Pretty Palash

Spring is knocking at the doors.. Can see palash(tesu ) all around me. Took this pic while on my way back home from gym.
It is quite hot here now. By 1:00 in the afternoon u will hardly see anyone around. All the shops are closed..Small vendorwalla’s lying down in the shade to catch up on their sleeps for few hours..

Roads are dusty and burning..So walking back on such an afternoon day the ‘tapak’ sound made by palash falling from the tree was a welcome.

Just peered above and saw this tree full of red palash..Bengal is so full of them..You can see red, yellow white palash flowering everywhere..

Gives every bit of color to these hot colorless afternoons .. Reminds of the coming of Festival of colors..yeah it is holi I am talking about. Palash has a special association with holi. As per veda’s (Hindu old ancient text) color from these flowers was used for holi and also brings health benefits like increase in blood circulation.

Know not about medical benefits but yeah the beauty of it surely increases my blood circulation

Today saw the Saare gama pa finals. Quality of the top 10 contestants was soo amazing..I fell for twinkle’s smile , Himani’s beauty , paresh’s accent, hemachandra’s voice

Wonderful platform and cheers for all of them to be performing bedhadak in front of so may audiences..I am sure with so many ppl from music industry talent can’t go unnoticed and everyone will make out their own destiny.. Wish them all success.

Have been hearing out about Jessica Lal murder case. With so many witnesses going hostile, I have no idea how can justice ever be delivered.. But must appreciate at least the media drive/focus which has led to at least the initiative for another trial.(hopefully will be a favorable one). We can always crib about what is not being done but definitely need to appreciate here what is being attempted. So did u send the sms..I did

Do u guys know we got no trains to places like Kohima..I was surprised recently to discover that except for capitals in NE regions(means 4 states) most of the other places have no train connectivity...First thought to appear in my mind after hearing this was, if NE ppl are doing all the agitation of non development in their areas they are not wrong at all..

So all that unrest is not that unjustified..(Ok I might sound like some junkie coming from another planet..)

Now for this rail connectivity u can give any reasons like it is tribals area hilly area..Not many industries around there..But isn’t it that it was rail networks had played a major part during industrial revolution. So how can u even think of triggering development in those areas without such a basic need being fulfilled. Guess made my point. But I am still recovering from this new found fact and my unawareness about my own country..

Time for a outing.. Nah no train journey..A simple walk by the road.

Enjoy the day

Cricket Fever

Cricket season is here and so our TV is working overtime nowadays.. Got to see quite a few ads in last few days

Realized yesterday how the number of kids in advertising industry has grown over the years..I mean of the 5 ads coming up in crick break four had kids in them and the ads varied from car to insurance product…Guess it I more to catch the EQ(emotional Quotient) of us consumers rather than the fact product is meant for kids or not..

Coming to real question, does it really matter if an ad campaign has kids in it..Well for me yeah at least cute kids do catch your eyes..and their innocence.. Wat can you say..At times they are soo perfect to pass on the message..U seen that recent Hutch Ad ‘Do not click without permission’ Not a single word but still message hits u..

As for Daag Acche hein, My Daddy’s Big Car, I am saving for it, never made me change my choices but I do remember these ads for their cute quotient

Not sure if brands are getting their values, but I surely am enjoying it


Checked out the match yesterday. I am not one of those mad for cricket ppl though hubby is..But the last hour was something even a no fan like me watched wide eyed.. Shreeshanth’s body jumble, Yuvraj’s leg crumble and Dhoni’s sixers all made it quite exciting
Have u ever heard Imraan and Nasir’s analysis abt the match. There is no halla gulla Sheer facts and cool minded analysis of facts. I like that format

That is the part I cherish most and have realized whether I see the match or not I am all ears for this one.

Oops, enough of cric talk..coming to food. Yeah the one in the pic.

I love idli’s and that’s the dinner I had at the start of the weekend..Yeah I ate all of them. And the bowl u see there is the one I bought. My maid even has broken one of them.. But I dare not tell her the price. Instead told her u breaking such precious glass bowls..Be careful. Well makes more impact I hope :-;

Check out LNM’s exclusive interview on NDTV. They are running it day and night..Quite amusing to see Barkha dutt trying to provoke LNM and do I see him amused as well .. well let me know.

C ya all

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentines Day

V- Day is here and so are the protests by Shiv Sena.. Makes for a good debates across all the channels..In NDTV 24*7 debate Ashok Singhal claimed ‘Such Days are leading to the collapse of our sanskriti’..Pat came Pooja Bhatt’s reply “Is Our culture so weak that suddenly it comes to collapse on this one day”

It is not that I am in favor of the V day or I love them..But somehow till date I can not understand shiv sena’s point. I mean they say it promotes western culture but the so does mother’s day, father’s day..All of this is coming from them right..

Personally speaking V day is no different for me. How can I suddenly be this girlie girlie being waiting for gifts and all the love which should(Note the should usage here) be showered on me on that day..Not my type..but if u look at it, there is nothing wrong in making hubby feel a little guilty over not giving me gifts

So yeah I do use the occasion for my own little purpose :-;

Yesterday saw Sudha Murthi’s interview (CNBC TV 18).Do I hear, who is she?? Ok, she is Narayan Murthi’s wife..

Hearing shuddh hindi words coming from her was a pleasure..
Quite a talkative person as opposed to Narayan Murthi. “Murthi is very shy” as she claimed..
Throughout the interview she called her husband Murthi..Was amused to hear that..
Not sure it was bcoz we are so accustomed to Mr Narayana Murthi or just that in my pa’s ma's generation never heard anybody talking abt their husband with first names..

Sudha Murthi worked for Telco and Infy.. Story goes that after seeing a Telco work ad which had footnote ‘Female Candidates need not apply, Sudha wrote to JRD abt the gender bias.

JRD himself apologized and offered her the post. Though initially she had no intention to join as she had a scholarship from US, she did join Telco after the incident as after that letter she felt she was morally responsible to take up the offer.. She became the first woman engineer at the shop floor of the company

While leaving the Telco(she said she was going to join an adventure venture) when she broke the news to JRD he said "you fought so much for the job and now you are quitting it?" She told him that her husband wanted to start the Infosys Adventure. And then JRD turned almost a soothsayer to say, "If you make lots of money you must give it back to society as you have received so much love from it."

Words stayed with her and lead in shaping of ‘Infosys Foundation’ she created.

Coming to JRD, her mother was French. She was initiated into Parsee religion by RD(Ratan JRD’s father). Seems this had created quite a stir in those times as parsee religion does not allow this and even had lead to a famous court case.

Courtsey : Oxford Book Store

Yeah also went to Oxford Book Store..Was an interesting visit..On my way to store noticed an adjacent building named as FreeMasons,19 park street..

Does it ring bells for you..it will if you have read Da Vinci Code..So me curious to find out more picked up a book(No did not buy :-;) abt Calcutta’s historical places in Oxford..

Wow and here is what I found was..
Earlier 53,Park Street , this has the honor of receiving Freemasonry in India ,
in the year 1730.
Now serves as the headquarters for the FreeMasons in Eastern Region.

Never knew freemason was here in India as well. Interesting

Do u know Swamy Vivekananda, JRD Tata, Motilal Nehru , C. Rajagopalachary were initiated into freemasons society.. Well I never heard this before

Ended my day laughing at this shop claiming to be in
“Shakes Peare Road” ..

Trivia:Pic above is from Kolkata Book Fair..What was I doing clicking flowers..well neighbor was in bengali book shop and I used the oppurtunity

Blogthing

Off late I have been addicted to Blogthings..U won't believe but I am capable of spending hours on it..Guess that's why my weird quotient from one of the quiz was 50% :-)

It all started with me reading in blogs about some tests results and links to taking these tests..And yeah I know I never missed an opportunity to take them..Not sure what use they are but they are kindaa funny for me..Do I believe in them?? At the outset NO but somewhere inside I look forward to the results :-)

Little contradictory and confusing..But life is patches of grey No Blacks and whites..

I have done quite some experimentations like taking the same quiz twice, changing the answers a little here and there..I found results are mostly agreeable.(Interesting point I noticed is if they are not agreeable I made myself believe I did not select the right answer or some other excuse .)

But all in all there is a belief somewhere inside which always says first test I take is always the best(as generally it has given me interesting results to date) and closest to my personality

Now this business of finding out from some one else ‘what you are’ and ‘what u shld do’ is quite funny,flattering and can be misleading..Depends on how u take it

I mean if u look at it why do I need someone else to say what I am..and that too based on some choices..But then there have so many time I have felt Gosh this is so true. Especially for the good points
Feeling like hey nobody noticed this except me..Guess it is this feel good factor which makes us go (or might be ME) go to them again and again..


So here are some of the tests I took in the order of my liking of their results..yeah I know weird way of ordering them but nowadays we are in an era where we rate everything :-; So here you go.

Your Hidden Talent

You are both very knowledgeable and creative. You tend to be full of new ideas and potential - big potential. Ideas like yours could change the world, if you build them. As long as you don't stop working on your dreams, you'll get there.

What's Your Hidden Talent?

Your Inner Child Is Surprised

You see many things through the eyes of a child. Meaning, you're rarely cynical or jaded. You cherish all of the details in life. Easily fascinated, you enjoy experiencing new things.

How Is Your Inner Child?

Your Scholastic Strength Is Evaluating

You are great at looking at many details and putting them all together. You are talented at detecting subtle trends, accuracy, and managing change. You should major in: Statistics Speech Conflict studies Communication Finance Medicine

What Should You Major In?

You Are Not Scary

Everyone loves you. Isn't that sweet?

How Scary Are You?

Your IQ Is 115

Your Logical Intelligence is Below Average Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius Your General Knowledge is Average

Quick and Dirty IQ Test

Trivia : One of the quizzes here said I was a distant blogger :-(
So from now on planning to answer the comments and make my blog more interactive :-)

Season Rides

Fairs are the flavor of the season..Here in Kolkata , one fair’s end has been leading to the start of another..and the cycle continues till Feb Mid..So there has been Industrial Fair Flower Show Book Fair and latest Salt Lake Mela

Took hubby to the mela. Best was the Break Dance ride..yeah u heard it right.that was the name. .Hubby was shockingly amused that he was doing such a stupid thing as getting on these rides. Enjoyable moment’s

My purchase from mela was glass bowls..I am a fan of any glass cutlery.and the only thing that has till date stopped me from buying it is our gypsy like existence..Though I love packing bags every second year and going off to a new destination..Life like this has its own limitations..and one of them is any extra baggage and breakable on top of that is huge no no..

But this one time I made an exception..Nope not that bowls are very pretty but they were GLASS bowls and so damn cheap that I cld not resist it.. 5 rs per piece..Cool isn’t it..I mean even if I use it for 3 months and throw it off it wldn’t pinch..yeah so me planning to do exactly that Yipee

Currently my agenda is to eat everything possible out of it..Hubby finds it quite funny.. But I am sure he will get used to it..

Last week was sarswati pooja..Had loads of sweets and special Prasad of bengal..Also went to neighbor’s relatives.. My ma in law says tum kahan kahan pahunch jaati ho J

Pooja was fun..Sarswati idol had half moon like shiva’s idol generally has..yeah guess all gods are made to look so alike that even makers forget what r they doing....Best part was food..

Bengali with loads of vegetables and sweets..Misthi Dahi(Dahi made in mitti I handi..Is a speciality here) was real good..and I am always a huge fan of tomato chatni.. yummy

End of the pooja was marked by an adda session and tea..(Bengali have this habit of getting together in respective areas called para and do loads of gapbaazi called adda). Interesting discussion on living in India vs living abroad..Gosh there has not been an iota of change since the days we used to discuss the topic and today when these new kids were doing it

All n all good trip..Highlight was the discussion below on our way back

Neighbor(on seeing a Doberman): They cut tail of Dobermans to make them ferocious
Her Son(All curious) : why , why does that make them ferocious
Neighbor (Little uncomfortable) : Their nervous system goes all awry
Son(Very angry and agitated by now as he sees no reason)
: Why what r u saying..We humans with one legs are not ferocious..
Sangita : Loud laugh
Neighbor(Agitated) : Tumi ekdum boka (U r a fool)
Neighbor : looking at me angrily

Yeah that’s what I did.i know...Now promise to go back to the kid with the details..

Trivia:After some searching found cutting the tails was a practice done as these pets were used for hunting..and it was thought their tails might get caught in the bush.