I grew up in an atmosphere where books were my best friends. All the elders in my family have always been very studious but my father (who I call Baba) has always taken a keen interest in reading about various subjects. When I was about 7 years old, Baba already had so many books in his collection that he thought it will be useful if we tag them and prepare a catalogue. To me, the thought of getting involved in such an activity was exciting enough. More than anything else, I thought Baba intends to start a public library and I will be the librarian signing library cards, collecting fees, maintaining records etc. – much like our school librarian. So, I spent one afternoon tagging nearly all books with Baba and arranging them. I also worked additional hours preparing library cards and a library rule book (which of course Baba did not ask me to do).

In those days, I took immense pride in exhibiting those books to others. Even if all the visitors to our place were not that keen, I used to show them our small little library. Later I found out it was not that great idea, as some of them would borrow books only to never return them to me. Alas! I did not have any authority as my school librarian had.

The annual Saraswati Pujo (the worship of Hindu goddess of knowledge) was also a big event in our home. My parents and I would decorate the whole house and especially the stage where the idol was to be rested. Every year, Baba will think of something unique. I do not have the photographs here otherwise I could have posted some of our decorations. I used to strangely believe that only those books should be kept near the idol which was difficult to understand. So the science books were regular every year. I wished that the goddess blessed my science books, so that they become easier to comprehend (how silly! I should have sought the blessings so that I do well in Science).

While I am not aware about the current status of children’s literature in Bangla, but our generation had a wide variety to read and enjoy. In English, I was mostly introduced to the traditional books written much before my birth.

Now that again, I am in touch with children’s literature, I do browse through the library and book shop collections. The Auckland public library where I regularly visits organises free play time classes for infants and toddlers to get them acquainted to nursery rhymes, children books etc. I borrow some of those books. The quality of illustrations and overall presentations are quite good. It gives me hope that there are people who are publishing really attractive books for toddlers to get attracted too. The play time classes are well attended and every day the enthusiasm is the same.

However, as I speak of the kind of attention being given to introducing books and traditional forms of entertainment to toddlers and infants, I see slowly schools are trying to make computerised reading mandatory, book shop going out of businesses, children more interested in a mobile phone than a book.

Even if I concentrate on more positive aspects of technological advancement, this scares me. In my primary school, while learning English, we had to sit for handwriting and spelling tests. That helped us more than MS Word does. What if our kids never learn what a dictionary is?

Like the original inventors of camera (even possibly digital camera), Kodak has gone bankrupt, will the publishers of dictionaries go bankrupt too?

Life was so simple in my childhood days when we did not have video games, gadgets and computers. There were so many things to think about as a kid. As kids we were very busy thinking of apparently childish thing, rather than learning to press the appropriate button on a particular gadget. Most parents that I meet say proudly about how their kids use iPad from a young age. How iPads help them learn “youtube”, music etc. I don’t appreciate such people but then increasingly I am surrounded by such people.

Will I “have to” become one such parent? How can I avoid being one? Should I place curfew on my child and ban these things at home. Is it fine, to curb a child’s sphere of interest? Or should I not cling on to my interests and accept that preferences have changed.

This is a huge question that I find myself facing increasingly. I will try and do what is rational.

The AMRI incident shocked me and the revelations that are coming out of it of rampant gross negligence are more shocking. Incidents such as that happened at AMRI scares me to say the least. Most people who have come in close proximity to the hospital it seems anticipated something majorly wrong happening there. That is scarier. While our negativity about certain things used to be reflective of our individual cynicism some years ago but now we have changed to accept and anticipate everything negative.

While the country battles various political battles, crusades on streets, big personalities clashing with each other in parliament and outside of it, builds walls to pragmatic economic decisions etc, one thing seems to have been forgotten – the human life that resides in a nation is important too. Adding to the long list of Bhopal gas tragedy, Uphaar Cinema, BMW incident, Kasab trial, Nithari killings and many more, I hope that AMRI does not remain one of those inconclusive “accidents”.

Not sure whom I want to see punished or accounted for – but I just hope when anyone goes to a hospital or places such as those, they don’t fear that they may die because of collective negligence. They go with lot of hope that they will be taken care and their family members get assurance.

I have not been updating this page for various reasons that pre-occupied me and my mind. However, it is not that I have not been thinking or wanting to update. There are always things happening around me, which urge to communicate. However, sometimes lack of audience at critical junctures of life results in unwarranted silence.

One of the most interesting things that happened recently was my wife and I voting in New Zealand’s general election. New Zealand is perhaps one of the very few countries in the world, who allow non-citizens like us to exercise our democratic rights. The election process is much less complicated and if I must say, much more civilized when compared to India.

For more than two or three months, the candidates campaigned through letters and billboards. The respective Prime Ministerial candidates engaged in televised debates, which I must say were highly entertaining. The two parties that were contesting for the Prime Ministerial role were the ruling National Party (is sort of Centre-right) and the Labour (which has socialist leanings) parties. They debated on issues such as – whether New Zealand state owned companies should be sold or not? Whether rich should be taxed more or not? Whether benefits should reduce or not?

There were other minor parties too but then in New Zealand they extend their support to either of the two primary parties.

Other than the vote to elect the nation’s parliamentarians and leader, we also voted on a referendum. The referendum sought votes whether New Zealand should retain its current system of formation of a government that is MMP. If you voted NO, then it provided you with a few alternatives which you could choose.

Prior to the elections, the election commission sent us personalised letters which had all possible information in relation to the elections. The letters not only contained details of our polling booth and candidates but it also had brochures in relation to the different systems of formation of government, list of all candidates across all parties, how to vote, details where we could vote if we are travelling on the polling day etc.

On the day of polling, we were quite excited. We went to our designated booth and cast our vote. There were no policemen in the polling booth and the process was very smooth as was expected. The next day the results were announced and there were no major surprises. National got a second term.

Coming from India, it was quite interesting to participate in New Zealand’s electoral process. I would not say election generated frenzy among people. In fact, going by the statistics, the percentage of people who voted actually went down – which is a shame. However, may be the increasing number of expatriates contributed to a low voter turn-out.

Whilst, like all countries people generally are not overtly optimistic about politicians, expectations of not completely being let down by them exists. This is far from what I have experienced in my own country.