The VCR Era

At 12 AM, sleep tried to take over completely, but a hot cup of tea got me going. At 3 AM, it was twilight zone; I couldn’t tell whether I was awake or dreaming. By 7 AM, the show was over and I was all set for the bed. If you are thinking that this is a routine for an exam preparation, you couldn’t be more wrong. This is the routine that was practiced in many Indian households back in the 80s when the VCR was at the peak of its existence. This was the generation that waited patiently for Saptahiki on Friday to catch a glimpse of the Sunday movie. Then on Sunday evening, all roads would become deserted and everybody got tuned in to Doordarshan by 6PM. The movies ran by Indian standard time back then which means they never started on time and many a times one had to patiently tolerate the ‘ghadi’ which was an image put up to tune up the setup of your TV before the beginning of the movie.

With the arrival of VCR, this generation was thrust into a new era all of a sudden. Colored TVs were commonplace by then (except for may be Rawat house who waited for the Jains to upgrade who in turn got inspired by the Gulatis) and so were the video shacks that made tons of money renting the video cassettes. For households that didn’t have colored TVs, these fellas also offered those for rent, so often times when you would order a bunch of movies, a technician would arrive with a TV, VCR, wires and the cassettes and set everything up in front of an eager crowd.
Old Mitsubishi VCR (Taken from -http://www.flickr.com/photos/rcadimensia/4155861813/)

Before ordering the movies, all near ones and dear ones were called and invited for the show and they would arrive on time with their blankets and all. The furniture in the living room would then be moved away and mattreses would be laid out so everybody could sit comfortably and sleep in the middle of the night if they had to. The show mostly started at around 7-8PM when uncles also had come back home from office and could join the party. Overusage of cassettes often resulted in bad tapes and most of the prints were ended up being watched with tracking lines in the middle of the screen or sometimes with shaky picture. A total of about 4-5 movies were watched during one session from 7PM to 7AM straight.

With the coming of the cable TV in the late 80s, this practice became outdated though, and gone were the days of one movie a week as telecasted by DD or 5 movies a night as seen on VCR. Now you have multiple movies running simultaneously 24 hours a day, but the appreciation is lost. Besides the social interacton and the pleasure of watching movies in a group with people making funny comments is no longer there.

Breakdown of USSR- Dehradun's loss!!

At the peak of Indo-Soviet friendship, the Indian market was full of cheap Russian — or rather Soviet — books. A lot of them were propaganda material but there were also many interesting science and a few science-fiction titles.
They were published by Mir Publishers, Mir Publishers did a good job and subsidised the education of an entire generation, published under a special programme "to make the best Soviet textbooks available for Indian students" these were really good, Seems the breakdown of the soviet union hit them hard, but they are alive still, I read somewhere thay survived by merging of different publications under the name MIR.
I remember, the narrow metteled road before ELLORAS turning left to a big compound(I have not been there for years), a shoping complex with all signs of socialistic era built by some entrepreneur without any frills, it was two storied and I think towards last was APTECH centre where Alok got enamoured with his course coordinator…. I forget the name!!! There was this hall at start of the building where a SARDARJI used to load over his treasure of Soviet published books, I was big time into espionage thrillers from USA of Ludlum and others and always had the feeling that this guy must be a KGB agent, that never came out actually but still it was fun to roam around , check glossy covered books much better in finish than Indian books and highly cost effective as well.
Alok and me bought ‘Learn russian’ audio books which seemed bargain at that time, I never ever opened it, it still lies somewhere in house at doon , but I did buy Fyodor dostovesky’s ‘IDIOT’. It became a craze later on to go through ‘Problems in General Physics, By I.E. Irodov’ while preparing for Engg exams.
The USSR is no more..Sardar ji never saw again..building must have improved with Shining India..yes its true that era is gone!!!.

Crooning Monsieur Rawat

March evening of early ninties, to be precise 18 years back, a singer was born!! Well……not exactly.
My mom had gone through the pangs much-2 before infact almost two decades previous to this but augured into University It was the ‘freshers night’ coming with it exhilarating feeling of freedom, comaradarie, one ness and being grown up which can only be felt once, in fact few freshers were so overjoyed that by the time function started had passed out lock/stock after boozing in the midst of hostel, by the ditches, near shrubs, on the Auditorium door.
Although I have been a bacchus follower but had to keep myself in rein as I had been roped in to show case my talents and I still remember..the nervous feeling and welcoming tentative applause from the audiences, arena was pitch dark with spot light on me, I started ..a la Kishore Kumar….”Hum to mohhabat karega……” and than rhythm was set , fortnight of practice was paying off..raw talent was made presentable,audience were tapping and clapping with every stanza and than the Kishore style finale..i was treated to a thunderous standing ovation.
Later that night through boozards haze I remember people coming all through the party/celebrations coming and congratulating me..although I never nurtured this facet further but got many oppo..and the song which made me remains my forte all along.

'Rawats"

(Source..great web)

Rawat Rajputs are people who reside in Ajmer, Rajsamand, Bhilwara and Pali districts of Rajasthan as well as Kumaon and Garhwal of Uttarakhand. They claim their descent from Chauhan Rajputs belonging to Chauhan dynasty.
Rawat is a title used by Rajputs, in Uttarakhand (Popularly known as Garhwal & Kumaon) & some parts of Rajasthan. They are believed to be descendants of Chauhans. . There are some notable Rawats like Gorla Rawat, Bangari Rawat, Kunwar Rawat, Jirdhari Rawat and so on all of them are from Rajput families. Some of the Rawats belong to the Royal Rajput families & landlords also.
Some historians believe they are the direct descendents of Prithviraj Chauhans brother Hariraj who escaped to dense hilly and forest areas after the fall of the Chauhan empire in Ajmer and the defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan. While others believe they are the descendents of Rao Lakhansi of Nadol branch of Chauhans. Two sons of Rao Lakhansi named Rao Anhal and Rao Anoop defeated the Gurjar king ruling in the Magra region and established their empire which was destabilised by the Mughals. They came to be known as Rawats after their two great warrior ancestors Narhaa Singh Rawat and Vihal Singh Rawat. They were awarded the titles of Rawat for their outstanding bravery with commanders Jaitaa and Kumpa in war against Sher Shah Suri by the ruler of Jodhpur Maldev and Vihalji for attacking the Iltutmish camp by the ruler of Mewar Rawal Jait Singh. Their descendents then came to be known as Rawats. It is believed they escaped from Ajmer to hilly and dense forest areas after defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan. With time some other branches of Rajputs also came to these hilly areas like the Rathore (Pokhariya) Gahlot (Gartund etc), Panwar (Dhodhing, Khiyawat etc) and mingled with the Chauhan Rawat Rajputs. Mainly they serve in the army. Because they developed their own culture there they are known as Rawat Rajputs. Their culture has been affected by the hard conditions they were living in, surrounded by hills and forests.
Some if not all of the Rawat Rajputs are believed to have migrated from the Indian plains during the Middle Ages. They still retain the name of their areas of origin: for instance, the 'Udaipur Patti' in Garhwal is a group of villages inhabited by people believed to have migrated from Udaipur in present-day Rajasthan.(Collected from wikipedia)

(Pahari miniature painting in National museum)

Little hands at work

Little Kabir has fascination for Cars, Trains and Planes. Recently, he took up water colors that he has been enjoying a lot. In this picture, we have a wooden model plane that he painted and assembled with little help from me. Quite a professional job, eh.