As I walked further in the rain…..

The same misty night
filled with the same solitude,

same rain and freezing sight

all coming to you to occlude;

And I felt the same pain,

as I walked further in the rain.

Some finds as stunning

some says it’s lovely,

I only count old pieces deep inside

with a touch of being lonely;

And I kept presuming another reason,

as I walked further in the rain.

The breaking of nerves

with every stroke of raindrops,

and a burst of tears

losing its way but never stops;

And I crossed that entire molten scene,

as I walked further in the rain.

The warmth of released pain

the limits of your courage,

everything is just between

me and this silent maze;

And I witnessed this moment of season,

as I walked further in the rain.

Colors which complete you!

This post is written as an entry for the contest 'Take Flight With Colour' organised by Indiblogger and HP laser printers. If you like this post then do vote for me at IndiVine. 

My mother always has complaints regarding my color sense as I am more inclined towards white or other light colors. Although there should always be an exception, hence color blue is also my favorite.

It was one of the preparatory days to attend my elder sister’s marriage. As I was staying in hostel in my master course, I reached my home two days before the ceremony.  I have not enough time for shopping my accessories and clothing for that especial day. Despite of so many requests from my mother n sisters to allow them to buy my things by their choices, I chose to do it by myself only.

 “Oh no…….. You have brought again the same white and black ones. Butru, could you please change your taste in color. Aren’t you getting bored with these repeated and dull colors?”-These criticisms are often common to me whenever I buy my clothes.

“Well, I think that it enhances the next color you added with.”- My most answerable answer for such criticism.

“And I hope that you can elaborate it further to me.”- My mother gave me a questioning look.

“Oh! Of course my dear mamma, See, if I match a gorgeous red dupatta with any white dress or a pink t-shirt with grey lowers, it becomes the best combination. Alone red could not be notable until or unless we add some light color. it's my belief that the beauty of color lies within these combination of colors. Got it?”- I smiled at my wit as usual.


But my mother is much smarter than me, so she threw the next googly to me. “Nobody can compete with you over an argument. So I agreed that you won! So where are the other colors to make your so called great combinations?”

“That………… I….will bring next time.”- I completed the line with as low voice as possible and the next moment, I jumped off the bed and ran to the kitchen.

On the other hand my chachi who was afraid to wear colorful sarees, just because she is a widow as she think or other people makes her to think. I always observed the glow becoming strong in her eyes whenever she saw lady next to her wearing a colorful saree. She definitely loves the color. So I decided to give her a new look in which she always wanted to be framed. I bought a decent but a bit more colorful than her pure white sari. Initially, she refused to wear it and started to murmur all those typical social obligations and related issues. I knew it was her fear only which makes her to be hesitant. perhaps she bothers to people outside or the people inside our home? The long silence of her, by default, has revealed everything. Somehow, we all feel the same thing and try to give her all the best possible colors of life as much as we all can. Yet her chosen colors are still very soothing, I can feel the deepness of each color in her sparkling eyes. To be most imaginative, I can feel the soft touch of a pink line on her lips whenever she gets a new color.

Importance of colors in life can be understood step by step with each step having different meaning of same color. Like red is symbolic to show your anger, but to me in my childhood, I can ignore the anger of my papa for a lollipop. I used to rub red colored lollipop on my lips as if I am wearing any lipstick shade. My younger sister’s act is as dark as chocolate as my mamma says. Nobody can guess what would be her next step, when she will break down and what makes her to melt and evaporate in a microsecond leaving sweetness in your heart. Black and red colors becomes my favorite whenever I play with my sister’s son. I just paint one tooth of mine as black, grow artificial eyebrow and moustache and big, scary eyes with the help of kajal pencil and a red lipstick covering area more than my lips has. I still cannot believe that those days are my graduation days! During my school days, bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai came into limelight of media, when she gained the crown of Miss World. I am very fond of reading books, not only course books but  grihshobha, grihlakshmi, sarita, comics, kadambini every magazine available in my home. From those reading sources, I came to know that Aishwarya has green eyes. Only I could feel that how crazy I was at that time, whenever I saw her eye-donation ad as if I am verifying the news from those magazines. Each time, I left with a doubt on her green eyes as I used to think that green means green like grass. To pick yellow petals of a flower from a cactus-like plant having crown of thorns was our daily routine as we made quirky sound from those petals. We were never afraid of getting pricked by numerous thorns. I hardly found that shade of yellow in any cloth market which I wish that one day I will dress-up like the same cactus-like plant with same crown of thorns. May be I was envy her! And how can I forget that day when our grandfather brought oranges for us which was very bright in color and just smaller than my football in size. We all were playing with our own share of oranges, suddenly I missed the catch and my share was now lying on the grass-ground. I still remember that I kept watching my orange from first floor so that no one can have my share. But also I could not take the risk to go down and get my orange back as I feared that someone may come and steal my orange during my way to reach the ground. Sometimes I feel that orange is still lying on that soothing green grass-field and I am still trying to go down the stairs of time to get back my orange of childhood. Another funny part of my childhood was toothpaste, the red and blue colored close-up toothpaste which I insisted to bring that month on the account of our monthly ration. How can I forget the experiment with those toothpastes! Every morning I used to try one layer of red toothpaste and then another layer of blue toothpaste and get the final color as violet. I thought that I have done something new research and smiled like a noble prize winner. I think there are plenty of moments filled with colors, but I also fear what would happen in absence of these colors?

Being fascinated to old things, I often search every corner and layers of old rusted iron trunks in store room.  May be some day I would get old jewelries, coins made up of silver, pouches with old silk work or things which my dreamy eyes want to see. On one of those investigation days, I found a photograph of my mamma and papa just after their marriage. It was black and white photograph, but my most favorite photograph. Earlier, that photograph was well-framed and kept near the T.V. table. Unfortunately, someday the frame was broken in a cleaning process and after which that photograph was sent to one the albums of one of the trunks.


I kept looking at that golden moment photograph and dreaming of it in color for a long time.  That Black and white photograph always makes me curious about the time of my young parents. What would be the color of my mamma's saree? Whether my papa’s hair is grey from early age? How was the make-up of my mother and how was she looking at that get-up?

My Parents

Finally, I decided to make a copy of that photograph in color by digitizing it. So, I went to a photo-studio near my home and showed the photograph which I wanted to be in color now. At that time, I did not get any regular pocket money, yet I paid 300 rupees for coloring it from my savings.

For some reason I was out of the station, so I instructed my friend Anita to bring back those photographs (old  as well as new colored one) from the studio. As I reached my home, I was very eager to see my parents in color. I opened the packet within a second. The photograph was colored very well, although I could not figure out that what is missing in that picture and bothering me. I only felt that it was incomplete somehow. May be the colors in my dream did not match with the colors given by the studio-man. Later I found out that the color of vermilion is still light grey. Perhaps the studio-man forgot to change the vermilion color into red and so the picture was incomplete. After that I did not get time to go back to the studio and make corrections. Now, it is always with me in an envelope.

After photoshop

If one day my one wish to color anything will come true, I will re-color that photograph with my dream colors.  I just wanted to have the colors which complete you, mamma...papa...

Chlorine in your drinking water : giving life or taking life?

The use of chlorine (in various forms such as liquid/solid/gaseous forms) in a drinking water treatment system to prevent waterborne diseases is one of the greatest public health advances in history. In order to understand the popularity of using chlorine in a water treatment one must have some depth of knowledge about water treatment.

Water treatment consists of various physical operations/chemical processes in a definite sequence (the sequence depends upon the source of water such as ground water, surface water etc.) to remove existing contaminants or to reduce the amount of contaminants to such a level that the water becomes fit for its desired end-use. It includes aeration, removal of suspended as well as dissolved solids, hardness removal, removal of biodegradable or some chemical substances causing bad taste and odor, toxic metal removal, filtration, disinfection etc.

Disinfection is the end process of water treatment to make water safe from pathogenic bacteria which are responsible for waterborne diseases. The prime objective of the disinfection in drinking water treatment is to kill pathogenic microorganisms, unlike sterilization (example: boiling of water) which means complete destruction of all living organisms. Although the other unit processes/operations of drinking water treatment, such as coagulation, clarification, and filtration, also help in reducing the load of microbial pathogens, disinfection is considered as the final barrier to the entry of pathogens into the finished product water.  Few microorganisms are tabulated here with their health effects and sources:

Organism	Major Disease	Primary Source
Salmonella typhi	typhoid fever	human feces
Salmonella paratyphi	paratyphoid fever	human feces
Salmonella typhimurium	gastroenteritis	human/animal feces
Other Salmonella sp.	gastroenteritis (salmonellosis)	human/animal feces
Shigella	bacillary dysentery	human feces
Vibrio cholerae	cholera	Human feces, coastal
Enterovirulent E. coli	gastroenteritis	human feces
Yersinia enterocolitica	gastroenteritis	human/animal feces
Campylobacter jejuni	gastroenteritis	human/animal feces
Legionella pneumophila	Legionnaires Disease, Pontiac fever	warm water
Helicobacter pylori	peptic ulcers	saliva, human feces

A good disinfectant must be toxic to microorganisms at concentrations below the toxic thresholds to humans. In addition it should have fast rate of killing bacteria, should be persistent enough to prevent regrowth of microorganisms in distribution system, easily available, easy to handle, safe and inexpensive etc. sodium hypochlorite, chloramines, chlorine dioxide, ozone, other halogens, gamma rays, UV radiation are some common disinfectants used for drinking water disinfection. Among all the disinfectants, chlorine is considered as the most easily available disinfectant, cheaper and easy to handle when compared with others.

Generally, bacteria present in the water and on surfaces are harmless. But they are at the base of a food-chain for other free-living organisms such as fungi, protozoa, worms etc. A drinking water distribution system provides habitat for microorganisms, which are sustained by organic and inorganic nutrients present on the pipe and in the conveyed water. A primary concern is therefore to prevent contamination from fecal material that might build up near pipes or contaminate surface or soil water.

There is one more advantage of using chlorine extensively over all other disinfectants is that it can be present in distribution system or storage as residual chlorine for a comparatively long duration. Hence, it enhances the safety measures by suppressing the survival as well as regrowth of pathogenic bacteria in a distribution system/storage tank.

However, recent research has also shown its dark side which includes the ineffectiveness of chlorine as disinfectant as well as health hazards while using for a very long time.

People generally assume that if chlorine is present in water, the water is free from pathogens. In actual it may not be true for every condition. Recent research has proved that bacteria may get resistant to chlorine when exposed for a long duration by developing or changing its cell behavior. This also led to think upon using another sources of disinfecting agent.

Another problem associated with chlorine is the health hazards to its consumers. Chlorine alone is not harmful. But when it combines with other chemical substances like NOM (natural organic matters), it results in formation of various chlorinated disinfection by-products (DBPs).

Chloroform, a well-known anaesthetic, was discovered in chlorinated water by Rook in 1974 and is a known carcinogen. This discovery and subsequent identification of other carcinogenic DBPs led to concerns about the potential risks to human health due to chlorination. A number of alternatives to chlorine as a disinfectant are being used in different parts of the world, but elevated risks associated with their by-products are less well established than for chlorine.

Various groups of DBPs have been identified in drinking waters and are now regulated in many countries. DBPs include trihalomethanes (THMs) like chloroform, bromoform, bromodichloromethane and chlorodibromomethane, haloacetic acids (HAAs) like monochloroacetic acid, dichloroacetic acid and trichloroacetic acid and haloacetonitriles (HANs) like dichloroacetonitriles and dibromoacetonitriles. Some inorganic compounds that are also regulated as DBPs include chlorite, chlorate, bromate, and cyanogen chloride. Among these THMs and HAAs are the predominant DBPs groups in drinking water.

Some epidemiological studies show that long exposure to these DBPs caused many diseases like cancer (brain, pancreas, rectum, breast, lung, liver, bladder, kidney etc.), miscarriages etc.

Toxicity assessments for these harmful chemicals are also related with the exposure routes of DBPs. Possible routes of exposure to DBPs can include ingestion of water and food cooked or washed in tap water, inhalation of indoor air and dermal contact with chlorinated water during water use activities like cleaning, washing, showering or bathing. Water-based activities like swimming are also another major route of DBP exposure.

The factors discussed above make us to rethink upon the frequent use of chlorine as a disinfectant. Risks associated with other disinfectants has not been documented so well as compared to chlorine till today. Further research has been still going on in this direction by several developed and developing countries. Therefore, this does not mean that other alternatives are less hazardous. The decision to use chlorine in our drinking water sometimes becomes difficult, especially when it contains two utmost criteria: safety of drinking water from pathogens and safety of public health from chlorine exposure. Therefore, some countries has started to make strict regulations for DBPs in order to minimize the health hazards from these chemical substances. We need to find out good alternatives for disinfectant/chlorine. On the other hand, regulations should be strictly reinforced in a water treatment system. The advanced research work should be encouraged to find out ways to overcome these problems.

I feel good to get viewer's perspective on this topic.

References:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterborne_diseases
• http://www.greenfacts.org/en/water-disinfectants/l-3/water-disinfectants-5.htm
• Sharma, R.N., Mahto, B. and Goel, S. (2009) " Disinfection by-products in chlorinated drinking water and their adverse health effects: a review". Journal of Environmental Research And Development, Vol. 3, No. 3.

heart Vs. cigarette

What if our hearts act as none other than a cigarette, which is rolled up with emotions instead of tobacco? Burning of emotions is a real pain, but the two utmost questions arise when a cigarette is lighted up: what causes it to get ignited and how it will be stopped? Obviously we know the answers in case of a cigarette: one is a lighter and another is a butt to stop it from burning any more. Then why we could not able to define answers to ourselves, when an emotion starts burning inside us? Certainly, it can be some things or some people or sometimes we only, who act as a lighter for these emotions. No matter who lit it up, we always have a stopper and that butt is TIME.

Solving my questions, Completing my life

Sometimes feeling your own fingers from your eyes to the back of neck is not the solution for your question, especially question wrapped in several layers of doubts. Sometimes Life raises questions to me and sometimes I impose questions on life. whatever be the case, It's me who has to solve it.

Nobody wants questions in his/her life, but it is ubiquitous in our life.  In fact, I cannot imagine life without questions. It is surely a stressing element, but it also causes our decision more strong and firm.

Therefore, I treat every question of my life as a toughest brick of that particular time without which I could not construct well my life. It does not matter how frustrated I am while solving my questions, I feel happy that I am completing my life.

A lifetime runner

When I was child, I had only difficulty to memorize some chapters of history. Now, I try to forget some chapters of life. Life is simply strange and becoming stranger whenever I try to understand. I hate to be indecisive and yet I am.

Again, with time, size of difficulty is continuously increasing just like a hurdle in a race to check and improve your ability to win over it. The only difference in this game called LIFE is that there is no end of levels which assures you to be a winner. Therefore, yes I am still not a winner; but I am a lifetime runner.

Yes I am alone, If I do not hear from you.....

‘Am I alone?’ – The most frequent questionable question to self it is! And, what should be the most answerable answer? ‘Yes I am’ with a definite perplex sign or ‘No I am not totally A……’ with dubious assenting sign. This only means however confirmative you are, your statements are still doubtful to you.

Then somewhere in my mind, I begin to try to prove one of those ‘yes or no’ statements. I know I can prove both, but logically to come to a definite conclusion, I should not try both like any math theorem where L.H.S. can disapprove R.H.S. and vice-versa.

To have reasons for YES-fact I could get many, but to prove No-fact to myself, I have you. Only you!

So, please give me a horn while passing by Kharagpur Railway's track. I hear your sound of wheels running on tracks at 4 O'clock every morning. Yes I am alone, if I do not hear from you.

I'm Searching for my sun.....

I did not sleep for the whole last night. Perhaps, I was wandering about life- a collection of stories which sometimes seems to be as tiny as one single vapor (I doubt that anybody can separate it from a cloud of vapors) and sometimes as big as data stored in one single mind, sorting out ways to overcome deadly hurdles to fulfill basics of life survival strategy and also looking for one more thing- but I could not figure out what is that one thing at that instance?

With faded face as the darkness fades away just before sunrise, I stood at my window for timeless time- the only window which connects me to the outer world, as the door of my room is always closed to ensure me that you are safe in your own created hidden world. Being closed in a room is just an illusion to feel as safe as that rabbit feels with his closed eyes. If I am afraid of something, then why do I always want to stand at the window? May be it is fear to love them or fear to being loved by them? I am confused and I know how to get confused very well because that is the way I am.

While standing alone at my window, I was watching the daily motion of sunlight. It was same as the previous day, but the way I am looking at it was quite different today. I saw a drainage pipe attached to a roof. The upper part of pipe is quite visible due to sunlight. Suddenly, I saw its shadow which was much bigger than its actual size as the sunlight is more inclined. I kept thinking about the shadow that as the sun will rise above the horizon, the size of shadow will definitely start decreasing and when the sun will reach at its top, its shadow will disappear. Finally sun will leave the shadow behind it, even if shadow will reappear and gain its maximum size.

Does that shadow of drainage mount resemble the hurdles of life? Which looks bigger initially, gradually disappears with time and then with more longer time we gradually become least bothered to those hurdles and to their size?

If it is true, then I am searching for my sun…………………