Avalokana - A retrospect

All, have a blast this new-year’s day and achieve wonders thru the coming year :).

2006 was really an eventful year for me.

I have to categorize the year based on three different aspects... Personal, Friends and Family.

On Personal grounds, it was fabulous. I experienced Bellari (Hampi) summer, a monsoon trek in Agumbe and Sringeri, a winter trek at Sharavati valley.
Here and there, I did a Hyderabad, Davanagere, Gorur and Mysore trips. Had been on a few short bike rides too. In all, it was personally a fantastic tour-filled year for me personally. Also, this is the year I was introduced to the world of blogging and I started my own blog. I can’t write more about it. I re-started my music classes and visited a few places where my visit mattered to a certain extent (About it sometimes later).

My friends.. The year where my friend circle grew, just from my school friends, college friends, hostel friends, now I have a very intellectual MB friends!! Meeting them all had been a fantastic and thrilling thing I experienced in 2006. Ranganathittu trip was an added feather to it :)
Apart from it, a few of my friends got married this year. Two got engaged and three got married in the same calendar year. And I attended all of them, so, cant ask for more, isn’t it. It was a wonderfully threaded(!) year for my friends. Also, how can I not mention about those wonderful gifts a few of my friends got in the form of babies. Yes, a few became proud parents.

For my family, it was a fabulous year, we had our own house constructed and shifted there in Feb2006! we shifted off from our native to Bangalore, our scattered family in re-union! We had a family trip to a mutt called Swarnavalli near Sirsi in 2006 for one uncle's Shashtyabdi. It was a fantastic experience again.

2006 had its lowly moments for me as well. My father met with a small accident and had to undergo a surgery. That ended being strenuous and pressure some period for us.

It had another ugly face, my Dodamma succumbing to the deadly diabetic related ill ness. She was a wonderful musician and it is an unfortunate thing for us to lose her.

In all, 2006 had its share of good, bad and ugly moments for me. It also had better and best moments.

So, I must rate this year among one of the best ones for me, considering all the fun and events.

Happy new year!!

Indian reply..."TIT FOR TAT" with a difference!!

This is Sreesanth, of India, responding to Andre (the Giant) Nel of South Africa by scoring a six.

Disclaimer :
I try very hard to be away from cricket, not to watch it, not to talk about it and not to discuss about it. But, I admit that I fail very miserably, like this.
So... forget about all those said in many of the previous posts, or may be thats how a fan behaves at glory and at lowly times. :-)

Whatever it is, the moment, displayed above, has brought out loud laughters in all the Indian cricket fans, and also a sort of relief and pride. And I guess you guys agree with me. This picture will be etched for a long time to come in the minds of Indian cricket followers.

Hearty congratulations to our cricket team on their wonderful, historic victory on the South African soil.

Iqbal Part II

A poor family..

All it needed was Roti kapda makaan.....

Family shifted to PUOUKKOTTAI in search of the same.

Father started to work as a brick slain worker in some construction company…

Mother working as a maid in some household….

Family was blessed with a daughter…..And the family cursed God for giving her a girl….

They all ate ganji..(last resort of a food, prepared by water and a little bit of salt and rice grams)

They couldn’t afford to get her to the school…….

A few athletes spot the child and coach her to run fast and smart….

She learns to run and wins hearts…..

She wins at state level national level events…

Selected to represent the country at international level…

Wins a place in finals at Asian games 800 mts running….

Steps back for the lack of sponsores….

Some brave hearts from home town sponsor for her practice and her track suits…

Steps in for the country with renewed hope and aspirations………

Secures second place, beating a whole lot of acclaimed international athletes……..

And thus starts the career of one of the up-coming Indian athletes..
A girl from a poor background making it big at an inter-national compitition of huge importance………

One word that can sum-up the story… : INCREDIBLE!!
And this lady is 25 year old SOUNDARAJAN SANTI.

She has made India proud with her brilliant performance.

Her brief profile is here :

Name SOUNDARAJAN Santhi
Country India
Date of Birth 17 APR 1981
Gender Female
Height 161cm Weight 54kg
Discipline Athletics
Residence PUOUKKOTTAI


And why am I telling you this story??
Yes, its the way India glows and its the way Indians par!!
Everyone can become Santi and every child in India has that zeal in him to make India proud.
And it shows India has something outside cricket

UPDATE :
Shanti failed the gender test. This is a highly disgracing and emberrasing news that one can hear. At once I thought of deleting the post, but finally decided to keep it as I feel this would be a good lesson to others practicing such. This might be a story of other Shanti who really achieved glory. Let me keep the post and all the comments. Thanks to everyone for dropping by the post.

A stranger that was not

She was a total stranger before I got in to the bus, but during that hour long journey, she became my closest friend, my sweetheart.

I dont know where she lives now, but I will always have this picture as a reminder of that beautiful moment.

I also gifted her a red rose ;)

She smiled as I entered the bus, then I requested her to sit with me for the rest of the journey and she did. She talked to me so many things, half of which I did not understand, and half of which her expression alone explained me.

However, I don't know why I am writing it here, or why should I share it with you people, but I couldnt resist when I was having a look at the picture I took with her.

So... here is her picture!!

MukthabaLaga!!

Now, people..!
You know, I know..and all the frequenters at Mukthabalaga know about the screen above. Due to some bug in some code of wordpress plugin, sanjay's blog behaves weird sometimes.

And you know..we being so much addicted to it, have no option but to get frustrated looking at it, curse it and click on refresh with a ray of hope.
We are, by now, almost used to all the Hmmmmms.....Grrrrrrrrrs etc... with this weird screen.

I, as always, had a weird thought of making this screen my next blog item, and here it is... :)

And one more thing...If u get that screen again on mukthabalaga, feel free to come here and continue with the wonderful discussion that is going on. This is also wrt some of the members suggesting one of the other bloggers having a back-up page somewhere so that no one needs to feel lost in the hucks of hues or wherever...