The End. I have decided to move my blog website at http://odzer.wordpress.com. Thank you all for posting messages here. You are all invited to the new blog!!

And The Sea Pours Down....

 

It happened around 11 am, the sky went pitch black. Then it poured and it poured for the entire afternoon. So we have had the first monsoon shower. Something every Indian looks forward to, the media frenzy and the hype is unrivalled. The reason is rather simple, most of the rain in India falls in just 2 months and then its rather dry the whole of the year. I guess the farmers have the most to gain, the rice paddies require the water and they will be taking full advantage of these showers. In recent years the government has required that all new buildings that are constructed have the possibility of harvesting rain water. It makes perfect sense here because the water table in Punjab is severely depleted due to constant drawing of underground water for farming.

 

The monsoon has many colours, all the colours of the rainbow. What I love the most about this season is how plants look so bright after being nearly shrivelled in the May and June heat. I took a small walk on the lake today and the mountains looked washed and refreshed as well. The view was just spectacular, too bad I did not have the camera or I would have taken some photos. However I made a small video of the first showers here and I hope you will enjoy watching it.

 

The weather is now bearable once again, after yesterdays terrible humidity. After it rains it becomes very pleasant until it is set to rain again when it will be again humid. We have entered a period when this cycle will continue for a while. I hope that this will be a good monsoon because this nation still is so dependent on it.

The Come Back Blog!

Coming back to blogland. I know much water has probably flowed under the 360 bridge and I have possibly a lot of catching up to do. However I have been busy doing something’s in the real world. One of them was sending huge quantities of Tibetan Herbal Medicinal Products to Europe for Tibethealth.com. We buy these products directly from Tibetan Manufacturers in the foothills of India and ship them half a way across the globe and then further distribute them to customers globally. The power of E-Commerce coupled with International Trade is indeed an amazing phenomenon. On Saturday I went to the city of Dehradun and Mussorie for completing the paperwork for the shipment. It was an interesting trip because it took me a long time to get to Dehradun from Chandigarh. Usually it is a 5-6 hour bus ride, but it took me a long time this time. I reached the Bus Terminus in Chandigarh at 11:00 Pm but there was a great crowd of people there because a Puja had finished in Dharamsala and a lot of Tibetans were making their way back home to Dehradun from Dharamsala, Chandigarh happens to be almost in the middle of these hill cities. I waited for a bus till 1:30 Am and there was not a single seat available. So I found out that the earliest bus in the morning started from Chandigarh at 4:30 am. I went back home for a 2 hour sleep and returned to the bus terminus at 4 am. No respite from the rush! So I jumped aboard a bus headed for Delhi and requested the conductor to drop me at Ambala Railway Station. Ambala is a city to the south of Chandigarh, it lies one hour away.

 

After reaching Ambala, I managed to purchase a ticket for a train and now I had to wait 1 ½ hours for the train. I settled down on a bench on the platform and watched the people. When the train arrived it was FULL! I nearly wanted to give up and go back home but I kept walking towards the end of the train and finally found enough space to jump aboard the damned thing just as it was moving. I put my bag in the luggage rack and was quite excited to be travelling unreserved 2^nd class after 17 years. Soon some people wanted to talk with me, as they always do on an Indian train. One of them was very shocked to learn that I was still unmarried and told me about some girl that is of a marriageable age. I just smiled and told him that I had someone in my life.

 

After pushing my way out literally from a very crowded train, it dawned upon me that it was end of summer vacations in schools and a lot of people were trying to make their way home. I had chosen a bad time to travel and it was the weekend! Saharanpur is a conservative Muslim city. People were amused to see me walking around in shorts but it was too hot to care and I was aboard a bus to Dehradun in 10 minutes. It is a 2 hour long bus ride but the bus developed an electrical problem midway, thankfully it was fixed in 10 minutes or so. However half of the passengers chose to leave the bus and were transferred by the conductor. So with a half empty bus we reached Dehradun in the middle of the day. I saw my friend Rabga waiting for me, I jumped off the bus and Rabga drove me to his home. I was extremely hungry at this point, but I took a quick bath and then we ate lunch.

In the evening we went for a small walk on Sahastradhara Road. We visited the Drikung Library. In the compound was a young novice monk playing with a bicycle, Rabga’s girl friend wanted to ride the bicycle as well, so she took a ride on it. After a while we returned back on Sahastradhara road and drank some chai at a small Punjabi shop. For dinner my friend and his girlfriend made Tibetan dumplings called Momo. I am not particularly fond of them but it is a special treat and I didn’t mind it. Next day Rabga and I finished the export order by 3:30 pm and it was clear that I would miss my bus to Chandigarh. So Rabga suggested that we go to Lhasa Restaurant in Rajpur. It is my favourite and we ate Spring Rolls, and I ordered a Beef Curry and we ate well. While sitting in the restaurant it was decided that we should go to Mussorie. Mussorie is known as the Queen of Hills. It is a small town at 6000 feet. On the way we stopped at Sakya College near a Shiva Temple. A monk was very kind to let us in the small temple at Sakya temple and we could look around. We reached Mussorie in the evening after a nice motorcycle ride. We checked ourselves in a hotel and did some small shopping because we were invited for dinner at a friend’s home for dinner. We bought some small presents for the hosts. The evening was very nice and we had a lot of laughs and Wangchuk cooked a very original Indian daal. I was impressed.

 

 Akbar And Birbal

Emperor Akbar was the third Mogul Emperor of India. The Moguls descended from Turkmenistan in Central Asia to rule India. Akbar is the best known Mogul Emperor of India and he was known to have a sense of humour and a great appreciation of arts. Birbal was a Hindu Raja who served in the cabinet of Emperor Akbar. Birbal was known to have a very ready wit.

 

One day the Emperor asked Birbal to make a list of all the blind people in the capital because he wanted to distribute blankets among them. Birbal asked the Emperor, “Would you like me to make a list of people who can not see, or those who can see but still can not see?”  Akbar got very angry when he heard this and he thought that Birbal was making fun of him so he told Birbal curtly, “Do as you are told, do not waste time.”

 

Birbal took a clerk along with him and headed out to the main bazaar. He arrived at the central square of the bazaar and sat on a stool and started weaving a spindle wheel. Soon a crowd gathered to watch him do it. Someone asked him “What are you doing?” Birbal said to the clerk, “1”. A lot of people asked him what he was doing and he just kept counting the number of people who asked him what he was doing.

 

Soon the crowd grew larger and larger due to curiosity. The crowd included some soldiers as well. They recognised Birbal and set out for the Palace to inform the emperor of what was happening. When the emperor heard the news he was very annoyed. He went to the bazaar himself and asked Birbal, “What are you doing Birbal?” Birbal said “Write 621”. Akbar said, “What do you mean by 621?” Birbal said “Your Majesty is the 621^st Blind man I have seen today.” When the emperor heard this he was very angry and demanded to know what Birbal meant.

 

Birbal said “Your Majesty can see very well, I am making cloth and yet he asks his humble servant what he is doing?. This means you are blind even when you can see.” When Akbar heard it, he started laughing and acknowledged that indeed Blind men are of two types. Those who can see and those who can see and are yet blind.