photo shoot

Now I’m a proud owner of Canon 450D; a mid level DSLR. Finally I managed to buy my own. With this I’m able to kick-start ( rather resume ) my interest in photography and more scope to write here too. I’m introducing a new tag “photo shoot” here on and I’ll be using this tag in posts containing pictures taken by me.

About my gear; currently I’m using 18-55 mm IS kit lens with my Canon 450D body and will certainly go for bigger and better lens later.

Sedlec Ossuary : The Church of Bones

THE Sedlec Ossuary (Czech: kostnice Sedlec) is a small Roman Catholic chapel, located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints (Czech: Hřbitovní kostel Všech Svatých) in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic. about 70 kilometers east the capital of the Czech Republic, Prague, lies this small town called Sedlec. It might have been an ordinary enough town, if not for its extraordinary church. The inside of this church is decorated with artworks made of real human bones. The ossuary contains approximately 40,000-70,000 human skeletons which have been artistically arranged to form decorations and furnishings for the chapel.

A cistercian monastery was founded near Sedlec in the year 1142. One of the principal tasks of the monks was the cultivation of the grounds and lands around the monastery. In 1278 King Otakar II of Bohemia sent Henry, the abbot of Sedlec, on a diplomatic mission to the Holy Land. When leaving Jerusalem Henry took with him a handful of earth from Golgotha which he sprinkled over the cemetery of Sedlec monastery, consequently the cemetery became famous, not only in Bohemia but also throughout Central Europe and many wealthy people desired to be buried here. The burial ground was enlarged during the epidemics of plague in the 14 th century (e.g.in 1318 about 30 000 people were buried here) and also during the Hussite wars in first quarter of the 15 th. century.

AFTER 1400 one of the abbots had a church of All -Saints erected in Gothic style in the middle of the cemetery and under it a chapel destined for the deposition of bones from abolished graves, a task which was begun by a half blind Cistercian monk after the year 1511. The charnel-house was re-modeled in Czech Baroque style between 1703 - I710 by the famous Czech architect, of the Italian origin ,Jan Blažej SANTIM-Aichl. The present arrangement of the bones dates from 1870 and is the work of a Czech wood-carver, František RINT (you can see his name, put together from bones, on the right-hand wall over the last bench).

THE most interesting creations by Master Rint are the chandelier in the centre of the nave, containing all the bones of the human body, two monstrances beside the main altar and the coat-of arms of the Schwarzenberg noble family on the left-hand side of the chapel.

[Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedlec_Ossuary

http://www.kostnice.cz/

]

Movie review : Transformer The Revenge of The Fallen

THE much talked about sequel of the Transformer created quite hype in its early days of release. But the movie was kinda mixed bag in its overall presentation.

SHIA LaBeouf and Megan Fox ‘s charm has always been a positive point for the Transformer series. Superb special effects, sound and video editing adds more to this movie. But I guess Michael Bay went a bit too far by trying to show a bit of everything in it. Girl robot following Sam ( Shia LaBeouf ) in the college and trying to kill him in bed will certainly remind you of Terminator and Species series and this looked way out o sync. Towards the end the strange ( rather foolish ) sequence of Sam dying and then again coming back to life after taking order from seniors robots in somewhere in heaven ( or should I say heave-tronics??? ) mixed with some very old styled emotions made the movie dull towards the end.

DESPITE all these cons this movie is still good to watch “once” in some good theatre for it’s amazing action sequence and sound effects.

My Rating : Average

When it’s time .... ?

WHEN you start feeling like………….. it’s time? Ahhh... well..... when you see others with their family which seems super happy at a random office party. Or while having dinner at a posh restaurant with your good old friend; you see only couples or families around you. Or while shopping alone you see the couple next to you ( again I must say : happy ....... apparently ) helping each other ( .... in choosing cloths ... only .... in a crowded mall what else can they do ...... tell me !!!!!! ).Or after a long day’s work when you spill milk all over your kitchen while boiling it. Or when you suddenly realize many of your old friends are married now ( Rather I would like to describe this as following ...... “Or when you suddenly discover many of your old friends have forged their own conscious and chose to dive into the deepest well knowing that there is no way out of it ”............... in short “committed suicide ...... but still alive” ). Or .... well this list can go on and on. But you know what I feel; the last one is the strongest one to at least make you think about it though it’s almost like generalizing any misdeed. It’s like saying all police are the wickedest form of thieves, goons and bustards though all under the species are not same. May be a few of them; but not all. What I’m trying to convey here is if you thing a bit deeper what you’ll find is you are focusing on the counting few who committed the misdeed ( well ... committing suicide is illegal in Indian penal code ); in short you are making the mistake of generalization (At this point let me warn you: this piece of information is heavily time and reader’s age dependent. At my present age the above information is true but I doubt 5 years down the line it will not be ).Anyways ... these technical discussions aside; basically these incidents forces every bachelor ( event the most cautious soul like me ) to ask the question ...... is it time . ....?

WHEN someone asks me “when’ll you get married” I generally give this reply ... ( by the way; this reply has become very famous now a days ....... )

“..... I know that nobody is immortal; but I tend to live a bit longer than the average ......”

And trust me .................. I really mean it. But you know what ... at times these things around you does not help much. After all ......... who loves to clean milk bathed kitchen all alone at 1 a.m. in the morning? All this happened only because I felt really really hungry at 12:30 am; initially I chose to skip dinner that night; rest of it ... you should guess. At this very point you might start thinking about the television advertisement about a good looking wife preparing delicious food for her husband though he is late form office. And ...... voila ... she is having good "Jilabi" with her at the movie theater too.... ( ahha; what a lucky dog )

BUT when you think a bit deeper you'll certainly realize about the "other side of the coin". Beneath the silver lining there are sad things which; earlier you realize … is better for you. It’s like so called “big sale” of now a day’s shopping malls. There would be a big advertisement saying … “up to 50% off *”. Now what this small “*” signifies is what you need to do to avail the discount which most of the cases is devastating. Say you jump into the well ……….. and if you are lucky enough you might get a few things which let’s say you could do without in most of the cases; like “home made food i.e. a good cook” ( ahhhhh…. this might not be appealing to all; specially to those who live with their parents; but let me tell you; I stay alone and it really sucks when you realize you have to do with milk and oat at midnight as you have no other options left ) or “a good cleaner / organizer” ( I certainly won’t elaborate on this point ) and few other things …… ( few in the list are beyond the scope of this blog ). But how about the *? What all are you doing to get these things? Let’s see ….. have you ever seen any of your married colleague to go out with you on weekends to checkout the latest trendy bar in the town? Or when did you last able to pursue your married colleagues to go on special Friday night outs? If you were able to then those are exceptions. Remember I told about a random couple in a shopping mall helping each other; I remember seeing the same couple later that day outside the mall. The poor fellow carrying dozens of bags and following his wife faithfully ( like a dog would be a good analogy ).

LET’S analyze the scenarios after the inevitable “disaster”. The best case scenario would be you becoming her grosser, ATM machine, shopping companion, driver, load carrier ( you decided to fall for the saga; you have to pay of course ). And the worst case ? Well …. all of the previous list; plus cook, cleaner ( i.e. forget about the discount and pay double ).

I would like to end this blog with a very nice proverb in Bengali which goes like this :

“There are two kind of men in this world : married and alive …”

And as I earlier said no one can be immortal; but why not live longer than average??????

[ P.S: Needless to say that I’m still “alive” and zero experience might have shown its effect on last few paragraphs. So it would be good to receive enriching comments specially from those who are helpless now ]

The name saga……..A

NAME … your name; have you ever thought about it? How it is; where it came from. I remember during childhood days “what is the meaning of your name” was an obvious question after “what is your name” by any senior citizen (I mean any person senior to me). Even during school interviews I was asked the same question. Principals with very thick specs would have asked it in the most unfriendly manner possible. But do they really care? Who knows…

BEING a Bengali and moreover being form a cultural Bengali family means your name will match some writer, poet or famous personality (famous in positive way; I mean). Mine was not different either. I was named after a famous Bengali poet Sukanto Bhattacharya. Though I could not do justice to my name poetically guess I did enough justice literally by having a good enough physic ( my friends and colleagues may want to comment on this ). But the catch is not here.

IF you are familiar with Bengali culture ( specially with the older generation ) you must be knowing that many of us have a strong affinity for “A”. They want to put “A” where ever possible. And that’s what this blog is all about.

Needless to say I was also a hapless victim of this. Let me clear this … my name is “sukantA”. Most of the non-Bengali will find a feminine touch in this name. Ah …. I can’t blame them. I was warned by few of friends about this. One of my childhood friend “sudiptO” ( not “sudiptA”; because that is a common Bengali female name; though grammatically wrong and has no real meaning ) once gave me this wise advice of changing the spelling of my name to “sukantO”. But then I was turned down by my so called senor citizen saying that …. Well there is no girl named sukantA ( oh … so you can take the advantage of it ….). And alas … I accepted.

GUESS what … I did not realized the dark side of it till I was in Kolkata. But drama started once I came out Kolkata. Problem started when I started my work life in Bangalore. Almost everywhere I need to explain “ …. though it spells sukantA it pronounces “sukantO ….”. And guess what .. in my new company many have this very doubt “is this a guy or a girl ……….” (Basic doubt …. eh? ). And to add to this recently I discovered a girl named “sukantA” in Orkut (though this name is grammatically wrong it has absolutely no meaning )……….

SO ……… here I am; pretty much stuck with quite a confusing (!!!!!!!!) name….. rather spelling….

Signpost put up by the Army at one of the highest passes in the world.......