Pitha utshob

Yesterday was 21 February - International Mother Language Day. Luckily it was weekend here. It was planned earlier that we will meet in Miraj vi's home around 5 pm and all the vabis will come with different kinds of "pitha(sorry for I don't know the exact English word for pitha, some say its cake but I don't think so. Cake doesn't represent what pitha really is). We named this event "Pitha Utshob"(pitha festival).


Around 5 pm we went to Miraj vi's home. Within very short time we became so hungry, may be knowing that lots of pithas are waiting for us in the kitchen. All the vabis came with different kinds of pitha. Just after 6 pm they came and asked us to taste those. We were amazed to see them; all of them were wearing sari. Not only that, they were wearing it in a traditional way like the Bangladeshi village ladies do wear it. As we went to kitchen we found lots of variations; most of those are sweet item, only 2 of them are hot and salty. So far I remember there were vaba pitha, jhaler pitha, pati shapta, pakon pitha, jhal puli pitha, narkel(coconut) puli pitha, 2 types of dudh puli pitha. After a long time we were enjoying those things. All of those are so delicious.


After finishing the pitha we were gossiping while having tea. Then miraj vi told us we can also take dinner in his home. He just needed some volunteers to cook the chicken curry. We agreed. Finally Miraj vi and Moni vabi(Miraj vi's wife) cooked it and they didn't needed us as volunteers. We took dinner around 1030 pm, again gossiped and finally left around 1 am. It was a nice gathering. We had some pictures also. Here goes few of those.





The dishes are on the table. More to come.





People started to grab the pitha acccording to choice.





Having tea after lots of sweet items





Vabis are in sari. From left Ema vabi, Moni vabi and mou vabi.





Nice couple Rajit vi and Mou vabi.





Another nice couple - Kamal vi and Ema vabi.




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Losing my job :(

This afternoon staffpoint(my employer) let us know that Metro is stopping newspaper distribution in the city of Tampere, Turku and Oulu. They will circulate it only in Helsinki among the cities of Finland. It will be effected from March, 2009. So I am automatically losing my job after this month.


This is the only job I have been doing since I came to Finland. I don't know if it is because of the worldwide economic depression or what but I am pretty sure it will affect my economy badly. Hope I will find some new job soon.




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A wonderful walk in the afternoon

Its really difficult to walk outside for a long time while the temperature is below -5 degree Celsius. This afternoon the temperature was -4 and it was bright as well. So we decided to go for a walk. We went to the nearest lake here. Today I saw a frozen lake for the first time. Whole upper surface of the water turned into ice; I guess at least 6 inch thick. There was snow all over that icy surface.


We crossed the lake diagonally on foot. Crossing a big lake by walk - interesting right? I forgot to take my camera with me. Well, Its difficult to carry a big size camera in this cold weather. I took some pictures in my mobile cam but cant share those now as I need to download those to my laptop first. I need bluetooth for that. Unfortunately my laptop didn't come with bluetooth. So I might share the pictures some other time. We walked for almost an hour. I was a bit excited while walking on the frozen lake. At every moment I was thinking if it breaks now :P


Well finally, after 3 days, I managed to get the pictures I took on that afternoon. Here are few of them.






The lake from one side... Fully frozen.





My companions on that day... Shaikat vi and Taslim vi.





My footprint. I removed the snow to see the transparent ice underneath.





Here I am. I don't know why I opened my mouth right at that moment :D





Taking Ur own picture is not so easy :P





Another one. Shaikat vi and Taslim vi are way ahead of me.





While coming back we saw some people playing ice hockey in a field.




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