Contemporary Gyan

You Love Someone
You Marry Someone Else
The One You Marry Becomes Your Husband Or Wife
And The One You Loved Becomes The Password Of Your Email Id...

Hey, Our Raft Is Sinking !!!!

This post is dedicated to my dear sinking raft team mates - Mangsule , Shouvik, Sapan, Akriti, Indrani, GP, Vinay and Himanshu :)

It all began at the XL adventure trip when we were taken to the beautiful Dimna lake for water sports and were asked to construct a raft by ourselves with the materials provided to us (tyres , logs, ropes) .. It basically all began when we started "Strategising" to build the raft so as to win the so called competition by completing the task which included building the raft , climbing onto it with oars, rowing till the middle of nowhere and returning from that middle of nowhere to starting point where we would be served snacks at the end of the task in as short a time as possible... It also basically all began when we rejected one by one the ideas of constructing a hexagonal raft, a grid shaped raft, a square raft and what not and zeroing in on a simple straight raft , almost as shown in this google image :-|

It also basically all began when we quickly , smartly , sincerely tied the logs with the ropes loosely :-| and then very happily went out into the 'sea' hurraying with our oars.. rowed for a whole 4 meters when we realized that our poor raft was wobbling in the middle of nowhere.. our captain and co captain tried their best to keep rowing against the strong tide in the opposite direction, all the while everyone screaming and shouting and laughing alongside at everyone else on the god forsaken self constructed wobbly raft. And then the inevitable happened... the captain and the co captain fell off the raft :-| while the rest of the team members looked on bewildered and then burst out laughing when we realized that they hadnt drowned.. haha.. the raft had started falling apart by now and most of the members were busy holding onto it while the rest rowed in the middle of nowhere in the direction of the shore... finally we reached the other end of and reported, and turned back for the return journey... But , then again , all was not very well , especially when the weather became all stormy and ours was the last raft left in the lake, and two of our teammates were floating in the water and the rest were clutcing onto the raft and the remaining few were trying to row back.. hehe.. after dragging the boat for a few metres , the environmental conditions became unberable and before we could all drown , there came a rescue boat to save us :) .. then in the middle of nowhere , we somehow tied our so called raft to the hook of the rescue boat and were being dragged to the shore , when suddenly the water became too stormy and it started pouring heavily with boat the boats being dragged in the opposite direction.. admist the high tension packed adventure , each of us switched over from the broken raft to the seemingly safer boat and dragged our way out of the lake in the stormy weather to the shore.. on steppin out of the water , we were given a standing ovation by the rest of the group who had been waiting for us from the last two hours :-| ..

So , thats how it all ended.. the two hour adventure in the middle of the hugggggeee lake surrounded by mountains , the embarrassing standing ovation , a memory of a lifetime more for the organisers than for us ( they ll mention this 'incident' to the batches coming next year on ) and our "safe" return :)

Sweet September

Do not , on a rainy day ask your child , what he feels like doing, because I assure you, what he feels like doing , you wont feel like watching...
-- Fran Lebowitz

Come September and there are raindrops crashing down upon corrugated iron sheets, raindrops quenching the thirst of this parched earth , raindrops filling dried up dead lakes and ponds, raindrops washing off the layer of soot on tree leaves and clinging on to them like pearls, raindrops falling off rolled up car windows, raindrops bringing a smile on the face of every Indian farmer who has been praying heartily for this very moment of the sky showering down upon his land, raindrops filling up innumerable potholes on the roads of the country, and ending the wait of every rain enthusiast who wanted to jump in the rain filled slushy potholes having a time of his life.

The late revival of monsoons has lifted spirits of the people throughout after many parts of the country being declared drought hit not more than a month back. It has come as a relief not only to the agriculturists but also to the government and the urbanites. The unbearable summer temperatures have finally fallen and everyone is enjoying every bit of this Sweet September weather with farmers thanking God for saving their crops , lovers walking in the rain down canopied paths, office goers folding up their formal wear with a smile on their faces , children rolling in the wet mud , some science students trying out their models for rain water harvesting , poets sitting by their windows with a pen in their mouth, intellectual crowd becoming even more intellectual by the charismatic effect of the rain , people everywhere inhaling the sweet fragrance of the rain on dry ground, people frying pakodas in their homes and rest of them cosying up in bed by the windowside and catching up on movies.......

All this and more has a lot to do with what Sweet September is all about :)