happy birthday noreen!

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose was born on 23 January, 1897 in Cuttack (Orissa) to Janakinath Bose and Prabhavati Devi. Netaji was the ninth child among eight brothers and six sisters. His father, Janakinath Bose, was an affluent and successful lawyer in Cuttack and received the title of "Rai Bahadur". He later became a member of the Bengal Legislative Council.

He passed his B.A. in Philosophy from the Presidency College in Calcutta. He was strongly influenced by Swami Vivekananda's teachings and was known for his patriotic zeal as a student. He also adored Vivekananda as his spiritual Guru. Subhash Chandra Bose was a very intelligent and sincere student but never had much interest in sports.

In 1916, Netaji reportedly beat and thrashed one of his British teachers E F Otten. The professor made a racist remark against the Indian students. As a result, Bose was expelled from the Presidency College and banished from Calcutta University. The incident brought Netaji in the list of rebel-Indians. In December 1921, Bose was arrested and imprisoned for organizing a boycott of the celebrations to mark the Prince of Wales's visit to India.

His father wanted Netaji to become a civil servant and therefore, sent him to England to appear for the Indian Civil Service Examination. Bose was placed fourth with highest marks in English. But his urge for participating in the freedom movement was intense that in April 1921, Bose resigned from the coveted Indian Civil Service and came back to India. Soon, he left home to become an active member of India's independence movement. He, later joined the Indian National Congress, and also elected as the president of the party.

People began to recognize Netaji by his name and associated him with the freedom movement. Netaji had emerged as a popular youth leader. He was admired for his great skills in organization development.

In 1928, a difference in the opinion between the old and new members surfaced. The young leaders, wanted a "complete self-rule and without any compromise". The senior leaders were in favor of the "dominion status for India within the British rule".

The differences were swelling between moderate Gandhi and aggressive Subhash Chandra Bose. Subhash Chandra Bose defeated Pattabhi Sitaramayya, a presidential candidate, nominated by Gandhiji himself, but without any second thought he resigned from the party and formed the Forward Bloc in 1939.

During the Second World War in September, 1939, Subhash Chandra Bose decided to initiate a mass movement. He started uniting people from all over the country. There was a tremendous response to his call and the British promptly imprisoned him. In jail, he refused to accept food for around two weeks. When his health condition deteriorated, fearing violent reactions across the country, the authority put him under house-arrest.

During his house-arrest, in January, 1941, Netaji made a planned escape. He first went to Gomoh in Bihar and from there he went on to Peshawar (now, Pakistan). He finally reached Germany and met Hitler. Netaji had been living together with his wife Emilie Schenkl in Berlin. In 1943, Netaji left for south-east Asia and raised the army. The group was later named by Netaji, as the Indian National Army (INA).

During his sojourn to England, he met with the leaders of British Labor Party and political thinkers including Clement Attlee, Arthur Greenwood, Harold Laski, G.D.H. Cole, and Sir Stafford Cripps. Netaji also discussed with them about the future of India. It must also be noted that it was during the regime of the Labor Party (1945-1951), with Attlee as the Prime Minister, that India gained independence.

Although it was believed that Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose died in a plane crash, his body was never recovered. Too many theories have been put forward regarding his abrupt disappearance. The government of India set up a number of committees to investigate the case and come out with truth, none succeeded.


http://www.culturalindia.net

Marriage vs live together

Whether to make Live in relationships legal … This is one of the latest debates which is troubling traditional Indian minds. What are the plus points of live together?

 

1. You can check thoroughly before marrying if your spouse is as tempting as he was as a suitor. You will be able to judge each other completely before taking the holy oath of marriage.
2. As you have checked each other thoroughly before marrying, chances of divorce or marital dispute may slice down a lot.
3. If you two don’t find each other compatible you will be able to walk away without feeling social stigma which today’s youth have to face, branding it as immoral lifestyle.
4. You wont be tied up with a person you don’t like or have stopped liking for the rest of your life.

 

Now the minus points…

 

1.                  If your partner is a flirt under cover he or she may use and dump you without even looking back. Which in case of marriage law will force him to.

2.                  The health hazards of multiple broken relationships with multiple partners, which will become an inseparable part of live-in relationships once the social stigma is gone.

3.                  The risky life of children born out of such relationships, what will happen to them when their parents will enter one relationship after another along with them? How will they be treated by the other partners?

4.                  Reaping all sorts of profit including monetary will be easy for a untrustworthy partner. You may walk back to home one fine evening and see your mate has disappeared with all you have given him, or all she has bought with your money.

 

Now comes the holy matrimony. Its pluses are-

 

1.                  If two stable persons get married there is high possibility that they will live a life together. Of course with some up and down, but they will mend this relationship.

2.                  Two serious spouses will give a healthy environment for each other, children.

3.                  As their life will be tension free regarding family they will be better citizens and happier citizens.

4.                  In today’s world of STD and HIV one mate is the most desperately needed thing in world.

 

Minus points of holy matrimony:

 

1.                  If your spouse is exactly your opposite and you are somehow trapped together, and none is interested to change, you both are doomed.

2.                  If you both have separate perspective on every thing under the sky you both will both live a choking life.

3.                  If your spouse is a cheater.. on any ground, it can be in love, duty, behaviour any thing you are simply doomed.

4.                  If every thing else is perfect but you are not able to love each other, your life will feel like being wasted.

Goodbye 2009!

beautiful weather

This year's pleasant winter in Kolkata is most probably the gift of Kolkata High Court's anti pollution activities. Atleast thats what news papers are saying. That shows how much pollution tampers with the environment. Simply controlling the pollution has done this magic, I wonder what will happen if trees are planted too.

It will be really beautiful if nature is restored as much as possible even in metros like kolkata. I dont think its impossible. I think its urgent that we start thinking that way. Otherwise we will lose more and gain less from urbanization.

I wonder if our builders and developers can find out a way of not playing with environment and nature.

Misdirected anger

We all do it at a certain point of time, when we read about misuse of religion by its representatives. We instead of targetting the representatives target the religion itself or worse God. I myself have done it while I was young, so when I see someone else targetting God or religion instead of corrupt priests or sadhus it hurts a little. Not much, because I know God is not hurt or effected by their outburst, like a mother doesnot feels heartbroken when her tiny toddler hits her with his tiny fists.

Priest or sadhus are more or less self appointed representative of God, religion. They are neither God, nor religion.They have not been chosen by God. In today’s world we can not blindly follow and worship them just because they are priests. We all have our reasonings and we should abide by them.

If the gardener of a garden is bad that doesnot makes the trees bad, the garden bad or nature bad. It just means that the particular gardener bad.

Criticism

Recently i was reading an article in Reader's Digest's website about real criticism, it was sort of eye opener to me. It told me what true criticism is made of.

The last part was done by a friend of mine who mentioned to me that Thomas Hardy (one of my favourite novelists) stopped writing novels because of harsh criticism and started to write poetry. In his case it must have been pure jealousy of mediocres or "big nothings".

Why sometimes we use criticism as a weapon of correction only? Its real motto should be pointing out someone's big defects and show him the way of conquering them.

Whats the use of telling a person that "your nose is too big" unless we are paying him for his cosmetic surgery, or he is in modelling and that is the reason he is not getting consignments.

I have worked as a proof reader for almost two years, i loved that job. Fortunately even after that when i read a piece of literature i ignore silly mistakes, because its not my job to point out silly mistakes. If I was a proof reader and that same piece was one of my assignments of the day I certainly would have pointed them out but as it is not ....

I sometimes really observe how different people look at the same thing, give the same piece of poetry to ten people and you will know.. one will say its too mushy, too dreamy; the second will be busy finding out spelling mistakes, third one will be scanning for rhythm, fourth will scan for punctuation faults.. in the process hardly one will absorb the true beauty of the poem. And that one person is luckiest among them.

When we see a flower do we scan for its perfection? Well being born and brought up in homes full of gardens I know, that most of the flowers are defected, by one mean or other, but we love them all. I personally believe that will be the way we should think about the rest of the world. We should try to concentrate on the beauty and ignore petty faults.

Sometimes we should ask the critic inside us to " just shut up and enjoy the world and let us do the same".

loving life just the way it is

Life is a bliss, no matter from which you judge it, if you have an amply healthy body, a roof over your head, food on your plate and some cash in your pocket and bank life is a bliss.

Then why do a huge majority of us forget to love life after a while? Is the explanation as simple as that life gets tough with age and responsibility?

I guess not, I believe we let the power of enjoying life slip by with age and responsibility.

Its true that our responsibilities with age are graver than childhood responsibilities, but children take things like study and result equally gravely. Their bad performance in school is equally devastating as our bad performance in job.

I believe it all depends on the chance of mindset, in childhood we used to count our blessings like today is Monday, that means four more days of school then it will be Saturday, half day.. and so on. Now we wake up and think, “Monday..oh no, another week to drag by!”

In childhood we had time for all type of fun, no matter how busy our life was with school, after school and pre school tutions or other serious activities. We always had some time to climb trees, eat junk foods, take a solid soaking in rain, a sun bath in sun..but matured us, we ignore these urges and try to show ourselves as something grumpier than we actually are, even when we are alone.

We deprive ourselves from happiness, that is why become sad with growing age. If we stop depriving ourselves and start to look for happiness in every thing then we will see that life was just the way it was but happiness has increased in thousandfolds.

Caring for oneself

We often confuse that caring for others has some clash with caring for oneself. We think that by taking care of our own needs we become selfish. I have seen too many people suffering from this complex, I also did, even now I am not fully over it when it comes to physical needs but in case of mental or spiritual needs I have grown up a little.

A little more explanation ……

I only mix with people who leave positive impact on me. In case of people who make a negative impact on me by their rude behaviour, complaining nature, incurable gloomy nature I first try to change them and then I slowly distance myself.

A person once doled out a million dollar wisdom to me, he said that we let these people linger around us because we look for friends too desperately. When I soul searched I realized that he was true. So I moved another step toward my goal. And started to de weed these persons from my life as a result my life transformed a lot.

Second, I treat myself as a queen, and others too, if they don’t force me to change my mind. I am determined to enjoy my stay here, no matter what. So I treat myself with compassion, kindness and sweetness. Before believing any sarcastic remarks I think who is correct, if the person is correct I just remind him that a remark can be made properly, and then thank him for his honesty and keep his words in mind. But not before reminding him that he should stay within limits of manners.

Third, I never let gloomy souls suck me down to their whirlpool, I stay clearly away from that quagmire and throw them the rope, right on their head, and if they catch it and let me pull themselves out I do that, but I don’t let them make me a part of their misery. I clearly show them the ways they can combat it, and cure themselves. A real human being never wants to make others miserable, he may need a hand to clutch from time to time but he doesnot uses that hand to paint his benefactor’s heart black. He clutches that hand, walks out of his hell and blesses his benefactor for the rest of his life.

Fourth, I never let anyone make me believe that the world is bad, I always stick to my belief (which was once lost but regained) that most of the human beings are good, but a big proportion of them are misguided by doomsayers, so I try to bring them out of that misconception by drawing their attention to goodness of human beings.

A strange syndrome

Well, I have only one feeling toward politics .. I hate it. in my eyes it’s the greatest business in today’s world which reaps golden harvest without any investment or with the investment of sheer sweet nothings. So I observe the activities of politician completely without interest..

Lately it has started to appear that indian politicians have started to suffer from a clinical condition where the skin of a person becomes extremely thin.

First the incident of shashi tharoor, second the incident of the kerala cop who called rahul gandhi “our friend”.. every thing points towards it. I think rahul gandhi is very sincerely trying to prove it that he wants to bridge the gap between the true citizens of india (people who live in mud walled huts) and the would be prime minister of india. Though just like majority I too don’t like the way he ignores his safety. I have a deep trust that he will turn out to be a good prime minister and most probably he will do something for the deprived people of the country.

Now back to the clinical condition, as I don’t count rahul gandhi among one of my enemies.. I have nothing against the poor cop who called him “friend” I think that showed his sweetness.

Is it our dignity that gets hurt in these incidences or ego?

INTENT.COM

Some experiences become a part of our soul. I stumbled into intent.com looking for some details about actor rahul bose.. and found out a treasure trove.

Intent.com and its bloggers changed my opinion about human beings permanently. Very frankly speaking I have never seen so many unselfish and affectionate persons under the same roof aka in the same website.

Intent server crashed on 23rd September, the day my computer crashed, I have not been able to log in since then..

This durgapuja has brought boons in disguise of irritation.. first I got over my addiction of internet + computer, second I got over my hyper addiction of intent. the intent server is still not up. But when it will I will most probably not log in, because I used to spend 8-10 hours there, which is impossible for me now, because I have sliced down my computer hours to one third and am busy writing stories.

But I have plans of getting broadband connection, then I certainly will be able to squeeze out some time for intent. till then this fabulous site and its priceless people will stay in my heart and soul.

wind stealers...

These are the people who come across us time to time, especially if we shine in some field.. let it be any field.. human affection, popularity or some other talent. They often come to us and mostly they try to misguide us, away from our talents.

I will just put up one instant, well, yes its about my favourite radio program which just got off air from this week. This will give you a clear insight about how wind stealers work.

This guy created a magic, a wonderful magic of a rare feeling these days.. earnest friendship. Yes, yes I know what you will say, how can a rj be a friend of his listeners, well, I too thought that before I heard him, and after hearing him I knew that he can, if he is a genuine human being and earnest.

So, he created an invaluable bonding of friendship with us, his listeners. I never called him up but have sent him mails and smses. But I used to hear the way people poured out their heart to him. It was truly a moving experience. Tben slowly very rare wolves started to howl.. that they are bored with “friendship” which is the main theme of the program and I noted how they acted like slow poison. slowly ruining the spirit and flow of the rj. Though his admirers kept on repeating that they love his program but their voice was soft like summer rain, true but far weaker than the occassional howls of the wolves.

I have noted a few things about these people:

One, they are not blind with jealousy, they will observe you keenly for a long spell of time and then befriend you. Pretending as a great admirer or fan.

Two, once they have pulled down your barrier they will try to misguide you to a path away from your talent.

Three, if they fail in that they will start to criticise your talent by finding faults in them or making up faults in them.

Four, if they can, they will spoil your mood of creations through 101 methods, for example if he sits in next chamber he will visit your cubicle right when you are about to start your new project and keep you busy till you lose the spirit.

For the first take on these people this is enough I guess, may be I will add up or write another fresh one later. But beware of these people, being very intelligent and cunning they have a way of having their way. Its better to stay away from them.

A person once gave me a million dollar suggestion.. he said that only weak people or people craving for attention, compliment entertain these people and ruin themselves or their talents.