My Ramble- Scramble Pujo Post-II

What should have made me suspect the plot in the first place was the delighted smile with which my mother welcomed me. My mother and I share an unusual relationship where she greets my homecoming with a sepulchral, "Oh, there you are" and I make for the kitchen. Hence, as I said, the delighted smile should have made me suspicious. However, what with being the owner of a pair of spectacles whose lens keep on popping out due to, I like to believe, the intensity of my gaze, but mostly due to the fact that I went and sat upon them once, I failed to notice it completely and walked upon a multitude of the neighbourhood women.

"Oh, good," said one, as she pounced upon me, " we want someone to operate the CD player," and before I knew it, there I was, starting and stopping instrumental music they were singing to. Pujo rehearsals have come to town, and this time, they have selected my house.

It was while I was dozing off to the fifteenth rendition of Aguner poroshmoni, when everyone suddenly stopped singing and asked innocuously, "So what will you people be performing?"

Rather surprised by the sudden change in the lyrics, I managed a "Huh?' before the implication of the question struck me. "Which people?"

"You kids, of course,"said Mrs. M (bless her golden heart, it does do me good to be addressed as a kid at this age). "You will be putting up something right? We have kept the Ashtami slot aside for you people."

"But what people? Everyone has left the city. We are barely a handful. Maybe four, definitely not more than four people. Who will teach us? What could we put up?"

"Excuses," said the lady with the iron resolve, " Set your mind to it and you will manage it."

Thus, three days later, three girls and a piece of paper sat broodingly on a parapet, wondering how to entertain a hundred or so people without sharing any talent between them.

"We have to dance. It is the only thing we all know a bare minimum of," suggested the economist (no, not me, do you think I am the only economist around anywhere?)

"We have three weeks. We are four people and we need to keep dancing for an hour. This better be one of those brilliant brain storming sessions. Think of a theme," said the oldest among us.

"Oh, oh, I know, I know, trance-classical-fusion," I exclaimed.

"Eh? That does not even mean anything!"

"Precisely, so we can do anything and they will think we are doing it!"

"Doing what?"

"It! What we are supposed to be doing. Trance classical Fusion!!"

So we had a theme, which purported to mean nothing absolutely and thus, got us nowhere when it was time to zero in on the music. That was when the economist had the idea to rummage around my playlist.

"But what are you looking for exactly," I asked, much affronted at this invasion of my privacy.

"Oh, you know, the sort of music you weep to. The kind of music no one ever hears of unless you make sure they do."

"New age electronica!! Mostly trance or fusion. Or both. I am not even clear about the genre myself. As about the weeping, I do not weep. The music I listen to is soul searching and my soul just does not happen to be a very happy one."

So we found a few songs which seemed suitable enough to start a programme with. Then, the economist came up with the new idea of doing a Kathak-Bharatnatyam duet. Considering none of us knew anything regarding Kathak, we took up the idea with great fervour and alacrity. We all have flat feet now. But that is not the story.

Looking for the teacher was slightly more difficult. We dared not compose anything ourselves, what with each suffering from a hint of an insecurity complex. Hence, I was packed off to a school friend to make her compose some of the dances. That evening, Jadavpur received a fine sight of me dancing all the way on the roads, trying to remember the steps, with Sru's dictums following them, "Smile more broadly, oh do not, you look like a wolf. Do not look as if you are flirting, look as if you are already in love. You do not have a bun, you have a flower. Pretend you are Ma Durga. Open your eyes. Do not eye that guy. Do not eye any guy. Move your neck, stretch your arm more, try seeing whether there are people around when you stretch your arms next."

"So you are doing something? Should I contact the dressers? Would you like to wear proper costumes," asked the lady with the vampire smile.

"Umm, Bharatnatyam costumes?" I gulped.

"Yes, of course. Since you are doing what is, hopefully, a semblance, that should be appropriate."

"Oh, dear," remarked two of us.

"Eh, why do you not want it," asked the other to me.

"Mumble-wumble," I replied.

"Eh?"

"It makes my hips look large," I replied, less incoherently, blushing a pale crimson.

"Oh, ok, I was concerned with quite another part of my anatomy," said the other one.

"Very well, Bharatnatyam costumes it is," said the lady with the iron resolve and that was that.

The last two weeks, I have found myself either sitting on my toes or balancing myself on one leg, all in the name of dancing. And Pujo. There is no body part which has not hurt. I have discovered muscles I never thought I had, and definitely never expected to pain. However, things are not over yet. As I walked in tonight, the entire battalion smiled at me and asked me how my day was. As I blinked in response, the lady with the sugary sweet voice asked if we would not like to perform to their Rabindra sangeet on Saptami too.

Pujo has arrived. Painful, busy, and entirely delightful.

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What ho

Apparently, dinner parties are not hosted to give one a chance to practice their incinerating skills. Hosts tend to look askance at guests who forage toothpicks from the appetizers and burn them on floating candles. Yelling "Burn, you heathen, burn" and jumping up and down excitedly is also not advised. It is little things like these which make parents dub you as an anti social and talk about psychiatrists in hushed tones.

Being a final year student abruptly changes your life. The subject stops seeming like something you decided to take a vacation with before finding your niche in the world. Companies actually attempt to provide us with jobs without blanching inwardly. Everyone around you looks younger, and teachers and students fall back comfortably into a back-slapping relationship. This is the right time to call yourself an adult. Unless you are doodling tornadoes in your notebook while your professor gives you a lecture mostly wandering around the topic "You are the future."

Hence, having kept aside everything I love the most, days and night are spent mostly on oil, oil prices, inflation, more oil, cartels, complaining incessantly about why hair styling prices rise with rise in price of oil, interviewing rich, snooty people, even more oil, and discussing with bus conductors what they think the political impact of oil price rise is. As fascinating as the exercise is, all it seems to lead to is frayed nerves, an impatient attitude towards oil in general, and a hatred towards buses in particular.

So, on days not spent wondering about oil, we take photographs. Which I will now proceed to unveil to the discriminating public, for one of them (the pictures, not the discriminating public) is very dear to my heart, namely,

which is the dearest view on earth. You are viewing Presidency, from my secret spot.

The world viewed from under an umbrella is a very beautiful place. Specially when its three people under a very purple umbrella and you are walking on a very unknown road to a very known destination.

The known destination. Accompanied by very buttery pao bhaji and what seems like people shooting a Bhojpuri movie.

And how such trips are destined to end.

Being a senior is turning out to be a most interesting experience. Though random thoughts about burning toothpicks in Indian Economy classes require to be quelled. Specially since they do not provide us with floating candles.

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Notes From Early Mornings

After having harried me since time immemorial to stop making her feel as if she gave birth to a blob, my mother has finally succeeded in making me agree to early morning walks. This fact should do no credit to her, since the only reason I do go for walks is that I do not feel like Mathematics after 5 a.m. in the morning and I never can go to sleep until the rest of the world sharing my timezone has awoken and arisen.

Morning walks, though a rage among most health advisers, is an extremely lonely undertaking. A person resorts to it only after he is past his first, second and sometimes third youth. And they all seem to severely disapprove if a person boasting of less mature years, wisdom and looks invades their territory. An ensemble of eyebrows raise themselves to frown upon walking attire, headbanging ( Any sort of rock is a thing of awful beauty during early hours, specially when accompanied by chirping birds, against whom I have a special dislike) and random trippings along any sort of uneven roads, stones, rocks and invisible barriers. Icy looks are all a part of the thinning process in this part of the world.

Morning walks are also devoid of any sort of guys. I do not even ask for cute. But anyone who is remotely dateable seem to while away their entire mornings sleeping, unmindful of the fact that their probable soulmate is taking headbanging morning walks along one of the most beautiful and romantic settings possible, happily wondering what is for breakfast.

The best thing about early mornings are yellow flowers. They are present everywhere. They dot most trees, they lay strewn about on every path and you often end up sweeping them away from the bathroom floor after the mandatory shower. They freshen up the warmest of mornings and brighten the dreariest of streets. Not that streets look dreary. An young sun, dew bathed roads, a dimmed moon somewhere out there in the skies, and sometimes, while changing music in the player, the drunken calm of day create a vivid, joyous, exhilarating world, challenged, perhaps, only by the magic of midnights.

There is also the joys of the inebriate's walk, as I have named it. All it involves is finding the oddest and the narrowest of by lanes, and taking random turns whenever possible, making the way home more circuitous, more adventurous and more beautiful. The prettiest of homes, the oddest of colours, the brightest of gardens, all seem to be tucked away in hidden corners, unseen by people who come looking for them, awaiting to surprise walkers in search of a reason to keep on walking, and desired by the very people who plan to move to Antartica given a chance (Onnesha, take a bow).

The bare truth is, I have fallen in love with these walks of mine. They do not harrow my soul any more. They do not seem to do my blobness any good, but they soothe the frayed nerves of mine after an intense mathematical session. My soul is a walker's soul now, and I will never be able to find delight in the joys of driving. Then again, a walker never killed a stag. Walkers just remain walkers at bay.

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The Perils in the Life of the Indian Student

While the whole country discusses in a hush tone the degeneration of the moral responsibility of students regarding the all important question of the health and mortality of their fellow classmates, one remains tolerantly amused. Yes, murder is a serious threat to the peace our society is accustomed to, but it is such a rare occurrence that one glances over the newspaper, tut-tuts, and promptly switches over to semi-naked pictures of Hrithik Roshan in the entertainment section.

OK, one does not do exactly that, but one does exaggerate a bit. But let one go on to what one means to post about.

The average student life is fraught with enough mortal dangers. Even if one decides to forgo the possibility of self annihilation, education is not exactly a path of strewn lilies. There are blood thirsty teachers, spending years of their lives waiting for that one particular bit of homework, which inspires and alleviates one to the level of hair pulling younger siblings. Of course, they take it too literally, and there is a certain amount of one sided hair pulling involved, but one does not go further into it either. The case in point was never very satisfactorily solved. Of course if the teacher does not get you, there are always your classmates. Even if most do not have access to revolvers, they could always get you with a good hard shove in the back. Of course if you manage to dodge classmates, its usually the volleyball which has it for you, or the chair has a faulty leg, or the chalk gets you in the eye. If not facing enough impediment from the inanimate world, you could of course get yourself. Let the shot put drop on your leg, be a boy, or just find yourself dozing in the class. Danger lurks at every corridor corner, behind every library shelf, inside every cobwebby desk shelf.

But these, are of course common dangers. There are also the more unusual, though not unknown forms of dangers. These kind of dangers are first intimated the day before voting day for election of the college union. Knowing one's perfectly apolitical stance, party members and hopeful representatives, people who never look twice at one during average, non-political days, begin calling you up and talking about providing bodyguards on your way to the college. When the same one is not exactly built on slender lines, and is accustomed to carrying The Suitable Boy as a light read in ones bag, one begins to wonder on what diabolical plans the opposition might be planning to actually nullify the effects of both of ones strongest weapons. Kidnapping- possible. Threatening- probable. Sexual Harassment- not unheard of. But one braves all odds. One refuses guards. One goes to college and immediately realizes both parties are waiting for one because most votes are known except one's. One revels in the importance. Then one feels foolish. Then one gets disgusted. One somehow manages to elude the hypocritical fools and vote for one she hopes is lesser of the two evils. One thankfully goes back home. Then does the excitement start.

News starts pouring in. Two members of one of the parties have been kidnapped. There has been a lathi charge. The winning CR has been gheraoed. The principal has been gheraoed. Students have been arrested. You switch on the news and see the person you usually sit behind of getting beaten up. It becomes an unreal world. Not the place you drag your sorry behind to morning classes. More so when the kidnapped guys actually have been arrested for eve teasing a woman. And these are the people we vote as our representatives.

The actual danger all this while had been the idea that a couple of eighteen year old students actually believe they realize what political ideology is all about. But then, how many older people can claim knowing it either?

Of course, there is another sort of danger, which does not really lead to physical harm...I think. At school, a girl with lovely, shiny hair used to sit in front of one. One and her were never particularly good friends. But one envied her lovely hair. One used to wonder whether ones superior intellectual skills ( modesty is not one's besetting sins) was a compensation enough.

One day, one grows up. One enters college. One decides to do the ultimate grown up thing. One consults a few friends. One goes out and buys beer. One drinks beer illegally at Forum. One actually opens it with her teeth in the bathroom at BURP! Transfers it to a cold drink glass and drinks beer openly. One gets a little high. Ones friends actually get drunk on beer, having no constitution whatsoever. One meets the lovely haired girl. One knows she is in one of the city's premier colleges studying some obscure subject. Girl says she is very happy. Girl is 18 and she is getting married to someone seven years older than her in a matter of two weeks. Ones friends and one keel over in shock. One thinks one is having hallucinations. Three weeks later, one meets the same girl, in jeans and sindoor.

An year later, when one struggles with her first University examination paper, shiny haired girl struggles to bring the first of her many babies to this world, education and ambition long forgotten. Girl is perfectly happy. One is perfectly happy too. In different worlds. Where one is still a child and another a mother of one.

One wonders, is one too judgmental?

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The Terrible Two and the Mystery of The Reluctant Child

Prelude

Scene : Near the Gariahat flyover. One surprised looking man, one bawling child, two girls, one angry and the other with a crude mask over her head. The unmasked girl glares at the man. The air is charged with the essence of an unanswered question. The masked girl seems to be shaking with rage. The child continues to bawl. No one else seems to care. No cute guys around. Both girls carrying bags where huge notebooks do not seem to fit.
Time: somewhere around seven in the evening.

Chapter 1
The Only Chapter There Is

It all started one fine Thursday afternoon when I realized I was not receiving respect enough for my existence. On roads, I am either passed over, or have the wrong body parts stared at by the all and sundry of the eve teasing population. It was while my dramatic soul cringed against the unfairness, my sister came in sporting a laboratory coat all Science students are expected to wear, as an impenetrable protection against the deadliest acids. Needless to say, the selfsame cloak of invincibility was stained and holed, her entire class having had the mind boggling idea of having an early Holi party with the more dilute versions of the same acids and a few bases. But, like the sight of those who bring good tidings to the mountains, the coat lay in front of me, bright, shining and beautiful.

The lab coat, in all principles, resembles all lab coats in the world. Specially the coats worn by the unfortunate few in the medical profession. It was not surprising that a few hours later, I started out for my Maths tution dressed up as a medical student. Who does not respect medical students? Someday, I might presumably be saving the very lives who give me a blank stare and add to my insecurities.

It was a nice trip. But nothing unusual. Apparently, there are too many doctors in this world and beyond for people to bother. The conductor did manage to find me a seat though. Was it because of my gender, my alleged profession or the fact that I perpetually look like a helpless cow, I will never know. But at my tution, I caused sensation. Its a different thing only one person was there, but she was curious enough. But as usual, Berry took it very sportingly and even came up with a madcap idea to justify the presence of the lab coat. After the diabolical lie was cut and pruned to perfection, we realized the brainstorm had made us hungry and we went outside to forage for anything which looked cheap, unhealthy and fattening.

However, our journey to the world of further obesity was cut short by the sight of a man dragging a child of about four, who, as was obvious, did not want to go and was using his lungs to its fullest capacity to state his objections. Since all detective novels require a description, the man was of North-eastern descend, dressed in something blue and cheap and his front pocket seemed slightly bulgy. The kid looked like all kids, snotty, wailing and at the stage of life when kids stop being cute and become noisy. Berry and I looked like ourselves, sharing between us neither egg shaped heads, nor pipes, nor moustaches, nor trenchcoats, nor even knitting, the trademark of Miss Marple. Our detective trademark, if any, would be bags filled with ill-fitting notebooks and wrappers of chocolates hidden from discerning parents.

Both Berry and I read the papers. She reads them to know what is going in the world. I read the comic strips and the TV guide. But I have read enough crime stories to know an attempted kidnapping when confronted with one. We both shot a look at each other and decided to follow the man. All this, of course, was done wordlessly. But we had enough time later to exchange words. People who belong to Kolkata might be better able to estimate the distance. We started at the beginning of Ballygunge Phari near Merlin Court and ended up near the Gariahat flyover. Our dialogue during the stalking went on these lines :

P: We are not exactly very inconspicuous, are we?
B: You find trees and bushes on this footpath, and I name thee Mrs. Feluda.
P: Shucks, you are too kind. How did you know I have been totally in love with him since like when I was fourteen?
B: Will you kindly concentrate on the matter at hand? You talk too much.
P: Oh yeah, the kidnapped kid? Do you think people know what we are upto? I have been catching a few glances.
B: None of that, I assume, has anything to do with your weird choice of wardrobe today, eh? Darn, its seven, sir must have arrived. What are we supposed to be doing today? Testing?
P: Test? Test? What test? Did he say anything about a test last week? Was that when I was looking at Zombie. He is kinda sexy, you know, in a very warped sort of manner.
B: Its the name of a chapter, woman, the one we did last week. And Zombie is shorter by a few inches. Oh God, we are just behind the man, what do we do now?
P (while opening coat): OK, how about I put the coat over the man and you grab the child and run away with it? Also, FYI, all guys in this city are either shorter or younger.

Berry, not very impressed with my idea of re-kidnapping kidnapped children, decided to put things in her hands. While I crept up close to the man, ready to muffle him with the acid stained coat, Berry shoved me aside and decided to confront him, woman-to-man.

"Oi, mister," she demanded in her most severe tone, "where do you think you are going with the child? Whose child is it?"

Thus arose the situation described in the prelude. I promptly put the coat over my head to prevent the man from recognizing me in a line-up and began laughing hysterically behind it. The man looked amazed to say the least. The kid, of course, could not care less, his lungs being the envy of all asthmatics worldwide. Berry continued to glare in an uncanny resemblance o my eighth grade Biology teacher.

"I..you...this kid..you see...my employer's child. He asked me to get him to his home...making too much noise...office being disturbed...says mother will see to him," the man faltered, either in nervousness (having two mad girls attack you in the middle of the street can never be easy) or having hopelessly fallen in love with Berry and thus rendered semi tongue-tied.

"Figures," I commented laconically from behind the coat.

Berry was not easy to convince though. She demanded proof. The brave, brave woman, standing in the middle of the street, ten minutes late for tution, walking up to a random stranger and asking him to prove he was not a kidnapper. This girl is so gonna grow up into a social activist. Or a policewoman. Or a mugger.

It all ended when the man finally offered to call up his employer and convinced us that it was indeed his child. Finally satisfied, she permitted the poor man to withdraw with the yelling kid to the mother, possibly a harassed, tired woman prematurely hard of hearing. We trudged back to our classes, complaining bitterly about how nothing exciting ever happens to us.

Case satisfactorily solved.

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War and Peace

"Once upon a Time," says my Grandfather at story hour, " we had a curfew. This was even before your parents were born. I was a young boy then."

Look of disbelief in my face. Are not grandparents born silverhaired and wrinkled?

"Back in our days, we had real curfews. Lasting for hours, with armed policemen, ordered to shoot on sight. No newspapermen to warn us about numbers to call if one falls sick. Back then, if you fell sick, you waited. You could recover or you could die. The alternative was certain death. So people waited. People nowadays get it all on a platter. Yet they complain.

"We used to live on the first floor of an apartment building. Not an apartment in the truest sense though. They were two roomed flats. And we were eight brothers and sisters. We were a bit hard pressed for space. Look at you. You insisted on a room of your own because you could not stay with your one sister in the same room without breaking into free-for-alls."

I have two cousins. Were all those brothers and sisters celibates? Or was my grandfather a black sheep and casted off from the family tree?

"On one those curfew nights, all was silent on the streets below. The girl living on the rooms above looked out of her window to see whether anyone was about. She was shot through the head. Her age? Possibly fifteen. Maybe fourteen. Definitely not more than sixteen. Her religion? Its more than sixty years now girlie, I do not think she cares anymore."

Tonight, I passed through all those areas war was declared in yesterday. The bus I took included sleeping men, lecherous men, blank faced women, absolutely no cute guys and me, trying to look like a sad faced Madonna (the Raphael version, not the pop star one). However, as soon as we entered Park Circus, everyone suddenly got alert. Eyes began to search the roads, stripping it of all humility. What were we looking for? The illogical fear that someone might decide to stone us? Or, like the vulture every human is, for a remnant of the horror yesterday, one sign to show us how civilization died? But there was nothing. Just common men walking around for common businesses. The city had moved on. Not proudly, not with a head held high, but with sheer doggedness and force of will.

Which is how I will always identify the spirit of the city as. A bent backed sweeper, sweeping all signs of sins committed yesterday to create a cleaner place to live in. There is hopelessness, for one knows it will get dirtier during the course of the day, but, as always, there is no dearth of new beginnings. So the sweeper sweeps on, too proud to beg, too ashamed to forget, yet, too desperate to give up.

Yet, not a shard of broken glass...


Results come out this Monday. If you hear a silence on this website for more than a week, please assume I have gone on a self-induced coma.

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Because I am Not Sleepy

This post is about nothing. It has no literary value whatsoever. No opinion will ever be dictated here. I probably should be sleeping while I type this, but I do not care. Let dark circles remain a permanent feature of my physical attributes. I will show them they are not everything.

Love is a weird thing. Here you are, thinking there is no man on earth who could be everything you wish him to be (which includes having the guts to dance on the roof of a train and be a criminal mastermind) and then suddenly you see him serenading Audrey Hepburn. Life suddenly becomes topsy-turvy. And anyone who suggests this is a school girl crush, may you get the Wagga Wagga disease.
Kolkata buses have many faults. But no one could label them dull. From banters between a fisherwoman and the conductor to free-for-alls, they never lack the human element of comedy. However, the government thinks otherwise. What with too many passengers being dragged to depots because they fall asleep on long bus rides and snore past their stops, they decided not to risk the unpredictable presence of over sensitive passengers and went and added radios. They possibly voted for television firstly, but what with the universal demand for soaps clashing with the fact that they are mostly R-rated, they decided on the radio, where the most harmful thing for children's ears would be the Bula-di advertisements. But since everyone knows them and can recite them backwards, word- perfect, that was not much of a scare.
(BTW, what is it with minibuses and Big FM? Has Mukesh Ambani taken over RT-72 bus? Is a chain of buses the next big thing he wishes to gift his wife after that joke of a jet plane?)

So here was I, one sad Friday afternoon, dragging my sorry self to a Statistics class, pondering on the meaning of life when the friendly, neighborhood radio decided to play the title track of Bhul Bhulaiya again, for what I could make out, the fifth time in the hour. That was when I realized how desperately I was in love. For Gregory Peck materialized in front of me singing that very song, for ME!!! For the next five minutes, i gazed openmouthed at the conductor, for Peck always seemed to hang around him, resurrected from death, lip syncing a pseudo-rap song from a Hindi movie, all because I have a wild imagination and have watched DDLJ absolutely too many times.

I could not concentrate much on my tuition either. Peck seemed to hang around a lot near my teacher's left ear, just looking in that heart warming manner of his.

As if I do not already have enough reasons to quit bothering to educate myself further.

I still do not feel sleepy. I might prolong this post a bit more. I wonder how many of my blogrollers are busy deleting my link.

People who have ever loved Mathematics might appreciate this. What with too many late nights trying to deduce why a particular question was taking you three months to solve and was a possible contender in next year's examination, the subject tends to overcome your senses. You live, breath and feel Maths. I went a step ahead, I started walking Maths.

The area I live in has islands. They are the names for circular edifices at every crossroad, with shrubberies in them. If the following picture belonged to wikimapia (it does not, its a Palit original), it would show islands like this.



Yes, slightly messy. So was Picasso.

Anyway, here is a crossroad, many cars, its late in the evening, Spiderman here is a figment of my imagination and there I am, in the right hand corner lower footpath, waiting there for fifteen minutes. All because I wanted to reach my destination by taking a path which was tangent to the island.

Given,
OP is the radius, not that it matters.
The red star shows my desired destination.
Drivers do not like me. I am a bad pedestrian.

Required to find:
A tangent which does not kill me.

I actually went to and fro the footpaths, around eleven times, till I found the right tangent, starting somewhere two meters away from my starting position.
Also, the angle alpha signifies nothing. I have forgotten what two tangents do when they intersect. Probably start a family of baby tangents and eventually end up getting divorced, but by then, I was home.

Ah, the first glimmers of sleepiness. Let the end be now.

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Herbert- A Rambling Non- Review

I was supposed to write my more serious experiences during these Pujas. I had had the most amazing, earth shattering ideas, thought up the sharpest of phrases and probably would have won the Pulitzer for that post. Unfortunately, by midnight yesterday, I had forgotten all about those experiences. I am flaky, absent minded and, possibly, a blonde with a permanent brunette hair colour. I blame it on Economics. The subject does not suit my mental prowesses. I am taking up Philosophy as soon as I can scrape up a graduation degree. However, till that happens, let my once-widening-and-now-stuck-at-seven blog reading population suffer more of my flakiness.
(What? I am a brute! The last post says so.)

My results are coming out. Possibly everyone I have ever been acquainted with knows about it. I have cribbed about it, cried about it, and warned people not to be surprised at the news of my death. Behind this scared exterior, however, lies an even more scared girl. The University I am registered under is not a very kind University. In fact, its a positive lemon in the garden of Universities (more Wodehouse plagiarized lines here). It revels in making its students psychotic killers. Not surprisingly, all the worry and the wonder has turned me into a zombie. Or an owl, if you prefer it. Sleep eludes me until its day break and then I sleep for fourteen hours straight. I am, of course, hours away from being disowned, but that is a secondary topic.

Last Saturday, after partying hard for seven hours straight, I trudged into my home to face another bout of insomnia. Television, my solace and savior, beckoned and at two a.m., I was enmeshed between a sofa and many cushions, channel surfing like there was no tomorrow.That is when I came across a Bengali movie. Normally, I do not watch Bengali movies, not being very well versed in the language (my ancestors are probably rolling in their graves now), but this one had English subtitles. Needless to say, I was intrigued. Any Bengali movie with English subtitles is an intellectual movie, at least that is what I believe, and intellectual Bengali movies are just the thing to make one a politician. Thus, I settled down more comfortably and started a movie marathon journey called Herbert.


I was not mistaken. The central theme was politics. Unless it had some obscure inner meaning I completely failed to comprehend. It started with the investigation of the death of a man called Herbert, who had caused a terrorist attack. The movie thus began unfolding, telling the story of Herbert, as a young, orphaned boy who was brought up at his uncle's place, treated miserably as a servant, growing up to become the supposed terrorist of the present year.


The movie, as many reviewers have noted, is perhaps a time traveling journey through Kolkata, showing it in its many facets, from the politically tumultuous 1970s to the more urbane, conscious city we know today. And we see Herbert suffering through it all, losing his loved ones one by one, through this amazing journey called Calcutta (I revert back to the name. It wasn't Kolkata then). We first see Herbert as dysfunctional, gawky, the proverbial idiot nephew in every family. But he grows on us, and we begin to see a more defined Herbert, the one who has a beautiful penmanship, the one who writes nonsense poems, the one who needs a hiding place, the one who flies kites, the one who has a vivid imagination, the one who has his unnamed longings, the one who dabbles in paranormal studies. Suddenly, he is not the idiot nephew anymore.

Another extremely important facet of the movie was its language. Possibly all the Bengali expletives known to man (and apparently unknown to Calcuttan policemen) were freely used. My knowledge of Bengali khisti increased overnight. Sadly, after I woke up next day at some time late int he afternoon, I had forgotten them all. Hopefully, someone else might fare better.

Predictably, since this movie was about politics, my college had a bit role to play. Its like second nature, a movie with few political leanings and suddenly, my college is a part of it. Though they did have a good view of it. And I liked the way the Presidency staircase was juxtaposed into the the 'Odessa steps', the site of a workers' uprising supported by the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin and Lenin's Iskra, where hundreds of Odessan citizens were murdered on the great stone staircase (copy-pasted from Wikipedia). Some things, apparently, never change. Not that I understand anything about politics. I never did. I saw the movie from the viewpoint of a person wondering why the screen was moving. I did not attempt to delve deeply and certainly do not have any political illusions.

The movie also used several interesting techniques of movie making, among which, is an interesting craft, called by reviewers the Brechtian art of Alienation. I do not know what it means. I do know what it referred to, though. Herbert's parents were shown in certain shots, filming the life of their son, giving a tragi-comic twist to the entire plot line. Perhaps that was what it was about. A tragi-comic life of an idiot who got entangled in situations beyond his comprehension. The story of a foolish do-gooder.

It was a sad movie. A bitter one. Not a movie I should have watching in the middle of the night. But the memory lingers. There still is an impact. I am yet to fathom of what.

To read more coherent reviews of this movie, go here and here. I write rubbish reviews.

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My Ramble-Scramble Pujo Post-I

Five Rather Weird Pujo Occurences 2007

• Even at 4:30 a.m. at Maddox Square, it is perfectly possible to meet someone you know, complete with additional props like drunken stupor . Our group had 9 girls and had the innate power to wake up around 73 guys, all resplendent with their cameras and weird hairstyles, which, as everyone knows, is the mating call of our generation. The presence of 7 boys with us could not defeat their purpose. The spirit of Maddox Square glows splendidly in these 73 men.
  

• Houses actually have signs stating "Ei gate-r shamne roll ba Pepsi jatiyo khaddyo grohon korben na (Do not consume eatables like Pepsi and roll in front of this gate)". I still don't see why. Pepsi is possibly the least likely thing one would spill. Unless they used is as an example of the genre it belongs to, alluding to tequilas or beers. Though I do not see people trying to have tequilas on a corner plot at God knows where, where everyone in the world, specially relatives, are liable to see them. But why rolls? I like rolls. Long live rolls. I do not like cockroaches.

• At Ekdalia and Singhi Park, they cordon off people like cows (not people who look like cows, but the act of cordoning them was similar to putting cows in sheds. No, I do not look like a cow). Though I have been told its quite an usual phenomena during pujo. However, what was more creepy was the fact that just a few hours before, I had watched a friend being turned into a cow in a play. Coincidence? I think not. Our existence is an illusion which is preventing us from realizing that we are all cows and after the famed nuclear holocaust, cows will be the only living creatures left for they are actually cockroaches in disguise. What we call cockroaches now are actually the real human beings. For do not they outnumber us all and behave as if they are planning a devious attack to wipe us from the face of earth?

• The major Pujo headlines this year was the fact that both Rani Mukherji and Kajol wore sunglasses on Ashtami. Half of the world was scandalized at this apparent blasphemy in the name of Ashtami Anjali, the other half was busy admiring them. Of course, there is one section left, who do not belong to the world, mainly because of the fact that they do not really understand why it is news. Why is it news? Someone's hair got stuck in the blades of a table fan during Anjali last year at our para. Where were the scandal mongering journalists, I prithee? Does not this incident count as profanity?

• They had a Pandal based on Central Jail. Durga, I am assuming is the warden. Unless it is Durga who is the innocent victim accused of some heinous crime she did not commit, Shiva is her lawyer, Ganesha and all her prison mates and the Asura is therefore either the true perpetrator of the crime or the warden. Unless it was the warden who did it. Damn. Why can't butlers be wardens? Then the butler could do it. Butlers always do it. That is what butlers are for. It justifies their existence.

A lot happened these Pujas. Most importantly, I fell in love. Some people do it madly, some idiotically, some precipitately. I? I do it in all three ways. For I went and fell in love with Gregory Peck. He is dead. But he is gorgeous. He has that aquiline nose I could kill to get into the genes of my future generations. For I have one which would put Indira Gandhi to shame. Does he have a son? A grandson? Does he look like him? I solemnly believe people as good looking as that should reproduce like crazy so that at least one kid turns out exactly like him. Though how Rakesh Roshan begat Hrithik Roshan remains a standing mystery, right after the great question of Who funds Dev Anand movies?


I also broke up with my long standing boyfriend of one year, who turned all of five this year. Reason being he prefers being carried around by my sister rather than me. Any person who prefers my sister to me has absolutely no taste at all. So we decided to end it this year. (I am not a pedophile. I would have waited for him to turn 21 before we got married. Its just that he was not maturing fast enough to realize the enormity of our relationship. Plus, he has a crush on this four year old. I can fight tooth and nail for my man but I cannot defy age. Youth calls to youth. I am nineteen, going on forty, with mid life crisis fast looming. I had no hope.)

Pujo this year was not only about failed romances with deceased men and alliances with babies. It was not only about Pandal hopping either. I hope to write more about it in my next post. Until then
Shubo Bijoya.

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Bonky and Pongo's Day Out- II

The all-pervading aroma from the door on the right proved to be a unisexual bathroom while the door on the left was stoutly locked, which led to an inevitable choice of the center door. The first room turned out to be a hall which had been converted into a sales counter. The compulsive shopper in me called out to look at the delights at display, books mostly, with cheerful titles like "Governor Generals of India during the British Raj" and "British Trade Policies (1870-1930)" . It was again the more practical Bonky who came to my rescue by reminding me that if we pooled our funds, we would only be able to scrape a few hundred bucks for a book we would end up gifting to our grandparents. Better sense prevailed and we moved onwards.

Actually we did not. The sales counter man doubling up as a security guard asked us to halt and said visitors were supposed to go the rooms to their left, the rest being private quarters. Our conspiratorial minds immediately went haywire, forming theories of a room where skeletons were kept, hung from the overhead chandeliers which where the last governor's wives' corpses after he had consumed them (cannibalism happens to be one of our many interests). However, remembering the fact that even Scary Movie 3 scared me out of my wits, we dutifully went leftwards where the treasures of Metcalfe Hall were laid in front of us in all its splendour and glory.

"Bricks?"

The query resonated throughout the room. All the room contained was glass cases with bricks laid lovingly and protectively in them. Wondering slightly at the hobby of the last resident of the Hall, we roamed around, trying to fake an interest in stones, if only to please the septuagenarian
looking wonderingly at us from his post at the sales counter. It was then that we discovered a brick derived from the foundation of Bethune College. (A query here. How do people acquire foundation stones? Do they dig the place up? Or do they take it out before the rest of the building is made. If so, then can it be technically called a foundation stone since it never was allowed to remain a part of the foundation?) College loyalists that we are, we made it the mission of the next fifteen minutes to hunt up the foundation stone from our college among the fusillade of bricks collected in the room. Sadly, the stock of the foundation stone of our college had apparently been low and the room lacked severely in any bricks ear marked thus. On a happier note, none other bricks were found from any other college and we left the place, disappointed yet pleased.


Bonky suggests an inventory to be made of the bricks we met there so here it goes:

• some bricks from a temple
• many other bricks from some other temple
• ditto
  
• ditto
• don't remember much else

The next room had a few canvases with pictures of less known temples in West Bengal but a cursory glance was enough for them. What really intrigued us was a couple of spiral stairs at two ends of the room leading to a balcony giving a bird's eye view of the room (not that it needed it). The conversation which ensued between us brilliant and absorbing conversationalists went like this :

P : Stairs.
B : Guk.
P : (in case something had missed Bonky's eagle eyes)Two stairs.
B : Indeed.
P : You take the right and I take the left, I guess?
B : (as always the more practical one) The balcony will fall down under our combined weight.
P : (avoiding looking at the carved structures which were an excuse for supports) Not really. People must come here sometimes and use it.
B : Oh yeah? How many brick lovers have you exactly met during your lifetime?
P : (hazarding a guess) Sweepers do come, right?
B : Oh, lets do it. At any rate, we might be able to avoid looking at our results.

And on this happy note, we comported ourselves on the stairs when we deduced the main reason why the balcony had not needed ample support. The stairs had been made to fit Chinese women in the age when their feet had been bound in yards of bandages owing to the lack of shoes for size ten feet. Holding on to the banister for dear life and almost tip toeing on the stairs (which had hollows, which meant a wrong step could lead to a foot hanging mid air from one of the steps), we finally reached the balcony. The next conversation we had went like this

B: So, sweepers, huh?
P : What I can't fathom is how do birds reach a room where there are no windows?
B : Mysterious indeed. So, do we get down the other end?
P : Hey, descending was never a part of the contract!

For here, a forgotten fear of heights attacks one of the protagonists and she begins to find excuses to remain on the balcony until she loses enough weight to have her knight in shining armour arrive and carry her downstairs. She was wondering at repercussions of the plan when

B : Dude, I believe that is the secret room.
P : (Immediately closing her eyes) Can you see the skeletons? Is there muscle peeling away from the bone. Will I be able to sleep tonight? Oh, THE HUMANITY!!!
B: Yeah well, all I can see is more books. I guess that's the stock room for that sales counter. Who do you think buys these books? (The economist in her perks up) Is that like an inventory investment?
P : (giving a look no one should give a friend and a fellow sufferer in the cause of education) Will you please concentrate on how to get me down from here? In case you don't remember, we have a movie to watch in, like, three hours and neither of us likes the idea of watching a movie alone. Also, the food is in my bag.
B: Oh, come on. The most that can happen is that we break our necks here and die, our dead bodies undiscovered till two more jobless girls come around here. On a brighter side, death can't be that bad. After all, we did give miserable examinations.

The question of dying thus admirably settled, we proceeded on our way down. It was the classic RDB moment. We had faced so much fear in the name of the impending results, that we had actually gone to a point beyond fear. It was more with the hope of death in our hearts that we tried to fit in our big feet in the tiny foot rests.However, as it is during times when you actually want to die, we did not manage to break our necks and came down, with clammy foreheads and hands a mysterious shade of brown as the only memento of our great climb.

Our journey back from Metcalfe Hall was eventful enough, what with absence of trams, burgers for ten bucks each, visits to haunted churches, trying to find our way to a movie hall in the middle of nowhere, having softies, gazing enviously at young people for their youth and the fact that all of them had boyfriends (at 19, we are aging young), happily gazing at tall guys in blue shirts, green shirts and white shirts and of course, cheering loudly at the women in Chak de India when they beat up the guys at MacD. However, that is a tale for another rainy day and as far as Bonky and Pongo are concerned, the tale of their day out is over.

Next story in line is hopefully the results of using a candid camera at Elliot Park.

p.s. The cartoons are highly amateurish in nature since I have never drawn anything in my entire life and used photoshop even less. Their purpose is nil and will probably be removed someday. They are to be taken in a humorous stride and all evil critics commenting against them will have the curse of the backside itch put on them. If you are a nice critic, may you have a harem of your own :)

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Bonky and Pongo's Day Out- I

(This post is dedicated to Bonky, the person who has always inspired me to never follow my own decisions about dieting, but to go and stuff my face if I have the money, and, if possible, lend her some too.Hence, I openly proclaim that I will name my first child after you, regardless of its sex, if your husband murders you before it is born.)
It all started with the usual level of frustration with life for Bonky and me. Looking comprehensively at the fact that we were turning into amoebas, hated our graduating subject and had mistakenly arrived an hour early for our morning class on a warm, gentle Saturday morning, the next obvious step was walking dejectedly towards the college gates, wondering which stagnant waters would we end up being mosquitoes in. One of us opined (at this precise moment, I forget who, but it doesn't matter, both of us still think that) that we were total losers to be hanging around in the college for classes on a Saturday, when other people our age would be
a) sleeping
b) preparing for some date hours later
c) sleeping
d) getting rid of a hangover
e) sleeping
f) staring at the ceiling, blowing air bubbles and wondering what would be there for breakfast.

At this psychological hour, a tram crossed our path. We, pseudo economists and self proclaimed unicellular organisms when it comes to survival, think alike and think different. A tram with an unknown destination was accepted as our calling and we got up on the next one (we had missed our first inspiration while we were busy reading each other's minds).



This wasn't our first ride. We have had many such impromptu escapades from the humdrum menace of classes. Yet, the first foolish questions in a series of foolish questions happened to be, "where does this tram go" to a bemused conductor, possibly unused to absent minded, bespectacled, foolishly blinking young girls with as little clue of their destination as he himself. We got two tickets to the last stop, hoping against hope it would not be beyond traversed paths or recognizable tracts of civilizations. It was while we giggling away to glory at our daring, adventurous spirit (we are young girls who haven't been left alone beyond a fixed diameter around tuitions) that we suddenly found ourselves amidst a glory of British architecture and a bevy of business people amazed at the spectacle of two tripping teenagers staring goggle eyed at everything. The more erudite Bonky recognized the place as Dalhousie, the place which houses banks and churches with equal élan.

Traipsing around like little girls, an eye opened for food shops, it was not long before we saw a supposed minaret at a distance. Close inspection proved it to be the General Post Office. Following Rikki Tikki Tavi's motto, we went and found out all we could about it, which was not much. Though we did find a couple of cute guys we could stare happily at, our lack of post office etiquette rose a few eyebrows. Our girlish exuberance at the sight of the stamp corner and a computerized section was not well received and it was not long before we were looking somewhere else for luck and interest.

More aimless wanderings and a roving eye brought us to a building covered with beggars which proclaimed itself to be Metcalfe Hall on a disused pillar. Having heard the name in one of my rarer non-orkutting browsing of the internet, I dragged a bewildered Bonky to the bird defiled exterior, with its impressive rows of columns and wide staircases one could play hopscotch on (we did try to, as a matter of fact).

The interior was not very impressive at the beginning. A huge notice loomed proclaiming the legend that we needed to get permission of the security guards to look around, not that we saw any scope of doing anything illegal there, except, maybe, practice our cheerleading skills. Perceiving our hesitance, a man, posing as a security guard (oh, come on, why would Metcalfe Hall need security guards?), rushed us off upstairs, the ground floor being cordoned off for the birds, we presumed.
However, things started looking up with our ascent. Our journey was assisted by sweeping, wooden, carpeted stairs while the walls were adorned with pictures of Victoria Memorial in all its splendor (we suspect those pictures had been photo edited a bit, Victoria Memorial never looked like that ever since coloured photo films had been invented). Muffled footsteps accompanied us to a landing with three, yellow, paint-chipped doors.

Which door did we choose? Did the day bring forth further minor adventures? Were there any more philosophical musings? Did we discover a dead body sprawled across the middle of the Metcalfe Hall with an oriental knife sticking through its heart? Find out later in the sequel to Bonky and Pongo's Day Out.

(OK, fine, I am too lazy to complete this.)

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