BOBKANNAN BLOGS

Mumbai city kept me happy in all my visits and stay during posting as well, in the last century. Thereafter I could not visit the city and 26/11/2008 terror attacks happened.  Ever since that attack I was itching to visit Mumbai though I had no specific work. Yet I routed my visit to Baroda via Mumbai in November 2017. Siddi Vinayak Temple, the Worli sea bridge and places of terror attack were in the agenda and the statue of Thukaram Ombale the police officer as must-see place.  I also remembered top police officials Ashok Kamte, Salaskar, Hemant Karkare and the army officer Major Unnikrishnan along with so many others who were victims and warriors. Three places that I visited stood in my mind for long and the first was the Taj hotel where I visited many a times on duty as well. Just stood there watching the building and the thoughts of it burning and the general manager of the hotel who continued duty even after knowing the death of his family member...

  Ram never knew that banking could change so much. He left India when banks were just nationalized in 1970 and returned after a decade. When he left India, banking was largely meant for the educated and the elite, more so he thought having worked only in the elite of the then metros, Bombay. He returned to India after five years tenure each in Belgium and Fiji islands, and was posted to Delhi as in charge of ‘Northern Zone’. W hat Ram did not realize then was north zone includes Madhya Pradesh and that Madhya Pradesh has many rural branches. It was the time the ministers were busy proclaiming ‘loan melas’ and giving ‘loans in a hurry’ that too to the have nots. The loan of course was to buy utility items by the villagers. Buffalo being more than a utility item was busy getting filled under the column, ‘Loan for:’ in the application forms. Again being an item of a prestigious loan in the village, it also attracted onlookers with the building festive atmosphere adding to the pomp an...

‘Not all sweets’,  I replied when I was asked whether I like sweets and chose to give further explanation.    Rasgulla, gulab jamun, chum chum, champa kali and most other Bengali sweets have a deep swim in the sugar pond and return without wiping for us to cut and taste any part of its  body and feel delicious. That is because the milk when not in liquid mode has the multi structural ability to partner with sugar in different shapes and sizes and transform to different colors also  to assume new names and add pleasure to taste buds.  Such pleasure is obviously not felt in many others, also called sweets. Padusha for one for me is still attempting to taste sweet without much success. The particles of Rava ladu after having a tie up with sugar are united by heavy dose of ghee and needs garnishing with cashew nut and raisin to attract and present itself also as a sweet. Other ladus with base of dal,ground and united with sugar face same...