Casino! This word generally conjures up images from Las Vegas. The glittering lights and world famous shows, not to mention the best gambling and gaming dens.
Gambling probably is as old as civilization itself. My Indian friends may remember the events that lead to the Kurukshetra War (as per Mahabharata).
I do believe that gambling and games are quite related. In fact any activity that has the tendency to have an uncertainty in their result is a potential candidate for gambling. These days we have people betting on results of any game …

A short photo quiz this time.
I saw them in a market in Kuala Lumpur & wondered what they were. On a closer look, I appreciated the idea.
Now, it’s your turn to tell me what you think these are. Comment section is where you can make your imagination or guesses. I might moderate the comments for this post.

Shoes ?
P.S.- Correct answer

What would you do if someone invited you to Columbia?
What? Columbia? Where is that?
Internet, long live.
Well, no one invited me yet, but I thought I should be prepared, if at all any one did.
Here is the summary of my findings.
Columbia is another name for the US of A…. and this is only the beginning. Though I guess you won’t find it in the maps, old or new. Its usage is more literary than political.
I ain’t (!) gonna get into a discussion why America is named after Amerigo …

Contd from here ….. A trip to Sikkim
Plan for next day was local sight seeing which was to start at around 10 since we were quite late to hit the bed on first night.
I took advantage of this extra time in the morning and ventured out to a nearby village with my camera.
Whether it was a school or a house, the morning chores took importance over anything else.
I met a young girl in her school uniform rushing towards her house after borrowing two eggs from neighbours. I saw a young …

If you are following me on Twitter, you’d have known that we had stopped at a small place called Sevok in West Bengal to satiate our hungry stomachs.
There, a little far from our table, we saw a group of locals playing this game. The group was making some sounds which made us curious. Language barrier and lack of time played against us in understanding the game.
Later when I came back, I searched on the net but could not find any information. I have already written here whatever I could gather …

It is a traditional game of Sikkim, called SHOH and is very popular among worker class.
This dice game Shoh is played using two dice which are shaken in a wooden bowl which is then upturned on a circular leather ‘plate’ with a loud thump and a shout. The score is kept using small cowries (comes from a Hindi word “कौड़ी” or “कौरी”).

.Men playing traditional game called Shoh.
One can also play

What do you do when your train halts in the middle of nowhere ?
I see stories and click pictures or vice versa.
On the way to Aurangabad my train had halted a few times in the middle of the fields. Perhaps somebody had pulled chain, a usual practice in India to get down if your village or town is far from regular railway station. A very bad practice, I hate it but no one can really do much about it. These people do get penalized sometimes but mostly they run into …