Our Funarena!

We’d been growing up with the dictum that ‘everything is fair in love and war’; however, in view of our increasingly awesome experience with the phenomenon of digital marketing we urgently need to revise the dictum to ‘everything is fair in love, war and marketing’, for our own solace. I’m not at all exaggerating this. In spite of being very particular about paying all your dues on time all your life and enjoying a healthy credit score as a result your service providers shall not cease to hound you all the time for payment. They’d start at least a week before the approaching payment-due date and their irksome and utterly useless verbosity will flood all your resources of a digital existence. This ‘logorrhea’ of the post-modern times has become a disease like the good old ‘diarrhea’! The disorder cannot be corrected even if you resort to a digital bank transfer system with specific instructions for the payment on the due date. At most of the times the all-encompassing reminders would ke

Under the aegis of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav (75 Years Celebrations of Independence), a Campaign “ Har Ghar Tiranga ” (Tricolor in Every home) on Independence Day 2022 has been launched by the Government of India to encourage the Citizens to hoist the National Flag of India in their homes to instill a feeling of patriotism in the hearts of people and reminisce the contribution of those who had tirelessly worked for nation building. It is envisaged that all citizens are to be encouraged to hoist the Tiranga in their homes during the period from the 13th - the 15th August 2022. Department of Posts is honored to utilize its vast physical reach and manpower present in each and every corner of the country to inform the citizens about the importance of this momentous occasion through comprehensive outreach campaign.  Under this campaign, National Flags have been made available for sale at Post office counters @Rs.25/- per flag all over India. Online orders can also be placed to get your Tricol

That evening in end-July a Bangla family friend came to our house in Kolkata profusely sweating and drenched in it from head to foot. However he was carrying with him a packet of smoking hot beguni (Brinjal fritters) and Chops (Cutlet fritters). Before he could cool himself enough under the full-speed ceiling fan he commanded us to partake of the items before those cooled off! And yes, we had those gobbled up quick in extraordinary gourmet delight and also supported by hot steaming cups of tea! Well, in our traditional belief that ‘heat neutralizes heat’, particularly when the heat (like May) is oppressively humid (like monsoon)! This dictum is of the utmost importance now, because the supposedly wettest months of the South West Monsoon, June and July, have gone with absolutely no rains in South Bangla and Kolkata city. In fact, the month of July has proved to be the driest July in history in the Eastern and North Eastern regions of the country. And into August now, there’s hardly any

It has to be termed as a good positive sign in view of the ICC World Cup T20 coming up later this year and the ODI ICC World Cup coming next year that Team India, of late, has been winning in the shorter formats consistently. After Team India-Bumrah franchise lost the leftover 5 th Test against England the various franchises have been blooming in the following matches in the shorter formats. Before the 5 th Test Team India-Pandya franchise had triumphed over Ireland quite easily; then Team India-Rohit franchise won both the T20I Series and the ODI Series against England with the same margin of 2-1; next, Team India-Dhawan franchise swept the 3-match ODI Series against the competitive and spirited West Indies on the latter’s turf 3-0; and at the moment Team India-Rohit franchise has taken a lead of 1-0 in the 3-match T20I Series against the West Indies routing the hosts in the first T20I match. Before this winning spree Team India-Pant franchise managed to draw the ODI Series against

If you had ever got the idea of perceiving ‘divorce’ as one of the funniest and craziest words or concepts in human conjugal life and then had dismissed the idea as a wild one…well, you were not entirely wrong. For your solace or rather vindication we have here a movie titled Jugjugg Jeeyo (correct Hindi form is ‘Jug Jug Jeeyo’ meaning ‘live long and prosperous,) that reduces ‘divorce’ to the kind you’d perceived, doesn’t matter if you’d done so with experience leaking or not as the movie itself doesn’t bother about that either. Your conviction is further heightened by the fact that the movie is not of the ordinary type, having the iconic Karan Johar as one of the producers and his famous banner ‘Dharma Productions’ to boot. And then, the star-cast is really mouthwatering with the ever popular veterans Anil Kapoor and Neetu Singh along with the immensely talented actors of the younger generation—Varun Dhawan and Kiara Advani in the lead roles—supported well by the ebullient television

The India division of the Canada-based Ukiyoto Publishing, a traditional publisher always committed to quality content and finding talented new authors across the globe, has given away the Literary Awards-Q2 of 2022 in various categories of fiction and non-fiction in Kolkata on 24 th July. As per Ukiyoto India announcement at the event around 1500 applications were received from various parts and various regional languages of India out of which around 100 were selected for the different awards, based on the parameters of selection adopted by their panel of judges.   This writer is very proud of finding himself among the awardees. His book of humorous short stories titled ‘The Cheerless Chauffeur and Other Tales’ has earned him the prestigious ‘Emerging Author of the Year—Fiction’ in the Literary Awards-2022 event which was organized as a part of Ukiyoto’s Kolkata Chapter at Vivanta by Taj. Solstice, the marketing wing of Ukiyoto India, has displayed all the books of the awardee au

Draupadi Murmu, a tribal BJP leader from the state of Odisha, has been elected as the 15 th President of India after she had secured more than 51% of the votes in the third round of counting that started today morning. Even as more rounds of counting still remain the final election announcement becomes a mere formality. Draupadi Murmu belongs to the Santhal tribe of India and thus becomes the first ever Scheduled Tribe person to become the President of India. And she is only the second woman President of the country after Pratibha Patil, the 12 th President during 2007-2012. Madam Murmu was born on 20 th June, 1958 in a village of Mayurbhanj district of Odisha. Both her father and her grandfather were village headmen (Sarpanch), and so in a way, she’d been associated with public life from her childhood. She had served in the profession of teaching and initially also worked as a clerk in the state irrigation department. In her personal life she had to face a series of tragedies—losin

You don’t literally have to be a crocodile or have to have some familiarity with the preying ways of the semiaquatic reptile to manage some of its tears for your deemed friend who seemed to be in trouble or in great suffering or in both. The magnanimity in you to have conceded to the fact that humans do not have a monopoly over the production of tears is more than enough. The only problem is your production of tears may not be well-supported by your deemed or displayed emotions for your friend who seemed to be in trouble. Empathy is your asset only and it’s entirely your discretion how to go about investing it. However, there are some pitfalls in your display of empathy as it could expose your real feelings to the genuinely suffering soul, and therefore, in all propriety, you should ideally desist from showing empathy and instead can go for the much simpler sympathy which is utterly subjective and cannot at all be deciphered. Most importantly, in your show of sympathy there’s nothing c

“Hello! Is this Mr. ----?” “Yes, speaking.” “Sir, I’m calling from the Khatak Life Insurance Company…!” “Oh, welcome back! So, you’re giving me a job again, right?” “Well Sir…it’ll be a part-time job…!” “How much salary would you be giving me per month?” “Well…err…Sir! First you’ll have to come to our branch to discuss it over!” “Nah, my dear lady! I won’t come again to any branch of yours. Since you know everything about me please send me the appointment letter!” “Hmm…mmm…um…ugh…ooh…!” “Enjoy your day!” (Cuts the line … Khatak!)   *   “Hello Sir! I’m -----, calling from Khatak Bank. Can I have a minute with you please?” “About what?” “We’re giving you a credit card with a lot of benefits, specially designed for you…!” “So, nowadays you’ve started issuing credit cards to granddads too!” “Pardon Sir?” “What pardon? I know a bit about how you get our phone numbers. Now, once you get my number you have to be knowing a bit about my user profile too, no?”

Based on my lifelong experience as a rather discerning and somewhat fastidious movie buff I beg to offer here a few of my rather bovine (no necessarily offending anyone) observations about movie watching. You may or may not agree with these which is quite natural, movie watching being kinda of subjective entertainment. You can also choose the near-absent option of putting your views too here in a way to enrich or annihilate my observations. My observations here dwell on characteristics that adversely affect the viewing pleasure which are more important, because the absence of those acts on the positive side. Ø   In quite a few movies I fervently expect something to happen at some point of the narration, and if that takes too long a time or doesn’t happen at all I get impatient and immediately try confirming again the genre of the film. Most often, I find Suspense as the one. Well, heady kind of suspense that! This phenomenon mostly happens in Hollywood productions where the filmmaker