There is One Such Place I know

Did you ever wish to be in a place where you would open a cabinet and take any book if you fancy and return it at another time after you are done with it. Or for that matter place one of your own books that you have finished reading for another book lover to enjoy. No questions asked, no string attached and unmanned.

There is one such place that I know. Its the Katara cultural village in Doha, Qatar. There are quite a few shelf like these for used books that would promote the habit of reading.

Visit to an International School – A Photo Tour

There is an International school where the choir of which my daughter is part of practices on a regular basis. The other day I decided to go around with my phone camera while waiting for them to finish singing.

The environment within that school is very different from the school that I went to… albeit many years ago. It is even somewhat different from the school my daughter attend these days.

The school, I am referring to here is not under pressure of large number of students like Indian schools and that allows them to have a lot of open spaces. Pupil do not feel constricted either inside the class room or outside. The walls are painted with scientific formulae and quotable quotes.

I am sharing a few photographs and those should give some idea of the message I want to convey. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and therefore I leave you with these pictures to do the talking.

I keep posting images in my Instagram account and my user name is Sumandebray. Please check this out sometime.

A Piece of Desert Rose

There is a new NATIONAL MUSEUM OF QATAR, which is nearing completion. This is how the museum will look once it is completed.

 National Museum

 Nature is known to inspire and influence human being’s creative mind since time immemorial. The interlocking disc design of the museum by Jean Nouvel is inspired by the desert rose.  

Desert rose is the colloquial name given to rose-like formations of crystal clusters of gypsum or baryte which include abundant sand grains. [Wikipedia]  The flattened crystals has a great resemblance to petals of rose.

Holding in her hands

Last weekend me and my daughter went to the museum gift shop and bought a sizable piece of this desert beauty. We were quite excited with the new toy and had a quick photo session to treasure the moments forever.

Posing with a yellow rose

The desert rose may also be known by the names: sand rose, rose rock, selenite rose, gypsum rose and baryte (barite) rose.

Agoraphobic any one

Napoleon had cautioned long ago that "Mankind's worst enemy is fear of work". But centuries have passed but the fear of work doesn't seems to go away.

One of my ex-colleague used to question "why we need to complete this today while we could do it tomorrow?" Another one's philosophy was to leave office early if you happen to reach for work late. "one should not be late twice in the same day" he used to advice.
But the winner is one who left office in the morning because his boss wished him "have a great day!" Obviously he had figured it out that he could not be in the office and have good time.

I looked high and low all these days to find a word that would describe this attitude towards work. On the 6th of March 2018, I got this word sent to me and I am glad to share with all who were not aware of it.