Happiness Matters

Dear Readers, Did the title shock you? Isnt it the most common word that you get to hear if you are living in West Bengal? Good bad or ugly, in happiness or out of frustration you will hear - "Pagol naki?!"(Which means - Are you mad?) While they might not be asking about your mental health literally but yes they would suspect somthing is not working properly in your brain. Bengalis have always been focussed on gaining intelligence and not wealth. No wonder why we have produced so many scientists, literary veterans and not so many businessmen! Anyways, coming back to the topic of mental health we see so many cases of frustrations, anger, depression ( several kinds of depression including post partum depression). The starting point of these cases would be lack of clear goal in life and the ending point would be feeling bad about the kind of behaviour that you get from others. I will state few examples for better clarity. Example 1: I dont know how to use my free time as I think...

  Dear Readers, It's been long time. I couldnt write blog as I was shifting from Mumbai. And, yes I am back to Kolkata after 5 long years! Initially, I was apprehensive about the shift because of many reasons. I was not sure if we would be getting the same facilities like those in Mumbai. Not only lifestyle and availability of things, several things are different here - medical facilities, education system, people & their thought process. But today when I see my daughter is playing happily with my parents who have so many grey hairs, wrinkled skin - I feel this shift was the need of the hour. After returning back I suddenly felt how much old my parents have grown and how much sense of security or strength they get after seeing me living close by in the same city. I never understood their thought process till I became a parent myself. When I think about my future now I foresee doing things together with my daughter, I want to live close to her not because I want to control he...

 Dear Readers, Most of you who are reading this blog know how addicted I am to Facebook! I wrote in my debut novel "That COVID Episode" how I plan my entire life around social media like Instagram and Facebook. After posting each and every minute detail of my life on Facebook, I reached a stage which I call "Saturation Stage"- the stage where Facebook became as indispensable as oxygen and the result was obviously not very positive. Like my father says, "Too much of anything is not good".  I decided to cut off myself from the Facebook world and let's see what happens. Initially, after the cut off I started spending more time on other social media like Instagram and LinkedIn. I found there's a crowd out there who did exactly what I had done - they stopped existing from Facebook. Previously I had the impression that Facebook is as good as your Aadhar Card, no Facebook means you are no more in this world!!! After spending considerable time on Insta ...

  Ami co-ed school e pori. Amr class e 30ta chele 25ta meye. Amra sobai ekirkm benche bose eki sirer class kori. Colleger prothom din bari thke beruchi notun utsaho nie je eto students der beat kore eto valo college chance peyeci. Tokon suni amr ek parar kakima hak pere amr ma k bolce - Meye to college uthe gelo, eibar aste aste bier deka sona suru kore din didi. Odike deklm amri college chance paoa arekti chele jokon bari thke beruchhe tokon take sobai bolce - Ki valo college peyechs baba, ma babar muk ujjol korle. Mone elo - Why so? Pore ami school thke jkn engineering e college jai deki sekane chele 30tai ache, kintu meye matro 12ta. Mone elo - Why so? Campus interview te prothom company tei amr hoe gelo ar sei cheletir holona. Sunlm parar kakima bolce - Company ra meyeder k prefer kore besi. Ki ar krbi baba chesta kore ja. Ar amr jnyo uni ma ke bollen - Eibar dekasona suru kre din didi. Meyer boyos hochhe. Ami masters korbo sune kakimar to gale hat - seki eto valo chakri chere ...

 "If money is the power, then I want it now!" Does this echo your thought? Then please read it till the end. At the end of the day, we all want to have financial stability, specially after Covid Episode when entire economy is disrupted, financial stability is the only thing that we seek for. In my last blog " Where to invest during Covid" I gave an exhaustive list of investment possibilities. Current FD (Fixed Deposit) rate is 5% to 5.4% and average annual inflation rate (1958 to 2021) is 7.29%. What does this mean? This means what we get for Rs 100 now, we would be getting the same quantity at Rs 107 after 1 year, while if we invest Rs 100 now in FD, after one year it would be Rs 105. This means FD is no more an investment now, as you can see we would be losing money if we go for FD. Apart from investing in share markets, you may go for Bond market. The risks are far less in Bond as if a company gets bankrupted, then their shareholders might not get back what they ...

1. Aj saptami, tai ami sari pore zoom call e ofycer meeting attend krchi. Client amk dekhe toh obak. Jiges korlo - Why so decked up? Today is Durga Puja. Oh yes, we have heard about it. Your Autumn festival! It is known as world's largest outdoor art festival. Kotha ta bolar somoe proudly bollm kintu mone mone oder k bolcilm  Nikuchi koreche toder meeting! Esob faltu kotha bondo korto, barite to jete parchina, at least internet e dekte to de pujota! Bari chara ami bohu bochor. Sob probashi bangalir moton amio January mas porlei flight er ticket dekte thaki. Coronar kripae ebochor sesber pat nei, tai nijei banie fellm luchi aloor dom. Client call sarte sarte khachhi ar ki. Luchita thik gol hoeni, kintu tele moida poreche toh, sathe mute kore dhakider dhak bajano dekchi kolkatar pandaler samner - mondo lagchena! Pujo pujo byaparta pachhi jeno. 2. Amr bari Bardhamane, chakri sutre thaki Banglar baire. Jotoi bolina keno bangla ta amr thik asena, sari ta backdated,bochor e pujor ei ding...

The time is difficult for us all. Hence, investing money in the right places is what we need to do to safeguard ourselves from further damage. With interest rates down, now FD is no longer 'the' option for future investment. So, here are few things which we may do with our money if we are lucky enough to have a job till now (during this Covid time, so many people lost their jobs!): 1. If you are a risk-averse person like me, try out the traditional investments like - a.  VPF (Voluntary Provident Fund) - Where you may contribute up to 100% of your basic and DA, with a lock-in period of 5 years and interest rate is same as EPF. b. PPF (Public Provident Fund) - Among the conventional methods, this one has the highest interest rate after PF, however, it is for the long term - 15 years!!!!! c. NPS (National Pension Scheme) - Here you may select the investment percentage more in bond to safeguard your money. However the flip side is you have to buy an annuity on maturity, you won...