The Big Comeback Isn't Happening

a. Because a job takes a lot out of you.

b. Because there is hardly anything worthwhile to post on considering I am living too far off from the newspaper or the television or "the happening crowd ".

c. Because people are not blogging much these days - that means less chance of reading some inspiring post and then to subject the world to the torture of some of my views on the same.

d. Because I hate to treat my blog as a Twitter or Facebook update column and leave behind one-liners reeking of moronic simplicity.

e.g - " Have a new mouth to feed in two months. My cat got pregnant again." or

" Isn't Sachin the greatest batsman ever? huh? huh? huh?"

All Farewells Aren't Fun

It confounds me every time I see people raise raucous cries while carrying a corpse to the crematorium. They don't softly weep or wail in their hour of bereavement which would be the natural thing to do but literally take the Lord's name in vain. The otherwise eerie monotony of the "bolo hori....horibol" assumes such uncouth a tenor amidst their frenzied clamoring that onlookers are both scandalised and disgusted. Such shameless is the show of revelry in some cases that the uninititated alien might well feel an urge to join the picnickers in their joy-ride. Some even go ahead and hire cymbal-clanging kirtaniyas to test the patience of the dead on their last journey. Some of these "processions" seem similar to the chaotic janazas in the West Bank where grieving men and women beat their chests in despair while others wield their Kalashnikovs vowing revenge. Only here the dead stands wronged by his own who allow this sort of dishonor.

I wonder if any self-respecting human being if given a choice would assent to such loud and ludicrous a farewell. Such a show only craves attention when it is least wanted and makes a mockery of death which in all its somberness demands respect not ridicule.

At last

It's raining and all's right with the world.

To Hair Loss

I could hear them cry out loud
But never could have cared less
How the mighty and the proud
Nurse in them such foolishness
But now I bask in better light
Whisper in some silent prayer
When fanning fires of fearful fright

The pillow wears my crop of hair.

I see them squandered on the floor
And everyone of them doth sting
At my core of heart and more
- The blackest fibers of my being.
A shining pate of errant yield
No oil, no herb can come to aid
The mysteries of the scalp that sealed
This early autumn of my head.

photo: gettyimages.com

This blog isn't actually a weather update portal but it pleases me to announce that Kolkata has been blessed with a wild Nor'wester few hours back, easily making it one of the most pleasant evenings of the year. The sky took a strange whiskey-like complexion , something very close to taalmichhrir sorbot and all of a sudden  it started to rain - the sort of welcome thunderstorm in the lap of summer that would inspire the sentimental Robindro onuraagi to run to the terrace and sing 

       " Bhenge mor ghorer chaabi 

           niye jabi ke amarey" 

with open arms.

And some people just can't stop bothering about how the Knight Riders are doing. How ridiculuous can it get, I wonder. They will ride to their own graves at the end of the table when the season is over. Not to worry.

You cannot write if you do not read.

- That explains why I am always out of ideas when trying to post.

The random lines that hovered inside the head and somehow managed to make sense every time on the screen have all disappeared. And to live without your thoughts is living in loneliness.
A terrible feeling that.

Why don't I ever see you now?
Has it been that long, that late
That you could be just walking by
And I would fight myself to get
The name I called you by back then.
I wonder if you had the time
To sit and talk to me again
If you would fret on life like all
Or just keep to being yourself,
Clutching at your strands of pride.


It feels unreal now to see
The calm that's conquered your eyes
And set them to some chore of life
I never thought would be.
I could now call out your name,
Wait to see if you would stop.
With time, who knows, you could be you;
And I, what I could have been
- A boy to have loved you more.
For just a while in time.

The Voting Season Is Here

You can't miss "election season" if you are in Kolkata right now. Even if you are the reluctant voter, the politically disinclined or the stoic observer - the bhote gets under your skin one way or the other. Add to it the fact that this time around you aren't queuing up just to decide who's going to keep your sewers from clogging or basements from flooding but the people who will invent more lowly ways to stall the proceedings of the Lower House of the Parliament for the coming 5 years and the exercise of adult suffrage starts seeming solemn, even intimidating to some extent.

Loka Sabha elections have a flavour of their own. People clueless and lost in the middle of the road know when they have stepped into a different constituency by simply following the change in graffiti on the walls during campaign season. And talking of walls - if your house is located any place offering reasonable visibility your walls are doomed. The advantages of this pentannual exercise is that you won't have to spend for their white-washing and you won't get confused between candidates on the day of voting ( i.e vote for any candidate except the one whose name defaced your walls. Many residents have already made that threat known and it has worked).

Another aspect of elections is what is commonly known as "gola-baaji" or slogan-baaji. Just a month to the election-day and leaders start raining from nowhere onto the make-shift podium at your paraa-more, howling inanities in the name of political speeches like they have been doing from time immemorial. And, what's more? There is no escape from their cacophonic propaganda. Even if you have an exam the next day or being just a unsuspecting passerby, chances are you will be sucked into the jostling crowd, elbowed till your ribs are sore and fed to your ears the efficacy of an "inclusive agenda". If you have not taken sides even after this you can expect people coming to your house at all odd hours to make sure their voter-list is in perfect order and then proceed to promise the moon to you albeit in small packets. At the end of the day you will feel pity for all these poor souls braving the heat and humidity to paint walls and plant flags for some person/party who won't even care to shake their hands if they win. Just a "bijoy michhil" (victory march) will be their fill of festivities and that will be all.

I will go cast my maiden vote to honour these tireless individuals even if they lionize perfect hoodlums with their sheer toil and sweat this election season. Only that I might not agree with their party's candidature and choose to vote for someone else won't be a rankling issue, I am sure. After all it is not for nothing that the "Voter is King" in a democracy.

Who Moved My SCRAPS !!???!!??? :X

MISSING!!!!!

7000 scraps from my Orkut scrapbook!!!!

Only the other day it read 27,800 something and now its languishing at a measly 20,348 and I don't even know who is to be blamed for the dastardly act.

There was a time, not very long ago, that I used to pride my colossal scrap-count ( Ya, that sounds "childish" but that was a secret fetish of sorts around that time). It used to fill me up with immense joy to see, sometime around mid-2006 I think (early days on orkut, those), my scrap-count booming by 1000, sometimes 2000 every day. I remember having "orkut friends" then - people I never met in real life and perhaps never will. Then one fine morning I felt strange that I had befriended aliens in an anonymous medium and hacked them off my friend list. After half an hour a 530 strong friend-list was reduced to 250 - each one whom I knew in person. I felt curiously relieved after I did that. The reason behind that relief is still a mystery to me for I am not particularly known to be a rabid misanthrope in my circles. After this incident scrapping dwindled and day-long presence on orkut came to occasional visits - the act which the avid orkutian calls "scrap-check" these days. The direct consequence was disinterest but still I never moved onto "greener pastures" i.e Facebook, the true Orkut loyalist that I am. But, now when I see my hard-earned scraps snitched all of a sudden I feel terribly annoyed and offended. After all, 7000 scraps is not a matter of joke! People who don't even have 5000 scraps after being on orkut for the last 3 years would know their true worth, I am sure.

So, Whoever moved my scraps this is the last reminder:
Return what is not yours to keep and it all shall be forgotten.

Or, Brin and Page might just have to step in to look into the matter.

Challenge-d to the hilt!

Why should I go buy a ticket to a Bengali film if it cannot even command 15 minutes of attentiveness from its audience?

Well, I don't have any rational answer to that after I laboured through the screening of the film which was being touted as the next-big-budget-crowd-puller from the Tollywood stables and yes, it was none other than the much publicized/marketed (courtesy-t2, The Telegraph) - Challenge.....nibi na sala.

People with even a feeble grasp of Bengali would be hard to convince regarding the "respectability quotient" of a film with such ruffian leanings in its nomenclature itself. Still, I ventured an audience in hope of "some mindless entertainment" if not a "memorable love story" told "differently" as is always promised. Needless to say the company of friends who would give any film a chance in their idle weekends made it sort of inevitable for me. One of them travelling half the city to watch the opening show of "Don Mutthuswami" is a case in point.

A detailed review would be a waste of cyber-space so let me put the slush succinctly, if ever there was such a phrase i.e. Shipping tycoon dad's (Rajatava Dutta) overprotectiveness about pretty daughter(Subhashree) meets fierce, fun-loving, goon-bashing brawn of college boy (Dev) and the "challenge" is born. The inanity of the proceedings is exemplified by the fact that the only dialogue evoking ceetis and taalis in the entire film belonged to the Mithun-starrer "Mohaguru" (explains why the last Bengali film I watched in a theater was "Tiger" by Mithun). The newcomer pair does little except pose prettily or murderously as and when required by the invisible script, if any. The saving grace of the film is some definitive moments when Biswajit Chakrabarty ( hero's father) helps us to some laughs in his encounters with the caricature that Rajatava Dutta has come to make of himself with every passing film.

In short :

People who went to see gravity/logic/physics/biology-defying action sequences came back disappointed.
People who went to see a cute/cuddly/teddy-bearish love-story with fresh faces came back empty handed.
People who went to check the "promised land" of micro-minis, hot-pants and tank-tops (as in the film posters) came back frothing at their mouths - demure salwar-kameezes being the chief culprit of them all. Traitors! Frauds! Thieves!


So, next time any director promises a "different" film make sure you send in your friends ahead of you to get the right review and not the ones doctored by newspapers to give trash any semblance of respectability. After all, hard-earned money is not best-spent in buying boredom of a darkened auditorium, that too empty.

Did I mention that my ticket was paid for by a friend.
Yes, the same one who went for "Don Mutthuswami"'s premiere.

Prem Porihaash

Haatey aaka hridoyer haatchhani dekhi
money bhoy, eto noy porichito lekha
kotha kichhu dey dekha, majhe aka-buki
kolomer haath dhorey bhalobasha sekha.

Rongeen kaagojey mora upohaar ghirey
sajano royechhe daami golaaper tora
onek niraash hoye gechhe bujhi firey
bhalobasha-pakhider feriwallah ora.

Hoyto onek aalo, kolaholey metey
bhoole gechho, paglaamo gechhe bujhi theme
Hoytoba sobtai bhool shuru thekey
Jei shuru thekey tumi porechhiley preme.

It's amazing how time flies.

I was having a look at my old posts on this blog when I realized that it has been almost 3 years that this blog had become 'operational'. The first post is dated 14th May 2006.
It seems like ages but the number of posts till date cut a sorry figure.
99 - including this. That figure surely does not make me a prolific blogger by any means. Add to that the recurring affliction of 'Blogger's Block' and you get the picture, even if vaguely.
Even now, I don't know where the 100th one is going to come from.
And when.

A Tune That Died Young

There is too much noise outside
Drilling into my head
And I can’t just write on love and life
They jar out notes that were in me
Strangling them in one stampede
Of music of undead.
I shut the windows,
Kill the lights
Still, there is this soaring sound
Of all that’s lively, all that blooms
Hounding me for all that’s left
No place to hide
No place to run
And while the noises bang my doors
A voice in me calls out for more
And strangely strangers lift their heads
To look in corner rooms.
Searching for their piece of cloth
They find it nestling in those crypts
Wrapped in which my music slept
Long forgotten.
Long dead.

Refinement in Confinement

BSNL gets on my nerves sometimes and so does the KMC. The latter's trigger-happy ( or should that be 'shovel-happy') grave-diggers keep digging at our roads with unbridled joy as if it was the only job in the world that needs considerable merit and rigorous practice at the same time. So they keep to it like HS appearing candidates attending to their calculus. Sometimes they dig even when the tar on the roads has not even cooled. And I don't need to tell you how mutually fulfilling both parties find this exercise to be. In fact, they should, since their symbiosis disadvantages none but the average man who aspire to walk his stretch of road and make his share of calls. Make calls ? Yes, sir! Calls! That's precisely what KMC and BSNL colluded to deprive me of. Telephone calls and Internet.

How? Well, one of their more industrious exponents kept digging someplace near my house a tad too overzealously. Might be a case of family feud or a bothersome overseer, but instead of gold all he hit and ruptured in his frenzy was a cable which contained amongst many others' the telephone line to my house. As a result I have been making do without my internet connection for the last 10 days. Yes, you read it right, 10 days! The first couple of days were suffocating. No people to chat with, no blogs to read, no mails to forward, no people to disturb! Then of course calm descended. Instead of 'deathly' the proper adjective would be 'filmy'. A filmy calm.
Watched about a dozen films in these 10 days, one of them being the much touted Slumdog Millionaire ( the review to which I posted here). Found it to be a tad too "fishing-for-applause"-type, unauthentic, almost synthetic film on slum-glum.

I digress! I digress!

So, every day I come back home and check my phone to find it in its sorry state of disrepair. No hum. Ho hum. So I end up watching endless films like 'Gone With The Wind' and go to sleep.
But yesterday the stars shone down on me and the line was restored. What a relief!
And I am back to blogging now.

Take that you Bloody Scoundrels of Nether Land!!!!!

( Will soon make something out of KMC too. Soon).

2009 and Me

Its 11:30 now according to my computer and before I am through with this post it will be 2009.While people are bursting crackers, thronging "happening" places around the city, partying, dancing and getting sloshed - all in the merriment of welcoming the new year I wonder what "change" the new year will actually bring in for me. Oh yes, I know I sound like Ebenezer Scrooge, miserably wringing hands at the utter waste of human enthusiasm in celebrating something which is as obvious as the passing of another year but the type of mood that I am in these days, I sincerely admit, " I can't help it".

So, if this seems to be too morbid a post for 'you' ( yes, you - the person at the other end of this cyberspace staring with disgust at this 'depressing' rant) pray do 'redirect' your attentions to someplace rosier or less gloomy to ring in the new year.
It will only get downhill from here.


People say that one becomes philosophical only when one has all the time in the world to do so and not a thing to care for in life, or, when unknowingly one attempts to take refuge in it to stave off stark and unpleasant realities. Realities which are in a state of flux before they settle down, consolidate and then invariably stagnate in the hope of attaining permanence someday. But, I have never ran away from reality, of that I am sure. Yes, I have never jumped out of my way to invite "innovation" into my life but then, I never thought it was necessary. To me, the word 'permanence' bears an inexplicably pleasant consonance with meanings as disparate as stability and strength and I was always afraid that a little tugging and pulling, a little experimentation with its form and format would snap that delicate balance. Forever. I have always abhorred the thought that one day I would come back to a place, a person I so loved once and find it/him morphed into something or someone completely unrecognizable. I can almost sense how it must feel for a man with eyes to reach out for something he expects at a familiar place and end up groping in thin air, with the lights all on and glaring; to feel the cruel joke of "sight" and its attendant ironies. When people around you change, one by one, you start to question if you are the same person that you have been all these years or who you thought you were. It's a strange feeling to look at your own shadow sideways and see it moving farther away from you. It's almost what people call an 'out of the body' experience.
You start asking questions to yourself :

Shouldn't you have changed for "convenience's" sake too ?
Why isn't it that easy to be pleasing yet indifferent?
Why couldn't you have had that smile of tacit approval even if you were incensed inside?
Why did you "always" have to act yourself?

These are some of the questions with hundreds of others that I intend to find answers to this new year.

I know that this could have easily been the text of a letter to my best friend and not a midnight rant with pretensions of being a meaningful discourse published in the true traditions of shameless exhibitionism. But, I want to look back at this post whenever in the coming year I find answers to any of my questions and reflect on " What else..." rather than " What if..."

I had never made a new year resolution in my life before this.
I intend to start this year.


For the patient and the kindred:

Wish You All A Very ENLIGHTENING New Year - 2009 with all that's Lovely and Precious.

May all that you wish for long for you instead.

Peace.

How much are you worth this night?

In coins and crumpled notes I count

The leased out pleasure of your arms

And lights that waver off your face

No shame, no haste

No pride to lose

That never was for yours’ to be

But for us to own and kill

And stab into our flesh in glee.

I can’t make out your smirk from smile

Which stems out from some putrid depth

That owes some of itself to me,

The other half to blurred out lines

Of fate and life and health that run

On your palms that now are mine.

I think I will just hold you in

Or look into your eyes to see

That hint of pain, that trail of love,

And who blinks first, you or me?

The night is wilting, slow and still

As withered petals float in air

I find myself, as if in dream

Sleeping mired to your hair

Last night I bought a part of you

When you drew the curtains close

Unknowingly, I sold you then

A part of me I never chose.

Power-FOOL People

It sometimes feels silly how we all revel in the "sense of power" that we think we wield in our tiny little spheres.

This feeling that makes us feel worthy, formidable, respected and more than anything a little "powerful" is much like a heady drink. But not knowing where and when to stop pushing the buttons can only hurt one's ego. And 'powerful people' generally have a 'super-strong EGO'. And a hurt ego is like a festering wound. It never heals, no matter how much time has passed or how much rubbish has been heaped over it, just to keep it from surfacing every now and then. A strong ego along with a strong memory is recipe for "injury" - A injury which never heals and in many ways is proudly self-destructive.

Again, there are people who feel "powerful" just by being manipulative. They think they can prevail by the virtue of their high office alone. "Bosses" are often labeled under this category. But out of the hundred odd whose future this 'one' boss smugly believes himself to be fashioning, sitting in his plush cabin, there is always one who takes it all with a self-assured smile that indicates that 'the legacy of feeling falsely powerful' has been furthered. And the cycle goes on.

But there is a certain obvious pride in having a consistent character. Not having one only makes the associated 'EGO' look out of place and ludicrous.

As they say, somethings are just meant for " Neighbour's Envy. Owner's Pride".

Blog Make-over is the new Cosmetic surgery for the Poor

As an acknowledgment of the present monotony in my life I took an entire day just to change the look of my blog.

The lessons taken (once again, as this is its 2nd time since its birth) from the exercise are as follows :

1. You get to know how difficult it actually is to get your blog a "make-over". Hats off to people who endure that kind of ordeal to change their own look once in a while. And hats off to those cosmetic surgeons for their effort.

2. For a technically challenged individual like me it was a learning experience of sorts to actually change the XML/HTML codes of the template as there were lots of "trial and error" involved. One cannot afford to be complacent as the harvest of so many hours of ennui and inspiration over the last two years run the risk of getting obliterated at a single wrong click.

3. The choice for the new skin (or template as they call it) of the blog is of pivotal importance. It must preserve its previous identity while giving the general impression of a resurrected facade. And choosing a template, keeping in mind both these factors, necessitated an expedition covering 20 odd sites, 3 trials, one mistrial and finally "the eureka moment" accounting for 4 hours, 175 MB and 1 packet of Good Day biscuits in the bargain.

4. The template-switch process can gobble up your entire blog-roll and sadly the same has happened to me. The easy-to-remember/curiously named/old favourites/recently book-marked links(URLs is the more technically apt word, I learned in the process) are all that I could manage to reinstate, albeit after taxing my flagging memory for quite a while. To my other good blogger friends, whom I might have missed most regret ably amidst this confusion, I ask for some time before I can retrieve their links by means as inept as random blog-hunting. In the mean time if some of them happen to chance upon this "redone" blog of mine I would be glad to get back their links....errr.... URLs.

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!