Mohalla Peerzada - A locality in Amroha

Peerzada is one of the many localities of Amroha. It lies in the center of the city. 95 % population of this locality comprises of muslims most of them educated including many engineers, doctors and lawyers. The locality is named so because the descendents of Peer Hazrat Shah abban Badar-e-Chishti(R.A) live here.

    Hazrat Shah Abban, a great sufi saint who came here from Kerman in Iran, esatablished his Khanqah and an adjacent mosque here. Even today his Khanqah exists and an annual "urs" is held here. He was given the name “Shah Abban” by his followers which means “Father of Kings(Sufis)" . He is the ancestor of Amroha's RIZVIS.

There are three mosques and four primary schools in the locality.

Some other important places:

Asad cable Network: 

         The largest entertainment network of the district. Its also an advertisement agency. The local NEWS channels NNI live is also broadcasted from here.

Ghaate ki gali :
         This is ghostly street in the locality which even today people are scared to cross during night. People claim to have seen and even followed by ghosts there.

AP Health Club:
         Its the most reputed gymnasium of Amroha. Altough the facility is available only for gents.

Khari Kuan: 

         It’s a famous landmark and can also be considered a sub-locality. ‘Khari’ means ‘Saline’ and ‘Kuan’ is ‘a well’ in Hindi. Actually the landmark used to be a well with saline water . It was filled later and now a transformer is placed on its top. This sub-locality is home of Amroha’s JAFRI community.

After Anna's Movement and Acceptance of Jan Lokpal Bill

There is no doubt that CORRUPTION is affecting every Indian so no one can say he don't want it to be killed. But no one knew how to begin?? Then came the Anna's movement at the right time and found big support in the form of angry and helpless Indians. 

But people like me smelled something fishy in the movement in the beginning. Actually we could not agree to all of the points of Anna's Jan Lokpal Bill and cannot completely trust some members of Anna's team. And the fact that we had no better idea did not convince us to start following anybody with the cause. So we took a neutral stand with inclination towards Anna. But their slogan,“either you are with us or against us”,made us the opposition.

Most of the people supporting Anna were emotional about corruption and many of them were anti-government(or politically motivated). In its last dayz the movement was turning anti-government because Anna's health was going down and people started thinking the government is not that serious about corruption. Even Anna's team was getting accused by people like Bal Thackrey, Lalu , Outlook Magazine for playing with Anna's life and also observed rift (with Justice Hedge, Aruna Roy etc even leaving the team). But when the opposition seemed to come in full support the government agreed to almost all the demands of Anna's team.

In the end, of that so called Revolution, team Anna cleverly tried to please minorities and schedule castes by having Anna break his 12 day long fast by the hand of a Muslim and a Dalit girl. It seems someone in the team has political ambitions or there is another movement ahead.

Now the movement may have ended but fears of a powerful Jan Lokpal becoming a parallel government in itself still remain. In November the bill will be converted into a law. Only future will tell if the movement is sucessfull or if it just raised the TRPs of NEWS channels and wasted the precious time and energy of Indian youth.

Google Plus Invitation

Google+ is a latest social network by Google.
From the very beginning its been seen as a Facebook competitor. But Google is still testing it with limited number of users. To begin networking there u need an invite.

I have around 250 invitations. If u want to be invited there ... click one of the links:

1. Google+ Invitations
2. Google plus Invitations

Enjoy..!!
See u there. :)

Season of Mangoes in Amroha

Amroha, my hometown, is known for its production of mangoes. Amroha is one of the largest mango producing districts of western UP. Even the name Amroha is a combination of two words 'Aam' and 'Rohu'. 'Aam' means 'mango' in English and 'Rohu' is a type of fish. Although I cannot differentiate 'Rohu' from other varieties of fishes but now I can recognize many varieties of mangoes. Even I wondered when Amroha is not on a sea coast neither it is on a bank of a river how come this place is known for fishes. Later I learned that the city was having many ponds on its outskirts where people used to catch those fishes. But now many of those ponds are dry and many were filled up for urbanization.

This summer,after years, I got a chance to spend my holidays in Amroha. The city is on a fast track of development. There are better roads, many new colleges and schools, a flyover and many new showrooms. Its the time of the year when the trees all around Amroha are full of mangoes. But no one can dare to enter any of the Mango orchards without permission because they are secured. As soon as u try to touch a fruit someone shouts from a mile away. And not just that ...there are trained dogs who provide security to these orchards. Actually these orchards, full of mangoes, attract everyone including robbers.

Being from Amroha the love for mangoes comes naturally to me. Even my Grandfather owned a mango orchard. But it wasn't of any profit and needed a lot of care so he sold it later. This season I had tasted many different varieties of mangoes. Amroha produce many of the varieties and many other come from nearby villages and districts in our market. One type of mango may differ from others in color, taste, smell, size, price or looks.

So in Amroha its not just about eating this delicious pulpy fruit. But about tasting all of its varieties also called “Qismaat”. Finding different varieties is not easy even in Amroha. There are only six-seven varieties like Bombai, langda, chausa etc. which are popular and produced in huge quantity. Rest of the other varieties's production is very low and most of it is exported, self consumed or gifted to relatives by the orchard owners. Even to buy some of the quantity that comes in the market u have to make an advance request and constant queries with fruit sellers. And also need to recognize what u are being sold because u can be easily fooled by the fruit seller.

But the effort is worth doing for “The King of Fruits”..!!

Read more abt the efforts and experiments, varieties and uses of mangoes in Amroha in the next post.