Waiting for Dawn

- poem by Nirjhar Chakravorti

Waterfront Winterland at Swansea: A Real Fun

Waterfront Winterland at Swansea, Wales (UK) is a real place for winter time fun. In 2018-19, it organized between 16 November 2018 to 6 January. It's organized at National Waterfront Museum.

(National Waterfront Museum exhibits Wales' history of industrial revolution and innovation by combining significant historical artifacts with modern technologies). Waterfront Winterland is one of the exciting fun fair which gives a new dimension to the Museum ground.

The ground becomes a lively place during the Winterland fair which is a kind of must pay a visit spot. There are plenty of rides for all age groups.

During 2018-19 fair following rides considered: Snow Storm, Sky View, Bumper Cars, North Pole Funhouse (new for 2018!), Family Carousel, Variety of Winter themed children’s rides, The Big Wheel, Ice Extreme (new for 2018!). Each rides costs affordable price. Token for the rides are available from three token booths inside the ground. Ice Skating is one major attraction.  Fun is incomplete without good food. Food counters are available inside the ground. Variety of candy and chocolates are also available. Lots of quality restaurant is available outside the Waterfront ground too.

I went there with George, Neil and Amy during last week of November. It was real fun for all of us. We enjoyed various rides and games and had a great dinner at a good restaurant outside the ground. It was a windy, cloudy and drizzling winter evening which we all enjoyed lot.

Master of Night

(a poem by Nirjhar Chakravorti)

When you leave me,
I'm the wild fire,
When you leave me,
I'm thunder shower.

I set the rule, to break it,
I break the rule, to set it.
Experimenting power
of truth, love with merit.

I destroy the darkness,
See the golden sun rise,
Creating new horizon,
To give you new surprise.

When you leave me,
I'm still Master of Night,
I know, you'll come back,
At end, I'm only to remain at sight.

Steps to Make Life Organized

In life, whatever you do, four steps are very much essential:

- planning,

- organizing,

- leading,

- controlling.

Planning:

Anything you do, you need to plan prior to action. You can't do things whimsically. When you are going to Tesco or any supermarket for marketing weekly goods, it is always preferred to make a quick list for purchase. Also put tentative cost of each of the thing. It'll help you to have proper marketing, you'll not miss any must needed thing, you'll not end up with buying unnecessary thing, you will understand your budget so that you can save some money.

It is applicable for all the activities you do. Like, if you are a student, make weekly plan. Based on weekly plan, prepare daily To Do List. As such, all of us can always make daily To Do List to smoothen our daily life. Also, for all of us, monthly and yearly financial planning is important, so that we can save reasonable amount for long term. To prepare financial planning, we need to identify monthly income and accordingly we need to plan our expenditure. If our income is not confirmed and not considerable amount, then we need to explore possible income sources and we need to discard any unnecessary expenditure. We have to be strict to ourselves for expenditure point of view.

In professional ambience, where multiple resources are involved to carry out activities, planning is very much essential. It create a proper vision for what to do and how to do. It avoids confusion and conflict as activities for each resource is defined.

Organizing:

After planning, it is essential to organize the things as per plan. Organizing includes identifying and organizing resources to perform the task. For example, while going to supermarket, if you have planned to use cash, instead of using your credit card (as while using card, there is no control over purchase). You have budgeted GBP 60 for the week. So it is essential to organize that amount. For that, before going to supermarket, you need to go to ATM counter to withdraw the amount.

If you are a student of epidemiology and you have planned to work on effect of pollution in a certain area, then it is essential for you to organize relevant data based on which you can pursue your research (example, you have to find extensive data from internet, local hospitals and health centres, etc; you may have to do a sample survey on certain number of people in the locality, etc). In professional ambience, it is essential to organize all resources as per plan. Likewise, it is required to identify suitable manpower, train manpower for suitable skills, organizing money from bank, etc.

Leading:

It is a stage when job is performed at actual. The biggest challenge is to perform the activities as planned. Many uncertain activities and distraction comes during execution which causes hindrances for execution of the job. Here is the role of leading the activities so that desired objective is met effectively and efficiently. For example, after entering the shopping centre, it is essential to buy the products as per list prepared with the cost range as planned. There will be many attractive products on display. Biggest challenge is not to buy them. Also there may be product of different qualities and price tag; challenge is to stick to the plan and buy the product whose price is matching the planned value. So a huge amount of self discipline is required. If you are a student, studying as per plan on each and every day is next to impossible. If you can maintain it daily by reasonably following weekly routine, then it is a true leading the task. If you have planned for group study, then arranging all friends together and conduct study session effectively and efficiently without waste of time is a very tough task. In professional ambience, teamwork is must. Motivating the team members, tracking of progress as per plan with respect to time-money-quality, mitigation of various kind of task to perform activities are few of the role for good leadership.

Controlling:

When we perform any task, invariably there will be some gap between planning and actual execution. The efficiency of a good execution depends on whether we are able to identify and measure the gap reasonably and taking necessary corrective action so that end objective gets fulfilled. While going to supermarket, the target was to buy a list of products within a budget. It may be possible that a couple of things are not available at shop within the targeted price. It is essential to take a quick decision if any alternative product can be procured within budget which can satisfy the purpose of the originally planned product to a reasonable extent. Also there may be need to take a “buy or no buy” decision if the available product's price is much higher than targeted value. There can be other example as well. Likewise, if you are a student, you may have weekly routine where studying ethics is scheduled on Thursday afternoon between 2 pm to 5 pm. It may happen that you fail to study on a particular Thursday due to unscheduled visit of a guest. So you come to know that in that week, you have deficit for three study hours for ethics. Now you have to check suitable time where you can study additional three hours in remaining days of the week. For that you may have to reduce/ sacrifice few other less prioritized routines work (like weekend fun hours, etc). In professional life, controlling has huge importance and a true manager or leader always pays huge attention on controlling activities. Controlling has two aspects. One aspect is to constantly follow up the execution activities with respect to original planning so that the job gets completed as per planning. In case, there is inevitable and unmanageable deviation, then measure the deviation and take corrective action so that the job gets completed either within the planned parameters or with very minimal manageable variance (with respect to cost, time and quality). Also it is required manage risk factors associated with the job.

Planning, organizing, leading and controlling are the skills which we all must try to develop within ourselves. If we apply them then our thought process will also become more logical and analytical. It'll help us to structure our thoughts to identify the wrong and right in true sense. This structured thought not only help us for doing the thing right, but also it helps us do the right thing. It helps us to be much stronger internally to select the right spirit and become less influenced by external wrong ideas. When someone is internally unstructured, then people and ideas with wrong spirits will try to influence them and convert him or her identity to wrong spirits. It'll create a camouflaging atmosphere around him or her which will gradually destroy power to think logically and ethically. So it is very much important to start doing right thing. The best way for doing that is to start following the four steps of life, that is planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Once you will start doing this, you'll automatically become more confident to yourself. Your thought process will be more positive which will inevitably change your life towards positivity. You'll find that you have reasonably good income, you have increasing savings, you have improvement in professional life, you have correct sets of people around you, you have more free time when you can serve humanity in true sense and you have less time to read & follow wrong ideas. It's positivity which will encompass your life.

Incomplete

A poem by Nirjhar Chakravorti

-------------------------------------------------

When you close your doors….

I'm free….

Sky is the limit….

So I fly with the wings

that you had given me long back.

I met the cloud.

She asked me about you,

and closed her door.

I went to to the deep sea,

to collect pearl.

Pearl told me to come with you,

for taking her out of water.

I went to the jungle, to sleep on the tree.

Tree asked for your smile and turned down me.

Because it's you, without whom I'm incomplete.

Plant & Maintenance Engineering

What does it mean by Plant & Maintenance Engineering?
How a Plant & Maintenance Engineering Department works in reality?
What is necessity of having an engineering department for a production plant?

The presentation describes few interesting features.
Plant Maintenance Engineering

Twinkle

Walking alone through lonely streets

Found the twinkle walking with me

….on a moonlit night.

After years of solitary happiness,

The joy of youth poured inside me…..

Found the passion of togetherness.

The glitter of little twinkle, enlighten me

Started sparkling around, forever

To make me happy, submitting on her knee.

Time Management: To Do List

Manage Your Time Effectively

---------------------------------------

By Nirjhar Chakravorti

(an Inspiration Series Essay)

Many a times, we found that we have lots of things to do throughout the day. But we really can't keep track of the works and end up with missing many important tasks which we supposed to complete in that particular day! Many of the unaccomplished tasks cause various short and long term losses as well. Why it happens? Our forgetfulness is the reason? Honestly we can't blame our memory, because brain is not to remember only to dos, rather brain has various other things to do as well. The reason for forgetting important task may be result of our unstructured or lack of planning. If we are little organized, our days will be more fruitful and satisfying.

How we can be organized?

First and most important thing we can do is to preparing daily To Do List. It helps us to identify the work to be accomplished in a day, priorities, etc. Also if any task remains unaccomplished, it becomes well noticed. We can complete the task in following days or prepare some contingency plan.

Who can do To Do List?

The answer is simple. Anyone! Yes, anyone, irrespective of age and profession. The only important thing is your attitude towards positivity and life.

When to do the To Do List?

It's always better to write the To Do list at night and plan next day before going to bed. If you fail to prepare the list at night, then write it at the earliest possible time of the day.

How to do To Do List?

It's better to have a small notebook/ diary.
On a page, please write Date at top right or left, for which you are preparing the To Do List.
After that write To Do List at left side with underline.

Then think of the activities you have to do or you want to do and write down one by one with serial number. Whatever activities come in your mind, just write down. Don't think about the importance of the task or priority of the task. If you feel you have to do the task, then must write it. Except few normal daily work which you do without fail, like breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc, you can write down all tasks. The task may be small one, but if it's essential, then you must write it down. Example, if you have to call a friend for two minutes to enquire about the college timing after long holiday, then it must appear in the To Do List.

Don't make very hectic plan everyday. Keep some gap in activities so that you can have comfortable day. Also in case any emergency task arrives, you can do that in intermediate free time as much as possible.

How to Prioritize Activities in To Do List?

It is a very important area which needs to be emphasized. After writing tasks, now you have to prioritize them. Make an additional column to put priority against each item. Your sense of prioritization defines your futuristic prospect of life. For daily To Do List, you can apply your own judgment and prioritize tasks. While prioritizing, you have to be logical and rational. In general, you must give priority to the things which are directly related to your earning, career, profession, education and of course family, true friends and true people. Rests should be considered as non-priority items. Keep some time for any hobby like painting, recitation, poetry, sports, fitness training, reading value based books which never promote any hidden agenda like religion, racism or radical thoughts having potential to create difference in society.

Never mislead by wrong concepts and wrong people with hidden interests while prioritizing your tasks. If someone talks good and says the words you want to hear it doesn't mean that he or she is a person with good intention. Always remember that drugs have power to pull you, but it doesn't mean that you will end up in taking drugs. It's true for all negative forces. Any negative force has hidden power of attraction. Be strong and courageous to avoid negative tasks and negative people from life. We all are intelligent, so we must use our intelligence to understand people's mind and importance of the task in broader perspective while prioritizing tasks and people in life. Why I'm stressing on people? Because, being a social species, we always interact with many people and our daily tasks are some or other way driven and motivated by people only.

Always give importance to have contact with good people without any hidden agenda in life, perform important tasks like paying your bills regularly, learn some subjects which can help you for establishing yourself as an professional, involve in activities which can help you professionally, perform tasks through which all human being get served without any sense of division amongst anyone. If you are fighting your life every day for earning money, then don't waste time by teach subjects which has no value for professional growth, like any language of no professional value or religious books whose basic intention is to camouflage wrong intentions with good words. While prioritizing emphasize on performing value based tasks and learning subjects which has relation to science, technology and/ or commerce, true arts, human values in true sense. The bottom line is to be logical and to prioritize your tasks keeping larger perspective of life. Your everyday is important, so add value in everyday's life by proper utilization of To Do List.

When to do a task?

After prioritization, put tentative time to perform each task in a new column. Be realistic in putting the task timing. If you feel that you have taken too many tasks in a day, which you can never perform then re-do the list with practical approach. You can stretch the working hours of the day little bit as well. You may outsource few tasks to others to perform if your resources permit.

Be confident.

Once you prioritize your daily tasks, then be confident and determined that you'll follow that list next day. Now as the day progress, start doing things as per list. Try to tick task once it's accomplished.

Be Realistic.

Remember, in a day, you'll not be able to do all the tasks as per the list, because life is full of uncertainties. Every time new unplanned and unexpected tasks and challenges will come to you which you have to attend. In a day, if you can accomplish 70% task from To Do List, then it's a great achievement. If any new task or activity added in any day, just ask yourself whether you really need to attend the same deviating your To Do planning. If you feel that the unexpected new task is really important, then please do, otherwise, keep the task for any other day. After end of the day, just check how many tasks accomplished in a day and how many tasks left.

Be futuristic.

After analyzing the day's task, make plan for the next day. After a week of spend, please review how you spend the week on daily basis with respect to To Do Lists. If you find, everyday you have failed to attend more than 50% tasks from To Do Lists, then there is possibility that you are doing some mistake in planning. You may planning for lots of work to do which is unrealistic, or you may be missing activities to do in totality, or you are doing some error in prioritizing, or you are not serious to follow To Do List, or any other planning related issues. So you may be bit careful or serious to prepare and follow To Do List in next time.

Don't think much.

Just prepare To Do List tonight and try to spend tomorrow as per the list. Try for 3-4 days. If you feel that it's really a good thing, then continue with To Do List. Be sure, if you can follow To Do List consistently for two months, then definitely you'll be able to understand that your days become much easier, life become more organized and positive.

All the best.

Can Language Be Classified As Religion?

Linguistic Religion

by Nirjhar Chakravorti

Can language be termed as a kind of religion if we go by the logic that religion is a particular way of life which drive human being to club together to practice common rituals and live life with some common minimum understanding?

Even though language doesn't call for practicing any ritual, but it has a strong power to bring a group of people under a common platform and act together. If we see closely, we'll found most of the nations, states or sub states have been built based on language only (ofcourse there are other background as well for formation of many states). So language, even though it's purpose is different, but has lots of features what religion demands. One very contradictory fact can be interestingly observed about language and its effect on human life. In one way, language helps people to communicate and come close to each other; but at the same time, in contrary, it creates gap between people in broader sense and encourage people to disintegrate on larger scale!

Language is a medium to walk through a hidden knowledge reservoir generated by socio - cultural evolution of human survival in a particular region. Nowadays, scientists are worried for the extinction of some of the languages, particularly the languages of Australian tribes for the reason that with the languages their knowledge kingdom also will have a natural death.  In a simple way, we can say that language is a part of a bigger socio - cultural heritage.

Before monolithic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) surfaced on earth, people had their god or goddess of their own choices. For example, Greece had many gods (like Poseidon,  Apollo etc) before Christianity swept away all of them. In Roman Bath, UK there are temple of Goddess Aqua Sulis, who had devotees before Christ. Olympic game (taken from Mycenae culture) remains till today as a cultural heritage taken from them. Therefore, the religion changes but culture remains. It is said that in case of Muslims in Bengali community, as a whole, you will find most of them converted to Islam under the threats and oppression of Upper Caste people or in some cases may be by influence or pressure from Muslim rulers. So, they have changed their belief on god from one form to another. But their socio-cultural behavior largely remains the same. In villages in Bengal, many cultures, language and many other customs are same as before. For example, in Sundarban, there is a god - "Bonbibi" for all cutting across the barrier of caste, creed and religion. It represents the common cultural practices and rituals of the people who inhibit within a certain geographical diameter and speak a common language. More interesting observations on linguistic rituals are found amongst the Bengali speaking people. Bengali is a very unique language which has few distinct characteristics. Bengali is spoken by people of two neighbouring countries. Bengali is national language of Bangladesh which fought it's freedom based on linguistic identity only and got separated from Pakistan in 1972 by sacrificing life of freedom fighters. During the time when British left India, present Bangladesh became part of Pakistan as majority of the people in the demography were Muslim and the division of India and Pakistan happened based on religious majority basis where Pakistan was formed with people who followed Islam whereas India was a Hindu major country even though India was successful to retain a secular identify. The official language of the states of India, like West Bengal and Tripura is Bengali where majority of people is Hindu. But still this vast geography of West Bengal, Bangladesh and Tripura follow few common days with same spirit like Bengali New Year Day, Birthday of Nobel Laureate Poet Rabindranath Tagore, etc despite of political, religious and other differences. Here language become a predominant force to bring people of varied interests under a common umbrella and encourage them to follow few unique rituals which is purely based on linguist identify.

These are few examples which call for deeper insight in linguistic identity of people and power of language to bring people in a common platform by practicing certain rituals.

Also, in this context another phenomenon to be considered this is changing linguistic behaviour of people of certain demography. For example, language of many Phillipines Island is Tagalog. However, with the growing catholic influence over the time and tendency of a vast majority of people to go out of country for seeking jobs, English is becoming more practiced language among a mass community. Even though Tagalog is still practiced widely, but English is also becoming popular amongst new generations. So it's a linguistic transformation of a vast demography which is an interesting subject to follow. The same tendency can be followed amongst the people of Wales where English is gaining more popularity amongst newer generation than practicing Welsh language. In India also, a certain portion of people started practicing English as major language than their mother tongue. Even with the growing influence of English there are cultural shift from traditional rituals to rituals followed by western countries. Even people of so-called Hindu or Buddhist or other religions started celebrating X-Mas with new spirit as ritual. Also the modus of birthday celebration with cakes and candles becoming part of culture in India which is neither part of Indian Sanskrit culture nor part of Hinduism nor Sikh nor any other prevailing religious school of India. So linguistic transformation of a community is also bringing change in behavioural pattern of the people which is interesting subject to study.

Thus there can be more discussion on effect of language on demography and whether language can be predominant identity of people than their so-called religious identity. It may in other word encourage people to treat language as a kind of religion which have potential to end up so-called craziness that is going to create new problems across the globe in everyday life. For example, there is constant threat of global terrorism which is encouraged by particular religion, which is a real damage to the human civilization. Also, there is pseudo war sponsored by certain religion which try to destroy the cultural fabric of the entire world by different means (starting from terrorism to so called appeal for peace in the name of religion whichever suits to a particular country or region) and globally impose medieval socio-cultural behavior of an under developed region. Most importantly sometimes extremists and terrorists are promoted as leader of the religious centers and get involved in religious teaching to misguide people by camouflaging about the intent of that religion. If linguistic based culture is promoted as religion, then these extremist attempts will not be successful as their will not be real need for so called religious leaders.  In the context of this discussion another interesting factor also needs to be evaluated which encourages linguistic or local extremism like problem of Northern Ireland, issues between Srilankan mainland inhabitants and Tamils, Outburst of Burmese population against Rohingya’s religious terrorists and their entire community, Voice of Catalonia, etc.

  

Also it needs to be studied more regarding reaction of so-called religious schools and their leaders if there is a conscious effort to promote linguistic and regional identity more predominantly as part of religion than so-called religious identity. Also, this concept of linguistic religion and its feasibility needs to be discussed and evaluated by different academic, global political and social platforms.

The Coracle

- by Nirjhar Chakravorti

As the sky change it's colour, as the day moves ahead,
The water plays all naughty tricks, 
with it's eternal friend, the coracle.

The coracle, the lovely little space of love,
Enjoys float;
The float of lovely little house of love, called coracle, is only possible due to tiny tides of water.

Coracle born to be floated on the safe, curly water,
Coracle born to be lived with water,
Coracle born to be aligned with the waves of water, with utter love and passion for water,
Coracle born to be completed along with the deep, intense, naughty water.

As the day moves, as the sky changes colour, water becomes more meaningful, 
with the lovely tiny house of love, the coracle.

(A poetic representation of an intense romance between water and classical tiny fisherman boat of Wales, called Coracle)

Changing Mindset

Inspirational Series

by Nirjhar Chakravorti

When we talk about being positive and changing ourselves towards positivity, the most basic thing we undermine is need for change of inner soul and change of our own mindset. It can ignite a great debate that if we change ourselves constantly then can we be called a consistent person? Now most important aspect of the discussion is whether we want to be a consistent person or transformed person? Probably the answer is both. We must be consistent so that we should not lose our values and we must be transformed so that we can be more inclusive and time driven. The focal point of the value system is definitely humanity and probity. If we cannot do well, we must not do badly. Knowingly or unknowingly probably majority of us try to follow this value. Whether practically we can maintain it or not is different issue. So if we can maintain this fundamental thought of living, we can remain consistent forever. Now question is how we can work towards humanity? Probably here is the importance of transformation. Constant cleaning of our internal thought process is imperative to being an improved person which will have increased capacity of inclusiveness. How we can transform ourselves to be a better human being?

I think that, it'll be prudent if I say something about myself, than what should be the ideal scenario. Because, honestly speaking I do not know what is the ideal situation. In the process of living, I learnt lot from life and with my limited capabilities I tried to provide positive ambience to many who came back to me with a positive feedback about my contribution in their life. Maybe I'm exaggerating when saying “many”. The number may not be huge, but a handful of people and that is also a satisfaction for me that at least I could provide positive ambience to few people. While providing guidance to others, I needed to be very much practical, informative; mind reader and I needed to be analytical who can collate incidents and information to arrive certain logical conclusion by which I can provide safe solutions to my friends. Safe solution is essential for me as I don't want to see any of my friends in any possible trouble in their life. But in the process of analysis of information, unknowingly I brought up a habit of mindset which is purely based on logic without considering emotional and diverse factor of human mind. To have a safer conclusion, during the process of elimination of options, sometimes I become critical to options which have potential to hurt emotional aspect of others. When one of my very own friend, whom I consider as one of the most wonderful and intelligent person I ever met, were hurt of my logical conclusions, I felt enormous pain. I'll definitely not hide the fact that I had a little mischievous and adventurous side to push to extreme corner to analyze the behavior and sense of commitment in critically annoying environment. But in any case, it was tormenting to see my own friend in agony. Mischievous behavior can be controlled by me, but what about the process of analytical thinking? I had two options: being analytical as I used to be or introduce more human factor in my thought process where process of elimination can have human consideration as well. Instead of pure mathematical model of decision making, let's introduce arts with the logic as well. It's a huge shift for my model. Suddenly science appears to be semi science. Suddenly various “Do not’s” appear to be “Yes” to me. Decision making process becomes tougher; but interesting. It ignites me suddenly to explore more unknowns which I could have ruthlessly eliminated earlier. What I realized that decision making become more inclusive. I become more acceptable to others and to my close one. But to have that mutational change in way of thinking has gone through a certain process inside me. Critical analysis of my own considerations was a challenge to find out possible areas of improvements. Processing adjustment in own model of thinking is a tough task. Because it requires minor changes in mindset and we all know that change is always painful. It hurts self-ego and possible fear of losing respect by others. Now question is how confident, strong and intelligent I am to accept change and how humanitarian I am to make own friend and people around me happy with a theory of inclusiveness. More stronger I'm I can change, more influential I'm I can change, more dynamic I'm I can change, more intelligent I'm I can change. On the contrary, more weak I'm I can't change, More egoistic I'm I can't change, more static I'm I can't change, more selfish I'm I can't change. When I was seeing a sad human face of my own friend, I felt the need for change to pour happiness in my pal's life. So it calls for a conscious decision in me to have minor changes in the way I analyze and help others. Every human being changes over the period of time with increasing experience. This change is natural and most of the time it is unconscious. But time to time it is important for us to critically self-analyze ourselves and make few conscious changes based on changing time frame and new experiences. Change is only constant to this huge universe. But this change must be based on logical understanding with human values keeping the basics of consistency of character. This change transforms the character to be a better person who can make more and more people happier irrespective of their nationality, religion, race, caste, ethnicity, etc. When we should think about self-evaluation and make internal changes if needed? It entirely depends on circumstances. In the process of journey of life, many a time, we come across challenging situations of various dimensions, like professional, physical, psychological, emotional, etc. May be those challenging grids can be options for us for self-evaluation. We need to consciously understand that how as a human being we are reacting to the circumstances and thus need for change in our own mindset. 

While reading this topic, hope you are also trying to find out your own life experiences when you had taken conscious decision to transform yourself to become a better person, without much bothering about what others are doing. I wish we can have more transformation within ourselves, in future, to achieve more peace out of our human activities and focusing what positive we are doing instead of finding fault in others. I'll be curiously waiting for more transformation within myself in upcoming years. What about you?

All Photographs taken at Roman Bath, UK (Aug 2018)