Everything for a Cause!!!

There is this first time experience for everybody sometime or the other. Recently I had mine, of helping out a blind school in preparing Braille books for blind children.

HP has a Social service initiative tie up with many an NGO's of which 'Sahana Charitable trust' is one. Here qualified blind candidates work extensively in preparing Braille text books to poor vision impaired children who cannot afford the text books.

Our task was to read out paragraphs from the textbooks either in Kannada or English to the person who simultaneously types it on a Braille typewriter. I was moved by this experience just seeing the proficiency with which the person could type and more so because the language I was doing it was in Kannada.

All in all I think 4 pages of dictation went a long way in creating a desire in me to do something more for the cause.

If you want to do something or donate for this cause, here’s whom you need to contact:

Sahana Charitable Trust:
#1031, 1st Floor, 11th Main,
Hampinagar (R.P.C. Layout),
Vijayanagar II Stage,
Bangalore - 560 040
Contact: Narasimhaiah (9343446146), Sharmila (Ph: 23116699), Janarthan (9844756048)
Nearest Land Mark: Take right turn before "Mallikarjuna Sweets", near RPC layout bus stand.

World Cup Se World cup Tak.

Sounds so much like the guarantee that electronic companies offer for their products.
It does not have to do much apart from the fact that we brought home a Thomson TV sometime just before the 2003 world cup. The vendor had said the guarantee applies until 2007 World cup and believe me you; we got to take their word for consistency. Just in time before the world cup 2007, well beyond the guarantee period of 4 years our TV had its fall which never had a problem otherwise. Leads me to believe more and more in Murphy the great.

Talking about World cup, well I rather feel that I should stop talking about it. But anyways I have this small incident of ours that I would so like to narrate to you guys.

We were in our 5th SEM BCA, amidst living life as seniors for the last time in Degree. We were a bunch of enthusiastic, uninitiated classmates who liked taking part in all the extra curricular events and sports, being the most favorite of it all.
We were also the champs in cricket from the previous year after having defeated our seniors in the college tourney. So on paper we were like the great Indian team, expected to win the tourney in our final year.

The event began with us enjoying a distinct advantage of having a direct entry into the second round on virtue of being the champs the previous year. We had our warm up match against first Year B.Com students which we won totally hands down and thus stepped into the dreadful phase of complacency.
Come the big day when we actually had to take them on, we were confident maybe a little over confident. We fielded first and got them all out for less than a hundred in 12 or something overs. We were happy to chase the score and took on the field, but little did we know that it wasn’t to be our day. Wickets kept tumbling one after another and within no time we were 5 or 6 down and then I walked in with a still to be fit right hand after a wrist stress fracture.

First ball: “Sanju to face Vineet bowling from the Nandini milk parlor end. A well pitched ball on off-stump and safely defended.”

Second ball: “Sanju inspects the fielding all round and gets ready to face. Here comes Vineet and again a good length ball this time, which is glided towards point. Sanju calls for a run, refused by the partner well in advance and no damage done.”

Third ball: “Sanju is thinking if he will be able to get the remaining 20 odd runs, and thinks of the future, the celebrations, etc. Bowler is ready on his run up and starts again. This time the ball is on leg stump and Sanju decides to go for his favorite shot the ‘paddle sweep’ which had got him so many runs in the previous year, but he forgets that it’s the hands that help coordinate the line of the ball and not legs alone. In attempt to place the ball, exposes his leg stump and misses the line of the ball completely.

Guess what… Booooowleddddddddd!!! Yeah no heroics just clean bowled.
We always think that there is someone who is there to complete the job left unfinished, I am no different. But that day nothing had to go our way and we lost the match by some 15 runs. All lost since the tourney was a knock out match, there was just no looking back.

The news makes it to the sports notice board 3rd Yr BCA lost to 1st Yr B.Com through the official neutral umpires.

How well I understand what the Indian team might be going through now? Losing to Bangladesh and getting kicked out of the world cup.

We however did not have so much at stake though. Sitting at the corner end of the ground trying to digest that we had infact lost the match. Cigarettes lit one after another hoping it would help us digest the defeat. But we were coming to terms with the fact that some defeats are hard to digest. With our minds ceasing to work at the moment, in came our peers from other streams who tried to get behind us, in time of our sorrow.

“Bad luck boys, it happens” said one.
“Guys, you were champs previous year. So you’ve had it all. Never mind” said another.

But the seniors wala fire in us was kindled by this statement an other person made.

“Guys, how can you take it down like this just smoking it off? After all you guys are the seniors. You should give it back to them.”

Suggestions started pouring in as to what kind of seniority approach we follow.
After quick brainstorming, we decided that since it was declared a holiday that day unexpectedly, we claim that the match was a warm up game. We took or rather thought we took the umpires, two second year guys into confidence of farcing the whole match. Have a look at this letter that we wrote to our HOD, seeking his help.

Following days turned from good to worse and we were on the verge of getting suspended from all other games, but for the intervention of our HOD. Our fight for a wrong cause was to never bear any success and we got used to the fact of the upset that hit us.

The fact remains, the in India and especially in cricket there is a certain kind of ego that leads to the obsession of the game. Otherwise which single country can boast of a billion fan-following to any sport?

If only this could change to a billion people just following cricket as a sport and not as a religion. Then it would be so easy to move on with it.

So many If and thens, unfortunately works well with a software program and not with a national team who have failed to live up to their country’s expectations.

~Sanj

Trip to the Dark Side of the moon.

As promised I am back to share my Floyd experience with you all.

A hot Sunday afternoon in Mumbai totally devoid of trees made all of us traveling in a Maruti-Suzuki Alto sweat as if we were playing football in the sun. Fortunately we reached the venue MMRDA grounds, quickly and parked our vehicle.

Time of first assessment… We went around seeing if at all any tickets were still being sold as my friend wanted his special friend not to miss the spectacle. There weren’t any being sold, so we started contemplating about other possible ways in the hot sun.

Now I know why Bangalore is fun even with hot sun. “Save trees to keep the feeling for long”!

But this sunny feeling wasn’t there to stay for long as my friends got cans of fermented brew. Yea Kingfisher… what else?? And that’s the end of the uncomfortable hot feeling we had.

It’s not simply that T shirts have quotes on them saying ‘Save water drink beer’!
Some 3 cans of beer later when it was 5.30 the gates opened. For the uninitiated like me it was just being on beer and waiting for 7 amidst seeing nice Bombay chiquititas and listening to Floyd being played by the organizers in the background. Of course there are some Floydians who belong to a school of thought that listening to Floyd without being on joints was like watching Godfather without Marlon Brando.

By the way, let me tell you Bombay chicks are truly worth a second look!!!

7.20 and there was a display on the big screen. A radio, an ashtray, a whisky bottle, a pistol and a man with his arm operating the setup. We got to know that the things were these, only after 5 mins when the man started tuning the radio for different frequencies skipping tunes from ‘Dancing queen’ to some Beatles numbers etc until he hit the first Floyd number. This was the central theme of the show where the man kept pistol down and tuned and tuned.

It was one hell of a beginning to the show which started with the song Mother and ended after some 10 songs with comfortably numb. I really got comfortably numb. The first half of the show was totally message driven; Roger played an assorted collection of his repertoire. The fist half ended with one his new songs condemning the American attack on Iraq ‘Leaving Beirut’ which he beautifully camouflaged it with his childhood tales.

Mr. Bush was impeached here from Bombay thru a mercenary that happens to be customary in Floyd music. Pig!!! Yea the pig’s tail wagged on the wordings “Impeach Bush” much to the delight of thousands of fans.

Fifteen minutes from then, it was truly like being on the “dark side of the moon” listening to time, money, us and them so on and so forth. I don’t remember how time passed until 9.45 when he said adieu. Don’t know about others but I for sure was left wanting for more.

But in all I opine that it was trip well traveled.
Hope for more….
Sanj

Some videos I shot from my cellphone

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1274180708154024674 - Shine on U crazy diamond.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3012064203967692285 - Leaving Beruit.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2538732406883666851 - Leaving Beruit(Contd).
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-145995113808110199 - Time.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6413250912135351466 - time(Contd).
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3722048510618020247 - Us and Them.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7115131752871073649 - Comfortably numb.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3703852242372106841 - Band Intro by Mr. waters

Waiting for the Gods....

Ooooh, you cannot reach me now

Ooooh, no matter how you try

Goodbye, cruel world, it's over

Walk on by.

Sitting in a bunker here behind my wall

Waiting for the worms to come.

In perfect isolation here behind my wall

Waiting for the worms to come.

Can someone else apart from the Gods themselves write lyrics like these ?

The more I hear of them the more i scratch my head thinking why I wasn't born earlier?

Who cares... we are in the technology age and have access to everything, good or bad!!!

Let me get a bit nostalgic here when i first heard Floyd. Oh! Those classes of my 2nd sem when not many people but for a few, in my class knew about Floyd. There would be no stopping us chatting in the class about the sheer impact it made on bright not so young minds.

Late 2001 and early 2002, my tenant then doing his BE from UVCE introduced me to Floyd with songs like Coming back to life, Comfortably numb, Learning to fly and Money.

I just went gaga over Learning to fly and Coming back to life. The magic that david Gilmour weaved on the strings is unthinkable. I for one, was truly learning the high's of Psychedelic music.



2002 - Wud keep Listening to all shows on radio city while completing some practical records and endlessly hope they play some Floyd songs. Man those were days of desperation when there were not much resources and also the gizmo friends who would have music you think of. How can I ever forget those days when I would be waiting to answer questions to win tickets to the Floyd show in Bangalore? Its a different thing that I never managed to win one, but attempts are something greater than results ... aren't they???

The silky soothening voice of Priya Ganapathi on the 10'o clock show, I think that went a long way to plant the psychedelic bug in my mind. A certain enigma oozed out of her voice when she spoke about Floydian music and i don't think she put it up. You can never bring out the best in you until you love what you are doing, and priya was creating magic on the radio waves. Did she love Floyd... or what??

2003 - My cuz gave me the most precious b'day gift that she could have given me at that point in time. A cd full of Floyd songs and i felt instantly connected to my soul music.

David Gilmour, Bob Dylan, Syd Barret, Roger Waters.... Surely, there is something about Rockstars that amazes you by their lives like their music.

Come to think of it, four years since then, 2007 and now its finally happening.

I am going to Mumbai to attend a live Floyd concert.

I think there is going to be an other post following the concert, as i will know what Floydian music really means to me.Till then .... like my friend says,

meet you on the dark side of the moon.

~Sanj