North Kolkata Calling !!

A few days back while returning from my morning walk I saw a boy and a girl beggiing alms. It was quite cold yet the boy,  around 4/5 years old,was weariing nothing and the girl, few years older,had an old  pant only. I decided to give them some warm clothes. I brought them to my house and my wife gave them a lot of clothes to wear. We enquired about their parents but failed. Yesterday I was shocked to find the children with a lady (probably their  mother) carrying a lot of old clothes to a nearby market.

It is true that we very easily blame our failures to Destiny.Probably that is  not always true. Often our lack of effort or insufficient knowledge may be the reason . Serious self examination is required to find the truth. Could we have done better had we really tried ? Had we done some real thinking ? Wouldn't things been  better had our attitude been  different ? If we know ourself better -know how to use our mental powers and in the right direction-life would have been  different ?     

We were school going  kids when we heard of a strange incident.  Even  our elders seemed to be often  talking about it in a concerned manner. I somehow  still remembered it which  now I am going to relate. There were many eminent hotels & restaurants in Calcutta during those days too. However there was a particular hotel which suddenly came to focus. Customers seemed to have taken  some kind of fascination on the delicious  food that it served. Finally the secret came out when a senior police officer was having his lunch. In his mutton  curry he noticed a finger of a little boy ! He became suspicious  and decided to inspect  the kitchen .On further inspection  he found the body of a boy inside a covered drum.He was shocked to find the hotel serving human meat. When the news came out there was a public cry to throw the owner before a hungry tiger. And exactly that was done ....

It was wednesday when my wife and myself decided to  spend some quality time together. We finally choose to watch a movie at Star Theater that was not very far from the place where we lived. After primary enquiry we came to know that Doob with Irrfan Khan  & Parno Mitra was the latest show. Hence we entered the hall with the hope to spend few moments of entertainment ! Our hopes were shattered within  few minutes when we found ourselves face to face with an Art film which needed a lot of attention and intellectual alertness .We however took it in good spirit and settled down  as calmly as possible to watch the on going scenes. It would't be out of place to recall that we grew up  watching Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak etc and had repeated debates about their details over cups of coffee at Coffee House .Those were the days when  Shakti Chattopadhyay,Sunil Ganguly, Soumitra Chatterjee, Aparna Sen etc...

                                       This is the 237th year Durga Puja !   Participants in Music Adda were : Indrajit Basu-Flute.Tabla-Ujjwal Bharati.Kunal Roy-    Vocal.Archi Deb-Vocal.Souptik Ghosal-Sitar.Soumen Mukherjee accompanied on Tabla. -                   8      

Gone are the days when we used to call this Kite puja day. It was quite a day for us Calcuttans when every roof tops were filled with old and young. Bho kattas were often heard from houses when a kite was overpowered and the winners shouted. Gone are those days where festivities began from that very day-I mean the Durga Puja !

God .. it really has become quite impossible to decide what one should eat and what one shouldn't ! We are prey to advertisement & various opinions of doctors !!

Hilsas selling as low as Rs 250 per Kg in Kolkata. 

I believe in the saying :- People's need for help today -metally & physically, spiritually & materially -is perhaps greater and more urgent than ever before.Yet however may others  try to help-in the long run it is only the person himself -who can work out his  salvation.And that is SELF HELP which men and women need today.Even the most powerful man in the world is bound to feel this at times !

Everyone is fighting for battle in life. The real struggle is an inward struggle & conflict. It is a battle of reason against unreason. In other words the conflict of faith and doubt. It is also a fight between courage and despair !

Along with Titanic 1500 bottles Wine, 15000 bottles Champaign 20000 bottles Beer and 70 crates of Koniac-too went down. Charles Joughin, the chief Baker, came to know he had 2 hours to his life. He took his dear bottle of whiskey and slowly emptied it-hoping to ease the death pain. Although he was in the ice cold water for quite sometime-the  alcohol inside his body finally saved him.(A newspaper source )

Two friends were travellig  through a dence forest.One was very  nervous and saw phatoms in every corner. The other was stronger  than him. When  they were practically at the end of their journey they saw somethig unusual. The weaker of the two fainted. The other one  though frightend  determined to stand his ground and face it. Finally the moon came out and he found it to be a piece of paper floating in the air. The darkness was the the cause of this. This often happens in our lives too. Things that frighten us the most are frequetly those  of which  we should be least afraid !

Charak Puja along with Bengali Year Ending  is held at Beadon Street every year. This is being held for more than 200 years and  people from all over attend the event with eagerness. A Charak Tree is implanted at Chatu Babu's Bazar where Sanyasis offer Pujas and swings round the tree with rope tied around their body.An old Mela too is held along the street. Programs

Chatu Babu is probably the first Bengali Sitarist.Hence Sitar plays an important part in the Bari's every function.

If you are an artist and face noise problem ...wonder how you would  feel ! I personally felt the same -day by day, when airplanes often flies above me,  making great noise. Of course I cannot complain-since I am aware of the  importance of flights. But ..I believe that time has come to do something !!  I mean -can't we invent some method to put a silencer or something  suitable to stop the sound ! Sorry if I sound ignorant ! But modern technology has given us hope !!

Mr. N, R, Narayana Murty's comment that Indian Software companies should henceforth recruit American residents in US, British people in Britain, Canadians in Canada etc. That probably seems the only way IT companies can become truely Multinational. In order to do that we should  stop using H-1B visas and sending large number of Indians to deliver services to those countries.   

The Puja ,begun by Ramdulal De (Deb) , dates back to 1780. Ramdulal is considered as the man who practically pioneered the Indo-American Trade Relation. 

Wonder why young generation is turning away from food ! During our age ( some 40 years ago ) we relished food like anything. Just a recipe  of mutton was enough to keep our tongues wagging. Or maybe a Khicdi ( in a rainy day ) along with hilsa- was enough to tantalize us sufficiently !

This cassette was produced by me for the sole purpose of implanting Indian Culture & Value to my children !

It was always a pleasure to visit Nahoum's on the Christmas morning ! But not this year.  Since 1954 we have been visiting Nahoum's with our father friends etc . It was a pretty good experience ..for quite   long long long time.  Somehow things have changed and my experience was not ..well not to my expectation !! I especially missed my Chicken Patties .  Let's hope things will be OK once again.