My city

Only in Kolkata would you find a US High Commission on Ho Chi Minh Sarani. Honestly.

The Seaside Pebble Man

Sir Isaac Newton, as we all know, was a remarkable person. Not only did he write the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (which nobody I know has read), discover cool stuff like gravity and laws of motion, and, more importantly, invent his famous catflap, but he was also responsible for one of the most intriguing quotes I've ever heard. The story goes like this:

Newton had a dog, presumably a black one. It was called Diamond (for some reason this reminds me of Black Diamond Express). Diamond, irrespective of his whatever his virtues were, overturned a lamp (or a candle, or something equivalent) to set fire to Newton's research papers, which had taken twenty years to accumulate (and that was because they were complicated ones, not because our hero was a slow candidate). Not exactly what you classify under loyalty, but then, that's how sometimes our canine friends can behave like. Newton, the great man that he was, didn't resort to throwing a hawaii chappal (possibly for the lack of one) or utter swear-words (possibly because the choicest of them weren't invented by then, and then, calling the poor creature something like a son-of-a-bitch would probably have been a redundant piece of action). Instead, he uttered, rather Newtonically:
Oh, Diamond! Diamond! thou little knowest what mischief thou hast done!

Rather captivating, his patience and temper management. What struck me was, who was the witness to this? Surely Newton didn't go about bragging to others about his incredible control over temper; and surely Diamond, however prodigal he may have been in finding a legendary master, was linguistically challenged to perform such an activity.

Then who was it? The search for this mysterious entity continues as we possibly come close to squash another urban legend, this time not quite one that I liked to do.

আবার বৃষ্টি

এক ভুল বারবার করবনা। আজ বৃষ্টি এল, আর শব্দ শুনেই ছুটলাম অফিসের বাইরে। কালবৈশাখী। গুছিয়ে ভিজলাম।

নাঃ, বয়স হয়েছে, কিন্তু অতটাও নয়। এখনও আমি আমিই আছি।

আবার ভিজব। বৃষ্টিতে। ফুসমন্তর হয়ে। আজীবন।

Memories of spiders and camels

Memories of my childhood invariably involve All India Radio and Doordarshan. Even now, as I listen to the 6 AM Vande Maataram or the trademark Doordarshan jingle as the undulated orange logo smoothens into a proper shape I get goosebumps.

However, this article involves to two of the most popular jingles from my childhood. The first goes back to a 12 o'clock Sunday morning cartoon of Spiderman, which was my most awaited show of the week. This was way, way before the more popular feature Hollywood film series of Spiderman came into existence. At that age, Spiderman was sensational, since he was the only superhero we could watch on TV, and also because he was the only known superhero to me (once again, at that age) whose undergarments remained underneath his trousers.

I simply loved the song, but could never decipher what most of the words were. As I grew up and found the mp3 on internet, I listened to it very carefully and noted down the lyrics. Then I realised what a moron I was, since the lyrics were available on the internet already. The more interesting aspect, though, was that no one, I repeat, no one of my age, who used to sing the song with as much gutso as I did, knows the lyrics by heart.

I suppose it's my duty to provide the lyrics here for the sake of everyone. If at least one person breaks into a smile while reading this and/or hums the tune subconsciously, I'd know it was worth the effort:

Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a spider can.
Spins a web, any size, catches theives just like flies.
Look out, here comes the Spiderman.

Is he strong? Listen bud, he's got radioactive blood.
Can he swing from a thread? Take a look overhead.
Hey there, there goes the Spider-man.

In the chill of the night, at the scene of a crime,
Like a stream of light, he arrives just in time.

Spiderman, Spiderman, friendly neighbuorhood Spiderman
Wealth and fame, he's ignored, action is his reward
To him.
Life is a great big bang-up, wherever there's a hang-up,
You'll find the Spiderman!

***

The other song, though, is a Bangla commercial jingle. This one goes back to the 1980s as well, was very popular during the 1990s, but faded away in the new millennium. It was a riot in my college days, and I clearly remember myself shouting at the top of my supremely-deprived-of-musical-sense-of-the-minimum-order voice in the metro stations, porticos and empty classrooms. It went like this:

মাথার ঘন চুল যখন মরুভূমি হয়ে যায়,
Oasis নিয়ে আসে মরূদ্যান মেঘের ছায়ায় ছায়ায়।
Oasis খুসকি তাড়ায়, Oasis উকুনও মারে
Oasis মাথাকে ঠাণ্ডা রাখে,
Oasis double-action hair vitaliser, Oasis!

This roughly translates to:
When the dense locks on your head do not exist any more,
Oasis justifies its name in shadowy clouds galore.
Oasis removes dandruff and gets rid of lice,
Oasis keeps your head as cool as ice,
Oasis double-action hair vitaliser, Oasis!

And invariably, without thinking anything, as if in an innertia, an obvious ting-tong is uttered, an interlude All India Radio always used between commercials.

PS: Can anyone provide me with a snap of an Oasis Hair Oil container or box? I vividly remember that the logo resembled the outline of a camel.

Ponyo

Towards the beginning of this decade I saw a movie called Monsters, Inc. What the hell, just another animated movie, were the thoughts that were going through my mind as the movie started.

It took me a couple of hours to become a Pixar addict. I made it a priority henceforth to watch all Pixar movies (whether full-length or short), and scorn at any non-Pixar animated movie. So when a friend had suggested a Japanese one to me, I was sceptic. I had never heard of Studio Ghibli or Hayao Miazaki, and neither did I have an idea about Japanese animation (with the, well, somewhat non-trivial exception of Hentai).

In a nutshell, I was somewhat sceptic when I started watching Gake no ue no Ponyo (Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, or simply Ponyo, as many websites prefer to call it). My scepticism increased the moment I realised that it was a two-dimensional movie (What? They still make them, the 2Ds?). I had started to wonder whether I'd be able to sit through it.

Well, sit through it did, and how! Who are you, Miyazaki? Did you happen to meet my parents? If not, how did you unearth Sosuke right from my childhood, mate? I mean, I didn't live by a cliff or was a frequenter to a sea or anything, and neither did I stack up goldfish in cute-looking green buckets in my backyard, but, well, my inner self knows what I mean. As I trudge wearily the along the harshness of reality one associates with the age of 32, I crave for that Sosuke somewhere deep inside me, the Sosuke that used to be me, the Sosuke whose dreams are always in the brightest of colours, the Sosuke who could love his Ponyo enough to modify her into a human, the Sosuke who is so vividly pure that you'd almost shriek in agony for not being that innocent. Where did you find that Sosuke?

And Ponyo? How can someone not fall in love with Ponyo? Isn't she the quintessential princess, blatantly ignoring the brazen ruthlessness of the world to weave world of dreams that no one is capable of? And why does she seem oddly familiar? She isn't an Aurora or a Cinderella, or even a Snow-White, and despite her maritime connections, she isn't even an Ariel. And yet, since the earth was created, since time was created, we, Sosuke and Ponyo, had joined hands to counter monotony with gaiety, dullness with colour, brutality with dreams, contamination with innocence, and we've won every time. We were there, we shall be there; we had basked in our victories over adulthood; we had refused to grow up and pollute our souls; we had denied the world access to our insides; we had loved each other like none before; we had been nobodies and yet had the world at our feet.

Their world, like their everything, is full of dreams we dream of. If Pixar is about technique, then Ghibli is about an incredible variety of colours and shapes. It's impossible to believe that sheer imagination and refusal to grow up can take animation to such high standards in the 21st century. The quality of animation is so good that you forget that it's two-dimensional. Never have emotions been so real and world so surreal with techniques that most studios would label as outdated.

Definitely a watch recommended, if you haven't killed the five-year old that you once used to be. You might even hate yourself for having grown up. I do.

Petition

To
The President of India
Rashtrapati Bhavan
New Delhi.

Re: Petition to announce 24th April as a National Holiday

Dear Madam:

We, the humble citizens of India, hereby make a pledge to you to declare 24th April as a holiday. The date, as we know, is when God was born. He turns 37 today.

God, as we've known Him over the years, has been responsible for the modification of the nation over the past two decades to transform it to the New India as we know it. Seldom have we been united in the illustrious history of our country under one belief. We have loved Him, have celebrated His accolades, have been ecstatic at His success and crestfallen at his rare lapses. We have changed channels when He has got out. We have treated our classmates and colleagues in an insane frenzy when He has scored hundreds. Even bookies do not place bets till He has been dismissed. There are thousands of such examples, and each one of us has his own.

In short, irrespective of the vast differences in clichéd aspects like culture, language, religion and geography and the underrated ones like intelligence, logical reasoning, calibre and ambition, we unite when He walks out to bat for India. The only known person to have done it had been executed in 1948, is called The Father of the Nation, and we celebrate a national holiday on his birthday. And he was just a mortal, like us. Not Him. He's a God. Possibly the greatest of Gods that have ever been.

If Janmashtami can be a holiday in most part of the country, we can definitely celebrate His birthday as well. It's the least we can do for Him.

Please do not turn us down. Please.

Yours faithfully,

Abhishek Mukherjee

(an atheist otherwise)
on behalf of
1,139,964,932 citizens, and counting

Dated the 24th of April 2010.

Shalimaar

Was listening to this song, and am really curious as to what "Jhingalala hoom, jhingalala hoom, jhingalala hoom. Hurr! Hurr!" means, and what business it has, peeking from the nooks of quite a decent song.

PS: I dedicate this post to the two Dharmendra fans in my office.

pepsi

I'm craving for pepsi right now. Not Pepsi, but pepsi. The ones they used to sell outside my school and college in long plastic tubes. The ones whose end you had to cut with your teeth and suck. The ones with long ice cylinders at their centre. The ones that used to cost 50 paise apiece (one rupee for my favourite milk-flavoured one). The ones whose thoughts bring me memories of my childhood and adolescence. The ones that have represented the best years of my life. The ones my parents always asked me not to have, especially since I had typhoid, but were so irresistible that I never cared to listen to them.

I'm craving for that pepsi. Where can I get one?

PS: And oh, why are they called pepsis?

Why I'm a Holding fan

1. When I was a kid I had heard vaguely of the name Michael Holding. I don't remember Holding or his bowling action that vividly. All I remember was that he bowled fast, very fast, and all Indian batsmen were mortally afraid of him. Well, all but Gavaskar, but then, Kolkata was quite anti-Gavaskar in the early and mid-1980s. Anyone who could intimidate my heroes had to be someone special.
2. His over to Boycott at Barbados 1981 has gone down in cricket history, and is widely acknowledged as the best over ever bowled. The first one hit him on the glove, the second beat him outside off stump, the third rapped him on his right thigh; he somehow avoided getting bowled in the fourth and fifth balls, and the last one, too quick for him, rattled his stumps.
3. He was responsible for possibly the most famous line ever uttered by a cricket commentator. As he was bowling to Peter Willey, Brian Johnston famously uttered The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey...
4. On a dry flat track at The Oval in 1976 he took 8/92 and 6/57 to bowl out England twice. The pitch was bone dry, the seamers had no assistance, but Holding ran through the English line-up with sheer pace in his armour.
5. He once threw so hard from long leg that the ball hit the batsman's end's stumps and hit the wicket on the other end to run out Allan Knott by a distance; the confused umpires didn't give him out for whatever reason.
6. 216 of his 910 test runs have come in sixes. That's 24%. Afridi has 18%, Jayasuriya 5%, Sehwag 7% and Gilchrist 11%.
7. While commentating, he famously replied when asked what he thought of slower deliveries: why bowl slow when you caan bowl faaast?
8. To top everything, once, during a Jayasuriya sixfest, Tony Greig was going berserk over the lusty hits. The steely forearms unleashed yet another punch over the ropes. Greig, tired by now, left it to Mike. With the crowd roaring, everyone shouting, yells and shrieks all around, everyone waited for Holding's voice to respond. He did, serenely, in that reassuring baritone: Onaather six. Yes, that was all. ALL. A perfect victory of apparently expressionless silence over hyperactive shreiks.

The KANK kink question

We've all seen it: Rani Mukherjee (oh, I suppose she uses the spelling Mukherji these days), trying to save her marriage, knocks the door at her own place, blindfolded and carrying an ominous-looking hunter; her father-in-law opens the door, and she pukes out her well-rehearsed lines, only to be embarrassed later on.

Well, I'm not the expert at kink, but honestly, does the blindfolded one do all the flogging? Shouldn't the blindfolded one be at the receiving end instead? What exactly was she trying to do? Walk in blindfolded and slash her whip in all sorts of random directions, without even knowing where her target was? Did she know শব্দভেদী whipping?

Speak up, Mr Johar. The inquisitive man needs his answers.

PS: Further thinking took me back to the epics. Does Mahabharata mention Gandhari being involved in something like this?

Hello, Death.

I am sharing what 'I Saw and I Learnt' at BlogAdda.com in association with DoRight.in.

***

Class XI is when you feel the most confident in your life. You're supremely confident after an okayish Class X result, buoyed by the recklessness that one generally associates with a 16-year old, and, well, you know what I mean... an endless list of things that sound very good, lively and vibrant.

So there I was, cycling madly with all the energy I could muster, tearing across through the city as I knew it to be in the 1990s. There were just a couple of flyovers in the entire city; the word mall was pronounced as ম্যাল (myall); Oasis and Arnica Plus advertisements shone on the highest billboards; soft drinks were sold in glass bottles; Azharuddin used to lead India; RD Burman was still living; internet was almost unheard of; and DD 2 was a new concept.

***

This was the small stretch of Raja Subodh Mallik Road between Jadavpur and Sulekha. The part had subsequently broadened due to some mysterious common sense shown by The Corporation. But at that point of time, it was narrow, and traffic jams were quite common.

But this was around 7 AM, and the morning of a shoshthi, which meant that the roads were almost empty, and whatever was on wheels, moved at lightning pace (by Kolkata standards, that is). I was cycling as fast as my legs could carry me.

There was a solitary truck parked at the left of the road. I could see a truck coming the other way, and I estimated two things:

1. I would pass the standing track before the moving truck would pass me.

2. Even if I was wrong on that count, when the moving truck would pass the standing one, there would be enough space for my girth to pass through comfortably.

Both turned out to be wrong. Both.

I had gone past midway of the truck, and was approaching the window when the other truck came tearing down upon me. Well, almost.

I have no recollection of what exactly happened in that split second. There was movement of some sort towards my right, something very fast, the way they show in movies; there was the distinct sound of the driver swearing; for a split second I thought something grazed my elbow, but I was mistaken; I suppose it was just that I wasn't used to the idea of death taking casual strolls in my proximity on a regular note. All I remember vividly was that my hands were sore of clinging on to the handles for less than a second...

***

Okay, now that I had a life, I was obviously keen on making the most out of it. On my way back home, I was soaring (okay, not soar: my legs were sore, so it was a rather slow movement, and that was a pathetic pun) over Garia Bridge. It was a small bridge with a nominal slope, but it did have a slope, and that is what mattered.

There was one of those trucks with ominous-looking rusty iron rods protruding from its posterior. What the hell, I thought, after what had happened earlier in the day: this should be easy to avoid. I gripped the brakes casually.

They weren't working.

Panic set in; and then, somehow, miraculously, my brain turned functional, unlike the previous occasion. I had the nerve to swerve my body to my right, the bicycle along with it, and then, with the bicycle at an angle of 45 degrees or so to the ground, I did manage to touch the ground with my shoes. And then, like they show in movies (albeit for speeding cars), my vehicle came to a screeching halt about a foot from the bunch of rods, my heart throbbing quite audibly (well, it seemed so).

Saved. Again. Twice in a day.

***

I'm not one of those who believe in destiny. Hence there's no reason to believe that I was saved twice on the same day for a perfectly valid reason. Some might suggest that I should never sulk again, since I'm living on borrowed time already, having already outlived more chances than what life offers any normal individual.

But then...

Forget it. Enough for the day. Enough of nonsensical sulks.

I have never risked my life since that day. Or at least deliberately, that is.

***

PS: Don't tell Ma. Please.

The theorem song

Ages back I had watched a movie called Maine pyar kiya. Surprisingly, I had liked it at that point of time, but then, when I had a second view a few years later, I felt quite embarrassed at having liked it earlier. I'm still confused as to why I had liked it; apparently everyone has his low moments.

Anyway, the film had a nice song, the tune shamelessly nicked from I just called to say I love you. I was in Class VIII when I had first heard of this song, and with time, it kept reminding me of the thousands of theorems and axioms I had to prove in my illustrious (okay, that was an exaggeration) career.

It was like someone had to prove the title of the movie: Maine Pyar kiya. How does one go about this? First, needs to plan a method to proceed. So, the thinking procedure starts...

Aate jaate, haste gaate, socha tha maine man mein, kahin baar...

Now you start collecting data:

Woh pehli nazar, halka sa asar, karta hai kiyun is dil ko beqaraar?

The approach is perfect. You collect bits of information, and you start questioning yourself why after acquiring all kinds of facts. Data, query, conclusion should be the attitude after every step.

And then,

Rukke chalna, chalke rukna, na jaane tumhe hai kiska intezaar...

See what I meant?

And now that we've mopped up the data, it's time to realise that all bits of information lead to only one point, are we that close to the proof?

Tera woh yakeen, kahin main to nahin?

More of that. Pick a bit of information and check whether it's relevant to the problem. I wish I was this methodical.

Now I'm getting quite sure of the fact that I've proved this:

Lagta hai yahi kiyun mujhko baarbaar?

This is when someone, ages back, had shouted Eureka!... the data has been acquired, the conclusions have been drawn and compiled, and the proof is in sight.

Yes, I think I've possibly proved it, I'm not sure, though.

Yahi sach hai, shaayad, maine pyar kiya.

Shaayad is the keyword here. Apparently the problem needs to be thought over for some more time.

The decisive conclusion cometh:

Haan haan, tumse, maine pyar kiya.

QED.

হ্যাঁ, তিনিও।

ছোটবেলায় শুনেছিলাম, তখনই মনে হয়েছিল:

ভেঙে মোর ঘরের চাবি নিয়ে যাবি কে আমারে?

মানেটা কি? চাবি ভাঙলে তো সাংঘাতিক কেলো, যেটুকু বেরোনোর সম্ভাবনা ছিল সেটুকুও গেল, তখন চাবিওলার খোঁজে প্রাণান্তকর পরিশ্রম। বড় হয়ে দেখলাম, সুনীল গঙ্গোপাধ্যায়ও একই কথা লিখেছেন, রাণু ও ভানু-তে। স্বাভাবিক। অবশ্যই ওটা তালা হবে, চাবি নয়।

তবে ঐ আর কি, গানটা যেহেতু ঘ্যাম, কাজেই ঐটুকু ক্ষমা করাই যায়।আরে, যদি নিয়মমাফিকই চলব, তাহলে ঘর থেকে বেরোনোর জন্য এইর'ম ছট্‌ফট্‌ করব কেন? আর, কির'ম লাগত, যদি হত...

ভেঙে মোর ঘরের তালা কোন্‌ শালা নিবি আমারে?

অনিশ্চয়তা

হয়ত তোমারই জন্য,
হয়েছি প্রেমে যে বন্য...

সবই বুঝলাম, কিন্তু হয়ত কেন? মানে, এত অনিশ্চয়তা কিসের? কোন্‌টা ঠিক নেই? কার প্রেমে বন্য? নাকি যাকে নিয়ে কথা, তার প্রতি আদৌ প্রেম আছে কিনা?

শেষে গানেও probability?

Correction: গানে probability আগেও ছিল:
shaayad meri shaadi ka khayaal... :D

Snakes

When I was a boy we used to go to the zoo very frequently. I had always enjoyed the more glamorous entities of the zoo like the big cats, the elephant, the hippopotamus and my favourite, the rhinoceros. However, none of them intrigued me the way snakes did.

The snakes baffled me by their absence. There were glass boxes with weird-looking straw blanketish things; my parents had convinced me that the snakes stayed inside them because it was winter. This always surprised me: did Monte Carlo have outlets in Indian forests giving away snake-sized blankets for free?

Then I realised that of all animals, snakes are perhaps made to reside in areas that resemble their natural habitat the least. They don't get to shrug off their shells and hide their raw nakedness in ambiguity in a glass box with tiles as the surface. They simply want to be themselves; they need a secluded spot so that they can get rid of their shell every once in a while when the weather is at its harshest.

Then it dawned upon me how cruel we really are. If we want to keep snakes in a zoo, we should at least allow it to live like a snake, not a mannequin.

Avid

A few years back someone had taught me that there's no f in Bengali: only ph. The difference is not as subtle as it sounds like. If you can't get it, leave a comment: I shall explain.

Let's not divert. For the very same reason there's no v in Bengali either: only bh. Hence Abhishek should always be written as Abhishek or Abhisek (there's no mapping of ষ in English, hence the ambiguity). However, there have been occasions, well, I shudder to write this, I've seen people write my name using a V: Avishek.

BLASPHEMY!

How, oh how, can one be such a callous, crude, ruthless vandal? Have these people no sense of what goes through the hearts of the millions of Abhisheks around the world as they tumble across such macabre, gruesome insanity? My blood boils, as it's supposed to, when I realise that the penal code doesn't mention any punishment whatsoever for such atrocities. Hence they continue to happen...

Had I had my way, I'd have inflicted serious torture upon these Avi-monsters, made a video recording and created a .avi file out of it.

Grrrrrr.

Memoir(Memoir-1)(Memoir-2)...3.2.1

Hard to believe, but I used to be one of those irritating children who always used to finish his school books before a new session started. This got increasingly difficult, especially with mathematics, as we progressed to higher classes.

One of the class XI books, flipped randomly, said "the number of ways in which n objects can be arranged is n!". This intrigued me: well, it can be any damned number, but why should anyone be surprised, whatever the outcome be? Why the exclamation?

Random facts

Recently someone tried to sell me Valium and Viagra using the same spam email; I'm really curious: has anyone ever needed both together?

I have watched a Rakesh Roshan movie called Khudgarz casting Jeetendra and Shatrughan Sinha (yes, Jeetendra and Shatrughan Sinha, both of them) and have actually liked the movie.

Douglas Adams had a collection of 24 left-handed guitars. I'm not sure whether he was left-handed himself, though.

Till a couple of minutes back there was only one Dharmendra fan in my office as per my knowledge. The count has doubled. And both of them are quite rational people, otherwise.

Chris Martin is definitely one of those cricketers whose batting statistics I follow very closely throughout the year.

I still don't know why the Bobby Deol-starrer Soldier was called so.

Fair and Lovely istemaal to main kar rahi hoon; asar inpe ho raha hai is the most irritating ad line I've ever heard. It drives me nuts.

Sonam's real name was Bhaktawar (Danny had this name in Hum); she is also Raza Murad's niece. I love both pieces of information.

I don't have a Twitter account. My father does.

I prefer copper to gold and silver.

Among my friends I'm the only serious fan of Mukesh that I'm aware of.

I've vowed not to go for an IPL match at a cricket ground or at a movie theatre. The resolution is getting stronger with the passage of time.

There's really a book called The Vampire and the Virgin. I've seen it at Crossword.

বাজে কোকিল

আমাদের বাড়ির কাছে কোথাও আজকাল রোজ একটা বাজে কোকিল ডাকছে। কোকিলের ডাক সাধারণতঃ আমার ভালই লাগে, কিন্তু এই কোকিলেরটা বাজে।

বাজে বলছি, কারণ যেই ও ডাক থামায়, হঠাৎ করে স্কুলের কথা মনে পড়ে; বা মনে পড়ে গরমকালের সেই দুপুরগুলোর কথা, যখন আমি সদ্য কাচা বেডকভা্রের গন্ধ শুঁকতাম উপুড় হয়ে; বা ছোটবেলায় চৌবাচ্চা পরিষ্কার করার দিন সকালে আমার চৌবাচ্চায় নেমে চান করার কথা; বা ভিক্টোরিয়া যাওয়া, বাবা-মার সঙ্গে; বা প্রথমবার সমুদ্র দেখার কথা; বা গানের লিস্ট বানিয়ে ক্যাসেটের দোকানে ব্ল্যাঙ্ক ক্যাসেট রেকর্ড করতে দেওয়া; বা মার কাছে গুণ করতে শেখা; বা ম্যাডক্স স্কোয়্যারে ক্রিকেট খেলা; বা বেলফুলের গন্ধ; বা চিত্রহার দেখা নিয়ে অশান্তি; বা আরও নানারকম; আর মনখারাপ হয়ে যায়।

আমার ঐ কোকিলটার ওপর সাংঘাতিক অভিমান।

Bobby

Aage ho ghanghor andhera 

Peechhe koi daaku lootera 

Upar bhi jaana ho mushkil 

Neeche bhi aana ho mushkil 

What do the last two lines mean? I'm really curious.

Confession

Over 10 years back I had been to PVR to watch Kuch Kuch Hota Hai with four friends of mine. Rarely had a film annoyed me so much; rarely had a film taken to me so close to the brink of taking a vow to quit watching Bollywood movies altogether; it was remarkably difficult sitting through the three (or was it thirty?) hours, possibly the longest three hours of my life.

I'm not one of those people who talk a lot during movies; so I had been preparing myself to have a blast at the movie as soon as it was over.

Alas! The other four, huge SRK fans (almost) all of them, somehow thought it was an awesome production, and they went on, animatedly, on how brilliant the script and performances and whatever were. I was left so speechless, dumbfounded and awestruck that I was unable to utter a single word in protest.

Now that I have my own blog, it's time to let Partha, Arnab, Gitanjali and Alapon know that I had absolutely loathed the movie. LOATHED.

Suniel in Border

I know multiple people (and quite rational ones, trust me) who can swear by Border. They claim it was a masterpiece. Well, any movie that dares to cast Sunny Deol, Suniel Shetty and Jackie Shroff together is definitely a masterpiece by sheer definition. But this one had more to it.

Despite the fact that Sunny and Jackie competed with each other whenever they could, Suniel Shetty definitely stole the show. His appearance, to start with, was simply too good to be true: he lay on the desert sand, trying his best to dig himself a few feet beneath the surface, and when addressed by his senior, he responded that the desert sand had always (could it have been otherwise?) been his mother, and he gets his much-craved-for sukoon when he lay on the surface.

However, this was nothing when compared to the climax. Imagine this: he was already shred to pieces by something like a hundred bullets, and was lying on the surface (the sand, as you might've guessed already). And then, he suddenly grabs a heavy (at least it looked heavy) land-mine and advances towards an enemy tank. The tank driver somehow tries to retreat (well, that's what heavy-duty tanks do when a severely injured person carrying a land mine with both hands advances in slow motion; opening fire is obviously not the default plan).

Our hero walked slightly slower than Dimple's movement mentioned here and went up to the tank; went past it; and placed the mine with utmost care behind the tank's wheels. The tank kept backing up, and got blasted into smithereens, taking our brave soldier as it perished.

The question is, what prompted this change of course? What made a man, totally down and out, recover and stage a comeback, hitherto unknown (well, if you exclude Mithunda and Rajnikant's moments of glory) to the nation?

Let's rewind to the scene. There he was, lying on the desert soil: and then, his face rose from the surface, drool and blood oozing from the corners of his lips; and then, he uttered those magic words: maaaaaaaaaaah, shaktheeeei (translates to maa, shakti! in Hindi and mum, power! in English)! Somehow I thought the immediate response to this would be that Milo ad, featuring a (decent-looking) housewife shouting Raaaaaahul, your Milo!

Of course, the willing mother granted his wish; power was granted immediately by some unknown osmosis, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Envy

Had I been born with as much talent and control as Warne I'd have bowled leg-breaks all day till I dropped dead. Right now that's what I feel like doing. Bowl. Bowl for hours under the Sun.

I would have made the batsman think that the ball is a juicy full-toss, flighted just above his eyes. He'd wait for it and then realise that he had misjudged the flight it's a yorker. Then he'd be deceived to think that it's a tempting over-pitched one and would lift his bat that extra few inches, preparing himself for that lusty drive. Then he'd realise that he had been deceived by flight a lot more than he had thought, and would have the dreaded realisation that it's actually a length ball and he's not as forward as he should've been. Then the ball would swerve at the last moment towards his left, and take a sharp ominous turn, beating the bat. Since he had not reached out completely, he'd lose his balance trying to reach out where the ball had pitched, and stumble...


... and after that telltale Howzzat he won't turn back to see what had happened. It's an inexplicable orgasmic feeling for a leg-spinner.


I wish I could do this on a consistent basis. I'd have bowled till I dropped. I'd have bowled like I was the last living creature on this planet. I'd have bowled on and on, braving the Kolkata heat, trying to invent unheard-of deliveries, dismissing invisible non-existent batsmen all day. And I wouldn't have needed a single living creature in the world for survival that way.


I envy you, mate, for making me drool whenever I watch you in action.

The Beach

I had a new dream yesterday night. Okay, I've had many dreams that have struck me, but this one, somehow, seemed worthy of a blog post.

It wasn't anything sensational. It was about a beach. I lay there, face down, buried on the sand. The sand was loose, almost like quicksand, and I felt like digging my entire body inside. However, as the Sun came out, the heat became unbearable, I rolled towards the quagmire next to the sea. Or maybe next to the ocean. Or whatever, I'm not sure.

The muddy feeling was soothing on my nerves. It was softness like I've never imagined before. My body created an imprint within a minute, and with every roaring splash of the wave I started to sink in deeper, closer to the bowels of the earth.

Somehow, even with my face buried deep into the muddy frontiers of the ocean, I could see the entire scene. The ocean was green. Very green. The sand was infinite. There was not a single soul on the beach barring myself.

And there I was, sinking deeper, deeper, deeper into the bowels of the clay, deeper, further, further, till I was covered in mud, till I could no longer breathe the suffocating pollution around me, till there was no more pain, no suffocation, just sleep and peace and bliss and oblivion and infinite shelter and nothing to worry about and absoluteness and everything and I don't have an idea what and all kinds of things you only dream of...

Well, yes. You can only dream of them, and wake up at some point of time.

Keep dreaming, Abhishek. :D

PS: I did a Google Images search, but couldn't find a beach that soothing or an ocean that green or a mire that inviting. So this one shall have to go without an image, I suppose. If anyone can find me an image, do let me know.

Picture courtesy: Sinjini Sengupta