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 ...!!