That’s Kolkata – the city of joy

Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) – the city of joy, city of Rabindranath, city of Satyajit Ray, city of intellectuals, city of football, city of procession, city of political movements, city of Bundhs (strike) , city of arts and culture (cultural capital of India), city of festivals and at last but not the least it is also known as city of best sweets and cuisine. Here is a glimpses of the city :

Kolkata is the Capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. It is located in the eastern part of India on the east bank the river Hoogly. The city has a population of about 5 million and it is the 4^th largest city in India.

Land mark of Kolkata, the Howrah Bridge, 2,150 feet long a engineering marvel. Construction of the bridge was completed in the year 1942, and it was opened for public in February, 1943.

The new Howrah bridge over Hoogly(Holy river Ganges)

Brief History of the city: In 1690, Job Charnok, an agent of the East India Company landed on the eastern bank of river Hoogly for British trade settlement and he purchased the three large villages along the eastern bank of Hoogly, namely Sutanuti, Gobindapur & Kalikata. Gradually, over the years, the “village Kalikata” was developed into a city “Calcutta” by the British.

Chowringhee Square as was in 1946

Calcutta served as the capital of India during the British Rule until 1911. Once the city Calcutta was center of modern education, science, culture and political movements in India. The Bengal as a whole was much developed those days in all sectors including politics, which gave birth of a proverb – “what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow”.

Chowringhee skyline today

Electric Tram is seen only in Kolkata (Calcutta) in India. It is a slow moving transport system which makes traffic congestion sometimes. But due environmental friendly the citizen likes it to stay. The city has many ways of commuting starting from hand drawn rickshaws to underground tube rail.

 

 

Victoria Memorial – In memory of Queen Victoria

In 2001, the name of Calcutta was changed to Kolkata. The names Kolkata and Calcutta were probably derived from Kalikata, the name of one of the three villages (Kalikata, Sutanati & Gobindapur). While the city was always pronounced either “Kolkata” or “Kolikata”, in Bengali, its official English name was only changed from “Calcutta” to “Kolkata” in 2001, reflecting the Bengali pronunciation and to end the legacy of the British.

Most intellectual city of India : Most Nobel laureates of India have been associated with Calcutta University or Calcutta at some point of time. The city has produced six Nobel Laureates so far. They are:

1. Sir Ronald Ross (1902 Medicine)
2. Rabindranath Tagore (1913 Literature)
3. CV Raman (1930 Physics)
4. Mother Teresa (1979 Peace)
5. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1983 Physics)
   
6. Amartya Sen (1998 Economics)

Festivals : Durga Puja is the most notable festival of Bengalis which celebrated every year like a carnival. It’s a religious and social festival of Kolkata. Other notable festivals include Deepavali, Eid, Christmas, Holi, Poila Baishakh (Bengali new Year), Saraswati Puja, rath yatra. Among the cultural festivals “Kolkata Book fair” are the most popular and its an event which takes place in the month of January every year.

Places of Interests : Science City, Indian Museum, Birla Planetorium, Victoria Memorial, Marble Palace, Nicco Park, Botanical garden, Iskcon Temple, Belur Math, Kalighat, Dakshineswar kali Temple, Armenian Church, St. Paul’s Cathedral church, Tagore House, Alipore Zoological Garden, Parasnath temple.

Indulgence to foods & sweets: As already mentioned about Kolkata that it is a city of best sweets and cuisines. Food and sweet are the two greatest indulgence of Kolkata people. Kolkatans love to eat and also they re great hosts. Every meal, ends with choicest sweets and Misty doi (sweetened curd). The unique range, quality, taste, variety and cheap rates of sweets can leave you amazed. The kolkata sweets are best sweets in India and unparallel in quality. Misty doi (sweetened curd) and confectionery of Patali Gur (date palm jaggery) are two delicacies of Bengal.

Besides Mughlai (tandoori, kebabs, biriyani etc.) Continental, Thai, Tibetian cuisines, Chinese cuisines are also very popular in Kolkata. Authentic quality Chinese cuisine is available in the eating houses/ Restaurants in Old China Town run by the Chinese people. Kolkata is also having varieties of junk foods. The quality of these foods is also too good. The quality and varieties of these foods too are not available out side Bengal.

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Love your life

Smoking is most popular among youth to show cool attitude. This happens when they are in high school or in college, mostly to impress the girl friends. It is an addiction, the bad habit cultivated at young age , it is nearly impossible to come out from that. It not only affects the smoker but also people around him (passive smokers). Thus a smoker is affecting his life as well as his wife and his children.

“Inhalation of tobacco smoke causes several immediate responses within the heart and blood vessels. Within one minute the heart rate begins to rise, increasing by as much as 30 percent during the first 10 minutes of smoking. Carbon monoxide in tobacco smoke exerts its negative effects by reducing the blood’s ability to carry oxygen.”

“Medical research has determined that chronic tobacco smoking is a major contributing factor towards many health problems, particularly Lung cancer, Emphysema and cardiovascular diseases.”

Smoking also causes wrinkles, yellow teeth, bad breath beside the above mentioned major health problems. Thus smoking not only chills but also kills you. If you choose to smoke, you choose a shortcut path to hell. Try to love your life and stop infecting innocents around you.

 

Acknowledgement : wikipedia and pic : yahoo group circulation

Yoga

At a time when Indian Yoga is spreading far and wide in Western countries including Britain, two churches at London have banned a group of children from conducting yoga classes in the church premises saying that the Yoga, the ancient practice is allegedly ‘un-Christian’.

Yoga exponent Baba Ramdev who made the Yoga popular in India and abroad and his camps have been held in several places across Britain, most recently in Scotland, who reacted sharply to the ban of Yoga by two churches saying “To relate Yoga with religion is nothing but ignorance. There is nothing to suggest in the yoga texts that it is against Christianity,” Baba Ramdev said.

The Yoga teacher Louise Woodstock Said: The churches have completely misunderstood it and I think they are being narrow-minded. “

Delhi Catholic Archdiocese spoke person Emmanuel Dominic said “the action was stupidity because of lack of sufficient knowledge about what yoga is.”

Yoga is nothing to do with religion and it is mixed up with religion just due to ignorance. People throughout the world are enjoying the benefits of these age-old Yoga exercises (postures/ exercises), breathing exercises. Its cures lot of ailments and keeps the body and mind fit. Anything good to mankind we should welcome. Today Yoga has been accepted by most of the developed countries. Yoga is practiced by millions of Americans today. Everyday people are experiencing the goodness of Yoga.

Today people of western countries are turning to east for spiritual happiness (leaving the materialistic life), practicing Yoga for healthy mind and body. Yoga is for all, regardless of color, caste, creed or religion, from the richest to the poorest.

 

India is home to Spirituality, Yoga, Ayurveda and also Kamasutra. Today the preiests who are telling Yoga is a non-christian so they don’t accept (because it is from Hindusthan, India), then what about the Kamasutra? Why they don’t ban Kamasutra too?

It is rightly said that two church priests are too small to ban yoga. If somebody bans Homoepathy, saying it as non-Hindu, will that ban harm to Germany or America? It will turn to be a ridiculous matter. Similarly the banning of Yoga by two priests too has become a ridiculous matter. It will be a wise thing to ignore them and not to give any importance to such ignorant and narrow minded persons.

Everybody should view the things in a broader perspective. We should respect all other religions bcoz in every religion there are good things and anything good we must try to understand and welcome. This simple understanding, will make the world a better place to live.

 

Humanity is wounded

This city too is changing. Day by day the city is changing its skyline, geography, population and with all these changing its characteristics too. The city always changes as a result of developments, which are a positive sign, and it is desirable. But changing its characteristics towards negative side is a matter of concern. If you compare the past and present you will find that the mentality of the people of this city or any other city, have undergone a lot of changes. People have become selfish, self-centered, inhuman and intolerant. Once the people of this city was having reputation of showing humanity, feelings for others, having a heart full of sympathy towards the helpless and the needy. But now nobody is sympathetic to anybody, people have no time for feeling for others, extending help to the needy or helpless or a dying person on the road.

People of the city demonstrated this once again, three days back when a Computer professional on a motorcycle, met a fatal accident and was lying unconscious for about 40 minutes on a main city road. It is not that there was no passer-by that time. During office time, there was continuous flow of vehicles but not a single person was sympathetic enough to stop his vehicle and take him to nearby hospital to save the life of the ill-fated person. Imagine, vehicles just drove away by the side of the accident victim, the way we drive when we see a cat or dog’s dead body lying on the road. We just avoid because we don’t want to run over it again to share the sin of somebody already committed. But here the case was not so, it was a life of a human being and who knows he was very much alive that time and could have been saved if he was shifted to hospital without delay.

There are reasons too for not coming forward to help the victims of accidents. Accident cases being police case, any body who comes forward in such situations has to be involved in the case. In the process of investigation he has to be interrogated by the police. Nobody is having time to go to police station again and again, that too without doing any crime. More over frequent visit of police to a person’s residence or his visit to police station, nobody likes. This is the only reason why people do not want to get involved in any accident case. This being the case, the law should be changed or modified for the road accident cases and also the police should not always suspect the saviors as killers.

Accident may happen to any body. It may be me, you or any of our family members, That’s why it should not be repeated next time to lose another life. Who knows who will be the next victim. So let us not forget humanity, our age-old culture of feeling for others, helping others. Let us do the noble duty of saving a life and get blessed by the God. Saving a life is “giving a life” and I believe God will always be with you who comes forward for such a noble cause.

Mistake turned to be a blessing

It is not my story, somebody else’s story I am presenting here. One day a high ranked army Officer was talking to us. He was talking about the God. He believes God or a supreme power ( whatever name you give), is existing. Sometimes some people may experience His existence through some incidents, in own life or in the family through which you may realize about His existence. In this connection he explained his experience, on his own life, which was like this :

“Old habits die-hard.” Once you are habituated to smoking and drinking it is difficult to come out from those habits. That was the case for him. He used to smoke about seven packets of cigarettes in a day and half bottle of wine in the evening daily. One fine morning his doctor detected some type of heart disease and Doctor advised him to stop drinking and smoking. The situation forced him to stop smoking and drinking. Due to medically unfit promotion also stopped.

Treatment was going on. Smoking and drinking totally stopped. Now he was spending the evening with his family. After treatment for an about one year or so, he was again advised to go through all the tests again, which was done a year back while diagnosis of the disease. He went through all tests at various speciality centers. Then the reports were analyzed carefully at various levels as per the Army procedure since it was a case of unfit. It took about a year to declare the report and surprisingly he was declared “fit”. For the Officer it was like a miracle, he never thought of it.

How could it happen? He wanted to know the things, but he was not obliged initially. Nothing was told him though he was a high-ranked Officer but later on his insistence, he was told on one condition. Condition was – he would not go to court for claiming compensation. Most probably he was agreed to. Then he was told that the initial diagnosis itself was wrong.

It was a clear case of compensation because this mistake made him to lose his promotion, seniority; mental peace and then wrong treatment and its side effects. He kept his promise.

During these many months one positive thing happened in his life, which he considered more than any compensation or any monetary gain. He could come out from the bad habits of smoking and drinking. Was he not declared as a heart patient, it was impossible for him to come out from those bad habits, which were killing him silently? One mistake turned the ‘impossible’ to ‘possible’ and saved his life.

He looked at the incident in a different angle. In fact the incident turned him towards spirituality and made him to believe that the mistake was a blessing for him and it was the plan of God, without His wish such things cannot happen.

Without the sacrifice of small interests or gains, you cannot achieve a greater goal in life. Health and happiness in life are the wealthiest and precious than any other materialistic gains.

Napoleon Hill, American speaker and motivational writer said : “Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness.”

Global warming

As a result of a management course on “Environmental Management Systems” – ISO: 14001-2004, I attended recently, I could gather some knowledge about environment and danger of our planet facing today. Government bodies, down to citizen are responsible for the environment or pollution. At least everybody should aware about the situation and try to contribute as little as possible. For example next time replace your electric bulb with a CFL lamp. Travel by public transport or pool car or Metro instead of your own car. After knowing the situation of our own planet my conscious just can’t keep mum. As a responsible citizen of this planet, it’s my duty to spread this to others for awareness. In summer we can feel the heat of Global warming. More over we can very well see that the pattern of seasons have changed to erratic.

Look at the news item below, which says the situation is very much alarming:

“One of the Nasa scientists has warned that pollution has increased to such an extent, that unless drastic cuts are made within the next decade, it will become difficult for mankind to reverse the effects of global warming. Jim Hansen, Director of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in NY, said the situation could be left with no ice at all. In other words, huge rise in sea levels and extinction of many species, he said. “Half the people in the world live within 15 miles of a coastline. A large fraction of the major cities are on the coastlines. Once you get the process started, and well on the way , it is impossible to prevent it. That’s why we need to address the issue before it gets out of control. We just can’t burn all the fossil fuels (Coal, Petrol & Gases) in the ground.” The Mirror quoted him as saying. “ (Times of India : 4 Jan 2007)

We should not forget the following quotes, which say:

“Past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to infinite.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

“The earth, the air, the land and the water are not an inheritance from our fore fathers but on loan from our children. So we have to handover to them at least as it was handed over to us”.

~Mahatma Gandhi

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