Gargoti - one of the wonders of the world !

I had been to Nashik recently for a short two day trip. And visiting this place called Gargoti was one of the items on our agenda !

Gargoti is located near a place called Sinnar on the Pune-Nashik highway. In the malegaon MIDC area, lies this small building - not too much rush, not so popular as yet - but you can hardly guess what lies inside unless you get to see it.

It is a museum which houses a collection of various stones and semi-precious, precious stones, gems collected from many areas in Maharashtra and some from outside India. It is quite a large collection which would take one around 2 hours to see carefully and appreciate the beauty of nature. Most of the rocks kept there are those which have been found accidently during excavations. They charge Rs. 100 for an individual visitor and Rs. 50 per person for a group of 3 or more people. But what lies inside is worth much more than that probably !

What the guide there told us is that while mining for normal Basalt rock, one can come across those pieces of rock - more beautiful than any piece of art one can make ! It is unbelievable that the earth can hide such beauty within apparently uninteresting black Basalt rock.

We got to see rocks of all types - various shapes, sizes, colours - just about everything one ca ever imagine. From very delicate needle like rock structures romed from cooling of hot lava to solid sedimentary rocks found in rivers, which would be weighing in tons ! Many of the pieces were found in and around Nashik, some near Mumbai, near Pune - everywhere where mining is carried out. Nature seems to have found a perfect way of hiding its underlying beauty from the outer world - the most delicate and beautiful rocks are found inside hollow cavities in larger basalt rocks which keep them protected from the outside world until some basalt rock is broken into smaller pieces accidently. Inside those cavities are housed so many colours, formed by the mixture of various minerals in the hot lava juices while the rock is formed which imparts the specific properties to the rock - mainly its colour. At Gargoti, they claim they haven't done anything to the rocks except for washing them correctly under pressured water streams - so what we get to see is 100 % percent natural ... and there is no reason not to believe them - the best artist in the world would also be unable to make those kind of rock forms !

Really, they call the place one of the wonders of the modern world, which houses the most ancient rocks on earth - surfaced recently though - and the place deserves this recognition. The worst part was that they allowed Cameras inside and I didn't have one ! Really sad ... but those wonderful works of His art would remain in my memory for a long long time - thats for sure.

Movies and me ...

I am not a movie buff or anything, but I do see a lot of hindi movies anyway. Some movies which I really like include Andaz Apna Apna, Hungama, Hera Pheri etc. which make me laugh anytime I see them.

However a different class of movies, as I found out recently, probably I like more than these comedy films, just because I sometimes find them very relevant to me and friends around. These include DCH, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander, Dil To Pagal Hain and some others.


Don't know why - but whenever I see these films (have seen these recently), I feel I can see people around me, mostly friends, in the roles which have been played in the movies.

Just a thought ! Off to sleep now ...

Fundae of life !

This week I have spent at home has been an enlightening one ! I have met many people, with different backgrounds and aims and ambitions in life ... so on and so forth. Will be writing in some detail about each incident in days to come.
This particular incident which I describe now happened on 1st May ... when Dad's school friends had come to our house for dinner. One friend of his is now a top man in the Govt. Admin. structure, and the other is an industrialist who is an alumni of IIT-KGP. First of all, it is a very nice setting here ... the son of the first friend is quite a smart boy and hence his dad wants him to go into IIT and become a good academician - he believes Govt. hierarchy is not the best place to be in - having experienced it himself ... he feels it is not really a field which one would be satisfied about being in! So he wanted some advice from me as to which classes he should join and so on. So all that was done, we had a nice dinner (food at home is always amazing after coming from hostel !) and I was later talking to dad's other friend - the IIT-KGP alumni, with my mom and dad also there.
The conversation was something like this:
Dad (Telling a joke about some camel and his mother) :
Baby-Camel : Mamma, why do we camels have such a ugly back with a hump on it ?
Mother-Camel : Child it is a very important part of our body - it stores water and enables us to go without water in the hot and dry desert for days together.
Baby-Camel : Thats okay mamma, but then why do we have such horrible looking legs ?
Mother-Camel : Oh child, God has specially made such legs for us so that we can easily walk in the dry sand and travel long distances in the desert.
Baby-Camel : And mamma, what about our eye-lids ... why are they such that they almost close our eyes ?
Mother-Camel : Child, that is also done to make us more suitable to live in deserts. They help to keep the sand out from our eyes and protects them. So all these things together earn us the respected name of "ship-of-the-desert".
Baby-Camel : One last question mamma ... what are we doing then in this cage in a zoo ??

We all had a nice laugh and the lesson was understood.

Dad then said : I sometimes tell Sangram the same thing - you have to be in the right place and at the right time - otherwise we will be wasting ourselves.
Dad's friend : Yeah Rajeev, but what you see as right may not be right for Sangram and vice-versa. So Sangram, just believe in two things :-
1. You should enjoy whatever you are doing.
2. Your workplace should have a lot of pretty women around !

Me : Great advice uncle, but can you then tell me what the hell am I doing at IIT ??

There was lot of laughter once again and dad's friend then left.

Endsems !

We just had our endsems in the last week ... and I must say, exam time is really the busiest time in our semester ! Simply because rest of the semester we are not forced to do anything, everything is left to us ... but come the time of exams ... and we have to put in those extra hours of study ... to compensate for everything that we missed out on during the semester. But I tell you, this is also the most enjoyable time in the whole sem, in a way.

First of all, we are forced to go through all the books in this period ... and hence the satisfaction of having learnt something new - unfortunately, almost everytime, we end up realising that we should have studied throughout the semester as there were so many things to learn ... hope I really correct that and study our courses seriously all through the semester - some time here !
Secondly, I feel this is the time we friends really come together - be it for notes, fundae, whatever - but I personally like to study together and exam time is probably the only time we do that here in IIT ! During exams it is a different atmosphere in the hostels. People running around looking for books, coming to friends rooms for fundae, etc etc. The lukkha time also probably increases during exams ... with movies everyday (some friends, not me!) and what not ! Night-outs become very common ... supplemented by night tea and late night gossips - it is very much enjoyable.

Then come the exams finally ... and this sem we experienced some really tough ones. The papers were challenging, really requiring us to scratch our heads to solve some problems ... and this was a general trend in all departments I suppose. Sometimes I feel though we are fortunate to be in an institute like IIT, because of which we get papers and examinations which really test us ! Outside colleges, I doubt if that ever happens ! It is in some sense enjoyable to have a good paper where you have to think a lot, but finally after the paper is over, you have hardly scored anything !

Anyways, the endsems are over now and our results will be out soon ! I am not sure what grades I am going to get this sem ... hope they are reasonable !