Sleepless in Seattle!

Long back the day I watched "Sleepless in Seattle", don't know why I knew I would go there one day! 

Years after I landed in US but was stationed in Connecticut in East coast where as Seattle was in the farthest northwest corner of the continent. Just going there to pay a visit was not that feasible.
Months passed by and the time came when I had to move to Oregon. One of the few thoughts that made me happy (as I was immensely sad to leave my extended family in Connecticut) was it's proximity to the "Rain City".

It goes without saying that the first trip I made from Oregon was to Seattle!

Though not a big fan of travel diaries, Seattle being always special to me and fulfilling my dad's wish of reading my blogs more frequently thought of penning down my visit to this city of my neighboring state.

Specially, there were three areas that I planned to visit in and around Seattle:- 

1. Seattle downtown: I parked my car in Pike Place Market Parking and walked to the following places: 

                 - Pike Place Market, a bustling place just above the parking. Watching the fish vendors over there was a sheer fun.

                 - Seattle Aquarium (covered by City Pass), the home of some sweet sea otters, couple of octopuses and many others was on the opposite side of the road. It was great to see the octopuses having dinner! 

                 - Seattle Great Wheel (same road as aquarium), the largest observation wheel on the west coast. With fully-enclosed gondolas and a covered waiting area, the rain can't stop the wheel from spinning! Four complete revolutions with excellent views of the bay, the islands (if boarded in daytime) and the city.

                 - Argosy Cruises Harbor Tour (nearby to wheel and covered by City Pass), a narrated 1-hour sightseeing tour of Seattle’s vibrant and historic harbor, with never-ending skyline views of the city.

                 - Crab Pot, the heaven for sea food lovers where I had lots of Dungeness crabs after waiting for an hour and believe me it was just worth. Because of the wait time I planned it for dinner so that I could indulge myself fully into the food after a full day of touring around! Way to the cruise being thru the restaurant saved the time to go extra mile in search of a restaurant.

                 - 15 minutes walk to 1st Avenue for Bill Speidels Underground Tour, a leisurely, guided walking tour beneath Seattle’s sidewalks and streets which I enjoyed thoroughly being a history lover and it became more thrilling and entertaining because of the guide we had.

                 - Wanted to go the oldest Starbucks as well which was nearby but could not make it :(

City Pass also includes Space Needle for which I parked the car just across the street. Using the pass the observation tower could be visited twice within 24 hours. I visited both during the day and the night as views were completely differently breathtaking. 

For the night, I went after the street parking became free as the deck was open till 11PM and what I beheld could only be translated into three words - "Sleepless in Seattle"!

There was a revolving restaurant called SkyCity with panoramic views just below the deck. It required much prior reservations and being an IT-ian I ended up planning in the 11th hour. Hence, it was a miss!

2. Museum of Flight also covered by City Pass, the biggest privately run air museum was actually extra special to me since I was waiting to board an Air Force One and trust me it was such an honor! As I had to drive down to Portland I went there on my way back. It's good to have minimum 3 hours to explore the entire museum otherwise one would have to run around like me due to the lack of time. 


3. And the last but of course not the least was the Future of Flight Aviation Center and Boeing Tour located approximately 25 miles north of Seattle. I took one of the 90-minute tours (opted for the first one in the morning so that the rest of the day could be utilized sightseeing the downtown!) of the Boeing plant and had the lifetime experience of watching 747s, 777s, and 787s being assembled right before my eyes. In the next hour I explored the interactive exhibits and displays in their Aviation Center Gallery. 

Went to Bellevue downtown as well to meet a friend of mine and it turned out to be a very lively and pretty city and just worth visiting.

During my visit the weather was chilling as I was there from Dec 26, 2014 to Dec 28, 2014. However, the days were sunny without rains which was a real big bonus from the "Rain City"!

As expected, I loved Seattle and would be visiting back soon!

It's much easier!

We have been sharing our lives for almost a decade now, out of which being married for more than two years yet I believe courtship was tougher…

I always hear people finding it difficult after marriage. But to me it's contrary.

Courtship never had a social stamp at least in Indian society. It has always been either married or single till Orkut-FB came into our lives with statuses like "Committed", "In a relationship", etc etc!

In college I lost a friend to cancer. His death was a great grief to me. I was completely shattered by the thought of the trauma his parents and his ladylove were going through. But to my utter despair, I found lot of people heaving a sigh of relief at the same time while mourning my friend's death for the fact that at least he was not married. Although most of them knew that he had someone special in his life none bothered to acknowledge the loss of his lover. No one was ready to understand her suffering. Everyone was least interested to know that she loved him no less than a husband just because they were not married. And now, after so many years while we are on the way to settle down in our lives she is still fighting her own fight rejecting the marriage proposals coming to her. Absence of a social name of their relationship does not make her love shallow. Just because they couldn't get married doesn't make it easy for her to move on!

Relationship has always been like a plant to me which you need to to water regularly to make it grow to a beautiful tree. Post marriage lot of people are found intending to lend their helping hands to keep your relationship working. Even if you are on a simple healthy happy distance marriage don't be surprised to get calls from the most unexpected relatives explaining why it's not right to stay apart after marriage. But during courtship, hardly people care to know the difficulties involved in a long distance relationship. Rather, they would be happy to know if both of you are not in the same city as according to them being away from each other helps in dedicating yourself to the career instead of going around with your partner and of course there are less chances of sleeping together when you are miles apart as our so-called well-wishers are more concerned with that!

Surprisingly, still in 2013 in most parts of our country an unmarried couple cause many eyebrows to raise while they are accepted cordially by the same society after marriage. It's like even if a married couple unfortunately decides to go for a divorce will step back thinking about the formalities that they will have to go through and more importantly the number of calls and gyans they will have to take from the "n" number of people as if the entire world wants them to be together. But pre marriage neither society nor anyone else will be interested, it will be only you and only two of you standing for your relationship!

So to all those marriage phobic couple, it’s much easier dear. You have already traversed the tougher part.
Just continue on the same journey with much easier path to follow!

Women Inc shining!

Women Inc shining - I wish if we really were!


Waking up every day with the news of rape I wonder if we really can shine at all even in our near future!

And somehow somewhere the women themselves are responsible for being not able to stand tall even in this 21st century as now and then we see a mother being a woman herself feels relieved for not giving birth to a girl child, a sister keeping silent considering the act of her brother of staring at some other girl as an innocent mischief completely forgetting that the other girl is also someone's sister, a wife praying for the husband's life in spite of knowing the fact that her husband is guilty of the criminal offence of raping and killing a woman like her

We will perhaps shine that day – when daughters will no more be brought up with some special care just because they are girls, when rape won't be used as an instrument of war, when a woman can lie safely on the road even naked if she wishes to without provoking anyone to rape her!

Women Incorporated will shine; shine bright when we will be able to celebrate not one but every day of the year as women's day!

Those childhood evenings of mine

It's an evening of a weekend. I am leaning over the head board of the bed in the room on the second floor of our ancestral house at Sealdah. My dad's friends and their families have come. Someone is playing harmonium, accompanied by "tabla" and "nal" whereas somebody is busy shaking the malacas to the beats. Masala "mudi"(puffed rice) has been served as snacks and my dad is singing. The types of songs range from those by Sachin Deb Barman to Mrinal Chakraborty, Tagore's songs to Nazrul Islam's, that of Ramkumar Chattopadhyay's to Nidhu Babu's "tappa"(a form of Bengali music) and from Harry Belafonte's Jamaica Farewell to Goanish "Kaibaroto Kumro Muzo Maima Kadilo" - a typical Bengali "adda".
This was a very common picture when I was in my primary school days. Sometimes I used to enjoy those evenings and sometimes I felt bored. But subcounsciously and unknowingly the memories of those childhood evenings of mine occupied an underlying space in my heart and soul which I had never realised this way before.
Yesterday I went to watch Guzaarish. In the last scene of the movie which was the day before Hrithik was supposed to die a Goanis song was sung in chorus. And I felt something! Something just flashed like a retrospective! Oh my God,it's the same song "Kaibaroto Kumro Muzo Maima Kadilo" that I used to hear my dad singing decades back in those old childhood evenings of mine. I felt strange. I felt sad. But I felt contented! I started missing my dad, I started missing my childhood all of a sudden, all over again. I sensed a strong, peculiar, different, usual but a lost connection with those long passed happy childhood evenings of mine. I couldn't believe that I still remember the song. I still have not forgotten even a trivial thing like the origin of it which years back my dad must had told me and I listened to it giving least importance like any other usual knowledge shared by parents! My heart got filled with the warmth and the sweetness of those golden childhood evenings of mine. Every moment of it suddenly has become so live, so fresh, so pure , so naive that I can still see my dad singing the song in one of those old lost happy childhood evenings of mine...

A Proud Indian

I pledge all Indians my sisters.
But I don't bother to feel comfy
in my abutting state.
And I boast to be a proud Indian!

I go abroad for vacation.
But I don't care to excavate
the inherent asset of my homeland.
And I boast to be a proud Indian!

I admire and adopt other's culture.
But I don't feel the shame
to neglect my own heritage.
And I boast to be a proud Indian!

I curse the system of my country.
But I don't feel the urge
to change the pattern.
And I boast to be a proud Indian!

Years pass by.
Independence day comes and goes.
I celebrate it like one more holiday.
And I still boast to be a proud Indian!!!

The Loneliness Is Mine

It's more than two years now
when I left you for the first time,
it was I who moved on
yet the loneliness was mine!

I miss the sprightliness of yours,
I miss your chastity,
I miss the restlessness of yours,
I miss your originality,
yet I moved on
and the loneliness was mine!

You gave me the best of your love,
you taught me to take it easy,
you kept me alive,
you fetched my lying eyes honesty,
yet I moved on.
But I can't tell you why
the loneliness was mine!

I know you want to walk me home,
but I am a big big girl now,
I know you want to take me to your heart again,
but I will have to move on.
And
the loneliness will be mine,
Oh Calcutta!
the loneliness will be mine!

Liking what you do is Happiness

Blogging for the first time with a topic like this is not that usual but this idea or fact or whatever you may call it has always made me think - Liking what you do is Happiness, Doing what you like is Freedom.
I believe I am happy, oops, happier than the happiest person in the world. But I don't know whether it's because I love what I do or I do what I like. If the former is true then happiness sounds to be nothing but compromise.
From the childhood, we grow up to make our dreams of standing on our feet come true, we grow up wishing that one day will come when we will do whatever we like and none will stop us and our lives will be full of happiness. Now, being grown ups we see a world too different from those our young minds used to hallucinate. Here we no more feel happy, we don't feel anything. Instead we define everything and then we decide whether we are living up to the definition!
Always doing whatever I like has brought me happiness. May be at times it seems to the world what I love to do is not only just freedom but misuse of it which sounds absolutely fine to me if it paves the path of happiness, after all we are striving to live with the objective of being happy, that's what everyone wants from life, a continuous and genuine happiness. But obviously this happiness in no way should cost anything possibility of which is there when one is too free to enjoy one's freedom. On the other extreme we can't be as happy as we make our minds to be. But the hard truth is that happiness comes from the simple harmony between the man and the life he leads to make it successful which success is not the key to happiness whereas the other way round happiness is the key to success and one will be successful if he likes what he does, finds the pleasure in it. So the question remains unanswered - Liking what you do is happiness or doing what you like is???