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Showing posts from March, 2007

i am coming!!!

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Punctuality and Nationality

Its not easy to generalize about any behavioural habits pertaining to any specific nationality. One would have to have similar set of situation and circumstances and then measure the response of various individuals. Again sample size should be big enough to come to any meaningful conclusion. I had the opportunity to observe the punctuality pattern while I was in Oman for almost five years. I would pick up my visitors from Muscat Intercontinental. General response and action of various nationalities would be as follows : India : Let us meet around ‘twelwish ‘ meaning around 12’. This is IST – supposedly Indian standard time but I call it Indian Stretchable time. UK : Okay let us meet at 12 pm, give me a call when you are in the lobby. So he would be all ready in his room and as soon as I would give a call, he would reach within few minutes. German : He would wait in the lobby on a sofa facing the main door, as soon he would see me usher in, he would join me. Japan : He would stand outsi

Mangesh Padgaonkar

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Being brought up quintessential marathi culture associated with marathi medium schooling,marathi poetry was introduced in early school life. Often study would become miserable with boring and complicated poetry till Mr. Mangesh Padgaonkar arrived with his poems. With his use of simple words and mischevious connotation, poetry no longer became avoidable exercise. Later years when I was captiavted by various songs (Bhavgeet – songs with emotive contents) composed by Yashwant dev, Hridayanath Mangeshkar and Sriniwas Khale, I was surprised that bulk of those songs were based on the poetry were penned by Padgaonkar. Even after being away from Marathi culture over last few decades, Padgaonkar’s poetry alongwith ग. दि. माड्गुळकर्, वा.रा.कांत्, सुरेश् भट् keeps intact my umbilical mothertongue cord. His poems are amazingly simple, witty , touching, funny but immesely sensitive to touch very eseence of life’s basic premises ‘ emotions’ . His poem “ या जन्मावर् या जगण्यावर् शतदा प्रेम् करावे ” r

soweto : spiritual capital of south africa

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After getting a letter from Priest Msimangu, Stephen Kumalo starts his journey from his village town to Johannesburg in search for his missing son Absalom and during this mission, he discovers his sister Gertrude who has become prostitute, brother John – a carpenter and learn about his son Absalom murdering white fighter of racial justice Arther Jarvis who happens to be son of his neighbour. Novelist Alan Paton created these characters from social milieu of pre Apartheid regime in his novel ‘Cry the Beloved Country’. This book was prescribed as a syllabus for English subject for my intermediate science. It was beyond my reach to read this book in English – so I managed to buy Marathi translation of this book and answered my examination paper in English. Little did I know then that after so many years, like Kumalo, I would also visit the very same place and rediscover the essence of South Africa and its struggle to come out of clutches of Afrikaans speaking white rulers. In the process,