This Saturday was reserved for the grand wedding of my close friend. The guy is a British born Sikh. This was the first time i am attending a Sikh wedding so was a bit curious.

By the time we reached the the Alice way Gurudwara (place of worship for the Sikhs), the Baraat (Groom leaving his house to the Gurudwara) and the Milni (Reception ceremony of the Groom's party by the Bride's Party) were over. On entering the Gurudwara, we wore out head coverings. For those who don’t know, it is required that you cover your head with a piece of cloth and remove your footwear before you enter the Gurudwara. We were directed to the tea hall in the ground floor of the Gurudwara. I knew this Gurudwara to an extent as i had been here many times. This Gurudwara is just about 10 min drive from my house. It was not easy for us to recognize this bloke as i have never seen him with a beard and turban before (remember i told you, he was a British born 'Shaved Sardar').After some heavy scrutiny of the crowd applying elimination method, found him in the Tea hall. He looked pretty good with beard and turban. Met him when he was on his way to the first floor of the Gurudwara where the wedding (Its called as Anand Karaj) is to take place. We followed him to the Hall.

Inside the Gurudwara, we went straight and offered our prayers. We then sat on the left hand side in the carpeted floor. Inside the hall, men usually sit on the left hand side and the womenfolk sit on the right hand side. Not sure if it is a convention, but i have noticed the same pattern in all the Gurudwaras I have gone. After my friend - the groom offered his prayers and sat in the row right in front of us. There were some Kirtans sung and after sometime, the Groom was made to sit in front of the Holy Book (Sri Guru Granth Sahib) The Bride was brought in and made to sit on the left hand side of the groom. Later the Bride, Groom and their parents stood up and offered their prayers. The priest then starts the next part called Laavan (Virdi, the groom, had told me about this before. Hence i remember...). The couple then walked around the holy book with the Groom leading and the bride following helped by her close relatives (symbolizing their support I guess). They go around 4 times with a short break in between each round where the priest recites from the holy book. After the 4 rounds, they are declared as couple. At this stage the Civil wedding ceremony as mandated by the UK Govt takes place where a registrar takes the oath from the couple and they legally declare as Man and Wife. Not sure if such a thing happens in India also.

There were some other smaller ceremonies happening further. We came back to the ground floor had the lunch and off we went to our house.

Back in the house had to do the weekend chores and weekend calls to India and managed to get an hour of rest.

The reception was to start at 7.30 PM and reached there prompt on time. It was in a Banqueting hall in Southall called Monsoon. Didn’t have much trouble finding it. The seating arrangements were very nice. Was hovering around for a table to sit along with couple of other colleagues who had come there. Did take some time to figure out one but it was worth the wait as we were seated on a table right in front of the stage. A few minutes later the newly wed couple came in accompanied by a band of Punjabi drummers and folk dancers. The folk dance group did a nice show of dances for some traditional songs. After which there were some DJ shows and floor open. Met the couple after sometime. Virdi looked a bit more relaxed now. Did some bit of dancing. When i looked at my watch, it was already close to 11 PM and i had to take the bus back home. Rushed to the dinner hall. Had a good serving of Punjabi food and off i rushed home. Lukily another friend of mine gave a lift till home..

It was a day well spent and a bit tiring too. Had a nice sleep that night. The only regret was that i did not take my camera and my phone was not the best instrument to take pictures in the dark :-(. This page would have been filled with lovely pictures...

I had long been contemplating doing a walking tour in London. The first and the only one i had done before was more than a year ago where we went for a walk around Hamstead heath. So, last sunday did a walk around the Regent's Park. One of London's premier area. After finishing off all my weekend morning chores, started pretty late in the after noon (around 1 PM) from home and took the picadilly line from Hounslow East and changed over to the Northern line at Leister square station to reach Chalk farm Station from where this walk started. From the chalk farm station, walked towards the Primrose Hill through an old looking (may be victorian) iron bridge and walking along a busy lane.





Had to do a small trek to the top of the primrose hill (just takes a round 10 mins). The view from the top was awesome. You could see most of the london attractions from there like the Canary Warf, London eye, St Pauls, Bt Tower (this was the most prominent of them).








Decented the hill and walked towards Reagent park through the St Mark's church. The entry to the regent park from here was again through a smaller iron bridge. Could see part of the lovely regent canal (plan to do a walk along the canal soon). The path had a series of John Nash's Terraces on the left side of the walk overlooking the park. John Nash was a renowned English architect and an architect to the Crown. Prince Regent had engaged him to architect the area around what was called the Marleborne Park (now its Regent's Park). Prince Regent (who later became King George lV) wanted to have this area as an exclusive area for the premire community. This park was originally leased out to the Duke of Portland by the Crown. This was initially used as hunting ground. It was after this lease in the early 18th century that Prince Regent engaged John Nash on this Masterplan. The original plan was to have a summer palace built for the Prince and a series of villas built for people close with the Prince's family around the park.









All the developments planned as per the original masterplan did not see the day though as Prince Regent subsequently planned to move to Buckinham palace.Out of the 50 odd villas planned only around 8 were built. The proposed summer palace was also not built.

Some where mid way, there was a very nice looking drinking water fountain in the form of a church. On examining it further, came to know that the same was gifted by a Parsi businessman from Bombay during the period of the english rule.




From there walked towards the lake inside the park. On the way were lot of football pitches filled with people playing. Also on the right hand side on the path was "The Hub", which is a recent develpment and hosts multi sprots facility with a swanky looking cafe on the top of it. There were a lot of people boating in the lake and one could see a huge variety of ducks, swans and fowls. Well..i am not an expert Ornitholist like Salim Ali but can definitely tell a Swan from Ducks. On this side of the park, the London Mosque's Dome was prominently visible.






I had to cross over the lake to further on my walk. On the way to the Band stand, there were a large collection of flowers on the right side of the path. The band stand is the place where the disaster of IRA bombing which killed 7 Bandmen. There is a placade put up there in their rememberance. Good that the problem is approached a positive turn in the
past decade.This area of the park where the band stand is built is called as the Holme Green.




The London Zoo is also part of the Regent's Park. Winfield house, the official residence of the US Ambassador to Britain is also located inside the Regent's park (though could not see it as it is private). The London Business School is also in the borders of the park.

Primross Hill as well as the Regent Park come under the Royal parks of the Crown's Estate.

After spending some time in the company of flowers, moved on to Queen Mary's Garden. This hosts a fabulous garden, the triton fountain and an large open theatre.




After seeing most parts of the Regent park, what was left of the plan was to see some of the fabulous residential area around this. The first to see was the Chester terrace. This was one of John Nash's architecture. Whole of the residential area around the park had the rich look. It gave a teste of how regency looks...

I then walked towards the chester terrace. This is street with all the houses architected by John Nash. This is a street in Camden for all official purposes. All the houses in this street are Grade 1 listed buildings. Both ends of the street has a huge arch with the name "Chester Terrace" engraved on them on a blue background.There are two blue plaques on the street, one for Charles Robert Cockerell and one for John Salmond.






Once out of this street, moved towards the Perpendicular road where tere was yet another huge set of terrace houses called the cambridge terrace. As we walk further there was the Royal College of Physicians.



Out of curiosity checked out at a later time, the kind of going rates for houses near this place and look what..a decent looking apartment would cost around GBP 500 thounsand upwards and a house cost to the tune of GBP 2 million and higher. The ones in Chester Terrace would cost upward of 3.5 million.

Had a quick glimpse of the Park cresent, another fantastic building architected by John Nash, from across the road and started moving towards the Baker Street Station to catch the Tube back home. En route walking, saw the Royal Academy of Music, Madamme Tussards and London planetarium from outside.





Entrance to the Madamme Tussards Museum and Poster about the new addition

There was a statue of Sherlock Holmes in front of the Baker Street station. Boarded the jubilee line and changed over at Green Park for Picadilly Line back home...

Thrilled to see this news today. This sort of rekindled my old memories as this was the first computer.

It was called a "home computer" those days and PCs were extremely costly and reserved to the corporates. The computer needs to be plugged into a tv to be used. The microprocessor used was developed by Clive Sinclair in UK.Though the graphics were not all that great as we have these days, who cares about those when your aim was to learn the art of progamming. It supported a customised version of Basic called the Sinclair-Basic. It was more or less similar to MS Basic.


It also supported games which needs to be loaded on its rom by way of audio tapes using a walkman. Later on there were micro drives introduced which can be used as an accessory. The programs done can be saved in the audio tape if your walkman supports record function.

I am sure you would agree it would have been real fun using this for an 10 yr old.. Thanks to my father...

Labels: Noted

It was a boring saturday evening and me looking out for something to kill time. Remembered the poster of Aish's latest movie - Provoked at the Underground station near home. So thought of watching it. Heard that it was a very serious movie etc. Me being the masala film type.. Well.. took me to do a second thought. But still went against the resistance..



The movie was based on a true story of Kiranjeet Ahluwalia (that's Ash's name in the film too..). The story is based out of London. Ash is a Punjabi girl married to a British born desi. Unlike the usual indian husbands in the UK (:-)), this guy subjects her to a high degree of domestic abuse and violence. Unable to with stand this for more than 10 yrs, she decides one day that enough is enough and kills him.

Rest of the movie is about how she copes up in the UK prison, wins over some friends in the process and with the help of her new found friends both inside and outside the prison (Nandita Das - an NGO in the movie), wins her freedom. Her case is of historic importance in the legal circle as it altered the legal definition of provoke (or something like that..Did not quite notice that bit well.)

All the characters in movies (surprisingly Ash after a long time..) have acted well. I especially liked the acting of cell mate of Ash. She did exactly what she was supposed to neither less nor more. I think Ash has attempted to do her career best (did come very close to) before she bid adieu (going by her statemenst in the press). Nandita Das, but for some scenes has done an excellent job.

On having Ash to do this role, the movie indirectly gets a better attention on the international media and secondly, not many heroines look beautiful without or with minimal makeup.

Well.. In the end i did feel good going against my initial resistance and seeing this movie. Worth a watch..

Labels: General, Reviews

Had to make something special for Vishu. Back home you are guaranteed a sumptuous food and a generous collection (by way of kaineetams).

Tried my hands to make paal payasam. Well..the veterans would feel its quite simple to make. But for people who know how good a cook i was a few months ago (not that i am an expert now..), would know how big an accomplishment it is for me. Anyways it did come out yummy and as the saying goes..Proof of the pudding is in the eating.. The Payasam was over by the end of the day (Please note: i had just a glass of it in all).

Labels: General

Note: Can enjoy better if you read Day1, Day2 and Day3 before...

Today was the last day of this trip. It had been fantastic till now and we were sure it was going to be good today too. But a fine line of grimness embraced us. Tomorrow its going to be back to work and it was like we are going to be pulled out of a fantasy land into the mundane 9 to 5 land. Today we did not have the late rising as it was me who woke up first and woke up on time (felt enough is enough.. :o)). But lady luck refused to come near us. What we saved on waking up early was made up in getting the breakfast finished. Nevertheless made it to the van on time.

Our first stop for the day was Carreg Cennen castle. As of everyday, this was the trek of the day as the castle is situated on a kind of hilltop. But the small trek up was well worth as the castle had one of the best view.Though the outer portion of the castle remain strong more or less, many of the inner portions of the castles were in ruins. The castle has a deep under ground passage leading to a cave and also has a natural spring en route.This passage gets pitch dark after few steps walking down and will require a torch (available on rent from the visitor information desk). Also walking the passage is very tricky as you risk a fall if you place your foot wrong or risk banging your head on the low roof that emerges all of a sudden. Since the passage is not man made, the floor as well as the roof are uneven.From the information plate, could make out that this castle seemed to have changed hands often.












We next went to a scenic landmark the name of which i forgot..Welsh names are very tough to remember unless you note it down which i did not in this case..Nevertheless this place was awesome. Dan told us that in the olden days, this place used to be the place where smuggled goods from America would arrive on British soil later to be sold on black market. Took some photos including the one with Dan and quickly sprinted to the van.







We then went to the Cardiff Bay, the happening place in Cardiff. The Bay hosts the National Assembly of Wales (the only traditional looking building in that area) as well as the Wales Millennium Centre. The Millennium center has a inpressive copper looking dome inscribed with the letter "In these stones, horizons sing". Rest of the outer walls of the building is clad with the tradional welsh slate. The inside of the building looks very posh and hosts theatres and musical academies. There was a live show by some artists when we were there. Looked fantastic...















As we were going towards the point of pickup.. We met the other trip mates and to make good use of the waiting time, took our final group photo (though Dan,Claire & Natalie were missing in this). Dan picked us up in few minutes from then and off we went to the Cardiff castle. Due to shortage of time, could not quite go in and explore in details. Spend some time at the castle gift shop and off we were on our way back through the motorway to London.








Got dropped off promptly at Earls court Station and that marked the end of this trip.

The time has come to say good bye.. we had real good fun... As a matter of fact, the trip was like visiting your friend for a weekend and hanging around with them. Dan and Calire will remain our very good friends...

Took the picadilly service back to Hounslow West and and once back at Hounslow had dinner at Kharahi Palace, a popular indian restaurant near the station.

The weather had been very good to us. All the four days had been nice and sunny but for the fact that i came back with a bit of tan (i am told so..)

Labels: Outings