Tid Bit from My Diary

Bengal is the land of 6 seasons unlike other parts of the world with only four. Spring is the last season in the Bengali calendar and the most pleasant time of the year when the winter is on the way out while summer is yet to set in. Be it east or west, spring has inspired the poets generations after generations and they have generously adored it with prose and poems. Festivals bring people together and the more inclusive a festival is the more popular it is. There is no better time to celebrate than when the climate is good or rather the spring is in the year. Holi, the festival of colors beats all other hands down in its variety, rendering and inclusiveness. It is simply breathtaking and comparable only to the festival of lights. But this nice weather that we love so much is also conducive to the growth of micro organisms and spread of diseases. In the earlier days these colors were made out of various natural elements were believed ...

                                          Photo courtesy: AFP These days one is seldom adequately shielded from news intrusion into the daily life. First it comes through the phone, which is smarter than its user and quite efficiently manages all the apps and news sites. If you ignore those during the day, these are repeated on the Ipad alibi their secret relation over the cloud relation. The next front off course the good old idiot box for those who have access to its remote control. Till recently the confusion for me was to determine who was the idiot in this relationship of beauty and the beholder. With the advent of the smart TV, I have somewhat reached a resolution with a great deal of reluctance. And if you managed to escape all of these, the morning newspaper compensate for the great loss. Earlier in the week I was made aware that a white elephant has been found in My...

A famous tomb stone screams out to all willing to listen, that he was neither born nor died but visited the planet earth from one date to the other. This, if at all anything, spells out one fundamental truth about our existence. We are mere visitors to this planet and  there are only few circumstances that we control .  Despite our presumed progress in science, we are not sure where we came from and where we are going and if there is a life after death or the reason behind this illusion, we call our mortal existence. However, while we stay here, we try to believe that we are permanent and should have everything that we set our eyes upon. We have to control the lives and wish of every living creatures around us including the fellow human beings and other beautiful body & souls’. We wish to dictate what they ought to do and what not to do, what to wear and what not to wear, where to go and where not to go, whom to befriend and whom not to  and the list doesn't st...

Mark Twain once said that it usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. I am not sure of the context of that statement but there is no doubt that it is a good example of oxymoron. The dictionary tells me that the rhetorical term “oxymoron” was coined by joining two contrasting Greek words meaning “sharp” (oxy) and “dull” (moron). Everyone uses such phrases in their everyday life without being an oxy or moron or anywhere in between. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the famous German philosopher and author had famously said that “we learn from history that man never learn anything from history”. While George Bernard Shaw, the Irish dramatist and socialist had endorsed this statement is in his lifetime, I find this more relevant today with all the conflicts around then anytime else. That makes this a timeless truth. That was an example involving famous personalities and serious subject with deep meaning. But there is one such phrase that attracts us les...

O nce in a while we come across an article analyzing the characteristics or habits of successful people. Not that we always agree with the traits listed the article but I am not one of those whom the world considers being successful and moreover there is no bee line of followers behind me. I've spent plenty of time reading about successful people, which could or could not be considered to be a research.  Whilst all of them have the skills, talents, and characteristics that enable them to succeed, I haven’t been able to identify any magic trait adopting which will instantly transform me into a celebrity. Perhaps some of their qualities are more dominant and play a greater role in their successes but incidentally we all too possess these skills, talents, and characteristics within us to a certain degree. What we lack however, is the recipe to concoct and deliver a commendable success. One important fact is that successful people does not always do everything by themselves no...

If you look at what you do not have in life, you feel miserable due to the long list of have-nots, but when you look at what you have in life, you most probably have everything that you need. You may consider this to be a fallacy but this is the fact of life. Sometimes we do not make any effort to value what is around us. Imagine sitting by the window with a cup of coffee and you lift the cup, take a careless sip to realize the sugar is not enough. Too lazy to go for the sugar, you manage still somewhat enjoying the coffee. On finishing you discover sugar crystals settled at the bottom. That is how life is.... So look around, may be the sweetness is closer than you think.... 

Stephen R. Covey and the   90-10 Principle are now well known though not as much understood or rather practiced. How we react indeed makes all that difference and it is never more obvious than when you are driving during rush hours. Once I had an experience when the other driver confessed that he was an idiot and asked me what was I?   http://sumandebray.blogspot.com/2011/01/never-fight-with-idiot.html That was an eye opener that one has to refresh that 90-10 principle from time to time and that is the exact intent of this post. One day a taxi was driving in the right lane when suddenly another car reversed out of a parking space right in front of it. The taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and somehow managed to avoid the crash by just inches! The driver of the other car honked and yelled at the taxi. My taxi driver was very friendly and just smiled and waved at the guy.  How could he just do that when this guy almost ruined th...