SATYANESWAN

I came to listen to the term "Civic Sense" while I was a kid young enough to study at class II.We were recent residents of Kalighat then. One of our neighbors made it a habit of throwing his family's garbage promptly in front of our entrance every morning. The narrow street used to remain dirty until the municipal sweeper arrived on the scene.It was real difficult for someone to enter to or go out of our house meanwhile.As was the practice in the locality no one came forward to object.Perhaps hoping that one day the gentleman responsible would understand the agony of his close door neighbors. But that fateful day never came. My father lost patience one sunday morning and asked the gentleman to stop the practice.He,in turn, got infuriated and questioned the authority of my father . His logic was simple.As the street belonged to commoners using the road all users had similar claims.He refused to accept that he was doing anything wrong. He assured my father that he would not...

Bimal Mitra's literary works always fascinate me,specially the novels.He had the capacity of writing novels with the characteristics of an epic.His central character,may not be the principal one but stories revolves around him.He remains a helpless bystander putting his best efforts to influence incidents but mostly in vain. This time I am not here to discuss Bimal Mitra and his works though.I took the reference as he came to my mind while I was roaming around the Auckland streets just like that. This city was built by the British settlers and as elsewhere they made it a point to recreate London here too. Therefore, the old buildings ( and believe me,there are too many) were built in greco-roman majestic style and invariably features a clock on the top or middle of the building. As such, kiwis apparently have an affinity towards clocks too. They have created a clock within the famous Albert Park ( the oldest volcanic site in the region,conver ted to a park and got the name of prin...

Rongitoto.The name sounds a bell in your ear. Around 600 years back it rang a bell no doubt but that was a bell to give alarm to the Maori settlers who used to live in the nearby Motutapu island.Rongitoto literally means 'bloody sky' in Maori language.In fact it reddened the sky line of the country whose original name i,e Aotearoa ( to-day's New Zealand) reminds you of long white clouds.Out of the deep blue pacific a big red mass started erupting some day 600 years back in a series of dramatic explosions and gave a different shade to the nearby clouds. It is the youngest island in the Hauraki Gulf in the North Shore of Auckland and the last and largest volcano to be formed in the Auckland volcanic field.It is also one of the biggest volcanic eruptions which earth had ever witnessed. From a distance you can never imagine there may be anything unique within the island you are about to set your foot on.It is as nice as others, majestically sitting just off the Auckland c...