ChinmayC Blog

In an unprecedented stampede at a Kolkata Durga Puja pandal last night, the 17 th of October 2026, at least 19 people have lost their lives with many injured being treated in the city hospitals. Good things only have always been said about the incredible Durga Puja festival in the state of West Bengal, particularly in the city of joy Kolkata. And there’s nothing to doubt about in this regard: the display of the idols ( thakur ) and the pandals in an unbelievable richness of themes and creative designs across almost all the streets and lanes of the city; the famous big Pujas installing the idols just a day or two after Mahalaya so as to ensure the unending footfalls hence; and the music stages, the food-selling or the variety-store stalls also installed along with all the other items signifying a mouth-watering fair that continues for at least a week, day and night. So, huge crowds, from all corners of the city, from the state and even from other states of the country descend on the...

I feel the word 'historic' is somewhat positive, meaning a historic event normally denotes a good thing--a good beginning or a development or an achievement. Therefore, what just happened in the elections in supposedly the most advanced democracy and the most liberated society of the world cannot be described as historic; it could, at best, be the darkest development of modern times replete with ominous future prospects and possibilities.  An impeached, convicted, arrested, corrupt, foul-mouthed and a perverted racist criminal has been elected with a landslide to the highest post. And they call him the Protector who would soon make the most advanced superpower country of the world great again! It's not that a seemingly deserving woman and her party have been rejected; it's rather wanting the country to be great again by accepting the Protector.  So then, the Protector is all set to rebuild the country, in active collusion with a handful of unscrupulous squillionaires, b...

Well! What the heck! Invisibility is infinite because our own God Himself is invisible! Some scientists say that even ZERO is a concept akin to being infinite! Therefore, both ways, it’s only great to be invisible! While God hides Himself behind whatever you don’t need to know, He has created the humans that are immensely visible; once you’re born as one you cannot hide anywhere in the universe until you drop dead in which case you’re either burnt to ashes or buried under, making you finally invisible as far as the ‘real you’ is concerned, because you continue to exist virtually in family albums and the social media, and if you happen to be a huge celebrity you continue to have an extremely dominant virtual existence till perhaps when earth itself gets obliterated. However, problems are more obnoxious when you and other ordinary mortals like us are kicking alive! Even if you wish to disappear instantly from all human views, like Sita in Ramayana did, you fail to accomplish that. In thi...

Many years back I wrote a piece titled 'Populated Movies' that was later included in my first book ' Laugh and Let Laugh ' in 2017. In that piece I argued that since India is an overpopulated country with high unemployment rates the creative art forms do adjust to that reality by trying to generate maximum employment opportunities in their projects. For example the goons in a mainstream Hindi movie: whereas just one bullet through the head by one villain is enough to kill the hero or the protagonist, the chief antagonist or the main villain sends an army of goons armed with an assortment of weapons for the job. I argued that this is done with a view to generate more employment. But I was mistaken, and so I just want to admit this here.  My argument got almost fatally shot after I watched all the three movies of the 'John Wick Franchise' (2014 onward). I failed to keep count, but hundreds of hapless goons got killed in each of the movies at the hands of the '...

It’s a case of wholesome insensitivity, amounting to zombie-like behavior on which subject we dwelt over much earlier, of nearly all of the so-called digitally conscious citizens of the country, but also nearly all the stakeholders including the national media irrespective of how you’d like to describe them. Apart from this looming post-modern characteristic, the other equally portentous factor of hypocrisy has also been rampant across, primarily, the television news channels and other stakeholders. For the last few years at least the insensitivity factor has been colossal: any kind of tragic incident happening in public places is always ravenously video-graphed along with the selfies of the ‘proud’ beholders and circulated instantly in their digital spaces, instead of trying to help the poor victims many of whom stay alive during such digital orgy. The news channels then get hold of those clips, in direct or indirect ways, and start building ‘stories’ around those while putting the c...

The two-year long COVID-19 pandemic (no signal that it’s ended) has jolted the Indian economy almost out of its roots, heightened by the fact that the economy had been under a lot of strain for at least two years prior the outbreak. The normal demand-supply equation has gone bizarre—the supply chain not yet being able to resume its normal course, with some of the key sectors suffering maximum damage, in light of insufficient demand as the common people now want to hold on to their savings fearing an uncertain future. Normally, with less demand and normal supply the prices should fall and this has led many experts to expect a recession soon or already in the process. However, prices only kept on rising, crossing a whopping level of 7% in the recent quarter that’s made the Reserve Bank of India increase the Repo rate twice in two weeks. With some knowledge of economics I feel that while the customers are not spending their money enough the suppliers not still getting the normal booming t...

Hanuman Chalisa is a collection of forty verses (chalis in Hindi means the number 40) except for two Doha or couplets in the beginning and one Doha at the end, in praise of Lord Hanuman who apart from being the exemplary devotee or Bhakta of Lord Ram is also regarded as an incarnation of Shiva and so, is recognized as a God. The scripture of Hanuman Chalisa is authored by Tulsidas (1497/1532—1623), the famous Bhakti poet-saint of the 16 th century India, renowned for composing the Ramcharitmanas (Lake of the deeds of Rama), retelling of the epic Ramayana. Ramcharitmanas is a monumental poetic creation because of the fact that Tulsidas composed it in the Awadhi or Oudhi language that is taken as a dialect of Hindi and thus taking the epic to the huge arena of the common Indians; Sanskrit scriptures are understood mostly by the scholars of that language. Hanuman Chalisa is also composed in Awadhi.   As we mentioned Hanuman Chalisa is a collection of forty chaupais (four-li...

My recent posts reflected a dilemma building up in my innards as to should I go on writing and posting those on apparently a dead wall. I’ve never been a pursuer of ‘success’ in the modern context where it’s a relative term, meaning (in my point of view, similar to Swagata Dey) that ‘success’ does not necessarily match the most integral term ‘merit’, except for some glorious examples in world history. In modern times ‘success’ just happens, maybe due to elements of luck, coincidence, rabid self-promotion, vital links in the network and accidentally appealing stories or videos or whatever, and that success can come overnight or may not come in one’s full lifetime. As far as my work during my service career and my writings since my childhood days are concerned, I do consider myself a success, in my way.   Neutrality has been the defining feature all my life, both in my service career and writings, which gives me the freedom to air my views freely. Therefore, I tend to expect neutra...

As the saying goes ‘age is just a number’, and in some cases it is high and in other cases low. The number doesn’t necessarily have something significant to do with the mind associated inevitably with it. If we go further from year to days the numbers become even more like simple numbers. Like when we say 10 years it seems to be a very long time—a decade as you’d normally like to refer to; but if we break it in number of days it’s just 3650 days or less. However, high numbers do signify body ageing which is biological and cannot be avoided, and unfortunately, ageing is taken by others with ‘low numbers’ in a negative way. The moment people cross the number 60 they are called ‘old guys’, and when someone dies in the range between 75 and above the others say that ‘the old guy has lived enough’. Lifestyle immoderation and inherited or accidentally acquired diseases do make the process of ageing faster and painful in some. But in any case, the mind can still play a vital role.   The ...

According to Sigmund Freud’s theory of ‘Id, Ego and Superego’ the Id trait of a personality was present in the first primitive humans, but not as a part of the brain; in fact, the Freudian tripartite components had nothing to do with the grey cells. The Id trait includes the basic survival, sexual and aggressive instincts/impulses, and it acts unconsciously. Over the centuries the primitive humans started living in communities and societies, and at that time the Ego trait became important as a conscious part of a personality able to distinguish between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ acts in terms of good or harm such acts could cause to the others. With more maturity the Superego trait had emerged as the ethical ‘conscience’ of human beings, always sending correcting messages to Ego whenever the Id trait overpowered it. Freud indicated that any imbalances in these three traits are bound to lead to personality disorders, like if the Id impulses totally dominate the personality that human being tur...