The mysterious celestial object

 13th Nov,2021,Kolkata

                    Yesterday in the evening around 8 o'clock,I was walking on the rooftop and doing sky gazing  as usual.I analyse the Landing and take off of the aircrafts for fun during my stay at there for fun.

So I was doing that ,and suddenly I notice a celestial object in the sky at north west direction .it was white and bright. As for last few week the landing is taking place from the south east direction ,it was really unusual to find any aircraft that low in that direction. And also it was not moving at all .At first I though it might be some kind of firework ,as Diwali has just ended .But then I thought I should probe into it .So i bring out my phone and opened the star tracker sky gazing augmented reality app to check which celestial object was it .the Star tracker app shows all the celestial object in app in that direction it is targeted to.

            I thought I was about to be a part of a mysterious celestial event .So I pointed my phone to the north west direction ,towards the direction of bright object in the sky .but on the screen it does not show anything like start or planet .neither I had any info regarding any such event.it showing M51 galaxy ,nearby.the light was bright and it did not move ,so I thought it definitely would not be an aircraft .

            Then was it an UFO (that thing did not strike me then though)!!! it was dark ,and suddenly I noticed that the light started moving towards south with a speed ,I assume it was 3-4 km away from my location and it got vanished .Mean while from the south direction two aeroplane landed . Then after 2-3 min I heard a familiar but unusual sound of moving rotor blades ,and I found that mysterious celestial object appeared again and was alining itself from south direction with the runway ,probably using its Localizer and ILS for its vertical slope. When the object was passing by over the building nearby ,even in dark I could see that it was small private Helicopter. And it took the opportunity from me to be a part of the mysterious experience . 

 

When I broke my arm

It was around 12, noon, 28th of April 2021, the West Bengal election time, new Government was about to be elected. I was doing work from home. The meeting ended a few minutes ago and I thought of watering the plants on the balcony so I filled a mug from the bathroom and went to the balcony, finished my job and when returning I slipped on a tiny H ₂O ₂ residual(we call it water) mixed with detergent that splashed during the process of filling the water in the mug.

Anyway, within a few seconds, I found myself lying down on the floor with my right arm which did not look usual, and I knew there was something wrong with it. I broke my right-hand elbow joint(I will describe it in medical terms later ). Anyway, my parents were worried and my friend came from her home, though it was a work day for her too. Me and my brother rushed to a doctor (not so)nearby clinic at CIT road. Before that, I informed my manager that I would not be able to work for at least two weeks. Anyway, in the evening I visited another surgeon with the help of her(that friend’s) father, and I decided to go for surgery at advised by Dr. Mondal.

During these periods I was not afraid or unhappy. People thought it might be a sad thing happened to me, but let me clear that it was just an unavoidable situation. Attaching sadness to it is a dangerous thing. I was not wearing the Chappals(slippers) so I slipped. I was making jokes about my situation. I also found that it was good that I had it, if it were someone other than me from my family then it could be worse, as they don’t know the Vipassana to stay calm. I will write down the journey in detail later. How the situation was in the private nursing home during COVID-19, the people and workers there, how was the surgery, all the things.

The main thing that I want to convey is that I was left with only two options. I could pity myself or I could make jokes about it and be happy. I chose the latter one and the after-surgery recovery time was reduced due to the positive mindset. I will have an issue with that hand in future, but that should not be a reason to be sad, I don’t have time to be sad about this kind of thing. People are dying of COVID, war etc etc, If those could be the reason to be sad then it is fine, as I can do something for those like donating money, spreading awareness etc. But for medical things, this is the work of a medical practitioner. I joined the office after 10 days of surgery and started working for half a day. My coworkers helped me also so as my team lead. Also, my family and that friend helped a lot.

So whatever the situation it may be you always have options to set your mind to, choose wisely.

An open letter to an imaginary friend (a walk to remember)

Dear friend(?) 

I still remember the days spent with you at parks, restaurants, in the street of this South Indian city Bengaluru. Sometimes you would dance in the middle of empty road at the time of night walk . We had fights but somehow managed to get back to the normal every night. But I am not the person you want to be with. You wanted security, but I am afraid of secure life. You wanted me to accept your sister and family members even after they insulted me like anything(the apology does not always serves the purpose, you know) . You know, I can starved to death rather compromising my self respect. You're a good person, with emotional outburst. You need to control it and remember one thing that money is important but it is not the reason to be happy, at least for me, it is not. I know people in Bangalore with same or less experience earning money twice than I am earning, but you know I am happy, I will go for earning more but my happiness is more important.you know I returned to Bangalore not for job or because my business plan that I said "it did not work(I have even not tried) ". Thank you for the journey of few months and taking care of me when I was not well, I will not say I had a great time, but I have learnt things. I will miss the warmth of your touch(? ) . I Wish you a good future. Good bye my good friend.

From

Captain Nemo

Farewell notes to this city

    I want to close the Bengaluru chapter in a positive note. To draw the picture of the state of mind I will tell two metaphors. First one is the sports metaphor related to my favourite football team Germany. I have seen they will always be in-game till the final whistle blown. I have seen them scoring at the last moment fo the match. Basically, I want to convey that good thing can happen at the end of the journey. so I am happy, not doing much of work, but collecting good experiences, moments and storing them in my memory and in my heart. the Second metaphor contradicting the first one, making the whole thing ironic.

  This one is about a TV series from our neighbourhood country Bangladesh, named "Housefull". This one is a comedy serial recommended by one of my friends. it is based on rally funny story and having all together 120 episodes. The story is based on a family living in Dhaka and relatives are coming to their home and staying there for a long time and their interaction with neighbours. But at the end of the series, people were leaving the house for the purpose of jobs and education. So the comedy serial ended up in a little bit sad note. The retired and old members fo that family were not happy about the fact. So as I decided to leave this city I am having the feeling that my good time here in this city has come to an end.

      Now when I am waiting for my full and final settlement and meeting my friends in between and planning for my next steps I am just in that mixed state of mind described above.

NB:- I will be returning to Bangalore soon.

Job or Entrepreneurship ...both are the ways to achieve dreams

     As time is going so fast and the days remaining to stay here in south India and in Bangalore is decreasing gradually, I have already started missing the time spent here. But I have to go back and give my so-called Entrepreneur soul the first chance. I have a few days left for my job,24th Nov 2020 is the proposed date. So in this situation, lots of things working on my mind.last week death of my nearest relative due to corona and also my family and friends were questioning my decision, put me in a situation to reconsider my resignation. So there was a resignation withdrawal process about to commence, but I told them that I was sticking to my previous decision, even knowing the risk of starting a small scale industry in this Covid infested economical situation.

       So during this time, I was having a discussion about Jobs and business with one of my friends over the phone. I was supporting my point of view about entrepreneurship and how more and more Bengalis should join the trend, so he asked if I was opposing doing jobs in government or private sector. He said if everyone was doing business then who will work for the business. That day I had no clear answer to his question. Later couple of other people, on social media also asked me the same kind of question doubting their career. I think this just the difference in the way of thinking. When we are doing business, we take the risk.  Providing a salary to the employee even it is one person, and that maybe only you, is one important thing with other responsibilities. For a job, the responsibility is to follow the commands to carry out the work smoothly. This also required a huge amount of creativity or skills or both. But still, people would complain about how boring his/her job is and there is a definite reason for that. All the roots are connected to our social norm and our socio-economic structure. And our age-old education system creating these structure. Our aim to do any job is to earn money, work gets the second priority. Those who give the work as a first priority gets the money as well. For government job I have seen people are opting for it as it is secure not that they love that job. No one in school is trained to join those jobs. Have you seen many pupils saying that they want to be a Bus-conductor or a clerk in BLRO office or a bank clerk? No there is no training to set up the mindset for those jobs. In the private sector, we sometimes have the privilege to select the job. But for government or public sector most of the people doing those to earn money. In fact, the harsh reality is even if people want to do the job they want to do whether in the public or private sector, but because of the huge population of India, it is really hard to get that. The same thing is applied for education too.I have seen my relatives and my coworkers are working on a domain different from their subject of study. There may be to reason,1.they might not be able to get the subject they wanted to study 2.they might have grown an interest in that domain lately.in the later case, the issue with work anxiety is not there. In business, we choose the path which we want to walk along, for Jobs we don't have many degrees of freedom. In both cases, we face the critical situation but for business, it is mostly our own decision so we don't complain, but for Job, any rise of any unpleasant situation forces us to question about our career choices.

           So the thing is that if it is Job or Entrepreneurship or any other things like arts, music, sports etc all of them have ups and downs. So if someone finds himself in a difficult situation in professional life then, considering the things he likes to do might help. But taking a hasty decision may not be fruitful. The simple mantra is doing whatever you like to do, as long as you courage and a little bit back up. For Jobs, we can explore new arenas within and we can upgrade ourselves if we are enough passionate about our works.

The main thing is passion, whether you are a bank clerk, a software engineer, a writer, a rickshaw puller whatever you are if you like the job, you will be always happy even in difficult situations, Otherwise, find your passion and follow your heart don't think about the outcome much.No one in the world will going stop you. Dream big and try to add some value to society. Another thing I would like to add. These words were said my Late Prof Randy Pausch in his "Last Lecture" and walking down the line for these much years in life, I am realizing those words. It says

“It's a thrill to fulfil your own childhood dreams, but as you get older, you may find that enabling the dreams of others is even more fun.”

help others to achieve their dream, believe me, it will definitely make your day brighter.

Durga puja '20 and Covid19, in my view

    It is the day of "Shashti" of  Durga puja, and I am living in a kind of self isolation when most of the people are working from home. Actually, I choose to stay here in Bangalore as I like solitude. so before I begin, I want to state the reason behind writing this "floccinaucinihilipilification". Once I was an atheist, now an agnostic. So my thoughts are mostly rational about any incident related to reality. But my ability to imagine sometimes amazes me. This one is of those cases, where I think my wish came true in an undesirable way.

        To dig deep to find the cause let's go back to a day four years ago.it was a fine morning of Durga puja, in the year 2016 at Kestopur, Kolkata. Better to say it was an early morning as the digital clock was showing 4 am on its display. I guess it was a day of Saptami. I was about to take part in an online test for a position of software developer for the location Amsterdam. I choose the early morning time to avoid the noise of loudspeakers and noise of the crowd doing pandal hopping. I clicked on the page of hackerRank and clicked on start the test, I assumed at that time it would be calm and quiet. But Alas I was wrong as two or three  Dhakis(a traditional drummer)started beating drums so loudly and not only that they were roaming around the locality at the same time. I couldn't keep my calm and immediately lost my temper, But I did not shout and did not do any stupid thing. I was trying to solve the programming problem of some iOs app. I was trying hard to concentrate on those questions but in the end, I finished my test early without solving all the questions. It was a timed exam, and the clock was ticking. Later when I revisited the problems I found it was too easy for me, anyway after two days I got a lovely rejection letter from them. I replied thanking them for the opportunity. One thing I did after clicking the finish test button, I wished that sometime in future there would be a situation where no one would be allowed to enjoy the festival. It was rage. Now when I see the current situation this is the thing I wished for that day. It is merely coincident, but I still feel guilty of having that kind of thought that day.

                Now when I've managed to confine myself in a room of 1BHK apartment, in a city miles away from my place, I realize I am missing those beating of drums by those Dhakis, I'm missing those noisy annoying crowd on the ally of our locality. So what I did this morning is Played the soundtrack of Dhak on youtube. I am not a religious person. but it is not about religion, it is about the festival. I have heard the people in Kolkata are instructed by High court, to stay at home in this festive season and to do pandal hopping virtually. In Assam and  Alipurduar, probably the situations are the same. To restrict the spread of Covid19 people are keeping themselves at home, and those who are not doing that ended up infecting themselves with the virus. My brother and my relatives in Kolkata are Corona positive despite taking cautions. They are doing fine but what I can see that it is an inevitable thing.

              I can remember those days when I used to go for pandal hopping with my friends by walking miles.and on one of those days we five came up with the Idea of "Pratyasha", the educational initiative, which then evolved into "Raddur" after a few of years. Durga puja and Food are synonyms, We also enjoyed eating street foods at that time. I guess if the Corona were not here, we would go for pandal hopping like the old days this year, in spite of knowing the fact that most of them are now occupied with new responsibilities.  

    Anyway, I want to end this post on a positive note, that this year might not be a good one, but next one will surely be great. And when all these things end, we will celebrate all the festivals with more enthusiasm.  "चक्रवत् परिवर्तन्ते दुःखानि च सुखानि च ". Till then we all will wait patiently for the sun to rise and all the gloom will go away, and not to forget the lessons we have learnt during this covid situation.

NB: Stay at home, always wear a mask when going outside.

Why I am choosing to leave my secure job second time and Purpose of my this short term stay in south India

    So I am leaving my secure job in the middle of this corona crisis. when few are getting laid off because of this economic turbulence due to the Covid situation,(though the Indian economy was already performing badly under this current government), I choose to respond to the wake-up call. People are probably tagging me as mad, I just want to tell them if you call a deaf and dumb person as "deaf", then you are insulting the person, same is here. you should not call a mad (who sometimes thinks out of the box) as "Mad". Anyway, I am thinking about where should start from. 

      Arguably this is my second retirement from a job. Before coming here in Bangalore, I took a break of 6 months and did Vipassana, visited my home after a long time. I arrived here on the 3rd of April 2019 by train. for the first month, I travelled to nearby places from this City. Then I started attending interviews and in the middle of the month of May, I got the job and joined the organization in June. As I am writing this blog am still serving the notice period. It is an MNC, I wanted to work in a product-based MNC and it is that. I have been working in the IT Industry for 8 years. I like developing software and I know there will be ups and downs in professional life related to work. Just before the starting of this Covid situation, I have seen some changes in organizational structure, which I was worried about. But even these were not the reason to take the decision. then the Covid arrived with its full strength in India around March and we were instructed to work from home. So most of the employees went to their home and continued working from there. I didn't go, because I was not sure  whether should I go to Kolkata or Alipurduar or Dhubri. So I stayed here alone as my roommate also left for his hometown in June. I am not fond of staying at Home much, I was staying away from my home from my schooldays, and it is not a new thing to me. But what this lockdown did to me is it forced me to think about my goals. I have been working as a software developer for a long time but still did not do any revolutionary thing, I am still writing the same if-else -for -while, which anyone can write."Am I doing sacrifices for these things ", I asked myself. I did Vipassana for two non-consecutive days to clear up my mind. I found this was not the thing I wanted to do. I have some plane for the near future, so it is actually not retirement as such, but I am not going to reveal it now.so it is simple, I was in a comfort zone, which made me feel insecure. Friends said that I could try in other companies, even in other domains, but I know the scenario will be the same, maybe the pay would be a little high. I was trying to fit my lifestyle on Maslow's hierarchy of needs , and I found myself searching for self-actualization, though other layers of the hierarchy are still not accomplished. So I had to take that risk, all the responsibility of the outcome of the decision making will be on me. Lately, I was not performing well on my job despite the fact my higher authority was happy with my work. They told me to go home and to think and reconsider the decision. I know it is now like jumping off the cliff, But I couldn't help it.    

        So why I choose to come here in south India or precisely in Bangalore, It is because of the opportunities in the IT industry here. I had high expectation about the work culture here, which still holds. and another reason was a TV series, yes the Malgudi days. I wanted to discover a town like the fictional town of Malgudi. I found a few places on the way towards Chikmagalur. Anyway, this was my secondary reason to be here. 

      Anyway, I came here without Job and am going back to my home without Job. That's all folks.