Category: Personal

A Café Coffee Day outlet has just opened in Cosmos. The first one in Siliguri. Used to hanging out at the CCD outlets in Kolkata, I missed it here. Probably they read my wishlist.

I visited the all new CCD this evening. It’s in the basement of Cosmos.

After spending like nearly 2 years here, let me jot down my Siliguri wishlist.

• A quick passenger train transport that will take me from medical college to the town in 5 minutes.
• An alternative road transport. The city autos are like running coffins – noisy, uncomfortable and very risky. These autos can comfortably sit 6 passengers but the drivers are allowed to take 8. Yet they flout rules taking upto 13 passengers at times. Plus the autos waste roadspace, besides looking ugly. Why not increase the count of buses? Not big buses, mini buses will do.
• I wish the pavements of Siliguri were safer. If you walk along the Sevoke road you will find the footpath interrupted every now and then by high drains dangerously gaping at you. Tiled footpaths is a necessity too, rather than the uneven bare concrete that adorns them now.
• Introduction of metered taxis, numbered buses are a few other things I would like to see in Siliguri soon.
• Siliguri sure lacks quality movie halls. I once went to Payel the only AC hall. That was my first and last time. It is far far worse than the ordinary halls of Kolkata. I see an immediate need of quality movie halls in Siliguri as also multiplexes. I hear 3 multiplexes are coming up.
• It has too many restaurants but I would like to have more places where we can hang out, say like Café Coffee Day outlets in other metros. The shopping malls are good places to chill out. Cosmos mall on Sevoke Road is really a nice addition.
• For Siliguri to become a bustling metro, it needs to be connected with adjoining areas as also the rest of the north Bengal by a thorough rail network. Something like the circular rail of Kolkata should be implemented. For example, if someone from Raiganj plans to come here he has to undertake the arduous bus journey of 4 hours, the nearest rail stop Dalkhola being 30-40 km away.
• The Bagdogra airport needs night-landing facility and international status. Once it is placed in the lucrative Kathmandu route and more planes start flying, the smaller airlines will cut the Kolkata-Bagdogra fares I believe.
• Introduction of Airtel broadband in Siliguri. So that I can then happily get rid of this pesky little thing from Reliance that is driving me nuts with its super slow speeds.
• Times Of India and other leading English dailies should open their press in Siliguri. Among English dailies, Now only The Telegraph and The Statesman get printed here. Rest arrive in the evening by plane from Kolkata. Also, t2 the daily tabloid supplementary of The Telegraph should be circulated here too – it makes no sense otherwise.

So much for now. I will expand this list if something strikes me.

I finished reading Fountainhead (by Ayn Rand) back in February when I was finally relaxing after going through the rigours of the semester exams. It is an epic novel championing the individualism of mankind. I loved this book like anything. I had borrowed it from a friend. I also finished reading One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) soon after, which is a colourful and delicious narrative of a small village Macondo and its people as they rise and fall through the sands of time – hundred years of time, that is. This one, and also Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand), I had bought from Oxford Bookstore recently. I don’t think I’ll read Atlas Shrugged anytime soon, for it is huge. It is one of the largest novels in English language. Even in a small type, it crosses 1000 pages.

I had been home in the weekend at the time of Holi when I got two bestsellers from Crossword – Love In The Time Of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) and Inheritance Of Loss (Kiran Desai). Also got 2 more from Golpark. Sacred Games (Vikram Chandra) and A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khalid Husseini). It will take me a long time to finish reading all these books.

I am reading Sacred Games right now. It is an epic. A moving story – or rather many stories intertwined – that takes you through the dark underworld of Mumbai mafias.. and every now and then moves back and forth, sometimes to Punjab ravaged by partition, or to Bengal in the 1970s Naxalite era. Vikram Chandra, with his elegant style, is a master storyteller.

At home I was reading a Bengali novel by Narayan Sanyal (নারায়ণ সান্যাল) titled Rupomanjori (রূপমঞ্জরী). It is a fascinating journey through Bengal and elsewhere in India in the 18th century – a time when the Britishers are making their presence felt but the royal forces are still present, languishing though. This brilliant historical fiction is a must read for anybody. I’ll complete the book when I return home again.

Today I went to the newly opened Cosmos Mall, Siliguri for the first time and got two books from the Oxford Bookstore outlet there. One Hundred Years Of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I like to borrow books from Golpark but these books are worth collecting I thought. Could not resist buying them!

For the last few days I had been eating out a lot. Too many occasions, birthdays and all, coincided within a short span of time. Siliguri has too many restaurants given it is an important tourist centre, the gateway to Darjeeling. I find food here is a lot dearer than in Kolkata.

New Ranjit and Ranjit are two vegetarian hotels side by side on Hill cart Road – near Venus more. After trying both the places, I concluded New Ranjit is the better one in terms of food quality and cheaper too! Either of them would set you back by about 200 for a dinner.

On 2nd September my senior Dr. John gave me a treat at Tai wah. We were celebrating the revamp of his company website! Tai wah is known for authentic Chinese dishes. John da missed the old charm though – he used to frequent this place during his college years. We took rice, a prawn dish and 2 chicken dishes. Tangy and spicy! Slurp slurp! The bill was 342.

On 3rd September, I joined my friends for a dinner gathering at Sudhriti, an AC restaurant opposite North Bengal University. We had mutton polao, a chicken side dish, rosogollas and ice-cream. The food was great. We had contributed 110 each.

I also ate once at Tashi, located near my college. The place clearly has fallen in standards.

I tried the all new IRCTC food plaza at NJP station too. The food in this case was not the main attraction. What was really special was the never-before experience of having quality food at a railway station. I was surprised to see this well decorated, squeaky clean eatery! The food is really nice for a train station. A plate of egg biriyani + raita combo costs 80. Coffee was 10 a cup.

I just finished setting up a website for a friend. A senior friend to be precise, Dr. John J Sinha whom I came to know from my site itself. Johnda happens to be an alumnus from my medical college. As he stays in Siliguri it was easy for us to meet as well. I had drawn his attention to the rather unprofessional look of his company website and took upon the task of giving it a makeover. My targets were

• give the site a professional look
• make the site search-engine friendly
• an upload system in the backend for clients to upload files

I have fulfilled all the targets and the site looks better than before. You can go and have a look. The address is www.qmtindia.com. Then tell me your thoughts and opinions. 🙂

[eminimall]

The tree-lined alley midway between 1st and 2nd grounds

I can’t forget my school even after 2 years of leaving it. St. Lawrence is in my soul, in my heart. The sprawling green fields, majestic trees, lush greenery are ever fresh in my memory. I remember the first day in school. I was awe-struck by the size of the campus and its charm and beauty. The pleasant fragrance of the white-flowering tree that stands in front of the primary building pervaded my senses and I was transferred to a magical world. I listened with rapt attention to the accented words of foreigner Fr. Wavreil as he asked my dad – “Now give me the birth certificate and the transfer certificate”.

Next we moved to the primary building as the large green field left before my incredulous gaze. Next suprise for me was Fr. Bouche, a foreigner sage. He is the best teacher I have seen. He taught us English grammar and those classes were too good to be real. Even at his old age, he was bubbling with playful energy and was busy playing with kids. Unfortunately Fr. Bouche is no more.

The best thing about St. Lawrence is the very long lunch break of a whopping 55 minutes. Another short break of 10 minutes is there as well. 😀 We played all kinds of games – cricket, football, table tennis, carrom, chess, hand-cricket, basketball, danguli and what not, treaded every inch of the campus and all this probably made us bond with our school more than anything else.

I was the most wanted story-teller in my class. Sometimes, there was 5-10 minutes left in a class and things were in a relaxed mood my friends would demand for a break from studies – a story had to be told or some game to be played. If it was story then it was most of the times me who had entertain my friends. I told whatever I read. I had a nice collection of jokes as well which my friends wanted to hear from me again and again.

The days at school were really very bright and colourful. The timing was 10 a.m. – 3.45 p.m, got changed to 9 a.m. – 3.05 p.m. when I was in class 9. The unit tests, each of 10 marks, were serious affairs. After a week about a test when Sir/Miss would return the checked copies one by one, we awaited our turn with bated breath. The terms or block tests were the more challenging ones of course but the instant reward associated with unit tests was something delicious to savour.

For the past few months my site has seen a surge in visitor count. As a result, monthly quota of bandwidth limit got exhausted on 24th this month. Which is why site was down for the past 3 days or so.

This happened in April too when my site was down for the last four days for the same reason

154814 page views in April and 173064 this month (till now). It was high time I added some extra bandwidth. Last night I did this crucial bit – bought more bandwidth. Now I have a 33 GB monthly bandwidth limit as against 3 GB that I had before.

Anirban Banerjee is the first Indian scientist to get the ‘Nobel Laureate Signature Award‘. This is a tribute to his work on human DNA. The award given by American Chemical Society has the ratification of the Alfred Nobel Committee and is one of the most acclaimed honours in the world of science. The award worth US$ 3000 comes with a plaque inscribed with the signatures of Nobel Laureates. Banerjee did his schooling from St. Lawrence, which is my alma mater as well. Then he went to Jadavpur University and IIT Kanpur for his higher studies. He now stays in the US.

This post on Calcutta Chromosome was interesting to read.

A few days back I was enlightened by the words of our Physiology professor Dr. S P Bhattacharya. One of our favourite teachers, Sir was guiding us in a practical class in his usual friendly style when he said this.

It is very wrong to think we are doing a huge favour to a patient by offering him medical treatment. On the contrary we should be happy to have the opportunity of offering our service to an ailing person. We must treat the suffering man honourably – the patient is our GOD.

I am really touched by this idea. I’ll remember this always.