BHILAI

Janani Janmabhoomish Cha Swargat api Gariyasi

Mother and Motherland are of greater pride than the heaven's...........

If I look at macro level then India is my motherland,but in microlevel it is bhilai which means motherland to me......

Just as the essence and flavour of onion are in layers upto the core,the same way Bhilai is there in each and every layer of my soul.Accepted this is a very absurd way of describing how a place is attached to life,but I could not find any other words.

Bhilai is a place you would have read in geography text books.The place boasting of one of the largest steel plants in the country.Well there's no interesting story as how our steel plant came into its existence.We didnt have anyone riding in an elephant looking for the right place to set up the steel plant,because Jamsethji had already found jamshedpur.So it was upto a bunch of Russian civil engineers,surveyors coming all the way from Moscow to Delhi in a plane,then all the way through delhi in a train and finally riding in tonga or perhaps bullock cart through the dusty village roads to set up the so called "Temple of Modern India",as envisioned by the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

Little would have these russians known that the plant they would setup would touch almost each and every corner of the country.How i would describe in next few lines..........

Bhilai Steel Plant set up way back in the year 1957 ,right now is the largest producer of rails in the country.If im not mistaken then it is the sole supplier of rails to the Indian Railways.So wherever you go,to any part of the country,if by chance, by a train then all the way through you will be connected to Bhilai.I will slightly abridge the punch line of SAIL....."There's little bit of Bhilai in evreybody's travel"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well,Bhilai is a very planned city.Nicely divided in about 11-12 sectors.The best thing one observes are its roads,smooth wide and rarely under the load of heavy traffic,almost at every chowk 3-4 mosambi juice shops,then by chance if you happen to go through these roads inthe evening,at an interval of every 1KM children playing in the large open grounds...........In short a very peaceful and serene place!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One thing that is deeply rooted in the heart of every Bhilaian is the love,respect,admiration of the IIT's and it is bound to touch the lives of all kids grown up in the place...........Bhilai is very famous for producing a chunk of superbrains,technocrats of the country through the IIT's and NIT's.

Infact the prepration for IIT's have helped me a lot(though im not in any of the iit's or nit's).Actually the whole emphasis in school and home is laid only on prepration for the entrance examination and the board marks are of not much botheration and neither do they escalate the status of person as the IIT's do......So my parents never bothered much with school marks,only concern being the selection to these great institutes.And it was this time Physics came to great use to me.I could lie in my bed thinking of all stupid things,daydreaming and if by chance my mother came to the room I would start pointing my fingers the way Biot-Savart rule of electricity and magnetism state.My poor mother would think how deeply engrossed her son is in solving the problems!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Apart from this bhilai will not be of much interest to the layman .Sorry i forgot to mention we boast of a ZOO having WHITE TIGERS and the largest musical fountain in Asia.
Bhilai is the home to cricketer Rajesh Chauhan and singer Amit Sana who shot upto fame after Indian Idol........apart from that the district Durg, of which Bhilai is a part is the most peacefull place to live in the state of Chhattisgarh(according to a Magazine's survey)!!!!!!!!!!having a multicultural and cosmoplitan population of around 528,000 people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Coming back from statistics and other data,there's some irony to the facts .Although the place has been home to some of the superbrains and technocrats of the country ,i have not seen much growth of the place over the years.........New avenues for money generation have not been concieved.The impetus of growth given by the Steel Plant has not been sustained.Bhilai is there only for a few lines inthe books,occupying only a small space of wikipedia.The place remains the same where it was for past many years.Maybe people are hesitant to open up new avenues of buisnesses,but this is not exactly expected from a place which has produced billionaires .My heart aches at times when i listen people saying the net worth of some of the old batches of my school is in billions.......................I can give you an example of my school "Senior Secondary School Sector -10,Bhilai",which has been the Alma-Mater for most of the techonocrats Bhilai has produced.Never in my four year school period did i see money or donations been given to the school by the super rich the school has produced.We had to be content and practice on old Black and White monitors,slow processors,even when P-3 computers had their way into the market.The library in our times had only old books,the labs with old instruments......Now they say library is renewed and labs mordernised ,but i wonder if any of these were provided by the alumunus of the school(if they were given by some alumni then im sorry for the last line!!!!!!!!!)

Perhaps a few years back the state of the country was similiar.Let us wait and see if there can be any turn around story of Bhilai,as the country as a whole is witnessing...........If again a bunch of people come to my land with a vision and take it to great heights,the way it was put on the map of country,the same way i wish now it be put on the map of the world......
AMEN

CHHATTISGARHI MALLU

Let me come to the point, myself, P.Praveen Kaimal doing engineering in vellore.You would not have come across my surname in any of my official pages(take for example school ar college).Since south indians have a liberty not to include weird surnames,so my father gave various reasons to justify that initials would be perfect for me.Like the trauma my father had to go through when people misspelt,or misunderstood KAIMAL.....they called CAMEL,KAMAAl,or sometimes kamal.moreover kaimal sounds something like MICHEAL,so people comin and wishing merry christmas and asking fora cake is annoying at times.And just imagine one person callin you CAMEL durin a conversation and some third person asking later "why on the earth is tat 5ft6inch guy called a CAMEL!!!!!!!!!"

Im a native of kerala(GOD's Own land)I was born and brought up in Chhattisgarh.So in a way im a chhhattisgarhi mallu.Being a mallu brought up in some north indian state has its own effects........one of the first thing that comes to mind is the language spoken by GOD!!!!!!!!!I had no confusion whatsover ,that the HOLY LORD sitting there in the Ayyapa temple could undersatnd only malayalam.but the languages that Lord Hanuman and other gods in various other temples understood was a region of intriguity for a long time in my mind.But still ,since in my home we speak mostly in hindi, I had a lot of problem to let my prayers flow to the Lord Ayappa.i had to whack my brains first to think for all the wishes then whacking it again to translate them into malayalm so that my prayers wont be unanswered.

Another verry good aspect of being a mallu is that mallu gals are consistently found very beautiful.so if you cant get a gal for urself,then need not worry about it much.the future marriage prospects are never very bad!!!Let me make it clear to u that im not such a big desperate but being a mechanical engineering student,these are some of the qualities that are bound to find roots in the soul.Ofcourse they dont tell all these things in college prospectus,but these are some of the various qualities that a mechanical engineer imbibes and is expected to practise.

Coming back the best part of being a chhattisgarhi mallu is the memories of two day long train journey from bhilai to quilon.those were the best days.and the month long holidays,going to the beach evryday morning,those memories make me nostalgic.It was only during these jouneys i found how much i owe to the god for gifting me such a great life,full of fun and no hassels.the poor children and the handicapped people who had no resort other than beggin,who cleaned the dirty and filthy floors with their own shirts,just for the sake of survival made me wonder why god was kind to me and the more i thought about it,the more i felt humble and respectfull to him.

I was sort of inspired to write something by reading the book "God of small things".arundhati roy is very good in detailing small aspects of the daily life of a family,and the way she describes the scenes,various human personalities are really great.

Right now the new year is not going very good as many people had wished me.First of all,had sort of ideological war with my sis,and now some problems regarding the heart matters.

If I bored u people then Im extremely sorry,but plese do give ur comments as this one's my first one.Will tell u more about bhilai in the next blog.till then goodbye,namste and khuda haafis!!!!!!!!!!!