'Cut' my tea??!

Ive spent two months here in Pune and it doesnt look like I'm gonna learn Marathi soon. Some rickshaw drivers and vendors speak to you in Marathi even if you speak to them in hindi. You then have to listen to them carefully, pick some words from the sentences that sound like some words in hindi, and then use the situation to try and decode what the person was tryin to tell you. And yea, you also have to know the local lingo. My recent experience would perhaps explain that.

Yesterday, I had gone to a restaurant close to my flat for breakfast. Being a Sunday, I obviously woke up quite late. So there wern't many things to eat, left there in the restaurant. I decided to have a vada-pav and a cup of tea. It is self service there. So after having paid, I went to the counter to collect it.

While preparing tea for me the guy there asked me "Bhaiyya, chai cutting hai kya?" (Brother, is the tea 'a cutting'?) I could only respond with a confused "KYA!!!" (WHAT!!)[What was he going to cut into a tea?? Or was he going to prepare a special tea for me? But I had paid just Rs.4 for it; and I don't think I would get something special for that. :P] It could be some specialty of the place. But I didn't want to take a risk and wanted to ask some reliable person about it before taking 'a cutting tea'! So I was about to ask him to give me a cup of ordinary tea; but the guy at the cash counter interrupted and told the waiter that it was indeed a cutting! Now I was curious, and grew more and more curious as time passed.

Later he kept my plate of vada-pav on the counter and then placed a glass of tea next to it. That was when I learnt what it was. It was the quantity! They served it in a very small glass [they perhaps called it the cutting glass ;)]. Its as if the've cut a piece from the large glass of tea. It looked like the younger brother of the other glasses that I then observed on a small shelf there.

Hmmm...long way to go...:)

PS: A really good week in the sports world for me. Fisichella gets Force India its first podium finish at the Belgian GP. India won the nehru cup. That's really big for Indian football. And Chelsea win four of their first four matches in the BPL.

PPS: Going on a trek on 6th Sep to Duke's nose(Lonavala) with valley crossing. Its gonna be the most exciting trek I've done. Looking forward to it. Check this space for a post on that soon. :)

Hemagglutinin 1 Neuraminidase 1

No, its not the score of a soccer match! :) Its the latest health crisis in the nation.

Babe - the pig is back in the city; but this time with vengeance!
Swine flu has hit many countries and in India, the situation is worst here in Pune.

Schools and colleges have been closed for some days now in Pune. The malls and multiplexes are shutdown. In the evenings you can find small kids playing with their masks on.

At Amdocs, they're taking it quite seriously too. The company provides us with masks every Monday. Mails about swine flu awareness are sent quite often. Hand sanitizers are kept at many locations in a floor, so that people use them often. And they are thinking about letting the employees work from home too. We also have a doctor sitting in the ground floor for us to consult in case of any symptoms of swine flu.

Most of the people are wearing masks to protect themselves from the virus. But most of the masks available aren't effective or last for maybe a day only. Chemists sell ordinary surgical masks saying that they are effective against swine flu virus. But they are'nt. N-95 masks are supposed to provide you best protection. But even after so many cases here in Pune, the N-95 masks are'nt available easily. I've got mine. If you don't get an N95 for yourself, you can use the normal ones, but you've got to use your folded handkerchief once or some other cloth piece beneath or over the mask, as you need atleast three layers in your to be effective.

The chemists in Pune are trying to make profit at this time of panic and crisis by selling items like masks for crazy prices. One druggist told me that he would give me an N95 for around 500 bucks! One mask, which is supposed to be thrown away after being used for a day or two for 500! Many duplicate N95s are also there in the market. In a TV interview on a news channel yesterday( i believe it was aaj tak), the anchor asked our health minister, Mr. Ghulam Nabi Azad, what he would do about these people who were taking wrong advantage of the situation. The minister replied that the masks were'nt meant for the general public, but was only for the doctors who were treating H1N1 positive patients and for the patients already affected by the virus, so that they dont spread the virus while coughing or sneezing. That is how it is supposed to be, according to the WHO or the CDC standards. But the panic always spreads faster.

The death toll is rising and 15 out of 23 deaths in the country have been from Pune; that would tell you how serious the situation is in Pune. The monsoon hit the city very late whn people here were praying for rains. And now when its raining, people want it to stop as it helps in spreading of swine flu.

And as precautionary measures against swine flu,

• wash your hands often with soap,
• do not take your hand to your face,
• do not rub your eyes,
• maintain at least 3 feet distance from a sick person,
• use a hanky while sneezing or coughing,
• avoid crowded places especially in cities like pune and mumbai
• if you are using a mask use a 3-layered one or dont bother taking the trouble :)

But these numbers are nothing when compared to the number of people dying all over the nation with diseases like malaria or pneumonia. Its only because H1N1 is new in the country that it has created so much panic here. And ofcourse there is the media hype too. Every day the front page reports about the number of cases reported in different cities in India. And to add to the panic our health minister had allegedly told in a Times of India interviewthat in the next two years, one-third of the Indian population would be affected by the virus. He however, in a TV news channel interview later, had denied the statement.

All this tension and hype will die out as few days pass by. We may just need to wait for the next Indian cricket series to start to turn the attention of the people.

Friendship day at Annapoorna

Happy friendship day to all my friends! :D

Here at Amdocs, we have a 'Community Relations' group that engages into some small social work. I've joined them and we had decided to celebrate this friendship day at Annapurna and Salvation army schools; with the kids there.

I met the other volunteers in front of tower 2, Amdocs at 945 in the morning. We collected all the logistics and left in two cabs. The rest came in bikes and a santro.

The kids assembling for the national anthem

When we reached there the kids were havin their breakfast. After sometime they reached the school. There were kids from class 1 to 10. We started with them singing the national anthem, after which they were divided into 10 groups. Each groups consisted around 20-22 kids and two volunteers were assigned to take care of each group. Asmita and I got group four. The kids then tied friendship bands on their friends' wrists. We had bands of different colours for each group.

We conducted musical chairs for children from class 1 to 5. The elder kids played Hulla-hoop[i hope i got the spelling right.] They had to stand in a circle holding hands, then each child in the circle had to pass through a circular loop made of plastic, and then pass it to the next person. During these games the music system was on and some small kids in my group who were watching the others play, were very eager to dance. I asked those boys to dance on the side. Soon the number started increasing and the place started getting too crowded; so we promised them that they'd get to dance in the end. Then we had a game where a child in a group would be blindfolded and using his teammates' directions, had to walk through a path drawn on the ground. The fastest team wins. By then most of the kids were hungry.

The kids were taken in groups to the three rooms where food was being served. The kids ate well, and most of them in my group wasted no food. After they finished having the lunch all the volunteers forgot all the dining manners and attacked the food. All of us were starving. The rice was over. There were few puris and sheera left. We shared whatever was left and joined the kids who were waiting for us.

For the post-lunch session we had earlier planned a skit competition; we volunteers had to teach the children what they had to do in about an hour, the scripts for which were handed to us a couple of days back. Asmita had translated ours into hindi and marathi for the kids. But it was quite late for having the skits, as the morning session had taken a lot of time. On popular demand we decided to have few matches of kabaddi. We conducted separate matches for the boys and girls of the higher classes, and then for the smaller kids too. Then there was a match between us volunteers and the staff of Annapoorna. Dont ask me who won that match, but it as pretty close. Its the participation that matters, right? :P

Prize distribution

The game was followed by the prize distribution. The points for each game was added; and the winners were declared. The winners and the first runners-up won got their prizes. My group came third. [should I have a happy or a sad smiley here?]. Prizes were also given to students who passed class 10 last year. Two boys in class 10, Arun and Anil were also felicitated, for securing first and second ranks resp. Arun had also got an internship at Tata Motors. He was also given a new bicycle.

The kids dancing

After that, as we had promised the kids, we kept the music system on full volume, and everyone started to dance. The kids were so full of energy even after playin for the whole day. They started pulling us into the crowd and made us throw our limbs too. We called the cab from Amdocs at around 530 and left the place after having a great time with the children.

Some of my friends here went on a trip to Lonavala today and another group had gone on a trek to Singad. They wanted me to come along, but I decided not to go with either of them and went to Annapoorna; and I am really glad I did that.

PS: The pics here were taken on Abhinav's cam and my cell phone.

The photos of the friendship day celebration at Salvation army could be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/parimalgbhatia/