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[sunlites-world]

Manali is one of my favorite destinations among the places I have visited so far. I went to Manali with my family in 2019 during the winters. We chose to go there in the winters because we wanted to see snowfall desperately. I kept my fingers crossed while planning the holiday, in the hope to see snowfall while holidaying in Manali although we had seen snow before several times.

Due to time constraints we chose to fly to Kullu from Patna via Delhi and henceforth hire a taxi to Manali. We were in for a wonderful surprise, as we flew amidst snow capped mountain peaks as we approached Kullu. At one point we actually flew in between two peaks and I felt we were going to crash. It all seemed like a dream and before we even landed we were so excited about the trip. The best part about the flight was the landing. It felt like we were gliding on the Beas (pronounced as Vyas) River and for a moment we thought that the flight was going to touch the water Wow so thrilling!

From the airport we hired a taxi for Manali and reached Manali in an hour time. There was no snowfall when we reached Manali and I kept asking the driver if there was a possibility of snow in the next couple of days. He said, there might be and all I could do was hope for it to snow. We chose to stay at Apple Country Resort because it had great views of the mountains.

After checking into the hotel and freshening up we took a walk to the Beas River. The water was extremely cold but we just sat by the river and enjoyed watching the river flow and the mighty mountains that surrounded us.

The next morning at around 5 a.m, the reception calls up our room and tells me, “Sir if you want to see snow fall you should come down because it is snowing”. We were in sleep but still immediately got out of bed, changed and rushed outside. We were so excited to see the snowfall and I stood there staring at the sky thanking God, that he let our wish come true. It was still dark and all I could see was the snowflakes falling down. After a while, we went back to my room and slept. When we woke up in the morning and looked outside the window, everything was covered with fresh, soft snow that was in its purest and cleanest form. I can’t tell you how happy we were.

After breakfast, we headed to Solang Valley. Because of all the snow, it was not easy reaching the place. The vehicle we hired could only take us till one point and after that we had to either walk or take a horse ride to Solang Valley. On the way, we stopped and rented some snow gear that included a jumper suit, rubber shoes and gloves – without which we couldn’t have survived. The horse ride took us 30 minutes to reach Solang Valley. It was a lovely ride and the views were breathtaking and it resembled a picture that you would probably see on a postcard. We got out and played in the snow for a while and then we took the ropeway to go 1.3 kms distance having a vertical rise of 500 meters. We were amazed by the majestic view of glaciers and snow capped mountains it had to offer throughout the ride. On reaching the top we were spellbound by the snow capped surrounding mountains soaring up to 6000 meters with clean, cool and fresh air all around.

Since there were signs of heavy snowfall we rushed to go down and went back to our hotel safely. Next day we had to return.

All in all, the trip was amazing and I will cherish the memories for a lifetime.

[sunlites-world]

Sanjay Kumar Bhunia won his battle against COVID-19 on May 9, but when Ranchi’s Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) discharged him, the landlord barred his entry to the home he had rented for 14 years. Since then, Bhunia has been living in his pathology lab that’s now out of business.

The 250 sq. ft lab has no bed or other furniture, nor a kitchen, and reeks of chemicals and disinfectants. All by himself, Bhunia spends time thinking about his family, watching Bhojpuri films and listening to Rabindranath Tagore’s Ekla cholo re (If none heeds your call, go it alone). “This song has kept me going, as have my daughter’s video calls,” says Bhunia, on the phone.

A “middle-class strugg­ler”, as he describes himself, Bhunia had set up the lab in 2006 with his younger brother Arun. His wife Savita is a lab technician with a Patna hospital. Their daughter, 10-year-old Sukirti, studies in Class 5 in a Ranchi school and has been with Savita after the school declared vacations in March.

Bhunia was confirmed Covid-positive on April 25 following a test. “My ordeal began as soon as I tested positive. I was in my lab when a police vehicle and an ambulance arrived. The policemen shouted my name out. I was made to sit on the road, like a criminal, then bundled off to RIMS, where I was put up in an isolation ward with 14 Covid patients,” he says.

Bhunia narrates how the disease devastates its patients psychologically. “They [patients at RIMS] were so scared and worried. I’m a Bengali, but to cheer them up, I’d laugh and joke in Bhojpuri. I’d reassure them that we would conquer the virus,” he says.

Discharged by RIMS only after two tests confirmed him negative, Bhunia considered volunteering as a plasma donor. But he soon realised that the world outside the hospital was not ready to accept Covid survivors.

Confined to his lab even a fortnight into his recovery, Bhunia says neighbours keep away from him and the local shopkeeper refuses supplies. Arun brings home-cooked food, but is not allowed to enter the lab, which has not seen clients since the last week of April.

Bhunia believes time will heal everything. He has asked his wife not to come to Ranchi till he finds a new house to shift to. It’s been a futile search so far. “Except for my daughter, wife and brother, everyone else views me as a contagion, not a Covid survivor.”

[sunlites-world]

A glowing light that circles something, like the moon or a person's head is a halo. Painters of religious art often put a halo around the heads of angels and saints. A halo is a symbol of holiness, represented by a circle or arc of light around the head of a saint or holy person. A Sun halo is caused by the refraction, reflection, and dispersion of light through ice particles suspended within thin, wispy, high altitude cirrus or cirrostratus clouds. As light passes through these hexagon-shaped ice crystals, it is bent at a 22° angle, creating a circular halo around the Sun. The prism effect of light passing through these six-sided ice crystals also separates the light into its various color frequencies, making the halo look like a very pale rainbow, with red on the inside and blue on the outside. Folklore tells us Sun halos can predict the weather:

A ring around the Sun or Moon

means rain or snow is coming soon.

[sunlites-world]

Did you know..........

- That our gas burner has 106 holes on the big burner and 86 on the small one.

After one week of being at home

- Marrie biscuit has 22 pin holes

- Dhadkan hindi song has dhadkan dhadkan repeated 126 times

- That if you switch off the fan at speed 5 it stops revolving after 1 minute and 12 seconds

- That the mosquito killer bat has 485 squares in it

- The match box has 47 match sticks in it, just counted it,

- That Balaji wafer packet has 14 wafers in the 5 rupees pack and 24 wafers in the 10 rupees pack

The +One year of my Covid experience induced me to do these researches and has been successful.

If you have any doubt, you can practically recheck on these facts.

My efforts on such researches on other aspects is still very much on.

[sunlites-world]

While we understand that the plot of a film can be unreal, it certainly can't be illogical. For example, in movie Ganga Jamuna Saraswati, in one scene Jamuna(Meenakshi Seshadri) fell into deep ice pond, so immediately Ganga(Amitabh Bachchan) came to resue her.

He took her to an emty house, now Jamuna is about to lose her life, and Ganga has no first aid equipments. So the only solution to save her is to give her “Jisam ki Garmi"(to sleep naked with her).

By the way, Ganga ignored that he has a coat, sweater and a muffler. I won't be surprised if “Jisam ki Garmi" (body heat) can save us from corona. When talking about ridiculous action scenes in Bollywood movies, how can one not think of Salman Khan in Race 3. If you have watched the movie, you'd agree that the last few action sequences were absolutely baseless and mindless. The writers definitely left their brains home while writing the script of Race 3 and expected us to do the same while watching the film, too.

Well, many people respond that viewers are dumb and that lead to make producers to create dumb movies. Whatever may be the reason, there is definitely lack of visionary in perspective of art and cinema from the directors, producers and actors of the so called industry .

[sunlites-world]

Rhyming poetry takes many forms, some of those are Perfect Rhymes, Slant Rhymes etc. In this category there is also 'Pretension rhyming'.

The signs of rhyming pretensions, in my case, were first visible during my college days.

The poetess mother of one of my friends named him after the great writer and poet, "Ram Lal Shukla", with the hope that he, too, would grow up to be like him.

But, he took great pains to request all and sundry to call him "Ramesh Shukla" probably because of famous Ram Lal of Sholay movie.

One day he came to me , moon struck, and said " पीली फिएट पर देखा मैंने चाँद का टुकड़ा",a take on the Dharmveer Bharti's " ठेले पर हिमालय". Well, the rhyming green shoots burst right forth in me and I added, "बहुत कोशिश की मगर कुछ ना उखड़ा", which was to prove a prophetic line.

Poor Ramesh.. his centre of attraction, 'Yellow Fiat', was soon married off to a white Ambassador. We had to counsel the heart broken Ramesh, over several "Half Coffees" at Firayalal Chowk coffee shop and in the process another ditty was composed to fill him with hopes for a brighter future, " सितारों से आगे जहाँ और भी हैं/ अभी इश्क के इंतहां और भी हैं/शुक्ल जी,कैम्पस में कुछ आइटम्स और भी हैं"..

[sunlites-world]

It was an early cold morning of Patna and I was having a good night sleep. After all winters are season of long nights and cozy blankets to snuggle up and the desire to sleep more is always there. It was nearly 7.30 in the morning when I was forced to wake up by the continuous ringing of my mobile lying somewhere on the edge of my bed.

My left hand somehow reached to the phone. The call was from my wife from Ranchi.

Hello

Me: Haan bolo subah subah jaga diya

Ek baat batani hai

Me: Kya hua

Abhi mandir se wapas aayi to ek kaan me bali nahi hai

All my laziness was dispelled. I got out of my blanket and sat upright.

Me: kaise?

Pata nahi, main ek baar mandir tak phir se jakar wapas aa gayi hoon. Raaste me kahin nahi dikha.

Me: Ek baar ghar me dhoond kar dekho. Priya (maid) ko bhi bolna theek se jhadu lagaye.

I felt helpless; it was nothing I could do from here. I could just imagine how much troubled she might be at the moment and this thought was making me more distressing.

As always, during any moment of worrying situation, I remembered my father in heaven and murmured “Please see that everything turns right”.

After nearly half an hour she called me again and told that she couldn’t find it at home.

OK, I said. Go once again to the mandir and check the road again. It was about half a kilometer distance from my house.

Within 15 minutes she called me and told that she has found the earring on the side of the pitched road. She found something glittering in the sands by the reflection of morning sunrays and thought it to be a small piece of mirror. On reaching near she dug the place a bit with her finger to find out her lost jewel.

I once again remembered The Supreme Soul with full gratitude.

[sunlites-world]

The spread of the coronavirus has turned into a crisis and become the greatest challenge we have faced since World War Second.

In the thick of all the gloom and doom, however, there is a silver lining. Mother earth seems to have rejuvenated itself – smog has given way to blue skies, marine life is seeing increased activity, pollution levels have dropped, and animals as well as birds are moving about on their own accord. 

Nevertheless, the improvement in the air quality owing to the outbreak of the pandemic looks like a ray of hope in the times to come. Naturalists across India, stuck at home, are reporting wildlife sightings in their backyards. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram videos show us exciting scenes of wild animals walking down urban streets. Newspapers report that the air is so clean you can see the snow-capped Himalayas from Jalandhar, hundreds of kilometres away — something not seen in decades. Delhi’s air quality this March was the best it’d had in five years for that month.“COVID-19 has been an eye-opener. It has shown people as to how mother earth can bounce back to life if humans allow for it

Nature has found a way to let Earth regain its lost wealth during this period.