Tea – three observations

2009

Tea is ready. Three cups of tea are lying on the breakfast table, full of steaming hot tea, and rich with aroma of fresh mint. But tea is not visible at all – the cups being covered by plastic coasters. The pan, tongs, filter and spoon are lying in the sink, ready for being cleaned. The gas stove is cooling down, having finished its morning chore. Containers of tea and sugar have gone back to their scheduled locations. The one gallon, 2% fat carboy of, bought from WAL-MART has been returned back to its rack in the fridge, slightly emptied. A ceramic plate containing warm, toasts of bread is lying by the side of tea cups, along with a knife and butter spread. My darling notebook computer is waiting, a few feet away in the living room, inviting me to switch it ON.

All seems well organized. The breakfast table is keenly awaiting its morning participants. My wife is enjoying her early morning deep slumber. My daughter and son-in-law are getting ready for post-breakfast commute to job. Their two sons are in deep, carefree vacation recluse in their own, separate rooms.

But two minutes back? Everything was topsy-turvy. Tea was boiling hard in the pan. My hands were ready with tongs in one hand and filter in the other; All around me on the cooking platform were lying the containers of sugar and tea, milk carboy, a plate containing ginger, the hand chopper for ginger, empty cups and saucers. A toaster was busy with bread slices, on a side table, adjoining the breakfast-table. The kitchen was hot with all these morning routines.

And an hour before? The kitchen was in deep, dark slumber. All these things were also at rest on their respective positions. The mint leaves were gently being swayed in light breeze of wind in the backyard. The tiny world of our home was dormant in its early morning sleep. The tea maker and users all were lost in sweet dreams.

And I go on sliding back… and back… and back… in yet distant past.

1979

A morning thirty years back; I am sitting on the dining table of my posh quarter, surrounded by a garden, as also a kitchen garden; well dressed up to go on my job after a refreshing, hot ware shower bath. I am superfluously glancing through the headlines of a Gujarati daily, keenly awaiting call for tea. Mu wife is busy in her morning chore of tea making on a roaring primus stove. A maid servant, living in an attached servant quarter is mending the vegetables for lunch time in the kitchen. A milk man, on a bicycle had just delivered fresh milk of more than 10% fat, which the maid had received, much before we got up. That milk has been heated and is awaiting storage in the fridge after cooling. A portion of similar milk of yesterday, has already been dumped into today’s tea; after skimming out an inch thick layer of cream. My wife is instructing the maid to boil collection of such cream for last ten days and boiling it to make Ghee (saturated butter). A small containing special spice for tea, ground by hand by the maid is shining beside the containers for tea and sugar, on the cooking platform. Just opposite me, on the dining table, is a pot containing hot, spicy and delicious Indian breakfast made from rice crispy and potatoes.

Our daughter, presently working as software manager, forty miles away, is only nine years old and is lost in her fairy tales world. She is going to wake up much later to attend a nearby elementary school. Our twin-sons, only four years old are snoring in bed, with their governess.

But the tea is going to be of the same taste.

1949

With the fifth child in her womb, my mother is sitting on ground floor of a three storied, narrow house of a dense residential locality (called a POL). She has barely been successful in lighting up a heavily smoking, charcoal stove. My father has just returned from his overnight job of a railway wireless operator and is keenly studying the fresh news in a newspaper, waiting for tea to be ready. All of us four siblings are deep asleep on the second floor in beds on floor aligned in a line.

Just a few minutes back a shepherd woman has delivered fresh milk from a brass, country milk pot. ( Bogharana), of course abundantly diluted by water ! As if obliging us, she has given extra milk in less than a quarter full of milk measuring bottle! There is no cooking platform here. All items needed for tea making are brought and placed by her side from a store room behind kitchen. A glass kerosene lamp is hanging dead from a wooden peg on the side wall of the kitchen. The lamp has just been put off after daybreak: the same lamp with the help of which , I had finished my home work, yesterday evening and copied numbers ONE and TWO with earthen chalk on my slate.

But that tea is not for us siblings. Our parents somehow managed to ensure that all four of us drink milk and milk only – morning and evening – though they themselves live frugally. A little away from her lies a round, brass box with lid, tinned by my mother herself; containing dry tortilla, roasted by herself from the leftover tortillas of yesterday. These will constitute our breakfast with milk, when we wake up.

The charcoal stove is not going to coo, down (like the primus or gas stove) after tea is ready. It is going to get its siesta only after lunch has been cooked.

However, tea is going to have the same taste.

………………..

Three cups of tea: one by a mother, another by a wife and the third one by self.

Shall I say frankly? I like the taste of tea made by myself.

…………….

I remove the plastic coaster from my cup of tea. I see droplets of water from condensed vapor. I see the tears of mu mother, formed in her eyes, due to the irritating smoke of the charcoal stove.

Translated from

ચા તૈયાર છે – ત્રણ અવલોકન

21 year boy at Google

Naga Naresh Karutura has just passed out of IIT Madras in Computer Science and has joined Google in Bangalore.
You may ask, what’s so special about this 21-year-old when there are hundreds of students passing out from various IITs and joining big companies like Google?
Naresh is special. His parents are illiterate. He has no legs and moves around in his powered wheel chair. (In fact , when I could not locate his lab, he told me over the mobile phone, ‘I will come and pick you up’. And in no time, he was there to guide me)
Ever smiling, optimistic and full of spirit; that is Naresh. He says, “God has always been planning things for me. That is why I feel I am lucky.”
Read why Naresh feels he is lucky.

Childhood in a village

I spent the first seven years of my life in Teeparru, a small village in Andhra Pradesh, on the banks of the river Godavari. My father Prasad was a lorry driver and my mother Kumari, a house wife. Though they were illiterate, my parents instilled in me and my elder sister (Sirisha) the importance of studying.
Looking back, one thing that surprises me now is the way my father taught me when I was in the 1st and 2nd standards. My father would ask me questions from the text book, and I would answer them. At that time, I didn’t know he could not read or write but to make me happy, he helped me in my studies!
Another memory that doesn’t go away is the floods in the village and how I was carried on top of a buffalo by my uncle. I also remember plucking fruits from a tree that was full of thorns.
I used to be very naughty, running around and playing all the time with my friends. I used to get a lot of scolding for disturbing the elders who slept in the afternoon. The moment they started scolding, I would run away to the fields!
I also remember finishing my school work fast in class and sleeping on the teacher’s lap!

January 11, 1993, the fateful day

On the January 11, 1993 when we had the sankranti holidays, my mother took my sister and me to a nearby village for a family fun ct ion. From there we were to go with our grandmother to our native place. But my grandmother did not come there. As there were no buses that day, my mother took a lift in my father’s friend’s lorry. As there were many people in the lorry, he made me sit next to him, close to the door.
It was my fault; I fiddled with the door latch and it opened wide throwing me out. As I fell, my legs got cut by the iron rods protruding from the lorry. Nothing happened to me except scratches on my legs.
The accident had happened just in front of a big private hospital but they refused to treat me saying it was an accident case. Then a police constable who was passing by took us to a government hospital.
First I underwent an operation as my small intestine got twisted. The do ct ors also bandaged my legs. I was there for a week. When the do ct ors found that gangrene had developed and it had reached up to my knees, they asked my father to take me to a distri ct hospital. There, the do ct ors scolded my parents a lot for negle ct ing the wounds and allowing the gangrene to develop. But what could my ignorant parents do?
In no time, both my legs were amputated up to the hips.
I remember waking up and asking my mother, where are my legs? I also remember that my mother cried when I asked the question. I was in the hospital for three months.

Life without legs

I don’t think my life changed dramatically after I lost both my legs. Because all at home were doting on me, I was enjoying all the attention rather than pitying myself. I was happy that I got a lot of fruits and biscuits.

The day I reached my village, my house was flooded with curious people; all of them wanted to know how a boy without legs looked. But I was not bothered; I was happy to see so many of them coming to see me, especially my friends!
All my friends saw to it that I was part of all the games they played; they carried me everywhere.

God’s hand

I believe in God. I believe in destiny. I feel he plans everything for you. If not for the accident, we would not have moved from the village to Tanuku, a town. There I joined a missionary school, and my father built a house next to the school. Till the tenth standard, I studied in that school.
If I had continued in Teeparu, I may not have studied after the 10th. I may have started working as a farmer or someone like that after my studies. I am sure God had other plans for me.

My sister, my friend

When the school was about to reopen, my parents moved from Teeparu to Tanuku, a town, and admitted both of us in a Missionary school. They decided to put my sister also in the same class though she is two years older. They thought she could take care of me if both of us were in the same class. My sister never complained.
She would be there for everything. Many of my friends used to tell me, you are so lucky to have such a loving sister. There are many who do not care for their siblings.
She carried me in the school for a few years and after a while, my friends took over the task. When I got the tricycle, my sister used to push me around in the school.
My life, I would say, was normal, as everyone treated me like a normal kid. I never wallowed in self-pity. I was a happy boy and competed with others to be on top and the others also looked at me as a competitor.

Inspiration

I was inspired by two people when in school; my Maths teacher Pramod Lal who encouraged me to participate in various local talent tests, and a brilliant boy called Chowdhary, who was my senior.
When I came to know that he had joined Gowtham Junior College to prepare for IIT-JEE, it became my dream too. I was school first in 10th scoring 542/600.
Because I topped in the state exams, Gowtham Junior College waived the fee for me. Pramod Sir’s recommendation also helped. The fee was around Rs 50,000 per year, which my parents could never afford.

Moving to a residential school

Living in a residential school was a big change for me because till then my life centred around home and school and I had my parents and sister to take care of all my needs. It was the first time that I was intera ct ing with society. It took one year for me to adjust to the new life.
There, my inspiration was a boy called K K S Bhaskar who was in the top 10 in IIT-JEE exams. He used to come to our school to encourage us. Though my parents didn’t know anything about Gowtham Junior School or IIT, they always saw to it that I was encouraged in whatever I wanted to do. If the results were good, they would praise me to the skies and if bad, they would try to see something good in that. They did not want me to feel bad.
They are such wonderful supportive parents.

Naresh at IIT- Chennai

Life at IIT- Madras

Though my overall rank in the IIT-JEE was not that great (992), I was 4th in the physically handicapped category. So, I joined IIT, Madras to study Computer Science.
Here, my role model was Karthik who was also my senior in school. I looked up to him during my years at IIT- Madras.
He had asked for attached bathrooms for those with special needs before I came here itself. So, when I came here, the room had attached bath. He used to help me and guide me a lot when I was here.
I evolved as a person in these four years, both academically and personally. It has been a great experience studying here. The people I was intera ct ing with were so brilliant that I felt privileged to sit along with them in the class. Just by speaking to my lab mates, I gained a lot.

Naresh in wheel chair

Words are inadequate to express my gratitude to Prof Pandurangan and all my lab mates; all were simply great. I was sent to Boston along with four others for our internship by Prof Pandurangan. It was a great experience.

Joining Google R&D

I did not want to pursue PhD as I wanted my parents to take rest now.
Morgan Stanley sele ct ed me first but I preferred Google because I wanted to work in pure computer science, algorithms and game theory.

I am lucky

Do you know why I say I am lucky?
I get help from total strangers without me asking for it. Once after my second year at IIT, I with some of my friends was travelling in a train for a conference. We met a kind gentleman called Sundar in the train, and he has been taking care of my hostel fees from then on.
I have to mention about Jaipur foot. I had Jaipur foot when I was in 3rd standard. After two years, I stopped using them. As I had almost no stems on my legs, it was very tough to tie them to the body. I found walking with Jaipur foot very, very slow. Sitting also was a problem. I found my tricycle faster because I am one guy who wants to do things faster.
One great thing about the hospital is, they don’t think their role ends by just fixing the Jaipur foot; they arrange for livelihood for all. They asked me what help I needed from them. I told them at that time, if I got into an IIT, I needed financial help from them. So, from the day I joined IIT, Madras, my fees were taken care of by them. So, my education at the IIT was never a burden on my parents and they could take care of my sister’s Nursing studies.

Surprise awaited me at IIT

After my first year, when I went home, two things happened here at the Institute without my knowledge.
I got a letter from my department that they had arranged a lift and ramps at the department for me. It also said that if I came a bit early and checked whether it met with my requirements, it would be good.
Second surprise was, the Dean, Prof Idichandy and the Students General Secretary, Prasad had located a place that sold powered wheel chairs. The cost was Rs 55,000. What they did was, they did not buy the wheel chair; they gave me the money so that the wheel chair belonged to me and not the institute.
My life changed after that. I felt free and independent.
That’s why I say I am lucky. God has planned things for me and takes care of me at every step.

The world is full of good people

I also feel if you are motivated and show some initiative, people around you will always help you. I also feel there are more good people in society than bad ones. I want all those who read this to feel that if Naresh can achieve something in life, you can too.

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See Video Interview in USA

Courtsey – Shri Prabhulal Bharadia

Travel in Canada- Moiz Khumri

Shri Moiz Khumri was my classmate at  last year of Electrical engineering class. We studied together only for one year – 1965 . I joined Ahmedabad Electricity Co. Ltd, as a Technical Astt.; wheras he  joined Electrical Deptt. of Govt. of Gujrat as an Asstt. Electrical Inspector after a few years of working at various places.

So he became inspector of our Electrical plant and machinery – a very honorable person for us! When he retired, he was Commissioner of Electricity – a very important person at  Secretary level in Govt. But our friendship has continued and blossomed,  over all these years.

After retirement I have settled near Dalls, Texas, USA , wheras he flip flops between India, Canada and USA.

This narration of his recent travels in Canada with his daugher’s family is the first one from him on the net.  I am sure that, he will not stop at this and we can very reasonably expect many more writings from him in future.

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We left Ottawa on 3rd July 09 in Toyota Highlander with our daughter Tasnim on steering wheel all through out the round trip of around 6500 KMs.The last leg of return journey on 18th July was a drive of 1250 KMs.

The greatest entertainer during the entire trip was our grand son Ammar (6 years).In all five of us, me, Zainab, Tasnim, her husband Mohammed and Ammar had great fun during the trip.

The first halt was at Quebec city.Here we saw light and sound show of about 50 minutes on the banks of St.Laurence river covering the history of 400 years of the city.We have seen such shows in Red fort,Jaipur,Gandhi Ashram and Singapore.But this was far superior.Anyone visiting Quebec city has to see this.The Basilica here is also beautiful.We can not forget the delicious Tunisian dinner at “Carthage”.

The next halt was at Fredricton,the capital of New Brunswick.From here we visited the historical village “Kings Landing”. Here it was shown in real form how the artisans of the past era were carrying out their jobs.The dance at the theatre in Kings landing was also quite entertaining.

Thereafter, we visited port city of St.John (Bay of Fundy).The city market here is the big attraction.However the most important place is “Reversing Falls”.Here we see the water current going very high in the direction of the river during high tide and then the reverse flow from the river during low tide bringing down the level much lower.This is nature’s delight rarely observed.Smaller attractions like “Martello Tower” and Irving Natural Park were also good fun.A further smaller delight was a big group of baby foxes just around our vehicle.

Watch a video clip

Helifles Citadel Historical Park

Further halt was at Halifax(capital of Nova Scotia). Our stay was at Dartmouth, a suburb of Halifax.The attractions here were Halifax Citadel,Halifax harbour and Maritime museum of Atlantic.Here we saw the salvaged remains of “Titanic”.The light house on the rocks at “Peggys Cove” about 60 KMs away is a wonderful sight.THe only operaional post office is below the light house on these rocks.On the way further, we visited memorial of Swiss Air flight 111 wrecked in the ocean in the horizon on 2nd sept 1998.We then visited beautiful harbour city of Lunenberg.

Our next stop was at Sydney(Cape Breton).The harbour here is also nice.The big “Fiddle” erected on harbour is a good attraction.While we were strolling in one of the parks, a family just walking behind us stopped us and asked whether we were talking Gujarati.The lady was so happy that she could meet some one from Gujarat and just wanted to talk in Gujarati.The lady’s forefathers were living in Madhapar(Bhuj) and she was born in Uganda and studied in London(UK) and staying in Sydney for last 35 years.Her husband is a Pakistani doctor.They insisted upon us and took us for tea at their huge house.Meeting some one from your motherland at such a distant remote place made us all very happy.

We then visited Louisbourg.The fortress of Louisbourg is a big attraction there.

We then took world famous lengthy “Cabot trail”(298kms long) on the hills around the sea shore.The scenic road all along was breathtaking. Here our stay was at village “Meat cove” in the cottage on beach shore for 2 days. In this tiny village only 20 families live.The sea shore on this cove was serene.A small restaurant prepared special fresh fishes for our 3 meals there and for the first time I enjoyed the sea food. Normally,I avoid sea food. However, I can not forget those delicious fishes made by the chef Derek with all the love. The charges were unbelievably low at such a remote place.

We then drove again from other side of “Cabot trail” and reached Pictou.The car along with other travelling vehicles was shipped in a Ferry upto the shore of Wood Islands ferry terminal of Price Edward Island and we further drove upto Stratford. On the first eve there, we enjoyed Lebanese food.The capital of Prince Edward Island is Charlottetown.The light and sound show here though nice can not be compared with the excellent show at Quebec city.On this island we enjoyed at famous beaches of Singing Sands, Red point park, Cavendish, Rustico, Murray and other smaller beaches. While we were in Charlottetown we visited famous “COWS” hand-made ice cream factory.Though I am a big fan of Amdavadi Havmor Ice cream,the cows ice cream was exceptionally tasty. During 3 days of our stay in PEI we enjoyed this ice cream.

We also visited Penmore Island light house and the famous Cap Bear light house where first distress signals from the Titanic, while sinking near adjoining New Foundland sea, were received. On this island Acadian and native Mi’kmaq cultures have been thriving. This province is also famous for potato farming.The biggest attraction on this island province is the visit to famous Avonlea village recreating the ambience of famous stories for children- ”Anne of green Gables”.About 5 hours spent in this village were most entertaining.Evening dinner that evening at “Captain food” was also very delicious.

The visit at “The Bottle houses” at Cap-Egmont made of appx 10,000 bottles can not be missed while you are at PEI.

While leaving PEI we passed through a 13 KM long Confederation bridge across the ocean. We then stayed at Shediac of New Brunswick.It is adjoining Moncton.The largest structure of Lobster erected at Shediac is the biggest attraction.The  historical Pascal Porier house of Shediac gives the glimpse of that area. The hand embroidery by ladies of that town is attractive. However, magnetic hill at Moncton is really enjoyable.The car able to roll “uphill”; is an experience of life. They say that similar uphill rolling can be witnessed at British Columbia and Australia.

The most important attraction of the trip near Shediac and Moncton was “Hopewell Rock” at Bay of Fundy where during high tides water level reaches upto about 11 to 13 metres and at low tides you can walk on the ocean land.Many visitors come everyday to observe this magnificient wonder of the nature.During low tide you can see plants grown on the rocks of the ocean bed like flower pots.It is a “must” visit site while you are on East Coast of canada.

The important experience on this tour was our stay at most of the places in private homes offering “bed and breakfast” service. We had similar experince during our trip of West Coast in 2007. But this time, it was much better. These services are not cheap and comparable to good hotel prices. But in this case you come in contact with Canadian families and interact with them while enjoying the morning breakfast freshly prepared personally by them.

This concept may also be seen in a very limited cases in US but in Canada it is very popular.