The Making of "Kharagpur Online"

It was one of my dreams to do something about Kharagpur. I thought either to publish a Photographic book or to write an epic (Bengali) on Kharagpur town. I went to Oxford Book stall couple of times to read and buy concepts on recent photographic books on Kolkata, went to a professor of kharagpur college, who is also a writer of Kharagpur history book. I promised him to give some of my photographs for his book but I couldn’t as I had to fly to US suddenly. I feel bad for it.

While blogging in 2007, I searched Kharagpur on Net. But I was disappointed by the result and thought to post Kharagpur Series in my personal blog. I started with this one. But this effort was not good enough to capture the wonderful city.

Last month I decided to launch a dedicated site for Kharagpur.As mentioned in this blogpost , I havnt got www.kharagpur.com domain and asked for suggestions and http://www.kharagpuronline.com/ was unanimous choice. Thus in the eve of New Year I decided to launch it through famous web hosting site “fatcow” and registered “KharagpurOnline” on 31st December 2008.


Now it was the time to design and shape this site. I am in blogsphere for couple of years, but I had no idead about website hosting. It was a challenge for me. I took help from couple of friends. Chaitree who launched http://www.chaitreebasak.com/ helped me a lot with the concept of dream weaver and html pages. Ananda was always a helping hand for me and this time it was not an exception. He helped me to install wordpress and with his valuable critics. Aritra took it one step ahead. He is the first registered author for this site and started writing in the Education category. Finally Pabitra took some amazing pictures of our town to enrich KharagpurOnline. My sincere thanks to Chaitree, Ananda, Aritra and Pabitra.

The design was a delicate issue. I was not happy with the free CSS templates as it is not interactive(or I havnt found a better one), neither I was interested to make it totally in Wordpress. In first week, I tried in many possible ways and after all permutations and combinations I merged these two concepts. First Page, Info Page and Contact page are in CSS and all rest topics (which I want to make interactive) are in Wordpress themes. This took out the overhead of complex file management in control panel and I can really focus on content. This merging concept has given me enough freedom to design in dream weaver as well as use wordpress to its fullest extent. It has given a flavor of a website as well as an interactive blog in a combined package. I am happy with this initial design and launched “KharagpurOnline” on 11th January 2009.
For site content, I approached couple of people to use their photos and videos. Some has given permission while others remained silent. Then people from kharagpur slowly involved with KharagpurOnline. We created a community in Orkut. Started promoting this site, gathered some information, and posted some photos. Our journey of KharagpurOnline started in this fashion.

Please visit this site and write your suggestions, comments, feedback.

Domain for Kharagpur

KGP SERSA Stadium

Recently I tried to search my hometown in net and I was very disappointed by the results. There is no good site on this industrial town. To be precise I haven’t found any site only for Kharagpur. Thus I decided to launch a site on my home town.

I need a help regarding this. As I am going to open a site on Kharagpur, I need to buy a domain for that. The first domain I searched was kharagpur.com, which is already booked by some commercial agents and asking for $10,210. So obviously I need to search another domain. Kgp.com was my next one, which is also already taken. So I tried with many different options. These are the following which is available. I need to know which will be suitable and easy to remember and use. Please put your view in the comment section.

http://www.kgplive.com/
http://www.kgptoday.com/
http://www.kgptown.com/
http://www.thekharagpur.com/
http://www.kharagpurtown.com/
http://www.kharagpuronline.com/
http://www.kharagpurtoday.com/
http://www.kharagpurcity.com/
http://www.kgponline.com/
http://www.kharagpur.me/

My final choices are between 5 and 6 mostly, but still want to check your views. If you have any more idea about domain names or content, please share. Appreciate your comment and thoughts regarding this. Thanks in advance.

The Age I Wish To Go Back To Meme

Niki-chan tagged me asking "The Age I Wish To Go Back To ". Thank You Niki chan.
I followed the way Niki-chan did. Going through my album of childhood and found many interesting moments.

My life was not always in positive tune. Like most of us there are many mistakes I did, but I am not going to think about those days. Being an optimistic guy I always looked forward. So, I want to go back only to my happy days.

Happiness comes in many forms. When I read a good book, it makes me happy. But if I talk about special moments I can remember many of them. The day we won the football tournament in University Hostel was special for me as I scored some unbelievable goals, the day I first flew to outside India (London) was very special for me as I explored another World that day, The day I got job was also special, Even the small events like Swarasati Puja was special to me as we used to celebrate it in our home every year in our childhood.

One of the days I often cherished was the day we won the Trophy for our school in class X. It was an inter-school essay competition and being the first and second boy of our class I and my brother participated in this one and won the trophy together. Bro won the best individual performance trophy. That day my parents were proud of us and we were in jubilant mood.

Me:Second from Left

But apart from these success stories another day we performed together in our Babuline Colony (Kharagpur), was a fascinating day to cherish. I want to go back to that day to act a drama in our children’s club - Ankur. I performed 3/4 dramas in my childhood, and believe me I was not good enough in acting. I was good in many things like sports and academics, but not in acting. Still I enjoyed it. The collective effort and performing in front of our elders was something I can not forget. Given the chance I want to do it again and want to go back at the age of 14, when I performed this drama(I was a farmer in this one) in our para along with my friends and bro.

What Age U Wish To Go Back ? You can pick the tag or post a comment :-)

The Goba Returns

You have heard of migratory birds. In winter they come to the warm wonderlands, they enjoy the charming weather. But they never forgot their roots, the fragrance of their own soil, and return after the winter. So as Goba, migrates often on request but never forgets to comeback to his motherland, the incredible India.

How it feels to leave the place where you are living for more than a year? Not really good, Goba misses many things of the wonderlands and sometime he becomes nostalgic. He misses the culture, people and specially the new friends he got here. He misses the weather, the rare natural beauties. He misses very small things like the smell of the office floor, the basketball in the workplace, the view from his window.

But how it feels to go back to hometown? Heart is thrilled and the mind is full of joy, especially when it is festival times in India. Durga puja was always the favourite occasion in Goba’s life; I guess it is same for most of the Bengalis. It takes him to the old days when small Goba used to visit at least 100 pandals during these three/four days every year. He was amazed to see the different pandels decorated with lights, coloured cloths/materials and in the middle the holly goddess “Ma Durga”. This festival is called “Durga Puja” which has a rich mythological history, mainly associated with Bengali culture though deeply influence almost all Indians (especially Dusshera occasion, the last day of the festival is celebrated across India).

And look at the coincidence, Goba is returning on the same day (17th Oct) the festival will start, the most desired festival. It takes him down the memory lane. He can recollect some memories when his family was living in a small railway quarter of Babuline in Kharagpur. There were grossly fifty small quarters and they used to organize one combined puja. A committee was formed every year for organising the festival. His father was very proactive and used to be a part of the committee. At the age of twelve he had written a poem in the souvenir of Babuline Puja Committee and his father wrote an editorial. It was a cultural bonanza, starting from forming structures to creative literature.

Thus Goba is exited and eager to go back to the home soil, close to the near and dears, friends and colleagues and of course to enjoy the festive mood.

PS: Durga puja is one of the biggest cultural festivals. It has a deep influence on the common Bengalis and Indians, they decorate their houses, buy new cloths prepare sweets, meet each other, and go out to see the idols. The crowed, the make-shift stalls, pandels, images/idols, decorations, crackers, lights, songs, and cultural programs everything makes it a perfect occasion to rejoice.

I will not be regular during next 2 weeks as I am leaving Greece for good. So little busy. Will keep posting after Durga Puja.

I have drawn the sketch in the first one in MS paint and pasted some pics captured by me 2 years back.

Who was my best childhood friend?

I wouldn’t have thought if not someone asked this. But thanks to David, who asked and confused me by this simple question.

I thought of the many different things.

Was it the nice ball that my uncle has given me? I was delighted after getting it and played many years with that football.

Was it the cricket bat my father gifted after passing class I? Not to mention cricket was and still very close to my heart. We couldn’t live without playing cricket, be it small or long, we had to play everyday.

Was it the sets of kites or the ducks in the ponds, I used to see by my window in leisure times?

Was it the solitary banana and papaya tree in our house? The fresh guava, coconut, palm, mango, jackfruit, and pineapple we used to get/stole from the neighbouring areas climbing the trees.

Was it my drawing board I used to paint anything and everything? Especially I used to draw sceneries.

Was it my mirror, where I used to check how much I had grown up and always feeling scared as I thought, I will die soon if I grow too much?

Was it my dairy, where I used to write some funny things, small poems, cricket scores and paste the paper cutting pics of sportsmen?

Or Was it my strange thoughts and imaginations? I was crazy sometime and behaved abnormally for these thoughts.

Or the imaginary structures we used to make with dirty clays and sands?

Or Was it the fairy tales of “Thakurmar Jhuli”/ “Gopal Bhar” / “Sujon Harobola” or “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata”, two of my favourite TV serials I used to see in my childhood.

I am totally puzzled. Ten choices, and I don’t know what my favourite thing was, whom I can call my best friend. Which is why, I took some time to answer this question.

I decided to think again on my childhood. Closed my eyes for five minutes and got the answer.

I can see, With Him, I am playing funny games like kith kith, Langra chor (have to touch other player by running in one leg), hide and seek, football and cricket, sometime customized TT and hockey in the adjacent areas of our house in Kharagpur. I was never alone. He was always with me, from the day my first cell formed, from the moment I landed in this earth. He accompanied me each and every moment in my childhood, starting from going school, to play in the evening, from stealing the mango pickle in kitchen, to study together, we were together even when we fell sick.
I really miss his presence now. He was my best friend and still he is and will be. I love him.
He is no one but my Twin Bro :-) my best childhood friend.

PS: Both the pics are drawn in MS paint, I was conscious while drawing the first one, so personally second one is better to me.

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Update on 01st Oct 4:00pm - This post is mentioned as one of the Top Posts Of The Day in Davids blog and another good news is, our project in Greece has gone live today successfully. So I am happy.

Chak De, Chak De and just Chak De

The Chak De effect is still on.

Yesterday India won first Cricket World Cup Tewnty20 final in Johannesburg. It is a great moment for us Indians. I want to congratulate Dhoni and Indian team for a spirited and wonderful performance. Special thanks for defeating arch rival Pakistan two times in this tournament, both the time they kept their nerve cool in close nail biting contests. We are now the World Champion and nothing can make us happier than this.

Yes, I am happy, happy the way the boys fought, the way they kept their temperaments cool, demonstrated perfect attitude and gesture. I am happy with the captaincy of Dhoni, an honest and cool Captain. He apologises in front of media for his mistakes (done after first match), donate t-shirt to his fan(after final), and cheer up the weakest member of the playing eleven(Joginder Sharma). What more we can expect from a new young captain.

He is not rigid like the wall, not whimsical like mr chappal, not tensed like the pakis, not arrogant like the Freddies. I can remember those days when he used to come to Kharagpur to play small tournaments which was played with tennis balls. He came from a lower middle class family of Ranchi, Jharkhand. Jharkhand state is close to my home town Kharagpur and one of the local don (Ram Babu – who is now enjoying life time imprisonment) used to organize cricket tournaments at the time of Durga puja. Dhoni played one innings brilliantly and DRM (Devotional Railway Manager) promised him a group IV (lowest rank) railway job, his father is also a group IV railway worker. That small boy is now the leading the World champion team.
Thank You Dhoni. You are our ideal leader, inspiration for millions of youths.

Thanks to Yuvi (the most aggressive player of the tournament, six 6s in an over and fastest fifty, 2 MOM), RP (My man of the series – I don’t know how Afridi got it!!), Pathan (Hero of both the Pak match), Rohit (MOM against SA), Gambhir (highest scorer of final, second highest of the tournament), Uthappa (for 50 and bowl out pak in first match), Sreesanth ( for agressiveness and outstanding against Aussies), Joginder (for two great final overs), Viru, Bhajji for their mature guidance and whole team India (except Agarkar – who virtually turned India’s game to other side couple of times in this tournament). It was a dream journey for the young team. Thanks for entertaining us.

I thank Misbah-ul-Haq for being the tragic hero and making both the Indi-Pak game so close and exiting. He lost his nerve in the nail biting contest. My sincere sympathy is with him but not with Pakistan team, whose captain claims that “All Muslims of the World” are Pak supporter. Probably Shoaib Malik forgot the hero of the final is an Indian as well as from the same religion. I don’t know when they will grow up.

Even our Chak De hero Shahrukh Khan was there ( in New Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg) who represent India and not any community. It is a matter of great coincidence or a deep influence or utter surprise I don’t no, Indian emerges triumphant in three major tournaments in last 2 month, Neheru Cup Football, Asia Cup Hockey and Now World Cup T20 Cricket, after the release of movie “Chak De India”. They simply outplayed opponents in these championships.

Prabhjot, Rajpal, Tirkey, Baichung, Pradeep, Subrata are our heroes and it’s the time to cheer for them. But I doubt how long they can keep their consistencies.

It is not possible that a movie will influence the performance of a team, but can motivate some players. Last year we came across same kind of situation when the student mob protested in the “Rang De” fashion against the Indian Govt for anti-reservation issue. Similarly there are discrete incidents where “Lage Raho” rejuvenated some of us for 'Gandhigiri'. But I think one movie can not change the society or nation or team drastically. What do you think?

PS: This pic is not taken by me. source: ABP news paper.

Do you believe in ghosts?

David asked: Do you believe in ghosts?

No David, I do not believe in Ghosts, but can not rule out the possibility of its existence, because I can not prove it.

As I have said many times that I believe this World is virtual and we are just part of the game. Well, I can not prove this one as well, but I can feel it by some patterns. Similarly the possibility of existence of a Ghosts World can not be overruled, more interestingly my sis believes in ghosts strongly.

I can share an incident we experienced last year. We went to our maternal uncle’s house where we were celebrating some festival of Hindu Goddess. It was close to the burning ghat (Samshan) of Kharagpur, where the dead bodies are burnt.
At the time of coming back, I told my sis about the place and she was somehow influenced by an uncanny feeling, her eyes were unnatural and her face was surrounded by a fear. She was terribly frightened. It was tough to come back home and the night was even more dangerous. In her hallucination she was watching a black woman in a while Shari and red sindur, who was threatening her constantly. She was crazy and my whole family was not able to control her.
I was also started to feel something, totally moved by the state of my sis. That day I realized that I can not overrule the possibility of a mysterious World.

If we think about the n-dimensional state of a certain point, then the same place can be used by many different things invisible to each other. The basic function of our brain is to feel what we can see, perceive. But there are obviously limitations of it, or in a better way we can say that the program installed in a game is for a specific World. So we can not feel the other World. But there can always be some overlapping of different worlds, may be this is the reason someone can feel or experience the Ghosts World.

If we think in different way, we have so many emotions, passions, thoughts, relations, desires in this World. It can not be vanished in a moment (after we die). Well it can not be proved by the law of conservation of energies, but many things can not be proved which we can not deny. So these can exists in any forms, may be in forms of ghosts.

I can not deny their existence, I can not prove, I can not overrule, but also I can not feel it. May be weak hearted people can feel it, I don’t know!! But I don’t believe Ghost; neither have I had any experience of it.

PS: David, here people often misspell my surname, which proves ghost exists :-)

This intriguing picture is a collage of Goddess Athena, Socrates and Acropolis in Night .

Updated with one story from Kalyan.

I was talking about the story, where Sarat chandra Chattopadhyay had a challenge with his friends that he will go to the cremation site(sasan) on a new moon night(amabasya) alone and prove to his friends that no ghosts exists. To prove that he has indeed visited there he will bury a stick in the ground given by his friends. On the faithful night in the midst of howling foxes and other night animals he went there as was agreed but he also being an human had certain fears or nervousness, so he was also in a hurry to bury the stick as agreed and run away quickly. In this hurriedness his dhoti got struck in the stick that he buried and for a moment he believed that there is a ghost and is pulling his dhoti, and so he fainted in the ground. In the morning his friends got worried and they ran to that place only to see that Sarat babu's dhoti has got struck in the ground stick and that made him faint in the ground, which he was thinking as the ghost.

Cats : India and Europe

I have been to India last month . Whenever I visit my home soil, it gives me amazing feelings. The smallest things, tiniest creatures give me immense pleasure, I can feel the difference when I come back here in Europe. Its completely a different planet with strictly defined laws, different atmosphere of work, different life to lead.

I like the balance of both the life, which is why I usually spend half a year in India and other half in another countries (although now it has become one year in India and one year in other countries). The balance makes it more interesting, otherwise it would have been a boring life for me. But now I can not enjoy life in a place more than a year, which is definitely not good. I think this trend is now in my family, because we moved a lot in last 60 years, starting from Bangladesh(Dhaka) to Maharastra(Nagpur) and then back to Kharagpur(where I born) and now in Kolkata(where I live in India).

Coming back to the main discussion, I can feel a basic differences in every creature in Europe and in India. Let’s take an example of dogs. They are mainly domestic in Europe, trained and nurtured in proper way, thus they are well behaved, they don’t bite everyone, do not make chaos because the basic needs have been taken care. The situation is quite different in India.

See the cute sweet cats next to my doorsteps in Kharagpur. Their eyes are telling that they are hungry; they need little more love and foods. They were struggling for foods, but still not complaining as they have such a sweet heart. The most unfortunate part of the story is the small one died next day by a bit of a street dog.
Whereas the cats in Delphi, Greece are looking quite relaxed as they don’t have competitions for basic needs, having a small nap in a typical way. They look happier than the common people of poor countries.

I want to draw an analogy not only for dogs and cats, for people also. The basic atmosphere depends on the mentalities of common people. In India 50% people are poor, fight for the basic needs, for Food Shelter and cloths. They struggle to make both the ends meat. When I was standing in a traffic jam, a small boy came with a bouquet and I refused. Then I asked about the root, he happily guided me without any expectations. The smile was genuine which only can come from a lovely heart. I felt sorry for the kind hearted boy, who is struggling to survive; whereas the dogs in developed nations are leading much better life than them. This is the reason I hate pets.
Not everything is measured by self interests in India. A country with a beautiful heart is struggling to make both the ends meat, though many of them are happy.
The situation here is completely different. People can do whatever they want to, can play football for entire life, can focus on anything, because they are not afraid of basic needs. The health and education is also covered by the state, thus the environment is not so competitive (though we can see healthy competition in all environment) and the life is peaceful. They can focus on many different things in which the country can prosper, can write blogs for years, and can enjoy long vacations.
I strongly believe that mere charity can not solve this issue. I really don’t know how we can bridge the differences. A poor Indian can not afford to go to school while they fight for foods everyday, whereas if not they are properly educated the state is not going to improve.