Girish's Blog

Paragliding at this site is always a pleasure as the site is so scenic and beautiful and in tune with nature that is sets you at peace with yourself. One can just sit there all day by oneself and enjoy the natural beauty with which one is surrounded. I reached the lake site at around 2.30pm before the rest of the crowd got in and sat below a tree to protect myself from the sunlight. There was a gentle breeze which helped in keeping one cool. After some time a couple more paragliding students joined me and a while later Parsha came down in the jeep with the gliders. There were a group of overseas students, probably French, from their accent, though I am not sure. I decided to get some kiting practice as I had a lot of cobwebs in my mind with my last flight experience where I had got caught in a “venturi” and had an interesting experience. I did some kiting for a couple of hours – I had assistance for about ten minutes, with all the trainers busy with the “new” students and not much time...

Saturday, April 3, 2010 we were told to assemble at Rangoli restaurant at 1pm – the usual assembly point. Because of the Easter weekend there were a lot of holiday makers as well flyers. We encountered a lot of traffic in Lonavla, but reached around 12.30 and had lunch at Rangoli. I was having a very uneasy sensation on waking up, something telling me not to fly today, but I had a friend who had come just to watch and decide for himself whether he should take up the course, hence I decided to go. After lunch at around 2.15pm we left for Shelar, two Bullet motorbikes, two jeeps and my car. On the way, the jeep which Avi was driving had a close shave with a drunk villager on a motorbike. I was behind the jeep and had a clear view of the incident. The road ahead was clear in my line of sight, which means the motorbike was on Avi’s side of the road (guy must have just returned from the US) driving on the wrong side! Suddenly I saw the bike as he swerved out of the way of the jeep and a sma...

Mayawati is once more in the news for all the wrong reasons or maybe right reasons depending from which perspective you read the news. The BSP purports to be a part of the poor for the poor and by the poor, but the manner in which the current head of the political party is garlanded with currency garlands would raise doubts as to the motto even in the eyes of die-hard loyalists! On Monday, March 15 (ides of March) she has been gifted a Rs. 5 crore garland purportedly made of 50000 Rs. 1000 currency notes and yesterday another more modest garland of Rs. 18 lacs! The political ‘chamchas’ claim that henceforth they won’t give her floral garlands but garlands made of hard cash only. This raises the question as to where this money is utilized – a person who rose from poverty to such riches in a short political life-span with hardly any questions being raised by the revenue authorities, has done very little to alleviate grass roots poverty in her state. Her major achievements are building Am...

One more Hockey World Cup is past the stage where the countries which progress and the one’s which will play for pride have been sorted out. Unfortunately the two sub-continental teams which used to dominate the world hockey stage will only be playing for pride – they can be happy reflecting on past glory. When we beat Pakistan in the opener, Mr. Suresh Kalmadi announced a Rs. 100,000 award per player – a bit pre-mature I thought at that time – which has proved to be correct. What is the point in playing politics with sport – just shows we have extremely shallow thinking and cannot see the bigger picture. The administrators are going to end up blaming the players for a “lackluster” show – but where does the fault actually lie? A bit of introspection on the part of the administrators will lay bare the truth. After all a team is just as good as the system in which it functions and the system is only as good as the people who administer it. If we have to really succeed then a complete ove...

On February 2, 2010 I completed one year of Samarpan Meditation – one year in which life has become structured, simple and peaceful. As I look back on the past year I realize that a lot has changed in my life though life around me continues in the same fashion. In the last one year I have had a lot of experiences, the key ones I would like to share with you. My first trip to Dandi was on 23rd April, 2009 – this trip had been postponed twice earlier for one reason or another. This time too, our friend Ramnath Kamath was to come, but the night before departure he cancelled his trip due to some urgent personal commitments. My friend, Deepak and I decided to go along with Raju based on the directions e-mailed by Ramnath. Ramnath had told us that those who are destined to reach Dandi will definitely reach, and those who are not will under no circumstances reach the Ashram. We left at around seven in the morning and on our way to Dandi, at the second toll there was a serpentine queue when Ra...

Once you go through the fine print in Budget 2010, you ask yourself what does it actually do - for R.K. Laxman’s “common man”. Everybody is waxing eloquent on the budget – calling it a budget for the “aam aadmi”. I would like to debate that for a moment – who is India’s aam aadmi? Is it the educated employed, is it the uneducated employed, is it the farmer, is it the son of the soil, is it India’s super rich, or is it the vast majority of unemployed who cannot afford to have a square meal a day? I leave it to you to decide who is India’s aam aadmi. Who has the budget benefited? This is a no brainer, with the salaried tax payer and individual tax payer getting a lot of relief through stretching of the tax slabs. There is a little bit of everything for taxpayers who benefit. But what is the percentage of tax paying populace of this vast country? Excise has been raised on petrol and cement which will have a ballooning effect on prices of food and housing. The common man who is looking fo...

The first batch of Geo Pilots started off on their paragliding course on the 19th of February from Mumbai. We had twelve adventurous souls including our Chairman who put their hearts, bodies and minds into completing the course. Day one started out with introductions students with trainers and instructors at Rangoli restaurant, Kamshet. After being briefed about the course, going through the training booklet, signing off on the Templepilots indemnity our boys were ready to fly. We went off to a new site at Kara about 60km from Pune, a flat plateau. We had three vehicles, of which one managed to do off-roading very well – Scorpio belonging to Sanjay Sarkar – the two hired vehicles a Tata Safari and Chevrolet Tavera played safe and did not venture to do the steep climb to the training site. Our boys got off and walked in the afternoon sun for their first feel of a paraglider. A lot of the trainees had stated that they had done a lot of adventure sports but those were all connected to the...