The holy month, Ramadan or Ramzan of the Islamic calendar ended some months back and billions of Muslims all over the world were fasting all over the world from dawn to dusk. With the onset of Ramadan, we usually see various new products, particularly food items, in the market for sale. This year however, it was not food items but another commercial that has taken YouTube by storm. The Zain Telecom Company, which is a Kuwaiti company, releases an Arabic video (with English subtitles of course) every year on Ramadan just like Surf Excel. I had not really watched the previous years’ videos but I believe they are usually to be based on the current status of the Muslim nations. The 2018 commercial by Zain entitled “Mr. President” however, is something more than just a commercial. For the benefit of those who have not yet watched, this 3 minute video features a young boy visiting look-alikes of powerful world leaders and speaking his heart out to them. US President, Donald Tr...
Some trips require a lot of planning and discussions, while some just happen impromptu. The latter was the case for my last trip to Amritsar. I had been planning this short trip since September 2023 but the stars were never getting aligned. After a lot a cajoling, when I managed to receive atleast an unsure “Yes” from my mother, there was no turning back. Even with flight tickets making a hole in my pocket couldn’t dither mean from my resolve to go for this trip. Though a very small town in Punjab, Amritsar manages to make its mark as a tourist destination because of the existence of the Golden Temple in its heart, along with some other important historical sites. As nothing works empty stomach, our very first stop was “Kulwant Singh Kulchewalaa” for a heavy breakfast of hot gobhi kulchas and chole. We then began our trip to the historical site “Jalianwala Bagh”, which was at a walkable distance from where we were located. Just at its entrance, a monument has been structured preserving...
How many times have we been told by our teachers or parents to speak correctly? And every time they remind us of this, have we really paid heed to it? It is actually a very important practice to speak “correctly” – to use the correct words/phrases to refer to anything in a sentence. It might appear a little confusing now, so let’s see a small example here to understand this concept for clearly. Back in my PhD days in IIT Guwahati, I asked one of my seniors, “Will you have a chocolate?” When she replied in affirmative, I handed her a “Pulse chocolate”. She looked at me, flabbergasted, and said, “This is not a chocolate! It’s a candy! I don’t want this. I thought you meant chocolate – I really needed one now.” And she walked away. I stood there in bewilderment – I did give her “chocolate”. Why didn’t she take it if she needed one? But it was that small incident that taught me the importance of using the “correct” word. A google search made me understand a fact that we probably always ign...
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