Give Love Get Love

About a year back, there was this Essay Competition at my son's school for Class-7 CBSE. The Annual All India Essay Writing Event was presented by Chandra Mission in collaboration with the United Nations Information Centre for India and Bhutan (UNIC), conducted by the Sahaj Marg Research and Training Institute (SMRTI) in commemoration of the International Day of Youth. 

To help him prepare for the essay, I first gathered several tidbits from internet, books and media. My son and wife gave shape to it. Then we provided a final touch-up and some cosmetic trimming. There was a limit of 700 odd words for the competition so that was also a bit of challenge. His submission got selected at the school level and was sent to Delhi. Here it is for everybody's reference.

Give Love Get Love

How does peace and friendship in society benefit the individual?

What you give, comes back to you ten fold! Love is an expression of all that is good and balanced within an individual, and as a result of expressing it unsolvable differences disappear. The giving of love is therefore the gaining of love. “Give Love, Get Love” is the best principle the world needs to adopt because it helps to spread harmony and bliss, it prevents hatred amongst people, and it allows the people in the world live as one family. “All my life I have had a choice between hate and love, and I chose love, and now I'm here,” said Film Musician A.R. Rahman after winning an Oscar Award.

Halebid-Belur-Hassan Trip

It was a 1-2 days Belur-Halebid road-trip we planned to make, in our Maruti Swift. For this trip, we had two route options:

Option-1: Bangalore-Nelamangala-Hirisave-Hassan-Belur-Halebid-Hassan-Hirisave-Nelamangala-Bangalore
Option-2: Bangalore-Nelamangala-Tumkur-Tiptur-Arsikere-Banavara-Javagal-Halebid-Belur-Hassan-Nelamangala-Bangalore

Option-1 is what everyone would choose normally. But, it involves going twice on the tough 'Nelamangala-Hassan' segment on the Bangalore-Mangalore highway, i.e. NH-48. The high vehicular traffic including heavy trucks, LPG tankers, other lorries, buses and cars on that single track road makes it a difficult one. Added to that, the 4-lane / road-doubling work that has been going on between Nelamangala and Hirisave for many years have not been completed yet; making the traffic to crossover from one side to the other side at a lot of places - it is risky as well as tiresome.

Due to all that, we formed and chose our own new route, that is option-2. Thanks to the 'Get Directions' feature of Google Maps that allows to specify multiple destination points along a route, we could tweak and analyze both options before we chose one. Option-2 allowed us to explore some new segments, and at the same time avoided the narrow-road heavy-traffic NH-48 at least during the onward direction. The distance is very similar in both routes. Except that the state highway SH-58 segment in option-2 from Banavara to Halebidu via Javagallu was not even looking like a village road! However, there was absolutely no traffic on that segment, so we still were able to comfortably pass through that stretch. In fact we enjoyed a lot of things which I have described later. [Note: If you click on each picture you can view a (slightly) larger version]

CLICK HERE to view the direct Google Maps version of the Route Option-2

The berth fight!

Mysore-Chennai ‘Kaveri’ Express, #6221, departing from Bangalore City Junction at 11:45 PM is the last train at night to go to Chennai. On that Friday night, a few weeks ago, it had arrived quite late from Mysore, and, I had this interesting and thought-provoking experience.

I checked my name against berth number 9 (lower berth) on the chart stuck near the entrance of the coach and then I boarded the S7 coach of the Kaveri Express at Bangalore City railway station. I was heading to Chennai on my short trip for the week-end. It was already 11:55 PM when I boarded the train and I was quite tired after the long day’s work, waiting to lie down as soon as possible. The coupe was almost occupied fully. People around were trying to settle down too. Couple of kids was trying to finish their last minute purchase of tetra pack juices through their father from the shop on the station platform.

Suddenly a man, a north Indian, may be, appeared in the coupe and was checking for S7 berth 9. Yes, it was mine. I told him it belonged to me. He also said it belonged to him. He showed me his ticket, a regular ticket issued normally at the booking counters. I took it from him, checked, and the date and train number matched. Coach and berth number also matched. I was puzzled. Mine was an e-ticket and it had same parameters. I did not know whether there could be such a duplicate reservation possible on IRCTC’s website. I went down to the chart pasted outside the coach to re-check once again. I found my name there without any doubt and my ticket number also matched.

I came back to the berth where this guy was already frantically making calls and SMSs from his mobile phone about the ticket status. I told him that it is only my name figuring in the chart and not his, so he has to allow me to use the berth. But he argued that he is holding a valid ticket for that berth and so he will stay too.

The discussions between him and I made the people around us also interested. There were also a couple of cynical comments from some of them saying that such mix-ups are common these days in Railways, they do all sorts of jugglery, etc. etc.

Caught Special - 1

Once in a while I get the opportunity to click something special. An attractive frame of scenery, a rare moment of incident or action, an unusual view of a common perspective, a snap of poetic feel and depth, a picture-perfect still, or even an impressive blend of colors with a rustic or a glossy finish.  

This is a series posting such pictures I captured. The pictures are original and without any post-processing.  You can also see my thoughts about the picture and the camera used for snapping. 

Under the Labels list on the right hand side, click on 'Caught Special' to see all postings in this series. Click on pictures to see full size view.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
 
Special thoughts:
There was this "Shubh Arts Competition - In celebration of Common Wealth Games, New Delhi" at my son's school for which he drew this picture. The topic was 'My Dream Sport'. His submission got selected at the school level and was sent to Delhi.

He wanted a photo of it to use as wallpaper for his computer. I clicked it twice with and without flash. I did not use any zoom.

What a coincidence: The close replica of the two frames made the two photos look like two different drawings, one drawn as a day skiing, and the other, a night skiing! It was not taken using any camera feature like 'Double shot' that can click two automatic pictures using two different 'Scene Modes'. And it was not processed using any Photo tools also. The specialty also comes from the fact that when I clicked the two pictures I had no intention to keep the two frames almost identical, but it just happened.
 
Date: 22/Jul/2010, 11:00 PM ~~ Camera: Nokia X6

You may give a try to 'spot the differences' like we do in those magazines. But you might find none! It's just the difference between - Day and Night!

Invitation

Welcome to my blog: The Bluff Grass - Blue Fields Green Skies.

On my blog I write on interesting real-life incidents, strange or funny experiences, travel, photography, reviews, poems, and other varied topics. I will be happy to see you at my blog frequently. I beg your esteemed patronage, frequent following, support and interaction to make this a useful hang-out spot for a large audience on the web.

It will be great if you can share comments, suggestions, ideas, inputs, corrections, critiques, questions, etc., under each of the blog topics. Thanks.

The Title Thoughts are at: http://thebluffgrass.blogspot.com/2010/08/title-thoughts_13.html

Thanks for your time and support.

Have fun, cheers!

With best regards,

D Rajakumar

Blog home: http://thebluffgrass.blogspot.com/

Title thoughts

Blue Fields Green Skies is what I wanted to name it as. The idea is to make it feel different in the first place, and, as a place. Then the idea is to write about interesting real-life incidents, strange or funny experiences, travel, photography, reviews, poems, and other varied topics. Thus, I thought, the reverse color adjectives would make it apt. So, Blue Fields Green Skies it is.

The acronym is BLF GRS. And that's how the name - Bluff Grass!

So… here we go…
                             The Bluff Grass
                                          - Blue Fields Green Skies!

Welcome to my simple web log, I will try to maintain this as a lovely meadow of plush green grasses.

Thanks for coming, grazing and gracing.

I will be very glad if you can send me your comments and… more comments. Please do write comments, suggestions, ideas, inputs, corrections, and, anything. I will sure be prompt in responding to e-v-e-r-y one of them. Thanks again.

Wish you a good time here. Let us be in touch, interact.