January 2008

Lohri has never been the same since last year. My toddler, Kaveri, born on Lohri is a year old and its been a great year seeing her grow up. Now she is into the crawling mode and hopefully soon will be running all around the house.

In my part of the world Lohri is followed by Makar Sakranti or the Magh. Magh is the day to savor the kichdi with loads of ghee. The day starts with a puja early morning and burning of paza leaves.

Coming back to Lohri, it was fun time in childhood asking Lohri in the neighborhood. We used to get loads of gajjak, jiggery and an occasional 5 rupee note which was then equaly distributed among the gang members.

Here is a Dulla Bhatti song.. Wonder how many guys still remember this…

Sunder mundriya..ho
Tera kaun vichara..ho
Dulla Bhatti walla..ho
Dulle ne ti viahiyi..ho
Saer Shakar payi..ho
Kudi de boje payee..ho
Shallu kaun samete..ho
Chacha galee dese..ho
Chache choori kutee..ho
Zamindaran lutee..ho
Zamindara sidaye..ho
Gin-gin pole layee..ho
Ik pola reh gaya..ho
Sipahi farh ke lei gaya..ho
Aakho mundao taana..
Mukai da dana..
Aana lei ke jana

Also postin a pic of Kaveri celebrating her first birthday.. and resting after her crawls in the lawns.

I would be taking sometime off and see you all in a weeks time. Happy Lohri everyone!

It meets Euro 4 emission norms, runs 20 Km in a litre, has passed front and side crash tests.But where will all these additional cars go? The streets of every Indian city are already at gridlock with the rickshaws, marutis, santro and goods vehicles. India needs to upgrade its infrastructure, and enforce some sort of highway code, before unleashing millions of new vehicles onto its roads.

Millions of additional cars is a tough question, yes. I don’t know the answers, but… Read the rest of this entry »

Its been a hard week at Shimla. It rained continuously for 4 days and the temprature has been freezing but still no snow. Manali, Dalhousie has been getting good snowfall. Even Kufri and Charabra near Shimla received a decent snowfall. Shimla has been not so lucky though! Today is the fifth day when we did not see any sun in the city. The weather update says snowfall during the entire week. Hell.. all predictions have gone wrong. Festival of Lohri is around the corner and if it does’nt snow till then it is going to be a bad season for apples in the middle and lower belts. Snowfall before Lohri ensures a good crop as this snow lasts till March in the orchards and acts as a manure.

Please ..  please..  weather gods… smile on  Shimla and send us snow… and mark plenty of it.

Sunday morning woke up to dark clouds hovering above Kotgarh sky. There was scent of snow in the air! The Hatu peak just across the house was all covered with snow. In the afternoon got a call from friends that they had landed in Shimla from Gurgaon and wanted me to come to Shimla. A phone call to Narkanda confirmed the traffic had shut down due to snow. It was time to take the winter route to Shimla.

I started from Kotgarh and took the horticulture road to Bitthal past Bhutti. Bhutti to Bitthal is 14 km pleasant drive across apple, cherry and baadam orchards till you touch the NH at Bitthal. Read the rest of this entry »