my attempt at abstract .. it's stream of water inn real life :)
Monday, December 25, 2006
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Saturday, December 09, 2006
shaking hand with god
I went to shoot some photos by a lake today .. and met an interesting gentleman ..
he saw me shooting and comes to me and says ..
"i am a leader"
i am rather at a loss of word.
He says .. "my name is arjun and I am a leader"
I give a weak smile and he says .. "i like drinking"
Things are clearer to me now .. and I give a broad smile and say I like drinking too.
Then he asks me "I am god and god is ...? "
I dont really know who is god really, so I keep quiet.
He is impatient and repeats his question
"I am god and god is ...? "
"You ?" I timidly venture.
He is very happy and says "yes .. I am god and god is me"
and shakes my hand asks me whether I want some sweets .
i say no , but he doesn't listen and takes out a box from a plastic bag and gives me a milk cake and then shakes my hand again .. and this time rubs his index finger on my palm three times.. smiles and goes away ..
Anyways .. here is the pic from the lake :)
Saturday, October 14, 2006
why blog ?
Good thing about writing is , it makes you remember exactly how you were , and how you felt , when you wrote that stuff. I was seeing a Hindi movie the other day, and one of the characters said that an average person does not remember more than 30/40 memorable days in his/her life. That's all it boils down to - 3o or 40 memorable occasions in a lifetime. I was thinking of this, when I read what I had written about Calcutta(my home town) during my stint of six months there,
"it's really getting hot in here , if you go out in the afternoon , you can see the asphalt melt , and the road shimmering like a mirage from a distance , and you can see the traffic police wiping his sweat on a busy jumction , a lonely salesman with his wares moving down the street .
Evening journey from office to home is a mad rush through the E.M Bypass at high speeds , through chaotic traffic , with the CD player playing away , and then a second gear trudge through the crowded South Calcutta Streets . This is my hometown , a city which I love to hate :) Calcutta takes the cake in every way , you can love it , you can hate it , you can never ever ignore it ... "
it made me remember my time vividly there , so here's my hypothesis , blogging/writing down your thoughts does not change the road you have taken , it just makes the milestones more memorable :), what do you think ?
"it's really getting hot in here , if you go out in the afternoon , you can see the asphalt melt , and the road shimmering like a mirage from a distance , and you can see the traffic police wiping his sweat on a busy jumction , a lonely salesman with his wares moving down the street .
Evening journey from office to home is a mad rush through the E.M Bypass at high speeds , through chaotic traffic , with the CD player playing away , and then a second gear trudge through the crowded South Calcutta Streets . This is my hometown , a city which I love to hate :) Calcutta takes the cake in every way , you can love it , you can hate it , you can never ever ignore it ... "
it made me remember my time vividly there , so here's my hypothesis , blogging/writing down your thoughts does not change the road you have taken , it just makes the milestones more memorable :), what do you think ?
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Bye Bye Mama
Tu lal pahari r desh e ja
Ranga matir desh e ja
Hithak tu re manaishena go
Ikkebare manaisena go
Tui morbii to more ja
Ikkebare more ja
Hithak tu re manaishena go
Ikkebare manaishena go
Go back to place where hills are red
To your country where the earth is red
These closed spaces are not for you
It is not for you
If you have to die then go to the land of of sleep
Go finally to the land of sleep
These closed spaces are not for you
It is not for you
All of us, who leave outside our hometowns, feel that small empty place near our stomach, when the near and dear ones end their vacations and go back to their own lives; Happy and contented lives in a town where we used belong in not so distant past.
They go away, but they leave some parting gifts as well, the memories of echoing laughter in rooms that are now empty. They leave bittersweet fragrances of many colours, of smiles, of understanding and misunderstandings and of tearful re-unions.
We try and fill up that small vacant place with droplets of these, and go back to our own race , until the next time ...
Ranga matir desh e ja
Hithak tu re manaishena go
Ikkebare manaisena go
Tui morbii to more ja
Ikkebare more ja
Hithak tu re manaishena go
Ikkebare manaishena go
Go back to place where hills are red
To your country where the earth is red
These closed spaces are not for you
It is not for you
If you have to die then go to the land of of sleep
Go finally to the land of sleep
These closed spaces are not for you
It is not for you
All of us, who leave outside our hometowns, feel that small empty place near our stomach, when the near and dear ones end their vacations and go back to their own lives; Happy and contented lives in a town where we used belong in not so distant past.
They go away, but they leave some parting gifts as well, the memories of echoing laughter in rooms that are now empty. They leave bittersweet fragrances of many colours, of smiles, of understanding and misunderstandings and of tearful re-unions.
We try and fill up that small vacant place with droplets of these, and go back to our own race , until the next time ...
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Money can’t buy me love/It’s all about money honey
I have this thing for gadgets. I simply live between gadget purchases; I think I was one of the first in India to have bought an iPOD off ebay. I do not want furniture for my drawing room, I want a 7.1 Channel Home theatre system and a 42 inch LCD TV J. I want to be the first to know about a new Canon DSLR, or the latest avatar of Pulsar that Bajaj is planning to launch in India.
The strange thing is, most of my peers are like me. We like to be seen carrying the latest in mobile phones and mp3 players. If we are in a party together, we will usually talk about the latest mobiles, cars or digital cameras, which has just hit the markets and we would be at loss of words while describing their ultra sexy super cool zing factor.
Why do we do this? Fifteen years back, nobody thought like this, most of us did not have access to Internet, let alone broadband. We did not know our mp3 from jpegs, and telephone meant something for which there was a waiting list. A thing of luxury, that government will provide you with once you apply and then be a really good boy for six months. I don’t remember being very unhappy then.
I think we are being sold a dream, a dream where women have perfect bodies, and they flash you with their mobiles and ride with you in your uber cool mo-bike, where the walls of a rooms are many colored and they tell you a story- Story of a happy couple and two sweet little kids.
The hard but sad truth is the happy couple is a utopia we are all chasing. We try to live up to impossible ideals formed from a collage of sound and video bytes from the media which surrounds us like an all encompassing wall. In the meantime, we sell the most productive years of our lives to somebody else for a fistful of money. At the end of the day that’s all we are left with – some money.
Deep down we all know this, and get desperate as the days flash by in the home-office, office-home rigmarole. So all of us try to buy us some happiness with that money, and if you believe the television, the gadgets are the nirvana we are looking for, the magic manna that will deliver us our salvation in a platter. So we go out and buy and buy and buy like there is no tomorrow.
May be we need to stop the money train just a little and listen once to the bards from yesteryears when they sing “Money Can’t buy me love”. If we really stop and listen, we may learn a lesson or two from that song.
The strange thing is, most of my peers are like me. We like to be seen carrying the latest in mobile phones and mp3 players. If we are in a party together, we will usually talk about the latest mobiles, cars or digital cameras, which has just hit the markets and we would be at loss of words while describing their ultra sexy super cool zing factor.
Why do we do this? Fifteen years back, nobody thought like this, most of us did not have access to Internet, let alone broadband. We did not know our mp3 from jpegs, and telephone meant something for which there was a waiting list. A thing of luxury, that government will provide you with once you apply and then be a really good boy for six months. I don’t remember being very unhappy then.
I think we are being sold a dream, a dream where women have perfect bodies, and they flash you with their mobiles and ride with you in your uber cool mo-bike, where the walls of a rooms are many colored and they tell you a story- Story of a happy couple and two sweet little kids.
The hard but sad truth is the happy couple is a utopia we are all chasing. We try to live up to impossible ideals formed from a collage of sound and video bytes from the media which surrounds us like an all encompassing wall. In the meantime, we sell the most productive years of our lives to somebody else for a fistful of money. At the end of the day that’s all we are left with – some money.
Deep down we all know this, and get desperate as the days flash by in the home-office, office-home rigmarole. So all of us try to buy us some happiness with that money, and if you believe the television, the gadgets are the nirvana we are looking for, the magic manna that will deliver us our salvation in a platter. So we go out and buy and buy and buy like there is no tomorrow.
May be we need to stop the money train just a little and listen once to the bards from yesteryears when they sing “Money Can’t buy me love”. If we really stop and listen, we may learn a lesson or two from that song.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Duggo Pujo and Emails
It has come again, that special time of the year when all Bengalis feel a pull in their heartstrings to be homeward bound. The “Happy Puja” mails have started poring in, mostly from people whom I hardly know. The emails will be repeated again with slight change in wordings at the end of the year – That special time of the year, as HBO prefers to call it.
I got one such email in my school friends group recently, and as more and more replies kept pouring in, people spoke of a kaleidoscope of broken images from a forgotten childhood, stuff about their parents, and how the Siuli tree has died now. It was a beautiful melancholy.
My own memories consist of my desperate attempts at putting the pillow over my head to shut the omnipresent loudspeakers out on the Mahalaya eve, getting drunk with a close group of friends on the asthami evenings - we ruled our own universes during the Puja days. Another favourite was sitting out the evenings in Maddox Square , and looking at the beautiful sari clad creatures who flitted about - they never failed to materialize out of the thin air at that enchanted place during the Pujas.
Now that friends have scattered all over the world, in pursuit of greener pastures, the only thing that ties me Calcutta are my parents, and the distant fragrance of a place, which was once my home. Durga Puja has stopped being the showstopper in my life J. I was in office through the Pujas, and it was business as usual for me …
Ciao then, until the next post, and a very happy Puja season to you all.
I got one such email in my school friends group recently, and as more and more replies kept pouring in, people spoke of a kaleidoscope of broken images from a forgotten childhood, stuff about their parents, and how the Siuli tree has died now. It was a beautiful melancholy.
My own memories consist of my desperate attempts at putting the pillow over my head to shut the omnipresent loudspeakers out on the Mahalaya eve, getting drunk with a close group of friends on the asthami evenings - we ruled our own universes during the Puja days. Another favourite was sitting out the evenings in Maddox Square , and looking at the beautiful sari clad creatures who flitted about - they never failed to materialize out of the thin air at that enchanted place during the Pujas.
Now that friends have scattered all over the world, in pursuit of greener pastures, the only thing that ties me Calcutta are my parents, and the distant fragrance of a place, which was once my home. Durga Puja has stopped being the showstopper in my life J. I was in office through the Pujas, and it was business as usual for me …
Ciao then, until the next post, and a very happy Puja season to you all.
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