The GREEN Japan : A complete aerial view !

Everybody assumes that Japan being one of the most urbanized country is just like a concrete jungle bustling at all seams. Though this statement is true for big cities the countryside presents a completely different picture. During my flight from Tokyo to Hakata I was privileged to see the vast span of greenery which Japan has. 

Here are some glimpses of the green Japan on my travel blog.

http://travelwithmanish.blogspot.in/2012/09/blog-post.html

Top Hindi Bloggers as per Networked Blogs, Facebook

Hindi Bloggers are also becoming active on Facebook. This is evident in their use of applications such as Networked Blogs. To find out the popularity of Hindi Blogs on Facebook I used the following link.

The details of these blogs can be gathered by clicking on the above mentioned link. In general it can be seen that these blogs are related with news , Hindi literature (both prose & poetry). However there are also some blogs related to Music, Travel, Cinema in the list.

Bloggers of Ranchi ... राँची के ब्लागर्स!

Blogging is still a new concept in the city of Ranchi. There are still only handful of individual bloggers hailing from the city who are into regular blogging. Being in the area of blogging for last 5 years an idea came into my mind on why not to unite bloggers of Ranchi on a single platform.

To start with I want to create this page where listing of all the regular bloggers hailing from Ranchi. Kindly give the address of your blog with its theme in the comment. I will update the list after getting your comments.

If you have any questions on the blogging or you need any help in starting your blog, you can mail any questions to me.

Bloggers of Ranchi

1. एक शाम मेरे नाम
   ब्लॉग लेखक : मनीष कुमार
   ब्लॉग का विषय : हिंदी फिल्म संगीत, हिंदी साहित्य, उर्दू शायरी
   
2. मुसाफ़िर हूँ यारों
   ब्लॉग लेखक : मनीष कुमार
   ब्लॉग का विषय : यात्रा वृत्तांत, घुमक्कड़ी, फोटो फीचर
   

Enchanting Kerala : A detailed travelogue in Hindi.

Do u want to visit Kerala. Here is a complete travelogue from a visitor point of view. It will give you an idea about the lovely places Kerala has so that you can decide whete to spend more time. So enjoy this widely appreciated series on Musafir Hoon Yaaron at the below mention links.

इस श्रृंखला की सारी कड़ियाँ

1. यादें केरल की : भाग 1 - कैसा रहा राँची से कोचीन का 2300 किमी लंबा रेल का सफ़र Ranchi to Cochin
2. यादें केरल की : भाग 2 - कोचीन का अप्पम, मेरीन ड्राइव और भाषायी उलटफेर...
3. यादें केरल की : भाग 3 - आइए सैर करें बहुदेशीय ऍतिहासिक विरासतों के शहर कोच्चि यानी कोचीन की... Ernakulam & Cochin
4. यादें केरल की : भाग 4 कोच्चि से मुन्नार - टेढ़े मेढ़े रास्ते और मन मोहते चाय बागान Kochi to Munnar
5. यादें केरल की : भाग 5- मुन्नार में बिताई केरल की सबसे खूबसूरत रात और सुबह The beauty of Munnar
6. यादें केरल की : भाग 6 - मुन्नार की मट्टुपेट्टी झील, मखमली हरी दूब के कालीन और किस्सा ठिठुराती रात का ! Munnar continued...
7. यादें केरल की : भाग 7 - अलविदा मुन्नार ! चलो चलें थेक्कड़ी की ओर.. Munnar to Thekkadi
8. यादें केरल की भाग 8 : थेक्कड़ी - अफरातरफी, बदइंतजामी से जब हुए हम जैसे आम पर्यटक बेहाल ! Kumli & Thekkadi
9. यादें केरल की भाग 9 : पेरियार का जंगल भ्रमण, लिपटती जोंकें और सफ़र कोट्टायम तक का.. Periyar to Kottayam
10. यादें केरल की भाग 10 -आइए सैर करें बैकवाटर्स की : अनूठा ग्रामीण जीवन, हरे भरे धान के खेत और नारियल वृक्षों की बहार.. Kottayam Alleppy Backwaters
11. यादें केरल की भाग 11 :कोट्टायम से कोवलम सफ़र NH 47 का.. Kottayam to Kovalam
12. यादें केरल की भाग 12 : कोवलम का समुद्र तट, मछुआरे और अनिवार्यता धोती की Koovalam & Trivendrum
13. यादें केरल की समापन किश्त : केरल में बीता अंतिम दिन राजा रवि वर्मा की अद्भुत चित्रकला के साथ ! Trivendram & back
    

Orissa (Odisha) : Land of ancient monuments & attractive sea beaches..

Orissa now called Odisha has lot to offer in terms of ancient heritage as well as attractive coastline to the tourist. Though there are many places of tourist interest , Puri Bhubneshwar, Konark & Chilka are the most popular among the tourists.

I have visited Orissa three times in past two years & enjoyed visiting its beautiful temples and attractive beaches. You can find details of these visits on my travel blog in following posts

1. Puri Beach : Why it is so famous?
2. Dhaulagiri the Buddhist Heritage & the War of Kalinga
3. Bhubneshwar- The city of temples : Lingraaj, Mukteshwar, Khandgiri & Udaigiri
4. Konark : The Temple of Love Whose Dome was once feared by incoming ships
5. Chilka : India's largest brakish water lake
6. Sudarshan Patnaik : The famous sand artist of Orissa

Nandan Kanan in Pictures

Have you visited Nandan Kanan (The Garden of pleasure). If you haven't you should. Its around twenty km from, Bhubneshwar the capital city of Orissa . Nandan Kanan is known for its beautiful White Tigers . You can view the pictures of some of the animals at Nandan Kaanan on this blog post at Musafir Hoon Yaaron

A Unique Travel Blog in Hindi : Musafir Hoon Yaaron. !

Offcourse its surprising but its true. I have started my new travel blog in Hindi. It will not tell only my travel tales but will also keep an eye on all that is written about travel by Hindi bloggers across the globe.

The new blog has following sections

• Travel Stories
• Travel Tit Bits
• Travel Pics With a difference
• Photo features

& more....

So do join us at Musafir Hoon Yaroon

Your suggestion and comments will be welcome.

Mora Saiyaan Mose Bole Naa.....

Top 25 songs of 2007....lets join the countdown

2006 will be over in less than 50 hours from now on. And as the year approches to its end its time to start another countdown is on my blog. :).
For me, the best way to celebrate the year end with my blogging pals has always been related with sharing of my favourite songs of the past 12 months.

In 2005 it was Khul Ke Muskura De Tu from Phir Milenge .
&
In 2006 it was Ratiyaan Andhiyari Ratiyaan from Parineeta which stole my heart.

So what will happen in 2007.....

Its a call to all my music pals to come & join me at Ek Shaam Mere Naam for this year Top 25 countdown.

One Night @ the Call Center

I read this book a few months back. I was not sure whether I should write about the book which has already been read by most of my friends & fellow citizens a long time ago. :)

The story revolves around group of call center workers, The author in this novel has tried to explore delicate interpersonal relationship of call center workers & their harsh working conditions.

It is really difficult to wear an altogether different mask in terms of accent & behaviour while talking to your customers. All this for a job, which is reasonably well paid, but gives no creative satisfaction.

As usual Chetan’s writing style keeps your interest alive. Side by side the main story he has also highlighted how career of a sincere and hardworking employee can go haywire while working under a whimsical & selfish boss.

Unlike Five Point Someone the book has no nostalgic effect on me since I have never come across any call center guy in my life. Only they can tell how truly this story resembles with the real life situation. But as an outsider if some one wants to peep into the lives of this community one should read this book.

Pachmarhi in Pictures !

Pachmarhi Lake is a man made lake but its serene surroundings and vast expanse makes you feel like you are sailing in a natural one.

Watching Sunset at Dhoopgarh is amazing experience . As the orange hue of the sun light fades the sun simply disappears in the clouds. See yourself in the pics ! Incidently Dhoopgarh is highest peak of MP. For further details read here.







The journey to Duchess Fall was the toughest. First we have to go through the dense forest of Satpura and then tackle the steep incline of 800 meters to reache to the fall.





However the cool bath in the waterfall eased the strain in our tiring limbs.


These caves are known as Pandava Caves. as per folk lores Pandavas came to stay here during their exile.


The thin streak of water falling from such a height ! The fall is known as Silver Fall.


The view from the top of the Pandav Caves was just amazing . Just see the greenary all around and breathtaking view of this garden ! Isn't this beautiful.

Courtesy Telegraph We were in the News :)

It is a fact that everyone wants to say something either to self or wants to find people real or virtual who thinks or feel in same way. And that’s what Blogging is all about.
Sadly in our state the concept of Blogging is in nascent stage. There is a total lack of awareness about it.

But thanks to the English daily The Telegraph, which highlighted this medium by publishing two articles on the subject. It also chose to encourage existing bloggers by interviewing them and publishing some of their thoughts.

So when my office colleague phoned me one fine morning that u are in the news, I was thrilled and went straight to buy the copy of the paper.

You can read the news stories from The Telegraph here & here.

Journey to Pachmarhi : Part -I

Last month we went to Pachmarhi a small hill station in MP via Nagpur. General route to Pachmadhi is via Piparia, which is a small station in Jabalpur-Itarsi-Nagpur .rail section. My sister presently resides in Nagpur that’s why we chose Nagpur as our first stoppage.

Our first outing at Nagpur was Deeksha Bhoomi. In 1956 Baba Saheb Ambedkar with his followers embraced Buddhism at this place The Deeksha Bhoomi stoopa is 120 m in dia and looks quite impressive.









In the evening we went to this shop to have a taste of delicious Nagpuri Samosa.











The road route from Nagpur to Pachmarhi via Chindwara was just horrible. As soon one enters Madhya Pradesh the pot holes became a regular feature.
















After three and half hour of Journey we reached Chindwara. We took lunch in a restaurent owned by royal family of Chindwara. From the restaurent the view of the marriage hall (known as Raja ki Bagiya) was just great.


We reached Pachmarhi in the evening. You can read the whole story of our journey from Ranchi to Nagpur & then to Pachmadhi with some more pics here & here.

Festivity Fever

Its difficult to update this blog regularly because of preoccupation with my other two kids ..errr blogs.So I thought why not to just tell my readers here, what I am upto these days?

In other words what I wrote while this blog was in snooze mode.

Remembered the era when I have to take/give interview for marriage.
Beautiful eyes and shayri
A hindi poem after three long years :)
About lyrics of this era which still enthralls me
and yes abt songs Mitwa...& Dil Doobe naa....though also in my humming list was Tere bin, Nainon ki mat maniyo re .

This time of the year one can't keep away from the festive mood which is omnipresent. Attendence is thin in the office and we are yet to find our grooves back to work.

This year I enjoyed Durgapuja by roaming in the streets of Ranchi visiting different pooja pandals (12 pm to 4 am to be precise). You can see some of the pics taken during the night here. From Durga Puja to Chathth the same festive spirit prevails in this part of India. This time I organised a written quiz and an open one during the puja celebrations. It was really difficult to control the kids who kept charging the stage with their hands raised to answer the questions.

With my favorite festival Deepavali approaching, I will be off to another small vacation to Central India within 10 days. Anyway more about it later.

Shiva ..another disappointment from Ram Gopal Verma

Movie : Shiva
Place : Metro, Cinema, Kolkata
Day : 16 th September
Why we chose to see it ? : There was nothing else to do. And apart from Metro we have no idea about other cinema halls in the vicinity at Esplanade.

Prologue : I can never forget Satya ! In the movie Ram Gopal Vema handled the Mafia theme superbly with innovative charcterisation of Bhikhu Mahatre. Then came three more memorable flicks from the same production house; Company , Bhoot & Sarkaar along with lot of forgettable one’s of Darna series. Off late my rating for Ramu has dropped, the reason being he has confined himself two two themes terror & mafia. So when you see any of the Ramu’s new movie u have déjà vu effect.

Movie : Coming to Shiva, a story of an upright sub inspector who fights against the…..yeah u guessed right ! same old mafia + political leader nexus. Ramu uses the same James combination of Mohit Ahlawat & Nisha Kothari as the leads.
There is nothing new in the treatment of this mighty boring old plot…
About Mohit Ahlawat .. looks OK has nothing much to do apart from using his fists with lot of anger in his eyes
Nisha Kothari….hmmm she is OK too as a crime reporter who has to expose whenever Ramu desires ! it is irrelevant whether story has anything to do with it or not. Remember Rangeela & Daud where Urmila did the same as Nisha is doing now. It is a pattern in the Ramu’s movie which no body can miss.
About the music the less said is the better.
All in all a movie to make a quick buck rather than a tribute to upright police officers as Ramu claims. I will advise him to see Ardha Satya made by Govind Nihlani on the same subject again and his head should hang in shame.

Epilogue : I have heard that Ramu’s finances are in bad shape but that doesn’t mean he should make movies which have nothing new to offer. There was a phase that anything with Ramu’s name was perceived by average moviegoers as something different. But with this sort of stuff even that image has taken a dent.
Why he has to confine himself within his comfort zone of mafia and thrillers? Why his music has nothing soulful off late. I don’t know how Sholay will turn out but omens are not good.

Rating : Don’t waste ur money or time on this one !

Hazardous Materials Data Sheet :)

Massacre at Jallianwala Bagh

History has always fascinated me. I always love to read historical novels and this time during my visit back home I got the chance to read one such book. Stanley Wolpert’s
Massacre at Jallianwala Bagh is an excellent combination of historical facts interwoven with fiction.
The book starts with the early summer of 1919 when entire Punjab was actively protesting against Rowlett Act. In Amritsar too the protest rallies were organized under local leadership of Dr Satywan & Barrister Kitchloo, who were true Gandhian follower to the core. The huge response to the protest march scared the English so much that in panic they called the both leaders and without any prior warning put both of them under house arrest & took them to outside Punjab.

English thought that their arrest will stop any further protest but their decision backfired. Devoid of any able leadership, the peaceful protest transformed into mob fury. The protesters in angry mood marched towards Civil Lines to ask Collector to free their leaders. But before they could do so their march was halted at the bridge leading to Civil lines with bullets showered by English, in which around 30 protesters died. This resulted in complete mayhem and in retaliation 6 British nationals were killed including a lady on other side of the city.

Situation could have become normal had the English took the help of moderate leaders to difuse the situation but instead they called the Army. On 12th April local leaders called a meeting in Jallianwala Bagh on 13th to decide about the future course of action. English under the leadership of Brig Gen Dyer put the prohibitory orders against any kind of assembly in the morning. Incidentally that was day of Baisakhi and many farmers from nearby village came to Amritsar to watch the annual cattle fair without knowing the prevailing conditions of the city.

Col dyer came with his Gorkha troops at 5 in the evening and without any prior warning started indiscriminate firing. With only one entrance in the ground people have no way to go. More than 300 innocent persons as per English estimates and around 1000 as per Congress estimates died in the 10 min shootout.

Stanley Wolpert has beautifully captured the mind of Col Dyer who never felt any remorse doing what he thought was an absolute necessity for protection of British Empire even after the tragedy. However the whole incident ridiculed the hollowness of the Britishers claim that they are superior race with more humanly traits than coloured people. Starting from events from 10th April to 13th April & judicial enquiry in November 1919 , Wolpert has given unbiased & gripping account of the sordid saga.

A must read for anyone interested in national freedom movement of subcontinent.

The Month that was :(... the day that is :)

Last one month was not hectic work wise, but still there were things that kept me away from this blog. Firstly it was Mumbai Blasts & then the Ban on some blog sites which resulted in total whitewash of Blogspot & Type Pad. This happened due to poor implementation strategy adapted by our ISP's. Thank god due to combind protests & good networking through the print media we were back to our blogs within few days.

Anyway during the period of this ban i first went to Kolkata & then to Asansol to attend some official work. Due to heavy rains , the only marketing I could do there was to purchase a Tripod for my camera .

However, this month has started with some good news for me. My travelogue on Sikkim has been published in Hindi webzine Abhivyakti in its Ist August issue.

It really made my day... Never thought I could be associated with Abhivyakti in this way :)

Those who can read Hindi can access it from here or here.

World Cup Soccer 2006 : Did it live up to our expectations?

It's Written in the SandIndian sand artist Sudarshan Patnaik adds the finishing touches to his sand sculptures of Italian captain Fabio Cannavaro (R) and French captain, Zinedine Zidane at the Golden beach in Puri, east of the Indian city of Orissa, July 8, 2006.

World Cup will finish tonight. There were some spectacular goals scored in the tournament. But all in all this World Cup will have fewer memorable moments than its previous editions. Records were created, though mostly on negative note. Apart from goals scored from maximum no. of passes (Argentina did it first & then it was improved upon by Brazil) the other things which I can remember about this cup are...

• A player hyped as best in the game miserably fails to stamp his authority on the World Cup.
• A team crashed out in last 16 stage without conceding a goal in the tournament.
• A match in which record nos. of red & yellow cards were showered by the referee.
• A team now on verge of winning the World Cup got a controversial penalty in its favour against Aussies in dying seconds of the match.

If that was not enough, Asian teams especially Korea & Japan performed below par. With their elimination in earlier rounds thise time, one can conclude that home advantage in World Cup means assistance from referee. With so many controversies happening in every world cup why can't FIFA use Ultra slow motions to decide off-sides & infringement inside the penalty area to start with?

The only bright side was good showing by African countries such as Ghana & Ivory Coast. Hope with experience they can challenge hegemony of European & Latin American countries in years to come.

As for the question where our own country stands viz to viz qualification for the World Cup, I have this post लो जी मन्ने कर दिया गोल ! to offer which I wrote on my Hindi Blog.

Quotes about Marriage !

Another forward which i thought will be interesting to share.. (I know ise post karne ke baad gaali bhi milegi kuch logon se :))

I recently read that love is entirely a matter of
chemistry.That must be why my wife treats me like toxic waste.
David Bissonette

When a man steals your wife, there is no better
revenge than to let him keep her.
Sacha Guitry

After marriage, husband and wife become two sides of a
coin; they just can't face each other, but still they
stay together.
Hemant Joshi

By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be
happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
Socrates

Woman inspires us to great things, and prevents us
from achieving them.
Dumas

The great question... which I have not been able to
answer... is, "What does a woman want?
Sigmund Freud

I had some words with my wife, and she had some
paragraphs with me.
Anonymous

"Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We
take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A
little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing.
She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays."
Henry Youngman

"I don't worry about terrorism. I was married for two
years."
Sam Kinison

"There's a way of transferring funds that is even
faster than electronic banking. It's called marriage."
James Holt McGavran

"I've had bad luck with both my wives. The first one
left me and the second one didn't."
Patrick Murray

Two secrets to keep your marriage brimming
1. Whenever you're wrong, admit it,
2. Whenever you're right, shut up.
Nash
The most effective way to remember your wife's
birthday is to forget it once...
Anonymous

You know what I did before I married? Anything I
wanted to.
Henny Youngman

My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we
met.
Rodney Dangerfield

A good wife always forgives her husband when she's
wrong.
Milton Berle

Marriage is the only war where one sleeps with the
enemy.
Anonymous

A man inserted an 'ad' in the classifieds: "Wife
wanted". Next day he received a hundred letters. They
all said the same thing: "You can have mine."
Anonymous

First Guy (proudly): "My wife's an angel!" Second Guy
"You're lucky, mine's still alive."