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...

This is a page from New Oxford Modern English Class 5 book. This particular title is used by so-called top schools. We know how students of such schools come to school. Of course sitting in the backseat of their parent's car. Now my father had a car too, and later he had two cars. But it never did occur to me or my parents that my brother and we should go to school in the car. We took a bicycle rickshaw, and later we cycled to school. There was a positive side to it too. Whenever I got late for school, I could smear my hands with cycle black oil and say the chain or the brake of my cycle came off!! So while others got punishment because they were stuck in some jam and got late, I could walk off using my cycle as an alibi and also get some sad look ( such a poor fellow look) from the Principal.  Now coming to this picture. It shows an overcrowded auto rickshaw. There is no parent who does not love or cares for their children. It is not beyond common sense that a parent woul...

  The chocolate cake with vanilla essence as it came out of the oven. The chocolate cake with cream and cashew nut and cherry topping. The super soft pineapple vanilla flavoured cake The super soft pineapple vanilla flavoured cake with dark chocolate topping with strawberry cream and cashew and cherry. Now these two cakes are super soft and extremely tasty. I would reckon they are the most tasty and soft cake that I had made all my life. (I made 10 cakes in all) Now there are a few changes in the proportion of materials. They are as follows -   1. Flour -2 cups  2. sugar-2 cups (sugar more than flour, in weight not volume)  3. butter- 1 cup (you can also use extra virgin olive oil instead of butter, its healthier. But use less     than a cup if using olive oil))  4. salt- 1 teaspoon.  5. vanilla essence - 2 teaspoon.  6. egg-4 (try for duck egg) and give more yolk than egg whites, it makes cake more vel...