An Endless Universe

In a country like India, doctors are either God or Devil. We never accepted the real truth that their human beings. Probably they are most hardworking , sincere and brilliant citizens of our country. 

So what? Do they know politics ? Are they have enough diplomacy skills? Yes, , the typical believe of our common is that  power and money has more value than  sincerity and intelligence.

Now coming to the real facts. Why am I writing this ? 

A 75 years critical patient died in Nil Ratan Sarkar Meducal College & Hospital (NRSMCH ),Kolkata. As a consequence, 200 people came in truck to attack doctors and interns.  They thrashed an intern's skull. He is in serious condition.

My sister(first cousin) requested me to write something on it. She is also a junior doctor and I could sense her insecurity. 

However  in a society, where doctors feel unsecured , the future of  that society is not really healthy. A serious warning for all of us.

What government  and politicians are doing  now? As usual, they started playing their favorite game “The Blame Game”.

It’s the high time we know the real problems associated with our public health care system. Till 2018, the government spending on public healthcare was just above 1% of our total GDP.

Only during interim budget for 2019-2020 fiscal,the allocated budget has crossed 2% of GDP.Still Rs 61,398 crore is not enough for almost 136 crore people of India

However as part of this budget ,”Ayushman Bharat” gets Rs 6,400 crore aiming at providing a cover of Rs 5 lakh per family annually and benefiting more than 10 crore poor families across the country. Unfortunately this plan is not yet implemented in West Bengal. The prime reason : Political Clash.

Anyway I believe free treatments wont really help If we don’t have required infrastructure,resources and of course strict regulations in public hospitals.

According to a recent(2014) report by WHO, we have only 7 doctors for every 10000 people and we need more 2.07 million  doctors by 2030. What are we doing to fill up this gap ? We are here to ensure that even the existing doctors either leave the country or stop practicing.

What next then ? Well, we have some “Baba” to replace them.

If you don’t want this to happen, question your government (mygov.in), question the hospital managements on their protocols. Make sure your hard earned money is used for your own health care but not to recruit a criminal in the parliament.

Remember, if the doctors of our country are not safe the health of the whole nation is in risk.

 I personally feel none has won here, they got elected by people to perform their duties, to serve the country.

Now it's our duty not to worry about the riots but to prioritize our rights.Surely,voting was not the only right. We have our constitutional rights too. Our fundamental rights, citizenship rights and of course right to information. When we will learn to use those ?

We must not forget a country like India should be represented by Indians not by Majorities or Minorities.

Leaders like Ratan Tata, APJ Abdul Kalam and Rabindranath Tagore have represented our country as Indians. Do we categorize them as Parsi ,Muslim or Brahmo respectively ?

We should realize that India will neither progress by the progress of Imams or Purohits nor by building Mandir or Masjid.

We need employment for our youth,safety for our women and children,quality education, access to health services. In addition we need to also take care of our environment.

I started from a Christian elementary school, then Brahmo secondary school and Sikh College and finally job in a Parsi company. I value and respect the diversity of India. I may belong to a Muslim family but my neighbors are Hindu. I believe each and every community has equal contribution in building India.

Does any of those community pay less tax ? No,right ? Then why are we talking about polarization?

From developing fetus in her womb to breast feeding her new born baby and of course spending those sleepless nights , no doubt a mother is superior than a father in many ways.

However I believe childcare is a shared responsibility. If a child deserves quality time of her mother then she deserves quality time of her father too. So childcare leave should be meant for both the parents.

Remember motherhood is a blessing not a burden.Only true co -parenting can make it possible.

We must not forget that a  mother is not just a mother, she is someone's daughter too. So she has some responsibilities to her own parents too. Moreover during the course of motherhood a lot of damage happens to her mind and body which needs to recovered.

Unlike humans, wild animals can not differentiate between plastic and food items. If they find, it smells, looks or tastes like food, they assume it as food and take it.

image: AZoCleantech.com

As per the latest report, right now there are more than 51 trillion pieces of plastic in the ocean. 

 More than 50% of sea turtles eat plastic.  50-80% of all Dead Sea turtles found have plastic inside them.

54% of all whales, dolphins, and seals are impacted by plastic. 

 114 species of marine fish are known to regularly be entangled in or ingest plastic. 

 Two-thirds of all seabird species are affected, representing 56% of all seabird species. Millions of birds are killed each year.

 98% of albatrosses have ingested plastic, and 40% of their chicks died when they are fed this by their parents.

The current demand of our industry is to not only stick to school syllabus but explore outside.  Update yourself with the latest innovations and discoveries.

E-Learning can facilitate that. So encourage your children to explore through E-learning. E-Learning is the future. 

However, cyber threats are big risks for our children.  Cybercriminals often target children as it is very easy to convince a child.

Cyberbullying is the most dangerous form of cyber threats our children face online.

The other forms of cyber threats like  Malware, Fishing, Cyber Predators are there to ruin our children’s life.

Being a parent, it’s our duty to guide and monitor our children’s digital life.

A safe learning environment is essential for children of all ages even it is online. A safe learning space can nurture their innovative minds. 

So it should be our collective effort to create a safe e-learning space and encourage our children to explore more. 

A ten-year village girl used to dream that she will be a teacher one day. She had observed many of her playmates are not going to school. She had also observed that girls of her age are not sent to school as their family didn’t feel the need of educating a girl child. She wanted to be a teacher to teach all the children in her village irrespective of their gender or family background.

 No, not every dream of a child is fragile.  A child may be more imaginative but more rational too. A child’s dream is never biased with gender or family background.

We don’t always need a strong financial backup to nurture a child’s dream. What we need are a supportive environment and progressive minds.

Who can be the greatest supporter of a child’s dream than her own parents? Don’t laugh at your child’s dream.  Try to shape your child’s dream in the best possible way you can.

The sound of mom’s voice still helps me to feel relaxed. The rhythm of her lullaby used to give me really sound sleep.

Sounds of my father’s voice used to make me feel secure. I  can still listen to his voice whenever I feel upset. 

Early morning tweets of birds were my reasons to feel fresh. Those melodious sounds used to work as warm-up songs for my day.

The sound of the silence helps to build constructive thoughts. The sounds of my silence can express those which I can not express by my words...

The sounds of seashore have taught me the deep meanings of attachments and detachments of life. 

In my opinion, the world's greatest orchestra is definitely nature. The way the birds, trees, air, water, soil, and rocks communicate with each other produces the purest form of music. 

I often love to be lost in those sounds to get connected to enrich my soul and re-discover myself.

Birds are natural caretakers of our environment.

They contribute to natural seed planting and maintain a sustainable environment for us. But are we really taking care of them?

Birds communicate through sounds or acoustic signals.

Man maid noise could hamper detection of sounds by birds, making it more difficult for them to establish and maintain territories, attract mates and maintain pair bonds.

It happens many times that the birds get so puzzled by high volume noise that they met accidents by traffic or get stuck in an electric wire.

So it’s an earnest request from An Endless Universe team to exclude high volume music and crackers from all of your celebration parties. 

The word star comes from a root meaning to appear, to come into sight. The word star mainly represents the generator of light.

Most of the stars are so far from the earth that they "pointy" or twinkly to our eyes. That’s why drew them in stary shape. When starlight passes through Earth's atmosphere, the moving air makes the light rays travel at just a little bit different speeds, so the stars appear to wiggle.

Stars are radiant masses of plasma held together by their own gravity and vary widely in size.  Some stars are huge in size. They can be millions, or even billions, of kilometers across.

Sun is nearest(91 million miles) star to the earth. That’s why the sun appears bigger and spherical to us.

Most of the stars are spherical like Sun. The reason is that they are composed of gas and so gravity pulls it in from all directions equally, ending up with a sphere.

When you pluck a flower from a tree, the flower dies. You may put it in a flower vase to decorate your home but that beauty doesn’t last for long.  It’s always better to see a flower in a tree rather in a flower vase. After all flowers in trees are real and grounded too.

So why not convert your flower vases to a planter?  Pour water and soil and plant a seed or sapling. Nourish them well. 

“When we make Play the foundation of learning, we teach the Whole child.”

~ Vince Gowmon

I always believe that we should teach our kids to learn in a playful way. Learning in that way will create an eagerness among children. I will also foster the creativity and innovativeness in our children. They will never get bored of learning. 

Remember we all are lifelong learners. We not only learn from books but also from the environment, people, situation and of-course from experience. The fact is that some people love to learn but others don’t.   We should prepare our children in a way that they will love to learn throughout their life.

I am a mother of two kids and I found those three playful ways of learning numbers are most effective for my kids.

Counting Stairs: When my elder one was learning to climb up stairs we(me & my husband)used to count each step he is climbing up. In that way, he also learned to count from 1 to 10.

Rhymes: Rhymes are another very good way to learn numbers.

Some rhymes like “One, Two, Buckle My Shoe”, “one two three four five once I caught a fish alive” are very good tools to teach a sequence of numbers to your child.

Rhymes like “Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed” and “There was Ten in the Bed” can also inculcate the concept of basic math in your child.

Board Games: Board games are real boosters to teach numbers to a child in a playful manner.

After 4 years of college life and 10 years of professional life in Kolkata, the city is now my permanent address.

Now I am a mom of two kids who probably will love Kolkata more than me. After all, it’s their birthplace and hometown both.

I know Kolkata is crowded and dirty. But still, there is a soul which you will never find anywhere. That’s why it is called “The City of Joy”.

Here are some cultures of Kolkata I miss anywhere in the world.

The Fishy Culture:

In this age of e-shops, I still love to go market even when I was 9 months pregnant.

The variations of fishes attract me a lot. Definitely, you will hear “Didi jyanto Rui”...”Didi valo Koi ache”....”Boudi Vetki sastai dichchi ektu dekhe jan”..and..so on...Sometimes they also tell you recipes of some delicious fish dishes.

Adda (chat) on Tea Shop

I this age of Facebook and WhatsApp you can still find a tea shop in every corner of Kolkata and people are chatting there with interesting topics. It’s not only a tea shop but you can find some very tasty snacks(Bread-Omelet, Pakora, Velpuri, Chat etc) and of course brainstorming debates as add-ons.

A Football Ground in Every Corner:

Kolkatan’s and bongs are hard-core football lovers. In every corner, there is a ground. You can definitely find some real talents on Football here. What they need is the proper infrastructure and the channel to get the right platform.

Amazon.in Widgets

 Some Exceptional Talents in art:

No doubt, Kolkata is the cultural hub of India. You can find some very talented artists here. Most of the people are very passionate in the field of art with different forms like painting, writing, singing, dancing, acting, photography etc.

Mouth Watering Sweets :

Kolkata is the patent holder of some mouth-watering sweets like Rasgulla, Mishti Doi etc. My personal favorite is “Nolen Gurer Rasgulla” and “Nolen Gurer Ice Cream”.You can feel like heaven once you have those sweets.