One summer afternoon in the garden...

"A flower is an educated weed" -- Luther Burbank

"There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story." -- Linda Hogan

"The sun, with all those plants revolving around it and dependent upon it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do." -- Galileo

"Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain." -- Henry David Thoreau

"The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature." -- Anne Frank

"To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves." -- M. K. Gandhi

"In summer, the song sings itself." -- William Carlos Williams

"Keep your sense of proportion by regularly, preferably daily, visiting the natural world." -- Caitlin Matthews

"People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us" -- Iris Murdoch"Summer afternoon . . . summer afternoon - the two most beautiful words in the English language." -- Henry James"Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience."-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite..." -- e.e. Cummings

All photos taken in my parent's wonderful garden. The above picture shows a part of the garden on a very rainy day last week!

Movie Montage!

Technically, they're not all movies but here's what i've been watching...

-- Marley and Me: After all that waiting, it was actually quite a disappointment! This movie came out in India around exam time and plus it was supposed to be a sad-ish movie, I couldn't convince anyone to go with me... So I finally got it from my brother on Saturday and I guess I was expecting a lot better. You know what they say, "Never judge a book by it's... movie!" Read the book, seriously! Even if you're not a big fan of dogs, John Grogan tells the story really fantabulously.

-- Fawlty Towers (Series 1): This is one of those British sitcoms that we actually used to watch religiously in the few hours of television transmission we used to get in Zambia. It's a laughter riot! I also learned that the series was created by the man who plays Mr. Fawlty (John Cleese) and the Polly (played by Connie Booth) and they were actually married to each other at the time! The series revolve around Mr. and Mrs. Fawlty who run a hotel in a little town 4hrs away from London where things always seem to go embarrassingly wrong thanks mainly to Mr. Fawlty's hyperactive nature and Manuel - the waiter from Barcelona - who doesn't understand much english! "I know naaathing!"

-- The Invisible: Obviously not a very well known movie with big actors or anything. But I actually liked it. It was quite interesting. The story is about some trouble teenagers mainly and how one of them gets killed and then gets stuck in a weird realm - not quite dead, but not alive either... I know you're thinking, hmm, ghost movie. But technically, he's not a ghost! Lol. Watch it if you're bored.

-- Burn After Reading: Don't watch it even if you're bored! I think the scriptwriter of this movie ran out of words and just put in the f-word wherever possible and he thought it would be funny. I didn't think it was funny at all. I thought it was pretty pointless. But you know, opinions may vary.

-- A Wednesday: "GO WATCH IT NOW!!" I believe those are the exact words that Sonu used. Well I did go watch it. It was good, although I had some technical problems with it. The movie is about terrorism and how it can send the common man to the edge... I really wish they had casted someone better for the reporter! Naseerudhin Shah - amazing as usual! And Jimmy Shergill - wow! He's really matured from his Mohabbatein days. I thought he did a really good job.

-- Welcome to Sajjanpur: I loved this movie! Finally a Bollywood comedy that actually has some meaning and even something to teach you. Mahadev is the resident "scribe", in Sajjanpur who reads and writes personal and official letters for the illiterate in the village. Mahadev eventually develops a crush on Kamla, who is his childhood friend. The problem: she's married! The story goes on to show how he tries to get around this fact by tweaking the letters she writes and receives from her husband who went off to Mumbai soon after they got married to try and make a living... Parallelly the movie also takes a satirical poke at some of the issues of the Indian village...

In other news, I started Salsa classes on Saturday and even though I've technically only had two real hours of classes, I have salsa music perpetually on my playlist and I wish I had classes everyday!

Tina VOTES!

I saw Bangalore sunrise today. Usually, no matter how hard I try, holiday time I cannot wake up early because I invariably end up sleeping late but anyway today was different. Today is Voting Day!I voted for the first time in my life today. The very evening I reached Bangalore this holiday I went to the electoral office and registered. They told me I wouldn't be able to get my voter's ID but as long as my name came on the electoral list, I would be able to vote - I just had to show some identity. Okay. I took it with a pinch of salt, prayed that this would in fact happen and then life went on...My parents, who lived in Africa for almost twenty years also had to get theirs done and went through a lot of hell to make it happen. In fact, till yesterday my dad wasn't sure if his name was on the list even though he has a Voter's ID card! Anyway, you can read more about that over at his blog.
So this morning, we woke up bright and early to head to the polls. My dad and I wore our "Lead India '09" t-shirts which is a Times Of India initiative. He won a quiz over at their website and so they sent him a nifty t-shirt a few weeks ago and then yesterday for some odd reason they sent another one, a size smaller so I got it!I knew that voting was important for a long time but when it really kicked in was after 26/11 in Mumbai. That disaster of a terrorist attack that will remain etched in my mind forever. Suddenly the Big City was ebbing with anger, finger-pointing, protests, endless debates and discussions and then one of our professors put us all to shame one day. It went something like this...

Prof: "So let me ask you, how many of you are registered voters?"

A few scattered hands go up in class.

Prof: "Sorry to be blunt, but you shouldn't even be talking about this incident. You have no right to complain."

And then she gives you that look that makes you feel like the smallest thing on earth.

I'm not going to lie to you. Although I felt good about the fact that I actually got off my ass and took a little responsibility for my country and casted my vote today, I still don't feel completely optimistic about the fact that my vote actually counts for much. Why? Because it's a mess. Absolute mess. The whole freaking system is a mess. We have an age-old system of government given to us by the British that doesn't work for us anymore. And no, don't start pointing the finger at the British for this as well because come on, we've had more than sixty years of independence, can you really tell me that nobody has realised that we need a change yet!?!

Our polling station was at a govt. school about a 10 minute walk away from home. We reached there before much of the crowd but it still took us much more time than it really should have taken. Why? Because the booths are manned by illiterate fools. Sorry to be harsh, but it's the truth. I'm pretty sure that the man who was checking for our names on the list did not know how to read anything beyond numbers. He looked at me and asked me if the name written in my passport was in fact PRIYANKA NANDI! Room for rigging? Oh there's a-plenty!

Secondly, they had absolutely no IDEA what they were doing. You'd think that since now India is growing at 9%blahblahblah, and we have Electronic Voting Systemsblahblahblah, they'd atleast have LAPTOPS to deal with 700million eligible voters?! Oh nooooooooo, that's too much to ask. Instead they were writing things down on a million scrap pieces of paper. Okay, fine. How hard can it be to cross off numbers and keep a tally of the numbers of males and females coming to vote, right? You'd be surprised.

Thirdly, NOBODY there is willing to take responsibility for the obvious mistakes and nobody does anything to correct their mistakes either. They just smile, pretend that they're listening, tell you to keep calm, ask you if you were able to vote and then look at you like, "So what are you complaining about?? If you got your vote, move on!"

Fourthly, there are OBVIOUS dubious practices going on around the place, and the police (see picture below, need I say more?!?)... There was this one man outside the polling booth who kept stopping people, smiling at them and giving them instructions what to do inside. I stood there giving him the stink-eye for a while and made sure that he saw me doing that and then I shook my head in disgust and started walking away. Now, I was wearing my nifty "Lead India" t-shirt and so I think the guy got a little scared that I was from the press or some official or something as small as I may be so he came over to me to try and convince me that his intentions were not wrong and he blabbered some things like, "Madam, please don't misunderstand me, I am giving breakfast coupons to my workers..."

(Yeah sure, you corrupt idiot. I know exactly what that means!!)

He actually had a piece of paper on which he was showing people which button exactly to press when they went into to the polling booths. I'm telling you, DO NOT VOTE FOR PEOPLE WHO TRY TO BUY YOUR VOTE!!

ARRRGH.

So if you're an Indian and you're above 18 and you live in India and you're registered. The experience is not great but YOU HAVE TO VOTE. Why? Because it sure as hell will make LESS of a difference if you DON'T! Atleast let these assholes know that you're smarter than them and that you CANNOT BE BOUGHT by their petty games. It's a whisper in the darkness I know, but why keep your mouth shut!?

Here are a few voter tips:

1. You CAN still VOTE even if you don't have your voter's ID. Just make sure your name is on the electoral list and take some photo identity (passport, driver's licence, PAN card, etc...) with you when you go to the polls.

2. BE PREPARED. You have to do all the work. Do not rely on the idiots at the polling centres. Go on the electoral websites/go to the electoral offices/check the papers/call them and find out ALL THE DETAILS like your "Part Number", "Serial Number", etc. It makes the whole process much faster.

3. Go EARLY. Booths opened here at 7am and I'm guessing it will be similar in all places. Like I keep saying, the people manning these booths are idiots, so the later you go, the more confused they will be and the slower the process will get so go early, get out early.

4. Stand your ground. If you've checked that your name is on the list but they can't find it, don't give up! They couldn't find mine the first time... Just take as much information with you and dig in and look through the papers with the guy behind the desk searching for your name. Also, decide who you're going to vote for before hand and don't let anyone sway your decision.

5. Don't get your mark on the hand that you eat with! :D

6. BLOG about it! :D

p.s. If you see DUBIOUS BUSINESS, give them the stink-eye :D and ask them what they're doing. Chances are they'll continue whatever they're doing but atleast give them a little run for their money.

Changeling.

I haven't been doing much. Haven't even been watching movies. Gasp! You see TV has SO MANY channels nowadays, I get too lazy to plug in the DVD player and watch some good ol' DVDs. Seriously, TV is a shock even to me - member of generation-X or whatever they call us youth of today. I grew up on Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation. One measly channel that back in the day only BEGAN broadcasting at 5pm or something and closed down somewhere around midnight and that was more than enough. And now? French movies, Spanish movies, German movies, Korean movies, Hindi movies, English movies, SitComs, Drama, five million news channels... pick your poison!
And then there's the internet, my true love, so you can see how I've been too busy to get ahead on my Oscar Movie Mania! :P
Anyway, today while watching E! News (no I don't really care if Ashton Kutcher just got a million -or was it a billion?- fans on Twitter but they had a little segment right at the end about the movie, My Sister's Keeper which I'm really looking forward to...) they showed a review on some other movie on a similar theme to Changeling so I thought, "Hey, I still need to watch that movie!"
So I finally did. And I am so glad I did.
Changeling. It will enrage you. It will make you cry. It will make you ask yourself questions. It will empower you. And it will inspire you. And it's based on a true story which amplifies all the above mentioned emotions. Watch this film!
(And as an aside: Angelina Jolie is skin and bones in this movie but she is still beautiful and oh my, what a performance!)

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

So I had this idea:
If I had a penny...

Ahem... I mean a RUPEE....
For every "mirror-photo" that I have taken...
Or have been "partnered in"...

...I could be RICH!

Ummm, well, maybe not...

But I'd sure make a little money?

Ooty, how I love thee (Pt. 2) and the bus disaster!

Blogger now has mobile posting. How crazy is that?

It's HOT! But I shouldn't really complain cause apparently they're hitting the 40s in Mumbai? Yikes!

Anyway, so this is Ooty Day Two (Saturday, 11th April, 2009)...After I showed D around Selborne we headed down the hill to The Dhaba Express which used to be one of the really good restaurants in Ooty but it was quite a disappointment this time - the food I mean, the company was excellent! There was Miss Smith (top left corner) who is a maths teacher and a fascinating woman :) The Georges -Mr and Mrs and their son, Stephen and his Mrs., Nisha! (You can see Mr. George vaguely in the other picture on the top. He's the one a little blinded by the sun! And Mrs. George, Stephen and Nisha in the second row.) Then there was me and Dinah (surely you know us?!), John Vaz or I should say DR. John Vaz (bottom left corner) who is also an ex-Hebron student whose parents live in Ooty and he is doing medicine stuff in the US. He got a very short break for two weeks and it was nice to bump into him again in Ooty. We never actually were in school at the same time, he's from the class of '99 and I'm '06 so I kinda missed him by a couple of years but I met him first in school when he'd come to visit and then again in Bangalore once through some other friends and then again last year while I did a short stint volunteering at Mizpah Home and he was IG-ing at Hebron. John's parents also joined us for lunch (you can see his dad next to Mr. George). Miss Mangaldoss (next to John), who used to teach us chemistry is another amazing woman who now lives in Pune. Niru and I had stayed at her place in Pune when she came to visit me in 2008. And Miss Morris who was also a staff-member at Hebron for a long time.

Phew! Sorry if that was a little confusing!

After lunch we parted ways and D and I headed to the Bee Museum which was just brilliant. The tickets are a measly 20 bucks and they show you a 40 minute documentary which was very tastefully made about the Kurumbas who are a tribe of people in the Nilgiris whose main and daring occupation is honey-gathering. I say daring because these people do not use protective gear and hang precariously from cliffs to do their stuff and it was really quite fascinating!

After that we went to Ooty lake which was horribly crowded and messy. We checked out the thread garden.

And then walked walked walked walked to find an auto. I actually enjoyed that but it would have been a good idea not to be wearing non-grip chappals!

On the way we met these three charming little girls who enthusiastically ran up to us to say hello and asked us to take a photo of them and then they just got back to their playing! So sweet.

Anyway, we finally did find an auto but we decided that they'd really taken us for ride for the past day and a half and that we wouldn't cave until they agreed to our price (they don't have fixed prices for autos in Ooty) but they didn't cave! So we had to keep walking... Eventually we did find an auto and we headed to Coffee Day to put back on all the calories we lost in all the walking :)

The next morning we left for the bus stand by around 9:15am and waited for our bus to take us back to Bangalore. The journey was going pretty okay although it seemed much longer than the ride up... Little did we know that that was not even close to the worst part!

About 10-15kms from Bangalore city our bus came to a jerking halt and there was utter confusion. Eventually we figured out that we had actually been in an accident. Our bus driver had hit down a motorcyclist and... he RAN AWAY. Yes, our bus drivers just abandoned a bus-full of people, a half-dying man on the road that HE had hit down and ran to save his own life.

Anyway, thankfully the man wasn't dead on the spot and the ambulances arrived surprisingly fast by India's sorry standards in such things and also the police managed to keep the mob violence-free. After more confusion, we finally all got our luggage and off the bus and stood on the side of road trying to figure out what to do. Obviously no help would come for us (this is India!) and the useless cops tried and failed to stop a couple of local buses to take us the rest of the way. They even failed to stop a bus driver to stop and move OUR bus off the road so that the traffic could continue flowing.

Well, we did finally get on a local bus which took us to the city where we got off and hopped onto an auto to take us home.

That was, needless to say, quite a night! I went from utter confusion to ANGER to sorrow to gratefulness and just utter lethargy in those few hours. What else can I say?

Lulu-times!

One girl who LOVES to pose!

Ooty, how I love thee! (Pt. 1)

So we're back from Ooty and the ride back was quite something but that story is for another day!

We reached Ooty early Friday morning after an extremely bumpy and sleepless night on the bus. We unfortunately got seats at the back of the bus and for some reason that I will someday find out, it's really much bumpier at the back. Anyway, we reached Ooty and took an auto to the guest house where we were staying - Mountaban - and freshened up and then left at around 10am to get something to eat at Cafe Coffee Day.

After that we headed over to Hebron so I could show D around and meet the Georges (vice-principal of Hebron and also one of the Hebron families that I am really close to). School was closed for the mid-term break unfortunately but I still got to meet a few teachers so that was good. Once again I surprised Mr. Reid (principal) who got a little suspicious seeing D (a stranger to him) intently taking photos of school!

After we had our fill of photographing (D went a little crazy with the flowers!!) around school, we headed up to the Georges flat where we met Mrs. George and her son, Stephen, and his wife, Nisha, who are both lovely people. And then we all headed (with a few more teachers) to St. Stephen's Church for the Good Friday service which went on for 3 long hours which seemed even longer for D and I who were seriously sleep-deprived but we managed to stay awake with the help of popping some mints ;). The sermon was on the seven last words spoken by Jesus on the cross and each word was taken care of by a different speaker which really added some variety to the service and it was very interesting.
Anyway, so after that we all gathered around for some hot cross buns (seriously! I thought you only got those in kiddies books!) and coffee and caught up with some more Hebron people and made up a plan to meet for lunch the next day... It was almost 4pm and we hadn't had lunch so John Vaz (another ex-student of Hebron, seven years senior to me!), Don Foster (teacher from America), D and I headed to Nahar Garden restaurant for some dosa.

...which we really enjoyed! (the bigger one, which is called a Cheese Paper Dosa was D's :P)

In the evening D and I hit the town! :) Well, we went and bought a lot of that delicious home-made chocolate from Modern Stores (favourite store in Ooty!) and also to a book sale where I actually found two books that I wanted to read just for Rs. 95 each! And I bought a little something to eat; D was still full from above mentioned dosa, and then headed back for some sound sleep at the guesthouse. The next morning we went to the Rose Garden that Ooty is famous for but it was quite a disappointment because Ooty hasn't had any rain yet so the garden wasn't blooming as yet. Anyway, we did see some roses and were amused by some of the funny names and also a funny quote!

After that we headed to Selborne which is the girls' boarding campus of Hebron (the boys live on the main campus) and we caught up with Miss Smith (who is the most awesome maths teacher in the world!) and she showed us her famous map of India which she has cross-stitched and updates with a record (a cross-stitched record!) every time she travels to a new place and she's travelled a LOT!! From Leh to Shillong to Mumbai to Kanyakumari - everywhere! I wish I had taken a photo but I figured that's hers' to share with the world. But if you ever go up to Ooty and meet Miss Smith ask her to show you her map! :) We also chatted with the Azariahs who were my first dorm parents (think warden, but much nicer!) when I joined Hebron in Std. 9.

and then... lunch with a bunch of Hebronites and the Bee Museum which I'm too tired to continue now so that's all for now!

"Queen of Hill Stations"

So this evening at precisely 9:03 pm (seriously, that's what the bus ticket says) D and I will be leaving on a bus for our the oh-so-long-9-hour journey to Ooty. You know that "hill" which stands 2,240m (approx 7400ft) above sea level where I went to school for five beautiful years and just can't get enough of? We decided to take advantage of the long weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) for Easter and head up to Ooty for some girl-time!

Here are some quick Ooty-facts for you:

- Ooty is situated in the Nilgiris (which means Blue Mountains) of the state of Tamil Nadu.

- The Tamil name for Ooty is Udagamandalam.

- It was described as and "Queen of Hill Stations" by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (who was the first prime minister of independent India).

- The Niligiris were part of the Kingdom of Mysore of Tipu Sultan (Fernhill Palace was the erstwhile summer residence of the Maharaja) before he surrendered it to the British in the 18th century.

- Ooty was first brought to the public eye by John Sullivan, Collector of Coimbatore district in 1819 and was used as a popular summer and weekend getaway for the Britishers in the colonial days.

- The only route to the Nilgiris from Coimbatore until 1932 was a bridle path up the hill which took a period of 2 years to complete starting 1821.

- The first Coonoor ghat road was laid in 1932 thanks to the then Governor S.R. Lushington (does that name ring a bell Hebronites? Lushington Hall is the name of Hebron's main campus).

- The British took up the monumental task of connecting Mettupalyam (a.k.a. Metty) to Ooty by rail in 1880. The work was completed in 1899 (which is also the year that Hebron School, then Lushington Boys' School, was established!) The railway track STILL exists and is functional even today, more than a hundred years later.

- The Government Botanical Gardens in Ooty was laid out in 1847 by John Sullivan and covers about 22 hectares.

- The rose garden situated in Ooty has (apparently) the largest collection of roses in the country.

Sources: Ooty.com and Wikipedia!

Riding the gentle giant!

One of the highlights of our trip to Thekkady was the elephant ride! I've been on a camel in Rajasthan and on a horse a few times, so I just had to do this!
I was going to do it alone but then we got to buying the tickets and it turned out to be a better bargain for your money if the three of us went (but it was still PRETTY expensive - Rs. 750 for 3 of us). So we bought our tickets and waited for our ride...

To be honest, I was a little worried about getting on the elephant before we got there because in Rajasthan we had to climb on the camel while it was sitting down and then hold on for dear life while the camel got onto its feet. Now a camel with its dandy looooong legs leans backwards and forwards and threatens to throw you off while it's trying to get up and you don't exactly have seatbelts or anything to hold on to except the little hairs on its back so it's pretty scary. So I was hoping we wouldn't have to do the same sort of thing on the elephant which is CONSIDERABLY bigger!!
Anyway, all my fears were for naught. They had this high platform and a stool to climb onto the elephant's back so it was all good.
It was so amazing to watch the guy guiding the elephant talking away with the elephant in Malayalam and she (the elephant who's name was Chandramukhi) understood everything!
There was also this other guy who was the "photographer" and took all these photos of us with my camera - I didn't even have to tell him how to operate it or anything and Chandramukhi even posed for the photos by putting her trunk up!
The ride lasted for about half an hour around this little spice garden where we saw pepper plants, coffee plants and some other spices... (and also a LOT of elephant poop!)
After the ride was over we even got a little photo session with the elephant and I put 10 bucks in her trunk and she "blessed" me!
Seriously awesome - what a gentle giant!