#ThingsILoveAboutKolkata

You know how they say that it is because of Twitter that the number of blog posts have gone down.

Well, today is the day blogs pull back one of their own. For here is a post inspired by a Twitter trend.

Sometime earlier today, self-confessed Calcutta lover @thesatbir started the hashtag #ThingsILoveAboutKolkata innocently enough. "Please contribute," his tweet read.

What followed was bizzare. The topic trended at number one in India for most of the afternoon and it is almost seven hours later that the hashtag is still trending at the number 3 spot as I type this.

There was no way I could've put together *ALL* the things people said, but here are some of my favourites:

• #ThingsILoveAboutKolkata That I cannot fit in 140 characters (@diptakirti)
• Balwant Singh Dhaba ka chai, doodh cola and old Sardarji at the counter (@anushreekejriwa)
• Usha Uthup (@vijaypandey)
• Flury's
• 'Bhar' (earthen pots)
• Satyajit Ray
• Saurav Ganguly (Dada)
• Yellow Ambassadors as taxis
• White sarees with red borders
• Tarka dal at Azad Hind Dhaba (@kavibhansali)
• Maacher jhol
• 'Roshogulla'
• 'Sondesh'
• 'Mishti Doi'
• K C Das
• Ind vs. Aus 2001 test match Dravid and Laxman (@dev8th)
• The Bengali accent
• Calcutta paan

And here are some that I put forth myself:

• Fuchka
• Bob Biswas
• Jhaal Muri
• College girls in bright sarees on Saraswati Puja day
• Netaji's statue
• Eden Gardens
• @seemantinibose pointed out "In a packed bus "Dada ektu shore darate parchen na?" and the fight starts :)" which reminded me of my friend Rahul Chawra's (@srahula) debate histrionics when he said the following
• Conductor shouting at the driver, "AASHTE.... LADIES... KOLE BACCHA..!!"
• Coffee House-er shei adda ta
• A. C. Market
• 'Daak naam' aar 'Bhaalo naam'
• Mahisasurmardini on radio on Mahalaya mornings

It's what you believe in

It is not often that I lose sleep over an article that I read in a business magazine. I admit it used to happen a lot when I was in college, but not any more.

Which is why the last few days have been unusual.

I came across this on the Harvard Business Review blog the other day.

In 2009, when Tim Cook was asked by an analyst how Apple might change if he (Cook) were to permanently replace Steve Jobs (who had just taken a leave due to ill health), Cook's reply was little short of awe-inspiring.

"We believe we are on the face of the earth to make great products, and that's not changing."

"We believe in the simple not the complex... We believe in saying no to thousands of products, so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us."

Even if this were a doctored answer, what hit me the most was the conviction that Tim Cook's words seem to have.

As the article goes on to say, "It's not what you sell it's what you believe."