weekend...

The weekend brings with it a flood of relief. Punctuating a three hour long Friday afternoon tutorial, the feeling of stepping out of the department and walking into two days of absolute freedom is peerless.

Actually the night was beautiful. A getting together of the Kgp-blogworld connection and a smallish high-spirited celebration. Initially we'd plan to meet up at Cheddis for cha and adda. But the inevitable "mod khabi?"-"haan NISCHOI!" routine followed. So DD, two of his friends, Lancelotstake and yours truly ended up in the VSRC flat DD's friend had. The best memory-pic of last night is of the five of us cycle down the road in between TSC and Vikramshila at 2:30 a.m. The wind howled in the trees and the clouded dark sky looked omenous stretching over the huge football and cricket grounds of TSC. And in our happy condition the neon streetlights reflecting off the wet and glistening roads looked very movie-ish. But of late a lot of things have been that way.

Morning here is beautiful too. Looking outside my window i can see a few trees beyond which green fields stretch upto a faraway railway track. And a fine misty drizzle melts the view from here.

Need to get lots of work done. For one, an article for the campus newspaper needs to be worked upon. Notwithstanding the fact that i already feel the weekend slipping away from my grip. But what goes around comes around too!

things...

Sometimes things happen and these things in turn change a lot of other things. Personally speaking, a lot of change in perspective. Not newer perspectives but a change in how i used to see things before. Maybe being out of touch has given me the time and space. I'm so used to ending my day after talking to the person, that the last two days have a feeling of incompleteness about them. Funny how 37 inches of rain in a span of 24 hours in a city 1916 k.ms away from the village affects me.

DD is in the village. He's got news. News that spices up conversations in a group of friends. The kind of news that enlivens any talk. Clothed in jokes and innuendos and a lot of other subtle artistry the conversation gets its own life and is an extremely cherished thing. Perfect adda material.

I'm tired of bitching about how bad my schedule is this semester. I'm tired of moaning and groaning about it all. There aren't words enough to describe the torture. So i'll talk about the stuff i learnt today. I learnt that somebody, in our Structural Mechanics lab (and God only knows who), plays with a toy truck which screams "fire! fire!" everytime you turn it on! In the middle of a boring discourse on the nuances of Reinforced Concrete structures the red toy truck with lights flashing was an extremely welcome diversion. Images of JNB playing with it managed to keep half the class awake through an extremely sleepy afternoon. On the other hand a major realization came along the way too. If only we could change a certain property of concrete (its inability to withstand tensile stress) half the steel in the world would be saved up. One wouldn't need the steel skeletons for buildings under construction. Mind boggling implications that could have eh?

College and things

Haven’t been blogging for a long while now. For all those who love/hate me and have been bored seeing my page not updated for such a long, am sorry. Just that the sudden change of routine with college beginning took its toll.

College begun and all the fears morphed into realities. Heavy workload with no respite. Though i must say registration-room shifting day was the most exhausting. With five hours of sleep behind me i'd turned zombie-like by evening. Imagine huge queues, running all over campus (Kgp ain't a small place) and in the end moving atleast 30 kgs worth of luggage from a ground floor room to a 2nd floor room all by yourself. The killer thought is that I have around 26 hours of classes per week. Four labs, meaning only a single afternoon off! I could jump off the 2nd floor worrying myself about all the load.

And I can bomb the Acad Secn. with absolute glee. If they can't assign courses then why are they even there. A zillion guys are running from Prof. to Prof. for courses due to timetable clashes. Profs will their way always and have been forever doing it. And so the poor student is the one who ends up with the worst part of the deal. Thankfully have been able to stay out of this cycle. And have something to thank my lucky stars for.

Not that they are being thanked enough, though. The fact is each and every single day of I always end up going to sleep a happy person. And yes, talking to The Person does that to you.

Today in fact is the first weekend and probably so much more precious. A day when I can wake up at 10 in the morning listen to Mark Knopfler sing “Sailing to Philadelphia” and send a second year to fill up my water bottles from the distant coolers. Aah! The luxuries of being a senior. My computer was acting funny for a few days. Got a second year guy to try and figure out what the joke was. And he did too! Small problems outsourcing, not a bad thing at all!

I see that a lot of other blogs too haven’t been updated for a long time now. Never realized college could have such a considerable effect on blogsphere. Hopefully will be back to blogging for good in a few days but maybe the old rhythm will be elusive. Till then my mirror of emotions, bloggie dear, dontcha miss me!

"did he have passion?", the Greeks asked

He was passionate,
He loved football and music and books.
He was an idealist.

Is it okay being an idealist?
Maybe not, the world's not a place for them.
What do you say?

Tell me.

I say he loved, because i'm not sure if he still lives.
I'm sure he loves.
I'm just not sure he lives.

I hope he does.
I want him to live.
I think he was emotinal too. But i like that.
I hope he still lives.

The world is a cruel place for such people.
I think the world may have killed him.
I fear it every second, every minute.
Every bead of sweat chills me with the fear.
I want him to live. Please don't kill him.

He was...

last post from home. to think i had chicken for lunch! but i am not sad. not even remotely upset. i'm ECSTATIC! if only i could be as poetic as teleute.

"Don't trade your dreams for some small change"- Bono

Déjà vu: The illusion of having already experienced something actually being experienced for the first time.

There are often certain moments. A few seconds frozen in your consciousness when what you see before you suddenly takes you on a ride through the stacks of images stored in your brain as memories. Such a trip happened to me yesterday, when after an invigorating game of football in total mud and slosh, we all dived into the pond next to our field. It was dark. The ripples skewed the moon’s reflection in the water and the moonlight glistened off our wet bodies. It was a stuffy and warm evening. When the clouds brood over the next crying spell. And sitting on the bank looking at the dark figures, I went into such a trip.

Now that my summer vacations are over, I look back and marvel about all that happened. Faced with a two and a half months of having nothing to do. I was very sceptical about it. I plan to document a bit of my days as a kid in IIMC in this post. But I think this year has been incredible. Probably the most significant summers of my life.

Summers at IIMC were amazing fun. The whole campus, like a lot of other campuses overran with trees. And summers meant mangoes. So once our vacations were on we’d be all over campus on a rampage. Stealing mangoes from any tree in sight. Once a friend of ours fell down from a tree onto another guy whilst trying to reach a big juicy one. Poor fellow on the ground was more hurt than Joydeep who’d fallen on top of him. There’d be other incidents of people complaining to our parents about our notorious ways. And then it’d be our turn to get collectively reprimanded by our parents or individually at home. Another time we left poor Samrat atop a huge tree and ran for our lives when the person whose garden we were stealing the mangoes from spotted us and started hollering.

Samrat and I also built a cable car kind of mechanism from my veranda to his. This was used to carry messages. The glitch in the system was that there wasn’t any secret way of informing the recipient of the arrival of a new message. An Indianised version of Jem and Scouts Bob White whistle was used, but within a few days people knew what the shrill bird-like call from my veranda in the late afternoons meant.

IIMC has numerous ponds, and during monsoons they would all overflow onto the roads. There is a small bridge in the campus, called Howrah Bridge. A love spot for students, but an adventure zone for us kids. The ponds on both sides would overflow and the waters would mix up. This was our ideal spot for fishing. Wading into the mud and slush we’d chase these baby fishes with empty jars. It’s a game of patience. You would have to follow the fish with your jar mouth half submerged in the water and lull the fish into curiosity. If it were daring enough, instead of fleeing from the jar, the fish would come exploring. And once in the jar, fish, jar and water all came out together.

There was a hogla-bon on one side of the bridge where the ponds had died into a marsh. I remember reading stories of dacoits in rural Bengal as a kid. I then began imagining the hogla-bon to be infested with such dacoits waiting to pounce on you when you passed by the ill-lit bridge at night. There was also this huge banyan tree on the way to the bridge, which added to the wholesome eerie effect.

Another place that enchanted us was this run-down bunglow once built for some director. It was never used and had fallen into a total state of disrepair with creepers all over it. This was our bhoot-bangla. Funny thing is, rather than being scared of the place we loved playing hide-n-seek here, because the numerous rooms and broken balconies provided ample hiding places.

There are so many memories associated with my days at IIMC. TISS is more of a haze. Mostly cause it was sooo long back.

Yesterday sitting by the pond, soaked totally, a lot of these memories came visiting. And now the vacations are over. And the most precious vacations in my life till date will be lost to memories.

the dangling conversation...

It's a still life water colour
Of a now late afternoon
As the sun shines through the curtain lace
And shadows wash the room
And we sit and drink our coffee
Couched in our indifference
Like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar
In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
The borders of our lives

And you read your Emily Dickinson
And I my Robert Frost
And we note our place with bookmarkers
That measure what we've lost
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm
Couplets out of rhyme
In syncopated time
And the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
Are the borders of our lives

Yes, we speak of things that matter
With words that must be said
"Can analysis be worthwhile?"
"Is the theater really dead?"
And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow
I cannot feel your hand
You're a stranger now unto me
Lost in the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
In the borders of our lives.

My favourite Simon and Garfunkel song. Been listening to it over and over again. Every stanza, every line explores the futility. The futility of every effort made to salvage a love gone wrong. The trivial talk of "the theater" and "analysis", just to fill in the empty uncomfortable silences. Of being shells on the shore, indifferent to the storm at sea.

My favourite lines though, are:

And you read your Emily Dickinson

And I my Robert Frost

And we note our place with bookmarkers

That measure what we've lost

....

Since morning i was all bright and sunny. Happy and excited. Then i decided to watch some TV, so that maybe i could get some diversions and think of other stuff. Ended up watching Serendipity for like the n-th time. Pretty stupid movie actually in more than one places. But some parts i simply love.

Well i am 3 days away from going back to college now. And i can actually bawl more than the rain-clouds. Just can't bear the thought of mess "food" and waking up in the mornings for classes, now that i'm used to my days beginning at 9:30 a.m. earliest.

There are a few other problems as well. For one i'll have to get my computers' SMPS fixed. So i'm basically going to have to live for a few days without any music. But am looking forward to a high spirited celebration with the guys, to bitch about the new sem and all thats bad. It also means i have a whole lot of people to bore with stories of the last few days. Hope the sem is peaceful, though i have chosen a 6-credit breadth out of some vage freaky attack of concern, just so that i get a chance to push up my gpa.

Like most others there isn't much to post about either. Things are good. Infact great. And i guess all i'm supposed to do is enjoy every moment of it. Spent the latter half of the day exchanging mails. Maybe tonight we'll all get some sleep. Have to get up early tomorrow and go to the bank to get my drafts done. Can't believe i'm already sulking!

Anyways, thats that...

tagged

Ok i know i may sound a big spoilsport and all that, but i hate tagging. I consider them to be the new avatar of email-fwds and just as boring. To the poeple whom i tag. I have no personal enmity with you. I am short of people to tag and thus had to pick on you. The onus lies completely with you to fulfil this chain thingie. If you like this tagging business, unlike me, please go ahead and tag all your friends.


Three names I go by:
I have thankfully never had pet names and have always been referred to by my actual name. Maybe I’m not loved, but I like it this way.

Three screen names:
1) gotta_keep_smiling
2) champagne_supernova045
3) ebaar_kali_tomay_khabo

Three things I like about myself:
1) ability to mix with almost any kind of person
2) nonchalance: enabling me to detach myself from any kind of excessive emotional attachment
3) my athleticism (I’m good at almost any kind of outdoor sport)

Three things I dislike about myself:
1) nonchalance: end up hurting people attached to me emotionally or otherwise
2) inability to be an efficient multi-tasker
3) inability to say no


Three things that scare me:
1) never attending a U2 concert
2) mess food
3) never meeting the significant other and getting cornered by my parents into an arranged marriage (maybe to early to worry about this, but I was read a blog on this and was it scary…)

Three essentials:
1) good music
2) good books
3) good food

Three things I like in the opposite sex:
1) good conversation (very very essential)
2) the smell of her hair
3) and a few specific common interests (not essential tho…)

Three things badly want to do now:
1) go for a swim
2) play football
3) eat all the prawn delicacies I’ve had till date for the whole of next week

Three careers I’m considering right now:
1) trek guide in the Himalayas
2) research (aerial photogrammetry, mapping)
3) an mba

Three places I’d love to visit: (this is way unfair, there are so many places to go to)
1) ride a bike through Spiti and Mana valleys and then ride into Leh through the Leh-Manali Highway, thus fulfilling my desire of revisiting Leh
2) travel along the Silk Route through the Hindu Kush and the Pamirs
3) make it to the Everest Base Camp someday

Three kids names I like:
None in particular. But they’d have to end with an “o” or “u”, else my Bangaliana shall be threatened.

Three things I want to do before I die:
1) attend a U2 concert
2) win 100 ms gold at the Olympics with a world record timing
3) watch myself in slow-mo doing the above

And finally the people who get tagged by me are:
1)tempus fugit
2)jaded
3)waltzing matilda

in the news eh?

Had a very interesting day today. Logged onto blogger and while sifting through the comments on the last post found comments from herenow and teleute congratulating me. As it turned out, these humble pages got mentioned in an article featured in The Telegraph about Kolkata bloggers. They carried excerpts from a certain post i had written about Kolkata in general. It also sent some disconcerting thoughts scooting through my head as i realized that reporters were lurking around the corners. But anyways thanks to Nilanjana Roy for penning the article. I am grateful nevertheless. You may read the article here.

Other than that the last few days have been busy. Busy because of a million and one things happening all in a go. Finally picked up GGM from dd. My first Garcia novel. Hope he lives up to all that i have heard about him. Problem is being able to find some free time to get back to my reading-mode which i had regained after a loong loong while, till a few weeks back.

Plan to see War Of the Worlds next week with Jo. Hope it doesn't fall out just like a million other plans made with friends.

Heck! Life's already so difficult and now i have to begin disguising myself to keep being mobbed by fans and the media. After all, the fame-fairy (if theres one) just visited the doorstep. To top it all i've been bloody tagged!!

stuff

Heck,its been an amazing 48 hours since i've connected to the net. Infact too many things transpired within the small space of time. Moreover Baba having taken over the comp for the past few days meant i was out of the scene.

But i won't blog about all that happened to me coz i feel very tired and sleepy and also coz it seems pretty meaningless after all the stuff thats happened back in London. Just shows that the actual bomb is still ticking away. And i fear and always perpetually fear that one day that final bomb will blast. It could happen the day someone i know travels in the metro. Could happen any goddamn time!

I'd rather share something that happened to a very close friend of mine. Some thing that needs sorting out. Apparently, a few days back, he got in touch with a female from his city. A total random stranger, who began dropping in messages on his messenger after locating him through an internet-networking site (Hi5). She initially messaged him a lot, until he started replying. They got talking. She mailed him, dropped in her phone no. and asked him to get in touch and finally today they went out. He was pretty elated when i talked to him. But, as is typical with him, he played it down heavily. Sticking to his whole principle of not complicating matters and keeping things easy. As much as i would have him believe that this particular female in question most definitely has more than a just-friends-kind-of passing interest in him, he brushed off my suggestions totally. All i could tell him was to look into the obvious. Because till before today, the female has never met my friend. She had only seen pictures of him. And had till today only known of him through whatever he claimed his interests were, on this site (all of which are authentic). Asking him about the girl i learnt that she's not a freak child of nature and is a pretty normal, regular and nice girl (this is the way he put it). Knowing my friend that is a big achievement. For, a girl rarely generates that kind of a response from this absolute bone-headed freak. They apparently had great time together. "Bhaated for 2 and a half hours straight!". She is single (something she mentioned in a very well-guised manner). And till now she's the one who's done everything to get the whole thing going. I told him that if he felt that they gelled well together, and he felt comfortable, theres no reason not to take the hints. Theres no need to rush and stuff, but he should surely sort out the crux of the whole thing atleast at one point of time or the other, and not let it just be, like he's done in a million other cases to his own regret later on.

But being the bone-headed freak he managed justify his stand and trashed the whole idea that this female maybe interested in him in more-than-just-a-friendish way. So with his go ahead i decided to look for answers from blogsphere. I don't know if i will convince him. Knowing him it will be a difficult task to do so. But i hope people can tell me what they feel.
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Other than that i must say its a pretty amazing night sky tonight, and been an extremely sunny day for a change too.

another day on land

Okay. This sucks big-time. I've been expecting a mail for the whole day and Murphy has to descend and screw things up.

Entered home at 0:00 hrs and ended up ruffling a whole lot of feathers with the people who make the laws around here. Yes, the citizens of this city don't break too many laws and the risk of getting hauled up is significant.

B's place: had a great time. School friends refreshing old memories and catching up with newer ones. Someone's assisting Sabyasachi's fashion juggernaut while someone else just got back from rehab. We got it all and it doesn't stop anywhere. Saw B's share of our Dharamsala trip snaps. He'd scared me by telling me that every picture had me with a cigarette in hand. And these were spposed to be pics which you come back with and show your parents and relatives and the whole clan. Thankfully couldn't spot even a single incriminating one. Amazing, considering the amount of shit 3 college going guys can do when left all by themselves 500 k.m. away from any kind of authority amongst females, beer and freedom.

As usual food was amazing. Prawns, chicken, bhaat and ice-cream equalled dinner for me. The best part at his place is when everyone, (six guys) are all bundled up in the small balcony behind the bathroom, smoking. Funny thing is when aunty comes into his room and hollers for us, you'd have six guys trudging out of the same bathroom one after another. Everyone knows whats happening but you're still supposed to act as if you were in line for the Oscars (we were trying to fix the bulb). The balcony is littered, and i mean every square inch of it, with match sticks. Its a marvel in itself.

Have to get some sleep now. And lie a little low to lull the law enforcers into trust mode.

just like a woman

"Nobody feels any pain
Tonight as I stand inside the rain
Ev'rybody knows
That Baby's got new clothes
But lately I see her ribbons and her bows
Have fallen from her curls.
She takes just like a woman, yes, she does
She makes love just like a woman, yes, she does
And she aches just like a woman
But she breaks just like a little girl."

...been listening to Dylan sing this song for hours now. Finally convinced myself to go out on the terrace, stand in the fine drizzle and play my harmonica after a whole year. The sleepy sparrows on the madhabilata being my only audience.

On this chilly late-autumn night, dense heavy darkness encloses a totality of primitive chaos; indistinguishable are sky and earth, trees and rocks, needless to say the road; you can only stay transfixed, lean forward, put out both arms to grope, grope in this thick dark night; you hear it in motion, its not the wind in motion but this darkness which is devoid of top bottom left right distance and sequence; you are wholly fused with this chaos, conscious only that you once possessed the outline of a body, but that this outline in your consciousness is rapidly vanishing;

-Soul Mountain, Gao Xingjian

A damn boring book i haven't managed finish yet, but one of my many favourite passages from it. Pretty Floydish in many ways.

..................................
Pretty uneventful day except for maybe the surprise phonecall from B. Almost telepathic. Good thing is that we've finally fixed up dinner for Tuesday night and a whole lot of school guys whom i haven't met since 3 years will be there. Wonder what they're going to have to say about my safely preserved long-haired looks. I'm supposed to be the last guy they're expecting to have done this. I was always the shanto shishto lej bishishto manush in the group, i'm worried about disturbing that image of mine too when i go to his place on Tuesday. Its funny how doing small things like growing your hair out long becomes such a big talking point with people.

..................................
Was reading about the Live 8 concert, and the opening lines sent me into memory mode.

"It was twenty years ago today,
Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play,
They've been going in and out of style,
But they're guaranteed to raise a smile..."

Reminded me of my first ever cassette. The first one i'd ever bought. Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. But that's besides the point. What's important is that Bono and McCartney sang it at Hyde Park. Anything to do with U2 has me sitting up and notice. For me its one of those dreams worth living for- attending a live U2 concert. I remember listening to With Or Without you for the first time. I played it a million times over and my aunt, whom i was visiting, was ready to throw me out.

I also remember my most cherished moment with that song. It was a family trip to Bakkhali. I had gone to the beach alone. It was totally deserted. White sand beach. The sky was overcast and first from a fine misty drizzle the rain grew stronger. The wind howled in the coconut trees behind me. The horizon above the sea grew hazy and foggy with sheets of rain. I was witnessing a storm in the sea and this song kept playing over and over and over again in my head. I was rooted to that place.

I returned thoroughly drenched. But with an unforgettable memory.

blogorrhoea....

A portmanteau of "blog" and "logorrhoea", meaning excessive and/or incoherent talkativeness in a weblog (sourced from Wikipedia).

My part of blogosphere has never been under such heavy traffic. Makes me wonder if i can even keep up half the pace at which i'm going at present, once college opens on the 18th.

College opens on the 18th. Now thats a thought that makes me sick. Back to morning classes at 7:30, mess "food", hour long lectures.. and all that crap. On the flip side there are those occasional booze parties which are the closest we get to redeem our sanity.
.............................................

Today was a regular weekend at home. Watched Venus Williams win the most prestigious trophy in tennis. Must say it was an even match right to the end. No one had the clear edge. Was rooting for Davenport all the while but Venus, who hung in there despite going 4-6 down in the first set, won over my loyalties as the match progressed. She clung on hard and hard enough.

My heart went out to Johansson though in the mens semis. It was so so cruel, losing that penultimate point of the match. The return from Roddick hit the net and plopped over into Johansson's side of the court. It left a single point between Roddick and the ticket to the mens finals. And it doesn't take a world no. 2 much to realize his chance. Its sad when so little separates you from the Wimbledon Finals and you can't do a thing because fate handed you a non-negotiable deal.
.............................................

Football in the rain ROCKS! Its muddy and messy and an unbeatable feeling. The best part is when you end up winning. Its a priceless thing. Got my team to win and played my best in a loong loong while. Excecuted the fancy favourite shot of mine to perfection atleast twice. Its one in which you recieve the ball with your right foot and pass it behind you (enabling you to shrug off the defender in front), gather it coming up from your left side and strike with all the raw power. The sight of the ball shoot off goalwards, straight like a bullet, makes life worthwhile. The scene kept playing in my mind like a video. The ball holding straight, bearing into the goal ferociously and the goalie diving full-length. Sadly today the ball hit the bar-post. But nevertheless we won.
.............................................

Now since i'm in Cal. for a while atleast, need to meet up with B an ND. Will be his birthday in a couple of days and also because he maybe leaving the city in a few days. Till date that buggers been my oldest link to the city. Whenever i've come down, be it pujos, be it summer or winter. We've met up and spent lots of time together. We go back long way, right down to Mr. Sajal Banerjee's bangla class when we were 13. And since then he's been the one school friend i've been in constant touch with. The rest somehow got lost. I have this senti-menti thing about school friends (i guess everyone does). We've had some good times together. But the best i guess HAS to be our Dharamsala trip last summer. Seven days away from home, away from the remotest familiar face. Honu, B and meself. Seven days of constant party, hot firang females, amazing mountains and living the bohemian life we all dream of.