Evolution of Indian television?

Had been to N and A's for dinner. They have a subscription to a hindi music channel. I was excited to watch Indian television after eons but what followed was a culture shock. I mean what is Indian television headed towards really? What they try to portray by aping the west is not the real India....not the soul of the people or the essence of the culture. There are innumerable music channels playing the same songs which are either remixes or *inspired* hip-hop numbers. The videos look all the same, similar looking girls, similarly dressed (read skimpily) and similar dance steps (read obscene). Or the other channels run the never-ending saas-bahu soaps!
That set me thinking about the evolution of Indian television in my quarter life.
My earliest memories of television was Lucy on Doordarshan. I simply loved it as a kid. Then there was Yeh jo hai zindagi on Friday evenings and of course Chitrahaar on Wednesday evenings. That was our only choice and we were content. Our viewing was also restricted by mom. Ramayana/Mahabharata, Bikram or Betaal, He-Man, Spiderman, Quiz Time (Siddharth Basu rocked!) , The world this week and a few more was all she let us watch or all that was there to watch. 9 o clock news on DD (Salma Sultan was one of the news readers) was religiously watched.
At that time the possibility of having 50 channels seemed unfathomable. "50 channels, that too all night, you must be kiddin!"
DD2 arrived when I was in my teens....superhit muqabla was the first countdown show I had ever watched and it seemed like a cool concept. But very soon there were hundred other countdown shows and it lost its charm. Cable tv had just been introduced but it had the power of hampering our studies and so was kept away. Then one fine day dad realized that espn and star sports would let him watch sports 24/7, so we stepped into the world of more than 2 channels on television!
First few months I was addicted .... Wonder years, Crystal Maze, Mash, Bold and the beautiful on Star, Nonie and Danny McGill on Channel V, discovery channel, BBC , Star Movies ........
Hip hip hurray and Banegi apni baat on Zee I was hooked to too.
Later there was Mastermind, the Big Fight, Cyrus on MTV, Friends, Dharma and Greg, Mr.Bean and many more interesting shows which I enjoyed watching.
Down the years the influence of Bollywood percolated through all the channels ... and one fine day Ekta Kapoor conquered. Thus followed the downfall of Indian television. Well, downfall not for the profit makers and lot of the junta- the rising TRPs were evidence ... but for a sensible television watcher, it was a catastrophe!
Now television is a money making factory churning out serials from the same plot instead of the media of mass communication that it was intended to be..... very much like current newspapers, where Page 3 is the most read and the frontpage headlines include stories about celebrity affairs leaving space for important issues only in a small corner inside. And noone is to be blamed for this other than us - 'cause they make what we demand. They ape the west, we follow. They make run of the mill soap operas, we cry 'cause Mihir died. They portray women clad in small pieces of cloth, the stores start selling them. They copy songs, we download the ringtones on our mobile devices. They dance to our tunes, we dance to theirs. Fair enough!

Self assessment

Met up with P after work on friday to go for a movie. None of the movies in town seemed interesting enough so went for dinner instead. Margarita, nachos, pasta and an awesome desert called the Molten Chocolate Cake...it was sinful :). Had a late night *adda* at her place talking about various things ranging from serious topics to the not so serious ones. Slept on the drive back home and the inertia of sleep stayed with me the next day too. It was a sleeeeepy saturday.

Some realizations after the chat.... I am paranoid about the future and my ambitions, restless about achieving my goals, worry about something or the other all the time, don't share my deep down feelings with anyone .... and these things are not evident to anyone with whom I interact on a daily basis other than those who are close to me.

On some contemplation I realized why I am this way ..... one - don't want to drag anyone into my problems, they are mine..yes I can discuss but noone can be in my shoes so its entirely my responsibility to solve them, no point cribbing about them , two - I am heading towards being a perfectionist...this raises the bar of the standards I expect, be it in work or people or anything I am involved with , satisfaction does not come easily, three - ambitions which were ingrained into me in childhood are beginning to take shape and I am restless to get till the end, I need tangible results, four - in the bigger picture I don't see my contribution being significant enough..... what exactly am I on this planet for? writing code? I am on a constant search for inner fulfillment..... I know I will do it but when? five - I always compare myself to everyone around me, good or bad .... that makes me more ambitious.
I have to work on calming down, relaxing and taking life as it comes. Maybe I should dance and paint more often, they are an outlet of my pent up thoughts and unexpressed feelings which I feel noone will understand. Its meditation for me and I should start soon....now.

Twins are reborn

4 and 3/4 years back an attack planned by our fellowmen killed thousands of other fellowmen, ruined the families of many more fellowmen.....
When I visited the site in the middle of the night a year back in the midst of a bustling city I felt a lot of things that I hadn't felt when I had seen the incident on television....
I stood there looking up at the other mammoth structures above me and imagined standing there on that day witnessing a structure twice the height of the mammoth structures I was seeing, collapse, seeing people jump out of windows from 100 floors above, flame and fire, rubble and concrete, screams and sirens, blood and tears............
The area was surrounded by metal fences with pictures of the incident and the rescue process, there were numbers and facts written on boards for everyone to read but what caught my eye was a bunch of fresh flowers placed in front of those gates with a note that said "Happy Anniversary Honey - love you always"................
Today I read this.
Will they stand up again, fearless and majestic? Or will they be haunted by memories and scared of the future?They have a reason to.

Rainy days and errands

I hate paperwork! Running from one place to another just to get a signature?! Taking an appointment a week in advance just to submit a paper or get an approval. I mean why can't there be a simpler process?? Took an afternoon off today to complete the paperwork and nothing got done!!!! Was compeltely annoyed and to add to it it was ranining all day, continuously and I hate rain when I have to be outside running errands and when the edges of my trousers get sloshed with mud, eeks.

To vent out the frustration a lil bit, had a good meal of chalupas, did some shopping at Circuit city...A and I had been planning to get a cam for a long time cos our previous one wasn't working anymore and moreover ours was 3 years old, too ancient in comparison with the latest models in the market. After innumerable arguments about whether to buy the slimmer one or a bigger one, the trade off being the quality and features of course , after some market research and trying out a couple of them we decided on the canon sd450, small , less shutter lag, good quality pics and SD card. The only problem with these slimmer cameras is they don't take AAs, so we have to carry the charger just in case the battery dies.

To vent out a lil more of the frustration after the dragging day, had mango milkshake and listened to some awesome tabla and sitar jugalbandi on full volume.....that was truly relaxing.

Tomorrow is Friday , will have lunch with all the Indian ladies in our division. The invitation for the meeting was hilarious - "Lunch and gupshup" !

Whats with age!

Pool party at N's was great. Barbecue and a swim at 8 o clk in the night was crazy! Even crazier was the fact that we were not permitted to use the pool beyond dusk and that we set off an alarm trying to open a door and also while playing chicken in the water I sprained my neck! Totally crazy but enjoyable, certainly! (Brought out the child in us for sometime!)

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Watched That thing you do today. I had seen the movie before on Star Movies when I was in high school and at that time it had seemed like a nice movie. Today I just couldn't concentrate or enjoy the movie...the predictability of the story, the boyish faces, the teenagerish dialogs and cliched direction got me bored.....
Am I growing old?? (I know I am but this is a serious symptom, no more lovey dovey scenes or sob stories for me. Or maybe I have just matured as a movie watcher and critic. hmmm)

'Oceanic' music

Indian Ocean in concert was terrific! They played all my favorites: Kya Maloom, Hille re, Jhini re jhini, Ma Reva. The good part is that before they played each song, they outlined the meaning and the significance of the song and how they came up with it. Good instruments, great music, awesome lyrics: a terrific show all in all.
Their music is indeed extraordinary , the 'depth' of the lyrics, the 'vastness' of the variety of instruments, rhythms, vocals and the languages in which their songs are written, the 'versatility' of the members, the 'strength' of their voices, their 'cool' attitude and the 'liveliness' of their performance really made them live up to their name: Indian Ocean.
At the end of the show they left an open question to us: what would you call their music? world music and fusion is not what they wanted to hear ..something different. They mentioned that their music at one time seemed similar to sufi but it wasn't Sufi so they called in Loofy !
I think I would call it 'oceanic' because an ocean is beautiful, soul moving, inspiring, pleasing to the ears, a pleasure to watch, deep, meaningful, vast, versatile, strong, cool, blue and full of life - just like their music.

Eventful weeks

Its been a while ..... the past weeks have been hectic
A recap of what I did in the past few weeks:

Beach trip to Wilmington: long drive, sand castles, cold water, cheese sandwiches, sunsoaked siesta and sunset....beautiful

Weekend trip to Ashville, Smokies and Gatlinburg: Friday evening we arrived at Ashville. It is a small quaint town with a very lively and arty downtown. The city was awake till the wee hours of the morning. We walked down the roads watching street artistes perform, stopping at small coffee shops where people were seated outside and having a good time listening to live bands performing, the noodle shop where you could custom order noodles, a big standing iron where I posed uncountable times to get the right shot, and old and young couples walking hand in hand.
Saturday we drove through the Smokies to Gatlinburg. The smokies (Great Smoky Mountains, one of the most visited National Park in US) were beautiful in spite of being barren. They are renowned for their fall colors.... it was foggy and chilly and rained a bit, but the wetness added to the beauty. The smokies were inhabited by the eastern band of Cherokees till Europeans came to occupy their lands and a lot of them were forced to vacate. Some of their clan still live there having adopted professions related to tourism. So very often you can see Indians (or whom we Indians call red Indians) dressed in regular denim and t-shirts selling mementos and handicraft in small shops in the valleys.
Gatlinburg at the foothills of the smokies is a small town in Tennessee, a major tourist attraction. A small town with a lots of stuff to do.... Guiness Museum of Records, Ripley's believe it or not, Ripley's haunted adventure, sky lift, a huge aquarium, horse riding etc. There was a candy store which displayed the entire candy making process which was intersting. The popular food around the place was pancakes and donuts. Had a long and adventurous day.
Sunday we visisted the Biltmore Estates in Ashville - America's largest private owned residence - the same place where the movie Richie Rich was shot. and yeah it was H U G E! With over 200 rooms and 46 restrooms, stables, gardens, swimming pool, lawns,a pond, stables and even their own winery. The most interesting part of the house was the kitchen, pantry, refrigerator and laundromat - the technology they used in that era was fascinating. At a time when not every house had electricity the house had an indoor heated swimming pool! The views from the rooms were beautiful,peaks at a distance and lush greenery. Not only was the architecture or technology appealing, the history of the place was fascinating..... walking through rooms, hallways and staircases where a 19th century family resided, their lifestyle, incidents were a great experience. There was a flower festival in the gardens, got to see some beautiful tulips. An old man playing soft tunes on his keyboards in the wooden covered path amidst the flower beds added to the serenity of the place. The winery was our last stop. They walked us through the entire process of wine making , including distillation and fermentation. There was a wine library - a cellar where old wine stacked in shelves had been preserved for years. Then there was the wine tasting experience.... the connoisseur that I am (:), the only knowledge of wine that I have is that they are made from grapes and could be either white or red :D) .... first time I learnt the difference between chardonnay, reisling, chenin blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, chiraz etc. After tasting some nine different types I decided that I like the sweeter white wines ( now I don't remember their names :( ).
After the Biltmore tour we headed back home .... from a long relaxing weekend to Monday morning blues, from quaint beautiful small towns in the midst of mountains to city life and traffic.

Other than the trips the other events of the weeks include a new hobby: cryptic crosswords, some progress in my thesis, a party at J's place where we played taboo against the guys and defeated them (;-) ) by coming up with new strategies ("Sounds like pottery starts with L" hahhaa!!!) , a first round interview with my dream company which went well, some new clothes and a shoe sale, a surprise gift with a message hidden in an anagram engraved, ice age- the meltdown at the theatre with the kids, PI - a crazy movie, the thomas crown affair - same ol thriller, being cyrus - another evidence of changing Bollywood, zinda - let down compared to the original movie OldBoy one of my all time favorite thrillers, first time attempt to make capsicum stuffed with paneer, cleaning the closet, germination of the plants which we had sown in the beginning of spring and B's first attempt at DJ'ing under the alias DJ SnowGirl (hilarious)

That was a good recap, I think!!

Ambitions again..

As a child I wanted to be a teacher since they are the people I idolized ....I wanted to dress like them, talk like them, know everything in all the subjects like them, have the authority to scold other children like them :-)
Then came the doctor phase when I was gifted a doctor playset, complete with a stethoscope, a lab coat and a syringe. I remeber doing surgery on my stuffed toys, splitting their stomach with a pair of scissors, taking out some cotton and stitching it back with needle and thread. I used to apply Burnol over the cut to make it look like raw medicine applied over an incision. Erich Segal's Doctors contributed to that ambition.
Then one day I developed a fascination towards designing clothes. Liked the cool way in which figures were sketched and colors were splashed to make an outfit. Liked the idea of designing clothes with a theme or a meaning. I remember the trip to Paris was when I was at the peak of that ambition.
One fine day architecture occured to me. A perfect blend of creativity and mathematics. Fountainhead happened. It changed my way of thinking. Made me feel I could change the world with designs. Dad's friend was a naval architect and somehow that term sounded cool ...naval architecture was my ambition for some time.
For a very brief period of time I wanted to be a lawyer, the glamour and oratory skills of some of ma's colleagues impressed me but soon I realized I could not lie straight faced and usually lost all the arguments to my mom :(
Biology was my favorite subject and I thought I would make a good doctor till I went to submit my joint entrace form to a government medical hospital in Calcutta....there was a man who had lost his hand lying on a stretcher, blood dripping....there was a death in a nearby ward and the cries and howls of people filled the entire hallway .... I could not bear it .... I could not bear to see people in pain, suffering, crying ..... I realized it was the end of my dream. I would never make a good doctor. The dissection of toads in biology classes was something I could not get over, it used to haunt me in my dreams, made me nauseous at dinner. Medicine was removed from my list permanently.
Since I loved Biology and medicine was not going to work out I thought I'd take up genetics or microbiology and become a research scientist. But zoology/botany seemed the most boring subjects on the planet and soon I realized I would not be able to live my life working on animals and plants.
Economics attracted me once but soon turned out to be dry and materialism oriented.
Accounting class as an elective in 10th standard was fun but repititive.
Dancing brought out the best in me and I was perfectly happy doing it. But doing well in academics hindered the chances of taking up dancing as a profession.

Engineering was there at the back of my mind but I did not know if I really wanted to be an engineer...wouldn't it be dry and mechanical? I had never touched a computer till then.

I walked into engineering thinking that it would be like math and physics, interesting and philosophical. Some of the courses I hated, some I liked and some I loved and the rest is history ...

Today as I sit here coding and debugging I ask myself "Is this what I have come to this planet for? Is this going to be my contribution to the world? Writing software for corporate benefits, taking home a good pay packet, eating, sleeping and getting back to work again next morning? 10 years down the line where will I be? same cubicle maybe in a different company, may be here, maybe higher in the hierarchy managing people who do the same writing software for corporate benefits, taking home a good pay packet, eating sleeping and getting back to work again next morning.........."

I am starting my search for the right dream again..... a new list and a new set of ambitions

Decision after confusion

Today I took a big decision that could prove to be a turning point in my life .....
Today I tried diplomacy and learnt I am bad at it......
Today I re-learnt that honesty will never let you down .....
Today I realized again that there is nothing more peaceful than a clear conscience!
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Unwinding....

Today I had a long day, long enough to be saturated to the brim...one of those days when I forget about my meals, gulp down cans of diet coke, do not browse or chat or read the news, change my clothes in 5 secs flat, when the rest of the world outside the computer screen seems unfamiliar....
That set me thinking as to what are the things that I could derive the most comfort from....
1. An hour long hot shower with 93.9 fm or bubble bath with a book
2. A quiet walk by the lake
3. A phone call to my sis....complete entertainment! The conversation would include the description of an eventful day , about calcutta's weather, about complaints on how mom is partial with me, about the tv serials which everyone watches, about the times in the future when she is gonna come and stay with me and drive me nuts, about her friends' relationships, about dad's regularly repeated questions, about new entries to her shopping wish list from here, about how she never understands what I work on and study :) etc etc etc
4. A good movie
5. Cooking something new
6. Painting
7. ............ actually coming to think of it all I would do once the issue gets fixed is crash!!
Sleep is priceless!

Pattern Typing ?!!

I noticed that my handwriting has deteriorated .....it has almost reduced to scribbles now ...no orientation, sometimes slanting in one direction and sometimes straight, small and haphazard ..... after all those childhood years of pattern writing and writing with fountain pens on ruled exercise books and then of course the three hour long history exams on white sheets where we would even hesitate to give our fingers a break lest we run out of time since our scores depended so much on the presentation! Filling ink in fountain pens the night before school, initially with the ink filler and then the cartridges and the discovery of microtipped pens which wrote with ink but did not leak!
Keyboards and keypads have taken over ..... now I endeavour to speed up my typing, do not carry a pen/paper, prefer to make a note in notepad, address books, calendars or to-do lists or the even better the post-it notes software on the desktop, have forgotten my spellings, read vernacular languages at the speed of a tortoise, submit assignments in pdf, make drawings on paint, play tic-tac-toe or do crosswords online and when I have to jot down my thoughts I blog.
Are fountain pens headed towards extinction?

Streamed rabindrasangeet and memories

Today after aeons I decided to listen to some Rabindrasangeet ..... in the midst of floyd and kanye west and emran hashmi remixes the songs were a breath of fresh air ...... and hence begun a long journey down the memory lanes......
Dad listening to the voice of Hemanta on the our most treasured radio early mornings.... mom humming to it while getting us ready for school .....
The black and white Uttam-Suchitra movies aired on Doordarshan on Sunday evenings when the entire family including kalpona mashi would gather, munching on 'masala muri' ....those in the neighbourhood who did not have a television would peep through our windows to watch it :-) ..... ma commenting that the movies nowadays could not capture the subtle and innocent romance that could touch your hearts (considering this was a decade and a half back wonder what she would comment on watching Mallika Sherawat's Murder!!) .....
Rabindra jayanti programs in school when we would spend weeks practising and choreographing rabindrik dance to Tagore's songs, to pay him a tribute and remember his unforgettable contribution to literature .....literature, poetry, music reading and listening to which we all have grown up...... learning by-heart and reciting so many of his poems every year in Bengali classes ..... some of which we can still recall, surprisingly.......
The songs were sung over and over again by people....in singing classes where little children started with "Aalo aamar aalo ogo" since that was the easiest to play on the harmonium, dance classes where "Megher kole rod hesheche", "Momo chitte niti nritte" and "phoole phoole dhole dhole" were popular......from pujo functions to "Mor binay othe" on Saraswati puja, from basanta utsav to winter there is a song for every season ....collectively its usually called 'ritu rongo' ..colors of seasons ......
As I streamed those songs and listened on the head phones all afternoon while fixing my code ...... a sudden thought struck me.....if my children grow up in this country they will never experience those small things which brought us so much joy....they will never learn to sing and dance to Tagore's tunes or read shishu bholanath or beer purush ..... they will never know what basanta utsav is or the significance of wearing a yellow sari on saraswati puja ....or learn to sing a song for every season ...... they will also get lost in hip hop and rap and probably the only indian music they might like is desi bhangra remixes at clubs !!! :-( noooooooooooo!! I hope I never let that happen!!

My mornings and those dreams

The warmth of a blanket in which I've slept all night not letting go of me, the sunshine peeping through the drawn curtains, faint noises of other people in the house closing restroom doors and the alarm clock interrupting the climax of my early morning dreams - the typical start of my day.

The next few minutes pass away in a hurry...... quick shower, attire choices, hair brush, oatmeal packets microwaved in less than a minute, lunch packing, gathering the laptop, phone, bag, keys, employee id and a coat - thats the next phase which I accomplish all in 15-20 minutes flat :)

Will go to sleep now looking forward to my complicated, confusing, surprising, weird dreams which always leave me wondering.... sometimes I try to reason out how they might have been formed .... trying to analyze how one incident leads to something totally unconnected...try to figure out how different people, places, events get linked together.....some imagination, some reality .... a concoction of blatant truths, hidden emotions, wild imagination, subconscious dilemmas, unknown desires, known faces, set-aside thoughts, unrelated contexts and unanticipated endings!!

Do we realize how closely we are being tracked?

Was having a discussion about how Google is making itself omnipresent ...how it s tracking every bit of what we do, who we are, where we go, what we like/dislike etc to create a pattern that they will use as information for targeted advertising.... Its scary to think that they know so much abt us without our consent ...
Its not only Google tracking us on the internet, every company of which I may or may not be a consumer is tracking us, our purchase capabilities, preferences etc so next time they know what to advertise to us.
A few instances pointed out in the discussion:
-Mr.X buys stuff on clearance from company Y. Y makes note of what he buys, when he buys, how frequently he buys, how much he spends, where else he buys from etc etc etc.....instantly patterns get created and soon mailboxes are flooded with flyers from Y advertising only stuff which Mr.X can afford and which he might be interested in....
So don't be surprised if you and your husband receive flyers from the same company in your mailbox and they have the same contents but the covers are different, simply to attract the right attention!
-As soon as you call the customer service of any company, they track your records and determine how valuable a customer you are....depending on your worth you will be enqueued in order for receiving assistance, so if you have not generated sufficient business or don't seem capable of it you will end up with a higher waiting time!!
-As soon as you sign into a hotel you will be given RFID tags that will track you ....as you approach the bar counter you would have already been tracked and from your past records your favorite drink would already have been served

At this rate by the time today's kids are grown ups, every minute detail about them, their whereabouts, their preferences would be accessible.....SCARY!!

Can we consciously make an effort to avoid this?


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How much is in our hands?

How long do we want to live and is it in our hands how long we live? The other day I heard of someone who is in his 70's and wishes to live 100 years strongly believing that its in his hands .... he has been exercising regularly for 40 years and eats healthy and is a professor who is actively involved in his work .....
Today I happened to come across this article: soon millions will live until 100

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Incidents : I got lost again trying to find my way through the dark and confusing shortcuts of Raleigh ...its time to get a GPS honey :) He said that won't help, that I should get one fitted into my brain .... wonder if that can happen someday ....like a couple of centuries from now ...or like Nanz (our 7 year old nephew says) a zillion billion years from now ! Coming to think of it the earth won't exist zillion billion years from now.... life will cease to exist much much before that ....a planetarium show at the museum of science in Boston had an interesting show on supernovas which opened my eyes towards the fact that there will be a day when the earth becomes inhabitable, the sun's energy dies out .....the question is will we be smart enough to preserve our species by then? Will we be able to produce energy by then? Will we be able to artificially create life? Or can we encapsulate our earth from the perils of the galaxy? Don't know ...... jst wondering

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IIT graduates opt for contrasting careers

IIT Kharagpur placements

IIT graduates form political party 'PARITRANA' : an interview with them

What is fascinating is that its all happening at the right time....India has started prospering and if the rampant corruption at every level of the system can be done away with , there isnt much that can stop India from becoming a superpower.... this is exactly what we need now ....honest, courageous, educated youth who can reform the country ..... Go Paritrana!

Procrastination

Another Monday, another week.....the to-do list carried over from last week keeps growing ...the post it notes on my desktop glare at me ....yeah yeah I will do it.....
Sometimes I wonder what makes us procrastinate.....lethargy, unwillingness... if so why with the important tasks?.....we don't procrastinate watching a new movie in town or reading the new bestseller on stands or the checking the headlines or mails ....but when it comes to paying bills, doing chores, calling people ...
procrastination
well no point contemplating...I don't believe I am writing an entry on procastrination....finding reasons and excuses :)...ok lets get started now

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Last night I watched the superbowl for the first time ....and understood the game of football for the first time.....what I liked most about the game were the ads :D...
Superbowl ads.

India booming.........what makes me proud is that the economy has flourished because of the brains of the people in the country ...
Stock market record in India

Cool stuff :suggestions for Valentine's Day gift
Keyboard Handbag

Maybe I ll use this next time I chat with Mom, at least she wont say that I don't get to eat and am losing my glow :))
Appearance Enhancing Webcams

For a cool kitchen
Toaster

sunny afternoons after school in Calcutta

The sunny afternoons when I would return home from school after a tiring and noisy bus ride, drop the bag and waterbottle and run into my room, draw the curtains to make it cooler, turn on the fan and lie on the bed, eyes closed, to take some rest. Kalpona mashi ( our cook who had been with us since I could remember) would bring in some cool water melon juice and Bondie (my younger sister) and I would sit and relish it.
The balcony was my favorite place, I could sit there for hours watching the different kinds of people, their expressions, their lives...each had his own story. The school girls from the neighbourhood school returning home with their mothers, talking about how their teacher scolded a friend for not doing her homework and how the maggi in the tiffin box had become too cold by lunch time and how the test went well. The paan shop where they would stop and plead their moms to buy them cold drinks. The rickshaw wallahs taking a nap on their rickshaws despite the noise and heat. The ice cream vendors pushing their cart crying out 'ice cream ice cream' in a distinct tone that was recognized instantly by all the children like me in the neighbourhood. Instantly you could see little heads popping out of all the balconies, some lucky enough to buy one because they had the permission from their parents. Ma would always be at work at this time and Kalpona mashi was given strict instructions not to buy us ice cream since they affect our throats. Sometimes when the craving was too much we would look for coins that might be lying around in ma's dressing table drawer or baba's office table secretly. If we managed to make 2 rupees we would buy an orange candy and share. Bondie and I would fight over who would get the first bite.
There were other vendors like the ones who would buy junk at 25 paise per kg, ones who would re-fluff pillows and quilts, key makers, candy sellers and many more...their voices tired of calling out their profession repeatedly in order to make their daily bread...their sweaty feet tired of walking. All of them would stop at the paan shop for some refreshment, sometimes a smoke, sometimes just to rest for sometime under the shade.
There was this huge gulmohar tree right in front of our house where weary travellers and daily workers sought shade. The tree was my favorite. I loved to watch it grow.....the green leaves in summer which turned orange in autumn .... the small yellow flowers which looked prettier when they fell on the black tarred road flying in the air..... the branches which spread across the entire road connecting balconies from one side to another .... the crow nests and sparrows it housed and most importantly the way it stood....tall and majestic, wise with age. Ma told me that the seeds for this tree were planted when my grandfather built this house.
Sometimes we would play in the balcony, sometimes teacher teacher, sometimes hop scotch, sometimes ludo. There were times when I preferred reading, sitting under the clothes hanging on the rope to dry. Sometimes didu (my grandmom ,mom's mom to be precise) would be there to tell us stories which we had heard again and again. Sometimes ma would come home early and bring us cake from Kathleen and that was our excitement for the day. I don't remember waiting too eagerly for Ma other than those days when I had got my results and couldn't wait to tell her about it or if I had a tummy ache and needed her to give me the right medicine.
Some afternoons I would be too tired to do anything and try to sleep but Bondie wouldn't let me cos she wanted me to play with her. So everytime I turned off the light trying to darken the room she would come turn it back on. This would lead us to a fight and I would call Ma at work telling her to resolve the issue. Both of us would snatch the phone from each other trying to prove our point and she would try hard to be fair to both of us.
The noises, the faces, the voices, the scenes.... the afternoons are still distinct in my memories .... very distinct

Calcutta

I could not have summarised Calcutta in a better way......every word of this is true...is what I feel..is what I am proud of

Vir Sanghvi on Calcutta...

Most modern Indian cities strive to rise above ethnicity. Tell anybody who lives in Bombay that he lives in a Maharashtrian city and (unless of course,you are speaking to Bal Thackeray) he will take immediate offence. We are cosmopolitan, he will say indigenously. Tell a Delhiwalla that his is a Punjabi city (which, in many ways, it is) and he will respond with much self-righteous nonsense about being the nation's capital, about the international composition of the city's elite etc. And tell a Bangalorean that he lives in a Kannadiga city and you'll get lots of techno-gaff about the internet revolution and about how Bangalore is even more cosmopolitan than Bombay. But, the only way to understand what Calcutta is about is to recognize that the city is essentially Bengali. What's more, no Bengali minds you saying that. Rather, he is proud of the fact. Calcutta's strengths and weaknesses mirror those of the Bengali character.

It has the drawbacks: the sudden passions, the cheerful chaos, the utter contempt for mere commerce,the fiery response to the smallest provocation. And it has the strengths (actually, I think of the drawbacks as strengths in their own way). Calcutta embodies the Bengali love of culture; the triumph of intellectualism over greed; the complete transparency of all emotions, the disdain with which hypocrisy and insincerity are treated; the warmth of genuine humanity; and the supremacy of emotion over all other aspects of human existence. That's why Calcutta is not for everyone.
You want your cities clean and green; stick to Delhi. You want your cities, rich and impersonal; go to Bombay. You want them high-tech and full of draught beer; Bangalore's your place. But if you want a city with a soul: come to Calcutta.

When I look back on the years I've spent in Calcutta - and I come back so many times each year that I often feel I've never been away - I don't remember the things that people remember about cities. When I think of London, I think of the vast open spaces of Hyde Park. When I think of New York, I think of the frenzy of Times Square. When I think of Tokyo, I think of the bright lights of Shinjiku. And when I think of Paris, I think of the Champs Elysee. But when I think of Calcutta, I never think of any one place. I don't focus on the greenery of the maidan, the beauty of the Victoria Memorial, the bustle of Burra Bazar or the splendour of the new Howrah 'Bridge'. I think of people.
Because, finally, a city is more than bricks and mortars, street lights and tarred roads. A city is the sum of its people. And who can ever forget - or replicate - the people of Calcutta?

When I first came to live here, I was told that the city would grow on me. What nobody told me was that the city would change my life. It was in Calcutta that I learnt about true warmth; about simple human decency; about love and friendship; about emotions and caring; about truth and honesty. I learnt other things too. Coming from Bombay as I did, it was a revelation to live in a city where people judged each other on the things that really mattered; where they recognized that being rich did not make you a better person - in fact, it might have the opposite effect. I learnt also that if life is about more than just money, it is about the things that other cities ignore; about culture, about ideas, about art, and about passion.

In Bombay, a man with a relatively low income will salt some of it away for the day when he gets a stock market tip. In Calcutta, a man with exactly the same income will not know the difference between a debenture and a dividend. But he will spend his money on the things that matter. Each morning, he will read at least two newspapers and develop sharply etched views on the state of the world. Each evening, there will be fresh (ideally, fresh-water or river) fish on his table. His children will be encouraged to learn to dance or sing. His family will appreciate the power of poetry. And for him, religion and culture will be in inextricably bound together.

Ah religion! Tell outsiders about the importance of Puja in Calcutta and they'll scoff. Don't be silly, they'll say. Puja is a religious festival. And Bengal has voted for the CPM since 1977. How can godless Bengal be so hung up on a religions festival? I never know how to explain them that to a Bengali, religion consists of much more than shouting Jai Shri Ram or pulling down somebody's mosque. It has little to do with meaningless ritual or sinister political activity. The essence of Puja is that all the passions of Bengal converge: emotion, culture, the love of life, the warmth of being together, the joy of celebration, the pride in artistic expression and yes, the cult of the goddess. It may be about religion. But is about much more than just worship. In which other part of India would small, not particularly well-off localities,vie with each other to produce the best pandals? Where else could puja pandals go beyond religion to draw inspiration from everything else? In the years I lived in Calcutta, the pandals featured Amitabh Bachchan, Princes Diana and even Saddam Hussain! Where else would children cry with the sheer emotional power of Dashimi, upset that the Goddess had left their homes? Where else would the whole city gooseflesh when the dhakis first begin to beat their drums? Which other Indian festival - in any part of the country - is so much about food, about going from one roadside stall to another, following your nose as it trails the smells of cooking? To understand Puja, you must understand Calcutta. And to understand Calcutta, you must understand the Bengali. It's not easy.
Certainly, you can't do it till you come and live here, till you let Calcutta suffuse your being, invade your bloodstream and steal your soul. But once you have, you'll love Calcutta forever. Wherever you go, a bit of Calcutta will go with you. I know, because it's happened to me. And every Puja, I am overcome by the magic of Bengal. It's a feeling that'll never go away.

Vir Sanghvi, a veteran journalist who has been with several newspapers is presently Editorial Editor with the Hindustan Times.

To the terrorists...

What is it that make you guys kill innocent people? I wonder..... how far will this fanaticism take you? How long will you victimize souls who might even be unaware of your existence....small children, mothers, sons and daughters.How many a time will this story repeat? In how many households do you want this incident to occur where one fine day a loved one leaves home never to return again? You cant gain through someone else's loss! Is this what your religion really teaches you? Maybe you need a Mahatama and not a Mohammad!
To all of you out there committing these henious acts everyday .... to all of you who can behead a human and enjoy it.....to all of you who train yourselves to kill mercilessly ......you need to realize that you are not here on any mission to spread your religion by destruction......you are here to make this world a better place to live in....give your fellow beings ( and that DOES NOT mean ONLY your religious fraternity, though I dont think you are giving them anything better either) a better life , the next generations a better future........do something that will contribute to the supremacy of the human race...that will take us a step further in enhancement, development....
your blood and ours is not different ....they are made of the same RBC,WBC and platelets.......your mind and ours have the same level of complexity and maturity ....then why are you biased by an opinion that you are superior? What difference will it make to your personal life if you ruled the world or not?What do you want???
I dare you to reply......anyone of you.....have the guts come on and answer.
I hope and pray to your God and mine that someday you learn to value life, someday we live together peacefully without having to worry about whether our near and dear are safe or not, someday ..... you realize your foolishness, your immaturity, your sins ....someday....