The Ideal Tablet

In the last two decades, the world has witnessed drastic changes in each and every field. But the change has been immense in the field of technology. Telephones have transformed to smartphones, pagers to WhatsApp. Huge desktop computers have evolved into small, light weight laptops, netbooks and even tablets. The keyboard and mouse has lost their utility for these input devices are found on the output devices, i.e., on the touch screens.
Words that can perfectly define the past two decades is innovation at its best. This innovation has always addressed our necessities and problems and tried to solve them. But there has been one innovation that has made a giant leap, solving a number of problems at one go. The innovation is called tablet or simply tab, named after the clay tablets used to be found in the excavations of old civilizations due to similarity in looks.
Tablets are the most wonderful gadget till date. It has got enough power under its hood to let you work like in a laptop, that too with the added advantage of touch screen, play sophisticated games with high end graphics, enjoy movies and songs, and what not. And all these can be enjoyed on the go. But you might ask laptops have all these features and can be carried around as well, so what's so special about tablets? Well, you might carry a laptop all around but try working in it while traversing in a public transport especially during the working hours. But tablets are much easier to handle in crowded places being smaller and compact in size without the keyboard part. Moreover, laptops are quite heavy and most people, having to carry them in their bag pack all day around, complain of severe back aches while no such problem exist with the tablet.
So when the tablets initially hit the markets, there was a lot of speculation around it. But the price being too high, it was not a commoner's commodity. However soon different small companies took interest in it and started producing it within the 10k range. It was possible for them for they didn't have reputation in the markets and therefore didn't care to maintain quality unlike the biggies such as  Apple or Samsung. No sooner did these budget tablets come up, they started selling like hot cakes. Even i got one myself convincing my mother that i really needed one to study the ebooks provided by the college professors of the foreign authors, the printed versions of which were too pricey to buy and were not easily available in libraries.

The Alley

Its dark out there
In that alley of yours,
Which serves as a time saver
To your destination.

In spite of my denials,
I know you will take it;
For you are brave
And courageous enough
To deal with whatever
Comes in your way.

You take the path
And emerge as well
Safe & sound.
But lo!
You have changed.
You seem to be altogether
A different person now.
And, if you ask me
Who is better?
Honestly, I don't know
But all I can say is
I am sorry,
For I am unable
To love you,
Anymore.

The Ideal Old Age

Advertisements are a integral part of our lives. Advertisements of various kinds endorsing different products surround us everyday. However, most of them are blunt and boring and you grow so tired of them by a few days that either you shift your eyes away from it, switch the channel or you just go on tolerating it, having no idea what to do. But there do come advertisements once in a while, which captures our heart and mind, and you can never get enough of it, no matter how many times you watch it.

I came across one such yesterday while roaming around in cyberspace, at YouTube. Its from one of the leading telecom companies of India. The advertisement speaks of an old man who handles technology like a pro and makes use of it in his everyday life to make it more interesting.

The advertisement is a total success and is being appreciated by people from all age groups. Every young guy now dreams to become like him when they grow old.

Enough of jabbering. Here's the video:-

Review: A Thousand Splendid Suns.

And here goes another amazing book added to my "Completed Reading" list, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Its the second installment from the author of The Kiterunner fame.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a story again set in Afghanistan, Herat and Kabul to be exact. And this time there is no escaping to the U.S. but it starts, suffers and end in Afghanistan switching for a very short time to Pakistan.
The story is mainly based on two women, and gives us a close up view of their everyday life, their joys, their sufferings, their desperation to be independent from the tortures and misery and their efforts to claim it. The two female characters are chosen very carefully, the first one is Mariam, a harami born out of an accidental affair between the most richest person of Herat and his maid servant while the other one is Laila, the daughter of an university professor, educated in school and is free from wearing burkha or following any improper rules of the Muslim community. As luck would have it, the lives of these two women from completely two different rungs of society clash together and are made to walk the same path. But finally, one

What seems like an eternity

Let the lights dim out
And the candles blow off.
Let's sit in the dark today
Staring out at each other.
Let the vision pierce through the darkness
And the silence fill in our ears,
As a strange calmness spread around;
While time just seems to stop
For what seems like an eternity.

PADE Post #6 (Theme- Shape)

No shape

For you. But

Only power

You've got,

To sustain

Or destroy

An entire species.

My PADE entry for today's theme- Shape.

PADE Post #5 (Theme- Bridge)

Catch a metro and travel on this bridge, enjoying the view and soon you will find yourself in peace as you move down into the Earth, where no sound disturbs you except the roaring of the engines....

This photo is an entry for PADE, a month long photo festival organised by Sfurti & Ritu. A special thanks to these wonderful ladies for all their efforts for PADE.

PADE Post #4 (Theme- Word)

Stop inhibiting yourself.

Let the words flow

Out of your mind,

Through a pen.

And stare at wonder

To the difference it makes

Both to the world,

And to your heart.

Photo for PADE, a month long photo festival & this is my interpretation of today's theme Word.

PADE Post #3 (Theme- Window)

A window of a building in Fatehpur Sikri

 

A window of my present home

Back to PADE after a long time and it feels so good. Here is my two interpretations of today's PADE theme, i.e., Window. Hope you all like it!!

The Gift In Return

Rajibh was working in his laptop sitting on the bed when a sudden electronic beep made him look up at his digital table clock. The time was 12:00 am and it was the hourly beep. He was about to get back to his laptop screen when something suddenly caught his eye. The date. And with the date came a flood of memories.

It was on this day, exactly a year back, that Rajibh and his wife had parted their ways and put the last nail on the coffin of their three year old marriage. Yes, this was the day when Rajibh had finally got his freedom from Mousomi after several tormenting months.

What not she had done to make sure that Rajibh realised every bit of his mistake of marrying Mousomi. She had sent him to jail for a couple of days, make him pay a huge sum as alimoni, took away his mansion and even sent his ailing mother to jail. What a lady! Not lady but a bitch she was. And what was his mistake? Just to complain about her flirting nature with his friends. She had found the clue in it to divorce him. What she failed to see was his unconditional love which was the reason of him being so possessive about her.

The Earth is Round

This post is what I originally thought of posting as my interpretation of the theme distance. A view from the top of Burj Khalifa, not clicked by me but found while browsing through facebook & had saved it in my collection. The picture also shows us clearly that the earth is round, if you had any doubt in mind! 

PADE Post #2 (Theme- Distance)

This photo was taken by me a few days back from the 21st floor of Ideal Heights, an apartment in the city of Kolkata. This is my interpretation of today's theme distance, the city of joy as it looks like from the heights.

PADE Post #1 (Theme- Candle)

This photo is my interpretation of today's theme of the PADE contest: candle.
This photo was taken my be in Park Street, Kolkata on December 24, 2012. The guys in the photo are protesting against the incident of rape of the young girl in Delhi which took place a few days back from that day.

Confession #1

I never loved her. Never. It was just a liking. A liking for her. But, I also like so many others and it never feels like that. So, was it Infatuation? Maybe. Or was it love? No, I guess. But, who cares? Sometimes, I care, don't I? Yes, I think, would be the honest answer.

There was a yearning for her, an urge to meet her no sooner did I leave her. Wanted to look at her always, glancing at first and then gaping at her beauty till the bell rang announcing the end of the class. Was she really that beautiful? My friends never agreed on that. And, of course, we had more beautiful girls in the class than her. Then why did I gape at her? What charm did she put on me?

Some say its love. But, doesn't violins play in the background when you are with your love and the wind seems to come out of nowhere blowing the dry leaves against you and you keep on looking at her with your mouth wide open as she tries to manage her dress blowing in the wind? Such things never happened with me. Then, how can it be love? It must have been infatuation. But again, doesn't people in infatuation forget the other person in no time and stop caring about her as soon as they are out of their sight for a long time? This also didn't happen with me. I seem to care for her still now when I haven't met her for more than thirty days by now.  So was it love or infatuation? Simply, I don't know. Confused, totally confused I am.

A New Beginning

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Well, I had my last post published six months ago and in the 2nd last post I just claimed to be back with a promise of regular updates. Poor me!! So this time no promises.

Actually, I was thinking of closing this blog down as I was too busy writing for my other blog which is based on my thinking of the norms of society or something like that. But later I remembered the fact that this one was the first blog I created and posted into & also the first one to earn a 1000 hits. Then I took pity on it and the story or rather the blog continues...
A blog on my daily life. Now I am not a celebrity that people would be interested in my life nor do I have a very interesting life that you all would love to read about. So why write about them and waste the Internet space? I also have a lots of diaries to write them. To be very honest, even I ran out of ideas of what to write about. Forgive me for the realization coming so late.
As for now, I want to make a fresh start, a new go, another try. However I won't delete my previous posts as they show us all my first go at blogging and I am also too sentimental about them. Hope you all like it this time and start following my blog rather than just visiting it. Lets see how it goes.

Child Marriage still exists...

As I was going out to my college last week in a public bus, I saw a woman or rather a girl, with quite an innocent face, traversing on the footpath. I am a very bad estimator of age of people but still if I am not entirely wrong she must have been a 15 or 16 years old and not more than that. And, I was really shocked to see that she had vermilion powder on her temple just like the way the Hindu married women wear it. I really couldn't believe my eyes and craned my neck to get a second look.

Here was I, a nineteen years old, going to college and planning to study till the age of twenty seven maybe and there was this girl who had been married off just at the age of sixteen making her stop her studies and putting a full stop to her dreams. Well, I accept, that maybe she might have had no big dreams and she was not even a good student but I couldn't understand why did her family marry her off. Child Labour, though banned, is still in wide practice in India. So they could have just put her to some work and she could have supported herself. It's not that that marrying a man would keep her off from earning money. Then why the marriage?

Child marriage is a concept which I have witnessed only in a television soap and in some films. I always believed that it was an ancient tradition practiced during the time of our grand parents and in the present day it is seen only in remote villages of Rajasthan and Bihar probably. But on seeing this girl I was stunned to see a victim of child marriage right in a metropolitan city, Kolkata. On discussing the issue with some intellectuals I got to know that the practice exists in full extent in the slum areas of all the metropolitan cities, leave alone the villages. And a bit of search in the Internet gave me the exact figures which really made be retaliate from the monitor and gape in awe. Here was a problem, a pest of the society, and we didn't even know it was so outspread.