One of my friend is very bookwormish in nature, he always reads books to solve practical problems that life poses before him. This has made him very uni-dimensional in nature, static in approach and worse a confused man… in search of direction. His pitiable state left with an imminent question in my mind. If Books (which represent knowledge) are not your teacher then who can be your real teacher.
I guess Experience is your best teacher. And from where do you get experience, your life gives you experience, every day is an unique day, only if you keep your eyes wide open and analyse you can learn quite a few things, which will add up to your experiences. Something similar happened today.
I had been to Junnar, near Pune on my Official Visit. After the programme, we had loads of free time in hand and we decided to visit GMRT (Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope) at Narayangaon, Pune
Phew what a learning curve it happened to be. We were received by a friendly Administrative Officer Mr.J.K.Solanki, very rare to find such people in government departments. He was more than ready to give us all the information about the Telescope (set of 30 scattered telescopes over a radius of 25 kms, in Y shape). It listened to signals from billions of light years we were told (and one light year was the distance light took to travel in a year, and light travels at a speed of 386000 kms per second.. use calculators to find how much distance is covered in a year and then simply multiply by billions). That far these telescopes could see. The whole visit was an amazing learning experience and i learnt that yes, we Indians dont lag behind anybody as this Telescope is biggest in the World.. If government shows the willingness and if the whole system functions properly just nobody can stop us. INDIANS…
From GMRT we actually headed towards Mumbai, but as luck would have it, we saw some film shooting taking place at a place called Khubi 4 kms from Malshej Ghat. Khubi is famous for some other reasons, from here you have to walk a stretch of 4 kms to reach at Kireshwar, the base point of Harishchandragad, one of the riskiest trekks i had done before. The place is serene with huge mountains at the backdrop alongwith a river flowing, small hamlets around, fields, bullock carts and all the essentialities of a natural looking village without any pomp. We went to see the location because we were attracted by a Railway Engine and Wagons. We wondered how come a railway was pulled till this place. But.. But..to our wonder, it was all fake, the railway lines were made up of wooden planks, the engines, the wagons everything was made up of plywood and retrofitted on a truck, fully colored alongwith railway signal, level crossing etc.
There were around 200 workers toiling there on the set. Fortunately, we were properly dressed in formal clothes and looked like city people in that crowd of villagers, the security guys did not question us and permitted us to do whatever we liked 😀 they mistook us for some journalists on the set, as we had digital camera with us.
Returning from the sets, i could not stop wondering about the hardwork these filmy people put in to make movies, and how easily their creativity is stolen and sold in pirated cds for just 30 rupees. Is this not a big crime. I left wondering that if such things are not controlled and nipped in the bud, the whole of the industry and hundreds and thousands of people on and off the screens would be rendered jobless.
You can call it as a cruel joke, but for the first time, while travelling from Kalyan to Dombivli, i saw a guy selling pirated DVDs for 30 Rs in a train compartment, people sell all sort of things, but i noticed a guy selling pirated cds so blatantly. While alighting, i told him, that he was doing one of the biggest crime and he should switch lines. Perhaps he would never realize why i said so…
But this was my experience… this is what i learnt today… and i am sure i would grow more richer and wiser as my experience grows as only experience is your real teacher…
Vijay's Space 
Very interesting to read. By sharing your experience, you made me feel as though i am able to see them.
Recently, i.e from 13th to 17th Feb’2011, 72 of us from office traveled to Goa. This is my third visit to Goa. Last was in the year 1994, a family trip. This is my first trip any where with such a large crowd having ratio of 69 male and 3 female. :). Anyway, unusual,exciting and excellent experience. Most amazing experience was in Anjuna Beach market (Wednesday weekly market of that area). This weekly Market is stretched over a distance of 5km on Anjuna Beach. Russian, European and Indians are the visitors of such market. Most of the weekly shops are run by the Lambadas (tribe). These Lambadas are found to talk fluently in Russian language with the foreign tourists. In my group i am the only person who speaks Marathi, so I was conversing with these Lambadas. But felt, in pursuit of winning, these tribes are far more smarter and achiever than we the educated urbans and MBAs.
The structure for your site is a tad off in Epiphany. Even So I like your site. I may have to install a normal web browser just to enjoy it.