The humble auto adapts to a changing customer profile

Rather a pompous title for a simple, short post. ;-)

Anyone noticed how autos that carry children to school have changed ? It is really interesting to note the ways in which auto owners have adapted their vehicles to this role.

When we were kids, autos which ferried kids to school had a thin wooden plank opposite the main seat in order to accommodate a few more kids, while the rest stood in between the main seat and the wooden plank. Nowadays there is a wooden plank on the luggage area behind the main seat too, so even more kids can be accommodated, though what this does to the stability of autos on sharp turns I shudder to imagine ! So that school bags do not take up precious sitting space, these are hung from hooks at the back of the auto, on the outer side. And then often, the openings at the side of the auto have metal grills (grills, not the regular wooden rod) with a latch so that the little brats don’t fall out.

Am quite impressed with the improvements in this humble, everyday vehicle. Anyone got any more such examples to share, I’d love to hear about them.

Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai ?

For how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temple of his gods.

Quote at a war memorial in Tawang where the names of all the Indian soldiers who died in the 1962 war are listed.

Until I visited Arunachal earlier this year, the 1962 India-China war was just a number in a history textbook to me, one among many to be mugged up and repeated when asked for. I had no idea about the magnitude of the conflict, or of the extent to which Indian borders had been violated.

Somehow reading about a war or even watching documentaries / movies about it never brings it home to one as forcefully as actually visiting the battlefield does. Though we started out on a trekking plus tourism trip, we ended up getting a forceful introduction to our history, a reminder of our tenuous existence as a nation and a sense of gratitude to the army for being there.

It began one cold morning when the only place we could find that would give us breakfast was an army canteen at a height of 11,000 ft - nothing builds loyalty as fast as hot food and piping hot tea on a cold morning ! Then we drove on, higher still, and reached Sela Pass which was covered in snow. After having spent an arduous two days trekking in snow, watching army jawans at the camp made me really sympathise with those who have to live and work in such conditions for months on end.

A bit ahead of Sela Pass is the Jaswantgad war memorial, a memorial to Jaswant Singh, a Garhwal Rifles Soldier who helped by two local girls, defended his post against the Chinese for three days. I am sure that were this memorial to be in a park in a city somewhere, it would not have evoked strong emotions in me. But here in this lonely, desolate, grand, majestic setting, one cannot look at it, shrug and walk on; something tugs strongly at you. And you

realise that a soldier from an alien land had attempted to own this piece of land, maybe even strutted about somewhere close by assuming that the land would soon be his, and you begin to feel …………angry, hurt, bewildered.

Bewildered because I never realised till then how far into India the Chinese army had advanced, and am amazed that our history books so lightly gloss over this fact. Bewildered because I realise I do not know my country and it’s history at all. Bewildered when later on I see bunkers on the hillside and realise that I never before understood the difference between bunkers and trenches properly. Still bewildered when we drive past Tawang town the next day and find the hillside dotted with bunkers – somehow a sense of the enormity of the war grows on me day by day.

When you go home
Tell them of us and say
For your tomorrow
We gave our today.

Another quote at a war memorial for the Indian soldiers that perished in 1962

By,

Zenobia.

Just a short ramble

Just a short post – written in a hurry – that’s my excuse for any factual or grammatical errors.

This post is prompted by a stray comment a friend made about the results of a reality dance competition called ‘Jhalak Dikhlaa Jaa’ - we behave in small groups exactly in the same manner in which we behave as a nation, and vote on irrelevant criteria for the wrong person.

Before I continue, let me admit that I have watched all of ten minutes of one episode of ‘Jhalak Dikhlaa Jaa’ and have read about it once or twice in the papers – that’s all the background there is to this post. The finals of JDJ had Mona Singh (Jassi) competing against Shweta Salve, and the results were decided by viewer’s votes. Shweta Salve was the superior dancer by far, but Mona Singh had the popularity of her Jassi days to support her and she won. This led my friend to comment that if we Indians keep voting on the basis of irrelevant criteria, then we deserve the kind of leaders we have.