And the lines have been drawn

Last Friday the demolition finally came to an end. Ending a month long wait to see the land flat. Punctured by the halt in construction activity the contractor was finding it difficult to get vehicles for transporting the debris from the house.

So once we had the flat land we had to measure it and make two parts of it for us and our uncle.

We called in the architect and he came in on Saturday evening. Both the contracters were there and armed with a measuring tape and the map of the area, he started measuring the land with the tape. The lines were drawn with lime powder and there were two halts made of the total land. This was the first milestone in the construction of the house.

Also it was the first big step in fulfilling of the dream. Te next step is excavation for the foundation. Since our plans are not finalized, we do not have the plans for the columns and foundation. And since uncle has his, he has taken the opportunity to start work at his end.

More updates to follow.

Previously…

• House to Home
• House to Home – Update

House to Home – Update

If you have been following me on Twitter, Flickr or Facebook, you would have noticed that we have started with te demolition of the house. It was a mixed feeling to part with the house that I have grown up and spent 26 years of my life, but then it also had a feeling of a dream being fulfilled. I have uploaded some pics on flickr and will continue to update my online stats with the status if the dream being fulfilled.

House to Home

I would be re-building the house that I have lived in for 26 years now. We are ready to demolish the 50 year old structure this month and start with the foundation and columns later this month.

The house ‘Bella-Kunj‘ was built by my grandfather, in the 1960′s and has seen four generations of Almeida’s. Currently there are two families occupying the house, my uncle on the ground floor and our family on the first floor.

The reason for taking this extreme step of bringing down the house is mainly due to the age of the house. It has begun to show the signs of aging, there are cracks emerging on the surface and the house shakes when we walk on the terrace .

So, now there will be two separate houses in the area that the current house occupies. One for us and one for our uncle’s family.

I would be posting the milestones for this mega event as they happen with photographs, so do keep watching this space.

www.manickpur.in

Evolving from a single page website (web page) way back in 2005, to a complete website offering a glimpse of Manickpur by just sitting in front of your computer in 2006 all hosted on free servers. The site received more than 2500 individual page views since the launch on the eve of the 400th anniversary of St. Michael’s Church.

2009 sees Manickpur in a brend new light, We are now on a more reliable host with a better name – www.manickpur.in, with a better look.

Log in to see the difference.

Just a note that we are also on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manickpur

Wiki-fying Manickpur

This was a long time due, posting Manickpur on the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, Wikipedia. Well now, Manickpur officially has been wikified! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manickpur is the link to be clicked to view this effort.

For this, I just used up one of my Saturdays to compile all the information I had from various sources that I had dug up during making the website, then it was all a case of just putting all the information together and putting it online on Wikipedia. The information for this was collected over a period of time working my way through various newsletters and translating them where necessary and also talking to various priests who have served Manickpur Parish along with some elderly people from Manickpur.

Believe me it was tough, just to understand how content is inserted into this encyclopedia took me a day, with all the various tags and special characters meaning different sets of formatting.

Then I found a special page from Wikipedia, that had all the cheats to edit this encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cheatsheet. This page has the basics that are needed. Just follow this and you’ll never go wrong.

Over this weekend, I managed to insert even more things in the Manickpur Wiki, added an Infobox to showcase the Geographical coordinates, Time zone etc and also inserted some images relating to Manickpur.

Just a gentle reminder the link to click is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manickpur

Back Home

So finally after a tiresome 13 hour journey from Dublin to Frankfurt and finally landing at Mumbai. Lufthansa treated me very well, the food was fantastic but there was a serious shortage of leg space. I being a little on the taller side felt a lot cramped to sit in those seats in the 747 jumbo jet. There was also an obvious difference with my experience with Swiss that the in flight screen was a large common one right in the front, as in the Swiss plane, this was behind the seat rest, so individual screens.

Again the in flight entertainment had a great movie to be watched
‘Pursuit of Happyness‘. I was impressed with the story and the screenplay with really superb acting by both Will Smith and his real son Jaden Christopher Syre Smith. For now I can say that Will Smith can act and his son is a real Oscar winner. The story touched my heart and the main aim that is portrayed in the movie that happiness is always chased for and you will never find happiness unless it is striven for.

As I reached the Mumbai Airport, I already began to feel the heat, it was 30 degrees C with heavy rains that lashed just before we landed. I quickly went through the necessary immigration and custom checks before I spotted my parents waiting for me. I ran towards them only to be brought to a halt by my brother and friend. Soon mom and dad were there and the first thing from mom’s mouth, “You appear to have lost weight.” Quickly I asked them to get on the road and get some wind blowing in my face, I was already wet with perspiration.

We came to Manickpur in about an hours time only to find out that there is no electricity across the village. The shedding was from 09:30pm and now it was almost 3:30am and still no sign of the electricity. I took a cold shower and sat on the swing in the gallery only then I felt relief.

I was not in a mood to sleep even after a tiresome journey just because of the sheer euphoria of getting back home. Anyways I did catch up on some sleep before getting over to places I wanted to visit and was back home in the evening when my fiends caught up on me.

The Time has come…

Tomorrow, I would be flying back to Manickpur, India, the place I call home. It has been more than 2 and a half months here in the land of leprechauns and their pots of gold, Ireland. I am very happy to get back home bit at the same time am feeling a little sad to leave such beauty behind and perhaps the dream of this wonderful country, one question lingers in my mind at the moment – would I ever come back here? I haven’t got a clue about this.

I have always believed in destiny. You are always lead to the place you are supposed to be. May be for the better may be for the worse. But if you try to change it then there could be problems created for you as well as the people around you. It is bit like changing the course of history. You can always go ahead and make history, but you cannot change history.

Anyways, I guess I was destined to travel to this beautiful country and meet so many interesting people that have already touched my heart that I am feeling so sorry to leave them.

So tomorrow a Lufthansa airplane will take me to Frankfurt and from there Mumbai and home. I am to fly early morning and would take me early morning the next day to reach home. I am already thinking of all that I want to do as soon as I reach home – eat food prepared by my mom, sleep, take a haircut, meet up with all the friends and just enjoy the feel good feeling till I get back to office on Monday.

I have experienced a lot here in Ireland that would stay cherished in my mind always. I wish I would come back here again.

So see you all after I am back home…

Load Unload

Vasai is still a developing town and hence there is this notion for the Government that it can apply all the loadshedding that it can on it. The problem of shortage of electricity has been created by the government and now it is haphazardly imposing the loadshedding on soft targets like Vasai. We are currently facing a loadshedding of 7 hours daily. There would be more hours added to the tally soon as per the government notification.
But the question still arises in my mind – “Why us?”. Mumbai by far has escaped the lot of places facing this power cut and when we see big flashing lighting and all the electronics running without any one to attend them, feel so frustrated like picking up a stone and hurling at the lights and mouthing some really foul words at the MSEB (Maharahstra State Electricity Board) that supplies the power to the state.
This is the new schedule for loadshedding in Manickpur are with effect from the 14th of February, 2007.

Day	Time
Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday	06:30am – 10:00am & 01:30pm – 05:00pm
Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday	10:00am – 01:30pm & 05:00pm – 08:30pm

But then the time is not bounding to the people at MSEB, they can cut the current any time they wish.

Romping in Nasik

Been to Nasik for the feast of Infant Jesus yesterday. We started at 5:15 am from Manickpur in a mini bus with all our natak mandali (Members of Rasik Ranjan Natya Mandal). On our way we met many of our counterparts travelling the same journey from Manickpur as well as the entire of Vasai. The journey started on a great note but was slowed down by the traffic generated by travellers to either Nasik (for the feast), Shirdi (for veneration) or to Malegaon (for Ijetama religious congregation). The entire ghat was jam packed with cars, buses and trucks carrying loads of people and material to these places. Our bus was a bustling place of activity where everyone was in a different beat of travelling together as a huge family. Soon we started singing wedding and other songs making it sound that the buss was going to a great picnic.

My main aim to do all that travelling to a crowded place (I hate crowded places) were:

• A distinct possibility of meeting my friend Frankline (Franky) who’s a novice with the Jesuits.
• And ofcourse since all of us were going together, I could not resist the temptation.

So, after all that slow crawling on the Western Ghats, we finally reached the shrine at 12:10pm. I immediately began a hunt for Franky. After mass we finally spotted him and was overjoyed to see him after almost one and a half year span. We talked a lot about his life and my life in all these years.

After a quick lunch of delicious Chicken Biryani, we were off to take a stroll in the fair, where some of us made some silly purchases. After that we were off to the ghat of Panchwati where the Kumbh Mela is held. I clicked a few pictures while most of us shopped for raisins and grapes.

Then we were off to home, this was about at 06:30pm when we left for home, we were expecting to reach home by 11pm after eating at a roadside dhaba, but once again the crawling traffic caught us and we were stuck in that mad rush to get home. Finally after crossing the ghats, we got into a dhaba and ate to our heart’s content.

We reached home at 01:30am the next morning. So we almost had a 20 hour journey to Nasik. But since both my aims were fullfilled, I have no problems about the journey. The entire journey was marked with us singing loads of songs and having a great time together in the bus. I would possible think about going there once again the next year.

Photos uploaded to Flickr!. Check them at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mloclam/