My swift tryst with cheela

This independence day, I was’nt flying kites in Delhi rather I was flying high in the shivalik ranges. I had just reached haridwar a day earlier to visit my sister along with my first cousins, six of us. It had rained heavily on 14th, but that had’nt dampened our spirits and it had been a day well utilized by our gang in the ganges city. In the morning we went to local market near har ki pori, afternoon we visited the Mansa devi temple, and evening we visitied some other temples decorated beautifully on the occasion of Janamashthmi, and couple of hours of chit chatting after returning back home. Not to mention 2.5 hours of waiting in mansa devi temple compound for rain to stop on our way down. All inclusive, we hit the bed around 1 at night.

On 15th august I woke up early around 6:30 and had a short trip to BHEL, Ranipur in haridwar with my jiju and elder brother. We saw the independence day parade organized by group of schools located in BHEL campus, including my nephews school DPS. The parade was organized in a big circular ground surrounded with hills covered with trees.

It looked much like the playground where Harry potter played a quidditch match. There were steps along the circumference for audience to sit. A particular section of steps was well decorated with flowers and tricolour and all the chief guests were seated there. Flag hoisting had already taken place and although there was a slight drizzle; students were ready to start the parade. I wanted to spend more time there but we headed over further to Sidcul industrial area in hardiwar for business reasons.
By the time we reached back home plans had been made to visit Rishikesh. After having our breakfast six of us and my niece kicked off for rishikesh around 1pm. Its just an hour ride from Haridwar, but because of the heavy rains the previous day the usual route to rishikesh was jammed. Momentarily we thought of returning, then we asked a traffic constable for an alternate route and he directed us towards another road to rishikesh via Rajaji National Park or locally known in haridwar as Cheela. I had only heard about Cheela once from jiju but my elder brother had been there. He had apprehensions about the route related to land slides and wild animals but we decided to march on. The prospects of seeing wild animals seemed very thrilling to us. There were hardly any vehicles on that route which planted even more doubts in our mind. Anyways, we headed forward. The weather was cloudy and we were enjoying the scenic beauty on the way. The road was running parallel to river ganga with lush green surroundings

We were talking about our chances to catch a glimpse of a deer, or probably an elephant on the way. We had been driving just 4 kms on that route and we were already in high spirits discussing about the adventure sports activities like river rafting, trekking etc that we could do in rishikesh.
When suddenly, Robinson crusoe inside us took a back seat. There was no road ahead of us. Around 15 yards of road stretch was completely submerged in water flowing with a strong current. We were awestruck. All of us just gazing at the strong water current. I could see all the aspirations of adventure sports vanishing. It was terrifying but awesome. After a minute or so, my elder brother told me that the ganga water might have been diverted through this channel because of heavy rain.

I’m adventurous but not audacious. Moreover, I could not afford any heroics then, I had my little cousins with me. We decided to wait a while. After some time we saw a scorpio coming over from other side, it paused for a while and then crossed over without any trouble. But that’s a pretty heavy vehicle as compared to santro, I thought to myself. We were still unsure when a group of locals came in maruti 800 and crossed over without any concern. That gave us a lot of heart. We all stepped back into the car, chanted JAI MATA DI loudly and crossed over.

I must confess those four seconds were pretty un-nerving but in a strange kind of way spiritual too. I was’nt thinking of anything else but god during those four seconds.
Only after we had covered a couple of kms that I asked if anyone had taken a picture of that. Four mobiles with camera and a digicam too but not a single picture clicked. We were’nt thinking of anything else but to cross over at that time. But we were not to be disappointed as we had something even better or should I say worse waiting for us. After a km or so while paying the toll tax I asked a local if the road ahead was clear. With a very sarcastic grin he said, “haan sahib, pehle jaise hi ek aur jagah hain bas ab”. That was’nt good news. We decided that if we were to find any other problem on our way we’ll just spend a couple of hrs in Cheela itself and head off backwards. After 15 mins of drive we were again in somewhat similar situation. This time however, the submerged part was much longer but water current a little lesser. Nevertheless, it was scary. We halted for a second and then chanting JAI MATA DI for next ten seconds we crossed over. Afterwards, I did take couple of pictures.

Even though we didn’t see any deer or an elephant, nor did we do river rafting in rishikesh but that was more than the share of adventure we expected that day. Rest of the journey was smooth, we saw lakshman jhula in rishikesh and returned back to haridwar safely from usual route :)
During this independence day I got freedom from some of my fears. Next time though, I would definitely like to explore cheela more and experience more chills.

A plea to doctors

H1N1, or simply swine flu, is the new buzzword in media circles these days. As of now 10 deaths have been reported and total of 864 people have been reported to be infected with the virus. I’m not surprised at all that swine flu has grown to alarming proportions. And in days to come it is feared that it might become a rampant epidemic. Needless to say that we should all be cautious. There were enough indications before the disease claimed so many casualities but the inept government has kept up to its expections by not doing enough.

In midst of all this, there are discussions about how the virus spreads, what are the symptoms, where it could have originated from, should schools be closed around the countries, should doctors be held responsible for the death of Reeda Shaikh in pune and many more.

Blaming health ministry is the obvious first reaction, but will it or rather has it changed anything till now. I really don’t want to point a finger on health ministry here as I have no expectations from the highly incapable and corrupt ministries of govt, be it health or any other. But I felt so furious and frustrated when I heard the comments of Ghulam Nabi Azad that the little girl Reeda from Pune might have infected 80 other people in order to get the treatement. WTF! What exactly is he suggesting ? Should she have stayed at home and done nothing ? Did'nt she deserve an alternate medical opinion ? But... hey, can't blame the politicians here. Afterall, most of the politicians are innately inhumane and with no moral values. Unfortunate but..

For a change, rather than cursing the politicians and the govt. for not being vigilant and blah blah blah, I would like to put up a question to the private medical practitioners. Why don’t we see private doctors stepping forward and organizing camps where they would do a free-checkup of patients ? Would it hurt them so much if their money making machines, also known as clinics are opened for poor patients when there is a fear of epidemic ? Is there no morality left in doctor’s profession ? Probably, very strong words to say but can they be denied ?

There is tremendous pressure on govt hospitals currently. The ratio of patients to doctors is approx1000:1 which is abysmal. If private doctors were to just devote 3-4 hours a week for treating the poor then we’ll have a healthier and happier country.

I would be the happiest person if some doctors could step forward and prove me wrong
Period

FICN.. latest WMD

FICN is not a new phenomenon. A little googling will tell you that its been going on since early 90's but now its a bigger threat more than ever primarily because the magnitude of production and circulation has increased drastically. Mainly because of technological advancements in fields of drawing, design and printing.

The nexus and protocol is well known too. Fake currency is printed in Quetta, Baluchistan in Pakistan. Then its transported to UAE. From there on, it finds its way in India through Thailand or Nepal. The sheer volume of the operations suggest that there must be some strong backing and motive behind all this. ISI and D-company are the backing agencies and motive is to fund the terrorist activities in Kasmir and subvert the indian economy. This is the reason that the influx of FICN in India has increased exponentially during the last 8-10 years. Pak has seen no tangible effects of its felonious activities in Jammu & Kasmir and after 9/11 attack has always been scrutinized closely by the world as one of the places that harbors terrorism. With its dwindling economy and ever unstable govt. probably FICN is the only means left to support henious acts of terrorism against India. Most of the funding for last year mumbai terror attack was also obtained through fake currency racket.

Dossiers in IB ministry are filled with the details of how Pak's ISI agency carries out these operations. Its an open secret and no surprise that Pakistan is behind all this. What shocked me most was a report published by IB in August 2008 which stated that Pakistan has been procuring currency-standard printing paper in huge quantities from London-based
companies; much higher than normal requirement of the country for printing its own currency.

How could UK govt be not aware of this? When it comes to sucking up to US and expressing their support against terror they come wagging their tail.

We as responsible citizens should be aware too of the diffrences between original and fake currency. RBI has release set of "Know your bank note" postures which are very informative.
http://www.rbi.org.in/commonman/English/Scripts/CurrencyNotePosters.aspx#
Also RBI has advised banks to install currency sorting machines which can detect counterfiet currency.One of the myths is that most of the FICN are of denomination 500 or 1000. However, IB sources say that there is probably more FICN of denomination 100 than 500 and 1000 together, just that people are not aware of counterfiet 100 rupee notes in circulation.

Sometimes, I think that if Pak was to work in full capacity in terms of money, time and intellect in upliftment of their economy rather than devoting these resources for terrorist activities then probably it would be doing just as well as India. Alas!