আষাড়স্য প্রথম দিবসে

  ঝমঝমিয়ে প্রথম বৃষ্টি । আজ আষাড়স্য প্রথম দিবসে বছরের প্রথম বৃষ্টি, সেই কত যুগ আগে কালিদাস-এর মেঘদূত কাব্যে যক্ষ মেঘকে জানিয়েছিল তার বার্তা প্রেমিকার কাছে পৌছে দেওয়ার আর্জি। তারপর কত যুগ কেটে গেছে, বৃষ্টি কিন্তু পুরোনো হয়নি , আজও সে নির্মল নবীন । 

আজ সকাল থেকেই আকাশটা মেঘলা, থমথমে গুমোট পরিবেশ, বাতাস বইছেনা । গত কয়েকদিন ধরে রোজ এই একই রকম চলছে । তাই রোজকার মিথ্যে প্রলোভনে ভুলে আজ আশা করতেও ভয় লাগছিল যে বৃষ্টি হতে পারে । সন্ধের পর থেকে ঝোড়ো হাওয়া যদিও সেই লোভের সলতে তাকে আরেকটু এগিয়ে দিল ।

Feelings..

   Hi Readers, first of all sorry for being away from blogger for quite a long time. I have been very irregular now-a-days. Thank you all for visiting my blog and reading the posts. It's a great pleasure to have you all. Today I want to share my feelings, straight from my heart, with you. I started this blog just casually. I love to write, but I only just write, I am an introvert kind of person you know. I never published any of my writing anywhere before this blog. I have not shared any of my writing with anyone other than my closest friends.

   I was studying for competitive exams, had to read those books, it gives me cold sweat now when I see those, was getting bored, when one day I came across someone's blog from google search. I was amazed to see that you can express your feelings online, which can be read by people across the globe. And for that you don't need to go to any publisher. I registered my blog, but was not getting any idea how to start. Then that one day came. I was going to my home, was sitting at howrah station waiting for my train.

It's time to wake up

  

Today is International Women's Day, a day specially attributed to women. It's nice to dedicate a day to respect and celebrate womanhood. But isn't it more important to do the same thing throughout the whole year ? As for our country, women are doing pretty good in each and every fields, the percentage of working ladies have increased, they have become more self-sufficient, they are in every field and are successful. But it is only a fraction. The real status of women in our country is rather different. In a country like India, where women constitute 49% of the voter base, there is still a very high girl-child killing rate, low education rate among women, high death rate of women during or after pregnancy mostly due to malnutrition or mismanaged labour, because of neglect by her family members, and also high rate of dowry-deaths and rape. This shows the status of women in our country. Few success stories do not tell the whole story. 

Killing of girl foetus and girl infants are being done everyday in all parts of India. Some diagnostic centers and a few doctors, who forget the fact that they came to this noble profession to save people, not kill anyone, together can easily diagnose a foetus's sex. A lady is tortured and blamed for a girl foetus growing up inside her and even forced to abort her child. What is the fault of the baby, why can't she live, only because she's a girl?

Anaemia : some facts and an innovative idea

        Anaemia is one of the major public health problems worldwide (acc. to World Health Organization). When we hear this, the first thing that comes to our mind is - what is anaemia ? We hear this term almost daily that someone known to us has anaemia. We advice them to take iron tablets, iron tonics, nutritious foods etc. Now let's discuss some facts about anaemia in short. Anaemia - is low haemoglobin level in the blood. This haemoglobin is present in our red blood cells. Each haemoglobin molecule is composed of a 'haem' portion with a globin chain(protein). Iron is an integral part of this 'haem'. Other factors that help in haemoglobin synthesis are vitamin B12 and folic acid. Vitamin C is also important, as it increases iron absorption from diet in the body. Haemoglobin carries oxygen from the lungs to rest of the body and to the tissues, where oxygen is utilised for various metabolic processes that provide energy and are necessary for our well-being. Our body can utilise the oxygen that we get from atmosphere, only when it is transported by haemoglobin to target tissues. Now if haemoglobin level is low, then oxygen carrying capacity of blood will decrease. The tissues will suffer from low oxygen availability, and the problems due to anaemia will arise.

The etiology for anaemia in India :

My friend, my notebook

Ah!! Finally going to write something on a blank white page. The feeling of being away from my blog was pathetic, and more painful was sitting in front of the white blank screen of my laptop, with a wish to write something. So many thoughts were coming up in my mind, I wanted to write them down, words were like in front of my eyes, but I was not able to string them together into a sentence. Also I needed some time to sit back, relax and think to fill up the blank page. My profession is so demanding and I was hardly getting any chance to do that since last few months. May be my laptop was also unhappy for me, because the motherboard crashed. And I had to wait for few more days to publish my blog post. My friends suggested me to buy a new laptop than repairing this one, because the cost of repairing the motherboard would be same as buying a lower configuration laptop. But there is this one problem in me, I become too emotionally attached with the gadgets that I use. And it hurts me a lot to replace those gadgets until they are irreparable. I bought a Samsung galaxy series phone last year, android operating system is real fun, but still I always use my old Nokia N-series phone. My laptop is only two years old and with good configuration. I was not willing to replace it with a new laptop of lower configuration. My friends make joke of my attachment with my gadgets. I also sometimes think that it's time to replace the old ones with the new ones, but should we throw away the old ones even if it is functioning ? I really can't do this. I had to replace the motherboard.

Writing has always been my passion. When I was in school, since then writing is my hobby.  At that time, I only got chance to write something while writing those essays in my exams. But that was limited because I had to think about the impression of my writing on the examiner and obviously,

Love marriage or Arranged marriage ?

     
                                                       Love marriage or Arranged marriage ?

 This has been a never ending debate since centuries. Ask a person about this, and he/she would strongly support any one of these two and would have lots of valid reasons for supporting that. Before sharing my views about this debate, let's discuss the different aspects of  love marriage and arranged marriage.

•  In love marriage, you marry someone whom you already love, and in arranged marriage you have to marry and then love someone whom your family members have chosen for you. And here comes the most crucial part. In some families, they give importance to the opinion and choice of the boy or girl, but in our country most of the families decide who would be their son-in-law or daughter-in-law, according to their choice, and this happens especially with girls. And it is really tough to love someone whom your parents have chosen for you as per their choice. It's true that the parents never want their son or daughter to be unhappy after marriage. They do everything according to their assessment, what they think to be right and appropriate. They choose a family which they think is compatible with theirs..a family where their daughter would be able to adjust easily, or the would-be daughter-in-law from that family would be able to adjust with their family. But compatibility between two families should never be a deciding factor about the compatibility of a man and a lady who are going to marry.

The Rendezvous

Aman lived in Srinagar in a joint family. His grandparents, uncles, their wives and children.. all living under the same roof, in a big wooden house near Dal lake. His father was running their family business of making shawls with his uncles. It was not that much profitable but they were happy with what they earned. Sometimes they had to reduce the expenses at the end of the month, but no one complained with that.

Aman used to play with his cousin sisters and brothers and lots of other friends. Everyday was like a carnival to him. Going to school in the morning, returning with friends after few hours, and then a whole day of playing until the evening set in.... Going to school was very tough in winter. It was time for snowfall, everything outside their house was white with ice, and the roads were blocked. Their school used to continue for few days with that, but finally it was time for winter vacation, Aman’s favourite time of the year. He and his friends threw snow balls at each other, used to fall while running over the snow, again got up smiling and started to play. One thing they all loved to do was skidding down the hills.. Some parts of Dal lake was frozen in winter and they used those as their skiing field. He loved to make new friends. He specially loved to make friends with the tourists who came to visit Kashmir, new friends everyday. His father did not like his habit and he warned him not to talk with strangers, but Aman was Aman, and no one could stop him from making new friends, even if he’s a total stranger. His parents were surprised when they used to go out with him. He talked with almost everyone along the road like he had known them for years. Sometimes he and his friends used to take a shikara ride with his uncle and pick flowers from other shikaras which were selling flowers and vegetables in the lake. 

Then everything started to change.

If you don't mind, Let me be myself ..

The train was standing at the station. It was 5:00 o'clock in the morning. People came running towards the train, checked their names on the reservation chart and were getting into the train. Megha searched for their bogie number, checked their names in the chart and took her seat with rest of the people of their group. She was travelling with her in-laws, her husband Aakash's relatives. Aakash's family had a house at their hometown. Megha, married for six months,had not seen that house. Everyone in his family had settled outside far away from their hometown and they were not willing to keep the house anymore. His family members were negotiating a deal to sell it, and it was almost finalised. So everyone planned a trip for a last visit to the house. This time Aakash's two uncles and their wives, three cousin brothers and one cousin sister were coming with them. His parents, grand parents and rest of the members of their family had already gone to that house.

 The train started to move. Everyone got busy with their activities. Aakash and his brothers took out their books and concentrated on that. His cousin sister placed the headphone of her i-pod in her ears and started listening to music. His aunts opened their magazines. His elder uncle took out the print-out of their e-ticket and started checking it. Megha looked out of the window. She had taken a book but she was not in a mood to read it and was feeling sleepy, as she had to get up early in the morning to catch the train.

"Achha, who is Megha Bose by the way? Is any Megha Bose travelling with us?" 

Aakash's elder uncle asked looking at their group.