Lovely Delhi - A Flashback!!!!

Better late than never!

I have taken a hell lot of time to organise my mobile phone photographs from my trip to Delhi in May this year. This trip took me back to my days as a kid, when I used to visit all these places with my parents.

Finally here come the photos!

A familiar sight. Had been seeing this signboard since I was 11.....

My first port of call that day was at the 10 Sansad Marg branch of Standard Chartered Bank. This is where I got my first bank account in the late 1980s', courtesy my father. That time, this was the branch of Grindlays Bank, with its characteristic elephant logo.
Grindlays Bank became ANZ Grindlays Bank which then became Standard Chartered Grindlays Bank to the Standard Chartered Bank of today.
The branch was all decked up for a momentous occasion - the opening of Standard Chartered Bank's maiden IDR public offering in the Indian capital markets, that day, making it the first foreign bank to get listed in India. Incidentally Standard Chartered Bank is already listed in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.
But still I do miss the Grindlays elephant overlooking Sansad Marg.... Times change.....

This building was where my first employer was.....

Lé Méridien was the first glass building I saw as a kid and I was impressed by it a great deal...... Glass buildings like this one were quite uncommon then....

Rail Bhawan. Knock, knock, knock, is Madame Minister in?

Our Parliament - a rather splendid building....

What a view of the magnificent Rashtrapati Bhawan.....

The North Block! Did you know that Pretoria has a replica of the North and South Blocks?

Safdarjung Tomb - such buildings define the character of Delhi....

Sad, it was a Tuesday. The legendary Karims was closed.....

Up In The Air .... Part 2

Last Saturday morning, I took an early morning flight to Delhi. All along the way to the airport from home, it was literally raining cats and dogs. Boarding the aircraft at Terminal 1C, I thought my flight would be rather uneventful. But after taking off, the vibrant hues of blue, pristine white of the clouds with Richard Clayderman's Ballade pour Adeline playing in the background, made it a surreal experience.

My first A2A photograph of an A320, probably a Kingfisher or Air-India, clicked in flight, which is there in my blog post titled "Delhi Has Arrived" was a true magical moment.

A true "Up In the Air" experience!

Sparkling diamonds of South Delhi. We took off from runway 10/28 and took a sharp U, back over South Delhi and Gurgaon, enroute to Bombay!!!

Global Political Instability - Is Mars to be Blamed?

It seems we are living in crazy times.
Is it a mere coincidence that some of the biggest (or rather surprising) victors of the war of the ballot, the world over, are today down in the dumps.
Let's begin with India. Manmohan Singh was my personal favourite to lead India in last year's general elections, especially after he championed the nuclear deal and did some plain speak on the pit of hell, Pakistan. But then, after his surprise re-election, he bungled on Baluchistan, at Sharm-el-Sheikh, lost his way on inflation and his cabinet ministers today look like squabbling toddlers. Post the Sharm-el-Sheikh fiasco, Manmohan Singh looked like a guy who was very unsure of himself, extremely under confident. This is leading from one personal failure to another - talks with Pakistan being a very big, big mistake.
Barack Obama stormed into office in early 2009 riding high on a popularity wave. Well intentioned he is, I don't doubt that a bit, but his presidency is characterised by long winding spiels (they get you the Nobel Peace Prize, don't they?) with little action to follow. Within the United States, he did have a few successes on healthcare and financial regulation, but he somehow has a confused policy on Iraq and the Af-Pak region. He has tried appease the rogues of the world - China, Pakistan, North Korea, while rubbing allies like Israel and India the wrong way. Little wonder that his popularity has evaporated and approval ratings have sunk to 49% today. And the Wikileaks episode surely does not help. And now news is coming in that the Republicans are gaining ground, surely.
Nicolas Sarkozy crushed Ségolène Royal but the latest corruption scandal involving illegal election funding from the heiress of L'Oreal, Liliane Bettencourt does not help matters. His differences with Angela Merkel on the economic revival of Europe threaten the stability of the European Union. Virility with Carla Bruni is one thing, but sustaining credibility is a different ball game altogether. Hope Sarkozy realises that!
Japan's Yukio Hatoyama lead the DPJ to a decisive victory over the LDP (Indians could liken the LDP to the Congress of Japan, with over 54 years of rule?), but he too lost his way with financial scandals and his inability to keep the promise of closing an American military base in Okinawa. His unpopularity forced the DPJ to ask him to step down.
The land Down Under, Australia, isn't immune to the contagion. Kevin Rudd who was known for his infamous "orgasm with China" speech should have known orgasms do not last long, the same holds true for popularity. His popularity dipped considerably on a climate change legislation and the proposal to tax super-normal profits from mineral extraction. He ultimately had to be eased out only to be replaced by Wales born Julia Gillard, in what was called a bloodless coup by the press. It is believed that after his resignation, Rudd wept on ABC Radio. What an abrupt end to his orgasm!

What is it that is going wrong?

Perhaps, it is something as freakish as what astrology buffs in India would say - Mars has entered their planetary charts? or "कुंडली में मंगल प्रवेश कर चूका है!!!!!"

However freakish it may be, it is surely quite unsettling to see a grand political instability at the world stage.

Crazy or Stupid?

Today is Thursday and as always I was waiting for RJ Keisha's Break Free on 107.1 Rainbow FM to give me company on my endless drive to office.
Keisha's story on Break Free was interesting and provided good food for thought.
It was about a truck driver delivering supplies to a mental asylum. The driver parked the truck besides a drain and stepped out when he noticed a flat tyre.
He then took out the spare tyre started to replace the flat tyre.
One by one, he unscrewed the nuts from the rim of the flat tyre. As he was busy removing the tyre, he did not notice that the four nuts had rolled down in to the drain.
Aghast and upset on what had happened, he cursed himself. "How will I drive the truck back?" he shouted and cursed himself.
That's when an asylum inmate laughed and said "Why worry? Why don't you unscrew one nut from each of the other three tyres and get this tyre back on. Then you can head back to the nearest repair shop and get the tyre done, as well as buy three nuts."
"Wow," exclaimed the driver, "that's intelligent. You are surely aren't stupid."
"Crazy I am but I am not stupid." said the inmate.
Think about it. The crazy people around us who we deride may have something special in them.

Rajeev's World: Two Years On....

Today, Rajeev's World completes two years of its existence.
These two years have seen well over 150 posts, which is an average of 75 an year. That may appear not all that bad.

But the thoughts that race through my mind and the ideas I get after talking to friends, colleagues over lunch and in the pantry, on reading, etc. are far far too many. I would rather say 75 is an under performance.

The blog started off with a nondescript URL http://rajeevsworld.blogspot.com, but I decided to move it to my own domain name http://www.rajeevmahajan.com to ensure an easy search and recall. The results are evident in the traffic growth since then.
I have been passionately tracking the visitors on Rajeev's World for over 18 months now. The facts are startling. A substantial chunk of my postings deal with matters of national importance in India - defence, security, terror, politics besides life in general in Bombay and Bollywood.
Despite this, a substantial 35% of all hits came in from the United States as opposed to only 18% from India, as one would logically imagine. Europe comes in with a good number of hits, especially from Romania, Germany and the United Kingdom. The reason is obvious - quite a few of my batchmates are in these countries and they regularly follow Rajeev's World.

Besides these countries in Europe, there have been regular streams of traffic from other countries. There had been an avalanche of traffic from Poland following my blog post on the plane crash that killed Poland's president in April this year. I still get quite a few visitors from Poland on Rajeev's World.

My blog post "Viens, Mallika, les lianes en fleurs... Always an Interconnected World!" got me a stream of visitors from France. The reasons are obvious. The blog post was essentially about the French opera, Lakmé.

Besides these countries, Rajeev's World has had hits from Bulgaria, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Greece, Croatia, Italy, Hungary, Russia, Turkey, etc.

I was pleasantly surprised to know that someone from Brazil has been following my blog passionately over the last few months. I get a few hits from Brazil at least 2-3 times a week. Same has been the case with Australia.

Asia has been not far behind. The sub-continental pain (or as Madeleine Albright termed it a global migraine), Pakistan, had given Rajeev's World a few hits, which were primarily on the blog post "Sania - Shoaib -- Alliance or Dalliance?".

My photographic blogs on Hong Kong, 香港 - Images from the Fragrant Harbour and 香港 - Images from the Fragrant Harbour - Part generated quite a few hits from Hong Kong Central. Besides these, there have been hits from Japan, China, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Maldives.

The Arab world has given its share of hits too with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain contributing.

Israelis too have been following my blogs quite often, more so whenever there has been a post on Israel or so.

Around the FIFA World Cup, I had written a few blogs on resurgence of Africa in general and South Africa in particular. These gave Rajeev's World a decent amount of traffic from South Africa, Senegal, Mauritania, Nigeria and Mozambique.

Other places, that I consider exotic, that have added to the hits on Rajeev's World are Argentina, Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii and New Zealand.

My obituary for C.K. Prahlad in April remains in the top ranking pages on Rajeev's World till now. Others that are in the list of the tops are Alexander the Great - The Three Last Wishes......, Viens, Mallika, les lianes en fleurs... Always an Interconnected World!, A sad day for Poland and Adieu VT-AXV.

Almost Like A Dream Come True, a blog post of November last year on my journey in a cockpit, a personal favourite, seems to be a favourite of quite a few aviation enthusiasts as well. The page generated quite a hits and still does.

But the post that flattered me a great deal was Towering Ambitions? which was written on June 11, 2010, just 2-3 days after the construction of India's tallest, 117 storey, residential building was announced. A few weeks later, towards July, a leading Indian business newspaper carried a story on the same development, which was deceptively similar to my blog post.

Why did it take them 3 weeks to come out with the story? Did they draw on my ideas?

I do not have answers to any of these questions. But I know that imitation is the best form of flattery. I did feel flattered on seeing that report.

The journey so far has been interesting and the credit for that goes to all who read Rajeev's World regularly. I do get quite a few mails, text messages, messages on Facebook, phone calls on the posts and that does egg me on to be there for Rajeev's World and you.

A friend recently wrote to me saying "You have some reputation to manage ..... have better things to worry like China's bubble, Gaza Strip's rubble and Obama's trouble ....."

Rajeev's World surely won't disappoint on that. Be assured of that.

Surely, Rajeev's World will continue to be there with views, reviews, anecdotes and analysis of issues that concern us all. I can only hope your interest is sustained.

Thanks for being there.