Treasure Hunt

"I am the only big Park in East of the city. I hosted the Indian National Congress's meeting in 1955. I also gave Nagpur it's first swimming pool in early 50s. Today I own a musical fountain too. Who am I?"


Note: Please respond on comment section of this post instead of email/yahoogroup. Thanks.

Mr. Ashok Easwaran

Folks, we are pleased to have a remarkable Nagpuri amongst us at Nagpur First - Mr. Ashok Easwaran.

Mr Easwaran is currently working as Editor of an Indian American weekly published from Chicago and also writes for the Indo-Asian News Service.

Mr. Easwaran is a true blue Nagpuri, with core Nagpuri sensibilities. He grew up in Nagpur and did his education in SFS school,G.S College and PG in Management and Journalism from Nagpur University.

His career as a Journalist associated him with various renowned media houses like Indian Expresss, The Daily and Deccan Herald in Mumbai. Of course he is proud of the fact that the foundation of his illustrous career was laid in his home town, Nagpur, where he started it all at The Hitvada under veteran journalists Mr M Y Bodhankar and the late Mr G T Parande.

He worked with the South Asia bureau of India Abroad at New Delhi before moving to Houston and later to Chicago.

He has been kind enough to grant us his permission to publish one of his article on our blog. Since getting the format right with PDF on blog was tough, I thought it would be prudent to upload the article on googlesites. This would do more justice to it, than me trying to format and present it on the blog.

I am sure you all will enjoy!

http://sites.google.com/site/nagpur1st/mr-ashok-easwaran-article-1

Nagpuri Tadka

Hello Nagpuris, I am sharing a nice Nagpuri Tadka, which I received as a forward from a Mumbaikar.
नागपुरी तडका : बिपाशाले लुगडं


शाम्यानं इचीबैन, कहरच केला

बिपाशासाठी मुंबैले, लुगडं घेवुन गेला....


त्याले वाटलं मायबाप, भलते गरिब असन,

म्हुन तिले आंगभर, कपडे भेटत नसन,

वाढलीहूढली पोरगी, तरणीबांड दिसते,

इकडं झाकाले गेली, तं तिकडं उघडं पडते,

म्हुन त्यानं कपड्याचा, थैला भरुन नेला....



जुहुच्या चौपाटीवर, भेट त्यायची झाली,

तिले पाहुन शाम्याची, बंदी विकेट गेली,

तिले म्हणे चोळी घाल,घे लुगडं नेसुन,

थे म्हणे आवमाय, हे भुत आलं कुठुन ?

मंग जुहूवर धमासान, तमाशा सुरु झाला...



लय वळवलं तिचं मन, पण मन नाय वळे,

मंग शाम्या धावे मांगं, आनं थे पुढं पळे,

वन्समोअर,वन्समोअर, लोकं भाय बोंबले,

कॅमेरेवाले पोझ घेवुन,कॅमेरे रोखुन थांबले,

पोलीसायनं बैनमाय,नावकुल विचका केला,

आनं त्याच्यापुढचा एपीसोड, राहुनच गेला.....



.........................................

ढोबळ मानाने शब्दार्थ :-

इचीबैन, बैनमाय = च्यायला सारखे.

वाढलीहूढली = वयात आलेली.

बंदी = पुर्ण,संपुर्ण.

आवमाय = अग्गबाई

मांगं = मागे

नावकुल = पुर्णपणे.

.........................................
लेखक - गंगाधर मुटे
Disclaimer: We have received this कविता as a forward and are reproducing here. Mr. Mute claims to have written it and hence we are providing his name here.

CNBC Discussion : Nagpur an IT Destination

Unfortunately I am not able to embed the Video on this blog; so I am just adding the url here

http://www.moneycontrol.com/video/special-videos/mihannagpur-the-ideal-business-hub-_439261.html

I liked the candid argument made by Mr. Kulkarni of Persistent Systems for why young talent from Nagpur takes a flight to other 'cooler' or metropolitan destinations.

Sachin Pilot spoke pretty well and he looks like a minister who can fit into his father's dynamic legacy.

Mr. Asim Gupta should be congratulated for promoting Nagpur so well.

Overall I liked the CNBC snippet.

Thanks to Mr. Vikram Bobade for passing on this link to the Nagpur First Group.

Nagpur International Marathon 2010

Since last year, January 30, the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi is an increasingly special day for all the Nagpuris as around that day the annual Nagpur International Marathon is organized in support of the principles of Peace and Non-violence. This time it was organized on last Sunday, January 31, 2010. It was the second year of the marathon with hundreds of thousands of people participating right from children to people in their eighties, and from bureaucrats to businessmen to politicians and even military organizations.

Nagpur First was honored last year as Mr. Sharad Bhagwatkar, 68 years young father of Vivek Bhagwatkar, one of the founders of NF, represented us in the last year’s run by running the full marathon! I also tried participating in the event last year but chose not to after reaching at the venue to find chaos when nobody seemed to know what was going on there. This year the event looked much better organized starting with proper arrangements for parking of vehicles to signs marking starting and ending points for various races and the roadmap for full and half marathons clearly displayed at various prominent places along the route. Almost all major businesses and organizations in the city supported the event with sponsorships. People were also seemed much better prepared for the event this time and I feel it shall go on becoming more interesting and grand event with each passing year.

Nagpur-First participated this year too with 8 of us (see photo) running the Ahinsa Daud (non-violence run) of 3 KMs from the Kasturchand Park to Yeshwant Stadium via Akashvani square, Institute of Science, RTM Nagpur University, Variety square, Munje Square, Zansi Rani Sqaure, Panchsheel square and finally Yeshwant stadium. For the first time I climbed on the ‘steps’ for the audience to sit inside the Yeshwant stadium, to watch the participants completing the marathon arriving with huge applause from the crowd. There was also a band playing at the center of the stadium and a music program by upcoming singers.

I personally felt much better connected with our beloved city, its people and its culture while running with the crowd. It was a wonderful experience and I look forward to running a longer distance next year with a larger group.

We at Nagpur-First are also planning to organize a 10 KM Heritage walk from the Kasturchand Park to Futala Talao and back, sometime around Oct-Nov this year. Ajit Kulkarni proposed the idea and he may champion the initiative with support from other members of Nagpur-First. Looking at the success of the International Marathon, I am encouraged. Let’s gear up to make the heritage run a grand success in its first year.

IDCA

Dinesh and I were lucky to be invited to an IDCA meet this Saturday at Oak Brook near Chicago. IDCA stands for 'India Development Coalition of America'. It's a forum (or a coalition as they like to call) of different groups/organisations that are helping India's development directly or indirectly.

Dinesh Jain, our founder, was invited as one of the speakers this week. And goes without saying, he gave a sterling performance. (And may be I am biased, but judging by audience response, I could say his presentation was the best amongst the lot)

I particularly liked his notion of 'Self Interest'; something that really connected well with the gathering. Dinesh said - "For anything to work there has to be a self interest involved. It's how you define 'self' that matters. Self can include only me, or me and my family, or me and my family and my community, or me, my family, my community, my city, my country and so on'

The point was well made. That without self interest, you cannot be motivated enough to make a difference.

During the Q&A session, after Nagpur First presentation, there were a few in the audience who talked enthusiastically of their indirect association with Nagpur and had some positive things to say about our beloved city. One such Gentleman who was not really from Nagpur but had worked in NEERI for a few years said : "The People of Nagpur are honest and simple. And it's a great city to be in"

That really warmed the cockles of my heart. The anchor of the session Mr. Thatte also mentioned his association with Nagpur and said there are more well wishers for Nagpur than we can think.

Amongst the other presenters, I particularly like Dr. Rajaram's take on Solid Waste Management. During the course of presentation the speaker mentioned about one Mr.Srinivasan, who's done some amazing work in Vellore in Tamil Nadu. Srinivasan has used common sense solution for a major problem in India which is Waste Management. Currently Delhi Municipal Corporation is dealing with a huge problem with this and the High Court has already ordered Delhi not to use any more land for waste dump.

Mr. Srinivasan's common sense solutions can help them in true sense. And so can it help Nagpur. I spoke to one Mr. Bhaskar who was representing another organisation called 'AID' and asked him if we can get in touch with Srinivasan. His team has a sustainable economic model for Waste Management. In fact their model generates lot of employment apart from cleaning up the city. For example, for a community of 300 people, this model can generate an employment of 6 persons and can generate an income of 20,000 p.m in India. Do the math for a larger community like Nagpur.

I also got to know that, Mr. Srinivasan is a simple person who is helping his community. He does not have a fancy website or a degree in management or anything, nor does he charge consulting fees etc. He is simple Indian, living in a small town and helping his community. (These,IMHO, are real heroes of India and not the one's who color your TV screens with glamor, like in the new Mile Sur..ad)

Waste Management, I feel, can be a pre-cursor for Nag-Pure, or the purification of Nag river. By isolating Organic waste, we can generate clean energy that can be recycled into the local economy. Although this was always known, we now have a sustainable model to deal with this. And the model is only maturing.

I think Nagpur should take advantage of this and should aim to become India's First Clean Energy Compliant City.

Quiz of the week

Without googling/wikipeding, name this great Nagpuri personality..

He is the only person who served on all of these three posts :

1] The Chief Justice of India,
2] The Vice President of India,
3] The President of India..

There's another big first to his name. But if I give that clue, it will make it simple.