From-here-there-everywhere

  1.Today is the birth centenary  of Lyricist and Poet Sahir Ludhianvi (  Born 8 March 1921 - Died 25 Oct 1980 ). 2. Today is also the International  Women's Day  So what was the connection in my mind ?  I was reminded of a song from 1958 movie 'Sadhna' ( BR Films) in which this particular film song penned by Sahir Ludhianvi , describes the anguish a woman expresses ;---------   औरत ने जनम दिया मर्दों को, मर्दों ने उसे बाज़ार दिया जब जी चाहा मसला कुचला, जब जी चाहा दुत्कार दिया ( Woman gave birth to men And men gave her the marketplace To crush and trample at will To reject and cast off at will ) तुलती है कहीं दीनारों में, बिकती है कहीं बाज़ारों में नंगी नचवाई जाती है, ऐय्याशों के दरबारों में ये वो बेइज़्ज़त चीज़ है जो, बंट जाती है इज़्ज़तदारों में औरत ने जनम दिया मर्दों को... She is weighed somewhere in dinars And sold somewhere in bazaars She is made to dance naked In the courts of the debauched She is that dishonored creature Who is shared out...

My Encounter with a Rotary Dial Telephone (Late 1950s) You know, having a telephone at home in the late fifties was a big deal. Only senior officers, police officials,doctors, journalists or the really well-off families had one. And those early phones weren’t like the ones with dials. Most were manual . You picked up the receiver, and a polite operator would come on the line and ask, “Number, please?” Then you’d tell him/her who you wanted to speak to, and he/she would connect you. Naturally, I had no idea what a rotary dial phone looked like, let alone how to use one. I’d only heard they existed in places like Mumbai and Delhi . ( Madras and Calcutta probably caught up a bit later.) Then, sometime around 1959, my family was traveling from Bareilly to Bangalore . My cousin came along too. We stopped for a couple of days in Bombay —yes, it was still Bombay then—to stay with my mother’s uncle. He worked in the Telephone Department . And that’s where the magic happened. There, in ...

During my service with BHEL in Bhopal and Bangalore, I underwent basic courses in German language which was required for deputation to Germany in 1980-81 for joint working with Siemens .  About six months back , after a gap of about 45 years, I felt like brushing up my knowledge of German so joined online course Duolingo. This reminded me of an interesting incident which took place while I was in Germany ( at Erlangen, Bavaria).   Members of our engineering team from Bangalore, who were posted, were fairly well versed in German language to manage day to day affairs. A few of engineers from Bangalore Office, who used to visit on official work for a short term (week or two) , used to be accommodated in a nearby hotel.They were knowing only engineering related German and so not well versed in conversational German.Therefore, they were advised to remember the name of the hotel and name of the street so that while returning from the office they could reach their hotel without any ...