In the Land of the Dragon

The trek trail to Sandakphu requires you to often tread the land of Nepal. However, if you don't consider that as a foreign trip, last year's Bhutan trip was my first international tour in its truest sense.

The week-long journey took us to two of the fascinating Bhutanese cities — Thimphu and Paro. Beginning from Phuentsholing or Jaigaon (just across the border and in West Bengal, India), we reached Thimphu and went to Paro from there. The Himalayan state possesses a brazen natual beauty, which is somewhat different from what you see at Sikkim or Darjeeling.

Have a look at some of the shots:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35067917@N00/

ZooZoos: Crazy Kiya Re..

The word was used as a connotation for something terrifying during our infancy. The ZooZoos are back again! But, this time it inspired more awe than fear.

The first time I saw them on television, I mistook them as animation characters. Later on I found out thatI was not alone. It was indeed amazingly funny to learn that the ZooZoo characters, created for the marketing campaign of a telecommunications major and broadcasted during this year's IPL cricket carnival, were actually real human beings in disguise of these extremely lovable pot-bellied characters. The ZooZoo aficionados, still growing in number, have probably even outnumbered the IPL fans.

Kudos to the O&M team for conceptualising this awesome advertisement.

To read more about ZooZoo, visit:

http://business.rediff.com/slide-show/2009/may/29/slide-show-1-welcome-to-the-world-of-zoozoos.htm

Manmohan's Jumbo Cabinet: Some Interesting Facts

• Agatha Sangma, daughter of former Lok Sabha Speaker P A Sangma, is the youngest minister (28 years).
• 77 year old S.M. Krishna, who is the new External Affairs Minister is the oldest minister in Dr. Manmohan Singh's team. Dr. Singh himself is 76 years of age.
• Two of the memebers of the cabinet, Farooq Abdullah and Sachin Pilot share the 'sasoor-damad' relationship.
• The cabinet includes former Chief Ministers Vilasrao Deshmukh (Maharashtra), Virbhadra Singh (HP) and Farooq Abdullah (J&K).
• The cabinet has nine women ministers, one less than the previous UPA government.
• Praful Patel is the richest member of the team, while Mamata Banerjee ranks at the bottom of the table in terms of money.
• Nine ministers have criminal cases against them. The cases include rioting, being part of unlawful assembly, criminal conspiracy, defamation etc.

Why 'Bonghomie'?

The name of my blog might appear to have some sort of sexual innuendo, but let me clarify that it has got nothing to do withthe 'Dostana'* effect. The name has been inspired by the word 'bonhomie'. The Oxford dictionary explains the word as 'good-natured friendliness'. I have just tried to add a little Bengali ('Bong' as they are commonly called worldwide) flavour to it.

Welcome to my blog.

*And for those, who are not aware of 'Dostana' effect, let me tell you that 'Dostana' is a product of Karan Johar stable, the over-hyped (of course in my opinion) Bollywood movie director. The movie has a homosexual theme and is one of the biggest hits (!) of recent times.