A TRIBUTE

He closed his little book shop and starts walking down the long stretch of Esplanade, across the markets dyed in summer colours; fruits and flowers. A lonesome figure, slouched under the burden of pain. Hands in his pockets, gaze fixed nowhere. He walks on.
He doesn’t realize when the heat of the summer sun evaporates as a monotonous drizzle sets in. The world around him has turned a shade grey. Umbrellas appear all around.
He turns up his collar, puts on his winter coat.
Round the corner, the air is filled with the aroma of roasted chestnuts. The markets hued to a dark green as rows of Christmas trees come up for sale.
There’s the first hint of snow.
He comes to Park Street - a startling snowscape for the next hundred yards. By the time he reaches Mags, the snow starts melting. He crosses Peter Cat, unaware of the streaming crowd as people flurry. In the horizon, the citadel of the Loretto chapel break the expanse of the sky. It’s spring again.
The seasons have turned a full circle – and with them, life. The tide has turned, the time has gone. But he walks on. A lonesome figure, slouched under the burden of pain, hands in his pockets, gaze fixed nowhere. He’s a modern-day survivor.

AN INTERLUDE

Everyday I wake up to a new dawn, to a new beginning.
I look around, I look inside me.
I gather my thoughts,
I brace myself to meet those who need to share.

It’s cold outside.
I walk for myself, in darkness
Searching for the heat;
I can hear the rhythm in every beat
I can feel it rushing towards me

I can’t go back to where we were before
For I know I’ll fall prey to it
The debauched soul shimmers at the sight
But I know I can’t have it
…For the Gods love it!

MUSE, MUSIC AND ME

AN INTRODUCTION

“In a fleeting life
The only surviving performance is Love” -


If you think I pulled out these scintillating lines from the top of my head, you’re ‘net’ly mistaken. I’m just a sidekick of business journalists., and my creative juices have dried up long back - even before I realized that I had some in my veins. Currently, my glorious job profile allows me to put out the scoops they pull out from their 'reliable sources' on air. That too, on a channel that’s virtually non-existent. But don’t think I can’t become one or don’t have the talent for it. I intend to join the top brass. So I'm all geared up to pull up my socks and get into the groove of the ever-elusive financial world (that justifies ‘net’ly as I propose to swear by the importance of ‘net’ over ‘gross’).
Anyway, coming back to the point, even though my current status is that of an apology of a journo, I still think I should let the world know that I wasn’t always like this. I too used to be a flamboyant creature in his prime who had his appeal for the opposite sex and flaunted his raw creative talents to sweep them off their feet. I too used to be young, handsome, charming.
But most profound was my passion for films or ‘cinema’ as I would carefully choose to call it. If anybody would ever make the perfunctory blunder of confusing one with the other, all hell would break loose, and I would immediately get down to the task of educating the illiterate. And by God’s ‘disgrace’, if ever some one would be sacrilegious enough to call it a ‘boi’, that would be it. He or she will not live to die another day.

I used to be a guy who would swear by masters and auteurs like Truffault, Godard, Pialat, Kurosawa, Bergman, Renoir, Bunuel, Zsabo. I paid religious visits to MMB (Max Mueller Bhavan for those insolents who don’t know what MMB stands for), agog with anticipation and excitement for what the German institute held in store for film buffs like us. I would spend odd hours at Seagull catching rare masterpieces. But my spirits of a true Bengali ‘buddhijibi’ would take a body blow if I would not be there at the ‘Mecca’ of Bengali film fanatics from 11th November to the 17th every year. (That’s Nandan and Film Festival I’m referring to for those impudent blighters who aren't aware of it).
And then there’s my unchained love for photography. Come spring, summer, autumn, winter, I would wear my sneakers, adorn myself with all the appropriate gear and trot down the streets of Kolkata trying to capture its moods and moments in black and white. All in all, I used to be a quintessential ‘bangali’ with an unfettered affinity for art and its myriad creations.
But those days are gone. Here I am now, lying in my plush room in a high rise in the suburbs of Mumbai, my robust physique reduced to layers of flab that could well be called a paunch, my comely face turning a little fuller with the receding hairline. I’ve let my passions wane, trying to curve a shape, forget curving a niche, in financial journalism – that too with utter failure till now. So I succumb to my pain and wallow in self pity – trying to find an outlet for my grief in the world of blogs.


COMING ATTRACTION: I am a diehard Bengali with an indomitable spirit and a killer sting that can well command a fascinating comparison with Adolf Hitler. From that perspective I cannot take insults spewed at my ‘race’( the Hitler spirit’s growing again within me as I write), even if it may well be from a dear friend whom I value heartily. Though I understand that he’s on the wrong side of 25 and the shining pate ever so growing is throwing an evil shadow on his wisdom and better judgement, yet I cannot restrain myself from vehemently repudiating him. How can he be so insolent as to disregard his own existence?