Monsoons of Calcutta...

Jokhon nirobe dure, darao eshe

Jekhane path benkeche…

Tomay chhute chaowar muhurtora

Ke jaane ki abeshe disha haara

Ke jaane ki abeshe disha haara…

The most cherished of my memories lie in the monsoons of Calcutta…

It was the 2 monsoons of Presidency that changed my life… forever…

This post is a symbol for all who feel a part of their lives shall always remain frozen in the fabric of space and time and without which life feels a touch incomplete… and there is a need to visit that part every now and then to make us almost whole again… the innocence of want, the naivety of hope and the imagination of youth…

And the music that takes us back there…

The song above makes me want to connect with ‘me’ again all those years back… makes me want to touch that fabric again… find peace in that which is behind the curtain of all these years…

Monsoons of Calcutta… the intoxicating smell of rain against the half-baked brick and mortar of old houses… that have stories of so many monsoons to tell… the lazy expectation of youth unabated by the dullness of the rainy day… the birth of innumerable romantics with the incidence of the first drop on a cloudy day…

It all began with my first introduction to ‘that feeling’... the ability of human imagination to render a person completely useless… the lazy evenings… listening to bangla music on those FM channels… songs from the heart for the heart… soft and delicate music interspersed with loud and thumping music all towards the same cause… against the pleasant damp environment with the pitter patter of the drops on the soft rustling leaves… bringing such pleasure and pain all at once…

Those were the lost days… ‘Reality’ didn’t matter… a lazy beautiful dark desire-filled world… and the subconscious unrelenting imagination creating an emotion ridden lonely lovely world… painted with shades of grey with the sparks of orange…

In between the evenings often lay glorious times spent with the crowd… singing… listening… taking elaborate walks round the dimly lit campus… thinking…

Thinking… life suddenly opened out in front of my eyes… it was beautiful… the sudden expansion of the horizon… the natural high of the ‘suddenly’ conscious… the ability to see from back to beyond…

I was a changed man… I was finally ‘me’…

By the time the second monsoon could arrive, life was moving… Having found the ability to see clearly meant the hurt was a billion times worse… but all that was now past… life had moved on… I had moved on… there materialized new found interest, beauty and above all Hope…

Empowered with the wisdom of the previous monsoon, I was sure… sure of going for broke… nothing else mattered anyway… Of course this time the monsoon was also accompanied by Floyd… the dark room now had a second master… Rising and falling emotions to the undulating notes, ‘comfortably numb’, sure as hell, made me ‘feel’ everything that was there to be sensed…

Along with that came numerous exchanges… sitting by the terrace… the dark sky only lit up by the excited flashes of lightning, and the sound of torrential rainfall lost in a voice… the voice that could be sweeter than the mood and more musical than the music…

As evening became night, and night became day, I realized ‘us’…

So that’s the story of the 2 monsoons of my life… One that helped find ‘me’, and the other that helped to found ‘us’…

Sitting here looking into the Mumbai night… almost as damp… I am missing the enticing intoxicating smell, missing my ‘home’, my terrace and cherishing the Calcutta Monsoon… and life…

Raat Hamari to...

Ratiya… Khari Khari

Ratiya… Andhiyari

Raat Hamari to chand ki saheli he

Kitne dino ke baad…

Listening to this song brought back so many fresh memories of a distant past… cycling around the dark woods of IIT-K trying to figure out my place… thinking of the one person with a stone in my heart… Bliss

The hurt made me feel alive… the darkness gave me freedom… I was finally one with my surroundings…

Cycling back from the M-Club at 3 am after an extended musical intercourse… pleasure… music in my heart… in my soul… often cycling with my eyes closed and hands behind my back testing my limits… it didn’t matter… I was living in the present…

Thinking about possibilities… thinking about responsibility… the adrenalin rush from thinking about possibilities… the hurt from being constrained… the pleasure of remembering her face… clarity in confusion…

Being selfish… being me… me and the woods… down the winding road… realizing solitude… finding solace in the deep dark woods… riding a little further than the light could carry… Being an Egoist… Being an Individual… the only time when one does not need patronizing… freedom in solitude…

A natural high… speeding down the road… turning blind… the adrenalin rush… the urge to stay out longer… the urge to be free… not to be tied down by those 4 walls built as a barrier against freedom…

The suicides… ability to contort reality in a way that makes even life lose its value… the torture… the insecurity… the fear… the inability to achieve value in one’s own eyes…

The realization… the happiness… the feeling of being alive… the rush… the breaking of the trance… the pleasure of knowing… the Ego…

Guilt… the weight… the failure… the thought of betrayal… the face…

The comfort… the tears… the tears brushing against the wound… the music… being alive

The end of the journey… Losing myself once more to the world… But the knowledge of being alive…

Shallow-Headed Nostalgia

Jakhon porbe na mor payer chinnho ei baate

Aami baibo na, mor kheya tori ei ghaate…

Chukiye debo becha kena, mitiye debo go,

Mitiye debo lena dena, bondho hobe aana gona ei haate…

Tokhon aamay nai bam one rakhle

Tarar pane cheye cheye, nai ba aamay dakle…

 

Listening to ‘Sakhi Bhabana kahare Bole’ and ‘jakhon porbe na mor payer chinnho’ on youtube, on a lazy Saturday, has brought upon what was termed ‘shallow-headed nostalgia’ by a favourite senior from College many years ago…

Amidst the complete lack of meaning in our haphazard ‘khichudi’ (mixture) of our day-to-day life, it is often so comforting to find solace in what has been… when you start counting all the memories of your life, ‘life’ seems so beautiful and fulfilling…

This post is about a few people and a few memories, which have touched my life, but I am no longer in touch with… They are just reduced to images in the abyss of my mind… Sometimes, it feels, that people who are only etched in your memory remain as they were, untainted by the present… the relationship you had with them remains as a beautiful memory, and are not blemished by day-to-day mundane experiences…

First, I shall go back to my singing school. In the fall, of 1992, my mother conspired with my grandfather to ‘deposit’ me in Gitabitan, a vocal training school concerned solely with the works of Rabindranath Tagore, after a snide comment towards a Bollywood movie that had escaped my mouth that confirmed their long-term suspicions of me going astray… I was all of 8 years old !?!

What it meant was, me missing the entire Disney hour, which came on TV on Sunday mornings, including my favourite ‘potli-baba’… Well, like most other under-privileged children, I did not have any say in the matter… ‘Rekha’ from Bollywood, had screwed my life…

I, of course often have a quite laugh, when I remember, that in 2001, 2 days before my Std. XI examinations, I had departed on extra singing lessons for the final degree examination, much to my mother’s disgust. Yes, indeed 10 years had passed since that first day, and close to 500 episodes of Disney hour, had been missed, but what I took back from there changed my life…

When I first went to Gitabitan at the age of 8, I was not pleased. Having spent almost 4 years in a quite-privileged-spic-n-span English speaking school, this dull, old building, with people, from diverse and not-so-privileged socio-economic backgrounds, greeted me with a feeling that I didn’t belong there. It however, passed soon after… Me being the youngest in the class, and immensely talkative, had brought upon sisterly affection from most of a class that was skewed in the favour of girls in a ratio of 80-20…

Thus, with this set of doting sisters, I realized about openness, acceptance and friendship… One of these people, and I mean only 1 had started with me in ’93 and had continued till 2001.  She happened to be my closest friend then… She had a remarkable voice, and had topped 8 out of 9 singing exams… I had spoken to her once since, then, and I just learnt by way of internet, that she’s married and in New Jersey…

 

I was in school, and took to the violin. A year after I had joined in 1992, this frail old meek kinda guy from another section, who weighed slightly less than a single leg-of-mine, joined… Much to our disgust, this guy also topped academics, from the other section, and was prodigious with the violin… 9 years later, he had successfully become the youngest graduate from Royal School of Music, London. He, however gave up his music and decided to follow medicine. Amongst the closest of my friends, and remarkably sensitive and wise, he has vanished from the radar… Hopefully, we will get a chance to catch up some day…

 

Next, I shall write about a person, I am in touch with but cant share the same relation any more. This sardar guy was my neighbor. He was 6 years younger to me, and treated me like his guru. I still remember, my mother’s horrific glance, when this puny little sardar (age-7 then), was carrying my 2 kilo backpack up a flight of 3 stairs, a week after his appendix operation… I shifted house, and although now we do talk, he has grown up and some things never stay the same…

 

And as such, there will always be so many numerous people who touch our lives, make us feel special and disappear… I guess that’s the beauty of life… Amongst the numerous different lives, that we live everyday, there are always these people… who we will remember someday, and maybe, meet again…

 

The song above is a delicate exposition of how we are survived by the memories we induce in others…

 

 

TOM YUM YUM

Tom Yum Soup

Multani Seekh, Mushroom crispy fried, Prawn Golden Fried, Paneer Tikka

Fried Rice, Schezwan Fish, Sweet n Sour Chicken

 

Well, if you are wondering the reason for this heart-warming stomach moaning exercise, let me tell you, this WAS my First Day At Work!!! Yes I do believe in miracles J

Oh I forgot… Papri Chat for Evening Snacks, and unlimited cups of whichever beverage you prefer!!!

My day at work was happening… I now know why the top brass in the company are all BONGS :D

 

The Day of Course began with the Mundane HR… Obviously late, and packed with a pile of really sad begone trees that once were, that had all sorts of Lawful n Unlawful jargon that reminded me of the Great Black ‘Gania’… One of the erstwhile tree actually had ‘Non-Compete’ Printed on it…

But was I ever wrong about ‘morning shows the day’ idiom… never understood them anyway…

Next came my boss… er bosses, bosses-ess… I actually lost track… I was dutifully handed over a Intelligence Dossier that came from the other people working in the ‘let no tree live’ campaign… It was as if some FAFF Consult had actually managed to explain GOD’s 10 Commandments of ‘Why Indian Roads are Indian Roads’… My department... ‘Roads’… This divine prank was played with my sense of direction in mind I presume…

THEN CAME LUNCH…

My Boss’ promotion that was announced today, due to the sheer luck that I brought with me… hence the Menu Card as above…

REST…

Finally, I was ushered into a corner, and explained what we do… that is fell some more trees, ‘money also needs to be printed doesn’t it’…

So after all the ‘Anti-Green’ Discussion we called it a day… and I came home happily J

p.s. I also found only 1 guy fitting the PSU Image ;) … though the work hours are 10 – 5:30  J

 Also the company pays for 3/4^th of the Canteen Bill…  and 1000 buck mobile bill…

I loved my first day at work…