Post!

I wrote about ten posts in the last ten days. Did you read them? (‘You’ here implies the three and a half people approximately, who read my blog.) I don’t think you did, the primary reason being of course that they are still in my head. All ready, to be posted, with the t’s crossed and the i’s dotted. And ready to go to the press, so to speak. Except for the fact, that I have the inexplicable habit of delaying transference from head to PC, and well, in this case, not transferring at all.

The saddest part is that now I cant remember what they were on. There was one on a sleepover get together with friends. That should have been fun reading, if I would have written about it at all. Suffice it to say, that I did think of including juicy tidbits, like who bitched about whom, how we all sat up till four in the morning talking, and how we planned to make voodoo dolls for unnamable persons, and stick as many pins and needles into them as possible. Being the extra-virtuous souls that we are, we of course didn’t carry out the voodoo plan, but it’s in the background. Just need to buy the pins.

Another blog post was on my version of award ceremonies. Film of the year- Taare Zameen Par, Actor of the Year- Darsheel Safary, and Businessman of the Year- Shah Rukh Khan, for single-handedly maneuvering Om Shanti Om into being the block-buster of the year. Come to think of it, srk has turned out to be my cheese omelette, and for people, who don’t have any clue what I’m talking about, please ignore. Its one of my enigmatic lines; I make sure to put a couple in each post.

One of the reasons why I have not been able to post in spite of hoarding up such post-able material in the head, is that I have been having 12- hour workdays at the end of which I’m only capable of shoveling food in and sleeping. If I feel too energetic, I stare at ‘sarabhai vs. sarabhai’ on star one, and then go to bed.

Such is life.

A balancing act.

A flurry of movement.

A tango in stilettos.


And I don’t want to slow down.

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.

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.

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.