The indomitable flying man (1921-2015) Hrushikesh Moolgavkar was born on 14 August 1921 in Mumbai, and was commissioned into the Royal Indian Air Force (RIAF) on 30 November 1940, in the rank of an acting Pilot Officer. He was sent to No. 1 Squadron in the war zone in Burma, flying Hawker Harts, and soon converted to Lysanders. The Squadron moved to Toungoo airfield for operations against the Japanese in January. Moolgavkar was lucky to be engaged in operations and soon established a reputation as a keen pilot who loved flying. In January 1945, while operating from Howe, near Cox…
Author: oiop
Rain water harvesting is the perfect solution for our water starved cities, where increasingly, tankers supply water sourced from distant areas. So, harvesting rain water not only saves what would otherwise go waste, but also recharges the underground water table for long term benefits, says Usha Hariprasad. Are our cities listening? A 3,000-litre tanker costs around ` 500 in Bangalore. We relied on two such tankers per day for our 30-flats apartment complex in Bangalore North. Then we went in for rain water harvesting. And things changed. The dependency on the tankers lessened, our ground water got recharged, and the…
Northern Karnataka has much to offer from Jog Falls to places like Gokarna, Karwar and Murdeshwar. Disha Shetty visits two of these and tells us how to do so on a shoestring budget, without compromising on the experience. How about starting your morning on a hill station, watching the water gush down edgy rocks at a menacing pace, and ending your day having gadbad ice cream at a restaurant overlooking a massive Shiva statue against a background of serene, blue Arabian Sea? I just described a trip to the famous Jog Falls and the temple town of Murdeshwar in Northern…
From festivals that celebrate the onset of rains, to the birth of Lord Krishna, the rainy season is a joyous one in the Indian calendar. Disha Shetty describes the festivals associated with rains. When I woke up groggy eyed, I heard loud sounds, like crackers bursting in the background. I asked my mother if there was a party in the area, but she told me it was raining. I ran to the window which was too high for me to reach. Chair to the rescue! I climbed on the nearby chair, grabbed the horizontal iron bars of the window with…
Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi has proved that Motherhood, in its ultimate sense, has nothing to do with bearing a child, but with totally offering one’s self to others. Rightfully called ‘Amma’ throughout the world, she sits for hours together or for more than a day, ready to even forego her bodily needs in order to bring a smile to the faces of the suffering, embracing, accepting and consoling the aching hearts, regardless of their caste, creed, age, nationality or gender. Though born in Vallikkavu, a remote coastal village of Kerala, Amma, is also accepted as the Universal Mother by her…
Rain comes as a welcome relief from the summer heat. Children and grown-ups alike enjoy the rains and plan wet outings and monsoon trails. The monsoon is no doubt fun. However flooded roads, thunderstorms, power failures and, worst of all, diseases, take the joy out of the season. Here are a few tips to enjoy a stress-free monsoon.
V. Gangadhar talks about the pleasures and travails of the rains, when it rains, that is! This is my 40th year in Mumbai. The monsoon clouds already arrived and departed without emptying their contents. It did rain in fits and starts. But we did know the rain received would not be adequate till the next rainy season. Enough warnings were issued in the media, the skies threatened, the clouds darkened, thunder rumbled, but as June, July and September arrived and disappeared last year, we were still looking up at the sky. The more religious among us joined in the yagnas…
Rain has always triggered creativity in Bollywood cinema. There is something about this season that has unfailingly caught the creative imagination of Bollywood, making it come up with some really memorable songs and scenes of Hindi cinema. Shoma A. Chatterji dwells on some of those sublime moments. Long before the term “Bollywood” came into being and Indian cinema was largely identified with Hindi films, the wonderful, raga-based number Lapaka jhapaka tu aare bhadarwa belted out in the golden honey voice of Manna De in Raj Kapoor’s Boot Polish became famous. Whether you like rains in real life or not, you…
“It is like entering wonderland. The trails disappear into an ever deepening, ever darkening tunnel bounded by trees taller than you have ever seen…perhaps taller than you will ever see. Trees that must be standing there for years older than your memory of your ancestors. It is a place where twilight lives all day and then fades imperceptibly into an inky midnight. Great birds crisscross the camouflaged paths you walk. Big birds whose flapping wings make the sound of a large lazy helicopter. You will see water spouting fire and nature will be super-sized. Aaah…and there will be fireflies. Of…
Playing in the rain, dancing in the rain, shooting a film in the rain? Filmmaker Bidyut Kotoky vividly describes his experiences of shooting for his films in Assam, where it rains almost through the year. Sometimes the rain was an integral part of the script, but more often than not, was an uninvited, but determined guest, and had to be accommodated with a smile! Unlike most other people, my childhood memories associated with rain are not exactly happy ones. And you can’t really blame me for that. I remember looking up longingly at the grey sky and requesting her to…