Monday, August 25, 2008

De-stressing

The other day in a Mumbai local train, I saw a man writing down "Hare Ram Hare Krishna" over and over again in a notebook. He was murmuring the phrase in sync with the scrawling, and clearl y his concentration on the task was rather immense. Was this his way of de-stressing himself after a long arduous day? I really don't understand how concentration is connected with calmness and meditation.

As far as I'm concered, I'm just happy to put on songs of Simon & Garfunkel or Sigur Rós. The latter's 'svefn-g-englar' is THE song to listen to, when you want to relax! :)

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Bangladesh's national anthem

In 1905, the state of Bengal was partitioned by Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India. This was highly resented by the people of Bengal and the famous Rabindranath Tagore penned a song "Amar Shonar Bangla", a tribute to Bengal. Needless to say, this helped in rallying the cause for unification, and it did happen in 1911.
Bengal was partitioned again in 1947 and renamed as East Pakistan, which declared independence from Pakistan, called itself Bangladesh and heaped enormous costs on India in the process(but you all know of that).
Now Bangladesh adopted "Amar Shonar Bangla" as its national anthem, which is ironical considering that it was meant for a united Bengal!!