Tid Bit from My Diary

Image Source It’s good to learn a new odd thing every now and then. Today I learnt about “Space Burial”. Space burial refers to exactly what its literal meaning is. The cremated remains are carried out to the outer space into the orbit of earth, or other planetary system or maybe into the deep space. But don’t worry, these won’t be scattered into the space to add up to the space debris but they stay sealed within their space vehicle till it reaches its final extra terrestrial destination. More information are available in the wiki site  wiki/Space_burial Private companies such as Celestis, Inc. and Elysium Space offer space burial services. I have found out that the cost starts from around $2000, which is actually quite a small price to pay for being able to flirt with the stars. This is an option, I would not mind considering when time comes for my final destination. The website of Celestis celestis.com  declared that there are two missions scheduled for this year...

 Ashutosh, Santosh and Arijit were not established writers but dreamt to be one since their college days. During the good old days in Kolkata, they used to spend hours in the college street coffee shop arguing. They have now known each other long enough to understand one another and are at peace with their agreement to disagree. Not always though!   Sometime they would find themselves on the brink of publishing their first novel after striking a fantastic plot or encourage one of them to apply for the position of an editor of a leading newspaper. But once out of that place, money and relationship took precedence over writing their journalistic dream always got pushed to the back-burner. After so many long years things haven't changed much in this respect except for the fact that now they have access to portals for publishing their thoughts. The coffee house in the college street is famous as a breeding ground of intellectuals and artists, while at the same time it en...

Ana said, “What’s the matter, Ron! Why’s this strange expression all over your face?” “Actually “Ron started and then stopped abruptly. “I have to leave. I got something urgent to catch up. I will come back soon and go through this notebook. I promise,” he said and got up to leave. He started to walk down the stairs and Ana followed him, trying to understand what has gone wrong if at all anything has gone wrong. As he was about to cross the threshold, he turned and said, “I need to go and see an ophthalmologist one of these days. I need someone who is awfully good. Do you have anyone in mind?” “Why?”She asked, concerned. “You remember that afternoon when I slept off in your attic while waiting for you to return.” “That was more than three weeks back, wasn’t that”, she continued. “You were startled when I woke you up. It was as if you have seen a ghost”. “I do not remember that part. But when I was driving back home that evening, I felt there was a man sitting...

Night, you are so beautiful, quiet, serene and peaceful I can spend a lifetime gazing at your stars looking for the departed souls When your moon is in all its glory and stars keep winking for attention Lover gets moonstruck, strong becomes romantic and even the mighty turns emotional and the poet sits alone tipsy, while tired farmer sleeps dreaming of a bright new day Why they do wrong things during nights? Why did they give you a bad name?

The Banerjees are a happy family of four. The parents and the brothers and sisters, all busy with their daily chores. While the younger ones are in their teens and full of excitement, the parents are having are going through what everybody calls, a midlife crisis. Nothing seems to excite them any longer. Mrs. Banerjee has decided to start her own consultancy. She has chosen a though challenge of reviving faltering businesses by giving their trademark products a new lease of life. Mr. Banerjee on the other hand wants to come out of his plum finance job and dive into fashion consultancy and photography. Scene 1: Date: 20 July 2015 Time: 9:00 AM Place: The living room, Banerjee Residence, Kolkata, India. Son : I am fed up with this Ipad. I have been trying to upload the bike trick from this morning and all that I can see is circles. Daughter : Mama, He had promised that he will give me the pad after 15 minutes and now it’s more than an hour and still not giving me. I...

Given a choice, I would like to dig my four fingers into one of those delicious meals with curries, rice and other side dishes. But life doesn’t always provide choices as most of my lunch ends being sandwiches while the car being the dining room. After today’s lunch, I thought of digging a bit into the history of this food keeping many like me up and running. There lived a recklessly extravagant British statesman called Jon Montagu (1718 – 1792) in south east of England in the eighteenth century. He was the fourth Earl of Sandwich, a historic town and civil parish on the river Stour and notorious as a gambler. Montagu had invented this bread-enclosed convenience food known as the "sandwich", so that he would not have to leave his gaming table to take supper. The concept is this food is wonderfully simple: a delicate finger food served between two slices of bread. People of the Mediterranean and Greece are known to have this culinary concept in practice since...

I always dreamt of a home, just like in the film President (1937) “ Ek bangala bane nayara, ati sundar pyara pyara, Vishwakarma ke dwara .”  Yes, dreamt and not really own a home as in my dream, but I am hopeful of fulfilling my dream pretty soon.  I always have dreamt big as they say “ when you dream, dream big .” I would like to own my dream home in a skyscaper and would like to buy myself a duplex on the 20th and 21st floor of a high rise. Just as K. L. Saigal would have sung “ Itana uncha bangala ho yeh mano gagan ka tara, jis pe chadh ke indradhanush par jhulaa jhule chand humara ”. The property would have the guest room, lounge, dining, and kitchen on the first level and the 3 bedrooms on the second level and a terrace.  Each of the bedrooms would have balconies, a small dressing room, and the master bedroom would have a small study attached to it.The maid's room, however, will be semi detached. As for the interiors, the flooring would be wooden and th...

  My “dream home” has fascinated me and my mind since I was a kid. As the mini me then, I would think of a home by a river miles away from the hustle bustle of the city where the only sounds would be from the flowing water and an occasional bird chirping.  As I grew up, I started loving the mountains and my dream of a dream house gradually veered towards the mountain and I started dreaming of a small house atop a huge mountain from where the only things my eyes could see was the cliffs covered with white ice. I would dream of myself seating on the window with a cup of steaming coffee and watching the mountains while drifting away to the dreamland.  Time passed fast and soon, I started to dream about living by the sea in a secluded island and watching the sea roar, cool breeze blowing over my shoulder and me sitting on the rooftop with a can of beer in my hand and wondering what made the ancient travelers take to the sea or if mermaids were a reality. Now at this...

It was a harmless simple feather. At least that is what it seemed to Ron. It was inside the age-old manuscript like object that Ana has discovered in the attic. Now a day’s Ron doesn't visit Ana as frequently as he used to do sometimes back. After all the situation has changed since Ana has revealed her true feelings. Human are social animals and their life is all about relationship and relationship. Today Ana had called him over the phone excitedly and told “please come over as soon as you can. I have some queer stuff to share.” She spoke in length about the old diary that she has found and the also the picture of the ancestral sofa. But when he came over, she also showed him this old dilapidated notebook. She said “you have a look at it while I go down and arrange for some refreshment for you.”Before he could stop her she was running down the stairs. It was a very old piece of treasure but definitely not before paper was invented. He was mesmerized and sat down on ...

We were in Bangalore for 3 days towards the end of July, 2015. It’s a lovely city but seemed to have everything in excess and that includes people, cars and bikes.   One evening we dropped down at the Orion Mall. It was a bit crowded but if you discount that, it was a great experience. The parking was available in the adjacent multi-storied parking garage which was well staffed helping to find the right parking spot. Security screening at the entrance made us pause for a few moment but I am not allergic to such checks and incidentally this is the norm in India these days. Once inside the mall, we were amazed by the display of flowers. The sheer size and complexity of these installations were simply breathtaking. The mall is lined up with variety of stores and should satisfy everybody's need. The prices were competitive and more so for the branded stores. We did manage to identify and cash on a few great deals. The place provided a level of comfort to all a...

NANOBOT. It is a new word that I have learnt the other day while listening to a talk show on the FM radio. The intent of this post, however is not to bore everyone raving about how enlightened I now feel, having expanded my vocabulary of the complicated English language. I was actually amazed by what this small word is all about. It stands for a new technology, which many like us was not aware of. Well as the name suggests, it is formed by combining the words “nano” and “robots”. Till this time, no one has used the words “nano” and “robot” in the same breath for me. I learnt that these are tiny microscopic robots which can be of immense use to the mankind and particularly to the medical field. A little bit of prodding into the internet revealed that nano-robotics is an emerging field of research and technology. More specifically, I was enlightened that nanorobotics refers to the nanotechnology engineering discipline of designing and building nano-robots, wit...

I will not claim this blog post as mine. To be precise, this is not even a blog post, it is a Vlog post and I did not have to sweat as my enthusiastic second grader took charge. She said, "I never won a competition in my entire life.” That’s quite a strong statement for someone who just celebrated her 7th birthday. “I am going to record it very nicely so that I will win!" she declared.   I did the editing to fit it within the allowable 90 seconds, sacrificing some important aspects of her creativity. The storyline after editing can be summarized as below: “Elsa lives in a castle. This time she has magical power to bring in rains. Her sister Ana is trapped by a dragon in a tower and the knight fails to rescue her. Elsa uses her special powers to free her sister. There is a twist to the story in the form of them getting a baby brother. … and they happily live ever after.” The video can be watched here: Elsa and the Dragon One lesson learnt during this exercise...

Ana went up to the attic to spend some time alone. She did that whenever she felt a bit low though not too often. Today she lied down on the old chaise lounge to ruminate on her early childhood and how quickly things have changed.   As if to figure out what went wrong.   Suddenly she remembered her mice friends, her childhood buddies. She missed them very much and wanted to hug them this very moment. She was confident that she will succeed in locating her old soft toys somewhere here. Rummaging through the Attic, she finally spotted Minnie Mouse in an old trunk and quickly picked her up. Mickey too was nearby. vOnce those were removed, a maroon colored object caught her attention and she bent to pick it up. It appeared to be an old diary and upon close inspection, she discovered that it belonged to an ancestor of her dating back a few centuries.  As she was moving through the pages carefully something dropped off from between the pages. It was a picture of mother si...