Children’s Day

“Happy Children’s Day…”
I shouted out from our balcony for the twins on the third floor balcony.
They replied – “Thank you”
I insisted – “Say, same to you”
They laughed at me and said – “same to you”.
Its not that I believe in “Age is just a number” but I feel comfortable with the child within than the adult outside. I am not adult-rated.
I don’t know about you but I am a child just with some experience. Aren’t you a child within?
Think…
Do you still fight with your siblings? Yes, I do.
I still remember last year, when we had a fight during “bhai dooj” on wearing a kurta. I was against it while my sister was insisting me to put it on. We actually had a wrestling match which was witnessed by our neighbour uncle from the opposite balcony. I finally managed to lock myself inside a room to avoid it. I was just gasping for some breath when I noticed a kurta crawling in underneath the door. I had to give up.
Do you sing song out of tune while neighbours are listening? Yes, I do.
After three years in this housing society our neighbours know it’s me when a song in a donkey-ish voice sails through the window.
Do you have more children as friends than the adults? Yes, I do have.
My new friend is a little girl who resides on the first floor of the building opposite to us. Yesterday we conversed in sign language for nearly twenty minutes as I was on the fourth floor and I can’t hear whispers (unless spoken loud).
My wishes to all those adults who believes in the the child within them.
We all are wishing “Happy children’s Day” to the children. All the schools are wishing their students.

Aren’t we missing something on this day?
Do we know there are thousands of children who don’t even know what childhood is?
Going to a school is a privilege for them. They do all the work an adult does including earning for their family.
While a child in our society is playing video games, these children are picking rags and searching for toys for themselves.

While a child is sporting a new dress during the festivals these children are trying to extend the life span of their torn dress with a safety pin.
When our children are crying for a new shoe these children are looking for a shoe of their size in the garbage dump which I & you have discarded.

When our children are inside the home well protected from the corona virus these kids are out there to collect free ration for their family.
When will they celebrate children’s day?

http://www.thearijitsen.com/blog

Text & Photos : ARIJIT SEN

Edited by : RAJASHREE SEN

Age Is Just A Number?

“Age is just a number”.
This can only be said by a person who has lived his/her life fully well in control of the situations that cropped up.
You see one can’t start going to school if he/she hasn’t attained a particular age. Again, one can’t vote if he/she has not reached a certain age. We know that one can’t drink alcohol before a certain age. Also one can’t get married before a stipulated age. One has to retire from job after a particular age.
And they still say age is just a number?
There are some hidden age barriers too. Someone marrying late face people’s judgements and comments. One can’t conceive late since the body clock is ticking hard. One can’t apply for a job late as again you need to be a certain age to be deemed a ‘fresher’. One can’t get a government job after a certain age again for a set criteria.
And they keep saying age is just a number!
There are some exceptions too. One can get extensions after extensions for a certain post even after retirement. No matter how many people are waiting in the queue to get that job.
Still age is just a number?
Those who are waiting in the job queue eventually lose their working age. Yes this is pretty common. You will find these priveleged souls in all sectors who hold on to a chair in the name of honorary service doing very mediocre job, earning a lions share, all thanks to their contacts. But there are professionals who cannot get a job after a certain age, no matter how experienced they are. Unfortunately if you are in your mid 40’s with years of experience, no one will even touch your CV. They consider you way costlier than others.
Still age is just a number?
In the last couple of years, I have applied for nearly hundreds of jobs. No one has even sniffed my CV, to be honest. I have diversified to videography and video editing leaving my passion for photography. No one showed any courage to invest in my work.
I shredded all my experience and wanted to do an internship in the field of video editing. But ,no , I was told I can’t do an internship since I have missed that age bracket. Internships therefore are not meant for a bald headed person in his 40’s.
But you see age is just a number!
Tomorrow is my 44th birthday and people are going to wish me a “Happy Birthday”!
Yes, of course it will be so because as we know one thing for a fact that : AGE IS JUST A NUMBER!

http://www.thearijitsen.com/blog

Text & Photo : ARIJIT SEN

Edited by : RAJASHREE SEN

SOLO with a hole

Travelling is a blessing to mankind. It teaches us about the outside world, its culture and traditions. It tells us the history, gives us the geographical knowledge. More importantly it refreshes our mind, rather heals it which is stressed with our self created problems. Travelling introduces a break in the monotonous daily routine. I believe instead of reading books of history, geography and life science a short excursion could teach us more interesting things that are not considered to be important in our education system. We tend to rely more on books but not on our own experiences.
For the Bengalis, travelling is so popular that it comes just next to eating fish curry and rice. All the extended weekends of next six months are pre-booked with trips. Vacations are planned according to the calendar of school holidays. One trip ends with the planning for the next one. They don’t visit just one place, four to five cities are planned in a three day trip. If you meet five tourists in an extreme location, three of them must be Bengali. If you hear the unfortunate news of deaths of four tourists in an avalanche, two of them must be Bengali.

Such are we Bengalis.

In my childhood I used to travel with my parents. Now I travel with my wife. There is a small difference between travelling with parents and wife. With parents you can complain about the food and the accommodation or may be the choice of places to visit and with wife…
My wife’s dream is to go on a solo trip. Initially, I was a bit worried if she would be able to manage it on her own. During a regular fight she made it very clear that she was not going to include me in her solo trip.
One day she woke me up in the morning and asked me to book a ticket for her solo trip. On asking about the location she said, Mumbai. Her brother’s place. I said how is it a solo trip, if you are visiting  your brother? Anyways I am not included in her solo trip, why should I poke my Nepalese nose? 

Ticket booking plan subsided.

One evening she comes up with a new plan for her solo trip. She will be going with her friends.
Me and my sister pulled her leg for the definition of her solo trip but the result was even worse, she shouted back and said that she is not going to include my sister as well in her solo trip.
On a fortunate evening, she asked me how many days would I be happy to stay without her? I was a bit considerate yet didn’t want to lose the chance. I said a month is okay with me. She dropped the idea and one more plan of a solo trip got postponed.

Once she even planned a solo trip with her parents. Later, she dropped the idea after introspecting her way to Nirvana.

It has now been postponed only till her next whim shows up but we remain excluded in her solo trip for sure.

Text & Photo : ARIJIT SEN

Edited by : RAJASHREE SEN

Protect Our Daughters

Durga puja is just about a fortnight away. We are all geared up to welcome the daughter at her parent’s abode, The Earth.
India has been worshiping its daughters for ages, in all forms. Goddess Durga, Laxmi , Saraswati, Sita, Ganga, Yamuna and so on, the list is inexhaustible.
Though the modern day women deny to accept the fact that we really respect the daughters of our society.
Yes they are right.
If you open an epaper (hardly anyone reads newspaper) you will find bunch of news stories about rapes in several parts of the country.
Rape rates are so high that we tend to ignore the cases of eve teasing and abuses.
I personally get really confused.
A person who visits a Durga puja pandal offers his prayer and while leaving touches a fellow women visitor inappropriately.

We as a society feel ashamed of our menstruating daughters. There are societies where people send their menstruating daughters to a remote place for that period leaving them to live in an unhygienic place but its us the same people who celebrate their daughters on attaining puberty.
Someone said, if you educate a man, you educate an individual. But if you educate a woman, you educate a nation. A survey reveals a different story on 2020, India’s male literacy rate is 84.7% whereas female rate is 70.3%. Do you know what is filled in the gap between the literacy rates of two genders? the mind set of our society.

There are mothers who being a daughter herself discriminates her own girl from her son. Its the women who tend to call their unmarried (at marriageable age) daughters as a bad Omen orca burden. Its the same gender that keeps their unmarried daughters away from any auspicious occasions. The funny part is that the same daughter gets back her dignity with the chanting of a few mantras and a couple of rituals involved in  marriage ceremonies.
We pray, keep fasts for attaining a life partner like goddess Durga but at the same time we are comfortable taking money and other amenities from her family for our living on marrying one.
The daughter who is taking  care of us, the wife who has made a home out of a house becomes inauspicious with the last breath of her husband or with the strike of a pen on the divorce papers. The greed for respect of the men made this gender worse than a villain.
We all came from a woman and will continue to do so until the Artificial Intelligence takes over the process but that woman who is also a daughter was not celebrated on her birth. There are societies where people address their newly born girl child as goddess Laxmi or Saraswati but on the other hand we kill those little Laxmis or Saraswatis even before they arrive on mother Earth.
I have seen daughters who are more caring towards their aged parents than any son.
I have seen my mother who took care of her parents whereas her brothers only did the funeral.
I can’t match my sister, the way she took care of our parents as a daughter.
I may sound sexist but I would love to call her my brother.
In a bit educated society they don’t kill their Laxmis or Sarawatis, they just ignore them.
In an even more educated society if the first child is a girl they just try again. There are instances they are blessed with a son only after a bunch of girls and that son happens to be the worst of the lot. I feel so exhausted by thinking of it, imagine that woman who gave birth.
On a lighter note sometimes I think the men want the daughters too so that they can continue with the exercise with a valid excuse.
I am no one to a give lecture on this topic but I want to give it because there are people who don’t take anything unless given.

If you have a daughter, your last days are secured.

If you have a daughter your home will be blessed in many ways.

If you have a daughter, not only yours but her in-law’s house will be blessed too.

If you have a daughter you are blessed doesn’t matter if she is dark complexioned or menstruating or unmarried or a widow for that matter.
Prenatal sex determination is a crime in India please don’t do that. Take it as a lottery where you are not going to lose any thing. If its a boy you are a winner anyways but if its a girl you have bagged the Jackpot. 

Please protect our daughters. 

Oh, I just wanted to write Happy Daughter’s Day but ended up with this, sorry.

Text & Photos : ARIJIT SEN

Edited by : RAJASHREE SEN

Right or Left ?

Can you please tell me the direction to this place ?

Yes, go straight and then take a left turn….

Whose left? yours or mine?

mine, then turn right…

Whose?…

A very important question, whose right or left ?

There are instances where doctors have fumbled with Left and Right and ended up cutting the left organ instead of the right or vice versa.

Once I took my brother-in-law to an esteemed hospital with his dislocated left shoulder. He was having severe pain as we had to travel more than 100kms to reach the hospital from our ancestral home. The attending doctor was about to prescribe X-Ray before any procedure. 

He stopped, then took his left hand forward followed by the right hand, I heard him murmuring “Left, Right, Left…”. Then wrote some thing on the paper.

Immediately he asked us which shoulder is it? We said its his left.

Then he rectified something on the paper and left.

When I was learning how to drive, I found its really difficult to turn on the exact side while maneuvering the back gear. There are people I know, if you tell them to turn right they will invariably turn left, finding it difficult to judge the side.

In this part of the world every single person has a political inclination. On a lazy, sorry any afternoon if you visit a street side tea stall you will spot three types of people. One inclined towards the Left, the other towards the Right and rest towards their back enjoying the discussion. At times this left and right inclination disrupts the law and order of the place too.

Have you observed where you could land up if you clicked the right instead of the left on a computer mouse? 

In my childhood days everybody (mostly) used to create hair parting on their left side. But I found it very difficult in front of the mirror.  As the mirror only showed how I will look with the parting on the right side. So I started parting on my right side and the mirror showed me exactly how I look with the parting on the left.

So difficult, you know.

This Right and Left is very much part of our daily life and yet it could land you on a sinking sand if you don’t know them for sure.

For me this “Right” and “Left” was about to turn my life upside down. 

That day I was going for a professional trip and my beloved wife got emotional. She held my hands and looked at me with teary eyes. I was just about to get emotional too. Suddenly she gasped my hands firmly and shouted,

“Where is your wedding ring?” 

I was even more shocked because of the fact that its of pure gold but the thing was going to be more dangerous than that. Then I realised she was hunting for it on my right hand instead of the left. 

I left in one piece.

They say our left brain is in control of our right side of the body and vice versa. If God is at fault, we are mere mortals, right?

http://www.thearijitsen.com/blog

Text & Photos : ARIJIT SEN

Edited by : RAJASHREE SEN