j-a-b-b-E-r-W-o-c-k-y

Story vs Story-telling

2012-01-26T08:33:00.000-08:00

While watching a movie, ever felt like that the movie shouldn't end? I felt the same while watching Dhobi Ghat. I felt like watching some more days of those characters....reading some more pages of the Mumbai Diary...

But unfortunately most people go to see a movie to see the story.....many people don't understand that more than the story, the way of story telling is more important in a movie. So, when I was about to watch Dhobi Ghat, my room mate said that she and all her friends hated the movie and they didn't understand the story and she warned me not to watch it. But after I had finished watching the movie, when I said that I loved it, she was looking at me as if am an alien and told me 'I think you should get your brain checked'. So I told her that this movie is for a niche audience and I fall in that niche like many others who loved watching Dhobi Ghat like my brother and sister. She seemed a little pacified.

It's difficult for me to explain why I liked the movie, except for the technical aspects like editing and amazing sound engineering, but I liked the way the story was told here, since I believe that the way of story telling is more important than the story itself. And when the way of story telling is not dependent on the story itself, the movie watching becomes as delightful as this.

For example, the way of story telling in Dhobi Ghat is so unique and so much independent from it's story and the characters within, that you can actually fit ANY movie story in this format and present it. It's amazing, it's like a variable that can take the form of any value.

And more importantly, the story is also something which has no fixed beginning or fixed ending. The typical Yash Chopra, Karan Johar or Farah Khan pattern of story telling would have killed the story.

Few other movies that I can think of right now whose story-telling was unique and flexible enough to be treated as variable are - Hazaron Khwaishein Aisi, Jab we Met and Andaz apna Apna.

Beg Borrow Steal

2012-01-22T07:09:00.000-08:00

All the three attributes listed above are bad attributes of people.

But we do beg for various things to our very near-ones like parents, siblings, spouse or best friends. But what about begging for extra starter items, which caterers bear all through the party venue, in a typical Delhi buffet party? How cheap is that?

But we do borrow things from our very closed ones when we need to attend some function and we realize that we don't have good clothes. But what if somebody borrows clothes for marriage....for his OWN marriage? How cheap is that?

But we do steal those cake pieces and sweets from the fridge when mom is not around. But what about stealing tissue paper rolls from the office toilet or stealing towels from the Rajdhani Express train? How cheap is that?

From the childhood our parents teach us about morality, honesty and other such qualities. I always used to think that all kids are being raised with the same teaching in their respective houses. But I am wrong. There are parents who teach their daughter how to keep her husband under her control like a pet, they teach their daughter how to tell lies swiftly to their in-laws so that she can fool them, there are parents who appreciate their son when he comes home with a stolen good from office or Rajdhani Express train, there are parents who teach their son how to be fraudulent to deceive someone. They teach their children how to be a fraud, a liar, a thief, a dishonest mother and a bad person. How cheap is that?

I practice Pedagogy!!!

2012-01-19T17:51:00.000-08:00

"Pedagogy is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction. Pedagogy is also occasionally referred to as the correct use of instructive strategies." - wikipedia.

That's my work, that's my job but I never knew about this term. Sounds interesting.

If you want to read more, visit the following link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy

Office Office

2012-01-14T20:14:00.000-08:00

They say “This is not just another run of the mill project. This is different. So, you guys need to gear up and walk that extra mile to deliver the best product”

But they say this for every course I work on. Where are these run of the mill courses made? I want to work for one....that'll be relaxing I assume.

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I know winning a spot award is no big deal. But I am happy for having won one :). But more than that, I am happy to receive those Shopper’s Stop vouchers. I know I would have never visited that unreasonably expensive shop to buy anything unless I had those vouchers.

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Every day habit of swiping the identity card innumerable times has gone to my head to that extent that some days back instead of pressing the doorbell at home, I was looking for my identity card to swipe and open the door!!!!!!!

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Those days and late nights of work are back when I forget the entire world and get glued to my system. I came to know that I love this when I didn’t have this. I love it and I enjoy it.

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The ink in my pen is over. I am damn happy. After a long time I have the pen with me long enough to run short of its ink!

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My friend had got a brand new collection of Salil Chaudhury’s songs from Kolkata, on my request, and she handed it over to me in office. I was jumping with joy! That was the time when I was having crazy hours at office leaving every day after 11pm. That day also when I was leaving at the 11th hour to catch my 11pm cab, the security stopped me, and found the CD inside my bag and CONFISCATED it!!! I was awestruck but didn’t have time to get into any conversation as I was getting late for my cab. The next day when I went to meet the duty manager, he said that they would check the CD and if they find it blank, they’ll return it to me and if they find any data in the CD, they would break it. Almost in a breathless condition I asked “what if there is music in the CD?”, “We’ll break it”, he said coolly!!!!

I didn't know what to do. I spoke to my manager, team lead and everybody said that this is unfair but this is the company policy. Big thanks to my friend Chandrima, who actually got the CD from Kolkata, somehow convinced those stone heads and they agreed to return my CDs. A lesson is learnt and now I submit even the Flipkart parcel also at the reception if it contains CDs.

6th January, 2012

2012-01-14T20:10:00.000-08:00

This year was the best day as compared to any other 6th January till date!
On 5th January I came to know from FM that the Hindi version of Vinnathandi Varuvaya, which is Ek Tha Deewana is finally releasing and the audio was going to be available in the market from 6th January, 2012. Whoever decided this strategy, no wonder, had ARR’s fans in mind.

So, me being me, immediately placed an order for the audio CD of Ek Tha Deewana with Flipkart with the help of my friend Chandrima.

And wow wow, I got the CD right in my hand on the very next day, i.e. on 6th January, 2012!!!!! I returned from office on my toes and, what more, I inaugurated my laptop by playing Ek Tha Deewana audio CD.

This was the best way I celebrated ARR’s birthday as far as I can remember!
The review on Ek Tha Deewana is yet to be drafted hence posted. So, peoples, please hang on for some time. Itz cuming soon!!!!

I got a life of my own

2012-01-14T01:52:00.000-08:00

I got a life of my own

What does this really mean?

Well, it means:

1. Being able to see a doctor when I am ill.

2. Being able to eat healthy food and not something which is stale, too much spicy or rotten.

3. Being able to have a blanket or quilt while sleeping in the winter in Delhi.

4. Being able to switch on the fan when it is summer in Delhi.

5. Being able to buy necessary goods like umbrella in the rainy season to be protected from rains and in summer to be protected from the sun rays.

6. Being able to buy necessary goods like sandals (when the last sandal has broken down), bags (when the last bag has tore off), warm clothes during winter, cotton clothes during summer.

7. Being able to talk to relatives on special days without checking on the mobile phone balance.

8. Being able to wear the clothes of my choice.

9. Being able to read the kind of literature I want to and being able to appreciate what literature I feel to be good and being able to criticize what literature I feel to be crap.

When I was living WITHOUT having ‘all of the above’, I used to feel like Not Having a Life. Now when I have liberty to have ‘all of the above’, I understand what it feels to have a life of my own.

My First Post

2012-01-14T00:37:00.000-08:00

This is my first post from my own laptop, of course after having internet connection in it.

How does it feel? It just feels great :D

Looking Back

2011-12-31T09:50:00.000-08:00

The year 2011 was a combination of loss and achievement for me. When I am happy for my achievements and sad for my losses, and when I can't understand why these losses had to be there in my life even though I have had those achievements, I console myself thinking that it might be the God's way to balance our happiness and grief.

Well, to cut the story short...:

Losses:

This year I lost my Kakamoni
This year I lost my Boropishi
When it comes to losses, 2010 must be the year of maximum loss in my life when I had lost my father, but then I was not in a position to make any blog post.

Achievements:

I got to join my dream company.
I was able to complete 5 out of 7 tasks that I had set at the advent of 2011.
First time in my life, I have been able to save enough to save my tax.
I bought my laptop.
I got a life of my own.

But whenever I try to analyze the credits and debits of my life, I remember one statement made by one Bengalee prophet Bijoykrishna Goswami, famously known as Gosainjee: Aisa din nahi rahega.

Neither the happy days nor the sad will last forever. On this note, I sign off wishing all my readers all the very best for the year 2012.

Mumbai Juhu Beach

2011-10-26T04:22:00.000-07:00

Why ARR for Rockstar

2011-10-14T09:37:00.001-07:00

When Imtiaz Ali announced Rockstar with A R Rahman to be the music director of the movie, many eye brews raised – some with disbelief, some with appreciation, some with criticism, some with annoyance and some with happiness (that’s me :)).

It was difficult to believe that Imtiaz Ali would ever come out of his hit pairing with Pritam Chakrabarty. But he did. Many people said that he ditched Pritam, some said that he’s cashing on A R Rahman’s international success and some even said that he is trying to make an impression that he is different that he is not stereotyped and some said that he is mistaken.

I didn’t say anything. I was waiting for the audio to release. From the name it’s obvious that the movie is about a person who sings Rock music. I was keen to hear ARR composing some hard rock. But I remember I was fairly disappointed 5-6 months back when I came to know that Rockstar music is ready and the music is Sufi.

But ever since I have started listening to Rockstar, I have understood why Imtiaz Ali asked ARR to compose this movie. I always like Imtiaz Ali, and now I respect him and his judgment even more. It’s difficult for me to explain why I feel so but I can only say that Rockstar music is a continuation of Rang De Basanti and Delhi 6 combined. So, all those people who liked these two albums, they will find a treasure in Rockstar. Thanks to Imtiaz Ali for asking ARR to compose this movie.

Mohit Chauhan

2011-10-14T09:28:00.000-07:00

It was 2006. The audio of the Rang De Basanti (RDB) movie had released when I was in Silchar. After six months when I went to Delhi, the movie had released and it was a huge hit and so the songs. I used to be very active in the A R Rahman Yahoo Fan club then. All members of the group used to rave about the songs of RDB and the hot and most favorite topic of discussion used to be Naresh Iyer. Naresh Iyer had a fairy tale story to tell. He was picked up by ARR from a channel V reality show and he had sung three songs in the movie and all were hits. So, people would not just stop gushing about him. I also liked his trained and very romantic voice.

But somehow the mostly unnoticed ‘Khun Chala’ was my more favorite in the album. It was by Mohit Chauhan. But no one seemed to notice the beauty and passion of his singing. I remember I had sent two mails in the group pointing out Mohit Chauhan’s brilliance and also saying that ‘I think Mohit will go long way’, and I had not received a single response to that!

There was something that I had found very unique about Mohit’s singing, which most singers lack now a days and that is his control over breathing. He had a little untrained flat voice then but his tremendous control over breathing in and out while singing was something shocked me.

Though Mohit Chauhan didn’t receive any immediate fame with RDB, but his next song was a huge hit - Tum Se Hi in Jab We Met. And then started his long success story.

Now the more I hear Mohit Chauhan singing one after another hit song, I become pleasantly surprised at my own judgment.

PS: Khun Chala from RDB was not the first song by Mohit. He used to be member of the group Silk Routes and Dooba Dooba Rehta Hoon was the first and also first hit song by him. I remember I had instantly recognized him to be Dooba Dooba singer when I heard Khun Chala and I had a tough time making people believe that.

Coincidence or Deliberate?

2011-10-14T09:21:00.000-07:00

Chetan Bhagat’s novel Five Point Someone was the main inspiration for the blockbuster movie Three Idiots. Initially the announcement was like that Raju Hirani is making a movie on Five Point Someone with Amir Khan as lead. But after the movie released, there was no credit given to Mr Bhagat and it lead to many interesting articles in newspapers while Chetan Bhagat claimed being ditched.

Some days back, I found one article in news paper where Mr Bhagat is posing proudly and the article is about him and Hong Kong. Then I came to know that Mr Bhagat used to work as an Investment Banker in Hong Kong before turning a full time writer. It instantly rang a bell. Isn’t Chetan Bhagat a pass out from IIT? That means he is an engineer. And he used to work as an Investment Banker? Wasn’t the comic guy in the movie Three Idiots who was Kareena Kapoor’s fiancé also an Investment Banker and wasn’t he also an engineer? Because I remember Amir Khan saying “Agar bank mein hi kam karna tha to engineering kyun kiya?” about the guy.

I don’t read Chetan Bhagat’s books simply because I don’t like his soap-operatic conversationalist storytelling. So I never bothered to complete Five Point Someone after reading 5-6 pages of it. So I never know what are the similarities and differences between the novel and the movie. Then I checked out with my brother who has read the novel Five Point Someone (yes, full novel) if this character was there in the novel. He said that he wasn’t.

Ok. So is that a mere coincidence or something deliberate?

Common Sense is most Uncommon

2011-10-14T09:20:00.000-07:00

Today after much adventure, I got into a bus at Silk Board. My destination Jayadeva Flyover. Since I don’t come to office by bus usually I was not aware of this bus’s route. I got the ticket and then I thought “I have to get down under the flyover, so what if the bus takes the flyover?” So I decided to ask the conductor.

Me: Sir, bus flyover ke upar se ya neeche se jayegi?
Conductor: Upar se janeka road hai kya madam?

True. The Jayadeva flyover is one-way. Only people coming from Bannerghatta and Jayanagar can take the flyover to come to the Silk board side of the flyover, but vehicles from Silk board can’t take the flyover, they have to take the road under the flyover. For last six months everyday my cab takes the flyover but still this common knowledge was not visible to me until now.

Lost and Found – Part II

2011-10-10T08:30:00.001-07:00

It was supposed to be just another cash-draw from the ATM machine near my house. But it wasn’t.

I had drawn some money from the ATM and started walking towards the departmental store from where I had to buy some 15 odd different types of stuffs like – butter paper for book covering, zipped plastic pouches, Colgate Total paste, dustbin bag, etc.etc. As I was walking, I could hear ‘some lady’ was calling ‘some another lady’ saying “excuse me ma’m”. I was sure that no one was calling me as hardly anyone knows me here. But after some seconds when I turned around I was surprised to found out that the ‘some another lady’ was none other than me and the ‘some lady’ was calling me on her top of her voice while waving my debit card in her hand. I stopped and the lady came and gave me my debit card saying ‘Is it yours ? You forgot it in the ATM’. I was speechless, scared, relieved and hugely annoyed on myself, all at the same time.

I thanked that lady and accepted the card. Next few minutes I was cursing myself for doing such a big blunder. I was also shocked thinking how I could do that! It’s been more than five years I have been using debit cards and this was the first time I did something like that. I always used to think how I would face the day when I would forget my debit card in the ATM machine. I used to think that I would do that if I ever go through extreme and unbearable mental tension. But ironically, though I have already passed through extreme and unbearable mental tension, I never did something like that then! Compared to that time, I am quite easy and relaxed now. I even dug up my thoughts as what I was thinking at that specific moment but that also turned out to be my regular thoughts on my brother’s wedding plans, my poor bank balance, what to wear the next day at office and about two characters of the novel I am reading (to be precise, about Spikes and Kirin from the novel The Unwaba Revelation by Samit Basu).

I kept on thinking for few moments while doing the shopping in the departmental store (Thankfully I had made up a list of what all I had to buy or else I would have come back not buying more than half things!!) and then came up with a considerably logical explanation to my disastrous activity. It’s so that, I generally draw money from the ATM in my office which is of ‘swipe’ type where I get back the card immediately after swiping it. But the ATM near my house is an ‘insert’ type and which swallows the card during processing the transaction and gives back at the end. Might be my continuous use of ‘swipe’ type made me to forget to collect the card at the end while using an ‘insert’ type ATM. But having said that also, I believe that this is no excuse for what I have done.

Pamper Yourself

2011-09-18T06:03:00.000-07:00

Today was supposed to be just another Sunday with the kind of engagements I have on Sundays with one extra engagement - evening music class as my music teacher is going to Kolkata for one whole month.

But the day wasn't as it was supposed to be. While having a normal conversation with my friend over phone, some skeletons of my past life came out unexpectedly, which I had hidden conveniently, thus leaving me choked and aghast.

So I decided to pamper myself to come out of it!

Generally when I want to pamper myself I visit beauty parlor, which otherwise I don't do. But today since I didn't have time for that, I decided to go for some shopping and thus I ended up buying a salwar-suit piece that I never intended to buy and that also worth 850/-!!!!!!!!!

I still cant decide whether it was a good deal or bad deal!!

Mankatha – My view

2011-09-16T08:47:00.001-07:00

Mangkatha or Mangatha is a Tamil movie starring Ajith Kumar. Like other stars of Tamil cinema, Ajith Kumar is also another superstar but with only one difference; he is jaw-dropping handsome!

The experience of watching a Tamil movie for a Bengalee girl in a theatre itself is an experience. The hero obsessed Tamil people flock in the theatre with all enthusiasm and to add on to their obsession the movie directors plan for separate scene and separate music piece for the ‘Intro scene’ of the hero! So the euphoria of cheering, clapping and whistling you hear when Ajith gets down from the police jeep in police uniform with his salt-and-pepper hairstyle (Oh my god! He is so handsome!) envelopes also you and before you realize that, you are also clapping and cheering along with the crowd! So, you don’t really mind the weak editing, weak usage of slow-motion and fast-motion of scenes or even the small bulging paunch of Ajith.

The ‘Intro scene’ ends with a killer look by Ajith which forms one brick among the 50 Ajith-faced bricks slowly forming a mosaic-painting of Ajith amidst the ear-bursting cheer from people and then the movie introduces ‘Thala 50’as Mangatha is Ajith’s 50th movie.

The movie is about a corrupt cop Vinayak Mahadevan played by Ajith Kumar who can go to any extent for money. He uses the heroine Trisha to reach to her father and after he robs 500 crore rupees in The Italian Job fashion, he ditches her ruthlessly. I found the way the director showed Ajith dumping Trisha to be the most innovative sequence of the movie. Ajith then plans to kill his five allies and leaves dumbstruck when he comes to know that the two comedian allies of him actually took the money and ran away. Mangatha is a multi-starrer movie and it stars another super star of Tamil cinema – Arjun. He plays an honest cop who tries to catch Ajith. Though this person Arjun looks fit and slim, but his tendency to over-style kills all his scenes. In the climax Ajith dies in the hand of Arjun and when everybody is awestruck as how it happened we come to know that Ajith and Arjun are actually buddies and they staged everything that we saw in last 2 hours and 45 minutes and both of them are fine and staying in pent houses after sharing those 500 crore rupees.

If you keep the style and the extreme good looks of Ajith aside, the movie Mangatha would be a below average movie considering the director’s inefficiency to handle scenes, lack of attention to details, weak editing, gimmicky-but-not-well-thought-of picturisation of the songs and very very shockingly poor acting by Ajith and the gang.

But I must say that it is a good time pass to watch a Tamil movie in theatre flanked between two Tamil friends.

The False Vanities

2011-09-16T08:41:00.001-07:00

Every morning I meet people who are ‘civilized’ people. They speak in eloquent English (After being a British colony for 200 years, Indians specially South Indians still judge one person’s status in that person’s ability to speak in this British language), they dress in European formals (trousers, shirts, formal sweaters, etc) and they talk about their experience of studying in big city schools and colleges.

But there is something, which I find that’s gravely missing. Even though they always try to project themselves as some NY girls in their way of speaking and dressing, but they don’t really have the basic attribute that people from the Western countries posses – “courtesy”. They just don’t know what courtesy is even when they try to follow Westerners like blind lambs.

They don’t possess the most basic courtesies like greeting people when they meet in the morning. In my office cab, I am the first one to board it. Then the cab goes from one place to another to pick others. So, these so called ‘city’ people when get into the cab, they don’t bother to greet others. After reaching the office, we have to take lift from the basement as my office is in the 5th floor of the building. People just walk up to the lift, catch the lift and goes ahead! They don’t bother that their colleagues who were sharing the same cab as them just 2 minutes back are also following and the basic courtesy says to hold the lift for them. But you can’t really expect any courtesy from them. My friend Chandrima says something funny. She says that she also encounters such people and she believes that these people cant be taught courtesy anymore as they are adults now and these things are to be taught in childhood. I think in childhood what these people were only concerned to learn was how to dress and talk like Americans, how to imitate their gestures and be ‘cool’ and how to judge other people of the country based on what they wear, how they speak English and in which locality of the city they live.

I find it very disturbing fact that some of my cab-mates used to ill treat a friend of mine just because she used to stay in a narrow lane. They were so arrogant in their behavior against her they never used to sit next to her....they used cuddle on one side of the cab so that they are away from her. What was my friend’s fault? That she stays in less posh area than theirs. But at least she is staying in a house for which she is paying the rent and which is solely maintained by her....not like those ‘civilized’ people who are staying in a better locality just because their father or father-in-law had built that house.

But today what I experienced was more than anything. Today the transport department sent one Toyota Innova car for the morning pick-up. Me being the first to get into the car was sitting at the rear seat. After reaching the office, the two girls sitting in the mid-row just got down and slammed the car door and went ahead. They didn’t have the courtesy to keep the door open (I am not asking them to hold the door for me) since I was coming out from the rear seat. It was pathetic of them.

I don’t understand who they are showing these attitudes. If they think they are better than me just because they grew up in a metro city or studied in big schools and colleges unlike me, then why are they doing the same job in the same company as the same role? Why couldn’t they do something better than this in spite of growing up in a metro city or studying in big schools and colleges unlike me?

I grew up in a small town of Assam studying in Bengali medium school and a normal college. I have struggled a lot by staying out from home for study and job for last five years. I always used to think that how fortunate these city girls and boys are to have everything in their own city. But now I feel grateful for my small-town background that at least made me a human and not a mannequin who has nothing to give back to the society except for snobbery.

Three lives I don’t want to live

2011-09-16T08:37:00.000-07:00

1. Being at home whole day and not going out anywhere, especially to malls or restaurants so that I can save some money. By doing so, if I have to compromise on some relation, then also I am ready. This will save me money and will save me from looking like a stupid in the fashionable malls.

2. Going out for movie and dinner every single weekend and make sure that I have seen all the movies that are currently running.

3. Going out to the bar every weekend and get drunk.

I want to live a life which has a balance of eating out, going out for shopping or movies and going out for sight-seeing at the same staying at home so that my house is well maintained and I get some time to read books, cook new food items, do embroidery and relax. I also like to do something for the society and want to spend some time of my life in doing so. But most importantly I want to be available to those who love me all the time. That's what the ideal life I want to lead.

Why do I do Puja?

2011-09-16T08:31:00.000-07:00

I love to tie myself in discipline because unless I tie myself, I won’t oblige. For me going home, taking bath and then chanting Adya Stotra everyday is more a discipline than calling the gods mentioned in this stotra for some favour. By the way I took one full year to memorize this stotra.

I don’t believe that chanting a mantra is going to do any good in my life. I don’t believe that chanting Adya Stotra everyday is going to please the gods and get me blessings from them. I have seen people who keep claiming themselves to be great devoted and who chant mantras in loud voices while walking in the entire house to show-off their devotion to the gods....yes just to show-off. I really don’t know what these people achieve from this because the intention of chanting the mantra is totally flawed here. In this world of double standards, people don’t leave gods also to show-off and prove themselves to be better than others.

But for me following rituals brings a sense of discipline in me. So, be it my daily puja or Thursday morning and Saturday morning visit to the temples or reading Hanuman Chalisa every Saturday; it makes me feel good about my discipline. I follow the Hindu rituals for Puja without being maniacs. What I mean to say is that I don’t believe in making out the strictest rules for rituals and then following them to show others that how big devotee I am. No, I don’t do that and I don’t like that and I hate those people who do that. Because, here also the whole concept of worshiping the God is flawed. People are worshiping God by following these 100 rules just to prove themselves to be ‘great devotees’. Then where is God? That means they are not really worshiping the Gods, they are worshiping themselves, their own egos and their own image in front of others! How more disrespectful a person can be towards God? But you will hear these people talking always ‘we are great devotees’. What an irony.

Thanks to my mother and her undeterred belief in Thakur Ramakrishna, Sarada Devi and Vivekananda that she never pushed us towards this dark and nasty world of so-called-devotion.

Watching Bengali Serials

2011-09-16T08:26:00.000-07:00

I don’t like to watch Bengali serials. I don’t see them. I rarely see Bengali movies. I see only those movies which are directed by Satyajit Ray, Hrithik Ghatak, Aparna Sen or sometimes movies by Rituporno Ghosh. I have never watched any commercial Bengali movie with Prosenjit, Rituporna Sengupta, etc which are known by ‘boi’ by these-type-of-movie-watchers.

Though I don’t watch those cheesy serials and movies, it doesn’t mean that I have any disrespect for my mother-tongue. If there are quality serials and movies made in Bengali, then I would definitely watch it.....but I can’t and won’t watch a third-class family drama with zero-talented actors just because it’s in my mother tongue.

On the contrary there are people........Bengali people who can’t read and write in their own mother tongue Bengali just because they studied in Kendriya Vidyalya and were so dim-witted that couldn’t remember the letters of two different languages – Bengali and Hindi when taught simultaneously and used to use Bengali scripts while writing for Hindi papaer. Obviously, these lame excuses are created just because the parents of these people don’t have the courage to accept that how proud they used to be on the fact when they used to see their son speaking in Hindi with his other fellow Bengali friends and how much pride it used to bring to them when they used to tell their relatives “my son can’t read and write in Bengali. He studies in KV you see”.

Now imagine such people who lived a fake life considering their son’s inability to read and write in Bengali and pointing out finger on someone who has spent whole life reading and admiring Bengali literature for that fact that that person doesn’t like to watch those third-class Bengali serials and movies, which they call ‘boi’.

A Disaster at home

2011-08-06T09:46:00.000-07:00

When there is a sudden disaster at family and when we are struggling to cope with the enormous loss, we generally don't realize that the incident actually makes us stronger and wiser.

Stronger because we suddenly grow older...much older than we actually are to take up some responsibilities that we would have never taken otherwise, we speak so many things that we would have never have spoken otherwise, we do so many things that we would have never have done otherwise.

Wiser because at the stage of ultimate grief, ultimate responsibility and of ultimate madness, we get to see the true faces of people.....whcih we would have never have seen otherwise...and which is priceless.

I have gone through this experience twice in my life - when I lost my father in Jan, 2010 and recently when I lost my uncle.

When my father passed away after a long suffering, I remember what nasty faces I had discovered of the people near me at that time. The true identity of theirs that I had discovered at that time has given me a base to decide for the most difficult decision of my life.

Why Mumbai again and again?

2011-07-24T04:58:00.000-07:00

After 26/11 that happened in 2009, the city lost 50,000 crore rupees per day for 3 days.

After July 13 bomb blast 2011, the Zaveri Bazaar alone is losing 250 crore per day.

Had the terrorist attack been in any other city, the amount of loss (in rupees I mean because for the India government human life loss is not a loss at all) would not be of this magnitude.

People who say that Mumbai is suffering terrorist attacks again and again because of its close connection to the underworld, they don’t understand one thing that these terrorist groups are not local goons or gully ka gundas that they will plot bombs only in the locality they know. They are big international organizations funded by people from all over the world and being operated centrally with high-tech instruments. They can plot bomb anywhere, at least anywhere in India. For them India is a cake walk because the country government is either sleeping or busy to retain its power (or who knows it’s not a ploy supported by the government itself to divert people’s attention from daily scams and scandals!), then why wouldn’t they choose to hit the financial nerve of the country which is none other than Mumbai? It’s just a matter of their choice!

ARR and Oscar

2011-07-24T04:55:00.000-07:00

I hear many people saying that A R Rahman should not have received Oscar award for Slumdog Millionaire. I want to ask them who they think should have received best music director Oscar award in 2009? Should it be Alexandre Desplat for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button or James Newton Howard for Defiance or Danny Elfman for Milk or Thomas Newman for WALL-E?

So when you argue that A R Rahman shouldn’t have received the Oscar award for Slumdog Millionaire in 2009, please tell me who among the above mentioned music directors should have got it that year.

I don’t understand why people in India don’t understand the simple fact that the Oscar award for the best music director in 2009 was NOT to honor “The Best Music Director of the World Ever Walked on the Earth” or for “The Greatest Music Director of All Time”. Neither was it designed to locate, identify and honor the “Best Unexplored Music Director Whose Work is Never Recognized and Who is Living in Some Corner of the Earth” nor to pick up the “Best Work Ever Done by Someone Called A R Rahman”.

So when A R Rahman was nominated for Slumdog Millionaire for the Oscar award in 2009, he was not competing with Illiyaraja, MSV, R D Burman, S D Burman or Naushad.

So when A R Rahman was nominated for Slumdog Millionaire for the Oscar award in 2009, his work was not being compared with Roja, Thiruda Thiruda, Bombay, Kannathil Mutthamittal, Zubeida or any other classic by him.

So when A R Rahman was nominated for Slumdog Millionaire for the Oscar award in 2009, he was competing against Alexandre Desplat for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, James Newton Howard for Defiance, Danny Elfman for Milk and Thomas Newman for WALL-E.

The jury of the Oscar awards thought his score was the best compared to other four so he got the award in 2009. Every year someone is getting the best music director Oscar award for example, Michael Giacchino for Up in 2010 and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for The Social Network.

But people in India are still stuck in 2009 Oscar awards and never stops making comments like “Illiyaraja is better music director than A R Rahman. How can A R Rahman get Oscar award”, “R D Burman is all time best music director. A R Rahman’s composition in Slumdog Millionaire doesn’t even stand in front of any R D Burman composition. A R Rahman doesn’t deserve Oscar for that”, “A R Rahman has composed many better music than that of Slumdog Millionaire. He shouldn’t have received Oscar for that”...etc etc...

I can’t stop but laughing when I hear such statements because I know any reasoning to them would be futile. And If I try to explain the facts that I have written here to them they will say “Oh, you are so biased!”….but still they just can’t see the reality.

I thought I would post this feelings of mine in my blog. You might think why I am posting this after two years of A R Rahman getting the Oscar award? Well, better late than never :)

FlipKart - the Genie

2011-07-24T04:52:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I was approaching the end of the novel Simoquin Prophecies by Samit Basu. As I was fairly enamored and enchanted with the novel, I couldn’t wait to start on with its sequels – The Manticores’s Secret and The Unwaba Revelations. So on Staurday, after attending my gohonzon meeting near my house I went for Swapna book store in Indiranagar only to find that they don’t have the books with them. Broken hearted I placed the order with them and was thinking of what options I have in hand to get the books-
Option 1: Landmark (what if I don’t get the book there? It’s already 3pm!)

Option 2: Crosswrd (bad option…they didn’t even have The Simoquin Prophecies when I had checked earlier, forget about its sequels)

Option 3: The shop from where I had bought The Simoquin Prophecies on March 27, 2011 as a birthday gift to myself (I can’t go there without any friend taking me there…I have forgotten the route…I just remember that it’s somewhere in Kormangala opposite to a Persian restaurant called Sufi….forget about the route, I don’t even remember the name of that shop L….I tried calling two friends who can take me there…one is sleeping and one’s call is getting forwarded to dunno where)

So, finally after 2-3 minutes of mental juggling between three options, I decided to come back home with a heavy heart.

Next day at office as all my friends came to know about my book crisis, one friend suggested that she could place the order in Flipkart on behalf of me and I could get the books delivered to me in two days. As I had no alternative option in hand, I agreed. She placed an order with Flipkart for The Manticores’s Secret and The Unwaba Revelations on Monday at 9pm. Next day at 2pm I get a mail from my office mail room that I have received a courier and to my utter wonder what I see that Flipkart has already delivered my books to my office address! I hardly could believe it and ran towards the mailroom to grab the packet. I knew Flipkart is efficient but this amount of efficiency even I didn’t expect.

All thanks to my friend Chandrima who took the initiative and ordered the books for me. But then what are friends for?

Thanks to all my jumping around with new books in hand that all my friends came one by one to smell the fragrance of new books while passing comments on what kind of books I read, thanks to the tooth-breaking, mind-frisking-but-still-can’t-understand-the-meaning book titles. Now that I am 80% submerged in the pages of The Manticores’s Secret (20% consciousness I have held back to carry on with my office and house hold work), all credit goes to the Genie in my life - Flipkart.

Fighting Ignorance

2011-07-24T04:49:00.000-07:00

They say ignorance is bliss. But my ignorance is like a bottom less pit, it has no limit. But my will to fight with it also has no bound. I keep checking and searching internet for every bit of unknown information that I come across while reading books, watching movies, in office meetings or even in client calls. And for this I have keep note of every unknown information I find so that I can check for it when I get the internet access. The fact that in spite of being in 21st century, I don’t have access to 24X7 internet access just proves my ignorance; it’s a different thing though with ignorance another attribute of mine has combined which is laziness. For example during my mad mad reading days of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, I kept noting all the monuments, paintings, sculptures and any kind of historical information that I used to know about while reading it sitting in my long bus journeys to office and search for it in Google immediately after reaching office. This was real fun as as the novel was proceeding, I was coming to know so much about Christianity and the European culture as I am always fond of studying about the European history.

But even after all said and done, I can’t forget and forgive myself for the greatest ignorance of all time of not knowing that the Vatican city is in Rome! I never knew this particular piece of information before reading the Da Vinci Code. I don’t know why I never tried look for it in the map in spite of the fact that checking maps used to be one of the most favorite pass time when I was in school and also in spite of the fact that I always wanted to do my MA in History with a special paper on the European history after I am done with MA in English with a Comparative Literature as my special paper and a diploma in Instructional Designing and also MBA (probably) when I think about my profession and not about passion!

Still the bottom line remains the same that I am ignorant person and fighting all day to come out of it.

Another confession: I have a very bad vocabulary also. I keep checking the dictionary in my mobile phone when I am reading any book which is written in English.

Girls and Shopping

2011-07-24T04:45:00.000-07:00

People say that going for a shopping with a girl is a boring affair. They say that girls keep roaming in the entire market to look for stuffs and then can’t decide what to buy. I never agree with this since I am also a girl and I don’t shop that way. My way of shopping is

1. Identify the requirement
2. Decide on the brand
3. Locate the shop
4. Pick the stuff, make payment and come out of the shop/mall

I keep deciding the points from 1st to 3rd in my mind and I go to a particular shop only when I have decided on the first three criteria. My sister also shops in the same fashion.

People say girls don’t shop that way. For some girls, well, this is true.

I remember I had a friend in Kolkata who was a shopaholic. Then I was too young to know the meaning of ‘shopaholic’ but now when I think about her I understand that she was a shopaholic. I remember once me and my sister had accompanied her in a market called Dakshinapon in Kolkata. We entered the first shop and me and my sister were done with our shopping for the Puja. She liked one dress in that shop and didn’t buy it as she wanted to be sure that the one she chose was actually the best dress in her affordable range in the market (thank god she didnt go for the entire city!). So she kept checking all the dresses in all the shops. Me and my sister were on the verge of falling down with pain in legs and feet and then she went back to the first shop to re-look at the dress that she had liked initially only to find out that it was sold out. So she kept regretting and took another round of the market looking for a similar dress. Finally she didn’t buy anything. This was such a horrific experience for me and my sister that we used to get scared whenever that friend used to ask us to accompany her for shopping. The root cause analysis of the matter tells that this girl didn’t know what she wanted.

I had a similar experience recently. I had gone with a friend of mine (a girl) for shopping. This was the first time I was going with her for shopping. I picked up my stuff and then started looking for her. I found her confused between two three shirts and trousers (she was shopping for her brother) so decided to help her out. There was some offer going on that if you buy two, then get one free. I helped her choosing two shirts and one trouser for her brother. I was happy as it was done and then asked her to go for billing. But she was still looking confused. I asked her ‘what happened?’…she says ‘this brand is not good. Let’s check another brand.’….and went ahead towards another brand outlet. I was shocked! If she didn’t like that particular brand then why did she choose so many clothes from there in the first place? Then she went ahead with another round of selecting dresses from another brand...........Anyway, the root cause analysis of this matter also tells that this girl didn’t know what she wanted.

I think the basic objective of shopping should be ‘buy what you want’…if you know your requirement then it won’t take more than 10 minutes to figure out if the dress you want is there in the shop or not….and if the shop has that dress…it won’t take more than 5 minutes to locate it. Just go systematically. It’s simple. I don’t understand why these girls are so confused!

“Oh! I am so afraid of travelling in planes”

2011-07-24T04:42:00.000-07:00

Most of the people who don’t travel by plane, make this excuse. Their excuse goes like: “Plane flies up in the air so I am scared of travelling in planes. If you go by trains, and if the train derails at least you can jump out of the train as it is on the land but how can you jump out from plane?” – I can never understand this logic. People having vertigo, cardiac problem or claustrophobia may prefer to travel in trains. But I don’t understand how can people jump out of the running train and be safe? I find it a big lame excuse.

Another reason that I find probable is that the clean and stylish airports, the process of getting the boarding pass (you have to speak in English!), the process of getting your luggage booked for the plane, climbing by escalators and getting in the right departure gate to get in to the right plane and finally travelling by plane might be a problem for those who prefer to stay in the well of their lives. So what could be the best option to blame it on ‘oh I am afraid of travelling in planes’. So that way they have an excuse to save on some money and avoid walking the swanky airports also. But some people are so stubborn to stand by their ground that they won’t even accept a free plane ticket just to prove that they don’t travel in planes.

If you are finding my second probability irrational or a pigmentation of my mind, then let me share a real life story with you.

My brother is very fond of searching out for good food from various places. It’s the time when he was in college and used to have samosa from a very unclean, dark and dilapidated shop. My brother used to claim that the samosa there was the best in the town. Whenever he used to go there he used to find the shop was crowded and mainly daily laborers, rickshaw pullers and cullies used to come and buy food from there. One day my brother asked the shop owner, “ Why don’t you repair the shop and make it look good? You earn so much daily.” Then the shop owner said, “But then all these people will stop coming here.”

I have also seen people who prefer to go to dark and small stores to buy for grocery shopping and avoid well lit A/C retail showrooms like Reliance Fresh, Fine Mart or Big Bazaar even if they charge the same price for the stuff they are buying. They will always argue that the price is higher there and if they see the price is the same then will say that the quality in these showrooms must be bad because they must be covering the money they spent in A/C, decoration and for the lighting of the showroom by giving low quality products in high price. Just another excuse on the similar lines of ‘oh I am afraid of travelling in planes’.

Delhi Belly

2011-07-16T07:09:00.000-07:00

I watched Delhi Belly today with my gang of friends. What a hilarious movie. Thanks to Priya, Namrata and Navneet for making the plan successful.

Please watch the movie with your like minded people...or you might be really embarrassed....

My first day at school

2011-07-04T08:45:00.002-07:00

It was my first day at school. It was my twin sister’s first day at school too. We had gone to the school once before when our father took us there for admission and I remember looking at the headmistress from behind the chair where my father was sitting. I remember both my father and the headmistress were trying to drag me out of my hiding but I was not giving in. Though I still remember the fragrance the headmistress was wearing that day, I don’t really remember what my twin sister was doing then.

At that time we were staying in a joint family with two of our uncle’s families. It was our ancestral house built by our grandfather. It was huge house with one huge pond, one cow shed, one mango garden, one vegetable garden and many flower gardens. My mother and her co-sisters used to be busy all day cooking and serving 20 average people on any average day while we kids were blissfully oblivious of their daily struggle and used to play all day in the long stretches of verandas or in the long front and back yards.

Anyway, the day came when we two had to go to school for the firm time. We both were ready in new dresses with new tin-suitcases, new slates, new books, new pencil boxes with new slate-pencils and new chalks. My father had arranged for our old and trusted rickshaw puller to take us to the school. My mother got us to sit in the rickshaw with our tin-suitcases placed in front of us in the rickshaw. Though we had gone to that lane where the school was situated many times with our parents and uncles and aunts, this was the first time we were going alone there (two of us were surely not alone but it was more like being alone :)). So we were excited, nervous, happy to go to school and also sad to be away from our mother for the whole day.

We reached the school. We were supposed to meet the headmistress and she was supposed to take us to our class. I took my tin-suitcase, got down and we two met the headmistress and she asked some teacher to take us to the class which was on the other side of the field. When we were going towards the class, then we realized that my sister had forgotten her tin-suitacse in the rickshaw and immediately she started crying, turned around and started running. I was surprized standing there not knowing what to do at that moment and out of reflex I also started to run after her the next moment with my suitacse in hand while screaming ‘stop stop’ to my sister....and she kept crying and saying ‘I have lost my suitcase and now my parents will scold me’.....and she kept running by the side of the main road and finally stopped after reaching our house.

My mother was surprised to find us at home and started consoling my sister. I don’t remember what happened after that. The next day my father must have gone to the school only to find that the rickshaw puller had deposited my sister’s suitcase with the headmistress and then left. Or might be the rickshaw puller himself told my father about that. Whatever it was, it was my first day at school.

Just like I can’t forget the image of my sister crying and running by the main road and me running behind her, I can’t also forget my amazement of her finding out the road to home from school. She is always good at finding roads. Even now she can find out roads better than me.

Kung Fu Panda 2

2011-07-04T08:45:00.001-07:00

Kung Fu Panda 2 is just beyond my explanation. It’s so good..Yes…. it’s even better than the first one….the entire storyline is so good. The first one when ended didn’t leave a cue for a new story like this one has done…..but still the way the story is developed deserves a big salute. The concept of making a peacock the villain and showing him fighting with all his feathers blowing is something I could never imagine. It was dangerously beautiful. I just loved it and felt that it should never end.

The movie is also special to me as it’s the first time I have gone out and had a great time with friends after coming to Bangalore. Thanks to Priya and Gayathri for this.

You give what you have

2011-07-04T08:44:00.000-07:00

Paulo Coelho’s ‘Like The Flowing Rivers’ is one of my most favorite books. There was a small story in that book. The story goes like this :

Once upon a time there was a humble man who was roaming from one place to another trying to spread the words of God. But for some reason the people misunderstood him and were insulting and harassing him a lot. One day while he was walking on the street saying God’s words, some people came and hit him with stones and abused him badly. He turned around and said ‘May God bless you’..and kept walking. There was a man who observed this and asked the humble man that why he didn’t scold those people who hurt him but even blessed him! The humble man said ‘They gave me what they have. I gave them what I have’.

This one story is somehow etched in my heart. I always remember this story whenever someone insulting me, abusing me or hurts me. This is what this person is capable of giving to the world. I try to be the humble man. But it’s not easy. I falter and then realize again.

Tees Maar Khan and Farah Khan

2011-07-04T08:42:00.002-07:00

I was watching this movie sometime back when it was being telecast by some satellite channel. I know it was a big flop and also what people think about it. But just for time pass I sat to watch it. I thought ‘it has Akshay at least. Won’t be that bad’…But I was wrong. It was not only bad, it was pathetic.

The worst message that I got from the movie was that the director and her husband think that we people are fools. And just because they are movie directors and roam around with biggest film stars of the country and some big production houses are lending them money, they think themselves to very smart people. You can’t call them stupid or idiot. Because at the end when they show the movie that was shot by the hero and his team, the scenes they show are actually taken in the same camera angle how it was shown while being taken in the movie. So, they are not fools, they are very smart people but they think people are fools; the same people for whom they are making the movies.

The movie Tees Maar Khan falls in the genre of ‘satire’. But making a satire doesn’t mean making fun of audience who love to see their original versions and showing the world ‘see, I am so smart’. I remember watching the best satire movie of my lifetime ‘Andaz Apna Apna’, which never made me feel that I am a fool. For that matter the movies like ‘Ajab Prem ki Ghazab Kahani’ and ‘You don’t mess with Zohan’ were also satires and I enjoyed watching them both.

The smart Ms Director Farah Khan comes as a judge of dance reality show now a days. If you watch this show you can discover some more colors of this lady; of course all colors adding up to same slogan: ‘I am the smartest’. There came a simple guy from village whose father is farmer. The fact that this guy can’t dance didn’t really bother our lady, what she was more concerned was how he speaks in English and made fun of him to her heart’s content. On the other hand when one guy came in London audition, who was very smart and good in conversation, Farah Khan gave away the certification to him saying (with a lot of fumbling) that he seemed confident and she didn’t need to see his dance. But the real joke was to see this guy dancing! This guy doesn’t know how to dance at all!

But these unconfident, not-able-to-speak-English and not-so-smart people are at least genuine in what they are doing. They are not faking people. So, if you think them fool, you are only proving how big fool you are; no matter how much you harass them in the reality shows.

Quality is good

2011-07-04T08:42:00.001-07:00

If you have a quality…..any quality….quality to sing, dance, paint, write…anything….great! You should be happy that the God has bestowed you with such a quality……practice it, nurture it, show it, flaunt it….even take pride in it……but please don’t make your quality a reason to insult or make fun of others who don’t have this……I have heard people making strongest statements like ‘you don’t even come close to my sister’s toes, you can’t even do what my sister does’….ok, might be your sister has great quality….but believe me…the moment you say so, your sister’s quality comes to zero! Sad….but it’s true. The moment a person insults another person for not having a quality what he/she has, he/she just loses the quality…or comes in the verge of losing that quality….sorry…God is there…

Dead Metalhead

2011-07-04T08:37:00.000-07:00

This book landed up in my hands quite accidentally. I happened to know the writer of this suspense novel Bhrigu Chaddha and I bought this book just to encourage him after learning the fact that he has dared to write a novel and published it all by himself!

So, initially I had no expectation from the novel. But I understood that I was wrong the moment I started reading it. The initial reading left me ‘awestruck’! My god, this boy has such a great command over the language and he knows how to explain an emotion! His elaborate description of an incident or a particular time of a day is really impressive.

I found Bhrigu’s writing much better than many new age ‘best seller’ writers of India. This novel offers much more than those conversational-soap-operatic novels that are coming up now with all those Engineer-turned-writers (They think writing to be a joke or what!). I wish this book were published by some famous publishing house, Bhrigu would be a adored name among teenagers by now.

Kudos to you Bhrigu! You rock. Waiting to read more from you.

Lost and Found

2011-06-26T01:57:00.000-07:00

Well, I lost my mobile....and I found it also!!!! :)

Here's the story -

It was just another day at office. While coming back by the office cab, like other days, I signed the papers, got down from the cab and headed for the lift in my apartment. But unlike other days I was having an uncanny feeling that something was missing and yes, I was correct....I left my mobile in the cab.

The next few hours were quite important. I had called the transport department to complain and since I was not carrying my mobile anymore I had to get all numbers from the internet. I kept calling at my mobile and finally the security guy in the cab answered the call. He was also at a loss as what to do with my swanky mobile phone. I instructed him to deposit the mobile phone to the help desk in my office. Which he did. And thus I collected my mobile from the office help desk the next day after confirming my employee identification number and my name.

The best thing about the entire episode was that I had left my mobile in the office cab. The office cabs, the drivers and the security persons who travel in those cabs are tracked and monitored centrally. That's the reason that my cab driver and the security guy were not confident enough to steal it.

Anyway, but a lesson is learnt. I have been using a mobile phone for last five years now. This mobile that I am using currently is the most stylish among all the sets I have used. I always used to imagine how I will react to such a situation. I used to think I would panic big time and make a lot of hue and cry causing much problem to myself and people around me. But actually, I was quite calm while handling the entire situation. May be loss of anything doesn’t affect me much, anymore!

Breathing tables and chairs

2011-06-05T03:01:00.000-07:00

Of late, I have been meeting breathing tables and chairs. Yes they breathe, they talk, they walk and even they work…they smoke, they drink alcohol….but they are just tables and chairs….

Why?

Well, if you tell a chair or a table ‘Hi, how are doing?’ will it reply back? No.

Just like that they also never reply…..they don’t even recognize if someone is saying them a ‘Hi’ even though they can see that.

But quite interestingly they are very warm and nice people when they are with their superiors!

Pronounciation mystery

2011-06-05T02:49:00.000-07:00

There are some words is English, which are pronounced very differently from how they appear by the so called ultra urban people. I never could understand why they do so. And also there seems to be a competition of 'how appropriate' they pronounce it.

For example 'genre'. It's not pronounced as 'jenr' as it looks but is pronounced as 'jonar'. You get some more brownie points if you pronounce it as 'jownar' and even more if 'jownare'....

Another such word is 'envelope'...as per my Nokia X5 dictionary, it is pronounced as it looks but people are keen to pronounce it as 'ownvolope'.....I can’t understand why....

There is a new addition of a very simple word in this list...it's ‘iron’....I always knew that it's pronounced as 'airon'....but in the TV commercials I see people saying it 'aiorn'....another mystery again...

Punctality is a quality if.......

2011-06-05T01:12:00.000-07:00

You will be appreciated for your punctuality if you are Aishwarya Rai or Amitabh Bachchan. Much will be talked and written about your quality of being punctual.

But if you are a normal regular person, then forget about being appreciated for that, don’t even expect people to turn up on time.

Though I have been facing the problem of being punctual since my school-college days, I can’t change my basic nature. I value my time and I value other’s time also. So I never go anywhere late except for some exceptional cases.

But people seem to be not bothered about anything but themselves and their own comfort. They are not bothered at all if someone is waiting for them somewhere. But just for some irresponsible people I can’t change my nature. I still go everywhere on time.

Language is a problem

2011-06-05T00:09:00.000-07:00

It was a regular day at office. It was a regular lunch at office with my friends. And yes it was the South Indian thali that I had ordered that day also. But just the earlier day I had found a hair in the curd rice bowl. So that day I decided to tell the people at counter about this.

So I told them in English 'I found hair in curd rice bowl yesterday. Please be careful about your food.'

The guy at the counter looked blank at me and got another curd rice bowl for me! Now it was my turn to be at loss!

Then I told him in Hindi that I didn’t want to have another curd rice bowl but that there was hair in the curd rice bowl the day before.

Then he took away the curd rice bowl and got another curd rice bowl for me! Me and my friends started laughing out loud by that time. Then I started to explain him showing my own hair and indicating towards the curd rice bowl....but that was also of no help. He still looked blank and at a loss.

Finally I had to give up as the people at the counter don't understand anything but Kannada!

Bring My Blood

2011-06-05T00:08:00.000-07:00

Someone told me the story of Mr X. Mr X works in a company and he had sour relation with his manager. So sour that the manager stopped everyone from giving him work. Frustrated Mr X goes up to manager’s room and shouts at him saying ‘I’ll bring my blood for you tomorrow’.

When I had heard this story I didn’t understand what Mr X was saying and why he was saying so. But now I understand that very well. Now I also want to say the same. But not to my manager or to anyone in my office but to some people I know.

Films are not real

2011-06-05T00:07:00.000-07:00

Neither their characters.

But not always. There are people in real life also who are like film characters. But those characters don’t live a life of film.

My reference point is Jab We Met. I was watching it this weekend. Yes, again :)

Girls like Geet do exist in this world. But no Aditya is there for them. They only land up with Angshumans to realize that their dreams never come true!

Oh Calcutta, she's spitting on you!

2011-04-17T06:58:00.000-07:00

I am not from Kolkata, neither do I love Kolkata. But after reading what Ms Bachi Karkaria has written about Kolkata in TOI Crest dated Apr 9, 2011 Bangalore edition, I thought I should write up. TOI Crest attempted to explore the characteristic of some of the cities of India. While most writers seemed to be unhappy to write about his/her allotted city and were more prone to discuss the vices than virtues of the cities, Ms Karkaria went one step ahead and she was almost spitting her hatred for Kolkata. I don't know why she is so upset with the city or the city people that she came up with such a notorious article.

The reason for my writing this blog post is not to bring forward the virtues of the city but to point out the false allegations made on Kolkata. I am not here to make any political statement also. I will simply prove why I think these allegations to be false and will also write which other city of the country actually deserves that 'allegation'. Please read on.

Ms Karkaria has expressed her annoyance to the fact that Victoria Memorial in Kolkata is still called Victoria Memorial while Victoria Terminus (VT) is called Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) in Mumbai. I want to state a simple fact here. Victoria Memorial is a building that houses a museum with portraits and memorabilia relating to the then queen Victoria. While VT was a rail terminus, which could be easily changed to any name (CST in this case), how can you actually change the house and museum of queen Victoria to somebody else's name like Chhatrapati Shivaji Memorial or Gandhi Memorial or Netaji Subhash Memorial? I really don't understand her point here. And also FYI, Kolkata hosts the biggest museum in the country.

Also, Ms Karkaria has mentioned that Kolkata is the last Indian city with an intact statue of queen Victoria. By writing this sentence if Ms Karkaria is hinting at Kolkata people's keenness towards British or pointing her finger at the city people's patriotism, then she's grossly at the wrong foot. No matter how many hatred articles like this she writes about Kolkata, she can't change the history of Indian freedom fight movement. At that time when people from Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad were busy becoming engineers and writing exams for the ticket to London, it was people of Kolkata who were protesting, marching, fasting and dying for India. So before making such a lose statement, she better checks what she is writing.

I am surprised at one sentence of the article - 'stitching seamlessly onto the English cultural fabric'! Post independence, only Kolkata was the city that had the courage to throw not only English people but English culture from their lives, for which they are now paying hard in this double-standard nation, which is obsesses with the idea that better a person speaks in English, more he is respected in the society. It is the very non-fondness of English culture that has left Kolkata youth in the back seat in the career track as Kolkata people can't speak English fluently. Whereas go to any other city in South India or North India, you will see people prefer to speak in English than their own mother tongue proving their undeterred loyalty to the English culture. Boys and girls and their parents in South India seem to have only one motto in their lives ever since they are born is - Go to America. In the same article when Ms Karkaria makes fun of a Kolkata people's English pronunciation, at the same time she blames them for being the blind followers of English culture. A paradox in the confused writer's own thought process. And also, I used to think that making fun of a Bengalee's Hindi and English pronunciation was a good subject for the cheesy script writers of Hindi soap operas and second grade Hindi films. It's quite a shock to see an editor of the most famous English news paper of the country taking such a cheap action to make her article famous. It is true that people in Kolkata can't speak great English or Hindi, but you being a non-Bengalee go to any Kolkata street and ask anyone to guide you for an address and see how that person tries hard to tell you the address in his/her broken Hindi. Try the same in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. Do I need to say more?

The mention of Bengalees attending Kolkata club in tweeds and formals is also beyond my understanding. Has Ms Karkaria never attended any club in India in any other city? Is she new in the country? Is she not aware that Bangalore club and Madras club don't even ALLOW people inside the club in dhotis and pyjamas? Before writing an article in a national newspaper, I think Ms Karkaria should have done some study.

Ms Karkaria needs to take a trip to Indian cities, specially to North India and South India to know what it means to be a city to be obsessed in itself. I have lived in quite a number of cities in India. Except for Kolkata and Mumbai, I have not found people in any city who has a fair idea about the country they are staying in. My personal experience has taught me that Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai are the three most self-obsessed cities in the country. Any normal people in these cities don't even know that the country they are living in has a states called Assam or Arunachal Pradesh. While people in Chennai and Bangalore don't know where cities like Chandigarh, Shimla or Darjeeling fall in the country and consider any people staying outside Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu or Kerala to be North-Indians, people in Delhi has no idea about anything beyond NCR and consider people staying anywhere in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu or Kerala to be Madrasis. Ask even an auto rickshaw driver in Kolkata about India; you will find that even you know less than him.

Had the city been self obsessed, they wouldn't be as welcoming to outsiders as they are. A country where racism is increasing day by day, Kolkata could be a model city for others to learn from. Everybody knows how non-marathis are not welcome in Mumbai, but what about Bangalore and Chennai? Recently, the second biggest bus depot in Bangalore removed the sign-boards in each platform where the destinations were written in two languages - English and Kannada (forget about Hindi. They don't even care about the court orders) and replaced them with new sign-boards where destinations were written only in Kannada. Should I speak about the unwelcoming characteristic of Chennai in the way they treat non-Tamilians? It's an irony that a city where from all bus numbers to all directions are written also in English for the convenience of Non-Bengalee people is labeled as 'self-obsessed city'. Ms Karkaria, get your facts correct.

Also, I want to know how much research Ms Karakria has done to dig out a minuscule population of 'panditya'caste and their story. From my personal observation I have seen that the cross-caste, cross-culture and cross-religion marriage is the highest among Bengalees. Kolkata is perhaps the only city in the country where arranged marriages happen among different castes. Whenever any such cross cultural marriage happens in India, this is almost certain that one of the two tying the knot is a Bengalee. I have seen almost all combinations of marriages with Bengalees like Bengalee-Punjabi, Bengalee-Hariyanvi, Bengalee-Uttaranchali, Bengalee-Assamese, Bengalee-Kannada, Bengalee-Tamil brahmin, Bengalee-Tamil non-brahmin, Bengalee-Malyalee Hindu, Bengalee-Malayalee Christian, Bengalee-Gujarati, Bengalee-Sindhi, Bengalee Hindu-Hyderabadi Muslim and Bengali-Marathi. But I have not seen people from any other culture mingling with other cultures to this lasrge extent. I am sure Ms Karkaria has also come across many such couples because media is full of Bengalees but she still writes something nonsense like this.

Ms Karkaria is also upset that youth in Kolkata is not aware of 'Jasmine Revolution'. I want to ask her which city boy/girl in India is aware of this revolution? I really want to know.

When compared with other city, Kolkata is not a girl-child killer city like Delhi, it's not a wannabe like Bangalore or Hyderabad, it's not stinking orthodox like Chennai or it's not a money hunter like Ahmedabad. Every city has some virtues and vices. Kolkata also has its share of flaws. If you want to dig out vices, you may have many. Simply because Kolkata is not politically correct city and is not as rich as other cities of India, it doesn't give anyone a right to write 'anything nonsense' about the city. The proficiency Ms Karkaria has shown to 'create' allegations for Kolkata out of thin air, I think she can even turn a Mahatma Gandhi to a monster. I challenge her to write an article in the same tone for Chandigarh or Chennai. I challenge her. Does she have the guts to do that?

Link to the article that is written by Bachi Karkaria in TOI Crest dated Apr 9, 2011: http://www.timescrest.com/coverstory/kolkata-bong-appetit-5133

IPL

2011-04-17T06:56:00.002-07:00

Where cricket is sold in the hands of entertainment.

Where players don't play for country honour but for money.

Where 'owners' not 'coaches' set standards for players to follow. ("I want 4 wickets" , 'Ok, ma'm")

Where players look more like servants to their owners than players.

It's Woman's world too

2011-04-17T06:56:00.001-07:00

India is a country, which is obsessed with the word 'cricket'. We have a great team of eleven players who are not only number one in Test Cricket but also number one One-Day Cricket after snatching away the world cup two weeks back. It's quite obvious that I am talking about the men's cricket team, right? Who bother about the women's cricket team anyway?

But we have a women's cricket team also. This team may not be as glorious as the current men's team but it is somewhat more like the India men's cricket team of 10 years before. But who cares. No one really bothers about what Indian women's cricket team is doing. Neither their matches nor their achievements are covered by media; forget about them endorsing products. No one appreciates the fact that some girls are practicing hard and playing hard for the same country.

In a nation when we have such good women's cricket team, can anyone remember a good lady cricket commentator? Why is there women like Mandira Bedi, Rashmi Chopra or Mayanti Langer hosting the cricket shows? They dress in 'lucky' dresses on the matches when India is playing and talk about which cricketer looking handsome and romantic on the field. I remember during 2003 world cup Mandira Bedi used co-host the show and on the India matches she used to come dressed as a bride. Can't the organizer have the captain of Indian women's Cricket team to co-host the show? No. No one would that. The simple reason for that no one wants to see girls in that position. Girls should do only one thing - show off their skin and add on to the glamour of the show. Since there would be no lady cricketer coming on the show wearing a spaghetti strap blouse and talk absolute nonsense on the show, so get those blunt beauties.

On the top of that, you will see boys, the same boys who prefer to see a spaghetti-strapped-blouse-clad lady as the anchor than a real cricket player commenting on how girls have no understanding on cricket and how they should mind their chores at home than blabbering about cricket.

On one side when no girl of merit is allowed to show her merit because girls are just used as glam-substance, the boys are also blaming them for not having any merit! What a double standard.

Abraham Lincoln said it right

2011-04-17T06:52:00.000-07:00

Abraham Lincoln had said sometime: "If you want to test a man's character, give him power".

I don't spend even a single day when I don't remember this quote. I have come across so many people who behave differently with different people. A wretched person may be very humble and polite in front of you. You may find that person to be very nice. But wait and see how that person behaves with the people who are even more wretched than him. If he behaves nicely with them, then you can conclude that that person is really a good person.

Imagine a person working hard under his manager's pressure becomes a manager one day. Now you can see the true character he possesses. If you see him treating his team members badly, don't think that he has changed; he is just showing off his true character which was suppressed till date. The housewives, who have little chance to show off their power anywhere else (except to their husbands, in some cases though) generally command their maid servants. I know many ladies who when meet their neighbors and relatives spend a considerable amount of time discussing how they control their maid servants while the gentlemen discuss their managers in details. And what about those women who never got any chance to command a maid also? They would pray for the day when their sons will grow up and will bring a daughter-in-law home. That's the time when she'll show her true character. If then the lady behaves reasonably, you can say that the lady had been always a good person. But if the lady makes her daughter-in-law suffer every moment, then it's just another case when a devil has come to its true character.

Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth

2011-04-17T06:48:00.000-07:00

She is a magician when it comes to narrate human emotions. The eloquence she has to describe even the minutest feeling and expression in human relationships is something that stays on even months after you finish the stories just like a favorite fragrance. I had explored her capability of touching hearts in her last book 'The Interpreter of Maladies', but I found 'Unaccustomed Earth' even more refined than the previous one. Interpreter of Maladies had stories involving people from varied social strata but the stories of Unaccustomed Earth revolved more or less around the similar cluster of people - the Bengalees settled in America.

But the masterpiece from the magician was three interrelated stories on Hema and Kaushik. These three stories are by far the best work I have read from Jhumpa Lahiri. The deep melancholy I fell into after completing the three stories of Hema and Kaushik that I seriously needed a saline of laughter to come out of it. The story 'Once in a lifetime' seemed to be the prequel of the story 'The interpreter of Maladies'. But it was not. By these three stories she not only established her writing skill but also introduced a new concept of writing - three independent but interrelated stories.

Shobha Dey

2011-04-17T06:33:00.000-07:00

Do the words of a woman even count who goes through Botox surgery to enhance her vital statistics before posing to show off her painted cleavage for her book's cover page to cut sale?

The Radhachura tree

2011-04-09T07:47:00.002-07:00

I remember reading somewher that there are more than a thousand types of gulmohor flower available. I may get the number wrong though. Among all these types of gulmohor the one that still has been fascinating me since the age of two years is the thick yellow flowers with coffe coloured stems and seeds, which we call Radhachura.

I remember we were in Hailakandi then. We used to stay in the house, the last property that my grandfather had built just after they moved there from Hobiganj after India got its independence at the cost of partition, which not only cost my grandfather two houses and some acres of fertile land but also his life.

There were two gulmohor trees at the two sides of the huge gate guarding the house with two lawns and two ponds. One of them was a Krishnachura tree which used to beautify itself with big red flowers. That's the most common pattern of gulmohor avialbale I think. The other was the Radhachura tree. The nature must be the greatest fashion designer. It releases such great colour combinations that it becomes the biggest trend later. The combination of thick yellow and coffee colour is one such example.

Ours was a joined family. As our mother and aunts used to be busy in kitchen all day, me and my sister used to play all day under those trees. There used to be a mild fragrance in the air. It was so mild and faint that I never acknowledged it until last week when I went to the SBI branch near my house in Bangalore and a familiar fragrance automatically drew my face upward. It was the same Radhachura tree, I was standing under whose shaded area. It was as familiar as of a loving relative and such was its fragrance. For a second I forgot that I was thousands miles away from a house that exists no more and that more than two decades have passed since that playful time. But Radhachura is still there never ceasing to adorn itself with beautiful flowers and mild fragrance.

Some Unfulfilled Dreams

2011-04-09T07:47:00.001-07:00

It's true that I don't like Delhi but I used to like the India Gate and the surrounding area a lot. Otherwise very harsh and intolerable Delhi climate turns to be a very nice one only twice a year - February-March and October-November. I always used to wish to spend a full evening in India Gate and its surrounding areas during those four months. But it never happened.

February-March is the time when Delhi roads are the prettiest due to blooming gulmohor trees arrayed on either sides of the roads. When I used to come home from office, I used to take office bus or cab, I used see those windy roads in Dwarka and used to dream that one day I would walk down the road and count the trees and take lots of images. I still sometimes dream those roads that I could never walk.

Winters is the fair time in Delhi. There happens one fair after another during that time. One such fair is Trade Fair. Probably there is not a single person left in the city who has not visited Trade Fair, except for me of course :) I used to hear a lot of stories about people's experiences in the Trade Fair and I used to dream that I would also go there one day, but it never happened. Same was with the Surajkund Fair. Even before going to Delhi I heard people talking a lot about it, but I never happened to visit that place. Though I used to see my friends and colleagues in office using various stuff bought from Surajkund Fair, I never had the chance to go there.

Delhi rains used to be marvelous. I always dreamt of going to India Gate and Mehrauli-Gurgaon road during rains. But I never had the chance to do so.

I may not return to Delhi anymore. But I am hopeful that I'll fulfill my dreams in Bangalore. The wish that tops the chart is visiting Ulsoor lake :)

Where do they go?

2011-04-09T07:45:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make. I have a fetish. Whenever I travel and come across a road diversion or flyover diversion, I yearn to see where the roads that I have not taken go!

This happens the most when I take the regular route everyday. Generally I go by the same route and I keep wishing that the bus had taken wrong diversion. But it happens never!

The Taste does matter

2011-04-09T07:40:00.001-07:00

I am not very stylish, neither do I spend a lot on branded garments. But I make sure that I dress decently. After all, the clothes are reflections of our minds. My mother says that when you see anyone wearing tattered, torn, unclean and worn-out dresses (even though that person has enough money to buy decent clothes), you'll understand that that person possesses 'tama guna', which is the worst type of character a person can posses according to Hindu shastras. The complete list of all guna in descending order of virtue is : Satya, Raja, Tama.

Anyway, back to me. I always prefer to wear clean cotton dresses. Though I am not a brand freak, but when it comes to buy readymade dresses, I prefer to buy it from a good shop. Earlier I used to like to shop from Fabindia but I have stopped it ever since their revised price has reached sky. Now I pick dresses from any good showroom.

But I have always been appreciated for my taste for dresses, bags, shoes and other accessories. Recently I had bought a handbag. It cost me Rs. 350. Next day when I went to office, a colleague of mine liked it so much that she insisted me to get the same bag for her. I got one for her. The next day when I reached office with two bags, one in my use and the other for my colleague, another colleague of us insisted me to get the same bag for his wife. So the next day I got another bag again! Later when I checked other places, I came to know that the minimum price that bag is available elsewhere is Rs. 800!

So, that's how I shop. I don't buy expensive branded stuff. But I buy decent things and for that I need to pick the stuff of my choice from a place of my choice. And of course my mobile phone. It's still a rage among my friends and colleagues. I never liked any Micromax or Corby mobile. I know what I like and I want to go for the stuff I like. I have bought Nokia X5-01 and I still relish the moment when people appreciate it with raised eyebrows.

There was a time in my life when I was not allowed to buy anything - forget about buying a thing of my choice. I had to wear something which used to loathe. On top of that I used be accused of possessing a bad taste by the same people who used to compel me from buying stuff of my choice! What an irony! Thank god I am out of that dirty well now.

A devotee or a nastik?

2011-04-09T07:32:00.000-07:00

Swami Vivekananda once said that the person who doesn't believe himself is the greatest nastik.

I know a person who demands himself to be the greatest devotee of god because he bows down before god innumerable times a day; before leaving home (even if he is going to grocery shop in the neighbourhood) his prayers to god are unending, he takes innumerable dips in the river Ganga in Haridwar as he believes that more number of dips he takes the more punya he earns and also when he takes such a dip, he makes sure that he stays under water for maximum time possible as he believes that the longer dips he takes, the more punya he earns.

Now the person has other interesting characteristics also when it comes to trusting himself. He cannot take any decision himself. From the smallest to the biggest decisions, he has to ask his mother to help him. If his friend invites him over for lunch or dinner, he will ask his mother what he should reply. Everytime he has gone to the vegetable market, he will call his mother at least for 5-7 times to ask what vegetable he should get; he would also narrate to his mother what vegetables he can see infront of him and they are of what colour and what quality. This he does everytime he goes to the vegetable markeet. If he goes to buy cloth for himself or somebody else, he will call his mother and narrate the types of designs and colours he can see in fromt him. He also asks the shop keeper that he would come back if necessary to change the cloth if his mother doesn't like the dress even if he has just bought a shirt for himself. While having lunch or dinner, if the peerson who is serving the food is not his mother and in the middle of the meal if that person asks him if he would like to have some more rice or dal, he would ask his mother if he should have more. By the way, the person I am talking about here is 36 years old. Also, if there is anyone in his office who is giving him trouble or there is some new opportunity in his company, he would ask his mother what to do even if his mother has no understanding about corporate culture.

What should we call that person: a devotee or a nastik? One good thing is that he would not really bother what Swami Vivekananda said since his mother doesn't approve of anything said by Ramakrishna Mission or people associated with it :)

It's quite clear that this person's mother is the decision maker in the house and she has made him a bonsai in order to have the control in her hand. But shouldn't the son be capable of taking his own decision? Shouldn't the son have fiesta in his life? Shouldn't the boy also rise?

Congratulations to me

2011-04-09T07:30:00.000-07:00

Finally I have joined the company which I wanted to join for so many years.

Congratulations to me :)

We are world champions!!!

2011-04-02T22:45:00.000-07:00

Finally we are world champions after a long wait of 28 years.

At a moment when it seemed to be an imposible task, Gambhir, Kohli and Dhoni made us believe on miracles that nothing is unacievable. Hats off to team India :)

The Great Indian Tension is here

2011-03-29T11:50:00.000-07:00

Time for the match-of-all-matches India-Pakistan cricket match has arrived again in the world cup. All eyes will be glued to the much hyped, much anticipated and much publicised match tomorrow when team India will take on team Pakistan in the huge ground of Mohali where the wicket is favorable for batsmen and a total of 700 runs by two teams put together is being expected.

All fingers crossed for the team India to win.

I am happy that my present state of in-between-jobs has spared me of the great tension of managing a leave or leaving early from office leaving my head free for having tension for the match only. I can be at home all ready to watch each ball of the match and bite my nails.

Cheer for India!!! Team aise he nahi jitti, jitana padta hai :)

It's Back

2011-03-28T01:08:00.000-07:00

JWM is one of my most favorite films. I can't count how many times I have seen it. For me it's just not a movie; a lot of my life's happiness, expectation and memory is associated with it. Six months back when I wanted to see it, I couldn't see it. It was terrible but I was just not able to see it. Something was haunting me.

Today I watched it again. And it's back. It proves that I am slowly coming out of that black shadow that lasted for one year and two months in my life.

Holi that was not of colour

2011-03-23T07:53:00.000-07:00

I remember the Holi I had spent in the year of 2009. I was in Silchar. I was so happy. I visited all the houses in my neighborhood with packets of dry colour and played Holi with everybody, no matter how old they were. I always love to play Holi. I think I love to do everything that involves people and fun unless I am forced to do that.

Last year’s Holi was very bad. Like always I was getting prepared for Holi buying dry colours. This time I bought expensive vegetable colours with mild fragrance. I was very sure that that day would be a day to remember in the future. I was expecting to have a lot of fun. But I was actually playing hide and seek with myself as one part of my mind always knew that nothing what I was expecting was going to happen. Still I kept hoping until it broke down completely.

This year I am in Bangalore. There is no one I know in the neighborhood. So, this year’s Holi was a lazy weekend full of books, cinema, food, cricket match and ample amount of rest. I completed ‘An Unaccustomed Earth’ by Jhumpa Lahiri in the free time. I found it even better than The Interpreter of Maladies. But the melancholic feeling that it left after it was over was so unbearable for me that for one day I didn’t start any new book and started watching Hindi movies in Max. It worked. The India-West Indies match was also a great stress buster for me.

Today I have started reading The Quilt by Ismat Chughtai. I am planning to gift myself some books on my birthday this year :)

Motichur Laddu

2011-03-08T05:38:00.000-08:00

For last couple of days I was yearning to have motichur laddu. Today while coming back from office I made it a point to go to the sweet shop and get some motichur laddu. In Bangalore every small to big retailers are brands. This sweet shop is also a famed brand having outlets at various parts of the city. I wanted to buy 1 kg motichur laddu but as I checked the price tag, my wishes half died so I dared to buy half kg only. The motichur laddu in Bangalore costs 340 rupees per kg!!!!!!! I cant believe it. This is an Indian sweet, then why so much price!!!! God help us before we start saying 'motichur laddu is sour.'

Angels and Demons - the movie

2011-03-08T05:31:00.000-08:00

Yesterday while fiddling with TV remote, I found Angels and Demons to be telecast (i dont remember in which channel) shortly. Hurriedly I took my bath, did my my puja and prepared rice for dinner and sat to watch the movie. It's always exciting to see the movie of a novel which you have read recently. Though the Angels and Demons is not as enjoyable as Da Vinci Code, but it was a good time pass read.

Anyway, the movie is a lot different from the novel where many characters of the novel were omitted and some more were introduced. When I was reading the novel, I used to wonder how they would have made the movie considering so many complex incidents happening simulataneously. But they did change the plot to a large extent. But I must admit the movie is less dramatic than the novel, which is good.

Just like The Godfather, I found the film adaptation of the novel Angels and Demons to be better than the original novel.

Government is a fool. Only I’m smart!

2011-03-07T05:51:00.001-08:00

Government is building big roads for the ever-increasing cars and big flyovers for smooth traffic. Government is also taking up a lot of safety measures for the pedestrians’ on the roads. One such measure is the construction of subways where there is merging traffic. Another safety measure taken by the government, which is very new in use, is the blowing of siren for one minute during which the traffic stops to give way to the pedestrians to cross the roads. This is implemented mainly in busy and broad highways where the vehicles run at 50-70km/hour speed.

But government is such a fool. People are far more intelligent than those stupid government officers who are working day-nights to implement measures to make citizen life safer, easier and smoother. People don’t really bother to take subway. They are smart city people. They can cross the road anytime anywhere. And what happens to the subways? They simply turn to public lavatories thanks to male population of the country.

There is another bunch of smart people who think waiting for the siren to blow at the signal such a waste of time. Only fools do that! They might not have important work in hand but they make it a point not to waste even a second and make space in between speeding vehicles and thus crossing the road. They are smart city people.

I often wonder, if some unfortunate accident happens sometime, who will be at the receiving end? The government, who built all those measures for public safety? Or those police constables who are deployed at the signals to make sure that people abide by the rule? Will they bother if a life gets destroyed at an unfortunate moment? Or even worse, if that smart person turns into an invalid person for the rest of his/her life? Who will actually pay for the smartness?

Are their lives’ government’s? If not, then whom are they cheating on? Whom are they making fool of?

My dream house

2011-03-07T05:50:00.000-08:00

I want a library, two gardens – one kitchen garden and one garden for flowers and a swimming pool in my dream house. I don’t want anything more :)

Yellow and purple flowers

2011-03-07T05:49:00.001-08:00

As if it’s the city’s wedding! The entire city is adorned with bright yellow and mild purple flowers. Some trees have shed even the last of their leaves and are showing off clustered lumps of yellow flowers. The purple flowers are appearing in a different fashion though. They are spread all across the thin branches of the tree while briefly punctuated by green leaves. What a view to watch every day!

I have asked many people for the names of those flowers. But no success till now. Can anyone help me?

Some Distant Memory

2011-02-26T05:50:00.000-08:00

It had rained that day. I was coming back home. As my bus left Shivaji Nagar stand, I smelled a fragrance that was very familiar. I could recognize that, but I was surprized to have it here. I had it in Ranikhet!

This was the smell of wet leaves, wet flowers and wet trees; the smell of wet earth and wet sky also mingled to that. It was unbelievable. The excitement to have that and also recognize that almsot stopped my breath. For a second those quaint windy roads and nature's majesty just flashed in front of eyes. I almost forgot that I was sitting in a bus thousand miles away from the place.

Then it hit me. And it hit me bad. Very bad indeed. I wish I had not gone there!

It's Raining

2011-02-26T05:49:00.000-08:00

Bheegi bheegi bheegi jadubhari
Lamhon ki yeh ratein
Dekho karni lagi hoon main
Boondo se baatein :)

Yes, it was raining in Bangalore :) And I came home full drenched yesterday :D

Sleep Sleep Sleep

2011-02-26T05:47:00.000-08:00

There are people who are very much fond of sleeping. I remember I had a friend in school who used to love sleeping so much that she used to sleep on the floor under the bed so that no one could catch her! My sister is also very fond of sleeping. But nowadays, due to her office timing she doesn’t get to sleep as much she likes. She is not complaining though.

Two days back I had an experience regarding sleep which I think is historical in my life. Last week I came back after one week trip to Silchar. The flight I took from Kolkata was scheduled to reach at 8:30pm to Bangalore but it got late and it reached around 9:30pm here. I reached home after 11pm that day. Next day being Monday my normal routine started. It hit me Tuesday evening. I was feeling extremely tired and fatigued. First I didn’t really bother and then I realized that I was not having full sleep. That day after coming back from office I cooked fast, had meal early and rushed to bed….all I remember is that I was pulling my blanket towards me….the next thing I remember that I woke up at 5:30am alarm.....I actually slept within 2-3 seconds I hit the bed and that also with lights on! What a sleep I had!

Another deep sleep experience I had some years back in Delhi. Then I was 2-3 months old in the city. I was in my first job. I used to have roster off then. That was a weekday and I had gone to Delhi university with a friend to check for the MA program in English. Then we used to stay in Govindpuri. While I was coming back I got a direct bus till my house. I was feeling very sleepy and was falling asleep again and again in the bus. Being new to the city, I didn’t know the routes well then. I got scared thinking what will happen if I miss my stop! I was trying hard to keep myself awake but nothing was of any help. As I was nearing Nehru Place (which comes 5-6 stops before my stop), I decided to get down from the bus and walk a little to get rid of the sleep. I was planning to walk to my house so that I don’t fall asleep again. But then I got a shuttle auto and went home. This experience I can never forget J

The funniest among all sleeping incidents happened when I was in a hostel in Kolkata. That was a private hostel. The bathroom that we used to use was inside another room. So, the girls of that room had fixed the timing to close the door at night time. So all of us who used to stay in other rooms had to go to bathroom before they close the door. Otherwise we had to go to the dirty bathroom downstairs L. That day I was feeling very sleepy. I had asked a roommate to call me before they close the door so that I can go to bathroom before going for sleep. After instructing her I fell asleep. I opened my eyes next morning. Immediately then I realized that she had not called me to go to bathroom and I felt very cheated L so I asked her ‘why didn’t you call me last night to go to bathroom?’She looked very surprised. She said ‘But we had called you and you went to bathroom also and then came back and slept!’.................I was blank.............I couldn’t remember a thing...................

A Conversation

2011-02-26T05:44:00.000-08:00

One fine day when Karan was done with his day's quota for discussing ladies and gentlemen he met in last night's party to his friends, he suddenly realized that he had nothing to do.

His mom was also out of town so he couldn't plan to go for shopping also. He tried to pass some time watching TV serials. He loves watching serials especially those which involves stories about rich families where the heroine falls prey to kitchen politics. Karan just loves kitchen politics. He doesn’t understand why people make such hue and cry demanding that these saas-bahu serials are of low art value...he just loves the big houses, the dresses and jewellery characters wear and how the storyline changes every fortnight. The best part about these serials are that there is always some festival or wedding or anniversary going on. You never feel bored. But it's sadly true that he has to criticize his favorite serials in front of others to maintain his 'cool' image.

His TV serial is over. He is feeling bored again. There is this problem with him since childhood...he gets bored very soon. So he thought of checking out some books, which he usually never does. He just can’t stand those people who talk about books, award winning movies, world literature and most irritating topic-the politics. He loves politics but only if it is kitchen politics or politics that his 'love of his life' plays.

He got one book laying on the table. It was 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time' by Mark Haddon. He found the title of the book very unusual and he couldn't really remember if he ever heard of it anywhere. He took up the book and came to know that this novel won Whitbread Book award in 2003. Though he had no idea about the award or the writer, he thought he would read it and could win some brownie points over those nerds in the next party.

He started reading it. It was about Christopher, who was suffering from autism. As he went ahead of the book, only thing he could think of was making a film out of that book. And the only person he could think of doing the role was ‘love of his life’ – Shahrukh. But Shahrukh is 45 and Christopher is 15. As his head was not able to think anymore (This is another problem with him, he just can’t think original), he thought to call Shahrukh and take his help.

Shahrukh comes and there starts a discussion between them.

Karan: Hey, I have just come across an interesting storyline. I think you should act in this movie and all your critics will shut up forever.
Shahrukh: Really? What’s that?
Karan: This is a story of an autistic boy. He is 15 years old and he is very smart. The novel is about how he travels alone from Swindon to London. We’ll also make a film. We’ll develop your character just like this boy. You will also be very smart in studies, you’ll also have problem with the color yellow, you’ll also have problem in crowded places especially when there is noise, you’ll also tell the truth always. But I am facing some difficulty to develop the story. I need your help.
Shahrukh: Yes, tell me. The storyline seems interesting.
Karan: (greening with joy)Thanks. The problem is that this is the story of 15 year-old-boy and you are 45. What should we do?
Shahrukh: Oh Karan! Sometime you speak so stupid! What happened if the story is about 15 year-old boy. We’ll make it the story of 25 year-old man.
Karan: But! (looking confused!) But you’re not 25 either!!
Shahrukh: (frowning) so what? Haven’t you heard of ‘on screen grafting’? That’s how they make Rajnikath looking 30 years old when he is 60 years old. We’ll also do that.
Karan: Oh Shahrukh! You are so smart!
Shahrukh: Thanks thanks J
Karan: Then there is another problem! Here they show that the boy is going to London to meet his mother. What will we show? Indian audience wont like if you go to Delhi looking for your mother. What should we do?
Shahrukh: Oh Karan! First of all let me tell you, think big. Don’t just be confined in India and think of a storyline of going to Delhi from Mumbai. Think bigger. Imagine the story in the USA! Imagine I’m going to Washington!
Karan: But what should be your purpose for travelling?
Shahrukh: That we may decide later. Let’s decide on the locations, heroine and other things.
Karan: Ok. I want Kajol. Can you manage?
Shahrukh: Done.
Karan: I want to shoot in San Francisco….no, in Los Angeles……no, in some remote village in America. I’m confused!
Sharukh: Don’t worry! We’ll have all of those cities and villages in the film. What else do you want?
Karan: Can we have awards?
Shahrukh: Of course! See, first I’ll manage the media to project the film as a classy hit film. So, even before the release, people will know that it’s a hit film. I anyway have good market outside India. Let’s make this movie on some Islamic issue. Then we’ll have more audience. By the end of the year when there will be award time, we’ll sweep all awards. Tell me how many you want?
Karan: I want Best Actor for you (gigglig)
Shahrukh: So sweet of you! Done! What else?
Karan: I want Best Actress. Long time Kajol hasn’t won any award. Then I want Best Film, Best Director, Best Music, Best Male Playback, Best Female playback, Best Cinematography, Best Story, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Dialogue and Best Editing. Ohh…also Best Sound Recording. Yes, that’s all.
Shahrukh: Look Karan, you have to be smart in picking up the awards. You can’t have all the awards. This will make everyone understand that we have actually bought them. Listen to my plan. Let’s have the Best Actress award. Good choice. This will help us convince Kajol to do the role. Leave all those technical awards. We don’t need them. We’re big. We’ll distribute them to other films. This will make people believe in the awards. We’ll take the big ones only. We can have the Best Story also. Let me see what I can do. Now tell me which one do you want among Best Film and Best Director? I think you should go for Best Director. This will give credit to you only.
Karan: (Looking a little lost!) Ok. And Best Film?
Shahrukh: We’ll give that to the actual biggest hit of the year. Alright?
Karan: What if these new breed of directors like Dibakar Banerjee, Imtiaz Ali, Vishal Bharadwaj, Anurag Kashyap or Anurag Basu come up with great movies? I am scared from them. They are so talented. Thanks to God that their fathers are not producers!
Shahrukh: Don’t worry. I’ll manage. Now let’s sit to create a rough storyline that fits to all of our requirements and the sentiment of people.
Karan: OK.
.................????.......!!!
...........????...........!!!!!!.........
!!!!.................????..............

Bhangra in Kannada

2011-02-26T05:40:00.000-08:00

I was coming by bus. They were playing local FM channels in the bus. I was listening and not listening also. I was reading my book. There was one song that caught my attention. There was something unusual about the song! This was a bhangra song sung by Daler Mehendi. But the surprising part was that the song was in Kannada. It was really something new and different to try out that. I felt like I was having Paneer Tikka Masala with Sambar :)

Early is good

2011-02-21T22:53:00.000-08:00

Last week when we went to Silchar and I reached Bangalore airport, I realized that I was too early. The reason was the Aero Show in Bangalore. Because of this Aero Show, which takes place at a Air Force ground just few kilometers before the airport, a lot of traffic jam was happening. So everyone kind of pushed me to start early and I obliged and I reached the airport even before 4pm while my flight was scheduled to leave at 6:20pm!

As I was crossing the Aero Show venue, I saw four fighter planes doing somersault in the sky! I was almost jumping with excitement as I was watching such a thing ‘live’ in front of me for the first time in life.

As I crossed the security checking gate, to my pleasant surprise, I found one Crossword book store there. I was jumping with excitement again. I asked for the book ‘Simoquin Prophecies’ by Samit Basu at the counter but they ran out of stock. What to do, I started checking other books. Suddenly something at the bottom most rack in a corner caught my notice. There were some books with familiar cover page. Those books were having cover pages similar to those of old Bishwabharati books. I got curious and sat down to check them properly. To my surprise, I found that those were English translations for the novels/stories of some famous Indian authors. There were translation works for Rabindranath Tagore, Satyajit Roy, Premchand and more. Since I have read almost all of Rabindranath Tagore and Satyajit Roy and most of Premchand’s work in the original languages, I wasn’t really interested to check them out. But there was another book, standing quietly, next to Satyajit Roy’s collection; it was ‘Quilt’. I saw the name and something clicked in my mind and in that fraction second as I was looking down for the author’s name, I knew who was that celebrated author before even seeing the name. It was Ismat Chghtai. The book was nothing but the translation for her most famous work ‘Lihaaf’. I was holding the book stunned as I hardly could believe the sheer discovery as I didn’t know that Lihaaf got translated and that it was available in stores! I grabbed it immediately. To my more surprise, there was the translation of Toba Tek Singh by Sadat Hasan Manto lying next! I was flabbergasted! What was happening! I had no idea of Toba Tek Singh ever getting translated either! I grabbed that too!

As I was coming out of the shop jumping with joy, I didn’t know that there were more pleasant surprises waiting for me in the journey ahead :)

Cities of Show-Off

2011-02-21T18:56:00.000-08:00

Every city has its own unique characteristic. The cities develop these characteristics mainly from the type of people they accommodate. Interestingly, every city has its own style of show-off too. I have lived in four different cities and based on my observation and understanding

Delhi is the city of the hardworking Punjabis and harsh jaths. Here you will see the show-off of money and power. For example, the Punjabis are so fond of showing off their fort-like gates painted in golden or copper colour, huge cars and expensive garments and jewelleries that now people have started using ‘punjabi show-off’ as a phrase. This speaks enough for itself.

Kolkata is the city of culture. Here people show-off their intellectuality. You will find people discussing about Pablo Neruda, Orhan Pamuk and Amitabha Ghosh in crowded buses, trains, metros and other crowded places. You may also find some heated discussion on 'How Obama's economic policies affecting the lifestyle of the people of Anguilla" or "How the ideology of Che Guevara would have helped the party workers in Singur" or "How the new satellite launched by NASA will actually worsen the lives of Pinta Island Tortoise in the Galapagos Islands" and so on... In Kolkata people also show-off the fact that they are actually not showing off colourful and flashy clothes and expensive items.

Bangalore is the IT hub where IT stands for Information Technology. Huge offices of the multinational companies like Microsoft, Oracle, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Infosys, TCS, GE, etc are here. Here people love to show-off the name of the company they are working in. And how do they do it? They wear their office identity cards and go for shopping and movies on weekends :). Sometime they also wear T-shirts with their company names embossed on it and go to vegetable market, fish market and sometime to outstation also. Quite smart!

Mumbai is only city where I haven’t seen people showing off grossly. There are people who show-off their looks, status, education, etc. but it’s there everywhere. My brother when used to go to office, he used to take the local train. He used travel in first class. He used to find crorepatis sitting next to him in plain clothes showing off nothing. I don’t know the reason why people in Mumbai are so polite. But one reason may be that there are too many rich industrialists, too many celebrities, too many highly educated and too many powerful people staying in the city. May be that’s why general people don’t feel like showing off as they are no match to them.

2011-02-21T18:55:00.001-08:00

Finger's crossed for Feb 27, 2011!!!!!

Mekhla

2011-02-21T02:17:00.001-08:00

I always wanted to buy a nice mekhla for myself. I had set two conditions for buying a mekhla. None of them fulfilled so I actually dropped the idea of buying it.

Then finally I bought it. It was very adamant and courageous step from my side. For last one and half years I have not bought anything which I wished. Not that I have bought nothing, but I have purchased only things of necessity. It’s true that I don’t really spend much but I have always bought things which I really wished and which is not really ‘necessary’ to have. But now when I go to malls and markets, I just find ‘nothing’ to buy. I see things that once I used to wish to buy. But I don’t buy them anymore even though I have money and freedom to buy that.

So, buying this mekhla was a big step for me. May be I am coming out of the shadow and slowly turning to real ‘me’, what I used to be before.

This mekhla is not a muga mekhla. Muga mekhlas cost 4-6 thousand rupees. I did not go for such expensive stuff. It’s a Rs 700 nice and very beautiful mekhla :)

Aditya Roy Kapoor

2011-02-21T01:33:00.000-08:00

I remember I saw this boy in London Dreams. Even though I liked him, that small role of him didn’t leave much impact on me. But I really liked him in Action Replay. I just adored him. Apart from acting skill, good looks and fitness, the one thing that I liked most about him was his dubbing skill. I liked him in Guzaarish too. I just hope he does get good work and shines even brighter.

After Konkona Sen Sharma, Vidya Balan, Amir Khan, Abhoy Deol and Ranvir Kapoor, Aditya Roy Kapoor is another actor who is in my list whose movies I’ll wait for.

Boleshwar river is no more there…

2011-02-21T01:23:00.000-08:00

Last week when we went to Silchar, we made it a point to go to Jellalpur at least for one day. After a long, tiring and enthusiastic ride, when we reached there, I couldn’t remember when was the last time I had visited that place. Jellalpur is still my dream destination. And literally saying, almost every day I dream about its winding and quaint roads. The village hasn’t changed much except for the new road bridge that’s constructed over the river at the bus stop, which is no more a bus stop now. The buses and innumerable Sumo and Ambassador shuttle cars now park themselves further beyond nutan bazzar, somewhere just below the hospital hill. No wonder that the old bus stand and the nutan bazzar have lost their days of glory. This new road bridge though has made communication to Jellapur much easier but it has stolen my childhood memory of river-crossing journey in a ferry, which used to be filled with excitement, fear, suspense and intense curiosity. The bridge was a welcoming change to the people of Jellapur and more to our family since after spending years for getting a grant for the bridge, my grandfather had received the confirmation letter from the government just one week before his death. Though my grandfather is not acknowledged for his tremendous effort, the letters that he had sent to the local MLAs and MPs arguing reasons for a need of bridge for the village are still there.

In spite of the missing river-crossing adventure, I could sense the arrival of Jellalpur just by its smell. It’s weird but the smell of Jellapur is unlike anything. It has the combination of earthen dust, the odour of rice plant hay, the odour of the smoke coming out from the earthen chulha of my grandfather’s house and my grandfather’s mouth odour, which always used to smell of tamak that he used to take from hukkah. The smell was there and also there was the sound. Jellapur has its unique sound too. This sound is the combination of the chirping of numerous unknown birds, the sound of people talking afar, the sound of hand pumps and some unknown sounds.

Since the crop time was just over, the fields were barren and grey. The people we knew also turned old and weak and looked withered. This time Jellapur was more grey than green. But the real shocking fact was the absence of Boleshwar river. Since this is winter time, we knew that there wouldn’t be much water in the river. During winters we used to cross the river and climb the hillocks and go to the tea gardens on the other side of the river. This was the most exciting action we used to do for which we used to die for going to Jellalpur. But this time there was no river at all. On the place where our favourite river used to flow before, there were some pits here and there filled with muddy water! Unlike previous visits, this time we were carrying mobile phones with 5 MP camera. We were very excited to catch images of our favorite spots so that we can see them later. But this time the spots were vanished! Disheartened and disappointed, me and my sister when talked about the matter to elders, then we came to know that the reason behind this destruction was the quarry or the stone pit that’s constructed on the upper side of the river. Though this quarry has brought employment for many local people especially at this time when the tea garden is at the verge of closing down, it has spoilt my childhood fascination – the Boleshwar river.

Pest Control - Not very difficult

2011-02-06T19:02:00.000-08:00

Finally finally finally....I have got my house pest controlled!

It was easy....not as difficult as I had assumed it to be.

I had called Just Dial for the phone numbers of a pest control company. They had given me quite a few phone numbers. I had called one of them and asked them to come at 9 o'clock on Saturday. I wanted it to be done on Saturday as I would be there at home on the next day also to do any cleaning, if needed. I must have sounded very demanding to them, that the guy actually came at 9 o'clock in the morning.

Then he took out his medicine, which was a paste like thing....and started putting drops at different places...while I pointed out some of the extra sensitive zones. I didn’t need to ‘evacuate’ the kitchen.

As he was done, we paid him and then started the real picture. Cockroaches started to come out and dying here and there. So both the Saturday and Sunday I spent cleaning the house.

But there is one problem for which the house is not a pest free house yet; there are some still left though the count has come down drastically. The reason is the microwave oven. There are quite a few pests inside it and unless we get it cleaned, the house can't be pest free actually. So, our next step is to send the microwave oven to LG service center for pest cleaning. Once that is done, we may have to get our house pest-controlled one more time to get rid of them.

But the situation is really good at home :)

A Donkey's Life

2011-02-02T20:12:00.000-08:00

If you don't have a vehicle of your own and your company also doesn't provide buses/cabs, then surely you are leading a donkey's life.

That's exactly what I am doing now.

What a Miss!

2011-01-31T20:35:00.000-08:00

This year I had planned to attend two festivals - Kala Ghoda Festival, Mumbai and Jaipur Literature Festival. Both of them flopped. Couldn't go to Jaipur Literature Festival and can't attend Kala Ghoda festival either.

The Jaipur Literature Festival is just over. So, I was just estimating the amount of miss I had. This year, among others, the most distinguished prsence was that of Orhan Pamuk.

It was my cousin from Agartala who had referred to me his name after he grabbed one of his works from Agartala Book Fair, two three years back. Since then though I am planning to get his book, it has not materialized yet. Hopefully I will get his book next month after my current stock is over.

J M Coetzee was also invited, another author whose book I am planning to read for quite sometime.

The other people who were present in the fair were Mirza Waheed, Chimamanda Adichie, Adam Zagajewski, Anthony Sattin, Mohsin Hamid, Ahdaf Shoujef, Basharat Peer , Martin Amis, William Dalrymple, Vikram Seth and others.

The Kala Ghoda festival has not started yet. Once it is over, I will sit to estimate the amount of miss!

Strange People, Stranger Incidents

2011-01-27T02:11:00.000-08:00

Day before yesterday a friend of mine had called, after a long time, and started accusing me for some decision that I have taken recently. I was in a defensive mode so I didn’t really charge him back neither did I try to prove myself correct as it would be a futile effort. But honestly, I was upset for him behaving that way.

We come across many people in our life time. We get along with some really well in a short span of time and the rest always remain strangers no matter how much we spend time with them. We expect from the near ones. We expect that they will actually understand our stand in life. They will understand the reason behind every decision we take and even if they don’t understand, they would at least try to understand before jumping to any conclusion.

But life never stops to surprise. This was not the first time someone was reacting to me like that. But I didn’t really expect that to come from this friend, whom I used to consider as good as a best friend of mine. Clearly, he couldn’t really understand my stand. I can accept that. But what hurt me was that he actually jumped to a conclusion just like strangers do.

Life is bad sometimes. But it is good rest of the times. :)

Movie Time

2011-01-27T01:15:00.000-08:00

Recently we have taken the plan for English channels in our Airtel Digital TV service. Earlier, we had not taken this plan and suddenly we realized that we have nothing to see in TV except for some weekend movies. All channels keep showing serials one after another. I watch one serial though: Sasural Genda Phool. But other than that I was left with no reason to sit in front of the TV except for news shows and some talk shows.

Ever since we have taken this plan, I have been watching one after another movie. Friends call and they find me watching some movie. So in last two weeks I have see the movies like: The Confessions of a Shopaholic, The Italian Job, The Godfather II, The Hangover, Meet the Parents and Mission Impossible III.

The Godfather II was a real gem in the list. It was worth waiting four years after reading the novel to watch this. I could see some differences in the movie plot from the novel. I don’t have the book with me, so can't really cross check though. But since Mario Puzo himself was involved in the script writing for the movie, then whatever differences were there, they are welcome!

A Wish Fulfilled

2011-01-26T22:52:00.000-08:00

When I was working in TIS in Bombay, I used to see those girls of my age in the office who were so smart and confident to take training sessions. I used to wonder if I could ever do it in my life. Considering the fact that I grew up in a small town studying in Bengali medium government school where there were no extra curricular activities, I was no match to them.

But after working for more than two years as an Instructional Designer, I have gathered some knowledge to be a veteran here :) So, when my manager asked me to take a training on the basics of E-learning, I was more than happy to arrange it. Though I was a little nervous initially, but as I started it, it was not bad.

Actually it was quite satisfactory. And I am happy that one of my wishes has actually fulfilled.

A Forwarded SMS

2011-01-23T20:25:00.000-08:00

Sometime back I got an interesting sms forwarded. Copying it here:

God said: "I cannot be every where so I created MOTHER"

Devil replied: "Even I cannot be every where, so I created MOTHER IN LAW" :P

(This fact is not true for many girls. But for some, this is very true :))

Don't Miss a Thing

2010-12-31T10:33:00.000-08:00

Can you miss a thing if you never had the 'thing'?

How can I miss the 31st Dec 2009 today at 31st Dec 2010? Can I ever forget the horrible memory of 25th Dec 2009 and the following bleak days? Can I ever miss that? I wish I could forget those days.

Do I really have anything to miss, anything to long for, anything to look back?

I am profoundly happy now.

Culinary Achievement

2010-11-07T19:25:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I tried to overcome my age old fear to prepare Dosa and Sambar. I was always afraid that once I’ll pour the batter on the frying pan, it won’t come out freely but will remain stuck on the frying-pan. But to my wonder, my dosa preparation experiment was a successful one. Thanks to my friends Sharatha and Sharanya for teaching me how to prepare it.

I didn’t want to prepare Dosa with readymade batter available in the market. I wanted to do it from the scratch. So I bought the Idli rice and Urad dal (kalai dal) from the shop (not to mention that the shop keeper was also very warm to help me when I told him that I was trying it out for the first time), took Urad dal and rice and soaked them in two different bowls. The next morning I grinded them separately and left them in two different bowls to ferment. In the evening I mixed the grinded rice and grinded dal, added some salt and got ready to prepare Dosa and face my fear.

I put oil in the frying pan (then only I realized that we didn’t have a non-stick frying pan!), spread it on the pan with the help of brinjal head and poured the batter, spread it on the pan and started to call all gods I could remember at that time. I could see it was taking some time to get cooked, so I went away from there. When I returned I found that the Dosa was ready to get turned. When I turned it, it did not show any tantrum and didn’t really stick on the frying pan! I couldn’t believe that my fear didn’t come true. I prepared another dosa as a trial and we all were still surprised while having it that I actually prepared it.

The next day our breakfast menu was Dosa-Sambar. I prepared sambar, which was easy and dosa for all. My breakfast menu was a hit as my brother said that this was the best food he had in last 2-3 years. So, I actually got the Culinary Achievement Award! :D

Epiplex 500 is an amazing tool

2010-11-02T02:00:00.000-07:00

Just learned how to use the tool Epiplex 500.

It’s an amazing e-learning tool. We can do so much with it.

Generally, for creating a training for system application, we create simulation based training. Earlier I used Adobe Captivate4 as the authoring tool for this. But for the last project, we were facing some challenges. So, we opted for Epliplex 500. There may be another explanation to the situation that since I am not well aware of the pros and cons of what Adobe Captivate4 can do, we switched to this tool.

Anyway, the point is that I came to learn Epliplex 500 from a very senior colleague of mine who took care to teach me even the inner functionalities of the tool. Big thanks to him!

With Epiplex500 we can create one entire e-learning course including guided simulation and practice simulation for the course. We can also choose a template and have the logo we want at the top. Even more, we can go to every slide, open it in any image editor and edit it! Even more, it creates two sets of images so that we have the original image set always untouched for future requirement.

Another interesting thing about the tool is that we can generate the output in Flash, HTML, Word document, PowerPoint presentation, PDF document, and more.

So once you have captured one simulation, you can either create a WBT with Flash and HTML files or create one ILT with PowerPoint presentation and documentation in MS WORD.

Actually Epiplex500 is a training and process improvement tool. The e-learning output that it generates is just a part of the mammoth it offers. I am still to gauge the mammoth from its trunk to tail. For now, I am happy with the functionalities that I have learnt.

My take on 2010 movies - till now

2010-10-28T00:12:00.000-07:00

Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge? - Very enjoyable! Though very predictive.
Badmaash Company - Very intelligent storyline....
Dabangg - Total enjoyment!
I Hate Luv Storys - Hilarious to the core! Imraan is even better than expectation.
Ishqiya - Wonderful!Wonderful!Wonderful! Vidya is too good!
Karthik Calling Karthik - Boring,predictive and same old Farhan
Khatta Meetha - Good but missed Priyadarshan
Kites - A real nice movie that left its impact on me for a long time.
My Name is Khan - Yaakkk!
Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai - Very good..better than i had expected.
Paathshaala - Confusing! It's the one with Genelia or Ayesha?
Raajneeti - The best pick of the year....can't get out its effect!!!
Raavan - Sadly bad!
Housefull - The worst pick of the year!
Aisha - A brainless, dumb chick flick! Abhay Deol is a total waste here.
Lafangey Parindey - Very average..but Neil is better than New York.
Rocket Singh - Nice and smart one. Ranveer has matured so much since Saawariya
Kam ka Plot - An offbeat movie like this is always my favourite. Though it was very predictive from the begining, but still it was a great experience to watch.
Before The Rains - After long and patient wait I have finally managed to see it..worth waiting! So beautifully photographed and crafted!
Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se - Hats off to Asutosh Gowarikar for choosing such a project that had no commercial promise. He proved again that he is an artist and not a businessman.

Feels Like Heaven

2010-10-27T20:20:00.000-07:00

Early morning when surajmama is still in polite mood, when the buses have not started their cacophonies, autos have not started nudging their nose in the badly jammed traffic, and you have not started your day actually, an extremely pleasant feeling catches your senses! You wonder what that is! And then you realize that it’s the heavenly fragrance of flowers coming from the flower vendor standing next to the temple. Nothing can match starting a day like this. It’s a heavenly start.

Fortunately, ever since I have come to Bangalore, my days start like that. Nowhere have I seen such variety of flowers like I have seen here. Any time you visit a flower vendor in the city, you will see at least 20 types of flower. Most of these flowers are fragrant ones like juhi, malli, chandramallika, sanna jaji, yerra jaji, and various types of roses. Interestingly I have not seen much marigold here, which is ubiquitous in Northern and Eastern part of this country.

One thread of juhi or sanna jaji in your hair and you will never feel like applying any perfume/deo-spray again!

My Way or Highway

2010-10-27T01:26:00.000-07:00

Do people with this attitude gain in the long run?

I have come across some ladies with this attitude in my life. They might have gained some brownie points on me over some small and big issues, but I wonder that will they be able to win in life?

In the run to earn those points, can they see that they are actually losing out in the run for life; that they are actually losing out on some vital moralities and relations in life that someday they will realize that the life has just slipped out of their hands! May be then it will be too late to repent.

Some are already realizing that....some are yet to realize.

The Da Vinci Code

2010-10-26T02:56:00.000-07:00

Last week I finished reading Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. It was a breathless experience for me as I was reading it breathlessly all the time. I just LOVED it.

This novel has opened up so many avenues of interest to me!

Thanks to Ananya and Ayan for this wonderful gift! May God be always with you !

Bangalore Durga Puja 2010

2010-10-26T02:44:00.000-07:00

I am late to post this. But today only I somehow managed to dodge all those technical glitches prohibiting me from posting on my own blog!

Anyway,...Durga Puja in Bangalore was nice. At least it was better than last year...though the memories of last year never stopped haunting me...

We came to know that there are actually more Bengalees in Bangalore than Delhi. All the famous pandals were crowded even on weekdays.....can't imagine what would have happened in the evenings in weekend!

My friend Simanti from Kolkata was saying that she preferred to stay at home than visiting pandals to avoid the overwhelming crowd that had gripped the city.

Tried to post the Durga puja images....but again...technical glitches!!!!!

An irony!

2010-08-22T02:36:00.000-07:00

There was a time when I used to ask all my friends from South India to get me A R Rahman’s Tamil audio CDs as I was in Delhi or Kolkata. The scene changed slightly when I was in Mumbai where I used to get almost all language CDs from the Landmark store.

But the situation took complete 180 degrees turn when I came to Bangalore. Some days back when I went to a Planet M in a nearby mall, I thought to buy the audio CD of Robot, ARR’s latest release. But to my surprise, they said that they have only the Tamil version and not the Hindi version with them! Initially, I couldn’t believe what they were saying! I was surprized!

Then I realized the turn of events and accepted this irony of destiny with a small pinch of salt! :) It happens :)

Manoj-Monisha Murali Nair - A blessed treat

2010-05-24T07:18:00.000-07:00

It was the 10 years completion celebration in E-TV bangla on 23rd March, 2010 and as usual I was not interested, was rather busy working on the computer, until I heard some male voice singing a Rabindra Sangeet...immediately I ran to see who it was. I found it was Manoj Nair so I could guess very well that the beautiful lady standing next to him was Manisha - they were the famous brother-sister duo Manoj-Manisha Nair. I had heard a lot about them from my mother and also from her narrations of the music concert reviews published in Desh...but it was the first time I was seeing them.

I had anyway much interest in them for obvious reasons that being Malayalee how they can sing Rabindra Sangeet so well...no 'so well' is not the correct expression...it should be 'so divine'....yes...divine it was their performance on the stage of E-TV Bangala which was waiting to be shaken on the foot thumps of the actors from Bengali film and television industry. Thanks to the channel that they decided to start their programme with them...and I could see the programme...

I don’t remember the first two songs...the first being a very known song by Manoj and second being a very uncommon by Manisha....they had some surprise for the third and fourth....After the secoind song was complete (which was by Manisha Nair), Manoj rendered a brief Karntic alaap and started Ei Akashe Amar Mukti Aloy Aloy. They performed it together and it became just mind-blowing as they inserted some very minute and subtle Karnatic mir.... it was something that I had never heard before and I forgot that I also know the song! It was such new and fresh and extraordinary!

Then Manoj started rendering some English lines tuned in proper English classical music...the lines were about 'Light'...and after 1-2 lines I could guess the song correctly...it was Alo Amar Alo Ago Aloy Bhubon Bhora....they picked the song from the second stanza and it was just marvellous....

I wish I could have the recording of that portion somewhere. I searched for it in the Youtube but I couldn’t find it :(

Thanks Manoj and Manisha...you are blessed by God and Rabindranath both....your blessing is boon for us.... :)

One Hundred Years of Solitude

2010-04-19T07:43:00.000-07:00

What a novel it is by Gabriel Garcia Marquez! I just cant get over from the nostalgia of it. For last couple of days, the Buendias almost became my own family. Living the days with their days and nights.

But the most enchanting thing about the novel is how the the magical and unreal world mixes with the real world. And it mixes such a way that you do not really feel that that's something dosnt happen in our lives. For example when Jose Arcadio Buendia dies, yellow flowers shower continues and the entire Macondo gets covered or when Mauricio Babilonia comes, the yellow buterflies fly over his head and how Amaranta announces her own death time, or how Melquíadesdies twice and his perchments are read only after one hundred years....there are countless instances which when you come to know separately you feel these are unreal, but once you read the entire novel and most importantly read the minutest details, you feel Macondo to be a world where all these things really happaned over a period of one hundred years.

Thanks Tareq for giving me the book :) It was a real pleasure reading and living every word of this magnificant book. Now I feel lonely that no more Buendia is with me....I wish this book were never finished!

Shashi Tharoor - a sad story

2010-04-19T06:59:00.001-07:00

Shashi Tharoor being forced to resign by the Congress heads seems to me a case where the big national decision is being influenced by yellow journalism. It became quite clear 1-2 days before what the meeting between Tharoor and congress heads would result.

In a country like India where we have been seeing criminals and illiterate MPs and MLAs and hence have been hating this profession more than anything, Shashi Tharoor had been a refreshing change to our look towards politics. But clearly he couldn't survive in the system being too many reasons for his 'different' approaches.

Whatever his involvement in Rendezvous consortium was, I don't understand a single point that after winning the bid, and after being aware of Lalit Modi's intention, why did he bring the entire episode under full media view? He being a minister of state and thus a powerful man, why didnt fight with the Chairman of IPL Modi, another powerful man, in a more private and subtle way? Why did he bring the matter under public view when it is quite understood that Indian media runs after only gossips and here when his beautiful friend Sunanda Pushkar is involved in the share, the media would just go mad with so much juice in story. Can anyone give reason to those mushroom like channels and news portals and their novice journalists that the concept of giving a share in the deal as the corporate payment is quite common or that a minister's interest in a deal may not be only for money? Only thing that they would be interested in obviously in the amount of deal and a beautiful lady who is involved while the minister is already twice married. So, that is going to be the only story!

So, lesson is learnt. No more tweeting even if you think you are honest, and Congress is loyal to none just like it was not loyal to Krishna Menon.

Diwali - 2009

2009-11-03T21:43:00.001-08:00

Diwali was fun too. Totai, my sister came from Jaipur and we all had a very good time :)

Some pics:

Our balcony

Nothing can replace the earthen diya

Me and Totai making the rangoli

It's complete

Lakshmi Puja - 2009

2009-11-03T21:34:00.000-08:00

It was fun as it was my first Laxmi Puja after marriage and I followed all rituals by fasting and preparing sweets for the puja. And finally I started giving alpona. always love to make alpona. I remember how I used to decorate the entire house with alponas and how the next day I used to spend the entire morning cleaning the floors. This year too I gave alpona and lucky they are that they got shot; thanks to my hubby; and I thought to post them here though this year I had no time alpona like earlier years. Here they are :

After Marriage

2009-09-30T08:08:00.000-07:00

Things change. Here are some things that keep happening to/by me:

The shopkeepers now calls me 'baudi' and not 'didi'.

I have become 'aunty' to so many kids who otherwise would call me 'didi'!!!!!!!!!!!

I have started to wrap a saree in less than 5 minutes! Time doesn't vary with the change of texture...the time taken is same for cotton, taant, silk or chiffon!!!!!!!!!

Unknown people start talking to me in Bengali in the shops, market, roads in a city like Delhi. Thanks to my Shankha and Pola. It took me some time to figure out the correct reason though!

People don't hesitate to ask me personal questions like "hey, yours was an arranged or love marriage?" I dont remember to ever confront questions like "hey, have you got steady boyfriend?" or "hey, you're single or committed?" before!

In the shops, the shopkeeper gives the bill to my husband and not me!

Durga Puja - 2009

2009-09-30T05:28:00.000-07:00

First time that I was away from my mother :(

First time after my marriage :)

Second time in Delhi :

First time that I didn't wear a single new dress :(

First time that I didn't see any puja apart from the own locality one :

First time I was so unwell that I visited doctor's house more than the Puja pandal :)

Life moves on :) :) :) .............................

Some Quick Facts

2009-08-25T07:01:00.000-07:00

Gurgaon is changed........... so much that I found it beyond recognition! I kept searching for my old office and just didnt realize when it passed. The huge flyovers, roads, skyscrapers have made it look like a different place altogether.

So is Noida. Though the change is visible less in Noida than Gurgaon. The metro route is now near where we used to stay - in sector 19. If we were still staying in that same house, we could have seen the inside view of Atta chowk metro station just from the balcony!

DTDC is now going the BEST way. I mean, DTDC is following some facilities of the BEST bus service of Mumbai. The government is now replacing the old bust stand banners by new ones with a new addition. They are now writing down the bus numbers that would stop there. Must say, its a good step by DTDC.

And I missed Before The Rains. Quite expected it was. I had missed Tahaan also. So that makes my tally to reach two - the number of Santosh Sivan movies missed by me. Bad...I feel bad!

Durga Puja is round the corner again. But somehow I am not not feeling the heat this time. May be since I am not going home this year so there's no mad rush for train, plane or bus tickets. Though I have already started celebrating it my way by reading Anandamela - the pujabarshiki edition.

PS: I hope this time I havnt made any typo :)

A Life Not Ordinary

2009-07-22T20:39:00.000-07:00

Then we were in our graduation. We were excited as the classical singer duo Rajan Mishra and Sajan Mishra were coming to Silchar to perform. We had obtained permission to attend the concert and bought the tickets as well. The tickets were expensive but we were not listening anything as we had missed too many classical music concerts just as my father was always apprehensive to allow us to attend an all night show. But all classical shows were all night. We never wanted to go to any Kumar Sanu or Udit Narayan show. And this time our mother also decided to back us. And there we were. What a show. What a performance. So many years have passed, but still I can hear the sound in my mind. One funny thing about the show was very few people were aware of these world renowned singers. For most of the people, classical music is limited to Ustad Zakir Hussain (Thanks to his hair-do that gave him more popularity than the beats) and Pandit Ravi Shankra (Thanks to his multi-colored life and link with the Beetles). I have come across many people who claim themselves to be great aficionados of classical music, but do not even know the difference between the titles Ustad and Pandit, forget about following the art form regularly. But thanks to my mother who used to read out loud the detailed review of Dover Lane Sangeet Sammelan every year from Desh, the magazine, we were well acquainted with the world of classical music. But to both my mother and our dismay, we couldn't learn music just because of some unsolvable problems. We enjoyed a lot when we went to attend Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma’s concert too.

Since childhood, we grew up in a different world -a world of Tintin, Abol-Tabol, Khagrai, Gupi Gayen-Bagha Bayen, Asterix-Obelix, Kakababu, Santu, Professor Shanku, Feluda and many others who had no real existence on world expect for on the papers or in children's minds. Our house is still full with those hundreds of books that we three brothers and sisters used to fight to read first. I remember, I used to enjoy how people used to react seeing my mother's collection of books.

Though my mother came from a very cultured family (a family that was well known for it's art and culture in the region) and still maintaining her class of taste, I have never seen arrogance or sense of pride in her. She never under-estimates other's choice or ignorance. May be this is the reason my mother is the most popular person in our house. People come to our house to see her. She never imposes her decisions or choice on others. She respects all, which I find sometime impossible for a person to do. All life I have seen people asking my mother various questions like, information on a certain era's literature, the work of certain writer which is difficult to get these days, questions on religion and history, information on music as which song would suit to a certain, some relatives studying on literature coming to ask for reference books and many other queries and of course on Rabindranath Tagore. My mother actually breaths his works. On one hand when she can guide any big Puja with effortless eloquence and can tell you countless stories and anecdotes of Ramakrishna Thakur and Vivekananda, she knows a great deal about the current culture. Ask her about films, and she would describe you her most favorite scene from Rang De Basanti as excited as a teenage girl.

She is the greatest lady I have seen in my life. I have always wished to be like her. I wish I were like her.

Translated Bengali Advertisements

2009-07-15T23:15:00.000-07:00

All the advertisements that are made for the national audience are either made in English or Hindi. Then those advetisements are translated in local languages and aired in the regional channels. After coming to Delhi, my ear caught some sound bits of those adveertisements. Interestingly, I noticed something. I used to think that the Bengali translations are done in Kolkata. But recntly I realized that they must be done in Mumbai itself and the voice over artistes have to be from Mumbai. This is undestood only from the child voice over artistes as they speak in a heavy non-Bengali accent. This is because that is how they speak in their mother tongue Bengali since they are growing in Mumbai and not Kolkata.

Why So Serious?

2009-07-15T22:45:00.000-07:00

Why are we so serious? Life is short and the youth is even scaringly shorter. Then why bind the life in rules and regulations so hard that there's no scope to escape? But some people may be so habituated with the day-in-day-out rules and bindings, that they don't even understand or may be don't want to understand what fun they are missing. Prejudices and apprehensions play a major part in the minds of those people who consider each and everything they don't do as bad, ugly, uncultured and undoable. And with this high self esteem they fail to feel the hearts of others while they just can't respect those people who wish to live life differently.

But now a days the television and media is so strong that many people are willing to shed their stubborn nature. But what about those people who don' want to open the window of their mind?

There is an advertisement in the television that I find very much like me and inspiring. That's the new Cadbury dairy Milk advertisement with Varun Badola. That's such a wonderful advertisement that it touched my heart instantly. After seeing the second version of the ad, I am sure that it touched other's hearts as well. So, that means there are moire people in this country who think like me or want to think like me :)

I remember when I started working and earning money, my salary day used to call for a celebration of no reason. During my first job, me, my brother and my sister used to stay in Kalkaji and I used to buy lots of chocolates and snacks while coming home. And yes, my brotrher and sister also used to do the same. So we were partying for no reason. We used to go to the nearby cinema halls and restaurants just for no reason.

Then I was in Noida, where I was with my entire family including my parents and it used to be so fun buying home all those food items of everyone's taste on the salary day. And recently when I was in Mumbai, I used to get coupons worth 1000/- on the last week of the month as part of the salary. The day I used to get it, I used to fill my bag with chocolates, cookies, chips, biscuits and what not for my sister. So again, we were partying for no reason.

Do we need reasons to celebrate with our near and dear ones? The main idea is to keep our loved ones happy and try to give them what they want unless they want sonmething really ungivable.