Celebrate Life...!

In memory of a Dear One…..! He was the darling of the house. No ritual or puja is complete without his presence. Rahul and Pinka had to beg for days before their favourite biscuit is brought to house, but not in case of him. He gets to eat the best biscuit in town. He had a very straight forward attitude and was very clear about his likes and dislikes.  No one in the family dares to mess with his bed. He enjoys his freedom and know exactly whom to respect. He would be the first to receive any guest at home. No sooner Mummy’s car takes the final turn from the Burail chowk (Sec-45, Chandigarh) towards home, he would be the first to smell her arrival. He was none other than the most trusted lieutenant of Mummy ji, whom we all used to call Tuffy. He was a combination of black & white with beautiful spots along his body. I was once a prospective son-in law of the above mention family, so I was supposed to know everything about Tuffy. The lesser the sound of Tuffy b...

Capturing the spirit of Sainik School Goalpara….. an imagination of an ex-ssgian ! 50 years to Golden Jubilee Ratneswar Saikia was lucky to have found  a seat in the red ASTC bus on a pleasant November morning. He had taken the route from Gaurisagar to his in- laws home at   Dergaon on many occasion but never had the luxury to travel seating. Perhaps destiny was changing, thought Saikia.  Previous two years were toughest for Saikia. A bad monsoon and his aging father’s health condition forced him to sell off his 2 bigha beetle orchard. But, on that particular morning, from the comfort of his window seat he looked towards the boundless paddy fields and felt optimistic. He had a bumper harvest and was expecting the birth of his third child in two months.  Amidst his changing mood he picked up a newspaper left behind by a co-passenger in Jorhat.  Turning the pages Saikia came across a news on inauguration of a Sainik School in Goalpara....

A tribute to R D Sharma .... Rameshwar Dutt Sharma was an ordinary man, born  in  Purmafi , a sleepy village in Muzaffarnagar  District of Western Uttar Pradesh, where people mostly breath hookahs , talk politics and harvest  sugarcane. He neither breathed, talked or  harvested like the rest of them, he only played Volleyball. He might not be an Arjuna awardee, but he was a perfectionist not less than Lord Arjuna himself. He was not a political leader but had followers across the Nation, not a management graduate but inspired many a management guru. Perhaps he was not God but among the people who knew him, he was worshipped from their hearts. Courage or wisdom, determination or humanity, honesty or humour....... name it, he had it. After brief stints with UP police and Mohan Mekins , Pandit ji as he is popularly known joined  ONGC volleyball team in the early eighties.  That was just the beginning of a glorious era. Throughout his career ...