Whatsapp with Wagah

 Wagah sits on the border of India and Pakistan in the Punjab state of India.  Many patriotic Indians visit the place for the parade that happens in the afternoon.


One of the popular descriptions:
 “Exactly at 4:30pm the flag down ceremony started and both the side the guards were doing their best performance of the year. The kind of energy flowing out of them during the parade was as if they were on fire. The kind of 'Josh' and foot stamping and elevating at the time of right and left turn was a kind of killer performance. No doubt about our border is in a strong and safe hand of these guards. I salute these soldiers and Mother India.
Exactly after 30 minutes the ceremony closed and we were very much satisfied with this last destination visit and gossiping about the same. While returning we talked about the ceremony at least for 2 hrs. Everybody agreed that this is the best way celebrating the last day of the year 2005.”


I don’t deny these. My first visit in 2006 was similar. But my second visit in 2011 was quite different. I wish to try reviewing with a critical eye the entire scenario of how the border security managed the crowd, how the audience reacted, and about the discipline of the audience during my recent visit. I rewind my memory tape. 


We had a pleasant ride from Amritsar to Wagah border in a three wheeler auto rikshaw, gazing at the green fields on both sides of the road. We reached Wagah in 45 minutes. But there ends all the pleasantness. Gates were supposed to be opened by 4.00 pm, so that people could settle in the amphi for the parade starting at 4.30pm. But they were seen shut even at 4.30 pm. The impatient crowd waits outside eagerly. Though they knew that they cannot pierce through the gates, people crushed us out and push selves in, gravitating themselves towards the gates. The border security didn’t care about how chaotic the situation was, outside the gates. They put a small speaker on the wall parallel to the gates. It was not audible to more than ten people around it. There were announcements made not to calm people but to reorganize the crowd so as to allow the ladies first, through the left gate. No one understood. No one moved. The tape went on to say some rules, which we couldn’t hear. They repeated the tape around five times. But, in vain due to the poor quality of the speaker.


The gates opened and the crowd at once started running towards the amphi theatre with no proper reason. It was a mix of horse race and bull fight, except that there were no gun shots and ringing bells. The border security suddenly realized the responsibility and officers riding on horses started guiding the crowd in queues. But as the tail wags on their faces, they start running and jumping the queues. Can we ever teach some discipline to the crowd here? The border force could have been little more efficient in managing the crowd, by avoiding the pressure getting built up outside the gates. They could have allowed hundred at a time to ease the competition in the minds of the people outside.


People start settling down in the amphi and it never ends. All the slogans were “for India”. Few people in the crowd initiated slogans “against Pakistan” and the interesting fact is that it was not encouraged by the majority and so they had to silent themselves soon. This got to me a sense of pride. We can show our strength. But going blindly against the opponent just for the sake of it is never constructive and leads to no better results. Having said that, let me put forward that the show of strength beyond certain level leads to ego between the states. Pakistan on one side tried really hard to showcase their strength. India clearly overpowered it solely because of the number of people who turned up. The energy is the same in each. The love and pride towards ones country is the same. This lets people think they are more a citizen of their country than a citizen of the world. 
      The essence is that border security can do better in managing the crowd and the visiting crowd, majorly Indians, can be better in disciplining themselves.  

The Chattarpur Temple and a little of art

     One of the most splendid temples in India, ‘Shree Aadya Katyayini temple’, popularly known as ‘Chattarupur Temple’ is located four kms away from the very famous Qutub Minar in South Delhi. This temple stands as the ideal epitome of the creations of architecture of the modern era. It was constructed and designed under the passionate guidance of Mr. Baba ji, popular for his ideology to remove (interesting!) superstition and ignorance from the society in 1974. Though the devotion is the main drive for the normal throng of visitors, the art itself is a unique attraction worth noting.

        The front view of the temple presents itself as a palace with its bottom half and as a temple with its upper half. It stands around 80 feet tall occupying around 20,000 sqft of land. The exterior of the lower half hints the further split into three floors. It has around ten windows enclosed with an edifice with no walls but only four pillars. With the design on top of each of the doors and windows, it seemed as if serpents are guarding the palace. The main door, two floors tall, made of teak wood is in the inverted U shape with its surface carved out with chakras (stars with astronomical significance) and open lotuses facing the entrant. This design is omnipresent in the temple on all walls, borders, doors and ceilings but not floors. The pillars of the structure have a step based design with high density at the bottom and top, but nearly plain surface in the middle. This is treated as a typical north Indian style of art in pillar design. Same style is observed inside the building. The parapet wall on the terrace marks the separator of the upper and lower halves and is indeed a row of perfect circular lotus flowers facing outside with no charkas around them. The upper half mainly constitutes three main hoods of the temple ; two of which are smaller than the centre piece. Horizontal lining on these structures is symmetrical along its length. On the roof, we can observe many edifices with only pillars. Their hoods resemble the hat of Kabir. The water tank like structure has its exterior carved with the densest design of the temple. It looks as if the surface is occupied by a healthy and strong climber with no void.

                Entering the temple we see two main pillars on each side of the gate and they have treasury boxes carved out of marble. The immaculate marble and sprawls constitute the majority of the construction material. The floor is stuffed with black, orange and white marbles. The building shines away only white colour. Apart from the flora exposed outside the building, the interior compound of various smaller temples alongside the main one, it exposes the fauna too. Elephants, lions and serpents emboss themselves from the carvings with all the symmetry and beauty. Each of the tips of the temple tops are decorated with gold coated caps. Distinctly, the main temple top is completely coated with gold, not just the tip. This coating generally doesn’t have any carvings on it. The carvings on the flag post, which is present at the centre of all temples looks elegant with its complete marble structure, lotus and chakra designs on each of the faces of its square structure converging into a single point as it moves to its top.

                There is no distinction shown in case of the interior of the temple. Starting with the main entrance doors, borders, walls where the idols are placed and the barricades are all silver coated. But they all have a dull look due to the lack of polish in recent times. So silver dominates the interior and gold exterior. The floor inside any temple seems to be a set of tiny marbles and is just pure white. No complex designs on the floors. But the ceiling still has the attractive designs of lotuses. The inner walls have a unique design found nowhere else in the compound. Bells along with the chains they hang from the ceiling were carefully carved out. No colouring is seen in these temples, except one, where in the idol is replaced biannually. Yet these designs are very clear, owing to their emboss. As said earlier lions are carved not just anywhere, but on the walls behind the idols. And serpents are present only on the pillars in the middle of the halls inside temples. These pillars are in fact further split into four pillars with sufficient plain space left between them. These carving on these tiny sub pillars look as if the serpents circled along the pillar starting from the bottom to the top, leading to a curved and slant lining along its length. This majorly contributes to the art in the interior. And the silver coating present inside the temple is nowhere plain, in contrast to the gold coating outside. There is an evident expression of coexistence between flora and fauna in their design. A blind touch of the silver surface will let you feel as if you are touching a hardened but dense leaves with serpents and lions all over.

                In a sense, the art is homogenous and symmetric in the temple. It promotes the coexistence of humans and nature. The idols are one part. The other is the nature. There is an inner meaning that nature protects the idols, which we care. And so the inner inference is that we protect nature in return. The art in this temple is one of its kind and has a deep thinking behind its art. 

When I took the flyover

It was the afternoon of 26th Jan, when I was swiftly shifting my concentration from the usual busy work lying ahead to my mail box, which had been waiting for 3 nights to be opened. Chucking one by one, I see the one from my alumni group - bits2bschool. It points to an article introducing me - The Young India Fellowship. Excited with the content of that article and having evaluated the value of it through other sources of BITS, I decided to apply. 

I attended the info session on Feb 13th and there comes a surprise. Mr. Jain, who studied at Bangalore and then working at De-Shaw, and myself were the only two people who attended the info session in OU Campus, Hyderabad for which Mr. Bejoy Suri and Ms. Gunjan, the presenters, were little late due to their flight delay. As the group is too small and they have too short a time frame to catch another flight to Calcutta, on my suggestion, we went to Paradise and had a lipsmacking biryani. Though I have been in Hyderabad for around 10 years or more, that was my tryst with Paradise restaurant and its Biryani. After tasting it, I momentarily felt insulted by myself, as I missed it for last 10 years. Getting back to the purpose of the lunch - we talked over lunch for 3 hours and I had a deep insight into the very meaning of the programme and its goals. I was even more confident when I was out from the restaurant. I was even more happy that I met a course, which I myself wanted to start. I set March 15 as the deadline for my application, though the official one is 31st. Thereafter, started writing down the application's content and finally applied with a recommendation from Prof. Soumitra Dutta of INSEAD. Later, I got an interview call from Bejoy Suri , nearly after 5 days of application to attend an interview the coming Saturday in Delhi. In fact, I was given an option to choose between an interview in Hyderabad around 2 weeks down the line and one in Delhi, within next 3 days. I flew myself to Delhi the next weekend and I stayed in a guest house which costed me around 1000 INR. Contrast to my thoughts, it was just another 3 bedroom flat in the "packed" centres of Delhi. THe owner was renting out each of his rooms to visitors like me. (He is making more than thrice the rent with such an adhoc business model ). At 4 pm was my appointment. I was right on time and had a nice shikanji (spicy lime juice) at the canteen there in the Aurobindo Campus (where our classes run), Adchini, just next to IIT Delhi. And the interview started with greeting me for travelling all the way from Singapore. Mr. Shehashish, an Architect and Mr. Anunya Chaubey, an Artist ( I love both the fields ) were eagerly waiting me to sit, so that they can grab my words of (my understanding of) wisdom for the next few minutes. Apparently, it turned out to be an one hour long one, unlike any other which were not more than 15-20 min. Questions I faced are Define knowledge? Did your under graduation empower you with knowledge? What exactly did you learn through out? I should say most of them, intrigued within me the thought of "Is that all I did?". But it is a valuable introspection that I always looked forward for. At the end of the session, whether I will be selected or not, I enjoyed the 1 hour long honest post mortem of myself. 

I was selected 3 days after that ( its a wednesday, a weekday - yet another busy working day ). Mr.Uttam, my close friend and mom were both with me when I heard this fantastic news. I jumped off my seat and yelled out. Then my mobile bill touched its peak, as I talked to nearly each of friends and relatives to spread the news. Later, got the admission kit after 10 days. I had to resign from my company (which is quite a shock for my manager, who even knows I applied. We thought I wouldn't manage to get into it.) I then started explaining the CXOs, why I had to leave my job for this, elaborately putting forward the positive points of this programme. I always loved this programme.

Finally, I am into YIF physically, on 25th June. I detail about my camp little later in my blog. For brevity sake, I describe it as a one time experience, that I can never expect to happen to me again.

Today I started writing about all this as I prepare charts for the World Environemt Day Walkathon we planned for the next morning. The entire day was full of work on the Wifi router intalltion by Airtel. Some companies though big, need basic planning classes. huh!