Jaipur Book Lovers Is 100

 

 

 

Hashtag for the 100th meetup is    #JBL100

 

 

 

 

It took them more than three years but Jaipur Book Lovers turns 100 on 2nd June 2019. And to let the world know about it they not only are going to make some noise about it but they are going to celebrate the occasion in style.

They have booked KRISHNAYAN from 5 pm  at the Jawahar Kala Kendra on JLN Marg, Jaipur on 2nd June 2019 for a gathering of 100 persons. Instead of a regular meetup they are going to hold a quiz  and other games having information related to books as theme. They are going to give away discount vouchers from a local book store as prizes. A member has generously agreed to donate a book shaped cake for the occasion. Others are donating their time and some are chipping in with money. This collection drive is a necessary as the participation in the JBL is completely free of cost.

JBL, as Jaipur Book Lovers Club is fondly known among members, is getting a limited edition coat pin cast in the shape of their logo. This pin is to be sold at cost to cost basis to the members on 2nd June.

JBL has die hard fans among all age groups. Here is what they have to say about JBL.

This is what Mr.Anurag Bhatnagar has to say about the club.

“Jaipur Book Lovers is a Book lovers dream. I had been searching in Universities Language Departments, with Bookstores and organisations like Crossword, JKK, elusive groups like the Pratibha Foundation. I even asked around at the JLF but was always disappointed.

It reminded me of

” My self when young frequented many saint; and heard great argument ; But evermore came out by the same door as in I went” as my Guru  Omar Khayyam would have said.

Then, I found myself at a JBL meetup about two years back . It has got my synapses , whatever are left, crackling, the serotonin flowing and the    neurons stirring again.

I love JBL for getting me fired up again, chastened  by the huge gaps in my reading over at least the last two decades and I love the passion of the members, young and old , specially the young have for reading books.

We have a lot to thank the older members for maintaining such class at JBL.”

Another member, Ankit Bohre,  who has moved out of town says, ” I miss coming to meetups, now Sundays are boring.”

‘जयपुर बुक्स लवर्स’- मुझे जयपुर में मिलने वाली सबसे अच्छी चीज़ों में से एक है, हालाँकि इस बात का हमेशा मलाल रहेगा कि बहुत देर से इस क्लब के बारे में पता चला ओर मैं ज़्यादा समय नहीं दे पाई। पुस्तकस्थ जो विद्या है उसे कैसे व्यवहारिक जीवन में उतारना है, अथवा किस पुस्तक में क्या सीख है यह observe करना मैंने इस क्लब से सीखा। पुस्तकों से प्यार तो मुझे बहुत है, पर समयाभाव से पढ़ नहीं पाती हूँ- पर इस क्लब के माध्यम से मुझे सतत पढ़ने की प्रेरणा मिलती है, और एक ही पुस्तक को कितनी प्रकार से पढ़ा जा सकता है- यह भी मैंने यहाँ जाना। हालाँकि मैं अधिक समय तक मीट-अप्स में शामिल नहीं हो पाई पर फिर भी इतने कम समय में जो सबसे सीखा- और नये शहर में जो आत्मीयता पाई, उसके लिये आभारी रहूँगी। यह क्ल ऐसे ही अनवरत रूप से चलता रहे, इसी भावना के साथ- विपाशा जैन

“I have been part of the JBL group since the last few months and already it has had a huge impact on me. I have been reading books since the last 7 years and was looking for a platform where I could share about what I have read and could also get info on other books and authors worth reading. The Book lovers group has proved to be that exact platform. Through it I have come to know about many different interesting books, reading them will surely improve my understanding of life and the world and also help me grow as a person.

The members of JBL come from different walks of life. Different cultural and social backgrounds. Different age groups and academic backgrounds.

This makes JBL a perfect group to have discussions.

I enjoy the experience of being the JBL meet up and later on also enjoy the memories of it.

It is my personal endeavour to bring the best of books to the group so all members can benefit from it.

I sincerely remain committed to Jaipur Book lovers group.

I take this opportunity to thank each and every member of the group for letting me be a part of their group and giving me a chance to express my views. With the 100th meetup of the group coming up, I congratulate the founders of the group for conceiving, creating,developing and nurturing such a noble community of book lovers I wish them all the best.”  – Prasanjeet

For Ms. Vandana Varma JBL is” a Plethora of intellectual opportunities”

 

 

Books on Sports meetup  Group Photo

 

They have a member who reads more than 50 books a year and never misses a meetup and there is another who attends the meetup just for the masala Chai and the book talk. They have about 200 active members so the meetups are well attended affairs and the discussions are lively and in depth.

Group photo after the meetup on Japanese writing

 

Meetup on books JBL inspired you to read

Is your passion reading books? Join them! They are  your tribe! Follow them on Facebook, Instagram and twitter and attend their meetings on 2nd Sunday and 4th Sunday of the month from 11 am to 1 pm. at an appointed cafe in Jaipur.

 

Hashtag for the 100th meetup is                     #JBL100

 

 

For Them Book Is The Star

 

 

 

Jaipur Book Lovers held their 99th meetup at Chaisa Cafe, Lal Kothi on, Sunday, 12th May 2019.

They were there to celebrate the Book. Because the topic for this meetup was “Books Are The Stars of JBL”. The members were free to talk about any all time favourite books of theirs.

Prasanjeet Singh talked about his all time favourite book Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi.

 

Here is what he had to say about the book in his words,

“It is a story of a wooden puppet and his adventures and journey. The puppet does not listen to his father Gepetto and runs away from him and always ends up in trouble.He makes bad friends who try to cheat him. He once ends up in a far away land and also comes across a fairy. Later on he is captured by a magician who tries to use him for his magic shows. Eventually  he is united with his father after being swallowed by the big dog fish which is so big that  it can swallow a whole ship. The wooden puppet is creation of one Master Cherry. The book is very fascinating and it takes you on a surreal journey. I was personally in a very happy state of mind while reading it and cut off from the rest of the world. Written in 19 century in Italy by Carlo Collodi whose   real name was Carlo Lorenzini has used some very fascinating terms such as – Land of miracles, the inn of the red crawfish. The book is beautifully written and has a few unique words as well which will improve the readers’s vocabulary. It remains my favorite book. ”

 

Ms.Santana talked about the Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly, Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi and Nine Parts of Desire by Geraldine Brooks.

 

Dr.Ruchir Sodani talked about these books. He is a big Asimov fan!

 

Two new members

The two Abhisheks

The Group Photo!

 

Till we meet again to talk about some more books.

 

 

 

Life On The Banks Of The Chambal

This post is for the nature lovers amongst us.
These are  pictures of some of the life at the Bhadrawati Safari Lodge Savti Sawaimadhopur. If you want to spend some time comuning with nature on your holiday this is the place to be!

Jungle Babler

Whitethroat

Oriental Magpie Robin

Common Sitting Area At Bhadrawati Safari Lodge

Chambal

A fisherman working the Chambal at daybreak

sunrise on the Chambal

Mandana at the common area at the Bhadrawati Safari Lodge on the Chambal

Pampas Grass- Sunset

parrot

Swiss Cottages at the Bhadrawati Safari Lodge

Pampas Grass

Pampas Grass

Rufous treepie

On the banks of the Chambal – An Album    

Bhadrawati Safari Lodge Sawaimadhopur

On The Banks Of the Chambal-An Album

Sawaimadhopur, world famous for its Tiger preserve, is about two and a half hours away from Jaipur by train. Its a busy route and there are a lot of trains plying between Jaipur and Sawaimadhopur.

35 kilometers or approximately one hour drive away from the Sawaimadhopur station is the Bhadrawati Safari Lodge. It is located right on the banks of the river Chambal. It has 12 luxurious  Swiss Cottages pitched in an Amla and Guavas garden. Chirping of local birds wake you up in the morning and the sound of the Chambal water flowing over the rapids  lullaby you to sleep at night.

 

These are some pictures from a recent visit to Bhadrawati Safari Lodge located on the banks of the Chambal river.

If you decide to visit the place come prepared to ditch your diets because the food prepared here is very tasty and is made from locally grown and procured organic vegetables etc. and the chef knows his job well. Be it  vegetables or Non-vegetarian dishes or desserts all dishes are cooked in the Lodge’s kitchen and make you anticipate the next meal with great expectation.

False Dawn

Dawn

Sunrise

A Couple of White Browed Wagtails

A couple of white browed wagtails searching for biscuit crumbs near the common sitting area without any fear of humans, made a guest from Mumbai  comment that even the birds are not normal here!

A Boat on the Parvathi river

Pulling the motorboat out of the make shift harbour in preparation for the Alligator/ Crocodile Run in the National Chambal Gharial Sanctuary, Palighat, Ranthambhore, Sawaimadhopur.

River Parvathi

Raghu Raj Singh Rathore

Alligators Sunbathing on the bank of Parvathi river

 

Common Sitting Area

Swimming Pool and the Swiss Cottage Area

Dinning Area

Owners Living Quarters

Badminton Court

Mustard crop near the Chambal

A Swiss Cottage Sit out

The Room

Bathroom

Bathing Area

Swiss cottage area

A Crocodile sunbathing on a rock in the Chambal

Bonfire for the 31st Party

All set to welcome the new year in style at the Bhadrawati Safari Lodge, Sewti, Sawaimadhopur.

 

 

Telescope for the star gazing enthusiast

Far from the city lights, the Sewti night sky is ideal for star gazing. So do not forget to bring your manuals! Bring your camera gear if you want to click the night sky.

 

Sunset

Sunset

Watch the sun go down in style with a bonfire!

The Hot Air Balloon Ride On The 13th March 2011

While you are surfing the net  you get to know a lot different things you might not have known about before. Some you might have use for, some you file away for future reference, some might trigger something in your brain and you are doing something wholly  unrelated to the job you were trying to do on the net in the first place.

While searching for websites related to Jaipur I came across the website of SKYWALTZ, they are on Facebook too,   the company is providing hot-air balloon rides around Jaipur.I started reading the information provided there and I was hooked. I just had to go for a hot-air balloon ride.  I sent them an email and they  fixed the date to fly as  13.3.2010, a Sunday.  There were 2 or 3 days to go before  Sunday and I started having doubts. So I read some more information available on the net. I found things like  in their attempt to fly humans  used the hot air balloons  first of all.

Montgolfier Brothers made the first hot air balloon which carried the frenchmen  Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier and Francois Laurent d’Arlandes in 1783 in Paris.

The colorful  nylon oval ball is called an envelope and the wicker basket suspended from it is called a gondola-this is where the passengers ride. The envelope  can store hot air which when heated some more with burning gas can makes it rise. In India they use LPG.

You can only go up to 10,000 feet without oxygen.

And like all aircraft it needs atmosphere to fly.

It is called an aircraft as soon as it leaves ground.

World altitude record is held by Shri  Vijaypath Singhania who took off from Mumbai and landed 240 km away in Panchale setting the record by reaching a hight of 21,027  meters or 68,986 feet on 26 November 2005.

The cost of procuring the equipment and the hassle of getting permissions is such that people opt for buying rides from people like SKYWALTZ.

On the Skywaltz website they have given clipping of previous coverage where correspondents took the ride themselves and then wrote up about it.Their detailed description of the flight & the professionalism of the pilots and the outfit  sort of quelled my fears about the flight.

The only issue I could find was about landing the craft. But when the moment came to land, our pilot Mr. Imo Singh from Manipur saw to it that it was not an issue at all. The landing was perfect. We were down in a couple of bumps and bantering with the villagers who had seen our descent and had gathered around the gondola.

In the morning  when we reached Amber I saw some people gathered around a couple of  huge envelopes which were being inflated in the dry part of the Mawatha. And soon enough the burners were lit and the balloons were standing tall in the morning sky. Somebody provided a step ladder for us to get in the gondola. Besides Mr.I Singh there were seven of us in the gondola. The other balloon was  being piloted by Mr.Fernando from Spain and was already in air moving and gaining altitude towards the Amber fort. Mr. I Singh also opened up the burners and removed an empty cylinder of gas from the gondola and we were air borne. The first sights we see are the Amber fort, the  Kesar Kyari and then we move on in to the raising sun. There is no anxiety. We are floating in the air the other passengers  are exclaiming at the beauty of the Amber Fort bathed in the rays of the raising sun.  I am taking pictures of the other balloon and the ground. We move some more in the general direction of the Delhi Jaipur highway . There is a lot of smoke here as there are a lot of brick kilns here. Mr.Imo Singh is providing small nuggets of informations. We move towards an area near a brick kiln which is clear enough to land. Mr Imo Singh asks us to take landing positions and pulls some ropes and we are down with a couple of bumps. The first to arrive are the villagers who want to know where the foreign tourists are from. The site team is right behind and are already preparing to deflate the balloon. Once the balloon in down on a big piece a plastic canvas the step ladder makes an appearance again and we get down. In 5 minutes the driver  from the Skywaltz team, who got me to Amber  finds me and the other passengers  and we are on our way back to Jaipur.Just before leaving the landing site, Mr.Rishi from the Skywaltz team hands over to us our first flight in a Hot air Balloon certificates. These certificates will be cherished for all times to come.

Later on I find out that we had landed some 30-40 km, by road, from Amber about 9 km from Nailla and had to drive through some body’s farm house, in a village to get to a road which would take us back to Jaipur.

“The winds have welcomed you with softness,

The sun has greeted you with it’s warm hands,

You have flown so high and so well,

That God has joined you in laughter,

And set you back gently into

The loving arms of mother Earth.”

The Balloonist’s Prayer by Anon.

Photos Of Some Common Birds Found In The Parks & Gardens Of Jaipur.

Spotted Owlet (Athene brama indica)

Recently a cousin of mine,Madhav Rathore, an experienced, enthusiastic birder, bought a  Canon EOS 7D with a huge telephoto lens. When I kidded him about buying   such an expensive  camera he insisted on taking me birding in  the Central Park one evening. That is when the use of the camera became apparent to me.  He was shooting birds perched at the top of tallest of trees where as I was limited to shooting squirrels and birds sitting in front of me in the grass.

But I got hooked to birding that day. I am no expert birder but by my own experience it is far easier to watch birds today. I take a picture of the whichever  feathered friend which dares to cross my path and later on I put an ID to it with the help of a couple of Books. Where the books fail The Net comes  to help. This method helps to engrave the names of the birds in the mind too. So the next time I come across the same bird I  say smugly,” That is Brahminy Mayna you know !” and so on…

One thing you will notice is the exotic names of the birds.  I can bet you powers that be who gave names to the birds put more thought in naming the birds than in naming their newborn sons. They have names like starling,Black  Drongo,Grebe,darter etc. And each bird has its own charm. Own uniqueness which will hold you in thrall.

I have been to the Central Park many times before the day we went birding but I  did not notice the birds before that day. Oh I could see the pigeons and the doves but the other beauties were hidden behind a muslin curtain as it were. Somebody had to  point the birds out to me. Do you know  usually we see two types of Doves in Jaipur one is Laughing Dove and the other is the Eurasian Collared Dove. And that the house sparrow may be endangered soon enough! Who would have thought of it!

I have been posting photos I take around Jaipur to www.flickr.com for some time now. If you see the stats on the photos you will realize that people like photos of flowers and plants more than photos of birds. I do not know why that is so but we have to be more aware of the beauty surrounding us in the form of birds more. Birds forage in the early morning but people go for their morning walk just then too. So the birds perch themselves on the highest branches of the trees. I suppose they come down later. I do not know.There are some birds which do not mind people at all and are all over the grass in the Park.

Now a days in every home there is a computer and a digital camera. All you have to do is to buy a beginners guide to birding. Be sure to buy one which has photos of the birds & not sketches. You can graduate to the books with sketches  later.

Now find some time for yourself and the birds and go for a walk in the nearest Park or garden. Happy Birding.

I am posting  some photos of the Birds I found.

Makar Sakranti

Four Days After The Kite Festival

Every year at dawn on the 14th January a lot of people of Jaipur go to the Galtaji for a dip and there after give alms and donate blankets to the poor and feed cows green fodder and grain to the pigeons. Later in the day children and adults alike get on the roof top of their houses and fly multicolored kites, play blaring bollywood music and eat dal ke pakoras, revaries, gazak, phinie and til ke ladoos. One and only aim is to cut as many kites as possible. Food , body functions etc. can wait. The street urchins have a busy day as they try to collect as many cut kites as possible without any regard for their life or limb. The serious kite enthusiasts get invited to a home in the walled as that is where the real action is going to be.
A day before 14th January young and old alike shop for kites and string ( Sadda & Manjha) to fly them with.Budgets are the least of the constraints. Kites come in all colors and all shapes and sizes. They are even made of thin plastic sheets. Companies have their messages put on kites and on some photos of film stars are used to attract customers.There are even chinese made kites being sold in the markets.The master craftsmen who make kites and manjhas have been doing it for generations.
Once the booty is brought home the kites are readied for the next days action by stringing the kites and putting manjha on a sadda charkhy. Nobody wants to waste a single moment of the precious day on mundane details. There is a huge demand for black colored manjha as it is thought to have legendary powers to cut oppositions kites. Chinese manjha is to be avoided as it is coated with metal powder and can conduct electricity and can disrupt power supply if it falls on naked high tension lines.
Kite flying is simple enough if there is some wind blowing and somebody preps the kite for you. Long months of wasted youth flying kites are needed to learn the art of cutting the other guys kites. But once you get the knack every year 14th January will see you on your roof top enjoying the highs and lows of kite flying Jaipur style.
In 1878 Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh ji started the practice of flying kites on Makar Sakranti. Preparation for the festival would start 2 months before the festival date. Master craftsmen from Bareily & Ahemdabad were called to make manjha and kites.The Royals used to fly kites made of silver and gold and their charkhis used to be inlaid with gems. Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh ji was also a great kite flying enthusiast. His kite collection is on display in the City Palace Museum even today.There is mention of Lord Ram having flown a kite in Ramchrita Manas of Tulsidasji.
A couple of things to keep in mind when flying kites this 14th is to say no to manjha of any kind and to take good care of ones self. Because accidents do happen. Remember there will be other sankrats. There will be other kites to fly. And the manjha can seriously hurt the birds sharing the sky with your kites. If we will not be considerate of our feathered friends who will be.

This Jaipur-At A Glance

Listed here below are some of the important posts about the city of Jaipur on this Blog for your ready reference.

BIRDING

This Pink City-In 1000 Words!

Museums

Shopping

Jaipur By Night

Books

Clubs

Gardens

Morning Walk

Birding

Thikana Govind Devji

Libraries

Jantar Mantar

Around Jaipur

Some Recipes

Jaipur Marriages

Where to Eat-1

Where To Eat-2

WORSHIP

Karan’s Guesthouse

An old man in the Central Park of Jaipur

Deepawali Chali Gai

A bouquet of lights, originally uploaded by ratnasinghrathore.

The festival of lights, after spreading a lot of cheer, is gone till next year and Jaipur is ready to welcome Winter.

A Deer Park In Jaipur

 

Spring Fight At The Dear Park In Jaipur

The Forest Department’s Ashok Vihar Deer Park, is spread on a parcel of  land two and a half hectares in area. It is located in the heart of the city,in the C-Scheme Colony. It is not a big park but it has given good cheer to many a local child  and  children visiting Jaipur.Recently due to lack of space in the Park  and insufficient fodder and ever increasing numbers of chitals  a dozen deers were realesed in the Jhalana Forest Area and some were sent to the Kaila Devi Forest Park in Karauli. Though the Forest Department looks after the Park the food for the deer comes from the Jaipur Zoo.Far from the crowds and ever present traffic  this is one more place for a peaceful morning walk in Jaipur.