Happy Diwali!

Article first published as The Festive Interlude! on Technorati.

Wish You ALL A Very Happy And Prosperous Diwali!

Let The Festival Of Lights Lighten Up Your Lives!

Now it is festive times in India! Diwali—the Festival of Lights—is celebrated every year during mid-October to mid-November for five days in most parts and for two days in other parts like the Eastern India. the exact date is arrived at by the New Moon day of the dark lunar cycle. For 2011 the festival is being celebrated from 24th October till the 28th.

Diwali is the biggest festival for Hindus. There are many theories on the origin of this festival. One says people celebrate the return of Lord Ram from 14 years of anonymous exile. Another says this is for celebrating the symbolic victory of truth over evil. Still one more theory says this is to welcome the harvest season--the Goddess of wealth, Laxmi, being worshiped as a mark of gratification.

In the eastern parts Goddess Kali—the most powerful and the fiercest Goddess—is worshiped to drive away evil forces and to attain the blessings of the noble departed souls.

As Diwali celebrations began on the 24th there was tremendous festive expectation from the accused of various scams to be granted the much sought after bail. But the court allowed bail only for one political leader on grounds of serious illness leaving all others to observe the festival in jails.

Every year with each festival in India there is a high alert due to the constant terror threat, particularly for important metros like Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore and others. On this year’s Diwali eve five countries namely the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand had issued travel advisories cautioning respective citizens not to travel India during the festival season. The Indian government had been trying its best to convince them of the all-round atmosphere of peace joy and safety in India.

Joyous and in tremendous spirits people do not bother about such threats though, maybe because they are getting used to it or they strongly believe in the deities who, they think, would never impose miseries when devotees are worshiping so sincerely. They light up their homes and premises with rows of oil lamps and indulge in buying new garments, buying and distributing sweets and thundering evenings of get-together with fireworks.

Apart from the problems of noise pollution and sufferings for old unfit people and neighborhood animals the Festival of Lights is a great occasion to congregate and celebrate.

Happy Diwali to all! Yet Again! Enjoy!

The VIP Brat: A Study in Contrast!

Here we’re talking about only two compartments inside a particular AC 2-Tier coach in a particular daily train under the Indian Railways that departs a particular originating station at around noontime and reaches the destination city early morning the next day. The train is popular because it is superfast and always on time. That fateful noon too, the train was ready for boarding about one hour before departure. We cut to the inside of that particular coach having those two compartments for our contrasting study. Two elderly couples were in a state of considerable distress. One of them, both technically senior citizens, had been allotted two upper berths and the husband was at his wits end how to proceed, because his wife was being taken for check-up after surgeries in both of her knees—she could hardly walk and her climbing up the berth was a sheer impossibility. The husband was also on the wrong side of the sixties, but he thought he could manage the climbing once he managed a ...

Mitali: The Trauma of Losing a Sibling

Maybe I lied to her when I used to reassure her that she was going to be alright and was going to resume her life in some measure of normalcy in the future years; maybe all my gestures/expressions were false when I used to run my fingers across her forehead or embrace her on occasions when she was able to move around a bit; and maybe all my exhibitions of love care and responsibility were exposed as superficial when I failed to turn up in Delhi where she along with my mother were treated during September-October, 2022 (my mother Urmila Chakravarty was also diagnosed with dental cancer the same month the same year as she was) and when all the members of my parental family and the in-laws converged. Since that fateful day in August, 2022 when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer to that disastrous day of March 6, 2025—the day my younger blood sister Mitali (Mainu) Chakravarty Sarma (November 2, 1963—March 6, 2025) passed away in the wee hours in a hospital in Guwahati after giving a bra...

Release of Book 'Randomized: A Dozen Short Stories'!

The fourth collection of stories titled 'Randomized: A Dozen Short Stories' by Chinmay Chakravarty has been released on Amazon KDP just now! This collection, short stories in a lighter vein plus with mild satire like the previous collections, has been published in both the E-book and Paperback formats. The links are given below: International: Click Here ! India: Click Here ! Other collections of short stories by the same author: The Cheerless Chauffeur and Other Tales(2021)--Notion Press. Funny and Fishy Tales(2022)--KDP. The Weirdos(2022)--Ukiyoto Publishing. All books of the author are available on Goodreads, apart from Amazon and other outlets! Have a look!