Unity in diversity has also other manifestations

I just watched a documentary on BBC on a lonely Saturday evening.  In it, two contrasting Indian girls’ lives and careers were portrayed on equal footings. These two girls have their goals and preparations which are poles apart; yet they both are right and honest to their views. 

One of them has an upbringing in a traditional, orthodox family, under the boundary set by a Hindu priest father. She motivates, and trains young girls the importance and basics of fights - mainly for self-defense. This her father and society oppose. 

The other girl has contested for Miss India beauty competition. Interestingly, her upbringing was very middle class, and apparently comprises struggles. One of her attitude development trainings, shown in the documentary, struck me. It was a training on how to look sexy. Here I was expecting the usual in that they will be taught how to stand, how to look, how much their chests should be up, etc. 

In contrast, the trainer was repeatedly emphasizing them to look happy, show energy, etc. It never struck me earlier that the exhibition of our inner happiness, inherent energy can make us look 'sexy'. These basic traits of ours, whose embroidery and maintenance require only little bit of self-effort, can do so many amazing things, including making us positive, healthy, magnetic, as well as 'sexy'.     

An ex post facto Taksim that was refrigerated in my memory

Today's violent Taksim taps on my shoulder to look back into that lovely day I spent in this vibrant place of Istanbul.

Date: A day in July or August in 2010. It was about 5 or 6 o'clock in the afternoon.

Both the sun and the breeze have befriended today to keep Taksim cool and calm.

People are either rushing for something or running away from someone even on their way back home. It reminds me of New York or Mumbai.

Overwhelming yellow Taksi(s) are constantly adding the rhyme to the name of the place.  

None of the pictures represent
Taksim, but Turkey for sure.

I have just returned from a grand ‘business less, pleasure more’ trip from Marmaris.

Marmaris is more beautiful than what I was encouraged with. The day I started a long bus trip from Istanbul to there, I eventually generated an uncanny curiosity about that place by the colossal excitements of all my navigators after hearing about my journey. It was like all the listeners had been mesmerized by the traveler, not by the caliber of the storyteller but by the prior knowledge of the story.  

A land gains more beauty than its landscape when its beholder enjoys the feeling that he is there with lovely acquaintances. This formula works in reverse gear as well such that a handsome nature can rapidly transform an acquaintance into a friend.

When you are happy, show it. It makes others happy too. I wrongly thought only few are wiser with such philosophy. Everybody here inherits  this talent knowingly or unknowingly. People are warm and happy, and share their happiness with their guests. 

When in Turkey, do what the Turkish do. I had also started smoking heavily.

Putting incoherently few thoughts

Have you ever thought of waking up in the morning and saying 'I will do the regular stuff, yet make this day one of the best of my life'?

Have you ever thought of putting yourself in your future and looking at your present?

Have you ever thought of those possibilities that could have made you something, but you have not explored yet?

Its like that ancient Arabic proverb, I've just learned from a movie named 'Cemetery Junction', "throw your heart out in front of you and run ahead to catch it".

When you come to a junction in a running traffic and you don't know what is your right path, do you always continue, or you take the turn? Apart from a phony connection with life, perhaps this answer has a very little relevance to our life's voyage. However, my point is that more than a clear plan, a clear vision is more precious. Vision is the big picture, the big ambition; plans are little details that grow along the way and create waves.

Do you know the common feature that threads all those successful movies; irrespective of a comedy or a tragedy story? Its that story telling capability that touches our emotion. Here fiction and reality has a strong overlap. In every details of our life, if our emotion response to it, you are the hero of your story.

No matter how much path humanity has traveled, we have always carried the same sail. Here lovers still feel the pain, victors always undergo the struggle, mothers still breastfeed their child, and people pursue the feeling of duty.

Its not being inspired is what makes you special, remaining inspired forever is what makes the difference.

Defining money

You can become younger without money,
but you cant grow old without money.   

~ Cat on the hot tin roof.

If you born poor, its not your fault,
But if you die poor, its your fault.

~ Bill Gates.

Patience is a constant virtue which has no evolution

Much can be said or talked about today's aggressive world, where people are constantly accelerating their ambition, need, and greed. Information has made ways to reach people. Knowledge has become easily accessible, yet self-effort is required. We always find ways to entertain ourselves, only its means evolve. In a word, the word is progressive, the power changes place, in my opinion, in a right wave, despite the resistance of traditional sloggers.

Yet, things emerge to be complicated and unbearable. Those who suffer in it, are the real heros; the rest make money through it by writing a novel, or making a movie, or creating a political issue with it. There is a third and miserable kind, the common middle class who has nothing to achieve or lose, and who only talk about it in a dinner party and establish their knowledge and care about the happenings.

Only those who believe in his/her ability, and not after a quick flash to reveal it, carry the flag all the way.  Its extremely hard to distinguish them at an early stage, but this is the way it is, and the champions are subject to go through it.

           

Kid Has Gone to Colors

The Kid has gone to the Colors
And we don't know what to say;
The Kid we have loved and cuddled
Stepped out for the Flag today.
We thought him a child, a baby,
With never a care at all,
But his country called him man-size
And the Kid has heard the call.

~ William M. Herschell.

A simple diet chart

When I realized that its hard for me to adapt a time-table in daily life, I choose the alternative, making a diet chart.

Someone once said one hour of daily work-out and 8 hours of sleep are necessary for our body. But maintaining a good and light diet may allow us not to be so active or lazy.

With a little bit of reading, listening and watching, I discover diet is the best exercise.

For girls especially but not particularly: Having a good diet-list is more advisable than reducing the content of a meal.

It also helps to keep a good skin-texture which is always better than using chemically modified lotions and creams.

So here is the ideal diet-list that is easy to maintain in our daily life.

1. Water: Drink lots of water.

2. Colored vegetables: Try to alternate the color of the vegetables of your daily menu between beat, carrot, spinach, tomato, broccoli, pepper etc. But avoid white colored vegetables like potato, cauliflower etc. Same goes to your list of fruits.

3. Fish with no chips: Fish contains omega-x and is good for health. Be careful of the big sea-fishes which may contain heavy metals. Try to get a google search  result on the latest status of the federal government's inspection procedure of the fish you like.

4. Avoid meat: Especially red meat. Instead eat beans, lentils to make up for the protein.

5. Not more than three eggs per week.

6. Green tea: I am finding more and more that green tea not only contains antioxidant but hot tea may also help digest the meal. If caffeine is a problem for you, take decaffeinated one which retains all others properties. Ideally having green tea or other means of taking antioxidant in every 4 hours interval is advisable. My mentor carries a mug filled with green tea leaves all day and all places.

7. Yogurt: A doctor once told me that 'Dannon' company produces yogurt which contains all our necessary bacterias.

8.  Split your meal: Never eat full. Split your one meal into at-least three meals in every 1-2 hours. And the amount of your meal should gradually decrease from breakfast to dinner.

9. Early dinner: Avoid having dinner late. In fact by the time you go to bed, you should be almost hungry.

10. Sleep well & long: One busy person who works for more than 9 hours, needs about 8 hours of sleep. Allow only couple of hours of errorbar to your bed/get-up time from working-days to holidays. 

11. Exercise: In such light diet chart, we may not need to do heavy exercise. Light work-out but regular such as yoga, swimming, biking, walking should suffice for our body. Most importantly, always do exercise in full stomach but after an hour later to your meal.

12. Happy life-style: Laugh, love and be friendly. Happy company, pursuing hobbies add spices to one's health. As much a healthy physique makes a happy mind, the reverse is equally scientific.

Moving to Los Alamos

Copyright: Brainchild

"It's an odd feeling-farewell-there is some envy in it. Men go off to be tested for courage and if we're tested at all, it's for patience, for doing without, for how well we can endure loneliness."— Isak Dinesen

I am writing this piece of my odyssey while my flight has settled down in the up and the pilot has given the permission to turn on the laptop.

In the last several weeks I had often imagined this moment of sitting in the airplane and inscribing my feelings of leaving Boston emotionally.

But the nature thesaurus the word ‘reality’ as the antonym of ‘imagination’. The dark environ and an eerie silence here give me nothing but the sleepy eyes and dry emotions to write.

But my predetermination urges me to continue this writing.

Boston is a place where everyone likes to be in and so I did. In these six years I have done nothing different than what most international crowd does; so I have no material to share.

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” ~ Oscar Wilde.

The feelings of missing Boston has not cluttered yet in my mind, 'cause I am hoping to be connected to the people and places of Boston more than that at Los Alamos.

Although, no matter how frequently you travel to a place or live there, if you do not have a home, you will never perceive the feeling of calling it your home. It becomes a Cuckoo’s nest.

The surrounding of Boston have never attracted me much, mostly because the artificiality that lies in mastering a beauty is nothing but a manifestation of human creativity. That is art. The surprise that sets in a natural evolution of the scenery, which I see more in mid-west US, is something that seduces me most.

Human being is an evolving creature; while the transformation of his outlook takes several generations to be visible, a human mind can grow older in the flicker of an eye. Sometimes a day makes you wiser than those years of lessons.

This last sentence is one of the many valuables that I have gained and grasped in Boston and I have enjoyed it.

inscribing my writing

I will write today some verse of my self-estimation with a sense of affection to it, shadowed by my own disapproval.

Once, in response to my draft of a research paper, my co-adviser sent me a note of appraisal, which I rather approved as an encouragement "your writing fluctuates a lot, but when you put your mind to it, its a great pleasure working with you".

I was humbled and honored but conceived it least, yet considered it as a endorsement to keep doing.

His kind words came to me less as an appraisal because I ever expected least a good evaluation of my thorny writing ability; but I received it as an encouragement as it backed me to go on with my own way of expressing things with courage, imagination and vigor.

But to some extent, the statement made me fool in many circumstances. I began to involve my mind in to it more intensely to improve this ability of mine, sometimes with a bit of self-push, or sometimes voluntarily. But, I ended up inscribing most the worst.

I began to realize, when I feel an inner urge to write and all my emotions and brain participate naturally to it, I compose satisfactorily.

To a person who has learned first the alphabets 'A-B-C-D' in his high school and achieved this degree of recognition from an native speaker of that language, is indeed special.

Its not the expertise in language that writes, but the motivation behind the imaginations that mumble for it.

A sense of aversion to 'patriotism'

Presently, I am in depth of Charlie Chaplin's autobiography and I have just met a portion of his personal view, which to some extent matches with mine, although the context and content of it is different.

"The fact that I am no patriot - not for moral or intellectual reasons alone, but because I have no feeling for it. How can one tolerate patriotism when six million jews were murdered in its name? Some might say that was in Germany, nevertheless, these murderous cells lie dormant in every nations.

I cannot vociferate about national pride. if one is steeped in family tradition, home and garden, a happy childhood, family and friends, I can understand this feeling - but I have not that background. At best patriotism to me is nurtured in local habits; horse-racing, hunting, Yorkshire pudding, American hamburgers and Coca-Cola, but today such native yams have become world-wide. Naturally, if the country in which I lived were to be invaded, like most of us, I believe I would be capable of an act of supreme sacrifice."

What is the use of nationalism? And thus patriotism? I myself never perceived the meaning and the urge of it. Does it mean merely loving the place you were born in or appreciating your country's policies and qualities?

A person does not born with a commitment. He is not baptized to appreciate his birthplace if he finds no reasons for that. Rather, if the country has provided a better living place, that is something to be adored.

A country's personality and characteristics are determined solely by its people's morals and deeds. And loving and supporting people of evil intentions and idle characters merely for the sake of having equal nationality or other factors make no sense. That will be the wrong definition of patriotism.

Now some philosophy for the people who has voluntarily abandoned his nation. Departing from the native land with an inner disapproval of its prosperity and opportunity, but not distancing from supporting to that land and simultaneously not feeling the same for his present neighborhood sums up to nothing but the display of a person's mere hypocritical personality.

At the end of it, we would like to love the entire mankind ahead of their nationality or language or religions or other nonsenses which may tally with us; the people with admirable qualities, inspiring achievements and amiable personalities.

lives

As someone said,  we get two lives; a life which we learn to live and the one we live after that (The Natural - movie). Here the author has ignored the life we live before the lesson. Although I presume he somehow implied in it that the life we live without realization is not ones own. That is the life we receive from our parents and we decorate it on the floor of our constrained and small surroundings, we find.

In one line, the life we build on our own is our only identity and the rest is our address. But the worst part of it is that it takes almost a lifetime to build a life. If we have three things, an able purpose, enough interests and strong believe that what we are doing is right, we can go through any endurable process towards our goal.

I have a temptation to compare our life, in general, with a boat. When you sail it, your destination is uncertain but the journey is pleasing. But if you pedal your path, its laborious and boring, but your target is assured. Though, these two lifestyles have one common base which is made of a continuous alternation of highs and lows. I probably made it sounds dramatic with some purple proses, but it has a nice ring.

Publishing a Physical Review Letter in Napoleon's dictionary

My recent submission to the journal, named Physical Review Letters (PRL), has received a letter of rejection and is the cause for this note.

When the credential of a creator and the quality of its judgment mismatch vastly, there arise discouragement and perplexity. Here, any reasonable and futuristic person would generate some amount of inspiration or temptation to compare the root of his present failure with the determinant of his past success. But if the quotient between them gains a satisfactory value, it further leaves him unsatisfied.

Now one desires to attain the strength of nerve and calmness of head to deal with it. He would eventually achieve them in the mood of accepting the past as well as in the spirit of moving on with it. He would then perhaps search for a mean - may be few words of support or some flame of hope - to resist his impulse of blaming the others for his failure. 

Suppose, he finally earns the aspiration to rather improve his grade of quality and to learn the elements for this failure.  This is an experience good for his future, and that is good, but what about this past? No one has taught him how to go back and fix it. Only his adviser once said "What is done can not be undone, but you can try to undo it". He is not sure though what his adviser meant by that.

This is perhaps the unprinted law of injustice nature has written for us. The word ‘impossible’ might not be there in Napoleon's dictionary, but he does not carry Napoleon's dictionary.

Flying in America

Presently, both the national and international air-travelers are terribly annoyed by the tight and tedious American immigration security system. We complain that "the boorish security guards were a poor advertisement for the greatest country on earth" - The Economists.

Rather, I believe, we, the civilian, should allow the time and accept the bothersome to go through the security search voluntarily and help the authority to single out the evils correctly. My point is, to an unknown, I am not different from a terrorist (or whatever you call), before I can prove that I am not. And, it is one's duty to prove himself righteous, not others to identify him.

We can not complain both about the hole in the security system and the system's effort to cover it. The humanity traditionally lacked perfection, but always blessed to have tryings.

I have seen my adviser who spends nearly one/tenth of his year in 'up in the air' is neither afraid of flying nor complain a bit about the checking process. While I who stay less than one/three-sixty-five days in flight, is more concerned.

What is not good is the delayed visa approval process which ends up terminating many necessary travels plans (both scientific and others) and dreams of worthy individuals.

objectives

When my adviser asked me about my future objectives, I said I want to survive in this field of research. My adviser's vision is admirable; he never keeps a negative mind nor delivers a discouraging word, rather always carries a spirited motion or a keen and cautious stride.

"Its a hard life, you know, funding, teaching, research, fighting with referees ..." he wanted to carry on digging up his survival notes. I interrupted him "Yes, I know", and I continued "I will continue". I knew "I know" was a loose statement; one can hardly sense the roughness and darkness of a struggle without experience. But I've given thoughts and have chosen the challenge; challenge adds spices to the success, with no repentant to the failure.


When you reach the top of a mountain, you feel proud;
when you are drowned to the depth of a ocean, you find fear;
when you are at the deepest of a forest, you are lost;
and when you are at the heart of a graveyard, you realize life is purposeless;
but when you are deep into reading or writing or creation or understanding, you become inspired.

I cry for success, I cry down failure; I cry out for laugh, I cry in sorrow; I cry up others glory, I cry at others weeps. I am just a happy traveler who has no tears.

A Peck on the Cheek

A mix of hardship and fortune adjusted themselves in my last week's voyage. The justice to the latter bears on sharing it with you which is a lovely movie 'A Peck on the Cheek' by Mani Ratnam. The movie starts with a horrified scene but palled up with a soothing song whose lyrics in subtitled format reads as,

"
May white flowers bloom all over this land,
May peace dawn upon this earth,
May a yellow radiance fall upon the earth 

to wake up the flower, breaking their slumber,
May a child wake up in his mother's warmth,
May the world learn its lessons

from a baby's first smile.

May the music, the wind makes
or the songs, the rain sings
be as pleasing as silence.

Can millions of songs
or the words that poets weave
be as precious as a teardrop?
"

Hello Dr. Das! - said Miss Patient

I reached my office very early today at the dawn of coming holidays. Empty environs already swayed an eerie silence in the department. I took slow steps while my computer choose even slower moves to download a long list of updates and handed me a waiting time. I obeyed him and remained un-clamored in the silence while my phone made the first disturbance. I got a call from an unidentified number with an area code 617-. The rest of the numbers mostly falls in ascending order. I said ‘Hello’ in a curious and low tone.

She asked ‘is this Dr. Das’s office?’. Her voice was as strong and clear as an late 20 American woman who probably works in a secretary job somewhere, as my immediate guess was. That feeling made me serious as a call to ‘Dr. Das’ seemed official. I raised my voice to attain a matured tone and replied ‘yes it is’. She felt relaxed finding me at last as she took couple of seconds to say anything further ‘am I talking to his secretary?’

Then I first sensed the event of an unusual wrong-number-call, but my own name being in it initiated with my newly achieved crown of ‘Dr.’ made me adventurous. All of a sudden, the dull morning stirred up whispering and  my computer started to finish his job swiftly. As like, every aspect of the room is preparing to salute the stranger who just knocked at my door. I did not let the stranger realize my state of curiosity and kept on ‘No! this is Das himself.’ I could distinctly make out without a clue that my polite voice suddenly made her awfully embarrassed. She eventually controlled her voice and said in a fragile tone, ‘I am so sorry, I did not know that I have your personal number.’

The cloud of my curiosity started slowly breaking away as my skill of comprehension was finally able to make a path through it.  I took a huge pride of her embarrassment and my 'Dr.' position but remained silent by saying ‘ohh! that’s ok!’, and I continued, ‘by the way, where are you calling from?’. I meant to ask her which office or departments she is calling from and wanted to imply why she is calling. While she said ‘home’ to me, I said to myself ‘ufff!’. My curiosity suddenly turned into an unexpected confusion. But, she remained kind to enlightened me ‘Ohh I calling because I have an appointment today with you to do my surgery’. I could not understand how to react; I only recalled that she called me ‘Dr. Das.’

Both my curiosity and confusion disappeared within a second and I started laughing-out-loud (lol) :) :D. I apologized to her saying that ‘I am a doctorate not a doctor’ and hung up wishing her good health. I did not even inquire how she got my number.

Breaking the silence

I have not been able pen down anything on the web for some period now. I had been pretty busy writing offline of the things I wanted to finish off, like several research related papers. In between, a 'Dr.' title has been affixed to my name which I received with full comfort but less satisfaction. I felt the joy and sense of it mostly when others clapped to it, but for some uncanny reasons, it left me nearly unstirred. I am continuing my post doctoral fellowship with the same group, same people, in fact inclusive of all same except the salary. I wish not to judge the pros and cons of this decision, simple because circumstances handed me less choices.

On the other side of life, many things have indeed changed in silence - I have learned some, lost others. When changes occur in silence, I guess you find its greater prices. If you see your life from distance, it always moves in an auto-pilot course not on your desire but by your deeds.

reigion

I think I wrote this note in my earlier post in a different way though:

possession of knowledge is science
lack of it is religion
and the magic remains poised in between them.

change

Barak Obama said so and has done it what Americans were looking for. He has inspired the world for a revolution which we needs desperately during our entire current political, religious, environmental and financial crisis. Indians have felt it and implemented in their recent election. A country can neither move on with a coalition government, nor under dictatorship. Now it is the time for Iran. Iranians wanted that change, but did not find it in their presidential election results and thus are gathering on the street to protest. But my feeling is that a mass clamor does not help much in these situations and what they need is a powerful leader. Remember in 1979, they succeeded because they had a charismatic personality like Ayatollah. I am afraid after some violence, this excitement will die down and the results will be null.

a vagabond's today

remembering yesterday
imagining tomorrow
wasting today

pittsburgh

rejuvenating my learning endeavor

To talk about my very recent activity, I am learning guitar, rather more appropriately beginning to learn guitar. At this stage and age of one's life, when your career's arduous assignments and decaying learning appetite interrupt you at every moment, it is very deviling to commence an hobby from it's alpha. Conversely enough, my solitude and vigor befriend me at this dawning of my guitar days. My experience, no matter how restless and painful, helps me appreciate and admire the struggle and devotion of the legends. I will not write again about my guitar practice until I learn at least one song which won't happen, I am sure, in next one or two years but I want to say now how this little exercise aids me realize and refresh my endeavor.

byproduct of democracy

We all Indians take pride of the fact that India has world’s largest and ultimate democracy. We truly feel the freedom of living in our own mode and having our own opinions, believes and judgments. We find ample options of about 40 to 50 dominant political parties in the entire nation and them all share power in a great deal. Where there are innumerable pros of this variety which I enjoy and respect as well, but I am more concerned and scared of its cons. These disadvantages might not be illuminated provisionally, but in long term they may rise up and cause trouble.

Almost every state has its regional party and own idealism as well as its financial strength and thus contributes differently to the central. Whereas the last part is a practical issue which we have to compromise, but too many varieties and too much freedom may have destructive consequences. Among all the diversities what bind India together is its traditional and cultural similarities and discipline, but to cope up with the rapid global progress, our mind rebel too. That’s why we are creating tiny parties everyday to solve our local problems. My point is we do not want to gain that degree of democracy for which we would not need a government anymore. If in 50 years, India gets divided into parts as a result of this supreme democracy, I would not be surprised. I am extremely delighted and optimistic of Congress party’s thumping victory, although I am completely indifferent to any particular party. A dominant and omnipotent central government will lead India further and our democracy will live, but live in harmony.

Plants to produce fresh air at home

I took this snapshot from Kamal Meattle's TED talk on : How to grow your own fresh air.

Explaining my neoteric research to school kids

I had to write a summery of my recent work for some promotional reason. As the evaluators of any event are always dumber and often unknowledgeable to that particular subject, I had to describe my stuff in the most simple fashion. Here is my attempt.

When an electron (the fundamental constituent of any physical matter) travels in a crystal, it only takes certain value of energy and velocity (related to its momentum) and the relation between the energy and momentum is called 'band'. In a word, 'band' is the well defined path in which the electron is allowed to travel within the crystal. During its motion, electron experiences disruptions due to various physical phenomenon and thus can not access certain bands which could have been permissible in free space. The band where electron can travel is called 'filled band' and the other is called 'empty bands' which are separated by an energy scale called 'band gap'. The structure of such bands and the amount of band gap determines how the matter will behave, for example iron is magnetic at room temperature whereas calcium is not. Further with variation of temperature and/or other factors such as insertion or exertion of extra electrons into the material may cause phase transitions in which the same material starts to behave differently (e.g. magnetic property may disappear).

Here we have developed a model to determine various characteristic of the band gap(s) experimentally seen in a class of material called superconductors. These materials with decreasing temperature enter into a new phase where they can carry the electrical current with out any loss of it (without resistance). (For experts information, we are not concern here with the superconducting gap, rather the so called 'pseudogap' which are present in its non-superconducting phase and may or may not survive in its superconducting state.) The problem in these material arises when various experimental probes find various energy scale of the gap; one class finds that the gap is considerably smaller in energy value where other family reports that the gap is very large (of the same energy scale as the total band width) with or without the presence of the other smaller gap. As the amount of gap determines the property of the material, therefore it remains a long standing puzzle to resolve in order to understand and make it usable.

In this research, we have been able to untangle this dilemma in which we find that both the gaps are present in the system, but appear accordingly depending on the capability of the experimental probe. We have also found that the smaller energy gap is associated with a magnetic phase called antiferromagnetism in which the electrons are arranged in a certain regular pattern so that the globally it is not a magnet, but locally it has small but finite value of magnetic properties. The other large gap which prohibits the electron to move from the 'filled band' to the 'empty band' is caused by the large repulsion of the electrons having finite negative charge (Coulomb repulsion). Thus we have been able to explain the two contrasting experimental observations in this context in a consistent way.

a perfect day

a piece of knowledge
little bit of smile
and a nibble of creation

We all wish our days pass by in such allotment, but imperfection is inevitable.

I liked this picture taken by the person as the copyright says.

deficiency adds

When a normal person loses his sight, his hearing ability multiplies.

Unconscious memory

There are some memories we treasure which are not worthy to memorize. Those memories has neither any cause or effect, nor any good or bad influence but still we recollect them incautiously again and again and after sometime they become a part of our reminiscence. When my friend told me about such transcendental nature of human memory, I realized I have scored one. I feel its foolish to share such memories because of its over simplicity and dullness.

prose clarify
poetry imply

friend

.
.
I will never call him my friend who asks 'how are you?' on encounter, but does not wait for the answer.
.
.

Ingrid Bergman

Its a night scene when she says to the cop. 

Snapshots from the movie Notorious.

India, as I saw her from inside

Before reading this post, please have to look at my earlier one "India, as I saw her from outside".


I recently visited India after a couple of year's interval and I must admit that my assessment on Indian's growth in various aspects which I wrote in one of my earlier post has reverted substantially. All the points I made and the examples I cited there still hold the truth but do not represent the India's entire situations. All of them apply to the rich people and/or the people with highest academic qualification.


Let us first look at the people with moderate academic degree, for example graduate pass or lower degree holder. What kind of job opportunity do we have for them? Before going into those details, let us first answer the question why such people could not elevate their qualifications. The obvious answer is that we do not have sufficient scope to educate all of us institutionally. I remember during my 10th and 12th standard, the state board simplified the test to increase the passing rate, where the number of seats for its immediate higher educations remained the same. Thus at each step of educational milestone, we are automatically producing the unfinished scholars; no matter how well they do in the corresponding examinations, their achievements get eclipsed under the overall success and thus further admission becomes competitive. The most popular professional lives they can seek are the low level state/central governmental job and small business, where again the former is a constant parameter.


This time in India I was talking to my cousin who is 38-40 years old and graduate pass only. He is into various small businesses for more that 15 years, a real fighter and somewhat wit in his profession(s). He has seen how India has evolved into this current age from the near bottom of it. Expecting an affirmation nod, I asked him whether his life has been eased now compared to it in 10 years ago. But his response surprised me ‘it has rather worsened’. His argument is that in recent past the government has given much attention in improving the technological and industrial part of the economical strength, neglecting the small business which has been a backbone for large middle classes for all the time. He said if the government takes the responsibility to distribute the products of the small business and home makings, it would benefit the process hugely. I fully admit him. One of my relative's families earns their bread by knitting traditional mat and then going to the very far-away market to sell them. They are now old to go the market but strong enough to keep producing, hence their rate of production has slowed down. We are unable to utilize our own labor thoughtfully.


I am from a small town somewhere in West Bengal, where most of my neighbors are into small business. I have seen them to go to their shops regularly for years but now sell hardly one product in a day. With the expansion of the town’s area, everyday the number of shops is increasing largely and now has reached to a state where the number of sellers and buyers become comparative. Some of the reader may find it unbelievable, but I am not exaggerating. When I travel through those old places, through though the narrow dark roads, I wonder why these shops are still open when the civilization has ceased there! This is the current situations in all over India. In cities we have another problem that the escalating Malls are flourishing the life of upper class but demolishing the small business of middle class. Those middle class has nothing else left to do anywhere except sitting in their ancient shops and doing nothing.


I see all my juniors has evacuated their native place and eloped to bigger cities to find jobs which are mostly working as a labor in factories etc and staying in unlivable places. Thus all the cities becoming overcrowded day by day, but the city councils are now trying to get rid of them. We are creating new politicians and leaders in cities who adopt this ideology of evacuating the other state's employers and gaining popularity among localities. The current turmoil can be related to the older street hawker extermination plan. These are issues which need be solved for better purposes but a direct governmental involvement, rather than local leaders would make the path easier. Because now-a-days print, television etc media has became so cheap and easily attainable that it enhances curiosity and interest in young generations mind to explore the world and it would be a failure to bind them in one place like a tree. Improvement in small business in suburb areas and countryside may divert their channel from cities and in the same time enjoying the flavor of migration.

My obsession with other's blogs

Sometimes when I stumble upon some nice blog, I wonder how someone can write so well, even though he/she is not a writer! The verse which was not meant to be a poem, sounds more poetic to me. The feelings of the character in some fantasy movie or novel find its existence in the disturbance of a common heart.

When I find such a blog to read or an inspiring speech to listen I forget myself, I forget my existence, my sorrows and my achievements. My heart dances with joy and my eyes glitter with marvel. They enlighten and enrich my knowledge, believes and imaginations. I begin to vision through my personal clutters to its orders. I guess I am slowly coming out of the world of delusion to our own public dairy's reality, truth and honesty.

shadow

.
.
your shadow
is not the absence of your light
.
.

criticism

a nail, no matter how small
it pinches

editor

My friend Souman added to the last post


'the writer is not it's best editor'

writer

write, not as a storyteller
as a listener instead

dream

if you want to see a dream,

then wake up and see it

concept from a speech of former Indian president A P J Abdul Kalam.

fall colors falling

you turned beautiful
for death's sake

confinement of knowledge

the world looks smaller
through the window

Sourav Ganguly

---------------you led by example
------------you set an example


The original picture is obtained after google search. I only edited it.

2009

happy new year
but you are not new at all

2008

goodbye forever
in english mostly

inculpation

if the sun did not shine
why blame the moon