Melghatavaril Mohar

I recently read a marathi book named - "Melghatavaril Mohar" on the lives of Dr. Ravindra Kolhe and Dr. Smita Kolhe. It has been written by Mrunalini Chitale. I was totally engrossed with reading the book and felt very proud of Dr. Ravindra and Smita Kolhe.

They have made tribal upliftment the motto of their life. When Dr Ravindra Kolhe started nursing the poor tribals Melghat-- Maharashtra’s most malnourished area-- in 1989 the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) there was 200 per 1,000 infants. Now, it has come down to 60. His fee is just Rs 2 for the first consultation and Rs 1 for the second. Not only medical services, but they have touched upon each and every aspect of the villagers' lives, thus forming a strong mutual trust amongst them. They also faced many problems, but they converted these challenges into opportunities.

It certainly needs a lot of courage to take such kind of decision in early ages and more important to do the work with persistence and self-confidence. I really appreciate the work of Dr. Ravindra and Smita Kolhe. Everyone must read this great book and try our best to contribute our share to such noble souls.!

Zapoorza - part 2

Completed reading Zapoorza - part 2.

Again a wonderful experience reading the lives of great English/French/Russian writers/poets and their enormous work !

This book covers brief introduction to following writers and their literature work -

Honoré de Balzac, Arthur Conan Doyle, Arthur Miller, Thomas Hardy, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Brontee sisters, Gustave Flaubert,  Anton Chekhov, Virginia Woolf, Ezra Pound, D.H. Lawrence, Boris Pasternak, George Orwell, Pablo Neruda, Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco and Gabriel Marquez.

Respected Achuyt Godbole Sir, I am eagerly waiting for part 3 of this book series ! Thank you very much again !

Zapoorza - A brief overview of English/Western literture

Few days ago, I read a Marathi book written by Achyut Godbole - 'Zapoorza' - A brief introduction to English/Western Literature by terms of walking us through lives of greatest English writers and their literature summary.

There are two parts of the book, out of which I read part 1. This book very nicely covers the lives of greatest English writers in brief and interesting stories behind the birth of greatest novels /dramas/ poems.

This book includes world class writers such as William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Henrik Ibsen, Leo Tolstoy, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Franz Kafka, Ernest Hemingway,Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus.

The 2nd part of the book includes some more famous writers such as Honoré de Balzac,
Arthur Conan Doyle, Arthur Miller, Thomas Hardy, etc. to name a few.

For a person who wants to touch upon the wide variety of the English/western literature, these books are a really good choice. I am planning to read the 2nd part of this book in near future.

Thank you to Achyut Godbole for this excellent work !

Sarpass Himalayan Trek Expedition by YHAI - SP5 batch - May 2013

Sar Pass is a moderately challenging trek in the Parvati Valley of Himachal Pradesh. Situated at an altitude of 14000 ft, it can be considered as a great introduction to high altitude trekking. It is organised by YHAI every year.

I participated in this trek @ May 2013 and I must sincerely admit that it was truely an amzing experience. Sharing some wondeful snaps ...

Enjoy Trekking ! :-)

Sarpass Flowers

I did a Sarpass trek in May 2013 with YHAI (Youth Hostels Association of India). It was an awesome experience as it was my very first Himalayan Trekking expedition. Enjoyed a lot !
The Sar Pass is in Parvati Valley of Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh, a state of India.
Sar, in local dialect, means a lake. While trekking, across the path from Tila Lotni to Biskeri Ridge, one has to pass by a small, normally frozen lake (Sar) and hence the name Sar Pass Trek.

Sharing some snaps of beautiful flowers that I captured ...

Happy Nature !

Some good reads of 2013

Read some good books near the end of year 2013 - 

• Musafir - An autobiography of Shri Achyut Godbole - by Achyut Godbole
• Arthaat - History of Finance, its principles and short biographies of Finance Industry Legends. - by Achyut Godbole
• Goshtich Goshti - by Shankar Patil
• Paulvata - by Shankar Patil

Felt very good that I managed to read these books in short span of time ! 

Happy reading and welcome new year 2014 !

May God shower me with number of good books in year 2014 ! :-)

Books by Narayan Dharap

I recently purchased some Marathi books republished by Samanvay Prakashan, Ajab distributers. They have launched a very nice scheme - buy any book ranging from Rs. 100 to Rs. 600 for only Rs. 50. The purpose is to make some good old books available once again to the readers. Any one can avail this scheme till 28th February 2013.

The two books among the others that I purchased are written by Narayan Dharap :
- Dasta
- Toldhad

Excellent reads! I liked the story - 'Yakshaprashna' from 'Toldhad' book the most!  If you have some interest in horror genre, 4th dimension, parallel world, scientific fictions; you will love reading his books. Most of his stories show a battle between good and evil, with victory of good at the end!

More information on Narayan Dharap and his books - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narayan_Dharap

Enjoy reading !

Some good reads

After quite a long period, I got a chance to read some good marathi books.
Rasikaho - P.L.Deshpande
Nakoshi - Madhavi Desai
Ashi ghara... ashi manasa - Mangala Godbole

Planning to read some more in coming weekends:-)

Remember to pick yourself up & get back on your feet!

I came across a very nice story a couple of days ago. Sharing the same.

Baby giraffes never go to a business school. But they learn a very important management lesson early in life. A lesson that all of us would do well to remember.

The birth of a baby giraffe is quite an earth-shaking event. The baby falls from its mother’s womb, some eight feet above the ground. It shrivels up and lies still, too weak to move.

The mother giraffe lovingly lowers her neck to kiss the baby giraffe. And then something incredible happens. She lifts her long leg and kicks the baby giraffe, sending it flying up in the air and tumbling down on the ground.

As the baby lies curled up, the mother kicks the baby again and again. Until the baby giraffe, still trembling and tired, pushes its limbs and for the first time learns to stand on its feet. Happy to see the baby standing on its own feet, the mother giraffe comes over and gives it yet another kick. The baby giraffe falls one more time, but now quickly recovers and stands up.

Mama Giraffe is delighted. She knows that her baby has learnt an important lesson: "Never mind how hard you fall, always remember to pick yourself up and get back on your feet."

Why does the mother giraffe do this? She knows that lions and leopards love giraffe meat. So unless the baby giraffe quickly learns to stand and run with the pack – it will have no chance of survival.

Most of us though are not quite as lucky as baby giraffes. No one teaches us to stand up every time we fall. When we fail, when we are down, we just give up.

No one kicks us out of our comfort zone to remind us that to survive and succeed, we need to learn to get back on our feet.

If you study the lives of successful people though, you will see a recurring pattern. Were they always successful in all they did? No.

Did success come to them quick and easy? No, You will find that the common streak running through their lives is their ability to stand up every time they fall. The ability of the baby giraffe!

The road to success is never an easy one. There are several obstacles, and you are bound to fall sooner or later. You will hit a road block, you will taste failure. But success lies in being able to get up every time you fall.

Enjoy reading ! :-)

Bad experience with Tata photon Plus speed

A few months back, I finally cancelled my Tata Photon Plus / Tata Docomo subscription due to very low speeds that I consistently faced. If you read their advertise on http://www.tataphoton.com, it says :-

Tata Photon Plus is a High Speed Internet Access Service (HSIA) in the form of a USB Modem offered by Tata Teleservices Ltd. The speeds offered are
        Up to 3.1 Mbps (Downlink)
        Up to 1.8 Mbps (Uplink)

Allured by the high speed numbers, I subscribed to their USB Modem Tata Photon Plus postpaid plan and since then my journey onto the internet had been drastically slow. The speeds were so pathetic (0.10 Mbps to 0.25 Mbps Downlink) that opening any page during any time of the day would take 30-90 secs. Watching videos with this speed was a nightmare.

On complaint, one of the Tata Indicom engineers visited my home and checked my network settings, machine configuration and found those to be up to the mark. Then he told that there might be a network issue with Malad West tower and they were getting many complaints regarding the speed/connectivity. Finally I got a call which stated that we could not resolve this issue unless and until we launch a new site (may be a new tower nearby) in the area.

My concern was why was then issued a connection if it was not going to serve at least half of the advertised speed and why should I pay their highly charged postpaid bills. I continuously followed up with the customer care team and was really frustrated with the replies that I received. Here are some of the replies :-

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We would like to inform you that we have verified your screen shot and found that you are getting average speed of 256kbps and there is no speed issue.
Please be informed that if you are facing slow speed issue which is less than the average speed i.e.256kbps kindly revert us back which will help us for further proceedings.
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We would like to inform you that Photon Plus connection provides speed up to 3.1 Mbps. However, the actual connection & browsing speed depends on a variety of factor such as,

1. Number of simultaneous Photon Plus users in your area,
2. Time of the day internet is accessed
3. Webpage accessed
4. Speed of processor
5. Virus & Malware presence in the back ground
6. Size of RAM

Thus, in most real-world situations, you can expect average speeds of 256-600 Kbps (Kilo bits per Second)”

FYI - my machine configuration was one of the best - 6 GB RAM,  Intel i5 Dual Core 2.4 GHz, 64-bit OS

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We request you to bear with us interim and you will be duly intimated about the resolution for newly site plan.
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I wish I could have posted the entire email chain, but I think the above replies are sufficient to judge their service and advertisement.

So please DO NOT trust their Advertising speeds. You have every right to ask them questions! Verify the actual upload and download speeds with http://speedtest.net/  -> Click 'Begin Test'