Ancient kingdoms of Kashmir.

My older posts in this blog deal with Hindu mythology linked since ages with valley of kashmir, let me quicky recall that, Kashmir valley once was great lake called Satisar and Rishi Kashyapa is attributed to form valley by fighting the demon called jalodhbava, as legend goes, a trident was struck by Vishnu near Baramulla that caused water to gush out of valley and then jalodhbava invincible in its own element refused to come out then finally Parvati consort of Shiva is said to crush him using large mountain Hari-Parvat now popularly know as Hari-Parbat, afterwards goddess took shape in form of rivers and springs.Nagas and Pisacas tribe first settled in Kashmir.Rivers and Springs in valley are of high religious importance.
There are pretty good geoligical evidences and scientific data that is similar to legend according to which volcanic activities caused heavy earthquake that caused fissures in mountains and that lead Jhelum to gush out and as a matter of fact jhelum escapes kashmir valley through narrow gorge near barmulla!Another very important evidence is formation of karwaes or pleatue which contain lascustrine deposits and by any geological standard they are older than any monuments found in vale, these clay and sand deposit from great lake using many modern archaeological and scientific techniques clearly reflected the valley as once huge lake with any doubt.

Kahalana, work called Rajatarangini is old account of valley of Kashmir, He composed his Rajatarangini, the river of kings, in A.D. 1148-49, Sir Aurel Stein is attributed for its translation from Sanskrit to English and it is surprising that kashmir has written record of all history from Kahalana to modern as compared to India which rely on hit and trail method or numismatic data to arrive at various kingdoms but it unfortunate that we are ignorant and unaware of our history and rich culture.
As per Rajatarangini, the first king to rule Kashmir was Gonanda I and subsequent 35 kings that followed however there is no record available to trace them and Kahalana called them lost kings of kashmir; there is also record of Alexander and Greek invasion to Kashmir, there are numismatic records of old coins found near Jhelum river that support this fact also if one looks carefully at Buddha sculpture and many Ancient monuments we will find trace of Greek Art so we can think Kashmir monuments or Art was influenced by Greek Art and sculpture, Kahalana speaks high of great king Asoka as king of Kashmir, he is attributed to form Srinagar and building various vihras and stupas and he is credited to introduce Buddhism in Kashmir as he found Kashmir favorable for meditation and religious study and as a matter of fact Kashmir was fountainhead of Sanskrit learning and saiva thought of philosophy or Kashmir Shaivasm, the kashmiri brahim or pandit know for their open thought and intellect developed new form of Buddhism called Mahayana.S.P.S Museum Lal Mandi, Srinagar gives clear picture of various Ancient kingdom of valley particularly we look at Archaeological and numismatic section in the museum that has collected some important excavations at sites like Burzahom, Avantipora and harwan.to be continued....

School Days

The best part of one's life are school days without any second thought and it holds special memory in one's heart be it old friends from school days, first class room, school teachers, playground and it all seems valuable treasure down the line and it is best thing that life has to offer then there is ugly face of child labor that deprives kids of these golden days and it is cruel and same as slavery, poor kid is made to work like donkey with his tender hands, one of the major social evils; Schooling is best gift that anyone can provide to small kids after all it prepares one for big question called life.

Everyone of us is bit hesitant to go to school first thing in morning and and we make enough excuse to stay at home just like Tom Sawyer tries to fool his aunt Polly in Mark Twain's famous novel Adventures of Tom Sawyer well that is our natural instinct but then last period of class which is happiest one in which kids flew out of class at full speed like batman once the bell struck and are happy back to home;there are some naughty memory associated with all us and to tame the brat kid, school has methods to punish the little fellow in scary way but on this crossroad of life and looking back it seems funny and sweet.I have fond memories of punishment made by teachers:)

One punishment I remember is applying mud on face like facial scrub:) and teacher make sure no corner of face is left and poor kid is weeping non-stop, some kid have little smile on their face, Bravo:) and on the top of that poor fellow is made to visit every class along with his teacher and rest of class burst out into laughing and shouting shame shame now after much pomp and show, poor kid wash his face during lunch hours and still holding his head high and smiling and back on track. The most common is Murga Bano,well this I consider king of all punishment given to poor little fellow sometimes even load in form of school bag or brick is placed on back of poor kid in scorching heat for hours, sweat running through the tip of his little nose on ground, ears turned red and even if he is lucky enough he will be associated with two more kids on same punishment so that they can laugh in such situation:) and then try he tries his best to stand up for while and making sure their teacher is not seeing,well kids have natural ways to make best out of worst situation; another one though not scary in nature is facing the wall for hours and now if principle is on inspection and got glimpse of those kids then God Save them!! then comes the classroom and we have famous stick or long wooden ruler and kids are always trying to mess with it in order to save themselves from teacher's wrath, the blow is on hands but sometimes poor chap is asked to fold his hand so that punishment can be more hard on finger tips and poor chap slowly and slowly bringing his hand forward for big blow...... well all said and done nobody will dislike those days or feel bad about it or thinking to take revenge on teachers:) and it brings smile on face well that is power of school days!!.LONG LIVE SCHOOL DAYS!!.

Kids, This is Not End of Road!!

Our Thinking around Educational system needs to be reworked ,I strongly believe in that, the only option options to think around is Medicine or engineering and it remind me of horse with blinkers on who can neither look left or right.Parent raise their impossible expectation to literally kill the small kids and it leads to poor self image if they cannot meet the expectation and sometimes we have sad reality where children commit suicide, poor little fellow is sometime unable to carry the weight of expectations on their tender shoulders.Pleasing parents all the time is not cool idea to hang around , they will feel more bad in the long run if they see children is unhappy about chosen career!!.

How many people in valley study to become Archaeologist or opting Painting as career,well the proportion is very less I say nill.then there is another myth that doing master in science like M.sc chemistry or Physics will end up as teacher and he has only career to teach 11 and 12 students in hyderpora:). I have read dozen of biographies and every first rate scientist has been teacher in his carrer be it noble laureate from Abdus Salam to famous flamboyant physicist Richard Feynman but here the approach is cloudy, full of prejudice and our standard is very low, the emphasis is more on cracking the examination by hook or crook rather than real learning then there is another thing called peer pressure and many people choose their career what their best buddy has opted for again to be part of group and acceptance, well that is Rat Race for you:), I think it is real stupid to choose your career what your friends has opted for, he might have different skill set or different perception,this self defeating thinking and nerd approach needs to be changed. The west is lucky in that aspect coz they study out of their passion not what parents or their best friend has expected out of them.
Our school has emphasis more on memorization by rote than real learning, Scientific Temper and experimentation.Memorizing Arithmetic tables from 2 to 12 does not imply mathematics genius.In Experimentation part, we are very poor our schools cannot go beyond frog dissection or showing how galvanometer look like or the famous prism experiment and that too in class 10th!!, how many of us have done independent lab work in school then there are some lucky kids who do experimentation work at home and their parents support their passion, I salute such such parents and the best example is 2008 Beijing Olympics gold medalist Abinav Bindra, his parents provide him complete shooting environment at home although shooting as career in India was marginally very very low.
The emphasis on grades and overall performance is very paralyzing if someone is good at science but poor at urdu is though to be poor student coz he cannot top the class!!.we need to work on these shortcoming, I suggest following keynotes
1)Brainstorm the child mind about their passion and interest and work on key interest areas.
2)Provide ample of books including literature and science stuff to enlarge vision.
3)Provide more experimentation part and give opportunity to Carry independent lab work.
4)Develop Scientific temper and encourage why, how,when thinking pattern.
5)Include Quiz, group discussions and some creativity classes.
6) Workshop for Scientific work and display.
well Kids career is game of 40-50 years everyone of us is talented and we never invent our talents but we only detect them, see what you are are good at then go for it with Passion and it does not matter if you fail in urdu class so choose wisely and make best out of it and it really does not matter if your parent is scolding or you have turned off your best buddy just ask Einstien or Picassco.

TV industry now and then.....

Just switch TV and then are numerous channnels floating around nowadays ,there are counteless serials, songs, ads,news channels and the list goes on,the tv industry is getting bigger day by day, every year new channels are launched then there are foreign channels and our own local cable tv channels, it seems getting lost into sea of entertainment.it become difficult to decide what to watch and what not to watch just another catch- 22 situation.More often we surf TV than watch, channel surfing has become a habit it is difficult to find someone watching one channel except kids who are luckly hooked to cartoon network:).I feel TV is less relaxing these days and it lack the excitement factor it used to be earlier in days of doordharshan back in 80's and early 90's.Down the line, Doordharshan provided decent entertainment that was fun to watch and at the same time very informative and TV was simply Vogue in evey corner, serials were remembered, we used to wait for particular program to telecast, evey sec was enjoyed, charaters were remembered and cherished, the 80's and early 90's were nearly sweeped by doordharshan hysteria and even some of our own kashmiri serials were excellent although technically very behind but script and act was superb, here I would mention some of the popular programs on doordharshan which used to be vogue in my days ......


Ramanaya/Mahabharta(80's): My blog will be incomplete without mention of these popular two epics, I remember deserted look on street every sunday morning, eveyone was so hooked to TV sets, it nearly generated mass hystria although technically not advanced but characters laid powerful impact and became house hold names, the voice of Harish Bhimanis saying MAIN SAMAY HOON was punch line at the start of mahabharata....

Lekhu:-Acted by talented mohan gohle ex Mr Joshi, is villager with termendous talent for science and is showing creating dish antenna out of umbrella!! in the end he is recognized by alok nath, simple and powerful script, my fav one!.

Flop Show:-Now this one was funny series misdirected by Jaspal bhatti:), it has many memorable episodes like chief guest, government officer, death of telephone, tenant, movie making....

Street Hawk:-well it was first english serial on doordharshan, story of cop, jesi mark who is injured now act as police trouble shooter eliminating the crime using special all terrain bike capable of 300 miles/hour speed designed by urban crime, the theme was simply rocking with fast paced bike.

Surbhi:The very entertaining and informative program and was hosted by Sidhdharth Kak and Renuka, it made TV interactive first time by question answer session like turning point another famous science program on doordharshan.

Chitrahaar- The first ever countdown on TV, it was telecasted every wed and fri around 8pm.it was enjoyed by everyone coz of dinner time.

Malgudi Days:-now who could forgot this!, it used to start with theme taana na taana na na:).

Tipu Sultan:-I remember blast at hyderpora every timewhen this serial used to start:), just kiddin and it was most watched coz of media hype and powerful script.Hyder Ali, I suppose was more popular character than tipu sultan itself.

Mungerilal ke haseen sapne:-Simple Comedy acted by very good actor Raghuvir Yaadav, Mungerilal is shown to day dream whenever he has to accomplish any task.

Karamchand:-The very first ever detective serial acted by talented actor Panjak kapoor and Sushmita mukerjee as kitty.The Carrot act was famous, the another serial in late 90's tekikat acted by vijay anand.

Kashish:-Acted bySudesh Beri and Malvika Tiwari,a director falling in love with his heroine., director is shown as egostic.

Jungle book:-well it was literally vogue among us ,the character moghli, leela, bagira and sher khan voice backed by nana patekar were household names and offcourse the song " jungle jungle baat chali hai pataa chala hai, chaddi pehen ke phool khila hai:)

Turning point:-Another good informative program hosted by Giresh Karnand and latter by mahesh bhatt and ofcourse prof yashpal questions at end.

Cartoons:-besides jungle book the popular were ducktales and talespin,remember uncle $chrodge.....

Kakkaji kaheen:-acted by very talented om puri, om puri used to laugh at end of very sentence this theme was popularized in some chewing tobbaco also.

Mile sur mera tumhara:well this was shown everyday, it was very well made, it gives glimpse of different cultures and religions of India.

Fatichar:-this one was pure comedy acted by talented panjak kapoor:).

Circus:-Directed by aziz mirza and made shahrukh the superstar of TV after fauji.

Nukad:-another flick by aziz mirza, I recall it had character called khopdi:)

then I have faint memories of buniyaad and humlog, I cannot remember every serial down the line, if u have anything to add, please comment to th blog:)

Workout Catch-22

From last 3 months or so I am planning some Athletic activity but cannot figure out and it has become catch 22 situation for me coz of my tight work schedule, earlier I though to cycle down to office from home but dropped plans on seeing the road conditions:) then planned to jog early morning and something urgent poped up and again dropped then I decided to try my hands at shadow boxing, again dropped it; hopely in coming month I will start something that will put me back on my original track; also working all day with little activity is not coolest idea to hang around; as amatter of fact it reduces productivity, it remind me of article I had read before regarding famous chess player Garry Kasprov who lift weights and runs like a professional Athlete to remain in peek condition, hopefully one good workout will change the equation for better.

Face Of India and Yo Man!!

The values portrayed in movie today surprises me, is this Indian value system or Hindi version of English value system??.where are we heading as India?? well I feel copying the culture of other country makes one Clown not Hero because the problem with the rat race even if you win you are still a rat and unfortunately we judge progress of India by switching TV and watching picture perfect situation all sun n shine of entertainment industry ; the real face of India is something different,all talks of mp3, wifi,mobile gadgets is crap when the basic problem in India remains unsolved.How many villages in country have proper supply of water,electricity,health care and basic education; there is ugly face of poverty and many people still sleep on roads, there big problem of child labor, just watch a small boy selling umbrellas or match box in scorching heat or bone chilling cold just for few coins or so, I sometimes feel the great movie of Bimal roy, Do Biga Zameen can be still recreated as reality in many part of India where people are saving every coin just for very very basic needs, we are far deatttached from this reality, we can only have symphaty but we need real emphatic Attitude and look the world from their point of view.
The key to modernization is to be what we are and accept our culture and be proud about it and not choose to be second version of someone else.Off course competition is healthy but only we we use it as measuring scale for progress against ourselves .
What we need is a great vision, we need to work on our existing resources, we need to emulate our thinking pattern based on great visionaries India ever produced otherwise we will end up as Circus where everyone will be just a clown.

Bearing Grudges, Should We?

Well recently out of the blue, I came across beautiful piece of story about two friends, I liked it a lot and I decided to post good blog on it.We often collect grudges over the years; refuse to forgive and you know what?, we hurt ourselves most.Should we bear Grudges or not?, well friends read on and decide yourself.

Jim and Jerry had been childhood friends but for whatever reasons, the relationship fell apart and they hadn't spoken for 25 years.Jerry was on his deathbed and did not want to enter eternity with heavy heart .So he called Jim, apologized and said"let us forgive each other and be done for the past."Jim thought it was a good idea and went to visit Jerry at the hospital.
They spend couple of hours together and catching up on the last 25 years and patching up their differences.As Jim was leaving, Jerry shouted from behind, "Jim, just in case I don't die; remember, this forgiveness does not count", Life is too short to hold grudges-it is not worth it.

Moral:Life is too short to be little.......

Einstein's Dream!!

Albert Einstein literally hero of physics had one dream of unification of gravity and electromagnetism, as a matter of fact in his last years at Princeton, New Jersey, he left unfinished work on unified field theory. If idea would have been clicked then gravitywill be able to produce electricity and vice versa, sounds cool!. As high school students, we know that Electrical and magnetic forces were unified long back and set of Maxwell equations tell it all, as science enthusiastic, we know it very well that if we wrap wire in form of coil around nail and then plug wire to battery, we see that nail behaves as magnet!
Well, in Einstein first unification paper in 1925 the mathematical equations of General Relativity(Field theory of Gravitation) were not suitable for describing all the components of the electric and magnetic fields. Indeed, none of Einstein's unification attempts ever reproduced the free-field Maxwell equations.One of the reason of his unsuccessful attempt was that Einstein was loggerheads with ideas of quantum physics and it is said that when Heisenberg published his Uncertainty principle, Einstein rejected it straightaway and have quoted "God does not play dice with the world".Theoretical physics has devised new method called String theory for realizing Einstein dream and even now they offer us to see the world in five dimensions, well the quest goes on....

Glimpses Of Ancient Kashmir......

Continuing with my previous blog on Kashmir history, here I will provide brief snippet of early inhabitant of Kashmir since it is not possible to give exhaustive treatment here, I will opt for brief history although it took me nearly two weeks of research to arrive at this topic and I am still working on it:). Nilamata Purana, which is considered to be the oldest source of Ancient history of kashmir and according to which the aboriginal inhabitants of kashmir were Nagas , they were serpent worshipper, according to legend, kashmir was huge lake and Anata drained the water out by plough and the name Anatanag is named after him.Springs or Nag, River and Lakes in kashmir are of religious and cultural importance . Indo Aryan came to valley when the river saraswati in Punjab dried up although they faced tough opposion from nagas, Aryan seeked permission from Nila,the king of nagas, to settle in Kashmir and they adopted the religious and cultural practices of nagas.
In 1960, Archaeological department of India made excavation at Burzahom site, srinagar, it revealed inhabitant of Kashmir were pit dwellers, they used to live on karewas (dried piece of lake) in pits , they used to dig the pits using various polished stone tools, living in pits protected neolithic people from harsh cold winter of Kashmir.In pits, pieces of ash, charcoal and pieces of pottery were found, some of the pits were embedded with ovens on which people cooked their food. The excavation also lead to the discovery of some valuable bone and stone tools in form of harpoons,axes, arrowhead and stone paintings with hunting scene carved on it.After excavations at burzahom, many other sites such as Begagund, Gofkral, Hariparigom, Olchibag, Pampur, Panzgom, Sombur Waztal, and Brah were excavated and they provided similar clue regarding tools and house used in Neolithic times.But excavation at Burzahom will remain special.



To be Continued........

Balloons are Smarter than Us!!

Just watch all colorful balloon who go up high in air at some amusement park and there is pearl of wisdom hidden there.Taking things and ourselves less seriously can be better sometimes since balloon travel higher only when light air is inflated into it now imagine what happens if tie heavy stones at the end of small balloon;on the journey called Life, it becomes important to unload the unnecessary load; someone has rightly said, those who travel higher travel light......so have fun & Joyride......................................Happy Weekend:).

Kashmir, Begining in Time.......

Not to know what took place before you were born is to remain forever a child.....How True!.I am writing my first blog on the Valley to which I belong and while jotting ideas for this blog, a picture perfect situation came to my mind with the splendid snowy mountains,sweet water, Meadows laid like carpet ,soothing air and much more , it needs someone who is Poet to put my thoughts into endless words, The 19 century British Historian, Walter Lawrence wrote in his book, Valley of Kashmir "The valley is an emerald set in pearls; a land of lakes, clear streams, green turf, magnificent trees and mighty mountains where the air is cool, and the water sweet, where men are strong, and women vie with the soil in fruitfulness." According to some Geological and Mythological evidence, the valley once was vast lake know as 'satisar' surrounded by mountains just like huge dam of water; over the years, as a result of earthquakes, mountains walls were cracked out at a few points , caused the water to gush out and forming the valley; as a result, flood emerged in north west regions of India where Mohenjodaro- Harappa civilization existed, were completely drowned with no trace of any human left. According to Legend, Rishi Kashyapa formed valley by cutting the mountain that caused rush of water to flow out and saving the valley from Damon jalobhava who hid in lake Satisar, This land was called "Kashyapamar" (after Kashyapa) in ancient times that later became Kashmir.The geological evidence seems to perfectly match with the legend. The first original inhabitant of Kashmir valley were Aryans, they were know for their chiseled features, fair complexion and good looks, Aryans with intellect brain formed Galaxy of poets, saints and administrators and contributing much to the history of kashmir, as a matter of fact, Kashmir contributed to Hindu thought, evolving monistic philosophy of saivism know as Trika Shastra . The book Rajatarangini(River of kings) in form of poem written in Sanskrit by Kashmiri Brahman Kalhana in 1148, covers an excellent footage on Ancient history of Kashmir, it remains undoubtedly the masterpiece and authentic works on Kashmir History.