India Is Really Unique - Here Is A Temple For People To Help Settle Down Abroad!

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Hawai jahaaz Gurudwara (Airplane Temple, Daoba, Punjab). I wonder why the two peacocks are there on both sides of the plane! Some reason should be there!

I came across this news now...this seems to be a very old temple, but had not heard about this until now!

Yes, I know that 90% of the youngsters nowadays want to go abroad for studies first and settle down there later! My two sons had gone abroad, one is settled down there and one has come back.  Most of the children feel that the job satisfaction is a rare thing here.  But I see that many youngsters are getting good jobs here nowadays and love to be with friends and relatives living near to their family and so come back home. Though this fraction is not much, yet! Mostly girls love to stay/come back here in many cases, to be near their family.  Some girls who have not tasted the difficulties of running a home there without domestic help etc., which we are not used to, from childhood, still dream of 'living abroad'.   I have met some people who had lived there in the US and the UK, come back with families in a group, after some years, stay in an area together, make themselves comfortable with all the facilities they had over there plus the domestic helps and live happily.  Their friendships continue here too.  They get jobs in good companies here with their experience, some continue to work for the same companies here and seems to be happy, living here now.  The grown up children take some time to settle down though! Some families feel that living abroad is best since the nagging problems from relatives will be less! They can tolerate them once in two, three years for a month or so!

I have read that mostly the Punjabis and Gujarathis dream of going to the US and Europe in our country than the youngsters of other States.  I remember my son's school principal saying that a huge group of their school students are in California, for many decades now! They never feel that they are out of India, she said!  My son seems to be happy, living there!

Now, let me come to the topic of this post now!  This Hawaai Jahaaz Gurudwara, in Punjab, is famous for devotees visiting them to pray for their dream of settling down abroad!  We have got temples here for every wish...whether it is for getting good marks in school/colleges, for getting good life partner, for any ailments, for having a child (sometimes male child!), for building a small or dream house, for getting good jobs, etc. etc.  Once we get our wishes to our satisfaction, we go to the concerned temple and offer money or do mundan, etc.  But, this temple is unique! Here, people donate small planes and pray that they should fly abroad soon...get visa without problem, mainly!

This Sikh temple for Baba Nihal Singh is a very old temple/gurudwara and this tradition is followed by many for many years now.  This village, Daoba's families have many youngsters living abroad and this makes people believe in this tradition!

Here is the excerpt from the article:

The gurudwara is most famous among Punjabi youths, who are anxious to immigrate to places like the UK, United States, and Canada, and believe that a prayer can help them significantly speed up their visa and other procedures. Satwinder Singh, a 21-year-old college graduate from a nearby village, says, “I have just put in my application for a visa to go to the UK and am here to ensure my passage by making an offering of an aeroplane.” Surinder Kaur, another devotee, says, “My son was trying hard to go to Canada but was denied a visa. A friend suggested we offer the replica of an aeroplane at the gurudwara and it worked and he is now in Toronto.” So popular has this temple become that it is referred to as the “Hawai Jahaz Gurudwara” (Airplane temple). Several hundreds of airplane models are offered here and the temple often runs out of space to house them all. The shrine management has now come up with the solution of distributing the toys to children. “At least the children can play with them. We cannot stop people from offering them. In the end what matters is the faith with which you pray,”says head priest Bhai Manjit Singh.

I loved the last line in this article: No wonder this temple is believed to possess a power even greater than that of  immigration officials.

Don't you think that our country is really unique?!



Picture and article courtesy HERE


EDITED TO ADD ON 30.4.13: My blogger friend Mr.SG has given information about a  VISA temple near Hyderabad, in the comment section! Here is the link of the visa temple! This temple has no hundi, doesn't accept money or no VIP treatments for any visitor.  This is unique, indeed!

Holidays, Holidays, Holidays...

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I am hearing for the past half an hour, a small girl crying 'please pa, please pa...' from an apartment at the back of our house.  Both of us, I and my husband, are feeling restless and feel like going and telling the parents of the girl not to punish her like this...the girl is left at their balcony and the door is closed. She must be around 7 or 8 years old. I don't hear anyother child's sound in their house.  The girl must be bored and so, must have done something to seek attention.

Another next door neighbour's children are playing the whole day from morning to night.  Their relative's children must have come and sometimes they fight with each other and the elders shout back at them.  We just laugh and enjoy the sound because our house was like this when my children were small, during the school holidays!

My children used to play carrom the whole day and we too were joining them and then cards! Sometimes scrabble! Yes, my nieces used to come and stay with us during most of the holidays.  I used to cook the whole day.  Take them for a movie, which was a must during the holidays.  One day to the beach, here in Chennai! Then go to other relatives' houses together and enjoy! My main job was cooking...paav bhaaji, paani poori (I used to make even the poories at home!), samosas, different types of parathas, cakes, ice creams etc.  God, they used to eat so much!

When we were in Hosur, we used to have cricket matches in our colony playgrounds, during holidays, between teams from other colonies.  Elders' match and youngsters' match! It was fun! My younger son was always in the playground...I had to search for him in three playgrounds inside our colony after 6.30 p.m., most of the days! I had to push my elder son out to play! Contrast! Even if he played, it was not an active game.   One day, he came from school and said that he played football match in his school.  My husband asked him 'in which place'...he said 'I was a Goalie'! My husband started laughing! Our current Goalie (cat) was like him when she was small! Other kittens used to play actively when she was a kitten and this one used to watch them, lazily! So, she was named 'Goalie'!

When the children were in school, I used to take them to Udupi, to my native place, during annual holidays.  Unlike now, they used to love going to the Krishna temple, pull the temple car etc. and enjoyed doing it! One of my aunt lived in a village and so the children enjoyed roaming the fields, admiring the vegetable garden etc.

Once they grew up i.e. when they reached 15-16, they started feeling bored with all these routines.  They started sitting with a book or sometimes go out to friends' houses.  Well, they were reading books earlier too, but slowly, the serious reading time went up!

The next stage was dieting! They were refusing to eat oily foods...the outdoor games had nearly stopped.  The younger son, esp. used to play in the school and outside too, until then.  T.V. watching started consuming more time! They were not watching serials though...mostly cartoons or English movies...light movies.  The serious movies came later!

I see many of the parents send their children to some sort of summer camps now during holidays.  During school days, they are sent to some tuition classes.  Some lucky ones who enjoy games, are sent to table tennis or badminton classes. Otherwise, tuition, home work, TV...no other outdoor recreation. I feel sorry for them.  Going to other relatives' houses are also becoming less and less.  Everybody is busy.  No time to entertain others' children.  So the 'one child' homes mostly go out to some hill station or something for a week or so and the holidays are over. We can't blame them too.

Now, my sons and most of the children in our family (nieces etc.), are grown up and married...we miss those 'busy' days.  Those days will never come again.  So, enjoy the company of children as much as possible!  We can also remember those happy days and they too will never forget them when they grow older!

Edited to add (21.4.13): I forgot to add the story telling session in our house! My mother and sister in law were very good story tellers! I am not! When they told stories to the children...my sons, nieces, all of us elders used to sit around and enjoy the stories even though we heard them again and again! Mine was not a joint family but everyone came and stayed in our house often.  My in-laws were dead before my marriage.  Now, one of my niece says that because I, her maami, entertained her during the school holidays, she is planning to entertain her nieces and nephews also like me.  She too sends her daughter to her sis in law's house during holidays at least for a couple of days.  She says that her daughter will learn to mingle with other children in this way.  When there were more children, all of them were sleeping in the hall on just plain mats with some bed sheets.  At their own homes they will have rooms and beds.  I felt the children enjoyed chatting till late at nights, playing word games, names of capitals etc. at night.  Even now, my nieces who are grown ups, come to stay with me for at least one night, just for old time's sake.  I am so happy about it.  Now to my son's favourite song:




Picture courtesy: Google

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Iniya Tamizh Puththaandu Nalvaazhththukkal! Ugaadi Habbada Shubhaashayagalu!

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.Happy Tamizh New Year! 

Happy Ugaadi! 

Vishu Aashamsagal!

Happy Baisaakhi! 

Shubho Nobo Borsha!

To all my friends and relatives, here! 

God bless us all!

Sandhya

Pinjar (2003)...A 'Don't Miss' Movie!

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Chandra Prakash Dwivedi's movie, Pinjar !

I wanted to watch this movie, 'Pinjar' which means, skeleton,  for a long time and at last did it last Sunday.  I had heard/read a lot about it and it was worth watching this movie at a stretch at home without getting up and going inside! It was so engrossing that nobody dared disturb me!

Do you remember the famous Doordarshan serial, 'Chanakya'? The director and the actor who acted as Chanakya, Dr.Chandra Prakash Dwivedi has directed this movie. This is his debut movie.  The story, is based on a novel, written originally by the famous award winning Punjabi author Amrita Pritam, revolves around the Hindu, Muslim families during partition.

When the movie started from the year, '1946', I knew, it is going to be a very serious movie.  I hadn't read the complete review earlier.  The movie starts with Kulbhushan Karbanda (what a booming voice he has got!), a rich Hindu man  in Amritsar, who is planning to fix his daughter, Paro's marriage and goes to his village in Western Amritsar with his family. 'Rangeela' fame, Urmila Matondkar, is the daughter...she looks beautiful and has acted quite well in this movie! I had admired her in 'Banaras' also. The partition disturbance had started just then.  But the family is happy.  His one son, Trilok (Priyanshu Chatterjee),  was involved in Congress activities.  He stays back and promises to join the wedding activities later.  At the village, the wedding is fixed  with a local rich man, Alok Nath's son, Ramachandra (Sanjay Suri) and he insists on 'give & take' marriage, i.e. he had a daughter whom he wanted to marry to Kulbushan's son and his son would marry Kulbhooshan's daughter!  It was agreed. A grand Punjabi wedding song is shown here! Punjabi songs are colourful and have got good rhythm, so they become famous easily!

The actual story starts now.  Paro has got a sister and both the girls roam in the fields and suddenly a man on a horse chases her and abducts her.  He is a muslim, Rashid is his name and his family had an  old revenge with Kulbhushan's family.  This man is the hero of the movie and Manoj Bajpai has acted very well in this role. Very controlled acting.  He keeps her in an old village house, which looks very primitive. She keeps on crying and after some days, she runs away and goes to her father's place and to her horror, her father refuses to take her in, since she is tainted now and tells her that her sister also will not get a groom if people come to know about her.  She returns and finds Manoj Bajpai waiting for her on the way.  They show him repenting for his act and starts loving her.

Kulbhooshan discusses the truth with Alok nath and Alok nath agrees to marry nephew to Kulbhooshan's second daughter, since Alok's son, Ramchandra, refuses to marry the sister. He had seen Paro once and so he refuses to marry her sister.  Ramachandra's sister is married to Alok nath's son, who reluctantly agrees but stays aloof because of the grief of losing his sister and not finding her.

Paro reluctantly settles down with the muslim family  and then the India-Pakistan partition problem starts.  Kulbhooshan's (his screen name Mohanlal has not registered in my mind!) family whose village is in Pakistan, starts their return journey to India.  Like we know, they go through lots of problems.  Women are abducted and raped by muslims and as per the story, Alok Nath's daughter, Kulbhooshan's daughter in law, who came home for delivery, is abducted and raped by many people.  Kulbhooshan's son, Kirti who came for the wedding starts looking for Paro and comes to know about Rashid and sets his field in fire.  Rashid objects his family who wanted to attack Kulbhooshan's family for this, saying that any brother would do this for the people who hurt his sister.  They show Paro still thinking of her home and Ramchandra...but slowly softening towards Rashid.

Now, the story goes a bit 'filmy' way.  Still, the movie was captivating for a long time.  The songs are good, though one song where Sanjay Suri sings, sitting under a tree, during partition procession is a bit irritating, knowing the situation! Dwivedi should have avoided this or it should have been in the background!

Watch some songs from this movie now:





The above song sounds clearer here, in raaga.com.   but no video! This song is originally from Jagjith Singh's album, 'Marasim'.  Gulzar is the lyricist.  He is the lyricist for all the lovely songs in this movie. Read what he says about Jagjith Singh here.  His voice suits the situation very well.  A great singer, but now, he is no more.




This song is sung by another famous singer, Roop Kumar Rathod and the music director of this movie, Uttam Singh .  He did the music for the famous 'Dil to paagal hai'.  Sounds very patriotic.

Well...this is a 'different' type of movie and you can watch it without getting bored.  Good acting by all of them is a plus point!

This film won the award for 'Best feature film' on National Integration, 'Best Art direction' award for Munish Sappal and 'Best actor' award for Manoj Bajpai.

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Picture Courtesy: Wikipedia