Trip Memories

Activities- adventurous, semi-adventurous and non-adventurous-loves of life:P
(All are loved by me just the same, but are listed in chronological order)

1) Street luge-Sentosa-Singapore.

Go-karting lets you drive in circles and dashing car doesn't really move too far....but yes, luge lets you drive down a road, surrounded by tropical Singaporean trees! Heaven! You just pull the gear in front to move, and back to stop. I sat on the car, pulled the gear and just mooooooveeeeeeeeed!! And the thrill of relaxing and driving, overtaking, speeding down at the slope turnings(preparing myself for the Great Indian Driving Test-lol) and the experience is just so fabulous. Head to Singapore if you are planning a trip and explore more! Bonus: Great South Indian pure vegetarian restaurants too!

2)Cable Car-Genting

The cable car had been discontinued for three months but the day we went....it was operational once again!!!!!!!!!!! It is the longest in SE Asia! It was a delightful experience!! Tropical-temperate forests right outout of geography books surrounding you...and standing in the cable-car in front of the fully transparent windown- breathtaking! Who says you need wings to fly?! Genting has the most amazing weather. Sun shining down one minute, fog enveloping the trees the next. What more can you say seeing tropical forests one minute and pine and cedar the next! And the fog enveloping the beautiful pines and poplars! And a theme park? Truly amazing, and as Malaysia says, truly Asia!!

3) Parasailing

They stamp 'two dips' onto your palm(though I really wanted to just get over the stamping and go parasailing, so I didn't pay attention to the stamps!) and strap an uninflated parachute around your body. Then they tell you take three steps: a one, a two and a......a.......three!! You take off and then you are in the water again, right below, for a split second and then you just take off! he parachute inflates and you find yourself in the middle of the Pattaya beach! Only at a great height above the middle spot on the beach! Then after experiencing true 'atmosphere', you are propelled down again, and your legs are skimmed by water, and then you are experiencing a'tmosphere(not a punctutation mistake, it does look nice when spelled that way) again! After some atmosphere breathing, you are coming down again, and your photograph is being clicked! I smiled a hearty smile and then realized that they had clicked a pic of you while the parachute was being strapped on....and I was smiling in that too! Guess I wasn't too scared! And whenever you are scared, just transfer the energy into thrill! And we enjoy thrill when we are a little scared! (that untransformed energy of being scared)!! Parasailing is just 'beyond land, beyond ocean, and beyond yourself!'

4) Undersea Walk

Okay, I was 100% calm before this. Been there, done that (parasailing)....after exploring the atmospheric air, we were now going down, to where the fish/jellyfish/crustaceans/anemones/crabs/horseshoe carbs/octopuses lived. How can I forget, those beautiful plankton and phytoplankton! Corals! I went in first, and the helmet with an oxygen cylinder is gently put on your head, you climb down the ladder, and its bye-bye human habitation! Your ears feel uncomfortable, but yes, that is the way some of us feel while we're in an aircraft! After 15 seconds, you slowly get accustomed, and you begin exploring ocean world! And they take your photo too! I lay my hands on whatever I could find, corals, fish, anemones...the list goes on! After half and hour of fun, I climbed the ladded again and came to the boat! The sad part is when we go down to the ocean world, we are assured of a safe return! When the fish visit human habitation, they are killed and cooked! How unfair! Are we ruling the Earth because of our technical capabilities? Compared to the weaver bird, who has no formal education in architecture, and builds a nest keeping in mind climatic conditions and has all comforts compared to that of a modern home, in miniature form, are we really that great? I'm way off the topic, but yes, let us face it, and accept it, vegetarianism is the way too go! Your stomach is not a burial ground, mind you!

5) Banana boat

Banana boat is just a long colourful boat with black straps. We sit on it, and we are asked, ' Adventure or non-adventure'...and the answer to it is the former! We just sit comfortably as the speed ofthe boat changes frequently, alternating from slow to fast! Then, when we are nearing the shore, the boat topples and its 'all-fall-down!'. The best part is that we did not know this was the adventure! And, just for a split second, I thought it was my fault for having fallen down!

6) Scooter boat

Dhoom 1: I just sit on the scooter boat and it is driven by the scooter boatman. He takes it at 40 kmph and its 'dhoom machale' all the way! He then asks me, 'Do you want to hold the handles and drive it yourself? I say yes and I drive it at 30 kmph and in water, that seems like a hundred. The sun, sand, sea, water, scooter boat and me! I was sooooo thrilled and I am thrilled even thinking about it!

Dhoom 2: I'm on the scooter boat again, as a joyride passenger as well as the scooter boat person! I accompany a small kid and ask him, 'Slow of fast?'. In typical kiddie innocence he answered 'fast'. (The actual scooter boat person was there too). I started clasping the handles rightly, revved up, and sped! From my previous 30 to 40 to 50 to 55 to 60!! Yes, and now I was singing, 'Dhoom Machale'! And this, yes, this, is ultimate joy!! One of the happiest moments of my life! Then the kid tells me, 'Slow please'. I told him that he had asked for it, but I slowed down too. Then I asked again, 'Slow/fast?' He said 'slow'but I still sped on. And both us of were singing, 'Dhoom Machale!' At the end of speeding and revving, the kid wanted a photo with the Formula 1 Scooter Boat Winner of the Year! I gladly posed, and however dramatic all this may seem, the experience was blissful! It was just gggggggggggrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaattttttttttt!!

6) Dashing car on water

We were on dashing cars, knocking each other's car in the water.....racing and speeding!! Good fun, totally brand new experience!

7)Disneyland(Hong Kong)
If I start, I just cannot end. Caramel popcorn and cotton candy aside, Disneyland is the best place in the whole Universe. And I seriously mean it. I just looooovvvvveeeeee Disneyland! And my pics with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Donald Duck!

8)Madame Tussauds(HK)

Wax figurines of the whos-who....and of Madame Marie Tussaud's too!! Clicking pics is the best part there!



All in all, all in all, HK, Macau(a place like none other in the world, except Las Vegas, and unlike 99.99% of cities, it is active by night! My lovely owl city! And Macau by day and by night is unrecognizable, it just feels like you're in two different cities), Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are just great! Asia rocks!!!!!!!!!! Thanks to my parents who made this trip possible!!

1)What is the soul? 2)What is social acceptance?

I don't want to get philosophical or preachy right now, but there is a saying in the upanishads(okay, I just know three stories/incidents from them, and have read them not in Sanskrit, but in English) which has really struck a chord in my heart. Of all the motivating quotes we hear, such as 'My day will be great', 'life is a mixed bag' etc. only some will actually serve the purpose. But(and according to me there is nothing wrong in beginning a sentence with but) sayings/anecdotes not superficially meant to inspire you are the golden gems you will carry with through life. Most of us stil remember the way the 'thirsty crow' drank water. We remember the way we have traversed through the jungles where Kalia stayed to the kingdom of Vikramaditya. After crossing the 'fairytale' stage, we remember things such as Yama's questions to Yudhishtira, Birbal and Tenali Rama's wit and humour. Some of us may have read 'Tales from the Upanishads of the Amar Chitra Katha series. Coming back to the point from the upanishads, what really is the soul?

Take a walnut or any fairly large-sized seed. Break it open. What is inside the seed apart from the hard outer covering? There is just 'nothing'. There is that same nothing inside mangoes and grapes and apples. Why is in then that one mango is different from another? Take anything breakable for that matter. A glass broken will yield glass pieces. What is inside them? Millions of protons, neutrons and electrons swimming within them. What is inside the proton? Eventually, they all are made up of the same thing-'that nothing'. The same way, the human soul cannot be seen, but it is that 'nothing'. In some great humans, their soul is visible through their actions. The 'nothing' manifests itself externally. Though this is explained in the Upanishads as a way to reach the 'Supreme Brahman', in today's life, though it may not visibly say' life is great', it does, in some way say that life has to be purposeful. This nothing is the soul. The all-pervading soul. When anyone reads about the Upanishads, they will feel it is 'dry'. Even I did at first. But when you consciously try to understand thehidden meaning, it fills your heart with some new meaning. It gives a new direction to your life. Honestly, let us admit it, apart from claims of saying that religion is 'dry' and that life consists of only 'Shopping, hanging out, eating, chilling', we do return to these great texts some time in life. There is just a perception that reading anything about religion and spirituality written by our great Vedic scholars is 'uncool'. Who decides on the coolness meter of a human being? Nobody knows. We do not want to turn to Indian spirituality for wisdom and guidance. But, the manjority of people go around proclaiming that they read 'The Secret' and 'Beyond the Secret' and 'The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari' with pride because that will give them social acceptance and status. What does 'Secret' actually say? It says one thing in three hundred pages, that you will obtain whatever you want by dreaming about it and really wanting it. Nothing against 'Secret', but Bhagavad Gita says three hundred things in one page. Each verse has a different meaning. People don't even read the Bhagavad Gita translated into English. Why this treatment to anything Indian? We think yoga is 'uncool'. We think 'pilates and cardio' is the way to go.nobody wishes to learn Bharatanatyam/Kathak/Kuchipudi. Jazz and salsa are the rage. Nobody wants to learn Indian classical music. It is 'western music' these days. Violins,santoors and mridangams are considered passe. Its about strumming the guitar in front of all the crooning girls. Personally I feel aiming for social acceptance is passe and being something you aren't is passe. When people try singing English songs in that American accent, it makes them look like a 'person in the middle of the Indian and the Atlantic Ocean.' Going Western is not some credible thing people are doing. It makes them look and seem foolish. Let us proudly say that we have read the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Let us sing Indian classical music and play the violin and dance the bharatanatyam. Deep down, we all are Indian. That 'nothing-ness' in ourselves is the Indian essence. Let us show it to the world.



'Because the lives we lead and the paths we tread
are the joys that we find,
Because the thoughts we have and emotions we feel
are mirrors of our mind.

Teenage Reading

I have an addiction, if I may say so, towards the 'Baby Sitters Club' books. Bad start, ugh. My heart rests(too formal), I looooove(too informal), I really love(just perfect) these books by Ann M. Martin. I have over forty of them, thanks to my parents. For girls, and guys too, this book really provides a lowdown on an American teenager's life. There are five girls aged 13 who are part of the BSC (Baby Sitters Club) and they are excellent sitters, great friends and share a wonderful camaraderie with each other. Kristy, Claudia, Mary Anne, Stacey and Dawn are the five girls who do have problems and tide over them in a perfectly normal way. Problems they face (ofcourse not all of them have all these problems) range from adjustment after divorce, diabetes, low grades in school, a single parent and division of families. Two other girls, Mallory and Jessi, aged 11, also are part of this great club. Mallory has seven siblings, yeah, seven and Jessi is Afro-American. She has to deal with racism. Ofcourse, they do have their 'crushes', some steady, and some not steady. They enjoy their life in Stoneybrook, a fairly small town, very unlike major metro cities. The contentment is remarkable. No ambitiousness or slogging away at school (though slogging away at school does give you large returns later), and great respect and love for each other. There are 131 books, from each member's point of view. Kristy has an adorable adopted sister, and two cute stepsiblings, Mary Anne has Logan (her boyfriend) and Tigger, her cute cat, Claud is super stylish and innovative and is great at art, Stacey is the 'NYC' girl, who copes with her diabetes positively and Dawn is the veggie environmentalist, who is really 'California' at heart. (Well, she is from Cali.) Mallory draws and writes well (though having seven siblings is really a bit too much, and I always sympathize with Mal for having to babysit them most of the time). Jessi is a really talented ballet dancer who has danced in lead productions and is great at languages. Logan(an associate member, also MA's boyfriend) is a complete jock who is great at all sports, and looks like Cam Geary to Mary Anne. MA looooves Cam Geary, so you get the picture. Shannon, the associate member, is totally into studies and extra-curriculars (sort of like me) and Abby, the member who appears in #Book 90, is also totally athletic(like Kristy) and is asthmatic. All of them are so different and unique, and thats what makes reading a great pleasure. There are minus points though, but they are 'minus', so just leave them. The plus points are just too many. Its really a part-reflection of your life, and the feelings we all have had. Feelings towards everything, like school, friends, activities, choices, decisions, health and love. Grab a book, hope that it is raining outside, make yourself a cup of creamy, frothy coffee or hot chocolate, cuddle up with your quilt, or just sit on a rocking chair, and transport yourself to the heaven of reading!! (Re-reading, Re-Re-Reading will definitely follow. Just ask me!) Savour them. You will really learn a lot. (Not in the truest academic sense, but it does make you wordly wise.) Ofcourse we read other books, but let me assure you, the BSC will be really intertwined with your heart and life. (Am I going too overboard? I really, really looooove the books!) All thanks to my school library who introduced me to them. Your next destination: bookstore and then Mocha, CCD or Barista, for that irreplaceable coffee!! Enjoy reading!!

Environment Article

I wrote this article when I was 14. It was published in the Me Magazine, which comes along with the DNA newspaper on Sundays. Hope you like it.
Sarayu Satish, 14. Student, St Gregorios High School, Chembur
I have always wanted to do my bit for the environment. I have a few ideas: Many of us want to save our environment, but do not know where to start. With your immediate environment, I’d say. There is a famous saying: “We have not inherited the Earth from our forefathers, but are borrowing it from our grand-children.” Saving the environment is our duty and responsibility. I bought new white-board markers that are free of xylene and toluene. Every time we open our markers we release these harmful gases in the air. Like whiteners, you can switch to eco-friendly appliances, which are free of chlorofluorocarbons. Some refrigerators are CFC, HCFC and HFC free. Plastics below
20 microns take millions of years to decompose. The Government has issued a ban to curb the production of these plastic covers; but many shopkeepers still pack vegetables and fruits in these bags. We can refuse to take them. We hear about compost pits, wet and dry garbage, recycling, etc, but rarely make the effort. Buy notebooks made of recycled or eco-friendly paper. These papers are made from bagasse (leftover sugarcane pulp). We can print many pictures in a single paper by copy-pasting them Use napkins instead of tissue papers. Re-use the water used for washing vegetables and fruits to water the plants or wash the cars. Lessen Mumbai’s sweltering and unbearable heat by planting more trees. Let us join hands and pledge to serve the environment, which has indeed given us a lot. Together we can make a difference!

Smile!!

Their quotes and my sayings

These are some really really 'awesome' quotes. Sure to inspire.
Great works are done when one is not calculating and thinking." Daisetz T. Suzuki

"Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then, by God, do something. Don't just stand there, make something happen." Lee Iacocca


"If a man or woman is born ten years sooner or later, their whole aspect and performance shall be different." Johan Wolfgang Von Goethe


"An acre of performance is worth a whole world of promise." William Dean Howells


You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand." Woodrow Wilson


You must get good at one of two things;planting in the spring or begging in the fall. Jim Rohn

"It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks about it, but few have seen it."

These quotes definitely inspire. Think practically, though. Inspirational talks, motivational speakers, life enrichment courses and whatnot....do they actually determine how we act and behave in daily life, for example, taking a decision? Yes, we all know that failure is the stepping stone to success, life is full of ups and downs, failure is a greater teacher than success, life should be meaningful and all that....but actually, how many of us feel that failure is God's gift? None of us do. Frankly speaking, all these quotes and proverbs momentarily inspire you, but which is the catalyst, always with you, emanating good energy? I guess its different for different people. 98% of them don't have catalysts, or they just take life as it comes. Whenever we are sad, or depressed, do these 'talks' actually help us? We just get over it in some time. Reading inspirational stuff for a very long time helps, like stocking armour and artillery before a war. Something like an anticipatory bail. The comparison is good, right? Its funny, but a lot, yeah, a lot of us read solace giving stuff, but when we are angry, poof! We fret and fume. Normal. One quote, just one quote is embedded deep into everyone's minds. Time is the healer.

School To College

The proverbial first day at college:

1)No canteen visits.......because apparently there was a chance of us getting ragged!! (Why did they ask us to leave our bags behind? Did they think we'd just walk out of the college premises? Go figure who is 'they'. Anyway, we respect them, so leave it. I don't think anyone would just walk out on the first day, but then, there is a girl who speaks: Two days over, and I have not bunked a single lecture? Hell, it is seriously 'uncool' and dumb to bunk lectures in the first two days at least)
2) Yawns during maths (10 people). Happily solving logs (70 people). OK, make that 20 and 60. The snooooze-alarm ones were just not getting exponents, and the I'm-happy-solving-logs group was so thrilled. Guess which group I was in. If you guess the HSL group, you're right.
3) Triple yawns and people drowsily staring at the blackboard. (Yeah, economics. It's not thaaat bad also)
4) Accounts/Book keeping. Total fun. Awesome prof. Explained sensex( sensitive index), bullion, NASDAQ, RBI stuff damn well.
5) Needless to mention, transferring songs through Bluetooth, exchanging numbers, gossip....all that.
6) Great extra-curriculars.
Yeah, its time for everyone (above 15 below 17) to tune into the only frequency whose beat rocks!!- College!!)

D K Pattammal

I'm sure we all remember Michael Jackson's death splashed across the whole newspaper for days on end. Everyone seemed to be mouthing words of sadness and people seemed to be carrying banners, out here, in India. Just imagine America. While there is really nothing wrong calling him a legend, a superstar, an icon, a gift to the world and all that, I'm sure only some of us know that the iconic singer D.K. Pattammal, passed away on 21st July. Agreed, MJ was popular and he had an outstanding fan following, D.K. Pattammal, Nithyashree's grandmother, was born to an orthodox Brahmin family in Kanchipuram, near Chennai. She was 90 when she passed away, due to arthritis. Those were the days when only Devdasi women used to sing. Brahmin women had to sing from behind a curtain. Despite all those setbacks, she made a niche in the world of music. She was the first one to delve into the 'Ragam-Tanam-Pallavi' concept, which was monopolized by men. Ragam-Tanam-Pallavi implies that an aalap is sung in detail before the actual rendition of the song. (An aalap is the extension of a particular tune, stretching as 'aaaaaa', for the uninitiated) She popularized the pallavi (the commencement of the words of the song) among women. She never sang love ballads. She was a freedom fighter, who sang Subramanya Bharati's songs. 'Aaduvome' and 'Parukulley Nalla Naadu' was sung by her in 1947. Her timeless numbers are listened to even till today. She was one among the trinity of the first women singers, the others being M.L. Vasantha Kumari (Sudha Raghunathan's guru, who named her daughter MaLaViKa, after the initials of her guru's name) and M.S. SubbuLakshmi. Not only was D.K. Pattammal a great singer, but also an empowered woman. It is indeed shocking and saddening that for a legend of her stature, who contributed towards the country's independence, one prominent daily gives her just one-eighth of a page, and the other doesn't mention her death at all. I really dislike to call it death, because she will continue to live in music lovers' hearts. I wish newspapers respected this great lady by atleast giving her a front-page coverage, for not only did she sing, she started the tradition of being a women singer. It is for people like her that I feel proud to learn Carnatic music, and I'm sure all the connoisseurs of music will agree to this. Torchbearers like Ishwar Chandra VidyaSagar and John Drinkwater Bethume laid the foundation for education being imparted to women, way back in 1843. The same way, the last of the trinity of the greatest of women singers, has illuminated the path for women singers. Whether it may be pursuing a career in Carnatic music, or just singing as a hobby, women singers have to thank the Trinity. Even after her death, she will continue to live on in our hearts, for believing in equality, patriotism, principles and most importantly, her divine music. Moments like this we realize the merits of being a proud Indian. Cheers!!