Mumbai : The much awaited

The journey to Mumbai began via our Train to Mumbai from Gorakhpur, Lokmanya Tilak Super Express on  13th March, 2014 at around 9:00 pm. After 48 hrs long journey of Train we finally reached LTT, Mumbai on  We were very exhausted because of train journey and  were delighted when we were picked up by our friend in Mumbai. Then from there we reached Hotel Shubhangan   around 5 am. The day had nothing much to do while we only rested in our hotel. We stayed in Mumbai till morning of 18th March , during which we visited many important landmarks of the magnificient city.

Day 1, March 14

Band Stand: 

We asked the auto bhaiya ( auto driver) about nearest tourist attraction from our hotel and came to know that Band fort was one. Band Fort was something like Garden of Dreams in Nepal, all famous for the couples in love. We came to spot the place as shooting spot of many Bollywood movies like: Tarey Jameen Pey, Wanted etc. I saw sea for the first time (Arabian sea) and was amazed the water mass intensity ranging to a distance very far. 

We clicked some photos together and were also happy to see the magnificent Bandra-Worli Sea Link. 

Juhu beach:  

We visited Juhu beach and quite a few lesser known beaches. Juhu was all lighted up and glittered beautifully in the evening. The surrounding was vibrant - the foods stalls showcasing different variety of local foods, the photographer were busy spotting and clicking tourists, many mumbaites hanging around for evening walk, many tourists hovering here and there etc was amazing to observe. We also played in water, felt the sand slipping from below our feet and got ourselves clicked. We also tasted the famous local food: Pau Bhaji ( Bread and Cooked vegetable) which I tasted good. 

             

Day 2, March 15

Rotaract Stuffs:

Second day was for the main purpose of the visit. We organised a joint meeting with Rotaract Club of HR College, Mumbai and also signed Memorandum of Understanding( MOU) for International Twin Club relationship. The meeting was really enthusiastic and fun-filled. Also we were also careful to learn many new things like meeting procedures followed and meeting etiquettes. 

We saw a different and interesting way of attending a meeting and have summed up with some take-away. There were many things to learn and share between the two clubs. We got a warm reception there and planned to play holi together on March 17th. 

Gateway of India:

I was very happy to meet some of my Rotaract friends from (Rotaract Club of Government Law College) Mumbai whom I had met via facebook and had also organised some joint project between the two clubs. Though it was our first meeting, we found them very co-operative, friendly and caring. Together  we had great fun in the evening. We visited some restaurants, had punjabi food, visited Gateway of India and Taj hotel in the evening. Back to hotel we boarded on train which was not that busy like the daytime. 

Day 3, March 16

Chatrapati Sivaji Terminus (CST):

Also a UNESCO World Heritage Sites, CST was built in 1887 to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. CST is one of the busiest railway platform of India serving as a terminal for both short and long-distance trains.

We went to CST for train tickets to Goa. Unfortunately we couldn't get the ticket the same day because all the reservations were full. Meanwhile with all the ICYEP team, we paid a visit to the Gateway of India and took a ride in the ferry over the Arabian sea.  The ferry was just supposed to take a round on the sea and come back. Shopping was next on our list. We visited both small and big shopping centres in close vicinity and bought lots of items. The prices were reasonable and the variety was good.

Marine Drive:

Visit to Marine drive in the evening is one of the rarest thing to miss in Mumbai. It is a 'C' shaped boulevard of about 5 km along the coast that look spectacular during the night by the street lights along the drive. The place is famous to observe the setting sun and also for evening walk, grasping some fresh air. The place is also famous for many prominent hotel in Mumbai like: Oberoi, The Intercontinental, Hotel Marine Plaza etc.  

Travelling in Local Train:

Another thing which we enjoyed was travelling in local train. Local train system in Mumbai is extensive and  travelling during peak hours, during office hours is really hectic because the rush at this point of time is just too much for anyone not used to it. You really need lots of alacrity, patience and practice to travel during these hours. For the rest of the day, the crowd is manageable. Travelling by train gave us a firsthand idea of life of people in Mumbai. Without these trains, life of 12 million Mumbaites  becomes crippled.

Day 4, March 17

Holi In Mumbai:

We Rotaract Club of Kasthamandap together with Rotaract club of HR college celebrated holi.It was also one of the most unforgettable moment. It was a mesmerizing experience. We learned new way of celebrating and also a good chance to exchange our culture and learn new tradition. Dancing all wet was the most interesting part.

Autos:

Travelling in Autos is also one of the major thing to witness in Mumbai. It is said that there are about 300 thousands Autos in Mumbai itself. During mine stay, I came to know of most of the auto-drivers as helpful and cooperative. We travelled major part of Mumbai with the help of Auto-drivers and are also thankful to them.

What we most enjoyed during our stay in Mumbai was visiting many beautiful places especially in the evening. The whole thing was really interesting and a completely new experience for us.

Gorakhpur, India : ICYEP first day

A city famous for its massive train networks throughout the country, Gorakhpur, lies in Uttar Pradesh state of India and is one of the closest train platform from Nepal border.

A 3 hour bus ride from Sonauli (Nepal-India border) via a UP state-government bus and then you reach Gorakhpur train station. We reached to Sonauli early morning at 6 am. After a little of fresh-up and light breakfast we headed towards to cross the border. In contrast to our imagination, we cleared the border very easily. We  talked to officials in a polite manner and showed the evidence that we were to attend a program in India. And thus no hassle :)

Then we catched a UP state-government bus from Sonauli to Gorakhpur , a distance of around 3 hours for just IC 92. ( saved  from exp. tickets of private bus operators). The landscape is almost same to the plains of Nepal so we didn't had much to enjoy from the scenes .  As we had train to Mumbai in the evening, we visited the famous Gorakhnath temple in Gorakhpur and stayed there the whole afternoon. Apart  from the rest of the city, the temple seemed to be well-managed and looked after.

In the evening we reached to Train station which was to be our major transportation means for the rest of our stay in India. As many of us hadn't seen train previously , some of my friends were excited to see train passing after every few minutes.  We tried to find out how train system worked ( Indian railway is also features in HBS case study and is one of the largest employment provider in the world) .Frankly speaking , the train system in Gorakhpur  was not properly managed and seemed troublesome. We didn't know about different train jargons like : wait list, tatkal, SL class, ac-tier, train number, etc. We tried to take help from railway police, but to no avail. Finally by asking to other commoners we were able to locate our train at 9 pm  and the journey to Mumbai began.

Exhausted  for the whole day because of psychological pressure  to understand train-system( with objective to not miss the train) , we took our SL class berth and soon fell asleep ( or at-least pretended so as it was our first night in train, sound sleep was difficult ). We were witnessing the backbone of development of India and the basic means of transport in the live of billion of Indian commoners.

Visit to India : ICYEP

Visit to India was a trip planned since last two years. Back in 2012 in Rotaract we had a proposal from our then International twin club in Mumbai, Rotaract club of Government Law College for Inter Club Youth Exchange Program (ICYEP) . But then we couldn't schedule it because of different reasons. As usual then I was one of the member who so wanted to visit Mumbai.

And finally we got invitation from another Rotaract club this year for Inter city Youth Exchange Program ( ICYEP). I then approached them to come to Nepal for the first round of ICYEP ( so that in latter part I can be stress free regarding the second part of hosting and all ;) ). However things didn't go as expected and we were to make our virgin trip to Mumbai ( as it was first visit to almost the members of ICYEP from Nepal).Then began official information sharing among club members and selecting of ICYEP members. Done with selection, it was a hectic event to plan for the whole event as all of us didn't had experience of how India was like. Being a team leader it was me to had opportunity to learn many things in advance ( of course with some stress) . Learning about Indian train system, booking of tickets, managing Indian currency , counselling team members etc was sometimes tough. 

With all these things real thing that encouraged us was when we decided to go to Goa also ( was in addition to our original plan). And then until we reached Goa it was like everyone humming " aajaoo on the beach yaara photo merely khich" :D

But things that always motivated me for the visit was

1. To know about how India was.
2. To make some new friends in Mumbai.
3. To share culture and good-will with each other.
4. To explore myself in terms of leadership, confidence, team management etc
5. To avail myself of the opportunity to strengthen relationship with my fellow club members. 

And many more ...

Follow upcoming post about other exciting experience about India visit....

Review of "Subarna Shamsher: A Politics of Ethics"

Among six photographs printed in a banner of Nepali Congress, I had difficulty in recognizing one face ! However I could figure it out later with a help of my friend that I had hit the nail in the head ! A correct guess. He was none other than Subarna Shamsher-one of the founding leader of Nepali Congress.

Suwarna Shumsher is one of the founder of Nepali Congress-oldest political party of country. Though much is known about his contemporaries, B.P Koirala, Ganeshman Singh, Krishna Prasad, on contrary, very few has been explored about Subarna Shamsher. As I was longing to know more about this very person, I was lucky enough to grab a book recently published featuring the contribution of Suwarna Shumsher to Nepali democratic movements.

Subarna Shamsher was born in in the tyrant ruling Rana family that ruled Nepal for continuous 104 years.The power politics and struggle for power was so massive that it ended with endless conspiracy and massive conflicts within the family. Rana clans had to live their entire life with terror and suspicion at all the time. Adding insult to injury was when the family of Suwarna Shumsher was kept in exile from Kathmandu valley by categorizing them as "C" class Rana family who would not have a say in the role based leadership in Rana family.  Later Subarna Shamsher family left to Kolkata ( India) and settled there for business. Educated and down-to-earth Subarna Shamsher established an business empire in Kolkata by venturing successful ownership of British property at cheaper rates.

Though Subarna Shamsher was excelling in his business ventures, he could not pacify himself as he was forced to live his country and that his country was ailing. And thus the waves for changes began to start. Suwarna Shumsher vowed to overthrow the Rana rule and to bring democracy in the country. Later he came in contact with BP and collaborated with them to form a single political party which main objective would be to out-throw the Rana regime and bring about peace  and democracy in the country. Initially it was said that Suwarna Shumsher offered the then Rs 1 crore to B.P to carry-out pro-democratic movement in Nepal. With astounding support of Nepali people and financial support from Suwarna Shumsher, the revolution was successful.

Describing all about the political stories of life-time of Subarna Shamsher would be too time consuming. However, I would like to summarize of Suwarna Shumsher of as a far-sighted, morally balanced and ethically correct figure of Nepali political fraternity upon whom the current citizen can look upon. Following points proves of his greatness.

1) Sole financial supporter of pro-democratic movement of 2007 BS.
2) Supported party cadres, party and party leaders in exile continuously from 2007 BS- 2015 BS.
3) Didn't misuse power for personal benefits.
4) An intellectual figure of Nepali politics, he penned a far-sighted budget , though it was the first budget of the country (even first PM of India Jawaharlal Nehru is said to have praised him for his economic insights)
5) Didn't use state-coffer for political cadres and his own party: A man with strict financial discipline.
6) Always valued ethics, friendship more than power ( though he was offered for PM by then King Mahendra many times, he refused and proposed BP Koirala for the same and kept the part unity intact)

" 2 States: The Story of My Marriage" a Book Review

Marriage might be a private affair in western countries where people are more individualistic in nature. However in a eastern country like India, for a couple to get married, it takes to soothe the both side of the couple at the first place. It's very rare that the "to be married couple" have very nominal or not at all role in the course which would influence their life for forever. All this has been portrayed by Chetan Bhagat(C.B)  in his yet-another best selling novel "2 States".

Chetan Bhagat has been " the biggest selling English novelist in India's history" by the New York Times. Besides his previous best-selling like 3 mistakes of my life, One night at the call center, C.B has also inspired some of Bollywood movies like "3 Idiots", " Hello" and also an upcoming " 2 states".

Written in an autobiographical note, an IIT and IIM graduate C.B plots it very cleverly about the love affair between a Punjabi boy: Krish and a Tamil girl: Ananya who represent two different states of India: Haryana and Tamil Nadu respectively. C.B draws a perfect plot to the novel by beginning from the early friendship of the two fresher of IIMA who firstly get to know each other in college canteen. The relationship that begins with only friends leads ultimately to love relationship where the couple with the passage of time decide to take seven rounds in of fire ( to get married). And usual to C.B novel, the story flow gets more interesting as C.B describes the couple getting involved themselves in the pre-marital sex affairs in each-other dorm rooms ( I really wonder if all these happens in IIMA !! ;) )

The couple serious enough in their love relationship vow to marry and stat a really tedious task of taking their parents in to agreement for the marriage. After series of workouts full of discomforts and tensions(like Krish moving out to Chennai to befriend Ananya family, helping his "to be" brother in law with tuition classes etc) , they become to soothe both of their family for the marriage. Around this part, the novel is very much about the family affairs in India and how important it is to get families approval in-order to get married. Also the novel depicts it beautifully the contrasting views of the older generation with the new generations in terms of love-life relationships.

Beside the stuffs of love, relationship and ambitions, the novel attempts to convey a beautiful message about how India should be. The idea is depicted more clearly when Ananya gives birth to a twin and C.B mentions by saying that the babies belong to a state called "India"; ending inequality.  So as to develop a better version of India, its citizen ( esp. Youths) should rise above and beyond the narrow domestic fragments of caste, creed and state ( India first ! )

2States: Movie 

Apart of the usual moral lesson, I read this novel in order to know about the life in IIMA. (which the book reveals really less and out of what it reveals, I believe most of it is exaggerated and flawed :D ) However I like this book of C.B more than 4 previous book of him. And Yes, Can't wait for the movie revision of the same releasing this weekend( April 11, 2014).




Well this is just kind of light read. And don't expect to dig out some great lessons or morals from this novel. If You really love Bollywood romantic movies then this book might be a right pick.