Friendship Day

Hey folks, it’s friendship day! The day to wish and greet our friends, to make new friends and renew broken friendship is back. People all over the world, irrespective of their ages, will greet their friends as they do every year on the first Sunday of August. It’s a great day to celebrate companionship, no matter what the kind is. It’s a day to recollect memories of friendships of schools and college lives and to share happiness with people whom you consider as your friends. Emails, chats, SMSs will be carrying friendship messages inn bulk from one corner of the world to another.
Wishing and greeting friends give a great feeling for one but the question how much intimacy is involved in the messages and mails that are conveyed by one friend to another? Do we really respect the spirit of friendship? I doubt! I know my reaction may annoy you but I am saying this from the bottom of my heart. What is the definition of friendship today? Just look at the world and you will find the answer. Limitless fun, party, entertainment, celebrations and drinks are what today’s friendship is all about. Everyone is in a ‘cool’ mood all the time. People are always pretending to be sharing everything with their friends, but do they really share everything? Ask somebody and he/she will say yes but the reality is little different. Behind the mask of ‘friendship’ there are things like sense of competition, jealousy and complexes that keep people mentally far from their friends. Everyone gets the first lesson on friendship at their school lives. Just see the scenario there today. Parents inject a sense of competition in their children. You have to better than him, she gets more marks than you, why can’t you, this time you should beat him in the sports event are things that parents keep on saying to their children to improve their performance which leads to the growth of a sense of competition among the tender minds who are ‘good friends’ of each other from outside.
At a higher level, there is competition for making better results in the examination. Friends congratulate each other for their performance at exams but deep inside they don’t feel happy about their friends because everyone wants to be the best. Then comes professional life, where this sense of competition grows into sweet jealousy. You will find a very little percentage of people who really feel happy about their colleagues. During confrontation they smile at each other but when the meeting is over, things like ‘he is less qualified but getting a lot more salary than me’ he is just lucky to be here’ ‘she is in no way better than me’ play in one’s mind. Today this jealousy has reached such a level that people do not even hesitate to tell lie to their ‘friends’! How many times have you seen your colleagues telling you ‘I am coming from an interview?’ they never say and the reason is they are scared of their ‘friend’ fortune. ‘If I tell him about this interview, he might approach the company and might get the job. I am not going to tell him’…is the thing that keep on playing inside the mind.
So is this really what we call ‘friendship’? Smile from outside and jealousy inside? I don’t think so. To me friendship is all about sharing. Sharing of happiness, sorrow, success, failure and worries. A friend should be an individual whom you wait for to share what’s going on in your life and when you plan to camouflage facts with lies in front of your friend, then you set a bad example of friendship. It better not to have such a friend whom you cannot trust. I wish people going through this post will disagree with my views and will try to prove me wrong. If I am wrong I will be happy. Happy Friendship Day to all.

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Posted in: Friendship,happiness,Happy Friendship Day

TMC-Congress honeymoon over?

The honeymoon of Trinamool Congress-Congress alliance seems to be over as the two parties have failed to bring out a solution to the problem that centered round sharing of seats for two Assembly constituencies in Kolkata and have fielded their candidates separately. It’s surely a big blow to the newly formed alliance between the two parties which got such a positive mandate in the recent Lok Sabha election in the state. It is an indication that there has been lack of understanding between the two parties. Trinamool Congress, being the main opposition party in the state wants its dominance in all possible corners of the state and on the other hand, a rejuvenated Congress party wants to make its presence felt in the state political scenario in a bigger way.

Perhaps the biggest reason why Congress have been so hard on its stand of fielding candidate from at least one of the constituencies is its presence in the area. One of the two constituencies where the by-poll will take place is the Sealdah constituency, which has always been dominated by Soumen Mitra, one of the veteran members of the Congress party. Though, some inner conflict with other parties had forced Soumen Mitra to launch his own party ‘Pragatishil Indira Congress’ and join the TMC latter, he has always been a hard-core Congress man. On the other hand Bowbazar is the constituency of Sudip Bandhopadhyay, who was a Congress MLA even before the alliance was formed by the two parties before the last Lok Sabha election. So one cannot really ignore their demand of fielding a candidate for at least one seat.

But the Trinamool Congress chief and the railway minister seems to be in no mood to go for any understanding, specially because of the difference of opinion that he had with the UPA govt over the Land Acquisition Bill in the Parliament last week. Without any consideration on the issue, her party on Wednesday fielded Shikha Mitra, wife of Soumen Mitra from Sealdah and Swarna Kamal Saha from Bowbazar. Though the Congress party is saying that there are still some scope of discussing on the matter and Ms Banerjee has ultimately agreed to sit with the home minister P Chidambaram and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, it has fielded Pradeep Ghosh as its candidate for both the seats. As the by-poll is scheduled to be held on August 18, perhaps it’s not too late to find out a solution to the problem, but even if something positive comes out, the TMC-Congress alliance might not seem to be the same big thing as it appeared to the people of the state during the Lok Sabhac election.

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Posted in: Congress,TMC

Effect of recession on Puja shopping

Thanks to the unique positionings of the tithes and nakshatras, this year, Goddess Durga will be arriving in Martya (read it Kolkata) a month earlier. Generally thev Durga Puja is held in the month of October and in some years its gets started from the end of September and ends by the first week of October. But this year the mother Goddess is in a hurry and will wrap up things by September 28. So its high time for Bengalees to start shopping for their family members and close ones. Generally the rush for puja shopping starts just after 15th August and as the puja is more close this year, the shopping malls should have been overcrowded by now as it is the fag end of July. But things are little different this time. Till now the craze for Puja shopping has been felt in Kolkata. Undoubtedly it is surprising but there’s a genuine reason behind this year. It’s the effect of recession.

Though the effect of the economic melt down has not been felt in India compared to USA and Western countries, life has becomes harder for the common people of the city. Till now thee has been no news on major job cuts by companies, but many have gone for pay cuts. There are thousands of professionals who have been getting deducted salaries and lesser allowances for the last few months. There are even companies that are not paying salaries for quite some time. Media has been one of the most worst-affected industries as the volume of revenue has gone down quite low due to decrease in advertisements. People working in the IT industry too have felt the effect up to some extent as several companies have warned their employees of downsizing.

Continuous rise in prices of commodities have made things more hard for people. Prices of every commodity, starting from items of daily needs to products that are purchased once or twice in a year have gone up significantly in the last one year. Situation has so arrived that middle-class people are struggling to buy vegetables in the market. Things that were priced at Rs 5, 7 are now available at not less than Rs 15, 18, which is beyond the capacity of billions of people. So if people can’t afford to buy things of their daily needs, how can they opt for shopping?

However, as a Bengalee, I believe that there’s nothing that can spoil the festive mood of Durga Puja. Natural calamities, family tragedies, personal losses do occur but nothing stands strong for long in between the people of Kolkata and Goddess Durga. The Goddess with her 10 hands kills all evils and bless her worshippers with a smiling face. The Puran says Goddess Durga killed Mahishasura and established the victory of good over the evil but in reality she kills all evils that keep us mentally disturbed. This year her challenge is bigger, but I believe, the Goddess will bring relief by slaying this new demon named recession, which has been creating menace all over the world. Perhaps this is the reason why she has is coming earlier this year.

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Posted in: Cds,Durga pujas new videos,Durga pujas special gift,Music