The Bengali Lingo !

• A is for Apish (Office). This is where the average Kolkatan goes and spends a day hard(ly) at work. If he is in the Government he will arrive at 10, wipe his forehead till 11, have a tea break at 12, throw around a few files at 12.30, break for lunch at 1, smoke an unfiltered cigarette at 2, break for tea at 3, sleep sitting down at 4 and go home at 5. It's a hard life!
• B is for Bhijon. (As in teli-bhijon) For some reason most of the Bengalis don't have good bhijon. In fact in Kolkata most people are wearing spectacles all the time. The effects of this show in the city.
• C is for Chappell. This is the Bengali word for the Devil, for the worst form of evil. In the night mothers put their kids to sleep saying 'go to bed, or Chappell will come and take you away.'
• D is for Debashish. By an ancient law every fourth Bengali Child has to be named Debashish. So you have a Debashish everywhere and trying to get creative they are also called Deb, Debu, Deba with variations like Debnath and Deboprotim thrown in.
• E is for Eeesh. This is a very common Bengali exclamation made famous by Aishwarya Rai in the movie Devdas. It is estimated that on an average a Bengali uses eeesh 10,089 times every year. (That's counting eeesh and other eeesh-ish words).
• F is for Feesh. These are creatures that swim in rivers and seas and are a favourite food of the Bengalis. Despite the fact that a fish market has such strong smells, with one sniff a Bengali knows if a fish is all right. If not, he will say 'eeesh, what feeesh is theeesh!'
• G is for Good name. Every Bengali Boy will have a good name like Debashish or Deboprotim and a pet name like Shontuda, Chonti, and Dinku. While every Bengali Girl will be Paromita or Protima as well as Shampa, Champa and Buri. Basically your nickname is there to kill your good name.
• H is for Harmonium. The Bengali equivalent of a rock guitar. Take four Bengalis and a Harmonium and you have the successors to The Bheatles!
• I is for lleesh. This is a feeesh with 10,000 bones which would kill any ordinary person, but which the Bengalis eat with releeesh!
• J is for Jhola. No self respecting Bengali is complete without his Jhola. It is a shapeless cloth bag where he keeps all his belongings and he fits an amazing number of things in. Even as you read this there are 2 million jholas bobbling around Kolkata- and they all look exactly the same!
• K is for Kee Kando. It used to be the favourite Bengali exclamation till eeesh took over because of Aishwarya Rai (now Kee Kando's agent is trying to hire Bipasha Basu).
• L is for Lungi. People in Kolkata manage to play football and cricket wearing it. Now there is talk of a lungi expedition to Mt. Everest.
• M is for Minibus. These are dangerous half buses whose antics would effortlessly frighten the living daylights out of Formula 1 race drivers.
• N is for Nangtoe. This is the Bengali word for Naked. It is the most interesting naked word in any language!
• O is for Oil. The Bengalis believe that a touch of mustard oil will cure anything from cold (oil in the nose), to earache (oil in the ear), to cough (oil on the throat) to piles (oil you know where!)
• P is for Phootball. This is always a phavourite phassion of the Kolkattan. Every Bengali is born an expert in this game. The two biggest clubs there are Mohunbagan and East Bengal and when they play the city comes to a stop.
• Q is for Queen. This really has nothing to do with the Bengalis or Kolkata, but it's the only Q word I could think of at this moment. There's also Quilt but they never use them in Kolkata.
• R is for Robi Thakur. Many years ago Rabindranath got the Nobel Prize. This allows everyone in Kolkata to frame their acceptance speeches and walk with their head held high and look down at Delhi and Mumbai!
• S is for Sardarjee whom Bengalis are very envious of because he is born with a semi-monkey cap on.
• T is for Trams. Hundred years later there are still trams in Kolkata. Of course if you are in a hurry it's faster to walk.
• U is for Ambrela. When a Bengali baby is born they are handed one.
• V is for Violence. Bengalis are the most non-violent violent people around. When an accident happens they will shout and scream and curse and abuse, but the last time someone actually hit someone was in 1979.
• W is for Water. For three months of the year the city is under water and every year for the last 200 years the authorities are taken by surprise by this!
• X is for X mas. It's very big in Kolkata, with Park Street fully lit up.
• Y is for Yastarday. Which is always better than today for a Bengali.
• Z is for Jeebra, Joo, Jip and Jylophone.

Who is packing your parachute?

Air Commodore Vishal was a Jet Pilot. In a combat mission his fighter plane was destroyed by a missile. He however ejected himself and parachuted safely. He won acclaims and appreciations from many.

After five years one day he was sitting with his wife in a restaurant. A man from another table came to him and said "You're Captain Vishal ! You flew jet fighters. You were shot down!"

"How in the world did you know that?" asked Vishal.

"I packed your parachute," the man smiled and replied.
Vishal gasped in surprise and gratitude and thought if parachute hadn't worked, I wouldn’t be here today.

Vishal couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. He wondered how many times I might have seen him and not even said 'Good morning, how are you?' or anything because, he was a fighter pilot and that person was just a safety worker"

So friends, who is packing your parachute?
Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day.

We need many kinds of parachutes when our plane is shot down – we need the physical parachute, the mental parachute, the emotional parachute, and the spiritual parachute. We call on all these supports before reaching safety.

Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important.

We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason.

As you go through this week, this month, this year, recognize the people who pack your parachute.

Decoding beauty !!

We often believe that radiant, flawless skin may arise from

a) birth(chromosome driven or sheer luck i.e.random distribution)
b) deft application of Maybelline foundation
c) outcome of having a constipation free stomach or
d) simply " beauty lies in the eye of the beholder"

However, there is a scientific dimension to this as well



The human brain has special part called the fusiform, located in the back of the head near the spine. It's the same neural pathway needed to recognize faces of family, friends and people we have met. When it's damaged, the patients cannot recognize anyone, even people they has just met. Also, in experiments, they cannot discriminate between photographs of plain and beautiful faces.

Studies show that when we recognize a face as "beautiful" we are actually making a judgement about the health and vitality of that individual.

We interpret facial symmetry (the similarity of left and right halves of a face) and the smoothness of the skin to mean that a person has good genes and has been free from diseases. This is part of what we mean by "beautiful" but it is just the beginning.



Bilateral Symmetry is thus equated with heterozygosity and resistance to infection and debilitating pathogens. Bilateral Symmetry and parasite resistance are factors that show optimum health and increase the success in intersexual and intrasexual competition.

So if you are beautiful, probably there's more to it than what just meets the eye

 

@Marriage Mantras