Firing Squad

The easy availability of digital SLRs and affordability of large lenses has made everyone a photographer these days. But is that good? You be the judge. I am posting three photos below which were taken in and around Kolkata and posted on Facebook. As an amateur photographer myself, all I can say is that it makes me extremely uncomfortable to crowd around a non-celebrity person like this, especially during a religious ceremony or private moment. Click on the photos to view larger.

In Kolkata during Chhath Puja. I forgot who the photographer is.

At Bagh Bazar, Kolkata on Durga Puja Dashami day. Photographer: Lopamudra Bagh

A village child in Langolpota, near Kolkata. Photographer: Arpit Kr Saha

I could provide more examples, but I will stop at three. My friends in Kolkata tell me such scenes are common at every event these days. Also, half-naked poor village children are usually made to pose for hours, often made to run repeatedly in the sun or climb trees, so that every photographer in the group can get his or her best shot. A friend even heard a photographer telling someone who had come to place a wreath on a grave on All Souls' Day to weep more, since weeping would make the pictures better.

I wonder where this is headed. I don't want to judge, but it seems now everyone is doing what only a handful of photojournalists used to do earlier. As I said, I feel very awkward intruding into someone's personal space like that, and I could never support making some stranger (unless it's a paid model) pose for a "natural" photo. I feel waiting for the right moment and clicking the perfect shot without telling people to pose - that's what makes a great photograph. I am here to shoot life as it happens, not movie publicity stills.

What do you feel about the issue? Do you think I am just being cranky because I cannot be part of these festival shoots, or do you think things need to change?

The Alien Feeling

There are two kinds of bloggers in the world – habitual and inspired. The first kinds can blog about anything, anytime. The second kind blogger, however, needs a real inspiring idea before he can hit the keyboard. As my regular (sigh!) readers will know, I belong to this latter category. I can hardly blog about a subject that does not inspire me to write and much less so when my mind is occupied with something else (which I don’t want to blog about). That is the primary reason why I never put up a post since that endless night in Helsinki. Initially I was homesick, and then got buried up to my neck in work. Also, whatever leisure time I got, I devoted to photography. Finally, after almost a month, a foot-high snowfall and the absence of a girlfriend on Valentine’s Day that is also a weekend has given me the much needed time for to type out a blog post.

And the subject is not, as the title may suggest to some, about spending Valentine’s Day alone in New York. It is about my India visit.

The American government calls us aliens – resident or non-resident as the case may be. I always found the term mildly offensive, because no permanent resident of this planet would like to be reminded that Americans find them strange enough to be from another world. However, the full implication of the term hit me during the winter holidays when I landed in India and found myself a greater alien there than in this country.

The first thing that seemed extraordinary to me at the Indira Gandhi International Airport was of course the most ordinary of things – the crowd. The last six airports that I had visited were Heathrow, Newark, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, JFK and Helsinki, and although these included some of the biggest and busiest airports in the world, New Delhi gave a whole new meaning to the word “busy.” Who cares whether the number of flights operating from there is just a fraction of the traffic handled by Heathrow or JFK? All that I thought as I pushed my cart through the airport was, “Really, are there so many people in the world?” Something else also seemed very, very odd, and somewhat unnerving after sixteen months in the US: the airport was full of security men flaunting AK-47s. It was a grim reminder that India was fighting the real “war against terror” every day, despite what people across the world may be thinking post 9/11.

It was a relief to be able to switch to Hindi while talking to customs officials, security men and domestic airline clerks without having to prick up my ears trying to catch their accent. This was especially good because I realized to my horror that some people were unable to catch my English accent the first time. Soon I landed in Kolkata and came out of the airport, and it was here I saw the next thing that makes India look so alien to Americans.

Dust. Lots of it.

I am not talking of dirt. I am not even talking of dirty places. The dust that I am referring to is the fine powder that covers everything in sight from cars to tree leaves. It is this very coating that gives off the wonderful smell when the first raindrops come down after a dry spell, so I am not really complaining. Only that I had grown so accustomed to a dust-free world that it all seemed very strange. I also realized why photos taken in Europe and America were so brightly coloured; I suspect it is their policy of keeping all patches of earth covered either with grass or with mulch that prevents the creation of dust. On a related note, I was very surprised to see the amount of haze in the Kolkata air on my subsequent visits to the city during the following month. The sky is almost never blue, and visibility is usually less than two miles on a clear day. In New York City the visibility is almost always ten miles and the sky is pristine. Even though New York is one of the most brilliantly lit places on the planet, one can see more stars in the sky than can be seen in Kolkata these days. Does Kolkata have more cars or more people than New York? I don’t think so! Probably the diesel-burning buses overcrowding the city have something to do with it- I can’t tell for sure- but I would surely like to see my favourite city getting a cleaner sky.

Talking of buses, I must say I was most pleasantly surprised by some changes taking place in Kolkata and one of them was introduction of imported buses. For a person who spent his B.E. years commuting on leaky and dented tin boxes on wheels also known as buses of route 215A, it was a jaw-dropping sight to behold a shiny glass-covered 215A with low footboards, switch operated doors (which are always open) and moving LED displays announcing the destination roll by. Now only if the political activists of Kolkata can be persuaded against burning off these buses on bandh days, we shall have a very modern fleet within a few years, and that would probably take care of the pollution problem to a large extent. Also, the metro rail expansion work is progressing quite fast and Salt Lake is almost unrecognizable now with flyovers and overhead railway lines coming up everywhere. When I said I felt like an alien in my own city, it was not only because I had developed an “NRI air” but also because my city had changed so much in the last year and a half.

As for the NRI air, this time I could guess what goes through the average Americans’ minds when they try to navigate Indian roads, and if I have to describe it in one word, I would use the word “terror.” Even for a person like me who has grown up in UP and spent a year and a half in Hyderabad where the lack of any rule is the only steady traffic rule, sixteen months in the US were enough to erase a significant portion of essential-for-survival skills right off my brain. While it would be an exaggeration to say I was terrified of going out on the streets, I was definitely confused. Apart from the left-or-right dilemma, I kept stopping for traffic lights where there were none, waiting for all vehicles to stop before crossing the street (which made crossing even small streets an indefinitely long process) and getting scared whenever I caught a glimpse of an approaching cow. I was never the brave type, but growing up in Allahabad had at least ensured that I could walk calmly by a passing cow or buffalo without feeling the irresistible urge to cross over to the other side of the road. This time, however, I found myself yielding to that urge often. This added to the chaos as crossing the road was a dreaded exercise as mentioned before, and it further confused me regarding which direction the cars were going in. Apparently, my brain did not have a problem adjusting to the different on-off states of light switches, but as far as left and right side of the road are concerned, I am a big mess. I wonder how I’m going to learn driving. If someone saw me walking on the road in this manner and assumed I was showing off some of my NRI air, I don’t really blame them.

And thus I spent a month in India, feeling alien in my own city, enjoying the sights, sounds, smells and tastes that I have grown up with, and yet subconsciously overjoyed that in some aspects, these sights and sounds were giving way to a more Americanized version. I knew that in a few weeks’ time, I would be back in my fixed routine in Newark, where every day was predictable and survival was much easier. But I also knew that I will eventually be going back to live in India once I am done with my studies here, and all that dust and cows and unruly traffic could never make my country seem worse than the sanitized land where I stay. The captain of the Atrium in the movie WALL-E said, “I don’t want to survive, I want to live!” I myself couldn’t have put it better. For me, there is only one country to live, and that is India.

Am I glad!

Oh boy! Am I glad that I didn't sue Lux Cozi owner Ashok Todi for stealing my photo and using it for his advertisement! The way things are unfolding, it would probably have been very injurious to my health if I did.

First Rizwanur Rehman, the man marrying his daughter Priyanka committed "suicide". Then the top police officers all over the state bent over backwards to rubbish any theory of murder. The judge who issued the arrest warrant for Mr. Todi  received a threatening letter. Mr. Todi and the other accused were released on bail, obviously. And now, the railway police officer investigating Rizwanur's death has committed "suicide" in an identical manner. All this is very natural, of course. Nothing to be suspicious about. Divine justice, I call it.

I find the area near the Dum Dum railway station a bit unnerving since the day I saw half a man lying on the railway tracks there. Now had I sued Mr. Todi (who is an honourable man) for using my photo as a hoarding, I might have to go near the Dum Dum railway station. I wouldn't have liked that at all - Dum Dum may have its good points, but Newark is the airport city I prefer.

So Mr. Todi, in case you are reading this, here is my unconditional apology for calling you a thief and a murderer. I have lots of photos on my FlickR album at your disposal, sir. Feel free to use them for your advertisements. Don't even consider paying for them, sir. The fact that I am able to stay alive in your kingdom is rewarding enough for me. Here's wishing you all the best; now that the nosey police officer has committed suicide, I hope you and your family can live in peace. All's well that ends well.

[Thanks to Loken Sir for bringing this news story to my notice.]

A Thief and A Murderer

Remember Ashok Todi? The guy who became (in)famous last September by having his son-in-law Rizwanoor Rahaman murdered? Well, it seems he also sells underwear when he is not murdering people or having them threatened by the police, and the name of his company (Lux Hosiery Industries Ltd) is actually a copy of one of the best known soap brands in the world ("Lux" has a meaning in Latin, but it would be an insult to Ashok Todi to think that he knows Latin and prefers "meaning" to plagiarism). A quick search on Google will show that this company also ran into trouble for an obscene advertisement which was eventually banned from airing on TV. In short, the man and his company have aways been on the wrong side of the law.


In keeping with this tradition, this September Lux Cozi Innerwear has created a hoarding and put it up all over Kolkata (and probably other places in West Bengal) on the occasion of Durga Puja with a stolen photo. The hoarding (see photo above) is basically a collage of different images with a "kashphool" photo as the background below, and the photographer who took that kashphool photo is none other than yours truly (See photo below). I was never told about this, of course. I came to know about this today thanks to my photographer friend Mandar who also photographed the hoarding. Incidentally, this is the same photo that New Jersey based Sreeshti.org used for their Puja website last week. I brushed it aside as a funny coincidence in my previous blog post because they were not using it for some commercial purpose. Here, however, things are different. A company has stolen my photo and is using it for an advertisement without even bothering to inform me, let alone pay me for it. This is a punishable offense.


On second thoughts, murder, or forcing one into suicide, is a punishable offense too. If the man can go free with that, he will certainly survive my copyright infringement charge.

I may not.

With friends like the Police Commissioner of Kolkata (who fought with the media and redefined the role of the police force when asked why the police officers were threatening Rizwanoor), I'm sure Ashok Todi can prove that I sold him that photo for a few thousand rupees. He may even produce some SMS messages from my mobile to him requesting him to use my photo for his underwear advertisement. He seems to have a knack for such things. Besides, my being here in the US will not help matters. I can't fly to India to appear before a Kolkata judge twice a month.

So I'm doing the only thing that I can do - write a blog post about this thief and murderer, and hoping that the Goddess gives him his due. After all, which dignified lady would like her portrait pasted on a stolen picture in an underwear advertisement?

A Visit to the Indian Museum

Many years ago, a little boy visited the Indian Museum in Calcutta with his parents. As he roamed about in the huge galleries, among the remains of mammoths and whales and stuffed animals from all over the world, he felt belittled by them. That little boy of 22-23 years ago is grown up into yours truly now and he visited the museum again last weekend to show his sister around. And what's odd, he felt equally belittled by those galleries and those fossils now. The museum never grows old!
The Indian Museum was founded in 1814 and transferred to the present building in 1878. At that time the museum had two galleries; now it has over sixty galleries of Art, Archaeology, Anthropology, Geology, Zoology and Botany sections, spreading over thousands of square feet. There are over one million exhibits in this single building.

My sister had never been to this museum, so last Sunday we decided to visit it. Since it would take several hours, and food was not available inside, we had our lunch early and went in. Before we could go in, however, our bags had to be passed through an X-Ray machine and deposited in the luggage room. Then we entered the first room and stopped in awe. The gigantic fossilized skull of a prehistoric elephant greeted us with ten foot long tusks. Behind it was the complete fossil of an armadillo’s ancestor, and then a bird with an egg. All around the large room were hundreds of fossil remains – prehistoric elephants, rhinoceroses, giraffes, buffaloes, birds and reptiles. We were almost overwhelmed before we left that first room.

The Indian Museum primarily has two types of displays: Archeological and Geological. We decided that we would see the Geological things first. Accordingly, we entered the invertebrate gallery on the first floor. Before entering there, however, we had already seen the Bengal school painting gallery.

As one enters the invertebrate gallery, the first thing seen is a vertebrate: a large prehistoric reindeer skeleton with antler span of eleven feet. However, the rest of the room is filled with thousands and thousands of cases filled with oceanic fossils and microfossils. We just wondered who had the time to identify and classify all that stuff.

Entering the Mammals Gallery, however, is an entirely different experience. Even before we entered, we saw something’s backbone near the ceiling. We couldn’t see either end of it from outside the door. Turns out it is the skeleton of a ‘small’ whale, complete with baleen and all. All over the huge room are stuffed animals: Elephants, rhinoceroses, antelopes, tigers, lions, leopards, buffaloes, hippopotami, deer, foxes, wolves, goats, pigs, anteaters, apes, zebras, capybaras, walruses, sea lions – you name an animal and it’s there. Along with the stuffed ones there are skeletons too. The walls above the showcases in the high-ceilinged room have hundreds of mounted antelope heads with beautiful symmetrical antlers. But the most magnificent exhibit is at the entrance and is usually noticed while coming out. They are two pieces of bone – one on each side of the gigantic door, and these bones taper and curve as they move upwards and meet high above the door near the ceiling. And these two are not bones of any prehistoric creature but just the lower jawbones of a blue whale!

We walked from one gallery to another, from mammals to reptiles, then birds, and marine life and insects. We saw butterflies with wings as large as a man’s palm. We saw a multistoried hornet’s nest. We saw a huge stuffed crocodile displayed along with the human jewelry recovered from its stomach. We saw beautiful wooden dolls in the plants gallery, samples of minerals and an entire fossilized tree. Then we started on archaeology.

I was never good at remembering dates in the history class, so I won’t be able to describe the sculptures that we saw. There were beautiful Hindu and Buddhist statues. The gallery with the Indus Valley civilization relics was closed for renovation. We also met the most famous inhabitant of the Indian Museum, an Egyptian Mummy, in his air-conditioned chamber. Another gallery worth mention is the cultural anthropology section where people from different parts of India are depicted in their traditional clothing.

As we roamed around, we saw some people taking photos. First I thought they were taking them secretly, but later we saw some people taking photos openly. Then we found a notice saying that one could take photos by paying Rs. 50. They had put the notice inside the gate!

Which brings us to the negative things about the museum. The museum has enough fossils to fill another museum, but the specimens are not being maintained properly. The writing has vanished from the blue whale’s lower jaw and I recognized it only because I remembered it from my earlier visit. Many of the stuffed animals (like the polar bear) could do with a cleaning. A cafeteria inside is a definite necessity so that people can spend the whole day there. Overall maintenance wise, I would put the Salar Jung Museum ahead of the Indian Museum, but even then, this museum is a must visit place for a person visiting Kolkata with some time in hand.

Don't they feel odd?

I'm just back from 'Kobe' in Salt Lake City Centre where I and two friends were having sizzlers. A family, probably Marwadi, were seated at the next table. There was a man, his wife and two young kids. There was another lady too, you may call her the nanny or the governess or the maid whatever you like. She was controlling the kids and helping them eat, while the kids' parents talked among themselves. What seemed odd to us was that the maid was standing beside the table the whole time while the family ate. If they don't think she is fit to sit down at the same table with them, why do they bring her at such a place?

After they were done eating, they put some leftover food on a plate and handed it to the maid. She held the plate in her hand and quickly ate it, still standing in a corner. I was so angry that I felt like taking out my camera and taking a photo of the family to go with this blog. I had decided on writing the blog post by that time and I could have taken a photo without them realising it. But then I felt they were not really worth that trouble. "Don't have an iota of education in them, suddenly seen a lot of money", my friend Avijit said. I only thought, don't they feel odd, treating a human being like a dog?

A Narrow Escape

I had a really narrow escape today. There was a bandh in Kolkata, and I was walking to office. In the meantime, the monsoons decided to arrive last night, so it was drizzling as I walked under my umbrella. When I am about halfway there, it suddenly became dark as night and the sky opened up. The rain was flying from all directions, the wind would not allow me to hold my umbrella and visibility dropped to a few feet. Still, finding no place to stand, I kept walking. Besides, I had some important work to do at the office.

There were flashes of lightning, and as usual, I counted the seconds between the lightning and thunder to judge the distance of the discharge. When I was in front of my office, suddenly there was a flash - a flash brighter than any that I had ever seen, and it was not followed by but accompanied by the loudest thunderclap that I had ever heard. And while this was happening, I realised with horror that small electric discharges were taking place between my fingers and the steel rod of my umbrella!

It took me a fraction of a second to shift my hand to the plastic part of the handle and lower the umbrella. And when I did lower the umbrella, I saw that the same flash of lightning was still playing across the sky overhead. I ducked instinctively and realised it was unnecessary; the show was over.

I was badly scared. My palpitation increased and throat became so dry that I started coughing. However these symptoms also signified that I was still alive, and had narrowly escaped a very unusual way to die. I rushed indoors, to be faced with a different kind of bolt from the blue, but that's another story.

[And yes, post(s) on Puri will follow soon. I was not getting time to upload the photos. Now they are ready.]

A Cricket Match

Last Friday five of us went out from the office to have lunch at the Salt Lake City Centre Pizza Hut and ended up sitting at a table next to six players from the IPL Chennai Super Kings cricket team. Stephen Fleming and Suresh Raina were the only two people we recognised at that time though. Morne Morkel joined them after some time with his girlfriend. Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan and their team physio were among the others present. These days a lot of cricketers are staying in Kolkata because of the frequent IPL matches at the Eden Gardens. On 18th November 2003 I had the chance to watch a cricket match at this stadium. I'll narrate that experience here.

I had first mentioned my desire to see an international match at the Eden Gardens to Chirantan, my friend and Senior at college a few days before the India Vs. Australia one day match. Tickets were costly and hard to come by, so we never really considered buying tickets. A couple of days before the match, suddenly he goes, "Oh $#%*! My uncle is member of so-and-so club and he gets free tickets to Eden Gardens. I had forgotten that!" So he called his uncle and got a severe scolding on the phone. Apparently uncle had got Club House tickets (the best seats, where the VIPs sit) and he had given them away to somebody that very day. He however, arranged a couple of ordinary seats for us. Inspired by the fabled fox of the vineyard we said, "Who wants a Club House ticket? There one can't even swear at the players!"

When the big day came, I reached Chirantan's house dressed for the occasion. I was infamous as a good-boy-like dresser in college, meaning a person who wore sober coloured formals most of the time. I didn't want to present that nerdy image to the girls at the stadium, so I wore a strange combination of clothes that I thought looked cool. I wore blue denim pants, with the most colourful shirt that I had. Unfortunately that was a semi-formal checked full shirt, so I rolled up the sleeves and unbuttoned it all the way down the front. Since I was too shy to show my body or even my vest Salman Khan Style, I wore a round necked black T shirt below my shirt. Now this combination made me feel really hot, for the Kolkata sun is still fierce in November. Along with this I wore sneakers and a cap on which I had pasted the large "Intel Inside" sticker from my computer box. I also had some individual wires from inside a LAN cable that I had picked up when the college LAN was being laid. I twisted them as a bracelet and wore them around my wrist since they were saffron, white and green and I was supposed to be an Indian supporter. If you manage to stop laughing after reading about my dress, you can take a look at it here:
Anyway, we set out for the Eden Gardens, planning to have lunch somewhere on the way. As we boarded the Metro, it seemed everyone in Kolkata was travelling towards the stadium. When we reached Esplanade and came out into the sun, we suddenly realised what the size of the crowd was going to be. Huge masses of people were moving around all over the place, walking in the general direction of the Eden Gardens. The 200 metres or so that we had to walk to reach the stadium suddenly looked like a mile, and we realised we had no time to go and have lunch. So we bought half a dozen large guavas, somehow resisted the temptation to have the national flag painted on our cheeks (Rs. 5.00 per cheek) and joined the serpentine queue moving through the security barriers at a snail's pace. There were a large number of policemen all around, and there were mounted police controlling the crowd. Presently we heard a cheer from the people already in the stadium and came to know that the toss was over.

Our ordeal was far from over though. The policeman at the gate was very stern about not allowing any throwable items into the ground. Chirantan and I stared at each other as the realisation hit home that our lunch was about to be confiscated. I promptly buttoned up half my shirt and put as many guavas inside as would go without making me look like a suicide bomber, then each of us took one in our hands and started biting into them in the hope that even the policeman would not be heartless enough to snatch away the half eaten lunch from two hungry souls. However, eventually we managed to carry all of them inside by putting on our saddest expressions and convincing the policeman that we were students, from good homes, and we were coming from far away and had not eaten anything since last night, and we had no intention of wasting guavas by throwing them at the fielders.

Inside, the atmosphere was electric, as already half the capacity was filled. We looked at the seat numbers written on our tickets and snaked our way through the crowd to reach those seats, and then looked at our tickets again. There were some people sitting on our seats. We tried to argue that those were our seats. "We don't care for no seat numbers, sir!" answered one of them, "and we are not budging from here. You may sit wherever you find a place." One couldn't argue with such simple logic. Besides, the seats were filling up at an alarming rate, and even if we won the argument we wouldn't have been able to find a seat. So we scampered down to the nearest visible empty seat (in those days Eden had concrete galleries) and sat down. Soon a group of middle aged gentlemen appeared and demanded that we move from their seats. "We don't care for no seat numbers, sir!" I told them, "and we are not budging from here. You may sit wherever you find a place." He replied that he had been visiting the Eden Gardens for the last three decades and had never heard such nonsense. A bitter argument followed and we explained that we were in the same predicament as them. Ultimately all of us squeezed onto the same bench (a remarkable feat considering the fact that both I and Chirantan occupy about two seats each). The funny thing is, however, those gentlemen were true cricket lovers, and as the match progressed they discussed cricket with us freely as nothing had happened between us.

And as the match progressed, the same boring old story was repeated. Australia were batting, and they were hitting the ball all over the place. The onslaught continued throughout the 50 overs. Local boy Sourav Ganguly was not playing due to an injury. Once he walked outside the boundary and came to our section of the ground, and everyone stood up to get a glimpse. It was quite hot. I and Chirantan munched on one guava after another. The stadium was filled beyond its capacity of 110000 people… there were at least 10000 people extra inside. It made seating a bit difficult, but we enjoyed it very much when a giant ‘Mexican Wave’ started doing the rounds of the stadium. In fact Michael Bevan had to stop the bowler in his run up and wave to the crowd to calm them a little. On the other hand, the lack of action replays was a bit frustrating (the club house, with its TV sets, was not such a bad place after all!). Also, cell phones were not working; the presence of so many users within such a small area had clogged all the networks.

As the sun went lower in the sky, the floodlights were switched on one by one so that the light in the stadium remained constant. After sundown the ground looked like a dreamland… with the four giant floodlights switched on. And since those were the days before the cheerleaders came into cricket, our attention remained fixed on the players all the time, er… I mean most of the time.

The Indian batsmen fell like ninepins once they started batting. It was a sad sight to behold. The Australians’ body language was totally different from the Indians on the field. After each delivery, while the Indians had been walking sluggishly from their positions on the ground, the Australians ran up to the pitch, discussed something and ran back to their positions. I preferred to watch huge insects, almost as large as a man’s fist flying around the floodlights. A flock of kites took turns flying to each of the lights and feasting on these insects. There was a short spurt of good batting by India, but that was the time when I had gone to get some snacks.

When five or six wickets were down, Chirantan and I decided to call it a day. We came out of the stadium. Immediately, two men ran up to us and requested us to give them our tickets so that they could get in somehow and manage to see the rest of the match. We gave them those half-torn tickets (the other halves had been retained by the gate keeper when we had entered). As we moved away we saw those two men argue with the gate keeper that they had been sitting inside since the morning and had just come out for something and they should be let back in.

The ride back was uneventful, and relatively simpler as the main crowd had not come out yet. India lost the match that night, but for both of us it was a memorable experience. Watching a match from one’s home may be much more comfortable, but going to the stadium provides an experience that is quite unmatched by any TV broadcast.

Kolkata Book Fair 2008 - A few images

Do you know Mr. K. C. Paul? Not the famous umbrella manufacturer but the astronomer? No? Well, he has made one of the greatest discoveries of our era and spent the last four decades trying to convince people that his discovery is true. He has written books, given interviews on the media, and filled the walls of Kolkata and Howrah with graffiti preaching his theory. I had been reading his graffiti since my childhood days. But it was only in this year's Kolkata Book Fair that I had the fortune to meet him in person. I was photographing him, and so he gave me one of his pamphlets for free.

What is his theory? He claims he has proof that the sun goes round the earth and it is not the other way round. Is he insane? Probably, by all our standard definitions of sanity. Yet, he has the conviction and confidence that keeps him clinging to his foolish theory for forty years. And while I do not for a moment imagine his theory may be right, I cannot help think that Galileo must have been insane in his time too!

Kartik Chandra Paul is only one of the many characters one can see at the Kolkata Book Fair whose passion seem to be on the verge of madness, and one can only feel respect mixed with pity for them. This man, for instance, who sells funny books (in the photo). Just look at his banner, it says: "Buy for two rupees. You'll read for twenty minutes and laugh for half an hour. As you start reading, you'll start laughing. When you stop reading, you won't stop laughing." I visited the fair on two days, and this man was roaming around selling his books, carrying this large banner and in that posture. I wonder how many he could sell. Then there was the old artist who sat on the ground outside a stall with a stack of his paintings. He eagerly showed me some of them as I stopped by. I sadly realised that most people, including me, would rather buy a print of a European masterpiece to hang in their room rather than buy an original painting by this man. But then, that's what has been happening in the past too. Van Gogh couldn't sell a painting in his lifetime. I did not have the heart to take his photograph.

I went there twice: once with my sister to browse through books, and the second time with the Flickr Bangla Community members to do some candid photography. Although the book fair does offer wonderful opportunities for candid photography, one really needs large telephoto lenses to take pictures unobtrusively. One of my friends got into trouble because a girl had come into one of the photos that he had taken. Her boyfriend promptly snatched away his camera and dragged him into the police station, insisting on lodging a written complaint. It was really funny to see the policemen laugh at him as he became more and more furious. At one point he said he was with the Human Rights Commission, another time he said he was with the Press, and when I asked him if he knew what candid photography was, he whipped out his father's - yes, his father's - visiting card and insisted I show him respect. When I informed him with all due politeness that I did not recognise his father from his name, he asked me if I understood that his father was an IAS officer. Although my friend was a bit anxious to get back his camera at that time, we had a laugh riot later imitating that girl and her boyfriend.

The fair this year was smaller since the Publishers' and Book Sellers' Guild put its foot down on not having a book fair at all if the fair was not allowed to be held at the Kolkata Maidan. There were others, however who wanted to have the fair and it was held at the Salt Lake Stadium. Some of the big book stores didn't come. The fair was delayed by a month and the weather was really hot. Still, the queue at big stalls like Ananda Publishers was long and serpentine and stretched across the field in front of the stall. This field was full of small clusters of people who had come together and had decided to spend some time sitting in a group. As the evening progressed some sang, some brought guitars and played them. Others just sipped on cups of tea and chatted. A news channel conducted walk-in auditions for a newsreader's job. Some people were trying their skill there. Another TV channel had brought finalists of a music competition on their channel to the fair and they were performing live on request. Soap-bubble-blowing-apparatus-sellers were filling the air with bubbles and children tried to catch them. On Friday we stayed till the fair was closed at 9:00 pm. On Saturday I had to leave at 5:30 as I was going to Hooghly. By that time, it was almost impossible to see over peoples' heads in the fair ground.

Since I had grown up in Allahabad, I was unaware of the charms of the Kolkata Book Fair till 2001 when I came to college. Even then, I had gone to Allahabad on vacation during the Book Fair for the first two years. But once I had visited the fair for the first time in 2004, I eagerly wait for it every year. I missed it in 2006 since I was in Hyderabad, but was back in time for the 2007 fair. I don't know where I will be next year, but wherever I am, if it is not Kolkata then I will definitely miss the Kolkata Book Fair.

(The photos that I took in the book fair are available here)

Spring in the City

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. ~Charles Dickens (Great Expectations).

That may have been true in London, but here in Kolkata, March is not yet halfway through and the summer has already arrived in the sunlight and in the shade too. We call this spring.

Considering the fact that we live in an era of increasing global warming, the winter was unusually persistent this year. Over the last one month, several times it seemed as if the cold was gone for good, but each time it returned with a vengeance, assisted by a fresh spell of rain. This winter Kolkata saw its coldest day in the first week of February, a rare occurrence indeed. But when finally the cold went, the heat was surprisingly quick to follow.

The wind has changed direction. The leaves have started dropping off the trees. The cuckoos are going berserk. These are a few signs of spring that one can see and hear in the concrete jungle. And yes, flowers! Flowers of all hues, sizes and shapes have covered almost every plant and tree in sight. The accompanying photograph was taken in my colony in Salt Lake - the tree is Palash (Butea monosperma). Both the tree and the ground underneath are covered with the flaming orange flowers. Similarly various other trees are covered by shades of red, blue, violet and yellow. The seasonal flowering plants like dahliyas, zenias, salvias, poppies, pansies and chrysanthemums are blowing out their last flowers. There are bees, damselflies and butterflies everywhere (in fact quite a few wasps and mosquitoes too at my house). The mango trees are covered in tiny blossoms, with mustard-sized mangoes just beginning to show. If you go and stand under one of these mango trees, you will be showered continuously with a fine drizzle of flower particles and mango nectar. The early morning air is slightly cooler, which causes drops of dew to cover the blades of grass which glow like jewels as they catch the first rays of the sun.

The sun is, however, ignoring all these signs of spring. The days are already obscenely hot with hot winds blowing. Very soon, the seasonal blossoms will dry up as dust storms arrive with the first sprinkles of rain. And even after that, even after summer has completely arrived in Kolkata, the cuckoos will continue their frenzied calls throughout the day, as if it were still spring.

Encroaching Cockroaches

It has happened twice with me within the last month. Once at 'Opium' at the Salt Lake Electronic Complex, and the other time at 'Peter Cat', one of the good restaurants in Park Street. The encroachment of a cockroach on my table, I mean.

Frankly speaking, the Opium is a bit too dark inside for my tastes, and resembles an opium den rather than a restaurant. I probably would have failed to notice the creature crawling up and down the spoon in the sauce container but for the light coming from the TV. When we called the manager and showed him the cockroach, he displayed such fantastic surprise that I felt I had showed him some extinct creature.

The waiter at the Peter Cat was completely opposite. When we showed him the cockroach that had decided to walk onto my plate from which I had just eaten the last forkful of my starter, he reacted with the impassivity of an English butler and literally carried the cockroach away on a platter, as if this was the most normal incident in the world. My boss (who was also there) complained to his boss (the waiter's, not the cockroach's), but he just did his duty by saying that cockroaches were removed once every three days, and the one that came on my plate was not supposed to be there. They forgot to inform the cockroach I suppose.

I may be acting as a cockroach magnet, or the restaurant owners may be having an unlucky run with me (I ran into trouble with my office cafeteria manager as well), but the point that I am trying to make here is that none of these two restaurants took any corrective action to improve my opinion about the place. If this was the US I would have expected to have a complimentary lunch, or at least a discount. No such thing here. The end result is that I end up doing bad publicity about these two restaurants on my blog.

These people have a lot to learn about customer relationship management. As for the cockroaches, they have a lot to learn from their American cousins too. I don't believe there are no cockroaches in the US. All they need is a little hiding skill, and they can prevent the occurrence of such blog posts in the future.

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.