Bringing God home…

This time none of my brothers were here on Ganesh chaturthi (missing them all)so I was to bring Ganesha home :). It’s a different feeling when Ganpati is at home. All members get together at the morning and dusk time to do all the puja and aarti. It’s a different environment in home after the puja is done….the aroma of agarbattis and kaapur all around gives me a feeling of peacefulness.
This time I will pray to God………no demands this time God... I will pray because I have faith in u…I will pray because I want to tell u that I respect u despite of the fact that I loathe getting up and lighting up the niraanjan in the evening everyday, but does that mean I am an atheist? No! Am not! I do believe that there is some superpower which controls everything that happens. There has to be someone who makes all the gearshifts. I believe that that someone is Him. And He is only one. If different religions say they all have different Gods and that their life is controlled by different hegemonic powers they are all wrong. There is only one supremacy. Give him any hypothetical name like we give names to different variables while solving linear equations in maths! The numeric value of the answer will remain the same no matter what name you give to the variable while solving……likewise no matter what name u give to Him,he will remain the same. Call Him Allah, Jesus, Ram, or whatever you want. Just believe in Him and do not create a fuss and discrimination on this basis. If sometime I come up with the idea that I believe my God is some arbit xyz ,would that mean I have a different religion? Harmony and integrity is one thing I wish to ascertain. Anyway this time i I have promised that I wont ask Him for something so I will try to find an answer to it myself :). I surely will. Till then keep bellowing…Ganpati bappa..MORYA…mangal murti MORYA.

A Dossier On My First Ever Trek…

I read about a trek being organized by this reputed government organization called ‘Youth Hostel’ in the daily news-paper(the best part is it runs on a ‘no profit no loss’ term). The trekking troop was to explore the mountains of Amargarh(an undiscovered yet a beautiful locale). The idea of trekking and roaming around in woods has always enthralled me. So I decided to go. None of my friends agreed to come along inspite of my beseeching and all. So I was kind of thinking if I would enjoy it. But I did enjoy it a lot. All I had to do was to get the membership card(membership fees is Rs 50 only!!that’s nominal man)and the amount to be paid for the trek was Rs 150….they provided us breakfast and snacks and lunch and chocolates everything. I had the list of things…a raincoat(it was rainy that day)[no one except me was carrying it though!] and a two liter water bottle and that’s that. But for my own sake, I took my camera(forgot the role at home…sheee), my mouth organ and my sketch book with me. Not that I don’t regret lugging it all. Afterall, it was a TREK!! Still I did pertinently use it when came the resting time;)
So! I started at 7 in the morning, reached Youth Hostel. Met ,as you may call it, my journey-mates. I unfortunately talked to two Sindhi girls first who I could neither chuck out nor could bear with their silly talks (uufff) only because they showed me care and were actually being kind to me : ). We waited there for some time then had our breakfast. By this time the ramshackle bus was ready to go…so was the group.
From Youth Hostel to Amargarh its about 55 km I guess. Took us little sometime to reach there. Got down where our trek started. Before that we were given our food packets…so I had to carry that too in addition to all the useless stuff I already had with me.
Walking in the forest was such a feeling. We walked until we saw a bantam waterfall. Crossing it was a bit..only a bit difficult but quite enjoyable. After crossing it sat on a rock where I sketched something and also played mouth organ on demand :D. Soon we were made to get up and move by the organizer Mr. Sanjay Madhup and we with a mixed feeling of lassitude and enthusiasm, were on the track again. Here came the difficult part of the trek. The precipitous mountain slopes seemed never-ending. But the pain my legs and shoulders suffered was frivolous as the mesmeric natural beauty was all I could see and feel within. We walked on and on till the time we reached the spot where we had food. This was exquisite beauty of nature. Waterfall….ahh! I still can see it before my eyes. Whole of the group was sitting absolutely unperturbed by any worldly issue. For a moment I felt as if I were a holy woman…oopssss! girl :P. I enjoyed every single moment spent there. Then after we were in a transit between the mountains and a small village where I played with goat kids and calves (they are so very cute!!!!!). I just love animals.
It definitely was tiring but when I saw the poorly maintained road with the bus standing all set to take us back home…I felt even more spirited and also excited to get back home and tell Aaie about it. She is a true nature lover.
We were again in the bus…this time all exhausted. Still had the longing to play the amusing game of ‘Antakshari’. Each one of us enjoyed that. We were so engrossed in singing those ‘didi tera devar deewana’ typo songs that we could not even know we were back to the place where the trek had started.
Time to say goodbye to the sweet and enthusiast group. Took an auto-rikshaw paid him Rs 20 after a lot of haggling. He dropped me home…and yeah here I am again vivacious and waiting to get another such opportunity :)