THE KOTA SHOCK

Well I would say Kota is a place close to my home but still I do not understand the place quite well. Each time when I visit Kota it feels different but someway the difference was somewhat expected. Actually speaking my propensity was never towards Kota ,as I disliked the place. But due to its propinquity to Rawatbhata, I had to visit the place quite often and had to spend almost two years of my life there. I disliked the place as it is too chaotic and one can get easily bogged by the anti prophylactic environment there.

This time I went to Kota after whole 1 year staying continuously in Gujarat and I would be drafting some of my shock down here. The prodigal and profligate gujju lifestyle is belligerent to normal Rajasthani lifestyle. So after witnessing such lifestyle the change is quite audible.

Well to talk of the people of Kota are actually hadotis as they belong to the hadot region in Rajasthan. Rajasthanis as such are proud of their history and their progenitors and the culture there quite depicts this. Most of the people in the hadot region consider themselves progenies of Rana Pratap, the ruler who fought against the Mughals.

But you cannot blame their culture for their behaviors. People in that region are one can say hot blooded. They just take on brawls for no reason as such. What is quite visible is in any circumstances many of them will try to prod you for no reason as such. You can hear violent discussions almost anywhere on the streets between the rickshaw drivers and many others.

Kota has been through quite turmoil. Firstly the industries went down one after another and then people were starving. Then there came the coaching classes out of blue and took Kota by a sweep and today can be considered as one of the prosperous towns in India. The coaching had been propulsive in the development of Kota. These coaching industries have rendered the proletariats class in becoming the bourgeoisie class. But such a change was not in tandem with the human nature and so were the consequences evident.

The insertion of so much money in the coaching sectors have led to massive chaos in the whole area both physically and economically and such changes have left a common man little room to promenade and enjoy life around.

As mentioned earlier there was a real state of bankruptcy in that place but the face changed today provenance being the coaching industry coming in and the protagonist behind all this was Mr. Bansal.

Quite amazingly the inflow of wealth have not resulted in residents having a prudent nature and their lifestyle shows little change apart form building bigger houses to fetch more money by renting them to students.

Most people believe Kota being the promontory place compared to others when it comes to education. Kota promulgated itself as a place to provide quality education. It is the leading name in providing IITians and medical students. So that place is stuffed by students from all over India. IIT’s are trying their best to prevent this by following various methodologies and trying to proscribe the people from going there.

But there a different ground realities out there. One day I was in the reservation counter near the railway station there. Standing just for 30 minutes, my head started to ache a lot. There was so much chaos even when decency would have been possible. No one seemed to follow the basic moral rules there to stand in line and wait for the chance. It seemed that every few seconds a guy crashed in and people started shouting and then again another guy who knows that this will repeat gives it a try. So much noise is quite difficult to handle for a person like me.

Then there are the inquisitive people who are interested in what others are doing. Whenever there is debate they would clang to someone else to enjoy I don't know what. In one occasions I just gave my form to the personal there to make the ticket and the guy on my back climbed on me to see what was being done, what my destination was. I said give me some air man, I do have some personal space around me where no one should enter but in that opposite world I think Maoism was at its peak.

Then there are occasions in the cinema theatre where I think decency is not given ticket to enter. People there start passing comments on the ongoing movies as if they are the actors of another parallel cinema (not in the real sense but bit mathematical) and other people enjoying both. I say give me a break, I cannot do multiprocessing and Hindi cinema is torture enough watching them in those theatres plus their slap stick comedy. God help the people of Kota.

I cannot understand what they do with their money. The roads inside the colonies are in ruin and adding to it colonies are in ruin. The address specified has no correlation with geographically or metaphysically availability. One can get lost in the jungle of houses there and of course hadot people will not be of any help to you.

Well to end I would say I cannot say Kota to be beautiful city or ask anyone to visit that place but surely it has stood up to a challenge that had potential to wipe out the entire city. Hats off to the fighting spirit of the people of Kota.

CHANDIARH SHOCK


Chandigarh Visit: 14 JULY - 19 JULY 2006
Purpose of visit : attending international confrence


It was really fun that I was going to chandigarh- the city beautiful. To add to this fun I was going to attend an international confrence as a faculty there. We were the only undergraduates preenting the paper and the others were mostly PHD students or professors from foreign countries.

There were three of us from DAIICT and we arrived on 15th morning and we just figuring out what to do, where to go. We had to go to some sector 31 for the confrence but first we had to find place for boarding. So we asked the auto rickshaw drivers there and they said that sector 31 was just 3 kilometers from the station and it is very easy to reach there, so better take a hotel near the station.

So in order to make a few bucks he took us to a hotel nearby and next day to our wonder the place was very far away from where the confrence was to take place and there was not a single bus to take us to that place. We really felt angusied by such behavior as nowhere in India I had faced so much of cheating.

The people in the hotel were also great people. Once they had booked the room, they never came to ask for anything, never came to change covers. We had to shout twice to make them change covers and after shouting enough for giving us drinking water, I started living on mineral waters that I bought. Those people were busy drinking and just passing their time. This was too much for a room for which we paid 300+30 bucks a day, 30 ruppes for service charge of service that was never provided. I never faced such behaviours anywhere in India. And also there were more incidents of local violences one can hear whle staying there comparing with other places that I have visited.

First I hoped most of them will be sardars in chandigarh but to my astonishment they were not. We aslo faced situations where the auto driver dropped us 3 km away from our hotel saying that the destination was a five minute walk, and bus drivers with there attitude always confusing us about the destination.

Though these are some bitter memories but chandigarh is really a beautiful city, so much beautifully planned and so beautiful places to visit and so beautiful people to see. Well to conclude it is a very beautiful city but beware when you are travelling.