I Am ….

Protiksha Ukil     I am a volcano, With soothing green grass growing all over my slopes, Little huts lining my feet and sometimes snow complementing my head, But look, look deep enough and you will find bubbling lava under that innocent looking crater, Provoke me, and I will be the epitome of destruction. I am a puddle of water, With insignificant ripples and a …

The Ghost of Uma Villa

Sharmistha Dasgupta My father’s ancestral home, Uma Villa, more popularly known as Uma Kutir in Bengali, was named after his grandfather Umacharan Sengupta, a native of Dhaka, in erstwhile East Bengal. Umacharan had shifted to North Bihar sometime in the early years of the last century for professional reasons and chose to settle down in the small suburban town of Araria. It was a largely insignificant town by …

A Pair of Oranges

Rishikesh Sengupta Every morning, a young woman used to sit on the footpath in front of our house, selling Nagpur oranges. Just a single basket and though a little overpriced and relatively less sweet than other varieties sold in the market her wares would sell in no time. A little girl, about five years old, ragged and unkempt in appearance, her big eyes looking out …

Sandesh And Other Sweets -The Taste Enhancer

Sampurna Bandyopadhyay We have all read the great poem of Rabindranath Tagore where he wrote, আমসত্ত্ব দুধে ফেলি, তাহাতে কদলী দলি, সন্দেশ মাখিয়া দিয়া তাতে– হাপুস হুপুস শব্দ চারিদিক নিস্তব্ধ, পিঁপিড়া কাঁদিয়া যায় পাতে। (Milk and dried mango pieces were mixed together and then banana was mashed and added to the mix followed by sandesh. Everyone lapped up the delicious preparation promptly, reducing the ants …

Urbanisation & Cultural History of Chandernagore

Dr Biswanath Bandyopadhyay Urbanization is a normal phenomena of civilization. It is the process through which people from different areas agglomerate in a particular centre with certain facilities which are helpful for them to earn their livelihood mainly by non-agricultural activities. The common criteria of urbanization is the facility of good communication network with the outer world by means of transport and other media which …

Quackery and Crosspathy-Two Current Problems in Therapeutics

Madhab K. Chattopadhyay Introduction All of us (barring the exception of a fortunate few) have to seek medical treatment of various health problems during different phases of life. So problems related to medical treatment impact us in various ways. This article deals with two major problems that are widely talked about at present among the medical practitioners, policy-makers and common people alike. 1. Quackery The …

Improving Organizational Productivity through Improved Learning Transfer, Organizational Learning and Organizational Culture

AINDRILA CHATTERJEE The focus of my research is on the intangible factors that can improve organizational productivity by studying some of the factors that can affect the output elasticity of labor. It is seen from existing literature that two of the most important factors that impact productivity are organizational culture and human resource management (HRM) practices. My research tries to bring the two aspects together …

Freedom Movement – Heroism and Betrayals

Shantanu Dey Tales of Heroism and Betrayals in Indian Freedom Movement In this narrative we are trying to present some of the facets of Indian freedom movement in which individual as well as the collective heroism and betrayals shaped the dynamics of the overall movement especially in its later stage. It is upto the readers to decide as to who were the betrayers and who …