While we start celebrating Halloween in India.

While I woke up to the Halloween event in the US and over parts of the world, I had already got enough of it on the English soaps that I followed. But I didn’t know that it was not the end there. As I opened my door to the society via the most famous social networking website, FaceBook, I not only found people posting their Halloween get ups but also updates about how much fun they had in the Halloween theme parties.

Halloween, a time when western Christians take out time and spend it with their family while remembering the faithful souls who departed them. As a part of tradition, they have certain kind of vegetarian foods and spend quality time while the children dress up and go around playing Tip or treat.

Halloween literally means holy evening. While we Indians not only fail to understand the true essence of Halloween, but at the same time we change the whole concept. The traditional celebrations of the Christians is changed into a party where people dress up like their favorite zombie from The Walking Dead and drink their senses off and by the time they go back home, they end up walking like zombies themselves.

I am not protesting celebrating a festival from the west. In fact I say it is wonderful to be embracing the customs of others. But there are a few things that have been bothering me since today morning. While we consider celebrating their festivals as cool but we disregard their social norms such as casual sex, women liberation, respecting the divorced or the old and so on. Why are we such hypocrites about all of that?

At the same time, what bothers me even more is that I never see a Chatt(festival of the North) theme party, nor a Karwachauth theme party. As a matter of fact, Diwali and Holi theme parties are also on a decline. Why? What is wrong in our festivals? Is it not cool enough for us? Or maybe the shifting of the axis has had an effect on our minds as well and we have turned into westerners ourselves? I sincerely hope not.

This is coming out of me when I saw government and public outcry of celebrating Diwali without bursting a cracker because it creates a lot of noise and because the people making the crackers are made to work against their will. Why not make better employment laws for these workers and make their life better? Oh no, that takes too much of work.

I call out to all those converted westerners who consider Linkin’ Park as music but Jagjit Singh as noise, who would love to have an aloo tiki burger at a McD but a Vada pav is too middle class. I call out them to take a moment and introspect, to understand that when you embrace a new culture, you do not forget your roots.

Give utmost importance to the place where you come from because if it weren’t for that place you would have never tasted a pizza, burger, red island long tea and you would not have known these cool festivals of Halloween and Thanks-giving. This place is what made got you so far, the least you can do it give back the due respect.

With this message, i would still like to wish all my friends a Happy Halloween. 

Education.

Being qualified enough to have a 5 figured monthly salary or being knowing by-heart the theorems of the great mathematicians. Is this what education is all about?

Honestly, I feel the basic definition of education is flawed. It goes like “the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university”. Education for me is the basic foundation on which a person’s character and life is built upon. It is not a virtue that can be measured by grades but it is something that has to be understood and taken in.

It is a known fact that the most famous personalities, even in the field of education did not follow the way in which everyone else was educated. They chose to think beyond the ordinary and this in turn lead to various discoveries and inventions that the unfortunate future generations study about as a part of the boring curriculum.

The education that is imparted to students at the primary age is what sets the standard for their future. If at the tender age of 9-10, a child is made to mug up the syllabus as if they are stories then it leaves a bad impression on them about the very system of education.

Education is not meant to fill pockets but build nations.

The preset education system which focusses on the theoretical part of the subject matter has proved not to be effective. Better understanding is achieved when one puts to practice what he/she learns. So I my humble opinion, I would suggest a more practical approach to the subject should be done and at the same time, the syllabus that has not been changed since ages is a disturbing truth of our system.

Hoping to see a better life for the future generations.

Educate to enlighten! 

LIFE.

“Life is what happens to you while you are planning something else.” So, the smart ones or rather the successful ones ask you to live each moment to the fullest. But in a practical world, is that possible?

There are times, when you are upset about things you do not know. You sit in a corner staring at the nothingness of things around you. Is that wasting precious times of your limited life? Well, may be yes or may be no. There can be one more way to look at it. For all you know, it might be someone’s way of living life to the fullest by not doing anything for some time. By just letting things be as they are. So life has different meanings for different people like the love has a variety of interpretations.

For one person being able to play a video game all day gives meaning to his/her life while for another person solving numerous mathematical questions. One might find solace in talking to people at the same time another might enjoy the company of oneself the most. It is a matter of perspective.

Everyone has a story, a story that made them the way they are today. Some things happen to on the journey of life that alters your state of being. Due to such instances the person liking of certain things is changed greatly. Such as, a once talkative person becomes an introvert and vice versa. This changed I believe is inevitable and unintentional.

Where there is life, there is fear. The fear of not having it. The fear of losing time. The fear of losing people. The fear of not making it big enough. The fear of not being remembered. But one should look beyond this fear and start living without regrets because life is lived well when lived without the constant fear of consequences. Once you start living this way, there will be nothing to feel scared about. L.I.F.E. shall fall into place.

So, just live. 'Coz you have a long way to go.    

Somuli.

I often wrote on general topics, issues that made me think. Today I thought of writing something different. So I thought of writing about a person. A person as close to as two coats of a pant. A person for whom I would be there in the beat of a heart. Princess..

LIFE, this basically summarizes this wonderful and pretty person around whom you cannot find one dull moment ever. That ineffable smile that you can find on her face always can make you forget your problems and issues in life. At the same time when things go down south, she can leave you in dismal by dropping down those precious pearls.

I remember going to her place first time back in school days and since she stayed nearby, I happened to go more often after than and due to one obvious reason as well. A few days later we exchanged numbers and then the foundation of our inseparable bond of friendship was laid. The generosity of mobile operators back then gave us unlimited text messages to exchange and we made the best use of it. On top of that our schedules being similar made it easier for us to keep talking. 

Most of the days, my morning questions would go like, "did you have bournvita?". Oh I forgot to mention, bournvita used to be one of her favorite beverages back then and though her liking has shifted towards others but bournvita still remains in the priority list till now. 

It is very difficult to find her alone anywhere. She doesn't like not sharing her happy moments with people and moreover the happiness that she radiates attracts everyone towards her. From being a part of 4 member gang in school to having an even bigger group in college. She has always been surrounded by people and loved immensely by them. One more reason why she likes to be around people could be because it would be heartbreaking is she missed some picture perfect moment just because there was not anyone to click her. 

The photogenic person that she is, she can hardly get a picture wrong. She is the Barney of real world, Rachel of her love life and a Harvey in the making.

Expressive as anything and she has extreme emotions. My Drama Queen. Soumya Sonalika Pradhan.
With lots of love.

Protecting your culture in a foreign land ?

In my recent trip to the US, I got the chance of visiting a temple in a locality there which does not have a huge Indian population. It was a Sunday evening and I saw many people over there dressed in Indian attire and dressing their children in traditional Indian attires as well. I being an agnostic person, wasn't really focused on worshipping the stones rather i spent my time observing people there. It was an overwhelming scene to see parents teaching and asking their children to recite verses of sanskrit shlokas. Those tiny ones could not pronounce a hindi word clearly but their recitation of shlokas was such clear and felt like music to the ears of even an agnostic person like me.

What i liked the most about the scene there was that, even though the parents had decided to settle in a foreign country for better standard of life and better future for their children, but they had not given up their culture rather they were more attached to it than many Indians back in India would be. But again I ask myself how can they justify leaving their motherland for better opportunities and then try desperately to grab on to the Indianess in them by shopping from the Indian groceries and visiting temples often. A question that can be answered in many ways by many people and still be unconvincing.

I was even more touched to see a non-Indian female being accompanied by a Indian lady who was being told the stories of the various Gods and the reason why they were worshipped. She was actually taking interest in everything and also stayed to attend the Aarti and was served with the prasadam. She bowed infront of all gods like any religious Hindu would do.

It feels overwhelming to see people from different cultures finding the Hindu culture intriguing and worth following. At the same time it is saddening to see so many capable Indians giving up everything in india to lead a comfortable life here and fulfill their American Dream. I wish to see more of such genuinely talented people to stay back or at least come back to India and make it a better step by step.

Roommates, family away from home.

Bring on 10 more kilos.
Prateek Ranjan

I start off with him because he has/had been my roommate the longest. Have shared the first night in hostel(not to be taken in a sexual way) with him and from then till today, probably he is the most compatible roommate i can ever get. Be it spending on anything, gyming or the craving for chicken, we are mostly on the same page. Yes, we did differ at some places, but come on what fun will it be had everyone been the same. As i already mentioned he is quite passionate about his body which is a permanent passion. Other than that he gets committed to things very easily and quite devotedly until one day he is bored. He will take a considerable amount of time choosing the best thing at the best possible rate, get hooked up to it for quite some time and then get bored and that once prized possession goes into the dumps. A chilled out guy, always fun to be with, crazy rather really crazy at times but when it Was just us, things used to be quite and serious but that is on me. Not much of a talker I am. Yeah before i get into specifics, i ll end it here.

Va thik hai, abhi Shahrukh Sharma ki bari
Pranay Jain

Practically he has also been my roommate for last years though we were in different rooms in first year but circumstances and people made us stay in each other's rooms a lot. Irritation and negativity made us go his room and odour related problems made him come to ours. He is also a fun to be with guy, a great actor. He can bluff right at your face and you would never know. Quite attached to family emotionally. The times and tides of engg have changed this guy a lot. From the shy talk to no one kind of a person, he is now found in all groups and also is charming his way through the girls. Way to go. ;)

His peculiar rajasthani dilect, love for modi and some strange connection with Gujrat are among other character traits of our hero.
N.B. "Doodh liya." means he is asking to get milk not the obvious meaning of get milk.

"Volume chaiye yaar haton mein." "Yeh marega Sala."

Pradhan Sahab

Says the guy with the physique that will make the leanest size 0 models shy away. Kanpur in his bloods and his throat, he can keep talking and at times irritating till the world comes to an end or he is beaten up. The best partner to go out to eat with. If you feel like having extra you need not order extra, you just know he will leave some for you. Awesome artist. A great guitar player. And sings write from the soul. In short he is the person girls are looking for. But she tends to shy away from them and later complains of not having any girl friend. Which he does on a regular basis all year round. Very true and loyal in keeping friendships. He is the glue keeps the group together actually.

Vijai V. Alex
'I don't give a damn. Phrrr.'

I would not start off with his quotes because that is an unending list.

As i mentioned earlier, everything he says becomes a quote and the funny things is that only a few living beings on planet earth understand what he means to say. Other than our roommates and his family, there are only a handful of people who comprehend him.
The plant and animal lover among us, connects well with animals, birds, insects and other organisms that exist on the planent even better than he connects with humans.
It might be his damn care attitude, ignorant behavior or genuine dumbness which made us conclude that he was busy playing games on his iPad when God was out distributing brains to humans before sending them to earth. Oh I forgot to mention his love for games and his iPad. He can stay glued to playing games all day without food water and without even blinking. He behaves like he is nuts but is basically a good person at heart. Photography, yes after iPad and games one thing he can kill for is a camera and his passion for taking photos.

"Aur kisiko Roti khani hai ya main kha lun?" 10 minutes later, "Jyada kha liya be." 20-30 minutes later, "Yaar bahut bhook lagi hai, chal Vijai Maggi khate hain."

Saptarshi Dey

Our in house Bong. Sweet tooth.

Prateek and this guy were the link behind getting these two different groups in first year get together in 2nd year and the years ahead. He can eat and edible food in any quantity and still be hungry. The best part being it doesn't show on his body. Blessed with a muscular body and a god gifted ability to gain muscles at the right places easily, he is one of the fittest persons.
Other than food one other thing he loves doing all day is downloading random shit from the net and deleting it the next day when there is free Internet. I mean FREE Internet. Though he has lived mostly away from his motherland of Bengal but yet some of the particular traits that of a Bengali person are there in his blood or probably deeper in the marrow. He loves sweets, cost cutting can be a really enjoyable pass-time for him and taking the best of what is at hand are some of the traits. But he dislikes fish. Yes, strange.

So that sums up the my roommates. Yes, they all are from different parts of the country and totally different characters yet it's amazing how nicely we connect.

I ll leave my description for them. I ll also write one and then cross check. :p

Transience: Indian Political Circus.

 Transience.

People resist change. This has been the truth since ages now.

I wrote this line a month back with a little inspiration coming from the things happening around me where people were reluctant to go for new ventures which could actually be beneficial for them. But then probably that situation went from inspiration to frustration in no time and honestly, laziness got the better of me.

But the recent turn of events, regarding the elections, was not only an inspiration but also raised questions against the very thought with which I had started this piece.

People actually are ready to accept something new. Only thing that changed from 2009 elections to 2014 elections apart from negative image of the congress and really sad leadership is that people actually stepped out to vote. These past 5 years had been about scams from every field possible and it was high time the public spoke against it. So they did, and look at the way they did it. Freaking 300 plus seats for NDA and BJP alone winning a majority.

I would not deny the fact that NaMo’s face was a great impact on the voters, and in comparison RaGa’s custom designed speeches were not good enough, but the thing that struck me even more is the public’s willingness to change. The uneducated voted then and now, and I don’t think it matters who they are voting for until they get a meal and a bottle of amber. What actually mattered is the vote of educated and formerly ignorant lot. These are the people that assessed the pros and cons and voted for a change.

Apart from that, the inspiring shows and creative advertisements encouraging people to vote also emotionally motivated a lot of the people to vote and India being as emotional as it is, a small push started continued like a rolling ball of snow and loop and behold – Modi Sarkar.

The biggest change on the side of the governance was the NOTA option in the EVM, though many people are still unaware of the power of that, but I sincerely hope that it will be put to proper use in the days to come.

Though the slogans by BJP and congress were more used by Meme creators in FaceBook and other trolling sites, but still come how managed to strike a chord in the Indians with “Ab ki baar, modi Sarkar” taking the win home. And at the same time, the citizens of India also stated quite clearly with their votes that politics is no drama. With all due respect Mr. Kejriwal should now realize not to take politics lightly and impulsively.

This win this time was not of BJP or Modi, this was a win for the people. People voted for a change, and if they do not see that change happening, they shall vote again for another change. Well, hopefully.

Jai Hind. 

Women's day, a weird scheme.

This is dedicated to all the beautiful women in my life.

When you take birth, it's a woman who takes the pain to let us be safe. When we start start growing and start messing things around in house and she has to go to work, super-granny comes to rescue and save the day. All the long summer holidays would have been so very incomplete without the visits to our granny's place.

A caring sister, who not only takes care of you back at home but also stands by you and pampers you in school, without whose support you would have been scared in school and peed yourself to bed during those scary nights. High school, yes now we know the importance of women. Not for the great favors they do for us but for being able get a girlfriend. This is the time when all the women are treated with utmost respect and care. And the declining sex ratio ensures one woman to get attention from multiple people.

You might be doing a lot in life, but when you hit a low in life, it is a woman who will hold your hand and pick you up. She had always been there, you never noticed. You will love her with all your heart that day. And the next day, you are fine and you move on but she never leaves. She goes into her invisible abode and walks by you.

Oh! how can I forget the best friend. From writing notes for you, from giving proxy for you,taking care of you on your sick days, going out with you when you didn't have a date, from crying to you about her love problems and you crying to her about your issues because you know your guy friends will not give a crap. The best friend a guy has is a girl, just that at different phases in life, the person changes.

You fall in love one day, get married not necessarily in the same order, then you meet the home-maker woman. She not only takes care of your husband, deals with family issues, cooks food but at the same time she is an ambitious woman who has a job where she is equally respected. She gives birth to your child, every one in the house is happy. You have a tear looking at your baby's first cry but you have no idea of the pain she went through.

A salute to all those great women.

For a being that God created with such care and nurture, we do not need a day to show respect. We need to honour them 365 days a year when ever and where ever we get a chance. But that is not the situation. Female feoticide, rape, dowry cases all such other heinous crimes caused against women show us a different picture all-together. I won't be surprised if i get to know a woman is being raped as i write this post on International Women's day, because we are letting it happen. Where are the guards of the women, where is the strict law that needs to be there?

The actual celebration of women's day will be when all women will be able to walk freely at any point of time, be it 12 in the midnight or 4 in the morning, when the guys can sleep peacefully not worrying about their mother, wife, sister or girlfriend's safety. Only if we can see such a day shall we celebrate women's day.

Yes now the question why i chose this day to write about it. I chose this day because after all the women's day ads one sees on TV and all the women's day celebrations in schools and colleges, the emotional videos on Facebook and YouTube, one can relate to the things I have written and may be I can change the thinking of one human being and may be one woman will be shown respect from today on-wards. That is all I wish for.

Love and respect women safeguard them. If you still don't agree, know that homosexuality is still a crime in India. 

The greatest form of LOVE.

13th February 2014,
2100 hours, while still clearing my head off the hectic examination week.

Bam! Opens the door. A few mosquitoes rushing in by getting the golden opportunity. I wake up to my friends voice informing me about what happened in the Lok Sabha that very day.

I am pretty sure you noticed it was the eve of Valentine's day. A day to celebrate love. A day to spread as much love as one can but the Members of Parliament of our very own country had different plans of celebrating the eve of valentine's day.

If separating a state into two parts on the basis of regional politics wasn't enough, they still had to fight over the re-organization of the state. The conflict in the house, left the ministers in tears quite literally so. The tears in their eyes weren't because of overwhelming love, but overwhelming hatred. In democracy, the ministers are representatives of the common man and I certainly don't think the common man has this side of his.
Once in power, they forget that not only are they accountable to the people who voted for them but their actions will also be seen by other countries.

Forget other countries, such politicians create a negative image on the minds of the young India who consider politics to be a mess already. Such careless actions just makes their point stronger, that politics indeed is a messy shit. Spraying pepper sprays, destroying the property of the house which comes from the tax payer's money, throwing blows at fellow ministers are no sane way of airing a dispute or disagreement. All this for what? Suspension of few ministers, shutting down the house which could actually sit for making some other good decision. This only brought disgrace to the country and certainly spoiled the spirit of valentine's day.

As ministers, one takes vows to protect and safe guard the country's pride and respect. So the least they can do is at least take care of the motherland's name, to show love for their country if not for anyone else because that is the greatest form of love that exists.  

As I slept on the eve of republic day, I wanted to write something for the occasion of the 65^th Republic Day of my country. Sixty-five years is a big deal after all. But then not being totally sure about what republic meant, I decided to look it up in the dictionary. The definition said, “republic is a state in which the supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives..”. Reading that I asked myself if India was actually a republic, if the power was actually in hands of the people and if India will ever be a republic.   

For quite a few years India has been an invisible monarchy under the Gandhi family. It was only recently when first time democracy was followed in real terms in Delhi, where in people, or should I say educated people voted with a clear head for the leaders they wanted,  but will that be promising enough, will that sustain, will it bring the change everyone has been waiting for, still remains a question mark. Though AAP made a promising campaign and kept their promises after forming the government but they have also shown their lack of maturity in political decisions by going for “dharna” for suspension of 2 police officers. Clearly they have a long way to go and lot to learn.

Looking at the bigger picture now, India has yet to witness a people’s rules in real sense. Most of the politicians misuse power and make the common man a puppet in the hands of the government. It is not like the common man does not notice the injustice, they do and people also get agitated by the constant harassment and how they vent all their anger is in the Facebook status messages. That is not how people should be reacting to such serious problems.  

If something is disturbing us, we should make efforts to change it. Moral policing is not something that is required for the PDAs(Public Display of attraction) or same sex marriage. Moral policing is required in politics and media. A new generation of young politicians is what is required to change the face of politics.Politics is a profession, so like all other professions, it should be taught and practiced in school and college days because it is an indispensable part of our lives. The more people know about it, more interested they will be.  

India has a long way to go, long way to be independent, republic, democratic and a long way to go before it is developed.

Hoping to see my country the way it deserves to be. Jai Hind.