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TRIP UPDATE - 7 (January 2 - 10, 2007)
Delhi - Batala near Amritsar
January 2-5 2007. Delhi - administrative and visa works.
The first day of our stay in Delhi was spent on routine administrative tasks including leaving our bikes for servicing at CPL TVS and to pick up visa application forms for Pakistan, Myanmar, Thailand etc. More importantly we were also informed by Intel's Ajit Singh that we could pick up the Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC) from their office in Delhi. Intel being a technology giant of Asia wanted us to use their yet-to-be-launched UMPC on the field and give feedback as to the modifications required (if any) for Indian conditions and assured that this PC would fulfill all our technology needs during the tour. When Ajit mentioned about the UMPC I wasn't too sure what we would get and was very curiuos to see and use the machine.
Our first visit was to the TVS service center where we left our bikes for much needed washing, checking and servicing. Then we made a beeline to Intel's office to pick up the UMPC. As I opened the package and examined the UMPC I was thrilled to bits. This compact 9"X5"X1" box has all the features of a fully loaded desktop PC with a hard disk of 60 GB we can store several thousand hi-res digital pictures, all our text data. The UMPC features a built in finger print security, stylus pen, web camera, stereo speakers, microphone, wireless, bluetooth and LAN networking capabilities, geographical positioning system and has several practical accessories including a very compact foldable keyboard, mouse and a host of other connectivitiy options. The best part of the PC is that one doesn't actually need the mouse or keyboard because the stylus and the buttons on the unit does all the tasks. UMPC has a unique handwriting recognition software which can read whatever we write on the screen with the stylus pen and convert it into text. Even handwriting as bad as mine is read pretty flawlessly. Wonderful gadget indeed for the person who is on the move. Laptops which are common today are bulky and heavy but the UMPC is compact, light in weight and is just as big as a 200 page notebook. Though we received the plain PC with only the operating system loaded it was pretty good deal, we would have appreciated had basic softwares such as MS Office, Adobe Photoshop and Corel Draw were pre installed in the PC.
In my opinion the only things that the UMPC lacks is a DVD/CD writer and a built in dial-up modem, because given Indian scenario wireless internet is available only in metros and when a user like us is in B or C class towns where cybercafes are rare it is impossible to work on the internet with this PC. Anyway we met up with Ashish Chadda, head of education services, Intel India and moved back to our residence to familiarise ourselves with the PC.
Anyway for the next three days till January 5, we stayed put in Delhi and were quite frustrated with the response of Myanmar and Pakistan high commissions who outright rejected our visa applications citing some flimsy grounds. "You can visit Myanmar by Air. Road entry from Indian side is not possible," said the visa officer at Myanmar embassy. "Even if you have a letter of invitation from Intel, Islamabad it will take at least 6 months to process the visa. Moreover we issue tourist visas only to those who have blood relatives in Pakistan. So please don't waste your time applying for a visa to Pak," said Pakistan's visa officer. We were forced to replan our tour and cut it short to just over four months and to only five countries (India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Bangladesh).
January 6, 2007 - Delhi - Kurukshetra via Panipat
Started the day at about 8.30 am and rode towards the Grand Trunk road which is perhaps the oldest highway in the country. Our plan was to halt at the epic famous town of Kurukshetra, about 210 km from Delhi. As we rode out of the national capital towards Panipat my thoughts drifted back 13 years to 1993 when I, as a college student had cycled on the same road towards Ladakh. The infrastructure development between then and now has been phenomenal, vehicles have increased, road has been widened and several new towns and villages have sprung up along the highways. And the traffic is quite unruly, truck and bus drivers race along the highway with little consideration for smaller vehicles.
We reached Panipat at about noon and proceeded to Kala Aamb, a park built in the location where the three historic battles of Panipat, which decided India's future during 16-17th centuries. The vast memorial park is well landscaped with green spaces, ponds and small elegant monuments dotting the space. But unfortunately due to lack of publicity there are hardly any visitors. We were the only visitors to the park apart from a group of out of school children from nearby village. We spent time interacting with the kids walking through the vast open spaces in the park and moved back to the highway in a bid to reach Kurukshetra (63 km), before nightfall.
As we wheeled into Kurukshetra we were welcomed by the local Rotary Club president and members and comfortably lodged in Hotel Heritage. After freshening up we proceeded to take in the important landmarks of the mythological city. Sannihit sarovar and Brahma sarovar are two large man made tanks. The former is believed to be the place where Duryodhana hid himself towards the end of the Mahabharata war and the latter, reputedly Asia's largest manmade water tank sprawls over 3 sq km area and is full of clear water. There are several other heritage monuments including a royal guest house, Sanskrit gurukul, the Krishna Museum and the Panorama (science museum).
January 7, 2007, Kurukshetra to Ludhiana
We wanted to visit the Krishna Museum which opened at 10 am (entry fee: Rs.10 per person). The museum exhibits a very interesting collection of historical and modern artefacts, antiques, paintings and costumes related to Lord Krishna. The records in the museum trace references to Lord Krishna back to the Harappan civilisation (about 5000 BC). The best part of the museum is its clean and dust free maintenance, very few government museums are cared for so well.
After taking in the museum we proceeded on towards Ludhiana and reached there at about 6 pm. Since we didn't have any hosting arrangement in this industrial city we were looking for a good, safe and economical hotel to spend the night. As we moved through the city, we were accosted by a Sikh "What was our problem?" he asked. "We are looking for an economical hotel," replied Kishore. "Welcome to Punjab. I am Davinder Nagi. Do you have sleeping bags?" queried our new acquaintance. When we replied in the affirmative he instructed to follow his car and he would give us a place to stay. We followed him to his house and he welcomed us in and took us to a small out house. "The tenents vacated this house about a week ago. You can stay here. Have you had your dinner?" he asked. When we replied that we will go out for dinner he said: "You are in Punjab, our culture is to make our guests comfortable. I will get you some food from home," he said and brought us some roti and saag with pickle.
January 8, 2007 Ludhiana
"Good morning, wake up and get ready quickly," said Nagi knocking on the door at 7.30 am. "Get ready soon we are going to Ryan International School," he added. We got up and got ready and were soon at the upscale school which has an enrollment of about 1,450 instructed by 85 teachers. "Welcome to Ryan. I am happy to know about your mission and I would like to address our high school students. Please also advise them about the importance of safe riding and following traffic rules," said Mrs. Jayashree Gupta the principal of the school.
As we started our presentation the children came up with various ideas to get underprivileged children into school. "we should give them money" "we should put pressure on the government to give proper education to these children" "We should go to the slums and play with those kids and that way attract them to school" were some of the common answers of the children. When we suggested that slum children maybe brought to school for 2-3 hrs a week and taught they were in agreement. "We were doing this slum interaction once a year during christmas. But now I am more than convinced that we should do it once a fortnight at least. We will launch a programme and inform you about it," reiterated Mrs. Gupta.
Happy with the positive impact of our presentation we showed the staff and students some pictures shot during our journey of poor, out-of-school and tribal children on the Ultra Mobile PC. The children while being sad about the plight of their lesser fortunate peers across the country seemed more keen to know about our UMPC and work on it. During the interaction we emphasised that national education growth can only be brought about by inclusion of under privileged children and that these more privileged ones should spend at least 2-3 hrs a week in helping slum children read.
We allowed some of the higher class kids to handle the UMPC and they were thrilled and more happy to know the fact that this PC was not commercially available yet but only 4-5 units were in India for testing purpose. "I am so happy that I was able to see this Ultra Mobile PC today. I will wait for it to be launched in the market and ask my dad to buy it for me. Then I will not have to bring so many books to school. I can just write my notes on the PC directly," said Sandeep Singh a class X student. Indeed the PC has been a great help for us during our tour so far. Our website updating is far more easier, we can browse the internet where wireless internet is available and also make presentations at several places. I hope Intel includes an internal modem and mini-DVD drive when they launch the UMPC commercially so it will have all the solutions for the modern tech-savvy world citizen.
From the school we proceeded to Gemco Industries, a factory which manufactures bicicyle rims and whose owner had developed his own motorcycle using the powerful high-torque 1500 cc engine of 4X4 Maruti Gypsy King and modifying the 6 speed gearbox of the Yamaha 350 cc motorcycle. He has designed his own rims, chassis. Being bike enthusiasts I was keen to take a look and if possible a short spin on this home-made motorcycle. The response from the Gemco people was enthusiastic and afte a long interaction the 80-year-old patriarch of the family saw our TVS Apaches and asked for the keys. He wanted to take a spin. Apprehensively Kishore's bike keys were handed over to him and he started the bike and rode off like an expert even as we looked on. Great to see such a senior perons interested in bikes and riding one. After this we proceeded to Nagi's house and took rest for the rest of the afternoon.
That evening Nagi had organised a small garden party in our honour. His friends Sunil and Naveen Mitter, Sushil Kalra, Amit Bakshi joined in the merry making and we had a great time singing and chatting around the campfire late into the night.
January 9, 2007 Ludhiana to Amritsar and Wagah Border
Started off from Ludhiana at about 11 am and it was a fairly uneventful and swift ride on the smooth and busy national highway to Amritsar via Jullandhar. On reaching Amritsar since it was still 4.00 pm we decided to head towards Wagah, the only legal road border between India and Pakistan. We were accompanied by Ashish Rana, one of the volunteers of Seva Bharathi. Ashish explained in detail about the border parade and even introduced us to a few of the BSF personnel who manned this sensitive border.
Ashish, based in Attari about 2 km from Wagah, informed us that nearly 85 percent of the youth in the region are drug abusers and where do they get the drugs from. Of course across the border. When I pointed out that there was massivce fencing at the borders he said that people from the other side just threw packets containing drugs and sometimes even arms over the fence into the Indian side where their customers waited to receive the packets and throw back money. It is commendable that Ashish is working in such area trying to rehabilitate youth and get them into mainstream of India. After a long interaction ee returned to Amritsar and settled for the night.
January 10, 2007, Amritsar to Batala
Today we had decided to see the sights of this holy city of Sikhs and the India's largest producer of milk, butter and ghee. The main attractions of this city are the Harmandir Sahib aka Golden temple and Jallianwala bagh. The former built by Sikh gurus is sited within a fort like enclosure and has a large stepped tank in the center of which the temple has built. Because it is totally covered by a sheet of pure gold it is more popular as the Golden temple. Contiguous to the shrine is the Jallianwala Bagh which is the site of a massacre of over 2,000 innocent Indian protestors by the British General Dyer and his troops.
Further we visited the Durgyana Mandir an exact but less glorious replica of the Hamandir Sahib. Durgyana is also a small temple dedicated to Lord Rama and goddess Durga and is sited in the middle of a large tank. The water in the tank is not as clean as in the Harminder Sahib. But in terms of the design and layout it is strikingly similar to the Golden temple.
We were invited by Shashank Sharma to visit some Seva Bharathi projects at Batala a small town about 54 km from Amritsar. We decided to proceed there and spend the night at Batala and left Amritsar at 5.00 pm. Icy cold winds hit us in the face as we proceeded out of Amritsar and we were really glad to reach Batala and go indoors. Not wanting to waste our time Shashank took us to Achal, a village about 30 km from Batala where an ancient temple dedicated to Karthikeya son of celestial couple Shiva and Parvathi is located. Taking us through the temple, our host explained in explicit detail the temples history and architecture and how it went through a brief period of disturbance during the Punjab terrorism days. After this we proceeded back to Batala where we visited the Panth Sahib a gurudwara which was built in 1544 AD in memory of Guru Nanak's wife. Though the entire gurudwara has been renovated a small portion of the original wall has been left and this is enshrined inside the sanctum and continues to be revered as the Panth Sahib.
After a homely dinner at one of the Seva Bharathi volunteers Rajesh Sarin's house, we proceeded back to our lodgings and settled for the night.
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