SG OwnBlog

Of late I realize how attached I get to people, places and even things.  This is not just limited to stuff that I care about, but also mundane things that I don’t really generally much about either.  On most days, I am not even conscious about it. But when I am, I find it increasingly weird.  This hits different than hoarding though. Garbage is something I can easily get rid off. It is just that the definition of what I consider garbage is limited. More worryingly, I find accepting stuff (or God forbid, people) that I considered a treasure can now safely be put in the bin extremely difficult. This was always the case to an extent, it is not new. Just that at my age I just have come to this self realization on my own.  What do I need to do about it? I am not sure to be honest. On one hand, I agree, obsessively being attached to anything or anyone is not healthy. But, at the same time, Life still works, relatively okay. Of course, inanimate objects are better in this r...

I used to hear this a lot - for Bengalis (Bengali Hindus), Saraswati Pujo is equivalent to the Valentine's Day . Girls would wear yellow sarees and braid their hair, while guys will be wearing yellow punjabees and white dhoti or pajama.  This time on Feb 14, 2024, they fell on the same day. Woke up pretty early in the morning, showered, wore the dhuti and uttiyo and did Saraswati Puja. Most of the mantras I have got by heart now. After the pushpanjali , I was done and we (my mother and I) could then break our fast with the Mahaprasad . Took a day off for the day, but still joined for a quick catchup call.  This is how she looks like. There is a bit of a history here. Usually, Hindus get the vigraha from the shop every year, worship and then do visarjan (immersion) in a river or pond. However, she is with us since I was in class IX. When I was in Standard X, my grandmother had died. As part of the souch (relatively inauspicious greiving period), we could not get a new vigra...

I was off for a while. I mean, I was not. I painted an old shoecase that now looks a gorgeous white cupboard. I fixed my bicycle.  But beyond this, I did not do much beyond what my work paid me to do. So here I am, about to touch a new year of my life - and I am itching to get back into the habit of writing again.  Not just writing stuff here, but also making applications or music.  In fact, after a very long time I feel like sketching again. I think I am going to sketch my wife. Or may be finish my ex wife's sketch. I dunno. But I am gonna get started with a pencil tomorrow. Thanks to chatgpt, I have restarted my application brainstorming and dusted my old Github repos.  I think this is going to be a good run this time.

Imagine this scenario. You gift your spouse something and decorate your home the way she likes it (lets assume). Then you text her saying that you have done this. You would expect her to feel nice and may be ... I don't know - thank you, at the very least. What if instead she directly questions you why you had changed your contact name in her mobile phone without asking her permission? You will probably be stunned by the question. You may take a couple of minutes to check if she is actually serious or just pulling your leg. An uncomfortable realisation dawns on you. This is not a joke. She directly assumes that you have unlocked her phone with her passkey, went to her contacts application and changed your name and then once again locked the phone back on. And this is when you don't know her key, and have never touched her phone. You check if this is a prank or some kind of nightmare induced by REM sleep. Naah, no luck. This is real. The basic questions that come to your mind, b...

Time affects everything and everyone We all grow up. After college, friends go places, to different states and far away countries. You get less and less time. Some go for higher studies, again, in other states. Parents get older. Then friends start getting married. First it’s usually the girls. One by one, your crushes tie the knot. You dismiss it, you are still young. Then your guy friends start getting married too. Your circle shrinks. In the end you look around. All you are left with are ideological nutjobs, immature imbeciles, idealistic crazies, bohemian hippies, or other misfits. Do you really belong here? Okay, that was too harsh. But you think. You say to yourself, ‘ dil to baccha hai jee ’.  Okay, fair enough. And then... Then, you see a growing pot belly. Something you always despised. Your dad had one (he still does). After taking a shower, you look at the mirror. You are losing hair. You search on Amazon for hair growing products - it is too much of a hassle. Hair trans...

Times surely have changed. I never really expected Mumbai to shut down to quickly and completely. Sure, you see reports of traffic jams even today. But there is no denying that things have taken a turn for the worse. This was how Phoenix Market City, Kurla looked like. And this was last week. This is me going to office on March 13. I have got permission for Work from Home. I don't know if that is good enough. So I have my friends here in the apartment and my laptop for company. Food or grocery delivery is difficult now. Big Basket has stopped delivery temporarily. Grofers was still in service. Ordered a few things but I am supposed to get them on 1st April only. Travelling is out of the question. Had it been earlier, I would probably have moved home. Now that is nearly impossible. Domestic airlines are shutting down from Wednesday onward. International flights had stopped since March 22 (my birthday). Trains have also stopped. So, I am stuck here. I don't see t...

Life throws new challenges everytime you decide to do something new. When you plan to try anything new, you area aware of the challenges that you are likely to face. But Life usually will have other plans. When you expect a right turn, Life will show you a left. When you least expect x to turn up at your door, you find y. And then there is a dead end job. This is one job that I at times enjoy. Because I get to work directly in the technologies that I like to work with. At the same time, I feel terrible about the senior management and my future prospects here. What is the worst is that I don't see any way out of this either. It is not that I have not forwarded my resume over to the other firms. I have. But I have not received any meaningful reply yet. Any response that I have so far been able to elicit are of no interest to me whatsoever. I feel I have to chalk out a path for myself again. Problem is, the task becomes more and more difficult with age. I can take less risk...

A group of young guys had gathered around a lifeless body on the road. A minivan had just hit a girl and sped off. The girl bounced on the road and rolled around once and came to a stop. The rest of the girls on the street scattered. A couple of guys came to check on the girl. A crowd gathered and collected what little valuables she had left with her. A girl saw it all from her second floor window on Sheil road, Liverpool. Natalie was aware of the hazards of what she used to do. She knew the roads were dangerous, especially at night. But then, day or night - she was never truly safe. Her escape was only in heroin. She did not dare to build a world of her own by her own means. She tried before. It never worked out. So she had transferred the responsibility to what society calls ‘substance’. Heroin gave her a cushion, her sleep and let her keep her sanity. Or so she used to think. Natalie was alone. Her addiction was not. It came with dependence, depression, homelessness and reject...

Amar choto bou chole bake bake... If you are looking for some meaning in the words written above - please stop. It is of no use. This is a short dedicated to my wife whom I did not get to marry. Being typically Bengali, she is puchu to me. If you are reading this, please keep in my mind that I am not one bit drunk. And I don't particularly feel like writing either. This you see here is not prose. Just an open faucet. Or a gaping wound sp... okay. Scratch that. Open faucet it is. She has got a small round face. Her eyes are symmetrical. A bit like almonds. They look lively and restless when open and calm or serene when closed. The nose is neither pointed not large. It sits right in the middle of the face with even elevations on both sides. It is not too small to notice nor is it too large to get in the way. Her lips are small, but not thin. There is an amount of volume to them that you would not usually expect. Her face looks normal something from a distance. It looks s...

I have a beautiful small house in the hills. It is about 3 km from Manali, in Himachal Pradesh. It is not much. Probably calling it a cottage is stretching it too far. I have got a couple of bedrooms, a small drawing room cum kitchen where we dine as well. There is storage and a small garage that is mostly empty. I have got another small room with just a single bed and a study built on the first floor. It is just about ten feet by ten feet but it has got a retractable ceiling and a wall made of glass with the rest of the roof being something of a balcony. This is the place where I like to spend most of my time. x In the front, there is a garden with some flowers in the front and trees lining the boundary wall. My mother has planted a few vegetables in the back that we regularly use in the kitchen. We mostly require only rice and eggs from the market. A typical day starts with me waking up and going for a morning stroll. I often spend my nights in the room on the ro...

I met Ali in the Leh airport,he drove us in our hotel. The very next morning we went for sightseeing. He used to drive very fast. I repeatedly told him to drive slow, he followed for  a short time; again continued in his own speed. On the way to Nubra valley the road was very stiff and the altitude was very high. As I was sick before our tour it was difficult for me to bear that fast ride.After coming back I complained our tour  operator for his driving and asked for another driver. Pangong Tso Iti Sidhartha Where I am, dogs are as well Our tour operator assured me that he would tell him to drive  comfortably.The next day Ali came drove the car and I enjoyed my entire remaining  trip. Sometimes he used to push the accelerator and I just told "Ali.....ahista"...he became consous. We used to chat during this long drive. I asked him "How old are you Ali?he replied "22years mam."He told me "At the age of 16 I started driving w...

It is mid March in Mumbai. It is supposed to be hot and humid. As it usually is all the year round with monsoon and December exceptions. But it's cloudy today. To be fair, yesterday was also cloudy but today is dark. As dark as it usually is just before a downpour. It may rain and I don't have an umbrella with me. It's not that a change of weather is bad. I like rains. But the suddenness is rather strange. I am not the only one confused with the weather change. The birds seem to be totally messed up by the onset of darkness. It was about 9 AM in the morning. The birds had just perched on the trees for their daily routine. The cloud came. They possibly understood that to be the beginning of the evening and end of day. Next thing I know, I see hundreds (yes, literally hundreds) of birds rushing back to their nests. This is not a unique scene. I have seen this umpteen number of times in the monsoons. This is the first time I have noticed it in March (as far as I can remember) ...

This is my first post this year. I know it's late. It has been a long time. I have paid the domain renewal about a couple of months back. But I did not feel like writing something new. The urge just did not come. It is not that I suddenly feel like I must write something. But this seems as good as a time as any, For one, my savings are getting better. This is despite all my financial mismanaging. None of that is very surprising. My personal expenses are ridiculously low. So that helps. Whatever high expenses are there are entirely towards rent and travel expenses to and from home. That includes the flight fares. I got my confirmation in Axis as well. It was a simple uneventful letter that I got from my CTO. The contents were pretty ordinary. But it felt reassuring nonetheless. My Dad also retired from his 30+ year job with SBI and is not enjoying the benefits of retired life with my mother back in Kolkata. About time. He has earned it.

This is a guest post by my mother, Lily Ray Gangopadhyay. Once again in Mirik after 17 years, I felt very nostalgic because when we used to visit this place, my sons were little kids. Mirik is one of my favorite places. In 17 years it has obviously changed a lot, but still it remains sparsely populated,little crowded and a clean place.   Dad striking a pose (caption by Sarthak) Since this hill station is not at very high altitude one can enjoy a very comfortable stay here and the roads are very inviting.The lake is the main attraction of this place, the Buddha monastery,view point are very nice. I was lucky that the weather was so clear that Mt. Kanchenjunga was clearly seen all the time. Just for a restful walking around the lake, sitting on the grass and gazing at the bushes of pine and fur trees and the peaks of the Himalayas, this is my most preferred destination. How to go>> one can take a taxi , share taxi or bus from NJP statio...

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (henceforth named as Mr. Shankar) is not new to controversy. Not even with topics like homosexuality. What the event was At an event in the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Ravi Shankar gave a talk on the occasion of the Nehru Memorial lecture on 13 th November, 2017. One among the audience lamented that he was ill-treated since he was known to be a homosexual. Then Mr. Shankar stated that he needed to accept himself as he was and love knew no boundaries. Let’s see and hear what he said… Let’s quote Mr. Shankar verbatim as reported by some of the newspapers . ‘ You treat yourself better, doesn’t matter how others treat you. You don’t think you are sick or something’s wrong with you. If you stand up, nobody can insult you… But if you feel weak and meek, and if you feel bad about yourself, nobody can make you feel better.’ Indian Express reported this in addition as well. Let me quote it directly here as well. ‘ This is your tendency now. Just ack...

Kolkata is a busy city. It is not as busy as any of the other Indian metropolises or even some of the other major cities of India. There are few industries left. So not many people from other states come to set up shop. Instead, the young and the educated leave the city for jobs in Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi. Among those who are left, no matter what, are the traffic policemen and women who patrol the city and maintain law and order. Their job is most challenging during the ten days of Durga Puja. Even though most of the police force is Hindu, they are barely able to celebrate the Puja the way we are able to.  The city is 'sensitive' and the traffic snarls that the city suffers makes their presence mandatory. In numbers that are greater than usual. The consequences of their deployment is felt right away. The cars move, the jams are reduced to a minimum and hooliganism is reduced. But all this comes at a cost. A cost to the men, women and even kids w...

This is a story that goes way back to 2001 or 2002. I was in the sixth standard. Yes, I do remember it quite vividly. It was funny, painful and a bit out of the ordinary – basically it had all the ingredients that allows a memory to stick a great while longer than others. In the process of my recollection, I may miss out a few pieces here and there, but it will be pretty accurate. Of course, the intention of this exercise is in no way to humiliate anyone else or point out the flaws about others’ actions. I now find it hilarious and I think so would you. I studied in the Vivekananda Mission School, a private English medium school in Joka, on the outskirts of Kolkata. If you know the location of the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata, you know the location of my school. I studied there till the twelfth standard. We had many students in our class (sixth). We were divided into several sections, ranging from A to F (not sure if it was F or G). But anyway, I was in section B, the ...

There are things that keep happening to us. It does not matter if we end up liking or disliking them in any way. In any case, now my life has gotten kind of slower. In fact this is the story for the whole nation as well. The de-monetization thing is over and there are no major hartals and bandhs disrupting lives (as usual). In my academic life as well, nothing much is going on, except that my MTP is proceeding at a slow pace. I am trying to write a paper on Big Data including census data and some statistics. I ain't all that good in the latter but there are people here who I think will be able to help me out. Over the past couple of months I have been able to gain a really terrible habit of sleeping really late, almost into the morning. That is very Hitlerish, and that is one reason I hate it much. I must get back to a more sensible timetable. And this post is more of a pledge to myself than anything else. Putting myself, on my own effort, to a constructive lifestyle is easier...

So yeah, this year pretty much flew away. I barely noticed the time the past twelve months. It was really engaging. Even though I can remember that I did not make the best use of the time I had available to me. I need to do some good time management. Anyway, there are a few plans that I have been thinking about. YouTube sounds promising and rather interesting. My voice sounds pretty good online for some reason. And this is not just me speaking but a number of my viewers as well. Apparently it has got a certain bass to it that sounds good on speakers and headphones. That's good I guess. I started a new channel - The Light Indian Gamer where I play these casual games - nothing fancy, just the regular stuff that anybody can play on pretty much any computer. I don't have a dedicated graphics solution. So that makes me limited to a few choices - but that is perfectly okay in this category. Graphics intensive games are in any case out of my league. They are not 'casual' e...

Challenging times are back. And this time I have got a few options. Not sure that this is a good thing or not. I am honestly in a fix and at times fewer options may be better. Not that I am actually complaining much. This was something that I predicted back in the day as well. In fact I worked to have these options open for myself. But now that they are here, I am hoping that I figure out what I want. One option is simple - go for the placements, sit for all the tests. Hopefully I will get through one of the interviews. Then I get a decent job and that's about it. The other option is to look for higher studies. There are opportunities that are there. I have offers from Japan and some really chances in Israel. I can also sit for the tests like GRE and qualify for admission into some of the top US or European Universities. However, I am not entirely sure that I want that. I do like the feeling of being a research scholar abroad, but at the same time, I feel bad to think about...