Sometimes the attractions are closed…

I wanted to do the Miniature Museum, but here’s one review that I found very unsettling:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/miniature-museum-of-greater-st-louis-saint-louis

and the website of the Museum is also not working, so it may no longer be operational. Do check it out!

I just visited the downtown area and the Schnucks there last Saturday, with my family, and enjoyed myself very much. So (especially in view of needing someone to work from home if I am going for the walk) I think I’ll pass on that, too. The Schnucks “eatery” is great! DnA had taken the children to Circus Flora. Since I will be volunteering there this Saturday, I spent the time wandering around the area, and it was very interesting indeed! There are some lovely new and old buildings there.

I put up some photos on my FB album:

https://www.facebook.com/deemopahan/media_set?set=a.10151512804483878.1073741914.587058877&type=3

I also went, on Sunday, to attend a program where some artistes explained the science behind some of the circus acts. This took place in the Centene Center, which is in the same area. I took the bus there and back 🙂

https://www.facebook.com/deemopahan/media_set?set=a.10151511828553878.1073741913.587058877&type=3

St.Louis has plenty to offer the “tourist-minded” wanderers.

Love…

“Journeys end in lovers’ meetings”, goes the saying…but journeys also start with lovers’ partings! I watched two lovers parting today, dealing with their joy in each other (no, I was not eavesdropping, they were in plain sight until the bus came to the bus stop!) , and their pain at parting…human emotion is so incredibly complex…I’ve not seen anything as sweet as the smiles they gave each other. Each smile was a kiss, and the moisture in the woman’s eyes at the end, hurriedly wiped away, spoke poetry to me. Love, in joy, in pain, is a magical thing.

Disincentives…

sent me this:

Rail surfers (those who travel on top) have been threatened with paint, dogs and religion. Now Indonesia has strung concrete balls above the trains to bonk the overhead riders. Will that stop them ? No!! say the riders. They’ve resisted arrests successfully, as well as the other measures. They like the wind, rush and views up there, plus the free ride is nice!

Here in St. Louis, we would bonk people on the head with concrete balls to MAKE them ride the train!

click here to read about the Indonesian train problem

n the 1970’s in Calcutta (Kolkata), there used to be the “Sardarji” buses (private buses run by this community) as well as the Government buses. The Government buses lost money, and the private buses did well. Travelling outside the bus (in some cases, the passenger would be attached to another passenger and never touch the bus at all) was so common that the private buses had one conductor for inside, and another for outside, the buses! Maybe that’s the solution that Indonesia needs…!

Here’s a pic of the “Sardarji” buses, little tin boxes, that I got off the net:

Rage….

At 8.30 pm on the 4th of April, I took the BIAS Vayu Vajra (BIAS 12, to KuVemPu Nagara)nfrom the airport to my home.

On the way, a group of four passengers got on,and asked for tickets. They paid Rs. 60( four tickets of Rs.15 each) , and the conductor said that the tickets would cost Rs.20 each. The young man who was one of the group protested, saying that he had taken the Volvo yesterday and had paid only Rs.15, and he would not pay the higher amount.

The conductor insisted that the amount was correct. The passenger demanded that the conductor show him the chart; if the amount was correct, he said, he would pay the difference.

The conductor refused to show him the chart and asked the group to get off the bus. The passenger, getting increasingly vociferous, said he would not get off without taking a look at the chart.

Within minutes, the young man and the conductor were involved in violent fisticuffs. The driver halted the bus, and came back to intervene. One of the ladies in the group also pulled the young man off the brawl, and the group got off the bus, with invective and bad feeling flying around.

I cannot imagine that the conductor of a Vayu Vajra bus would demand excess fare; after all, he was going to give the ticket to the value of Rs.20, not for Rs.15.

A few passengers said that perhaps the previous day, the young man had, indeed, taken a Volvo, but it might not have been the Vayu Vajra bus, which does have a higer fare. This seems to me to be the likely explanation.

But in this case, why did the conductor not just show the young man the chart, and prove that he was mistaken? That would have defused the situation instead of escalating it into physical violence, which is what transpired.

Why are our tempers so short, that we need to indulge in violence almost immediately? Why does rage prevail instead of more mature behaviour?

Why are we so ready to assume that the other person is out to cheat us? Why can’t we assume goodwill, or at least an honest mistake, and try to sort out the situation, instead of indulging in confrontation, anger and violent behaviour?

No wonder, both bus passengers and bus staff are a harried lot at the end of the day…..

God…and animal worship!

If God is great….

then, this is animal worship…of a different kind!

Both taken today, on our wonderful trip to Nandi Hills.

The colour of fertility, plenty and prosperity….

This picture was taken by my son-in-law, as our bus bumped its way through the rural areas of Karnataka. Paddy fields, all green velvet, so inviting in the summer sun…and even more beautiful as the sun was obliterated by the rain clouds and the drops started splashing down….

I love this song …but that picture is of the green, green fields of home…MY home!