Another Trip............

Today when I checked my orkut account I realized that it still shows my status as - "blog updated and happy republic day", I thought how about typing a new post so that status is justified. (off course the later part need to eliminated) It is also very good time to write something as I had just been freed from minors, BTP mid term presentation and had just returned from another trip. I have nothing to share about minors and BTP mid term presentation was a fiasco and certainly I don't want to keep it in my memory for any more day. So it leaves me with the trip and trip does have ample masala to be told. This time the trip was planned on the pretext of attending Nitesh's brother's marriage and we wrapped up Amritsar and Wagah border in it too.
Visiting border is something that raises the sense of nationality in you but when I attended the evening retreat ceremony, I realized that in this sense of nationality and patriotism, even trivial things take immense importance. So when a BSF jawan gives out a command and parallel command is given on Pakistani side, then the length of shout too gets associated with national pride. So If Indian soldier maintains his voice for longer period, India scores a victory over pakistan and vice verse. When the slogans are cheered, "vande matram" from our side and "jiye pakistan " from their side, once again its a contest between nations and when Pakistan side's chants were louder, I felt as if our people led the country down. Parade of opposite side's soldier is scrutinised and even minor mistakes are cheered very loudly and same mistake gets associated with a feeling of shame from jawan's own countrymen. I can't imagine the amount of pressure on the soldiers who parade, in fact I believe that their performance becomes equally crucial to an Indian cricket team's players in a world cup match against Pakistan. I think there is hardly a pair of countries who contest each other so closely. I had once read a joke which had two people talking, one says - Do you know India stands 54 on global soccer ranking, the second one asks where does Pakistan stands, the first one replies 58, the second one feels contended and says , than its fine. That is the kind of rivalry and I think it will sustain forever as it gets fueled frequently by tragedies like the one in mumbai.
This trip also had a very high entertainment quotient thanks to the ITALIAN garnish on the wedding celebrations!!!