Chatting with my mind

"Phuckha" is one of the street food ( it falls under Chat category) in India, that everyone like. It's very hard to pass a street side stall that is serving "Phuchka". Being born and brought-up West Bengal, India - this is the name and taste i was familiar with till i step outside my home and observed that it is widely enjoyed and appreciated across India. At different phase of life, this dish brings me a different memories and savor. Primeval memories comes when my Maa, Fulma (Aunt) and with neighborhood aunts called "Phuchkawala" ( the man who sells phuchka) inside our house compound, would circle around him and start eating the serving from the seller - there were so much controversies with the number he was serving , the size of serving , the potato is not spicy enough, the water is not enough and at the end the ask for one "dry" "phuckha" with masala inside 😀. Now with the mid-age i think "Phuchkawala", is one of the

  I don't know since when, i started hearing the term "HouseWife". Down in the memory lane, i was asked in  my elementary school about what my mom do, and i was confused (because i am habituated of seeing my Maa work for all the household work), then i came back home and asked to my Maa, "What do you do?", after a pause, she told "i am a housewife", satisfied with the answer i went back to school next day and told proudly that "My mother is a housewife". But over the period of time, when i grew up and grow mature, many times i feel that this word "HouseWife" is underestimated and underrated. My question today is "WHY"? This question off late brings a lots of memories: During my school and even some part of working life also whenever Maa is around i was always welcome home and serve with good fresh food, she will listen to my day. Similar i observe with my kids too , if i am at home they also want to hang around at home, th

I am born and brought up in a small place next to river Ganga in West Bengal, India. In my entire life till marriage I never crossed the Vindhya Range ( central India). After marriage, first time I went to northern part of India - Jhansi, Utter Pradesh. In history I read about "Rani Laxmi Bai", the warrior queen! that was my limited knowledge about that place and people. My childhood memories of my Baba's uncle ( he became a monk and we used to call him 'Sadhu Dadu' ) used to call me as 'DurgaBai' and he keep on giving reference to 'Jhansi ki Rani LakhmiBai' in multiple times. When the Jheelam Express stopped in the Jhansi railway station, I was very anxious to get the first look of the city. My husband, Sandhya, Papa( Father in law), Dharmendra ( my husband's friend ) was there with me who accompanied me in the train. Seen my excitement to get down from the train, Papa and my Husband told me to wait till in the train till the crowd get lighter

 Today is my 15th marriage anniversary ( now it just became as a 'manage anniversary' 😁) and the above one is my actual marriage card. Since morning i was remembering a lot about that particular day, and what stand out was my happiness. In every picture or every memories i can remember that i was happy. Later in my life when there was difficulties in marriages, i always feel bad about the happiness that i have shown off that day. In my place if the girl is showing a lot of happiness or smile during the marriage day it is consider as a shamelessness, i still fail to understand the reason behind that, but i was happy and my parents and uncles ( Mama - mother's brother, Kaka - Father's younger brother, Tata - Father's elder brother ),  aunts( Maima - Mama's wife) were also smiling and making joke with me with my smiling.  One thing that stood out in my mind is, when my husband came in the afternoon and there was difficulties in finding the places, i was so anxious

 Last week after 22 years i again read "Aranyak" a n ovel by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. First time i read this novel was during the high school days , some of its excerpt were part of our syllabus. At that time i found this book was captivating but fail to get the depth of it , this time after reading it, after a week also, i have the trance of that book. This is the reason this book is still very widely read.   This book is about a young guy who is working as a manager for a local landlord during early 20th century in Northern part of Bihar, India. The majority of the book deals with the natural beauty of the forest which was untamed at that time and the places like 'lobotuliya', 'saraswati kunj' and so many other places and the simple people. In one place the author says that he is hesitant to ask people and start converting those jungle to a human colonies , because of the beauty of the nature. He is suggesting that if India would have better resource li

Early this week, I was feeling very energetic to finish my pending work, and I had a plan to go to office to setup a testing lab. On Wednesday morning, I woke up and got ready to leave for office. My office is around 14 miles from my house, and pre-COVID time, it used to take 1 hour for me to reach. For those who are familiar with Bay area traffic won't be surprised with that :-) . I drive a Red Tesla, and I just love it! I had a very pleasant drive and reached office that day within 15 mins (No traffic, because of COVID and all the offices are closed) I was very happy, after I parked my car in the empty garage. I realized that the office entrance door is changed, and I had to take a different route to enter.  I was looking forward to have a good work time in office and come back home like an achiever :-). After entering office, I realized that the office network is awfully slow, and then found in the WhatsApp messages that there is a network outage in the south bay. I receive mess