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Newasa - Encountering an unique form of Vishnu, and Sant Jnaneshwar

The year was 1290 . A crowd had gathered around a clearing, where broken down pillars marked the presence of an ancient temple, now long gone. A young boy, just 14 years old, leaned against one of those pillars, deep in thought. Then, he began speaking, and the crowd fell silent, listening to his every word. He spoke without any notes, translating the Bhagavat Gita, from Sanskrit, which only the pundits knew, to the language everyone in the village knew and spoke – a variety of Prakrit which developed into the Marathi language. Even as he spoke, one of the men in the audience realized how momentous this event was, and how important this composition would be. He began writing down the words the young boy spoke, and this composition was named by its author and composer, the Bhavartha Deepika – the enlightening meaning (of the Bhagavat Gita). Now, the ancient, holy text, was no longer restricted to the pundits, but accessible to all, understood easily by them, composed as it was, in their...
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An Interesting Sight



Have you heard of Deballasting? I certainly hadn’t, until we happened to see the process in action……………..




We saw this sight while returning from Elephanta, and were curious about what they were doing.
Thankfully, we have a marine expert at home (my father-in-law), who told us that this process of pumping out the excess water from a ship is called Deballasting. Google yielded a lot more information, and you can check out this link for an explanation for laymen like us.

Anyway, leaving aside the technicality, it looks good, doesn’t it? Every person on the ferry was busy taking photos, and there might be quite a few floating around the internet already! In any case, here are a few more….







Some oil from the tanks seems to have mixed with the water, showing us all these wonderful colours! (I dont think this really counts as an oil spill, since the amount of oil would have been very small, so I could really enjoy the view!)







So, have you seen anything as interesting while on a boat ride?


Location: Apollo Bandar, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

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