Ritendra's Blog

From the middle of May 2017, we are seeing girls in their school uniform throwing stones at Jammu and Kashmir state police (own cousins) and Central reserve Police Force personnel. This is the first time uniform vs. uniform can be seen. More shocking is the fact that girls are throwing stones. Why are they throwing stones? They want Azadi (freedom) from India. They shout “Go India Go back”. Let us for once we forget the fact that India is one of the five world powers, and such absurd slogans will die as naturally as Charu Mazumder’s slogans had died in the hills of Naxalbari and the narrow stingy bylanes of Calcutta. What they are asking is separation from the most unique Republic, the most heterogeneous mix of races and culture, where no one particular race has hegemonic power, unlike in Pakistan, where the Urdu-speaking Punjabi elites completely rule the other ethnic groups. They are demanding separation from that culture that has from the start of civilisation advocated equal rights...

Ghagorburi temple near Asansol-Raniganj is the temple I have found most spiritual. Actually, I have seen the human manifestation of the child deity with my own eyes. In 2015, when I had left the Lecturer job at rani Birla Girls' College and was appearing for some Govt exams, some voices inside me was telling to give something for the brothers and sisters who sit outside the temple. First time (in 2011) I went there I gave them a few 10 rupee notes, when the last one asked, I did not give him any because I was offended by his tone. It was my stupidity to expect a polished manner of asking money from an uneducated poor man. Within 10 km our car had a puncture. We were going to our masis  house at Burdwan. My masis  (mother's sister) youngest daughter made some mocking sound about Ghagorburi and within 1 week she fell at Howrah station and hurt her leg badly. Last Durga Puja, I was able to give few new sarees to the people sitting outside the temple. I believe my new job at OUP a...

It is said Puri Dhaam is the only dhaam of Kali Yug. It is one of the four most important places (dhaams) of worship for a Hindu. The other three being Dwarka, Badrinath and Rameshwaram. Puri dhaam is called the only dhaam of kali Yug - The myth goes like this -  kali Yug started after the day Lord Krishna died. he was killed by a hunter with a blue stone, mistaking him for a deer. that blue stone was later swallowed by a fish and later it was found by a man. So Puri is also known as Neelachal and Lord Jagannath is also called Neel Madhav. That brilliance of that blue stone that brought this kali Jug cannot be witnessed by the human eye, so Neel Madhav asked the brahmin to worship it as Jagannath, Balaram, Subhadra and Chakra. I have been to Puri 2-3times before. Last time I went there was in 2004-2005 with my parents, brother, thakuma (grandmother) and my boro masi and mesomosai along with two of my father's colleague (Saha kaku and Chandan kaku) an...

On Akshay Tritiya, I drove my mother and grandmother 40 km to Kalighat temple at 4:30 am. I stood in the line for 2-3 hrs and offered my Puja inside the sanctum sanatorium. While standing in the line, I saw a wealthy man empty a whole litre of milk packet on the stone shiva lingam. I thought what a waste of milk in a country like India, where so many hungry children were waiting just outside the temple. feed milk, honey, curd, coconut water to the poor and stop wasting it on stone. Humans need food more than Gods. And Swamy Vivekananda had already said, to serve another living being is the highest worship, the best dharma.

While coming to my office today at Sector 5, Salt lake, I had started late from home and as expected didn't find the AC Winger shuttle that I usually take. I could have waited in the line for 10-15 minutes for it, but maybe it was some fate that made me take an AC 50 bus. That bus does not come to sector 5 so I had to get down at Haldiram on VIP road. There at the bus stop next to Country Club residence, I saw an old woman (probably 80-85 years old) sitting in one of the chairs and she looked absolutely downfall and rejected and sick. Her eyes had yellowed and the strong April Sun was too much for her age. During office time usually, old woman are not seen sitting in bus stoppage. So I was intrigued why was she sitting there? was she lost? or did she lose her memory or money? or did her family throw her out? She didn't look like a beggar or a mad person. I was already late for office. But I have always believed nothing is more important, not even losing your job than to h...