silence is maintained there.
There is a mercury lingam which is submerged in water. They said it is about 625 kg weight and it is about 2 ft. height. We all know mercury is a liquid metal and I wondered how it could be stable in normal temperature even submerged under water. I did try to put some questions to the person sitting in the entrance who gave some explanation which was not credible. But when I discussed it with vinayak he said it can be some alloy with mercury which made it a stable structure in normal temperature. This is what I had also thought. I was mainly impressed with the green revolution they are brining about by planting lot of trees,
( lakhs of saplings and making arrangements to water them) there by trying to save the environment.
Well I did read two good books in my India trip. One was Tuesdays with Morris by Mitch Albom. It is about life and death and a teacher and a student. It reminded me about our hindu philosophy, though the book was not a philosophical book, the ideas I felt were very much in line with our ancient writings. The book takes only a few hours to finish and it is very readable.
The other one is The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt. Again thanks to Anandha vikatan which is publishing the translation, I wanted to read the original.
I understand the book was written about 20 years ago . I read the original and it is a book on management written like a novel. It is really good. All complicated problems indeed have simple solutions but to find out what these simple solutions are, is the key to management. (managing one's life is also included in this.)
Well I had been to India and thanks to Vasu could visit Mahabalipuram. It was sort of illogical that I , who has seen many places, like Great Wall of China, the Terracoata Warriors of China, the Angkor Wat in Cambodia to name a few, had not seen Mahabalipuram just an hour's drive from Chennai. I have been visiting Chennai for so many years for summer holidays as a little girl and later had the opportunity to live in the city for nearly 7 to 8 years, had not seen this place in spite of having a deep desire to see it. May be that is what happens to places near where we live and we tend to think we can do it tomorrow and the morrow never comes.
This was the first trip to Mahabalipuram for hubby also , who has seen much more places than me,
Well the structures really impressed me. I could very well understand why this place has been considered as a school of architecture rather than a place of worship. I could really hear the sounds of 'uli' the instrument which is used to make the 'shilpas' (stone icons) . I could understand what the great writer 'kalki' wrote in his famous novel 'Sivagamiyin Sabadham' where he describes this place as having many ' shilpis' working under a great master.
Though the place is quite well mainatained to our Indian standards, one thing which was very much lacking was the place for parking. Since now a days many Indians own cars, more and more people come to these places in their own vehicles. Organized big parking areas would help the visitors to go back from the place with the euphoric feeling rather than with a bad taste in the mouth having caught up in one of the worst traffic jam of one's life.
I did visit another place in Coimbatore which is called Isha dyana yoga centre. This is a place which is set up by 'jakki vasudev' whose writings in ' anandha vikatan' are really good. The writings have made me feel he is not just another guru who talks about God , but rather talks about the way of living. Here in this place there is a big dyana linga in a circular hall which has a big dome constructed just by bricks without any support and the hall itself is considered as a civil engineering marvel. Any body can go inside and sit there and do meditation. A strict silence is maintained there.
There is a mercury lingam which is submerged in water. They said it is about 625 kg weight and it is about 2 ft. height. We all know mercury is a liquid metal and I wondered how it could be stable in normal temperature even submerged under water. I did try to put some questions to the person sitting in the entrance who gave some explanation which was not credible. But when I discussed it with vinayak he said it can be some alloy with mercury which made it a stable structure in normal temperature. This is what I had also thought. I was mainly impressed with the green revolution they are brining about by planting lot of trees,
( lakhs of saplings and making arrangements to water them) there by trying to save the environment.
Well I did read two good books in my India trip. One was Tuesdays with Morris by Mitch Albom. It is about life and death and a teacher and a student. It reminded me about our hindu philosophy, though the book was not a philosophical book, the ideas I felt were very much in line with our ancient writings. The book takes only a few hours to finish and it is very readable.
The other one is The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt. Again thanks to Anandha vikatan which is publishing the translation, I wanted to read the original.
I understand the book was written about 20 years ago . I read the original and it is a book on management written like a novel. It is really good. All complicated problems indeed have simple solutions but to find out what these simple solutions are, is the key to management. (managing one's life is also included in this.)
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