Sabitri 2026

 Today is the festival of SABITRI which is mostly exclusive to Odisha (there could be slightly different versions elsewhere, but it's kind of unique to Odisha). It is widely celebrated on the New Moon day of the Lunar month of JYESHTA, which per Gregorian calendar comes in May-June time frame every year (it is to be noted that the Hindu festivals are celebrated per Lunar Calendar). 

On this day married women pray for long life and well being of their husbands. You can call Sabitri an Odia version of "Husband's day" though no such day exists in the Western world, the closest would be Valentine's day. In our PURANAs (ancient religious texts), it is mentioned that a young man named SATYABAN died a sudden, unnatural death. His wife SABITRI who was a SATI (the pious and chaste one), ardently  prayed Lord YAMA (God of death) to restore her husband's life. Gratified by her devotion and penance, Lord YAMA duly obliged. Her husband woke up to life as if he just woke up from his nap.

Following this mythology our ladies do UPABAASA (fasting) on this auspicious day eating frugally, surviving mostly on fruits and yogurt. Parents send SABITRI BHARA (the gift bucket for Sabitri) to their married daughters, which apart from SINDOOR (vermillion) and Bangles symbolizing long marital life also contains a wide array of fruits, including but not limited to locally grown seasonal tropical fruits like Mango, Banana, Jackfruit, Lichi, Guava, Date, Palm and Pinapple. Now a days non native European origin fruits, a la Apples, Oranges and Grapes have added taste and veriety to the traditional ones.

The presence of a SABITRI BHARA inside house can be identified by the  conspicuously strong scent of ripened Jackfruits, which are in season at this time of the year and can be smelt miles away. Odisha has its tryst with Jackfruit trees, from its jungles to the residential lots filled with Jackfruit trees and it is not unusual for this large size fruits cluster around the bottom of the tree, protruding from tree trunks like the sagging fat of a Sumo wrestler. Bears and Jackles who get attracted by its strong smell love to feast on these gargantuan sized fruits, the largest size fruit grown on tree on earth.

The downside of this festival is the prices of fruits and SAREEs (traditional attire of Indian women) skyrocket days before the festival, both due to their demand and hoarding by nefarious  merchants taking advantage of the festival. Glad I don't face same situation here in USA as the prices of fruits are no different from any other day. For few years there was low key celebration of Sabitri due the nationwide lockdown imposed as a preventive measure against Covid pandemic. But it's back to normal.

This year, Sabitri falls on a weekend. When my Sabitri is too tired to cook dinner for me, the SATYABAN won't shy away from SHURAPAAN (help myself with few sundowner) and order take out of some exotic dish to end the auspicious day. Happy "Sabitri Brata" to all ladies.

Happy Mother's day 2026

 A song from Amitabh Bachchan's blockbuster movie "KHUDDAR" released in the year 1982 where the tall actor, the unquestioned Superstar, the King and the one man Bollywood industry of the time sings onscreen this Kishore Kumar's song - 

"MAA KA PYAAR, BEHAN KYA PYAAR,
KABHI KABHI DULHAN KYA PYAR,
TERE PYAAR KA RANG HAZAAR". 

Roughly transliterated... 

"Mother's love, Sister's love,
Sometimes the love of the beloved,
Their love comes in thousand colors". 

Mother's day this year reminded me of this song from my teenage years. The love of mother is in its genuine form - pure, precious, unadulterated, like the clear Spring water bubbling out of the top of a glacial mountain. It is perennially pristine, unequivocally soothing, unwavering and unflinching. When I used to India, my mother's hug and caressing hands felt so soothing, the touch I long for days, months and sometimes years. Mother's love is panacea to all ills plaguing mind and body, heart and soul. Unfortunately she is no more and I am yet to get over the loss and probably never will. No wonder the vacuum from the loss of mother couple of years ago still haunts me. The lacunae in my heart remaining  unfilled. 

Few years back around this time of the year when I spoke to my mother in India, I told her that the heavy rains that spring had filled the creek behind my house. I saw a lot of frogs in my backyard and occasionally few snakes to complete the food chain. As usual, in her concerned tone she advised me to be careful and pray Lord Siva to keep the slithery beast away.

Teasing her mildly (as we often take this liberty with our mothers, though we rarely do same to our fathers) I said - "Mummy, we all know Lord Siva has a stranglehold over Indian Cobra, not sure if he has the same control over the snakes of America. Sanskrit SLOKAs (hymn) won't work here. Southern American accent filled prayers and sermons from the local Methodist church might help in keeping the snake away."

As usual she interrupted to chastise me, "Stop teasing and take my advise seriously. I will pray for you to Lord Siva to keep you safe from PODA MUHA (Burnt Face) "Rattle SAAPA (snake)". The depth of her love was unfathomable. 

Whenever I go home, she puts an Igloo shaped mound of rice on my lunch plate, telling - "TU PETA PURA KARI KHAUNU, JHADI GALUNI (you are not eating stomach full and losing weight), though there was hardly any visible sign of my weight loss. For her, this hemispherical shaped lump of rice on plate should be high enough for its tip to touch the legs of a cat trying to jump over it. That's her unit of measurement of quantity of food for keeping her son's stomach filled. 

When I insist on reducing the amount of rice, suggesting that intake of extra carbohydrate would add unwanted extra amount of flab to my waist, my mother vehemently disputes it - "TORA SWASTYA TIKE HEICHI, TATE MOTA KIE KAHUCHI ?" "You are little healthy, how dare someone calls you fat" ? Like all mothers from our generation, gaining weight by their son is a matter of pride.  A chubby chap is known as "KHAIBA PIBA GHARA PILA" (in Odia) or KHANE PINE KA GHAR KA LADKA (in Hindi) - meaning a boy from a well to do family who liberally spends on food. (In India a SWYASTAWALA or healthy son earns accolades for the daughter-in-law in front of her in-laws for feeding their son well. On the other hand a slim, trim husband can earn the wrath of the mother-in-law for not feeding her son enough). 

She used to advise me - "BARSA RE ODA HABUNI, THANDA DHARIBA" - Don't get drenched in the rain, lest you catch a cold. If she ever found out that I have a fever, she would advise me to eat Apples and LUNI BISCUIT (Saltine crackers, similar to the RITZ crackers, popularly consumed during fever during my childhood as it titillates numbed taste buds) and eat PAUNRUTI (sliced bread) dipped in warm milk. She still treated me like a 10 year old. Though I am way past that and in the middle of my middle age, her love was unwavering and eternal. No matter how far I am from her, her love and concern for me never ever ebbed. I had complete faith on her devotion. Now that I have outsourced my well being to her I could roam freely in my backyard and get on with my life.  

Motherly instinct isn't just limited to humans. It extends to the animal world too. Not just cats, cows, tigers and lions - the snakes too are very protective of their little ones. Other day on Discovery Channel I was watching a female King Cobra hatching her eggs she just laid. She could sense intrusion from the anchor and the camera person. Protective and insecure the 15 feet long Queen Cobra raised her hood to a height of 5 feet, hissing furiously. The anchor was cautious - "We aren't carrying any anti-venom. Need to be very careful here. This protective mother is pissed off with us uninvited guests trying to get closer to her eggs she is succintly protecting. One bite from this angry mom Queen Cobra will inject a gargantuan amount of neurotoxin into the bloodstream, potent enough kill 20 adult humans in few minutes. We stand no chance". All mothers are same, protective and their children's well being being their topmost priority. HAPPY MOTHERS DAY !!!

First Anniversary of Operation Sindoor

 Close to the first anniversary of Operation Sindoor, the name given to India's strike on Pakistan in response to the latter's terror attack in Kashmir, India's defense minister Rajnath Singh said “We stopped the Operation voluntarily, on our own terms".

If so, why was the ceasefire announced not by India but by Trump ? India reiterated Trump's announcement after an hour the US President proclaimed it on Truth Social, repeating his claim time and again taking credit for stopping the war between two nuclear power neighbors. So far India has never contradicted Trump.

It was followed by Modi telling our Parliament last July that India achieved its objectives by attacking terrorist camps across the border. Such a claim by striking largely empty terrorist training camps reeks with strategic naiveté. Timing is an essential element of any war. After the Pahalgam terrorist massacre, India waited for 15 days before launching the short-lived May 7–10 Operation Sindoor, giving Pakistan ample time to disperse assets and empty key camps with the surprise element thrown through the roof. No high value terrorist was eliminated. If a few terrorists perished such state reared figures are expendable, easily replaced through thevast Madrassah networks inside Pakistan. How then were India’s strategic objectives served by targeting only low-level proxies?

Operation Sindoor was a tactical success for India, but a strategic failure, one that left Pakistan emboldened. The cessation of hostilities after just three days helped to rehabilitate Pakistan’s international standing, particularly in USA and Islamic world, where it was seen as having held its own against a much stronger adversary. That perception proved consequential, contributing to the emergence of the Saudi-Pakistan mutual defense pact and Trump’s embrace of Pakistan. Turkey and Azerbaijan came out in open support of Pakistan which ended up driving its narrative.
Truth is the first casualty of war. In spite of giving a bloody nose to our western neighbor, India had lost few fighter Aircrafts including the much fancied Rafael which costs $245 million a piece. Pakistan too possesses Nuclear and Missile technology. Forget building missiles, Pakistan, a basket case of poverty cannot even manufacture a Diwali rocket on its own. So, how it managed to acquired these ?
The answer is China for whom Pakistan is the cheapest way to keep India, its only nuclear adversary at bay. Pakistan has done a good job doing China's bid. The Middle Kingdom and Asia's rising giant doesn't consider India as its equal and often mocks at it. The best example if so many videos and reels on social media mocking India and praising their all time ally (in reality their slave) Pakistan which went viral during the days of OperationSindoor.

After the ceasefire was announced, a bunch of our Netas and Babus dispersed around the world with the goal of painting Pakistan as a pariah state and a sponsor of terror. Forget about convincing the world powers, except Sashi Tharoor no one could articulate well India’s position. Looking in a holistic way, Pakistan is not only important to USA, it is important to many other countries as well, including our all weather friend Russia for various strategic reasons, simply because of its very geographic region and it having nuclear weapons.

However brilliant our Foreign policy may be, when push comes to shove, as we saw during Operation Sindoor, the rest of the world mostly remained neutral. China, Turkey, Azerbaijan (it hardly matters anyway) sided with Pakistan - overtly or covertly. For their own selfish reasons the world powers who matter will continue to hyphenate between India-Pakistan in unforeseen future for some time to come. Foreign policy is filled with hypocrisy and double standards. It always was, will continue to be the same.

The comfort of Air Conditioning

News from home galore about the ongoing brutal summer in India with mercury touching 45°C (115°F) in many places, a notch higher than normal at this time of the year. We just entered into the month of May, it's still a long way to go for Indian summer to end. A friend in need is a friend indeed. At this juncture no one is a better friend than the Air Conditioning, more popularly known as AC, thanks to a 25-year-old engineer from New York named Willis Carrier who invented the first modern air-conditioning. The mechanical unit, which sent air through water-cooled coils, was not aimed at human comfort, rather designed to control humidity in the printing plant where he worked. But down the road it became too ubiquitous and attached to comfort, more of a necessity than luxury these days.

Recently I spoke to my father who lives in Bhubaneswar. He apprised me of the current unprecedented heat wave the city in particular and the state of Odisha in general, confided to me of confined to AC rooms as open windows intended for cross air ventilation only brings in lava laced air meandering through the concrete jungle. Never ever in his life he was so much dependent on the AirConditioning. In between occasional power cut is making it worse.  When the Electricity comes back jump-starting the Air Conditioning, its whirring sound sounds like music to his ears.
We are too much conditioned to Air Conditioning these days. In USA, especially in South it can get hot and muggy during the summer. When faced with similar situation during my growing up days in India when the outside air was much hotter and more humid, I didn't run to the comfort of AC - because like most from my generation we didn't have AC in our home. Now every middle class household has at least one wall mounted Air Conditioning installed in their home.
I rarely felt the pang of heat, even during the hottest of summers in India. My generation in India grew up at a time when AC was a luxury. The weather was a lot salubrious then. For me exposure to AC was limited to its cooling comfort wafting inside the Computer Lab in NIT (then REC), Rourkela during my student life. Only two places in REC Campus had AC those days - Principal's office and the computer center. The first was out of bounds for us. But come April, we were smart enough to spend many afternoons inside the computer center sitting in front of the Vax 11/780 dumb terminals. Wasn't so lucky in Bhubaneswar where only a few restaurants and movie theatres had AC, who regularly cut corners to save money by switching it off now and then. The owners cheated their hapless customers of Air Conditioning by robbing them of comfort, easily taking them for a ride.

Urbanization and rapid growth of concrete jungles has made our cities hotter than before, but over dependence on AC makes us feel and complain more about the heat. As the saying goes in Odia - MANISHA SABUTHARU BADA SUBIDHA BAADI PRANI (Humans are creatures of comfort). Now that I have the comfort of AC, every now and then I look forward to it. Without access to it, I would adjust to the environment, vindicating Darwin's theory of the survivor of the fittest. Humans being intelligent animals readily adjust to the situations and cicumstances. That's why we survived whereas the dinosaurs, mammoths and mammoth number of animals part of the fauna didn't.

Same applies to most from our parent's generation who grew up in villages. After living in the cities for decades they can barely spend more than half a day in their native villages which do not provide the same levels of comforts as cities do. My grandmother who lived more than two third of her life without electricity was so much addicted to AC that she wouldn't leave her room which was a cool 20 degrees cooler than the outside world. She was too tuned to AC and refused to visit her native village in summer where she lived lived happily the better part of her life.

During the World war II at time of relentless Nazi bombing on England the British Royal Air Force fought bravely against the air blitzkrieg of Germany's Luftwaffe. Winston Churchill, then the British Prime Minister said about Royal Air force - "Never in the History of mankind so many were dependent on so few", a tribute to contributions of a handful of pilots who stubbornly defended the entire English population from the Nazi onslaught. Same can be attributed to AC - never in the history so many humans were dependent on a devise. Let's spare a moment to be thankful to Willis Carrier, the inventor of Air Conditioning, after whom "Carrier", a popular brand of AC is named.

RIP Chinmay Mohapatra - Bobby

 He was my classmate in school and my friend. A very active individual filled with warmth and affection, a talented singer and a huge fan of Sanjay Dutt. Chinmay Mohapatra, who also happens to go by his nickname Bobby, lived his life to the fullest until he passed away yesterday.

It is a small world. Chinmay was the son of Mr. R.C. Mohapatra, our history teacher in my Alma mater D.M. School in Bhubaneswar and a colleague of my mother-in-law Mrs. Swarnalata Devi who incidentally passed away exactly a decade ago. Chinmay lived in Acharya Vihar, a stone's throw from my in-laws house, a walking distant from School. I wasn't so lucky, so had to commute to school in our school bus, though traffic wasn't too bad those days when the arteries of roads of Bhubaneswar weren't clogged yet, so no bypass was needed.

Chinmay used to sing Kishore Kumar numbers pretty well, though his favourites were songs from Sanjay Dutt movies, an upcoming actor during our growing up days. Always an active member of our School Orchestra team, he enthralled the audience with his energy and enthusiasm. Unforunately I missed his performances in School during our Higher Secondary (called +2) days as I shifted to B.J.B. College closer to my home.

We lost touch for a while before reconnecting just before my marriage. Well known to me as well as my in-laws family he attended both sides of our marriage reception. I starkly remember him at our marriage reception at "Pantha Nivas", Bhubaneswar proudly holding his foot long mobile (cell) phone, a new gadget in town those days - neighbors envy, owner's pride.

After I moved to USA, connectivity increased as the world shrank to a global village. Soon we were back in touch via email, followed by social media which opened the floodgate of communication. We met many times in our hometown Bhubaneswar during my frequent trips to India. Recently I heard about him not keeping well these days, but never expected him to leave so fast, so soon. The news of his untimely demise was stunning, came like a bolt from the blue.

As I finish writing my obituary, I am tersly reminded of this Hindi song, an ode to a nice human being whose repertoire of affection towards his family of friends was never empty.

ZINDAGI SAU BARAS KI SAHI,
ZINDAGI KA BHAROSA NAHI;
CHAAND CHHOOP JAE KAB KYA PATA,
CHANDNI KA BHAROSA NAHI.
Transliterated..
Life is for living hundred years,
But destiny is unreliable forever;
Never know when moon can go into hiding,
For Moonlight is not worth relying.

May God give strength to his family, his brother and my friend Satyajit to overcome grief in this torrid time. Be happy in heaven my friend. Om 🕉 Shanti.

Nostradamus back again

 Whenever a major global event happens, Nostradamus is back again in the news cycle. If the noisy charters in the social media is to the believed, the 16th century bearded French Seer centuries ago envisoned the ongoing Ukraine War and also added that it would lead to World War III.

The bearded Gothic Clairvoyant is known to have correctly predicted the rise of Napoleon, both the World Wars and even named Hitler as close as "Hister" nearly 500 years ago. He said Hister will cross the Rhine River blitzkrieging through his opponents before finally destroying his country, killing millions and killing himself. One of his numerous predictions was about the rise of the New Land (as present day America was then referred then) as Superpower, with a Black President at the turn of the 21st century. He was laughed at then, as there were more Bisons than humans in America those days.

Nostradamus wrote all his predictions in an indecipherable cryptic form in his book aptly named "Centuries". Conspicuously, all his predictions are connected through dots only after an cataclysmic event occurs because of his indecipherable lingo. Social media posts about his predictions have gone viral, translated from cryptic Gothic to sensible meanings by myriads of self proclaimed translators and honorable graduates from the Whatsapp University, a la a computer translating binary code into readable text. Almost all predictions of the seer appearing on social media platforms appear bogus to me. Imitating his 15th century latin, there are so many horrendus predictionus or simply "fakus newsus" in his name circulating around.

During my college days in REC (now NIT) Rourkela, a common question during Quiz competitions was to name this great psychic and clairvoyant from France - the answer to that was Nostradamus. Those days his name was unheard of, enough to be part of any quiz questionnaire, a trivia for challenged brains. No more. His name is way too common these days to be part of any trivia/quiz question.

After the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center e-mails (there was no social media at that time) started circulating about Nostradamus's predictions - "At 45° (the latitude of New York) Big Birds (airplanes) will strike the heart of the most powerful nation". Regarding India he supposedly predicted the Queen (Indira Gandhi) who would rule India will be assassinated. She will be followed by her son.

We Indians in general are cynical in nature. So lies spread faster than Corona virus. Nostradamus also said to have predicted Corona virus pandemic and the arrival of our Messiah Narendrous Modus (Narendra Modi), who will be chosen over "Moronous Rahulus Gandhus (Rahul Gandhi)". Modus Operandus of Narendas Modus will take India to great length, breadth and heights of success, a superpower by 2024 - per his prediction. Well already in 2026 Mr. Modus doesn't have a great number of achievements to boast about, so being a superpower by 2050 now looks distantly impossibulus. Interestingly the French legend failed to see the rise of China as a superpower which is already happening. He also failed to see the rise of a class of Moronus Bhaktus in India.

However, the seer was silent on Odisha, probably outsourced the predictions to our own MAALIKA PANJI, the Odia version of "The Centuries". Not sure if there is print version of it or anybody has ever read it - it supposedly predicts "BAAISI PAHACHE KHELIBA MEENA (The legendary 22 steps leading to the Jagannath temple of Puri will be submerged in water with Fish playing on it). It was expected to happen during the tropical Cyclone Phailin, but our Lord Jagannath decided to take a Rain Check. Not sure if Nostradamus or Malika Panji predicted arrival of "Gullius Spreaders" on Facebuckus and Whatsap Alumnus on Whatsappus !

500 years since Panipat

 Today (April 21st, 1526) marks exactly 500 years since the first Battle of Panipat fought between Babur who went on to establish the Mughal empire in India and the Afghan king Ibrahim Lodi of Delhi. This engagement had a profound impact on the history of the Indian sub continent and Islamicate Asia.

Marching from Kabul in late 1525, Babur reached Panipat with around 10,000 men, vastly outnumbered by Lodi’s forces in 1 to 10 ratio. Yet numbers matter little against innovation and discipline. Babur introduced field tactics unfamiliar to India which included fortified wagon-lines, trenches and coordinated use of artillery. Using Ottoman inspired “Rumi” method, he anchored his army defensively while forcing the enemy into a narrow front. Babur then unleashed the Tulughma tactic, a fast moving cavalry sweeping around the flanks, encircling & raining arrows on the compressed enemy.

The result was decisive. The war which began at dawn on a hot day in the dusty fields of Panipat in modern day Haryana 100 years ago lasted until noon. Ibrahim Lodi was killed, his army shattered and Delhi fell soon after. The victory laid the foundation of the Mughal Empire, shaping the political and cultural trajectory of South Asia for centuries.

But the resistance to Babur didn't end there.
He had to face Rana Sanga, the King of Mewar in modern day Rajasthan who was a much more formidable rival compared to the Afghans under Lodhi. More importantly Rana Sanga did something unthinkable in Hindustan at that time. He united various Rajput Chieftains, who were known for their internal squabbling under one umbrella. The United front concerned Babur as he had heard valiant stories of bravery about Rajputs to consider themselves as descendants of Huns and an united army of Rajputs would be of dangerous proposition.

Both the armies of Babur and Rana Sanga faced off each other at Khanwa in eastern Rajasthan. One evening when ventured out of his camping Babur saw in the horizon smoke emanating from various places on Rana Sanga's side. Unfamiliar with Indian culture, he enquired why smoke was coming from so many places. He was told that the enemy's army consists of several groups based on their caste who won't eat together and have their separate units of cooking. That's why we can see so many places of smoke oozing. The Mughal King was bit puzzled by this.

Babur's army were already tired and scared of the fierceness and the greater number of Rajputs. With fledgling moral the forces from Central Asia who hated the heat and dust of India were reluctant to fight any further, wanting to go back home with their loot. But Babur managed to convince them to carry on by giving a religious color of "Jihaad" (Islamic Holy war) to fight against the infidel Hindus.

After a long, hard fought war, Rana Sanga lost the battle of Khanwa primarily due to the use of gunpowder technology which his adversary learnt from his maternal side of ancestry from China, the country credited to have invented gun powder, a game changer in the warfare for years to come. Rana Sanga's soldiers as usual went for a frontal assault for which the Rajputs are known. That was a fatal tactics to have against a battle hardened army known for its innovation, modern approach to war those days. Though brave and gritty, the Rajputs with their frontal assault attack plan were cannon fodder for Babur's blazing cannon.

Rana Sanga was injured by bullet and died shortly after. Thus ended the final resistance to Babur whose descendants continued to rule Hindustan for centuries to come. It was followed by British who like their predecessor too hated the heat and dust of the Indian subcontinent, ruled the country for couple more centuries to come. 500 years since the day Babur won the first Battle of Panipat, India has witnessed several turning points in history and possibly more to come. In millions of years its existence, the last 500 years is arguably the most memorable time in our history.