Visit To Alcatraz and San Francisco

















Fremont(California)


Today I went to visit San Francisco and Alcatraz with Anu and Vickie.Yesterday we had a party in our house, so we got up late in the morning. We were ready at 11a:m and left for San Francisco.San Francisco is the 4th most populated city of California and the largest city of West Coast. It is densely populated and is at the tip of San Francisco peninsula. The Bay of San Francisco is at the east, Pacific Ocean at the west and the most famous landmark Golden Gate Bridge is at the north. It was devastated by the earthquake and fire in 1906 but quickly rebuilt.


San Francisco is about 30miles from Fremont. We had a plan to visit San Francisco first and then Alcatraz, but we could not do that. Since we had our cruise for Alcatraz at 3:55, so we could see only Pier39 before going there. We board our cruise at 3:30pm from pier33 and it took about 15minutes to reach the Alcatraz.


Alcatraz is a cell house in an island near San Francisco, where some of the most notorious criminals of America were kept. It was the federal penitentiary since 1934-1963.The main prison block has iron rod gates in its 9x5 foot cells. The prison has its mess hall,library and isolation rooms.The disruptive and violent inmates were kept in the isolation rooms.Every thing is structurally intact.


Now it has got the status of National Park. It has rare flowers, plants, marine wildlife and sea birds.


After getting down from the cruise, we went straight to the information center. After taking informations went to see the Alcatraz prison, now a national park. First we went and took the set for audio tour, after taking we started our tour of Alcatraz.

It was a very nice experience to take a tour with help of audio. You have an audio set with you, so you get to know every thing, no need to ask.


Every thing was nicely preserved in all the rooms. Even the keys were also kept in its place. One time most sensitive and secured place where people never wanted to go has become San Francisco's most prominent landmark and tourist attraction.

Now we were about to finish our tour, Vickie told us
to hurry because the last cruise was at 6:30, so we
went straight to give the audio set. While returning we saw beautiful sea birds. We again board the cruise and reached pier 33.


Now we went to see the city. The city it self is very beautiful but the most beautiful and attractive street is the famous Lombard Crooked Street. One of the most crooked street of United States. It is a red-bricked road having eight curves with 27 degree slopes.







It was really very steep and long too, while going to the Lombard road. Then we went to the Crooked street. It has beautiful houses and in front of the houses beautiful flowers,and the road is in between. What a landscaping, what an architect.


While going through that road by car I was scared very much, so was Anu but it looked amazing when we got down and saw from there.


From Crooked Street we went to the Golden gate Bridge. The gateway ,here the bay meets the ocean. It was very windy even then we walked on the bridge. Now it was 9:00pm,so we returned back to Fremont.









20th August Vickie's joining Day

Fremont



Today is 20th of August, this day Vickie joined Google. Today is his 1st Google Birthday, this they call in Google.


Kya bhooloon kya yaad karoon. Whenever I am depressed I just try to forget the present and go in the past and I am recharged.

My Visit To University Of California, Berkley





Fremont(California)


Yesterday was our Independence Day and I missed my country. Today again I am missing India, today is Raksha Bandhan but this time I couldn't send rakhi to my brothers. In the morning we went to meet Anu's uncle and aunt. They had invited us for lunch.


After lunch we went to visit the most prestigious university that is University of California, Berkley. Berkley is in the south of San Francisco, in the Golden State, California. Berkley was the first full- curriculum public university in the state, so it was called University of California. My daughter-in-law Anu is doing her Masters of Information Management And System (MS) here. Berkley was founded in 1868 with just 10 faculty members and 38 students.Now it has 220,000 students and 170,000 faculty and staff members.It is the pioneer university of the world and has produced 20 Nobel Laureates till date, this is the place where vitamin E was found.The atomic bomb in world war2 was also developed by the scientists, those who were working on Manhattan projects.


University Of California has ten campuses. It has world class labs and classrooms, besides that three of the US Department of Energy national laboratories are managed by the university.


We started from Fremont at about 4 o'clock in the evening and it took about 30 minutes to reach there. I was very excited because I had heard a lot about Berkley. First we went to the south hall, the first building of the university built in 1873, the only original building left in the campus. Anu has her classes in this building.

We went inside and saw its students center and the lab. Anu showed us where she generally sits in the lab and I was very proud to witness it. From there we went to the see the Memorial Glade.





Now the most impressive building, which I liked was the library. From there we went to the southern gate of the university. It was still vacation going on so we could not see the rush of the students there. I was very happy that I saw this university so closely, this was like a dream. Now all of us were tired so we left the land of learned people, scientists and Nobel Laureates.


We had a nice Ethiopian food and returned back to Fremont. We reached there at 11 p:m. This was my one of the memorable visit of USA.

A Talent Whom I Miss





Fremont


My husband Lallan Prasad Thakur was a civil engineer by profession but he was an inborn artist. We generally don't see such type of talent in a person having technical background.He use to write drama scripts, act in a leading role, write it's lyrics and direct it. Acting was his passion and he acted in many plays since his childhood. He has written several Hindi and Maithli drama scripts which are now in form of books. Apart from that he use to write songs, poems, gazals, safety slogans, safety drama scripts, all in Hindi and Maithli. He has won several awards for his scripts, his directions, for his acting and even for his stage directions. Both my sons use to act in his plays and got several awards.


I have seen him writing, if he was in mood to write, he use to finish a full drama script in one stretch. I remember one or two of his dramas which he has written like that.Once he got an invitation for a play in a competition and after a meeting he decided to participate in that. The name of the play he announced in the meeting and date of the rehearsal was also fixed.Now he started thinking what drama to perform, he had a plot in his mind and he had a scene of it written.He use to have several plots for dramas in his mind and I had to listen his plots several times, not only plots, I had to listen all his dialogues several times also, during his script writing. So, the rehearsal also started on the schedule date with the first scene. I use to go with him everyday in all his rehearsals and both my sons were his child artist.


One day after his rehearsal he came and after tea he told me that today he was in a mood to write, secondly he had no options because he can't carry on the rehearsal with one scene, so after his dinner he is going to finish the script. He told me to make a flask of tea and go to sleep. After dinner children went to sleep, I made tea for him and kept it in the flask and went to sleep. At about 4:30 I woke up and went near him, he was still writing and told me to make tea for him. He said that the script was about to complete, so after making tea I also had tea with him, at 5:30 the script was complete. The play was very successfully played and got several prizes.


Once we went for a marriage of my cousin, there he met one of my mothers uncle, from his character he got a plot for his drama thus the script of his most popular play "Mister Nilo Kaka" was written. The main character of this play is an old man named "Nilo", who was very popular amongst his village people because of his humorous nature. The character Nilo never wanted to be said old man and he use to hate this word, as well as he had fear of snake. The youngsters use to tease him by saying old man. This play was staged twice in Mr. Thakur's direction, first in Jamshedpur which he organized himself, second time in the International Maithli Drama Festival. This was his first play outside Jamshedpur in Maithli and it was super hit and is still very popular. In a night he was the hero, after his play outside Jamshedpur.


Few days after" Mister Nilo Kaka" was staged in Jamshedpur he got an invitation for the international drama competition. Since the play was successfully staged in Jamshedpur and all the artist those who had acted in that play were available, he excepted the invitation. He had very less time for the competition but he was confident that this play would fetch several best awards. Again the rehearsal started, everything was going fine. I use to be with him in the rehearsal everyday and use to assist him. My younger son was also acting in that play so four of us use to go for the rehearsal. One day one of the artist named Lakshmikant who was doing the role of Sanichra came and said he had an unavoidable circumstances so he was going to his village but he will come within two three days and join. His role was not so big so Mr. Thakur was not worried about that but one day he got a message from one of the lady artist that she couldn't do the play because she was going out of the town. That day he was very upset, next day all of us went for the rehearsal but it was more like a meeting than a rehearsal. After rehearsal all the artist went home only four of us and Mr. Balmukund Choudhary Mr. Thakur's one of the closest friend stayed there back to decide what to do. Without lady artist the play was not possible, both Mr. Thakur and Mr. Choudhary were very worried and asked me what to do. Even I had no answer. Both of them went out of the room for few minutes and came back. Mr. Thakur came to me and said , how can we back out now, only few days are left for the drama festival. Now it has become our prestige, so you will have to do the role. I started laughing, I told them it's not possible, now my husband also started laughing but after few seconds he said," now I am not joking, you will have to do because we don't have any option, I know you can do it". I had no answer so it was decided that I will do the role of that lady artist.


Next day four of us went for the rehearsal. Everyday I use to go for the rehearsal and give my comments later on in the house but that day it was different,I was going as an artist.In the play main character " Nilo" was Mr. Thakur and I was his wife. All the artist were told that now I will be doing kaki's role, that was the character(lady artist) called in the play. The rehearsal started, I was called for the rehearsal,so I went near the stage but I was not able to do the rehearsal.I started laughing instead of delivering the dialogues. All my dialogues were with Mr. Thakur and as I looked at him I couldn't resist my self and laughed and so Mr.Choudhary. So, Mr.Choudhary was told to go out of the hall but even in his absence I was not able to deliver the dialogues because of my laugh. Any how other artists did there parts and we went home. Next day I thought I will not laugh and do the rehearsal seriously but when my turn came for the dialogue I again started laughing. This went on till the last day of the rehearsal. I never did the rehearsal with my husband, only some times he use to listen my dialogues at home. I was not satisfied with my rehearsal but he use to say to the artist don't worry she will do it on the stage," I am confident about her". Now the artist who had gone for his village didn't turn up and sent a message that he will join at Patna, where we had to go for the competition. We were worried but Mr. Thakur said not to be worried about it, if he doesn't turns up my elder son Bhaskar will do his role. So, we left for International Maithli Drama Competition.


We left for Patna, the whole team was excited, my elder son Bhaskar( Puttu) was told to see the dialogue of Sanichra. We reached Patna a day before our show and we had our stage rehearsal that day but Lakshmikant didn't turn up. Now my son Bhaskar was told to do the role of Sanichra.Since morning he had to do the rehearsal and in the afternoon we had our stage rehearsal.


On the show day we had our rehearsal in the hotel once or twice. In the evening Mr. Thakur with his family and all the artist was ready for the show. The show was super hit and Mr. Lallan Prasad Thakur got several prizes including best directors award. I got best character actress award and my son got best child actors award. This was Mr. Thakur's talent, I am lucky enough that I am his his wife and was with him for twenty three years.

Innocent


Fremont

My mother in law was a simple nice and innocent lady.She had a nice smile, my husband was very fond of her smile. He was very attached to his mother and loved her very much. My children were also attached to her. My younger son Vickie use to hold her cheeks and say dadi maa(grandmother) you have nice cheeks, innocently she use to smile and say, its OK but don't do this in your school and all of us use to laugh.


Once she came to Jamshedpur to stay with us. When ever she use to come, my husband use to arrange for her complete medical check up. TISCO has a hospital(TMH) for its employees. Since he was in TISCO, he had the medical facility for his parents too. During her stay we had to take her to the hospital frequently for her investigations and tests, so I use to be busy with her.


Once during her stay, doctors advised her for some special investigation which has to be done in the operation theater, the test I don't remember, for that I had to take her to the new building of the hospital because the operation theater was in that building. At that time it was new, now it is old. It is a 5 story building, so obviously it has lift facility. I think that was the first building with lift in Jamshedpur except TISCO's general office building. My husband told me that he will join us in the hospital, so I took my mother in law to the hospital. The building where we had to go was little far, so from the gate till that building we had to walk.


As we entered the building , I took her straight to the lift, the gate of the lift was opened, so I told her to get inside and we came out of it on the first floor. I took her straight to the lounge and two of us sat there on the chair, after some time she got up from the chair and started moving around, she came to me and asked, "how we came here"? First I couldn't understand her, so showing the lift I pointed out "that way", but then she said no no, how we came on the first floor, then I could make it out. I explained her how we reached there, on the first floor. This was her first experience of the lift. Afterward she told me, she thought we entered the door for some tests and came out after the test was done, saying this she smiled and so I.


When my husband came he saw both of us smiling, he asked his mother why we were smiling. She innocently told the whole story. After this incident my husband use to tell all his family members how his mother got into the lift first time and she as usual use to give her beautiful smile. I miss her.

Naina Devi Disaster

Fremont


Naina Devi Stamped toll mounts to 145 , was today's headlines of Google news. Naina Devi is a temple in the state of Himachal Pradesh, India. People from various parts were on pilgrimage to this temple, when this occurred. Mostly children and women were the victim. Since it was the auspicious month of Shravan, so thousands of people were trekking through the hills.


Cause of the stampede is yet not confirmed. Some news say due to heavy rush the cliff of the railing fell down and panic started, it was due to that. But exactly what happened is yet to be known. Now the people are bothered about how it happened, the inquiry is being set for that.No one is bothered about the victims, their family members, those who are alive. Is not our responsibility to think about them, and appeal for them? Instead of that, the news can be seen that postmortem report says the death were caused by asphyxiation, the postmortem report was handed over to the families of the victims.


Are those not the responsibility of the administration, should they take credit by doing it? Should not they think how those cause can be avoided, so that it doesn't occurs again.

Destiny

Fremont


I am a regular reader of Google news and today when I logged in, I saw a very sad news. Ishmit Singh, winner of Star Voice of India is no more. He died in a swimming pool of a resort in Male, Maldives. He was there for a promotional event with a music company. I like musical programmes, so I use to watch Star Voice of India programmes also. I watched almost all the episodes of the show. He was really a good singer but I think this was his destiny. If he would not have won the title, he would not have gone to Male.


No one knows what is your destiny, when and how your end will come. People can think that they should not do the things in which they are not safe, but do they know what are those, where they are safe? No! It is yet to be discovered by the human being, no science or scientist has yet discovered it. It is almighty who knows everything, so people worship him.They worship God because of his power. Every person has a fear in them, some say don't hurt any body, try to be kind to others then there is no need to go to the temple, gurdwara, church or maszid. But he also has a fear, only the thing is he pretends to be brave, so he or she preaches like this.

Binny's Fear

Fremont


On Sunday Binny called me, as usual I picked up the phone and asked her," how are you"? She started telling me that just now she saw a snake and she is in fear.When I asked her where she saw it, then she started telling me that she had gone in the garden to see and give water to the plants, there she saw a snake. When I asked her where she was, she said she was sitting in her family room on her recliner, I could hear the children laughing. Now she told me that the snake was a small one, as she saw it she threw the things she had in her hand and came inside the house. She called all her friends and neighbours but no one was available. Then she called 911(life emergency) and the operator told her that they can send ambulance for her if she needs it for snake she should call 311(wild life emergency), then she called 311 and they enquired about the snake, its size and color etc. Now she knew that for such a small snake they are also not going to come for her help and she called Hemji(her husband) from his office and was waiting for him. She was asking Neha to make tea for her, but I could make out she was in great fear.Children were making fun of her and she was asking Ashish to call Hemji again and tell him to come quickly.

First of all I told her to calm down because by now it would have gone some where else,but she was not ready to hear this. She said she is not going any where till Hemji comes. Then I passed the phone to Vickie and told her to talk to him. Now I started thinking about when she was a little girl, she use to have fear and it use to be worse in the night, when there was no power. All our brothers and sisters use to tease her for that. Once she was with us in Jamshedpur, we went to watch movie and Binny was also with us. It was a night show and by the time we came home it was 11:30. After we came back I went straight to the kitchen to arrange for the dinner, Binny went to the bathroom, my husband was changing his clothes, from the bedroom trying to change his voice he called Binny.Oh my God!She started shouting and ran out at once from the bathroom. She never use to go to the court yard or the patio alone in the night.She use to take someone and make them stand near the bathroom.

Today again in the morning Vickie called her and asked about the snake and he was making fun of her by saying that the snake has your photo in his eyes and he can't forget you. He will come again, so beware of that.This is Binny and her fear.

My Next Google Visit















Fremont


Today I went to visit Google again, it has a huge campus with so many large buildings in it.So, one can't see all of them in a day. After my previous visit to Google I was so impressed with the kind of office Google employees have that I was very keen to see all the buildings which I could not see in my previous visit. Vickie had a meeting that day so we had to return without completing our visit. This time I was watching each and every thing nicely because in my first visit I was so astonished to see the office that I could not notice everything. This time again we had to park a little far, after parking as we were going we saw a basket ball court, some nice statues were also seen in between the buildings, now we had to cross the road for visitors pass. While going to visitors lounge we saw valley ball court. Billiard table was also seen in one of the floor, chess can also be played there. They have the facility so that they can play all types of games despite that all were busy on their computer.Really, after seeing this people from other organization would be jealous.


The concept of office is totally changed here, its all colorful and cheerful.This time I saw the napping pod very closely because it was vacant.I went near it and couldn't resist my self to enter it. I went in it to see how people feel inside it. It was very comfortable, and had a head phone inside it. This time also I couldn't visit all the buildings but saw many of them, now I am satisfied with the visit and returned back. This is one of the memorable visit of my US trip.

San Jose



Fremont


On Saturday Vickie took me to visit San Jose. It is the third largest city of California and tenth largest city of USA. It is in the Santa Clara county and located in the Santa Clara Valley at the southern end of San Francisco, Bay Area known as Silicon Valley and360 miles north of Los Angeles. It is also called capital of Silicon Valley and was founded in 1777. From Fremont it is nearly 21 miles and it takes about 20 minutes to reach there, from Sanfrancisco airport it is about 38 miles and takes 41 minutes to reach there.

The compact downtown of San Jose is jam pact with good restaurants, art and cultural opportunities, night clubs and art galleries. In the evening it becomes more lively, you can see music going on live.Silicon Valley is famous for its micro chips, seeing this one can say, it is also for its entertainment.

The most famous and attractive thing now a days are malls, you can see many nice malls there. Vickie told me that there were nice and famous places for deserts, we went in one of them and had a nice desert there. I liked the city not because of malls but for its cultural activities.

Rehoboth Beach





Baltimore


On 4th July we went to Rehoboth Beach with Ashish,Neha, Anu,Binny and Hemji. Rehoboth Beach is a beautiful beach and wonderful place to visit. Rehoboth is a city in Sussex county and Delaware state it is about 140 miles from Baltimore, it takes about 2 hrs. to reach there. It is located on the Atlantic Coast only two hrs. from Washington DC, Baltimore and Philadelphia.It is a beautiful beach and wonderful place to visit.Delaware was the first state of USA to enter the union.

In the morning Binny told us that we were going to Atlantic City, which is a beach, but finally she decided to go to Rehoboth Beach.We had a plan to leave Baltimore at 9 a:m but since it was a holiday so everybody got up late, so we left at 10:30. It was a nice pleasant day, Binny took lots of foods and drinks, because we were going for a picnic.All were excited and the first hour went on gossiping, now Neha and Ashish started asking how far it was.Non of us were knowning,so now we called Vickie to know the distance and he told it was far and it will take onother one hour. Now every one was feeling hungry, Ashish told to sit some where and have food and then proceed for beach. Finally we decided to take food on the beach.

Now by the time it was only 50 miles to reach but the traffic was so slow that it took two and half hours to reach and we reached there at 3:30p.m.Now all of us were very hungry so we went straight to the beach and had our lunch first. The beach was very nice and clean but it was crowded. After lunch Binny insisted to enjoy the water, so we went in it. I also enjoyed in the water with Anu, Neha, Ashish and Binny.

Now a days we never forget to take our cell phone with us.Binny also had her cell with her and she was so excited playing in the water that she forgot to take it out from her pocket.After playing in the water when she came back she saw her phone was all wet and it was not working. Binny was happy because she thought she will get a new i phone that was launching on 11 th, on her 20 th anniversary day.But she was very sad because she got only $20 phone from Hemji on her anniversary, poor thing.

My Visit To Stanford




Fremont

I went to visit the prestigious Stanford University with Vickie on 28 June. It is recognized as world's one of the leading research and teaching institutions, located in the heart of silicon valley, Palo Alto,California. It was established in 1891 by the Governor of California, Leland Stanford and his wife Jane Stanford. It is named in honour of their only child Leland Stanford Junior,who died of typhoid just before his 16th birthday.

Stanford University owns 8,183 acres(32km)of land. The main campus is bounded by EL Camino Real, Stanford Avenue, Junipero Serra Boulevard and Sand Hill Road in the northwest part of the Santa Clara Valley on the Sanfrancisco Peninsula.All the buildings of the university has red roofs and the campus is very big and beautiful. As you enter the gate you can see the mile long beautiful palm drive, palm tree-lined entrance to campus, connects Stanford with the neighbouring town of Palo Alto. We went straight through the palm drive and after parking the first thing we noticed was, a beautiful garden full of flowers and the logo of Stanford was made in the middle by flowers. Now from there we went to the Main Quaid, it has university's first buildings, constructed between 1887-1891. As we entered the Main Quaid, we saw a large number of outdoor art installations throughout the campus of the university.Bronze statue of Auguste Rodin are scatterd throughout the campus. The first one I saw was Burghers of Colois.It is the attraction for the visitors, taking pictures with the statues there. We also took some pictures there with the statues.


The Burghers of Calais

After spending some time with the statues and having some pictures, we saw the Memorial Church, which was behind the Main Quad. Here also we had our photo session and now we went to see the famous Hoover Tower.It is visible throughout the surrounding area, serves as a landmark of Stanford to faculty, students, alumni and the local community.It is named after US President Herbert Hoover.Here also we had some pictures, because all the buildings looks so beautiful that you need some memory that you visited such a nice place.Now it was time to leave but I will never forget that I had to take a photograph of Ami, Anand and Vickie four times, because Vickie thought that I was not taking the photo properly and to make sure that photo was taken properly I had to take it four times.We returned to Anand and Ami's house had a nice dinner and came back to Fremont.

Baltimore Trip



Baltimore


Yesterday I came to visit Binny in Baltimore. Binny my sister stays here, which is in Maryland state in east coast of USA. Vickie came to drop me at Sanfrancisco airport, I had my flight from Sanfrancisco to Baltimore via Las Vegas. It was 7 hrs journey including about 1 hr stop over at Las Vegas.In the morning at 6:45, I was at BWI(Baltimore airport), Hemji(my brother in law) and Neha(my sister's daughter) came to receive me. I was very happy to see her and she was too. I saw her after two and half years.

Once in winter I was with Binny in Delhi for a long period. Neha and Ahish(my sister's son) were very small at that time.Both of them wanted to sleep with me and I had no choice other than to sleep in the middle.I use to feel sorry for them because early in the morning I had to wake them.Neha was very close to me and she use to sit near me whenever she was in the house.She use to observe me and whenever she saw me sad, she use to do some thing to make me happy or call her mother to sit near me. She is very sweet and charming girl and I like her smile.





Haridwar Yatra





Fremont



After Vaishnodevi and Patnitop our next destination was Haridwar.So, from Patnitop we directly went to Jammu station and boarded the train. On 15th May morning we were in Haridwar. We came out of the station to take a taxi but saw very few taxis there and when we enquired about it , people told us that there was a sant sammelan there from 15 th-17 th May, so the scarcity of taxi was due to that. All the hotels and ashrams were also full and the roads were also diverted. Now since there were no taxis available there , we had to take auto. With the help of Shweta's nanaji I had booked rooms in an ashram so we went to the ashram. Haridwar was very crowded because of sant sammelan and Budh Purnima.Now after settling down in ashram we decided to take holy dip in Har Ki Pauri because it was Budh Purnima. I went and asked Swamiji how to reach Har Ki Pauri, he told us that it was near but will have to go by foot, we were tired but any how we had decided to take dip so we went on foot and reached there.


We saw people taking dip where ever they were getting place, but I wanted to take dip at the cetnre of the bank where arti is performed in the evening.We were not able to locate the place because of crowd but after little search we reached there. We took the dip and by now we were very hungry, so we went straight to the ashram because swamiji had insisted us to take lunch in the ashram.We had nice lunch there and after that we took rest. In the evening we went to see ganga arti which starts at6 p:m everyday.


As we reached Har Ki Pauri again it was too crowded, people were sitting there from 4 p:m for arti. We saw everyone taking polythene sheets, it was for sitting purpose so we also took and went to search a place where all of us could sit together, after search we got that, but it was in the back. By the time it was 5:30 and the whole bank was full, people were pushing each other and the volunteers were trying to manage the situation. People were eagerly waiting for arti and the announcement was going on. At 5:45 it started drizzling, now people started getting up from there places, but no one wanted to leave the place. Now people used the polethene to protect themselves from water, now it started raining heavily and people had no choice other than to stand there and get wet or go back. Amazing, no one moved from there place, all were waiting for arti and asking each other what will happen if rain doesn't stops. People were anticipating that rain will stop and arti will be performed but the rain didnot stop and the pandas(priests) performed it near the doors of the temple and with umbrellas near the bank. As the arti ended the rain also stopped, as if it was only for that period only. Here we planned that tomorrow we will leave at 9 am for Massorie. The plan was that we(Mr. Rao,Kusum Rao,myself with Panditji and all) will join our friends at their hotel because due to traffic diversion it was not possible to pick us from our ashram.

My Google Visit





Fremont

California is the biggest state of USA, and the weather of California is the best in the world. There are lots of things to see around bay area in California, but one should not forget to visit Google because it is an unique office. Yesterday I went to visit Google's office in Mountain View which is the head quarter of Google, with Ami(Anu's sister). I was told that you will come to know that you have reached Google.And that was true, I could make it that I have reached Google, because as I entered the road of Amphitheater Parkway I could see Google written every where.


First we went to the parking of 1600 Amphitheater Parkway visitors parking.The parking area was quite a big one, but we couldn't get the space to park and we moved on searching for the parking, but after 10-15 minutes search we couldn't get a single parking space there and we had to park our car some where else, but of course it was also Google's parking area, a little far from the building, where we had to go for visitors badge.

After parking we walked to the visitor's lounge, there Vickie was waiting for us. As we were going for our badge the first thing I noticed was, people having their lunch out in the sun,the whole ground was full of table and chairs, some tables had umbrella too.Vickie took the visitor's badge and we had to put it,after that Vickie took us to the cafe and told us to have lunch first.So we started our Google tour with lunch. The cafe was nice and full of people, varieties of food were available there, the arrangement was very good, people were sitting inside the cafe also. Without seeing this people can't imagine that there can be such a nice arrangement of food for the employees and even for the visitors in an office.It's a unique feature of Google.It's a very nice thing, employees don't have tension of cooking and bringing their lunch to the office.

After lunch we went to see the places where people work in Google. It was also different from other offices.Everyone was busy with their big -big computers.The unique thing was that every 50ft.they had micro kitchen full of snacks ,coffees, and drinks.So whenever you are hungry or feeling sleepy, just go in the kitchen and have snacks,coffees or drinks what ever you like.

Now when you eat you need exercise, so they have gymnasium also where they can go and work out and keep themselves fit.After lots of work you get tired, so there they have massage chairs where they can relax,they can play ,swim,and the most unique thing I saw was a napping pod. You can have nap there,but only for fifteen minutes with music,but after that you can't be in it,because it shakes and makes you up. But one unique thing I also saw,all were busy in their own work.Now it was 30'clock and Vickie had a meeting, so I returned back with Ami, but my Google tour was not complete, I will try to complete it in my other trip.


The Napping Pod







Patnitop




Fremont

After our darshan of Vaishno Devi and Bhaironath we were very tired and even we were not in a position to talk to each other. So we decided to take rest and in the evening plan our further journey. So all of us went to our rooms and slept whole day.In the evening all were fresh, now all of us wanted to go for shopping, so after tea we went for our shopping and after our shopping we planned that at 90'clock we will leave Katra for Patnitop.

After our breakfast we left at 9 o'clock sharp for Patnitop, in two cars.Patnitop is a hill station in Kashmir at an altitude of 2024 m. across which the Jammu highway crosses. In winter it is covered by thick snow.Some of the main attraction of Patnitop, Kashmir are delightful picnic spots, magnificent views of mountains and Chenab basin. It is about 120 k.m from Katra, and about 112 km from Jammu, and from there Srinagar is about 200 km.Patnitop is amongst the best- developed tourist place in Kashmir valey.Here you can see an amazing dense forest of pine.There are number of tourist huts and dakbungalows, people come for picnic and stay here. People can trek, do skiing in winters, can enjoy many more snow games, they have the option of 6 holes golf course in summers and sight seeing in all the seasons.

When we left Katra town and came to the highway, by that time we were knowing many things about Katra and Vaishnodevi, but we were unknown to Patnitop and Kashmir rout, so we started inquiring about it from our driver. Our driver was a sardarji, so he started explaining us nicely in hindi. Since we were on the Shrinagar highway, two types of vehicles we saw on that road, tourist vehicles, and army's big vans and trucks.

After 25-30 km, both sides of the road was full of pine and pomegranate trees.As we entered the Kashmir the real scenic view started. Now the famous chinar and pine tree could be seen. Sardarji was telling us about each and every tree and places.When it was nearly 25 km,we could guess that now we are closer to Patnitop. Now the dense forest of pine and river Chenab could be seen. It was exactly what I had read in the books or seen in the movies. All of us were exited and watching the scenes we reached Patnitop. Now the driver stopped the car and told us that, it was the most famous spot of Patnitop. We got down, wow! what a nice garden and picnic spot it was, full of flowers and tall straight pine trees, we saw some stalls of Kashmiri suits, shawls and stoles in the garden, the most interesting thing was the stalls of Kashmiri costumes.

As we entered the gate of the garden we saw a stall just near the gate, and all of us went near the stall and quickly purchased some suits.I was busy in nice collection of kashmiri handicraft and when I turned back to see what others were doing, I found no one there, only Kusum(my friend) was there, I asked her about all of them and she showed me with her finger.Both of us laughed together, all were in kashmiri costumes and standing in pose, some had pot on the shoulder, some had hukka and some flowers too.The photo session was going on. Any how, it took at least an hour in that. After the photo session we had a look of the nice garden,it was woo!Now this we saw some more gardens and picnic spot and then went to see a famous Shiv temple.It was a very famous temple, I think all the visitors of Patnitop goes to visit that temple.Here again you have many stalls of kashmir handicrafts.Why should we leave those stalls untouched, so we visited those stalls and took some suits and stoles there too.Now we were getting late for Jammu because we had our train for Haridwar from there.We with our packets and smiling faces got into our cars. Now we told the driver to take us to some nice place for lunch because we were hungry and after that we will go straight to the station.

News

Fremont :23rd June


Since I am in USA I was very anxious to know about the
flood situation in Jamshedpur.I was going through all the news which I could get on the net, but I could get very few news, one news I saw on the net was that two crocodile and an alligator was missing from Jubli Park Zoo.It was the biggest news on Jamshedpur flood of that day, but I couldn't see the news that people were safe or not.What problem people were facing, but thanks to Mr. Subbu who sent some picture, and I could know the whole situation.

Jamshedpur Flood

VIEW













Yesterday I got an email from Vijaya's son that Jamshedpur was flooded.Hearing this I was worried and in the evening I rang up to Panditji and knew the whole situation. The first phase of Vijaya Heritage, Jamshedpur was flooded and as people were saying it was the worst flood that they have ever seen.The whole first phase was flooded and water entered the ground floor flats.When I talked to them there was no water in the campus and now people were waiting for TISCO to restore electricity and arrange for water.Vijaya's Heritage is one of the posh residential societies of Jamshedpur and people started staying here since August1998.People would never have thought that this type of situation will ever come. When I enquired about the cause of the flood, people said that the gates of two of the dams in Orissa were opened since the dams were over flowing. When I asked, did the government inform about this to the administration, they said it was not.Now the Jharkhand government is blaming Orissa government.

Now let us see what government is going to do for this.









Rest Day

Fremont

Yesterday I had a rest day.If my elder son hears this he will say" अरे ...तुम्हारा तो रोज ही रेस्ट डे होता है.Only I talked to my dear sister Binny today for three hours and one of the neighbour with his wife and small daughter came to meet us and had a nice time with the small charming girl.So I couldn't get time to do any thing.

Today again its a nice sunny day after two three days.

Jai Maa Vaishnav Devi

Fremont



Yesterday Vickie was asking me about my Vaishno Devi trip.Last month I had a nice trip with my friends Kusum Rao &Ranjana to Vaishno Devi & Haridwar.We started from Jamshedpur on 13th of May for New Delhi by Purshottam and our picnic started from there (my friend Kusum gave this name for the trip).They were with their families, Panditji with Daisy Roshan and Rohit also joined us.We really enjoyed the trip .All of us had one extra luggage full of food and games. As usual train was half an our late but we had lot of things to talk about, we all were very happy and enthusiastic too.Oh, I forgot to tell you that one more family whom I met first time joined us for the trip.And introduction to that family took 15minutes and half an hour passed now we boarded our train.After settling to our seats first thing that was in demand was tea and we asked for tea to the waiter of the railway catering service.We had two types of tea,sugarless and with sugar because maximum people were above 40.After tea we had our breakfast and the real fun started from there.As I told you we had lots of games with us so public demanded games and we started with bingo(housie).All of us participated in the game.After two rounds of play people of our compartment started coming near us and after third round people started asking us "can we join"and some of them joined us too.Like this how the time passed we could`t imagine. Now we had South Indian lunch which my friend Kusum had brought on our demand.After lunch another session of housie started till tea. Now our LUDO session started in the evening.The dinner was pure Bihari Food.How the whole day went I couldn't imagine because when I travel alone I am busy with my SUDOKU AND BOOKS but I get bored.5:am in the morning on 14th we were in Delhi.We went to a nearby hotel which my friends had booked, we were there for whole day. In the evening we had train for Jammu,it was very nice train and had a nice journey till Jammu.At 7a:m on15 we were at Jammu station from there we took taxi for Katra .I had booked rooms for my self and for Kusum in a hotel so we took a car and Panditji with Daisy and children accompanied us,rest of my friends were P N B staff so they went in a car to their guest house.After taking bath etc.we had a plan to take rest because we were planning to take yatra in the evening.So in the evening when we woke up we were fresh and ready for our journey.


At 6p:m we assembled near the yatra counter from where the journey starts. There the first thing you have to do is take a parchi(slip) otherwise you cannot proceed for yatra. It is free but it is to check that how many people are on way.The shrine keeps watch that plgrims should not exceed the number.At 7p:m after security check we started our yatra by saying "Jai Mata Di ", the total yatra(journey)is of 12k.m and 2k.m Bhaironath all of us had a stick in our hands.Now by 9p:m we were at Ardh Kumari it is the half way to Vaishno Mata temple.


Last time when I had gone to Vaishno Devi we couldn't go through the cave so this time I had decided to go through the cave but seeing the cue I was thinking what to do.People told us that our turn will come in the morning, so we should first do the Darshan of Vaishno Mata and while returning we should go through the cave and do the Darshan of Ardh Kumari.Any how by the help of a kind military personale we could manage to enter the cave and we came out of the cave at 11:30p:m it was a fantastic feeling its amazing. Now we took some rest there ,everyone was hungry by the time and they had some food except me, because I had fast of ekadashi.When we started our Yatra again it was 12 at night,now all of us were tired I saw everybody was limping and I started saying jor say bolo "Jai Mata Di"now saying this all of us were recharged and our speed increased.Any how we reached the top off course limping at 2:30a:m.


When you reach the top it is said that you should first take a bath and then go for Darshan.There are many separate bathrooms for ladies and gents.We went there and after taking bath as I came out of the bathroom it started raining with thunder and lightning, near the bathroom there was only one shed and people gathered there but I couldn't get into the shed it was full, literally was standing outside in the rain for 15minutes after that any how I could manage to get into the shed children started screaming because there was no power,mothers were searching their children and it was a mess, any how the rain stopped after an hour and the power also returned back, now people were searching each other, it was very cold and people were shivering , I had my shawl in my bag so after the rain was over and we came out of the shed I took out my shawl and wrapped my self with it, here we were lucky enough because within 5minutes we all were together I thought Goddess is kind enough so everything is going on as we thought and planned except this rain. Now we went for cue here our turn for Darshan came after 15minutes and we had a nice Darshan .When we came out after darshan it was already 4:30a:m.


Now the third step was to go to the temple of Shiv which was atleast 25-30 stairs down and we were thinking should we go to that temple or not but everybody agreed and all of us went there.It was also a nice temple. After coming from that temple we had tea, now my ekadashi was over so I wanted to have something to eat but only biscuit was available there so we took that and continued our yatra for Bhaironath temple.Here we were knowing it that it was only 2k.m from Vaishno Devi temple so in spite of our tiredness we thought to take that yatra too.


It is said that without Bhaironath's Darshan Yatra is incomplete.Everyone was limping and after every 5minutes we were taking a little rest except two of the Roshan,Rohit and great Prasadji.He is the man who encouraged me to join the Yatra.First I was hesitating because just after three days of the trip I had my flight for USA which was booked earlier.Now I thank him for this wonderful trip.Now no one was in a position to move a little but even then Bhaironath wanted us to be there so we conquered the Bhaironath top saying" Jai Bhaironath Ki".After we reached the top we were now drained out, seeing the crowd we sat on a bench and started thinking now we can't have Darshan,any how we again went for cue.Any how we could manage to have Darshan.


Here interupting me Vickie asked "how the IDOL of goddess was found, and when, do you know that?"I replied him there is no idol only three" Pindies" of goddess " Kali Lakshmi and Saraswati" are there , he immediately replied me, for seeing only those Pindis people take so much of trouble and go there I laughed and said this is called ASTHA(faith)in our Hindu religion.