Celebrate Life...!

At around 2 in the afternoon, I got a call from my wife asking about what should be the  menu for dinner. She informed  that she had  invited few of our friends to celebrate Bihu (Uruka) and Lohri together. On Uruka’s night, Assamese people have the most delicoious dinner of the year. So, a big-fat Uruka menu was decided over phone. Before disconnecting the phone, she informed that everything was arranged including the firewood, the only instruction was to reach home on time. Hearing the arrangement of food and firewood, brought back memories of celebrating Uruka (Magh Bihu) 30 years ago. Exactly 30 years 7 days ago…..      Moon, informed that there are plenty of hay at the hill top in front of his house. Subul, Suruj and Luit was falling short of quality hay. In the last three days they could gather only five bundle of paddy straws from Ron da’s pathar (paddy field) and that too of very short size. That year Ron da’s men had cut the paddy ...

      Rituraj was more optimistic than his fiancé Divyani. His mobile camera was on selfie mode right from the time he jumped inside the Gypsy. Divyani, was slightly practical, she took her DSLR along. Statistics speaks presence of tigers   within 1 kilometer radius of the couple. They were sure to capture few never seen before pics, for their new year FB update. Accompanying them is Palash and ten others. Palash, have always lived his dream, he even tattooed his right shoulder with the giant cat few months prior to the trip. His fiancé, Dhriti, who ultimately was credited for removing the decade old “ most eligible bachelor ” title from Palash, was silently enjoying the ambience. Shantanu, who was dressed like an 18 century hunter, became a self-proclaimed bio-scientist in the morning by certifying the age of an elephant dung through a newly invented smell-taste method. Beside him was his ev...

“Looking Back, 3 Things I would do differently” It was day 2 of our planned road trip from Delhi to Gujrat and Diu through Rajasthan. Post lunch, we were cruising the stretch from Udaipur to Ahmedabad. Except for my wife Priyanka, in the front seat, rest of the travellers including my mother in law, our two daughters and our maid Moromi quietly fell asleep. Priyanka changed the track from an old Kishore Kumar melody to “ Karari Chai” of Papon suiting to the occasion. The highway was smooth, there were patches of clouds towards the western sky bringing about occasional shades. Going slow on the curves, we were enjoying the breath-taking landscape of the Aravali ranges.  Me and my wife were happy to have taken the right decision of travelling by road. As we were speeding ahead, I glanced at the rear view mirror, the images of the road, the trees and the mountains seemed to be much more appealing than the one in front of us. For a moment I felt like, all the beautiful thi...

     My father  used to take me on his bicycle to watch football matches. We had to share a mango among five of us, my two elder sisters, mummy, papa and me. We always travelled by public transport. I never asked my father to buy me a magnetic pencil box because I knew  designer box was not meant for us. He used to take me to the tailoring shop to have a couple of outfits stitched only twice in a year i.e  before Durga puja and Bihu. Today I take my daughter for a movie in an air conditioned car. I buy her the dolls she likes, the dresses she wants. She thinks I am rich. I can even buy her an airplane, she thinks.   My father built a house which took years to complete. He never thought of buying a car. The only luxury we had was a black & white portable television, a HMV record player and a Philips radio. Today I have the latest television, I have a big car and I have a house. One more thing which I have in abundance tod...