India and its colors

Hii folks,

With its rich cultural heritage and diversity in terms of people, language, flora and fauna; India ought to have been one of the biggest superpowers by now. But toxins like corruption, greed and an unending desire to quench the thirst for power have rendered it and its people handicapped, not physically but with the "Chalta Hai" attitude. But all is not bad with my country. The fact that it is the largest democracy in the world amply proves that we still have the time and the wherewithal to burnish our country and make it the next political and economic superpower in the world. It is with this optimism that I present to you - INDIA, and its various shades through my eyes.

Past Present and the Future

Hell: One of the most heart-wrenching moments I have ever faced in my life

Is the Himalayan fresh water actually pure? We found it to be otherwise

Serene Ganges: I now know what 'Serenity' is

Majestic Himalayas: Go on a trip to the Himalayas and get your ego busted for free!! You will feel so small in front of the mountains that it will do you more good than otherwise

Illuminated Helix: Louis Kahn couldn't have been more symmetrical!!

Diwali 2010 @ Dorm 13 - IIM AHMEDABAD: Though we were the joint runner-ups, but as usual there was no dearth of creativity and innovation in our presentation. Some couldn't understand, but that's ok!!

Misty Paapi Kondalu: We were cruising on the Godavari and it was very difficult holding the camera still for that perfect shot especially with the misty and chilly weather conditions around

Bhadrachalam Temple Complex: Specially decorated for the festival popularly known as "Vaikuntha Ekadashi"; a day when the gate to Lord Vishnu's inner sanctum is opened

Golden Jubilee @ IIM AHMEDABAD: Doesn't IIMA deserve those stars?

Oxygen Trading....

May o5, 2047

Hyderabad

Dear Mother Nature,

I won't ask you how you are for I know that you have run out of patience and are now adamant on unleashing your 'wrath' on mankind. You have already swallowed Mumbai and New York and now I am beginning to test my knowledge of probability and statistics betting on which city is next. Its most unfortunate that two of the greatest cities on Earth are now no more even as I am trying to celebrate my 60th birthday and my country mourning the loss of Mumbai in the centennial anniversary of its freedom. I admire the sense of timing with which you struck fear in us, and can't stop remembering the time when a certain Al Gore was scorned and laughed at while he was trying to educate us about the perils of Greenhouse Effect.

My kids don't know how a Tiger looks like because for them it is what Dodo was for us. When they see movies where the female lead actor dances around trees in the bright sunshine, they often ask me whether the Sun was really as bright as it is displayed or is it the 'magic' created by VFX. I have to spend half of my savings now on buying Oxygen because it is a scarce commodity in the commodity exchange where it is being traded at obscenely high prices. I haven't seen a bright Sun since days thanks to the Holocaust. After living all these years in sweltering heats when temperatures were usually 50-60 degrees, its been very difficult adapting to sub 20 temperatures.

Why am I describing all this to you when you know what's been happening with me and my family? Let me be frank. My intention is to convince you that there are other ways of punishing me and mankind for all the wounds that we have inflicted on you. Why are you being so cruel and inhumane? I assure you that people are already suffering from pangs of guilt and have been never so remorseful for the unimaginable ways in which they all tortured you. I plead you to stop this mayhem for if this continues to happen, the Earth will cease to exist. Don't you think mankind deserves another chance to undo what it did and once again reconstruct Earth to what it was 100 years back. I am sure you will oblige us and help restore the lost glory and prosperity of Earth.

Yours truly,

Taureansandy

Mother Nature's Reply

Dear Taureansandy (I hate your name!!),

I have never been cruel and inhumane as you have described me to be in your letter nor do I have a sense of timing for time is nobody's servant. I would have stopped time the very moment you humans started inflicting wounds on me. When my dear friend whom you all refer to as 'God' said to me once that mankind is ungrateful, I laughed at him and defended you all. But now I regret those moments for you don't seem to empathise with me even when you were writing that letter pleading me to be kind and considerate.

You sure know about a gentleman called Isaac Newton who once said that 'Every action has an equal and opposite reaction'. That is the fundamental law of nature. So to now expect that I be kind and considerate is foolhardy because I am simply doing my job abiding by what you all call as the fundamental law. My dear friend has empowered you with 'Brains' which you have all used to lead a comfortable life so far. I expect you to use that again and escape my 'wrath'. However cruel and inhumane I may sound now, but there is something known as 'repercussions' which you all have to face. But I will consider your plea under one condition. If you can completely stop the trading of Oxygen in the commodity exchanges, then I will help mankind in reconstructing Earth back to its old glorious days.

Yours,

Mother Nature

P.S: After reading Mother Nature's reply, he simply tore it for he knew that the task assigned to him can't be accomplished.

The usual disclaimer applies...

My encounter with The Mountain God

Hii folks,

Well after a long while, its good to be back to what I like doing when I am free - Blogging. At this juncture I would like to mention about one of my classmates here in WIMWI who is one of the very few following my posts here. I have felt good whenever he has appreciated my posts; well who doesn't like an encouraging pat on the back!! A few days back he had asked me to write about my experiences about Shodhyatra - the tour to Uttarakhand we undertook a few days back this month. Well here I am with my thoughts and ramblings.

To begin with, I have always been an avid traveler and so was very excited about this trip, especially so because I was about to trek in the Himalayas. As someone who has always loved nature for its diversity, this was one opportunity which I was never going to miss. For once, it was a great relief to be away from the hullabaloo of the city and spend some time amidst the huge majestic mountains. As dramatic as it may sound but the roads, rivers and the mountains there always seem to have a message for you. Each moment you spend there is uncertain. In one of the review sessions we had with our professor there, one of my colleagues said that dangers can be avoided by embracing certainty. I disagree for there is no such thing as certainty. For me dangerous events can only be made less uncertain. The Himalayas is an epitome of modesty and humbleness but that doesn't make it less powerful. It does remind us constantly that we need to respect its strength and power. Why do you think landslides and earthquakes are a common phenomenon there? And why do you think even the scientists can't predict when and where exactly the landslides/earthquakes would occur?

I was looking forward to have a glimpse of some of the rare and endangered species like the Musk Deer and Snow Leopard. But given our itinerary, that didn't happen. On our way to Ghangria and then further to the Valley of Flowers, we were told to watch out for the majestic Tiger. Though the Tigers here are not man eaters, but nevertheless there was a mix of both fear and excitement which made me extra careful while trekking. Though we couldn't spot them amidst the thick woods, I am sure at least a tiger or two was keeping track of our proceedings (might sound very lame!!). Well my camera was finally very happy, especially after the ghastly trip to the manhole worker settlements a few days before Shodhyatra. The scenic beauty there is absolutely a photographer's delight and for the photographer me, the trip couldn't have been more satisfying.

Uttarakhand is one of the few states where access to basic primary education is available to the masses with the literacy rate being well above the national average. And with about two-thirds of the landscape there under the forest cover, you needn't think twice before going there for a well deserved holiday. The people there are extremely proud of their heritage and rightfully should be. 'Poverty' simply doesn't have an existence though people do struggle to sustain their livelihood. But people out there, especially the womenfolk seem to endure physical pain effortlessly. Science reasons that these people have a greater RBC count than us, but the fact is only the fittest can survive and so these people struggled to survive and in the process physically adapted themselves to the surroundings.

But amidst all this excitement and happiness, there were quite a few things which bothered me. I was lying by the rivulet in the Valley of Flowers surrounded by the mystical mountains covered with clouds and then.....

My conversation with The Mountain God (TMG)

TMG: So what brings you to this place, human?

Me: Who are you?

TMG: I am the mountain god, the caretaker of the Himalayas and all that is part of it.

Me: Do you exist?

TMG: Well, you humans certainly have this habit of overlooking the obvious. No wonder, I am constantly being reprimanded by Mother Nature for not being strict enough.

Me: Strict enough with whom?

TMG: You big time dumbo, who else would I be strict with? Strict with mankind, who is hell bent on inflicting damages on us.

Me: Oh, now I got you. But we are doing our best to be good with you guys. Aren't you seeing how we have set up national parks and biosphere reserves?

TMG: Whats the use of addressing the symptoms when you are not addressing the core problem?

Me: And may I know what is the core problem?

TMG: The core problem is the way educated fellas like you are spending money on buying fur overcoats and leather jackets and belts when you can very well spend the same money on buying a few plants or raising a small garden!! You guys just don't respect Mother Nature

Me: But we work very hard to earn money. Don't we have the right to enjoy and splurge some on ourselves?

TMG: Look human, you are not a small kid anymore. You very well realise the fallacy of your argument and so stop making a fool out of yourself. You have come to enjoy the beauty and so do that.

Me: Sorry, but why are you talking to me? Why am I able to see you?

TMG: Well, don't think you are special just because I am talking with you. I was only looking out for a human and its just a coincidence that I found you sitting here besides the rivulet.

Me: Hmmm, is there something special you want to convey to me?

TMG: Yeah, there is a message which I want you to convey to your friends and everyone else you know.

Me: Yeah sure, so what is the message?

TMG: Well, the message is "Mother Nature - Best before 2050".

Me: Which means...?

TMG: This means that at the current rate at which you humans are adding Carbon to the atmosphere, you will kill Mother Nature in the year 2050.

Me: Oh my god!! What should we do then to prevent this?

TMG: Don't you know what you guys should do to prevent this?

Me: I am sorry. Yeah we do know, but as you said we humans have this bad habit of overlooking the obvious.

TMG: Thank Mother Nature, you realise this. Ok, then I have got to go and soothe my crying (melting) sister 'Gangotri'.

Me: ???? (Confused)

TMG: You indeed are a big dumbo!! Bye and do convey my message.

Me(Thinking to himself): No, we humans are indeed a big dumbo species!!

Just now, I received the latest issue of Forbes India magazine whose title reads "Greed is Back". When was Greed gone anyways??

Regards,

Taureansandy

Yikes and Sharks!!

Dear "Future Kothapalli Sandeep",

I hope you will be in good health to read this ten years hence (Pun intended)!! Anyways, the 23 years I have spent so far have been dull, bland and boring, with little adventure. I have neither done anything exciting nor something that I wished I would do at this age (There are always some exceptions though - Doing MBA at IIMA!!). Though books have been my constant and faithful companions so far, I am yearning to do something beyond just thinking and analysing.

Before you read this letter in 2020 A.D, I want you to have settled down well in life after having done all of the following:

• Sky dive with a parachute that fails, dive in perfectly into the south Antarctic ocean, and piggyback on a Blue Whale that drops you on an Iceberg inhabited by the Emperor Penguins
• Conquest the K2 mountain with Barack Obama and Osama Bin Laden in tow, give them each an AK 47 on the summit and then ask them "Are you still enemies?"......(Whether the AK 47 will really fire at that altitude is a question that only either of the two can answer!!)
• Direct a 180 minute movie with the following setting - SRK and Salman sitting in a room, each with his arms tied to the window sill with an unbreakable metallic chain made of "Titanium-Gold alloy" (Though I am sure Salman will break the chain!!)
  
• Bungee jump from the top of Burj Dubai
• Act in an ad film that advertises "Space cars" with the tagline "Earth to Mars in three hours - Be there, live there, Experience RED!!"
• Meet "Christopher Nolan" on his fiftieth birthday, and steal all his ideas in a "shared dream" with him (A befitting tribute to the director who labelled "Idea" as the most obnoxious virus known to mankind!!)
  
• With PC Sorcar's tacit support, break into the arsenal of all the nations hoarding the nuclear weapons and just make them disappear into thin air

I would like you to tear this letter as soon as you finish reading because you and I both know that you would have to be bitten by a "genetically mutated" spider or drink the holy "elixir" to have done even a single thing listed above. Even as you are reading this, I hope to find you at least riding a " Tata Nano " that moves without catching FIRE!!

Yours,
"Present Sandeep Kothapalli"

PS: "Yikes" and "Sharks" are two of the most used words by the blogger :)

Disclaimer : This post was meant to be an absolute nonsense and the author doesn't intend to hurt anybody's sentiments!!

Regards,
Taureansandy

Sandy Sandy!!

Hii folks,

Last weekend we (me with my roomies) went to visit one of the cleanest beaches seen ever in a long time. Don't be surprised because even this wasn't clean in the true sense, but certainly clean when you compare it with most of the beaches on the eastern coastline of India. I was in a trance when I felt the sand slipping beneath my foot. But the journey from Mumbai to the Island beach of Gorai, brought some stark and bitter truths out. Gorai is a fairly big island to the west of Borivali, where the Essel Group has already set up Asia's biggest water theme park.

A small channel of sea separates Gorai from the mainland. The tide plays havoc with the sea and its surroundings out there especially, when the visiting tourists throw out the litter in the sea. The mangroves are submerged under water during the day and once the Sun begins to set, the water level begins to recede fast, thus uncovering a huge muddy stinking dumpyard. No wonder for a nature lover like me, I couldn't spot a single sea bird except for Crows. By the way, when you find an unusually high number of Crows congregating at a single place, you can be assured that the soil and the surroundings there is either not fit for wildlife habitation or is littered with all kinds of Garbage possible.

And then there's an unfinished overbridge there, supposedly meant for the tourists to cross over the channel. You have wooden mechanised boats always overloaded with passengers and a disaster waiting to happen. Once you cross the channel, you are welcomed by the stink of Horse dung littered all over the road. Courtesy, the Tangas there. From there, its a 10 minute ride in an autorickshaw to the Gorai Beach. The coast is lined with Coconut trees that make the beach that much more scenic. But then again, you can't help but notice that the Hawkers and Vendors there who don't hesitate to dump the waste in the open.

But the beach soil is awesome and hard enough to act as a cricket pitch and a racing track. I took hardly 5 minutes to change into the swimming costume and threw myself in the sea. Swimming here is that much more easy than in a swimming pool, because of the sea water's high density. And for the next one hour, we spent clicking photographs and in the process tasting what real salt is!!

A beach is a place where you forget all the things in your life, and surrender yourself to the calm and serene yet the mighty and powerful sea. And suddenly when I was back to my usual self I realised, Was it me who swam and swam his heart out and enjoyed jumping in the sea?No, it wasn't ME. He was someone else. He was a part of ME. He, who had no worries in life and only knew how to swim and swim all the way to a place, elusive to many of the people in the world called HAPPINESS!!

Regards,

taureansandy

Wildlife at IIMA...

hi folks,

It's been days since I have written something on Wildlife. Some events that have happened in my campus that I thought triggered my thoughts and here I am as usual putting those thoughts to words.

IIMA campus is a lush green campus and is in fact officially recognised as a Urban-forestry area in Ahmedabad. Home to about 25 species of birds including White Myna, Rock Pigeon, Common Indian Kite and most of all ' The White Rumped Vultures' which are on the verge of extinction, it spans about 55 acres. Evenings at the LKP lawns is usually a sight to watch especially with huge swathes of Swifts chirping and swiftly flying over the heritage structure. Their chirpings actually makes the place come out alive.

Oh!! I forgot to mention about the animal which is presently giving us a scare. The Langurs here measure about 7 to 10 feet from tail to head. And especially a huge adult Langur is enough to scare the hell out of you. All in all my campus is a Mini-forest with its own distinct ecosystem. You could see Kites chasing pigeons if you are observant and lucky!! Even the dogs chase you especially if you are savouring your Ice creams in front of them!! IIMA is specially looked after by The Gujarat state forestry department as its home to the highly endangered 'The White Rumped Vulture'. 'Prakriti', the nature club is also actively involved in spreading awareness about Bio-Conservation. Awareness and constant reminders are necessary even for intellectually briliiant minds like us because the hectic academic workload here gives us little time to explore the Campus. And I am pretty happy to be spending 20 months of my life here away from Pollution and honking Vehicles :)

regards,

taureansandy

Mercury link to dolphin deaths

June 2008
Australian scientists have found that mercury poisoning could be leading local dolphins to beach themselves. Ross Thompson and Alissa Monk at Monash University in Melbourne suggest that the mercury's neurological effects would include confusion and disorientation, causing the dolphins to strand themselves on the shore.
While dolphins are known to accumulate mercury through the fish they eat, Thompson's study is the first to compare mercury levels in beached dolphins with live animals from the same population. Thompson sampled dolphins living in the shallow, enclosed waters of Port Phillip Bay and the Gippsland Lakes in Victoria, Australia, finding that the beached dolphins averaged 3.45 milligrams of mercury per kilogram of body weight, over twice that of the live animals.
'The mercury levels we found in the dead dolphins were high enough to be causing quite severe neurological effects,' Thompson told Chemistry World. 'Even the levels in the apparently healthy population would be expected to cause immune deficits, at the very least,' he adds.
"The mercury levels we found in the dead dolphins were high enough to be causing quite severe neurological effects"- Ross Thompson The findings confirm earlier European studies on harbour porpoise populations, says marine ecotoxicology expert Krishna Das of Liege University in Belgium. But Das adds that it is very difficult to assess the effects of a single pollutant. 'Mercury could be a contributing factor to the dolphin deaths - but it is never acting alone as the animals have high levels of a lot of other pollutants,' she says.
Mining connection
Historical gold mining, which up until the 1930s used mercury in gold extraction, is the likely main source of the heavy metal in the waters, says Thompson. The mercury has gradually washed down the Yarra and other rivers, and accumulated in the sediments of the bay. Current dredging work could further increase mercury levels in the food chain, he adds. The mercury levels he measured were already higher than those found in dolphins in other populations in polluted waters around the world, from the Mediterranean to costal India.
As well as following the changing mercury levels as dredging continues, Thompson plans to examine how today's mercury levels compare with those of the past. 'We will test mercury levels in the teeth of museum specimens, which include dolphins from the late 19th century to the very recent, to see how mercury accumulation has changed over time,' he says.
As well as dolphins, Port Phillip Bay is also home to a colony of Fairy Penguins, but their mercury accumulation wasn't so high, probably because they feed lower in the food chain, and don't live as long. 'The penguins seem to be hit by zinc instead - the other main pollutant - but that's another story,' says Thompson.
James Mitchell Crow
-Courtesy magportal.com

snow leopards-will they be the next "DODO"?

i wonder how many of us care about biodiversity?? In our country, the tiger's situation is grim.. And in the far fringes of upper himalayas r the majestic nd rarely shot Snow leopards. A brief look at the snow leopaard:
These beautiful gray leopards live in the mountains of Central Asia. They are insulated by thick hair, and their wide, fur-covered feet act as natural snowshoes. These cats have powerful legs and are tremendous leapers, able to jump as far as 50 feet (15 meters). Snow leopards use their long tails for balance and as blankets to cover sensitive body parts against the severe mountain chill.Snow leopards prey upon the blue sheep (bharal) of Tibet and the Himalayas, and mountain ibex found over most of the rest of their range. Though these powerful predators can kill animals three times their weight, they also eat smaller fare, such as marmots, hares, and game birds.One Indian snow leopard, protected and observed in a national park, is reported to have consumed five blue sheep, nine Tibetan woolly hares, twenty-five marmots, five domestic goats, one domestic sheep, and fifteen birds in a single year.As these numbers indicate, snow leopards sometimes have a taste for domestic animals, which has led to many deaths of the big cats at the hands of herders.These endangered cats appear to be in dramatic decline because of such killings, and due to poaching driven by illegal trades in pelts and in body parts used for traditional Chinese medicine. Vanishing habitat and the decline of the cats' large mammal prey are also contributing factors.

Fast Facts:
Type: Mammal
Diet: Carnivore
Size: 4 to 5 ft (1.2 to 1.5 m); Tail, 36 in (91 cm)
Weight: 60 to 120 lbs (27 to 54 kg)
Protection status: Endangered
Size relative to a 6-ft (2-m)

lets wake up to this grim reality nd try to conserve such beautiful species before it meets the fate of da 'DODO'