Horrors of horror!! The unlucky number 13 again struck the innocent victim. And made her forget about her vow, her challenge completely! 😦 😦 😦
So should she give up the challenge or continue with it as if nothing happened ?
Well I think I will continue with it. Yesterday with chores and shopping trip, I completely forgot the challenge! 😦
Taken at Swami Vivekanand Rock, Kanyakumari, India.
As a child I don’t remember being too fond of travelling. And our annual travel was to relatives’ homes in Kolkata during the summer vacation which was quite tortuous frankly speaking! The first real vacation trip that I went on was to Puri with my parents after I had started working. Since then it has been one trip after another; some with family, some alone and some with friends.
The inspiration behind this post is a book which I am currently reading. It is a non fiction/travelogue category book (not my genre usually) titled “Around India in 80 Trains” by Monisha Rajesh. What impressed me first was the cover design. It is wonderful and so much attention given to details about Indian Railways.
The blurb of the book says
In 1991, Monishas family uprooted from Sheffield to Madras in the hope of making India their home. Two years later, fed up with soap-eating rats, stolen human hearts and the creepy colonel across the road, they returned to England with a bitter taste in their mouths. Twenty years later, Monisha came back. Taking a page out of Jules Vernes classic tale, Around the World in 80 Days, she embarked on a 40,000km adventure around India in 80 trains. Travelling a distance equivalent to the circumference of the Earth, she lifted the veil on a country that had become a stranger to her. As one of the largest civilian employers in the world, featuring luxury trains, toy trains, Mumbai’s infamous commuter trains and even a hospital on wheels, Indian Railways had more than a few stories to tell. On the way, Monisha met a colourful cast of characters with epic stories of their own. But with a self-confessed militant atheist as her photographer, Monisha’s personal journey around a country built on religion was not quite what she bargained for…Around India in 80 Trains is a story of adventure and drama infused with sparkling wit and humour.
The tourist in me was aroused to read the book and found the concept so innovative and adventurous. I have read three chapters till now so review will be posted later. But the book made me think about my own journeys and the places I have visited around my country India. So I downloaded a royalty free map of India (which by the way had the yet to be formed Telangana state marked and some more mistakes are/were there) and marked all the places I have been till date. So here the places I have visited till now.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” ~ Mark Twain
So many more places to go, so much to see….
P.S. To read my travel blog click here.
A younger sister is someone to use as a guinea-pig in trying sledges and experimental go-carts. Someone to send on messages to Mum. But someone who needs you-who comes to you with bumped heads, grazed knees, tales of persecution. Someone who trusts you to defend her. Someone who thinks you know the answers to almost everything. -Pam Brown
Recently I read a tag about writing 10 things that put you off or get your goat or are emotional atyachaars, at many blogs. No, I am not going to do the tag. Instead I am just going to focus on one habit of many people that irks me very much – Borrowing.
“Neither a borrower, nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.” ~William Shakespeare
So its Valentine’ s Day. Time to spend the day with your loved one. Time to talk about all things related to love. Time to do all things related to love. Time to listen to love songs, watch romantic movies, to get all mushy/sentimental/nostalgic/sad/happy whatever the case may be. I decided to list some of my favorite romantic things instead.
My Favorite Love Quote:-
“Love is giving someone your heart, knowing that they can destroy your whole world when you do that, but trusting that person not to do that”.
My Favorite Love Poem :- How do I love thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sandeep tagged me to write my five favorite quotes. I love collecting quotes. I already have two on this page of my blog. So here are 5 more :-
1. “A fly may sting a stately horse and make him wince; But one is but an insect and the other is a horse still” – Samuel Johnson
Meaning – A person of great stature does not lose his greatness because some insignificant person says disparaging things about him.
2. “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned” – William Congreve
Meaning – Love, when turned to hatred is the most dangerous form of (righteous) anger- and the anger of a woman who has been rejected (and insulted) is a force to be reckoned with.
Before you read this post I must repeat my disclaimer that this is entirely my point of view and it may offend conservatives and orthodoxly religious people. Rest are mature enough to understand what I’m trying to say.
India is a land of festivals and all of them centered around some god/goddess or other. Today is Ganesh Chaturthi which marks the beginning of Lord Ganesh‘s festival of 10 days. Yesterday students had come to us lecturers, as they do each year, for monetary contribution to the festival. All of us contributed. But if it had been for Bihar Flood Relief Aid, most people would have been suspicious and hesitant to give money because they know their politicians and officials. But still my point is that our institution or the students didn’t even try to raise a fund for the aid, whereas they are ever eager to collect money and celebrate yet another religious festival. The question in my mind is what is the point of religion?
There is no love sincerer than the love of food.
~George Bernard Shaw, “The Revolutionist’s Handbook,” Man and Superman
And I love good food!! I got this interesting and mouth watering e-mail and had to share with all of you. Oh my god! There are so many things I haven’t eaten yet. This will serve me as a list of all the food to be tasted before I die. 😀 Although there are some dishes like Red Ant Chutney of Chattisgarh (delicacy among tribals) which I would prefer not to eat.
I got this as a forward on e-mail and some of my beer guzzling fellow blogger friends came to my mind. So this post is dedicated to Nikhil, RJ and all other guys/gals about whose tastes I still don’t know much. 😛 😛
“I feel sorry for people who don’t drink. When they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day. “
~Frank Sinatra
“When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.”
~Henry Youngman
“When we drink, we get drunk. When we get drunk, we fall asleep. When we fall asleep, we commit no sin. When we commit no sin, we go to heaven. So, let’s all get drunk and go to heaven!”
~Brian O’Rourke
Sometimes when I reflect back on all the wine I drink I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the vineyards and all of their hopes and dreams If I didn’t drink this wine, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, “It is better that I drink this wine and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver.”
~Jack Handy
And saving the best for last, as explained by Cliff Clavin, of Cheers. One afternoon at Cheers, Cliff Clavin was explaining the Buffalo Theory to his buddy Norm.
Here’s how it went:
“Well ya see, Norm, it’s like this… A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That’s why you always feel smarter after a few beers.“
You can read one of Nikhil’s beer-escapades here. RJ still hasn’t posted any of his yet. You may think this may be one of them but it isn’t.
P.S. For the record I neither drink nor endorse drinking. 😀
My Random Thoughts 