ChinmayC Blog

The ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup-2023 unfolding in India is not even halfway through as of today, and it’s impossible to say which of the contesting 10 teams are going to make it to the Top 4 in the knockout stage. And there’ve been huge upsets too in terms of the short-format World Champions England losing to Afghanistan and the ebullient South Africa, after they scored in excess of 400 runs against Sri Lanka, falling again to Netherlands. As we write this Pakistan and Australia fighting it out in a very important match for both of them: Pakistan, after making a rollicking start in the tournament, fell apart against India while Australia registered their first win against Afghanistan after three consecutive losses. Therefore, at the current juncture, we can hardly predict which teams are going to stage a fight-back or which teams are going to the top seamlessly, except perhaps for two teams: India and New Zealand. Both of them have won four out of four matches each so far—every win bei...

(Although no pun is intended as for the upcoming Durga Puja and the killing of demons or evil forces, we must clarify that this particular demon or raakshas or asura Tarakasur, according to ancient Hindu scriptures, was killed by Kartikeya, the elder son of Goddess Durga as believed, and not by the Goddess herself. The name of the demon is being taken here just for its resemblance to the name of villain of the piece. No malice toward any and all.) In the City of Joy, Kolkata, enthusiastic people start visiting the Durga Puja pandals (what they call ‘ Thakur dekha ’) from the very next day of Mahalaya , that is, from the first day of the Devi Paksha— the illuminated phase of the Moon when Goddess Durga descends on earth—as and when the Pujas get inaugurated or opened with the idols installed. They do it because of the wish to visit as many Pujas as possible and to avoid the impossible rush of crowds that start visiting in millions when thousands of Pujas are open across the city, part...

A lady of a household had been in quite a lot of distress, because since a long time she had had to manage two houses in two different places. She was not in a position to stay more than a month in one place and on the top of it she had to attend to various professional activities in places other than the places where she had her houses. Therefore, Namrata’s eternal problem was to find a maid whenever she happened to be in one particular place, and that was well-nigh impossible because maids always prefer jobs with a regular monthly salary and they shy away from gigs without commitment. Besides, her husband made it very clear that he couldn’t afford to have two maids on monthly salaries doing nothing in their absence. At times she was lucky to find someone willing to work on a daily wage as long as she was needed; but after they left the place those maids were no longer available when they came back. One of her houses was in the big city that she always preferred to stay in, and the ot...