SG OwnBlog

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...

Professional videos should look good. That is obviously the conventional wisdom. And there is nothing particularly wrong with that either. But there is something we tend to miss often. Professional videos should have even better sound. Of course, one can excuse him/herself by stating that their videos are not meant to be of a great quality. But here's the problem. If you are shooting and sharing with friends and family, that is one thing. But if you wish to create a channel and you actually CAN do your stuff properly - you should take care about the metadata. YouTube channel owners should ideally consider their work as semi professional - especially if they ask for subscribers and likes in the video. Let's assume we (the audience) know that you know about your thing. Say you are a cook, as in the video below. The cooking skills are good, the location is nice, the camera angles are standard, the animations are good and video quality crisp. But what really lets the vi...

Introduction It is the land of enlightenment, the land of higher education, of spirituality. It is the land of immense wealth, great architecture, the birthplace of several faiths, the land where research on astronomy, literature, math, general sciences and philosophy flourished. The land is not Greece. It is not ancient Rome, Egypt, Sumer, Mesopotamia, or even the Central Americas. The land rests today between two states in the Indian Union - between Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal; the Indian state of Bihar. This is a referenced article. For list of references, please check this link . Nalanda University - What remains of it, that is Bihar has since earned a terrible reputation. No amount of whitewashing will remove that stain. It is now known as the dacoits’ paradise, the land of hooligans, bad roads, caste and religious strife, rampant crimes against women and almost all the social evils that one can probably think of. However, Bihar was nothing like this. Or at least it ...