Me with birds and animals.........

I love interacting with fauna......watching their antics.........

Donating for the society...for the needy...

I always believed in charity............

You don't have to be Bill Gates to help the society...and the unprivileged...

Whatever you have, you can always donate a fraction of it to the needy...

My country is affected with natural disasters quite regularly,.... flood, cyclone, earthquake...

Here is one occasion, when I am donating for the Brahmaputra river flood-affected relief fund...I was studying in Assam then...

While I am at it, a heart-warming anecdote from my college days surfaces to my mind...
We had a girl in our class...in fact, she was my room mate.........
I have hardly seen any minimally-living girl...
She had a total of three dresses in her wardrobe...
For the upcoming Saraswati Puja, her family had gifted her a new one..........
But, then the Super cyclone of 1999 hit Odisha....
We were asked to donate our old clothes for relief packages..
While all of we donated the stuffs which we were not using anymore, she donated the new dress...
We asked her not to part with it..
What she replied was exemplary.........."I have at least three clothes, imagine about the affected. They do not have anything to wear in the imminent winter". She said.
Kudos to the girl. For her maverick nature I still remember her, though almost two decades have elapsed since then.
Dare to be different, dear folks. Nothing impresses like humanity and compassion.

When I used to teach Food processing..........

While working at Lovely Profession University, I taught Food processing in one semester...
I learnt and demonstrated several techniques used in food sectors...
Such as
alginate beads making...

Canning...

Sauerkraut making...

Wine making...

Vegetable drying......

And many more, picture of which I don't have.........

Our cattle....

As long as I can remember we had cattle in a shed behind our house...
They gave milk...helped with agriculture....their dung was fed to our bio-gas plant...and the residues were used as manure in the paddy fields..
The calves.....

Picnic day at Topatoli forest, Meghalaya........

We had been to Topatoli forest, Meghalaya on a picnic........

In the golden memory of a benevolent couple...

It is a selfish world..........most people would not five a morsel to a stranger without gain..

In such scenario, when I see and savor exemplary acts of kindness....tears of joy jerk out of eyes..

Here, I will narrate the story of such a Godly couple.......

They were distant maternal grandparents of my father......

While my father was a mere infant, his mother died.....his father decided to marry again....so, his maternal folks adopted him..

They showered huge love on him...but having a lots of kids to support, it was difficult raising another kid...especially paying for his education....

In this condition...a childless aunt-uncle of his deceased mother took interest in me...

They showered love on him...sent him to good school and colleges........got him married to a nice woman (my mother)....

When my father was in college, they had a their own child..a very eligible boy...and then  many grandchildren too...

As  their family grew......they helped my father build a house for self...and gifted about 12 acres of land..

Subsequently, they cared for each of their children, including me...especially me..

I have heard that soon after I was born, my mother had a paralysis..the aging grandmother of my father ....our great-grandmother...who we lovingly called 'Badi maa' took care for me during those difficult days....

Despite having own family now, their love for us never dwindled.......every time we would visit, she would make sure to get some delicious food...a ripe guava..a mango..

Every time they harvested a crop, made anything special, or even snacks...she would our home some of them.....pea, mushroom etc....

Gifted us in each festival...

The couple were religious and pursued a very healthy lifestyle...so they lived into their 90's....but, regular fasting and rather austere life had curved the spine of Badi maa...she walked bent...almost perpendicular posture....must be painful to her...she never complained though...those were the time, no one popped pills unnecessarily..

For us, seeing them was like seeing God..

They watched wedding of some of my siblings.........I was youngest, so they never saw mine...I wounder, how Badi maa would have liked my soft-spoken spouse..

Within a span of 6 years (1999 and 2005), they died.......leaving behind huge emptiness...

Its been 10-15 years.....every time me and my mother remember them....we cry....in nostalgic memory..of a pair of great human beings...who knew the meaning of life..and found joy in giving....making the life of a orphan kid...

Trophies and shields...

A fraction of the trophies I got during my academic life......
Most of them for quiz, essay, debate, painting, poem...

My mother has treasured them......