Waqt ne kiya ............

My play-list seems to be stuck on "Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam........" .

The latest version of Media Player Classic doesn't stop when it needs to and the song plays on and on and on....... endlessly, and it fills the air with a tender pain which slowly makes it too thick to breathe in.

The soulful rendition of this timeless melody by Geeta Dutt in 'Kaagaz ke Phool' figures high up in my list of all-time greatest sad-songs. (Many say the palpable despondency in her voice was because of the intense turmoil in her personal life at that time regarding the Guru Dutt-Waheeda Rahman affair.) There was a time when the first lines from the song used to be a standing joke amongst us, selectively employed to tease the living daylights out of the Devdas-types at school. Then it seemed almost funereal, a song which by its very tenor of abominable melancholy attracted our collective distaste and scorn. Later, with life and its little lessons in 'disappointment' (not of the Devdas genre though) those very lines have acquired a completely different meaning , its lyrics a profound resonance with the very feelings of love, truth and pain, all enmeshed together to melt into a heady concoction of unstated grief. Some may find the plangency in the song belonging to defeat and distress but let it play for a few times in solitude and the spirit of human helplessness will quietly seep into you and make you drink the bitter sorrow with a ironic smile of grudging acknowledgment. Then there is the breath-taking climax of a nascent love throttled and the mournful acceptance of it.

Amidst all the gloom and heartrending pathos there is this lesson- The lesson of Acceptance which is feeble yet redeeming - a sagacious resignation before one's own fate.

"Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam
Tum rahe na tum ham rahe na ham
Waqt ne kiya…

Beqaraar dil is tarha mile
jis tarha kabhi ham juda na the
Tum bhi kho gaye, ham bhi kho gaye
Ek raah par chalke do qadam
Waqt ne kiya…

Jaayenge kaha sujhta nahi
chal pade magar raasta nahi
Kya talaash hai kuchh pata nahi
Bun rahe hain dil khaab dam-ba-dam
Waqt ne kiya…"

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Of Blocks and Bloggers

As 'blogger's block' afflicts most of our brethren I suspect that it has recently found a victim in me too.

With lots in mind to give vent to and loss of choice words when in front of the white-screen, the symptoms are just too telling to miss. But, as I would advice any friend of mine to "go scribble!" in the vein of popular soft-drink ads when in such a situation this is my lame attempt to do just that. Scribble.

Its very surprising that how once you start to write, even if you are short of ideas, short on plot-material or feeling too lazy to develop on the dream-sequence that you had while dozing off in the theater last time it all just seems to fall in place after scribbling a few erratic paragraphs. Yes, the body of your work at the end of such an exercise might not appeal to your tastes when after many years you decide to read your own posts to recreate 'the same feelings' but it will keep your blog on a steady drip and that's something. Moreover 'blogs' are so-not-places for content-specific cataloging. They are meant to be this mad child born of your thoughts, momentary and meditative alike. Sigh that I can't pull myself into ranting on the virtual-space. And I stand to lose in the bargain. Entirely. Two fully functional blogs at my disposal and not a single rant-post till date. I feel terrible! Or should I ?

But then, the thoughtful side of me calls for restraint. Why sulk and shout on a web-page when you can keep all that to yourself. Yes, its therapeutic, I know, but what if it turns out to be counter-productive. The occasional footloose surfer might just lose his appetite reading your blog and "it's my space!" logic sounds too very arrogant an explanation. 

Not everything is "fine and dandy" anywhere. Every one at the end of the day has a 'blog personality'. Right ? Knowingly or unknowingly we reach out to people through what we post So why draw 'the scziphophrenic' in loud colours for them. It becomes a tad too confusing. You always have 'poetic devices' to express yourself. Even if none of it is for real and just for the effect'. Keeps both ends intact that way.

Meanwhile, I have just completed posting a perfectly worthless blog-post and scribbled my way to inglory. And I feel I have written enough rubbish for a day.

Cheers to that!

He Leaves in Style

and proves his point.
And there's this void too large to fill.

Dada will always be missed.
Cricket for me won't ever be the same.
My tributes to the man here.[link]



photo: googleimages

In Search Of Better Things

If you think you are tired reading truckloads of articles on such trivial occurrences as the U.S Presidential Elections I have just the 'Newzzzzzzzzz' for you. [click here]

Museless

How long should you, the poet, wait
before you know its all in vain
to wait for some worthy subject
to whisper life into your pen.


Or is it wise to please the mob
with hackneyed verses, cliched lines
and go about doing your job
making lifeless words to rhyme.


Let the seething silence seep
Fling open the windows wide
Drawing from the frozen deep
Let the thaw of itself write.





photo: gettyimages.com

Things people do ...........

With the vague intention of keeping my other blog insulated from all things considered frivolous I post this here :


A pretty girl waits for a bus at the depot. After waiting for some relevant announcement regarding the allotment of the bus (which does not happen) she approaches the depot-office and not unexpectedly draws a blank. Meanwhile a young chap eyeing the beauty for a while now approaches her and inquires about the bus. She, with all the politeness of a stilettoed waitress, says she is as clueless as the rest of the people. In a few minutes the loudspeaker announces the bus which is to be boarded. The girl moves a few paces towards the allotted bus when compelled by some curious quirk she decides to turn back, arc her shoulder most nonchalantly to beckon 'that young chap' with a gesture that would rob the saccharine of all sweetness. The average onlooker should have been forgiven for suspecting some prior porichoy amongst the two at this juncture. I suspect even the unsuspecting chappy for a moment decided to believe in the existence of such an invisible link and indulge in some harmless 'suspension of disbelief'. A careful cricket commentator who knows how the cookie crumbles in such situations might have said, " It looks a promising start......... but then upsets are never too far away at times like these." He just walked in a trance towards the bus. But, good Mobil and torn upholstery in state-run buses are useful ingredients to shake one out of any trance and under their heady influence he took a seat diagonal to the pretty lady in question. As soon as the bus started moving the very possibility of some fat, middle-aged bugger getting his 'lucky ride' this afternoon made the chappy act quickly. With startling alacrity he lunged onto the seat besides the girl. The girl already having engaged herself in the now national obsession of listening-to-FM-on-mobile-phone-while-travelling seemed a little surprised at first, later easing herself to the reassuring fact about 'lamps and flies'.


4 stoppages later the Gods cried "Action!" and action there was.

The smart chappy in an attempt to launch a charm-offensive of sorts decided to buy Ma'am a ticket ( not even waiting to ask where she would get off) while Ma'am was busy switching FM stations. Unaware of such an abrupt benevolence coming from unexpected quarters, when she herself wanted to buy a ticket she threw a fit. With a sudden deluge of Hindi and English which bordered on the fact that "Strangers don't buy strangers bus-tickets" the chappy woke up to the realisation that he didn't follow any of what was being said. With all sheepishness of a sheep in disguise of a man he only pleaded with his eyes and his outstretched hand ( that had the 10 rupee offered to him) that pretty-girl would take this as a gesture of good-will. But the weak-willed can never hope to garner any good-will. He had to relent in the face of relentless appeals by Miss Pretty-face.



All paona-gonda settled, the two looked at ease with the world, unaware of the curious onlookers travelling with them while I was having a hearty laugh (albeit muffled) at the fate of the failed advance.

Things people do to woo .

Shuvo Bijoya

......... everybody!!!!

It is Ekadoshi today. As I write this bijoya post, beats of dhak and tunes from banjos rend the air. They mean that the 5 days of festivities and fervid merrymaking are over for the year. They mean that the Goddess will now leave for Kailash and won't be back before another long wait. They mean that it is now time for bhashaan and mishtimukh and kolakauli.


The pandals which grappled with jostling mobs till a few hours back now look decrepit relics of themselves. Slowly as the banners are pulled down and the decorators' people climb up to dismantle laboriously put together structures people will go back to their 'normal' lives and face the mundane, but, with a renewed zeal. That is what festivals are essentially meant for - Taking a break for making fresh attempts.


I would rather not rant about ( or describe in vivid details) my travels/travails of the last few days. In short, Nobomi and Doshomi were very hectic affairs, the result being that I can now proudly say that I hardly missed a notable pujo this year. Give or take, hopped around a hundred or more pandals, spent a fortune ( by my fortune's standard in the first place i.e) in the last 5 days, a sizeable amount of that on my pet-hate - soft-drinks.


My Ekadoshi was going all well with a Kwality lunch followed by Tutti-Frutis and Banana Spilts till I was forcibly dragged to the evening show of the film - 'Hello'. Except for a few corny lines here and there we couldn't spot anything which was even remotely laughable. Adapted from 'One Night @ Call Center' by Chetan Bhagat it had one of the weakest cast one can dream of. Add to it Atul Agnihotri's fixation with casting Salman Khan and family, howsoever unwarranted it may seem, and you get the picture of how the picture may actually look like - a terrible dud. I could have launched into a review but the lingering festive spirit forbade me from doing such a thing. So, shuvo bijoya Atul Agnihotri.


Shuvo Bijoya, you all.

The Oshtomi Post

Oshtomi brings a certain feel of religiosity to many and I am no exception in this regard. I remember how pushpanjali made for my quota of annual prayers for easy question papers ( and good marks). But now its only the "sobaike bhalo rakho" routine that the elderly follow. One's perspective widens with age, perhaps.


This Oshtomi morning was the usual panjabi-pajama routine in the parar pandal. For the last 7-8 years it has been the only day when I go there for the maiden dorshon of the Debi and that's it. No more ties before or after with the parar pujo. I feel too guilty at times, thinking of those good old days of childhood when the para pujo meant the world and I would not budge an inch from it. The lines, " chhera dhuti apnar dher beshi daam tar

bhikkey kora shartin-er cheye"

rings loud inside my mind sometimes when I weigh if its only the grandeur of the mega-pujos which keeps me hopping from one end of Kolkata to another or is it the simple fact that I hardly have any somoboyeshi bondhu (same age-group friends) in the para. The only ones I have, I only meet rarely on my way, going in or coming out of the para and that isn't much to hold me back during pujo.


Anyways, luchi-torkaari is another ritual at home on Oshtomi mornings and as soon as it was done away with I was off. Off with friends to cover the Central parts of Kolkata, the traditionally big-crowd pullers and by Heavens didn't we get to see some crowd! The entire Ganesh Chandra Avenue was swarming with people. Subodh Mullick Square looked more like Brigade Parade Ground on rally-day and once we joined the serpentine queue that seemed to go on forever we felt like microscopic cogs in the giant wheel of human enthusiasm that was so visibly ubiquitous. We joked that when pandal hopping in Central Kolkata all you have to do is join a queue and the queue guides you,there's hardly any effort required from your end.


First stop was Md. Ali Park. They have over the past years attempted the unconventional and come out with the outrageous but this time the theme was clear at least. It was a medley - a mixture of pollution awareness and deforestation that seemed inspired from the Pachauri Nobel initiative. But, the double chinned Shiv overlooking the Goddess was a hilarious hit. We could instantly draw parallels from our circle of knowns. Also the sundered head looked more like Barack Obama's for some inexplicable reason. Some political overtures there.


Next was College Square which figures on every ardent pandal hopper's list due to the sheer visual spectacle it offers after nightfall. Between our slow progress within the sea of humanity I noticed that the tuni-bulb lighting had made way for the power efficient LEDs. Inside, the dazzling sight of the mammoth Jhaarlonthon was breathtaking. Ekdalia Evergreen can't hold a lamp to such an imposing collection of....ummm......lamps. One could just sprain one's neck looking up and getting lost in its splendour.


Santosh Mitra Square was next on the list. It was a 20 minutes walk away which ultimately took more than half an hour because of people getting lost midway. Couple of old friends joined in on our crusade there. The 'Nata Mano' theme based on the Singur fiasco had attracted people by hundreds of thousands and we were now one of them. A locked-out factory does not make for a pleasant sight in times of festivity but reality finds favor with many and no one's complaining. After all its just a theme. The awareness part is just an appendage, a sure-shot crowd-puller.

What followed afterwards was a harrowing walk through the very characteristic narrow lanes of Central Kolkata to the Chandni Chowk Metro Station which took us 20 more minutes. Then there was this Big Debate. The topic 'To be or not be in Maddox Square'. I was very much against it but public opinion ( which started as a whimper and ended as a roar) sealed it for Maddox. My point was, " Why Maddox?" They said, " What else ?". How was I to reply to that without breaking into a discourse which would end up as futile as the Singur initiative, and I for one did not want to end up looking like a statesman Governor with no takers or backers. So we were now at Maddox Square ( yes, again!). The melting pot of pandemonium is always at its manic best on the Oshtomi evening and today was no exception. Newspapers, which are rarely ( if ever) given a first look were being bought from vendors at 2 rupees per double-page (i.e the 1.5 rupee Hindustan Times I did not find time to read in the morning was being sold back to me for 14 rupees in the evening) so that people could spread it out on the ground and sit on them. Silver sand looks bad on branded clothes, I guess. And hence the little precaution.

Anyway, the 8 of us managed to get hold of a good spot and took possession hurriedly. Life would be tolerable with some promise of adda emanating, I thought. Two hours later, when it was time to leave we found to our disappointment every semblance of an eatery struggling to keep order in the wake of imminent riots. We managed to push into a dhaba and got ourselves a reasonable dinner considering the situation. With full stomachs and aching legs we headed home, only to meet tomorrow. To celebrate the beginning of the end of the pujo.


Nobomi can be painful.
Thinking of all those lights, banners and barricades evaporating in just two more days.
All the multitudes of people suddenly vanishing into their secret burrows not to surface for another year.
It can be very painful.
Rather, it is.


I guess one has to be in Kolkata to feel that.
One has to be a Bangali.

The Shoptomi Post

Shoptomi was already half over when I crept out of bed. I was supposed to meet friends at Tollygunj Metro at 4:30 and I was already running late. To top it I also had to prepare 50 Quiz questions which quiz master-Harry would try his neighbors with the next day. It was not before 5:30 that I reached Tolly and saw our usual thek occupied. Though the numbers were mere microscopic as compared to any other day still the chaa-er nesha sorbonasha had attracted quite a handful. My plan to go pandal hopping in Central Kolkata was promptly pulled down almost unanimously. No one wants to end up at the wrong end of a stampede, I guess.


As an alternative Khiddirpore was given serious consideration before it was decided to first visit Maddox - that abiding emblem of the enterprising youth, that annual edifice of 'continual search', that vibrant epicenter of bizarre bedlams. Maddox Square holds a special place in each and every body's memory who has ever lived in Kolkata during the Pujo. In all the 7 years that I have religiously visited this ''shrine of tempting illusions" I have noticed many consistent traits that identify the place. The culture-cauldron where mere 'birdwatching' meets Martian dress-sense, long lost loves find new found likings, old foes meet and hug like friends - it defines in essence what pujo with all its attendant revelries really mean to the Bangaali youth. I have also noticed the gradual change in the crowd composition which with every year becomes more telling. The necklines plunge and the hemlines rise, the outre amaze and the bold inspire awe(and sighs). No wonder the boys are left all excited and edgy, especially the singles who like captive Gauls looking at an elaborate banquet can only drool and curse their luck but never taste the 'boar'. The intellectual adda that once defined Maddox Square has long gone fishing for better suitors and quieter provinces and sadly, it hasn't reported back till date. Instead banners and hoardings advertising mustard oil and vodka crowd the place while the attention-starved Goddess stares in mock surprise (from her centrally 'cornered' scaffold) at her altar, the entry to which has slowly been reduced to an initiation rite into adulthood for the urban youth.

For me it was mostly meeting old friends who always seem to get pulled out of hats on a regular basis when I am at Maddox Square. School, college, tuition. Sometimes, I might find it embarrassing that even after an hour of conversation which merely struggles past the beats of the dhak by a millionth of a decibel you cannot put a name to the face. Now that many of our classmates/batchmates have flown out in search of greener pastures Maddox holds little if any charms for us.


Coming back to Shoptomi, half an hour inside Maddox and a few familiar faces afterwards it was time for a snack. When 10 people ask for kochuri followed by kaalakand and paatisaptaa you don't expect the unexpected. But before we were through the moiraa and all his assistants looked more than hassled. That is what we do to eateries and sweet-shops.We get under their skins.




We then got into two taxis and headed for Khiddirpore. 25 Pally and 74 Pally are the traditional crowd-pullers over there. Guest Passes made for an easy passage into the former. We weren't so lucky on the other front. I reckon 74 Pally has never seen such a long drawn queue in years and we were half tempted to join in but, at the very last moment decided against it. The Soshti pangs were still fresh with us and any excess stress tonight would mean missing Oshtomi Anjali the next morning which no one wanted. The group then got divided into two before dinner. Most opted for Biriyani ( Khidirpore being the heartland of that delicacy) while the three of us went for South Indian fare - Dosa and Uthapams. Amidst vague frameworks for the Oshtomi night-out surfacing among us we boarded taxis and headed home.

Today again promises to be a hectic affair. I have cajoled, hoodwinked, threatened people to go Central-wards tonight. How can pandal hopping be complete without visiting Md. Ali Park and College Square? Also, I have a curious premonition that I might have to give the Behala pujos a miss this year. What a shame!

Why can't the pujos stay for a few days more ?

Damn!

The Soshti Mega-post!

I sit to write this post in a state of terminal grogginess, just out of bed after one of the most pleasantly harrowing Pujo days ever.

I have had only 5 hours of sleep ( enough by my standards but yesterday was a different story altogether) after returning home at 6:30 in the morning.


I left home for Haridevpur at around 10:45 in the morning on what is now the expended Soshti. With only 'The Local Two' amongst 'The Chosen Few' for company we went into the pandals at 41 Pally, Ajeyo Songhoti, Palli Unnayan Samiti, Paschim Putiari and Putiari Club. Ajeyo Songhoti's theme seemed to me a cross between Kedar-Badri shrines and environment conservation. Pally Unnayan Samiti had polished bamboo and Putiari Club a tribal setting for backdrops. But, amongst them we agreed on 41 Pally offering the best value-for-time-wasted-standing-in-a-line. In simple words, "it's worth the toil". With branches of trees and roots chiseled to emulate different animal and human forms it also has rows and rows of babui pakhir basha hanging overhead to give that look of authenticity. And yes, we did give a moment of thought for all the unwilling displaced babuis. I was already running a good half an hour late in meeting my college friends at Rash Behari and I already felt a tad tired, taking some time off to ponder over our respective bottles of Sprite and Slice how "ab in boodi haddiyon mein woh baat nahi rahi....".


12:20 and I was in front of Mudiali Sarbojonin, this time again with a group afflicted with forced evictions owing to joining jobs in far-off lands. Still, 10 makes for quite a respectable number. Shiv Mandir was followed by a taxi ride to EDF. Then to Jodhpur Park ( which isn't doing any wonders the last 3 years), Selimpur and Babubagan. Babubagan has resurrected itself this year after a flop show the last year when an aquarium which needed nothing less than the great Douglas Adam's imagination to be appreciated was put on show. This time they have quite a LED-lit night sky with a praying Oshur waiting to be slayed by the Goddess in her flying saucer. Add to it the man-made darkness and stumbling Dadu-Didas and you get the picture.


A taxi-ride later we were in the throes of battle with a surging sea of humanity at Gariahat. First Ekdalia Evergreen, then Singhi Park. Ekdalia elicited such prompt comparisons with the interiors of Senco Jewellers ( or for that matter any jewellery shop) owing to their cut-glass interiors that I gazed up at its Jhaarlonthon for that extra minute, weighing the merit of such a parallel. Singhi Park has shed a lot of flab and its looking a size-zero emaciated specter of itself. The pandal space has been all reduced and the scaffold truncated.


Lunch was at Mirch Masala for the 7 of us ( that was all that was left of the group).
We had JUDE-an company at the table next to us. I guess it was more or less the better portion of the entire gang, and yes, I couldn't stifle a chuckle at their 'We Want Food!' table-banging - took our minds off the over-priced Mutton Pulao and Chicken Hariyali for a while.


With full stomachs and contented smiles we made our way to Somu's place. An hour of rest and a glass of jal-jeera afterwards I was ready to roll again( very much figuratively after a heavy lunch). Yes, 'I' alone, because the others were too exhausted after the afternoon's spoils and understandably so. It hadn't been a mean walk all this while.
But, I had "miles to go before I sleep" and almost prophetically, later, as the night wore out, I found to my throbbing feet and utter dismay that the 'miles' had had their say.

With only two people for company we did what is the proverbial jhotika safar (hurricane survey) of Maddox Square which yielded few known faces and fewer that could merit a 'stay order'.

If anyone thinks this is the end of it, my advise would be to wind up and close the tab, for the story has only just began.


Everyone from the afternoon pandal hopping group were now too busy or exhausted for anything but home. And here I was, taking a metro from Hazra to Tollygunj to meet my school friends( two of whom had already had a power-nap after the morning trip (remember???) for the task ahead of them). 9 people turned out and it marked one of the many exceptions in the last 7 years of our Soshtir Thakur dekha ritual.

One, it was the thinnest attendance we had ever had. The number had never breached the 15-man floor.

Two, it didn't look like we were interested in having dinner at Hatari - another tradition broken for the first time in 7 years.

Three, we were not going pandal hopping in South Calcutta at all.
An impromptu decision ( which had all my backing) was taken to take the North by storm and
"so it shall be done" was announced. The tried and tested Soshti-route: EDF-Jodhpur Park- Selimpur- Babubagan-Ekdalia-Singhi Park- dinner at Hatari- Ballygunj Cultural-Deshopriyo Park- Maddox Square-Badamtala-66 Pally- Mudiali-Shiv Mandir was dropped for a completely novel "Northward ho!" plan. No wonder, the fastidious conformists ( bordering on the OCD sometimes) protested such a deviation from custom. The mavericks cried "change!" and 'Change it was'.


Our first stop was Shovabazar. Being classmates with the Rajputtur of Kolkata's premier bonedi-baari helps when you are out to take into confidence warring factions of a trying tribe. I explained to them how the nature of customs in the Narayan Deb household are different from the ones in the Krishna Deb's ( my Prince friend being away keeping his date with his employers). Clearly, the majority were now won over because only one returned home and the rest decided to follow 'the plan' instead.


Ahiritola, Beniatola were ticked off quickly. Kumartuli Park was a neat spectacle. The Devi took centerstage with her wards gracing the four corners of a centrally mounted platform. Hunger pangs made us skip Hatibagan Sarbojonin and Nalin Sarkar Street and we had our dinner at some nondescript Chinese Restaurant at Ultodanga. Retracing our steps post-dinner, which was both pandal hopping and letting the gravy settle on stomach floor, we got as far as Telengabagan and Jubokbrinda. Both were quite good. Lines did not extend endlessly, people were chatty and the policemen were helpful. We South Kolkatans found North hospitality too good to be true. Wherever we had to wait in a queue the recurring theme of the ten headed Raabon ( Ravana) came up. Every alternate pujo seemed to be celebrating the demon scholar, the first patron of our Sharodiya Pujo.


On our way we skipped Gouribari, Sangrami and a couple more.
We took two autos ( there were 7 of us now) to Sreebhumi Sporting. I never understand why these pujo committees waste 10 thousand odd bamboos in making useless barricades which only pile on misery on enthusiasts like us. We had to walk half a kilometer before we decided it was useless to be law-abiding and find the rightful tail to the queue where there was no queue at all. So, we just jumped and slithered through the barricades into Sreebhumi heartland. There is this unique custom at Sreebhumi where they rope off sections of the crowd at equal intervals in the name of crowd control. I believe its just another way of engineering a 'record footfall' and nothing else. Anyways, their theme was the familiar 'sorbo dhormo somonnoy' ( religious confluence) with a funny change of lights which showed the pandal in violet, red and blue. Mindboggling!


We took autos to Dum Dum Park. The Bharatchakra theme was novel. The whole oshur-bodh episode was laid out in the form of a mime. All the idols looked fresh out of the Jogesh Chandra Mime Academy and they were good with large expressive eyes and beatific smiles. In comparison the Dum Dum Park Sarbojonin did so-so.


Hop-over to Lake Town now and we were near the Netaji Sporting Sarbojonin on my sole insistence. They didn't disappoint either. Durga on a high perch temple of straws might not attract prizes ( unlike previous years) but it doesn't labour under false pretensions like others.


We were again back to Sreebhumi from where we headed Southward again, making a point not to miss the Bosepukur biggies. I estimated all along we had collectively consumed soft drinks worth 300 rupees. The mental calorie count just didn't take off after that. A choked voice was in the offing, I gauged.



The walk from Rash Behari more to Badamtala Ashar Sangha aggravated the till-now suppressed ghosts of exhaustion and fatigue. Few could swear they felt blisters bobbing out of their soles "Live!". Shoulders were now drooping and feet going astray. 66 Pally had to be followed with Mudiali, that was the deal. And such is our commitment to our South and such is our disregard for pain that we indeed made our way to Mudiali. The occasional face betrayed surprise at the sight of a bunch of zombies jaywalking their way into narrow alleys.

Finally another taxi ride later we were all home and it was 6:00 in the morning.
"There goes another Saptami morning", I thought.

I only remember having a cold bath and going to bed.
Then %@#*&#@ woke me up to take directions of all prominent Behala pujos and I gave him a quite a list.
It was 12 noon when I woke up today and already 3 phone calls demand my presence at 3 different places at 3 different times in the day/night.

How will I ever manage ?


Md. Ali Park, here I come.

Behala, New Alipore and Khidirpore, I will leave for tomorrow.

Happy Soptomi everyone!

If the sight of 26 people gorging on Indian and Chinese dishes with manic delight at Bawarchi last Thursday noon wasn't intimidating enough Bar-B-Q got a taste of how it is like when 13 of 'us' congregate for a feast. It was only half the number but, the damage was close to the double.

From Chicken Malai Kebabs and Fish Peshawari to Mutton Korma and Rogan Josh, we ran through the entire menu with the ease of practiced assassins. And the victim at the receiving end of such a gastronomic blitzkrieg could only salvage a meek smile that often is a sign of acceptance of higher powers and savage appetites. If we thought dessert would bring him some cheer, well, it failed. Not because the ice-creams didn't melt in our mouths but it put him back by another 400 rupees, taking the count past the 6000 rupees mark- A formidable record and a menacing precedent.


All said and done, last afternoon we have set a milestone which has triggered Pujo for us all and on the other hand established itself as the benchmark we would all aspire to reach and be happy to fail.

Today is Soshti, from when the Pujo gets into second gear and one starts wondering what a field day burglars could have considering the entire population comes out on the streets.

As has been the norm with me, Soshti is the most hectic of all pujo-days. Two shifts with two different group of friends spanning the entire day (and night), covering almost all of South Kolkata and about 6-7 kilometers on foot.
No wonder I don't remember Saptami mornings.


Here's hoping 'Clear Bright Skies' for the coming four days.


Happy Pujas.
Sobaar pujo bhaalo kaatuk.

Gotto rush now...........

"Ashwiner majha -majhi uthilo bajna baaji

Pujor somoy elo kachhey

Modhu-Bidhu dui bhaai chhota chhuti kore taai

Anondey du haath tuli naachey"

These lines from the poem 'Pujor Saaj' by Tagore comes to my mind every year at the time when the air starts to smell sweet, the kash phools sway to the morning breeze with gleeful submission and the clouds float high up in the sky, arranging themselves into myriad formations that feed imagination and inspire contentment. I think the Shoroter Akash with all its magical clarity makes me 'contented' more than anything. There is something in that 'vivid blue', I guess.

Today is Ponchomi and Thank Goddess (why should boys have all the fun? :D) that the Sun is out this morning. Till last night Maddox Square looked a soggy apology of itself but now things are looking up.

I have been busy organizing our Mega-treat and now that it has been done with, from today onwards I look forward to the impending role-reversal.
The prey shall now be the predator.

So, be afraid. Be very afraid.

Park Street, here we come!

Watched 'The Apartment' a few minutes back.

One of the finest feel-good movies made according to me.

And doesn't Shirley Maclaine look cute in it!


Trivia : 'Life in a Metro' was a tolerable lift-off from this film

How does it feel ..... ????

How does it feel to be a part of a 'Happy Birthday'- party in the middle of the road ?

How does it feel to be cutting a cake in the full knowledge that within a minute the cream-smeared you will be embarrassed to death on the way back home ?

How does it feel to smile and distribute pieces of cake to complete strangers whose names you will never know ?

How does it feel to have a photo session spanning 20 minutes, having 15 grown-up boys and girls covering every awkward pose that was ever conceived to the bemusement of clueless onlookers?

How does it feel to be the 'cause de la célébration' of cultured insanity for an evening just because you happened to be born on this day 22 years back ?


WONDERFUL!!!!!

Absolutely Wonderful!!!!


Only that I would have had much more to add to the protagonist's woes had it not been my own birthday today.

Drat!
Double drat!

Finally!

I have a follower.

And no treat/money/points/pastries for guessing who he is.

As it is, I owe a grand treat to him.

And much much more.


Your treat awaits you.

Fly back FAST! :)

Attention Earthlings !!!!!!

I wonder why my other blog never gets enough attention.
Even from me.

It has been subjected to such utter neglect that I, like that vicious step-mother in Bindu, did not even wish my blog a 'Happy Budday' on the 15th of this August. And it had just turned a fumbling one - that precarious stage in a blog's life when it is unsure if it will see the next summer of clicks and comments or join thousands that augment the cyber-mortality ratio every year. That tender age when it needs all the care and nurturing that the world in general and its single father/mother in particular can provide. ( Note the 'it' which puts the gender of the blog under the 'neuter' category- Another outrage of modesty borne out of confusion and callousness)


What are it's faults, I ask you ? What terrible torture does it inflict on it's readers ( or does it have any I ask ) ? How can one ever hope to improve upon its import? Does it at all have a future ?


Will posting scathing reviews of otherwise popular films help ? Or do I need to embed videos of rural lasses breaking into a jig in all their florid glory? Or do I write something so repulsively communal that my blog is renamed 'The Involved Shiv Sainik' or 'The Enraged Sangh Sevak' ?


Is the writing too tepid ? Or the views too balanced ? Or is it that a little suggestion of the carnal is so flagrantly bypassed every time, almost justifying the 'neuter' gender issue raised above ?


I think I should just quietly put my contacts to use and ask one of my friends studying MBA to do a market feasibility report on my blog ? If it will see another summer without the above 'extras' or silently perish ? If I have 'it' in me to fashion a complete makeover for it and 'jazz' it up ( whatever that means) a little ?


Or blast a galactic highway through all the above suppositions and nervous speculations, and quote Ogden Nash again( for reference read the last to last to last post).


I think I will do that. ( Suggestions are more than welcome though)


Yours truly,
The Unemployed Indian.

Wall E-derful !!!!!!

A tale about how a trash-arranging robot finds love and changes how humans look at themselves and Earth, Wall-E is a film surely to be loved by all.

The wide-eyed robot and EVE join hands to bring Life back into the toxic wasteland that is Earth and give us a joyride inside the Axiom starship with all their friends and foes.  

A detailed review would be a dampner to people who have still not seen the film.

It has all the ingridients to light up your day. Go watch it!

Me ? Superstitious ? What an idea !!!!!!

I am not known to be a superstitious person. Yet, for all these years I have had my own set of rituals. Ones which were not overtly visible at all and were meticulously guarded in their execution. I never resorted to them in 'times of peace' as opposed to 'times of war' as we called our examinations during school. Those two dreaded weeks in the year when there was hardly any 'light and happiness' around you. Wherever you looked there were bespectacled boys and girls cramming their last minute notes, revising the revision-worn revisables for the umpteenth time. On the other end were 'Us' - a bunch which swung between amused ridiculing of the 'Others' and feeling the pangs of tension ourselves. Whenever glancing at the sea-like syllabi, taking stock of the situation and resolving to give our 'reasonable best' a fear of retribution at having mocked all the studious people seemed to hang over us ominously . And deep down in our guts ( I say 'our' because I am sure the others felt the same way) there sometimes arose this sinking feeling when D-Day dawned and hence the refuge in rituals. This selective fidelity perhaps makes me inadmissible to the hallowed club of 'Devotedly Superstitious People', the ones who did it all year round. But, then we have our arguments too. We were never the ones who studied anytime but just before the exams were thumping at our noses and knocking at our doors. So, we, of all people had the right to be superstitious unlike the ones who put in their hard-work on a daily basis. They were destined to succeed. We only had hope to do so.

Enough of arguing my case.


My 'acts of faith' during exams ranged from waking up at the same time as the first exam, pouring a generous dab of oil on my hair, bathing with exactly the same number of mugs of water ( and yes, never hot water. Not even in chilly December), combing exactly in the same manner as yesterday, tying the shoe-laces in a pre-fixed order and taking the same seat in the bus/auto-rickshaw that took us to our school. Nothing fancy. But as the years rolled on I suspected I was developing some kind of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I quite liked the name of the ailment then and I have renewed my fascination for OCD since I watched Jack Nicholson in 'As Good As It Gets' but, at times I felt 'it was time to change'.

"What with this silly fixation with rituals? I am getting hooked!"

So, I began to test the efficacy of my 'little acts' by being random from the next exams that I took. I didn't do too well. But then, who does in +2 Science ?

Slowly I desisted from my set of superstitions one by one and finally I was 'cured'. ( I know I sound like those dubbed dum-dums in Asian Sky Shop commercials). Now I hardly have a pattern to my activities. Any of them. I am the first one to cross the road after a cat has crossed it as perplexed onlookers, themselves reluctant to cross the road, gaze at my arrogance.

Why this long winding post on personal superstitions then? All the talk about rituals ?

I have this habit of never leaving a book unread for a long stretch of time once I start reading it or leaving a film midway. I have done just that, unintentionally though, in the past two days. ( I don't consider leaving 'A House for Mr. Biswas' after reading the first 200 odd pages an authentic 'exception' because it was, to put it very politely, a forgettable ordeal. An instrument of sheer torture by virtue of its literary stagnation) I left 'Judgment at Nuremberg' and 'Citizen Kane' midway and went off to sleep. Though I was dog-tired on both the occasions the old ghosts of OCD were troubling me a bit, to have left two films midway in their run in two days. I have never done that before. Hence the post. Hence the remembrances. This might just redeem me.



P.S - I know a boy who had all the makings of a perfect OCD specimen. Someday I intend to write an epic-post on his gamut of rituals and beliefs. But, I hear he is improving too.
He is superstitious about 'improvement'. :)

"Here's looking at you, kid."

It always feels good to read people's blogs, the nice personal ones, dripping with sense of belonging and attachment, adorably carefree, nonchalant to what the accidental onlooker might think of it and the person behind those thoughts. They just don't care. I especially like the ones which do not indulge in furnishing intimate details from their private lives nor lose their identity in the now highly popular recreation of 'bitching' but exude a debonair charm which I find mighty attractive.


I only wish I could do the same.


But, to open up to the world as if no opinion mattered is like dancing as if no one is watching. And I, for one, cannot dance. I have often had this argument with myself as to why or why not should a blog be personal, a window to the real 'you' unaware of the public perusal and unconcerned of the ensuing interpretations. Every time I have wanted to sit down and write about the world around me, not the world far away in Delhi or Washington where our futures are decided on the basis of might and Machiavellian polity but the one that is in immediate contact with me, I have felt both vacuous and reluctant. And that is why it feels great to read people who discover that iota of magic every now and then in their lives. Not that I envy them to the point that I may gleefully barter their life for mine. Not that I don't always like what I write. May be it's just the quintessential "what if......."- feeling thats lingers with me to see such posts every now and then.


But then, as I often quote these lines by Ogden Nash, who always had something very vital to impress upon his readers through his seemingly humorous and cavalier verses :


" I am just glad as glad can be
That I am not them, that they are not me. "

That is just me.
That is just me.

Requiem of a Dreamer

Should I come to life today?

Or wait for you to speak

In monosyllables of negligence

No. Not today.

I may as well play the dead

For some more time.

And then you shall pass

Not like the gale

Not the breeze

Only a fleeting thought

From a lonely night

When the candle tired

Of peeping into lives

Through the hollows in the wall

We call windows

Blew out cold.

Let it pass.

This feather of thought

And glide to some place

Where it finds a tomb

Then I shall rise

Enlightened

And Wise

To claim my piece of land.

I shall haunt your joint no more

Or kill to show I care

Or wallow in some forest deep

Greener by my tears.

I shall leave as silently

As I should have come then

“What the Eyes pledge

The Lips cheat” -

will read my requiem.

photo: gettyimages.com