UMRAO JAN ADA - The Courtesan of lucknow

Umrao Jan Ada , an Urdu novel by Mirza Muhammad Hadi Ruswa translated to English by the prominent writer Khushwant Singh , is an account of Umrao's life as a Lucknowi courtesan. Ruswa is a beutiful story teller. The novel describes the social status of Muslim society in northern India in the 19th century and was said to be published 100 years ago. It takes the reader through the gracious old Lucknow where wealthy nawabs lived in beautiful palaces and the courtesans (prostitudes) in luxurious abodes .

The Umrao Jan of this novel , though a cortesan, is a woman of culture, with charm of manner and with a reputation as a singer. The question of her existance,her beauty, her scholarly abilities and her poetic gift remains a mystery even today. This novel is not Ruswi's imagination, but the actual life narrated by Umrao herself to the writer ,who had much to do with her life and loves. Umrao Jan narrated her life in a series of sittings , which was written by Ruzwa and shown to her before being published.

The book is memorable due to the complex charactarization of Umrao, and the life she lived as a courtesan. The book ends with these two lines

My day comes to a close, death draws nigh

And I have drunk of life to the dregs.

The Double Life of Ramalinga Raju ....The story of India's biggest corporate fraud By Kingshuk Nag

In this book Kingshuk Nag, resident editor of the Hyderabad edition of The Times of India , narrates the dramatic story of Raju's life , how he managed to leave a $2 billion company , India's 4th biggest IT company, penniless.

Mr Raju co-founded Satyam along with his distant cousin in 1987 and within a few years the company became a roaring success. The company spread across 66 countries in 5 continents with an employee strenght of 52,000. As an additional boosting agent, it was then Mr Chandrababu Naidu decided to emerge as India's most modern Cheif Minister and in the process he showcased Hyderabad as the most prefered place for IT industry. Thus Raju emerged as the new icon of Hyderabad and then US president's, Mr Clinton, visit made his presence known to the world.

It was Raju's craving for land (his family business) and blind love for his sons, which eventually put him in a position to leave the company, he made from scratches, penniless. By the time he went behind bars , Raju along with his family members were the owner of 6800 acres (9000 acres , as per unofficial estimates)of prime land in Hyderabad,Chennai,Bangalore and Nagpur among other places. To aquire the land, he pawned his shareholding in Satyam as well as his construction company Maytas Infra (which he was developing for his son).Also he fudged Satyam's books to inflate its revenues and profits inorder to increase the value of its shares.

Ramalinga Raju was a clever operator who played his cards close to his chest. Unless and untill he decides to tell his story noone will ever know the full extent of his frauds. Mr Raju, who was a shining star till yesteryears, is behind the bars now and as per medical reports he is suffering from various ailments like liver infection, plaque in coronory artories , heart problems etc. There seems to be no end to the yester IT czars woes.

This book throw light to few of the unanswered questions like How did Raju amass his IT and real estate empires ? How could he hoodwink the law, the shareholders and his employess for so long ? This indeed a good reading and wonder howmany such wrotten skeletons are yet to get revealed !!!!

Happy Ending To 2009 !!

dear friends

2009 is almost gone and the brand new 2010 is around the corner................

Inspite of the economic slow down, the price hike of essential commodities and the strong presence ( or should I say the deep routed..) of terrorism in our small beautiful 'Gods own country' , we all had an okay year... None of us wouldn't hv done exceptionally good in our chosen feilds... but it was not as bad as expected in the beginning of the year.

My heartfelt thanks to all of you for your support and encouragements. Without which, I wouldn't have continued my blogging.

I sincerely hope you all will continue to support me with your valuable comments and suggestions...

May I wish all of you a very happy , peaceful and safe 2010!!!

Trivandrum Zoo...What a disappointment ?!!

It has been ages since I hv visited Trivandrum as a tourist. During this x-mas holidays we have visited Trivandrum mainly to take my 5 year old nephew to the Zoo. He is a great fan of geographical & Animal planet channels and he wanted to visit Zoo to see all his dream animals alive. But when we went inside ,all the excitement gone...infact it was a great disappointment ! There was nothing to see, not even Elephants, the animal we see almost in all parts of Kerala!

I remember visiting zoo years back when i was a school girl. We were so excited to see various types of birds , smakes, animals.. the monkies, jirafs , zeebras, lions,tigers etc etc. Each student had to submit a tour report with the animal/bird/reptile details and also had to make a seperate album with the leaves of various types of tress in that big campus. That visit to zoo really was an informative and exciting experience.

But on my recent visit I could only see very few animals a Zeebra, Hypo, Rhyno...thats it. There are lots of deers around. No special birds, yeah, hv seen 1 ostrich... Only thing I liked about the place is the cleanliness.. unlike before, the place was quite clean.

I sincerely hope the Govt / concerned departments take necessary steps to bring enough animals to the zoo and also to take care the place / animals well.

Is our tourism restricted only to ayurvedam and back waters ???!!!

THIRUPATHI - The lord of Lakshmi........

I have been to one of the most ancient and spectacular place of pilgrimage in India , The Tirupathi Temple, last week. It really was a wonderful experience . Lord Venkiteswara is supposed to be the richest God in the world !

Approximately 50 – 75 thousand pilgrims are visiting Sri Venketeswara Temple every day. The Thirumala Thirupathi Devasthanams (TTD) maintains the place very well. Security measures are tight and good . The surroundings in and around the temple are unbelievably clean. TTD has organized efficient systems to ensure the , transportation, stay , food and smooth movement of the pilgrims. TTD generate the electricity required to run the township using wind mills and solar system. They do have 2 dams, Papavinasam and Kalyani , for meeting the water requirements. I also understand the flowers required for the Pooja is cultivated there itself.
The enchanting hills , the thick / dense forest and the cool air sooths your body and mind .The Tirumala Hill is 3200 ft above sea level, and is about 10.33 sq miles in area. It comprises seven peaks, Seshadri, Neeladri, Garudadri, Anjanadri, Vrishabhadri, Narayanadri and Venkatadri. The temple is located on the seventh peak, Venkatadri (Venkata Hill). TTD is protecting the forest very well. In addition to the main temple ,there are many other small temples located inside the forest on top of the hill. Taxi services, jeep/cars , are available at a moderate cost to visit these temples.

TTD has a beautifuly maintained Museum which is worth watching. There are art forms, photos, musical instruments, curios , weapons ,ornaments and many more to watch. I have seen a beautiful art piece, a picture of Lord Venkateswara made of ancient coins, donated by the cine actor Sri Mohanlal.

In short , the visit to Thirupathi was a refreshing experience. The fresh green forest, pollution free cool refreshing air , clean surroundings and the small water falls…the hill station is truly a nice place to visit.