ALBEIT LIFE...

2010-11-12T00:34:00.000-08:00

SPIT IT OUT! LITERALLY!
It is one of those moments in an ordinary life when you or I can feel like a wretched soul simply because we get inadvertently drawn in sordid situations, or become witness to a vile act. Now, it is certainly a personal choice: what you feel vile might be exemplary to me. But this particular action is somewhat disgusting, or so I find. So, when such moments come screaming your name almost on an everyday basis, it isn’t exactly a rosy feeling.
All this while, since I know you guys are a little lost, I have been talking about this despicable habit that I have particularly noticed in the ‘Aamchis’ of Mumbai: spitting gutkhas and tobaccos. The point is, if you carefully notice this action day in and day out, which you’ll be forced to do nevertheless to your utter sorrow, you’ll realise that it is not so much about the spit but how and where they do it.
Notice, that there are two particular parts to this action on which I have laid emphasis: where this action gets implimented, and how this action unfurls.
Now, let me be a bit more vivid. A newbie in the technicalities of this financial wastebin doesn’t even need to stooge his way through the bogged crowd to catch the artful red streaks. In and around a neighbourhood, you can’t miss the raining streaks on either sides of the entrance, a paste of paint in the corners of the walls, strokes of redness around every bend of the staircase. You cannot but wow at the amazing knack of these denizens for accurate spitting. Then, there are those who just don’t mind painting the town red. Instance! The stations. From each pillar to every post, the actual colour has worn off long back, presently sporting a bright red. Now, notice closely, and you’ll see a change in shade. At the bottom, the colour is blood red, and as your vision shifts upward, there’s an unmistakable shift toward the lighter shade. Absolutely fantastic! As if the fish-&-piss smell wasn’t enough!
Now, cut to traffic. You’re travelling in an auto and you’ll suddenly find a dazzling, white merc cruising to a halt beside you. You cannot help appreciating the beauty. The smooth metal cut, the luscious curves, the chic windows…lo and behold! What do I see? Fresh strips of red spit rolling down the white body of this princely automobile. The owner apparently found it too tedious to stretch his head out to avoid spitting on the car. You can’t help but love these people!
But the best place to observe the second part of the action is whilst riding a mumbai local. In my previous annal of this city, I have laid bare my experience of a mumbai local train, and so I don’t need to elaborate on the pig-sty that it turns into for the lack of accommodation for the swarming populace. Now, imagine yourself standing by the door, sandwiched between two bodies, with hardly any space to breathe. It is going to be a long journey and you feel a tad forlorn. Just then, the dapper chap standing before you, who was till then rubbing his ass lazily on your crotch (mind it, lack of space thereof) bolsters himself to his full stature, with his weight balanced on the support on to which he was holding on, bodily turns on the outer side, cocks out his head and then, to your utmost surprise, he doesn’t spit in the conventional fashion. He just opens his mouth and releases a gushing stream of red cocktail spit, which merely responds to the law of gravity. Awestruck, you instinctively wonder how that red spurt missed your trousers.
So, now you understand why I said to savour a moment is one’s personal choice?

BUTT OF A LIFE

2010-05-30T00:50:00.000-07:00

Have you ever tossed a cigarette butt from a dizzying height? Have you ever seen it floating towards the earth-aimless, with no sense of direction or purpose, no effort to guide itself on to the chosen path? Have you ever thought, for a moment, that may be...may be it is trying, but circumstances organised by fate has consumed all possibilities? May be it is destined to see itself wasted.

How similar is our lives. Our lives. Us scavengers, whose daily run of life is so akin to that cigarette butt. Yet we often forget the ignominy of such life. A cigarette-butt-life.

I don't understand whether it is unfortunate that we, when young, don't realise what's best for us, don't recognise our gifts, or whether it is providence that ensures that you don't. Either way, life, as it is, turns out to be a lost gamble. The outcome has been inked even before the dice was rolled, and the funny part is the dice will be rolled nevertheless...We set out to change the rules of the game, never knowing that life has 'set' us as the butt of its malicious joke. And the best part is, at the end of the road, one stands stupefied, don't know whether to smile or cry, seeking consolation from within that says, " well, at least you survived!" But did I?

MISGUIDED VENERATION OF MAN

2009-08-15T08:53:00.000-07:00

It is said that Bodhidharma focused on direct insight into one's own experience, discouraging misguided veneration of Buddhas for the sake of superstition. Mankind look for solace and shelter in spirit called God. As long as one look for it somewhere else, one will never see that your own mind is the Buddha. To find a Buddha, one has to see one’s inside. Strive for the quiescence of body, mind and intention. According to the Yì Jīn Jīng:
After Bodhidharma faced the wall for nine years at Shaolin temple and made a hole with his stare, he left behind an iron chest. When the monks opened this chest they found two books: the “Marrow Cleansing Classic,” and the “Muscle Tendon Change Classic”, or "Yi Jin Jing" within. The first book was taken by Bodhidharma's disciple Huike, and disappeared; as for the second, the monks selfishly coveted it, practicing the skills therein, falling into heterodox ways, and losing the correct purpose of cultivating the Real. The Shaolin monks have made some fame for themselves through their fighting skill; this is all due to their possession of this manuscript.

THIS BLOG IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION…

MUMBAI LOCALS AND CHAOS THEORY

2009-07-11T22:59:00.000-07:00

I remember coming across the concept of Chaos Theory in ‘Jurassic Park: The Lost World’. I was just finishing my Eleventh standard, a juncture I remember quite vividly as it was then that I developed a platonic interest in Mathematics (Platonic for surely so…I don’t want to elucidate on that). I might be roiling miserably under the incomprehensible burden of Permutation and Combination and integral calculus, but my mind, it seemed, was oriented for something higher. I was fascinated with advanced mathematical concepts such as this. And who better to clear my fog-shrouded mind with knowledge on this matter than Pinakida. I still remember, when I went to him, he placidly showed me a traffic that was furling into a jam and then unfurling in some unbelievable way, without colliding with each other. He told me that’s chaos theory-‘a sensitive dynamical system which manifests itself as an exponential growth of perturbations in the initial conditions, making the behaviour to appear random’. In other words, there’s a natual semblance in a chaotic process. I stay in Mumbai. For every ordinary Mumbaikar, the local train is the lifeline. People travel long distances, and somehow manage to reach destinations in time simply because of मुंबई उपनगरीय रेल्. Now, if you look at a regular station on one fine morning, you’ll see platforms cramped with people as all of them prepare to take the train. From a distance you’ll find three rows along the length of the platform, a gap in between, and then another two rows. The lacuna’s because they are thoughtful enough to keep a space for new entrees to walk through without bumping into someone. When you’ll place yourself in close proximity with the crowd, trying to go through the process yourself, you’ll suddenly witness a peculiar phenomenon. From the time of the building-up of the crowd till the moment the train reaches the platform, you’ll find a congenial crowd happily interacting with each other, like companions. But the moment the train enters, there is a noticeable change in their behavioural pattern. The genial crowd suddenly turns hostile, with each person vying with the other to enter the bogey first so that they can seize a seat before anyone else. And all hell break loose (an apparent realization in the first instance) when the train slows down. Those a little more able than others, jump into the bogies. The rest of the crowd narrows down like the tapering edge of a funnel to enter through the door, and running along with the moving bogey at the same time. When the train comes to a halt, the rout gives way to four-five frenzied people at a time who get stuck on the threshold, tug their bodies to release from the clutch of the pack, and then run for seats. When the initial frenzy is over, you’ll find the last two rows jumping on to the train to find a suitable place to stand. When this process is done with, a few lurking foxes would leap onto the foothold of the doorway at the last instance and hang somewhat precariously while the train resumes its journey towards Churchgate. Now, the purpose of this description is to bring forth the strain of verisimilitude in it. For you’ll see that throughout this entire chaotic process, not one soul being taken to the grave for slipping underneath the tracks, or some hanging bloke getting smacked to a post. And, most importantly, when the train deserts the platform, if you look back, you’ll see nothing more than two or three urchins sitting in a far corner, and a few stray dogs sniffing around.

MUSIC WITHOUT LYRIC

2009-07-04T00:46:00.000-07:00

She mourns like an elegy of a drizzle
Her cry echoing a requiem of a broken dream
She doesn’t remember when she last laughed
She forgot how to scream

Her silhouette fades in sunlight
Life’s a hazy shade of winter
When she looks down for a patch of snow
She sees herself,
Broken in ripples
Sinking in cold, grey water

...

2009-07-04T00:16:00.000-07:00

A moment of absolute vagueness. There’s simply no feeling whatsoever. Boredom, irritation, fatigue, distress, strain, disturbance, pain, misery, anxiety, helplessness, snit, bliss, ecstasy…nothing.
It’s pouring since midnight, and almost halfway through the day, there’s no sign of stopping. It’s monotonous and quite a nag. I decidedly didn’t carry the lower apparel of my rain suit. Presumably because I didn’t see it coming. Though now, to think of it, there was no way I could’ve not seen it coming. It’s a fifteen-minute walk from Lower Parel station to my office, which is at the end of the mill compound. So it goes without saying that when I reached my jeans was soaking. My strapless sandal got wet and the soles started slipping beneath my feet. I somehow managed to save my phone by putting it inside my underwear. Since then till now it has been almost 2 hours and I’m still sitting in my wet jeans. Not a very comforting situation, but I’ve no other option.
We were suppose to have a meeting today to chart out plans for the Budget day. When I came in there were only three people who were working on the weekend shows. After two hours now, I get to hear the meeting has been postponed to three. Somehow I was not aware of it. I’m not pissed.
I’ve a fire in my belly right now. Don’t let your imagination take a high-beta route. It only means I’m hungry. But being a Saturday, there’s no food in the canteen. I’m not miserable.
Currently, there’s no thought in my mind as well. When I’m breaking away from the flow of writing this blog, I’m blankly staring at the glass wall that curves the outside of the studio. Neel, our switcher in the PCR just passed by and said, “kyu bhai, itna sannate mein kyu hai?”. It took me sometime to realize it was for me, a little more to understand what it meant. It’s not fully because my mind is blank, but also because I’m terribly handicapped when it comes to our national language.
I don’t even know why I’m writing this. Probably because I want to kill time. The thoughts I’m scribbling are also coming to me intermittently, in the form of floating threads with no knots tying them together in one simplex harmony.
I remember, a few days back, a good friend told me that he was almost approaching sainthood and in fact, to establish the feeling, he had an ‘out-of-body’ experience. I’m trying to figure out how can I not be feeling anything. Isn’t the mind being possessed by ‘no thought’ or ‘no feeling’ the state one can call an out-of-body state? On second thought, not really. I guess your soul suspend above all feelings when you simply ‘GIVE UP.’

A TRIBUTE

2009-06-20T00:13:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-18T07:49:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-12T10:26:00.000-07:00

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?