If humans...

Humans have been exploiting the Wealth of Mother Earth for their greediness. They have destroyed the forests, polluted the water, air, contaminated the soil, mined the mineral wealth of Earth..... They are doing irreversible damage to earth. Every one has become so selfish that they dont even care for the Earth which supports their life. Every one is after the material wealth, building big houses, converting forest land to farm lands, saving money by dumping the garbage to rivers directly.

The exploitation of earth has been going since humans came on earth. It has reached an alarming level today. From many days I getting thoughts on - if humans did not exist on earth, then....

• The whole world would have been 'Picture Post Card' like. The pictures of Nature with Mountains, Rivers, Greenery all over.. Just imagine, the whole world would have been untouched if humans did not exist. The mountains would have been still ice capped. There would have been 'Song of Nature' playing every where.

• Numerous species of the Animal and Plant Kingdom would have been still present. Because of the greediness to acquire more wealth, trees have been cut for their wood, elephants have been killed for their ivory, tigers, deers, leopards have been killed for their skin. Millions of sharks wouldnt have tried to swim without their fins after they have been chopped off by the Chinese and Japanese. Many bird species wouldnt have been lost forever.

• The Ganges would have been as pure and sacred as described in the Vedas. Ganges has been identified to contains medicinal properties, but no more... Every garbage, drinage water from the Cities of Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi joins Ganges. There would not have been human dead bodies, which are thrown into the Ganges. Apart from these the Ganges wouldn't have been carrying huge amount of flowers which the devotees throw. Every river on earth would (specially Indian Rivers) have been as pure as Ganges.

• The 'Dead sea' would have been still alive in future. The 'Dead sea' in the border of Israel and Jordan is fed by the river Jordan and without any outlet, making it saltier and saltier. With Israel and Jordan blocking every drop of the river, it is not far when 'Dead sea' will permanently die.

• Most of the forests of Karst Plateau of Slovenia would have been still there, if they wouldnt have been chopped down long ago to provide the wooden pylons on which the city of Venice now stands. There wouldnt have been Chernobyl disaster, four square kilometres of pine forest in the immediate vicinity of the reactor wouldnt have gone ginger brown and died.
  

• Africa's biggest lakes, Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganayika wouldn't have been shrinking because of enroachment by humans to convert their banks into farmlands. In order to encash the demand for the ornamental flowers in Europe and around the world, people in Kenya have encroached the banks of these lakes to ensure permanent supply of water. The surface area of these lakes are decreasing at an alarming rate.

• Antartica wouldn't have to bear the brunt of the harmful UV Rays entering its atmosphere because of the holes created in Ozone layer by the emission of green house gases from some where else on earth. Arctic many icebergs would have been still retained from melting due to increase of temperature on earth.

• The rivers would have been flowing as they were flowing thousands of years ago without any blockage in between. Millions of dams around the earth have defaced the flow the of rivers resulting in drowing of thick forests into their back waters, Earth quakes and leaving the places downstream high and dry.

• Many places on earth would have been still natural without the massive holes created by Humans to mine the mineral wealth and later abandoning them with the not-so fertile soil covering the fertile ones causing hindrance for the growth of vegetation, resulting in deserts. The rocks of the Earth wouldn't have been defaced to supply the demand for stones in building huge Dams, houses. Large cities of Earth Sao Paulo, New York, Tokyo, Bombay, London wouldn't have created 'Scars' on Earth's surface. With humans encroaching on the sea surface by dumping the soil got by clearing an entire hill to build airports, high rise buildings, the sea shores at many places have been defaced.

• The ground water table wouldn't have gone down, if every household boring a well to extract the ground water without any attempt to refill it. The ground water could have been still retained partially if at least the lakes wouldnt have been filled up.
  

• ..... ....
• .... ...

The list is endless. The damage is irreversible.......

Another Holocaust ?

January 27th is observed internationally as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It is observed to pay tribute to the victims of genocide of minority groups in Europe during the World War II. Holocaust destroyed millions of people, especially the Jews from Europe, particularly Germany, Poland and Austria which were ruled by Hitler.

But what caused Holocaust to happen? How could the massacre at such a large scale could occur? Were the people unknown of their disappearing Jewish neighbours? I tried to find an answer.

Jews around the world are regarded as Intelligent race. They have contributed immensely to Literature, Music, Sports, Mathematics, Science, Politics, Arts. Jews have around 1000 years of history in Europe. Jews were present in the Social Hierarchy in Europe probably dominating in most of the fields.

When outsiders or people who have migrated to a place start dominating it, the locals start feeling insecure in their own place which leads to the hatred towards outsiders in the minds of the local people. This always happens in every human mind because of jealousy and fear leading to hatred. People start differentiating between a local and an outsider. Their treatment to a local person and the outsider also differs. People will never accept them as one among themselves.

People of Europe started feeling the same when Jews started to displace the local people in the social hierarchy. Some articles even write that the average European used to suffer under the Jews. People could never accept the Jews dominating them. Martin Luther, the German leader of the Protestant Reformation had called for harsh persecution of the Jewish people in the 15th century.

In the 20th century, Hitler built the Nazi Party and rose to power by becoming the Chancellor of Germany. Among many things, he wanted to establish Aryan race, as he thought Aryans were the early inhabitants of Europe and they were the superior race, which was even the theme of the opening ceremony of 1936 Berlin Olympics. Hitler began to claim the Jews were natural enemies of the Aryan Race. The anti-semetism led to systematic removal of Jews from the European Society. The hatred in the people's minds gathered large support or rather no opposition to Holocaust. Europe lost almost all Jews.

Thats history.

Coming to present times.

Bombay has been experiencing rapid economic development post-independence attracting large immigrants from every nook and corner of the country. Marathis in Bombay felt threatened due to large scale of immigration leading to the birth of Shivsena as the protector of Maratha Pride led by Balasaheb Thakre, who is also an ardent admirer of Hitler. Shivsena had even attacked immigrants in the past. Bangalore's economic boom is attracting people from all over India. The Information Technology boom has created thousands of jobs. The land prices have sky rocketted. The cost of living has increased multiple times. The local people of Bangalore feel they are suffering because of the immirants. They feel that the outsiders have started dominating them.

Moving to Assam, ULFA has projected itself as the saviour of Assamese people. Some days back in the state of Assam, Several workers who were the immigrants from the the state of Bihar were massacred by ULFA. Isn't this a Holocaust in a small scale ?

Few days before, there was a huge controversy surrounding 'Big Brother' in UK. One of the participant Jade Goody made racist remarks on Indian film actor Shipa Shetty. Shilpa has more name and fame than Jade. The jealousy, fear of eviction and the dominance of Shilpa led to hatred which resulted in racist remarks at Shilpa Shetty. If Shilpa had been a British, I am sure Jade wouldnt have made those remarks. The whole world cried that Britain is still a racist society.

Thats present.

I am sure every individual, every society in this world is racist. People do (or rather can) not accept a person from a different race or an outsider rise above them and dominate them. In India where there are people belonging to different groups, languages, ethnicities.. racism is very much evident in everyday life. People want 'their' people to be in their group. They support 'their' people.

Finally who is to blame for 'holocaust' ? People give 'racism' as the reason for Holocaust. Then who is to blame for 'racism' ? Should the 'outsiders' be blamed ? It will be illogical to blame immigration, as people immigrate in search of better quality of life. Then, should the people who practice 'racism' be blamed ? 'Human Nature' is the one to be blamed. The real reason for racism is the jealousy, fear and hatred which are present in every human's mind. People only vary in the level of acceptance towards other people.

What's future ?

The hatred and fear is increasing among people, no matter people often say 'We are all one'. With the wars happening around the world where one country wants to destroy or dominate another, people from one faith spreading hatred towards others, another holocaust may be in the offing.

Water in Oscar

Finally today the nominations for various categories for Oscars are announced.

Indian-born Canadian Deepa Mehta's 'Water' has been selected among the final five in Best Foreign Language Film Category.

'Water' is last of the trilogy by Deepa Mehta. The others being 'Fire' and 'Earth'. Deepa's movies have always been controversial since they deal with controversial subjects which are generally opposed. 'Water' also went through this controversy, when the shooting started at Varanasi. The sets of the film were burnt and vandalised, forcing Deepa to postpone the shooting of the film indefinitely. Later with a different cast of John Abraham, Lisa Ray she shot the film in Srilanka under the title 'River Moon'.

Some people are up against Deepa's movies. People say that her movies show India in bad taste. But can we forget our past ? Can we say that movies should only show good times ?


I felt very happy since Water has entered the Oscars as a Canadian entry and has made it to the final five, till I opened the Wikipedia page to read more about 'Water' and got disturbed when I read these two snippets -

• Prior to shooting of the film in Sri Lanka, Deepa Mehta decreed that only copies of the script excluding the rape scene of the young widow were to be circulated among the crew. It was feared that either child actor's parents or local authorities would attempt to hinder the scene being shot. A plan was hatched to have child's mother, who was always present with her during shooting, distracted and led away from the set while the key scene was being shot. Senior crew members who were aware of this plan found it highly objectionable and unethical, and expressed their very strong disapproval to producers. Despite the mutiny, Mehta insisted that child artist's mother, an 'uneducated' Sinhalese housewife from small-town Sri Lanka, was not sophisticated enough to understand the true meaning of the scene, and their plan went ahead, causing a considerable amount of disaffection among the crew for several days thereafter. Many in particular felt this action was antithetical to Water's purported pro-women's rights ethos, as well as exploitative in application of a double standard by 'Westerners' shooting in a less-developed country. Crew members were warned not to discuss the incident with the press.
  

If whatever Wikipedia says is true, then it was totally unethical on part of Deepa to carry out such an act. Deepa could have taken some time to convince child actor's mother. When the mother watches the film, she will be in rude shock. Deepa should have played her responsibly.

• The frozen corpse of a real parrot was used in the scene where the young widow a pet parrot in the film. The Sri Lankan animal wranglers and props crew were not able to create a convincing mock-up of a dead parrot, so they finally killed a couple of parrots and brought the frozen corpses to the set in a cooler for use in the scene. A number of key crew members had expressed strong objections to killing a parrot (or parrots) for the scene, so the animal wranglers claimed that they "found" the dead parrots and subsequently frozen them.
  

Killing an animal for the sake of a film ? The parrot could have been given made unconscious for the scene rather than killing.... How can Deepa Mehta, a highly respected movie maker can go to such extents to make a film !!!

Are directors like Deepa only for the sake of winning awards ?

Apple calling !!

Well, I cannot resist myself from blogging about today's BIGGEST breaking news, the iPhone !!!!

I have spent almost entire day today reading about iPhone. What an Amazing and an Unbelievable Phone !! What an invention !! I was blown away with the pictures of iPhone. iPhone plays music, it has email features, it has got browser, it has got email clients, it has got Maps plus the features of a normal phone. iPhone has not got any new features that any smart phone does not provide, isn't it?. Let us see what makes iPhone so special.

iPhone = Video iPod + OS X 10 + Smart Mobile Phone - Keypad.

Yes! Apple has removed the Keypad leaving only the "Home" key, making the iPhone entirely touch sensitive. Keypads have limited the screen of phones and all the keys are not necessary always. iPhone has got context based button, which will appear when they are required. For example the number pad when you want to make a call, accept or ignore buttons when you receive a call, play or pause button when you are playing music, a QWERTY keyboard when you want to write an email... makes lot of sense right ??

Apple has filed 200+ patents with respect to iPhone which indicates how much research and invention has gone into making the iPhone. Some of the simple, yet very useful and necessary innovations made by Apple in iPhone are

• Since iPhone is touch sensitive, locking can be iPhone can be difficult given that only one "Home" button is present on the iPhone. To unlock the iPhone, the user has to slide a bar on the iPhone which is unlikely to happen when kept in Pocket.

• iPhone has got lots of sensors embedded in it. One of them is the object sensor. When you pick up a call and keep the phone close to the ear, object sensor intimates iPhone to automatically switch off the display to save power

• When seeing a picture or browsing a webpage, and you want to see them in a wide screen, just turn you iPhone to a wide screen view, the display of iPhone autimatically changes to a wide screen, thanks to motion sensor.

• On screen QWERTY Keyboard is also innovative. When the user hits a key on the keyboard, the key enlarges and the alphabet comes above the key, so that the user can see the alphabet pressed and ensure, that he is hitting the appropriate key.

But one basic question remians... Many technology companies invent and build products constantly like Apple. The features of Apple products are also not unique. Then whats so special about Apple which makes people going crazy about them ?

Its the most basic thing about any product, they are Simplicity and Usability !! Apple products are known for their simple and uncluttered designs, high usability without much learning. These two very basic things along with innovation make Apple products unique among other similar products.

Take iPod. iPod is known for its sleek design, its usability with a simple wheel with great quality music. The Macs are the benchmarks for other PCs/Laptops and the very "cool" OS X, which is the most advanced Operating system with the adjective "easy" for every application in it. Macs and OS X together make an Amazing combination of sleek and stylish hardware with great set of essential softwares.

Some people argue that, Apple just does huge marketing of its not so superior products. I agree that Apple markets its products in a big way. But only marketing with not-so-good products will not achieve the followers which Apple has today. The success of Apple products is a product of Superior quality products and good marketing.

Apple built the Macintosh, then invented the Mouse, iPods, built OS X, Macs, iTunes, Apple TV and has displayed its "brilliant" iPhone yesterday. And Now I can't wait to see Leopard, the next version of OS X, with Time Machine and a great set of softwares yet to be revealed !!

Evolution of God !!

Through some links, I landed in Judaism page in Wikipedia. I had never read about Jews or Judaism, which has a long history from Jesus Christ to Holocaust. I read through the wikipedia pages for Christianity, Islam, Zorastrianism. I always had a question - how Hinduism has got so many Gods ?
Have you also ever wondered, how Hinduism has got so many Gods ? where as Islam, Judaism or Christianity have got only one God !!

In Discovery of India, Nehru says about the Vedas -
"The Vedas were simply meant to be a collection of existing knowledge of the day; they are a jumble of many thing: hymns, prayers, ritual for sacrifice, magic, magnificient nature poetry. There is no idolatry in them; no temples for Gods."
Specifically about the Rig Veda, he says -
"The Rig Veda, the first of the Vedas, is probably the earliest book that human possesses. In it we can find outpourings of the human mind, the glow of poetry, the rupture at nature's loveliness and mystery".

This made me think then who created those numerous Gods ?
Gods have evolved with the human civilization. Every Epic has added Gods. The forces of Nature have been personified and the Gods have born. Every force of Nature Fire, Wind, Rain are depicted as Gods. Later, the principles of life have also been personified to make a model human being, and epics have been written around them, so that people follow them and worship them as God. Depicting the Nature as Human Gods is also there in Old Greek Religion.

Islam, Judaism, Christianity have only one God, with the principles of life documented in Quran, Torah and the Bible respectively, without creating a model human being with all those principles. Bhagavadgeetha also preaches the principles of life. Advaita also says about the oneness of God - Brahman, the supreme reality.

All the religions of the world worship God in their own way. Then are the Gods of each religion different ? Aren't we all worshipping the same forces of Nature and the principles of life directly or indirectly? or have we forgot that we are worshipping the Nature and the principles of life?

Why are people fighting for their Gods, when their Gods are one and the same !!

What is your opinion on this ?

ಕನ್ನಡ ರತ್ನಕೋಶ

ನಾನು ಪ್ರೌಢಶಾಲೆಯಲ್ಲಿದ್ದಾಗ ಪತ್ರಿಕೋದ್ಯಮ ಸಂಘದ ಸದಸ್ಯನಾಗಿದ್ದೆ. ಅಲ್ಪ-ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಲೇಖನ, ಪ್ರಬಂಧ, ವ್ಯಂಗ್ಯ ಚಿತ್ರ ಬರೆಯುವುದು, ಆ ಸಂಘದ ಚಟುವಟಿಗೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಸೇರಿದ್ದವು. ಪ್ರತಿ ವರ್ಷವೂ ನವೆಂಬರ್ 14ನೇ ತಾರೀಖಿನಿಂದ 20ನೇ ತಾರೀಖಿನವರೆಗೆ ಆಚರಿಸಲಾಗುವ ರಾಷ್ಟ್ರೀಯ ಗ್ರಂಥಾಲಯ ಸಪ್ತಾಹದ ಪ್ರಯುಕ್ತ ಪತ್ರಿಕೋದ್ಯಮ ಸಂಘದ ವತಿಯಿಂದ ಪುಸ್ತಕ ಪ್ರದರ್ಶನವನ್ನು ಏರ್ಪಡಿಸಲಾಗುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಆಗಲೇ ನನ್ನ ಕೈಗೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕ ಪುಸ್ತಕ 'ಕನ್ನಡ ರತ್ನಕೋಶ'.


'ಕನ್ನಡ ರತ್ನಕೋಶ'ವು ಕನ್ನಡ-ಕನ್ನಡ ನಿಘಂಟಿನ ಒಂದು ಸಂಕ್ಷಿಪ್ತವಾದ ರೂಪ. ಒಂದು ಕೈಪಿಡಿ. ಕನ್ನಡ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯ ಪರಿಷತ್ತು ಕನ್ನಡ ರತ್ನಕೋಶವನ್ನು ಪ್ರಕಾಶಿಸುತ್ತದೆ. ಜತೆಗೆ ಇದರ ಬೆಲೆ ಕೇವಲ ಐದು ರೂಪಾಯಿ !!! ಪ್ರತಿಯೊಬ್ಬ ಕನ್ನಡಿಗನ ಕೈಗೂ ಈ ಪುಸ್ತಕ ಸೇರಲಿ ಎಂಬ ಉದ್ದೇಶದಿಂದ ಇದರ ಬೆಲೆಯನ್ನು ಎಲ್ಲರ ಕೈಗೆ ಎಟುಕುವಂತೆ ಇರಿಸಲಾಗಿದೆ. ಆದರೆ 'ಕನ್ನಡ ರತ್ನಕೋಶ'ದಲ್ಲಿರುವ ಜ್ಞಾನ ಭಂಡಾರ ಮಾತ್ರ ಅಪಾರ. ಎಷ್ಟೋ ಕೇಳೇ ಇಲ್ಲದ ಕನ್ನಡದ ಪದಗಳನ್ನು ರತ್ನಕೋಶದಲ್ಲಿ ಕಾಣಬಹುದು. ನಾನು ಕನ್ನಡ ಪದಬಂಧಗಳನ್ನು ಭರ್ತಿಮಾಡುವುದರಲ್ಲಿ ರತ್ನಕೋಶದ ಪಾತ್ರವೇ ಹೆಚ್ಚು.

ರತ್ನಕೋಶ ಕೇವಲ ಕನ್ನಡ-ಕನ್ನಡ ನಿಘಂಟಲ್ಲ, ಅದರಲ್ಲಿ ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಹಲವು ಮಾಹಿತಿಯನ್ನು ನೀಡಲಾಗಿದೆ. ಭಾರತೀಯ ಸಂವತ್ಸರಗಳ, ರಾಶಿಗಳ, ನಕ್ಷತ್ರಗಳ ಹೆಸರುಗಳ ಪಟ್ಟಿಯನ್ನೂ ನೀಡಲಾಗಿದೆ. ಅದರ ಜತೆಗೆ ಜಗತ್ತಿನ ರಾಷ್ಟ್ರಗಳ ಹೆಸರುಗಳು, ಅವುಗಳ ರಾಜಧಾನಿಗಳನ್ನು ನೀಡಲಾಗಿದೆ.

ಕನ್ನಡ ರತ್ನಕೋಶವು ಕನ್ನಡದ ಜ್ಞಾನವನ್ನು ಹೆಚ್ಚಿಸುತ್ತದೆಯಲ್ಲದೇ, ಕನ್ನಡದ ಮೇಲೆ ಇನ್ನೂ ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನ ಅಭಿಮಾನವನ್ನು ಮೂಡಿಸುತ್ತದೆ. ಕನ್ನಡ ರತ್ನಕೋಶ ಪ್ರತಿಯೊಬ್ಬ ಕನ್ನಡಿಗನೂ ಸದಾ ತನ್ನ ಜತೆ ಇಟ್ಟುಕೊಳ್ಳಬೇಕಾದ ಒಂದು ಕೈಪಿಡಿ.

Mathemagic ??

I have posted my writings on many topics - TV, Newpapers, Culture, Nature. This time it is MATHEMATICS !!

Here are some interesting sayings about Folding paper in half.

• The fact : It is impossible to fold any piece of paper no matter how big, small, thin or thick more than 8 times
• You can't fold a paper more than five or six times. Dont believe? Try it. Thinner paper? Longer paper? It doesn't matter; you just can't do it.

All the above statements have been proved to be false in January 2002 by a high school student of Pomona, California by name - Britney Gallivan. She has been successful in folding the paper for 12 times !!!

All started when her Maths teacher told that She would get an extra maths credit, if she took up the option of solving the problem of folding a sheet in half 12 times. She tried and failed with reasonably-sized sheets of paper.

So she used something incredibly thin - gold foil and she succeeded in folding her gold foil in half 12 times. But her maths teacher said that ultra-thin gold foil was too easy - she had to fold paper 12 times. She studied the problem, and came with two mathematical solutions.

The first solution was for folding the paper in alternate directions. She derived a formula relating the number of folds possible (n) to the width (W, of the square sheet you start with) and the material's thickness (t):

The second solution was for folding the paper in a single direction. This is the case when you try to fold a long narrow sheet of paper. She derived another formula relating the number of folds possible in one direction (n) to the minimum possible length of material (l) and the material's thickness (t):

She derived from her formula that to successfully fold paper 12 times, she would need about 1.2 km of paper. After some searching she found a roll of special toilet paper that would suit her needs. She rolled out the jumbo toilet paper, marked the halfway point, and folded again and again. After seven hours, she folded her paper for the 11th time into a slab, about 80 cm wide and 40 cm high (in the photo above). She then folded it another time to get that 12th fold !!!!

Incredible isn't it ??

Dweepa

During the days of my engineering course, a film by name - Dweepa directed by Girish Kasaravalli, made news. Actress late Soundarya had produced it. It was shot in the Malenadu region of Karnataka with lush green forests, large bodies of water as its back drop. I had also read that the rainy scenes were shot in the natural rain. Dweepa also won the Swarna Kamala (Best Film). I wanted to watch the film since then.Finally I watched it on Doordarshan in its Award films programme late night around one month back.

The film is very good, it deals with the condition of people who are set to loose their houses in the backwaters of a dam being constructed. The film also draws lots of parallels betwen the Nature and human relationships.

**Spoiler warning**
There are mainly four characters in the film. Nagi played by Soundarya. Nagi's husband is Ganapaiah played by Avinash. Nagi's relative Krishna played by Harish Raj and finally Nagi's Father-in-law. Nagi's family lives in a place on the banks of a river.

There livelihood gets threatened by a new dam being constructed down stream, making their place coming under the backwater of the dam. All the villagers are being compensated to relocate to a safe place. But Nagi's Father-in-law does not agree to shift to a new place whatsoever. Krishna who used to be in Bombay comes to stay with them.

Because of Krishna, there is some trouble in the relationship between Nagi and her husband. Krishna leaves the place taking away the only boat Nagi has. Now Nagi and her husband become locked in the village which has become an Island in the backwaters. With the thundershowers continuing, there is always a danger of water entering the house. But Nagi shows great spirit and determination by staying awake whole night to protect herself, her husband, the cattle from the water. The film continues...

Though Dweepa is one film, but it has lots of stories interwoven inside it. The condition of people being displaced by dams, the relationships between man and wife troubled by a third person, making each one them to live like an Dweepa (island), and in the end, we can see hope personified as Nagi. The major part of the film deals with the parallels between the events occuring around them in Nature and the human minds becoming islands.

But I liked the last part of the film where Nagi never gives up hope, does what ever she can do to overcome the situation unlike her husband who just hopes but does not do anything in that regard. Nagi shows that with hope, determination to achieve the task and working towards that, one can overcome any challenge.

The film leaves with many questions, for which the viewer has to find the answer.

Sawaal-Jawaab

Around 15 years back, few houses had a Cable TV connection. Even the Cable TV channels were very few. So most of the people used to tune into Doordarshan. Doordarshan used to broadcast a number of very good programmes. And some programmes had a long lasting relationship with the viewers. They enjoyed huge viewer base, high TRPs which no present TV programmes can even dream of. They created a niche around them.

One of my favourites among them are Surabhi, Malgudi Days, Vyomkesh Bakshi. These programmes were very different from one another. One of them was a Cultural Magazine, one based on RK Narayan's collection of stories and one India's Sherlock Holmes.

Surabhi has been highly successful, running for over a decade. It used to be fresh in every episode. It was a collection of small documentaries on India's Culture, Dance, Music, Forests, Wildlife, Cinema, Cuisine ...... Two charming people used to anchor the show, the majestic Siddharth Kak and the charming Renuka Shahane, with her 10kW smile. They had a good chemistry between them. The anchors were also highly responsible for the success of Surabhi. I think in between the anchors got changed and the TRPs went down, later Siddharth and Renuka came back to anchor the show.

People of India were shown the treasures of India, which were unknown to most of us. Surabhi had stories from North to South, East to West, from even Lakshadweep and Andaman Nicobars, where they even met the native people who are still away from the modern world. In the later part, they also showed the very unknown Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kenya, Turkey... They were not the usual Travel Documentaries, where they will show the Hotels, Lodges... The documentaries used to concentrate of the Life, Culture, Cuisine of those places.

Surabhi was connected to the people with its Sawaal-Jawaab, the question and answer section, which was a new concept then when there were no mobile phones, no SMSs. People answered the questions with 15p post card, which was later replaced by a competition post card. I used to answer with atleast four cards, each one carrying the names of the four family members. Later, with the competition post cards, it got reduced to one or two. But I did not win in any of the lucky draws. But still there was a hope every time with the next Sawaal-Jawaab.

Later Surabhi started a section called 'Gyan-Vigyan', where people could ask answers for their questions in science which will be answered by Prof. Yash Pal and win prizes. This seemed to be a silver lining for me, who has been unlucky, to win by writing answers. I had sent a question, which was infact suggested to me by my sister. The question was 'When we feel sleepy, why do we yawn?'. In Gyan-Vigyan section of one of the episodes, the question was read out by the anchor to Professor. I was so sure of my unluck that I thought some one else has also sent the same question I sent. When they later turned the post card, I saw my name and I became so excited that I even forgot to listen to the answer. I was Jumping around with joy. They sent four books of the Cultural Magazine - Marg. I have only seen the huge pictures in those books multiple times, though havent read any of them yet.

All those days are gone only to remember and cherish. Though Surabhi TV did not continue on TV, it gave rise to a movement with the name - India Surabhi. I still wish Surabhi comes back on TV, with the same team of Siddharth Kak, Renuka Shahane and others.

Some of the episodes can be watched at Amul.tv