Paines Prairie trip

My friends and I went on a road trail to the Paines Prairie reserve on US 441 some 8 miles from Gainesville,FL. Chari threw in idea, and Phani joined us. We took a bus up to Florida Works and walked from there.

The suck-up here is that RTS buses dont have room for more than 2 bicycles, and we were 3 people walking with 2 bicycles :D ( reminds you of the father, son and donkey, doesn't it?)

Good trip all in all. A few dead snakes on the way, and Phani (which incidentally means snake in Gult) was dead against photographing them. Then there were the usual gators, and we saw one ruffling up a nest and eating it's eggs while two birds watched on helplessly.

Thought I'll upload a few pics here. You'll find the whole bunch on my Picasa page soon

Phani and I at the preserve



Gator( unfortunatley still, and hence no GO GATORS!!)



Phani and Chari

You'll find the pics on my Facebook page as well/ And oh!! BTW, we're planning on biking even deeper into the preserve to see a little more wildlife. People are welcome to join us. Make sure you bring along a bicycle .

Whatever....

India- The land of many mothers

I am amazed at the rate at which many of my friends swear and curse so very flippantly, fully well knowing what the words mean. In an attempt to refrain from using distasteful language on this blog, I shall use "X" in place of Maa( Mom/mother in many Indian languages), and Y in place of behen(sister).

Maa/Behen gaalis are a way of life for many people in India, so much so that when someone gives you such gaalis, there's a good chance that he is a good chum. These gaalis with all their might convey affection in most cases, and not disgust.

Fine, but upto apoint...beyiond which, well...read on

For e.g

....arey, X chu*&^ padi hai,
Fitness ki XY ho padi hai
Arrey, prof ne aaj X C#$^h di be

Seems like people have no dearth of moms. I was taught that all Indians are my brothers and sisters, but these fellas seem to have taken this teaching a step further.

Whatever....

What's in a name??

Do you know your friend's name?? Well ,yeah!!! of course you do. Ok, so let me ask you this. Have you known your friend's name at all times since the time you became good friends? Sounds weird?? Here goes...

We had a presentation to make in class today. Two of my friends, one virtually a roommate, and another person that I have known for the last 8 or so months teamed up. It all went fine, till for a brief while( beat this) I forgot their names, and instinctively turned around to ask them their names. WHATTTTT?????And to add to it, I was born with a sub woofer in my throat. So ,even the softest of whispers from my mouth reverberates across a small classroom.......I had the whole class giggle silently at this sloppy gaffe......embarassing, to say the least.

God knows how I forgot their names for that small instant.

Hot chai heated further

It is customary for a bunch us of desi Gators to meet up daily at midnight to socialize over some hot chai and cookies, and some of us have become very good pals. The discussion on my last post got really heated last night, with passions flaring up and heating the chai further.

I'd like to clrify certain things here and comment on a few things-

1) I am NOT anti-hindi. I speak with many of my friends in the language. I believe Hindi must be spoken by all to have a common medium of communication. All I am opposed to is making the laguage compulsory in schools and denying people the lawful freedom of choice prescribed in our constitution.

2)People will learn Hindi if there is a need to. Tams that have settled in the north or do business in the north are highly conversant in Hindi. It ends up being a survival tool which they acquire in due course of time

3) For 60 years after Independence, the south, especially Tamil Nadu, hasn't suffered politically, culturally, socially or economically as a resullt of not speaking Hindi. If anything, the rowdy politics aside, TN is a prosperous and thriving economy, and contributes greatly to the welfare of the country.

To quote from a Government of India census-

Tamil Nadu has the highest level of urbanisation (43.86%) in India, accounting for 6% of India’s total population and 9.6% of the urban population. and is the second most industrialised state in India.Services contributes to 45% of the economic activity in the state, followed by manufacturing at 34% and agriculture at 21%. Government is the major investor in the state with 51% of total investments, followed by private Indian investors at 29.9% and foreign private investors at 14.9%. Tamil Nadu has a network of about 110 industrial parks and estates offering developed plots with supporting infrastructure. Also, the state government is promoting other industrial parks like Rubber Park, Apparel Parks, Floriculture Park, TICEL Park for Biotechnology, Siruseri IT Park, and Agro Export Zones among others.


If anything, we have BMW, Nokia, Dell, Flextronics, Saint Gobain, Hyundai, TVS and so on, continuing to succesfully do business with a people in their native tongue, . Where in the union do you see IT businesses flourishing the way they do in the south?

4)Migration from the north continues happening in TN. Personally too, my immediate circle of friends is composed of Punjabis, Marwaris and UPites. Many of my friends, 25 years after being here, can't speak the local language- which I think is weird.

5)If the same yardstick is to be applied to religion, lets have Islam and Christianity as secondary religions in our country, considering that 80% of the country has different gods and a different way of life. There wont be any communal tension.

6) Leave India the way She is. Her beauty lies in her diversity.

வாழ்க தமிழ், வளர்க தமிழ்.

New national symbols

Some native hindi speakers often seem to be amazed at how good my Hindi is for a south Indian, so much so that they are heavily critical (and sometimes dirtily racist) about the inability of people from the south to speak what they call the "National Language"

A certain jerk that I know (name witheld,) says, "Yeh Kya chutiagiri hai be, tum Tamil waalon ko Hindi bolne mei kya pareshani hai? Rashtrabhasha sabko aani chahiye" (Translates to- "What fkd-up jingoism is this with you Tamil speakers not speaking Hindi? The national language should be spoken by everybody.) Well, whatever....... makes me wonder when Hindi became a "NATIONAL" language from simply an "OFFICIAL" language, the way our constitution describes it.(well, the guy doesnt speak Hindi at home, he speaks Gujraati)

The contention of these people is that Hindi, being the most spoken language in the country, becomes the default national language and acts as a tool for national integration, ...well, like we're not in a united India today, and Hindi needs to come to the rescue of the union.

Applying the same logic that my dear and enlightened friends subscribe to, I think we oughta have our national symbols changed

My humble suggestions
National Animal- The rat















We're running out of tigers anyway, and rats multiply like it's nobody's business, and hence we're gonna continue having them






National Bird- The ubiquitous house crow

























And beat this :)



Well............... whatever