recently i got a ‘lonely planet’ book… i remember the days when i used to stand inside the Landmark (book store at Forum Mall) for hours and hours and turning out the pages of lonely planet books and going inside the deepest of those descriptions… i used to feel being in those places… i could see a whole new unseen world in front of me…. i used to travel across the globe though lonely planet…
… whenever i travel i used to look at those foreigner travelers with a lonely planet book in their hand searching for something interesting… i call them ‘lonely planeter’ …
now i got a lonely planet of my own… recently i won the second prize in an online photo competition organized by lonely planet… i got a book on my own country India from lonely planet… thanks to Mark who arranges this competition…
… now i have the book, the planner, the guide … everything is set… everything is ready… it is now time to hit the road again… and ‘therefore i travel’ …
may be just another day… may be a day with no importance for the non-bengali’s… but for me, it is a day of remembrance… a day to become little nostalgic… while staying out of home for more than a decade, a bengali new year’s day is no longer be a day of celebration for me, rather, i celebrate it by remembering the past… it is a day when i can go down to memory lane and wonder about my childhood days … i still can see a small boy, waking up early in the morning, taking bath and wearing a new dress, going to his uncle’s shop to celebrate Ganesh Puja… and in the evening the same boy, getting dressed with a new cloth and little more talcum powder on his shoulder, holding his father’s hand, walking down to the grocery and other shops to celebrate a haalkhaataa… rasogulla was one of his favorite amongst the sweets offered in haalkhaataa… it is a day of celebrating bengali new year’s day… no , it is not just another day for me, it is not just another day for the bengalis…
