kasmenon

ROMAN HOLIDAY PART 2 Rome wasn't built in a day is an adage meant to mean that it takes time to create great things and here I was soon going to see the great city soon. Our tactics of using the metro and Hop on hop off bus continued.  The guide on the tour whose voice was taped, spoke in English, in the way Englishmen spoke. So we could understand what was said.  Rome is an old lady with some wrinkles on her face but still charming and attractive. We realized at the end that this old lady will forever remain attractive in spite of being a witness to turbulent as well as great times. The   history of the Roman Empire  covers 500 years of the history of   Ancient Rome  ,   from the beginning of 27 BC o r so. Names like Julius Caesar   , Pompey  , Mark Antony , Augustus and Nero all come to mind as you travel towards Italy. One recalls Caesar  who was murdered ,  Antony and his lady love Cleopatra of Egypt, whic...

ROMAN HOLIDAY   PART 1 Rome and Romans of yesteryear always beckoned me. To witness in person. Here was that happening! We had taken a late evening flight from London to Venice, our next destination. The time in the aircraft was spent on refreshing my memory of history with some help from the very slow wifi connection available. We were staying in Mestre.  It’s located a little away from the main city of Venice. It a nice quite little place with cute people and is a good option compared to staying in Venice. Apart from this being economical ( with  good hotels) it’s not more than 20 minutes’ drive into Venice. We left early morning, though the temperature was somewhere in the single digit.  Venice is a city in north eastern   Italy   situated on a group of 118 small islands separated by canals and linked by bridges. Having realised that the city has to be soaked in only through foot and party helped by the boats and , if possible , the Go...

A TRYST WITH LONDON PART 3  Get down at The Tower Bridge station on the tube and a few blocks away , as you walk, the first tower of the Tower Bridge comes into view. Soon you see part of the river Thames on both sides. Get across to your right ( if you have not crossed the road ) and the full bridge comes into view. While you walk towards the bridge , you will notice on your right , a large castle , which was once made of white stone but now is  less white. It dominates the whole area and is  very imposing,   looks very mysterious and sinister. Before you go to the Tower you can walk down the steps and get close to the castle called the White Tower . This place witnessed a history of kings who occupied the place. It also served as a prison and a extraordinary place for executions. Over six Queens have been executed in its courtyard and so have many prisoners. The place does, architecture wise, look like a prison. The King's chamber is said to be impressive. The W...

A TRYST WITH ENGLAND : PART 2 After a good night's sleep and a typical English breakfast of muffins, poached eggs , bread , hash browns ,fresh orange juice and coffee , we imaginatively used the red " hop on hop off " open top bus to take us to where ever we wanted to go. That was our strategy to be where we wanted , at our own time , without the limitations that a London cab or any public transport would have imposed on us. It worked perfectly well. All you need is to time your visits . it does not matter if you do not stick to it,  in a sense. Not unless your objective to to cover all the places. Ours was not. We soaked in each as much as we wanted and then went to the next. There was history to be immersed in and silent conversation to be had with Kings ,  likes of Shakespeare , Newton and Charles Dickens. Fortunately for me , my son , too felt so,  more out of curiosity than a  sense of history I guess! As the Big Ben's  chimes sounded out the hour, ...

THE TRYST WITH ENGLAND : PART 1 We were on our way to an Empire which had spread across the globe and where the Sun never set , about half a century ago. Having  born after independence  and tutored  well about  Indian history ,that spanned few centuries since the establishment of the East  India company , I have had a mixed feeling of love and hate about the British. The hate obviously was due to the  excesses  like the Jallianwala  and the probable disdain they had of Indians in general. The admiration was due to their immense administrative  abilities, the establishment  of marvels like the Indian railway, the beautiful structures they built and in making a nation out of us. Literature , science and the arts , that one was exposed to, had a predominant British slant to it and hence the   overwhelming anticipation of being able to witness ,in person , some of the places and monuments , so far experienced only through books, was...

ThMost of my leisure travels overseas have been dove-tailed with official tours. This meant all little details can be attended to as help from colleagues  and the organisation  is available. When my son and me decided to travel to Europe and London, the factor that kept me tensed was the fact that the management has to be done by me or my son.  We researched well and he slowly took the lead . Things like hotel bookings, internal travel and decisions on the local itinerary    was finalised after evaluating various options using the world wide web . Mostly by him. Since he worked for the airline , I had a seat which was a 2 seat config . and both of us quickly settled down as we travelled light. The A 380 is a nice aircraft, thoughtfully designed and provided for WiFi access through the flight and offered good entertainment and information channels. Morgan Freeman's absorbing episodes of "Through the wormhole" kept me occupied and then after some lovely old coun...

ON THE TIGER TRAIL Patel , a short stocky man in his mid-thirties, turned up in the forest department's green fatigues , much before sunrise , on a pleasant morning  at 5 am sharp. He turned out to be a knowledgeable  and experienced forest ranger. As we jumped onto his eight seater bottle green jeep, aptly dressed for a tryst with Collarwalli, deep into the forest, I sported a smile, satisfied that JIm Corbet would have approved. After some quick paper work and casual but firm scrutiny by the forest guards, we quickly made ground. We sighted the Pench river far off. Patel stared  into the horizon ,deep in thought and in a in a voice that  reflected a sense of  gratitude  , informed me that the Pench river , a tributary of the Kanhan river , flows through the Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh  and provides drinking water to the thirsty inhabitants of Nagpur city in Maharashtra, courtesy two dams. Nature, I noticed, pay...

East India company and  digital India. The East India Company(EIC) ,formed to pursue trade  ended up trading mainly with the India. In circa 1600 . It startef  trade in basic commodities that included cotton, silk, salt, tea and opium The company eventually came to rule large areas of India with its own army , exercising military power and assuming administrative functions. Great Britain  assuming direct control of India in the form of the new a Raj. Circa 2008to 2105  or thereabouts : India  has huge problems in development . income disparity. Uneven economic development. Huge infra problems. Conflicting interests vie with each other to share  resources and this leads to a Hindu growth rate. Then comes the cyber space phenomenon. Indians starts with being he back room boys. Rides the wave and this creates a significant segment that is economically well off. Many travel abroad and  work there. Many become key managers of this technology. ...

Why Indians are ideal candidates for colonizing  Mars: kuchkas NASA has been in the forefront of knowledge and quest for understanding our universe. It has journeyed into unknown lands where mankind has not gone before and continues to do so. Most, if not all, of scientific, engineering, medical and IT developments have been a by-product of such pursuits by  NASA, the Soviet and European space research.  Colonizing another planet and trying to recreate livable conditions for human beings seem to be one of the next frontiers.  While the search for extra-terrestrial life anywhere in our Universe would be the ultimate triumph of such endeavors, our ability to travel far and wide and find ways to exist in alien worlds will be the practical offshoot of such scientific quests. It also has vast potential for unimaginable and exponential growth in engineering, material science, application etc. As an offshoot.  The attached news report mentions about NASA's ...

NEW  RELIGIOUS   ALIGNMENT  : SIX PACKS TO HUMPTY  DUMPTY Brad stood tall, for someone of his type, muscular and alert, like any other day, on the pavement leading up to our jogging park. His small tail wagged and his eyes sparkled in anticipation as he saw me. Like every other day, I, clad in my track pants and walking shoes, walked upto him and caressed him on his forehead. My day was made and, I hoped, he too felt the same. Both then went about his own business, me towards the park for an hour’s brisk walk and he, pulled and tugged by the harness   his master held, for his morning walk.   Both man (oops women too!) and animal seamlessly slipped into this routine. Man pretending to have evolved from mending sheep and ploughing fields to manning workstations. Animals, ending up caged and called as pets, had no pretensions about their state.  Both led a sedentary life. Both had food served literally on a platter. To most at least. ...

GUJJU'S AND ME: kuchkas The much harried anchor just managed to get the squabbling bunch of politicians off the air, a split second before the commercial break, at the end of a debate she was trying to conduct. I have been using the idiot box, mostly as a break from reading or indulging in my hobby which, by the way, is astronomy and astrophysics. The later bit, often, is heavy stuff and demands occasional breaks so as to get back to the real and cruel world.    The television news channels, these days, are as entertaining as the latest Bollywood masala. Quick, short, half an hour of drama, intrigue, verbal duels and tragic humour. The commercial breaks provide for the item number. Soap operas are passé! I also use it as a source for material I can use to bash politicians and instigate my friends whose leanings are not, necessarily, matching mine. This time the anchor warned that she will be back soon with another bunch of spokespersons. No sooner she said that, the ...