Stand up for what is right!

Hi,

Did you know that more than 130 million children in the world have
never got a chance to get any kind of formal education in their life ?
The "Right To Education" for a child is universally accepted as a
clause, but is hardly applied in practice.

CRY has been an organization that has been working for decades now to
ensure that the basic rights of every child get fulfilled. Its an
organization run on a voluntary basis, an organization whom we ought
to support for all the noble deeds that it performs.

I am running the World 10k marathon this Sunday to raise money for CRY
and spread awareness towards this noble cause. But why do I run ? Not
for the Olympic Gold or for a chiselled body, I run to loose weight
and stay fit. I enjoy this activity and at the same time am really
pleased to see that I can help make a change through it.

Please support my run and contribute. Visit
http://www.bangalorecares.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=articl....
The last date set by the organizers is 30th May, so please contribute
by then.
Please do pass on this message to your friends.

Thanks !

Sreevathsava Reddy

For more information on CRY:http://www.cry.org/index.html

The City

[Found my entry to a creative writing contest at college probably around 6-7 years ago, lot of grammatical mistakes and unnecessary words , but putting it here without any edits to remind me what I could do in 2 hours ]
[As far as I can remember we were shown a picture of man looking down from the rooftops and 4 lines of a poem]

This is Life,Look at the steaming crowds below they look like ants (the ever industrious) from up above here, like they always do.
Life hasn't been affected much here, even when the whole world has seen the greatest war mankind has ever witnessed, my city where I lived through my childhood has remained the same.
No... No......No... its not same. Somethings different, the skyscrapers, they are a bit taller than I used to look at them while trying to wave at the pilot in the aircraft passing by.I would always wave at any aircraft, so that I may catch the pilot's attention, hoping that he would find me cute enough to give me a free ride. That was a child's innocence & I think I was very innocent as a child.

Ya.. I was fascinated by the zooming aircrafts & the blips that are the now extinct airships.
Looking back , I had to get into the sky & fly high because my papa used to always say
"The life of a farmer isn't for you young man, the sky's where you will work.Freedom will all be yours when you fly high in the sky".
My childhood till I went to the city was a very happy one.I still remember helping Pap in our field, and Pap taking my muddy hands into his & cleaning them with water and scolding himself for allowing me to work whenever he saw a scratch or a bruise. I love those days. I loved that life. I loved the countryside. Every countryside is beautiful.
Every countryside is beautiful, yes.. , until it is allowed to exist.
I studied in this city to achieve my dreams. It was in this city I met Jane , it was here that I could start flying .And it was here that I joined the Air-Force. The most important events of my life have taken place, the city is so much part of me. I wouldn't have been what I am if I hadn't come to this city or I wouldn't have been me, if the city didn't exist. How would I feel if the city was wiped out in the war? I would not be able to live with all my family , my friends, property , everything that belonged to my life wiped out. If I can't , then how can they?

I joined the Air-Force, and have enjoyed every bit of it. I still remember the first day I flew solo in the Harvard right into the clouds.I still remember the feeling, - I felt alone by , by myself, without anything similar around me whose sight could pacify me. The territory seemed unknown, unexplored , & unchartered & I was all alone & by myself. And then there as this euphoric sensation of being in control, of being free to explore this unknown space, at that moment I heard Pa's woods "Freedom will all be yours when you fly high in the sky". It was those few seconds, which I believe were my happiest moments, moments that a person can relive every moment of his life & feel satisfied from what life had given him. It was those few seconds, which I believe were my happiest moments, moments that a person can relive every moment of his life & feel satisfied from what life had given him. I t was then , that I realised that I was born to life & it was then that I decided to fly throughout my life come what may, I passed the course with distinction & was inducted into the A-1 Jet Fighters Squadron.
"I had accomplished my dream & I would fly til the end of my life". Those were my thoughts when Gen. Eisenhower pinned the Golden Eagle on my chest.
Till date I have not been able to take off for 5 years.
When I became a Flight Lieutanant, Hitler was going about his own plans. America wasn't at war, & I wasn't worried when our squad was ordered to work on the Bombers until we could cal ourselves experts.
Then, came Dec of 1942, the Japs bombed Pearl Harbour killing 2200 of our men.They couldn't get away with it. Americans wouldn't like anybody to kill one of them & here they had killed 2200 men of ours. The Defense forces were mobilised, we entered the war with vengeance, those killed were men in uniform.
The air in our base was literally hot with anger, they had dragged us into the war when it wasn't necessary and they would be made to pay for their mistakes.

It was after this that the Oppenheimer Project gained priority within the Government. Nobody should be allowed to mess with us, that was the sentence on everyone's lips.
The whole world was watching America, everyone knew that with us putting in our bit, the fascist forces would be surely defeated. It was just a matter of time.
I went about my job with eagerness & commanded the squadron to the Pacific Ocean bases.
The next two years were spent in sorties, I yearned for dog-fights, but there were very few & when they happened, the opponents weren't good.
In the beginning of 1945, a major problem arose, with the Japs turning "Kamikaze" or the "suicide fighters" as they were called in the base.
It was then, that I realised that I was fighting people and not the big aircrafts that my mind had seen in all these years.
They were people who were giving up their lives for the honour of their country. They were giving us a fight when the chips were down, even though they knew that the war was over for them. The Japs respected Honour above anything else, even life.

That period was the most dangerous in our aviation history. What better missiles could we create than those flying deaths which had a human being, keeping his tryst with death, guiding them to hit our planes,. Those were trying times, but I came out alive, even though I lost half of my squadron.
I realised that we had to put an end to this mad flying deaths. But, when the end came, I little expected its consequences.

It was a week before August 1945 that I was relieved of my war duties, and assigned on special duty to the Air Chief Marshal himself. I was dreaming of seeing Jane & the kids then. The war in Europe had ended by then, Germany was defeated, but here the Japs still believed in 'Kamikaze'- their honourable death. I was sent to Base-21. and my briefing started. I was told that the 1st day on this mission was not to ask any questions, or think about the what's & how's even out of curiosity.
Out of the confidence of military discipline, I promised only to break it later. I was given the exact details of my route & the instructions about the things that had to be done when I reached the targeted destination. My plane was the B-2 bomber, which had a big capacity to load conventional weapons. I assumed that I would be part of a big-hunt.
It was only on the morning of 8th August at 2:00 pm, when I asked out of curiosity that I came to know that I was the only Bomber with a couple of Jets involved in the mission. Even then it didn't strike me that it was unusual.
I was a military disciplined officier, & I had learnt not to ask questions when ordered to carry out a mission, however crazy it might be. With the Bomber under my control, I would be the slowest in our group, if we were unfortunate to encounter the 'flying deaths'. That was then that I thought that luck would run out for me today.

I carried out the maneovers to the dot, and was onto the last part, when I had to drop the package, I was surprised that the other jets hadn't fired their weapons yet, maybe they wanted to vanish a secret base into oblivion. I pressed the button, as I took the steep rise I was instructed to take before releasing the package. As I drew level, the cloud cover broke away & I had a glimpse of a city that locked like my own.
Unknown to me, I had dropped the first Atom Bomb.
The Bomb which became immortal.
A poet wrote afterwards
"I am the bomb that dropped on Hiroshima, Nagasaki.
I am Christmas but there won't be any New Year.
I am The Great Mushroom Cloud that sitting Bull had a vision of.
I am everybody's face who dreaded what they already knew".

Yes, I do dread the moment I pressed the button that vanished a city & killed millions of its inhabitants. I have been torn into pieces by the guilt, which doesn't diminish after all these years, & which can't be appeased even with my death. But, I didn't what I was doing, if I knew I would have declined & this would never have happened or would it still. They would have made some others to do it. But , now the guilt is mine & I have lived with it for 5 years & I can live with it through my life. I am going to Hiroshima, to ask for forgiveness, that is the only thing I can do to reduce the burden of my guilt. I have to live.
Yes, I have to do ....... What was that?

Janitor: Sir, the door is to be locked for the night. Are you alright, you seemed to be in a trance?
I: Okay, I hadn't realised it was night.
Janitor: It's 10. Goodnight. Hope you had a good day.
How could the poor man know that I had climbed the stairs never to go down again. I had come to watch the city and end my life. The city that had given me so much and today it had given me, my life back.

Nandi Hills Ride

I have stopped thinking about whether I am crazy or not, cause for more than one reason I have to be crazy. And what I did over the weekend just proves it.

It's been a couple of months since I thought of getting a bike. After the usual procrastination taking it's toll, I finally bought one and just about learnt to ride in a couple of sessions. After about riding 70 kms in the basement I was bored , but couldn't muster enough enthusiasm to get on to the road.
I had been promising Ashish that I would be joining soon for the Nandi Ride, in the meanwhile he and Sunil had had done a to and fro ride to BIAL. So ,when he asked me for the ride on the long weekend, I said 'Yes' without giving it a thought.

As always I was ill-prepared for it, having to get my helmet a day before and had a couple of packets of Maggi hoping it would be sufficient to power my ride, how wrong was I!! ,I tried to sleep at 12:30 but I was still awake when my watch read 2:30 and probably after an hour and a half of sleep , woke up at 4:00 and got ready. I was excited at doing something new and was pumped up with adrenaline and so I left my apartment at around 4:45 to the rendezvous point at Columbia Asia Hospital. It was still pretty dark when I started and I rode along the Outer Ring Road planning to ride on it all through to Hebbal, but might be cause of the nerves took a left into Old-Madras road and I didn't realise my mistake until I had to squeeze myself between BMTC buses on CMH road, somehow found my way through MG Road to Mekri Circle and to Columbia Asia where the main party was already waiting for me for an hour or so.It was about 8:00 am and I had covered just about 25-30 kms.

After exchanging pleasantries , we began cycling as a group and Ashish noticed that the tire pressures weren't right , novice that I am I had no inkling of the its effect until I set it right at the next petrol pump ad found the bike moving better with the same effort.The road was wide and traffic was sparse so we rode along in the heat and reached near the base of Nandi Hills by about 12 noon. We were all famished and spent half an hour munching munchies and gulping juices at a shop.I forgot to mention Chirag, Sunil's roommate who had come along to support us on his motor-bike. We had all put our bags onto the bike and he was also carrying extra water , energy bars and also was the camera-man and in the end, proved to be as essential as our legs were, for the trip.

So at about 12:30 we started the 8 kilometer climb up the hill and after about 100 mts I had to get down and start pushing my cycle up, where as the remaining two could still cycle up. I thought it was because I was tired and had no energy left. So, as everyone disappeared from my view I kept trudging up the hill and caught up with them finally when they stopped for rest and water.
It was then that Ashish wanted to find out if it was really tough to ride my bike and we exchanged our bikes for 200 mts and man was his bike light , I could just ride along as if it was the plains whereas Ashish found mine to be too heavy to keep pushing it up. After many more stops and starts and crushing ourselves a bit for deciding to ride up a hill , we had 2.5 kms still to go and it was already 2 pm. I hadn't had a solid morsel of non-junk food over the past 14 hours and my body was crying out for some mercy , Chiraj probably realised the state I was in and generously offered to exchange places with me, when I declined ,he asked me to at least hold onto his bike so he that could tow me up on my bike. I probably am not one to swallow my pride easily and so once again declined and trudged along stubbornly.
Finally we set a target of reaching the top by 3pm and pushed ourselves with our watches and at last reached the top with a couple of minutes to spare.

The hill was crowded with holidayers , but we werent there for sight-seeing. We parked our vehicles and went in search of the Maurya hotel where we spent the next hour and a half feasting on whatever the hotel guys could fetch. We then tried to either get rooms for the night or would have been happy enough if we were allowed to camp out at night, but the former option was not possible as all rooms were booked and we were not allowed permission for the latter.So, we decided to camp out at the base and so decided to ride down. And boy what a ride it was!! ,after all the rest and water breaks and the 3 hour ride up , we needed just 8 mins to get down:).That probably is a good example of irony.

We put up a tent on the opposite side of the road of a dhaba. And then about 7:30 went into the dhaba to have dinner. And surprise surprise they had all kinds of biryani and palao but with one rider no curries!! , how was one to digest dry rice without them?? Pat came the reply 'I will provide ketchup':) . We needed to eat properly for the next day's ride and so set out in search of a curry. After some more work for Chirag ferrying us to another hotel some 6 kms away , we were able to find some peas curry and had probably half-filled our stomachs when the rain gods decided to impress us with their presence. We then rushed back to pack up the tent and get our luggage out to the safety of the dhaba where the owner was kind enough to let us camp there for the night.

The best sleep one can have is when one has spent every ounce of energy in the day and is totally satisfied with one's efforts, the location or the environment doesn't matter a bit and so I had a good 8 hr sleep that night.

We got up at about 6:30-7:00 in the morning and after finishing up with the morning chores, set off to the place where we had our dinner to have some breakfast.After some idli-vada and tea , we started on the return journey.
I expected that it would be tough trying to push back home after the tiresome day we had before, but the breakfast seemed to have done some magic and once I hit a rhythm after just about 10-15 mins and boy!! what a ride it was , I reached the junction with the National Highway in no time and was just sailing past the milestones.We had a break at this point and when we started again it was as if the bike had suddenly developed wings, it probably helped that we were going downwind. I just had the time of my life riding the next 25-30 kms or so, kept up the speed between 15-20 k for an hour and a half and jumped all the signals on the way !! , cyclists seem to be classified under both pedestrians and motorists according to convenience it's seems:).
Chiraj gave me company for most of the way and whenever he increased his speed I would try to keep up with him but invariably fail. It was a total all-out effort and I started tiring down around the time I reached Yelahanka and then Sunil caught up with me , we had decided in the last break that the next stop would be at Columbia Asia but the fuel in our stomaches was totally empty and we stopped a couple of kilometers before , after having something to drink , finally reached the hospital which has a good cafeteria and so we spent the next hour re-fueling and enjoying the effort we had just put in.This was the point where I had to leave the group and it was time for the last Bike salute.

The ride back home from there was boring and difficult as the heat now was taking it's effect and the bunch of climbs over flyovers did not help ease things much. I just set a target of making it back by 3 and finally at aroung 2:35 I stepped into the basement I had left 34 hrs ago. Tired but satisfied and euphoric , a nice bath ,good food and a good night's sleep later I was good as ever.