Owning an address

Whenever I used to receive a request from any office or any government agency to submit my communication address, I used to wonder “Will I be here next month?” The answer was uncertain... So far my permanent address in a city was probably the email address... however the situation is changed now... I have got a permanent physical address of my own in Kolkata... its really very very assuring... as I see the final paint or the interior decoration is coming to an end, it gives a pleasure unexplainable in words...as I watch my wife actively taking part in the discussion with the carpenter or the painter about several issues, when I see her dancing in ecstasy in front of the newly built cupboard, I feel that every woman in this world should get a home of her own... I think for a woman it really does not matter if the home is a mansion or a hut, what matters the most for her is whether that home is her own or not... it reminds me of an old Bengali song in which the poet is asking the cuckoo how it feels not having a nest of her own...

the best part of my new home is that it reminds me of my own childhood days... its not in a very posh locality... in fact the people around are those type of people who constitute most of the Indian population... however, they are friendly unlike a very cosmopolitan culture... and when they start chanting together “Bhole baba... paar karega...”...whenever I visit the small roadside temple of God Sani...or when i hear the sound of conch in the evening... its just my childhood days revisited...

Now I understand what is meant by

“Dekhi nay sudhu du chokh meliya...

Ghar hote aaji duy paa feliya...

Ekti ghasher shisher upor ekti shishir bindu...”

When the pattering sound of raindrops falling on the leaves of the coconut tree enters my ears, when i smell the fragrance of the raindrops falling on the parched soil, when I look through the windows of my kitchen at the far away outside advertisement hoarding through the raindrops, when the wet breeze with cold rain water drenches me and the window curtains... I feel like I am on cloud 9. one does not need a mansion to feel this, however one has to have his own hut for this feeling... and i thank God for whatever he has given to me...

Life from a different perspective

"Sir, I have started at 5 o'clock in the morning. cycled almost two hours with the stock of guava to come to this market place, and will cycle another two hours to my home at the end of the day..." this is how the wretched-looking guava vendor started the conversation... and suddenly i felt how privileged i am... of course i have my own set of problems, but not like the guava vendor who starts his day as early as 4 o'clock for a paltry sum... and moreover guava is a seasonal fruit... so he becomes a mason when the guava season is over...

as i watch my dad sweating in the small low-asbestos-roof shop at around 46-47 degree Celsius of Purulia summer, i feel so much privileged... i feel the power of education which has given me a much smoother lifestyle than my dad's... when i see people are looking at my technical blog from around the globe, i feel so much privileged that i have got a laptop fixed with a broadband connection... when i write software codes at a cozy corner and use my touchscreen mobile phone, i feel myself so much privileged because it reminds me my dad's nervousness with new technologies...

The statement "When you are down... look downwards..." has a great meaning for me... when i think of our Habsi of the small village Gangara near Purulia i feel so good... Habsi was once a daily porter and a farmer of our paddy fields... and now his children are graduates, well established in the village... thats the power of education...

i am interested in spreading the technical education among the not-so-well-to-do bright students... probably my future association with an academic institution will help me in achieving this goal... i wholeheartedly want to do that because i don't want people to suffer the ignominy like me because they don't know...