Today I would narrate the story of my first and only Ganesh Chaturthi festival, in 2003. This festival is not celebrated in the part of the country where I live. In our customs, we celebrate the Ganesh Chaturthi that falls in the Kartik month. So it was out of added curiosity and interest that I accepted the lady’s kind invitation for a community prayer and celebration of the festival. It was indeed a very colourful event as the devotees and participants came from different parts of the country who communicated with each other in Hindi, English and C. I found that the basic essentials of this festival were the same as the one we celebrate in Kartik month, except the immersion part. That means, there was the same story telling, same prayers, and same aarti. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: August 2017
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बिना थके थूकते रहे

Photo source: The Times of India
— यदि आप हमसे पूछें तो रसखान जैसा कवि हिन्दी साहित्य में दूसरा कोई नहीं है । – कहकर उसने अपनी गर्दन को कबूतर के जैसे एक ओर घुमाया और सडक पर थूका, फिर अपने विचारों का सारांश बताया –
— लोगों को तो सूर, तुलसी, कबीर और आजकल निराला, दिनकर से आगे कुछ दिखता ही नहीं है । वरना रसखान को तो समझो बस रस की खान । – कहकर उसने फिर से थूका । Continue reading
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Changing names of cities — Bombay -> Mumbai, Madras -> Chennai, Calcutta -> Kolkata, Gurgaon -> Gurugram, Shimla -> Shyamala . . .
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Keith Broni : World’s First Emoji Translator!

Keith Broni, photo source: Today Translations.
I had been in regular correspondence with her for quite some time without any communication gap. Her English was flawless without any grammatical or punctuation errors, a virtue which I always admire. However, one day there was an unusual error — she ended the sentence with a colon and closed it with a parenthesis. As I could not locate the opening bracket, I concluded that she had deleted a part of the sentence by mistake. Continue reading
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When Your Post Is Not Delivered
I am writing to you after a long gap. A sudden unanticipated inflow of work kept me occupied for the last two weeks. Such unexpected change in work schedule is part of scientific research. The work is not yet finished, but now I am getting used to the extra work. It also means that a lot of routine work has piled up — cleaning, organizing, refreshing social contacts, and yes, getting updated with what is going on in the world. So I sat down and browsed through the large pile of newspapers looking for anything interesting that I might have missed. Continue reading