Landed in Lansdale ...!!

Early hours of 22nd September ... Mr and Mrs Mukherjee arrived at the Hilton Homewood Suites, Lansdale, in a Lincoln (costed a mere $260), from Newark after a gruelling 22 hours of journey from uptown Kolkata ... The lag had taken its toll, wide awake and no signs of imminent slumber ... we chatted, explored the lovely suite, watched the pool below, and were suddenly consious of the lack of noise, dust and of all humans .... I had to go to office the next day and that was not very amusing, given that I would be awake for more than 36 hours by the time I reach there ...

First things first .. I called up home and Mrs Mukherjee followed suit. The kitchen was picture perfect .. but somehow the ovens didn't work and we made some noodles in the microwave ...

We forced ourselves to sleep ... kept tossing and turning till the morning bathed in golden glory beckoned us to a propah american breakfast in the hotel lobby. The breathtaking view of the hotel then struck us ... it was really cool. The manic monday crowd had gone by our late post nine breakfast congregation ... we enjoyed the luxuriously fluffy omlettes and crushed apple juice ... perfect beginning to a perfect day ... or was it ?

on Lava .....

How I miss her gold tresses,
the white ribbon so carelessly tied,
the shapeless clouds slithering past dark blue sinewy pines,
the warm sticky liquid smile that spills over his webbed wiry wizened face, the saffron sunset over the yonder hills, covered in a dark veil of a new bride,
the taste of the steaming potato dish, with very white suji rotis, her simple way of introducing me to her family, how she is not good at numbers ...
i have forgotten the clutter, the daily junk in my office, my life's debris ... the pungent yet sweet smell of herbs unknown, yet so irrestibilly enchanting, they swear they don't know it exists, yet I can feel the beckoning,
in its wild aroma,
the arousing... the rivulet, gurgling crystal clear water, meekly chuckling on dark cold stones,
covered in vividly green velvet that blue bird,
how it ignored me completely, perhaps, waiting for its mate, those tiny picture perfect homes, gloriously perched on stilts, with flowery orhids, the family lazing way in sun, on the porch, little kids,
with half closed eyes and rosy cheeks,
the purity shining through their shabby yet gaudy clothes, those all knowing smiles, the mild scorn for the 'town' folks, the dark green shrubs, we call tea,
the dark red flowers on a clear blue sky,
by a drying river...
like god's own mosaic... in this big creation we call life ...!!

Going ... Going .... Gone ..... !!!

Boy ... what a match ... fourth of March and the denizens of 'Youngistan' could make no mistakes ... and that once mighty Ozzies had to bow out to a team with an average age of 22 years ... but of course there was this Goliath of a cricketer ... Sachin, who made it possible, to the take the boys on a passage rites to become the man, they would hence forth be looked up to as ...

Economics wise this tourney was not as successful as the T20 but was very close ... one ad slot of 30 seconds went up to 2.5 L to 3.0 L and that made very good sense to the broadcasters and of course the Boards ...

Ponting and his few 'good' men put up a brave face while the Indians went berserk as was only proper. Aussie media had a power-shut-down ... a momentary lapse ... when they praised the 'new ascendants to the cricket throne' ... but they will be back ... coming summer ...!!


The 'crown' has been lost, the king is in dire straits, the king's men melancholy, few have bitten the dust, and few will have pledged to toil harder, in the times to come, but was it sweet music to an Indian ear, or a balmy buttery cajoling, when Dhoni's kids picked up the gift, they so deserved ..

For the Aussies though - it was long time coming and yesterday ... it was going ... going and gone !!

OOPS I did it Again ....!! Aussies at it again ... !!

...
oops i did it again
i played with your heart
got lost in the game
oh baby baby oops!...
you think i'm in love
that i'm sent from above...

i 'm not that innocent...
.... goes a teeny bop number from none other than the infamous dame, Britney Spears ... at the moment though this is so totally true about team Aussie and specially the whipping boy we so lovingly called 'the monkey' Symonds...

Incredible isn't it ? SCG had a poster 'Hyderabad loves you Roy' and Roy gives it back in his own inimitable style .. look below ...



















and guess what ... poor Ishant had to dole out some loose change in the begging bowl made of ICC ego to keep the white and now very thick skinned Aussies amused .... Mr. Crowe, we know you have the power in you to punish the real culprit, so come out of the moral high ground, that Aussies can do no wrong, and be man enough.

India is not going to get bullied anymore and that's so evident with what we did yesterday on the field, be it Ishant's showing the way to pavilion to a absolutely juvenile Andrew Symonds or the way Robin Utthapa hit an outrageous six to Brett Lee's express fast delivery (pic above).

Mr. Ponting, beware, your days are numbered now... you may win a few, but when you loose you will bite the dust as nor you or your team knows the honor bestowed upon the ones that have mastered the art of graceful exit.

Need Vs. Greed ( The girl in the cafe)

Last week I caught up on a wonderful movie - The girl in the café. The reason I call it wonderful is because there are two brilliant sub-plots to it which meander their way each oblivious to the other to a powerful message ... of that of balancing need and greed.

The first sub-plot is where a lonely man tries to find love desperately but there is a professional barrier that he needs to scale ...
The second where a country tries to push hard the case of prioritizing aids to the poorest of nations and fulfill a promise of sorts ... almost fails ... and then finally succeeds

Both of these plots though revolve around the theme of greed overpowering need and how each counters it... and the common bond is the 'the girl in the cafe'.

Now r the days where enough is not good enough ... you have to be the best, own the best and live the best. The pressure is too much, succeed or perish, you cannot be left behind ... no way. Thinking of self-preservation first is passe, its now self only, else you risk being called a fool and be left to cry.

Gone are the days when you could have a nice tea by the corner shop and discuss the latest score ... nowadays you need to go to a certain Cafe Coffee Day in order to be even mentioning coffee in casual conversation. You need to be mentioning INOX when you speak movies ... gone are the days when you could speak of DC (Dress circle, remember ?) . Have we become too selfish ... or is there really a measure of selfishness ... or is it that we are born like that?

Two lovely quotes around the sub plots in sequence and you can feel what the movie is about -

Lawrence: We have a pair of unfortunate situations here. A man who has nothing in his life except his work, that is unfortunate. And then by a stroke of bizarre chance, he finds someone who makes that not true for a day or two. But then, suddenly, it seems as though the price that has to be paid for that ray of light is some kind of... disgrace. It doesn't seem quite fair.



Chancellor of the Exchequer: Ladies and gentlemen, we're handing around new proposals. And remember, even if the Prime Minister and I are alone on this, we are not alone. Behind us stand the 30,000 children who will die of extreme poverty each day and we are proud to be their representatives. I didn't give my life to politics in order to say that I was part of a generation that succeeded in cutting the tariff on the import of processed coffee to 27.3%. I want to be a member of that great generation that for the first time had in its power to wipe out poverty, and did so. Are we alone in this? Or will someone else stand beside us?

This is hit-on-your-face movie with a big impact, a small goof notwithstanding (G8 summits are held always in a G8 country so Reykjavik is out of question).

The insane ease with which tend to accept deaths due to poverty, civil war and lack of medical aid in the deprived countries as mere statistics is massively challenged and we are compelled to take a fresh look at our inner self ... r we man enough ? man enough to stand and be counted ..?

That takes me to another movie albeit in Bollyland .. Halla Bol ... Ajay delivers to his potential though seemed to be a little low on delivery... this movie has the indomitable Pankaj Kapoor with another stellar performance ... good watch both ...!!

St. Pauls ... my school

Dear school -
how I love you, how I miss you, what can I give to be with you ...?
a blinding rush of unsorted memory that zooms past in that fleeting second and then thud ...

I come back,
back to senses,
senses that makes you aware,
aware that you can't be talking to your school like that ...

come on grow up kid, someone up there screams ... but guess what ... this is one place, the memories - some sweet some bitter but all of which I will cherish till my last breath ...

Each time I visit there, I feel that lush warmth ... that all pleasing whiff of seductively dewy freshness ... that all encapsulating secure feeling ...
You sense that nothing can go wrong here... that this is my temple ... that this is a place for all nourishing and tender caring ... the definitive motherliness ... of my alma mater

Will I go back to you ... Can I promise ? Life is a practice in survival, that I am writing is proof enough that I can bounce back from some of the ugliest blows ... so yes ... I will be there ... one day I will ...

Salut ...

Musings on a gloomy, dripping kolkata evening...

Picture this - Traditional Bong arranged marriage ...

First step - frenetic scanning of 'Anandabazar Patrika' usually by the groom's mom/sis ... key words to watch for ...'gaurabarna', 'prakrita-sundari', 'griha-karma-nipuna' ... the works and suddenly the groom needs to meet the prospective bride ....

Second step - 'biyer-pidi' ... 'mala-badal' ... 'sat-pak-e bandha' and thats it ... freeze frames ... beginning of a silent storm .... I truly believe that things actually get made or broken that very day.

Either the gamble, we chose to call 'biye', hits jackpot and the groom (and his family) gets true happiness or faces impending doom ... it is a matter of time alone.

What with legal empowerment of women which is a literal equivalent of a loaded Smith&Wesson ... and license to kill indiscriminately unidirectionally and get paid heftily for the kill (disguised as relief for the killer and killer's kin) ... specially if the kill is from the IT sector with all support from her family members and the bride's lawyer.

Here begins the traumatic journey of a true-blue IT grrrroom ... with a 'Topor' that hurts him more than the crown Holy Jesus Christ had on His mantle!!

498a can be filed by the innocent looking bride any day and guess what, it can be even used against breast-fed minors in the extended family of the groom and will be presumed guilty ... till the poor babe proves his/her innocence. Is this the variety of justice that we want to mete out to our glorified yet uncannily diabolic bahus .... the bahus who always 'endure' seemingly endless pain from the endlessly harassing in-laws and the true sati-savitri like sacrifice they make for their oh-so-junglee husband. For God's sake when will this evil perception end?

Today's bahus, the variety that have no qualms in using 498a explicitly or implicitly, are the modern terrorist of Bengali society. A brief profiling will reveal, these deceptively veiled goons are usually the single child of the family, or have a spineless father who loves being hen-pecked, typically hailing from lower to middle middle-class families and posses a truly demented mind that is so ruthless that the 'gabbar' of Sholay would have nightmares on a bright sun-lit day.

The modus-operandi is simple yet atrociously effective. The pressure is on the guy to separate from the parents and his siblings as early as after returning from the honeymoon ... !! Sooner or later the guy gets suckered into choosing his parents/siblings or her ... Hobson had a better choice ... usually ending in either the guy succumbing to her demands or pay out a ransom for getting a mutual divorce ..., mental peace and protection from selling his soul.

Sometimes I wonder, why does it have to be us, why ? Where did we go wrong? There are no dearth of male equivalents, who terrorizes their lady/ladies and her family to surrender, and yet this lady will always support her husband, no matter what ... Is this what the lady wants? subconsciously at least ...? These honorable men get away with behavior that can put strong-hearted souls to shame, yet they are glorified by the ladies they relate to. Is this behavior then the ideal one, at least to keep your marriage intact?

Is it our upbringing then, where the values were impeccable and rules unbreakable. The lady in the house has her respect and honor, the males will be the providers and defender of her respect and honor ... those days perhaps have gone .... ? Are we out of synch then ? Or is it that since we and our family (read parents, siblings) are incapable of imbibing the demonic behavior of our so called happily married counterparts adopt, we have to face a consequence so fiery and loathsome, that we shudder and shiver if anyone as much asks the question - Will you take another plunge?

Is this a characteristic of urban women alone then? What an irony, the very laws that were formulated by males to protect them have now been let loose on them. Like a mad salivating dog these bahus stalk you, there is no peace, no sleep and sometimes no job.

With the aid of some very scrupulous men in black, they now rule ... and manage to dig out every penny that the man has made, added to the maximum loan amount he is eligible for ... A coincidence perhaps that the IT grooms are probably the worst sufferers, its perhaps the loan eligibility factor ...!! Poor souls these, they think that they can make all the money and their wives will be happy with that solitaire, or this trip to Paris ... Alas they do not know of the truly conspiratorial mind of the bong bahus ...

The bong society has to think about this very clear and present danger or face extinction ... this truly depraved gang of women need to be satiated, in a way only they would know ... Lot of questions will be asked if it comes to this ... and these bahus, their family and the men-in-black together with the ones that wield the wooden hammer have to answer ... perhaps it doesn't touch them yet ... but one day it will.

My appeal to bong ladies who pass by my blog ... please give your guy a chance ... talk to him and have the earnest will to make it work ... and it will work. Life is not a fairy tale and we all know it, but will that mean that we adopt all means to turn it so dark and ugly ...?

To all the to-be grooms ' Best of Luck' .... your courage is appreciated !!

Who got away anyways ...? Bhajji or Symonds ?

Though Australians have been crying foul over the past two days and which is natural for bad losers anyway, one thing has bewildered the traditional Indians like me, no ends.

Mr. Symonds preached, in broad daylight (read the ICC court), that it was not necessary to be friendly to the competing team thus justifying the cajoles he took on behalf of one Mr. Lee to instigate a chain reaction of sorts, with stakes that he never could have imagined, but has managed to show vividly the truly dark colors of Australian cricketers and tainted the glory of some very respected names who specialize in a game he plays in that country.

The bigger question then is who got away in the real sense ? Is it Mr. Singh as pointed out by the generous Australian media and cricketers or is it indeed Mr. Andrew Symonds?

Here's a person who has attempted, consistently, to taint and vilify a gentleman's game with an unspeakably uncouth attitude and sportsman spirit befitting the veritable 'gully' cricketers that is so totally deplorable and at the same time scarily ghastly.

If by letting him go without even as much as a vocal reprimand, such behavior is condoned and encouraged in any form (specially as done by Australian media and CA) the days of glory and respect at the top for Australian Cricket may be numbered. On the flip side we might have to change the definition of 'gentleman' and 'sportsman spirit' in the Dictionary albeit, after adding 'Australian' before them.

Thankfully, BCCI has attempted to help Australian cricketers re-discover their shortcomings by adopting a language that 'Australian's understand best. Truly now it is up to the self-glorifying Australians (media and sundry cricketers and the boards they belong to) to learn a lesson and help save themselves and the game greater indignities by abandoning such juvenile behavior in future. They may turn a new leaf though, by being shockingly Australian by dropping the rotten apple altogether, but that will take a lot of courage ... Do they have it in them ?

Anuranan (2006) ... a beautiful bong movie

Nandita tells me that Roses bloom in spring. But it is when the Roses bloom, there is spring ... a line that was so eloquent that it tugged at my lachrymal glands ...with support in the form of a lump in throat and stuff ... though these are not enuf to tell you how good the movie actually was ... of course the good could have been bettered ... but this was about a man who believed in 'resonance' (anuranan) of love ...

Only die hard dreamers can think of such but man ... being the perpetual dreamer, I do think at times it is possible. Have you ever had a time when the girl you looked at looked back at the very same moment ... did you reflect back to think about her ... who is she ..? does she like me ...? Did you think - 'Gosh if only I could read her eyes ...', and the next moment think, good I do not know the language or else the mystery would be lost ...? School boyish ... definitely but that's the charm of discovering 'anuranan' ... you have to see it to believe it ...

I look back on my past and reflect ... there have been in the past ... in school, in the college and in Mumbai ... times when I thought and well, never acted ... dreams ...!!