The Rural Olympics

There are only twenty days left before the ICC World Cup begins. Cricket is religion in India but not for all of them. Few from the northern state of India are more interested in rural games played in the villages of India. This state is obviously Punjab and games are Annual Rural Olympic Games. Kila Raipur is a small village in Punjab where these Rural Olympic Games are held every year since 1933. This is also known as the Kila Raipur Sports Festival. This year also festival was held between 1st and 4th of the February and no national newspaper took any note. At least in the western part of India where I live there was no news of this.

I have never been to Punjab but have seen enough of movies to imagine how it feels or you sense when you are in a Punjabi village. Dull green and yellow maize farms and hand pumps, intoxicating aroma of the motherland and patriotic spirit of Punjab. And most amazing are the people of Punjab. Healthy, strong and beautiful Punjabis never they shy to flex their wrists. When I look around me at the people of Gujarat and meditate over I understand why this Olympics are possible in the village of Punjab only and not in Gujarat or any other state in India.

In his book history of Satyagraha in South Africa, Mohandas Gandhi cried much about the health and physique of Indian workers and black workers and how it differs so visibly even when they are on the same diet and living under same circumstances for years. He said that even cattle in Africa looks much healthier than cattle here in India. I think poor Mahatma was never been to the healthy state of Punjab before he visited and settled in South Africa for years.

Dancing horse display, tent pegging and horse show, para gliding, dog races, loading and unloading tractor trolley, track and field events, cycle races, hockey, tug-of-war, kabaddi and tug-of-war are the major events at this Rural Olympics but the most exciting and thrilling of them all is the Bullock cart race. And price money involved in these games make them even more exciting for the participants. Cash prizes were offered to the athletes who obtain first second and third positions, respectively Rs.5000, Rs.3000 and Rs.2000

In the Bullock Cart Race event the jockey is not allowed to torture or hit his bulls but only can shout to make them run faster. This is the flagship event of the Rural Olympics and attracts crowd in huge numbers. Jockey trains each of his bullocks daily for years so they can triumph at the games. A winner bullock at the games cost around $15000. These games are no less expensive than Olympics I doubt.

Images from these Games can tell things more than I can describe and here are few of them for your pleasure and viewing delight.

You also can read more about this at Rural Olympics, Kila Raipur Games and at Ohmynews.


Copyrights reserved with respected owners. Image Courtesy Ohmynews and © 2007 Munish Nagar. Text work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License. All rights reserved with 20 box. © 2007 20 box.

Legally Void

Yesterday we preferred to sit outside ISKCON temple and enjoyed a lot of tea outside than going to Gallops Mall and sitting inside. I always prefer to sit outside in open where I can find laaris around and unlimited supply of tea and cigarettes. Yesterday again we meet there at the same place and performed our daily rituals like senseless chattering and roaming around with full enthusiasm.

They all were there before I arrived but the most important character was missing. He is still in Ahmadabad and don’t want to go back to Phursatgunj before Thursday morning. He never attends theory lectures and always arrives late in the practical performance too. He is too old and too good for all this stuff and don’t need laboratory assistants’ advices who were his juniors. Yes, I am talking about the great Nikhil.

Ajay and Sinha were joking and laughing and Midhun also was in jolly mood when we started our discussions focused on Nikhil and his misadventures and also his true love for mobile phones and GPRS services. He told us that he will be there by ten at night. While Ajay and Midhun went to collect Midhun’s new spectacles from a nearby optician’s shop I and Amit had decided to go for a darshan of lord Krishna at ISKCON temple.

Sitting there outside on the edge of the highway and discussing enthusiastically what is and was the status of Christianity and Christ in world religion with Sinha was not as boring as one can imagine. We enjoyed discussions for good one hour and than decided to go to some restaurant named 4 FOOD. Food was good but little bit spicier than usual. It was nine thirty and Nikhil was not yet arrived.

After coming back to home at ISRO we decided to watch the highlights of the third and final ODI between Australia and New Zealand. We have heard in the evening that New Zealand crushed Australia again in this series. Australia’s No.1 position and rule over the world cricket is over now. We were both happy and excited to watch the highlights of the game on the TV.

Whole night I was there at ISRO. First we played snooker online with very little luck and even less skills. We only won one game out of almost ten we played and that too because we played so slowly that our opponent was tired and left the table before we can hand our cue. After that Ajay and Nikhil was not in very conscious state and neither they were asleep. Nikhil tried hard to keep his eyes open so that he can chat on Mig33.

The best thing about my night stay was online internet radio Sahaja-Yoga. Listening to this channel was real fun and I honestly enjoyed Brazilian music a lot on this radio channel. There are few more radio channels online like last.fm and musicindiaonline.com. As I have a real fast internet connection here in Ahmadabad, now I can listen to the online radio and that is something I really missed for quite sometime now.

at the end of the day bottomline is that I am enjoying my vacation In Ahmedabad, legally void and full of rest and sleep. summer hibernation really worked for me and want to practice this every year for next few years. Amen.

Legally Void by 20box is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 India License.

My Days

It was Ajay’s birthday yesterday and we were at Gallops Mall in Ahmadabad. Area around this place is full of malls and all kind of mini and big shopping complexes where people come for food and roaming only. 90 percent of the visitors in the mall never buy anything or they don’t want to buy the same thing at higher prices inside the mall. Though malls in Ahmadabad are not a very costly affair still general tendency is not to buy anything from a mall. In Ahmadabad there are more than 100 malls, small and big and for all kind of buyers, now and they offer stuff at very much discounted rates. Still I see more buyers on the window outside than they actually go inside and buy anything.

Most of buyers out there who pretend as if they are there for actually shopping can not fool others around them who also belong to the same species. They are there only for outing and food and they enjoy it more than ever now. In 70s’ and 80s’ India, public gardens and parks was the in-thing for Indians of the bourgeois. Now malls have malls have replaced those Parks successfully. They are past now almost everywhere in India except in small cities and towns where mall culture not penetrated yet. Parks are now for all those who are ugly and old and can not tolerate noise inside shopping centers or malls.

I was very much busy enjoying subway’s chicken teriyaki and was least bothered about the socio-economic impact of malls on Indian culture and what the ‘blah-blah’ economist so worried about. Food was good and we were there for one hour more just chatting and doing nothing but watching all the deadly plane crashes on national geographic channel.

Ahmadabad is less polluted now than it was before 2 years time. CNG buses and auto rickshaws have improved things a lot and I feel more comfortable on my bike when I drive around Ahmadabad. I usually don’t enjoy riding bikes in such noisy conditions with so much traffic in the labyrinth of Ahmadabad but now as I don’t have any other option I do it half heartedly.

We have planned to meet again today after 5 in the evening. We first will go to IIM and be there till the evening lasts and than we will go to ISRO and will make all kinds of noise there. We play music there as if we are in some discotheque and not in ISRO scientists’ residential colony. Still I enjoy company of Ajay and Nikhil and Sinha and Midhun here in Ahmadabad more than anywhere else. Not in phursatgunj, that is the place for those who are Old not for Zorbas full of energy.

Today we are going to do the same things again. Monotony and stagnancy is life for me in Ahmadabad. I surf till the wee hours and than go to the bed. I wake up late in the afternoon and than enjoy my food and go to bed again. I listen to music and online internet radios. I just enjoy life slowly and deeply and even have reduced my reading a lot. Now I don’t read as much as I used to when I was in Baroda but soon I shall be back to normal and back to Baroda too. There is nothing to do in Phursatgunj but to read books so I think that is one habit or hobby I am going to keep for the life time.

Nikhil called me at 1:30 in the afternoon and plans are not clear yet. It is almost four and still we are not in contact with each other and I think my younger brother is not yet home. Until he will be here it is impossible for me to go out anywhere as I have to rely upon his bike for the movement in Ahmadabad. My phone is out of balance and I can not call anyone so until they call me I am going to enjoy sleep.

Are you two?

It is unbelievable, may be I am still in my day dreams staring at flowers on the divider of the express-way. I still can not believe what my eyes saw before 12 hours on TV. It is something really miraculous with supernatural powers involved. You just can not get anything shocking than that. It was like ouch! You can not describe thing. Coming back to 21^st century after one month of life in barbaric condition was even less shocking that what I actually witnessed on Ten Sports. I still don’t believe my eyes even after I see about all the facts and figures on internet and cricket websites. Yes, Australia lost an ODI series to England. Yes, they lost an ODI series to New Zealand. Yes, they are now world number two team. They slipped past to second position clearing the way for South-Africa with 128 ODI points and Number One position.

How all this happened so early and just before the world cup? Do they have lost their old days charm or they are now an old team with youngsters pushing uncles to get in. when this really happened? They lost a game, game number two against New Zealand in ODI series, and now on number two position. Australia lost both the series and their so proud Number One position. All the equations are now reset for the world cup. Who is going to win the world cup? Australia with her team work, India with her experience, WI with the obvious home advantage, SA with her newly acquired Number One position, England with her experience or Pakistan with her killer instinct. I can not say anything right now, one month before the world cup but I think New Zealand’s chances are better than even SA. But we can not underestimate the power of Sri Lanka also. They do have a chance on shiny and spongy and bouncy Wickets of West Indies.

I don’t care whoever wins but watching the World Cup in West Indies is real fun. Especially if you have a pass or ticket to the lawn and have red rum filled coconut with you by your side. I know Australians surly are going to fight back after this series or at least in the World Cup. We can not underestimate such a powerful team but I doubt their abilities now not because of they are low in skills but because they are old enough now to go to home and watch cricket on TV themselves. New Zealand is also no different; few of her older players are on the verge of retirement. Well, they are better than Australians right now and have pushed them to number two positions after an ODI series loss. This was the fifth loss in sixth matches for injury-stricken Australia. It is the first time since the listings began in 2002 that Australia has not occupied top spot for ODI ratings.

The 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup begins on March 13 with Australia playing their first game the following day against minnow Scotland at St. Kitts while New Zealand open their campaign on March 16 against England at St. Lucia. Now just wait and watch.

Journey to the North

My journey to the north was very exciting and funny. Now I am in north, yes I am in Ahmadabad. Early in the morning yesterday we shifted from our new winter palace to our summer palace. Now we have this facility here, in winter we can go upstairs and in summer we can come downstairs to stay on the ground floor. It was a yet another lazy Sunday for me and I was still fast asleep when Nikhil had started shifting few things from up to the room on the ground. It took us two full hours to shift everything from top to bottom from up to down. It was a roller coaster ride for us. Moving our old pillows and bad bed sheets and dirty beds themselves was a massive task ahead of us but we never ever even gave it a thought of surrender. I was so tired after all this exercise that I enjoyed full one hour of rest and reading magazines inside my toilet there. Masi’s food is easy to digest and light on both my tummy and my pocket. Now early summer days are here and it is time to enjoy chach everyday. I have reduced my smoking a lot and now at home I am not going to smoke at least for next few days I think. These are the preparations before my summer hibernation. But how all this began?

After enjoying masi’s food at one o’clock in the after noon we, I and Nikhil, went to hostel to meet Uttar. He was our companion for the journey up to the entry at express highway, a place known by name borrowed form near by residential society, Amitnagar. From there we got a taxi (Tata Sumo) and were on the express way within next 15 minutes. It was 3:30 in the after noon and sun was high. Though it was not very hot outside, we kept windows closed as the car was flying at almost 100 kilometer per hour speed. That is something supersonic for the people of Phursatgunj and I was in no mood to argue with the driver as I knew it would have not made any difference to him. He was in hurry. It was Sunday yesterday and he was in no mood to come back to Baroda while his boss insisted to go on one more “Chakkar” between Baroda and Ahmadabad while he was talking to him on phone. I was rather lost looking outside the scratchy windows. There are all kinds of and colors of flowers on the express way. Everyone except I and driver was in the midst of their regular afternoon nap when we were about to reach Ahmadabad. Express highway no.1 is really beautiful but not in the sense people say or look at it. to be continued . . . .

The Last Dawn

Downloading autobiographies of Charles Darwin and Theodore Roosevelt and reading notes from underground is a vindicating way of rounding off a long boring and rather hectic day. Last night I enjoyed full 12 hour sleep and was in good mood early in the morning. But then after that my day was a total mess. Without knowing where we were going I followed nikhil like a dumb dog. He dragged me into some T-shirt printing press in karelibaug early in the morning. They do some strange activities in the college and celebrate different 'days' like vegetable day and cleanliness day. As part of this scheduled circus today is the group day and for this so-called 'group day' they wanted their T-shirts printed in the noon so that artists in hostels can write their name on the back of their respective T-shirts. T-shirts are ready now but my day was ruined. It is so boring to roam out and to go to the college meaninglessly. Even when I was a regular student I was never very regular and it contributed the most in my growth as a homo sapiens. Swamiji was there in the college even before we had arrived. Within one hour we were at masi's lari enjoying daal bhaji and chawal. No rotis masi said the second setback of the day. Third one was even funnier and hilarious for me. I lost so many games on FICS today and that too against very low rated players like 1500-.i never ever in my short carrier as a chess player lost so many games in a single day. My tournament score was 2.5/7.0 today, worst ever. In the evening swamiji came again and we went to kalubhai agian. Then after an hour or so at eight in the evening we were at mangal bazar in search of a t-shirt so that swamiji can print an image of OSHO on it. One hour in mangal bazar was most painful and annoying of them all, the final setback really made me a dumb dog. I was so annoyed that I was shouting things and was walking in the lanes of mangal-bazar as if I was there for hafta-vasuli. few sindhi shop-keepers with their faces like tandoori legs in curry unsuccessfully tried to convince me that I could easily print with the help of my t-shirt transparency on their low quality t-shirts. Finally we got one "plane white round neck pure cotton t-shirt" from a fatehgunj store at 9:30. I repeated that phrase at least hundred times at mangal-bazar. All the food-joints were closed when nikhil came back at kalubhai's at 10:30 and that was the final nail in my coffin. Finally after eating mahesh bahi's roti and dal-fry I was so tired that I was unable to read more than two chapters from war and peace. May be this is my last post for now and I am going into hibernation again for sometime as I have to finish few things undone. Good night. Amen.

WAR AND PEACE

After few years of separation we are together again. I am again engaged with my old love-Russia and Eastern Europe. I again am in contact with my eastern European friends via e-mail. Eastern Europe is really one very interesting place to live. Poor but poetic, people of this region are more interesting than even Russians. Few ICQ friends of mine there in EE share music with me through file-sharing. I have a good collection of Romanian and Bulgarian and Slav songs now. Classic, Romantic, Melodies and Rock, and everything else what they listen I have it in my collection. After experimenting with Russian chess style and listening to Eastern European music and enjoying visual arts for years my new passion is their literature. And Tolstoy is the best one to begin with. All those who have read and understood Russian literature here in the blogger’s world I want your opinion and that too rather through a poll. Tell me who is better and more interesting to read. Dostoevsky or Tolstoy. If you don’t want to vote at least leave your comments so I can better understand the nature of their writing. Bye for now. Best from 20box.

Notes from the underground

My interest in Russian literature doubled after reading an article about Tolstoy or Dostoevsky Article was by an English author, translator and critic of Russian Literature. I enjoyed it a lot and have decided to read more and more Russian Classical Literature this summer. so many of the books are in public domain now and i have downloaded all of them. Author of the article says that communists like Stalin and others of his time preferred Tolstoy's work over Dostoevsky's. Tolstoy's work was more philosophical and psychological while Dostoevsky peopled his novels with poor characters and described at length their struggle and social status in his time of Russia. After I finish War and Peace I have decided to read Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. I am also reading a short novel or novella by Dostoevsky titled Notes from the underground. It is considered the world's first existentialist work. After reading first few paragraphs I liked it so much that i decided to read it twice. I hope i would be able to finish War and Peace before Anando Rock will be here in April. Lazyguru I recommend you to read Notes from the underground and hope that you can find few hard copies of Dostoevsky's books in Mumbai. More about Tolstoy and War and Peace in the evening, till than enjoy this quotes.


Here are few Quotes from the Dostoevsky's The notes from the underground. This novella is in public domain now and you can read the book by clicking the link below.

Project Gutenberg Public Domain Books - Notes from the under ground

• I am a sick man… I am a spiteful man. I am an unpleasant man. I think my liver is diseased.

• To be acutely conscious is a disease, a real, honest-to-goodness disease.

• [T]he best definition of man is: a being that goes on two legs and is ungrateful.
  • More punchy translation: If I had to define man it would be: a biped, ungrateful.

• When… in the course of all these thousands of years has man ever acted in accordance with his own interests?

• Two plus two equals five is not without its attractions.

• Yes - you, you alone must pay for everything because you turned up like this, because I'm a scoundrel, because I'm the nastiest, most ridiculous, pettiest, stupidest, and most envious worm of all those living on earth who're no better than me in any way, but who, the devil knows why, never get embarrassed, while all my life I have to endure insults from every louse - that's my fate. What do I care that you don't understand any of this?

• I could never stand more than three months of dreaming at a time without feeling an irresistible desire to plunge into society. To plunge into society meant to visit my superior, Anton Antonich Syetochkin. He was the the only permanent acquaintance I have had in my life, and I even wonder at the fact myself now. But I even went to see him only when that phase came over me, and when my dreams had reached such a point of bliss that it became essential to embrace my fellows and all mankind immediately. And for that purpose I needed at least one human being at hand who actually existed. I had to call on Anton Antonich, however, on Tuesday - his at-home day; so I always had to adjust my passionate desire to embrace humanity so that it might fall on a Tuesday.

• Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has others which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But finally there are still others which a man is even afraid to tell himself, and every decent man has a considerable number of such things stored away. That is, one can even say that the more decent he is, the greater the number of such things in his mind.

• The [Russian] romantic is always intelligent, and I only meant to observe that although we have had foolish romantics they don't count, and they were only so because in the flower of their youth they degenerated into Germans, and to preserve their precious jewel more comfortably, settled somewhere out there—by preference in Weimar or the Black Forest.

• It was not only that I could not become spiteful, I did not know how to become anything; neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. Now, I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, and it is only the fool who becomes anything.

• Granted I am a babbler, a harmless vexatious babbler, like all of us. But what is to be done if the direct and sole vocation of every intelligent man is babble, that is, the intentional pouring of water through a sieve?

• ...To care only for well-being seems to me positively ill-bred. Whether it’s good or bad, it is sometimes very pleasant, too, to smash things.

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This work is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. You are free to read this book online or can download e-book from various sources online and by doing so you are not violating any copy right laws.

Streets of Phursatgunj - A Glimpse

The Contrast Green

The City Streets

The Antique Dawn

Shattered my winter dreams

Dim consciousness that I had done something wrong yesterday suddenly woke me up from my shattering winter dreams. After sometime, when I came back into my body, I realized that it is power-cut that disturbed my sleep and not my consciousness is the culprit. Indeed, my winter dreams are over now and it is summer here. To have power-cuts in summer in India is like to be in hell with thousand devils dancing over your head. Early summer sun is invading my winter palace dancing through windowpane bouncing back and forth and crushing all resistance with cajoled rays that are trying to glitter the corner wall with the shades of dark yellow quartz of topaz. My room is as dim as my consciousness and dark yellow shades, of coy morning sun, are unable to glow it. The light green walls always provoking me to sleep more and more, they have made the matter worse. Power supply is back now but my windows are still closed. Nikhil is not yet back into his body and usually never go for his lectures if arranged early in the morning. It is 10:00 am and yet he is fast asleep. Phursatgunj is the only place on earth with so many aristocrats at the same place. London’s legacy may be. Lords, dukes, counts and kings this place is all full of them. You can find them everywhere just walking through the streets of phursatgunj, they are omni present here. In modern times they have to engage themselves in different kinds of work but with full dignity. Some of them run laaris and others drive auto rickshaws and few among them the greatest of them all, king among kings don't do anything at all but to sit at masi's laari and read all the local newspapers available for hours enjoying masi's super sweet tea and Lord Bhau's cigarettes. I have few pictures of my new palace and surroundings and will paste them here next time to just give the glimpse of phursatgunj to this blog's foreign visitors. I am also shifting from my winter palace to my summer palace. One room summer palace is on the ground-floor and more comfortable during summer times. Feel like smoke. Sayonara.