A Trip to Hunkal Woods

After a lot of planning and last minute drop outs the Pankhudi Bangalore Team was finally on its way to a 2-day trip to Hunkal Woods and Belur. 9 of us, brimming with excitement reached the assembling point on Friday night. Let me first introduce to all my trip mates/team mates/friends.

Srikanth – Our travel coordinator . A hard-core trekker, kick-boxer and an awesome photographer. The amazing thing is that the most simple-looking things also captured by him looks so much beautiful in his photographs that you are bound to appreciate the beauty of those. Very much leech-friendly. Has got a great endurance power.

Vaibhav - Our Pankhudi Bangalore leader. He is a gadget-freak(lots of gadgets but all of them gifted to him), techie person and internet-freak. Such a Java-geek that while watching animated movies he tries to judge by going into the coding level, dedicated blogs on java stuffs. Loves photography. Very much optimistic person.

Ajay -   A very much cool dude . Always searching for the motivation of his life.  A very caring  and a fun-loving person. Enjoys teasing people a lot. But very much supportive.

Vivek – Lovingly called as “Vivek Anna“. Good at entertaining people. Always cheerful and a very fit person.

Ram – The “patent” guy. Little serious. Everyone always pulling his legs but he never minds. Very much cool-headed.

Lipika – A leader in every way. Was way ahead of us leading our way during the trek. Very good at playing antakshari. Remembers lyrics of songs which we never would have heard of.

Minu -  A silent and a soft-spoken person but quite a determined person. Doing a research on cancer. Kills rats

Nitin – The youngest of all. Loves getting his pics clicked.

From L to R: Nitin, Srikanth, Ram, Minu, Ajay, Vivek anna, me, Lipika, Vaibhav

After a spicy dinner, we started towards our destination by a 13-seater TempoTraveller. We had brought some DVDs so that we could watch during the night but unfortunately it could play only the CDs and we didn’t have any option but to watch a Kannada movie. Watched it for 15mins and we couldn’t tolerate it and so most of us decided to spend the night sleeping except Vaibhav, Ajay and Vivek anna who were busy talking, laughing on their own PJs and sometimes discussing on Pankhudi-related stuffs. In between had to wake up Srikanth from his sound sleep for directions.

Early morning at 5:30am we reached Chikamagalur and started towards the final destination to Hunkal Woods, a coffee estate. The road from Chikamagalur to the Hunkal Woods was awesome with green mountains covered with the clouds. We stopped on the way to watch it closely and capture the beauty in few of the photographers’ cameras. And then continued on our way. Finally, we saw a board indicating to take a left for Hunkal Woods. This road was around 3.2km long and was quite a narrow one. If it would have rained, it would have turned into a muddy road and would have been little difficult to drive.

Finally we landed in front of the estate bungalow, few of us ran towards the hammock to enjoy a nap after a night journey. It was 8:00 am and we spent some time wearing off our tiredness, sipping coffee, chatting with the caretaker, playing Table tennis and then a heavy breakfast.

We started for a long trek at 10am. I was worried about only one thing – LEECHES. Our guide Nizam(who was called as Nizamuddin by our Vivek anna) was very much sure that we will be getting lots of leeches on the way. Anyways with fear of Leeches, I joined the others for the trek. Initially my eyes were always looking on the ground searching for the leeches but after few minutes of walking, the spectacular scenery of the green mountains around with streams of water flowing caught my eyes and I was out of the terror of leeches for sometime. It was quite a steep way but we walked and walked enjoying the beauty of the nature, cool winds and the sound of the leaves and the gushing water and also the jokes by Vivek anna. When we thought that we had reached the final trek point, we realized the toughest and the best part of the trek was still left. We were going towards the source of a waterfall crossing numerous creeks. The way we took was steep, full of slippery rocks and leeches, all types of insects, wild plants and thorns. This was little scary one as I had a good fall from a slippery rock hurting my back and another one when my head bumped into the hard rock. But when we reached the waterfalls, we forgot all the injuries. It was truly worth all the pains on the way.

The Hunkal Waterfall

Rightly said “No gains without pain” .  We enjoyed the fall of the chilled water for sometime and started towards our return trek. I thought the return would be less eventful. But this was also fun as descent of the steep way was not so easy. Luckily I did not become the victim of the leeches. But at the end I was little disappointed also for not having experienced the leech attacks. Srikanth seems to be a good friend of the leeches, fully bitten but without worrying he was busy with his camera.  Others too were bitten but were enjoying the return walk. Finally we were back to the bungalow by 4pm all very much hungry. Rushed towards the sumptuous lunch after getting freshened up.

With filled stomach and a round of hot coffee, we decide to play some outdoor games. Me, Minu, Ram and Vivek anna decided to play badminton – All of us awesome badminton players . Ajay, Srikanth, Vaibhav and Nitin started with badminton and then cricket but not for too long. Lipika was too tired and sleepy. Ajay went off to take a good nap and Srikanth in the good company of his camera taking pics around the place. We enjoyed the rain showers with hot pakodas. Then it was time for bonfire. We sat around for a less time and then our guide Nizam realizing that few of us were afraid of the ghosts, started scaring people with the ghost stories. We sat sometime on the tree house called as “machan” in the dark for sometime till the dinner was served. We had a good dinner and then again started for a night walk towards the jungle. But we did not continue the trek for too long as it was too dark and little dangerous. So, we were back to our rooms by 12, spent some time chatting, taking pics and then off to the bed.

Next morning, we had to check out at 8. But all were so tired that we could wake up by 8:15am. Seemed no one wanted to leave the place and everyone was too reluctant to leave the place. Everyone had coffee – seems people never got tired of drinking coffee on this trip! We got ready to go back, had a heavy breakfast and then bid adieu to the awesome nature-friendly place.

We headed towards Belur, located in the Hassan district. The main attraction of Belur is  the Chennakesava(handsome Vishnu) temple. We took a guide who explained us the about the beautiful architecture of the temple. It had took almost 100 years to complete this temple. The intricate sculpture includes elephants, lions, horses, episodes from the Indian mythological epics, and dancers. After roaming around the temples for sometime and enjoying the nice rain, we headed towards for South Indian meal to Hassan. Reaching Hassan, we could see more of liquor shops than the eating places. We had a nice meal and then headed back to Bangalore sleeping, playing Antakshari and chatting.

In  all was a fun-filled adventurous, absolutely fantastic trip in the company of wonderful people.

Image Courtesy:  Our own Pankhudian Photographers:  Srikanth’s Gallery, Vaibhav’s Gallery

A Rendezvous with Reality

Salim, a 7 year old boy, came to Bangalore from Kolkata by train all alone. Speaking in Bengali, with cuts on both of his hands,  injuries on his face, roaming around the railway station, was picked up by the Child helpline and brought to the Govt. homes. Talking to him we get to know that his parents had put him on a job as a servant. The master used to physically abuse him regularly. Somehow he got the chance to run away and landed up in Bangalore. And moreover he is not ready to go back to his parents as he thinks they might send him back to work.  He was fortunate enough that he was not caught into the wrong hands and was safely brought to the “Child Welfare Committee”.

Roopa, a 12 year old girl, with a deep cut on her face and an expression of shock and fear on her face. She is an eye witness of her parents committing suicide and a victim of sexual abuse by an uncle of hers after the death of her parents.  Somehow she was able to escape and brought to the Govt. Homes by a cop. She is still in the state of shock reluctant to speak to anyone.

A very small, lean 4-day old newborn girl kid, sleeping with a cute little smile on her face in the cradle. Unaware about her parents,  she was found in a dustbin near to a hospital by the localities. Sleeping beside her is a 1-year old girl, with a cut on her neck which seemed as if someone had tried to slit her throat with a knife, was found on the railway tracks.

Gausheela, a 4-year old very sweet girl, with a green strip of cloth wrapped around the upper part of her left hand.  While we tried to remove the piece of cloth, she doesn’t let us do that and replies very sweetly in hindi that it should not be removed as it is a protection from the evil. She was found alone on one of the trains from Chennai and was repeating continuously a name “Meebo”.

Preeti, a 13-year old girl, has very deep cuts all over her hands. It was very much unbelievable to hear that the cut was made by her mother. Daughter of a well-educated parents and father working as a software engineer, the girl was in such a pitiful state. Her mother cut Preeti’s hands just because she had not finished with some kitchen chores. The caretaker at the Govt. homes are not allowing her to get back to her home as they are not convinced whether the parents will take care of the child.

Neelima, a 14-year old girl, continuously raped by her own father somehow ran away from her home. But unluckily she fell into the wrong place. Again raped by an old man on the streets of Bangalore with no one to help her. She was found by the cop and the moment she was going to give the details of the accused, she went into a state of disassociation where she has started hallucinating things and people. You can see the pain in her eyes and on her face and can’t stop tears rolling down from your eyes.

Pooja, a 15-year old girl forced to sleep with her stepfather by her own mother is standing very boldly against both stepfather and mother just to protect her other eight sisters despite all the pains she has to go through. She didn’t have anyone else to go to for help, so to protect herself she ran away from her home with one of her younger sister.  Luckily she landed up in a safe place and also got the support and help to stand against the accused. There was a spark of happiness in her eyes to see that her sisters will be safe.

There were 120 boys like Salim in the Boys Home aged from 5years to 18years.  They all had a different story – victims of child labour, child abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse and child trafficking. And there were around 200 girls like Roopa, Preeti,  Gausheela, Pooja, Neelima who were either victims of rape, sexual abuse, child trafficking, stranded by parents or physical abuse.  The Govt. Homes is a shelter to lots of kids who are victim to problems like child trafficking, child abuse, sexual abuse etc. A Child Welfare Committee has been set up by the Govt. which takes care of these kids and decides upon their future.

I got an opportunity to visit this place last Saturday. It was really a tough 4 hours for us to be there with them and knowing their heart-wrenching stories and to control our emotions in front of them. I really can’t express in words their experiences and what we were going through while we were there.   It was really depressing to know about the experiences these kids had to go through in such a small age but it was also very encouraging to know that there are few people in society who are helping them so that they forget their pasts and lead a good future.  Met people like Miss Vasanti who is a Superintendent and has fully dedicated her life  for these kids. You can see the love and affection she showers on them as if they are her own kids. Really hats off to them.

This blog is just an attempt to sensitize the others in the society with what all are happening in our society.  Everyday we read about these types of stories in newspapers but we have become so much used to it that we don’t think about these or we are so much into our own life that all these things seems to be unbelievable. Before this visit even I was one of those people. But after meeting these kids who really had gone through such pains,  I have become more aware of the ground realities and I think we need to be sensitive towards these issues and do something for this. A small step of yours can change the path of life of a child.

To start with, if you come across any child on the streets or in the trains or anywhere who you think is unprotected or you are suspicious of anything just call the Child Helpline at 1098 in Bangalore or report to any of the police station as it has become mandatory that a Child Welfare Officer is present in all the police stations of Bangalore. Doing this you may save a child from any unfortunate things happening to him/her. You can save a child from getting into the clutches of child trafficker, child abuser.  There must be other Helplines like this in other cities too.

Each child has the Right to lead a safe and protected life. These are the kids who will form the next generation of the society and if they are unprotected, we will have an unprotected society. Let more people know about the Child Helpline and help them in their good cause.

My Bucket List

Sitting at the office today and doing the daily mundane task of doing some patch work in the code, the thought of creating myself a bucket list strikes. “What I want to do before I die” – Had never given a thought on this but I have a few things which I want to do atleast once in my lifetime.

1. Donating Blood – Whenever there has been a blood donation camp organized in and around my place, I have always put forward my steps to be a donor of the blood. But the moment I enter the camp, the doctor/nurse give me a disappointed look. Atleast I am able to pass the weight requirement(min 45kg). But I fail to pass the blood test and I am out of the blood donation camp with a paper stating that I am “Anaemic” . Atleast once in my lifetime, I want to be in a position to return from the camp with not a paper but with a juice or snacks after the blood donation.

2. Solo Trip – Just want to make a trip to somewhere all alone. Want to experience the fun of the solo trip to an unknown land.

3. Try my foot at Dance once – When I was a 6year old, my mom made me go for the Kathak classes. Always dug into books, I was too disinterested in any of these extracurricular activities. Still managed to somehow learn for 6 months and when the time for the exams came, left it. One of my school teacher always  used to embarrass me in front of the class stating that “I am good-for-nothing”  so much, that I had to participate forcefully in the dance shows. But I always used to choose the one where I don’t have to do much of those steps. After entering into the college, somehow the interest aroused and joined the Aerobic dance classes and then Bharatnatyam classes for a few days till the interest was there. And as usual it was not there for too long.  Again this desire to dance has somehow kindled  and I want to learn any one- be it western or classical

4. Fly and Fly High – I want to fly high and high in the open sky and enjoy the view of the earth from up above. Want to enjoy the adventurous experience of paragliding once.

5. Be an author of autobiography – Would love to write a book on my life, though I don’t have any great experiences to tell. But it will capture all the happy and sad moments of my life, my thoughts, all the people who form an important part of my life. Also, will capture all the unspoken words to them so that they know how important they are to me.

6.  Cruise – Another expensive item in my bucket list. Want to have a cruise experience once. In the ship, with “water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink” and enjoying the blue sky above with the blue or green ocean around. Can’t imagine how the experience would be.

7. Stay at a countryside serene beautiful silent place – This one seems like a retired person wanting to get away from all the worldly affairs. I have come across such serene and silent place during the trips to different places. Would love settle down in one of those atleast for sometime.

8. Adopting a child – The last item as of now in the bucket list is to adopt a child. I am not sure why I want to do that but its one of the items in my bucket list.

Ok, so now I have jotted down my bucket list items. Need to checkoff the items in my bucket list one by one and add more. Though most of the above doesn’t seem to be crossed off from my list in the near future.

“Get busy living or get busy dying”!!!

Pankhudi Sahayata: Collection Drive – Full Swing, Help needed !!!

Did you know that there are some underprivileged and unfortunate kids living around us who can’t afford the basic things for their living? Well, don’t just sit there, do something about it! Help us in our collection drive.

~Pankhudi — A family of many in the service of underprivileged and unfortunate children of our society. Working for the cause, care of the slum, disabled and orphaned or uncared children to improve the quality of their childhood is our prime motto. Pankhudi is spread over Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Pune, and Hyderabad.

Pankhudi Bangalore is involved in lots of activities like ~DivyaDrishti – Education for visually-impaired children,~Sahayata – Pankhudi Collection Drives. The Bangalore chapter has recently involved itself with a new activity (Computer Education) at an orphanage “Anatha Shishu Sevashram” at Wilson Garden Bangalore. The orphanage accommodates around 60 kids (both boys and girls) aged from 5 to 25 years old.

The need of having a collection drive was felt after the visit to the orphanage. The Bangalore chapter has started a collection drive on 5th July and will be collecting items around the city till 19th July 2009. On Sunday, July 19 the chapter will deliver all of the collected items at the orphanage. Everyone is invited to make a donation. See around in your wardrobes – It may be wastage for you but a resource for others.

For all those who can contribute in the collection drive, following are the items you can donate:

1. Highest Priority Requirement – Sweaters and Blankets.

2. Important requirements – Cloths (any size will work, if its kid size – simply awesome), toys, sports item (cricket bat, badminton, chess), electronic item (like torch, radio).

3. Any other item which you think will be useful for the kids

You don’t want to do this alone so recruit anyone and everyone to help you out. It would be great if you can spread the word among your family, friends.

Don’t worry if you are having trouble in delivering the collected items. If you get a good collection and because of “any” reason you are unable to collect it. Let us know the place or address here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cjNydXI4QUN0RUNPNFRtOVpjaGxKQXc6MA .

We will be there to collect it from the specified place. However if possible we suggest you can also come over in person and also get a firsthand look at how your donations are put to use.

Pankhudi Contact Details:
Vaibhav: 98867 96985
Lipika: 99456 00788

Anatha Shishu Sevashram
#14, 2nd Cross
Wilson Garden,
Bangalore-560027
Landmark: Opposite Hindustan Marbel & Granites
Phone: 080-22236892
Mobile: 9845695924

Love into Action

Staying around 2500kms away from my parents for the last 6 years, have been used to doing everything on my own without being dependent on my parents. But still I take their opinion in all my decisions, share my happiness and my sorrows with them. I have a conscious feeling always in my mind that there is someone for me , someone who will be always supporting me. Sometimes I feel they could be here with me in my happiness, my sorrows.

But what about those small kids whose parents have died or whose parents have left them alone in this world to lead their life on their own. I cherish my childhood when I think about these kids. I had a happy, free childhood with my parents taking care of me, my education, my health, my needs etc. No worries, No tensions.

Recently I got a chance to go to an orphanage “Anatha Shishu Sevashram” in wilson Garden, Bangalore through Pankhudi. The orphanage is run by an elderly lady Saraswati madam who herself is visually challenged.( She
is the first student of SRMAB where Pankhudi has started their initiative of teaching computer and english course to the kids.) This orphanage houses around 60 kids aged between 5 years to 25 years. The owner of the orphanage takes care of their schooling, food and other needs with the donations she receives from some of the people. We met these kids and they looked so happy playing with each other, dancing. They all had a sweet smile on their face hiding all the hardships they have to face.

The kids here are very much creative. Enter their room and you will see some beautiful paintings on the walls. Paintings of a tiger with all intricate details , Hanuman flying towards the Sun(the expression of the sun in the painting is amazing) – These are few of the paintings there are on their walls.  Some of them are good in dancing. We also got a chance to see their acting skills. Some of them are brilliant actors full of expressions and good dialog-delivery skills.

We hope to give them a better future and so we at Pankhudi Bangalore has decided to organize computer courses and personality development courses. Looking at their creativeness, we have planned to expose them to few of the software tools which may help them in putting down their creative ideas into a presentable way and showcase it to the outside world. Anyone of you out there can give in your ideas how we can help them or are free to help out can contact bangalore@pankhudifoundation.org .

We can’t be their parents but atleast we can try to give the love and support as we have got from our parents. There is no time to just watch and feel sorry but its time to put our “Love for them into Action” .

TypeRacing at SRMAB

It was a regular Saturday morning Computer Class at Shree Ramana Maharishi Academy for the Blind(SRMAB) with Vaibhav (Bangalore Chapter Head, Pankhudi), Deeptangan and me betting for the winners of the Typing Competition to be held in the evening.  We, including the students were quite excited about the event. (For more detail on the excitement in the volunteers read here)

Clock struck 4 and 18 participants of the event entered the class with full josh. But there was no electricity but the kids in full hope waited for the power to come back. As soon as the electricity came, kids started their PCs tapping the keyboards loudly in excitement.

The kids were divided into two groups. After everything was set, Ram dictated the story to one group and Srikanth to the other group.  It was fun seeing the kids asking Srikanth to repeat the sentences again and again and Srikanth handling them very patiently except for once or twice.

Harsha, Muni, Chumbita and Shirisha – All were very busy typing on the computer and listening simultaneously to the JAWS(software) and Srikanth. While  one of the kids RaviKiran was busy cursing the dictator aka Srikanth asking him to be slow and Pooja sitting still and started crying because she couldn’t catch up with the typing.  Others were also quite busy in the typing. Ram was busy in the other room dictating the story to the other group of students.

Finally at 5, the competition was over. Evaluation was done and as per the betting done by Vaibhav Sir, Harsha with Sheila came first.  We still suspect Vaibhav for doing some match-fixing (read typing-fixing).  Jokes apart, but the winners were really the deserved ones for the perfection in their typing. Cheers also to the Pankhudi Volunteers for teaching them and bringing them to this level!!!!

In all, it was a busy and a fun-filled Saturday with both the kids and the volunteers enjoying it fully. Also, to add to the fun was the birthday celebration of Joseph Sir. We will be having more events for the kids in future as its both fun and learning for them. So, Pankhudi volunteers be ready to contribute funds for more of these events and if anyone of the readers are also interested in contributing or being a Pankhudi Volunteer can contact vaibhav.kumar@gmail.com( Chapter Head, Pankhudi Bangalore)

Keep watching the blog for more of those events.

Image Courtesy: http://picasaweb.google.com/vaibhav.kumar/TypingCompetitionInSRMAB#

Refer my last post to know more about SRMAB.

Colour their Dreams

Everyone of us wait for weekends after a tiring or not-so-tiring week. Even I am one of those. I have always looked forward to the weekends. But there has been a small change. The change is the reason. Previously I used to wait for weekends to have fun with friends, sleep for the whole day or travel around. But now I look forward to it to meet a few sweet, little kids.

This change happened after my first visit to SRMAB. I joined an NGO called Pankhudi Foundation as a volunteer. One of the initiatives of the Bangalore chapter of the foundation is of teaching computer and English in a school for visually challenged students. I was really nervous before my first visit as I had never had a chance to interact with such differently abled people. My brain was juggling with the thoughts of how to teach them computer when they can’t see the keyboard and the monitor.

Entered the class of around 10 students. Joseph Sir who himself is also visually challenged introduced me to the kids. All of them seemed to be very enthusiastic about learning computer. I was surprised with the way they located the computers, started the system and putting on  headphones and all without any help. I was in a state of shock seeing them behave like one of us. Suddenly the room was filled with a noise. Just then I realized that it was a text reading software. All the kids were busy typing on notepads. Some of them were quite well-versed with typing, formatting. I was surprised with the way they used all the shortcuts for all the actions. Even being a computer engineer I am not aware of all those shortcuts. Infact more than teaching I think I have to learn a lot of things from them, not only the shortcuts but also the confidence and grace with which they do all the things.

I came out of the shock state after the end of the one and half hour class. It was really surprising for me to see them use the computer so comfortably. But this surprise was only for the first day. Now I was convinced that they can do all the normal things like us. They are no different than me or you. We just need to treat them as a normal human being and help them in building their confidence and make them on par to compete with the others in the society. They do not have the power to see but they have dreams, dreams without colours. So, if anyone of you want to put colours to their dreams can contribute by joining Pankhudi Foundation as a Volunteer or contact me for any other details.

Now I wait for every Saturday. I love going to take computer classes for them, hearing the noise of the Jaws software and their calls of “Ma’m Is it correct??” .

Image Courtesy: http://picasaweb.google.co.in/yatin.sethi/VisitToSRMABBlindSchool#

‘THE PERFECT SOLUTION TO ILLITERACY. – YOU’

Do YOU feel that YOU could do something

-  when YOU see children picking rags in the morning
-  when YOU see children in slums working
-  when YOU see small children begging

At an age when they should have been going to school to study, play they are working. But then all are not so much privileged. Still these underprivileged children can be helped if YOU have the desire to do so. Many of us want to support these children but don’t know how to start. Times of India has come up with an initiative “Teach India”.

“Teach India is a nation-building initiative (or social initiative) that brings together children in need of education and people who can contribute a little time towards teaching them.“

This initiative has been started in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. Recently it was also launched in Bangalore and they got an overwhelming response from the students, professionals, housewives.

Even I registered for this initiative and opted to teach on weekends. But because of the overwhelming response and most of them being professionals, they didn’t have slots left on weekends. As I still wanted to be a part of the initiative i registered for weekdays. I think its not too difficult to spare 2 hours in a week.

Teach India places you with an NGO depending on your preferences. I was placed with the NGO ‘Youth for Seva’ and had an introductory session with the NGO. This NGO has been started by a software engineer, who quit his job in USA, with the aim to inspire youth to volunteer to serve the community. But it was very much evident from the response at the introductory session that it was not too difficult to inspire the youth. I could see the whole family  with grandparents, parents and children coming up as volunteers. I could feel a sense of excitement in the college students to support the initiative and bring in more of their friends to contribute.

The Youth already has the inspiration to serve their community but they couldn’t find opportunities. Seems the Teach India has been able to bring that opportunity as is very much evident in an engineering student’s words who was present there: “We have a lot of free time in evenings and we always wanted to do something for these children but didn’t actually know how to start. But with Teach India, we got a platform to fulfill our desire.”

If YOU are a volunteer for Teach India, YOU just have to spare 2 hours a week for these children.

I was too skeptical with the concept of giving only 2 hours a week. It seemed to me that 2 hour was not enough for teaching them and also there will be no continuity. But this NGO cleared my doubt. They have planned to form a group of 5-6 volunteers who will teach on different days and different subjects. This seemed to be a better way.

All of YOU who want to come forward and help to change the future of these children, can volunteer for Teach India. For more details see http://www.teach.timesofindia.com/

Krazzy 4 Reality Shows !!!!

Come home after 8-9 hours of work in office and who has the patience to watch all the reality shows. Yes my roomy has the capability to enjoy these shows- be it Mr and Ms TV, Ustaadon ka Ustaad, Bol Baby Bol, MTV Roadies and yes how can I forget the repeat telecast of Big Boss…Uff.. She is a big reality show junkie.. Whether it is Nach Baliye, Jhalak Dikhlaa jaa, Jhoom India…you just name it and she would have watched it. Even remembers who was eliminated how and what controversy took place between the judges over a contestant. And now I see ads of Indian Idol coming soon. She is damn crazy about all those singing reality shows – Indian Idol, SaareGama and Voice of India..Seems more torture coming for me. She is so much engrossed enjoying these shows that I don’t like asking her to switch to other channels.

I am not able to understand why these stupid reality shows are getting popular day-by-day leaving behind the typical saas-bahu serials. Even my PG Aunti has stopped watching all those daily soaps and started enjoying these reality shows on Kannada channels. Seems even the regional channels also telecasting more and more reality shows. TV channels are increasing but there is no interesting programmes to watch. Either there are the typical saas-bahu soaps, reality shows or news channels which teleacast totally stupid news. One of the news channel, Aaj Tak which was one of the first Hindi news channel was a real good one but now it has converted to a stupid news channel with Breaking news like “Don ka Pyaar“. But still it has received best news channel award six times. Who gives them these awards? These are all totally Bakwaas!!!!!!

I agree that these reality shows give a platform to the common people to showcase their talents but they make these too dramatic to watch. And some of these even do not have the authentic voting system. Eliminating people on the basis of the votes of the people sitting at home watching TV has been criticised by a lot of people. But this has not decreased the popularity.

I have grown up watching Doordarshan and there were real nice serials like Buniyaad, Ye jo hai Zindagi, Nukkad. But now DD also in the race for TRP ratings and sponsors has stopped showing nice shows. I hope soon some channels bring the trend of some nice shows apart from the reality shows and soaps.

Funny and Dreadful Experience

I close my eyes and find myself struggling in around 6ft deep water and I open my eyes scared. No, it was not a dream. It actually happened to me last week when we had gone for our team outing. I was having a nice time going down the water slide and suddenly when we plunged into the pool, the ring toppled upside down and in no time water was over my head. I struggled to push myself up; as I was going down I could see the flat surface of the pool. I could feel the water gushing through my nose and mouth and I was flapping my hands and legs and screaming silently in terror. Finally one of the teammate noticed me and pulled me up in time. I had an almost drowning experience. I was all pale and shaking even after coming out. Now I think(not sure ) I will be scared to go to any water body. That experience was only for a few seconds but it was a hard time and seemed like minutes and hours. The feeling of not being able to breathe and my struggle with water comes back to me sometimes and I feel scared and sometimes I laugh it off thinking how i almost drowned in water of depth almost same as my height.