THESE ARE SOME OF THE PHOTOS OF KOLKATA IN THE EARLY BLACK AND WHITE DAYS. OF COURSE I HAVE NOT TAKEN THEM BECAUSE I WAS NOT ALIVE THEN.
BUT IF YOU HAVE A PASSION FOR PHOTOGRAPHY YOU WOULD DEFINITELY LIKE THESE PICTURES.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Some Of Old Kolkata Photos
THESE ARE SOME OF THE PHOTOS OF KOLKATA IN THE EARLY BLACK AND WHITE DAYS. BUT IF YOU HAVE A PASSION FOR PHOTOGRAPHY YOU WOULD DEFINITELY LIKE THESE PICTURES.
Gangs of New York
This is a movie i am have seen a number of times,not just because of a wonderful story,but because of the superb acting and wonderful narration.
The major roles are played by Learnardo Dicaprio,Daniel Day Lewis and Cameron Diaz and is directed by Martin Scorsese.
The story is not much complex.There are 2 gangs.One is led by a Priest of '5 Points',the native place in New York.While the other is led by a Gangster Bill Cutting also nicknamed 'The Butcher'.
In this story The Butcher(Daniel Day Lewis) challenges the Priest for a fight which eventually leads him to his death.The Priest's son,Amsterdam(Learnardo Dicaprio) is an eye witness to the fight and vows revenge but he is sent to a prison for 16 years.
When Amsterdam returns home to '5 Points',he joins the gang of the butcher,hell-bent on killing him.In his pursuit,he meets Miss Everdeane(Cameron Diaz) and falls in love.
His mission to
kill the butcher,fails because of a friend who also loved Everdeane.He reports Amsterdam's intension to the butcher.
Now Amsterdam forms a gang his father once led.With their support he is able to overcome the butcher.
Well not much of a story.But watching Daniel Day Lewis act is a fun.He is portrayed as a demigod and people's lives are worthless when it comes to his wellness.His costumes,acting,and voice modulation are a subtle show of a Superman-Batman kind of character who is all in all.If you see,you will want to replay and re-live his character rather than focusing on the story.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Why cricketers wear full pants?Sania Mirza wore it half.A traffic guard wore full plus a great deal more.
Look at Sania Mirza ,Saina Nehwal,Leander Paes.They always wear shorts while playing.Is it a rule that they follow while playing? Or is it a general trend that they have or something else?Wearing shorts makes jumping and jogging a relatively easy process.So a person usually fells enthusiastic to jump around and play.
In my opinion ego works a lot.Why do we not see superb catches in matches and dives during a fielding?Are full pants causing problems?
Could there be a possible reason that Cricket is a time consuming game and men do not want to expose for that long time.
On the other hand a cricketer has to wear full pants all the time during playing.Isn't it uncomfortable to wear full pants and play?Is cricket a game of egoistic and arrogant men who thought that playing was for the sake of status?
In my opinion ego works a lot.Why do we not see superb catches in matches and dives during a fielding?Are full pants causing problems?
Could there be a possible reason that Cricket is a time consuming game and men do not want to expose for that long time.
After 20 20 games have entered our television sets i wonder why don't cricketers wear half pants while playing?
Compare a normal guy's dressing on a hot summer day with a traffic guard.I don't want to discuss the weight of his boots or the helmet that he has to keep on at all times.
Just feel the heat that these traffic guard has to be in.Hope my blog makes sense.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Kartik calling Kartik vs Love Sex Dhoka
Kartik calling Kartik
The movie is quick witty and will not let you know what is the truth behind a ghost changing the life of a person.
Played by the all time serious/intelligent guy Farhan Akhtar and the bubbly female lead Deepika Padukone,this film saw 2 major upcoming stars in roles truly matching their real life charisma.
You need to watch this film if, being troubled at home or at office front seem to be a problem.(And this is a major everyday problem,mind it).There are few handy tips and suggestions the ghost is going to provide.
Love Sex Dhoka(LSD).
A very real life situation and thrown very hard at you.At least thats what an adult must consider before purchasing a ticket to the cinema.The romantic Bollywood is not so 'dilwaley' towards lovers fighting for survival and their right to love.
Tragedy being a major segment of this film,it is a much different genre of film and destroys our view of love, as we knew it.If you are heart broken at some point of time you must watch this film.Its got some charm to boo at love.
But talking of Bollywood or charm,you will miss out on both,because you will not find any major star cast or major investments in giving masala to the film.
The movie is quick witty and will not let you know what is the truth behind a ghost changing the life of a person.
Played by the all time serious/intelligent guy Farhan Akhtar and the bubbly female lead Deepika Padukone,this film saw 2 major upcoming stars in roles truly matching their real life charisma.
You need to watch this film if, being troubled at home or at office front seem to be a problem.(And this is a major everyday problem,mind it).There are few handy tips and suggestions the ghost is going to provide.
Love Sex Dhoka(LSD).
A very real life situation and thrown very hard at you.At least thats what an adult must consider before purchasing a ticket to the cinema.The romantic Bollywood is not so 'dilwaley' towards lovers fighting for survival and their right to love.
Tragedy being a major segment of this film,it is a much different genre of film and destroys our view of love, as we knew it.If you are heart broken at some point of time you must watch this film.Its got some charm to boo at love.
But talking of Bollywood or charm,you will miss out on both,because you will not find any major star cast or major investments in giving masala to the film.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
My Native Place(chapter-4, My Childhood)
“Chandrakanta” was THE most popular television series that could be found in those days. I was hooked to it like anything. DoorDarshan also featured serials like “Shanti” played by Bandira Bedi ,”Superhit Muquabla” hosted by Baba Seigal, “Flop Show” and the like.
I was also interested in the Indian cartoon version of “Alice in Wonderland” ,”Mc Iver”, the genius guy and “Street Hawk”. All these television programs formed a part of my daily entertainment as a kid.
I had several kid friends but amongst my favorite was a girl who was nicked Buri and a guy who was nicknamed Babu. These were the best friends I ever had as a child. But our friendship was short lived because my parents got me admitted to a boarding school far from my hometown. It was in Darjeeling.
But the childhood I had with my friends was mostly covered in tricycle races and a few illegal rides to a nearby grocery shop to buy lozenges, and the latest pickle sold in small exchanges of money. Babu and I cycled a lot when Buri joined in after forcing her parents to purchase one for herself.
A new house was being built nearby and a small road got reddened by the breaking of bricks. We called it the ‘lal rasta’ or the red road. Babu was the eldest amongst us and he got admitted to school first. So initially Buri and myself became alone in his absence. So this girl and I became best mates. She often asked me to take her out on the ‘lal rasta’ on my tricycle to which I enquired about her tricycle. She told me that her tricycle broke due to some reasons and her parents were not willing to buy her a new one.
I reluctantly accepted her proposal and gave her a lift in my tricycle making her sit in between the handle of my tricycle. If it was a long ride she would often lean back towards me. She was very fond of pressing the bells of my tricycle and we could often hear some of the neighbor aunties asking her not to press those bells.
In this neighborhood all the three of us were best recognized for climbing walls. Anyone who saw us said “you are that guy who climbed and walked walls, where are the other two friends? ”.We friends had a common liking for Reba aunty who lived in the same neighborhood.
It was because she made the spiciest and the tastiest pickle here. And she kept it in the sun to dry. In the afternoon we visited her spread and made the best of the day. She knew that we were stealing from her stuff but never complained. She spared us for a reason. To her, we were the advertisers. We used to advertise her pickle story and she became an instant hit in the locality. Everyone wanted to taste her pickle.
There was a state of unhappiness whenever a power failure occurred in the evening. So we friends got out together whenever there was load-shedding. Following us, our parents also came out of their house. It soon became a social gathering for the neighborhood. Somebody always made ‘jhal-muri’ and everyone got a share from it. And we enjoyed every time there was darkness due to power failure.
I grew in size in size and height and I got admitted to a local school. School days were exciting, specially the travel by a cage shaped rickshaw .My school began early in the morning and I had never been more exited to wake up early. While at school I did a lot of things that I consider naughty now. I uprooted the garden plants, I threw stones at the chained dog who kept barking consistently. I broke some glasses with stones and fled the scene. I began to experience strength in my muscles.
Going to school had opened the doors of independence to me. I was curious as to what lay on top of our house. Our house had a narrow terrace that could not be visited from inside. So I gathered some courage and sought Babu’s help in climbing the terrace. After several attempts and change of several strategies we finally reached the terrace. First I tried by climbing the pipes and failed, later I found that some bricks of our house were purposely kept a bit projecting outward for easy climbing.
Reba auntie’s had a daughter Tumpa who was 10 years elder to me. She sometimes accompanied us in our play. But mostly due to age she got priority in most of our fun games and this saddened us a lot. One fine day she said she has a kitten and wanted us to join her in her play with her kitten. Actually she had housed a cat and while she got pregnant she gave birth to two kittens in her house. So ‘Nano’,the kitten was our new best friend. Nano was so cute, what to say.
Another incident that occurred to me is a bit funny although it is tragic. I wore a half pant that had a zip in front. I don’t remember wearing underwear under that. So after a pee in my school toilet I pulled my zip up and my THING got stuck in the chain.I screamed a lot. I was also embarrassed. Whole of my school got the news instantly and I became a subject of mockery. Also while returning home my mother had come to pick me up. The best thing she could do was to get me home to get some privacy. But taxis didn’t ply in our place so I travelled in the rickshaw and I felt that someone was always looking at me. At home my mother tried a lot to get my THING out from the pant zip but no success. It was Reba Auntie who was my hero. She pulled my zip down in a quick movement and I was all relieved.
to be continued..........read chapter 5
I was also interested in the Indian cartoon version of “Alice in Wonderland” ,”Mc Iver”, the genius guy and “Street Hawk”. All these television programs formed a part of my daily entertainment as a kid.
I had several kid friends but amongst my favorite was a girl who was nicked Buri and a guy who was nicknamed Babu. These were the best friends I ever had as a child. But our friendship was short lived because my parents got me admitted to a boarding school far from my hometown. It was in Darjeeling.
But the childhood I had with my friends was mostly covered in tricycle races and a few illegal rides to a nearby grocery shop to buy lozenges, and the latest pickle sold in small exchanges of money. Babu and I cycled a lot when Buri joined in after forcing her parents to purchase one for herself.
A new house was being built nearby and a small road got reddened by the breaking of bricks. We called it the ‘lal rasta’ or the red road. Babu was the eldest amongst us and he got admitted to school first. So initially Buri and myself became alone in his absence. So this girl and I became best mates. She often asked me to take her out on the ‘lal rasta’ on my tricycle to which I enquired about her tricycle. She told me that her tricycle broke due to some reasons and her parents were not willing to buy her a new one.
I reluctantly accepted her proposal and gave her a lift in my tricycle making her sit in between the handle of my tricycle. If it was a long ride she would often lean back towards me. She was very fond of pressing the bells of my tricycle and we could often hear some of the neighbor aunties asking her not to press those bells.
In this neighborhood all the three of us were best recognized for climbing walls. Anyone who saw us said “you are that guy who climbed and walked walls, where are the other two friends? ”.We friends had a common liking for Reba aunty who lived in the same neighborhood.
It was because she made the spiciest and the tastiest pickle here. And she kept it in the sun to dry. In the afternoon we visited her spread and made the best of the day. She knew that we were stealing from her stuff but never complained. She spared us for a reason. To her, we were the advertisers. We used to advertise her pickle story and she became an instant hit in the locality. Everyone wanted to taste her pickle.
There was a state of unhappiness whenever a power failure occurred in the evening. So we friends got out together whenever there was load-shedding. Following us, our parents also came out of their house. It soon became a social gathering for the neighborhood. Somebody always made ‘jhal-muri’ and everyone got a share from it. And we enjoyed every time there was darkness due to power failure.
I grew in size in size and height and I got admitted to a local school. School days were exciting, specially the travel by a cage shaped rickshaw .My school began early in the morning and I had never been more exited to wake up early. While at school I did a lot of things that I consider naughty now. I uprooted the garden plants, I threw stones at the chained dog who kept barking consistently. I broke some glasses with stones and fled the scene. I began to experience strength in my muscles.
Going to school had opened the doors of independence to me. I was curious as to what lay on top of our house. Our house had a narrow terrace that could not be visited from inside. So I gathered some courage and sought Babu’s help in climbing the terrace. After several attempts and change of several strategies we finally reached the terrace. First I tried by climbing the pipes and failed, later I found that some bricks of our house were purposely kept a bit projecting outward for easy climbing.
Reba auntie’s had a daughter Tumpa who was 10 years elder to me. She sometimes accompanied us in our play. But mostly due to age she got priority in most of our fun games and this saddened us a lot. One fine day she said she has a kitten and wanted us to join her in her play with her kitten. Actually she had housed a cat and while she got pregnant she gave birth to two kittens in her house. So ‘Nano’,the kitten was our new best friend. Nano was so cute, what to say.
Another incident that occurred to me is a bit funny although it is tragic. I wore a half pant that had a zip in front. I don’t remember wearing underwear under that. So after a pee in my school toilet I pulled my zip up and my THING got stuck in the chain.I screamed a lot. I was also embarrassed. Whole of my school got the news instantly and I became a subject of mockery. Also while returning home my mother had come to pick me up. The best thing she could do was to get me home to get some privacy. But taxis didn’t ply in our place so I travelled in the rickshaw and I felt that someone was always looking at me. At home my mother tried a lot to get my THING out from the pant zip but no success. It was Reba Auntie who was my hero. She pulled my zip down in a quick movement and I was all relieved.
to be continued..........read chapter 5
My Native Place(chapter-3 Rise of a Businessman)
Meanwhile somewhere in sub urban Kolkata my mother’s father was having a very prosperous life. He had become a very rich business man. He owned a major part of land (almost an entire locality) and was a very polite and soft spoken businessman. He had several sweet meat shops and quite a large number of fishing boats.
For him business flourished too quickly and he could not handle pressures and took to smoking bidi. On most of his expeditions in the sea he brought tons of fishes and made quick profits. On one of his days at sea he got caught up with high tides and yet survived on some lone islands off Diamond Harbor just to be rescued by another fisherman whom he befriended very quickly. That man is still live today and is well recognized by the family. My grandfather gifted him a handsomely and even offered him a job as a manager in one of his sweetmeat shops. But his home sentiments did not allow him to take the job.
There was also a story of how my grandfather managed to escape some goons at gunpoint. That day my grandfather carried a lot of cash and was returning home from sea. How he managed to escape still remains a mystery because no one questioned him due to his bad mood. Also he is not alive now so I cannot narrate that part.
My father’s remaining family had moved from Bangladesh soon after my father’s business began to flourish in the rice trade. My father had been living in a rented house that had a comparable residential neighborhood and a small town feel. My father had some fancy with electronics had bought the first gramophone in that locality.
Tracing back to when East Pakistan was being named to Bangladesh, it had got its independence from Pakistan. There was a state of uncertainty in Bangladesh and for nearly three months easy entry was facilitated between West Bengal and Bangladesh. So anyone who had property disputes could easily visit the other country and go for settlement. It was at this time my mother’s father made huge profits by fishing for Hilsha fish in the Padma River and selling it in Kolkata. In some of his journeys he was in contact with my father’s parents.
It was these three or four months of chaos that changed the live of many people. Some more had become rich by purchasing land at low prices and later selling it at a higher price. Some had taken advance payments but never delivered their goods to the other country because they thought that India and Bangladesh would continue this relation. It was a case of forgive and forget situation. Bengalis being timid and forgiving by nature let go of their misery they were already in and decided to continue again from start. It was these few months that my parents’ parents got to meet each other.
After my parents’ marriage my father moved on in the transportation business due to some market situation. He started with a truck and ended with purchasing a total of eleven vehicles. Some were public transportation vehicles while some were goods carrier. As a kid I always saw my father angry and depressed when he returned home. It was because it was getting increasing difficult to handle all these vehicles. The drivers and his helpers (known as khalashis) would often do trade with my father’s truck on their own without the consent of my father. It became more complex when they would steal the vehicle and drive away to some other place. There had been cases when one of my father’s truck met with an accident and the mob had tore the entire truck to pieces.
My father quit some of the trucks and buses to build a new house, our own house. At that time a nearby forest was being cleared for residential facility. My father did not think twice before purchasing land there.
My father’s craze for electronics grew. He purchased a television set and installed a telephone line. Our entire locality came to visit our home to watch a program that was very popular those days, ”Chandrakanta” .After sometime he purchased a Video Cassette Player and we would watch movies after inviting all the kids my age. Along with the kids came their parents and our house looked very packed.
to be continued........... read chapter 4
For him business flourished too quickly and he could not handle pressures and took to smoking bidi. On most of his expeditions in the sea he brought tons of fishes and made quick profits. On one of his days at sea he got caught up with high tides and yet survived on some lone islands off Diamond Harbor just to be rescued by another fisherman whom he befriended very quickly. That man is still live today and is well recognized by the family. My grandfather gifted him a handsomely and even offered him a job as a manager in one of his sweetmeat shops. But his home sentiments did not allow him to take the job.
There was also a story of how my grandfather managed to escape some goons at gunpoint. That day my grandfather carried a lot of cash and was returning home from sea. How he managed to escape still remains a mystery because no one questioned him due to his bad mood. Also he is not alive now so I cannot narrate that part.
My father’s remaining family had moved from Bangladesh soon after my father’s business began to flourish in the rice trade. My father had been living in a rented house that had a comparable residential neighborhood and a small town feel. My father had some fancy with electronics had bought the first gramophone in that locality.
Tracing back to when East Pakistan was being named to Bangladesh, it had got its independence from Pakistan. There was a state of uncertainty in Bangladesh and for nearly three months easy entry was facilitated between West Bengal and Bangladesh. So anyone who had property disputes could easily visit the other country and go for settlement. It was at this time my mother’s father made huge profits by fishing for Hilsha fish in the Padma River and selling it in Kolkata. In some of his journeys he was in contact with my father’s parents.
It was these three or four months of chaos that changed the live of many people. Some more had become rich by purchasing land at low prices and later selling it at a higher price. Some had taken advance payments but never delivered their goods to the other country because they thought that India and Bangladesh would continue this relation. It was a case of forgive and forget situation. Bengalis being timid and forgiving by nature let go of their misery they were already in and decided to continue again from start. It was these few months that my parents’ parents got to meet each other.
After my parents’ marriage my father moved on in the transportation business due to some market situation. He started with a truck and ended with purchasing a total of eleven vehicles. Some were public transportation vehicles while some were goods carrier. As a kid I always saw my father angry and depressed when he returned home. It was because it was getting increasing difficult to handle all these vehicles. The drivers and his helpers (known as khalashis) would often do trade with my father’s truck on their own without the consent of my father. It became more complex when they would steal the vehicle and drive away to some other place. There had been cases when one of my father’s truck met with an accident and the mob had tore the entire truck to pieces.
My father quit some of the trucks and buses to build a new house, our own house. At that time a nearby forest was being cleared for residential facility. My father did not think twice before purchasing land there.
My father’s craze for electronics grew. He purchased a television set and installed a telephone line. Our entire locality came to visit our home to watch a program that was very popular those days, ”Chandrakanta” .After sometime he purchased a Video Cassette Player and we would watch movies after inviting all the kids my age. Along with the kids came their parents and our house looked very packed.
to be continued........... read chapter 4
My Native Place(chapter-2 Independence of Bangladesh)
My father was all alone in India having left his family back in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).The year was 1964.At that time China declared war on India due to some disputes in the land demarcations. This war was backed by Pakistan who supported the Chinese. So East Pakistan had got aggressive against us in West Bengal. It did not surprise that it took a very different form. The war between India and China broke out as a war between Hindus and Muslims between India and East Pakistan.
It took a toll of life and several lives suffered trauma in the aftermath. Our family members were very badly affected by the 1964 Riots. We had lost our property, savings and much more. My father took admission in a local school in India and did a job as a laborer. After school got over he carried rice bags for local players. A bag of Rice weighed about around 100 kilos. With 100 kilos in his back he traveled from the main road where trucks would unload, to the local trader’s store rooms. He did this on a regular basis and suffered terrible back aches frequently.
Back in school he was quite a bright scholar and stayed in toppers list most of the time. By the time it was 1971 and Pakistan declared force on East Pakistan. India had Indira Gandhi had as Prime Minister. India stood by East Pakistan and helped it overcome the forces from Pakistan. East Pakistan got its Independence from Pakistan and it was named Bangladesh from then on.
Military forces were deployed and Muslim people in West Bengal were asked to move to Bangladesh. In the same time Hindu people were escorted to West Bengal. There was a refugee camp organized somewhere in West Bengal and my father found his first job as accountant. He kept account of the goods being supplied and places it was being distributed to.
But this job did not last very long. His role was no longer required in the refugee camp. The refugees had been allotted some place in West Bengal. My father was given an instant job in the Writers Buildings.
While movement from one country to another there were quite significant incidents that had occurred. A rich Muslim man had a lot of property. Even the place we live today was owned by him. It had passed a lot of hands before we started living here. He had a gigantic family and even owned a cinema hall and a theater adjacent to it.
As bad luck would have it, all his property was taken away and refugees were given shelter in some of them .Most of the Muslims had lost their property but some sold them at throw away prices before leaving for Bangladesh. The cinema hall still runs now. Its’ just that ownership has changed. But in place of the theater there is a market place and a large laundry shop.
Meanwhile rice market was getting increasingly hot. And our place was becoming the rice capital of West Bengal. Even though my father had a government job in hand, he thought business was a more preferable job. He had sufficient knowledge of the business and continued to do so before he got into transportation business. But that was after his marriage.
to be continued..............read chapter 3
It took a toll of life and several lives suffered trauma in the aftermath. Our family members were very badly affected by the 1964 Riots. We had lost our property, savings and much more. My father took admission in a local school in India and did a job as a laborer. After school got over he carried rice bags for local players. A bag of Rice weighed about around 100 kilos. With 100 kilos in his back he traveled from the main road where trucks would unload, to the local trader’s store rooms. He did this on a regular basis and suffered terrible back aches frequently.
Back in school he was quite a bright scholar and stayed in toppers list most of the time. By the time it was 1971 and Pakistan declared force on East Pakistan. India had Indira Gandhi had as Prime Minister. India stood by East Pakistan and helped it overcome the forces from Pakistan. East Pakistan got its Independence from Pakistan and it was named Bangladesh from then on.
Military forces were deployed and Muslim people in West Bengal were asked to move to Bangladesh. In the same time Hindu people were escorted to West Bengal. There was a refugee camp organized somewhere in West Bengal and my father found his first job as accountant. He kept account of the goods being supplied and places it was being distributed to.
But this job did not last very long. His role was no longer required in the refugee camp. The refugees had been allotted some place in West Bengal. My father was given an instant job in the Writers Buildings.
While movement from one country to another there were quite significant incidents that had occurred. A rich Muslim man had a lot of property. Even the place we live today was owned by him. It had passed a lot of hands before we started living here. He had a gigantic family and even owned a cinema hall and a theater adjacent to it.
As bad luck would have it, all his property was taken away and refugees were given shelter in some of them .Most of the Muslims had lost their property but some sold them at throw away prices before leaving for Bangladesh. The cinema hall still runs now. Its’ just that ownership has changed. But in place of the theater there is a market place and a large laundry shop.
Meanwhile rice market was getting increasingly hot. And our place was becoming the rice capital of West Bengal. Even though my father had a government job in hand, he thought business was a more preferable job. He had sufficient knowledge of the business and continued to do so before he got into transportation business. But that was after his marriage.
to be continued..............read chapter 3
My Native Place(chapter-1, My Hometown)
The place that I reside is about 40 kilometers from Kolkata and another 20 kilometers from Bangladesh. This place had been a deep forest during British Raj and still continued to be post Independence. It was only in the 60s that the forests had been cleared for residential purposes. Even before my parents or I was born, and my grand-parents had not met each other, India and Bangladesh shared a relation that India and Nepal shares today. An Indian resident had easy access to the resources of Bangladesh and vice-versa. Trains services ran from Sealdah in West Bengal to Khulna in Bangladesh. It was before Independence and Bangladesh was a part of India.
My father’s parents had been traders. They had sweetmeat shops and lots of Property. Let me describe some of the facts that have become history. Today 100 Paisa make up one Rupee. This is the naya-paisa that is used today. But in those days one Rupee was comprised of sixteen Annas. And four Paisa made up one Anna. So for example if you had a hundred Rupees with you, then you could change that money for sixteen hundred Annas or six thousand four hundred Paisa. You could get coins of one paisa, one Anna, two Anna, four Anna, eight Anna and one Rupee. In the British Raj you could also come across half Anna(=two paisa) or quarter Anna(=one paisa).
At that time things were pretty cheap and you could easily compare one Rupee with today’s five hundred Rupees. When I was a three year old boy I heard stories about how my grandfather bought bagful of grocery, fish, egg and meat for the entire family for the entire week without spending more than a Rupee. At those time refrigerator was not used in houses but food always remained fresh.I had not been there to witness these myself ,but I strongly believe so because there were also other seniors who backed up the same. Around the late 50s era, the old Anna-Paisa system got replaced by the modern coinage that we use today.
When I was a kid I had seen the naya-paisa in various forms and sizes. Today we see only 25 paisa and 50 paisa, 1 rupee, and 5 rupee coins. But I have seen 1paisa,2 paisa,3 paisa,5 paisa and 10 paisa coins also. It has not been more than 10 years before I last saw the 10 paisa coin exchanging hands. Very soon 25 paisa coin will also be gone.
In my grandfather’s time, our family was big and joint. We were not the nuclear family that is prevalent today. At those times the interspacing between two homes were quit big and a house kept an open corridor the size of a small house of today. So a neighbor can be found to be quite far away from your house. Houses were usually thatched and one storied. Each house had room for more than 10 people. These features can be found even today but the difference is that today ten people do not live in the same house as it did happen long ago. The roads were built by clearing the grass that surrounded the fields. There was no electricity and people usually went to sleep after dark. Candles and oil lamps helped in the dark sometime. But that sometime meant an attack by a bandit or a thief who usually kept themselves busy at night time. How the lamps helped was, by letting to view who the thief was.
There were a lot of stories about how thieves made underground tunnels to enter houses and how easily people got sacred of unknown strangers called “ghosts”. Some of these were true. There was one story of “DIANE” ,who is a witch of Bengal found to have taken several lives by some sorcery. As a child I was typically scared of this story. One of the stories told by my grandmother had a thief as the protagonist and I was thoroughly mesmerized by this story.
After India got independence, there was a Hindu Muslim divide and Bangladesh that we know today, became a part of Pakistan known as East-Pakistan. So West Bengal witnessed a who-goes-where situation. The situation got intensified in 1964 when disparity between the Hindus and the Muslims took a huge toll of life. None the less, our family members hid somewhere and escaped. Some still were in East-Pakistan and some in India. My father was a small boy of eleven years when he had moved to India.
to be continued.................(read chapter 2 Independence of Bangladesh)
My father’s parents had been traders. They had sweetmeat shops and lots of Property. Let me describe some of the facts that have become history. Today 100 Paisa make up one Rupee. This is the naya-paisa that is used today. But in those days one Rupee was comprised of sixteen Annas. And four Paisa made up one Anna. So for example if you had a hundred Rupees with you, then you could change that money for sixteen hundred Annas or six thousand four hundred Paisa. You could get coins of one paisa, one Anna, two Anna, four Anna, eight Anna and one Rupee. In the British Raj you could also come across half Anna(=two paisa) or quarter Anna(=one paisa).
At that time things were pretty cheap and you could easily compare one Rupee with today’s five hundred Rupees. When I was a three year old boy I heard stories about how my grandfather bought bagful of grocery, fish, egg and meat for the entire family for the entire week without spending more than a Rupee. At those time refrigerator was not used in houses but food always remained fresh.I had not been there to witness these myself ,but I strongly believe so because there were also other seniors who backed up the same. Around the late 50s era, the old Anna-Paisa system got replaced by the modern coinage that we use today.
When I was a kid I had seen the naya-paisa in various forms and sizes. Today we see only 25 paisa and 50 paisa, 1 rupee, and 5 rupee coins. But I have seen 1paisa,2 paisa,3 paisa,5 paisa and 10 paisa coins also. It has not been more than 10 years before I last saw the 10 paisa coin exchanging hands. Very soon 25 paisa coin will also be gone.
In my grandfather’s time, our family was big and joint. We were not the nuclear family that is prevalent today. At those times the interspacing between two homes were quit big and a house kept an open corridor the size of a small house of today. So a neighbor can be found to be quite far away from your house. Houses were usually thatched and one storied. Each house had room for more than 10 people. These features can be found even today but the difference is that today ten people do not live in the same house as it did happen long ago. The roads were built by clearing the grass that surrounded the fields. There was no electricity and people usually went to sleep after dark. Candles and oil lamps helped in the dark sometime. But that sometime meant an attack by a bandit or a thief who usually kept themselves busy at night time. How the lamps helped was, by letting to view who the thief was.
There were a lot of stories about how thieves made underground tunnels to enter houses and how easily people got sacred of unknown strangers called “ghosts”. Some of these were true. There was one story of “DIANE” ,who is a witch of Bengal found to have taken several lives by some sorcery. As a child I was typically scared of this story. One of the stories told by my grandmother had a thief as the protagonist and I was thoroughly mesmerized by this story.
After India got independence, there was a Hindu Muslim divide and Bangladesh that we know today, became a part of Pakistan known as East-Pakistan. So West Bengal witnessed a who-goes-where situation. The situation got intensified in 1964 when disparity between the Hindus and the Muslims took a huge toll of life. None the less, our family members hid somewhere and escaped. Some still were in East-Pakistan and some in India. My father was a small boy of eleven years when he had moved to India.
to be continued.................(read chapter 2 Independence of Bangladesh)
Monday, June 14, 2010
A poem on travel
From zed to zee;
From a bird to a bee;
Let’s go travel, just you n me.
Let’s visit South, let’s discover North;
Let’s see dusk and let’s see dawn.
Let’s meet people in green and brown.
So pack your bags coz mine is done ;
And don’t forget the battery coz cameras won’t be none
From a bird to a bee;
Let’s go travel, just you n me.
Let’s visit South, let’s discover North;
Let’s see dusk and let’s see dawn.
Let’s meet people in green and brown.
So pack your bags coz mine is done ;
And don’t forget the battery coz cameras won’t be none
Sometimes ragging is fun.(18 + only)
In the hope of making the juniors respect us as their seniors, we do strange things .Sometimes we show off and sometimes we let them feel dependent on us. People in colleges take this practice as ‘ragging’, whereas it is known as ‘bullying’ in schools. The same practice when applied in the locality is known as ‘misbehaving’.
Let me describe here some of the interesting things I discovered while being a victim of this practice and later applying the same thing myself. For easy reading I should call this experience of mine as ragging as it had happened in college.
After getting admitted in college, I opted for a hostel and I had to share a room with 3 others. Our seniors made us introduce ourselves to them. It was the same story everyday as our seniors got very little time with us because there was our warden and some professors who genuinely felt for us and guarded us. So for me it felt like a record player that had to repeatedly introduce myself to any senior.
If only I could call all my seniors and introduce myself once and for all so that everybody would be able to hear me and never again ask me to introduce myself again. But it never happened that way. Everyday a new guy arrived and asked the same question. Sometimes some seniors who had already visited me came again and repeated the same question. It’s strange they forget us so easily. It started getting very boring and it grew on me. I felt no effect at all .I felt that if somebody would report a case of ragging, it would be very unjust because the seniors had put up so much time and all their endeavor looked so sick and failing.
Little had I known that this was just a soup before a sumptuous meal. Our fresher’s day arrived and the seniors had arranged a party for us. Well this party was scheduled for the evening. The entire day was a surprise.
Ours was a boys hostel and the senior boys were in front of our beds early in the morning. The seniors were quite innovative while ragging us. We had a lot of games that they had invented. We had a swearing competition where each competitor from the 1st year had to curse/slang another 1st year guy in the most innovative way. I had befriended some guys in my class and was not sure if I could actually use abusive words with them. But being an audience to the first few rounds it felt normal. It was like getting into a fit of trance and forgetting what ego was.
Using words like motherfu***r, and bloody bastard was not so intresting. The seniors wanted some innovative slangs. One of the 1st year guys shouted “I used a brinjal colored banana flavored condom to f**k your grandma’s neice, and she gifted me a box full of panties to smell”. There was laughter all around and I could not control laughter myself. One of the seniors took the 1st year guy for a treat of navy cut cigarette. He had an instant fan following.
Later in the day, it grew a bit warm and I was made to read a newspaper in front of everybody. But this was no exceptional newspaper .It was an ordinary one, or so I thought. But there was a condition. After completing a sentence of the newspaper I had to read “I massage his penis with oil”. So if an ordinary newspaper read “The terrorists have been captured. They have been put in prison. The terrorists should be punished.” And I read it as “The terrorists have been captured. I massage his penis with oil .They have been put in prison. I massage his penis with oil. The terrorists should be punished. I massage his penis with oil”. To me it was not really funny. I never know why I was made to say this. But some say that laughter is contagious and I could not control the crowd in front of me laughing heartily. I felt a bit relaxed.
Ragging was going on paralleled by some more seniors surrounding some more 1st year guys. I could see someone singing and someone dancing all the time .Some were imitating porn stars. Some were in porn postures with fellow guys. By the afternoon time one of my friends was invited to the senior’s hostel. After he had returned he told us that he was treated like a king. He was treated with mutton biryani, chili chicken, fish cutlet and all the most expensive dishes that he could order. Little did he tell us that he was made to sleep in one of the beds of the senior covered from head to toe in blankets on the sunny day before being treated like a king.
We had a football match in the evening between fresher and seniors. The seniors made a team for us and chose 11 fat guys from us while they had an ideal football team. The seniors cheated a lot. There was no referee. And whenever they scored a goal all the 11 fat guys from 1st year was made to run an entire round around the field.
The evening turned to dusk and we were instructed a dress code for the party. No belts or watches. Shoes and formal dress was made mandatory. We followed their instructions and entered the party venue. Teachers, professors were all present. I thought ragging was over. But inside I was feeling that as long as they were not treating us as their servants ragging was getting really interesting.
I had enjoyed the ragging because no girls had ever watched me get ragged. But in the party girls were also present and I felt my ego getting back to me. I wondered what if I get ragged in front of girls? While the teachers were present, girls sang some songs and performed cultural dance numbers and some elocution. The teachers left as soon as the girls had finished with their programme. I started to feel tensed again ,of the girls presence because except for the teachers all the freshers and seniors were present.
But this time ragging took a vegetarian form. None of the lewd things that we were made to do happened. Instead we were made to propose to random girls. For that roses had been already arranged for us.Some tried the filmy style and some did the nervous guy style.
I was also a victim of proposing to girls. And as luck(or rather bad-luck) would have it, the girl was a senior. I proposed to her in a nervous style. And she started to enquired me who told me to propose her. I knew that taking her side would mean disrespect to the male senior that sent me. I did not answer her and she made me beg all other seniors by saying “panch bhoot e podh mereche panch ti paise bhikha daoa”. Which translates to 5 ghosts have f**ked my arse please lend me 5 paise. This task of mine was really getting difficult as I had to beg seniors and each senior would rag me in return. But just before I started to beg, she came to me and said “don’t have to worry, introduce yourself my small brother” to which I felt so much relieved. I wanted to kiss my newly made didi (on the cheek,no thinking otherwise).
After few moments, dinner was served. I saw dishes, I knew that floors would be dirty after the party and felt insecure. What if we were made to clean any of them? But it was only after someone said that you all can come to our hostels to enjoy a mug of beer with us, and I knew that they were not those species of raggers who uses others for their needs. They had arranged the party for us. So it was they who got the cleaning done. Somebody learn from my seniors. Ragging is purely a source of entertainment. When these seniors left the college we felt we have lost our elder brothers and sisters. You Rock Seniors.
Let me describe here some of the interesting things I discovered while being a victim of this practice and later applying the same thing myself. For easy reading I should call this experience of mine as ragging as it had happened in college.
After getting admitted in college, I opted for a hostel and I had to share a room with 3 others. Our seniors made us introduce ourselves to them. It was the same story everyday as our seniors got very little time with us because there was our warden and some professors who genuinely felt for us and guarded us. So for me it felt like a record player that had to repeatedly introduce myself to any senior.
If only I could call all my seniors and introduce myself once and for all so that everybody would be able to hear me and never again ask me to introduce myself again. But it never happened that way. Everyday a new guy arrived and asked the same question. Sometimes some seniors who had already visited me came again and repeated the same question. It’s strange they forget us so easily. It started getting very boring and it grew on me. I felt no effect at all .I felt that if somebody would report a case of ragging, it would be very unjust because the seniors had put up so much time and all their endeavor looked so sick and failing.
Little had I known that this was just a soup before a sumptuous meal. Our fresher’s day arrived and the seniors had arranged a party for us. Well this party was scheduled for the evening. The entire day was a surprise.
Ours was a boys hostel and the senior boys were in front of our beds early in the morning. The seniors were quite innovative while ragging us. We had a lot of games that they had invented. We had a swearing competition where each competitor from the 1st year had to curse/slang another 1st year guy in the most innovative way. I had befriended some guys in my class and was not sure if I could actually use abusive words with them. But being an audience to the first few rounds it felt normal. It was like getting into a fit of trance and forgetting what ego was.
Using words like motherfu***r, and bloody bastard was not so intresting. The seniors wanted some innovative slangs. One of the 1st year guys shouted “I used a brinjal colored banana flavored condom to f**k your grandma’s neice, and she gifted me a box full of panties to smell”. There was laughter all around and I could not control laughter myself. One of the seniors took the 1st year guy for a treat of navy cut cigarette. He had an instant fan following.
Later in the day, it grew a bit warm and I was made to read a newspaper in front of everybody. But this was no exceptional newspaper .It was an ordinary one, or so I thought. But there was a condition. After completing a sentence of the newspaper I had to read “I massage his penis with oil”. So if an ordinary newspaper read “The terrorists have been captured. They have been put in prison. The terrorists should be punished.” And I read it as “The terrorists have been captured. I massage his penis with oil .They have been put in prison. I massage his penis with oil. The terrorists should be punished. I massage his penis with oil”. To me it was not really funny. I never know why I was made to say this. But some say that laughter is contagious and I could not control the crowd in front of me laughing heartily. I felt a bit relaxed.
Ragging was going on paralleled by some more seniors surrounding some more 1st year guys. I could see someone singing and someone dancing all the time .Some were imitating porn stars. Some were in porn postures with fellow guys. By the afternoon time one of my friends was invited to the senior’s hostel. After he had returned he told us that he was treated like a king. He was treated with mutton biryani, chili chicken, fish cutlet and all the most expensive dishes that he could order. Little did he tell us that he was made to sleep in one of the beds of the senior covered from head to toe in blankets on the sunny day before being treated like a king.
We had a football match in the evening between fresher and seniors. The seniors made a team for us and chose 11 fat guys from us while they had an ideal football team. The seniors cheated a lot. There was no referee. And whenever they scored a goal all the 11 fat guys from 1st year was made to run an entire round around the field.
The evening turned to dusk and we were instructed a dress code for the party. No belts or watches. Shoes and formal dress was made mandatory. We followed their instructions and entered the party venue. Teachers, professors were all present. I thought ragging was over. But inside I was feeling that as long as they were not treating us as their servants ragging was getting really interesting.
I had enjoyed the ragging because no girls had ever watched me get ragged. But in the party girls were also present and I felt my ego getting back to me. I wondered what if I get ragged in front of girls? While the teachers were present, girls sang some songs and performed cultural dance numbers and some elocution. The teachers left as soon as the girls had finished with their programme. I started to feel tensed again ,of the girls presence because except for the teachers all the freshers and seniors were present.
But this time ragging took a vegetarian form. None of the lewd things that we were made to do happened. Instead we were made to propose to random girls. For that roses had been already arranged for us.Some tried the filmy style and some did the nervous guy style.
I was also a victim of proposing to girls. And as luck(or rather bad-luck) would have it, the girl was a senior. I proposed to her in a nervous style. And she started to enquired me who told me to propose her. I knew that taking her side would mean disrespect to the male senior that sent me. I did not answer her and she made me beg all other seniors by saying “panch bhoot e podh mereche panch ti paise bhikha daoa”. Which translates to 5 ghosts have f**ked my arse please lend me 5 paise. This task of mine was really getting difficult as I had to beg seniors and each senior would rag me in return. But just before I started to beg, she came to me and said “don’t have to worry, introduce yourself my small brother” to which I felt so much relieved. I wanted to kiss my newly made didi (on the cheek,no thinking otherwise).
After few moments, dinner was served. I saw dishes, I knew that floors would be dirty after the party and felt insecure. What if we were made to clean any of them? But it was only after someone said that you all can come to our hostels to enjoy a mug of beer with us, and I knew that they were not those species of raggers who uses others for their needs. They had arranged the party for us. So it was they who got the cleaning done. Somebody learn from my seniors. Ragging is purely a source of entertainment. When these seniors left the college we felt we have lost our elder brothers and sisters. You Rock Seniors.
How an average Indian can turn philanthropist
A philanthropist literally means a man or a woman who has a genuine concern for the society at large. He is like the hero of the society who jumps in the turbulent river to save a drowning boy. He is a man who cannot watch a woman being mistreated by goons. He is the person who is ready to risk his life to save another. Such a person can be easily found in imaginations and Bollywood films. But an ordinary Indian can easily turn philanthropic by doing some basics to society.
Here is a simple thing a person living in any corner of the society can do. It is relatively simple thing to do. Just make another savings account named “Philanthropy”.
This is how 2 accounts can be maintained.:-
When you already have a bank account you will have to visit the bank to deposit some money in your account. The same can be done by internet banking. Suppose a close friend or relative needs a favor and says ,”You are going to the bank, please deposit my money also”. The amount of time consumed and the effort used is minimized when you are doing two transactions instead of one. Take a very real situation. Let us say that YOU have 2 bank accounts; one in your name and one in the name of “Philanthropy”. When you are going to deposit a sum of Rs 1000 in your account, you can make a ratio eg 9:1. So you deposit Rs900 in your account and Rs100 in the “Philanthropic” account.
This is why you will do it:-
Having 2 bank accounts makes a person more confidant. It is because a person has to deal with only one bank account for regular usage. The other account is hidden from society.
Also when you are saving money for philanthropy you are actually feeling good at heart. When you do not purchase an alcohol bottle or a pack of cigars but save the same money for philanthropy you actually feel good at heart, liver and lungs. Just know that you are saving money for a mission for the deprived class in the society. And it might come in handy any time.
Where will the money go to?
Need not worry .You are not giving away money that easily. It rightfully your money and you have earned it. So it is up to you to decide how you are going to use it. Money is a powerful tool and it can buy you goods. Let me suggest how you can use the money fruitfully. You can……..
To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So all you have to do is open another savings account and start seeing the differences to your image in society and your bank’s main account as well.
Here is a simple thing a person living in any corner of the society can do. It is relatively simple thing to do. Just make another savings account named “Philanthropy”.
This is how 2 accounts can be maintained.:-
When you already have a bank account you will have to visit the bank to deposit some money in your account. The same can be done by internet banking. Suppose a close friend or relative needs a favor and says ,”You are going to the bank, please deposit my money also”. The amount of time consumed and the effort used is minimized when you are doing two transactions instead of one. Take a very real situation. Let us say that YOU have 2 bank accounts; one in your name and one in the name of “Philanthropy”. When you are going to deposit a sum of Rs 1000 in your account, you can make a ratio eg 9:1. So you deposit Rs900 in your account and Rs100 in the “Philanthropic” account.
This is why you will do it:-
Having 2 bank accounts makes a person more confidant. It is because a person has to deal with only one bank account for regular usage. The other account is hidden from society.
Also when you are saving money for philanthropy you are actually feeling good at heart. When you do not purchase an alcohol bottle or a pack of cigars but save the same money for philanthropy you actually feel good at heart, liver and lungs. Just know that you are saving money for a mission for the deprived class in the society. And it might come in handy any time.
Where will the money go to?
Need not worry .You are not giving away money that easily. It rightfully your money and you have earned it. So it is up to you to decide how you are going to use it. Money is a powerful tool and it can buy you goods. Let me suggest how you can use the money fruitfully. You can……..
1.Finance a poor but prodigal kid in your neighborhood.
2.Provide instant assistance to a victim of an accident or crime. Buy him a doctor or a lawyer and fight crime.
3.Organize a blood donation camp. There is an acute imbalance between supply and demand. Also negative blood group blood is very hard to find. So just find a Sunday of your life and take up this venture.
4.Become an entrepreneur. Look around you. Find things that are lacking in society .Analyze an everyday situation and try to see how you can bridge the gaps and make money simultaneously. Your neighborhood may lack a proper garbage disposal unit, a park, ambulance services or plumbing facilities. Invest your money and sell it to your municipality for some quick profits.
5.Join or organize an NGO body with some mission. An NGO is capable of running schools, hospitals and working for the unprivileged. Set a team of 12 people and get registered as a firm. Money will keep flowing from the rich and the famous.
To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So all you have to do is open another savings account and start seeing the differences to your image in society and your bank’s main account as well.
Friday, June 11, 2010
A Restaurant experience
Whenever a person enters a restaurant he seeks food of his choice.But for me its not the same.
Like the last time when i visited,i found out my choice of placing an order was totally dependent on what a person sitting before me ordered.
So more or less i am a very less prepared for ordering something from the menu.
I returned from college, tired and alone.Whenever i am down,the best thing that accompanies me is food.So planning for an evening snack in the local restuarant was all i could think of.It was a fast-food restuarant which has a bar on the top floor.I wanted to eat just an egg-roll.I sat on a table in the ground floor and waited for someone to take my order.
There was a lone man in a table before me who sat looking at me when the waiter arrived at his table with a large plate of mixed-chowmein.Simultaneously there arrived another waiter who arrived from behind me.
My decision of eating an egg roll simply got influenced by the smell of mixed chowmein that lay before the man in front of me and i placed my order.Was it a sudden impulse or a craze over the smell of the food in the front table that drove me to order chowmein instead of egg roll, i will never understand.But only one thing i am certain.I just wanted to eat chowmein that was served to the person in front of me.
When i returned home i began to think, was there any other phenomena that drives a person to order something that he does not intend to eat but eats it by seeing someone eating the same.Maybe it could be induction effect.If a person thinks deeply,theres more to that.Food is food,be it in any form.It just needs good cooking.
Like the last time when i visited,i found out my choice of placing an order was totally dependent on what a person sitting before me ordered.
So more or less i am a very less prepared for ordering something from the menu.
I returned from college, tired and alone.Whenever i am down,the best thing that accompanies me is food.So planning for an evening snack in the local restuarant was all i could think of.It was a fast-food restuarant which has a bar on the top floor.I wanted to eat just an egg-roll.I sat on a table in the ground floor and waited for someone to take my order.
There was a lone man in a table before me who sat looking at me when the waiter arrived at his table with a large plate of mixed-chowmein.Simultaneously there arrived another waiter who arrived from behind me.
My decision of eating an egg roll simply got influenced by the smell of mixed chowmein that lay before the man in front of me and i placed my order.Was it a sudden impulse or a craze over the smell of the food in the front table that drove me to order chowmein instead of egg roll, i will never understand.But only one thing i am certain.I just wanted to eat chowmein that was served to the person in front of me.
When i returned home i began to think, was there any other phenomena that drives a person to order something that he does not intend to eat but eats it by seeing someone eating the same.Maybe it could be induction effect.If a person thinks deeply,theres more to that.Food is food,be it in any form.It just needs good cooking.
One night @ the passport office,Kolkata.
Well,we weren't exactly inside the passport office.
Getting a cab after midnight is certainly a difficult task.So 4 of my friends and myself decided to pay someone in advance.We reached the taxi-stand and decided to speak to the first person we saw.His name was Raju who wanted us to give him Rs250 and said he would not go by the meter rate.Well in my mind i calculated the rate and i felt that he was charging Rs100 more.We discussed amongst ourselves for few seconds before giving him Rs50 in advance and taking his phone number in return.We thought that he would not throw away his sim card just to cheat us by Rs50.
The 5 of us live in 5 different places so the best option to go out together was to assemble in my house.We chose our house because it is nearest to the passport office.My friends arrived at my home at around 8pm on Sunday 6th June.We played cards, had dinner and at 1am on Monday,called up Raju the cab-driver who drove us to the PASSPORT OFFICE.
Well the 5 friends studied in the same college and got job at the same company.So we had to issue a passport for ourselves.Because issuing a passport usually takes an entire year and we were in a hurry so we opted for the Tatkal scheme in which passport arrives at our home in between 1 to 14 days.Obviously this costs Rs1500 more but we had no choice.
Well let me first tell you some facts and power-play in this business.There is a middle-man (Dallal) who makes passports for you.But he does it only for the regular scheme in which your PASSPORT will arrive after a year.He charges Rs1000 for it.If you want a passport to be made by a dallal in the Tatkal scheme it would cost you around Rs3000.Also there is another type of dallal who stands for you in the queue while you are away.This type of service costs you Rs300.If you are very illiterate and need someone to fill-up the form for you,then this service costs Rs30 per form.But who would be a fool to hand over all the original documents to a dallal or illiterate enough to get our passports filled up by another man.
We reached the passport office at around 1:30am on Monday and found nobody.Searching here and there we arrived near UCO bank where a man was just sitting upright beside a sea of men in their sleeping postures.I inquired to the man where is the queue for issuing passport.Fortunately he was able to relate us to another man who was writing names for those who had just joined the queue.
He wrote down our names and warned us that if we left the place he would give our numbers to somebody else.So our mission began.
Only 60 passports are issued in a day under the tatkal scheme.Two separate days are required for issuing a passport.The first day is for issuing a token and a date when we will be able to submit our form.The second day is basically for verification for our submitted documents.
So under UCO bank,and just like the old days of Ishwar Chandra Vidwasagar who often studied under the Lamp-Post ,the five of us decided to read something to pass the time.Actually it is illegal to make a queue at midnight for the passport so a sensible person has to attend his queue near UCO bank.At 4am the queue gets shifted to the main office.
Here is an advice for a person who would want to issue a passport.He must carry at least 500 gms of newspaper,a toilet soap and 2 liters of drinking water.These things come in handy.
We had made a terrible mistake of bringing only a few pages of newspapers and by 2am we found that we needed to lie down on the pavement for a quick nap.Although the newspapers were not enough we tried to stick close so as to avoid the muddy pavement.
Before we knew it there were bloody ugly rats roaming around us.I think we had blocked their paths,but who cares.They were the typical rats of Bengal whose sizes range from a cat to a larger cat.They are scary,dirty and thrive in the local drains.
Fear gave our hope of sleep a hindrance.And we decide to give the VIPs(the rats) way.They vanished instantly like the ghosts of horror movies.Now the panic of their return anytime made us to stay awake the entire night.We played cards for sometime,strolled the open road for sometime,ate some chips for sometime and tried to talk for sometime.But doing the latter was the most difficult one as our mouths were not interested in movement due to the heavy sleep we were getting into.
We had just a few minutes before our queue would be shifted to the pavement of the passport office.So we had to extra careful not to vacate our numbers in the queue.But 2 of our friends got calls from nature at the same time.It was 4am.
Being our friend we had to give him support.Not by accompanying him to the lavatory but by keeping his line in the queue.Luckily when the shifting was going on no one realized that 2 persons were missing.Luck however did not favor the 2 guys.They had been searching for a proper bathroom for 45 minutes with a compromising situation with their nature calls.
Dawn arrived,and we still had to wait another 11 hours near the pavement of the passport office because we would get our tokens strictly after 4pm.Well that is another story and i will narrate later.
Getting a cab after midnight is certainly a difficult task.So 4 of my friends and myself decided to pay someone in advance.We reached the taxi-stand and decided to speak to the first person we saw.His name was Raju who wanted us to give him Rs250 and said he would not go by the meter rate.Well in my mind i calculated the rate and i felt that he was charging Rs100 more.We discussed amongst ourselves for few seconds before giving him Rs50 in advance and taking his phone number in return.We thought that he would not throw away his sim card just to cheat us by Rs50.
The 5 of us live in 5 different places so the best option to go out together was to assemble in my house.We chose our house because it is nearest to the passport office.My friends arrived at my home at around 8pm on Sunday 6th June.We played cards, had dinner and at 1am on Monday,called up Raju the cab-driver who drove us to the PASSPORT OFFICE.
Well the 5 friends studied in the same college and got job at the same company.So we had to issue a passport for ourselves.Because issuing a passport usually takes an entire year and we were in a hurry so we opted for the Tatkal scheme in which passport arrives at our home in between 1 to 14 days.Obviously this costs Rs1500 more but we had no choice.
Well let me first tell you some facts and power-play in this business.There is a middle-man (Dallal) who makes passports for you.But he does it only for the regular scheme in which your PASSPORT will arrive after a year.He charges Rs1000 for it.If you want a passport to be made by a dallal in the Tatkal scheme it would cost you around Rs3000.Also there is another type of dallal who stands for you in the queue while you are away.This type of service costs you Rs300.If you are very illiterate and need someone to fill-up the form for you,then this service costs Rs30 per form.But who would be a fool to hand over all the original documents to a dallal or illiterate enough to get our passports filled up by another man.
We reached the passport office at around 1:30am on Monday and found nobody.Searching here and there we arrived near UCO bank where a man was just sitting upright beside a sea of men in their sleeping postures.I inquired to the man where is the queue for issuing passport.Fortunately he was able to relate us to another man who was writing names for those who had just joined the queue.
He wrote down our names and warned us that if we left the place he would give our numbers to somebody else.So our mission began.
Only 60 passports are issued in a day under the tatkal scheme.Two separate days are required for issuing a passport.The first day is for issuing a token and a date when we will be able to submit our form.The second day is basically for verification for our submitted documents.
So under UCO bank,and just like the old days of Ishwar Chandra Vidwasagar who often studied under the Lamp-Post ,the five of us decided to read something to pass the time.Actually it is illegal to make a queue at midnight for the passport so a sensible person has to attend his queue near UCO bank.At 4am the queue gets shifted to the main office.
Here is an advice for a person who would want to issue a passport.He must carry at least 500 gms of newspaper,a toilet soap and 2 liters of drinking water.These things come in handy.
We had made a terrible mistake of bringing only a few pages of newspapers and by 2am we found that we needed to lie down on the pavement for a quick nap.Although the newspapers were not enough we tried to stick close so as to avoid the muddy pavement.
Before we knew it there were bloody ugly rats roaming around us.I think we had blocked their paths,but who cares.They were the typical rats of Bengal whose sizes range from a cat to a larger cat.They are scary,dirty and thrive in the local drains.
Fear gave our hope of sleep a hindrance.And we decide to give the VIPs(the rats) way.They vanished instantly like the ghosts of horror movies.Now the panic of their return anytime made us to stay awake the entire night.We played cards for sometime,strolled the open road for sometime,ate some chips for sometime and tried to talk for sometime.But doing the latter was the most difficult one as our mouths were not interested in movement due to the heavy sleep we were getting into.
We had just a few minutes before our queue would be shifted to the pavement of the passport office.So we had to extra careful not to vacate our numbers in the queue.But 2 of our friends got calls from nature at the same time.It was 4am.
Being our friend we had to give him support.Not by accompanying him to the lavatory but by keeping his line in the queue.Luckily when the shifting was going on no one realized that 2 persons were missing.Luck however did not favor the 2 guys.They had been searching for a proper bathroom for 45 minutes with a compromising situation with their nature calls.
Dawn arrived,and we still had to wait another 11 hours near the pavement of the passport office because we would get our tokens strictly after 4pm.Well that is another story and i will narrate later.
Worst day for the entire family
It was 7th June 2010, a typical Kolkata summer day. All of our family members had different works to do. My father had his regular work to attend. My mother had to go to Kolkata because of some construction work taking place in our new house in Kolkata. My elder brother Saumik , who is a medical student and stays in his college hostel, had an exam to attend whereas I had to go to the passport office to issue my passport.\
I left my home at 1am in the morning when all of my family members were all fast asleep. It was because in a day only 60 passports are issued under tatkal scheme and the queue gets flooded right from 12am.Also token numbers are issued from 4pm on weekdays so normally a person has to wait in the queue for nearly 14 to 16 hours straight without leaving the place else the place gets occupied by someone else. So for me it was 14 hours straight in the pavement.
Back at home at around 8am there arose a situation. Just when my mother was about to leave home for Kolkata, my eldest brother and cousin arrived to our home seeking medical advice from my elder brother Saumik because of some gynecological complications his wife was in. Apu is my cousin brother who stays with his wife and daughter just a few kilometers away from us.
He arrived at our home in a Tata Sumo .When he opened the door of his Sumo a motorcyclist from behind tried to give way which in turn led to his losing balance. There was an accident.
My father being the senior most person to witness the chaos, quickly decided to take responsibility. So he told Apu to leave the place immediately or the public may want to beat him up. This could jeopardize the health of his wife who required immediate medical assistance. Since my mom also had to go to Kolkata so my father requested my mom to board his car.
In a few second’s time our house contained only my father and the injured man from the accident. He nursed him back to normalcy .But it did not end there.
Now while in the Sumo my mother, Apu and his wife were travelling in quick speed, in an hour’s time they arrived at our house in Kolkata and my mother got down. She travels very less and so travelling afar and not knowing what was going on to her husband made her giddy. She bade goodbye to Apu and his wife and while she tried to walk to reach our new home, the summer heat made her unconscious. But before that she had tried to call up my dad, my elder brother Saumik and me. None of us had answered her call.
Saumik did not receive the call because he was still writing his exams, I could not receive the call because my phone was silent and inside my bag, my dad was not able to receive the call because just after the accident, a mob of people surrounded our house cross-questioning dad. The mob accused dad of several things including the loss of the motorist’s cell phone .A little mistake from my dad could lead to the mob getting exited and even end up beating him to death.
It was the most helpless moment of my mother’s life. When I called her back she was probably unconscious. Also, even if I knew that my mother was sick at that time I would still think twice of leaving my place in the queue because I had spent almost 10 hours then for my turn in issuing the token for my passport. Probably my dad did not even let me know that my mom and he himself were in trouble.
Fortunately the mob surrounding my dad started getting less hostile because he had given the man from the accident a first-aid. And my mother was in the new home and under the protection of our newly sun blocked roof and a soothing fan.
While these events were going on, Apu had arrived in my elder brother’s medical college along with his wife. The college where my elder brother study is a government college and the procedures are quite lengthy. In a government hospital all kinds of treatment are available so if a person comes with chest problem and require a broken-bone treatment, he can access both these features which cannot be found with specialists. So choosing this medical college was obvious. Apu left his wife in the parking lot while he stood in the queue for issuing a ticket for treatment. But patience was dying down because his sick wife was still in the Sumo and waiting for treatment. He called my brother several times but his exam had not got over yet. So Apu left immediately to settle for another private nursing home. He was really annoyed with my elder brother.
I was still in the pavement trying to dodge the summer heat and waiting for another 4 hours before the counter would allow my turn in the passport office. The summer heat was getting unbearable and I grew a lot of rashes and heat burns. I felt dizzy and unoccupied. My stomach was going upside down not just because I was hungry but I was having some digestion problems.
It was at 4:30pm that my turn arrived. The passport officer asked me some random questions to which I spoke very softly knowing that I had undergone a nervous breakdown after spending 14 hours on the foot-path, sitting, standing and sleeping. I quietly left after receiving the token, visited my mom and went to sleep instantly.
What a bad day it was, not just me but my mom, dad, cousin brother and his wife. Not to forget that my brother, Saumik also had written a bad exam while planning hard to attend Apu and his wife because they were in trouble.
It was a day that I spent 14 hours in the Kolkata footpath. It was a day when my mom got unconscious and got help from none of us. It was a day when my cousin’s wife could not receive any medical treatment and my cousin spent the whole day searching for a proper government hospital. Also it was the same day my dad could have easily become the victim of the mob's fury and my two brothers would end up fighting with each other. Luckily no one was hurt and Apu’s wife received treatment on the next day.
Friday, June 4, 2010
"A-SEXUAL REPRODUCTION for Humans" HAvE HeArd oF iT ??
WARNING ! Bad Guys do not read this.
If you are an intelligent man/woman you will know that the above two paragraph relate to something.If you guessed Asexual Reproduction i would agree with you.Here is how a man can have asexual reproduction.
Paragraph1:-Abortion is a very deadly sin.It kills someone.President Obama or Mother Teresa would not be born had their mothers aborted them.In today's age mostly contraceptive pill ads have dominated the pharma ads.There is always news of a girl being isolated from her family or friends due to unwanted pregnancy.
Paragraph2:-For a man ,a girl is like an idol he keeps in the house.He will worship her when he is happy and will blame her for his mistakes when he is a failure.It means that he needs her or else he is nowhere in society.Women come in various shape and sizes.Also in various forms like mother,sister,spouse or daughter.
If you are an intelligent man/woman you will know that the above two paragraph relate to something.If you guessed Asexual Reproduction i would agree with you.Here is how a man can have asexual reproduction.
Step 1: Do not betray your pregnant woman/spouse.Leaving her at this stage may not be the case of rape,but a classic case of child killing which is not a good thing to do.Have Asexual Reproduction insted.Marry her and she has already produced your child.
Step 2: Stand by a girl who is in distress.By a distressed girl i mean who has been ostracized by her family or friends.Give her family.Give her your family.Very soon its you, her and her child all in Asexual reproduction.
Step 3:Any girl in your locality had got raped and pregnant??She deserves normalcy.She is confused what to do,abort her child or fight the rapist.Its a sin to kill a child,be it the rapist's child.So as an educated man give her support so that she does not feel guilty about killing the child in her.Do asexual reproduction.
Step 4:Adopt a child if you want to reproduce but you see hundreds of children in the slum having no food to eat or dress to wear.How about the idea ????
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Confused State
Just like the legendary 'Devdas' got spoilt drinking milk (read alcohol) after his long lasting girlfriend left him for another man ,theres another tragic story of a man i know who is Devdas of this age.
His relationship with his girlfriend lasted for about 4 years.His name was 'X 'while the girl of his dream was 'Y'.Y's dad is our family friend.I do not meet my friend X on a regular basis so i know that the couple are doing fine.
But few days ago when i find Y's marriage invitation card in my house i am the least bothered to read who she is getting married to.I just read the date and venue of the marriage.
On the marriage day I enter the reception hall to find my friend X in a dress typically resembling the guests of the house.When i ask him what are the plans for honey-moon he says "I dunno what to do,friend".
I am a bit surprised with his behavior.A few yards before us the marriage ceremony just started and my friend X stood before me.I got a bit confused.Did i come to the wrong marriage ???
I turned around and looked back at him.My friend X had a tear in his eye.
I was now clear what the confusion was about.I said "Do you need help?" to which he politely replied
"ITS JUST A SPEC OF DUST IN MY EYE".
His relationship with his girlfriend lasted for about 4 years.His name was 'X 'while the girl of his dream was 'Y'.Y's dad is our family friend.I do not meet my friend X on a regular basis so i know that the couple are doing fine.
But few days ago when i find Y's marriage invitation card in my house i am the least bothered to read who she is getting married to.I just read the date and venue of the marriage.
On the marriage day I enter the reception hall to find my friend X in a dress typically resembling the guests of the house.When i ask him what are the plans for honey-moon he says "I dunno what to do,friend".
I am a bit surprised with his behavior.A few yards before us the marriage ceremony just started and my friend X stood before me.I got a bit confused.Did i come to the wrong marriage ???
I turned around and looked back at him.My friend X had a tear in his eye.
I was now clear what the confusion was about.I said "Do you need help?" to which he politely replied
"ITS JUST A SPEC OF DUST IN MY EYE".
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