Temple Run

A month back, mother suggested I join them on a pilgrimage to Somnath and Dwarka.  I'm not sure if I'm religious and I don't think I need to be standing in front of an idol to pray.  In times of desperation, I've closed my eyes, looked up and prayed.

But I had visited the said places as a kid, and it had been 18 years since that visit, and I had faint recollections of the temples.  So I wanted to visit, just to see if the memories of the temples and the reality are the same.

Spotted on the Ahmedabad - Rajkot Highway. Stobary is SecC.

 The road to Somnath, especially once you enter Junagadh is like a roller coaster ride. Looks like nothing much has changed there since Mohammad Ghazni first attacked Somnath over a 1000 years ago.


Somnath temple is one of the twelve Jyotirlings and I must say it is beautiful. It is situated right on the coast and makes Shiva look like the coolest God ever to have a place of worship located at such a cool place. 

Right outside the temple. The Sunset.

  The best thing about Somnath temple (as like most Shiva temples) is that it is very peaceful, and generally clean.  I am not afraid I'll accidentally step on cow poop, like one does in Krishna temples.  And no crazy darshan timings, so the crowd is usually controlled. Of course, the Aarti was very chaotic and so much crowd, that I could almost hear the idol tell me, 'आतंकवादियों से डर नहीं लगता, भक्तों से लगता है।'

For me, my personal high point was reciting the Shiv Tandav Stotra.  Raavan was a genius to compose such an awesome piece of work.  Of course, I don't know the entire one, but was happy with reciting first two stanza. :D

The Temple

 But you know, one of the main reasons I wanted to visit Somnath was the South Pole pointer. There is a column there, with an arrow crossing through it, which points south, saying there are no obstructions on the straight line, all the way to the South Pole.  How incredibly fascinating is that! Though I am petrified of water bodies, I wanted to just sit there and look into the ocean forever.  The ocean looked calm at one point, and it became violent the other. I saw 3 birds fly low, and followed them as far as I could see, and my eyes gave up.  The ocean looked like one magnificent beast.

Porbandar highway. Yes, coast right next to the highway.

Next day we left for Dwarka.  On our way, we stopped by at one temple at Bhalkateerth.  As per the legends, this is the place where Lord Krishna died.  That makes me wonder, what if the ones we worship as Gods are actually just human beings with extra ordinary strength? Wonder if people will take me seriously if I declare myself as God? Hmm.

Anyway, the highway ran parallel to the coast.  Beautiful, beautiful it was.  Also, so many windmills. Windmills are fascinating, just like lighthouses.  And I was so excited to see boats with sails in the ocean.  They looked like straight out of my high school drawing book.  (if you enlarge the picture above, you'll see a boat on the horizon)

A bridge over the ocean.

Dwarka was also fascinating.  As per the legends, old Dwarka was the dwelling place of Krishna, and it is now submerged under ocean.  Even if it is a story, the fact that the temple was built hundreds of years ago gave me goosebumps.  So many people would've walked over the same floor, and so many more will walk over it in years to come.  (yeah, I always get such thoughts when I visit places which are hundreds of years old)  So much thought process must have gone into making such intricate work on the walls, and all this was done even when they knew they could not instagram their creation! Wonder what must be their motivation!

And then, somewhere I lost one of my slippers in the ocean water.  I hope the coast guards at Pakistan get hold of them and keep them as my prasad of some sort.

The most interesting moment for me in Dwarka temple was when some people climbed the top, and brought down the current flag to hoist a new one.  And the moment the flag unfurled itself flying high I stood there with my mouth wide open and said a silent prayer.

Oh, and did I mention the cows? One cow was sitting right in middle of temple, oblivious to the surroundings.  She did not care how crowded the place got, but she was just sitting there, chilling, communicating telepathically with her other buddies sitting across the temple, waving their tails occasionally.

One non-descript Shiva temple, which is in middle of ocean, and you have to walk across a bridge to reach there.  Apparently, sometimes, the bridge gets covered with ocean water too during tides and all.

Next day, we left for home, but before that, visited another Jyotirling, Nageshwar. (Apparently, the location of the same is controversial, so not sure if it is considered one, but whatisthere)

And then, eight hours of long drive later, we were home.  Tired, sleep deprived and slipper-less. Oh, and tanned. And happy.

#Modi4CM

The only drama happening in Gujarat these days is the upcoming Legislative Assembly elections.  Today on my way home from an aunt's place I saw men, who looked like commandos, carrying rifles, casually taking a stroll on one of the busiest road of Ahmedabad.

Gujarat is on high alert, not just because of terror threats, but also because election has created a war-like scenario. It's a scary sight, though.

Like any other self respecting Gujarati, I have my view on the elections too.  I'm not saying who should win, but I desperately hope and pray that neither Congress nor the farce called Gujarat Parivartan Party win.  I don't know which one is better, but I do know I want to choose the lesser of the two evils.

Now, I'm not sure how much of what I write could get me into trouble, and I am sure if I get arrested under section 66A, my father is not going to bail me out, because I kept threatening that I'm not going to vote for Modi.  And I don't want to go to jail. :(

But few things wrong and right about the elections:

1.  Gujarat Parivartan Party's symbol is a bat. A cricket bat.  It's funny because when Keshubhai Patel loses, I hope Trash of Ind.. errr. Times of India publishes the headline, "Keshubhai out for a duck"

2.  Talking of Keshubhai Patel, the biggest problem of Gujarat Parivartan Party is that the face of the party is Keshubhai Patel. (please don't get me arrested, I'm cute)

3.  BJP rebels have joined Congress, Congress rebels have joined BJP and BJP and Congress rejects have joined Gujarat Parivartan Party. 

4.  While Madam is taking her own time to decide who is the Chief Minister candidate for Congress, the people in Congress are fighting a battle of their own.  Some bigwigs like Narhari Amin are not given tickets, and the disgruntled dude refuses to campaign for Congress anymore.  And that's not it, the party is so badly divided, we don't know who face of Congress is.  (which is funny, because even Gujarat Parivartan Party has Keshubhai Patel even though it is the funniest thing about the elections) I say why wait for 2014, bring Rahul Gandhi now! :D

5.  While BJP advertisements are focusing on what they have done in last 10 years, Congress ads are focusing on BJP ads and making fun.  Basically, Congress is acting like the standup comics on Twitter - mocking everything, without any content. Here I will choose to not even mention Gujarat Parivartan Party ad.

Anyway, I'm not sure how much more I can write without getting arrested. (dude, seriously, even though the Satellite Police Station is all ISO certified and all that shit, I don't want to spend nights in a lockup - who will come to bail me out?)

So, I'll end it here, and just hope that 20th December comes soon and the nation can move on to new topics.

And I can prepare a roadmap for my 2014 campaign.  I hope you all vote for me.

#Modi4CM and #Nirwa4PM

That time of the year again!

So with the Shraadh ending today, having remembered the dead ancestors, we now look forward to a month of festivals, and a new Vikram Samvat in 30 days' time. (btw, I love the name Vikram. sucha swoonworthy name it is!)

Anyhoo, so Navratri starts tomorrow. Since we Gujaratis have started taking over the world, navratri celebrations are marked with the 'Dandiya'. Now, every time someone mentions this, I fight an urge to correct them that 'dandiya' are the two sticks which are used as props, and the dance form is called "Raas" (as in Raas-Leela). Saying, "I love Dandiya" would be equivalent of saying, "I love eating chopsticks". And the dance form of clap-twist-jump-clap is called Garba. Even bad dancers like me know how to do it. The way everyone down south is born with Carnatic music, we in gujarat are born with preinstalled garba. You can never be a bad garba dancer. Unless you are my mother, who is a horrible dancer. She does garba steps like a 2 year old on crack. (which is a very disturbing analogy, kindly pardon)

So, though I can dance and all, I am not a huge fan of it. Couple of reasons, too much crowd, bad bollywood music, giant insects and most importantly, lack of friend circle. I've always had very few friends, and well, currently well, let me not talk about it, i get depressed. Also, never got hooked to it because when we were in schools, we would invariably have term exams in this period, and after school, institute of chartered accountants of india has ruined my life. So yea.

Of course, I do have some memories associated with this festival. And I love telling stories. So I'll ramble away a few incidents about the festival that well, everyone calls Dandiya. *cringe*

I was 7-8 year old, and our school had organised garba for children. (you see, navratri is the festival of 9 *nights* and back then, the garba would last all night long, literally. now you have a deadline of 1:30, but back then, it was less nuisance and the garba would actually start picking pace at around midnight) Since we were young, and we could not take part in midnight celebrations cos of school the next day, our school organised garba from 7 pm to 10 pm for us. I distinctly remember this one because well, my dad was supposed to pick me up from nani's place and drop me to school, by 6:30. He did not turn up till 8 pm. I was almost on the verge of crying. He probably thought that I was upset because I missed the 'fun' for an hour. I felt bad because *one* day I asked him to be on time, and he was not. He was never on time when we had to reach school on time for picnic. He still is never on time when I have a flight or train to catch and he is dropping me there. It's funny how certain things done unintentionally could leave such a deep mark in someone's mind. I hold no grudges obviously, cos maybe he was busy. But maybe, giving someone you love, one day of your life, would not be that bad an idea. You don't have to be there for her everyday, ask her how her day at school/college was. But if she's participating in her first moot court competition, which is also her first public speaking thing, just be supportive. I digress.

Other incident was I think in 6th or 7th standard. Either of these years when there was an 'adheek maas' which meant an extra month before the diwali. :p so exams and all over, diwali in november, school organised inter class garba competition. Very enthusiastically I participated. I was perhaps 3rd or 4th worst dancer in the troupe. So we were paired up, some 20 girls and 10 pairs. We practiced every day for an hour in the morning activity period, and all the happy hormones released made me all happy happy. But then, my dance partner fell ill. I was left without a dancing partner and well, I cannot dance without a partner on stage. I almost cried. The dance teacher, who knew us all since we were toddlers, saw me, felt pity, and convinced another girl to be my partner. She reluctantly agreed, because well, she was worse than me in dancing. I still remember how much I had enjoyed being on the stage. I still remember how incredibly thrilled I was when we exited after the performance. We won against our seniors that year. The garba we danced on was this one. (this is only the link to the song, and not the actual performance.)

And then one year, I went to CEPT. Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology. This was probably 5-6 years back. Everyone on the ground was doing only ONE step. no variations, no groups - everyone performing only one step, and on the beats of dhol. That was the best ever experience.

It is something like this




That was the last of navratri celebrations. This year, if nothing else, I do want to go out, have fun till wee hours of morning, tea at kitli, and some friends to laugh with.

Universe, are you listening?

Politics Vs. Media

It was in 2001 January when an earthquake of magnitute 7.6 to 8.1 on richter scale hit Gujarat. It was on the Republic Day, and my first thoughts were Pakistan fired some underground missile. What followed was a frenzy of sorts. I've never seen people around so frightened about their lives. People spent their nights on the roads, literally. Everyone was afraid of getting inside a multi-storied building. And why not? We Gujaratis were used to facing other calamities like riots and floods. But the feeling of land shaking beneath your feet was very scary. I was 15, then. I cried for 2 hours to get out of the shock.

Keshubhai Patel was the chief minister of Gujarat at that time. Now, I dont know much, but I once heard someone say that keshubhai is the most corrupt CM to ever come to power in Gujarat. He soon lost power and came Narendra Modi.

So with this Barkha Dutt/Niira Radia scandal that has recently errupted, I am now wondering the real motives behind media and their strong views against Modi.

Modi was in the first few months as a Chief Minister when the Godhra carnage took place. A train coming from Ayodhya was set to fire in Godhra, and people were burnt alive inside two compartments. By the time the train reached ahmedabad, the news of the incident spread very quickly. People were enraged. What followed was perhaps one of the worst riots in the history of Gujarat.

Also, at that time, Aaj Tak was recently launched. It was in its initial years and NDTV was its main competitior. If I remember correctly, NDTV had some agreement with Star news and they had just parted ways. So, NDTV, Star News and Aaj Tak were the all vying for attention.

They all got their main breakthrough with Godhra Riots. You see, it was much easier to get eyeballs when you show a burning bus, or a live coverage of mobs. The fearless reporters jump right in the middle of a crazy group of violent people and report live on how some men just gangraped a woman or set fire to a bakery. I wont be too surprised if they would have asked some of the mobsters their views, and 'aap kaisa mehsus kar rahe hain?'

So, who is responsible for this? The chief minister. Of course, even if the dog dies of rabies, the CM is personally liable for his death. So when hundreds of people (please understand, I am not saying Hindus or Muslims, loss of life is loss of life. period.) died, it is the chief minister who should be held responsible. For someone who lived in the city during its worst riots, I knew and felt that the riots were about 80 percent under control. The remaining 20 percent felt in the communially sensitive zone, where riots break out even on trivial issues like kite flying in Uttarayan.

Most non gujaratis I know hate Narendra Modi and call him modern day Hitler. Or as a certain Ms Gandhi called him Maut Ka Saudagar. Really?

So, no one had heard much about him before the riots, but suddenly, he was the muslim hater of teh world. Not just him, every other gujarati in the world was a muslim hater. They thought that there are two things us gujaratis can do instantaneously - break into a garba or break into a riot.

Javed Akhtar, I wonder if he knows about the muslim architecture and beautiful mosques in gujarat, at least knows something called Naroda Patia, and he never forgets to mention them in debates involving gujarat/Modi.

All this while, nobody realises that people know about it because the news channel kept showing it repeatedly. Whether the carnage or the aftermath of riots was politically motivated or not, is a different question, but it did get aggravated because of constant reruns on the news channel.

I have always been quite defensive about Modi and Gujarat, not because Modi is my personal hero, but he has been a good administrator, and the state has developed under his leadership. I can see the difference between pre modi gujarat and post modi gujarat. I just wish people would look beyond the riots and look at gujarat objectively.

These Barkha Dutt tapes have kind of shocked me. Not that I held her in high place, especially after the shabby way in which she has handled sensitive issues, but the fact that the sensational news htey show on tv is perhaps not just for the ratings. There is much more to it that what meets the eye.

News are not unbiased anymore. It's a sad state of Indian Politics and Indian media. I hope there is a brighter future to this madness. I hope people in power do not misuse it.

Open Letter to Rahul Gandhi

Dear Rahul Gandhi,

How are you? Let me first compliment you. You are one of the few good looking politicians of our country - there I feel so much better now! :D

Though its a different thing that you are a politician by default because of the surname you have, and you also chose to be with Congress. What has happened to your cousin, Varun is quite depressing because he was a silly boy. He got into wrong party at a wrong time. Because, if you look at it, you both have such big mouths that you could put both your feet into your mouth and still have enough space to accomodate this too

Anyhoo. Now, I understand that Narendra Modi isn't one of your favourite persons in the world, and trust me, the feeling must be mutual. But you have to accept that that man can beat you in debate anyday.

But next time you say something like calling Rashtriya Samajsewa Sangh, fanatic organisation like SIMI (not to be mistaken for Simi Garewal - hehe), you'd better do some research to save yourself the embarrassment. Not that I am an RSS supporter or even care two hoots about them.

All I am saying is, that if you want to be popular in Gujarat, you'll have to try new tricks. You cannot point fingers at Narendra Modi and get away with that - people here love him way too much than a lot of people who hate him. Bet half the people come to the gatherings you address only to see how you look like in person. Not necessarily because they support you. Like c'mon, even I would attend your public address only to see if you are half as good looking as you are in your photographs! :D

Because, trust me, going by the history of congress leaders in Gujarat, people would rather go for a crazy Hindu motormouth leader than people like Shankarsinh Vaghela, who was also a part of BJP once, but I aint a big fan of him.

Gujarat has not had a stable Congress CM since 95 onwards, of which 9 years Gujarat has been ruled by Narendra Modi. One of the few people to hold a stable government. So, you cannot beat his popularity. Putting him down will only be a point in his favour.

To win hearts in Gujarat, you dont need to put others down - or tell what you will do - but for a change, let people do good, and also be generally nice. Yes, I know Modi can get too much at times, and his comebacks are quite tempting, but do learn the pranayam technique of breathing - you'll feel better. :)

Oh, and next time you visit Ahmedabad, how about giving me a call? :D I can give you so much more gyaan then! :D

Till then,

Good luck,

Nirwa Mehta,

Ahmedabad