Book Panda/ Travel blogs & book reviews

We come across people who go out of their way to help people in life. But, Mohammad Sharafat Hussain has been going of his way to help people, even in their death.   For the past 20 years, Hussain has been helping the people of Mumbai, including the Mumbai Police and the municipal authorities to recover dead bodies from drains and wells. In fact, so dedicated he is to this job that he has also, over time, become the man for the job, when authorities need bodies retrieved. From entering narrow gutters deftly, to jumping into canals, Kallu, as Hussain is popular known as, has been to the filthiest and dreariest of places in his lifetime, in search of bodies. Even the putrid stench that stays long after he is out of the area, does not keep him from doing his job; one which most cannot even imagine doing.  Over the years, Kallu is said to have retrieved over 200 bodies from Mumbai's Mithi River. Talking about the amount of practice it takes to g...

Kongka La Pass — The Home of the Inhabited The Himalayas, the land of mountains and hills, finds its mention in the most serene and picturesque destinations of India. Many people tired of their mundane life seek to enjoy a few weeks of bliss in the lap of this land. They wish to explore and capture some of the rarest and panoramic moments that they could cherish for the entire lifetime to come. But, can this supposedly enthralling journey turn into something very unprecedented? Maybe or maybe not! There are infinite numbers of galaxies in this great universe, one being our Milky Way. In this galaxy alone, there are over 200 billion stars. Are we the only ones that survive?   Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO’s) or extraterrestrial objects have always fascinated mankind. The curiosity to know about the other life has made the area around Kongka La Pass quite mysterious. Kongka La Pass is a low ridge, disputed pass that bifurcates the Indian and the Chinese ...

Junko Furuta was a 16 year old Japanese girl who underwent 44 days of rape and torture before dying in the hands of her captors on November 22, 1989. Known throughout Japan as concrete-encased high school girl, the case of Junko Furuta drew nationwide attention owing to sheer brutality the girl had to endure before death found her. Junko Furuta Story: Junko Furuta attended a high school in Misato, in Saitama Prefecture, Japan. She was a good looking, active teenager who enjoyed a lot of attention and that made some people jealous. She did not smoke, did not drink alcohol and did not do drugs which was seen as very uncool in the eyes of more gangster like teens. One of them – Hiroshi Miyano had a crush on her but not looking for a relationship, Junko Furuta turned him down. Hiroshi Miyano was the bully in the school and being involved with the new generations of the Yakuza, nobody dared to oppose him. And Junko Furuta had the nerve to say “No”… On November 25, 1988 ...

In my third year of engineering I met a random girl on Facebook. We met in the comment box of a common post. I commented on some image and she replied to that. I continued and soon it became a thread. More people started joining and that disturbed the one-on-one comment streak of us. So, I decided to stop and closed my Facebook. Later that night I got a friend request from her. It was a bit shocking as she seemed a bit popular girl from likes on her pics and the number of friends she had. Anyway, I accepted the request followed by a hi in the inbox. She responded pretty fast and said she loved that comment streak. I reciprocated with equal interest and asked if she wanted to continue that in the inbox. Honestly speaking I didn’t know what else to talk to her. She rejected the proposal and changed the course of conversation. By the time, I opened her profile and found out she’s from Delhi and in second year of her B.tech in EcE . She is really cute and seems funny as pe...

খুঁজে পাওয়া           সুমন আলগা থাকা এই শহরে, আজ আর ঘুম নেই। হয়তো যদি ইচ্ছে গুলো বেঁচে আছে কোনো শেকড়ে, যদি দিব্যি এতোটাই সহজ হতো কিছু আঁকড়ে রাখা। কিছু ভাবনা, কিছু রাগ, কিছুটা খুশি, আর আমি। আসলে সবকিছু ভাবলেই খুব সহজ, বা কঠিন, বসে আছে কোনো সূরমা মগজে সাঞ্জিম। সব শত উঠো বসা ভাবনার যন্ত্রে, এই হাল খুঁজে পাবেনা কোনো বিদ তন্ত্রে। খুঁজে পাওয়া খুব সহজ সুবানির আকাশে, খুঁজে পাওয়া খুব কঠিন আঁধারের বিনাশে। খুঁজে পেও, তবে খুশি থেকো তুমি নাই একাধিক, খুঁজে পাও অহংকারে তুমি তবে শতাধিক। আমি দুঃখ, আমি বেদনা, আমি রাগ, আমি যাতনা, আমি কষ্ট, আমি ব্যাথা, আমি স্বপ্ন, আমিই মহিমা। আমি উল্লাস, আমি কথন, আমি চারিত্রিক পরিসীমা, খুঁজে পেলো অহল্যা, সীমাহীন অসংখ্য বিদঘুটে তথ্য, খুঁজে পাওয়া কি আসলে ? খোঁজাগর ভক্ত।

Scientists have shown that there is a degree of truth in the old adage that love is blind.  They have found that feelings of love lead to a suppression of activity in the areas of the brain controlling critical thought.It seems that once we get close to a person, the brain decides the need to assess their character and personality is reduced.The study, by University College London, is published in NeuroImage.The researchers found that both romantic love and maternal love produce the same effect on the brain.They suppress neural activity associated with critical social assessment of other people and negative emotions.The UCL team scanned the brains of 20 young mothers while they viewed pictures of their own children, children they were acquainted with, and adult friends.The team found that the patterns of brain activity were very similar to those identified in an earlier study looking at the effects of romantic love. Both studies recorded increased activity in parts ...