And We Move On!!!

Does a broken relationship mean The END? Nope. No way. Life goes on and on and on and on…Maybe a little faster, now that I have so much time for myself. The weekends are so jam packed with activities; every Monday morning I wonder where the last two days went!

But in the middle of all the hustle bustle, laughing, giggling, shopping, partying, I stop for a few seconds and think of the past….

Speaking to her friend I say “us” like I’m still a part of the gang. Seeing something that’s similar to the one she’s viewed with me sends a jolt of realization down my spine that I’m not her companion any more. When I go to a restaurant, and am deciding what to eat, the menu very rudely reminds me of the stuff she hates eating… list too!

I miss hearing her groggy voice when she used to call to wake him up in the morning. I miss the chocolates she used to get me sometimes. I miss lazing around with her. Deleting her pictures from my phone can’t erase her memories from my mind…I just wonder if she feels the same way for me. Does she miss the way I smell? Does she miss my whining? Does she miss my touch?

Does she miss our Cricket matches? Does she miss the way I used to crinkle my nose at the mention of her “friend”? Does she miss the way I keep blabbering? But does it even matter now? Maybe it does. And that’s why I’m writing about it!

Fine, we didn’t work out. I’m not gonna talk to her again. Not in a million years. Not even when she sends me a message to say she’s in some trouble. Am I being hard hearted? No I’m not. After whatever happened it’s only logical that I maintain a stony silence. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. I’m not a saint .

I can’t behave like one either; forgive/forget and speak to her is not possible any more. If in a relationship one person doesn’t respect the other, calling her/his only in the hour of need then the whole thing stinks- not of friendship, not of lust, but a rotten kind of love. What do you do when a person does not understand a joke? when a person does not even bother a second to break years of relationship? There’s love here. No denying that. But it’s gone bad. And what do you do with something rotten? Throw it away…

Lights, Camera, and Action!

I would love to, but I do not have time to write. Blame it on work or girlfriend or life as such. I simple cannot take time out for writing. Ironically, writing is one of the disciplines that brings money to my table. I should write, maybe scribble a bit but do it with a sense of regularity, with a purpose, and with a smile. So here I aim trying to write. But what can I write on?

At a glance, I see that my wardboard shelf throws a list of DVDs that I managed to procure from different parts of the world. I am a movie buff unashamedly. I watch movies as random people do random things. I was not born in an arts and literature family , and so it is surprising that I managed to pick up this habit. The closest relation to movies were my eldest and arguably the most talented brother plays in colleges and another elder brother listening to songs.

I have DVD collections close to 100. Most of these are in English with an occasional Bengali and Hindi movie to throw.

I am surprised that I have not seen any of these movies for a long time. You have Satyajit Ray's Aparajita somewhere coated in dust while Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver finds buckle in another corner. It is Saturday and a strike in Karnataka has left the city and I paralyzed. There is no other choice for me but to pick up a cloth, and start the dusting. As I managed to do this one by one, I remember the thrill I had when I picked up the DVDs.

Nostalgia creeps in as I remember the first time I came to Bangalore. One of the first dates that I could manage with a paltry allowance was watching Pearl Harbor in Symphony, Brigades. I was taken aback by the movie. What thrill! what  joy watching a story unfolding in front of your eyes in a 36 mm cinemascope screen! I remember looking up to see those giant Dolby speakers more noticeable for the buzz created by the airplanes in the screen.

My fantasy for movie's technicalities grew when I started watching Tarantino's movies. Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction have a major impact on a lot of avid movie watchers, and I cannot express in words how it impacted me. I watched every angle with possible interest, tried to decipher why a long camera shot was required and so on. Do I need to mention Tarantino's dialogues writing? he has won two Oscars for Best Script. My secret confession:I watched Pulp Fiction close to 50 times.

Martin Scorsese has given me such a delight of the gangster world. These are bad people, but people with some dignity, some respect and of course a lot of glam. His movies from Mean Streets to Taxi Driver to Goodfellas to Departed have shown the rise of Italian and Irish Mafias and his style of putting it up with delightful music is a bliss. Watching Scorcese movie is like living a dream!

Ofcourse, Francis Coppolla needs a mention: I watched Godfather close to 30 times.

Hitchcock also left a positive impression on me. I marveled to watch Birds, Pyscho and Murder and could never understand the impression that was leaving it on my mind.

Then the days of Bollywood movies taking a U turn appeared. New age directors appeared on the scene with scripts never told before. Anurag Kashyap's Dev D and Black Friday had a massive appeal to the art lovers. For the first time, you witnessed Bollywood trying to embrace new artifices. Do you remember the scene in Black Friday where KK conducts a police interrogation, and the entire room has a bloodish red twinge in it?

These days I do not get chance to something that regular. There is an HBO series called Game of Thrones. I downloaded, watched couple of  the episodes, and it looks great. I had to pen something today, and maybe I can do it more often.

It is simply that I do not have time. I wish I had more. I wish I could make movies. Maybe someday.

Believe it or not!

• We pick up a book written by a non-Indian writer more  frequently than an Indian writer.
• Watching Cricket is better than making out with your partner at times.
• In a  land where we worship Goddess Durga, every day a woman is subjected to sexual exploitation.
• Chicken Tikka is not always the favorite food of NRIs.
• Traveling by bus does not make you look cheap. Its safe and secure for an average commuter.
• Bitching is  good. It makes you feel superior.
• Feeling sorry for oneself stops you from hanging on to the roof.
• Filter coffee is too strong for a few of us.
• Boys prefer female teachers than males even if they give homework.
• The rate of students bunking colleges have gone down over the years.
• Your first love is also your last one provided you know the one.
• Badminton is the best thing that happened to Hyderabad.
• Pongal Vada is the best thing that happened to Chennai.
• Indians love sleeping.
• Smartphones are a pain in the hand.
• Mr. Govinda is a  style icon.
• Deepawali could have been better without sound pollution
• Big Boss has a big mouth.
• It's time for India to get a filmstar as prime minister.
• The best act happens in Porno industry.
• Teach boys to treat girls with respect at home.
• God exists because Rajnikanth says so.
• Arjun Kapoor was once a chubby fellow. How time flies!
• Bangalore woke up one day to have flyovers.
• We got Independence in 1947. Since then we have been sleeping.

School Diaries I

Damn, you wish we could have more fun. I woke up and kept repeating these words out of blue, out of sudden awkwardness  and out of happiness. Off late I have been getting nostalgic specially about my days in school. I need to knock out a few beers and see a shrink if that works.  But we will leave it to another day. 

I went to two schools. One where I did exceedingly well in studies and could have done more. The days were fun. I made couple of friends with whom I share a joke now and then. But there were couple of distinct incidents that stands out.

One that involved a friend who made his mission to bully me now and then. And it was one of his unfortunate days that after a minor scuffle he took a run. I know in those days, a boy weighing 45 kg would take it lining down but I did not. I do not know for what reasons but I threw a small stone. For reasons unknown that hit him right on his forehead and this time I panicked. I still remember this incident as if it happened yesterday. Anyway, what followed was a casual chat with my friend and everything was sorted out. But he never bullied me again.

The other incident was if I my memory serves correct was in standard V. I was clueless that you had to wear long pants from standard V. And here I was in shorts. I was embarrassed but the fact that my teacher threw my out of the class and made me stand out side of the classroom was rude to me. I am against certain things in our education system but what she did that day was a rude shocker to me. She could have at least given me some time to explain but NO!

And the final incident is to do with a Mathematics teacher.  Almighty lord, how does corporal punishment help? This teacher took great pleasure of belting us with ruler. And though we did protest now and then we used to spit on our hands and then expect him to beat us with a ruler. That person left our school and we were all relieved.
 

Whole Lotta Love

Man is mortal. For some reasons, we make it an understatement and quantify ourselves to seek everything that can make our stay in this world peaceful and loveable not to forget worldly. The concept of love that started right from the age of 10 (for me) never stopped till this day. I have not been able to understand what is so great about it that I can't stop having more and more. This is not to say that I do drugs or have been a follower of Osho but the concept of love amazed me.

Relationships last quite a bit for me; I tend to commit with folks and care for them every time. I nurture them, yield them sufficiently with love and respect but then it does not work out. Sometimes, too much of love is a crushing blow to everything that you aspire.

School was the first place where as a teenager I bonded harmony and peace with fellow friends. My first crush and love turned to be sleeping around my back. I still had that craziness to not understand. Things moved on and I stepped myself in the beloved arms of nature. I received bountiful of love but it is never enough for me.

Led Zeppelin

Sometimes, I wonder if people fall in love and then they wonder that would it work for them? well, for me it has been never a case because the people that I have met have always been caring and nice. I would not been changing my life a bit because you need love everyday, every hour. But I guess I need just a bit more.

Love is a religion destined for folks who love to commit themselves zealously and sink themselves. It is not for those who think they can get a shortcut out of it. You know people meet, make out and then they leave. Sometime these thoughts do get back to haunt you at a later stage of your life. But then there is really no shortcut. You have to invest time, dreams, aspirations, growth and most of all be there.

I wonder what makes people stick together and do they really do it because they care or is it to show the entire world that there is a concept of 'love'. I pray that there is because this world needs a lot of us making and harboring love. Times have changed but we are mortal. And if we stop to care for each other it would be so ruthless. The concept of love has never changed but we humans have and always changed the definition. Learn to give a bit more than you aspire. 

That first sight of Sachin Tendulkar

I don't exactly remember the year but it is possible that I was in standard 7 or 8. The Indian team was playing an exhibition match perhaps for the benefit of Sunil Valson, ex-Cricket player and a part of the triumph India World Cup Cricket team of 1983.

The Indian team stayed then at Hotel Sudakshina, a small-3 star hotel which did not have anything to offer now but was a great hit then. The match before day, I had visited there and had glimpses of South African players Fannie De Villers and Allan Donald. I was super excited and was longing to visit the ground to watch a player called Sachin Tendulkar.

It rained that morning and the match supposed to start at 9am started close to 10:30am. It was a 30-overs match. I had gone to the ground with my cousin who took every care that I was not lost amongst the crowd. It included that famous dialogue to the security guy, "I am over 18". Ridiculous, a blatant lie but it drew a few giggles.

After the initial few wickets had fell, in entered Sachin Tendulkar. I was sitting at the stands, concrete slabs with no roof above. It was hot and humid as you can understand after a shower. And I saw Sachin, a short, lean person with enough curly hairs that one could think of. I distinctly remember few of his shots and couple of sixes hit of Kapil Dev. What struck me was his batting. He played straight as straight you can hit.

The straight drive drove from his bat and dashed off to the boundary with the momentum of a young girl running towards her lover. It was a glimpse of poetry. I fell in love with the game right away. Sachin captured the imagination but the hallmark of his batting was that he took bowlers apart.

After the game got over, I have seen his matches on television. Then saw him playing at Eden Gardens, Kolkata and Chinnaswamy Bangalore. He has scored so much and driven the Indian team for ages. But it is time that he takes a well-deserving rest since he earned it. Sachin deserves it. I'll miss his game but most of all miss his straight drive.

PUJO BARSHIK

The things one could relate to Durga Pujo are manifolds but as a kid and teenager growing up in a remote town I had far too many. One of this has been the 'PUJO BARSHIK' (yearly Bengali magazines) that has stayed with many years now. I walked into Abahan store last month and purchased copies of Desh, Shuktara, Prasad and all. Over the years, the price of these magazines has not increased by much and I wonder why.

During my last trip to the city of joy, Kolkata I visited College Street. It is a popular street in Kolkata near Esplanade which has vendors of publishing and printed industries. Here ages ago, the great doyen of Bengali and Indian Cinema Satyajit Ray sat and enjoyed browsing through books of multiple orders while puffing a smoke now and then.

I went and inquired in one of the publication houses as to why the rates of these magazines have never gone up. The answer was that over the decades these magazines have an ardent followers with an age range from kids to elderly groups and they fear that a sudden spurge of rise in prices would decrement their fan following. That too but with the rise of printed papers they have made an increase in price from Rs.20 to 50.

I then asked that what do they think of fans from various parts of world an cities who cannot get a glimpse of the magazines unless they subscribe to it. In this day and age of internet an online publication would make a lot of sense. But they fear that this would mean additional cost to their publication houses and somehow they don't think they are ready to manage the entire vendor management online.  I then realized that it makes sense economically as well from a client side.

Towards the amount shared with the authors I got to know that it is highly minimal than what one would receive from writing in English publications. Readers read it out of sheer enjoyment and authors write it for sheer love. A lot of them have been readers once and now they are repaying it by being authors.

It will be interesting to see how it fares in the longer run with the growth in technology but there has never been a substitute for quality and I think PUJO BARSHIK will sustain the fan following base in the years to come.