REFLECTIONS....!

2010-01-06T00:48:00.002+05:30

After seventy days of rigourous chatting on the phone and internet, she met him. Both were in love with each other - yes n yet both had their own sets of priorities and committments so no they couldn't tie the knot. Little did the man know that the fit as a fiddle lady sitting right before him with those unusual short hair was even denied the rights to reveal her true identity. She was an expert in American law and an FBI. Her current job was a mask off. She kept wondering if she must take her shades off her eyes. They say, people who love , read eyes...

She remembered the time when the first bullet shot her shoulders in Afghan, her body all bruised after being molested and beaten up by 11 people. Yet all of it seemed so simple than all the pain now.

I just wanna feel...

2009-12-01T16:51:00.005+05:30

Another lousy winter afternoon on the terrace, when the clear sky with sunshine on my shoulders did not quite make sense. My heart seemed sinking right into my dangling feet. The sky stared back like a void nothing. The supposedly wonderful cityscape appeared like another regular google map feature. Beef sandwiches were swallowed like dry crumbs to put away the extra pain and irritation for a growing want, then in my body. Yet there would be that overpowering thing on me which kept deactivating my faculties and declaring, "Nothing seems fine!" In a stoned state, I picked up a few stone chips and threw them down with all the exasperation in me. A mocking bird of a crow appeared to jest at my state and I flew a stone at it. Yeah, the stone came flying back to me. I collapsed with a little ribaldry towards a someone in my mind :) "Will you never leave me alone!"

2006-11-04T12:25:00.003+05:30

On 10/18/06, a researcher wrote to her friend :
Hi!
Told you that sumtime I shall be telling you about all that happened in Gujarat.

We were sum two women & six men picked up after sum shitty screenings from various parts of India. Seemed like a decent ratio,when we were first told that we were expected to do sum intensive fieldwork & report to ahmedabad for the details on a given date.
In ahmedabad,the bolt of thunder shot us. In a nutshell,we were badly screwed as all of us got sum of the most sensitive fields of gujarat & of course all of us seperated. We'd already been trained at our diction which wud be essential for us to get on with our guise.
I was supposed to go with sum Usmaan bhai to a place called Varoli, a small semi-urban area fro where I would be guised as a gypsy woman who are often seen around vendoring 'khes',ribbons & so on...(the other girl-sangini wud accompany me till varoli & then)I wud be boarded in a bus which wud take me close to my allotted field called-vijaynagar in the sabarkantha district of gujarat.
This vijaynagar is more or less a village that has hills all around it behind which dwell some tribals. People say that this place happens to be around 2-3hrs off (by road) 4m Udaipur.
I was expected to knock all possible aspects to find out the sources of raw datas that wud help the legal advisors to proceed with the case in there. As the case-file had been re-openned so the situation was very sensitive there.
When we reached Varoli, we heard how the Patels had one morn,suddenly attacked that area inhabited by a muslim community & when all men were out & women busy cooking in their chullas at home, they were attacked, raped with swords thrust in their vaginas that killed them & sum were lined & cruelly asked,"tumlogo ko gosht bahot pasand hai na,khana hai!"....& then all the babies were thrown into fire & served,"khao".
Both of us hearing such tales had our souls already chanting the pinda-dana mantras.(shei kathay bole na atma-ram kancha). Anewaz we acted brave & treated ourselves witha 'barf ka gola' that nite that helped us to sleep a little in that little dusty room full of lizards & broken furnitures.
Next day as both of us stood waiting for Usmaan bhai on the road to proceed towards our destinations, a no.of truck & bus drivers who seemed to hav a license from the Patels to go on doing anything with the females of that community,were checking us out.
Sangini almost blasted Usmaan bhai when he came 4 making us wait so long.then...then we said good-bye 2 each other,checked on with the save our souls once & proceeded towards our fields.
In vijaynagar,there lived both the hindus(who were a minority but economically sound & powerful) & the muslims (who were a majority in no.but economically backward & less powerful).my work was to go around,pick up a conversation with all I met to knw how the mishaps took place.How there was a socio-economic boycott made to work.This way of data-collection is called the life-history method of data- collection.
The gypsies are supposedly of no definite castes so nobody has much of a problem with them.they get shelter in the dharamshalas or even in any of the houses,usually.the patels had actually got the tribals booze & money & gifts-asked them to go set fire to the muslim elaaka one nite. Sumhow one muslim got to know this & overnite they fled leaving behind everything just to save their lives. After things pacified & they came back,there was no means to earn in that village for themselves .They usually worked in the shops or houses or cow-sheds of the hindu riches & were not allowed to come in & work again.
After my work thats after 4 whole days,I was to walk on the fifth morn around 2kms east where sum sanjit bhai wud be there to pick me up.I did not even knw this guy & he brought me thru a way tht runs thru the jungles with not a soul around.I was ready with my pen-knife to defend myself 4m all that cud come upon me.(FUNNY,huh!it wasn't then!)
.........but then,i'm back safe & sound.

sesh obdi achis na bored hoye agei......!

the reader of this mail wrote:
na
sesh korechchi... bore hoye jaini

2009-10-27T17:18:00.003+05:30

It was just another day in my corporate house. Strangers around me all day- exchanging glances, an occasional smile n biz talk smoothly done under bated breath, grind of the teeth, softened with resisted parting of the upper and lower lips interrupted by clinches of the photocopy machines, clatter of keyboards and the very uncontrollable tones beeping their way to calls and sms.

Worth mentioning, interludes would be captured by my blonde boss with her spray of “Velvet Rope” and directing us how to cope with situations. She’s alwaz had a clean table . The work of a manager as she would say would be to delegate. So she wipes off her table and “delegates” them to people. One brief interaction with her would be just enough to walk you back home with enough fret. Needless to say, I had quite a bit of her. I was busy debating within if I should just smash her nose or her head and then suddenly it was sunset time. Nah! Let not the sun set on an argument. Not worth it.

Then….picked up my satchel and pushed out. Called up a number, a someone to understand if we could call shots on the rocks that evening with Floyd, Bob and Lynrd. He quickly made himself available. We hadn’t spoken or met for a long time. With both of our time really running out, we would have a lot of space between us coming in, cupping for some communication which could not happen. Over Dylan and Savage Garden, words set a flowing. Some good “ilish maach” (hilsa) and bhaat (steamed rice) set in some fresh oxygen in our brains in a small shack and we loved our small talks, laughs at our limitations and whiling away time. As we drove back home, we figured a lot of things which had been in the locality but we could not have noticed all this awhile.

The grey clouds in my mind had cleared and as the streak of light penetrated, I twinkled at an idea, as I set a couple of Breaking Benjamin tracks for a mood buster. Wrote out the wonderfully interesting day I’d spent and then quickly took a print out. As the clock-a-doodle do woke me up in the morning, I grabbed a plump rose from the garden.

Its 10 in the morning next. The elevator doors pushed apart as my blonde boss stepped out of it in sizzling blue tunics. Her fragrance seemed loud enough to repel people to declare her a class apart. She moved in on her tick-toeing stilettos. Clinched the door of her chamber open and located a surprise on her table. Some quick screams followed thereafter.

Note for readers: The surprise consisted of a red rose and a printed sheet of paper.

I'm a Liar

2009-08-11T00:36:00.001+05:30

Lyrics

Dreams come true...

2009-08-08T18:31:00.012+05:30

It was a dreamy dusk... when the vermillion gave way to the dark purple of the skies behind the lush green mountains. As the purple haze reflected in the clear river, our Jack slouched at the river bank with a nebulae of flies above his head; against his fishing paraphernalia -forgetting his little strife with the Tenth Commandment (THE 10th COMMANDMENT-(coveting)Exodus 20:17 "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that [is] thy neighbour's."), for the evening;) .
Sang a boy, strolling down the valley, molesting his guitar, "Its a long long walk to dreamlands. Held and bound and tied and cast, to this painfully sadistic craft." As i looked at him intently, said his guitar to me, "This way, he strums and drums and humps all his problems far far away ;-) ".
In the old tavern, the greying bricks lined with dark soot sat the heavy drunkard at his usual seat beside the fire place. The bard's singing tickled his ears and he raised his glass to inquire of the brewer ,then caressing his notes (currencies) with care utmost, "Do dreams come true?", with an obvious sarcasm in his voice and face. Hearing this,the young lady dressed in lilac smiled. She was still in her early stage of romance. Had not seen the world fully through but posed to believe, "Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them".The drunkard seemed unwittingly unconconvinced. The brewer came to his rescue, lest the bastard left unfilled for the day (unfilling his pocket too), "Unfortunately, the balance of nature decrees that a superabundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares." Silence barged in the brewery again.
The words of our bard echoed in reassuringly with his flat pick and downstrokes on the guitar,"But they'll be back, give it a day. As time goes by and words let sigh, the dreams are still dreams and, the days are as ever, long. We take our place in the rat race all for its sake. It draws and it claws and it calls, us down, us back;-)".
It was then that the postman arrived with a tinkle on his cycle's bell, "Mail for you" , said he to the dreamer.Half amused and half surprised, the dreamer tore open the letter that said a relative bequeathed 6000 pounds for a flying lesson, he aspired. He leaped and skipped and whirled around the tables and people in the tavern.Then climbed the nearest cliff to finally get the feel of "Learning to fly". Felt I heard some distant murmurs, "The dreamer's loose on the head, it seems."
As he spread his arms,standing at the edge of the cliff to summon the winds for his wings, he could feel a force pushing him against the gravity and then whoooshh.....h! he was gone;-)

This is for my pal Siddhartha ;-)

2009-06-17T21:44:00.006+05:30

Ode To A Bengali Paunch
In response to a friend’s comment on Facebook that Bengali paunches are holy, I offer you this little rhyme:
Ode to a Bengali Paunch by Amit Varma

A Bengali paunch may be roly-poly,

But I deny rumours that it’s holy.

It is the center of base desire,

The origin of a Bong’s carnal fire.

We get turned on by mastaard feesh,

By paabda, rohu and illeesh.

Porn for you is chingri for me,

It’s divine, but not holy, you see.

Would you like a Lobongolotika?
*

The New Erection by Subrata Majumdar

Would you like a lobongolotika?

Or some other form of aphro-desi-ka?

The holy paunch faces serious threats

From Gold’s Gym and such bourgeois outlets

Preserve our bhuri, we Bengalis must

A symbol of our glory, about to bite the dust

Let the paunch be the new erection

To show young bongs the right direction

I propose a paunchy statue as public art

To grace the crossing at Gariahat.

We met again

2009-06-29T21:47:00.003+05:30

Long, long ago there lived two cousins, one would come from an affluent convent and the other would come from a vernacular school. Both would hold the forefingers of their once Naxalite uncle and head towards a book-store in the vicinity.
The book store was not one of those flashy, glitsy ones where the walls and the accessories are more lucrative than the pages of the books. Here at "Bipin babur boiyer dokaan" (book store of Bipin babu), the walls would be sooty and the stained glass almirahs would be accomodating far more books than they were meant to be. So, naturally we would have to tell Bipin babu (the bearded middle-aged man with a pug and on it carefully balanced would be his glasses), what we wanted. He spoke impeccable English and his bangla was just as good.
The moment he would see us, he would ask me, "What would My Lady fancy?". Then he would look at me for a while and bring out a book almost magically and his choice could never go wrong. He exactly knew what I wanted all the time ;-)
Next would be my cousin's turn. By then, he would have fidgeted his way out to a book already. I somehow loved his books' cover pictures of skulls dripping with blood and delicate princesses on flying horses and hungry leopards...and he admired mine with ship sailing and the little Prince waiting for his extra terrestrial friend on the Earth.
After lunch, we would both go out on Dinu kaka's Koli, his black cow and come back with a dreaming head, as the light of the sun danced in our heads. Then would we sit down with our books, our backs against the wall of the "Chilekotha" (the attic). The stories would soon transport us to different locations untill "Mani Ma" (aunt) would call us for "Luchi" and "cholar dal" that would be ready by then. That would be our favorite meal of the day. At the end of it she would serve us "Aam kheer".
Mani Ma had an unusual charm about herself. Not that she would hug us and kiss us any time but she would tear the hot "luchis" into pieces for us, take the bones of our fish, and many more such amazingly thoughtful things that wove a strange mesh of affection around her.
My cousin and I, both grew up and realised it was time to look beyond our restricted charms. So we moved on different paths. He on technical and I on humanities. We met again some days ago in his child's study. This time sharing the same book. Our backs against the same wall and our fingers on the same line of the same page.We met again...

Used to...

2009-06-09T09:55:00.003+05:30

Thought is a difficult strike in our Mc Donaldized society now. The other day, I looked at the apparel store across Rashbehari Avenue still shut at 9 in the morning, I was slightly surprised. Thats the time, am busy on the phone with someone or the other. Just at 9, when my bus passes that store, an employee brings out a mannequin and puts it outside the glass door.

As usual, I was on the phone but my eyes were looking for the everyday scene its so used to. My conversation on the phone did not stop but my eyes kept nudging my mind. Possibly something's wrong somewhere. In the evening, I dropped into the store and found the store space available for lease.

I came back with a hint of disturbance on my mind. It was then that occurred to me how there were countless things which never penetrate beyond the eyes untill the time it goes a missing. Tick tick 1, fresh flowers of my choice on my table all the time at my desk in my cabin at work. Just because I mentioned to Gada da how I adored them some day when he had planted them in our garden months ago. Infact most of the time , they go unnoticed.

Thereafter, its mom neatly organising my bath robe and towels before I am off to shower. I noticed effort and thought behind it on the dayshe fell ill and could not do it for me. My consistently irritating frenz who forcefully call me up at night and morn ;-) just to irritate me and speak a whole deal of nonsense. Somehow, watever they saystarted making sense to me the day I had a bad time at work and made a wrong decision to stay shut about it and build frustrations within. Obviously I failed to do all that coz my frenz would not leave me untill the time I spoke to them.

Instances kept pouring unto me gradually and since yesterday life seems more organised without taking things for granted. It began with the food habit. Why do I need to have that same breakfast of cornflakes and milk or sandwiches for lunch? So I started with a lamb and cheese salad and a roti-dal lunch. Kicked off office on Monday just to be out on a tour of the city, adda with anebody I would come across and so on.

The brain seems in control now.... quite unlike a couple of days ago ;-)

2009-02-01T18:17:00.004+05:30

When two like minded individuals meet, it is but natural to come close and feel, "Wish this moment stayed further!" but what a lot of us miss out on is would we actually love it the same way had the moment stayed on and on.

I remember the "kesar matka kulfi" I would die for when in school and sooner or later I had grown out of it. I revived my tastes only when i came back from my hostel on my first summer vaccation.

Then it was a schoolmate, later turned to a crush and finally would seem too much to bear with, so we would part our ways but remembered the amout of conversation we would make at one point of time....Somehow that helped me to grow a lot beyond my years.

My search to the answer for the query we began with; is still on...

Mp3Raid music code

2009-01-16T20:11:00.001+05:30

Tim Mcgraw songs

free music downloads | music videos | lyrics

...n this is for Nikki

2008-12-29T21:34:00.002+05:30

The sun seems to shine again over the shoulders of a very non-promising Samaritan - Nikki !

"Baas, sau rupaye mein itnaich tareeff milta hai!" :-)

Mp3Raid music code

2008-12-26T21:26:00.001+05:30

Tim Mcgraw songs

free music downloads | music videos | lyrics

2008-12-09T22:04:00.005+05:30

It all started with a mad rush to the hospital. Mrighanayini had a miscarriage on almost the third month of her pregnancy. Possibly a miscarriage takes awe with it more than the actual delivery of a baby after 9 months of gestation from the body of a mother.

My cheerful Nayini came back as a carcass of what she actually was a couple of days ago when I went in to see her with a huge chunk of her favorite mango flavoured Baskin Robbins ice-cream.

On the way back home, from the hospital, she would be very restless in the car initially. ...then in a fleeting moment, as my music system poised out, "Notting Hill" of Ronan Keating, she slowed down, wanted it to be played again n again n then collapsed on my lap. I let my fingers run through her hair and she shut her eyes for , am not sure for a thought or sleep.

Strange act of play of a life unborn yet so much there amidst us. There would be so many times Nayini would wake me up in the middle of the night to tell me how the foetus would be moving within her. I still remember how excited she would be at the first spot of its heartbeat. I would do so much of home-work in terms of getting my modus operandi done for an emergency situation of Nayini but everything seems falling apart like the house of cards.

Stream of thoughts shoved me passed a whirlpool of moments down memory lane n took me to the moment when I fell in love with a plain n simple geek, intelligent n down to earth guy. Never did I see him. I would read his mails, chat with him n occassionally catch him on the webcam. I would ofcourse spend long hours on the phone with him. I knew I had feelings for him but I would not have discovered how strong they were, had he not decided to walk out of it.

Initially thought it would be simple. Well, haven't seen him ever so how much could it actually take me for. It wasn't even 2 months of going around. ...but something happened in me. I came back to the present with a jolt to find tears rolling out of Nayini's shut eyes. This time I knew what was on within her. I raised her and held her close and tight to me.

Later in the week, we built a tree-house in Nayini's farm house and we put all the presents that would come flowing in to congratulate the wombing mother and the to be born child in there. We spent a lot of time there and we finally managed to recover from our losses in our own ways.Perhaps trying to forget is nothing but a way of escaping reality. So we decided to face it :-)

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=pLSc66aDxmI&feature=related

2008-10-18T10:56:00.002+05:30

I would like to believe this is the beginning of a story of a knight that was dying and the princess that saved his life :-) ....about beauty and beasts and spells and fortresses, about death-powers that seem and life-powers that are.

This one's to Dhruv and Ravi...

2008-10-16T23:32:00.005+05:30

"....But beginnings cannot be prolonged endlessly; they cannot simply state and restate and restate themselves. They must move on and develop—or die of boredom. Not so, you say. You must get away, have changes, other people, other places so you can come back to a relationship as if it were new, and have constant new beginnings," ;-) said Dhruv as he nudged me over a cup of coffee under the shade of the peepal beside J.P. tea stall in our university campus.

Dhruv, a red-haired senior of mine with bright, black eyes. His favorite pass-time would be visiting exotic places,talking people and ofcourse reading Karl Marx. He had been to Tibet many a times and dreamt of having an agro-based society in India like China. He was doing an MPhil in Agrarian Economy under a very promising lady - Jayati. He stayed in an apartment next to the women's hostel. So every morning both of us would walk the two n a half km of the college together.We would discuss anething from whistling dogs to sonata :-/ often Marx woud draw an interlude in them coz thats the time wen I would choose to go silent.

Dhruv would be very vociferous in these sessions...and Ravi, a lecturer and our dram soc (dramatics society) co-ordinator would pet him for it. Dhruv and I have enacted roles together under Ravi's perfectionist eyes and we three struck a brilliant cameraderie. The skies then appeared a halcyon blue always and all troubles seemed melting like lemon drops.

It was a sudden rush created by some activists from Chipko movements that Naxalism hit a lot of minds and ofcourse Ravi and Dhruv.They all subscribed to the movement actively however I would prefer to stal myself away from it. It was then that the movements started creating ripples between us and gradually there would be a visible gulf.Destiny also co-operated in the drift and pushed three of us in three different geogaphic locations. The parting was nt elaborate or made a memory.It would just happen and without exchanging contacts.Needless to mention I would miss them.

Dhruv came back from Heidelberg University after 15 months,during the finals of my university, almost as a meteorite. This Dhruv was a lot more toned down. After my last paper,he took me out on a long drive.Suddenly the car was stopped in the middle of the road. He mentioned,he was expecting someone. I was a little worn-out after the papers and hence without resentment just slided back to relax.Just then a white ambassador screeched to a halt beside us. Out came Ravi. It was a SURPRISE! The celebrations thereafter need no elaboration and thereafter we've all been more tolerant towards each other and more matured towards each other's needs.Sinc.e then we've been together again

Years later, as Dhruv invited both Ravi and me for a cup of coffee with his fiancee, I couldn't help sharing this tale with all of you.

2008-09-25T22:30:00.002+05:30

One sudden morning, you just desperately wait 4 sumone's mail and more desperately 2 hav a word with him...tick tick 1,R u in love?

Oh no not for me, so wat if my heart ripples, thats all about hormones.

2008-09-21T23:53:00.002+05:30

Rhythm of the rain - trumso

"A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed, it feels an impulsion....this is the place to go now. But the sky knows the reason and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons," said Sandy the first time he took me to the air in his air plane with him.

Just then my brows would magically straighten and I would scream with excitement at the wonderful void. He taught me to read the shapes of the clouds and he taught me to smile wen I would be blue. He was a senior of mine at college and his dream was to make it to Harvard some day. He was this amazing bagpacker, visiting loads of people and ofcourse getting mad with them. Be it the old lady throwing pots and pans at someone or the child trying hard to fly a kite. Diffusion would seem inherent in him. I still remember how we had gone to an astrologer with a "tota" (parrot) and how it declared that Sandy would nt live for long and how we made fun of it.

Little did I know that it was just a premonition. One January morning, when he had to go for his medical tests for his visa,he was detected with brain cancer. He would often have black-outs and would live on strange medicines he would pick up himself. Thereafter bouts with the hospitals - initially i would spend hours with him and thereafter he would be in a state of unconsciouness mostly so as medical practitioners would put it, "No point being with him all the time now." Am not too sure if it was the point or the paling face that kept me away from him. I was scared to see somebody as live as him getting cold n dying.

Then it happened. One summer afternoon,we were in college writing papers and we were informed that "The time had come!" Some of us - the frenz rushed to the hospital where this wrinkled bit of Sandy would look up and smile. I sat beside him coz standing would mean not giving in to the weakenning knees. I held his hand to try and keep him back to the world this one last time. His hand slipped declaring to me, " Ah, you must be kidding!"

After some time wen i attempted to rise, I found the end of my sari caught somewhere.It was between two of his fingers. After he passed away, I received an e-card from him with a gesture of writing to me from the Garden of Paradise :-)

His e-cards still keep dropping to me up from my gloom. I know he loved me :-/

2008-09-05T12:34:00.005+05:30

Its the

concoction of the thunderstorms ,the breeze,the clouds and a bit of downpour that gives us a strange feeling of being taken and gone.....Gone with the wind!

Loads of fun n a little bit lazy go well with a mug of coffee absolute frizzy. ...and then we say "Is it time yet!" . The pour comes down to say a gushing yes and we all move indoors for a nice session of "adda" or a soft cuddle or a bear hug sumwhere with someone really special.

2008-08-01T12:16:00.002+05:30

A fine morning,as you just quite suddenly

manage to be up really early and you feel like swinging your pillow for a guitar to twang to yourself in the most cacophonic tone, " Sunshine on my shoulders... make me H-A-P-P-Y!"

Quite suddenly wings come to you and the clouds come down to clink a mug with you and cry," Cheers!".

....Just then everything feels so right :-) isn't it?

2008-07-21T20:58:00.002+05:30

Is this the real life?Is this just fantasy?Caught in a landslide,No escape from reality...Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see,I'm just a poor girl, I need no sympathy,because I'm easy come, easy go, little high, little low,any way the wind blows doesn't really matter to me, to me.Mama just killed a man,put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger, now he's dead...Mama, life had just begun,but now I've gone and thrown it all away.

2008-06-02T15:11:00.004+05:30

It was the cheapest buy of the known names on the DVD stacks of Music World,least knowing it could be one of the best experiences watching it. "Paroma" as the name of the film goes is the bengali term for the (feminine) cynosure - the creative,the brilliant,the best of all.The film unfolds the structure of traditional bengali patriarchy, which has reproduced itself even in the modern times in a joint family of a third world metropolis ,confining the house-wife and thus gendering her identity.

In the first part of the film,Paroma (the part played by Raakhi Gulzar)- a middle-aged, conformist house-wife who's not quite lost her girlish charm looks resplendent.She is bright and yet indecisive.Thus,her life is stereotypical.The coy and much taken for granted house-wife suddenly gets that special eye-ball- the focus of a camera of a brilliant photographer.Rahul (played by Mukul Sharma) is young,wanton,an NRI thus not very adherent to the Indian tabboos and norms.He starts adding value to her otherwise shelved self like her play of "tanpura".Her nibble on hot, green chillies with her meals and all's done just with a camera...and the invisible scabbard of thoughts.

A smooth (a part of a well-to do, urban), sacrificial life possibly slightly unmeaningful and hence unmindful when she is lonely was all about Parama's life before the moth of a man barged in saturated with feelings for this dormant pupae of a (woman) butterfly.Rahul comes to kolkata to capture the bengali woman in Durga puja - the Goddess of "shakti" or power.

The intriguing part of the movie are the paradoxical imageries of a local,popular woman deity and a woman live- full of flesh and blood.The deity known for her infinite powers and yet the woman socialized to be meek.As this woman grows from being the quiet and numb being to someone more sensitive and perhaps assertive.She recovers her identity with the strong winds of freedom that blows past her life.

What Aparna Sen (the director of the film) wonderfully potrays is the free flow of interaction,be it betwixt inanimate items or the much alive ones.Movements in an old mansion,with its classic forms in terms of architecture and then the room in the attic - much toned down,utensils,the old city and yes plants rejuvenating life forms.Infact the last scene is reflections of Parama as she revisits her childhood with the plant which Rahul gifts her.Memory thus gets a new life. Parama gets into a trauma after switching her self from an unconscious to a more conscious being, as more of her loved ones start despising her.For instance , her daughter who thought her mother was old fashioned initially and would advise her to renew herself in terms of style but when Parama did that with her lifestyleThese two metaphorical support for Parama happens to be her aunt potrayed (ab)normal ,confined in a room and a friend who responds to her felt problems who help her recover.

The film beautifully concludes with the freshness of the green plant (that Rahul had gifted Parama) refracting its youthful charm in the sultry rays of the sun towards Parama.The being of the woman is wonderfully potrayed with her inhibitions,desires and the want to break free.

The film was a piece of an experience.Definetely worth a watch.

2008-04-15T14:31:00.005+05:30

Ah, Sun-flower! weary of time,

Who countest the steps of the Sun,

Seeking after that sweet golden clime

Where the traveller's journey is done:

Where the Youth pined away with desire

And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow

Arise from their graves, and aspire

Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.

There was greens around as I made my way to this divinely flower in a sultry day- when the sun was so high that the sky seemed so yellow and hence alluring for a 3 year old.Amidst such fantasies ,I chanced to drop into a hundred yard stretch of sunflowers.I fell in love with it,quite automatically.

After many days, when the sun and the fields did not remain:- It was a tacky cell of a mall and the sunflowers still kept simpering at me from a corner ,looking bright and wild.Needlessly,I picked them up for an expensive price.

Thereafter some of my best moments were celebrated with these flowers and then some mundane days would become moments with these flowers and only them.

Change...

2008-03-11T11:55:00.005+05:30

It was the ornate utensils lofted up above a tall rack in my grand-mom's room that would immediately draw our attention.Some of those would be a cat's wish for her fancier feasts and another perhaps for a king's savory and one was a bowl where she played the game of "find me the ring" with my grand-daddy on the first night after her wedding.These were the vessels where my grand-mom would neatly stock away her changes for her future reserves.The coin vessels would never change although change would come our way to get us candies,ice-creams and all other forbidden fruits (read food) from our neighbourhood or some choice delights that looked as rich as the king's in those wonderfully gorgeous wrapping sheets.Her generous currencies were everywhere.

She's gone now and her bowls have been sent to me to keep,nah,to treasure and remember the way we had weaved our world around her's.Gifts are great when they never stop giving inspite of being fully unwrapped as are these utensils. My maa,Gogol and Chayo will tell you that cause they've seen it in my eyes.

such is life!!??

2008-02-29T16:46:00.002+05:30

I was a little girl then and often would visit my distant grandpa on a holiday. My grand-mom had passed away long back and he lived in this little shack of a house which quivered with the distant rumble of train.
Often, I would be running errands for him .One of which happened to be getting vegetables and fishes from a nearby market.
On the way to the market, I had to pass by a two-storeyed house,on the balcony railings of which an overtly gorgeous dressed woman would sit with her eyes fixed on the passers-by, fishing her preys or as you would like,her clients out..Her face looked as if they lacked melanin more than her hands.She would wear the brightest of coloured saris and often would be found throwing a man out of her house,calling him names.Ribaldry in my house and community was a strict no- no. However, I loved the way she spoke and some strains of music that she would sing.She had this amazing way of chewing her betels. Her lips would be thick with the vermillion deposit of her betel (“paan”).As she thrust the betels in her mouth, she would keep looking at the street and if a man would react the way she had expected,her eyes would lit up and she would spit out some of her vermillion with a scoffing smile and if something different happened,which was rare,she would keep chewing on and on and occasionally thrust a few “suparis” in her mouth.Her eyes stayed fixed on the thing she watched.
One day, I found a bell from her girdle lying on the road-end, lining her house and I kept it for a nice play thing. Much later,say after a year or so when I learned it was of gold and it was expensive ,I realised she ought to have it back,I went to return it to her only to know that she was sent to an asyllum a week back…