1. Become an engineer.
2. Get a job
3. Repay the study loan
4. Get married
5. Buy house & car
6. Die paying EMI.
7. Keep running after school for kids admission.
8. Force kid to become Engineer
9. Get old
10. Stay dependent on kids
11. Die with pain of what all could have done with this precious life and how it ended.
I know a lot of you will agree & some of you might not & some of you are already in this life-cycle. This is what i have seen happening to most of my friends & hence this post.
I know when we are traveling to a touristic destination a lot of travelers feel they are going to get ripped at every single transaction from boarding on taxi to ordering food. This is not always true at times you will find locals helping you by giving you good suggestions & if your lucky might end up drinking spicy tea or delicious lunch.
Try all local cuisine and drinks
Every state/region has its own local cuisine & brew, do try it. Like when i was in Dimapur i one of the best Pork Fry & vegetable soup. I liked the local Green Tea brand so much that i bought 4-5 packets back in Mumbai for myself. Similarly if your in Gangtok you should try local white/red wine & momos/fried rice/mutton curry.
Respect local tradition & practice
Please be good & don`t get irked by local tradition and practice. I know for you it might look weird but the local folks been doing it for ages. You don`t like it, stay away from it, don’t crib. I am not big god believer but visiting Madurai & watching priests performing puja/aarti was experience of a kind.
Tip & treat well
Everyone who is providing you service from waiter to driver are humans as well. They are working their ass off to keep you happy, be nice to them, be generous & tip well. During my North Sikkim trip in Lachen, i could not find chicken curry in dinner & i was unhappy. Once i reached Gangtok my driver invited me over for dinner & yes he cooked chicken curry for me. It was freaking awesome, much better than Copper chimney & Great Punjab food joint of Mumbai.
Keep environment around clean
What i meant by this is please don`t throw wrappers and water bottle randomly anywhere. You would be surprised as per the guidelines of Sikkim tourism every commercial vehicles should keep a bin so all these can be kept there instead dumped randomly on the street.
Buy books [folk tales] not souvenir
This might sound stupid but whenever i have traveled i bought folk tales of the local province, that has been only shopping. I know a lot of my friends who go buy souvenir, call me stupid but
Best trips are unplanned ones
Well this does not mean you will not read in length about place you are visiting. What it means is your not calling the travel agent and booking entire trip 3 months in advance. For me planning trip in advance takes whole fun out of the trip. 🙂
Some Random Clicks
Dimapur market sells these tasty snails, locals love it. It found it salty i had a raw one though.Met krishna at a juice shop in Hyderabad. If you can see the note on refrigerator, he is has been quoted as “hard worker”.
Dinner at Lal Bahadur`s [trip Driver] house in Gangtok. He cooked it.Local Wine, made of maize & rice. Popular in NepalPlastic bottles on way to Yumtang Valley.Local Sikkim made wine, too sweet but happy that i tried.Paan is a mouth freshener & very popular along the north-east/north india.
Its advised to take the Yamuna expressway if traveling from Noida, it takes few hours & road trip across paddy/sugarcane fields looks lovely.
Other way is to travel via DTC bus from Kashmiri Gate or Local train.
All the 3 locations are nearby(when in personal vehicle) to each other & you can expect bumpy & crowded ride.
Prem Mandir in Vrindavan is totally unique its built by guru Kripalu Maharaj. They have a clean canteen with food in reasonable price. We had our food here once we were done with our entire trip.
I loved Banke Bihari Temple for its uniqueness & honestly it added more faith in Lord Krishna after seeing all those devotees in big queues. I always avoided visiting temple where i have to wait for darshan. I am in Mumbai & yet to visit Siddi Vinayak because of it.
Sweets especially Petha/Peda is must try along with chai in kullhar.
Krishna Temple is mathura has major security around because of the disputed mosque next to it.
Govardhan also has many temples & its famous for the 21 KM parikrama(walk) which i happily escaped.
Also there is a Van(forest) which everyone believes even now Krishna comes every night for his ras leela with Gopis
I also visited banks of Yamuna, i wish government could care more about it.
Last not the least, stay away from the pandas(priests) who claims to perform special puja for you and your ancestors. Most of them are touts.
Some Random Clicks
Yamuna Expressway, early morning.Tea Kullhar (earthen pots) before entering to Mathura Temples.Banke Bihari TempleSweet shop with Petha, Samosa & others in display.Little priest on one of the krishna temple on Yamuna bank.Parents taking rest in temple.
I visited Nagaland, northeastern state of India this March. I visited Dimapur, Peren and Mokokchung district. I have tried to summarize my overall experience in simple notes.
Thanks 2 Achet for inviting me to this trip, am missing all the fun already. 🙂
Pork is a staple food & its common to keep pigs at home along with hens.
Although Indian government has only recognized 17 naga tribes number is much more.
Christianity is dominant in the state & people are god fearing.
English is commonly spoken & medium of education.
Education has special importance & students walk few kilometers daily for schooling.
People are humble & happy & well educated.
The state has natural resources in abundance but pollution is a major threat.
Bamboos play major role in building houses & handicraft industry is largely dependent on it.
One can easily enter Nagaland via Dimapur but to visit most other districts one needs inner line permit.
If you like reading local folktales then do visit Signet Books, Dimpaur. They have good collection.
Don`t forget to being some green tea from local Nagaland brand named Amonar, its awesome.
Some Random Clicks
Nagaland where nature meets humans. 🙂
Dimapur Bazaar
Paren district on the top of the hill.
Interesting folktales collection.
Amonar Green Tea, am a fan of it.
Me & Achet trying to be little artistic after heavy lunch. 🙂
When am alone its like am naked, out of comfortability zone. I have to do my own shit & its a fun/learning experience. It makes me more independent & extrovert in my day to day life.
Reasons why i love traveling?
Food
Chicken Changezi [Nov Vegetarian delight]Chole Bhature [much liked North Indian cuisine]
I am a foodie & one main reason i travel is to go try out local cuisine. India is so big every 100-200 KM one will find different food habit like other parts of world.
People
Saint enjoying panipuri [Pushkar]Buddhist Monk [Ladakh]I get to meet interesting people most of the time they are welcoming. At times some of them end up becoming friends for life. Talking to them gives you a feeling that we are facing same issues & we are striving for same i.e making our life better.
Peace
Mandrem Beach [Goa]
When am on road 90% times i prefer staying away from Internet & other connected devices. It brings much needed peace of mind. I get more time to think about myself & do some retrospection.
Religion/Tradition
Priests on way to offer prayer to Madurai Meenakshi temple.
I get to see a lot of interesting practices. The way people in particular region offer prayers, how they celebrate a particular festival & all.
I have been asking a few questions to myself over the past few months:
1. Am I happy?
2. Am I enjoying my day job?
3. What’s wrong with me? If anything?
4. Where should I see myself 10 years down the line?
5. Is this how life goes on?
I am not sure if am the only one thinking so much about my life or everyone does the same.
It took me few months & yes I have yet not figured everything & don`t have answer of all these above questions.
But one thing I have realized to have meaning in your life you really need to have some elements.
Some of these are:
1. Friends : Its really important to have some friends in your life who know who you are and come what may, they are behind you to help you in every moment/minute of your life.
2. Mentors: You need to have mentors who are always there in your life guiding you. It’s like showing you the ladder but you need to take steps yourself.
3. Family: Your lucky if you have parents supporting you in every stage of your life & believing in you.
I am lucky to have them all.
PLUS
4. Mute the noise: People around you who are always pessimistic about everything. Stay away from them.
5. Forgiveness: I am still learning to get this art in me, it’s too difficult. I am happy am trying at least.
I would hope in coming month things will get more clear & I will find most of my answers. 😀
To those who don`t know i have joined SwiftStack as community/solutions engineer. Most of my time during this summit i spent meeting a lot many interesting people around our booth. I was more interested in whats HOT from OpenStack Swift front & Mario wrote a nice blog summarizing over all talks sessions related to Swift.
As usual i met all my old friends who i been helping all these while or vice versa. I also met guys whom i been following on twitter all this while. The other fun part of the booth crawl was book signing. My friend Kevin & Cody have written a nice book on overall OpenStack
We at SwiftStack booth had book signing by Joe Arnold our CEO book title Software defined storage with OpenStack Swift. We are still giving away free copy of the book as part of our community engagement initiative, you can get your own copy requesting here
Like always it was awesome event, thanks to OpenStack foundation for organizing it in Asia, i had only 6 hr flight 🙂
![Dinner at Lal Bahadur`s [trip Driver] house in Gangtok. He cooked it.](http://atuljha.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/lal-bahadur-dinner-225x300.jpg)
![Chicken Changezi [Nov Vegetarian delight]](http://atuljha.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/del3-300x225.jpg)
