What is true Freedom?

Another one goes by. I had cake, lots of chicken, double choco chip cookies, awesome people treating me in a restaurant, some phone calls and a mail. And ignorance. At the end of the day, I am a year older and still not any wiser. So I guess, happy birthday to me.

P.S: All the recent visit entries are from Germany and these people have been visiting a particular post. So either I am suddenly very popular in Germany or Megan Fox is. I suspect the second though.

Almost the nicest day in a long long time :)

Its been a month today. And I keep staring at the phone.

Where was I again...

Princeton is a beautiful little town. The University buildings, the dorms, the narrow alleyways and even the restrooms in restaurants look nice. With all that gothic architecture and all. And I don't even know what gothic architecture is. In fact, I don't have the slightest idea about what the term "gothic" means or refers to. But that doesn't quite hinder me from reading "gothic" romance novels and discussing them in detail with English Literature students or even claiming the vampire Count Dracula to be a "gothic" romantic hero. The only thing that comes to my mind in reference to "gothic" is a particular Asterix comic book where the duo beats up some goths other than their usual beating-the-romans session. Speaking of Asterix, my friends from my "paRa"(Neighborhood or neighbourhood, take your pick. Even red riding hood is okay with me, especially after I found out that she can actually beat Spiderman and Wolverine in a fight)used to call me Asterix in spite of the fact that I more closely resembled Obelix. Or Dogmatix, as some of my present acquaintances would suggest. Later they just used to call me "Asto". And I still remember one day when a friend asked me "Asto re, jabi?" and I absent mindedly asnwered "Astor-e jaoar moton poysa nei." But to come back to the original point, Princeton is a very pretty place. And almost all the cab drivers there are from Haiti, which is a strange place in itself because apparently a lot of people there have "prophet" as a surname! Cab rides in Princeton is fun, especially if there is an Indian, two Italians, one Taiwanese and one Haitian(I am not sure if that is actually a word)in it, discussing why "ciao" means both greetings and goodbye in Italy. So yeah, there you go.

Some people have always told me that I am a masochist. But I have had no reason to believe them. Btw, yesterday I wrote "believe" as "beleive" and did not even reallize my mistake for a long time. Shows that irregular blogging can take a toll on your spelling skills. Anyway, as I was saying some people have always told me that I am a masochist. But I have had no reason to believe them.Until a few days ago. It so happened that one particular evening, I was pretty bored and had nothing to do. Which is quite a regular thing to be honest. So I decided to watch a film. Which is again a quite regular thing. And of all the films in my hard disk, I decided to watch Rituparno Ghosh's "Dosar: The companion". In spite of my roommate's sincere warnings. I am in no mood to speak of how I felt later on. And also just because I like to hop around the house or beat my chest around midday, my roommate thinks I need therapy. People are so inconsiderate!

Snippets

1) An obscenely fat woman sat on a side lower berth of Rajdhani Express, dressed in a nightie or maxi or whatever it is called, her hair open, her biceps showing menacingly as she looked at me and licked her fingers. First time in a train, I spent a sleepless night and later reallized Takashi Miike looks for inspirations at all the wrong places.

2) Delhi was great. Old school friends cooking machhbhaat for me, fellow film buffs, kebabs and biriyani from Tundai, Signature alongwith fishfries and lots of films on my hard disk. And I finally learned to stand up to everything.

3) The flight was long and quite uneventful barring the incredibly hot air hostesses in tight red skirts and the weird steward who on being asked to get me a whiskey on the rocks, smiled inappropriately and said "on the rocks? how cool is that!".

4) Turns out that having conversations with Albanian cab drivers about communists and Bollywood only results in paying more tip than you usually do. Not cool.

5) And I still haven't found a place to stay. I guess I will have to stay with the people I am staying with right now. They are very good people. Only that they decide to fight with anti-flu sprays and mosquito repellants in the morning and reallize at the middle of the night that they need something to eat and they are out of rations. Its kinda fun though.

81st post

When I was a student in elementary school, the number 10, to me, was the sign of completeness. I would do whatever work was assigned by my mother and after finishing them successfully, would not be pleased until she came and assured me that my effort was worth a 10 out of 10. Not 100, not 1000, not anything else but 10. And 9 just preceeding 10, was the sign of incompleteness to my naive mind. That is when I developed a peculiar liking for the number 81. I have never known why, but I have always loved this number. Whenever someone has asked me to pick a number between 1 to 100(which was quite a no. of times as one of my relatives is a numerologist), I have picked 81 most no. of times. Later, my mind has reasoned that since 9 was a sign for incompleteness to me, 9 squared(which is 81 btw, for the mathemetically challenged, which I am sure there are quite a few amongst my blog readers) was perhaps a symbol for the completely incomplete man that I have grown to be(yes, I have never worn a Raymonds suit). Anyways, I hope everyone gets the drift by now. I mean, this is my blog's 81st post, and I am visbly quite excited about it. So excited that I forgot what I wanted to write about cows. Yes, I did want to write something about cows. But I cant remember what it was about the tame bovine creatures that intrigued me so. Maybe sometime later when my memory stops failing me, I shall. Till then, keep your valuable comments coming about why I end up writing "everythong" or "somethong" instead of "everything" or "something" every damned time. Please to avoid cliches like Freudian slips. I mean, did Freud ever wear slips? Now that is something worth pondering over. So I will, for now.

The Delhi trip was a lot of fun. And strangely it has made me numb. Not that I am too comfortable with it. But it helps. Numbness brings peace along. And I could do with a little peace right now.

Someday I shall taste freedom. Till then I will make do with silence.

With silence comes peace, with peace comes freedom, with freedom comes silence... PoF

To Sir, with love

Long ago when I was still just about 5 feet tall, lanky and a teetotaller(not to mention thirteen years old), I first knew competiton. In academics. Our mathematics teacher introduced me to it. The man was originally a chemistry teacher. But he managed to teach us algebra in the seventh standard with equal ease. He used to assign us algebra problems in class and the first student to complete them successfully, got a "very good" in his/her exercise book. This small prize made such fierce competitors out of us, that I still remember pushing my then best friend down and running so that I got the "very good" on my notebook. One whole year of this and I ended up with the most number of "very good"s in the whole class. He never taught us maths again. Instead, he taught us chemistry. Which I was also good at, but not extraordinarily good. I was better at talking in the class, fighting behind his back and all such other noble deeds. He caught me more than just a few times. All I got was "Ah, Suddha, why do you do such things?" Considering the man's reputation for beating up even girls when he was disturbed, that was a bit of something. Few years down the line, as we moved up to the eleventh standard, I decided to leave school. For another school, ofcourse :| The news was duly conveyed to him. He smiled and wished me luck. New school was yet to begin, so I was still attending classes in the old school. One fine morning, me and another classmate ran into his chemistry lab class 10 minutes late. The classmate got a severe piece of his mind but I was let off. On being asked why was I let off, he just smiled and said "Whats the use of scolding him? He's going to leave us anyway." Later that day, in a chemistry theory class, he came upto me, stood by my side for a little, put a hand on my shoulder and said "You are really going to leave us, aren't you? Please don't." I couldn't say a thing. Instead, I just tried to hold the tears off.
I have been a student for the last twenty two years. I have come across a lot of teachers. Some I liked, some I didn't. Some liked me, most didn't. But there never was another who loved me more than him. And there never was another who gave me something more valuable than he did. Now, when a friend calls me up and says "Sir is seriously ill" or when the man himself looks up at me and says "Ese dekhe jaas bNeche roilam na more gelam(come and see if I am alive or not)", I cannot hold back the tears. I know, he won't read this ever. But this is just to let him know that we all are with him, we will do anything within our powers to get him better. Anything. This is to you, Sir. Get well. Mighty soon.

Is it a sin to be sad at someone's happyness? Someone you care for, someone you love? Is it madness to want to hurt that person for being happy? Even if it is, I couldn't care less. I can't help the insanity. I can't. Not anymore.

I just don't have the strength to let go. And somewhere deep down, maybe, I don't want that strength too.

Armageddon

Come 27th May, all roads will lead to Rome. Come 27th May, the Colosseum will spring into life once again. The gladiators are coming back. They are coming back to fight for the ultimate glory. Come 27th May, it will be a night of magical football and the world will know which is the best team of them all.

And as a true Mancunian I could only sing ... glory glory ManUtd and the Reds go marching on.

The seer.

Guru, tumi na thakle mairi cinema dekha shikhtam na. Happy budday-te amar torof theke

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYXKbnP0D0U&feature=related

:D :D :D :D

To have not seen the films of Ray is to have lived in the world without ever having seen the moon and the sun......Akira Kurosawa.



There are films that you have seen innumerable times but still wouldn't miss another show. "Charulata" is one such film. Ray himself claimed it to be his most complete work. I don't know about that, I mean there are other films like "Protidwondi" and "Jana Aranya" and "Kanchenjunga" which I find much more riveting and compelling than "Charulata". But the latter has a simplistic appeal to it that I have always found quite irresistible. And now, after I chanced to catch a special big screen viewing in Lincoln Centre, NYC, I am nothing but mesmerized by the intricate charm of it. Madhabi Mukherjee looked simply stunning on the big screen. And IMHO, she owes a lot of it to the brilliant camerawork. For all the times I have watched the film on television or my laptop, I have never discovered so many minute details in it. And it also feels really nice when people from other countries come up to you and ask about the Director and his works. I wish they did such shows more often in here. And I wish they did this at least once in Calcutta. For people of my generation, seeing Ray on the big screen is a rare opportunity. And I am sure given a chance, they will absolutely savor it.

kobita-r jonye aatmohotya chhaRa swabhabikota nei

Damn! It feels great to be able to write again.

Today facebook asked if I wanted to add Suddha Prasad Bagchi as my friend. I suspect facebook might just be a bit more weirder than this aforementioned person.

Oh, this same person was trying to ping me and make small talk with me on gtalk earlier today. I successfully blocked him. And I have absolutely no idea how he came into my gtalk list.

Like a rolling stone!

Last monday, around 2 in the afternoon I was sitting in a Manhattan bound F train and staring at the subway walls. Not trying to read the words of the prophets though. And I hear that the previous reference will be lost on students of Comp. Lit. in SUNY(courtesy Diviani). The duo should have written songs about Calcutta. Anyway, there I was sitting in a subway train and utterly bored. Then enter two African American women. They come and sit right on the seats on the other side of the aisle and start talking loudly. Now, I could have done without mentioning loudly. African American women talk a lot, and when they do they talk loudly. They don't perhaps know the art of whispering. They even scream a lot. When they are happy and not having sex and also when they are happy and having sex. And before you ask questions, my Italian roomie used to screw one such lady. What else they did, I do not know. But I could hear the moaning from two rooms away. Ohh, yes. The two women in the subway. Now, when I paid attention to them, they presented an interesting spectacle. They were quite peculiarly dressed. There was no question about the femininity of one, while the other quite looked like a man with breasts. But the US is a weird country. There are people with all kinds of gender here, some even unknown to imbeciles like me. Having such an enlightening reallization, I turned my head and resumed my staring at the walls. Suddenly something moved. And the next moment, the woman whose gender was quite perplexing, hit the floor of the train. And started rolling. She stopped at my feet and looked up at me. With the looks of a famished stray dog looking up at a tea-stall owner for a biscuit. I was even more perplexed. She was defnitely not a dog. A bitch, I wasn't sure. And I also had no biscuits with me. So I sat, looking back at her. She then got up on her knees and stumbled to her seat. Thus, relieving me of the shame of not offering her a biscuit or something similar. As I turned my head and fixed my gaze once again on the dark walls, I heard them bursting into fits of laughter and almost falling on the floor. Time and again. This went on for five minutes or so when my stop came and I sprang out with the agility of a drugged Ben Johnson. Before the doors closed, I looked at the woman who took my seat and prayed that she had some cookies to offer when the rolling lady came asking. Did I mention, the two of them were completely stoned? Rolling and stoned? Uh, I live in a mediocre world!

Yay!

I went to Barnes & Nobles and while browsing through the books on films, I came across the above two. I am still a poor Graduate student and 40$ even poorer. But at least I have the books. I am HAPPY!!!!

Just.

"A woman was gossiping with her friend about a man whom they hardly knew - I know none of you have ever done this. That night, she had a dream: a great hand appeared over her and pointed down on her. She was immediately seized with an overwhelming sense of guilt. The next day she went to confession. She got the old parish priest, Father O' Rourke, and she told him the whole thing. 'Is gossiping a sin?' she asked the old man. 'Was that God All Mighty's hand pointing down at me? Should I ask for your absolution? Father, have I done something wrong?' 'Yes,' Father O' Rourke answered her. 'Yes, you ignorant, badly-brought-up female. You have blamed false witness on your neighbor. You played fast and loose with his reputation, and you should be heartily ashamed.' So, the woman said she was sorry, and asked for forgiveness. 'Not so fast,' says O' Rourke. 'I want you to go home, take a pillow upon your roof, cut it open with a knife, and return here to me.' So, the woman went home: took a pillow off her bed, a knife from the drawer, went up the fire escape to her roof, and stabbed the pillow. Then she went back to the old parish priest as instructed. 'Did you cut the pillow with a knife?' he says. 'Yes, Father.' 'And what were the results?' 'Feathers,' she said. 'Feathers?' he repeated. 'Feathers; everywhere, Father.' 'Now I want you to go back and gather up every last feather that flew out onto the wind,' 'Well,' she said, 'it can't be done. I don't know where they went. The wind took them all over.' 'And that,' said Father O' Rourke, 'is gossip!"

................ Father Brendan Flynn (Doubt, 2008)

Being incoherent.

1) I spent a whole day listening to Mohd.Rafi, Lata Mangeshkar and Manna Dey. I think I am getting old.

2) Being self-obsessed has its own merits. For one, you could be totally happy with your own cooking.

3) Its snowing again. Gah! I hate it when it snows for just a few hours and then stops. That way we don't get our classes off and the streets are all messy for the next couple of days. I would rather have a blizzard anyday.

4) Pintsize is the new benchmark in haramigiri. Go check him out here.

5) Never ever watch Hollywood made horror films. Ramgopal Verma ki Aag can be far more entertaining.

Invasion

My blog has officially been invaded by women. All kinds of women. There's the one who is in love with me, the one who wants to sleep with me, the one who looks like a seductress out of a graphic novel, the one who would'nt flirt with me, the one who watches films and of course the one who only pretends to watch films. Quite a handful! I feel like the ever hungry, ever deprived, ever horny resident of a womanland colony. But I am not complaining. Whoever wants paradise anyway? I am happy with my sinful hell full with all these dames. Keep them coming :D

No sarcasm attempted whatsoever.

Question: What is common between New York City and The Academy Awards a.k.a The Oscars?


Answer: Both never cease to amuse me.


The day before yesterday, I ran off to Brooklyn after I had managed to grade 240 copies in two days. I desperately needed some kind of rest and diversion to make all the numbers dancing before my tired eyes go away. Hence, Brooklyn, to a friend's. On the way I saw a bengali restaurant. Which is not quite a rare site in NYC. But the loudspeaker outside playing bengali songs in full volume sure was. Some firangis stood bewildered and tried to decide what exactly is going on. I stopped for a minute or two and walked away laughing heartily. First time in two days.

Today the 81st Academy Awards were presented. And "Slumdog Millionaire" stole the show with 8 or 9 awards. I found out it also has an imdb rating of 8.7 and stands #37 in their top 250 films list. A.R.Rehman won two awards for his excellent music direction in the film which consists of the very memorable track "bla bla bla JAI HO! bla bla bla JAI HO!"(thanks to a friend for the description). After days of waiting with bated(and perhaps stinking) breath, "Slumdog Millionaire" was declared to be the best film of 2008. We, Indians should definitely be proud of this incredible achievement of a film that is entirely shot in our dearest country and portrays our average population so well. Only, the film lovers should be in a grave dilemma. Whether to send "Delhi 6" or "Raaz 2" as the official Indian entry to next year's Best Foreign Film Oscar category. Mr.Rehman might as well win another lady for his absolutely stunning "Masakkali". Ah, I wish it was Oscars all throughout the year. I would then sleep a happy man every night.

Being obsessively over-possessive doesn't quite help.

"Holud bosonte je bish achhe, Shinjini,
fNoTa fNoTa paan kawro tumi .
Tobe jodi amar moton more jete paro."

Present crushes

Is it me or is Megan Fox totally hot? Right now, I can't get enough of her.



What is with me and Italian women? My love for Claudia Cardinale seems to have been rekindled and I don't blame no one.

These are the two new posters on my bedroom wall. Yay! :D And I also plan to buy posters of "Cannibal holocaust" and "Ichi the killer" tomorrow :D

We are having a saraswati pujo this year too. But the difference is, this year I am the purut thakur. That means I have to find my poite(which I threw away long time ago) and resist myself from eating beef for a whole day. Moreover, I need to sit on the floor for a long time. Which, I am not sure if I will be able to do. But on the brighter side, I will get some dokhhinas surely. And I also get to have batasa, nokuldana, sweets, khichuri, chutney etc. Quite a fair deal, methinks.

And also, Savita Bhabhi needs contributions from us readers to keep entertaining us with tales of her sexual escapades. Please donate and support the wonderfully foxy lady in her great quest of filling the void that is Indian adult entertainment. I am donating. Are you? (and I don't mean, erm, donations in kind :D)

http://telegraphindia.com/1090122/jsp/calcutta/story_10424692.jsp


Wherever we are headed, its not gonna be a nice world to live in.

Food frenzy

Seems like cribbing in the blogsphere indeed has its merits. Once earlier, I cribbed about having not enough new clothes. Reading that, fellow bloggers offered to buy me all kinds of not-so-nice pants and tee-s. Then again, only a few days before I cribbed about being robbed of two very thin and not-so-good-tasting cheesecake slices by my friends. One of them chanced to read the post and promptly treated me to a very-good-tasting cheesecake. Out of compassion or guilt, I don't give a damn. I got my cake and I love him for it. I shalt from now on cry more often about almost everything in my sight or mind. And hope that more people read my blog.

In the last week, I had, lets see, ummmm
1)home made pizza. which was yummy.
2)some french dessert with french toast and caramel.
3)noodles, crabmeat, shrimp, chicken and fried ice cream in a Thai joint.
4)mid-eastern food consisting of babaganoush, hummus, grilled lamb and kosher chicken.
5)Chinese food, Indian style. just the way I love it.
6)delightful ingira bread, lamb, chicken and tiramisu cake in an Ethiopian restaurant. and I also found out that Ethiopian girls can be very beautiful. our waitress almost looked like Cleopatra's drawings in the history books.
7)Taj Mahal beer. after ages.

All the food, the waitresses, the nice company, the walks through the streets of a snowing New York and two almost satisfying bridge-playing sessions after, I am ready for a new semester. Life has been good in the past week. I only hope to repeat these words every weekend.

Seems as if I am extremely adept at screwing up whatever little good life has in store for me. I just wish things were different.

Tera emoSSional atyachaar

Yay! I downloaded the full OST of Dev.D and its totally awesome. Whoever Amit Trivedi is, he has composed 18 tracks for the film and all of them sound completely refreshing, different from each other and mostly great. For the enthusiasts, there're rock elements, touches of jazz, bhangra and even traditional wedding song types. My more learned senior tells me that there are very clever uses of hindusthhani raag music too(which I am quite ignorant about). All in all its a wonderful collection of music("tera emoSSional atyachaar" being the best of the lot) which I am literally hooked to right now. And the trailer also looks simply mouth-watering. Thanks to Anurag Kashyap Indian film will finally make its foray into psychedelia and I have never been this excited about a hindi film that hasn't got SRK in it. So, there you go. You can comprehend how eagerly I await the release.

Talking of hindi films and SRK, thanks to Diviani, I finally got hold of a working link of "Rab ne bana di jori" online. I won't waste words on how much I liked it. Just that SRK was totally brilliant as Surinder Sahni. Anyone who differs can go eat shit. Someone recently opined that I am suffering from deep melancholia and need some serious counselling. Also, I had a fearsome bout of insomnia for a few days. But I have discovered the cure to everything. I have promptly downloaded a dvd quality print of "Dilwale dulhaniya le jayenge" and every night before hitting the sack, I watch select parts of the film. That way I get good sleep with nice dreams and be happy, very happy.

Btw, I have watched DDLJ "n" times(n>100) before. And still, every time I watch it, Raj and Simran make me "fall in love....all over again".

I feel deprived.

I bought myself two slices of fudge brownie cheesecake. But my friends robbed me of it, cut them in five thin slices and gave me only one :( Then we went to a friend's birthday party. We bought a tiramisu cake for her. She cut it into six almost equal pieces and one small piece. As luck would have it, I had the smaller piece :( When I wanted some coke, she only gave me diet coke. That too on the rocks, the ice diluting the coke and hence making it even worse :( Then we had an excellent dinner, thanks to her. But later in the night I had a stomach upset and all the chicken, parota, paayes that had gone in, went out in a "flush" :(

Ohh, while having dinner, another friend was trying to use a fork to eat a naan. I quipped "are you trying to fork a nun?". And felt better for at least a moment.

Still, I feel deprived.

I think, I need to get a whole cheesecake for myself to get over everything :(

Happy New Year

May all of you be showered with bottles of Jack Daniels everyday this year. Wish you all a very happy 2009. Ullas!