11-11-17

I know its past that date now, But nevertheless I like to think about it , as it reminds me of Home..  India and My dad   He would celebrate my birthday every year , I was a grown up man but that did not stop him, he always made sure that on 11th Nov he had a few of my friends invited a few of his friends to celebrate, I remember his craze for Poori Cholle , he would always order them from Sindhi’s sector 17 Chandigarh) as my dad’s office was on top of their shop :),  that was one  dish Always on the menu on my birthdays.. along with  Samosa’s , Jalebi’s , and off course the CAKE.

One of my friends had an Aunt who made cakes on special orders, so the cake use to come from the aunt in Sector 18 Every-year, A BIG FRESH CREAM CAKE.

I remember the last time we had a celebration,  there was a guy playing the DHOL a few houses down the road and My uncle went and brought him over to play the Dhol suddenly it became a Dance party with everyone dancing to the Tune of the DHOL. What a beautiful HAPPY day it was ..

Sadly since I came to uk it never happened and I miss it, I guess we will never be able to get rid of that little kid in our hearts ever and now that my Dad is no more I doubt anyone will have the time or the energy to organize all that, so a Big Big Thank you to Dad for being so good and kind to me always, even though we sometimes did not meet eye to eye.

So this year too the 11th of the 11th came 🙂   Yes.. it was that day again today , when I was born, and the world had to be put in turmoil to endure me till I Live, whatever anyone might say I do feel that November is the best Month and the 11th is the best day.. Plus it has a nice ring to it 11th of the 11th ..

Although this year a little celebration happened from the 10th itself, I was meeting someone in the lovely buzzing city of London for lunch, it took a bit of an effort to find a restaurant at The SHARD, The name suggested it was a Chinese place , the name being “Shangri-La” but it was not :), although the views on the 35th floor were just awesome.

I was not impressed much with the food though but the company was lovely and I loved that ..  and I Got a gift too 🙂

11th started as usual till I saw my phone with so many messages , people wishing me and to read all that first thing in the morning is always a good feeling,  The only thing letting the day down was I was working 🙂  but hey ho it was not as if there was going to be a party in the evening 🙂

Thank you all for all the wishes, god bless you all.

With each passing year it seems the good old days are being left behind, fewer and fewer people remember each other but I guess that’s the way of the world these days..

This is a Short and Sweet Post for all who emailed me and texted me and Called me .. Love you all.. God bless you all. You all are the most beautiful people on this Earth not sure what have I done to deserve such good human beings around me ….

AND THOSE WHO HAVE FORGOTTEN .. well what can I say  🙂 …  Love you all.. God bless you all too . don’t worry 11-11-2018 is only 361 days away make sure you remember it then.  You too are the most beautiful people on this Earth not sure what have I done to deserve such good human beings around me, Stay blessed.

11-11-16 – Day 11

Yes.. it’s that day again today , when I was born, and the world had to be put in turmoil to endure me till I Live, whatever anyone might say I do feel that November is the best day and the 11th is the best day.. Plus it has a nice ring to it 11th of the 11th ..

The day started as usual till I saw my phone with so many messages , people wishing me and to read all that first thing in the morning is always a good feeling, Pity it was a Friday and I had work else I could have spent the day sleeping a bit more.

Thank you all for all the wishes, god bless you all.

With each passing year it seems the good old days are being left behind, the last I had a good birthday was in 2012, many good human beings were writing posts for me on this day then , BUT sadly as they say all good things come to an END..  and since then its been chaos.. 🙂 But at least I can remember all.

This is a Short and Sweet Post for all who emailed me and texted me and Called me .. Love you all.. God bless you all. You all are the most beautiful people on this Earth not sure what have I done to deserve such good human beings around me ….

AND THOSE WHO HAVE FORGOTTEN .. well what can I say  🙂 …  Love you all.. God bless you all too . don’t worry 11-11-2017 is only 365 days away make sure you remember it then.  You too are the most beautiful people on this Earth not sure what have I done to deserve such good human beings around me, Stay blessed.

This is the first year in more than a Decade that I will be not working , so I guess that is a birthday blessing in itself. 🙂  Back in India friends have already started the celebrations and are now making me jealous .. 😦   GOD I MISS YOU ALL…

 

 

 

Ps:- Sorry people on this NabloPomo blogathon , I am just unable to keep up. There is a LOT going on around this side of the world. But I will continue to persevere and post as and when I can.

 

 

 

 

Of Letters- Emails-Scraps

I was reading a post by Irfaan,  which reminded me of this post I had earlier written, The art of Letter writing is becoming a endangered species ..

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I walked into my office , the lady at the reception was sitting.

“Good morning Liz”…
“Good morning Bikraaaaam”. (This is how they pronounce my name)…

As I walked past her, she called me back, “Bik, I have something for you,” she had a blue envelope in her hands, passed it on to me … it was one of AIRMAIL Aerogramme that we had in India to post abroad.

OH MY GOD… I was like in shock… it’s the last thing I was expecting… A Letter for me … I mean we are in 21st century… Letters are not heard of I mean the Hand-Written ones , Now is the time of Blogs, Emails, Scraps, and SMS… Tweets etc… Off liners… Chats… Facebook…

Believe me it was nostalgic moment, I opened the letter carefully, cause the gum is bad and you have to tear off the corners to open it, I did not want to spoil anything. The letter was from my youngest MAASI (mum’s sister). All this time I had forgotten her Birthday was same as mine 11th November, and she wrote a letter to me. SHAME ON ME…

It was such a great feeling, I have so many handwritten letters from lots of people, When I had come to UK, I had made sure I brought all those with me, I am a sucker for such nostalgic stuff. I reached home and opened my box of Emotions-Memories-Warmth-Love, even when some of these have got torn and faded the memories they evoke are rich and resonant. So many memories came flooding back, not all Emails, SMS messages, Scraps invoke such emotions.

Oh all those lovely memories, I agree that world has changed and its time of technology, so many emails are sent every day, But imagine the Hand written letters, those carefully chosen words, written slowly, Imagine the thought going behind the words being written, then the time it took to reach, even though the news by that time was late yet it brought all that JOY, HAPINESS, WARMTH, TEAR, SORROW, everything with it and then you sat down to REPLY to it.

I remember I use to have a girl in my class, she later started to tie rakhi to me, immigrated to Australia after my 10th class, she use to write letters to me, every other week I use to get a letter, which I have till today all saved up, the fun things written in them, how she was finding living in Oz, what she was doing, the new people she was meeting, I knew her friends as she knew them there. I replied back to her telling her what is going on my side, my college days, what i was doing…

I also remember a few of my friends writing to me, The best are the letters that my dad wrote to me when I was in hostel , though they were basically STUDY HARD, STUDY and STUDY… yet thinking of them and seeing them brings back memories. My mother use to write to me in Punjabi, some of the words she used in the letters are sort of lost from the vocabulary now, the warmth – the sweetness- the love affection in it all.

These days all you get is a 160 character SMS or an occasional card especially on Birthdays, that too with 4 or maximum 5 words “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” “LOVE abcd”. I used to write long letters myself, I remember pestering people in the end of the letter why don’t they write more.

In School where I was studying SUNDAY use to be the Letter writing day, we were given the Blue inland letters , their use to be a special sitting, 10AM the bell would ring, all the students were to go to the dining hall, where the prefect would distribute the letter, while we wrote, then he would collect them and mark from his list who all have not given. It was compulsory to write, I remember I use to write 3 letters , To my parents , To my Grandparents Both sets.. Sometimes if I was in good mood write to other relatives, the letters were posted every Monday morning, so by the next week the wait started for the reply.

Lunch was at 1:30Pm, after lunch around 2pm all of us use to rush to the helper (BidhiChand was his name), he would have the letters that had come to us, he would distribute them, it was good moment if you got a letter , sad time if you did not, but nevertheless it was exciting.

Nowadays you start to write I am sure, hands start to ache, we are not used to writing anymore. It gives a very warm feeling when I check a handwritten letter from a close friend even after couple of years, the personal touch is missing in most of the communiqués that we send and receive these days. The Intimacy between the person who is writing and the one who has received the letter, sometimes you wonder that will the person you have written read the words as you have written, Will they understand the true meaning, the emotion behind those words.

If they don’t , then you write more to explain it all :), Wrote with more sincerity since it took longer to write, the heart to heart conversation that was etched on the paper, And the best thing was the beautiful stamps that were used.

Not all the emails or sms have the same magic as of those handwritten letters.

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By Pritish Nandy

 

ps:- Picture courtesy Google.