In the mood of festival: Happy Sankranti

The weather is intensively cold, the sky is dim, and the fog has covered a large part of the city. But unlike weather, the zeal in people is high. And why should not it be, today is Makar Sankranti after all. In Bihar, the type of Tilkut you get here and of varied types, I guarantee one can’t have them elsewhere in India. Gud (Jaggery) and Til, which form the major ingredients for most of the dishes made in this festivity, have started to water my mouth with its aroma. But before I can relish upon the dishes, we will do the Puja at our home. My mom knows the rituals better, while I just know that the day will be awesome for the foodie me. :D

While I am typing this, I recall two seasons of Sankranti I enjoyed staying in Gujarat. Two years back, I posted about my experience here on my blog too.
I agree on this that the energy level and the scale for preparation in Gujarat is more avid than in Bihar. The kite fight, and kids running after the falling swaying kites till the end of the streets were worth watching. I was amazed to see that many road side stalls selling goggles and hats specifically for kites flyers. People would wear them while they are at terrace for the kite fight. And a toy organ pipe, which they would blow loudly to make fun of and embarrass the losers. With the whole ambience on this festival it feels like ‘yes its good to be in India’.

This festival may have different names, but the extent of happiness in each is unfathomable. I wish all my friends, and readers at my blog a very Happy Makar Sankranti. :)

The Unique in You

Uniqueness, the characteristic that distinguish you from the rest in the crowd. And when each of us owns it, uniqueness works to give identity to individuals in the crowd. Throughout our lives we keep learning. In the process do we keep refining our uniqueness? Or does it stay the same till the end of our lives?

Uniqueness can be observed on macroscopic as well as on a microscopic scale; the uniqueness present in totality, or present with respect to domains. Well not getting too much technical, the essence of this post lies in realizing the uniqueness in us.

I believe 'learning' and 'uniqueness', they go hand in hand. The more we learn, the more we get to experiment with, and more shine to our work adds up. With learning, we get to know more specifically about the areas that inspire us and tend to bring out the best from us. And at the end of the day, from the work we have done, uniqueness is evaluated. I believe to completely build uniqueness, the role of learning we have attained cannot be shadowed. 

While I stressed on the importance of continual learning, I would mention of the grit that the Almighty blesses with. Why I mentioned of the Almighty here? I always mention of the Almighty when I need to mention of some uncontrollable forces; circumstances and hold which are beyond our control. Where a person is born, what sort of family they are born in, and like these there can be various things beyond the individual’s control that somehow would have helped in building the personality. Their persona so crafted in the uncertain world carries the elementary uniqueness. This uniqueness I believe, is beyond one’s control and desire, but I know they can be worked upon later with learning. See, the importance of learning can never be neglected.

The need to change ourselves can be enforced by various reasons, may be to be a better human, may be to hone our personality for our professional lives or may be just to be like our role models. To change for improvement and excellence is great, but never at the cost of 'copying' someone. I have copied a lot, not in exams but in different walks of my life I lived till date. I tried to copy handwritings of my friends because I didn’t like mine, I tried to speak like some of my seniors because I thought my way of conversation with people was not good. And like these, there have been various instances where I copied people. Why did I copy? I copied because I knew I was poor at something. I chose to copy to improve. However, the correct way should be to learn first, and then we will improve ourselves. I kept copying in one way or the other till a week ago. When we copy, we tend to lose our uniqueness. And this uniqueness is the Ace. This is the elite aura that can do wonders. 

Lets try to find out our field of interest first. On the second, we should look if we need any improvement before we start to work in our area of interest. If we need any, then that must be achieved by learning and not by copying. When we improve by learning, uniqueness starts to come to the front with blaze. The third step should be to start working in our area of interest, and consistently looking to improve the work we are doing in it. By the time we would stand on the third step of staircase, we would realize the importance of continual learning.

Uniqueness is a bliss and a catalyst to our success reaction. It must not be killed by stabs of copying. 

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Into the city that never sleeps

Mumbai and its people, their lives advance in chaos. Where is peace? Broad roads that never get vacuous, present a lively example of Marathon for life. The rich and the poor meet at road signals, and their meet lasts till the time the red is not green. Be it chawls, or the multistorey apartments, or be it Mumbai’s sea beaches, everywhere people are present in abundance, occupied by aims and goals of their own lives. The most intriguing thing about its people is the will to work harder. They focus on their goals and keep chasing them, and the rest they never care for. Emotions are present in them too, but the spirit to move on in life is instilled at the roots and that overpowers the pains. 

The archaic fervor mixed in the modern Indian life style at Mumbai, is a must to experience. In my three days tour of Mumbai, I experienced a portion of it. Presenting few of my amateur photographed shots at Mumbai. 

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'The Power of a Common Man'

I saw ‘Nayak’ in the reel life in year 2001. I had never thought the reel life would transform into reality, and
the whole nation will witness one day a ‘Nayak’ in the real life. Yes! And that day came when Arvind Kejriwal took oath as the Chief Minister of Delhi on 28th of this month.

It takes 'intention' to be present, and not the experience, says Kejriwal to lead the nation towards upliftment from clutches of corruption and moral degradation. I completely agree with what he says, with whatever clauses he has quoted to be inculcated into our constitution. Towards politics, the interest of mine would get inclined so drastically, I never thought of it. But that came into as I saw him taking oath to get sworn as the 7th Chief Minister of Delhi. And it’s not just for me but I suppose a major portion of India’s youth is getting drawn towards AAP (Aam Aadmi Party). It was not a surprise for me when I read of Remo Fernandes joining AAP. This is just the beginning, and I believe soon many will be coming to the front. We are mistaken if we believe that joining a political party means we are going to contest elections. It’s just like becoming a member of an organization and working for it at the back end, clarifies Remo.

The early life and political career of Arvind Kejriwal is very interesting. At each instant and at every walk of his life I sense the ‘intention’ to work something better, to curb down the corruption into ashes.
And now that he has got the platform and sufficient power to ‘change the prevailing’, expectations are huge.

Day before yesterday, I came across this photo.
And only one thing comes to my mind, ‘Never underestimate the power of a common man’.

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The Prerequisite that helps to Succeed...

How much importance we give towards education of children. What do we aim for by educating them precisely? Do we intend to make them increase the number of degrees of various qualifications? I believe we expect them to come up with sound knowledge, but not just that rather we expect them to develop themselves into a civilized and a well behaved ‘human’. Children are made to target towards the wishes bricked together by their parents, and seldom left to make the choice of their own. But at the grass root level if we examine, we will realize that indeed we wish to produce a well behaved person in future.

Sadly, somewhere we are lacking. We are lacking to produce youngsters with proper mannerism and quality to behave decently in front of other people. When talked about mannerism, I bifurcate moral values and professional behavioral attitude as co-related but separate entities. A child inculcated with sound moral values need not always possess sound professional attributes in his behavior. And the same goes the other way round too. But neither of these two entities is being imbedded into youngsters. This setback is coming at the front in form of poor placement records in colleges, and this scenario prevails more dominantly in C-grade private colleges of India.

After such students pass out from college, frankly with such a void attitude they own no future at all. Companies who hire people look for well-groomed personality and rich mannerism in talks first, knowledge comes second. And if they fail to meet the first requirement, who cares to let them have their technical knowledge tested. The matter is of prime concern today, and this not just covers the problem arena of engineering colleges, rather it stresses the need to own well behavioral attitude in general as a prerequisite before venturing for any kind of job. You can yourself see how we are inclined towards those companies who offer better customer relations. How good the service is being provided that comes second. At the first place we realize how the behavioral outlooks are towards us. From your favorite local restaurant to deciding the best consultancy service for your business, it all starts with sound conduct in talks.

Today to grow with India, the prerequisites need to be inculcated and furnished with shine at the earliest. The early the youngsters realize this, the better it will be.

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Beauty n Sophistication

In the belittled

Swollen bunch of color,

Grooves lie many

With pungent straying odor.

In one, I lie,

Lies my world

That small you will say,

In the bigger of yours

Do happy you stay?

At peace is life here
Free from sickness' grey,

Expectations we don't keep

And work for the fragrance spray.

Devoid of emotions is inside,

But pain inlays.

Me too, a creation of God...

You call it a beauty

Or a sophistication you say.

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That day after everyday

Ideally, violence should be the very last resort for anything. And thats what Anurag Kashyap sir showed in his 22 minutes short movie 'That Day After Everyday'.
Our country, the land of commotions, reasons to which have various domains ranging from political corruption to domestic disgrace, from individual's moral spoliation to lack of futuristic visions.
In this scenario the status of women in our society is a setback to each one of us. Molestation and eve teasing is like everyday's bread, so common that not a single day passes without witnessing such illicit acts.

Anurag Kashyap sir, a renowned name in Good Film making, has come up with a striking story which will pull down into a pool of shame those chauvinists who bear no respect for women.




Why am I blogging about this movie? I would say its my support for Anurag Kashyap and his work in this movie, and also to raise my voice against morally deprived men in the society.

Here I share the official link of this movie uploaded on YouTube, under the banner of LargeShortFilms, which holds fame for making quality short films.

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The 3rd Blogoversary

It was around this time, three years back; I was in first year then. It started with enthusiasm to have my own space online, which would somewhat look closer to a website. I remember I made a website for my school when I was in class Xth as a part of my school project. Having got appreciation from my computer teacher, gradually I gained interest in web development, and always wanted to have a website for myself. What exactly my website would be all about, what contents it would have I never thought of. ‘Blogs’, I came to know of when Mr. Amitabh Bachchan started to reach people through his blog. Blogs are the medium to express yourself and connect with people. Blogs serve as an online journal, linking to other sites and news stories.

My poetic verses and story making in messages/SMS for fun and scraps on Orkut started making their space at my newly made blog at Wordpress. But me being an enthusiast for web development, and a student of computer science, I was not satisfied to work within restrictions imposed by Wordpress at that time. Wordpress has turned a bit flexible now but then it not even allowed use of iframes and external scripts. 
I came to know of an online tool which could transfer a Wordpress blog to Blogger, keeping posts and comments all intact. And that marked the start of my exposure to web development and web designing.

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