Its me and my world

Crime has always been part of every society but of late we have been seeing such an increase in crimes, that we can't help wondering what has gone wrong !? And when crime starts affecting people like us , normal, tax-paying , god fearing , law abiding ,comfort loving individuals then it really does shake us ! This is what is happening to India as nation now . If we take a step back and think what is the root cause of crime ? Stress and frustration caused due to various factors seem to be the number one cause. When stress is combined with alcohol and drugs , then there is nothing more lethal than that. The modern city today is a fragmented entity ! Take any city, there is so much of glaring inequality ! On one hand we have the rising sky - scrappers and probably just next to them the most unhygienic living conditions in the urban slums. What do we do in such a situation ? Do you think , the kids and youths growing up in those areas are not ambitious ? They are not greedy for th...

Today is Mahasaptami but my mind is a little confused and my heart is a little sad ! Being born a bengali, one can not but miss the unmistakeable puja spirit. It starts right from the onset of autumn and the different kinds of kinds of smells, sights and feelings that it brings along ! The "shiuli and kash phool", the newer blue sky, the bright soft golden sunshine , the smell of something enchanting in the air and the feel of the winter following. It is definitely different ! The word Pujo or worship brings to the mind at once the feeling of silence and sacredness and at the same time a feeling of newness and freshness. But over the last few years, I am struggling to find that fulfillment in the Durga Pujas at Kolkata. The hype and the hoopla is there , the incessant advertisements are there, the excitement of vacation is there . But where is the Puja ? Where is that silence and sacredness? Yes there are serpentine queues in front of the pandals , but where is the com...

The trip to Madhya Pradesh by road This particular trip has been very very memorable for a number of reasons ... starting from the fact that I came back home the night before 12:30 from Bangalore (same day actually!) and was ready to hit the road on our Vento with assuring hubby dear on its wheels along with ma and bapi ,the next day morning 7:30 am ... Little did I know what a rich variety of experiences will befall me the next 8/9 days ! We had to reach Bandhavgarh tiger reserve as our first destination which was a 2 days journey by road with an intermediate night stop at the divine city of Varanasi. We reached around 9 PM to Varanasi after a very nice drive of around 600 kms with acceptable road conditions at most places and some nice scenery near the Hazaribagh and Dehri-on-Sone region. Through out the trip, Ma & Bapi kind of competed with each other in clicking photographs on their cameras and cell phones! It was amusing to watch them fidget with the devices and observe ...

I have grown some interest in photography. I have bought a Nikon Coolpix P90 megazoom camera. Here some photographs that I have clicked with it !

Pain and Love I had once asked Guruji "Why is there so much pain in love " ? HE had replied "Only Knowledge can alleviate pain !" A very small question and an equally small answer for the uninitiated , but those who are on the Path, would understand the infinity that it conveys ! True, that spirituality brings to you the heights of bliss, joy and love , you can experience the atoms of love you are made up with, and yet at the same time, the path is fraught with challenges of emotional disturbances, heart aches , frustrations, disappointments and so on... It is that much polarized and perhaps it is designed that way so that we can go through this cathartic experience to enable the Knowledge to blossom on a ripe soil.. Yet when the small mind takes over the big mind, then nothing seems to work.. all that takes precedence in the consciousness is the utter frustration , hopelessness and loneliness.. Any kind of duality is painful, there is nothing more pai...

A different Ganga ! The river Ganga - the most sacred river of India - is pretty familiar with me :). I spent good 3 years in the city of Varanasi while studying graduation at BHU. (Benaras Hindu University). A river has a life of its own, driven by the people living around it and also independently. If you are sensitive, you can tune in to that life , can communicate with it , find solace in its company :) I was never a very religious person, so when I first landed up in Benaras, I had a hard time accepting so much of religious activities going around. But even amidst so much of external pomp & show, there were a few things that did touch my heart like the aaratis on the bank of the river or the smell of chandan and flowers in the ghats. The Gadoliya (means the twilight between day & night) ghat is one of the most famous ghats of the city. More than this ghat, I used to be fond of the Assi ghat which was closer to my university.I have spent countless evenings in that...

Gurupurnima celebration in Rang Kol on 5th July 5, 2009 – Team work rocks !!! Rang Kol Slum in south Kolkata is one of the slums we are working in , spreading the knowledge of Guruji and helping them in various ways to become self sufficient. One of the self sufficiency schemes that we are running for the women is making of bags of bio-degradable material which can become the replacement for the harmful plastic bags. We decided to celebrate Gurupurnima on the Sunday just before Gurupurnima , 5th of July. The program consisted of a free medical camp with free medicines followed by a satsang & a dhyan session. The core team which is working at Rang Kol slum are Malini, Padma, Debarati , Soma and Myself, each one of us contributing in our unique ways. For the free medical camp, we had the one & only pair of Parthasarathy da & Anup bhaiyya. Parthasarathy da is a wonderful medical doctor and Anup bhaiyya is the perfect person handling the free medicines and handing them over...

The night when I could not enter my own house Something very mysterious yet hilarious happened to me a on a night, a few days back. I was staring at the key hole of the familiar door, door of my own house and it would not simply open. I kept on trying the keys over & over again but the door would not simply budge ! I was just too flabbergasted to go through that experience. Like any other difficult time, I was simultaneously praying to Guruji to sort out the matter and scolding Him to allow it to happen in the first place ! I mean how come the Guru just sit & watch when one of his loving and doting disciples could not open the door of her house !  But strangely I was not scared, a little frustrated and tired but mostly I was simply laughing at the whole situation in my mind, unable to believe such a thing can happen! After sometime I called in my Guru bhai Prasenjit who happens to be living in the next lane. We both tried for the next half an hour each pleading to Guruji in...

After going thru the “beautiful straight from the heart” piece from Madhu, I could not resist writing about my own first time visit to Ashram. Very contrary to Madhu’s grand event of an Advanced Course with the Master Himself, the time I went to Ashram, there was no course, it was dead at night and there was no Master !!! But there was something remarkable about that visit that it is etched permanently in my memory. It was Dec 2006. I had visited B’lore for some office seminar and I had this deep almost uncontrollable desire of seeing the Ashram. One of my good friends, Mukul (to whom I had only talked over phone so far !) came to see me in the office guesthouse for some work and I simply told him, I just want to go with you to the Ashram. It was quite late in the evening and he was worried about my safety. So he told me to stay back at the Ashram only for the night, the proposition to which I readily agreed. Looking back, I realize that I was simply in a different state of mind altog...

“How can you lose when I am with you” I was blessed to do the Blessings course a couple of months back at the Bangalore Ashram , and that too in the presence of Guruji !!! The Blessings course is a profound course by itself and it makes the virtues like innocence, naturalness, simplicity and humility shine forth in the participants. It forces you to break your own judgments about yourself and other fellow human beings. The feelings of purity and total freedom that I felt on the last day left me with a rapturous sense of ecstasy and bliss ! It is very very difficult to put into words anything about the blessings course as it transcends any kind of human expression and logic. I will recommend all of you doing this course as soon as possible (prerequisite : 3 advanced courses). It makes us realize how very very fortunate we are , amongst the 6 billion human beings inhabiting this planet. It also gives a little glimpse as to what Divine has in store for us and and we are in reality (pe...

Time with Kids There were 26 of them all, their age ranging from 7 to 14 years. They do not live as comfortably as I used to in my childhood. Most of them sleep in cramped rooms of size 8' X 8' with questionable hygiene. They do not go to the best schools of the town. Neither their parents are over-eager to have them educated nor do they care about taking them to extra-curricular classes. They were children from a slum dwelling in South Kolkata, yet they had the same innocence on their faces as any child from a well-to-do family. I was very thankful to Kajaldi (Kajal Nag) for asking me to come over to that area to take a Bal Chetna Shibir (roughly translates into "Awareness camp for children"). It was my first Bal Chetna Shibur, and though I was happy, I had no idea who would it turn out to be. Bal Chetna Shibir is a beautiful course of Art of Living which teaches children very core human values through games, stories , processes and some pranayams and meditation. ...

My first meeting with Guruji I have met Guruji (Sri Sri Ravi Shankar) on several occasions, and each meeting with him is very special, but the first meeting with Him was extra-special. It was about 2 years I had done the Art of Living Part I course but I was pretty much marooned on my intellect at that point of time . :-) I came to know of His visit through a very loving and caring Part I teacher who kind of coaxed and cajoled me not to miss this opportunity to see Him. I was also a bit curious to see "this" personality who seem to have charmed so many men & women around the world. He was coming from North east region of India and He was supposed to stay for only a few hours in Kolkata. The best place to see Him was in the airport. So I headed for the airport , the due time of landing of His plane was sometime in the 2nd half. On reaching the airport , I heard a no of people greeting each other with "Jai Gurudev" (I knew very less AOL ppl at that point of t...

The Last Lear This is not a formal movie review, but rather a message to all you movie buffs, the people who enjoy watching good cinema ! Pls go and see this movie - The Last Lear, you will love it ! I saw it with my family last weekend and it was a completely enthralling experience. With wonderfully creative direction by Rituparno Ghosh, he showed again , what a director who is fully in control of the script, the characters & the actors can do ! Based on a play written by Utpal Dutta, the story is as expected marvelous. It depicts how true love can be - totally unselfish, totally undemanding and abslutely unmindful of any rules (Satvik love) It also depicts on the contrary how feverishness towards perfection (also a kind of love - Rajasik love) can be the cause of so much misery ! One of the best selling points of the movie is the unique narrative style adopted by Rituparno (which I am not going to divulge now !) The actors simply give outstanding performance - Amitabh's b...

Mahalaya Ya devi sarbabhuteshshu, sakti rupena sanksthita Namasteshwai Namasteshwai Namasteshwai namo namaha Today is Mahalaya. Bengalis (originally people residing in undivided Bengal of pre Independence India, now divided into West Bengal of India and Bangladesh) around the world consider this a very auspicious day. It is the day which to invoke our dear beloved Goddess Durga to descend on earth for a trip to her maternal home, along with her 4 kids - Ganesh, Saraswati, Laxmi and Kartik. Goddess Durga is considered Durgatinashni or a vanquisher of all troubles. She is also the slayer of Mahishashura - the buffalo demon. Mahalaya is very special for a special audio program that is broadcasted over AIR (All India Radio) year after year (precisely from 1930) from 4 AM in the morning. Termed "Mahisasura Mardini" (the lady who killed the buffalo demon) this program is a beautifully composed and rendered with Vedic slokas, songs and ...

War Cry I received this forward from a friend and I cringed in horror and revulsion ! Tragedy should only happen to enemies or any body remotely associated with the enemy - by location, by religion, by country or by ideology. Our enemies are always black, and any anyone even subtly donning the color of white is comfortably wiped out ! They all our enemies ! They are terrorists ! They have killed our children and women and hence we must kill theirs too ! Ours actions are "provoked" not unprovoked barbarism like theirs. Our actions are justified because they are for the greater good of mankind, they are meant for perishing the evil ! Yes a few good humans will also die, but it is a necessity ! Necessity? ! bloody hell !!! It is not a necessity when you see your own child cut in half lying in a pool of blood, it is not a necessity when you see your wife a burnt corpse, it is not a necessity when your mother is an unrecognizable bundle of flesh !!! We are so bl...

Da Vinci Code in reel Well, finally I could see it, on the 2nd day of the official release of DVC in India. I saw with an additional minute of display of a mindless statement, 30 secs before the casting and 30 secs after the film ended (just in case I forgot what I read 152 minutes earlier). The statement (technically a disclaimer) looked like written by hand (exaggerating a little here, but nevertheless it was pathetic looking), it told me the greatest truth on earth -- "All the charcters and events depicted here are fictitious and any resemblance blah blah blah..". But anyways... I liked it. It was not outstanding but much better than what I expected after reading Cannes reviews. The film was honest, truthful to adaptation and intelligently paced. I found Tom Hanks very good, and also Jean Reno and Sir Ian McKellen. However I was a bit dissapointed with Audrey Toutou. She somehow did not live upto the image of Sophie Neveau. Sophie was a confident and a nextremely brill...

Dance of Democracy - Subhas Chakraborty vs. EC The Election Commission has got a job to do, and it knows how to do it very well. If the recent elections in Bihar are any indication, we should be assured to leave all the decision making for election processes to the Election Commission body. We should feel very grteful, that the election commission is not answerable to any political body. CPM anyway is thriving on 100 year old ideologies. It is a shame that they get away with doing whatever they want to, simply because there is not other credible alternative in the state. Infact CPM has ensured using its muscle power that there is no united voice of defiance to its archaic rule. I completely agree and support the Election Commission in whatever measures it takes to conduct free and fair elections in this state

Crashing into each other We saw the movie Crash this weekend, and I must admit it is a mind blowing movie. It kind of catches you by the caller and shakes you up. The multi starrer cast has Don Cheadle, Brendan Frazer, Sandra Bullock, Matt Dillon to name a few .There were quite a few star performances from the other casts, but I am not here to write a fim review so will move on. What shook me really hard is that the world we are living in is so flimsy, so sensitive, so fragile! It is exactly like a water bubble, so beautiful yet you never know when it is going to burst. What the movie glaringly told the audience is today's world is so very divisive and there are so many identities one can associate with. It is easy to to deduce that movie talks about racism in the richest, and the most powerful country in the world - the United States of America, but no, if you simply hold on , take a deep breath and think - the subtle underlying messages in the film are all pervasive. Sudde...

Myself and Sammu in majestic Himalayan ranges - in Arunachal Pradesh 

International Women's day - Is it a woman's world ? Like the numerous days that are celeberated across the globe, "International Women's day" has also caught on fire. Getting the required boost from the commercial establishments it has become almost a festival. However my attempt here is not to rebuke the celebrations, something that many women do so often , that even that cognizance has become cliched by itself. I am going to write about an interesting angle of all this woman stuff seen from an urban modern man's point of view. What started off as a friendly banter and argument amongst office colleagues - who are male as well as female, on 8th March, led me to think about something intriguing. There was a time, may be 10/15 years back it was an uncontested fact that ours is a male dominated society. Nobody doubted it, it was etched in our psyche much like the truth that father is the head of the family. There has been a paradigm shift to this mentality,...