Ahmedabad - The city of ???

It is summer time and Ahmedabad gets really hot these days, believe me. The

other day when I was riding on my bike through the concrete jungle, I felt like I had no respite from the scorching heat. Just then I felt a wave of soothing, cold wind blowing past me. How come that happened, I asked myself? And then I turned leftward and saw a whole bunch of trees bidding me adieu. I had an interesting thought process going on for the next fifteen minutes or so, which happens to be the leitmotif of this post.

Back in the school days we have studied a lot about the eccentricities of various cities like jaipur is the pink city and udaipur is the city of lakes and bengaluru is the city of gardens and who knows what.

This made me wonder about our city, Ahmedabad. It is the city of what?

In its heyday, people called it the Manchester of India.

These days with the "Ahmedabad - the world heritage city" drive being in the

news, some may want to call it a world heritage city as well.

The younger breed of the city may also want to call it the education hub(?) of India with the best B-school in asia and other renowned institutes sitting pretty.

I am sure everyone has an answer (when it comes to blowing our own trumpet, we are pretty much up there :)).

But you know what? I would like to call it the city of "greenhouse gases".

YES!

Ahmedabad - The city of "greenhouse gases"

With zillions of vehicles criss-crossing the roads night and day, no wonder we

are the city of greenhouse gases! And where have all those trees gone? Wherever my eyes take me, I can either see buildings made of cement and concrete or roads made of tar (not to mention

the potholes in them).

I know it doesn't sound good. We have a lot of affection towards this city and we can't stand anybody calling it anything. But much as we argue against it, the truth remains as it is. There is more vehicular pollution out here than is expected of a tier-two city in a third world country (whatever that means).

So what do we do???

In my opinion, the best answer that we have against pollution is planting trees,

many of 'em.

Perhaps a major tree plantation drive is due on part of the magicians.

Anup, are you listening?

"Do you hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability"

But for the time being what we can atleast do is plant a tree in our backyard (or anywhere in our premises for that matter) and ensure that it grows along nicely, so that the next time anybody passes through your vicinity on his bike, he is greeted with a cool breeze :)

And it would be really nice if those of you reading this post (if at all there are any :P) actually let us know that you planted a tree (by writing in the comments section, ofcourse :)).

Mother's Day

There was one essay which I’ve wrote in each and every exam of my school days, sometimes in Hindi, sometimes in English and sometimes in Gujarati. The essay was “My mother”. And that essay had played very important role to pass my schooling. What to say about MOTHER. We do have enough Poets, Authors and Painters who have narrated the word “MAA”. And alas! Still their effort is compared like a drop of water against Whole Ocean. I guess, the almighty, who created this universe, doesn’t have sufficient amount of words, imagination, and colors to describe the Mother. But our children (of Naroda Project) are obstinate. They wanted to compete against those poet and painters. They wanted to pick up the brush and to defeat the Pablo Picasso and da Vinci. And how can we resist those small versions of artists!

9th may was the Mother’s day. We decided to arrange one painting competition at Naroda Project. The topic was “a gift for Mother”. What topic could be better rather than this on the mother’s day? Painting, an Art, is the most beautiful way to paint our emotions and feelings. Our children were in full mood to swing their brushes on white papers. We provide to them pencils, crayons, erasers, sharpeners, and white sheets. Still some more artistic genes were demanding Scales, compass and don’t know what other tools to prove their self Michel Angelo. They snatched the stuff, bend their knees and started to fulfill up their ambitions.
What gift could be the best for a mother? What should they paint? They were staring to sky, then out side of half closed window, then to us, then to crayons, then to neighbor’s drawing to assure if he had started or not and then again to their white sheets. Some boys were using their eraser more than their pencils. Me and Anup told him that you’re going to finish your eraser before your painting. Some born genius painters were betting me that they were going to stand first. And most interesting stuff, I and Anup also participated. Soon Hitesh arrived; suddenly for few moments, Room became dark like night when he entered through the door. Big creature, you know. We handed him white sheet and provide whole another room so he can relax, spread his giant body parts, take in sufficient oxygen there and let us inhale proper amount. All were cheering, squealing, patting and holding their paintings up in the air. Even me, Anup and Hitesh ended with something which can’t be called painting anyway.

Let’s have some glimpse of the work of our Pablo Picassos and da vincis.
This one is made by AAKASH. School: Sharda High school. Simply, He wrote “Never forget your parents”. “I LOVE YOU MUMMY”. That’s it. Enough amount of love to gift her mom.



This creature is drawn by Pratik Rathod. Standard 5th, Shishu Vihar Gujarati shala. Simple drawing made by scale.



Another two simple. I LOVE YOU MOM. Made by Rathod Kuldeep and Vaghela Chirag.






This one is by Nikhil. He says “God made this earth, but he can’t reach at everywhere so he made Mother.



In world nothing is bigger than mother. Mom is mom everybody else is jungle's wind.
The message in this drawing from an anonymous artist translates into simple English in this manner.



This one is Indeed beautiful among all. An artist is Alpesh. He and his mother. He is feeling eternal peace in the lap of his mom. He feels magic in the hug of his mother. It’s just pensive.



And Other random stuff made by our small creatures of God.













So these were just gifts to their mothers worth their weight in gold.