Khukri Memorial

During my Diu trip, I happened to visit the Khukri memorial. It houses a 25 foot long replica of INS Khukri which went down 40 nautical miles off the coast of Diu on 8th December 1971. It was hit by 2 torpedos fired from the pakistan submarine PNS Hangor. INS Khukri has been the largest war time casualty India has ever experienced. The sinking was a great learning for the indian navy who were over confident of their prowess. 18 officers and 176 sailors went down along with the battle ship. The memorial is erected on the shores of Diu. Do visit it once if you happen to be in Diu.

The detailed article on the sinking of INS Khukri can be found here.

Friends ...

I was thinking of old friends today
And how many of them have slipped away.
Moved, got married, or stopped calling so much,
Found new friends, got busy, and just lost touch.

It reminded me of falling leaves.
Every autumn the leaves fall from the trees.
Some stay longer than others,
but eventually - Each leaf must fall, I'm told,
Leaving the tree alone to face the cold.

Why is it that in the time of utmost need
The leaves would seek to leave the tree?
And when we need our friends around
We look and they can not be found?

Of course these friendships come and go
And in the spring new leaves will grow.
But I prefer autumn friends of old
With crackling laughter and colors bold.

It saddens me now I must admit
How somehow, someway,
I did forget Laughing with old friends of mine
During summers when the sun would shine.

And then I thought of you.
That one stubborn leaf that won't let go.
That clings despite the winds that blow.
Fighting ice, and snow, and winter's stings
Hanging on right through till spring.

So I guess that's what you are to me -
The very last leaf to leave the tree.
I know it seems silly, but it's true.
When I see that last leaf...
...I think of you.

Not my own... got it from my friend... hence can't reference it.

Dimension Z ....

In dimension Z, there are strage moments. Euclid was not always right. He assumed parallelness, in constancy, right to the end of things; but a non-Euclidean way of being is also possible, where the lines come together, far out there. A vanishing point. The illusion of convergence.

Yet one knows it's more than illusion. Sometimes a coming together is possible, a spilling of one reality into another. A kind of soft enlacing. Not prim intersections loomed in a world of precision, no sound of the shuttle.

And one moves slowly over this other reality, beside it and underneath and around it, always with strength, always with power, yet always with giving of oneself to it. And the other senses this, coming forward with its own power, giving itself to one, in turn.

Courtesy : The Bridges of Madison County

The Bridges of Madison County...

I completed the book during my journey back to the campus. Its a lovely book, read it if you can get your hands on it.

Here are few excerpts from the book.

The old dreams were good dreams, they didn't work out, but i'm glad i had them.

I move in dimension Z, the world goes by somewhere else in another slice of things, parallel to me.

You are always dealing with markets, and markets - mass markets - are designed to suit average tastes. Thats were the numbers are.

Profit and Subscriptions and the rest of that stuff dominate art. We're all getting lashed to the great wheel of uniformity.

The virtues of Amateurism - The market kills most artisitic passion than anything else. Its a world of safety out there.

With time in my pocket, weather on my side .....

W.B. Yeats : Realism, economy, sensuousness, beauty and magic.

All marriages, all relationships are the inertia of protracted custom. Custom brings predictability, and predictability carries its own comforts.

If time permits, probably i will write a line or two about the book, the way Robert Kincaid and Francesca Johnson danced together and fell in love, those four days of passion and a lifetime of memories, their sacrifices and their ends.

Author : Robert James Waller

India Everywhere phenomenon

After 'Feel Good' and 'India Shining' phenomenon, its time for 'India Everywhere'. This was the theme in World Economic Forum meet in Davos in Jan this year. This phrase coupled with 'Fastest growing free market democracy' builds a strong 'Brand India'. As i see it, its an attempt by India to reach out to the world. It has noticed the potential the world has in store and Indians want to have a piece in the pie. The govt. has adopted a focussed strategy to woo in investments and have a steady and an increasing flow of capital. India ensured that it is 'hot and happening' at one of the world's most powerful networking events.

The event presented the country as an attractive destination for foreign investment, as an emerging manufacturing hub and as a credible partner for world business. In addition, it highlighted the Indian government's policy reforms and showcased the country's cultural diversity, with the overall goal of helping Davos participants gain a deeper understanding of Indian people and markets.

Knowledge wharton does a thorough analysis of the Indian hope trick in this article.

Few of the associated sites in this front are
India Everywhere
Indian Brand Equity Foundation

A great PR job, a well thought out marketing strategy has made the world to sit up and notice India, it all depends on how we take it forward. Whether we capitalise on the opportunity or falter as we have done before, time will only tell.

Kumaon Regiment ....

I stumbled across this article while surfing the net. It talks about how the 13 Kumaon regiment stood against all odds and the govt. apathy towards recognising them. Kumaon regiment is one of the crack troops of the indian army receivein many honours, but the recognition ends there. No one knows about them. Their sacrifice has gone unnoticed, only few quizzers apart from the soldiers families have some idea about them.

13 Kumaon's Last Stand: Chushul, November 18, 1962

Most of us studied the Alfred Tennyson poem 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' in school. The Battle of Thermopylae we read of with goose bumps. We all know about Custer's Last Stand. And the battle cry 'Remember the Alamo!' resonates with us.

Yet, none of us has heard of the 13th Kumaon Battalion's Last Stand at Rezang La, Ladakh, in the Battle of Chushul, on November 18, 1962. I think this is a great pity.

For, let us remind ourselves of these examples of heroism:

· The Battle of Thermopylae in ancient Greece in 480 BCE, where 300 Spartans under Leonidas stopped a Persian army of 250,000 at a narrow mountain pass. They died to the last man, but provided enough time for the rest of the Greek army to escape to fight another day.

· The 13th Light Brigade of the British Army at Balaclava, the Crimea, in 1854. Six hundred and seventy-three men rode at Russian artillery and were decimated.

· At the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, in 1836, several hundred Texans held out against the Mexican Army before they were killed to the last man.

· Custer's Last Stand was the Battle of Little Bighorn, 1876, in Montana where the Sioux nation under Chief Sitting Bull wiped out George Custer and 265 men.

And finally:

· The C company of the 13th Kumaon Battalion, under Major Shaitan Singh (Param Vir Chakra, Posthumous) held off a fierce Chinese attack on November 18, 1962, at the Rezang La heights that they held. Massively outnumbered and outgunned, the defenders died almost to the last man, and expended their last round. All 114 men were killed or wounded. But they succeeded in blunting the Chinese assault, killing as many as a thousand Chinese in the process at Rezang La and at nearby Gurung Hill. Thereafter, the Chinese did not push further towards the Chushul plain. It was a critical checkpoint on a potential Chinese advance on Leh.

The story of 13th Kumaon is the kind of thing that would make the patriotic Indian stand tall with tears in his eyes. Yet, we do not stand in silence for a moment in memory of Major Shaitan Singh and his gallant men. No poet eulogizes them as Tennyson did the Light Brigade. There is only a small memorial at the site, which says:

How can a Man die Better than facing Fearful Odds,
For the Ashes of His Fathers and the Temples of His Gods,
To the sacred memory of the Heroes of Rezang La,
114 Martyrs of 13 Kumaon who fought to the Last Man,
Last Round, Against Hordes of Chinese on 18 November 1962.
Built by All Ranks 13th Battalion, The Kumaon Regiment.

I am indebted to the Bharat-Rakshak web site for this information as well as a long article on the Battle of Chushul by L N Subramanian. Yet, why is there nothing written about them along the lines of what Tennyson did, as in these excerpts from his stirring poem:

Half a league half a league
Half a league onward...
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred...

Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd;
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die...

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;...

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade...

Why have Indians so consistently ignored the great sacrifices made by our soldiers? Why isn't the story of the valiant 13th Kumaon a part of every child's textbooks? Why have we let these brave men die unwept, unmourned, and unsung? Just as we let thousands of soldiers die in Kashmir, in Kargil, everywhere, they are mere cannon fodder. India needs a draft, so people in power feel the pain of their children dying for the nation.

I think I know why there is no official celebration of the Battle of Chushul: the government can hardly bother to honour the Unknown Soldier on Kargil Day. Then how will they remember something that happened forty years ago?

There is also an element of shame. Congress governments were unwilling to talk about 1962 because it brings out the fact that 'someone had blunder'd' and that was their deity, Jawaharlal Nehru, along with his defence minister, V K Krishna Menon. Admitting this would leave them shamefaced, so they just let the soldiers 'but do and die'. Even the current government is unwilling to publish the Henderson Brooks report. Why? It will at least shed some light on what happened.

The media in India should have taken this up in the absence of governmental action. But the media, influenced by Chinese propaganda, has portrayed the 1962 war on Chinese terms. Aping the Xinhua propaganda agency, Indian media mavens have taken the stand that the war was India's fault. As though Indians, with no mountain divisions, would go over the Himalayas and attack the Chinese in Tibet and Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh!

The Marxists in India say the 1962 affair was an internal matter for the Chinese, as they have generously 'awarded' Arunachal Pradesh to China. The Chinese believe this, too. They told the CM of Arunachal Pradesh recently that he did not need a visa to go to China, as he was a Chinese citizen! Americans, Britons and Australians accept China's lies, for it suits them to support China.

But we know that all this isn't true. Individual Indians must remember the 13th Kumaon. As the Quebec motto goes, Je me souviens: I remember. And I shall always remember those brave men of C Company who died in a frozen wasteland. For me. For you.

One day ...

One day i shall fly
One day i shall soar high
One day the world will watch
One day i shall shine.

Hope i live long enough to see this day...
even though its me who decides how soon i see the light of this day..

Nostalgia...

For all you have done... thank you mate...
For all that you are .... I love you.

Love ....

I wish i knew a pretty song
i could sing for you ...
Special words of joy and love
so we could start anew

I wish i knew a story
to tell you every night
A sweet, romantic one
to make your heart feel light.

I wish i could write a poem
A verse to make you see
you mean more than all world
and all it holds for me.

I wish I knew what i could say
or knew what i could do
To make you feel the love for me
That i've always felt for you.

Schedule ...

Sit in front of the comp .. start givin finishin touches to the software already developed by some1 else :) .... work on this , work on tht... teach ppl how to use the s/w u developed for them... help them with their difficulties...

feed the data ... arrange for the logistics... hav pizza breaks.. coffee breaks in b/w... brainstorm the rules... build the framework for next days activities.. hav a meet .. .discuss issues , queries... speak over phone.. hav more pizzas more caffeine.... snatch some sleep while u can...

handle HRs ... speak to ur batchmates... help the needy... guide the greedy...
all in all... do whtevr possible frm ur end...
take up many roles... assume responsibilities...
accomplish wht needs to be done....
with no margin for error...
to ensure tht...
"alls well tht ends well"....

this is how i survived the 1 week of high stress, high tension and high drama...
but in the end it leaves me with a wonderful experience and a good bunch of friends...:) ...

no 1 outside this place can understand y ne1 should put in 20 - 22 hrs of work everyday for somethin that doesnot give you anything in return apart from experience...

well.. this is wht we want to do.. like to do... wht we get in the end of the day is the sense of satisfaction... for this we are ready to give whtevr we hav got time and again....

"one for all and all for one" ....

Marathon ....

Its a wierd experience i must say, the connect between the mind and the body.

I realised it while i was running. I run with a friend of mine who is a bit slower than my comfortable speed, since i like company while i run... i prefer to run slow than to run alone.

While running my mind tends to wander a lot... sometimes i dream .. sometimes i think... thats when i noticed the pecularity. When i dream, i instantly switch to my comfortable speed which is faster than the speed at which we are running and when i start to think i tend to slow down.. the more i get involved without my thought , slower i become... dunno why it happens... in both the cases i am not focusin on the run.. sometimes i run fast and sometimes i run slow....

i think even our mind behaves like a processor ( rather it must be the other way round) ... when ur thinkin .. u consume lot of ur mind space hence the legs do not get so much attention from the mind as required... but when ur dreamin .. the mind is relatively free.... it eases down at u switch to ur comfy levels...

hence i come to a conclusion that ..thinkin is a heavy process but dreamin is a light process....
dunno which is better ... but thts the way it is....