Delhi Chalo

On the Delhi-Mathura highway a very curious thing can be seen . There are everywhere dancing bears,literally, on the side of the road. I was surprised to see so many people trying to make a living out of dancing bears. A haikoo is not out of place here :

Big black bears
Dance dutifully on the highway
To douse their master's hunger-fires

The other thing is the large number of camel-driven carts carrying huge cartloads of cattle-fodder . The caravans carry very funny-looking tarpaulin-crates ,oversized and an absolutely comic sight.







Agra Chalo

The last Sunday I went to see the Taj . Imperious kings , beautiful queens and catacombs of powerful people of the 15 th century .The Queen delivered the fourteenth child and turned into cold marble.







Dehi chalo


Here in Delhi the Centre Point Hotel was quite a bit of come -down . Smelly and dingy . The only plus point is its nearness to the Overseas Branch . I decide not to shift to another hotel. In desperation I write a poem , in the dinginess of the hotel,entitled "You , me and God " . The title sums up my mental state!








End of the E-Road


End of the E-road, that is . Today evening when I catch the Kerala-Hyderabad express.





The Cheddi-banian city


While driving down to Tanjore from Erode we passed through Karur ,the famous cheddi-banian city which produced a relatively respectable- sized bank , The Karur Vysya Bank Ltd , with around 40 branches spread throughout this region. A formidable presence in this region the KVB is giving a tough fight to other banks . More importantly Karur is known the world over as the Cheddi-baniyan city , the hosiery capital of Tamilnadu .The Karur businessmen are astute people with a keen money sense. A Karur crorepati sitting in our bank was trying , the other day, to make an s.t.d call on the bank's phone although he had a mobile in his hands, in order to save a few rupees !








Nocturnal Creatures


In Tiruchirapalli the roads are busy and the shops full of people even at the dead of the night . Buses ply even at midnight ! These guys are absolutely nocturnal creatures . When they sleep is a big mystery because the hotels are open in the wee-hours with steaming idlis doing brisk business .The typical hotel works round the clock . Only at night you dont get a thali but only tiffins as they call it here. Similar situation prevails in all Tamilnadu cities !








The little girl who saved the Dist Collector




In1814 a certain English gentleman named Mr.William Garrow turned an ardent devotee of the Goddess Bhavani in the town Bhavani . He got made three holes in the temple wall through which he would offer worship to the diety as he could not enter the sanctum due to his Christian faith. He also gifted an ivory bed to the Goddess engraved with his name. All because a little girl had walked in pouring rain into the Inspection bungalow where he was sleeping and waking him up led him out of the bungalow which crashed soon there after. When he pursued the girl he found her disappearing into the sanctum of the temple.

Surely that was Mother Bhavani herself who saved the District Collector in the guise of a little girl.









The towel city




Erode , the towel city, insists on wiping(not off )the entire population of the country .On Monday nights you have all-night markets where traders from all over the country , more particularly Bihar and U.P. come bargain hunting for towels and lungis which they seem to pick up in entire lots by paying either hard cash or demand drafts in the names of imaginary persons which would be encashed by the towel sellers through a cosy arrangement of routing them through a middle man's bank account. Everything is in place and no law is breached because the drafts are for Rs.49900, just short of the Rs.50000 mark above which demand drafts have necessarily to be routed through bank accounts in terms of the country's income tax laws.




Wiping the population---------------------

Erode's thriving bath-towel industry
Threatens to wipe(not off)
The population of the entire country.






Pisstales of South India




We were returning in a car from our trip to Ooty . On the way I wanted to shoot the spectacular sunset scene and got down to have a good vantage point from which I could do the photoshoot. After I had done the shoot I got back to the front seat where I was sitting beside the driver and the driver started the car immediately .It was only after 10 kms drive that I realised that my companion who had been sitting in the back seat of the car was missing.We turned back and got him into the car . The gentleman had apparently got down without our knowledge to have a hearty piss on the roadside bushes !














--------------------------------------------------------------------------------







  ¶ 6:32 AM