Broodings of a Different kind...

STATUTORY WARNING: The following lines might be harmful for the soft hearted...

 Of the irresistible urge to write… just to express… couldn’t take the brooding inside… that’s the feeling I am getting after having watched the first 29 minutes of ‘Rock on’…

  The aspiration, the desire, the inner passion and finally all gone to Waste… the story of most of our lives… the fleeting feeling to just break free… to chase all that seems impossible… and nothing to worry… the imagination of youth and the gradual unbearable silence of age…

 

We can say it’s just the economy… The GDP is proportionately linked to the expression of inner imagination… no worries to be able to maintain a creative life without starving… no need to put away all that might have mattered in the name of success… the story of all those 100 thousands of strangers created out of their own isolation of themselves… The question is why???

 

To counter the GDP blame all most can say in their utter monotony as if quoting a textbook is, “ you need the passion the frustration the fear of starvation to achieve”… too hoots to this ridiculous excuse… just a cowardly way of saying I couldn’t dare…

 

Why then why??? I guess its society… the enormous ability to chain all that could ever be free… to poison all aesthetic beauty in the name of success… to get back to that desk feeling why if there’s one life, must it be wasted with such a tremendous urge to protect all sense of guilt… to bury all trace of guilt from one’s system… guilt of never having the courage to hold one’s head up high…

 

Why then such embarrassing contradictions… to punish all who might have held their head high… and praise that insolence of building an ever more tailored society that will slowly pass into oblivion like all before us…

 

It always ends with the bitterness that is generated at the end of every Ayn Rand’s novel… the impossible urge to break the shackles, the overpowering strength of the lame societal living… the final subduing of all that was original, all that was free and independent and then the guilt…

 

I am an escapist… even now I am incapable of blaming myself for who I am… I do not know who I would have been… I do not know why I am like I am… I would rather blame the damn GDP for the woes of our creatives…  

 

To all who can associate with this ridiculous expression of inner guilt… we are mostly at peace… but for the remaining few moments, just remember and dream… and pass on that dream to others and support them who have the courage and who feel the pain of guilt much more than the pleasure of hollow praise… 

jibon maraner seemana charaye...

Jibon maraner seemana charaye
Bondhu he aamar, royecho daraye…
E mor hridoyer bijon aakashe
Tomar mohashon alote Dhaka se,
Gobhiro ki aashay nibiro pulake
Taharo pane chay dubahu baraye…

Nirob nishi tobo
Charan nichaye,
Aadharo keshobhar
Diyechhe bichaye…

Aaji e kon gaan nikhil plabiya
Tomar bina hote aashilo namiya
Bhubano mie jay surero ranane,
Gaanero bedinay jay je haraye…


The last post made in my blog made me realize how enriching an experience it is to actually travel back through time and reflect on life…

As I had already mentioned, the lives of many a man in Bengal have flown through the years just by holding on to the little finger of the man called Rabindranath Tagore… The image in my mind of the wondrous bearded old man has always been like that of a grandfather… Someone who even if shy of all his wisdom and intellectualism, is a man with incomparable compassion towards society, towards human life and in a selfish kind of way, towards me… and I can retreat to him at any time I want, to share my joys, sorrows or even my realizations by uttering a few words… a few very deep yet beautiful words, poems about the unending joys of human emotion…

I say ‘joys’ of human emotion… But often you will find in his work as well as in our lives, happiness is a fleeting emotion… I mean how many of us have felt atleast once in our lives that happiness is overstated… I mean what exactly is it to feel really happy… If you know what I mean, fleeting instances of irrational exuberance are almost immediately followed by moments of tremendous gloom…

Here we strike upon the truth… maybe dark truth for some or simply truth for the rest of us… sadness is an emotion than can be felt… the dark mysterious moments of enormous solitude, of unenduring pain… yes we can all feel it cant we??? Often it makes one sad to feel unhappy, however I have often realized that in those intense spells of infinite gloom, one realizes oneself… It makes one feel alive… alive and happy to be able to feel such strong emotion, happy at the thought that there exists something so infinitely marvelous that it can make one feel so bad… I mean often our realizations of passion come from the unfulfilled want and yearning for it… It drives you mad… Someday when you look back at it, am sure you would consider it fortunate that amongst the vast spells of indifference towards society, life and even yourself, there are these spurts of exceptional darkness and depth of feeling where you feel life… what you want and where you realize who you are…

So, as I was saying the lives of many a Bengali passes holding on to the support called Tagore… The last time I posted on my blog I realized that there are a few striking memories associated with some of my most favourite songs… some of the intense spells of bitter realizations, yet gratifying to be able to see… The hallmark of a good poem is is subjectivity and easy adaptability into the life of the reader… Somehow everytime I have associated my feelings with a song of his, I have hit upon a meaning… a new meaning… but a meaning that cannot be but the truth in the context of my life…

So let me tell you a few memories associated with this song…

Even now, as always, listening to the song sung by Debabrata Biswas, in the sombre melancholy of his voice I always think of death…

The first time I was posed with the thought of dying, I was horrified… I mean, all of us in some level of our layered consciousness severely repel the thought of dying… Some of us say, “I will not be aware when I am gone,”…. Yet others say, “ As long as I do not see a near one die” and yet others cling on so hard to the thought of reincarnation and supernatural power, that they reject even a conversation about death…

I am one of the underprivileged… My hopes in all these has suffered indignity at the hands of my logic… The first time I tried to think rationally was when I was on my terrace while watching a lifeless body… It hit me… It took me 4 years to come to any terms with it, and even the logic of life and the beauty it brings is not always strong enough to withstand the enormous pain of imagining a lack of consciousness…

I had sung the song then… I do not know towards whom…

The next incident was when I was asked to sing the song for a friend… this lady was 65 years old and a relative… yet she was my friend and often I have exchanged many a happy banter with her… This was towards her on her memorial service… My grandmom had often chided me with the lack of feeling in my voice… Though on that day I believe it was different… I had sung the song for a friend… I knew in a certain way what I meant…

Moving on to a few pleasant thoughts for the starved few out there… Presidency College, Kolkata had a very intellectual, pseudo-intellectual atmosphere… people could talk about anything… From Karl Marx, to Leibnitz to Newton to girls puffing on cigarettes and exchanging intellectually stimulating adult tapes…

Well all of us had our traits… mine was singing to an audience of friends, who though loved Tagore from the whole of their hearts obviously had nothing better to do at that specific instance of time…

Well it was an evening in college when ‘Milieu’ our cultural, and neo-cultural fest was being hosted… I had desperately wanted to impress a girl with my intellectual abilities by singing something deep… Yes, I had chosen the very song… It was quite unfortunate when after opening my eyes, I found to my heartache that only a few of my guy friends had remained, while the rest including her had vanished without trace…

It was much later though that I had sung the song for her… when I could actually relate towards her, and what I was singing… I guess there are very few people in life who know me, the way I would like to be known… I am indeed fortunate to have one such person… It often takes people their lifetimes in search of that someone… I know that through time we will continue…

And yes I have often sung the song for my grandmother… after she was gone… I don’t know whether I was really close to her then… However I know that I am much closer to her now, with the qualities I gained from her then… And yes her ‘gitabitan’ (book of songs) belongs to me, now…

With these experiences I have wanted to establish one thing… It is often not about the memories… If you think about it enough you will begin to realize that everything is ultimately in your head… Along with these memories, we grow… the framework changes and we begin to look at life in a new way...

Often the song is meant as a song towards ‘God’… Although an agnostic I too have a God… It is not wrong to hold on to something for peace… However I often feel that the finding ourselves and getting closer to our passions, our identities is the real true friend… The fact that we can consciously see and perceive and understand and realize… That is about being alive… being human…

To end I will follow up with my translation of the song without which the blog does not have a meaning…



Jibon maraner…




Across the boundaries of life and death, my friend
you are waiting…
In the solitary confinement of my limitless heart,
Your throne is covered in light
With endless hope and deep joy
I stand staring with outstretched hands…

The dense dark night
With her outstretched feet
Has brought upon the darkness
Like flowing ebony hair…

What is this song flooding all eternity
Flowing down from your melodious instrument?
Making heaven and earth meet in a war of music,
But getting lost in the ensuing melancholy sadness…

doore kothay doore doore...

doore kothay doore doore
aamar mon beraye go, ghure ghure...

je baanshite batash kaande,
shei bashitir shure shure...

je poth shokol desh paraye,
udash hoye jay haraye...
she poth beye kangaal poran,
jete chay, kon ochin pure...

dure kothay, doore doore...


Even after almost 4 years i cannot stop myself feeling miserably nostalgic when i hear this song... True to its title the song takes me back through the depths of time, into the darkness of the ever so walked alleys, both of my mind and Presidency College...

i have been exposed to various forms of music... However the closest to my heart shall always be the great composer Tagore... i have often spoken to the large potrait of his in my house... for he is the only one who understood me... or rather understood the facets of human emotion better than anyone else... everyone writes, but to be able to evoke and describe human emotions through mere words is the work of a master...

Although i have been exposed to his compositions from birth, due to the culturally rich environment of my home, i only truly started appreciating the real worth of his songs during college...

humans are programmed not to think, biologically... indeed it takes a great deal of effort to search for reasons for everything around us... thus my thought process also started quite late... but the enormity of Tagore's work was immediately established...

human emotions are complex mechanisms... whether the work of simple chemicals or a greater being, the 'soul', will always be debated... it is thus quite incredible how i have found a song composed by him for every mood i have ever been in...

Unfortunately this part of me is not explored so often anymore... i still remember sitting with a harmonium every morning learning more... learning not just his songs but more about nature, life and even myself...

i have profound memories attached with his music... my earliest memories go back to me running around the house and my dad singing in front of the harmonium after office... later my memories take me to being taught by my mother... mugging up songs like some school quiz...mugging the patterns of rising and falling notes and learning the way the language flowed without really understanding any of it... later it takes me to my grandmother... her voice held a passion that truly cannot be described... the songs used to come alive with her steady strong voice... people would often choke with emotion when they heard her sing... then comes my singing school and all the people i met.. people from diverse backgrounds who touched my life in ever so beautiful a way... then comes the innumerable duets sung by me and my sister to the audience of my grandparents, functions in my house... appreciation and criticism...

however finally came love ... love for an individual and his compositions... all through singing school i had realized nothing... however one such incident changed me for ever... during that unreciprocated love i learnt... i thought and i understood... for the first time his music set me free... my thoughts needed to no other medium of expression than his songs... the path was already there... he knew and he made it easier for so many of us to express our deepest thoughts and desires, our unbearable sadness and disappointment, our brightest moments and pleasures... He was always there... by my side... by our sides...

next came singing on the phone for the one person who mattered... honestly had Tagore not been there, i would not have been the person i am, now...

i still hold on to the 'gitabitan' (collection of his songs) which belonged to my grandmother... it was a gift from me and my sister towards her... now she is no more... however her feelings and mine are intricately related through the one book i still have...

to end this highly emotional blog, let me translate the song for all those who have not had the opportunity to know it, love it... believe me i am getting choked with emotion while listening to the song and going back into the dark through the aeons of time...

doore kothay doore doore
aamar mon beraye go, ghure ghure...

je baanshite batash kaande,
shei bashitir shure shure...

je poth shokol desh paraye,
udash hoye jay haraye...
she poth beye kangaal poran,
jete chay, kon ochin pure...

dure kothay, doore doore...




Far somewhere,
my mind wanders,

to the tune of the flute
that brings sadness to the wind...

the path that runs through all near and beyond,
and gets lost in the darkness of gloom,

seduces my hollow soul to travel
through to some unknown mysterious land...

far somwhere,
my mind wanders...

Celebration of life...

Non!
Rien de rien...
Non!
Je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien
Qu’on m’a fait,
Ni le mal,
Tout ça m’est bien égal!
Non!
Rien de rien...
Non!

These are the lines to one of the most beautiful and popular songs around the world, sung by a singer for whom the song could not have been more apt. Born in a brothel, mother a prostitute, addicted to morphine and died at the age of 47 of liver cancer…

It fills all of us with a sense of wonder at the lives these people have led… Which is why I have titled the article, a celebration of life…

Life truly is a great big celebration, and some people just get the party alive… It would require strength beyond the ordinary for a person to feel happy under the circumstances that is most often their life… However these people go way beyond… They also make our lives so much more fulfilling…

Ever think of it??? A Swiss Patent clerk, having failed most of his high school math imagining something as extraordinary and beautiful as Special Theory of Relativity… Out of obscurity these people rise… Until their worth is suddenly realized… and when it is we celebrate our lives through their creations…

The line between art and science often become obscured at critical thresholds… When Feynman came up with his diagrams it was aesthetically more closer to a work of art than just science…

So what does it take for these people to come alive… and help us along the way to celebrate life with them??? Can most of us even begin to imagine what these people go through everyday till the time when the world hails them and often causes them to shrink back into their shells… While people around most of the world are escapists, these people have a passion from which they possibly cannot escape… To them life is focused at one point… Their dreams are stronger than reality and everyday mundane reality bites them hollow… But do they give up… Of that we can never tell… We only worry about them that have been hailed by the media, guaranteed by society… Do we really look around us??? Or even within???

To quote a few more… Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Gia Carangi… All their lives have been restricted to ages of 30 and about… Could they not take society any longer??? Of being misunderstood at every step in their lives? The normal boring people with mundane work can only dance to music for an hour, attend a concert, see a few movies but can surely never understand the level of commitment and passion… We can criticize, challenge and even celebrate their interests, but how long can they take the dull society as the only ones to provide them with the bare necessity… of being recognized for what they are… Are they truly ever recognized…

Like the proverbial Howard Roark in Fountainhead, they have only the mirror to understand them, and does that ever work truly???

The song of course comes at the end of the movie ‘dreamers’… no title could have been more apt… Of course a striking similarity to ‘hazaaron khwahishein aisi’ was evident… Both masterpieces… Both talking about the pseudo-intellectual society… the passionless selfish, 2 minute fame wannabes…

The real ones are always hidden… in the crowd of the common… Once they rise though the celebration of life begins… And once it begins it is not possible for any force, to ever stop…

Song (translated)

No, nothing at all
I do not regret anything at all
Either the good that has been done to me
or the evil
everything is equal to me
no, nothing at all, no...
everything is paid, swept away, forgotten
I don't care about the past!
With my memories I lit the fire
My pains, my pleasures,
I don't need them anymore
My love stories are swept away
with their troubles…
swept away for ever
I'm starting on new bases
no, nothing at all...
Because my life, my happiness, today everything begins with you!"

Shallow Headed Nostalgia... & XIMB

Of all human mind exercises, to be nostalgic evokes some of the most mixed responses… every time it evokes a new feeling in a new setting… maybe the same thoughts at different instances makes one feel happy, sad, desperation and often brings about an appreciation of beauty… it makes one often reflect about life…

Right now its raining, the beautiful sight outside my window , looking out into the open green, the hazy picture being painted by tiny droplets of water, coupled with an Anjan Dutta song, today has brought about in me a sense of long lost romanticism…

One of the unfortunate aspects that seem to come across in most B-Schools is the lack of time that one has for oneself… Come to think of it, what kind of people is the normal B-School creating??? A person who can work for 18 hours a day for a week, 2 weeks and maybe in the ‘best’ B-Schools maybe a month??? But is that what we really want want???

Coming from Presidency, grilled through IITK, I finally seem to have found some peace here in XIMB… Amongst the innumerable hours of projects, assignments, quizzes, somehow this place has something above all… It has ‘Real’ people… People to whom life matters, the emotions count, and who on any day are not afraid to remove their masks and let the world see them as they see themselves in the mirror… Thus as I can proudly say that after an year at XIMB I know what the vision of the institute to create a manager with society in mind really means… Is it really important to work against your wishes for years on end without thinking about oneself… Being a rationalist I strongly believe that one life is all man has … One really exciting, beautiful life… Must we really sacrifice our self to mint money and then realize one day that there is no way in which it can be spent to bring happiness…

Going back to 10th standard Shakespeare, Nerissa explains to Portia in Merchant of Venice , how the happiest people have just enough… It is unbelievable how ones memory holds on to a few learning… she says “Superfluity comes sooner to those that have not and them that have too much”… Society would have truly been a lot better had everyone been satisfied with just enough…

We still have time… time to reflect, time to change…

I have been through many experiences, Presidency opened my eyes, IITK shook my self-belief yet strengthened my confidence… However XIMB has always seemed just right… It allows one and all to sharpen their personalities, strengthen their character, does not necessarily try to change any of that… What we learn is to ‘live’ life, and let others around us too… While most people just ‘lead’ their lives, I must say this is what contentment and happiness is derived from… To be at peace with one’s self and one’s surroundings…

Those of you, and I am sure there will be many, thinking about the apparent hypocrisy in my statements, I can safely say that enjoying life, without causing harm to the environment, is what makes us human… When all lower life forms are searching for resources to keep them alive, we can take a quite afternoon off and reflect on life, on society and the universe… Believe me as Feynman said life can never be futile simply because of the beauty it allows you to see…

Coming from the land of Tagore, and most lazy and brilliant romanticists I must refer a song ‘sokhi bhabona kahare bole’ an eternal song about love… love not tainted by being towards just an individual but love for all that one sees… In other words freedom of choice or free will is ‘God’s’ greatest gift to mankind… All the great poet ever asks for is some time to be happy… happy to just be… happy to realize what it means to be alive…

In the times of bomb blasts and acts of terrorism everywhere, I must say if the people with power and resources would just help to channelise what they have into the good of mankind, tomorrow will be a better world to live in… There is always enough to feed all… Before we decay as all civilizations have before us, we must consciously choose our path to freedom…

Signing off with Anjan Datta… “Shunte ki Chao tumi shei odbhut besuro sur, phire pete chao shei aanchan kora dupur???” or, “ Do you want to hear that weird piece of untamed music, get back that mysterious extraordinary afternoon”…

NOW & THEN...

Well let me wirte a bit about the naming of the URL... its a combination of two of the names I have used in my CS Profile... When I first started CS it was a treat... Having 30 guys on the same map the eve of the dreaded exams is a treat that cannot be forgotten...

One of the great things about self learning is that it is usually unpredictable... sure it might not be as technically correct but it sure brings the element of surprise... When I first started playing TT I had a friend as a coach... after 32 straight defeats I got my first victory... He stopped playing shortly afterwards... But after 5 years later it sure is great to realize that everythime I play a backhand the opponent is guessing... cuz the technically correct opponent has no idea of how under the most unbelievable of circumstances the ball comes flying back from impossible positions... Well its something like Physics, or for that matter something like all of our worlds...

I am amongst those who feel the world is different for all of us... A 5000 Angstrom of wavelenght but causing a sensory perception of green is extraordinary... So I believe that our understanding of the world the environment and our concepts are entirely ours... When a teacher teaches, he states facts about the world from his own perception... However exactly what it is in the mind of the student depends in the imagination of the student himself...

Its like the books that have been made into movies... The Harry Potter novel was something in our imagination, but to see the magic on the screen was something entirely different... Da Vinci Code similarly failed all expectations as it was not the way we had imagined it to be...

It raises the difficult question... The matrix scenario... Do we all see things around us in the same way... I know I call a certain colour green and the others do it too by association, but seriously is there any way to know whether you see a fainter green than I do or maybe see my 'red' instead...

Really troubling I must say... However its this strong belief in the general unification in which we all believe... We would rather like to hope that people see the same things as ourselves, just as the Physicists hope that the Grand Unified Theory will encompass all that has been ever discovered...

I guess religion is also intended for the same puropose... It simply provides a tool for all of us to see each other as friends rather than strangers... These days though it has become a tool for political violence...

Coming to the life and death yet again, it is seriously difficult to comprehend that there is no consciousness after death.. The pattern of the atoms in harmony that we know of life is broken... All the atoms are then left to fend for themselves, void of the unity that was me...

Of ghosts and angels, the stories are just a mechanism to provide hope I believe... Hope that all is not futile, fear that immoral acts will bear punishment... Really takes an effort to carry on with the daily soceital living inspite of seeing the void future... Thats when the beauty appeals... As Feynman said that the beauty that we have been lucky enough to percieve from such a high mental framework is all that you need to realize that life has given much more than death can probably take away...

RANTING WORKS...

Now...

As is darn evident from the title I just want to rant a bit... boredom is but the precursor to forced creativity... Also frustration and lost love too do work as excellent muses to apalling creativity... As they say in the vedas and in the words of the poets, from all destruction doth rise creation itself...

As you can definitely make out I am just a confused soul... God ( I am an agnostic... still...) wielded the 'Confundo' charm whilst I was being created... Unlike the children from 1947 midnight, I do not have any special powers I must confess... Believed I had though as a child much as we cling on to our faith of the super-natural...

A bit about myself... If anyone but the forced few are still willing to find out... I ( I quite like using the Capital I), though I would love to convince myself that I am no egoist..., am a confused, qualified (if degrees are anything to go by) Physicist, Half an MBA, a singer and a violinist... However as is very apparent I am perpetually confused...

Confusion is but the key to a carefree existence... take life or rather the events that make our lives as they choose to come... lucky for me I am not an outcast to society as of yet... which basically means good enough institutes (not mental, as much as u would like to believe) have always accepted me...

Even now I am confused whether the corporate life is for me, and if it is what in it is???

I guess the only thing I am sure of in life is the halo of the life I envy... I want to be successful (again confusion as to its definition, but basically I have accepted it to be when people like saying that I have done well), and have a nice family... People have been my truest faith in life... Whether we just remain as isolated atoms without the pattern of life after we die (am scared of death, of imagining the void, like the 'seventh seal' where Ingmar Bergman himself faced the notion of death face to face) , or not we as humans are lucky enough to 'feel' the beauty of relationships... Yes am quite sensitive as a person... and often embaress myself with outpourings...

Truly writing does help solve boredom...atleast till I do not get bored of it... :)

I guess as an inaugaration post I have done even my confused state of being proud... Will follow soon with a second post...

The next line is a marketing gimmick...

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