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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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Birds at the Rail Museum

My cousins have never traveled much with me, and certainly never since I started writing. Though they do read my blog, they aren't really used to seeing me looking for material to write about. When I visited the Rail Museum in Delhi along with a couple of them, they were really amused to see me ignore the trains when I saw a flock of birds on the lawn.
They looked like mynas, which we see all over the place, and had a good time ribbing me about being more interested in birds than anything else. But with so many of my blog friends turning into birding enthusiasts that it was plain to even my untrained eye that these weren't the mynas I see usually. Returning home, and consulting with my bird book and with a bit of help from the net, I realized that the birds I had noticed were Rosy Starlings - the first time I had seen these birds! Here are a couple of pics....




There were, of course, many more birds there, probably because there weren't many people around! Here are a couple more pics.....

A dove wandered about happily....


and a rose ringed parakeet obliged me with a pose....


The Rail Museum used to be a favourite place to visit when I was a kid, and all I remembered from the time were the trains..... Never did I think that I would visit the Rail Museum with my son and end up photographing birds!!
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Location: National Rail Museum, Service Rd, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, Delhi, India

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