Independence Day Celebrations - Radio Style

Today's India's independence day by date (August 15). Our compatriots back home have already celebrated this momentous occasion of India turning 61 and into a young, dynamic, fast-growing, vibrant nation in the world. As for me, I achieved something unique today, for our country and for our state (Karnataka). In the morning show of Radio Salaam Namaste 104.9 FM, surprisingly the presenter offered to play three regional language songs. And I was probably the first to call him and request for a Kannada song and I directed him to Geetganga.org, a website of patriotic songs compiled from all sources. The site features over 200 patriotic songs, mantras and couplets in different Indian languages. And within a few minutes the radio was playing my request and I guess this was probably the first time a Kannada song was played. I used to rue the fact that there were dedicated programs for all languages except Kannada and now I was finally successful in getting them to play a song in my mother tongue.

Travelling to Phoenix
As per our original plan we started off from home early in the morning and started our journey towards Phoenix, Arizona. It is about 1,000 miles away and the journey brought us through a completely different terrain, a facet of Texas we had not seen. Driving on I-20, we drove through thousands of acres of desert-like lands where we saw wind farms with hundreds of wind mills generating electricity and then we passed through vast tracts of ranch land with numerous oil and gas wells. This part of Texas between Abilene and El Paso seems to be rich with minerals, especially natural gas and petroleum. The number of oil wells quietly working away drawing gas and oil from the depths of earth is amazing.

Mountainous terrain enroute El Paso

Rolling hills is a pleasant change from flat Dallas

I hadn't heard or known much about El Paso, except that it was a city near the border of Texas-Mexico. I was under the impression that El Paso would be a small city, but we were in for a surprise. El Paso is a large and spread out city surrounded by craggy mountains. The open skies, beautiful cloud formations and mountainous terrain is awe inspiring. I would like to visit this city some other time with leisure and take a closer look.

Interesting cloud formations

Mountainous terrain and clouds with the stunning blue sky as background is picturesque

Right now we are checked into a room in a city known as Deming. Something interesting about this city is the fact that they organise a annual "Duck Race" in August. And unfortunately this years Duck Race is scheduled for next weekend (August 23-25). We will get to watch it some other time maybe.