This and That . . .

It's been ages since I logged on to Blogger. Much to my delight, the homepage informed me that four comments were waiting to be published. I could hardly hold myself. Who could leave comments on a blog that's as good as dead? Who could possibly care about my random opinions? No one, I thought. And I was right. But the comments I saw pleased me in a different way. It's always a good sign when spambots leave ads on your blog. That means your blog's getting popular (among spambots, of course).

Blogging will not as sporadic this year as it was the last year, because I won't be blogging at all. You might see a couple of posts in the next few weeks. This is my final year and the NEWTs are very important. Since laying out my thoughts on the blog isn't as important as saving the world from the Dark Lord, I'm afraid you won't be seeing much of me in the year ahead. There are a great many things I wanted to write about. At first, I wanted to go back to the Leaves from My Japan Diary series. But I don't think I'll be able to do that because it will consume much of my time and energy. But I will write a few posts in the coming weeks. An incomplete overview of my Galilean Nights event has been gathering dust (the Pullmaninan one) in the drafts folder for about six months. I will also write about a major astronomy event I did in December. I will try to  write about some films I saw recently. I hope I can write about Avatar, which has provoked my thoughts in a way I did not expect it to do. I had some film and book-related posts in mind, but . . .

Gosh! I almost forgot why I started writing this post in the first place.

Happy Bengali New Year! It's 1417, folks! Last year, I wrote a post on the Bengali New Year. Looking back, it surprises me how much effort I put forth for that little post, with diacritical marks and all. This year, I have decided to do away with the diacritical marks. Instead, I will use the Bengali script.

শুভ নব বর্ষ 

This is exactly what the title of that post is. The arrival of Boiśākh means a lot to me, as I have discussed in that post. 24 days from now, the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Rabindranath Tagore will begin. I was delighted to find his mention in the New Year wish from Mrs Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State. It that is any indicaion, I am sure the worldwide celebration of his birthday will be hugely successful. I hope the entire world rediscovers Tagore's works and looks at the Bengali culture with a fresh perspective. This effort will be immensely important for the growth of the Bengali language and culture and how the world perceives the Bengali culture.

Hope this year brings happiness to one and all. But the beginning of this year shows little promise of happiness for us in this part of the world. It's freezing in Kolkata. As I write this, I can see flakes of snow outside the window. A thick sheet of snow has covered the entire country. It will only get colder in May. I don't know what I'll do then. Fascinating, no?