Sunday, August 23, 2009

First letter tricks

It actually felt good to be tagged after a long time. This time, its Subhadipda who's tagged me. You have to use the first letter of your name to answer the following questions and the answers must be real. If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You cannot use any word twice and cannot use your name for the boy/girl name question. So, this one proved to be a bit tricky because Subhadipda and I share the same first initial. On top of that, he already seemed to have chosen the easy answers!


1. What is your name: Sinjini


2. A four letter word: Slap


3. A boy's name: Seamus


4. A girl's name: Shreyasi


5. An occupation: Singing

6. A colour: Saffron


7. Something you wear: Skirt


8. A food: Sandesh( A sweet)

9. Something found in the bathroom: Soap


10. A place: Shillong


11. A reason for being late: Saving rickshaw fares and walking instead

12. Something you shout: Shouting is something which I never do! So, there's nothing that I shout.

13. A movie title: Shonar kella( A Bengali movie; the title means, 'golden fort')

14. Something you drink: Sprite

15. A musical group: Soundgarden

16. An animal: Shark

17. A street name: Shimla Street( the street in Kolkata on which Swami Vivekananda's house is situated)

18. A type of car: Skoda

19. Something scary: Snakes

20. Ice cream flavour: Strawberry and vanilla(two-in-one)

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Joyride

A joyride...That is what I can collectively call the past three days .

It was time for a family gathering after all! My parents had planned to treat two of my cousins at our house after their great exam results. Along with them, their parents too were, obviously, invited. One of them, unfortunately, had to leave for New Delhi before this party because his new academic session there has already begun. But, when the others ultimately turned up for the party at our place, no one seemed to remember the reason for which it had originally been planned. For all of us, it was just a gathering after a long, long time.

From Friday evening, my parents and I began the preparations for the party. My mother cooked two of the dishes that evening and her cooking continued throughout Saturday morning. Meanwhile, we had to get up very early on Saturday morning because I had to go to school for the flag hoisting ceremony(it was 15th August). When I returned from school at around 9 a.m., a real surprise greeted me. My maternal uncle and aunt who stay in Gurgaon, had come to Kolkata the night before and they would be coming over to our place in the evening too, along with my three paternal aunts and uncles and cousins who had already been invited!Then, my happiness and excitement knew no bounds. The three of us at once finished a hasty breakfast and quickly thought about the amendments that would have to be made to the menu that evening because of the arrival of two more people. Then, while my mother prepared the dishes, my father and I went out to buy a few things. We, specially my mother, had to work a lot, but, we enjoyed ourselves very much. After an even hastier lunch, we cleaned up our rooms and got ready just in time to receive the guests. They started coming from 5.30 p.m. At the party, puja gifts were exchanged and it was fun to see how everyone seemed to scrutinize all the gifts. Then, there was this crazy phtograph session when my maternal uncle and I strived to take the best photographs possible. I particularly insisted on taking a group photograph which would include me too and would be taken with the help of the self-timer on my camera. No one seemed to think that it would be pssible but my father made them all sit/stand in a very good order and I arranged the camera and finally, the picture was taken! :-) My mother's cooking went down extremely well with everyone, more so because she had cooked so many items all by herself. There was plain rice, dal, fried bori( I couldn't find an english word for this), paneer, mourola fish, hilsa fish wrapped in banana leaves, chicken manchurian, mutton curry and mixed fruit chutney.

And, there were laughters piercing the air! Everyone was very happy. It made me realize that no matter how frequently we talk over the phone with all our relatives who were present at the party, there is nothing like meeting up and having fun. It felt good to be a part of a gathering where different people seemed to be rediscovering their love for their family.

Today also, we had lots of fun and this time, it was a different kind of family gathering. We (myself, my parents, my maternal uncle and aunt and maternal grandparents) went to Vedic Village, Spa and Resort, located in a very remote part of North 24 Parganas distirct. Its a very pretty, cool and quiet place and we had a really nice time and a delicious lunch. After returning from there, my uncle showed us loads of pictures which he had taken during his recent American tour. Thanks to my uncle's brilliant sense of humour and mu aunt's giggling style, which is very contagious, we had quite a few laughs today also.

So, this Independence Day and weekend was simply a joyride, just as last year's Independence Day and weekend had been!

That's the group photo about which I was talking. :-)The people standing at the back are( left to right) one of my cousins and my paternal uncles. The middle row includes (left to right) my father, one of my paternal aunts, my maternal aunt, my mother and my other paternal aunts. Sitting below them are my maternal uncle, my other cousin, myself and another paternal uncle.

Sunday, August 02, 2009

Quick updates

There seems to be too many reality shows on television these days and some of them are so irritating. And people actually watch such things! The worst of the lot is probably 'Rakhi ka swayamvar' , aired on some channel. I was stunned to hear about the concept of the show from some of my classmates who waste their precious time to watch the show and I was even more stunned to see their enthusiasm about the show! How can people tolerate such programmes? Have people become so dull these days?

The Durga Puja is in the last week of September this year, which means the fun is going to be less, for different reasons. :-(

I went for an eye check-up today and was extremely relieved when the doctor said that I don't have any eye problems. Although I have not been facing problems with my eyes, I was almost certain that there would some hidden problem, major or minor because eye troubles are very common in my family.

I recently donated some money for the Cyclone Aila victims. This donation programme had been organized by our school and each of our students donated something, grudgingly or willingly. So, I was pretty happy because a month back,I myself had promised someone that I would send some money for the donation purpose, but before I could talk to my father about the money, some unexpected problems had cropped up. I had not been feeling too good about the whole thing, but I now I feel happy again. :-) Many students of our school are saying that the money collected by us will never reach the victims and will fill the school's coffers but I am not worried about that. I don't know what will ultimately happen to the money but by contributing, I did my duty and that itself is satisfying. At least, I will always know that I tried to help the cyclone victims...