A LETTER FROM USA: July 2013

Monday, 29 July 2013

FAUNA AND FLORA OF BOSTON

28TH July,2013

My Dear Kush,

As you know that we have come to Boston in this season merely since after October, winter season will start and its not like our Bangalore or Jabalpur or even Kashmir but more chilling , taking temperatures to minus 20 C. Earlier with our Indian experiences we were synonymizing lower temperature with mountains , as those living in Himalayan regions observe snow falling in winter. But Boston is near to the sea and not near to the mountain ,thus our Indian experience like Mumbai or Chennai , will suggest its climate should also be neither too hot nor too cold but it is not so. Here in July , we need cooled air or A/C and in Dec we need heating arrangement to keep the houses warm up-to beat with minus temperatures. Therefore, the inference is that temperature of a place is determined by its position on earth, which in turn , on the distance and rotation from sun. However, this scenario of fluctuating temperatures provide a good chance to look after its flora and fauna which should be able to withstand such wide temperatures.

As I have told you in my earlier letter, that unlike to our general perception, the whole Boston area is thick with forest ,and you can appreciate the scenario from the photos , I have attached of the high ways that carry trees , and only trees on both the sides.

The main trees have short pine or fern like leaves which are important in such places ,though there are trees with wide leaves also . These trees mostly shed the leaves during winter season and prior to that, the broad leaves may change its color to yellow ,brown or violet. The spring is the season which witnesses new leaves in the plants. The grass is also covered with snow during winter. In fact, all where you will see snow and nothing else. This is suggestive that grass does not remain normal after winter and every one has to provide fertilizer and other treatment so that grass may regain its normal texture, which we are witnessing during this period.

One thing is also to be admitted that the persons are caring for their garden and only by their efforts ,we are observing gardens in such a good condition. Even we have witnessed municipal persons who are visiting the houses and spraying some chemical etc on the plants to maintain them.

When we talk about fauna of this place, some facts have to be remembered :

1. A wide temperature fluctuation
2. Absence of stray animals like dog and cattle
3. Absence of food material on the streets, garbage etc

You may imagine how above factors change the fauna of any given area . With regards to first factor, you are aware that it is only mammals who can maintain its body temperature against environmental temperature while all other animals like reptiles or birds or insects (or other invertebrates, for that matter) can not fight environmental temperature effectively .

The stray dogs depend on garbage and carcasses for their survival and so is the case with rodent ; though stray cattle may survive here quite well looking to presence of grass and other greenery surrounding the houses. Unfortunately, for the animals, the rules are very strict and you can not watch any such stray animals on the road side ,at any place . By the way,the feces of these animals provide a good location where many insects, beetles ,earthworms lay their eggs and help in its population.

All the above factors minimizes the type of fauna one may observe in this area.

Lizards are absent from this place and your mausi is very happy in such situation; so is the situation with other reptiles like snakes, though you may find them in the wild.

I have not watched insects like cockroach in the kitchen or spiders on the walls and have not heard about bed bugs though cockroach propagate in the houses (since inside temperature is maintained to be affordable to man) which are maintained poorly .

I could see ,occasionally a house fly, though its size was bigger than ours , ant and mosquitoes were also visible. I think house fly might be using feces of rodents for laying eggs. I have observed dragonfly ,outside the house. For developing dragonfly, stagnant water is essential, where they lay the eggs, suggesting nearby lake might be habitat for it. Again, you are aware , that dragonfly is insectivorous hence survives by devouring other insects.

I have neither seen crow nor vulture or cookoo (koel) at these places. In my opinion, the two birds are absent (or rare ?) as there are no stray animals , thereby minimizing the number of carcasses (on which they survive) while cookoo might be absent as I could not see fruit trees at these places ; you know jamun, ber, guava, mango ,neem , peepal (all provide fruits for animals and birds) are very common in India and these are absent in the Boston area . This also appears an important reason for absence of other common birds in this area. As I have told you earlier, there are mainly small birds, humming type which are seen here - this is completely a different scene from your place .

However, as you can visualize , all these reptiles ,birds ,or insects can not survive winter season and will either migrate or perish.

The only animals remain ,after above, is the mammalian group of animals. Hare is common at these places and a pair of hare is residing in our garden itself ; squirrel is not uncommon . This place has some special rodent species - one is skunk- (provides very bad smell, black color with white patch on its back) and other is raccoon which is bigger than wild rat . These are wild rodents but may habitat your surroundings and damages furniture and other places; therefore, all the households ask treatments against rodents so that their house may remain protected from them ; habitats of these rodents ,like deer and bears is forest area and they enjoy that habitat very nicely.

I will be glad , if you may please log in Google and inform me more about these special rodents like skunk and raccoons.

Tuesday, 23 July 2013

Wingaersheek beach in Glouster ,MA

Snaps of Museum of science-Boston

Sharon Public Library

23rd , July 2013

My Dear Kush,

Have you visited your city library ? I know it is very big and possesses many valuable books. Here also every city is having its own library- so is the case with Sharon , though it is a small town. I was curious to watch this library and on Friday ,we visited this library along with Ruhan.

This library is housed in a two storied building , made of bricks- from outside, the size of the building was quite impressive ; I could see a gentleman coming by cycle else you will see only cars , though there is not much space of car parking and we parked it only on road side.

By using lift, we went upstairs and I was left to screen their racks. There were various categories of the books on these racks. As this was a public library, you can aspect all types of the books. I went to the rack , exhibiting history and bibliography ; I have to admit that the library was enriched with good books. On the racks some good posters were pasted to enhance curiosity hence asking books on that topic. It appears that purchase of books continues each year ; more over it is costly books which you can observe on the racks. I could see some books related to partition of India , about India and other countries.

There was a separate children's section which was depicting many short story books ; interestingly, there was a whole section showing various types of CD. There were computers also installed on some tables and persons, including children who were surfing the computers. These CD are important for this country as public may surf any CD in the library as downloading of software is not free- it is priced.

On the counter , there were three woman who were handling issuing of the books and other material . I was interested to know more about Europe and asked your mausajee to burrow this book for home reading ; he brought not only this book but four more-for Ruhan. These are simple books written with the help of imminent scientists and narrates scientific facts in simple language and drawings ; there is one book telling about moon while other relates to sun. These books are issued for 15 days and a computer slip is provided while you are taking books to your home.

In the ground floor also, we could see readers as well as library assistants ; there were also computers. I do not know about their annual budget or how many books are purchased by the librarian ,each year. According to your mausajee , this is a small library ,the size and budget of library depends on the size of town. Of course , there is a huge public library (J.F. Kennedy) in Boston which is open to the public.

This library system is not so mature in our place. Though every city is boasting a library, it is always short of new books or library persons. I was a member of Jabalpur Library but became less interested as only old books were there with scarily any new arrival.

Most amazing and special fact is that this library is interlinked with 27 more libraries of this area and comes under OCLN. You can search any material through internet ,at your house . The surfing also informs which library (out of 28) is having the desired book, with identity number, rack , its availability or issued to some one; it also provides new arrivals of books etc full address and timings of particular library so that you may reach there to procure the material. you will surprise that there are 6,00,000 materials (books, magazines, CD etc) which you can assess by becoming member of any one of these library. Not only this, the library has reference material which you may assess directly through internet; I surprised to note a full article informing all details about slavery in Boston - again there are further readings on the subject. I am sure you can search all the material on the subject which is next to impossible in India.
.

There is a lot to be done to improve our public library system . It is also important to inculcate reading habit to our young generation. I will desire that you make a habit of visiting your school library and start searching some books of your subject ; if you will read a chapter of light in different books, you will understand how differently the subject is presented by each author- so is the case with your mathematics . And if you will start visiting library from this age, you will understand that your books are your best friend- always and of all times.

With love and affection,

Monday, 22 July 2013

MUSEUM OF SCIENCE- BOSTON

My Dear Kush,

For travelers, like us ,it is must to visit tourist places like that of Boston ,which is a very big city and capital of Massachusetts state of USA . For tourists, there is "hop on hop off' or duck tourism where you have to purchase tourist ticket and visit all the places in one day ;there are at-least 12 visiting places and one facility in this tourist system is that you can catch any tourist bus (it is different ,duck shaped, moving slowly in the city) ,get down to any tourist place and spend your own time and then again take another bus for other spot but you have to visit all places in one day on that ticket. You can log Google and see yourself the tourist spots of Boston.

But persons like me can not visit more than two tourist places in a day due to my habit of going into details in each item ; moreover, I feel tired and may confine myself only to one .Therefore, I was not much enthusiastic to visit as a duck tourist and decided to visit the important places as per its natives.

For me, there appeared three important places in Boston - first was museum of science, second Art museum or history museum and third is its beaches and I preferred first to visit - guess - yes museum of science and only three ( your mausajee, Ruhan and me) were interested to visit this place.

I was watching this city with a new look, by entering its lanes (earlier we were passing only high ways) . Really ,roads are very wide, clean and cars and cars . There was a highway on one side of the road and I observed electric bus passing through this electric connection - we can't call it an electric train , neither it was like tram of Calcutta, -there may be other forms running on this track.

Though we mostly observe double story wooden buildings outside Boston but this place was boasting high scrappers -like Bangalore or Delhi- the highest, visible from a long distance, appeared blue and might be at-least a 100 story building ..However I could observe one difference in these buildings ; all these buildings were having glasses ,every where-all the windows are showing glasses ( this is the pattern of whole country- here in your mausi's home also, there are only glasses in the windows -no wooden work or iron frame) ; some buildings were showing brick construction ; their walls are made of bricks - you may minutely observe museum of science building - it was also depicting brick work and it was five storied building - our car could be parked only on last terrace of the building ,from where we took a photograph ,where Ruhan is sitting on the car. But, unlike to our country, there is no plastering hence brick structure remained as such , I have seen this work in Haryana Agriculture University where all the structures were made of bricks but with out cement plastering ( though new construction is changing )- it does not look odd (as we consider in India) .I think cement plastering is absent here, either the walls are made of bricks or they are decorated with vinyl , granite ,tiles, stones or other material.

When you alighted from the car , you can see other persons also moving , a rare scenario in America, and when we reached to the ticket counters there was heavy rush and persons were standing in queue. Another change was observed in this place. Though there is a queue but at the counters there will be only one person (and his accomplish )and when he is finished, other person will move to the counter and so on .

By looking to the population, it appears confirmed that your necktie is out of fashion as we could watch it only in TV shows or perhaps at some formal occasions. Here I failed to see necktie on any single person - either old or young or child. Perhaps, our trousers or pants have also become out dated as informal dress as I could see all of them , except some old gentlemen, in shorts This might also be as this is summer season here. Even the shoes were either without socks or they are not bigger than their ankle ; I have watched these new type socks, (only up to ankle) in the shops, confirming switching form old to new one (not sure , if its only in summer season) . Most of the women have also discarded their skirt and these were in the shorts ; it appears they are particular about the occasion ; when they are not in their office, why they should bear a formal dress ? but for us, its same- either formal or informal event ?

Do you remember our visit to Vishwashariya museum at Bangalore which we made with whole of our family. I have admired that museum as the learning place for our young generation ;that museum has a lot to tell to our young generation. But here , the science museum was much bigger and contained many more informative material for brilliant students like you. Beside the exhibiting material, they are also arranging Presentations which are of half an hour and touches one or other aspect of science ; as we witnessed one of their science live show, depicting science of cold ....I will tell you some important exhibits of the museum

At the entry of Green Wing of the museum , we witnessed transverse section of trunk of a tree which was two thousand year old . They narrated how to determine age of a tree, a lens was installed to count the rings in the trunk and each ring was depicting 8 years of that tree

We entered in the section of models which tells how maps were first prepared and how one can read it. As you know, this is Mesopotamia, in Iraq , from where human civilization emerged and fist humans started writing not in letters but in figures and there was a map showing measurements of a land , in the form of some figures (the museum encourage you to decode the figures) . There was the model of whole Himalaya mountain where distance between each row of the model was depicting 100 feet height ; it was also showing the rout taken by the first climber- perhaps Tej sang . It fully gave credit to the Director General of Survey of Archaeology of India , Everest , who mapped first time this mountain in 1842-43 and on whose name the peak was named as Mount Everest. On the outside of this exhibition, a girl was standing with human bones on her table; she was there to explain and persons may take and feel the bones ; I remember , I saw the bones , first time when we get entry in our anatomy class -its osteology and here any person may know about his bones- of course large bones and skull.

In one section ,you become a Radiologist for one day and know how to read a X-ray photograph. There is full demonstration informing you about the blood vessels, heart , and finally a spot which is a matter of concern and needs further investigations. There are large boards showing important medical devices ; about X ray , who invented, how it works and its limitations ; likewise , you may know about medical applications of Ultra-Sonography; , CAT scanning and MRI ; I may tell you that CAT scanning is a type where X rays are used to take photographs of soft tissues while MRI is magnet resonation imagination hence not recommended in the persons with pace-makers or stints - any metallic devices ,implanted in their body ( I increased my knowledge by reading these boards ). There was whole section depicting the properties of light , mirror and lens; you can see how mirrors have been arranged so that one person appears in 72 images -this phenomenon of images was first time beautifully used in our film industry by K. Asif in his film -Mugal-E- Azam where images of actress Madhubala were depicted in the court yard of emperor Akbar . Again there was a box where you do any activity and flash of light will show your past activity on a wall- pl see the picture.

The section of dinosaurs was showing real whole skeleton which was built from the material excavated from this country only ; though I am skeptic about recovering whole Skelton after so many years, may be a fabricated work ?. Then there was whole knowledge how fossils are formed and rocks which are suitable for fossil formation. In fact, these are the fossils whose studies have thrown light on many invertebrates else its difficult to know about their periods. There was also a fossil showing foot mark of a dinosaur- really, it was more big than of any animal , we have ever witnessed. A whole division was devoted for exhibiting different types of butterflies ; like wise, there was whole section showing different types of birds, wild animals , all kinds present in USA and there were many exhibitions showing habitats of these birds or other animals.

Ruhan continued to enjoy these exhibitions and took part in doing required activities. Perhaps, the most interesting section was that of computer where all the details and their functioning were shown. Moreover, there were paper cuttings revealing how computer identify alphabets etc and then there were papers with computer language and you decode the message ; Ruhan enjoyed a model where by changing computer codes, the sound as well as figure of a dog was changing ; Ruhan enjoyed this section most and simultaneously learnt how our computer works.

I surprised to see the model of printer which is printing in 3 D ; thus if you are commanding for a table, it will not be a photo of a table but a real replica of a table . There was a plastic rope running in the printer and it takes about one hour to fulfill your command. I have heard about this 3 D printer and its utility in designing in auto mobile and other industries . And the model with its working was there to show our students and general public high it works.

One important difference ,from Bangalore, I noticed was the presence of some trained girls who were sitting to help you while you are trying to emulate any event you are interested. Thus there were girls who were helping in computer section how to decode a computer system and alike matters. Moreover, as I have said earlier, there were science shows conducted by the trained staff ; here , they themselves arranged all the material for the show and then did the event themselves without help of any assistant.

Time was less to visit this whole museum and we have to leave a section of blue wing as the museum staff started asking the public to leave the museum as it was 7 o clock -the time to close the museum. Really, you can learn a lot by visiting our museums - of any kind - it may be scientific or historical.

I am attaching some photographs of the museum for your perusal. With love and affection

Thursday, 18 July 2013

cont--casino

As I have said , it was a different province (we call state in our place) perhaps connecticut. And we entered in a new town - which is solely created for the visitors who are interested in gambling . The place was named mohegun. On the entry , we could see a very big hotel (perhaps more than ten story ) , showing glass walls- this fashion is visible in India also.

We diverted our car to one casino . Most of these casino are run by Chinese entrepreneurs. This casino has a huge parking place, out side ; beside this place, there was a four story building which also parked cars in all its stories.

The casino was very big -difficult to imagine from outside. Let me tell you one fact. In India , we judge size of mall or any organization by counting the stories of the building, the mall has inherited. But this is not so in America. Like other buildings, the casino was not multistoried. We entered its corridor which were many and giving entry from different sides ,confirming that car parking places are also in other directions too. This corridor was totally carpeted while walls were showing different art structures. There were various turns , rest places (means urinal ) . Either we could see carpet or granite work ; really ,one can realize that decoration wais expensive. After covering more than half Km we observed elevator which took us down to the earth.

There were counters for cash and alike matters- all things are difficult to understand for a person like me. Then there were entry places, but with out any gate, depicting that gambling is not permitted to those below of 21 years of age . Your mausi with Ruhan did not enter this place while we all entered there. There were three types of games - slotting -where you enter ten dollar note and start pressing the button - it will depict your gains or loss on every button pressing and the game is finished when you loose your ten dollars. Other game was ballo where you can purchase plastic coins, on certain cost (different tables showing different prices) and place your coins on particular number or between the number ; finally a operator will move a ball in the ring depicting different numbers; the winner will be the number where ultimately the ball take rest. Another game was Poker which is a game with Play cards ;where as in India, the gamblers use three cards, in Poker four cards are distributed. Interestingly, both in Poker and ballo , the play cards or ring ball is always in their hand; the operator is doing the game and you are merely placing your money on one or other number.

There was a great rush in casino ; its difficult to imagine how many persons are there; perhaps there are more than 2000 seats where persons may sit and play the game. Beside , there were restaurants where persons were drinking and eating. Different shops , including of diamonds , were there . And there was also a place for kid play; you purchase tickets and then your child may use these displays. Of course , every where there were stalls where you may purchase cold drinks ,popcorn or non-veg.

I have told you earlier that here its difficult to watch a person on the road ; you may see some in the mall but this was the place where all persons were moving in the corridor or getting entry in the shops or restaurant or gambling seats. To me , it appeared like our Palika Bazaar of New Delhi.

The casino appeared the place for enjoyment or pass time . It is a fact that no one has earned much from casino. persons come here to pass their time and in this activity ,they either loose money, which is most common or gain but only a little bit. I gathered that there is strict control of managers and if a operator is causing continuous losses , he is replaced with another one.

Still persons are coming , They are also aware that they can't win a lump sum ,but may loose much , But they come here to pass time ; we have observed here some old couples who will sit on the slot and pass their time taking sips slowly . Moreover, there are milliners who have to pass time and hence they visit such casino daily and sit there for the time ,they like . There is no closing time for any casino- it remains open for 24 hour. There are also good hotels for providing a luxury stay of rich persons. So you may observe another part of American culture where persons are alone and visit casino merely to pass their time.

I could not take interest in these activities. I was feeling irritation why operator is operating the ball or why operator is distributing the play cards ;but this is how a casino is run. We visited different shops ,allowed Ruhan to play some places and then returned back to our place with the satisfaction that none of us has developed the habit of visiting casino and we are happy with our families.

Wednesday, 17 July 2013

High ways for casino

17th July,2013

My Dear Kush,

As I have not seen any casino, I was interested to see any of this in this country. In America also , it is not permitted in all the provinces- there are some which consider it as illegal and does not permit its operations while other states have permitted casino .

You know that casino or gambling activity is completely prohibited in India . This strict action is related to our mythological event where gambling resulted in loss of whole kingdom . In "Mahabharat" the story goes that Pandavs were given barren place to establish their new kingdom as Duryodhan was not willing to share any piece of land from Hastnapur. This barren field was turned in a beautiful place and named "Indra Prastha " (present part of Delhi ) and Pandavs were happy in their world. Then Duryodhan invited Yudhisthar- king of Indra Prastha, for chosar or gamble; in those days, it was tradition to accept such invitations and was considered against Kshatriya dharma to turn down the offer. Therefore, Yudhisthar has to accept the invitation and during the play , Duryodhan handed his dice to his Shakunee mamma who mischievously played the game resulting in loss of not only the kingdom, themselves but Draupadi also ; you are well aware about the consequences of this event which is really the main turning point of this great epic. As this memory of devastation of Pandavs due to gambling still haunts Indians, gambling has been prohibited in all the families ,afterwards.

But America is not India , neither linked in any way with its history hence some provinces have permitted casino - a place for enjoyment for their and other citizens.

We made the program to visit the casino in the evening of this Friday .It is in a different province and about 150 miles (not kilometer) away from our residence. We all went to visit the casino though persons below the age of 21 years are not allowed to gamble.

Your mausajee was driving the car in the highway leading to the place. All the way, I could see well maintained roads which were four lane; there were indications for gas ,mobil (petrol pump), food, and roads leading to these places. There were also roads going to Rest places -where you can stop your car and may take rest ; on the roads , you are not permitted to stop your car. Again there was indications for "Exit" which will take you away from highway and you will enter in some town . Mostly there were cars and cars though I could see occasionally trucks moving ; interestingly, you will not hear sound of horn from any car as they do not use it ,rather using horn is considered a bad manner ; so I have seen cars stopping beside yours and waiting when you move; (likewise if you are crossing a door and another person is coming, it is a bad manner to leave the door , rather you keep hold the door and allow the other person also to pass) . But I could not see public transport or buses running on the high-way- does it mean that buses are not running between the cities. It is not so, your mausi told us that there are different roads for carrying buses. In all the route, we could not see any Railway crossing , or tolltax plaza or speed breakers. Again, there were no agriculture farms seen on the road sides -there you will see trees and trees or forest ; I was not thinking that this country will have so much forest area. on both sides of the roads , there are only large trees or forests.. We also crossed some towns but all appeared identical with absence of any person on the road or even watching from the door.

In one sense, the whole journey appeared monotonous as there was no change during the whole journey. There is a great difference if you cover this much distance in India. First, there is no high way which do not have any journey break-either in shape of railway crossing or tolltax place ; you will see all types of transport system -mostly buses, trucks and occasionally cars ; the speed is also not fast, generally it is 70-80 KPH while same is in miles in the state. Occasionally, you enter in some tahseel or district and you will see the roads full of persons of different colors. Even shops are arranged in different manners in every city. Dress of persons also changes as per location and how much the place is advanced. Both bus and car will stop somewhere, may be a "Dhawa" to take a cup of tea or some snacks but this practice is absent here . There ,if you are making journey at the end of summer, you may smell 'mitti ki khushbu" which comes when rain drops start pouring on hot soil. You may see and smell 'baur' on mango tree if you are travelling in Feb or March or may witness 'tessu' flowers all where as if whole earth is emitting fire. But no such scenes will be observed while travelling in America ,even if you are travelling 100 or 200 miles on the high ways. So, every country has its own models, fashions and nature and it is up-to you whether you appreciate the present place and scenario or put yourself in past memories, forgetting your present. By this way, you looses a good opportunity of enjoying new surroundings and new places.
By travelling on this high way for about 2 hours, we reached to the city exhibiting large sized hotels and many casino. We shifted our car to one of these casino.....