Mumbai is the commercial capital of India and it has a population that by far exceeds the area available. But whatever the distance, the best form of transport from one place to another within the city is the train .However, one needs to be aware of what would all lie in store for him and must develop a bit of special skill and spirit of adventure to take it at office hours, be it the morning or evening. Here is an account of my experiences with the trains here. This is not to dissuade the tourist from travelling by a local train here. .The tourist is most welcome to always plan his/her trip in advance and choose a convenient time after making enquiries.
It is three years since I relocated to Mumbai. My first visit was in 1974, in the summer, in May. It was a holiday at my sister’s place and the first time Dadar Express chugged in was one of those fascinating moments in this grand metropolitan city. Being a simple girl born and bred in a small town Trichy, I just gazed open mouthed at the hitherto unfamiliar matchbox structures,, because all my knowledge of Mumbai was only from the film ‘Pya ka Gar’. I can very well understand how the town bred female [enacted by JayaBachan] would have been baffled by the one room and two room apartments here.
We were a gang of five people visiting the newly wed daughter and daughter-in-law [my sister]. It was an unforgettable holiday. We were all eagerly awaiting sight seeing trips and Mumbai trains are renowned not only for their connectivity and speed of transport. but also for the ‘brimful’ occupancy of passengers Seasoned travelers like my sister and brother-in-law. had sufficiently tutored us all as to how one should dive into the compartment and had advised us to be ever on the vigil. It was likely to be a time for adventure. However, apart from stepping on to trains from Trichy to Chennai or similar big places, my experiences with a local metro train were practically zero. So, the full import of this warning did not sink in significantly... As a teenager I was absolutely thrilled at braving against all odds and making a successful entry into the train that would be bulging at its seams. I would tuck in my saree, be all set and ready to dive into the pool of assorted humanity, and would be as thrilled as a sprinter who is on the move.
Three instances are unforgettable. One was a trip from Malad to Sion. My sister, her sister-in-law with her little 3yearold son and husband and ‘ yours truly’ got ready for our train adventure .All was well as far as we bought our tickets and waited for the train to arrive at the platform. It was a moderately crowded train--
The word ‘moderately’ must not be understood in the traditional meaning of the term but should be understood in context.
When one talks of a ‘moderately’ crowded Mumbai train it only means that one
passenger is able to stand with a distinct gap of five centimeters from his co-passenger. If, on the other hand there is to be comfortable space for a person to do a spin on his axis, then the train is ‘fairly empty’.
[It is not that people spin ‘on the axis’ as soon as they board the train but it is mandatory to let the untutored understand things in perspective.] It is the definition that really defines the situation here. So two of us women and a male were successful in nudging and elbowing our ways into the train but my sister, the leader of the group , in her ardent enthusiasm in directing us into the compartment was sidelined by the crowd and had no choice but to jump on to the next compartment. Three of us were new to Mumbai and each of us had a unique understanding of our destination. I thought we had to get down at King Circle, the other thought it was Sion, and the gentleman was standing in a far off edge. Train flew through the stations, and a swan could have hung its head in shame at the way I craned my neck to its maximum length to peer out of the window and look for the board at stations, lest we miss it. I was on the lookout for the nonexistent ‘King circle’ board, my lady friend was looking at her husband and we were all like ‘blind leading the blind’. At one stage when the train was slowing down at one of the stations, the husband was giving frantic signals to his wife who [the devout wife that she was] was blissfully ignoring his signals with a big shake of her head and a ‘No no it cannot be; it is not possible’ That poor gentleman was legitimately offended by his wife’s blatant disregard of his precise directions. Had it not been for her stubborn disregard of his instructions, we would not have another climbing down adventure. The train had stopped and I could see my sister, the ever efficient guide, vigorously waving her hand for all of us to get down. Once again we exhibited our best performance in elbowing fellow passengers and squeezing ourselves out successfully. That was one eventful day.
. The other one was when we had planned a dinner at a restaurant. The restaurant had already been fixed and it was Ramakrishna mandir at Vile Parle. My brother-in-law had given instructions to his wife to take us to Vile Parle by train; the plan was that he would meet us directly at the station on his return from his work spot. This was in aid of saving time .Otherwise he would have to come home and then lead us all to our dinner destination. We were all dressed up for the outing, got ready and jumped into the train. The train sped on its merry way without stopping at Vile Parle. We could see the board ‘Vile Parle’ whizzing past and only shout ‘Hey there is our station !station!’ though we knew that the system of stopping a bus driver[in rural India] by screaming ‘hold on’ would not work with the train. So we could do nothing but gaze at the speeding station in helpless horror and wait for the next stop. We got down, all anxious and guilty for making poor brother-in-law wait at the previous station and climbing on to the steps got another train back to Vile Parle. The mistake committed was that in our anxiety to dive successfully into the train we had boarded a fast train that had no scheduled stop at Vile Parle. As soon as we reached Vile Parle we saw my brother-in-law waiting for us at the platform where we got down and were immensely surprised. Seasoned traveler that he was, he had wisely anticipated our unwise miscalculation of missing the slow train and taking the fast train. There was so much of excitement on these two days and the first thing that came to mind when I stepped on to a Mumbai train after 30 years was this.
Mumbai trains would never be short of providing entertainment and adventure even after the next.30 years. Years may have flown but everyday is a new day as far as my train adventures go. Recently, when I had to travel from Church gate to Santa Cruz alone, the first time I made the mistake of making myself comfortable in a seat at Churchgate.It is the terminus and boarding the train or finding a place to sit are no great feat. I was blissfully unaware of the potential of the crowd getting in at a fairly lean hour. and was enjoying the scene out of the window. I must have got lost in the sights of skyscrapers and buildings .It was just one station away from my destination Santa Cruz.
The compartment was bulging; I could not even move and there was little chance to make my way to the gate. I was making frantic efforts to push past the crowd to the gate; the train stopped at Santa Cruz and there was a fresh crowd of people pushing the people near the doorway gaining access to the nonexistent space within the compartment I was totally jammed and had to wait some more time for the crowd to adjust itself and make some space in mercy of a few of us who had missed the stop at Santacruz. I finally managed to get down at Vile Parle [thankfully the tickets are issued by default to Vile Parle], make enquiries and come back home by another local bus.
This adventure taught me to look at the long term benefit of ability to alight at the right station rather than the short term comfort of sitting down. So, now if I have to travel from Church gate to Santa Cruz, I stand by the exit door as soon as I get in, even if it is totally empty. One never knows where the mass of passengers are waiting to dive into the compartment and force you to go to the next station instead of one’s own place.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Tribute to Advocate Vasudevan
This is a write up about my father K.Vasudevan, an outstanding legal practitioner.This is an entry in the history of Trichy diary ,published in a newspaper in April 2009.I take great pride in translating this into English and I take this opportunity of paying a tribute to him in my blog.
I sincerely thank advocate Chandrasekara Vellayan for all his support.I thank R.Vijayaraghavan and V.Rangarajan for their constructive criticism and for helping me with relevant phrases that facilitated an exact translation.I also thank my brother-in-law T.Sridharan for scanning the image .
My tribute to K.Vasudevan -- a great father and a wonderful human being.
. This is an exact translation of what was published in the newspaper, in Trichy, Tamil Nadu in 2009.My heart swells with pride and gratitude to have been able to do this.
Tiruchirapalli
History of Trichy --Diary Entry of today.
Advocate Vasudevan
In today’s diary entry of Trichy, we shall read about K.Vasudevan [1924-1998], an outstanding lawyer. Vasudevan was the eldest son of N.V.Krishnaswamy Iyengar and Kanakavalli Ammal.He was born in Kumbakonam on 12/11/1924.His father, N.V.Krishnaswamy Iyengar was a successful lawyer practising civil law in Ariyalur. Even as a very young boy Vasudevan exhibited his father’s sharp intellect and quick grasp. After his primary and secondary education at Ariyalur, he finished his intermediate course in Annamalai University.Later, he pursued his higher education in Law and enrolling himself as a junior to his father skillfully picked up legal training. Being surprised at his son’s extraordinary brilliance, N.V.K.Iyengar sent him to Trichy. Starting his legal practice at Trichy, Vasudevan proved his mettle by taking up a great number of difficult legal cases and with his brilliant reasoning, emerged triumphant. Though he took up a majority of civil cases, he also argued periodically in some criminal cases. .Recognizing his skill in the legal profession, the government appointed him as Government Pleader. After his tenure as Government Pleader in Trichy District court for four years, he resumed his private practice.
He was a person who would never demand his fees voluntarily from his clients. He would also not persist against the opponent when his case was a weak one. Moreover, he would never divert or mislead a case lest the judge should give an unjust verdict. This had made judges openly extol his magnanimity and professional integrity. Moreover, as he was well versed in the nuances of law, judges sought his expert advice and referred to him for former case studies. He had a phenomenal memory and could recall very old cases argued many years ago and could quote all relevant data, regarding case studies, verdicts and even respective sections of Law pertaining to those cases.
He was a great mentor to his junior lawyers and played a big part in guiding them. He would delegate cases to his juniors and give constructive criticisms about their merits and demerits and encourage them. Currently practising, popular lawyers John Louis, Pasupathy, Gurumurthy, MuthuVenkataseshan and Vellayan are some of his juniors. This outstanding lawyer passed away on February 27th 1998.His wife is V.Saroja and he has two daughters Malathy Sridharan and KalaVijayaraghavan. His brother K.Padmanabhan, a resident of Trichy, is a retired Chairman of Ordnance Factory.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Memories- My Garden and Guava Trees!
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1538451/my_garden_and_guava_trees.html?cat=44
How to write good content?
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1471603/how_to_write_good_content.html?cat=55
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Tips to write your admission essay and personal statement.
Admission essays and personal statements make a very important part of an application to any Educational institution. Candidates need to convey their eligibility to the admission panel in as clear a manner as possible.
Now, how can this be done? Performance alone that constitutes previous records cannot be described in a monotonous way. Apart from performance it is the presentation that plays a crucial part.
Arresting introduction
The introduction must be arresting. You have to catch hold of the reader’s attention and hold it till the end. The admission panel has to go through countless number of applications and people would go to sleep if they are going to read longwinded recommendations and self acclaims. Do not imagine the murder of a grandfather or father and write fictitious episodes. Write relevant authentic incidents in an arresting manner.
Logical Flow of ideas.
Ideas must be sequential. They should logically flow in every paragraph and there must not be incoherent ramblings. Transition of ideas must be smooth and not disjointed. There should be no repetition whatsoever...
All the achievements of the candidate must be presented. They should reflect the positive outcomes of the extra curricular and volunteer activities. The resultant specific skills must be highlighted.
Preliminary Homework and Research
The candidate must do his preliminary homework regarding the course content, University and must be able to assess where the skills acquired would come in handy regarding his future career. There must be distinct focus in stating the choice of a particular Major and the allied credits that he wishes to take.
Short term and long term career goals
There must be clarity and certainty about future plans and there must be no scope for vagueness. The voluntary activities that the candidate hopes to take up must be clearly stated...The statement must convey the candidate’s willingness to go through the curriculum in the best manner possible where he/she would put in the best of efforts This means that the statement must clearly convey the candidate’s motivation level .
Word limit, grammar and punctuation,
The statement should adhere to the word limit specified in the application form and not be too short. Do not repeat ideas in order to fill in the word limit.
Do not use capital letters where they are not called for.
There must be NO grammatical errors and do not rely on MS word tools alone to correct the grammatical errors. Check with a professional and see that the statement is read, reread and edited before the final submission.
Sentence structure
There must be a judicious mix of simple, complex and compound sentences. Avoid verbosity, word play and be lucid in your writing style. Simple, clear sentences would be much more effective than long sentences designed to impress. Passive voice of the verb should be minimized. Do not write an autobiography, giving importance to trivia; make sure that whatever you write is related in some way or the other to your qualities that count.
If three parts of the statement needs to be written as answers to three questions, see that every answer is relevant to the particular question asked e.g... If a question regarding past voluntary activities is to be answered, only the activities and the accompanying skills acquired need to be written there.
Conclusion
To summarize, the statement must convey the candidate’s sincerity in approach, capacity for hard work, interest in the pursuit of a particular subject and his clarity of thought... His personal qualities that would be an asset to the curriculum must be highlighted. It should make the authorities feel that losing the particular candidate would indeed be a loss to the institution and on no account the candidate must be allowed to go to another University.
Admission essays and personal statements make a very important part of an application to any Educational institution. Candidates need to convey their eligibility to the admission panel in as clear a manner as possible.
Now, how can this be done? Performance alone that constitutes previous records cannot be described in a monotonous way. Apart from performance it is the presentation that plays a crucial part.
Arresting introduction
The introduction must be arresting. You have to catch hold of the reader’s attention and hold it till the end. The admission panel has to go through countless number of applications and people would go to sleep if they are going to read longwinded recommendations and self acclaims. Do not imagine the murder of a grandfather or father and write fictitious episodes. Write relevant authentic incidents in an arresting manner.
Logical Flow of ideas.
Ideas must be sequential. They should logically flow in every paragraph and there must not be incoherent ramblings. Transition of ideas must be smooth and not disjointed. There should be no repetition whatsoever...
All the achievements of the candidate must be presented. They should reflect the positive outcomes of the extra curricular and volunteer activities. The resultant specific skills must be highlighted.
Preliminary Homework and Research
The candidate must do his preliminary homework regarding the course content, University and must be able to assess where the skills acquired would come in handy regarding his future career. There must be distinct focus in stating the choice of a particular Major and the allied credits that he wishes to take.
Short term and long term career goals
There must be clarity and certainty about future plans and there must be no scope for vagueness. The voluntary activities that the candidate hopes to take up must be clearly stated...The statement must convey the candidate’s willingness to go through the curriculum in the best manner possible where he/she would put in the best of efforts This means that the statement must clearly convey the candidate’s motivation level .
Word limit, grammar and punctuation,
The statement should adhere to the word limit specified in the application form and not be too short. Do not repeat ideas in order to fill in the word limit.
Do not use capital letters where they are not called for.
There must be NO grammatical errors and do not rely on MS word tools alone to correct the grammatical errors. Check with a professional and see that the statement is read, reread and edited before the final submission.
Sentence structure
There must be a judicious mix of simple, complex and compound sentences. Avoid verbosity, word play and be lucid in your writing style. Simple, clear sentences would be much more effective than long sentences designed to impress. Passive voice of the verb should be minimized. Do not write an autobiography, giving importance to trivia; make sure that whatever you write is related in some way or the other to your qualities that count.
If three parts of the statement needs to be written as answers to three questions, see that every answer is relevant to the particular question asked e.g... If a question regarding past voluntary activities is to be answered, only the activities and the accompanying skills acquired need to be written there.
Conclusion
To summarize, the statement must convey the candidate’s sincerity in approach, capacity for hard work, interest in the pursuit of a particular subject and his clarity of thought... His personal qualities that would be an asset to the curriculum must be highlighted. It should make the authorities feel that losing the particular candidate would indeed be a loss to the institution and on no account the candidate must be allowed to go to another University.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)