Me and Me!

There is something magical and ethereal about the river. As far back as I can remember, I have always loved going to the riverside. Especially the ganges, in kolkata. Other rivers which flow past alien cities do not hold the same charm and the same nonchalance which the ganges does. It is frothy and exuberant, cheekily lapping against the banks, with gay abandon, answering their stolidity with quicksilver charm. And yet possessing unfathomable depth and a serene stillness, a grace and a certain reserve, a quiet shyness in the way it calmly flows on in tandem with time. Standing on the bank, staring, we are mere spectators. Sailing on a boat, with a canopy of twinkling diamonds overhead, we can feel the blueness of the water slip through our fingers, but not hold it for long. The fisherman on the nauka can only gauge its exuberant surface, and the fish which lie on its bottom, only its depth. It is , for me, a hazy dream. Elusive in its entirety, the river, is dreamt by both the fisherman and the fish, but realized only by the sea, its ultimate destination. I went to the riverside with my friends the other day as someone, I think it was Anarkali, had wanted to go to Scoop, the icecream parlour, which stands on the banks. We saw and walked past couples, children, old people, hawkers, balloon-sellers, and boatmen, for hours, talking , till the moon peeped out from a tuft of clouds, and R-fish, a friend of mine, said that it reminded her of a song (I forget which) from a Bengali classic. The river, and the moon seen through the veil of a tree’s dark branches, she said. I said it reminded me of Vikram Seth. And someone else suddenly started talking about Milind Soman, I don’t really know why. The river has different effects on different people, I guess; bringing up impressions and memories of times past . We soon left for home after that.

Talking of home, I have painted my room in shades of yellow and I think my brother is going to have a fit when he sees it. Somehow he’s got the idea that yellow equals fluorescent. Considering that my cousin, D, had suggested writing graphiti on one whole wall, and my friend R-fish suggested painting it ‘like a picture of , say, the African serengeti’ , I think that I took the wise path. Yellow looks good. I like yellow.

In other news, I have also turned out to be a surprisingly good cook and revised the phrase ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ to ‘necessity is the key to cultivating culinary skills.’ I should actually thank my mother’s genes for this, because she is the best-est cook in the whole wide world. Relatives and friends from near and far ring her up to beg her into revealing her secret recipes. Which ranges from succulent roast chicken in a smooth spicy gravy to milky-white creamy firni, which melts in your mouth. My father, on the other hand, will not be able to boil an egg, even if you put a gun to his head. He is most likely to say ‘Ofcourse I can do it!’ and then shout twice; once for someone to go get him an egg, and the next time to find someone who can drop it in a pot of water. He is the original Uncle Podger. His Uncle Podgeriness has however not stopped him from becoming a very strict judge when it comes to food and he ranges from ‘I don’t think I’ll have lunch today’ (which is zero) to ‘not bad’ (which is ten) on a scale of 0-10. I have been consistently getting a nonchalant ‘it’s ok’ which is like 9 out of 10 , everyday for the past two months. Enough to establish my credentials as the true janasheen, of the culinary department of the Azim khandaan. So, till another river trip or till I cook up something more interesting than this, ciao.

Quotable Quotes from the Land of Jude

Sometimes they teach, but most of the times, this is what they do. My profs rock!!


* “For a long time I have been taking classes with two people. Sometimes three. This is so disconcerting.”
- Prof PB, on being faced with a class of 40-odd.



* Amlanda in a Milton class: " There's no help for it, really... no help at all... you know, they say this when a man is going to get killed... well, as I see it... we shall have to read the whole of Paradise Lost."


* Dibyajyoti: “He goes to Hell…”
Prof SukChau: “Yes. But he doesn’t stay there, poor man..”
-on wanting to know the story of The Divine Comedy.



* “Bertrand Russell’s third wife – he had many wives and girlfriends – he really really did believe in free love.”

-Prof PC, on Bertrand Russell.


* On having been sent by Amlanda to tell Prof SKC ( the Don) that there’s a phonecall for him at the office

Me: Sir, there’s a phone call for you..
Prof. SKC: Is the person on the other end attractive?
Me: Umm, that’s impossible to know, Sir..
Prof. SKC: Ask, ask..you must always ask.
Me: Well, Amlanda (another prof) is doing all the asking
Prof SKC: Then it must be my wife!

After going and receiving the call, he continues, ‘That was a singularly unattractive gentleman professor from Burdwan who wants to get his daughter into the department. I am not receiving any calls you bring me news of ever again!’



* “In the first scene of the movie Henslowe is being tortured for failing to pay back money. Henslowe had enough money to buy all the torturers of England at one go. But who wants reality when you can watch Gweneth Paltrow? --Prof SKC on the film, Shakespeare in Love.




Toocool. :)

Bovine Intervention

Governmental agency, is undisputedly, the rock-star when it comes to planting superfluous and baffling objects in public places, and giving everyone a sore-eyeful. No, I’m not talking about Prasun Mukherjee here, in case you thought so. What I am talking about, is the cow, or rather, the clay model of what can only in the most benevolent of moods be termed a ‘cow’ , in the heart of a newly opened jogger’s park in kolkata, called Elliott park.

I happened to go there yesterday, with M and a friend of hers, N. Having heard about its beautiful rolling lawns, and abundance of multi-colored flora, and having a bit of time to spare, on route to our final destination, the three of us enthusiastically threw away good ol’ hard earned money (they actually charge you for entrance to the blighted place!) anticipating much pleasure, and respite. I was feeling quite proud of myself by then, to have actually entered a jogger’s park. It was something I had been planning to do, for approximately the last three and a half years ( “walking..it’s the best thing..the air does wonders for your skin, too, you know..and anyway, you’ll get into the habit of getting up early..getting up early..it’s the best thing ..”) , but hey, its never to late to start, is it?..

Half an hour later, I knew how right I’d been all along to avoid all such avowedly health-enhancing practices. I had seen the ‘cow’. And whoever has seen it, will know how dangerous such sightings can be to the general health, mental stability and aesthetic sense of any unsuspecting soul. It was a bit of a camel and a cow, with a tiger’s paws, and a dog’s tail. Also, not to forget the lolling bit of red tongue. And this intruiging entity, mysteriously stuck in the center of a bed of rongons and jabas. The tenth cow, Khushwant Singh would have said, but unholy and of suspicious pedigree.

I would really like to meet the sort of people who get these brilliant ideas, and get away with it. Without due recognition and acknowledgement. But that , my friend, is precisely the case with them . You never see who planned with malicious glee, with a rub of the palms and a glint in the eye, who did the offensive act, who put it there. It seems to just spring up from the ground, drop from thin air. It has no origin and no end. It remains unchallenged and unsullied. It’s the govt.’s way of making life beautiful, we all know, but hey, Buddhadeb Bhattarjee didn’t come in the dead of night and stick it there, did he?

It’s a mystery worthy of Holmes and his elementary sidekick. And till its solved and the criminals duly punished, I hope and pray that we are spared from further aestheticising enterprises. Take away the cow, take away the hideous sculptures from the Nandan complex, take away the mysterious hoardings which show a couple of grinning men, and the line ‘friendship between brothers’ or words to that (sniggering) effect written below them. The city of Kolkata does not deserve them. It is an artist’s city; but if this is art, we could do very well without it.

incoherent ramblings

I have been ill for the past few days. Fever, headache, the works. I am told that I should value the royal treatment I’m getting right now, because there may be a time when I possibly wont be pampered this way. Sigh. Yes, people keep telling me all sorts of horror stories. And I used to think that I’m the only subject matter expert when it comes to those.

There is something serenely delicious about listening to a song like saiyyan on my ipod in the dead of night. The rhythmic pulsating music and the hauntingly beautiful lyrics beat a pattern in the still air like a butterfly fluttering its shivering wings and weaving its meandering way through the fragnant moonlight. And to think that no one apart from me can hear it. It’s almost like eavesdropping on a private conversation without too much guilt.

Apparently, I’m not. Infact, the blogsphere is replete with examples of people who insist on writing only horror stories. Bad relationships, grueling work schedule, james bond-ish relatives who kill with a smile..you name it, they have it. I know life isn’t all hunky-dory but surely once in a while there could be something nice and pleasant to write home about? The most likely cause for this is that the horror stories make good reading and therefore attract more and more blogreaders. Kind of like a ‘lets see whose linen is the dirtiest today, shall we?’ community, maybe. As real and as depressing, as say, world news.

I have been watching Indian idol a lot. Maybe I too have the lowest common denominator taste when it comes to television. But its quite entertaining, really. Most of them are very good singers who probably learnt to sing flawlessly at the age of three and are too busy now trying to learn to be modest about the whole thing. The judges are more entertaining, actually. Especially udit narayan. He’s just not right for this sort of show, where you are expected to walk off the stage every now and then and defend your favourite with flared nostrils and high decibels. He’s the kind of person who probably utters two words in three hours and that too with hesitation. Decision-making doesn’t come naturally to him. ‘Aapne accha gaya’ he mostly opines; with a half an hour interval between two words.

I quite like Shashi Tharoor. He writes a weekly column for the Sunday times. When kids collected stamps, as part of a necessary childhood ritual, he knew about the Slovaks and Yugoslavia and the Gulf war. There was a time when I was similarly interested in world politics but as I learnt, world news, especially the daily suicide bombings in the mid-east can be grueling daily consumption for anyone. Its kind of ironic, that while things like these keep happening, and give enough reason for depression, I do remain contentedly happy at a different level of consciousness. What a bundle of contradictions we humans are. Like a Japanese doll. Layers within layers.

What if decisions could be outsourced? You don’t know what to wear and you get a phonecall and you know. Or you don’t know which girl to get married to and the next time you see someone, she has a big tick-mark on her forehead. No rational planning involved. No intense internal monologues. In a sense, decisions are outsourced. Someone up there makes up our minds for us; we just realize it later. We have to discover the decision , after it has already been made. I just wish the process of discovery could be made easier.

my first story, barring the one i wrote about the dentist and sadly didnt get published

Every year the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival celebrates the spirit of Mumbai with a week long cultural programme. It incorporates film screenings, dance performances, music recitals, food festivals, plays, creative writing workshops, visual arts exhibitions and heritage walks. It also hosts a number of competitions, such as the Flash Fiction contest; encouraging awareness about the arts and urging people to give expression to the dormant creativity in them.

Flash Fiction (also called micro-fiction or short-shorts) presents a simple challenge: tell a story with all the classical elements: a beginning, middle and end, a conflict and resolution, a credible protagonist…but do so in a very limited number of words.

Here’s an attempt.


She was a pretty, young thing. In fact, I quite liked her. But the day she rolled her eyes and said, with a short, sharp laugh, ‘Love, what’s love? It’s all rubbish, yaar’ to her best buddy who was nursing a broken heart, I knew I had to step in. I stalked her day and night, hiding my boyish golden curls under a cap and my bow and arrows in a huge slingbag. I followed her wherever she went; watched her keenly when she interacted with people. But she was close, very close. And then, one day I saw it. Her eyes danced as she spoke to her boss, her smile a bit too ready to please. I knew then that I had won. I strung an arrow to my bow and let it fly. It struck her heart in the middle of a conversation with him. She suddenly blushed and stuttered. ‘Ha!’, I exclaimed, ‘there, done’.
Revenge was sweet. Very sweet.

father's day!

Well, I don’t think I’ve ever done this sort of thing, but I’m sure my dad has had to put up with a lot of weird things that I do day in and day out.

Here’s to my papa: Belated happy father’s day! You’re the best!!

A few days back, shrek 3, the latest offering in a highly successful commercial enterprise, was released to a world wide audience. Much like its parent creations, it too chronicles an episode in the life of our friendly neighborhood ogre called shrek, and indulges in a variety of tell-tale (pun intended) parodies on the way. The indulgence, however, becomes an impediment to the magical way in which a simple story, well-told had earlier captured our imagination, The whole point about , ‘ogres having layers’ , is lost in the multitude of cultural references that the film spins from one scene to the other. The moral and the aesthetic implication of having an ogre as a hero, and of subverting the monopoly that conventional, stereotypical, princes (or princesses) have admittedly exercised in fairy-tales, is neglected. It only seems to be over-doing its self-reflexivity : it becomes a story obsessed with its own cleverness in its telling.
Though Dreamworks, shrek’s production house, does not continue its mockery of Disney, (its major rival company), as much as it did in the first shrek film, it unfortunately tries to compensate by putting in a plethora of cultural references in its place. While films like shrek are understood to be for young adults in the west, here it is supposed to be a film for children because it is animated. The point is that not many children, (its supposed target audience, in India) would understand either the necessity or the usage of tongue-in-cheek parodies of popular songs, rock-bands, numerous films, and mythical, legendary figures. But then again, shrek is really more of a film for adults, rather than children; the latest is more so , with its reference to shrek’s impending introduction to parenthood , and fiona’s feminist rampage. The plot is barely there and too predictable. The story suffers; cultural references are clever but not very engaging to all. Whereas earlier films could be understood and loved on the basis of the simplicity and the interest aroused by the story alone, this latest is directed to adults well versed with western culture and even they with all the subtle evanescent humor between the lines or behind the scenes here, will find it difficult to swallow without the sweetening saccharine of a grossing plot. In India, Shrek loses it with children, and also, partially with adults like me.



On another note, it’s interesting to see that Shrek isn’t the first time that children have been exposed to adult themes in a work arguably meant for children. Books and films for children have often referred to intimacy, relationships, or events with disturbing repercussions. When I read children’s books now, I am not only struck by their slight but existing references to adult themes, but also by the fact that I was not affected by these as a child. Children books like to sir with love, or the curious incident of the dog in the night, or the Adrian Mole series can be read at two levels, one as a child and the other as an adult. In the west, bowdlerized books meant purely for children are being seen as unnecessary, not only because they work on two levels, but also because familiarization with adult issues is seen as desirable. Though difficult to gauge reactions to this on an authorial level in India, because the market for children books is decidedly small, I have no doubt that such-like offences will not be tolerated by our home-grown molice police. We have grown up on censored versions of everything; books, films, plays. Though it is difficult to support the argument of two levels, with relation to films, because of the visual medium of expression, I think that shrek is fine on this account. It does not overdo anything which does not or did not happen in real life. There can be instances, however, where these can be easily taken overboard, and then maybe, we will need to see exactly where to draw the line.


P.S: forgive the amazingly boring impersonal tone; I was trying to write as a newspaper columnist.

P.P.S: er, my apologies to newspaper columnists…:)
..

The Big Fat Indian Wedding

I have had two weeks of unadulterated fun. The turn of events which surprisingly led to this, is what this post is about.
Since my exams got over, and there was a wedding in the family, I have been caught up in the mania they call the great Indian wedding. Before I go on, let me reveal that my family is probably the most boring family on earth, when it comes to weddings. To put it in a nutshell, we don’t believe in going over the top, or celebrating like there is no tomorrow, both of which, as I see it, are essential ingredients for any hungama. They are, what my brother, would call ‘hygiene factors’ in his management lingo. Things which have to be there if you want a proper Indian shaadi. We, as a family, are not into this Punjabi style of celebration; we celebrate but in moderation.
I think the idea that excess if crass, got into our family, through years of living in Bengal. I have heard stories, of how an uncle of my mother’s nana flew kites, which had banknotes attached to it, to celebrate his nephew’s birth. He raised a din over it, quite literally when he organized a walking music band to tour the entire city. For everyday celebrations, he played host to theatre companies, staging shows at his own cost, in his own house, for his coterie of friends. Even in those days, such extravagance was looked upon as superfluous. Later, through my nana’s marriage into the family, the interaction with a family of hufaaz[1] took its toll and the family began to pay more attention to the Islamic tenet of moderation. I think, at this point, decades of living in Calcutta also helped; we imbibed Bengali values, and ended up rejecting excess, and embracing moderation. Rooftops of our numerous houses in Calcutta didn’t play hosts to patang-baazis any more, they looked like gentler and maybe even austere shadows of their former selves. This did not mean that we didn’t celebrate, but there was none of the extravagance of old. My aunts and uncles got married in this style and were content with it. The youngest of them however, has , for the good of the next generation of the family, turned out to be an aberrant. It has him, who got married last week. It was a extravagant week long celebration, starting with the haldi, and ending with the walima, the grand finale. Everyone enjoyed themselves to the hilt; me and my cousins more so. It was though no where near Punjabi weddings, and neither crass, nor in poor taste , as opulent celebrations like those, sometimes turn out to be. The difference between the two can be grasped, if you compare the Bachchan wedding to the Chatwal or the Mittal. While the Bachchans celebrated in style , but with good taste, the Chatwals hosted a month long celebration, playing host to drunk firangis. As much as I have come to cringe at dad Bachchan’s popping-out-of-a-hat act in each and every film, and tear my hair at beta Bachchan’s political correctness, I must admit they did get this wedding right. It suited their stature, and looked like simple, good fun; just the right mix for a wedding. It’s another story, that the money Bachchan saved at the wedding, was poured onto the deity’s feet at Tirupati, and sealed up in the temple’s coffers; it could have, perhaps, been put to more immediate and effective use, for the good of mankind.
[1] Plural of hafiz, a person who has learnt the Quran by heart.

delhi bas?

I’ve just come back from delhi. Half frozen and near death. The capital of democratic India , I’ve realized, is not the sunny cuckoo-land I’ve always pictured it as. It is a vicious evil urban jungle which works in connivance with sharp chilling winds. Winds which slyly work their way around you undaunted by layers of woolies and wraps, under a bleak foggy grey sky.

People tell me that that is what you get if you go to delhi in winter. I tell them I wish they had told me this sooner. Then I could have saved many a shiver and many an ..er…wasted expletive.

Not to mean that it was a totally wasted trip. I saw things which I hadn’t before seen in delhi….the lotus temple.. much nicer auto-rickshaw walas who stop in the middle of the road incase you want to take a couple of snaps of India gate from that just-the-right-angle… famous kebabs from karim’s ( hidden in one of the numerous crooked, bustling lanes which surround jama masjid)… connaught place (a term which here means ‘shopping! shopping!’)… women who ( as rahul bose says in one of his films) dress like it’s diwali everyday,… and humayun’s tomb (which is not exactly a tomb, but a sprawling complex, which houses many monuments, all of which, in a sense, commemorate death).

Actually, now that I think of it , it seems pretty weird that the mughals celebrated something like death, which is usually supposed to be the ultimate-dampener-of-spirits, the ultimate-wet-thumb-on-hot-stove experience, in such a grandiose fashion. They built tombs,(beautiful ones, I agree, but tombs all the same) pretty much wherever they went. Infact, if you try throwing a ball around, in delhi, I’m pretty sure that you’ll be hitting atleast one such, in every three tries.

Talking of death, I recently read a poem by Emily Dickinson (a slightly loony poet who talked to her friends while being partially hidden, under her bed, and had her doctor diagnose her as she walked by an open door). In this poem, death is like a suitor who takes her out. Her attitude is such, that, she feels a bit annoyed at all the unwanted attention, and yet goes out with him for the sake of civility. Surprisingly, they have a great time-it’s a moonlit night, he gets a carriage, and they roam about the city and pass familiar sights together; the point being, that something, which you think is just going to be a fat lot of trouble, may actually turn out to be not so bad after all.

Well, I guess that’s true.

I could actually say that for this post of mine.

Ciao.

My lean, mean working machine!

Much has happened in the week gone by. Italy has won the world cup, Federer has once again proclaimed territory at SW 19, my PC has had a makeover and I have formulated plans on how to wrest a master’s degree in English literature from JU without much effort or attendance. Talking of my PC, it has been totally revamped. It is now the proud owner of a new processor, more memory, a sleek black cabinet and a cool black-grey keyboard with multimedia keys. The wonder of it all; the evolution of a drab piece of electronic junk into a lean, mean working machine was as astounding as that of the fairytale frog into prince charming..Ofcourse, after I saw what prince charming actually looks like, in shrek 2, it doesn’t seem much of a transition, really…Anyway, the white monitor and ups do look a bit nondescript before these new guys but I like it better this way. The dual tones of black and white seems to me to be quite a strong comment on the issue of racial equality and the urgent need for disparate sections of humanity to unite into a merging whole…also, ofcourse I like it better now because..um…black or white,it finally works!I’m, generally speaking, not very adept at handling modern technology. I can mend the iron (yes I can) but the object which I speak of can by no stretch of imagination be called modern. I mean, there are irons and there are irons. This is neither. It’s a piece of devilish intent and malicious design, picked up by my dad, which doesn’t believe in the concept called work. The day it does work, is a day of celebration. There is only one piece of antiquity which rivals this contraption and that is a tape-recorder. Last heard of, it was blaring its way into damnation, by torturing poor souls at my brother’s college hostel. Since then, there has been no news…But to come back to what I was saying. Technology and I don’t go together. I mean, take this PC of mine. It has broken down atleast six times in the past year and I’m not talking of a computer’s equivalent of minor colds when I say this. I mean proper breakdowns, which takes weeks to get it back in line. Then,… there’s lifts. Nothing much about them except that I don’t like them. My college lift has a habit of staying invitingly still when you don’t need it, and immediately moving up or down when you walk towards it. If you are lucky enough to get in, it will invariably move in the direction opposite to the one you want it to go. So if you want to go from the second to the ground floor, it will first take you up to the fifth and then all the way to the ground floor….. And don’t even get me talking about my mobile. It switches off in the middle of a conversation. Whenever, wherever. A mind of its own. And now it’s taught my mum’s mobile to do the same. Aargh!So now that I have finally got atleast one of these - my PC - working , you can excuse my gushing about it. After all, it’s not everyday that one has cause for such celebration.

Around fifteen new people have come in our class. Since JU is the best for post-grad English in the country, thousands sat for the admission test. I ofcourse, being good enough to get in once did not have to take the test again. Thank God.So. Some of them look like arrogant idiots. Which I’m sure they are. There’s one who looked like a dead fish while amlan da, the best of the best, cracked jokes while teaching us greek crit. For all you know, it was greek to this guy. He didn’t even crack a smile.Anyway, I have developed a sudden interest in orkut; the importance of social networking sites being plain to me now since one of my closest friends Tanya, left college for greener pastures. She’s joined a card company near deshopriyo park. Here’s wishing her the very best in life. Have a happy ever after!

Its been ages since i updated my blog..thing is, that i blog from univ and since i have been on a long end sem break, i just dont go to univ any more...thereby allowing cobwebs to gather on the blog..watched the germany- argentina match yesterday..what a match!! anyone who missed it, really lost out on sommething..i wanted germany to win..and they really managed to buck up in the second half and put up an attacking front..ballack (he's sooo wow!) really is the backbone of the team and stands out ..klose ofcourse is also very good..i like the way he gets really pumped up when he scores..all that jumping and gesticulating and screaming..great to see so much enthu..football in this sense is so different from cricket..for one it goes on and on..watching single match takes all day long and even then more often than not india loses..its so ..placid..football's fast and racy and short..and much easier on the eyes..(think of ballack) . one good thing about the world cup has been the fact that they show some really good ads..i just love the adidas one with the tagline 'impossible is nothing'..it shows two ten year old kids summoning some of the best footballers in the world and forming their respective teams in a poor favela of south america..you see lampard, beckham,ballack,zidane et all materialising from nowhere..even a young beckenbeaur turns up..they play and lampard shoots..the ball hits the bar and the goalie..i think its oliver kahn catches it..the players start arguing whether it was a goal or not..just then a woman appears at one of the balconies overlooking the lane and shouts something in spanish to one of the two kids..he goes rsup to kahn,snatches the ball out of his hands and walks away..the players leave with a groan..the then you have the tagline..'impossible is nothing'...it really is one of the best ads i've ever seen on tv..

doesnt urdu poetry totally rock?!!here's another-patta patta boota boota haal hamara jane haijane na jane gul hi na jane, baag to sara jane hai

I’m back!! After a bitter struggle against demonic cosmic forces, finta the survivor has managed to defeat them ! and once again due to finta the powerpuff the city has been saved! Bwahaahaa!!!I realize that I havnt posted anything since a long time and that everyone has been missing me madly…which is why this post is dedicated to all my fans out there..yayyyy! (loud thunderous applause)…!!!Actually , I’ve been having too much fun to be bored enough to write …;-)…a couple of days back, six of us bunked college and spent the day at deep’s place…deep had been owing us a treat since 1st yr and its really to his credit that he managed to hold us back for so long.. anyway, we ambushed him on Monday and held a sort of potluck party at his place..Each of us brought something along..sandy made awesome chocolate fudge , poushali got vanilla ice cream to go with it, priyanka made parathas and French fries ( because I just cant do without potatoes at lunch).. I had keema with me, deep made chicken kababs and momo generally helped with the parathas and the potatoes..It was really god fun. And since you missed it, here are some highlights-1. sandy and I doing a Cossack dance on the rooftop, in order to ward off salt lake mosquitos. They’re huge and unlike your ordinary version, not to be scared away with arbit hand-flapping.. (for those who don’t know what a cossack dance is , suffice it to say that it involves crossing your arms stoically and kicking randomly.)2. poushali staring away to glory at a supposedly ugly ‘naked’ guy in the house opposite. Don’t ask me the details, I did’nt look.3. momo giving us the lowdown on…well, pretty much everyone.4. chocolate brown sanyal (deep’s dog-a Labrador) refusing to budge, or bark or yelp or do anything which normal dogs do.And5. priyanka refusing to admit that she’s obsessed with her blog..;-)that’s it, folks! So, till next time, keep missing me..p.s- I have also been presenting important papers at important national seminars to be able to blog…my very-very-important-academically-researched-and-proffessionally-presented paper was on…er..(awkward silence)....the lord of the rings…p.p.s- I FINALLY saw rang de basanti!!!

javed akhtar in jadavpur

A week ago, the department of film studies of my university organized a one day seminar on the dialectic between hindi films and urdu poetry. This turned out to be a first in various ways. Not many universities of course, can boast of a film studies department and when one’s university falls into this rarest of rare categories of actually possessing a department wholly concerned about what is frankly, a mode of entertainment to me, and treats watching films as a necessary component of an academic discourse, then, I believe one should boast bluntly and boisterously about it. Which is exactly what I’m going to do.To come back, however, if you can bear my superciliousness any longer, to the seminar, it was a first in multiple ways, because, it was wholly about hindi films and not Indian or foreign films in general and also because the department got hold of one of india’s brilliant poets; also an evocative lyricist and a leading intellectual; javed akhtar; to speak on the subject.Javed saab, was such a change from the usual film-maker/critic who speaks at seminars. He did not talk about godard as if he’s known him since childhood. Nor did he insist on dissecting, one of the rare critically acclaimed films which you actually liked, to the ultimate extent of shredding it to bits, with the multiple-pronged knife of modern critical theories, and then proceeding to gas it with copious quantities of pungent, verbal verbose. I hasten to add, however, that not all film critics do that. It requires immense skill and one can acquire perfection only after years of practice. It is , however , (not to discourage potential critics) an art which can be mastered, though being, of no use to people like javed akhtar.Javed saab adopted a very simple approach. Credit also goes, ofcourse to the film studies profs for letting it remain so.In the first half, he read out about a dozen of his poems. A professor from City College(?) , who was accompanying him, translated them into either English or bangla as he went along.He started with a simple poem about a room; ‘ek kamrah’. It’s about the room which he used to live in, with the open casement;’daricha’, and the overflowering creeper outside it. It had two chairs; two twin sisters. It also had two vases, which constantly quallered between themselves. And the poet would lie on the bed and weave webs of stories while staring at the network of rafters on the roof. Now, today, he possesses a huge house;palatial,one would say… ‘bahut bada aur alishan’…. And yet in the silent loneliness of this house, the poet realizes, that his old room used to ‘speak to’ him…woh kamrah baatein karta tha…..The essence of the poem is ofcourse lost while translating it to other languages. In urdu however it sounded absolutely beautiful and was received with thunderous applause. His poem ‘doraha’ or ‘crossroads’ which he once wrote for his daughter zoya ,he now dedicated to the innumerable young women in the audience. He also quipped that the applause was somehow louder when he read a couple of romantic poems, one of which was adapted for the song ‘kabhie kabhie’. On a more serious note , there were 2 poems;’ fasaad ke pehle’ and ‘fasaad ke baad’, ‘fasaad’ meaning ‘riot’. He ended by reciting ‘waqt’, an apparent favourite. The atmosphere, needless to say, was absolutely electrifying, by now and his one-liners like ‘I realized all good looking men cant act’ on being asked why he never wanted to act in films , had the whole house in splits.The second half of the programme was dedicated to a question-answer session. Queries ranged from ‘do you support remakes and remixes?’ to ‘why do you think forms of urdu poetry, other than the ghazal, is dying out?’ . Queries to which Javed saab answered with his inimitable wit and élan. A memorable moment was when he said that one should see , not why, but how a film is re-made, a la, devdas etc. , and someone from the audience quipped ‘so how is farhan making don?!!’ Snippets of scenes from sholay ( gabbar singh with steam coming out of his ears and nostrils, legs astride, lashing his whip left and right and going ‘arre o sambha…kitne aadmi thhe’ in the background), and deewar ( bachhan ranting like a madman to poor shashi kapoor who apparently thinks having a mother like nirupa roy, who turns on the waterworks at a moment’s notice, is God’s way of being nice to him) and songs like ‘ek ladki ko dekha’( no snide comments here..i like the song) were also shown while he spoke on urdu poetry in general, and on the deteriorating nature of language being used in films….In short, javed saab had the audience eating out of his hands. His wit, language and style( not to forget the yellow kurta) floored all.We applauded him,cheered him,loved him….and sadly, also mobbed him… hope he didn’t much mind the last bit though…I mean , it’s not very often that he has pretty Judeans like us ( and I only mean the girls, here) chasing after him, does he?

waiting for..(with apologies to beckett)

I saw TheTerminal today. Its about a man named victor, who is stranded at the new york airport for a long time before he can go home to krakozhia or put a toe on United States soil. He is a man without a country because war has broken out in his homeland and the U.S refuses to recognize it any more. He is a man who has come to the U.S to get an autograph from a jazz singer ; an autograph which, his father waited forty years for, before dying.He is a man who waits.In a sense all of us are waiting for something. Victor waits to get the coveted autograph. He waits to go home. Whenever someone asks him what he is doing at the airport;coming or going, he says he’s waiting. And when the woman he falls in love with, the beautiful air-hostess Amelie asks him what he’s waiting for, he says he waits for her. Curious ofcourse,how they all know what questions to ask, to get just the kind of answer, we are expecting. But that’s beside the point.What one waits for varies from person to person. Farmers wait for grey-bellied rain clouds. Children for holidays and to grow up as soon as possible; Indians for a century every time sachin tendulkar takes up a bat. Greg chappell is ofcourse still waiting for ganguly to step down..Many of us wait for a promotion or a scholarship or a dream-home. Many more still wait for love. And then there are the Joeys of the world who only wait for the pizza to be delivered to their doorstep.Is it really that the world is frozen in mid-action or suspended in unending limbo…or is it only a weird idea I came up with? Frankly, I don’t know.What I do know is this. As of now, the only thing I’m waiting, no,longing for, after a dreary month of snuffling and sniveling noses, and watery eyes is a really hot Indian summer…and I have my fingers crossed..

be rude, its in

What is it with people nowadays? Why have a large proportion of our society suddenly resorted to rudeness as a necessary ingredient, in the messy concoctions of their daily lives? Niceness, ofcourse was pushed out from the recipe a long time back , but if downright rudeness is to be used in such huge quantities, then, I think (though I am no cook) that it shall certainly spoil the broth, even though there may not be too many cooks to aid in the process.My mother who has been teaching for 20-something years in a reputed college in kolkata ,recently had the misfortune of going to a Govt. center which handles the educational affairs of the state, for some work. Work,however seemed to be the only activity which the staff didn’t believe in. Some people had already left even though it wasn’t yet 2pm, some were busy gossiping, and the rest hadn’t bothered to come at all. My mother did the necessary running from pillar to post and after repeated rounds, she was finally led to the head clerk (read: the king of the nazguls) , who was under a huge misconcenception that he was the most important person in the whole wide world. Anyway, she went upto him and asked him to retrieve her file which has all the details. Woe betide her, that she also happened to use the word ‘please’, in her request !! As soon as he heard ‘please’, the man promptly got up enraged and said,“ aapni amake ‘please’ kano bolchen?” ; (why are you saying ‘please?’).Whatever reply my mother was expecting, she certainly wasn’t expecting this. Perhaps, she expected him to stage a walk-out ( they have been known to do this at the drop of a hat, ofcourse, and I expect, write of it with glowing pride in their resumes) or maybe she expected him to throw tantrums, but I can say it with certainty that she did NOT expect him to protest against her using polite language!!……………………………My mother was flabbergasted……………….. (Which I might add, I quite an achievement on the man’s part.) She could only meekly reply,“ ‘Please’ to kono kharab katha nei” ; ( please isn’t a bad word…)Imagine explaining THAT to someone!I know it sounds incredulous but it really happened. I only wish I knew what he thought ‘please’ meant so that I could send him anonymous letters in which every second word would be, you guessed it right, ‘please’!!Mom, ofcourse couldn’t get any work done that day and has to go again next week.God help her.But that happened in a Govt. center and those places have a reputation of harbouring people who have a long standing tradition to think of before behaving politely or getting any work done. Consider this, now.I was supposed to submit a term paper today, which I did. I had quoted from an essay which had been photocopied and circulated in class by a professor, and consequently did not have the bibliographical details pertaining to that essay. I could just cite the name of the essay and its author in my paper but conventions have to be followed and so, I vainly tried searching the Net and the Digital Library network to locate the book for more than two hours. It didn’t work. Just after that I met a friend and told him about the problem. He recommended searching the net, to which I said that I had and that I hadn’t found it. His reaction was –“Impossible!! Give me the name of the author, I’ll do it!!”To which I said, “Great! Do it now!”And he said, “Now? Why would I be bothered to do it now?”So I said, “Oh! So you only want to show that you can do it, not help me out?!”.And he said, “Duh!!”.And promptly started talking to another friend who was standing by.So you see, niceness is out. Rudeness is in. The couple of instances that I have given, are personal instances because I know they happened and are in no way hearsay. But there are many other incidents which I have seen or heard of in which people have behaved very rudely, and for apparently no reason at all.Why do they feel such a compelling need to be rude? To show that they can afford to be rude? Or perhaps they feel that being rude is wielding power and that niceness is weakness? Or do they confuse rudeness with wit? Or do they have a totally inverted sense of what’s rude and what’s not? To the unimaginable extent that they think ‘please’ is a rude word ?!Whatever the reason, it is happening. And I wish it wouldn’t. It really doesn’t take much to be nice or polite or to help someone out. Just a smile, or a few kind words. And I don’t think that’s too difficult, is it?
# posted by zish @ 6:23 AM 4 comments

ze blog about ze blog

Blogging has never appealed to me. It seems to me to be a somewhat deceitful medium of communication;giving one a sense of privacy akin to a private diary and yet reaching out to more people imaginable than is normally possible in any given discussion And yet here I am.As the years go by,I have noticed a consistent tendency in myself to do things which I had sworn to myself that I would never do. Especially things which everyone wanted to do. My way of rebellion, you could say.Take harry potter for example. The brouhaha around the boy wizard was annoying to say the least and the way we have contributed our bit to making him a cultural icon was absolutely shocking,I assumed. And yet inspite of all my outraged protestations on getting sucked into the madness of pottermania, I read the books and to put it in quite clichéd terms,fell for them hook,line and sinker. They’re absolutely amazing!! Atleast the first four are, when rowling hasn’t yet started putting in box-office touches..It was the same with the much acclaimed lord of the rings. Said I wouldn’t read them or see the film and now am the proud owner of cds of all three films and an extremely handsome copy of the book. There are other instances as well…. reading Paulo coelho, watching Jackie chan films, cheering for a losing Team India, howling for sania mirza, debating on the great chapel-ganguly fiasco…the list goes on….The latest, as you no doubt have guessed ,is blogging.I tried to resist but it wasn’t to be. I suppose its what they call destiny.