Pune-Aurangabad Road can be a pretty long road....

Well,
My cousins have a shop on Pune-Aurangabad road next to the RTO in Ahmednagar and i was sitting there on a boring day when a person from a place near Shirur (atleast 60 kilometres away) walked into the shop and asked about Stree Aadhar Kendra. His sister faced harrassment problems and he wanted to contact Neelam Gorhe of Stree Aadhar Kendra in regards to the same. The only landmark he knew was that there was a Stree Aadhar Kendra somewhere on Pune-Aurangabad road. Luckily, he came to the right place. A Tyre retail showroom which has internet on the office computer and a helpful person. My anguish is at the fact that he wasted so much energy, money and time looking for Stree Aadhar Kendra. Why can't every Panchayat have a computer with internet as a "Samaj Mahiti Seva" for those not familiar with the utility/value/worth of the same? A lot of problems can be solved and a lot of people can be helped thus. I found the Pune/Mumbai addresses and telephone numbers alongwith a home telephone number of Neelam Gorhe and address and the whole gamut of info. All i want to say is that this poor peasant from a rural area walked in to this shop with only Pune-Aurangabad road as a landmark. And as you all know...Pune-Aurangabad is a pretty long road.

Wikipedia: Ahmednagar

I don't know how many of you know about Wikipedia. It's an encyclopedia that is free and one that anyone can edit and is the biggest multilingual open access encyclopedia on the internet.
Ahmednagar is what we are concerned about. And here are the basics that you should know while adding and editing stuff about Ahmednagar or rather any other district in India. I would highly suggest comparing pages from other districts like Mumbai and Delhi. I am going to do some contribution and see how i can be useful in updating Ahmednagar in Wikipedia. When are you beginning?

Damu the lord of freestyle fights

Damodar Bose Kambalath. Can be dangerous if you are not careful with this dynamite of a kid. 10 kilos at weigh-in.

Peacock sessions and soccer practice

Come to our football ground at 7.00 am in the morning and you can see people squatting around and dropping fresh peacocks. But that’s a problem we have had to face in this makeshift soccer ground. Our earlier ground was sold by its owner for a huge lumpsum and its new owners had the grounds tilled to make playing any kind of soccer, a hopeless case. One thing that I cannot seem to understand is how can people, of such a so-called great culture, not have a toilet/bathroom culture. How can people shit in open spaces? I have never ever seen anything like this in Kerala. People do not have that mentality there. In Kerala one cannot even imagine such a thing happening. However, here we have to carry a spade to our football ground to put loose soil over the peacocks that we notice on the grounds on most mornings. Pre-dawn session of peacock dropping by people who do not have a toilet they want to go to. Sometimes it seems like people have done hop, skip and jump while shitting. The fresh peacocks can be distinguished from the not so fresh ones when the dry soil is put over it. If the soil gets a wet look you know that a lot of covering would be needed. The ground is surrounded by people crapping late into the mornings. My cousin Biju wished he had an airgun to puncture a few asses while they were at it, dropping peacocks. We do hope that slowly these people will find better places for their act and certainly not encouraged by the fact that they can watch a game of football during the peacock session. We have started coming here early to stop the squatters but we cannot prevent the squatter-in-the-dark of the pre-dawn sessions from mistaking our ground for his WC.

• 'peacocks' is the only specialized word that requires a definition in this context. When in school, the senior students would be taken for a three day trek at Sinhagad mountain and it's traverseries. They would all be talking about how they would have to confront peacocks if we started trekking from the village side of the mountain. I was eager about the whole trip and about actually "confronting" the peacocks. Me, having joined the boarding school in 8th Standard didn't really know, until i heard the guys saying "beware of the peacocks, here they come" that what they meant the whole time by 'peacocks' was shit.

Making cakes...eating cakes

I dont know whats wrong with the women in the house here in Nagar. Everybody's making cakes and i got to finish them off. Two of my cousins got married to women named Smitha. There is already a third Smitha at our neighbours place. It's like Smith in Matrix. Anywhere you look around and all that you see is another Smitha. And every once in a while they go into an experimental cooking frenzy. What with me as the poor Neo representing people of this world. To save the world i've got to eat undercooked banana cakes. Over cooked papaya cakes. Microwaved cakes that's full of crust and more like a cookie. Cakes with so much orange essence that it's nauseating. And they are making them everyday. It's in my character. I don't allow food to go waste. One might think that's why i am overweight. Nope. There are certain cakes that i do avoid. Ones that have been grilled and so tough that the dates put in the cake seem like some kinda tough chewing gum and the cake itself is fit for throwing on someone to break their neck. More of a brick with burnt cashew-nuts than a cake.The other day we were in the bookshop and one Smitha asked me to buy a book on pudding. Hehehe.. like the hangman asking which rope do you want to be hung from? Luckily for me i said i will select a good book on pudding and managed to stay out of sight until we got out of the bookshop. That saves me from an onslaught of pudding. For now. Sometimes i do think my stomach's much smarter than me cause i never had a stomach upset from this kinda gastronomical adventure. However the moral of the story seems. "Where there is Go-oh-pal there is a new recipe, by the way."

Playing soccer in Nagar

I have been playing soccer for the past one year but have not been able to go beyond the basics. Let's see what my basic difficulties are. I can't run quick. When i run, it seems that i'm in slow motion while others are in play mode. I also have a problem with flexibility and that affects my reflexes. That puts going ahead with the ball and dribbling per se beyond me. I'm pretty good at timing a run while defending and also good at bulldozing other opponents. The stopping part after a burst of (slow motion) sprint is also a problem. I follow the captain's orders and fill in the gaps well. It's better if i got myself fitter but lazy that i am, i barely manage a four round run (in slow motion) round a sevens football ground. I think i'll be better. Being able to play soccer this regularly is a blessing but this blessing has other sacrifices taking its toll on me. I hope i can find a balance. While running in football and in life too.

Thought flies...like a kite

One day you cannot miss being in Ahmednagar. Makar Sankranti is kite flying day for us. Bagadpatti area had a thousand kites in the air. We bought ourselves 12 kites and 1350metres of thread on a Chakri {Thread Roller}. Good thread costs 180 rupees for 900 metres. Kite flying is dependant on 50% the quality of the thread and 30% luck and 20% skill. You need to aim for cutting as many kites you can and ruling the skies. When your kite gets hooked on to another kite's thread you need to release the thread as fast as possible. The heavier kite moves faster in the air. The friction of your thread onto the other kites thread and the speed of the thread rubbing onto other kites thread will decide the fate of your kite. We cut 7 kites in less than 20 minutes. And we had our own cheerleading group on the terrace to shout and make shrill noises everytime a kite is cut. An angry and frustrated uncle and his wife who were standing on a terrace 50 metres ahead started giving us harsh looks after we cut 3 of their kites as soon as they were aloft. Two of our kites succumbed to heavier kites allowing them more movement in the air but nevertheless we enjoyed the effort. Me and Karthik with the kites. Cousins Jayan, Biju and Sumesh on the cheerleading squad. Tomorrow being a Sunday we have another big round of kite flying coming up.