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In the line of duty

“What is a lifetime adventure for you is a daily routine for us.” ~ Sign board on Leh-Ladakh  highway (Indian Army) "जो आपके लिए जीवनभर का असाधारण रोमांच है, वो हमारी रोजमर्रा की जिंदगी है।" - लेह-लद्दाख राजमार्ग पर साइनबोर्ड (भारतीय सेना) In today's highly competitive world of individual goals and individual achievers, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find role models to inspire and remind us of the forgotten ideals & values of duty, loyalty, working without supervision, dedication to the assigned job & responsibilities. What we instead find tons of these new age social-media ‘influencers’ and ‘mentors’ who preach & lecture the young ones on cheap-tricks, life-hacks and crooked smartness. But as always stated in several earlier posts, and once again drawing from the legendary Bob Dylan… “The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind The answer is blowin' in the wind”.  We don't really have to go too far seeking such inspirations as they mi

Down Memory Lane: Satpura National Park

Memory … is the diary that we all carry about with us ~ Oscar Wilde This one is a sequel to the earlier post: Story of Satpura , where we introduced and talked about the person, Shri K. S. Saxena (Retd IFS), who was at the centre of creation of what we know today as Satpura Biosphere Reserve.  We pick up where we had left with the concluding remark: “And he looks forward to visiting Satpura National Park sometime …” Satpura National Park After three successive COVID-19 lockdowns and all the trauma, it was only in October’21 that we could conclude the most awaited trip down memory lane to Satpura National Park, exactly forty years after it was inaugurated. Calling it mere ‘nostalgic trip’ for Shri. K.S. Saxena (ex-IFS) on his 86th Birthday would be nothing short of an insult to his passion and love for the jungles of Satpura.  Sharing here few pictures of the trip from our personal archives, please feel free to ‘click to enlarge’ pictures for better views.  The planning for the trip was

Ideological Subversion

And then, there are the communists, Blacker hearts still. They feed on the pus of all this corruption, Like maggots in a corpse! And like maggots have left a swell, They will eventually swarm like flies, And spread their rotten philosophy, Across the country and across the world, Those then, Are our enemies! ~ Inspector Chester Campbell / The Peaky Blinders Post independence, India had the option to chose & follow a particular path to build its own destiny as a Sovereign Nation State in the new world order, after almost 1000 years of foreign rule. This opportunity was actually the result of those Freedom Fighters who laid their precious lives to liberate India from foreign rule. Unfortunately, they did not live to witness the national tricolour being hoisted on 15th August 1947. The real heroes of our freedom struggle are the ones who contributed immensely during the 90 years, starting with 1857 through 1947. They were the real sons of the soil, most of whom martyred as nameless &

Story of Satpura

This blogpost is a compilation of several tweets from Careless Whispers . They are reproduced here as is, without much edits, except all hashtags have been removed.  This thread on Bori Sanctuary, Satpura National Park in Madhya Pradesh is triggered by video of tigress swimming. I showed the video to the man behind these projects. He was emotional seeing the video and then shared some interesting trivia. Please click here for Video (Video courtesy Shri Dhiraj Singh Chauhan, SDO Bori Sanctuary) Circa 1977-79 : True story as narrated to me by my father: Shri K S Saxena, ex-IFS (Forest Services) who developed both Satpura National Park & Bori Sanctuary from scratch, in Madhya Pradesh Bori was always a very rich & biodiverse dense forest, providing ideal setting for sanctuary. After extensive field work and follow up, it was Dr. Ranjitsinh , then Forest Secretary, Govt of MP, who decided to make a visit to Bori. Dr. Ranjitsinh insisted that father should accompany hi