A bit of karma

And while I am still on the topic of Life,Luck,Chance. I thought of sharing a bit of news. I could never really forgive myself for not having done anything when I could have made a difference to someone's life while I was in school. Looking back I realize I have never done anything which is utterly selfless. Time for some redemption. I sent a FB friend request to a classmate after all these years. What makes it so special? You know how it is when you are young. if there's any kid who is not cool enough. The rest simply boycott them. Such a kid doesn't exist for the world. And peer pressure is something that means so much to us when we are young that even if we dont snub that kid, we dont want to be seen hanging out with him/her either. I remember feeling sheepish when caught trying to give a patient hearing to one such kid who spent the loneliest school years possible. Sat alone in class, never was invited to any parties, no one ever spoke to that kid...imagine something like that happening to you for your entire school life. How could i have been so insensitive? Agreed, i was not mean like the rest-in that I didnt ever tease this person. Infact felt bad for the kid. But did I ever protest?Did i ever try to make others' change their outlook? I was a silent party to that hooliganism. Hope I am forgiven by that kid for being just like the rest. Hope my friend request gets accepted.

When Karma screws hard work & determination

All inspirational quotations sound wonderful. On paper. All successful men/women's interviews make for the best pep-talks to be given to one & all. But those successful men/women have beaten zillions of others to make it to the top. Who is recording the interview of the lesser mortals, who too have worked equally hard? Let's stop looking at the half-full glass for sometime & try looking at the half-empty glass as well. That gives a wholesome picture. Those who make it big...aren't just great gamblers. They have karma pushing that envelope into their lap which goes by the sweet name of 'luck'. Overcoming odds. Yes, human spirit is resilient.It can move mountains. But there are a lot many more who perish & remain unsung, unheard, unreported. Success is also about being at the right place, at the right time. Finding the right mate is not often because you deserve him/her but because karma was kind on you to spare you the slap of unrequited love. Hard work, determination, strong will, never give up attitude...etc etc-that's all fine but if your karma is rotten. Its better to hold on to smaller dreams, smaller goals. And not get too ambitious & ruin whatever little you had.Trust me on that.

Passport Hassles

My passport was to expire this month. I started the online renewal process in January. Not that the process has become totally computerised. I thought I would get it fast. It took me an entire month to actually get an auto generated appointment date when I could trudge along to a passport kendra. 1st of all, Tata consultancy services has done a very very lousy job of putting on show-a severely poor quality website logged in my 1.2+ billion indians. All along I used to grumble about the poor quality government websites but now, even with Public private partnership- the show is baaad. Finally,a call to a customer service rep-gave me some idea how to generate the appointment date.Now i read newspaper reports that people have been waiting since eternity, wasting money running to cybercafes trying in vain to generate an appointment date. Recent addition on passport website-> If you cant get a date generated.You are supposed to fill some form & go directly to a regional office & they will allote a date to you. The information is so obscure that you actually have to take leave from work, go to that overcrowded office & after wasting 40mins, would be told to back home, take out a print out of some form( I still don't know which form & where to get it from the site!) Anyway, I went to the passport office on the designated date. Horrible! Snaking queues outside the venue...I had to literally jostle my way in. And none except the applicant is allowed in!! What happens to those who came to drop you? And dont be fooled by the website saying its a 40 mins process. I went in at 10am & could step out only at 3.45pm in mid february( yea, that's the appointment date i got & i'd applied in end Jan!) And am STILL WAITING for my passport to come by. Its 24th april today. And they've cancelled my previous passport which was valid till yesterday. Which means, I could have very well travelled with my previous passport till yesterday but even that was made lame by mid Feb. So once I queued up inside a maddening space with too many queues. I realized after wasting 10mins that i was in the wrong queue. No one to help & tell. Then stood another 7 mins in the right queue & guess what, there was a huge mistake in the previous passport so i had to go back home. ugh. Come back again after 40 mins, queue up AGAIN! Btw, the guard wasnt even letting me in a 2nd time....luckily I'd gotten a note written by the man at the counter inside so I could get in. Paid 1k...got a digital pic taken, fingerprints etc...this was smooth but once i reached another room--gawd, 50-60 ppl were waiting. Tatkal users were getting it done real fast. All that happened in the next 30 mins-was have my previous passport cancelled. I waited & waited fr next 2.5 hours. While my dad languished outside. With no idea, when my ordeal would be over. Finally my no. flashed on the screen, i sat down in front of a clerical guy who was not so bright. Anyway, he made a nice file of my passport & told me, I was done for the day. Relieved i asked him when would i get the renewed passport, he said within 20 days, I waited for 40 days, then sent my dad to a police verification centre & guess what?? The passport kendra had made a mistake in sending it to the WRONG police verification centre & these careless people were simply sitting on hordes of pending passports & not even sending it back.DUH. So customers have to individually go to the wrong centre & pester them to take it out from the heap & send it back to the passport kendra.Its been 15 days since they sent it back to square 1 & for the last 2 days that am trying to check online about the status of the police verification. Surprise, surprise! the website for some 'technical' issue is down. Nice, so I cant even check anything. And not to mention, this crack pot of a website cancels a person's registration after few days....which means, you need to re-register with new username & pw AGAIN Harrowing experience I tell you, Moreso, I would not be staying home permanently, need to shift to another city next month. You know what that means?I may have to waste money, book flight tickets, take chutti & come back home when the police guys come over to verify if i really do live in kolkata. And its not even going to work with clockwork precision because- I may come home & wait for them for an eternity to show up at my doorstep.

Mani ram diwan wont ring a bell with any of you. 1 of the glorious freedom fighters from assam who gave up his life during the Sepoy mutiny days. Unfortunately, only some get glorified in our history books. He was also assam's first tea planter. To mark the 212st birth anniversary of this stalwart-GOI has declared Tea as india's national drink. Sometime back, Kangra tea( himachal pradesh) was bestowed the status of geographical indicator. Phew, that would give a lot of clarity to Intellectual property tussles....India has spent a lot of money trying to get back what is ours. Remember the Basmati-Taxmati case? Well, we may be the largest consumers & producers of black tea but I am disappointed that we still aren't riding the craze of Green tea which supposedly detoxes the body & cuts down weight. Surprisingly the british hangover of black tea never caught on with me. I was too skeptical of its side effects...sort of substance abuse you can say- I see that my mom's totally dependent on black tea. As in...if she misses drinking it...she gets a headache. or take the case of my best friend, he can't even open his eyes in the morning unless black tea's served. Me, the ever figure conscious babe, i have stuck to green tea religiously!

Wise words!

GONE ARE THE DAYS OF ICE CREAM Vs. GELATO:

As I kid I would ask folks, what was the difference between Ice cream & gelato.
Last day I saw a 10 year old kid asking his uncle the difference between Ice-cream sandwich & Gingerbread.

For those who may still be confused: I would a good link:http://waveboy2u.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/difference-between-android-2-3-gingerbread-and-android-4-0-ice-cream-sandwich/

DIGICAMS: The face that launched a thousand start-ups.

If it wasnt for the digicam & its immediate spewing of pics. I wonder what the CEOs of Instagram, Pinterest, Foursquare, our very indian Pinstorm...the list's endless.

Ofcourse, smartphones should be given one fourth of the credit too. I mean, that's the billboard, right?

So now that most of us are bored of going ga-ga over our friends' wedding pics & bi-weekly globe trotting pics. C'mon we say to ourselves....give us, a break.We can't look at those faces anymore. Already spent 5-6 yrs looking at the same faces.

So that's when Pinterest pops in. What a refreshing break. Pictures of strangers, posted by strangers. Nothing better. Senses getting assailed by brand new, non repetitive pics which we can comment on....make newer friends & like too. And save the pics we like,nail on our boards. And voila, very twitter-ish since random strangers can start following our collection. Feels good.

Integrate it to facebook & that saves the trouble of separate logins. Let people know about your classy tastes. It may even stop the FB friends from buying you trashy gifts,once see start tracking your taste in the good things of life.

Pinstorm I will talk about, in another article. But its commendable the prestigious award it notched up.

Shopping Malls & exotic tourist destinations should start giving away digicams to customers for free. The more busy the camera gets, the busier people become in trying to sport new clothes, visit newer hot spots & post away with a vengeance at these platforms. And yes, create 1 new millionaire out of a social media guy every day.

Social Media: Its various uses

Student taps twitter to connect to a tedious site,to complete her research-tweets help her skim through what she needs...instead of wasting time through a website
http://dailydunkingdose.blogspot.in/2012/04/archival-research-using-twitter.html

Ok so West bengal already has 133 monuments of national heritage to its credit. Beaten well & truly by UP which has seven hundred plus such monuments.

2011:
Chandraketu’s Fort North 24 Parganas, West Bengal
Bangarh Dakshin Dinajpur, West Bengal


And given below, are a few that are being considered..

Nauseri Banu Mosque and Chowk Masjid, Kella Nizamat, District Murshidabad West Bengal
22. Archaeological Site (Sakeesena Mound), Mogalbari, District Paschim Medinapur West Bengal
23. Khwaza Anwar Ber (Nawab Bari), District Barddhaman West Bengal
24. Brindaban Chandra Temple and Radha Damodar Temple District Bankura West Bengal
25. Motijhil Jama Masjid, Murshidabad West Benga

I have high standards coz my folks taught me how a man should treat a lady

Chivalry,
old world charm, never talking to a lady in a high voice no matter how maddening it is to control one's temper, never ever raising a hand against her, respectfully giving up one's seat to an old lady in a crowded place,

shielding a random little girl from those with paedophilic intentions, protesting against eve teasers leching at the fairer sex, taking out mom to her favourite restaurant & insisting that she dress up in that beautiful kanjivaram saree you'd bought with your first salary,

treating your girlfriend soon to be wife like a queen bee...not just like a princess