yet again ... getting lost ... then enjoying self-discovery ...

Getting goose bumps on listening to a live performance is an experience not common for me. But here I was enthusiastically joining the, rest of the, 250 odd strong audience in giving an emotive standing ovation. We had just heard Ustad Abdul Rashid Khan who at his age of 108 redefined few terms, for many of us, that evening. Listening to him was akin to watching Sunil Gavaskar or John McEnroe at 65 had they been physically fit and evolved at their crafts. We were at Jashn E Deccan organized by KMR Foundation at the Amphitheatre in Sreenidhi International School . Mumi and I felt this each of the 2 days that we savoured the music there - that a setting of this character would be very difficult, if not impossible, within city limits. ‘ Everything here is so beautifully unconventional ’ was how Pandit Biswajit Roy Choudhury very succinctly put with a smile before he began playing Sarod. He added that an ambience of this nature they got to soak in once in two odd years. His perf...

What I had read and heard of the Magic Bus Learning Centre was not enough I realized as I walked towards the dining area for breakfast after dropping in my luggage in the dormitory. The food was lovely and during the next few trips to the dining area it would be difficult to not over eat! Quiet walks in the campus were fun, once during the late evening and then during the next morning. I was there to participate in the 2 nd Experiential Education Conclave and in the coming lines share some thoughts from the event. Need to get back to the campus to indulge in the activities though! I indulged in some very interesting conversations on a wide range of topics with co-participants from diverse backgrounds! To begin with I put forth two very interesting lines I came across during the two day event: v We are in the 16 th year of the 21 st century and our education practices still belong to the 20 th century! v If my students don’t fail, I fudge up to give them that experie...

Why do we – and frequently at that – feel that the circumstances that govern us are unique? Is this our need to feel special? One of the earlier conversations I recall – from school days - is our ( 9 of us ) believing in and taking pride in our batch being the naughtiest / silliest batch ( as if we had knowledge of what earlier batches had been upto! ) and being told by the teacher - with a particularly dead pan face - that all batches are the same! As I write I recall Amitabh Bachchan in Sholay telling Dharmendra ‘ Muje to sare policewale ek jaise lagte hain ’. This continued – during later years - as we talked of how we were in more remotely located places or without phone / net connectivity or how traffic was bad, especially the particular stretch we had to cover daily! Two conversations, during the past fortnight, brought up the question  again. A remark, by a co-participant, during a workshop on leadership and its overlaps with personal and work spaces – orga...

** Khet ke boundary par ped khade hai : sentry ho jaise, Raat ki khoobsurti badhati aakash ki chamak : jaise lazy sa koi pearl, Train ki khidki se aati light : jaise chadhti utarti hai zamee pe, Halki si baarish me yeh dekh raha tha : darwaaze pe khade, Ki, gili chamak wale ek chote station ne bulaya : mano apna sannata baantne, **  ** Aise bikhre the baadal, Maano bachon ne khel ke baad khilone bikher diye ho, Ki : koi khel hi raha tha, Kaaun : aakash aur baadal ya nila aur safed, Ya : kahin chand toot ke tukde to nahin ho gaya! **   ** In a train on a new route, So many routes are still single lanes and not electrified, So many stations yet beautiful with large trees, Some of us do not use trains, stating time, I often wonder, how interesting other actions are! ** Images depict one the remaining narrow gauge beauties. ** Earlier posts on trains Trains From the rolling ...

This post presents an abstract submitted to the International Conference on Education as a Driver for Sustainable Development Goals organized by the Centre for Environment Education . Abstract Title : Exploring today, for a more sustainable tomorrow. Authors: Nimesh Ved, Radha Gopalan and Suresh Jones . Workshop Theme: SDG 12: Sustainable Consumption and production. Relevance to the workshop theme : Critical exploration will include questions which bring out connections between production, consumption and sustainable life on the planet, like: ·         How do we look at ourselves as being a part of the planet rather than apart from the planet? ·         How do we understand that every action has a consequence and we have a responsibility to other living beings on this planet? ·         How do we integrate the interconnectedness of life into...

Pleased to share an image from the Balipara Awards where I received the Green Green Award. Many thanks to Balipara Foundation and so many of you who have been a part of this journey.  Have learnt more from the journey than I can ever explain leave aside give.  Link to an earlier award .

One feedback to the earlier post on the topic - to elaborate - has me putting up a revised piece. I moved out to the street – in heavy and slow steps – and called up the number I had not answered as the film was being screened. As the conversation moved, Friend: How was the film? Me: Disturbing. Friend: Audience? Me: Room was full, more people than chairs and no one either talked on the phone or went out. Friend: Did anyone disturb the screening? Problems have been reported from Delhi. Me: Thankfully no. We were to discuss conservation education but it was a kind of difficult task after one had heard of people being cut, killed and burnt. The ‘normalcy’ with which people talked of the massacres will remain with me for a while. As I sat in the bus, I wondered on the very notion of saving wildlife when human life had very little value. I was returning home after attending a screening of Nakul Singh Sawhney’s ‘Muzaffarnagar Baaki Hai’ at Lamakaan.  The screen...

This post shares a piece published in Deccan Herald on 20 th October 2015. Thanks are due to Anitha Pailoor, Deccan Herald , Dharmendra Khandal , Firoz Ahmed and Priya Singh . Reports of a golf course coming up in the township of the Numaligarh Refinery Limited in Numaligarh near Kaziranga National Park in Assam created ripples and troubled many; some also regarded it as one of the ‘regular’ depressing news on the wildlife conservation front. Why - one wonders though - does a Miniratna Public Sector Unit need an arena for a sport usually associated with the elite, that too within a ‘No Development Zone’. Golf courses are ‘infamous’ for their water guzzling abilities; an average 18 hole course’s annual water consumption can fill up approximately 130 – 140 Olympic sized swimming pools. To add fuel to the proverbial fire, pesticides are applied in golf courses at higher concentrations than almost any other type of land; and their extensive use could contaminate waterways and d...

The Heat and Dust Project: The broke couple’s guide to Bharat Devapriya Roy & Saurav Jha HarperCollins Publishers: 2015 Book and its pluses The first time I read of the book it came like a breath of fresh air with its stress on a lower budget ( and as a corollary – in most cases – lower carbon foot-print ). Especially when, all around, one comes across avenues to spend more. The second time I read of the book I got a picture of the book being about a couple’s trip. Which it is; but it is also about much more. It acquaints us with the past and present of authors and the places, it tells us of people in these places, bonds developed during travel and excitement – challenges – perks of travelling on a budget and more. G K Chesterton wrote: Traveler sees what he sees and a tourist sees what he goes to see. This is, by all means, a lovely travel narrative. Authors walk the streets, move in buses, climb hills, have meals and conversations with locals eat at s...

This post shares a piece which appears in Sanctuary Asia – October 2015 issue - Mountain Musings.  We stands for Arpan and I. The trek - like most that is good in life -happened by chance and we have since been on a trek in GHNP again! Thanks and more thanks are due to Sanju (and colleagues) for being together along the treks and bearing our eccentricities, Stephan and team at Himalayan Ecotourism for enabling the trek and Sanjeeva Pandey for GHNP as it is and more. One after another, six Himalayan Vultures came into view as we sat in the large balcony of a small hotel adjacent to the river. They kept close to the hill side, appearing exceptionally stunning against the blue sky. The vultures did not perch even once in the half an hour that we spent watching them, more than once adjusting our own positions to their movements. I felt as if I could lie on my back and watch them soar for all eternity. They seemed to share that sense of freedom; a longing for great expanse...