Stay, Ask and Order!

Can you recall the last time you had ordered food while surfing the internet? Isn’t it only a few days back when you decided to pick some takeaway food on your way back from office? It happens with all of us these days. Stress is gradually consuming our days, nights and peace of mind. And there are times when we relent to our circumstances and the all-encompassing pressure of multitasking.

I’ve been through days when I’ve been writing for an assignment throughout the day, with intermittent coffee and munch breaks. Later in the evening after I submit, my psyche goes on a toss and I tend to slump down. Coincidentally, if my better half is late from office the same day, we are left with no choice but to order food online or pick up a takeaway in Kolkata or call for home delivery. One of these days while browsing through various websites to order, I found Askme dot com.

Image Courtesy: Askme dot com

The inquisitive me landed on their plush yet simple website andcruised through the home delivery page. I punched in my preferred area within Kolkata and the type of food I wanted. The page offered me a range of choices to spoil, with their menus, ratings, photos and reviews. The search takes a few seconds, so does the order. Askme has a very easy contact number to memorise in case you want to rest your eyes and step away from the computer. Dial their number and describe your preference for them to suggest and place the order for home delivery in Kolkata .

So, the next time hunger consumes you and leaves no time for cooking or even assembling food particles together in a dish, pick up your phone, dial Askme’s number and order your choice of fodder. I’ve been sceptical to order food online in Kolkata but Askme has provided an easy-peasy portal for everyone to explore the options, choose the most relevant and wanted ones and just click.

Remember, your food is just a click or call away from you. Celebrate any occasion, even your tiredness or a stressful day with something exotic or just your favourite pizza.

Style Bhai(s) of CWC

I haven’t been watching the Cricket World Cup since its inception in 1975 as I wasn’t even born! Back then, it was called the Prudential World Cup and wasn’t as glamorous as it is now. The game was black and white and so are most of the photos from that era. The jerseys and styles were very ’70-ish with the players sporting long sideburns, hippie hairstyles and bell-bottoms. Our Ravi Shastri was arguably the most stylish emerging cricketer as evidenced in the picture below.

25 June 1983, India lifting the World Cup. Notice Ravi Shastri and his unkempt hair.

As the world moved on, the Cricket World Cup did too. With the advent of coloured jerseys in 1992, the ICC Cricket World cup added more glitz in terms of day/night matches where the audience in front of television could see sweat glistening on the forehead of a parrot-green clad Imran Khan. If someone is the most handsome cricketer still, it’s him.

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#FabBag Review: February 2015

Since I had subscribed Fab Bag for 3 months, here comes the second instalment in February. Being the Valentines’ month, it had to be special and I guess a lot of people waited eagerly for it. The theme for February was #DateNight and the best part of it was the Fab Bag itself. A super cute and gorgeous black faux leather heart shaped bag with short silver chains was what I received. Loved the bag and I’m already using it as a clutch.

If you still haven’t subscribed The Fab Bag, do so now.

The contents in this bag were: Sally Hansen Maximum Growth plus Nourishing Nail Color in Beige Frost shade, LA Splash Lip Couture liquid Lipstick, Livon Moroccan Silk Serum, Kama Mridul Soap free Cleanser and Kama Brightening and Rejuvenating Night Cream.

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Book Review : Ramayana – Shattered Dreams

Blurb View:

Image Courtesy: Google

Shattered Dreams is the sequel to the national bestseller, Rise of the Sun Prince, in the new spiritual and motivational series Ramayana – The Game of Life. Twelve joyful years have passed in Ayodhya since the wedding of Rama and Sita at the end of Book 1.

Now, in Shattered Dreams, Shubha Vilas narrates the riveting drama of Rama’s exile. Through tales of Rama’s unwavering and enigmatic persona, the book teaches us how to handle reversals positively; through Bharata’s actions, it teaches us to handle temptation; and through Sita’s courage, to explore beyond our comfort zone. This complicated family drama provides deep insights on how human relationships work and how they fail.

With Valmiki’s Ramayana as its guiding light, Shattered Dreams deftly entwines poetic beauty from the Kamba Ramayana and Ramacharitramanas, as well as folk philosophy from the Loka Pramana tales, to demonstrate how the ancient epic holds immediate relevance to modern life. Experience the ancient saga of the Ramayana like never before.

Review:

Ramayan and Mahabharat have been the flavours of quite a few seasons now. While some of them focus on re-telling the epics, either picking a character and exploring their perspective or choosing an episode to elaborate and fictionalise. Here comes a new genre of narrating the epics – to add spiritual and philosophical explanations of their actions and thoughts. Quite innovative and introspective it turns out to be.

Since we’re all familiar with the basic storyline of Ramayan, it doesn’t matter that I haven’t read the prequel of this book – Ramayana – Rise of the Sun Prince. Shattered Dreams – Book 2 deals with the coronation and exile of Ram. The format of the book is very unique with the story divided into nine chapters and each page carrying footnotes with insights on the happenings. I’d say the notes are much more interesting than the story itself (which we all know by heart) and could have constituted the entire book.

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Satyanweshi

Image Courtesy: Facebook

The most common question asked to every child or teen is “Who is your favourite detective?” At least, that’s what used to be in my generation, about two decades ago. I’ve been gorging on detective stories since my pre-teens, haate-khori (baptism of writing) being done with Feluda. With Sonar Kella (1974) and Joy Baba Felunath (1979) being constant features on summer television, we didn’t have many options. Feluda ruled my childhood, along with Bangla translations of Sherlock Holmes in magazines. I loved Feluda, and was in awe of Sherlock, which strengthened as I began learning Chemistry. Those inferences from the criminal’s stained hat or a cigarette stub with his saliva on it made me wonder Holmes’s prowess. Could Feluda do similar stuff? Well, no, he was mostly a cerebral detective, with his Magajastra being the ultimate weapon.

Image Courtesy: Google

Unlike many other children who just read and loved detectives, I wanted to be one. Seriously. I’ve read Holmes at an age when others didn’t, I’ve religiously read Kakababu and Arjun’s escapades, I’ve read Colonel Niladri Sarkar’s young adult stories, I’ve read Jayanta-Manik and Gogol. Bangla literature has a vast ensemble of detectives/sleuths, and that’s what most of them liked to be termed. All of them were smart, not all were young men though, and only Samaresh Majumdar’s Arjun had the suaveness to second Feluda. I wanted to be someone who had the forensic analytical bent of mind and yet an uber emotional psyche to grasp the criminal’s mind. As I grew up, I found him and though I couldn’t be like him, I let him rule my mind as the best ‘detective’ ever – Byomkesh Bakshi. Well, the most striking thing about Byomkesh is that he never liked to be called a ‘detective’. He fancied the term ‘Satyanweshi’ (truth-seeker) and stuck to it until Dibakar Banerjee decided to rip it off in his next film.

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