Durga puja- it is an emotion to all the Bengalis. We have a local saying in our culture that Bengalis have 13 festivals in 12 months. And the biggest among them is Durga puja. The uniqueness of this festival is that we don't worship the goddess Durga! I mean yes we do, but this festival is much more than worshipping. To us, Durga is our own daughter, she is coming to her paternal house with her 4 children. We welcome them with all our hearts open. Preparation for the puja, shopping, planning etc. start almost two months prior from her arrival. The festival continues for almost 5 days and ends in ‘Dashami’ with bidding our beloved daughter with teary eyed good bye as she again starts her journey to her in-laws house. Durga puja symbolizes family union- spending time with the near and dear ones all together. We use to get a month long vacation in schools and colleges. So naturally like every 'traveloholic' Bengalis we use to plan tours keeping in mind that we must be presen...
In the last few years, there's a new trend that has come in our society. You may have noticed there are many cases of harassment and shaming in social media as well as in society about knowing someone's own mother-tongue. Regional parties are being established with the goal of protecting their regional languages however, they are just insulting the other languages to prove their language’s supremacy. Even the other social issues that has no connection with this, are being coloured to give them a look of language discrimination and racism. I would not say that there is not any issue. People are harassing each other for their choice of languages. Parents are in dilemma whether they should choose a regional language medium school or english medium school for their children's education instead of focusing to the quality of education which is far more important. More people are in the favour of the second one; since they think that it will broaden the career opportunities more. ...