The Church and the History of Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh had been a vital part of the great steel belt of US, being rich in coal. Most of the old buildings bear the testimony of the resulting high levels of pollution in the city. Even this church at Negley. You can cleary see the black deposition on it wall. Seeing the marks pollution on these old buildings, it is understandable why the Kauffmann's were desperate for a retreat out in the woods, and wanted the house to truely connect with nature
1. Falling Waters
2. Cathedral of Learning: University of Pittsburgh

Church at Negley

This church is on my way to school and its beauty brightens up my day, everyday. I just love the wrought iron work on the wooden door.

Beautiful Leaves

Beautiful sky..

Photo week

This week, shall the photo blog week.. More to come, look out!!

Oldies...

Nescafe: Ah.. my heart swell with emotions as I recall that heavenly abode..Countless coffees witht the best of friends...

The next nobel prize winners...

Its freezing

It might be -4.0 degrees tomorrow. Looking forward to it!!

Fall is here-Pittsburgh on fire!

Mera aasmaan

Okay I am a bit senti today.. so please forgive me..

When I landed in US, the first thing that I saw was the sky. It was a beautiful morning sky, spilled with shades of blue and pink, with the sun just about to rise. Oh.. the sky looks the same...Well, what did I expect?
And today I just wrote in somebody's scapbook-- Zameen alag hui to kya hua.. asmaan to ek hi hai..

Hmm.. Sometime I really wonder.. Why did I come to US to study sustainability? Affluence and abundance cannot teach economy of use.
My teacher in class throws out a question on sustainable lifestyle and when all are silent, he goes on to talk about a mexican market where you get food in a plate made of leaves...!! Oh my God!! I cannot help smile at the irony...Sustainability is there everwhere in India, more out of compulsion than out of choice.
American create so much waste-toilet paper, paper for cleaning kitchen and mopping floor, paper plates, paper cups, plastic spoons, plastic forks, diapers. Thorwing food away is no big deal. The other day a teacher is explaining to a student that window air-conditioners could be more economical than central air-con for homes. We always do that in India. Just turn on the air-con where we need it and go without heating in winters!!
They talk about natural ventilation and cross ventilation as if they were things of the next generation..Maybe people have come a full cirle. they have tried making air-tight building and pumped then with conditioned air 24 hours and seen they dont work. We are just begininning to do it and will learn out lesson in good time.
Maybe I should gift my teacher a 'patte ka dona' :)

Thats the Intelligent Workplace: my classroom.

Friends
This just comes out of reading vinod's blog. He had written an entry about 'kyun ki..' I used trouble my 'gang' people with this word, a lot. We had a wonderful time together. We really did. We had wierd ideas about fun too.
On one accasion we all went out to the main market in town and decided we will eat at all the thelas( food kiosks) . I was done after momos and tikki(cutlets).. but some people kept eating right till we reached the kulfi waala( ice-cream) at the end of the market.
And on another occasion will took all sort of funny pics, sitting on scooters outside shiv mandir(temple)... With coulourful optic fibre flowers.. and what not..out on the roads.
All of us are now far apart, pune, mumbai, bangalore, delhi and me here... Not two people in the same city.. I really wish we could all get together again sometime, again on the roads, with mungphali, bhutta or just the air in our lungs, throwing the worries to the wind.

BARRIER FREE PUBLIC SPACES
Continuing the lecture on 'attention to detail': When a bus arrives at a stop, a recorded voice speakes out the bus number for the blind to hear. The first step is quite low for general ease. The front half of the bus is quite open, with seat aligned along the wall, reserved for people with special needs. All along the journey, the names of the next upcoming stop is displayed within the bus. Major stops are announced as well.
The side walks do not end with a step high drop, but merge into it. There is a tactile tile to mark the end of the walk.
Inside building there would be ramp entry without fail and lifts have brail.

But still there is no bulb in the room :-)

PITTSBURGH 13th Aug: The city has a hill town charm to it and a visual variety fairly uncommon to cities in US. My first destination in the city--The Balaji temple, better know as the SV temple, which lies to the east of piitsburgh. Its beautiful, but could not help the feeling of conflict at the temple. The people around me were indians but they were all speaking in the American accent, which seemed so out of place. Their 'sorrys' and 'excuse me' just did not fit in. the Temple had a dining hall that could easily have been that of a resturant in India. There were tissue boxes on the table, water fountains for drinking water. No sun, no breeze, the entire place is air conditioned. I welcomed myself to America.

MY APARTMENT after the visit to the temple.

Its in a plain new building without any frills. The apartment is on the 9th floor which is the top floor. There are'nt any buildings around, taller than this. We have windows to the east which look out to onto a giant but beautiful tree about 8 storeys tall, which stands next to the 'church of learning'. Beyond these are other, mostly old houses and the hills frame up everything beautifully.
Inside, its three bedrooms, an open kitchen, a dining and a living area. The place was empty when we arrived, but we have been filling it up with free stuff that our generous neghbours keep giving away. There is a room in the basement where people leave what they dont need. And anyone who need it can just pick it up. One thing that really amazed me was the fact there was no light point in any of the roorms. Americans seem to pay attention every small detail, but dunno why they dont find it important to put light bulbs in rooms...~shrug~
MY APARTMENT BUILDING: THE ONE CASTING THE LONGEST SHADOW

Friday: day 6 in the USA.
Got to see the Cleveland down-town today. Had the feeling of a city for the first time. Closely aligned buildings, loads of people and music on the roads. But the story of attention to detail continues. The sidewalks, the landscaped areas and the roads seem to be laid out staright from text books, 1:1 scale. The markings for parking, road dividers, crossings, signboards... everything done and followed with precision. All trees actually have mulch around them. "Every inch is treated", though of and designed.
A road close to home was blocked for repairs. Every roads/street that connected to it had a sign-"road blocked ahead" a crossing ahead.
For the rest, the "city" is quite sparse. A church there and a house here. Each building gets its share of the green and "real" views. Everything is picture perfect. Down-town Hudson( which is much smaller than Cleveland) is smaller and "cuter".

Current Location: Cleveland.
Leaving India was not easy. I( and everybody else) kept telling me, I am leaving. Most people were somehow a lot more sure than me, that I was gone for good. We all generalise.
At the Newark airport I had the first realisation of another world. And very different from what I had imagined it to be.

This was written months ago....
I am again moving on the familiar roads of Delhi. The traffic is as usual. This city has seen much. It has had many a rendezvous with tragedy. The bus-stop at Uphar cinema holds an advertisement for an insurance company. The city always moves on. At a signal light, my thoughts are interrupted by a knock on the window. There’s a little girl, shabby hair and face, hand and nose pressed to the window glass, mumbling the obvious. I give her an apple. She points to her brother and asks for another one. I hesitate for a moment, then give her the other one. She simply turns and walks away reminding me that for some, life is a tragedy everyday. But I have my own way to go. I get busy counting milestones and finally after a long wait I am home. My mother had been waiting and I rushed to her. As I turn to get my things from the car, I see the marks of the little girl’s hands - still there on the window-glass.

The VISA officer across the glass pane said--" Well mam, your VISA is issued" and then I was in my own dreamworld for a few minutes.. dazed...I walked out of the Embassy. I was going to another country, I had the permission to. What does it mean? A different country...
Jijaji says that I should come early and give myself time to overcome the culture shock, that is inevitable. I think I would never be able to "overcome" the culture shock. The differences may cease to stark after a while, but they will remain. But then, as long as I know that I am coming back to my country I am game. Or am I?
Infosys Mysore where I stayed for about four months for my training, was a chunk of US in India. Absolutely clean roads, sidewalks, manicure lawns, everything flawless. For a month it was all okay, But after that I just HAD to visit the the town on the weekend atleast once to experience the "real" world, with all its chaos, cacophony, myriad mix of people, sounds and smells... GOD!! I will miss you my dear India. I feel so lucky to be born here.

Going for the VISA tm and I feel things are going to be different tuesday onwards. The seat belt will be strapped!!

Home: Vinod, I loved your post about Bhilai. And I think that's exactly how I feel about roorkee. Just yesterday I narrated all my childhood stiries to shruti till twelve... Those were the wonder years and they still live in the neighbourhoods that we have left behind; In photo albums that are probaly opened once in a year now; In old diaries that are dusty and yellow.

I dont want to be ordinary and I don't want to depend on luck next time. That's what I wrote to somebody earlier today in an e-mail. What I wanted to say was that I want to control my life. I want to make choices and not let life decide for me.
How can it be done? Leave nothing to chance.."Does God play dice" ? Yes he does. It certainly makes life exciting. But how about improving your odds :-) Not a bad IDEA !!

Right now I am in Hyderabad. I am just waiting to get back to doing what I love. Studying. I am not one of those bespectacled, high scoring, genious people, but I enjoy studying. And that's one on the strong reasons for chooosing to go for an MS. I want to experience it all over again. And ofcourse at a better place. Hmmm.. there is nothing to beat roorkee in a way though, because that is a peice of heaven. But let me stay on earth and taste reality.
Am I going to US or somewhere else?
The direction that I would finally like to take would be towards the protection of the environment and pollution control. MS in Sustainabilty is a step towards it. I get simply enraged when I see rivers and water bdies in our cities black with waste being dumped/pumped in or when I see a cow eating up a plastic bag that probaly has something edible in it. I don't know how I shall be able prevent all this but I have set out.