Train travel and lots more

Hi Guys.
This blog is really different. In that it has been written on a train. I am writing this blog aboard Dehradun Express(9019A UP). I am on my way to Delhi to catch my flight to Stanford. Nice experience this. Of course it would have been much better had Wi-Fi been enabled on this train. Well India is a far cry from that affair as on present date. Was at Kota the last couple of days. It comes as no surprise that Rajasthan has the highest number of cattle heads in India. The streets of Kota are littred with stray cattle. Driving is next to impossible at speeds over 20kmph. I wished I could catch hold of some and sell them off for a handsome amount. But Ramraj told me that the government had banned selling so that they couldnt be killed for beef or something like that. That brings me to Ramraj. He is my dad's driver. Very sweet fellow. He taught me how to drive, initial lessons mostly and some tricks of the trade. I bade him a final goodbye at the station - will miss him. Hope he is still around when I come back.

The train has stopped in the middle of nowhere. Though we are no where near Hindon, the papers said that the Gujjars there has uprooted the tracks as they were protesting their community not being included in the reserved category class. Oh and they had broken all the signals also in that division. Well this is democrazy for you! We are moving again. This is a relatively low priority train, so lotsa stops ahead!! As I leave for the US, I will most definitely miss the 'apna-pan' of India. Its people. Its smell. Its air, water and sky! I will miss u the most. Anyways, am not very good with good byes.

Also in the news was that this year was the 10th time in 125 years that Rajasthan got surplus rain. It rained 125% already and with still around 20 days to go for the monsoon, looks like Gods were gracious in their offerning to the state this time. However, in some regions like Pali, Barmer, etc it was too much causing a lot of loss to both properties and lives.

Today I added my site to blogstreet.com. Lucky for me I am an Indian coz blogstreet only accepts blogs from Indians! It is a site which aims to become a direcory for blogs. People can rate other peoples' blogs. They comment, write reviews etc. which of course other people can read and find out about. It has it own list of the most influential blogs, most read blogs, etc. A good attempt. Another social networking site on the block is siliconindia.com. A real new concept in that it provides mentorship according to people's needs - registered people can write a Statement of Purpose and be mentored by people pertinent to their interests. For example, students, entrepreneurs and engineers, etc can ask to be mentored in their fields. This is new concept that I found. It also has a lot of news on it home page, quite different than other social networking softwares. Besides this it has a lot of other stuff that common social networking sites dont. But the most intreguing thing that I found was that it has got as its members corporate honchos like IBM VP(India) just to name one. There are other like him. Needs more time devotion. In case you havent checked it out, do create a login and find out more. Think will sign off now! See you in Delhi :-) Ciao

P.S. The above pic is of the Umed Bhavan Palace in Kota