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...
India is said to be the largest democracy in the world. The fourth pillar of Democracy is press/media house. Weakening of media threatens democracy. It is high time that we speak about our national media. The quality of journalism and news reporting are deteriorating everyday. Not only the news reported has become irrelevant in the bigger picture, but also it has become so biased and untruthful that one has to validate all the news through fact-checking sites. We, as a society, are now at a cross road. Our annual GDP is drowning at the depth of Mariana trench whereas, unemployment is reaching the height of Mt Everest. Millions of people are being pushed to poverty, new active corona cases are reaching to several thousands each day, climate change is threatening our whole existence. But among all these things, most of the news agencies are interested in updating us about how Sushant Singh Rajput died, whether her girlfriend supplied him drugs or not, whether Virat, Anushka are expecting...