From-here-there-everywhere

   ( Above picture is of Flower Fields,San Diego, clicked when we visited it in 2018) Reminiscences of Holi:  I had been planning to write about my Holi experiences since long but kept putting it off. This time I made up my mind to write about it. It was the late fifties when I was in my middle school. Place : Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh We were residing in a Railway colony which was a small world in itself. Our activities for the HOLI used to start with organising for Holika Dahan  ( Holika,  the sister of the demon king Hiranyakashipu  , was killed in the fire) .   There was an open place in our colony earmarked for it. A couple of days before Poornima ( Day of Holika Dahan), a Pooja was conducted at the site and initial collection of fuel ( Wood, cow dung cakes and other combustible materials) were collected and placed there. Then the task of gathering more fuel was taken over by the Bachcha Party (we) under the guidance of a few elders. We used to go house to house requesting for dona

The year was 1967! I was studying in the 4th Year of Engineering ( It used to be a 5 year integrated course at that time) at Jodhpur. It was a requirement of the course that we should spent our summer vacation time in a training in any reputed engineering firm. I applied to ITI Bangalore as I had my uncle's place to stay. Duration of the training was about three months. At the ITI factory , during the lunch period of 30 minutes, instrumental music of Popular film tunes were played on their PA system in the canteen as well as in the work spots. These tunes used to be  from Tamil, Kannada and many other languages.  I used to find one of the tunes quite catchy and appealing which I still remember. It was from a Tamil Movie , that much I knew. It had a notable feature that in the midway there was a change of pitch, which was a bit unusual in the Indian context.  About a fortnight back I remembered that tune again and got an urge to identify and listen to it. But I only knew the tune an

                                              ( Pencil sketch by Anil Jagalur )  Those were the days in Sept 1965 when we were at Jodhpur....... Indo Pak war was in full swing. Jodhpur, being near to the western border and also being an Air Force base was a target for many air raids. We used to hear, while sitting in trenches dug out by us in front of our house, sounds of Anti Aircraft Guns and also number of bombs, which used to be dropped in Jodhpur (in total 192 bombs were dropped during the seventeen days' war). My father Dr D Ranga Rao, whom we siblings used to address  as Bapa, was a medical officer posted in Railway Hospital at Jodhpur in Mid 60's.We stayed in a railway quarter, which was just diagonally opposite the hospital.His posting was in outpatient and later in Mobile Dispensary ( A full bogie -hospital-on-wheels) which used to get attached to regular trains and go round the whole division to attend to the patients by stopping at various stations. All of a

 As far I can remember, it was in the middle school,that  I developed my interest in reading in Hindi. Till that time,my interest in reading in had remained confined to the textbooks. But all of a sudden I took off to general reading in Hindi. One person who created this in interest in me was Shri Omprakash ( we used to refer to him as Omi massab), who was a railway employee, was commissioned by my parents to be our  home tutor basically to teach  Hindi and arithmetic to  me and my sister  .We were a non Hindi speaking family thrown into Hindi speaking town Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh. My mother,who had only a sprinkling knowledge of Hindi, took to studying Hindi in right earnest to be able to teach me. In the course of it she became well versed in it herself.    Shri Omprakash made us read Children’s section of the Hindi Newspaper “Navabharat Times”. He even made us send small entries for publication. We were thrilled the day we found that one of our entries got published with o

One of the highlights of 2018 was certainly my college reunion (Golden Jubilee of 1968 batch) at my Alma Mater( MBM Engineering College Jodhpur,Rajasthan) . A bit of sight seeing, a lot of Bonhomie with many of my classmates whom I met after 50 years, memento presentation and plenty of Gaana Bajaana and dancing! Here is a full report .....

1. वातानुकूल उपकरणों ऊर्जा दक्षता (Edit) https://researchmatters.in/hi/news/%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%A8%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%82%E0%A4%B2%E0%A4%95-%E2%80%8B%E0%A4%89%E0%A4%AA%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A3%E0%A5%8B%E0%A4%82-%E2%80%8B%E0%A4%AE%E0%A5%87%E0%A4%82-%E0%A4%8A%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%9C%E0%A4%BE-%E0%A4%A6%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B7%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%BE-%E0%A4%8F%E0%A4%95-%E0%A4%B8%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B5%E0%A5%8B%E0%A4%AA%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%BF%E2%80%8B-%E0%A4%AE%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%95 २ कोहरे की चादर पर शहरों से बने सुराख़ ( Translation) https://researchmatters.in/hi/news/%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%8B%E0%A4%B9%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%87-%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%80-%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%A6%E0%A4%B0-%E0%A4%AA%E0%A4%B0-%E0%A4%B6%E0%A4%B9%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%8B%E0%A4%82-%E0%A4%B8%E0%A5%87-%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%A8%E0%A5%87-%E0%A4%B8%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%BE%E0%A5%99 3 वांछित झुर्रियाँ (Translation) https://researchmatters.in/hi/news/%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%82%E0%A4%9B%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%A4-%E