Some Local "Wildlife" Photos

Once again I am too busy to post, with long hours spent away from a PC and proper Internet access. So once again it's time for another one of those "cheating" posts, where I write nothing but only post pictures.

My dragonfly photo was selected among the top 10 shots at my company's wildlife photography contest, so let me start with that photo.

Last Saturday my mother called me to the garden to see something strange that she had found there. I rushed out to find this strange moth sitting dressed in battle fatigues. I later found out that it is called the Oleander Hawk Moth (Daphnis nerii). My guess is that it hatched out from its pupa a few minutes ago.

Another strange fact that I discovered this Saturday is that some spiders have at least six eyes (Wikipedia says some have eight). In this photo you can see four robot like eyes in front. I noticed two at the back of the head as well. That explains Peter Parker's "spider sense"! By the way, this is a tiny wall spider less that a centimetre across and not a Tarantula or something like that.

Now some "wildlife" of the pet variety. A stray dog called Lali who comes to our house for leftovers gave birth to four puppies a few days ago. Three of them survive. We had a tough time keeping them out of our house on Sunday, since the gaps in our gate are too large to stop them and they don't even have the sense of what's right and what's not. In fact, it is almost impossible to scare them. Here's a photo of them trying to sleep on our front step, snuggling up to each other for a bit of warmth.
That's all for now I'm afraid. However, if we go by Anyesha's calculation, this post is about 4325 words long. I think that's good enough considering my busy schedule.

My Sky

I own a slice of the sky. I sit and look at it whole day, and sometimes whole night.

Correction: my company owns this slice of the sky, and they make me sit at a place where I can look at it.

My slice of the sky lies on the western corner. I can watch it through one half of a glass window that is about twenty feet across. There are thirty such windows on this face of our building, and my half on the fourth floor is the only portion that has the curtains moved back. Others prefer the fluorescent lighting.

When I reach office in the morning every day, the curtains are closed. The housekeeping staff likes to have it that way. Usually my day starts with moving the curtains aside and gazing out towards the sunlit buildings and lawns of my office and the sunlit buildings of Salt Lake City. As long as I’m standing, I can see the Anandalok Nursing Home, the State Government offices, the City Centre beyond that, and some tall blocks of flats in Ultodanga right at the horizon. As soon as I sit down at my cubicle, all these buildings vanish from sight and all I’m left with is my slice of the sky. I too, like the palm tree, feel as if I’m flying.

As the day progresses, the sun moves across the sky. I see crows pester kites in flight. And around 11:00 am, a red bellied aeroplane flies into my view from the right and follows a curved path towards the North West; it is so bright that I look up from my work everyday when it passes. In summer, I sometimes draw the curtains around this time to escape the heat. But not all seasons are equally hot.

During the monsoons, I have seen dark clouds forming on the western sky and spectacular lightning displays in my sky plot. I have seen Ultodanga getting drenched in rain while there’s sunshine around me. I have also seen the sun touch the top of the City Centre buildings and then slowly spread to the other parts of the city as a gloomy day turned bright. During the autumn, the sky turned a pristine blue, and pure white clouds floated about like huge mounds of cotton wool forming fantastic and often vaguely familiar shapes.

As the sun inches towards the western horizon in the afternoon, the first rays hit my table and my face. If it’s a hot day, I close the curtains for some time. I always remember to open them in time for the sunset. If the day is cloudless, the sun sinks down as a huge orange ball. If the sky is cloudy, I get to see the most spectacular sunsets. Birds fly home around this time, or a little later. Crows, kites, mynahs, maybe flocks of parrots and pigeons. Often a pair of mynahs will land on my windowsill and decide to settle some argument then and there by chirping loudly. Sometime a flock of wild geese will fly overhead, flying in a V formation. Swallows will dart in all directions. Some jet planes will fly very high over Kolkata, glittering like diamonds as the low sun’s rays catches them, leaving white contrails behind them if the weather is cooler. Sometimes people fly kites, but that is rare in this part of Salt Lake.

Soon after sunset, the light decreases rapidly. If I stand up and peer down, I will see that the lights on our lawn have been switched on. The city lights up even before the sky turns dark. And as the sky turns dark, do I see stars through my window? No! As the outside world darkens, my sky turns into a mirror, the window pane reflecting the room where I’m sitting. Unless there is a lightning storm or a fireworks display going on outside, the only way to see the sky now is to press my eye against the window.

Actually no. There is something else which is visible. On a night like tonight, when I have to spend the whole night in the office, the moon shows itself towards the end of the night, as it retraces the sun’s path across the sky. When I look towards the window, I see the moon hanging from the ceiling of my cubicle there. And if like tonight, the night is a full moon night, the moon will stay late enough to fade into the morning light before it sets. Then as the early birds start looking for their worms, the sky shows a hint of light. If I walk across the building and look out through one of the eastern windows, I’ll see that it’s already bright that side. In a matter of seconds, the west catches up with the east, and a pink glow spreads across the horizon. As the moon seems to turn transparent and vanish behind this glow, the tops of the tallest buildings of our office block catch the first rays of dawn. The golden sunlight spreads downwards pretty fast until it floods the lawns and everything around them.

So that’s what I get paid for. Sitting in my seat and looking at the sky. When I get bored with it, I turn towards my PC and write blog posts. That’s a nice job, isn’t it?

What A Sunday!

The original purpose of starting this blog (as suggested by my friend Rohit) has to be fulfilled sometimes, and I guess today was one of those days. I got up at 5:00 am and started from home at 5:50. After exactly 44 minutes of brisk walking I walked through the gate of my office. And I walked out at 8:00 pm. It was one of those days that makes me wonder why I'm doing what I'm doing. Over the past one month, the average number of hours that I have spent at office has constantly been over 10.5 per day. But over thirteen hours of work on a Sunday, surviving on junk food and that too starting before seven in the morning! This takes the cake for sure.

I hope I can visit my home next weekend, or I'll go mad at this rate.

The Bandh Season Arrives

October has come and gone, as it does every year. It brought with it the festive season. The City of Joy prepared itself for the celebrations, for with the onset of the cooler season comes the major festivals like Durga Puja, Lakshmi Puja, Kali Puja/ Diwali, Bhaifonta, Jagaddhatri Puja, Kartik Puja, Christmas and... Bandh.

Bandhs, or strikes, are as integral a part of the Kolkata culture as hand-pulled rickshaws, Durga Puja or Rasogollas. The political party calling the bandh may be insignificant, but half the city will come to a standstill. And if the party is influential, then it's a grand affair complete with stone-pelting, bus-burning and on-the-road cricket matches. When my family shifted to Allahabad twenty years ago, we were surprised to find that strikes had no effect in Allahabad. Be the strike be citywide, statewide or countrywide, be it called by the ruling party or the opposition, it never affected our daily life. In the last twenty years, there have been hardly a couple of effective bandhs in Allahabad. Not so with Kolkata. A bandh in Kolkata is always successful.

Years ago, it was the CPI(M) who had started the tradition of calling bandhs. Today, 'bandh' is the favourite word of Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee. SUCI, Congress and BJP also join the bandh-wagon whenever they can. In reality, the party ideology does not matter anymore. If the party is working in West Bengal, it will call bandhs. And then there are the bus drivers' union, auto drivers' union, transporters' union and taxi drivers: whoever has any influence in the day to day functioning of the city calls bandhs from time to time. Effects of these bandhs are often terrible. Railway traffic, both suburban and long distance, grinds to a halt. Flights get grounded, and all this means harassment for the poor commuters. The party workers, however, are least bothered. What better way to spend a cold winter day than picnicking on the sunny railway tracks outside the city? This is the primary reason why the bandh season coincides with winter, for holding up trains in the summer heat is not fun (pity they can't do the same with the air conditioned metro railway during the summer days due to that stupid third rail). Another very interesting coincidence is that most bandhs are called on either Fridays or Mondays or adjacent to some other holiday.

With the IT companies flocking into Kolkata since the onset of the new millennium, the state government finally realised how harmful bandhs were to the city's image as an IT destination. Many of the IT companies in the city lose hundreds of thousands of dollars if they have to shut down for a day. The opposition parties did not want to let go of this weapon to embarrass the government, and yet, they did not want to appear anti-progress to the people. So the current trend is calling a bandh such that the IT industry is exempt from it. However, that is just a stupid lie meant to fool the people. How are the IT professionals supposed to come to work if the buses, trains, taxis and autos are not exempt from the bandh? Ideally, the party workers are supposed to let cars pass if they are carrying IT professionals. In reality, they often attack IT company vehicles, and if they are very non violent, they at least deflate all the tires. So much for the 'exemption'.

The winter of 2007 looks quite promising as the issues of Singur and Nandigram don't seem to be settling down any time soon. Last week we had two bandhs, and this week one which was supposed to be 'indefinite' (Ms. Banerjee always bites off more than she can chew). The indefinite one lasted 24 hours and had to be hurriedly withdrawn sensing the irritation of the people. But during those 24 hours Kolkata was paralysed. Some IT companies had declared a holiday and some had temporarily shifted their operations out of the city. Point to be noted: this bandh was called on the Monday after the three-day Diwali weekend.

I am not saying what happened in Nandigram was right. But there are other ways of protesting than immobilising the city. People can protest by creating awareness through writings and peaceful demonstrations. The opposition parties, if they are looking for a solution to the problem (which they are not, by the way) should try to solve it through discussions with the government. Everybody should remember, preventing people from working cannot be an acceptable practice in any civilised society and especially in West Bengal since the state is already infamous. If this practice is not stopped soon, the working people will leave for places where they are allowed to work in a better unhindered way.

The Sunday that was almost ruined

How to ruin a Sunday?

For me, yesterday, that is November 4th 2007, was already ruined around ten days ago when my boss told me that I would have to come to the office on that day. It was all the more painful because there was a "Bijoya Sammilani" feast organised by our para pujo committee and attending office meant missing the feast in Hooghly. Also, the fact that my mother called up and told me that there was a lovely exhibition of photography going on in Hooghly and that my aunt had come to visit with all kinds of goodies available in the market didn't help matters much. "So let me make the most of this ruined Sunday", I thought, and proceeded to make grand plans for the day.

By the time I was finished making the plans, it included going to Chandni Chowk to buy a new RAM for my PC, then going to New Market to buy a few gifts for my sisters, then visiting the Oxford Book Store at Park Street to buy a book for myself, and finally, reaching Victoria Memorial at 3:00 pm to attend the 3rd meet of the Flickr Bangla Community members. Just when I had convinced myself that all of these activities were more important than visiting Hooghly after my office was over this Sunday, Murphy's Law kicked in, and my office was cancelled. However, I had made plans, I had already promised people, and now I would have to stay here.

I woke up at 5:30 in the morning. Yes! On a Sunday! I had some cleaning work to do, and I wanted to finish them off before the maid came at seven. So after completing everything, I waited for the maid who did not turn up. Then I had breakfast and set out on my day long excursion at 10:30.

At the bus stand, fifteen minutes passed but the bus to Esplanade was not coming. Suddenly, a brilliant idea struck me. I took the next bus to Shovabazaar so that I could catch the Metro to Chandni Chowk from there. All the way on the bus, I patted myself on the back for this idea, and also cursed myself for not having thought of this before. Then I alighted at Shovabazaar, looking very pleased with myself and stepped up to the closed shutter of the Metro station. I had forgotten that on Sundays, the Kolkata Metro operates from 2:00 pm.

Cursing the Metro Rail Authority, I took a bus to Chandni Chowk and got down at a point very close to the shop I wanted to go to. The pleased-with-myself feeling had almost come back when I discovered that the shop was closed on Sundays.

I have often noticed that I have a strange and inexplicable power to influence the weather. I just have to take out my camera to take some outdoor shots, and a fine day will turn cloudy in a matter of seconds. Yesterday was no exception. Still, I continued taking photos, so it started drizzling. The only thing that prevented it from pouring was the presence of a large umbrella in my bag. I did not find the gift items I was looking for at New Market, so went and had lunch at Aminia. So far, nothing had worked for me in the day.

Next stop was Oxford’s at Park Street. By now, I was sure of the outcome, and it was no different from what was expected. They did not have the book I was looking for, but if I would be kind enough to write down the name of the book for them, they would be pleased to try to order it for me.

Finally I was walking towards Victoria Memorial, for the most exciting programme of the day. It was about quarter to three when I reached the base of the Queen’s statue and found Mandar pacing around. I knew him from his profile photo on Flickr. After the initial niceties were over, we proceeded to do something that probably even Mamata Banerjee wouldn’t dare: we put up two bold orange posters (courtesy Mandar) within the Victoria Memorial premises. People started dropping in, by ones and twos and soon there was a fairly large group of people chattering away. First there was Chirag and Shamim, then Anirban, Keka, Abhijit and the others joined. An interested German gentleman peeped in, and soon found himself facing an enthusiastic Loken Sir teaching him how to read Bengali from a ten rupee note. I’m sure he knows the words “Dash Taka” by heart now!

Mandar had brought his binoculars for bird watching. Soon they were doing the rounds of everybody’s hands. It seemed everyone had suddenly developed a sudden fascination for ‘birds’. Then the heavyweight cameras emerged, and I and Keka discussed whether we should hide our point-and shoots. Anirban’s Nikon D200 was of course the champion camera, but the others were also nearly as sophisticated. Everyone had large telephoto lenses that were promptly fitted onto the bodies and again, a large number of tele shots were taken. I wonder what’s there in those cameras.

Mr. & Mrs. Shyamal Chatterjee arrived at last. Our feet were aching due to walking on the pebbles, so we sat down on the steps of the Memorial building. Mandar’s camera went all queer in the head and started concentrating on post processing rather than taking the photos. With much difficulty, Mandar persuaded everyone to stand for a group photo, and I had the audacity to place my tiny Sony CyberShot DSC W5 next to Anirban’s giant Nikon D200 for taking the group photo in the self-timed mode. By that time, the guards at Victoria Memorial had started blowing whistles and shoo’ing people away as the cleaners started sweeping the steps. We walked to the back garden, and from there we went to the Citizens’ Park. Through there, we went to the academy of fine arts across the road. An exhibition of photographs was going on there and Raghu Rai was supposed to come.

Raghu Rai didn’t turn up, or maybe he had left. In any case, we saw the photos, had a cup of tea each and bade farewell to some of the members who had other engagements elsewhere. Then we re entered Citizens’ Park for photographing the musical fountain show. I had forgotten to bring my tripod from Hooghly, and had to be satisfied with whatever photos I could get from the camera handheld or propped up on my bag.

Then it was a short walk through Nandan to the Haldiram’s outlet opposite Exide where we had heavy snacks (it was dinner for me) and headed home by metro. When I reached home at quarter past nine, my legs were aching badly (they are still sore), but thanks to all of my Flickr friends, my ruined Sunday had turned into a very enjoyable and memorable day for me.

Durga Pujo - II

Legs aching due to hours and hours of 'pandel-hopping' on foot, eardrums throbbing with the way-above-65-decibels sound of the 'dhak', eyes watering from the billowing smoke of the burning 'dhuno' (incense), and heart heavy with the thought of Her imminent departure: this was my condition as I sat in my colony Pujo pandel during the Nabami (20th October) evening 'arati'. And yet I was immensely enjoying every moment of it.

This year I enjoyed Pujo a lot. My pandel-hopping started on Panchami itself, as I wrote in my previous post. On Shashthi morning I took my sister to see some of the pandels in North Kolkata. We visited Kumortuli, Kumortuli Park, Baghbazaar, Shovabazaar and the Shovabazaar Palace. Kumortuli had the best idols. Kumortuli Park was the worst, I dare say. They had worked upon an idea that nobody would comprehend, and implemented it in the most viewer-unfriendly fashion possible. Pushing through the crowds on tiny viewing balconies, you could just manage to look down into a huge dark cylindrical chamber with water below. The bronze coloured statue was placed below there. I deliberately used the word 'statue' rather than 'idol'. Ten goddesses with two hands each hardly compensate for one with ten hands. And where were Her children?

Baghbazar Sarbojonin had their typical traditional idol. One strange thing that happened was that I met the gentleman whom I had photographed taking photographs of the flooded streets a few weeks ago. We talked this time. He is indeed a photojournalist. The Shovabazaar Palace Pujo is celebrating its 250th year this year. It had the atmosphere of a typical home pujo. I took a lot of photographs at all the places.

The evening was devoted to Salt Lake. We walked and we walked until we could walk no more. AG Block, AB Block, BE Block (East) and Labony were good among the ones that we saw. BD had a green coloured idol bathed in green light and it looked positively odd. About the so-called "Harry Potter themed FD Block Pandel", well, the less we say the better. If Rowling saw what they had done with her characters, she would probably disown them. Dumbledore in muggle clothes! Gah! What will we see next?

On Saptami morning we left for Hooghly. The rest of my holidays were spent in my hometown. Here too, we walked a lot. The pandels worth mentioning are Hooghly Beguntala (better than anything I saw in Kolkata this year), Rathtala, 3 No. Gate, Chinsurah Akhanbazaar and Peyarabagan. The Peyarabagan idol was a magnificent affair completely made of wood. Again, I took a lot of photos which can be seen here.

But the most time was spent in Mitrabagan, my locality. As I wrote before, it was almost like a home Pujo... my mother cooked the bhog everyday, we contributed flowers from our garden, when we did not like the music being played we took CDs from our house and played them instead. The best part of this Puja is the lack of the outside crowd. The whole colony ate bhog together on the Nabami afternoon. We spent the evenings in peace, sitting or standing at the pandel. Peace, of course, means amidst dhak-beats and dhuno fumes.

The days passed quickly... a bit too quickly. Soon I was standing in front of Ma Durga on the Dashami evening. She was about to be given a grand farewell by the ladies of the colony. I spent the last two Pujos at Hyderabad. Who knows where I'll be next year? I looked at her face closely, trying to take in every detail. I'll see her only in these memories for some time to come.

Since yesterday I'm back at work as usual. The Internet was slow, so I couldn't upload the photos earlier, and the post got delayed accordingly. I'll be busy this week visiting relatives' houses and touching their feet for Bijoya and earning sweets in the process. See you after that.

Ah yes, I wish all of my readers and their families a Very Shubho Bijoya!

Durga Pujo - I

This is insane. The whole city seems to have gone berserk.

Yesterday was Panchami, and Panchami is supposed to be the day when Durga Puja has hardly started. Many Puja pandels aren't even inaugurated by Panchami. So, I thought that if I went to see the Pandels in Kolkata late on the Panchami night, I would be able to avoid the crowds. By what I saw, however, it was evident that everyone else in Kolkata had the same idea. So when I reached Kasba Bosepukur at around 9:00 pm last night, there was a traffic jam that started two blocks before the Puja pandel.

Everyone in Kolkata seemed to be out at Bosepukur. On top of that there was a TV crew filming some roadside reality show there. The pandel itself was, er... a bit beyond my comprehension (like modern art). I didn't understand what they have intended to depict. I also didn't understand why people were religiously throwing coins into a decorative pool in the middle of the pandel. Anyway, after photographing the surprisingly small doll-like idol I proceeded on my way.

This year the artistic doll-like idols seem to be in fashion. Or it could be that I was out of Kolkata for so long that I did not know that these idols have been in fashion for some time. Salt Lake AD Block, where I stay, has one of them. It looks lovely though, as does their pandel. The idol at Jodhpur Park was also somewhere midway between traditional and artistic.

Speaking of Jodhpur Park, I reached there after 11:00 pm last night, and if anything, the crowd seemed to be several times the evening crowd at Bosepukur. There was already a queue for entering the tiny pandel (which is a lovely work of art) and some lights had broken due to crowd pressure. If this is the situation on Panchami around midnight I shudder to think what that place will look like on Saptami or Ashtami evening.

I didn't stay much longer after that. Walking was difficult due to the crowd, and buses were already very few, so I caught a cab and returned to Salt Lake around 12:30 am. Even the cab driver asked for extra money.

Today my sister is coming to Salt Lake and we plan to see a lot of pandels together. I have already seen a couple of them by myself and I really liked some ideas. For instance, the floating lights at AD block. I don't know whose idea it was, but that person should have been consulted by the FD Block Puja Committee before they attempted to make floating candles for their Hogwarts Castle. The much hyped Hogwarts Castle is also a magnificent pandel, but its beauty lies not in details but in the clever lighting that they have used. I'm sure during the day that pandel will look pretty ordinary apart from the fact that it is huge.

Tomorrow morning I'm leaving for Hooghly and I'll spend the rest of the Durga Puja there. I'll be back on Monday the 22nd with more details of Durga Puja of Kolkata and the suburbs. Till then take a look at the photos that I have already taken.

Kumortuli

That’s the name of the place in Bengali. Loosely, that can be translated as “Potters’ Alley”. In spite of what the name might suggest, the people living there are not heroes of wizarding tales. However, they are not mere muggles either.

They are wizards of a different kind. They are humans who shape gods.

Unless one visits this tiny lane in Northern Kolkata between Shovabazaar and Baghbazaar close to the river, one can never imagine that such a place could exist in the world. Or as the great Shibram Chakraborty would have put it, “You could have still believed it if you didn’t see it with your own eyes, but once you see it, it’s impossible to believe.” This unbelievability stems from the fact that the place seems to be extremely small for any decent work, and yet, hundreds of clay idols are made there throughout the year. Kumortuli is the nerve centre of the idol making industry in Kolkata.

A typical studio in Kumortuli is, say, ten feet wide and twenty long (though some are longer) and ten feet high. Within each of these tiny studios you will find anywhere between five to ten full size Durga idols, not to mention the other gods and goddesses. They have to be kept so close to each other that their hands touch. They are so high that their heads are close to the ceiling and the artist has to climb on a stool or a small ladder to work on the face. The interiors are so cramped and dimly lit that a person like me would find it difficult to do anything there, let alone artistic work. Yet, these people are creating hundreds of clay idols inside these very rooms, many of which are larger than life and breathtakingly beautiful. And yes, most these 'rooms' are nothing but temporary shelters made of bamboo poles and polythene sheets.

They can't look at their idols from a distance, and yet the idols are perfectly proportioned. They paint under dim bulbs, and yet it is impossible to find one flawed line in an idol. The details are amazing: the jewelry and garlands of Durga (wherever these are made of clay), the muscles of Mahishasura, the teeth of the lion, the markings on the snake. In some of the larger studios, they have even created a loft kind of place that serves as a second floor to keep even more idols.

Kumortuli is also the home to other Puja related artisans. The idols have to be painted, dressed, and hair has to be attached. Ornaments and pandel decorations made of paper and pith and metal foil, or these days, of thermacole and plastic and fibreglass are also made here in Kumortuli. As I watched a man create a crown by patiently attaching small pieces of shiny plastic one by one on a stiff paper base, I wondered how much time it takes to create a single crown. And then there are thousands of them to be made. Clearly, the work goes on throughout the year.

"Did you make all of them inside, or did you put them in after making them outside?" I asked a man who was relaxing outside his studio which was packed with lovely idols. "Inside, of course! How can we make them outside?" he replied gruffly. I hastened to make amends, by saying that I can't understand how they could make such beautiful idols within such a confined space. "That's what our job is," was his smug reply. I can't blame him for getting irritated at some ignorant fool with a camera who asks him silly questions, especially when he is relaxing. All of them have to work very hard and yet find it difficult to make both ends meet. Most of them are quite accustomed to photographers and a few even enthusiastically encouraged me to take photos. One person also asked me if I was looking for an idol to buy.

When I went there (September end) most of the idols had already taken shape and were either being given the final touches, or being painted. However, there were some in various stages of completion, ranging from just straw figures to unpainted headless bodies. The idols are made like this: first a frame is made with bamboo. Then the figures are given shape with straw. A layer of clay mixed with little straw pieces is then used to cover the straw. After this dries up, progressively smoother layers are added and cracks are filled up. The heads are made in dies, and then touched up after being attached to the bodies. Then comes painting. These days, many artists use spray paint for the base colours. Brush is used for the details. Then hair, mane, fur etc made from jute strands are added, and the gods and goddesses are dressed up with clothes and the ornaments. In some cases (like the one in the photo above left) the hair, clothes and ornaments are also made of clay. In this video below you can see a man making clay fingers using a technique that seems incredibly simple. I'm sure I couldn't make such realistic fingers even if I tried for years. (I know YouTube videos are blocked in many offices. This is for the people who can see it).

My time was short. I had to leave for Hooghly soon, so after spending about an hour and a half in Kumortuli, I left for the Shovabazaar ferry ghat with my sister. However, spending this time among these people was a humbling experience for a person who earns his salary by Ctrl+C-ing and Ctrl+V-ing the Internet. I felt myself echoing what my sister said: "We spent whole of our lives studying useless stuff, but learnt nothing worthwhile, like making figures out of clay."

[Update: You can view the photos that I took here. I am also including a link to an album by my friend Souvik who went to Kumortuli about a week after me and captured the idols at a more advanced state of completion.]

Water, water everywhere

It started with a windy shower on Friday afternoon. My colleague Sanjukta informed that South Bengal had experienced severe stormy weather and the temperature had dropped a lot there (her brother works there). The evening remained overcast as I returned to Hooghly for the weekend. At 2:00 am there was a most violent storm, as my parents told me later. I was, of course, un-wakeable at that hour.

Saturday morning was dark and gloomy, with occasional rain and constant stormy winds. The rain became continuous towards the evening. It rained whole night and non-stop throughout Sunday, so that by the evening, many roads in Hooghly were submerged.

I was looking for an excuse to sleep late on Monday. Normally I have to get up at 4:00 am if I have to come to Kolkata by a relatively empty train. That night, I decided to take a wait-and-watch policy. Often trains get cancelled due to the rain, so there was no point in getting up at an unearthly hour unless I know for sure that the train will run. Also, we had heard no trains passing since Sunday evening.

On Monday, I finally left home at nine. The rain sometimes slowed down and sometimes speeded up, but it never stopped. As I got down at the Bidhan Nagar Road station, I realised what the situation in Kolkata was.

The higher points in the road were under knee deep water. In the Ultodanga underpass the water must have been waist high, but it wasn't possible to judge correctly because nothing was plying there. The autowallahs were taking advantage of the situation and asking four to six times the normal fare. As an aside, I want to add that the auto drivers are some of the filthiest and meanest creatures that pass by the name 'human'. They are constantly on the lookout for ways to harass the passengers and extort money, and the slightest protest leads to altercation and even physical assault in some rare cases. There are certainly exceptions, but they are too few in number to affect the validity of the generalisation.

Anyway, I had decided not to pay the auto drivers the extra money (when I need to spend some money, I prefer to take a taxi) and so waded out onto the road. I had rolled up my trouser legs and was wearing sandals as I had anticipated this situation. The water was up to my calves on the pavement. However, I soon realised the main problem of walking there was not the depth of the water. The pavement had been dug up for some repairs, and the whole place was a mess of upturned bricks and potholes where the water was up to my knees. One false step could result in falling face first into that water, bag and all. After the excruciatingly slow progress through this treacherous terrain, I reached the overbridge to cross the road. En route I saw that all the roadside shops had ankle deep water inside them.

Once I was on the overbridge, of course, I did the most natural thing: I took out my camera and started taking photos. I wasn't alone in this activity. There was one gentleman with a large Nikon SLR who might have been from some newspaper, and two others with a video camera and a mike who were from the Bengali TV Channel "Ne Bangla". It was raining all this time, of course, and so everyone had a tough time trying to keep their equipment dry.

On the other side of the overbridge I again waded through ankle and calf-deep water to reach the bus stand, from where I luckily got a bus directly to my office. I reached office around a quarter to twelve. It continued raining the whole day, and I had to spend this time in my damp clothes. There were very few people in the office, and the AC felt even colder due to this fact. In the evening, it was raining pretty heavily when I set out for home with my two friends Debanjana and Suman. There were very few buses and taxis, and we found none that could take us home. So once again it was a one kilometre walk through ankle and calf deep water to reach Karunamoyee, the main crossing near our office. Karunamoyee had water just under our knees, and every passing car or bus created mini tsunamis that threatened to reach up above our knees. From there I luckily got a bus that took me near my house, and I although I found ankle deep water on the roads of my block, it was a cakewalk after what I had gone through earlier in the day.

The others were not so lucky. From Karunamoyee Debanjana had to walk around another two kilometers and Suman another twelve kilometers to reach their respective homes. Suman even had to walk through waist deep water for a stretch of the road. It was a terribly scary situation, he says. He was walking all alone through waist deep water, and large branches and all kinds of other things were floating around him. There was not a soul to be seen on the road, as the Twenty20 World Cup final between India and Pakistan was being played at that moment. Even if a snake had come floating up to him (snakes are quite common in Salt Lake) he would not have had any place to run. He reached home three and a half hours after leaving office.

As for me, I reached home and watched the ball-by-ball text commentary of the final (furiously refreshing the page whenever I heard a shout from next door), and fell asleep after having dinner. On Tuesday morning it was still raining, but it stopped after a while, and the water started receding from most of the places (and also increased in some low lying regions). Even last evening buses were less and I had an argument with an auto driver because he demanded more money even though we were travelling on a dry route.

Today has been a sunny day, although in the last half hour or so it has become cloudy again. I really hope the rain does not start once more, because this is now beginning to get on my nerves. Besides, I have to do some Puja shopping as well.

Durga Puja Approaches

It’s that time of the year again, when the sky turns blue, and the fields turn white (at least wherever you can find “kaash phool” – the grass flowers – nowadays). The clouds swell up like pristine white mounds of cotton wool and form strange shapes in the sky. It is that time of the year when the early mornings turn chilly, and the sunshine changes direction. The crowd in the clothes shops and shopping malls increases until it is impossible to buy anything without jostling for half an hour. Everybody runs to the tailors to get new clothes stitched, until the tailors refuse to take any more orders. Structures made of bamboo, cloth and plywood start taking shape in some of the fields. The “Pujabarshiki” (Puja editions) of different magazines pop up on the local newsstands, and everyday the newspapers carry photos of the idols nearing completion in Kumortuli.

And I wish to run away from work and roam around carefree and stay at home because Durga Puja is approaching, and I’m in Kolkata this time, and my parents are in Hooghly. However, 27 days are still left, so I’ll have to pass this time somehow.

[I took this photo last weekend in an empty plot near my house in Salt Lake]

Where are we headed?

The Times of India reports:

Techie bleeds to death on road, city doesn’t care
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Kolkata: A city that prides itself on its warmth let a young techie bleed to death on the road to the IT hub on Wednesday morning. Bijoy Dey (25) lay injured for 30 minutes after being hit by a bus in front of the Nalban complex, but no one stopped to help. Hundreds of office-goers — including many of Dey’s fellow techies rushing to beat the clock at the 24x7 Sector V, government officials and families heading for the fun zones (Nalban, Aquatica and Nicco Park) — merely glanced at the bleeding body and sped on. Even the person who dialled 100 to inform police did not care to stop. “There has been an accident near Nicco Park. The victim is lying on the road,” was all the anonymous caller said. When help finally arrived, it was too late. Dey, a software engineer with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), was on his way to his office in tech town when the accident happened. A mentally deranged woman apparently rushed on to the road, forcing Dey to hit the brakes hard. The rear wheel skidded and the bike careened into the middle of the road. Trapped under the skidding motorcycle, Dey did not have a chance. He was run over by a bus coming from behind. There are reports that he was run over after lying on the road for some time because no one bothered to cordon off the spot and protect him from rush-hour traffic. The accident site is one of the busiest stretches in the city. At the time Dey was run over, a stream of vehicles head for IT and ITeS offices at Sector V, as well as government offices at Karunamoyee. In fact, minutes before the accident, industry minister Nirupam Sen had passed that way to attend a function at the IT hub. At a conservative estimate of 30 vehicles a minute, at least 900 buses, cars, taxis, autorickshaws and two wheelers would have passed Dey. Even if the average commuter count per vehicle is pegged at four, at least 3,600 people would’ve rushed by Dey without stopping or calling the police. “The insensitivity is frightening. Dey’s colleagues must have among those who passed by. Everyone’s in a rat race, rushing to beat the clock and log in on time. It is sad and inhuman,” said Bidhannagar South officer in charge Bimal Kumar Pati.

You can read the full report on the first page here. Be careful, for the efficient reporters have put a photo of the mangled body of the victim lying on the road.

I started writing this as soon as I read the news, but now words fail me. I’m shocked, horrified, disgusted. I feel ashamed. I feel ashamed for being a human being. Ashamed for being a citizen of Kolkata. Ashamed because I work in the same IT industry in Salt Lake Sector V where these despicable specimens of mankind come to earn money everyday. In exchange for money they have sold off all human values, all sympathy for fellow humans, all sense of right and wrong.

What’s the big hurry everyone’s in? I don’t know how the victim’s colleagues can live the rest of their lives knowing that they passed by a co-worker while he lay dying on the street. Will their conscience allow them to live in peace while knowing that they could have saved a life but they didn’t? Do these people expect the same treatment from others if they lie sprawled on the road after an accident?

Or maybe I’m over-reacting. Maybe they think it’s all part of the rat race. Maybe their conscience will rest in peace once they get a raise for coming early to office. Maybe they had to attend some meeting yesterday morning at office, and it was important enough to justify abandoning a dying colleague on the road. After all he was just a colleague, not a friend. The same applies to the people working in other companies as well. Maybe I would react the same way in a similar situation! This really foretells a bright future for our country, for what can be more important than punctuality and dedication to work?

A few days ago I was reading the book “Hope for the Flowers” by Trina Paulus. There the main protagonist is a caterpillar named Stripe who ruthlessly steps on his fellow climbers to climb to the top of a “caterpillar pillar”, until he realizes there’s nothing at the top, and his pillar is only one among thousands. I feel this IT industry is in a similar condition. Everybody is climbing to the top, without caring for others. I am also one among many caterpillars moving towards the top. Nobody has time to see who falls off the pillar, or who dies on the way.

I just wish I could get off this pillar soon. I’m feeling sick of all this.

Aesthetic Nonsense

Beauty, they say, lies in the eyes of the beholder. So does ugliness, I suppose, for some people must have felt that this matchbox-like structure (photo on the left) was the best design for the new building for The University of Calcutta. Why else would this incongruous new wing be constructed in the beautiful garden of the beautiful old university building (photo on lower right)? The new building obscures a large portion of the lovely old building as well. I know some people will mutter something about effective usage of space and resources on reading this. I ask them: is the effective usage of space enough? Then probably Shah Jahan should have built a 6'x3' grave for his wife instead of the Taj Mahal. And as anybody can see, even the old building makes effective use of space, only adding a little bit of aesthetic value.

This visual onslaught is not limited to constructing ugly buildings next to beautiful ones. It includes making the beautiful ones ugly as well. Take the St. John's Church beside the Sealdah Station for instance (picture below).
While the large paintings covering the windows are not ugly, they do not do justice to the beautiful facade of the building. There should have been stained glass windows in their place. Although I do not know the details about this building, I think it is safe to assume that the windows were stained glass earlier, but due to some reason were covered up like this. Even if they were covered with blinds, like the topmost windows, they would have looked much nicer. And apart from the paintings, the hoarding advertising a shopping mall is an eyesore. I wonder why nobody says anything about such advertising.

Speaking of advertising, we hit a new low with this Mother Dairy advertisement near Manicktala(picture on the right). Large red and blue letters on what must have been a lovely domed building once proclaim that the time you see in the clock is "Mother Dairy Time". I agree, that Mother Dairy must be paying for the maintenance of that clock, but does that give them the right to deface the building with their advertisement? Next they'll paint the Victoria Memorial red. Sponsorship does not mean you cover everything with your advertisements. Advertisements must be put responsibly, and the government must ensure, if needed, that the beauty of the surroundings is not affected. And this trend of ugly advertising is not limited to buildings alone. Take a look at this tram I photographed in College Street.
What do you think of that? As it is, Kolkata's tram fleet looks ungainly enough. Do we need to turn them into moving clowns just to keep them running? This time it's Dabur doing the deed. Also notice the building in the background. Once it must have been a palace in "The City of Palaces". Today it lies in shambles. There are many such buildings all over Kolkata, some even more beautiful. Trees have grown out of their cracks and the paint has peeled off. Nobody looks after them, or even if they do, they only make sure that they do not fall down.

To end this post on a lighter note, I will now present a building which is not a famous landmark, though it ought to be! I can't remember when I have last seen a building with such a revolting facade. Although I should not be judgmental about personal choice, as this building must be beautiful to its owner, I really can't help it. The fact that it is a stone's throw distance away from the beautiful Science College building doesn't help either. I heard that in some European countries, the government has to approve the paint on your house so that looks good among the other houses on the street. I wonder whether we should take a lesson from that, because our goal should be to build beautiful cities for the future generations, not just cities.



(I posted briefly about the ugliness of modern architecture here before.)

How cats fish

This is how Garfield does it:


When I saw this comic strip today, I remembered something similar that I witnessed last Sunday at the pond behind my Hooghly house. A fish had died in the pond and was floating near the bank, and two cats, one of them distinctly Garfield-ish, desperately tried to fish it out. They submerged up to their elbows in water and tried to get nearer to the fish, but in vain. I captured a video of their efforts from our first floor balcony overlooking the pond. Here you can see the Garfield-ish cat (he is called Meow) jump atop some dead branches and leaves floating in the water to get closer to the dead fish whose tail can just be seen briefly near the wall. At one point Meow seems to be contemplating catching other fish as well. That morning the pond was teeming with shoals of fish all floating near the surface.

I thought this behaviour was pretty unusual as I have always known that domestic cats hate getting wet and avoid water at all costs. Obviously, this is just another myth. Hunger can make anybody do anything.

And Garfield isn't the only cat who is perpetually hungry.

Reporting Terrorism

"Hyderabad Horror" screamed the headline on The Times of India yesterday. It was referring to the series of bomb blasts in Hyderabad on Saturday. Whenever we have any terrorist attacks or natural disasters, the newspapers vie with each other to grab the catchiest headline (to be honest they do it for good news stories too). This practice, though it seems a bit cheap to me, is acceptable. Journalism, after all, is as much about literary prowess as it is about news.

What is not acceptable to me is the presence of colour photos of the bodies blown to smithereens on the front page. The Times of India showed bodies strewn all over the “Laserium” in Lumbini Park. My sister informs me the other papers were even worse. She had to fold up her Telegraph in reverse to avoid looking at the photo on the front page (link deliberately not provided). What made it infinitely more sickening for both of us is the thought that we were sitting together on those seats, watching that 7:30 pm laser show on a Saturday evening almost a year ago. It could have been us in those photos. Do these journalists ever pause to think that the body in the photo was somebody’s son, daughter, sibling or spouse a few hours ago? Do they ever put themselves in the shoes of the relatives? Shouldn’t the dead be given a little more privacy?

The “Laserium” in Lumbini Park is the largest laser show in the country and it attracts thousands of people everyday (This photo shows the laser show at Lumbini Park). The weekend shows are certainly packed to full capacity but luckily the place was relatively empty this Saturday due to rain. Moreover, a large part of this crowd is composed of tourists. When a terrorist organization explodes a bomb in a place like this, it is very obvious that they are aiming for maximum casualties, and they want to create panic, both among the local people and among the tourists visiting Hyderabad. When the newspapers present the news in such disgusting manner, they are actually helping the terrorists’ cause by propagating that same message of terror. If the reporters can’t put themselves in the shoes of the dead people, the readers can. I shudder to think what would have happened if all the other bombs hade gone off too, because I know just how crowded these places are. After these blasts and the previous ones a few months ago, anybody thinking of visiting Hyderabad will think twice.

I’m not saying that the news should be hushed up. On the contrary, the details are required so that we can be on our guard in future. The administration should be kept on its toes. But definitely, the line should be drawn while putting photos in the newspapers. In this case, photos of broken seats would have sufficed. The bodies weren’t needed.

The journalists' job is to present true news in a way fit for the readers. They should have remembered that those images of violence were not fit for everybody.

Packing and Unpacking

Wondering why I'm not writing anymore? I stopped writing because I had to pack and unpack many of the following items over the last couple of weeks.

1. Some 20 or so cartons of books
2. Half a dozen trunks full of clothes
3. Two crates full of utensils, crockery and cutlery
4. A couple of steel cupboards
5. A pair of hold-alls
6. Two beds, mattresses and all
7. One divan
8. A sofa set, with centre table and side tables
9. A dressing table with a full length mirror
10. A fridge
11. One washing machine
12. TV, DVD player, music system, record player etc.
13. A few boxes of audio cassettes, CDs, DVDs and gramophone records
14. A treadmill, a carom board, a cricket bat and two folding cots
15. A locked bicycle (since the key had been packed away in some box earlier)
16. A pair of carpets
17. Several framed pictures, including a full size replica of the Mona Lisa
18. A few potted plants
19. A red coloured Tobu tricycle (don't ask me why we carried that)
20. Many, many other things which I can't remember

The larger items were packed by the transport people under our supervision, but we packed the smaller ones ourselves. All the time I spent in Allahabad was used for packing. Finally the goods were loaded onto a large truck and it was covered with two large tarpaulins and tied up nicely. We were very happy that our stuff would be safe and dry in this rainy season.

We had forgotten all about Murphy's Law. We remembered it only when the truck arrived at our Hooghly residence on the morning of the 15th of August and the covers were opened.

The potted plants were just plants sans the pots, and lay amidst scattered soil and shards on the floor. As expected, they had shriveled up due to lack of water. But the plants were the only things that needed water. Most of the other things were very wet.

Turns out that the truck ran into severe rain en route Hooghly and water started seeping in. The guy whom we had kept on the truck to supervise proudly announced later that he had made the driver open up the tarps and retie them properly. I feel that's when all the water accumulated on the tarp roof fell down into the truck. Several cartons of books had soaked up water. One of them collapsed completely and scattered its contents on the floor. Cloth bound encyclopedias were lying in the water for days... just the thought makes me sick. Apart from the books all mattresses, cushions and furniture were also dripping. The plywood top of the divan will have to be thrown away. The framed pictures got badly wet, and one Van Gogh replica and the Mona Lisa cracked their glasses. Luckily the Mona Lisa didn't get wet. The cupboard doors were rubbed raw. The biggest damage was that the water got into one of the cupboards and ruined the few clothes that were there... dark green colour ran off one of my mother's sarees and painted everything else with green patches.

The weather being particularly unhelpful over the next few days, drying up the stuff proved to be a big headache. Most of the time the sky would be cloudy, and brief sunny periods would be followed by sudden showers out of the blue. We had to drag the mattresses out onto the terrace repeatedly and drag them back in when it rained. The books had to be spread out in a room with the fan running, and soon they sprouted a thick layer of multi colored fungus. But even the books are mostly dried up and cleaned out now, thanks to my mother's hair-drier.

Still the rooms are piled high with the dry cartons. We couldn't empty them as we were busy with the wet stuff. Everything has to be unpacked and put in its proper place. Things that took twenty years to accumulate take some time to arrange. And arranging things in a three-storied house means innumerable trips up and down the stairs, which makes it a slow and tiring process.

So, posts may be few and far-between, as I'll be tired on the weekdays with the office work and on the weekends with the unpacking. I hate it this way, but I guess this is the only way out until somebody invents teleportation.

Leaving Allahabad Forever

Twenty years is a long time in a person's life, especially if that person is twenty-five years old. And when he spends this significant period in a city other than his hometown, that city surely earns a status equal to his hometown, if not greater. Yes, I'm talking about myself and the city of Allahabad.

Over twenty years ago, on 17th April 1987, I left for Allahabad with my parents and sister. My father had been transferred there for two years. Two years! That seemed close to infinity for a five-year old at the time. I hated to go. I had to leave my school, my friends, my grandparents and other relatives behind. And the first few months were really bad, although my maternal grandfather had gone there to stay for a while. It was hot and dry, and the people spoke a language I neither spoke nor understood. Why, there wasn't even a colour TV in our Allahabad house where I could watch the Ramayana in colour like I did in Hooghly. I was just biding my time, waiting for those two years to finish.

Then my father's transfer got extended indefinitely. I was admitted in a large school, and time flew by at supersonic speed. It seems only yesterday that I used to go to school on that trolley rickshaw pulled by Bhola. I still remember some incidents from my first days at school, though somewhat fuzzily. And as time passed, I learnt to understand the strange language --- it was Hindi --- and could speak it as well as any of the local children. I remember my first friends: Antaryami, Abhijit, Fahad, Aman, Priyank... there are so many other names that come to the mind; so many others that don't. The teachers: Mrs. Dutta who still looks the same, Ms Wright, Mrs. Lasrado who loved me too much (and as I now realise, rather unfairly), old Mrs. Anand who was a lovely story-teller, Mrs. Lahiri, the English and drawing teacher who taught me much of the painting that I know today, Mr. Bose whose two slaps were enough to change my handwriting (for the better) for life. I progressed from class to class. We shifted from our first rented house to a new bigger one. And somewhere down the line, my resentment for this city changed to love. As I came to know the city intimately, its roads, its moods, its people, I became an 'Allahabadi'. This was the only city that I could truly call my home, for I had left Hooghly before I really knew that place.

And when I came to Kolkata for graduation, I actually missed Allahabad. I yearned to be back there on vacations, not only because my parents and sister were there, but also because I loved lying on the sunny terrace in the winters, cycling on the roads, meeting old friends, visiting my school and these were activities intrinsically associated with my Allahabad visits. But in the back of my mind, we always knew that the end of our stay was coming near. And we were all looking forward to it, making grand plans about what to do after we return to Hooghly.

Yet, when I board the train tonight for going to Allahabad for the last time (I may visit again but not as my hometown), I will feel a pang of sorrow. I can see twenty years of my life lying unraveled in front of me, twenty most important years of my life, years that made me what I am today. And although we had planned it long ago, the homecoming isn't going to be all sweet either: my grandparents' absence, especially my grandmother's death (who passed away just two years ago) is going to remind us that we were a bit too late.

Still, we have been looking forward to bidding farewell to Allahabad since that April day twenty years ago, and it will be a very happy and much awaited event for me and my family when we board the train back to Kolkata on Sunday. We'll finally be back in our new house in Hooghly, leaving Allahabad forever.

At least my body will be. A part of my soul will always stay back in Allahabad.

Pottermania

That picture shows what I wore today. My sister painted that T-shirt for me, and I wore it to watch Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix today. For the ignoramuses out there, let me tell you that figure on the T-shirt is the emblem of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the school where Harry Potter studies.

I had barely heard the name of Harry Potter when the first movie (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone) was released. Since my sister had seen the movie and I was jealous of her, I went to see the movie. And when I saw the movie I was hooked.

I borrowed all four books from my cousin Ananda (who can also be seen here) and finished them in a jiffy. I later read books 5 and 6 as they came out and became a hardcore Harry Potter fan. It's the same with my sister. Now we often use Harry Potter jargon at home. We also watched all the movies as they came out, although I can't say I liked all of them. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the latest movie in the series which released yesterday in India, and I rushed to watch it today with my sister.

And I have a mixed opinion.

On one hand, this was the largest book (and probably the best, in my opinion) in the series, and it was impossible to squeeze it all into the movie. Also, thanks to J. K. Rowling's writing prowess, a true Potter fan can never find a movie satisfactory. So the director definitely did a commendable job of including what he did. On the other hand, several key points were omitted which created gaping holes in the plot. I feel only films 1 and 2 can be called "movie versions of the books". The rest are like supplements of the books... like the practical lessons taught with the theory classes. The latest movie is no exception. It's more like "Important events from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" rather than "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix".

The special effects were good: there were beautiful scenes of night flight over a glittering London. I liked the thestrals. I liked Dolores Umbridge, Tonks, Kreacher, Bellatrix Lestrange, Mrs. Figg and the rest of the new cast. Loony... er, Luna Lovegood is a little too pretty, but I'm not complaining about that. However, Grawp was a bit disappointing... he never really looked real but like a CGI character similar to Shrek. Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall both had very strong roles to play in the book, but in the movie, Prof. McGonagall's character is almost cut out, and Prof. Dumbledore's role has been greatly reduced. On second thoughts, that may not have been such a bad thing after all, as I hate to see Michael Gambon as Dumbledore: he lacks the quiet dignity of Richard Harris. He is too loud, too fast, too angry and tensed. I loved the fact that Hogwarts was shown as never before (except in the first movie). This time a lot of detail of the terrain was shown.

Some things look good in a book, other things are needed in a movie. The book was mostly a large collection of small events that led up to the short climax. The movie obviously has tried to stretch that small climax a bit and I don't blame the director for that. However I do blame the director for what happened to Sirius at the end. If you see the movie you'll understand what I'm talking about.

To conclude I'll say if you have read the book and remember the details, you should see the movie. It feels nice to match your imagination with the images on screen. If you haven't read the book, go read it. Even if you don't see the movie afterwards, the fifth book in the seven-book series is definitely worth a read.

A Queer Conversation

Have you ever been so astounded by another person's comment that you have been unable to talk for some time? It happened once with me when I met that rickshaw puller, and it happened again last week.

As software engineers we are sometimes required to talk/chat with our clients and explain things to them, or get clarifications. This was the first time I was chatting to a French person on the client side, so my enthusiasm got the better of me. I thought I would open the conversation in French, a language in which I know only a few words. The chat proceeded somewhat like this:

I: Bonjour!

He: Hi.

He: Bonjour? You speak French? Where are you? France?

I: No no! I'm in India. I know only that much French. :-)


He: Ok...

*** Confidential chat that will cost me my job if published***

He: I'm sure it's clear to you now.

I: Merci! :-)

He: Only two words in French? :-)

I: Oui.

He: 3

I: Au revoir.

He: 4

He: Bhalo.

He: Pore kotha bolbo.

These last two lines, delivered in pure Bengali (meaning "Good. We'll talk later.") stunned me so much that I was unable to type anything more. My first thought was that the guy was a Bengali working under an alias and had been enjoying himself all this while. However, I was soon told that he knows only that much Bengali which was taught to him by one of my colleagues here. Nevertheless, it was a nice surprise and provided a welcome relief from my boring routine work.

Independence Day

Today is Independence Day. Not here in India, but on the other side of the world in the United States. But I'm enjoying it.

I'm celebrating Independence Day by working in office till 10:30 in the night. Eating sandwiches from the cafeteria and listening to the same old songs repeatedly at my workstation is a nice way of spending this special day. I am writing this blog post too. And oh yes, I almost forgot... I am also working!

As Nehru said, "At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom." Although I'll be going home an hour and a half before midnight, we can still apply that quotation to my plight... even now when much of the world is getting ready to sleep (especially in the semi-submerged Kolkata), I'm (hopefully) still awake and alive here in my office helping the Americans celebrate their Independence Day.

Correction. I'm helping our Indian onsite team in the US to celebrate the American Independence Day. They won't come to office, so I have to work from here at night. I'll probably help them again by coming to office on our Independence Day, for who ever heard about working at night at onsite unless it's an emergency?

Really, the life at onsite is the only life worth living if you are in the IT industry. And that is the only life where you get to celebrate your Independence Days. We, at offshore, are not eligible for that.

We are not eligible for that because we are still slaves.

The Mahabalipuram Trip

"We're at the bus stand waiting for the bus," I furiously typed the message on my mobile phone, "As soon as it arrives we'll leave without you." After sending it to Sushil, I turned my attention to my breakfast once more.

I, Amit and Shreevallabh were having our breakfast at the Sangeetha Restaurant near the Adyar crossing in Chennai. It was the first Saturday after joining our first job, and we intended to celebrate the completion of our first week as IT professionals with a trip to Mahabalipuram. Six of us were going, including Abhijit and Samiraj, who would be joining us at the bus stand, and Sushil. The only problem was that Sushil had woken up just five minutes ago. To ensure that he did not fall asleep again and reached us as fast as he could, we took turns calling him and SMSing him over our breakfast, all the while lying blatantly about our progress. As a result, he joined us soon after we reached the bus stand. Abhijit and Samiraj were already there, so we proceeded to board a bus and head towards Mahabalipuram.

Mahabalipuram is only 60 km from Chennai, and it wasn't long before we reached there. The journey probably also seemed short and uneventful as we were all sleeping most of the time. On reaching there, we first went to a shop so that Sushil, who had not had any breakfast, could eat something. Then we went to see the five monolithic "Rathas" or small temple-prototypes built by the Pallava rulers largely between the 7th and the 9th century.

After seeing the Rathas we went to see the Mahishasurmardini cave temple and the lighthouse. There are two lighthouses: one medieval one that used a fire for signaling, and a modern one with a powerful electric beam. From top of the old lighthouse we could see the shore stretched out in front of us beyond the cliffs and boulders that lined the terrain. On looking out far towards the horizon, one could just make out the nuclear power plant at Kalpakkam. Climbing atop the modern lighthouse is not allowed.

It was quite hot, and after having a Kakri (a serpentine cucumber-like fruit) each and a hearty brawl with the old lady selling them, we proceeded towards the other places to be seen. Men selling tiny statues had been pestering us, and one had almost roped in Sushil by reducing the price of his ware from Rs.50 to Rs.15, but finally we decided that even Rs.15 was too high and left.

The next place was full of some hillocks and cave-like rock formations. The main attraction here is Krishna’s Butterball, which is a huge round rock perched precariously atop an inclined rocky hillside. I gave my camera to another tourist and all six of us climbed up the hillock to go and pose under the round rock. It was fun, but I must admit that it was a bit scary too. If suddenly that rock decided to roll down, we would become pancakes (like they show in Tom & Jerry). However, the rock stayed exactly as it had stayed for thousands of years and we came down safe and sound again. We were unlucky about the camera though --- when the man returned it to me I found the film compartment door slightly ajar. Our last photo and the next couple of frames were ruined.

Then we went to see the carved rock called “Arjuna’s Penance”. It is a large rock lying on the roadside with a lot of figures sculpted on it. It shows Arjuna, a hero from the epic Mahabharata during his penance. It was lunch time and we were feeling as if we were doing penance ourselves, so we went to have lunch at a typical Tamil restaurant.

The food was of course typically Tamil. There was rice and five different kinds of sambhar, chutney and papad. There was also curd, buttermilk and a sweet, and some things that I have forgotten. The rice was served on banana leaves. The taste was good, but then, you don’t bother about the taste when you are eating five kinds of sambhar in one meal.

After lunch we walked to the shore Temple. This is the only historical temple in Mahabalipuram that is not monolithic. It is set directly on the beach, and is in a bad shape due to the corrosion caused by the sea water, wind and sand. Luckily it was not damaged by the Tsunami of December 2004. Our legs were very tired by this time, and we just rested there and chatted for a long, long time. The wind was intoxicating, and due to a full stomach, we just felt like sleeping. However, we had another important activity to finish: something for which we had been carrying our clothes since the morning.

The beach was neither deserted, nor too crowded. It was cleaner than the beaches of Chennai. The day had turned cloudy when we reached there. We chose a dry spot near the water and got into our bathing clothes. Then we went for a dip in the sea. None of us knew swimming properly, so we bathed in waist deep water. It was my first (and till date only) sea bathing experience and I can’t say I enjoyed it very much. Firstly the salt water kept getting into my mouth. Secondly the salt water kept getting into my eyes and it hurt a lot. Thirdly the water also carried sand into my mouth and eyes. And most importantly, there were quite strong waves that kept coming and knocking me head over heels. Since I don’t know swimming, and I had left my glasses on the shore, it was scaring me. After completing our bath, we got dressed on the beach. This was a BIG mistake. We should have looked for some rocky place first. I don’t know about others, but the sand on the beach got on my wet feet, and then from there it reached each and every corner of my body inside my clothing, and I felt as if I was wearing a sandpaper suit. I was rubbed raw by the time I reached home. That was not the end of our miseries. Washing those clothes proved to be a bigger problem than we had imagined, and I and Amit took turns rinsing them again and again to wash away the grains of sand.

Anyway, after we had dressed, Shreevallabh took a ride on a horse, and then we walked among the souvenir shops. There were stone figures and beautiful sea shells. The prices were exorbitant due to the presence of foreign tourists. We bought a few small items and came to the bus stand. There we visited a temple (a functional one, not a historical ruin) and then boarded a bus for Chennai. The return journey was bad. I slept for some time and when I woke up I found that the bus was so crowded that there wasn’t place even to stand. When our stop came we somehow squeezed out, and went home tired.

Thus our first trip from Chennai was a grand success and it went a long way in strengthening the bond that the six of us share to this day. Before the trip we were a group of six strangers each of who knew at most another member in the group. After the trip we were six friends who stayed together in most activities most of the time throughout our stay in Chennai. The other trip that we had planned during our two month stay didn’t work out properly, but I’ll tell that story some other day.

(Photos courtesy Wikipedia. The photos that I took are not with me currently.)

Rainy Day

When I woke up at six this morning, it was almost dark as night outside although the sun was up and running long ago. It had rained last evening, and evidently more was in the offing. I quickly got ready for office (finishing my breakfast with leftover khichudi from last night) but before I could set out, the rain started. And did it rain! It was still raining cats and dogs one hour after it started, and it was accompanied by a mild storm and loud claps of thunder. As I waited for the downpour to cease a little, I remembered the rainy days of my childhood.

The house in Hooghly where I spent my early childhood was a big old house with a large central courtyard and open verandahs on all sides. When it rained, all these verandahs were washed with rain and it was very dangerous to travel from one room to another. However, since our house was quite high, and there was a pond next to it, there was never any water logging. For me, the rainy days meant staying in one of the rooms as much as possible. My mother and grandmother had to go to the kitchen through the wet verandahs, of course, but that was least of my concerns. So I don’t have any special rainy memories of this period.

A rainy day in my maternal grandparents’ house in Salt Lake was a different matter altogether. Here when it rained hard and long enough, the roads would have knee deep water and there would be a few inches of water in the driveway as well. I made paper boats and floated them out in the driveway. So whenever it rained, I prayed for lots of it, so that it would be worthwhile.

But the first time I saw really bad water logging was in Allahabad. After the first summer there, one night it rained hard, and in the morning there was knee deep water in our garden. There were frogs jumping around the house. The park across the road had transformed into a pond. Obviously this meant no school for me. This was of course an extreme case. On other days when it rained not-so-hard, I would pray for the maximum rain to occur in the one hour prior to the start of school, so that a holiday would be declared. This happened at least once a year. Actually the declaration of holiday depended on the number of students already in the school: if majority had already reached, there was no point in giving the day off. On the other hand if only a few had come then they would be sent back home. I never saw two consecutive holidays because of rain; it was just not allowed to happen. So even if it rained harder on the second day than the first day, the school would remain open. Sometimes it would rain hard after school started and the school grounds would be flooded. As children we were fascinated by the huge earthworms that came out of the ground and we crowded around the puddles formed to get a better view. Once during such an engrossing observation session another boy pushed me into a puddle and I had to walk around with one side of my body wet and covered in mud for the rest of the day.

Once it rained during the day and many localities were flooded. While returning we had to pass through a place where there was waist deep water (waist deep for an adult; for us it would have reached above the waist). Our tempo stopped in that water and refused to start again. The driver had to get down and push it out. It was my father’s weekly off that day. He had to go and “rescue” my sister before her school became inaccessible by car.

I have owned several raincoats throughout my childhood. They were all mackintosh style one-piece plastic raincoats with matching caps. I particularly remember a plain sky blue one and another pink one with white flowers all over it. After I passed class X, I started going to school on my bicycle. My parents bought me a lovely dark blue two piece raincoat for wearing while cycling in the rain. It had a jacket and a pair of trousers. It gave complete protection from the rain (though it’s a different matter altogether that the amount I perspired while inside it made me just as wet). I took it to school with me on Teachers’ Day, and left my bag unattended in the class for a few minutes. Someone simply vanished with it and I never saw that raincoat again. I was so mortified by this loss that I turned down repeated offers for its replacement from my parents. For the rest of my school life I cycled in the rain while holding an umbrella in my hand. This was difficult, and my legs got drenched thoroughly, but I had made up my mind not to buy another raincoat.

Rainy days in college were boring, for now we did not have to wait for the authorities to declare it a rainy day. If nobody turned up, it would be a holiday. Also, waterlogged Salt Lake lanes are much less enjoyable once you grow past the paper boat floating age. But I remember the first day in college. It was raining like anything when we came out in the evening, and when other guys were thinking what to do, I just hitched a ride in the car that had come to take the girls to their hostel as I stayed near to their hostel. This caused a lot of commotion among the hostel dwellers, who did not know me yet. Another memorable day was in my final year, when I had to go to Sealdah on a rainy day for some urgent work. That day there was so much rain that a bus got submerged on the road in Ultadanga and the passengers had to be rescued. I was lucky though, my bus traveled only through waist deep water and I had to walk only through knee deep water. That day I saw Kolkata at her worst.

Rainy days are most enjoyable when we are staying in our house in Hooghly. There is a pond right next to our garden, and when the water level increases during the monsoon, frogs and crabs (and sometimes snakes) come into our garden. Frogs can jump, so they often come into the house, but they have to be chased out again since we don’t eat frogs. The crabs in the garden serve a better purpose as they can be caught and cooked. If the rain stops for some time in the evening, one of us would go out and buy “telaybhaja” (vegetables dipped in batter and deep fried) and eat them with “muri” (puffed rice) and hot tea. And we would have a nice "adda" (chit-chat) session with the background music of frog croaks and cricket chirps from the garden. On opening a window and switching off the lights, we could see fireflies flying around the garden (I sometimes caught one, but always released it later). The whole atmosphere is indescribably enjoyable. In our house, lunch on a rainy day always means “khichudi” (rice and pulses cooked together) and some fried stuff to go with it.

Now I have a job. No more luxury of a “Rainy Day” holiday (even if we get one due to excessive rain, we’ll have to make up for it during a weekend). Those carefree times will never come back, so the only way to relive those rainy days of yore is by reminiscing about them. That’s what I was doing through this post.