'કાર્બન'

એ સાથી છે મારો...

મુકામ નહીં પ્રવાસ છે મહત્વનો

ને આ યાત્રાનો એ સાથી છે મારો

શ્યામ એ રંગે ને ઘાટીલો રૂપે

પડછંદ, સબળ ને તેજ છે પ્રતાપે

અમૂલ્ય એ 'કાર્બોનાડો' જે નામે, એ સાથી છે મારો..

સાથ અનંતનો જામતા ગયો સમય જરા વિશેષ

પણ તાલ-મેલ એવો કે દુનિયા આખી કરે છે દ્વેષ

શહેરો જોયા અનેક, કર્યો હજારો કોસ પ્રવાસ

મઝધાર નવ હું અટવાયો, હો પૂનમ યા હો અમાસ

હાથે કીધે પલટે દિશા ને પગને ઈશારે પ્રવેગ

હોય ભલે રસ્તો ખડકાળ કે માર્ગ દ્રુતવેગ

આ સમય સાથેની સ્પર્ધામાં, હું એનો સાર્થી ને એ સાથી છે મારો...

સમજે એ મારા હર મિજાજને

મન ઉકળે મારું ને પૈડાં બાળે એ

ખુશ હોઉં હું ને ઝૂમી ઊઠે એ

ખીજ હોય મારી ને ચીસો પાડે એ

ઊંઘ ચઢે મને ને લથ્થડીયા ખાય એ

ગુનગુનાટ હોય મારો ને નાચી ઉઠે એ

ખરો એ દોસ્ત છે મારો, એ સાથી છે મારો...

કોક કહે સોબતી સાચી ઓળખાણ માનવની

કોઈ કહે પિછાન સાચી એની 'કાર'

વળી બોલે કોઈ પરખ તો માત્ર એના મિત્ર

લગીરેક ચિંતન મર્મ એ જ ખોલશે 'પૃથક'

આગવી એક ઓળખ એ મારી, એ સાથી છે મારો...

It’s the journey, not the destination!

“Some famous guy once said, ‘To travel is better than to arrive’. And I was like ‘What!?’ Well, because I used to think that there was only one path to take to where you want to get to be in life. But if you choose that one path, that doesn’t mean you have to abandon all the other ones. I realized that it’s actually what happens along the way that counts: the stumbles, the falls and the friendships. It’s the journey, not the destination. You just gotta - I guess - trust that the future will work itself out like it’s supposed to.”

-Moose (Step up3)

तेरे साथी, मेरे कदमों के है निशाँ

...तेरे साथी, मेरे कदमों के है निशाँ,
तु ना जाने आस-पास है खुदा...

a line from a hindi song. nice song and nice lyrics. nicely sung as well, especially when Shruti Pathak sings 'तुउउ... ना जाने आस-पास है खुदा...', it makes even an atheist like me to look around.

anyway, this line reminded me of something i read somewhere. it goes like this...

there was some guy who at the time of his birth asked the God to be with him through out his life. and God agreed. his life passed with some good times and some bad times... leaving footprint on wet sand. towards the end of his life or may be after the end of his life he found this footprint.

by analyzing the footprint, he found that there were two pairs of footmarks, parallel to each other, almost through out his life. one of them his own and the other, the God's. but whenever he had tough time in his life there was only one pair.


disappointed with this finding, he went to meet the God. asked why hadn't the God kept his promise? why was there only one pair when he needed the God the most?

the God smiled and replied, "son, those were the times when I was carrying you".

nice story, isnt it? i wonder how people can come with stories to persuade you to anything!

The King of zig-zag driving

have you ever experienced some old guy smiling in his car thinking "that was a crazy bastard." of you? well, that is how he appreciates your speed, your style, your passion and your guts.. this is a typical scenario when he watches you approaching through the rear view mirror, blinks his eyes once and observes you flying away through the front windshield. a quick experience of the Doppler Effect... violate shift of your head lamp to red shift of your tail lamp!

today, i want to share a driving experience i had a few days back. i was driving my car, Carbon, to Ahmedabad from Mumbai. on that route Surat to Vadodara is a six lane road, with heavy traffic. a lot of buses and trucks use that road and unfortunately they drive on all three lanes of a side! there are two wheelers too alongside cars... but all that make the drive really challenging, enjoyable and eventually memorable. i drove around 200km at an average of around 100 kmph. and during the trip i thought of zig-zag driving... formed some rules and followed them...

some of the rules are here...
- drive in such a way that others do not have to break because of you.
- do not make anyone honk unnecessarily.
- accidents are fatal, avoid them.
- don't hurt your car.

it is a harsh world out there. if you do anything wrong, people honk. you lose points for such mistakes. so, timing is crucial on every stage, whether it is pushing the clutch paddle or shifting gars or turning the wheel or pressing the accelerator... any of the timings is wrong and your car would groan in pain. making anyone break is literally a crime. accidents can show you the way to a prison or a hospital or even the one-way to the dead-end. so, keep all your five eyes in action...

zig-zag driving is not a one man show, rather it is a double act. you and your machine, your car. you should know your car inside out. what it can do and what it can not... how fast it can go and how quickly it can stop... how much space it requires... when it needs a gear up and when a steering turn... what its mirrors show and what its door frame hides... your car is the extrapolation of your body or you are just the decision making 'part' of your car!

it is a challenge for your body... coordination among various body parts... your eyes on the road... your one hand on steering and the other on the gear changer... your one leg on the clutch, other handling break and accelerator... your ears, listening to the music your car deck plays... your brain and spinal cord gathering information, assessing and responding in real time... it is a challenge for your sensors, controller and actuators. you are a mechatronic system! it's a test of capability of your brain to control these organs and of your organs to react to the command. it is a test for your sub conscious as well...

zig-zag driving is a dynamic phenomena. all the dimensions are changing with time... distance between different vehicles are increasing or decreasing... you should judge not only if your car can pass through a passage, but also what would be the size of the passage as you would approach it. your angle of approach to the passage also has a say as your requirement of space changes in different direction... you are a heterogeneous body!

again not only distance, velocity and accelerations are important, jerk also plays an incredible role. when to hit the throttle and how hard... for how long before decelerating... again breaking is not uniform.. and it does not stop at jerk or third derivation of distance... sometime you wait for a passage to open and as it opens you rush trough it... sometime you wait for proper approach angle, break suddenly, change angle and speed up to enter a closing passage... you are a Newtonian body!

driving in zig zag fashion through crazy traffic needs an act of PID (proportional integral derivative) controller. it takes current, future and past events in account while deciding an action. you should know of the current position of all the vehicles around as you pass through them... you should know their position a little while later (integral) as that would tell you what passages would open for you... also, when and where... you should know positions and speeds of the vehicles you just passed through (derivative), so as to get an idea about which lanes to enter and which to avoid. you should know this history of past 7 to 15 seconds if you travel at around 100-120 kmph, to avoid honks... you are omniscient!

there might be more... but this is how much i could grasp... it was a lovely experience and i loved every moment of it. it was an adrenaline pumping act, but ironically i was singing a very soothing, slow, Indian classical song, Aan milo sajna... from Gadar.. however annoyed or excited you look outside, inside, you are always calm and compose!

literally no car could come close to overtake me throughout the 2 hour drive... i made no other car honk or break... and of course did not collide with anything... maintained a good speed.. and most importantly, i enjoyed my drive. i was so swift and so wonderful that i was thinking if there is a crown called 'the king of zig-zag driving'? coz if there is, i am here to claim it!

A different ball game on the home pitch!

There are these few lines that came to my mind today...

1. Wow! am touching the air at 100 today...
2. So that's what they call the phenomenon of helmet kissing the cheek...
3. Why insect hit is not as popular a phrase as bird hit?
4. i believe i can fly

And all that coz I kept both right side tyres one spare wheel and a steering wheel home and took a 225cc motor bike. Road was the same but the feeling was new...

The helmet was a little loose on my head and so once I was above 70-80 it was stuck to my face. I actually realized it only when I was below 80 and suddenly felt air passing over my cheeks after the pressure release. and I was smiling the I am now...

And the tiny insects and even dust particles... oou... they hurt.

But it is an amazing feeling... the resistance of air against your chest and stomach as you split it... the sound of your flickering half sleeves matching the roars of the power strokes of the cylinder... to see the effect, a slight twist of your right hand can generate... the energy flowing from the engine to your body and then through your nerves... the wait for your wheels to kiss goodbye to the asphalt road as your mind takes off... taking you away from the world passing by to the top of it... the moment when you realize you can soar!

આજ જાણ્યું...

આજ જાણ્યું સુંદરતા શું છે
કેમ વિશ્વ આખું પ્રદર્શની કુદરતી કસબની
ને અનુભવે આંખ કશિશ એ રંગ-ઘાટની
સહજ જુલ્ફ જે હટાવી તેં...

આજ જાણ્યું લજ્જા શું છે
કેમ સ્પર્શથી સંવેદન લજામણીની ડાળ
ને કેમ ઘૂંઘટ છે નવપરણિતાની ઢાલ
તારી પલકો જે ઢળી...

આજ જાણ્યું સંગીત શું છે
કેમ હવા પાણી ધરા, સૌના છે કૈંક કૈંક નાદ
ને કેમ દિલમાં ગુંજે સદા મીઠા ગીતોનો સાદ
સ્વર તારો જે રેલાયો...

આજ જાણ્યું સુગંધ શું છે
ભમરાને ફૂલનું છે સંમોહન કેમ
રૂપ જેમ મહેક પણ ઓળખ છે તેમ
નિકટતા જે તેં વધારી ...

આજ જાણ્યું વિરહ શું છે
સેંકડો તારા પણ ના આણે આંખે નીંદર કેમ
ને દિલના દાવાનળ સામે જડ સમય છે કેમ
તું જરા દૂર જે થઇ...

આજ જાણ્યું અધીરાઈ શું છે
કેમ ચાતક જુએ છે વૃષ્ટિની વાટ
વર્ષમાં બાર માસ ને સપ્તાહમાં દિવસ સાત
તેં, જલ્દી મળવાની કરી જે વાત...

આજ જાણ્યું ઉત્તેજના શું છે
કેમ બરફ પીગળી થાય પાણી ને ઊકળી વરાળ
ને કેમ ફરકે રુંવા જાણે ચિતે લાગી કોઈ ઝાળ
ઓષ્ઠ્ય મદ્ય જે તેં પાયો...

આજ જાણ્યું પ્રણય શું છે
કેમ સારસ ત્યજે પ્રાણ સંગી બાદ
ને ભરે નસેનસ રોમાંચ, બસ એક યાદ
સદાતન તન-મન જે તું સમાઈ...

આજ જાણ્યું ઉમંગ શું છે

કેમ ભીંજાતા પાંદડામાં આ મોહક લીલાશ

ને મન મોર બની કરે છે કેમ થનગાટ

'પૃથક' પ્રેમરંગે જે રંગાયો...

Me and Mannheim

I am Parth Shah... born 4th June 1984... 7.55 am... 60 kg... 5'7"... numbers attached to me.. 78 and 51...

Mannheim is located in Germany... 49°29′20″N 8°28′9″E... 97m above sea level... 0049-621...

all this detail is for the number lovers who would like to strain their mind to develop some interesting results to explain the following...!

I have been to Mannheim 4 times... in this fashion...


First time it was in Nov 2006... I was staying in Darmstadt at that time. We had a planned a trip to Paris. Got the tickets really cheap... 68 bucks to and fro... it was a group booking for 6 ppl. the tickets came through post... i suggested we shoul keep all the tickets together... some agreed others didnt.. so some of the tickets were at one of my friend other were individually distributed... i was under the "wrong" impression that my ticket is with him as i saw 2-3 tickets on his desk... at the time of departure i asked him about the ticket... he thought i was joking and replied positively...

at the time of boarding the bus we found the catch... yes tooooo late! had to take a cab... run home... search the ticket... and rush to Mannheim as it was the next stop... it was a 45 minute journey... 5 tense english speaking passengers in a bus with a very tense german driver knowing a few english words... similar case in the cab but with better ratio... i reached there before they leave... and was welcomed by a long cheer... happy to reach Mannheim for the first time... with a dent of 105 Euro for taxi and additional 10-20 on phone during the ride...


Second time, it was Apr 2007... this time it was a visit to Hockenheim, Germany. yes the F1 German GP destination... from there we went to Schwetzingen, which has a beautiful palace and more beautiful garden... and on our way back we decided to go via Mannheim! reached there by bus and then we were to take a train... we reached just on time... ran to the platform to see the train leaving 2 minutes earlier than the departure time...

We had a good one hour before the next train... they have good market on the train station only... we shopped... there is a nice Egyptian shop there... and not to miss the train again reached the platform 5-10 minutes earlier... we sat there, chatting, laughing for all those 10 minutes... the train didnt show up... then we heard an announcement that the train leaving from some other platform is the one we wanted to board!! waited for one more hour... bought the few things we didnt for the first time due to their high cost... and came back home two hours late...


Third time, it was in Apr 2010... 3 years later! I was traveling from Cologne (Ger) to Lausanne (Sui)... bought the tickets an hour ago at Cologne station and moved around for sometime... i was aware of both that i was going thru Mannheim and the two cases above... so was a bit more careful... my Cologne-Mannheim train got late for 10 minutes which in turn would make me miss my Mannheim-Basel train for which i had 5 min connection time... so i went to the help desk... germans are very good people as i have said many times... and their systems, as long as there is no chaos, works in perfect harmony... the guy there changed my Cologne-Mannheim connection from an IC to an ICE... Inter City to the famous German Inter City Express...

this ICE took a faster and probably shorter route and made me reach Mannheim an hour before my otherwise scheduled time... amazing isnt it? the sad side, i missed the beautiful scenic curves of river Rhine... :( anyways, so now i had one full hour at the Mannheim station in place of 5 minutes! so, i remembered the old time and shopped from the egyptian shop! how could i have escaped Mannheim in 5 minutes?! :)


Fourth time, again in Apr 2010... on my way back from Basel (Sui) to Frankfurt airport... it was kind of a reverse journey... i had a ICE till Mannheim and from there another to FRA... as there was Mannheim again, i took the second last train for the day to, you know, have a backup! i was a victim of the volcanic ash cloud and after spending a forced, expensive vacation in Switzerland, didnt want to miss the flight... so till Heidelberg, 12 minutes to Mannheim everything was in perfect order... and then my aura entered the Mannheim infected area... we had an announcement that we, those who wanted to go to Frankfurt airport should go and contact service point... as we disembarked the train, i found that our train is 180 minutes late and so is the next train... that is 3 hours at Mannheim, with the shoppes closed!

but you know what i said about the germans... they dont let you down just like that... at the help desk we were 24 ppl from that train... and everyone wanted to reach FRA as soon as possible... so the fellow there arranged cabs for us... first cab with capacity of 8... and 10 ppl went out for that... second again for 8 and we 7 went out for it as the rest were in a group of two or more... as we reached the cab, there were already 2 left out passengers from the first cab were sitting there... so out of 9, 8 took the seats... and yes as it was in Mannheim, i was the one left out... i waited till the cab rolled out... and then i went to the next cab, a sedan, which had two couples as the occupants.. thought of not disturbing them...

so went to the help desk again... and to my surprise, the fellow was setting the shutters down... i went to him as he was talking to another guy... found out that fourth cab with three passengers had already left... and also they wont arrange a cab for a single person as the cost would be higher... of course Mannheim-FRA would be no less than 50-60 km... more than 120-130 bucks for sure and that too as per 2007 rates! but before the thoughts can reach any further the person talking to this help desk guy came to rescue... he was from the same train and wanted to go to Wiesbaden... which of course is quite close to FRA... so we took a shared taxi to Wiesbaden via FRA... and thus left Mannheim in a taxi... this time the driver was Pakistani and knew Hindi as well as German... had good talk with the german guy as well... and reached Frankfurt airport in time as well...


so, till now four visits... a taxi drive in 2006 to another in 2010... i think there is something strange or rather i would say fishy about these trips... will find out... ya, am looking forward to another Mannheim trip sometime! :)

and if you find something interesting... do let me know... am curious.