A sunday afternoon that turned horrific

 The dangers of everyday life aren't often talked about. How difficult is it if you are walking down the street and you have a chance encounter with a group of uncontrollably brash boys. These boys must be in their late teens so not calling them men nor do they justify enough reason to be called men. It so happened that yesterday being a Sunday I decided to venture out on my own without a car, without my dearest honeycomb Ira. I just decided to walk up to Lenskart (a 3 km walk) to get my eye checked and get some fresh air all the same. I had barely left home taken a left turn (perhaps the wrong one if things got even more out of hand) and started walking. It's then I noticed a group of very exasperated young boys trying to hit each other with something long and sharp (wasn't even sure if it's a sword) or even something that looked strangely similar. I had palpitations inside and just a minute before chancing upon them I was surveying a children's park right opposite this incident thinking of how my little Ira would have loved to play in the park on a sunny Sunday afternoon. I stopped short on my tracks but forced myself to keep walking when I saw a young lad running for his life barefeet towards me and a group of angry boys with swords in their hands following him like they would slaughter him to pieces the moment they got any closer. I was just a hair away from this frantic boy, whom fear had literally given wings and also just an inch away from the youngsters in their scooter with that shiny sword like thing in their hands. What if these boys (who seemed somewhat inebriated) threw the sword at me in desperation of not getting their primary prey, what if I accidentally got hit by the sword while the primary target was the barefeet 17 something boy, what if I lashed at the ferocious youngsters to stop this madness and then became a victim in case of caught between crossfires. So many thoughts crossed my mind minutes after I pulled myself along in this scene. The cars had all stopped, the scooter wala in front of me was too shocked thinking of the invitable fate of the boy who was running for dear life and what may have happened to him? The passers-by were doing very passers by things like just looking at the scene. When i asked one of the locals to call the police, he seemed to shy away but he was curious to know what was happening all the same. Such customary animal instincts and inhuman. I had left the scene in a hurry, not knowing what fate befell the young boy. I just remember within seconds an incident during holi in my father's native Asansol, where I as  an 8-year old watched with utter horror from our window as a man was attached with hockey sticks and another one was killed with the same. I remember the dastardly act very vividly, a traumatic incident all the same for a young girl of that age.  Anything may have happened yesterday, or perhaps has already. All we needed was some right-thinking individuals to take charge of the scene and call the damn police to control the possible bloodshed. 

Banaswadi, Bengaluru

5.5.2024

The Psychedelia of Homecooked Food - Lockdown Diary 2020

Posto with kacha longka, vegetable chop with bharer cha, malpua with vanilla icecream, narkol nadu, aloo parotha with dhoney ar curry patar chutney, lebu ar mix veg achar -love has many names. It is the deep relationship one shares with one's plate - when each morsel is more than just basic nourishment, it is the outpouring of emotive juices that is affectionately called saliva. That is food for me. But hey, not just any food. It's homegrown food that is lavished with my own hands and has a kiss of the taste I relish so much. Someone once told me poetry is food, it isn't just written, recited or sung - it is felt.

Why do we relish good food? Is it the ancient instinct to lap up anything that is savoury or sweet or is it a creative juice in the brains that echoes "satiated" once you have a mouthful of your favourite something? Or is it a cultural thing? Which is -- the age old dichotomy between my food is better than your's or it is tastier and requires more effort to cook? Or perhaps it is just nothing. Once inside the mouth and out of sight, it is out of mind? Can it be out of mind so quickly, since the creative juices are doing their intense dance inside your system as we talk. The hing (asafoetida) may be kicking the walls of our liver, while the curry leaves are gliding through our duct or the sugar from last night's malpua making music both in our brains and bowels. I am convinced, the food music is nothing short of love or the act of making it. It isn't a delusional piece of something that I gulp in during certain times of the day. It is my religion, my culture, my being. Food becomes me once it  enters me and assumes the shape of my being. It works my muscles, it oils my bones, it grinds through the tumultuous intestines, it rolls over the floor of my liver laughing at my idiosyncrasy. It still is as I talk.

So what with the cultural aspects of food - what to you is donuts (the familiar sugar rush) is for me a freshly fried plate of firmly cooked malpua basking in a pot of sugar syrup laced with elaichi, dalchini and laung. What for you is dum pukt biriyani for me is a plate of chanar pulao steaming with the goodness of the spice mix (that's a home secret) leading to that elusive burrp after food. Your shahi tukda is my rosogolla (assuming its spongy disposition after swimming in a kadal of sweet sugar something). Your bharta is loosely translated into my shukto. Food is opium, it makes you toxic or toxicity makes you once you consume it (whichever way you please).  It is already laboring through our systems to get the best out of the "ingredients" it is made of.

So, what best to consume for your system - food that you have cooked yourself, can see, feel, touch, experience the quality of? Food that carries your emotions into your system and creates a memory that leaves you satiated and happier? Or food you get made or delivered?

 Oh well, you may agree to disagree. Whatever you decide. Food would still need tender loving care to assume a happier form that creates soulful music than a sad bird song (since it finds itself stuck in your gut).

Try it, to cook that is. Your own food is your alter ego speaking in a happy or a sad voice. You chose! Once you do so, try to ask that question to your gut, am I "satiated" or "sedated"? I am sure, you will find your answer.

It's Me

Motional Poetry
Sensual Fantasy
A Petal sunkissed
Clocking in right
Love drips liquid
Razor Sharp Wit
Beaming Shining
Words mull over
Waltz in stilettoes
Ruby woo lip smear
High on Rote Wine
Climbing Life's Pole
Descending on a tip toe
Neatly folded dreams
A mystery takes a long, winding ride

I will

I will be the change, to do to talk to walk to savour to live to thrive
I will not be left behind by this or any other tide
I will give my life a facelift just like the facelift I see in my dreams
I will fly past the crimson clouds and hold me head high in speed
I am love gratefulness achievement passion compassion ambition and dreams
I am the strong willed person who knows how to fly at will

Meanderings of a hopeful mind

Sometimes i wonder would it be nice to have a little breather
Those crimson skies, those warm hues, those rolling meadows and golden groves
Sunlight through the leavy cracks of sturdy mighty branches, the sounds of laughter of children laughing till far and beyond the grasslands
That picnic basket ripe with all the latest produce from the farmers market, the happy family strapped and saddled into their hatchback for their newest meanderings
The sound of grandpa shedding those tears of utter joy on the telephone, grandma talking about the newest bun in the oven while papa and mumma tell them how much life has given them in the shape of this little bundling
The dog flapping it's jumbo ears and salivating to the newly baked bread, the birds chirping in the backyard and making that familiar sound they do when they meet their kindred
That is the warm glow I seek, I find, I lose, I imagine, I dream.... that is the day I carry with myself in my head when all else looks dreary and frightening...

The science of yoga is a wonderful instrument for internal engineering. With manifold health long term health benefits and minimum resources, it is the body’s combative force to the attacks of external forces.

Yoga is the yog or the connection between the mental and physical. An asana is the effort the body makes to reach a pose with controlled inhalations and exhalations and attains physical benefits of good health through optimum mind control.

Each turn or twist the body makes to replicate an asana is the body’s answer to the ask of the mind that calls upon the physical self to collect itself through rhythmic breathing and focus on a particular physical entity whilst observing the going ons of the body…i.e. flow of blood, sound of a throbbing heartbeat or the aches and pains the body is facing. 

Mind through Body

The mind is a subtle entity and the body a more palpable one. To control the body is easier than to harness the dynamic mind. It is the constant flow of water in a gurgling brook or the energetic flapping of a bird’s wings, it is unending, ever-expanding and ever-curious. If mind were the wind that assists the kite, the body is the kite that flutters and flows upon the tug of the main thread of which we have the sole control.

Yoga as is common knowledge is an ancient science going back centuries and has modelled itself on the natural ecosystem. Hence asanas replicate the animal and the plant world.

It is the bridge that transcends a worldly experience and translates into a larger surreal experience as one travels through the physical self and releases itself to reach out to a world which is far beyond its physical capacity.  It is another word for one’s existence realization. 

Institutionalized Yoga Practice

A human institutionalized effort to bring basic yogic practice and comprehensive and tailormade yoga Teacher’s Training program under the aegis of an organization are the teacher’s training programs at the Rishikul Yogshala. Based out of Rishikesh, Nepal, Thailand, Delhi, Gurgaon, Bangalore, Mozambique, Vietnam, Khajuraho and Iran, the practices are time bound and manned by experienced yoga practitioners.

Physical perks of yoga practice

Benefits of yoga on physical wellbeing are manifold –

1.       Benefits the spiritual and mental wellbeing by opening up clogged emotions and pent up feelings.

2.       Replaces negative (Nakaratmak) with the positive (Sakaratmak) thinking

3.       Identifies the weaker muscles or organs of the body, through aches and pains  and quivering muscle masses

4.       Effectively deals with stress and mental health issues hence decreased level of anxiety and depression, which are preserves of the modern day life

5.       Brings out physical and intellectual sweat to master yogic practices and control the going ons of the mind

6.       Known to optimize systolic and diastolic pressures

7.        Helps attain samamkaya – to align each and every part of the body without deviation, retraction or contraction

8.       It lets energy flow freely through the chakras whilst controlling body heat and allowing awareness to travel through each cell and vein

9.       Helps improve muscle strength and controls common issues like arthritis, back pain, joint aches, migraine, sinus, heart burn to name only a few

10.    Yoga gives posture a pump up and helps align the spine with the rest of the body, this prevents posture related injury

11.    Yoga assists the joint fluids and protects cartiledges and bones from wear and tear

12.    Yoga helps one lift one’s own weight through asanas and uses the body weight as a prop to achieve optimum weight loss and muscle strength

13.    Yoga is a boost to the blood flow and makes the hand and leg muscles more agile. It is known to pump more oxygen to the cells. Advanced yoga poses that demand a greater twist wring poisonous blood out of the body and allow new oxygenated blood to flow to the primary organs

14.    Yoga improves oxygen carrying hemoglobin and red blood cells and cuts the level of clot promoting proteins in the blood.  It, therefore, deals with heart attacks and strokes with better effectiveness

15.    Yoga raises the combative forces of the body to take on the physical hazards of the external nature. Pollution, stress, weight gain, fatigue, aching muscles, bad spinal column health, breathing problems to name a few

16.    Yoga gives tremendous importance to the anterior spine and regular practitioners of yoga enjoy optimum flexibility and movement for the umber, thoracic and anterior spine

17.    Yoga and pranayama massages interior organs without the need for a surgery. It loosens tight muscles and allows blood to flow seamlessly

18.    Yoga and pranayama are passive reflections and opens the minds gates to newer possibilities

19.    Yoga and pranayama improves nerve health, it ensures the generated energy during the practices reaches the gates or the ends of the nerves

20.    Mindful breathing techniques of pranayama and asana practices are a boost to the happy hormone serotonin and finds it’s correlation with elevated levels of happiness and better immune function

Yoga is the body’s natural response to attacks on its subtle and larger entities, it is a way of existence when not just the inhalations and exhalations but also the pauses between them (Kumbhaka) are stressed upon. Yoga is refreshing and invigorating and opens up clogged pores to facilitate the flow of energy and life. However, any yoga practice requires the practitioner to be under the tutelage of a seasoned teacher, who is not just a regular practitioner but also a sensible human being who is privy to the vast possibilities of this life force and the orbit shift it can bring to one’s day to day existence and also long term well-being. The teacher’s training programs at Rishikul Yogashala  at Rishikesh does just that with its schools within the country and also without it. It is an amalgam of years of practice, controlled learning environment, multiple keen yoga practitioners and one common goal – to lead a fuller, healthier and happier existence.

My First Experience with Yoga and How it Changed My Life.

Yoga is always a first experience for me – each day is a new learning –
each breath is an act of filling myself with a little more of life. I learnt yoga
at the tender age of eight accompanying my father, an avid fitness
afficianado, to the local club. Manned by a stalwart of yoga (Mr India Mr
Manotosh Roy), it was indeed an experience that is firmly ingrained in my
memory and consciousness.
I was the baby in the club and I was delighted by the fact that playfully
accompanying my father and trying out some of the cool breathing in and
out exercises he did (however, incorrectly I may have emulated them),
weren’t as hard as doing other things big people do. I was a possibility
waiting to explore newer horizons and yoga let me do just that. It let me
discover a small little world far away from the physical world I knew, where
I could breathe in and out, just close my eyes and see a galaxy of bright
stars flowing into infinity. I had that experience, it was real.
I was still wanting in the stillness or the calmness that is a salient of doing
regular yoga, but the classes held twice a week, were enough to discover
an abyss of a somewhat quieter world in the restlessness of growing up
and trying to understand things. I may or may not have taken a learning
from the events but it had certainly carved a miniscule place in my brain – a
sweet spot that I could call my den.
Fast forward six years and around the age of 14 or soon after I hit puberty,
I was recommended yoga as a means to better my concentration in my
studies. I was going through that precarious age when emotions (love, lust,
hatred, bonhomie, friendship, loathing, anger, disappointment and
excitement) were all mashed up into one burning ball called hormones. I
was game to discover this evocative language that could shut off the world
and help me slow my pacing thoughts. Yoga was not just pranayama for
me at that time as I later came to discover what this evocative language is
called, it brought with it the perks of bending the body just as I tried bending
my thoughts. Suryanamaskara was and still is my everyday energy drink
and my chance to feel at one with the elements of my surroundings.

I grew up during the age of consciousness and Ayurveda was the
ubiquitous kitchen remedy that conveniently tried to elbow the remedies
provided by the corner pharmacy. My home was a tiny reflection of the
revolution all around and yoga was at the pivot. A sarvanasana,
dhanurasana, halasana, matsasana or chakrasana are as much a part of
my psyche as the good food habits I have inculcated over the years.
Yoga saw me at different phases of my life, first when I was a restless and
curious to learn little girl, who was lapping up whatever the universe threw
at me; then as a teenager who was at tenterhooks, trying to stop the motion
of her emotions and now it’s my everyday wake up call. It is first thing, I do
in the morning and the last thing I do when I call it a day.

If I were to sum up yoga in one word I’d say it’s the touchstone that
changes the route of the mind and gives the body a chance to bend and
reach the subtle entities whilst curing everyday ailments. It is my water
when I am thirsty, air when I am out of breadth and sunlight when I am in
need of good cheer. Yoga for me is living.

Ira - the first morning to school

Ira was the first rains on mother Earth - vibrant, vivacious, restless and almost never letting a dull moment pass her by. She was the apple of her papa's eye and the dolly in her mother's arms. Ira was stocky, coffee coloured velvet skinned beauty a bit podgy with a slow gait that led her ample girth dictate the way she walks. She was bright eyed, dimpled chin and a curious little dimple on her left cheek- needless to say who had taken after her tall and chiseled father. Her mother's genes lent the honey to her voice, her mother was part rebel and part positive light that led her on.

Ira had a happy home - a rented groundfloor apartment somewhere in the outskirts of 80s Kolkata that found a little space in the map but a large space in Ira's heart. She lived her environs like she breathed the morning air from the adjoining park where many a happy moments were spent playing with Ira's friends Shonamoni, Rinki, Putli, Rakhi and the lot. There was, however, one person that Ira always looked up to and somehow tried to be in the good books of - Tumpa. Tumpa was a melting pot of ideas, both insane and exciting. Ira was privy to the execution of many of these ideas. The ghost story marathon on Tumpa's balcony and the sound effect from Tumpa's coconut tree that lightly kissed the balcony rails lent an eerie air to the atmosphere created.

Ira loved the thrills of adventure. She somehow wanted to run away but never wanted to leave the warmth of home. Her home made warm by her mother's lovingly cooked pithe and puli and her father's bull like resilience to see Ira make it big someday.  She was shy and protected, she found the world in her parents' loving embrace. She felt so protected that the slightest thought of her parents going out of sight changed the color of Ira's eyes. They turned watery.

The first day at school was a a usual June morning. There was a nip in the air and the air was a bath in the skin. It was not yet time for the approaching monsoons. Her neatly folded school uniform was kept on the bed and Ira realised for the first time that she was going to school that morning when the usual tussle over the much hated milk and banana for breakfast (from Ira's point of view) was replaced by the sound of her mother's sweet voice. This was the other mother she knew, not the tough, strict and my way or the highway mother, but a doting loving mother smudged with a dollop of ice-cream. She just knew the day was different. Through the househelp bou, who told her that she was about to begin school.

For Ira in her mind, school was a happy place but just that the location wasn't home, all else was the same. It had bubba and maa too, per her thoughts, they would accompany her and stay with her through the day, in another location called school. But that was not to be, as it turned out, a large blue and white bus with babbling kids and a loud conductor would be the vessel to transport her to this new world called school sans bubba and maa. Ira felt choked and scared - why couldn't her bubba and maa come along? Her eyes welled and her thoughts were confusing. Thoughts in her little head with a head full of jet black hair. Her uniform was the color of her mind - blue. She had a small pentagonal pocket with the word A G inscribed on it. For the school it could have meant something else but for Ira it stood for Am (Not) Going. As she fought back her tears, resistance to go gave way to unwillingness and an unusually slow gait.

The bus arrived as scheduled and Ira after taking a photo on her verandah made her way to the bus stand at the end of a concrete road. Her father held her hand and Ira looked into him as if to ask - Is this necessary bubba? Can I not study at home? Bubba may have read Ira's mind that day but his gestures suggested otherwise. He prodded Ira along that concrete lane as a dwindling figure of his maa from behind the grills of the verandah was like a fading image in a watercolor canvas. Ira wasn't game for this, not today, not tomorrow, perhaps not day after either.

The conductor patted the bus as if it was his pet whom he kept under sharp vigilance and the bus promptly stopped. Rinki and company were too happy to wave their parents goodbye, but for Ira it was like walking into a den with no doors. She stepped in helped by her playmates to climb the rather high stairs of the bus and the door shut loud behind her. All she could see was the bobbing head of her doting bubba waving a reassuring goodbye and a glimpse of her friend Noni's pet dog, Puppe, who seem to have joined in the carnival of goodbyes.

Hail Hilsa!

The appeal of Hilsa to the Bengali tongue is what sugar is to ants and wind is to a windmill. It immediately releases some very positive hormones in the ever busy Bengali stomach and gives one a feeling of utmost bliss/nirvana. What  if the jugalbandi is with some mustard, lo and behold we have some duo here. A reference from my today's attempt

Mornings are my thing. The fresh air, the sounds of birds chirping, the smell of fresh leaves and the calmness. I believe it makes me me when I wake up with the sun and see it peep its fiery head through the horizon...

Life Begins...

Wise Women Speak, 30 Things Everyone Should do before turning 30, Book of Ages 30, Shut Up, Stop Whining & Get a Life, Woman x Turns Thirty,Turning 3, they all talk endlessly of the anticipation and anxiety associated with the Big 3-0s.


In anticipation of an event that will occur in another 4 years,I say it's time to ponder. Says Urmi Roychowdhury, an architect, “I used to think that turning 30 was one of the best things to happen to me, since I had the right mix of experience and foresight I thought the world was at my beck and call.” Howevever, she recalls with some discomfort the questions raised by friends and relatives who constantly reiterated how well and complete she’d be with a marriage. Some even went on to make objectionable remarks like, “Are you mentally stable, do you have a medical problem.” When her answer was a resounding ‘no,’ they’d add, “Why are you not married as yet, then?”

It isn’t just the stigma of turning thirty, but it has more to do with the question of turning thirty and not being married. For Priyanka Biswas, who is housewife and has a toddler, “Ifeverybody else all around you is cutting one another's throats, I prefer to opt out and enjoy doing a job that everyone else isn’t doing. For me it is motherhood and family that is important.” Priyanka tied the knot when she was twenty and she now has a kid and a blissful family of her own.
For some women, however, it’s about evaluating one’s personal and social choices, a time when one gazes inwards just to see if one is on the right track and if one is making the right choices in life. There’s a thrill of the chase for a career-orientated woman says Manpreet Pasricha, 30, a journalist. “I believe women are best married when they are independent and when they are ready for a relationship. I have a boyfriend but do not wish to tie the knot any time soon.” For 31-year Sreoshi Chatterjee, marriage isn’t an option, “I have been through enough bad relationships and I don’t believe I can make a good wife. However, I’d try to keep a positive mindset and get along to see what life has to offer.”
Likewise, the revelation of a breaking relationship was shattering for Sunetra Pathak, a child specialist in her early thirties, “I was in a steady relationship with my boyfriend and I popped him the all important question to tie the knot.” However, Sunetra’s boyfriend chickened out in the nick of time and said he wasn’t quite ready to start a family. “It was shattering for me to know that the person I had dreamed of sharing my life with slipped out at the time he thought right.” For her, getting married after a shattering relationship isn’t the best option. “I want to concentrate on the people who are around me right now, instead of building a new one.”
It’s not all doom and gloom for other city women like Avishikta Basu. Avishikta, 34, who runs her own business says, “I enjoy my work to the hilt and I, unfortunately, don’t consider myself as a loyal and trustworthy person, packaged with enough charm to be a faithful wife. I am better off as a singleton.” It isn’t always easy to shrug one’s shoulder and say one doesn’t wish to get married, specially with the gossip mongers. Says Shibani Sengupta, “I have two daughters, one aged 28 and the other approaching 31. People often ask me why my daughters aren’t married yet. I just say I give them the free will to choose a life they want to lead. It’s there call. However, if any of them can find me a nice bridgegroom, I’d gladly oblige. But, that doesn’t happen either.”
Some women are shrugged off as an additional burden on society and they end up being gossip scrums. Runa Paul is a mother of two and once divorced, “It bodes well for our future and also for building of a family life to decide what one wants”says the 34 year-old mother of two. No matter how much one coaxes me to get married;I just can’t throw caution to the wind.”
In keeping with the trend of the burgeoning over-thirty-and-unmarried population, Gul Panag has starred in a film Turning Thirty which is slated to release in January 2011. She explains on her blog how each actor in the film was turning thirty, while the film was being shot.
“If you are on your hands and knees with a magnifying glass analysing why you turned thirty and didn’t get married, it better you give your life a hard look.” Says, Rini Roy, a dermatologist in her mid- thirties. I believe there’s always a good time but even if it doesn’t happen, I won’t be ashamed to look at the mirror and say maybe it’s my haircolour, it’s my shoe size or even my broad face, but it’s okay. I am happy I turned thirty at last.”

You are amazing. Simply amazing!

Hey He-man,

I couldn't have brought myself to write this. It hurts my ego. I have met people along the way. To some I have been good, to others I have been great and to others a bit spiteful. You know here that I am very good to myself and wouldn't go to the extent of hurting myself. It's been tough for me to suspend my ego and let my emotions come to the fore. Sometimes. Only sometimes. At those times I have lost myself. The self I prize myself to be. But look at you. You went away, faraway. You tossed you turned, you stirred, you groaned. God knows what else! (sorry for laughing at you) but you still remain the same. Ready to be lost again. Ready to love, loathe, lie, lie (:)), lust, live. Yes live. You live you live in your today in your yesterday and in your future. You'll live. I am not trying to give you a push. But yeah, you can say I am trying to give you a push again :) You live not in your past but in your present. At the moment. I love you still. You know that.

Kisses

Cecilia

Something's gotta give

I thought somethings gotta give. Somethings got to give in. I was feeling like a conduit where all holes had been plugged and where the wall was made of clay. I am hopeful in a very extreme kind of a way. My mind begged me to just give up while my body still had the little bit of energy left after a few free style strokes. However, things stood still like water in a pit, not even a ripple. The feeling was uncontrollable. Then walked in bio energy healing.

At my new job at the bioenerygy healing clinic, I noticed that my body wasn't divided into meridians only. My healer Jude, quite well understood that I had stiff shoulders as he worked with the static electricity of my body and weaved his way through my upper back. I felt the radiation. It was a sudden release. I could see him work through my abdomen as I felt the spike at the bottom of my spine. I wondered it if it's the effect of the jagran of the manipura chakra at the bottom of my spine, or if it's a weird western take on it. I was right it was western, but it wasn't that weird. It was quite rational and didn't go by the chakra philosophy of oriental thinking (precisely Indian.) It was more ruled by the instinct. Before I comment any further I better explore bio energy healing a bit more to find out. Hope you make an effort too, if it's slightly intriguing, that is.

Life's a Carnival!

I was at the Nottinghill Gate Carnival last weekend and it wasn't a semblence of the violence-ridden celebration that the British press has been making it out to be, for the last few years. What I saw was -- fanfare, lots of summer barbeques, gypsy-loads of gyrating Jamaicans and a another truckload from the Caribbean Islands.

Though I shouldn't brag about my race-identifying skills infront of my cousins, lest we get into another scuffle we got into, infront of the "House of Fraser" at Oxford Street-- "The man in the back-seat is Mexican/Bolivian/Indonesian/Philipino???!!Now, I'd say he's Polynesian (after a year of solid British education, and I mean it in a good way. :))

Talking about Nottinghill Gate, I have never heard so much Reggae on the streets and the whiff of corn and burning meat is quite something else. The security at the barricades had barely volunteered to take in the aroma of the food being prepared that the pungent smell of burning BBQ meat made them stop short. I loved it honestly, when the slightest drum roll in the distance would make some of these feathered women twirl and twist as if they were in some kind of a reverie.

The young kids were busy trying to show the oomph often exhuded by little kids wearing saree or pajama panjabi during Durga Puja in my city Calcutta and the carnival at Nottinghill Gate (without any exaggeration) is reminscent of the procession at Kumartuli or Jadavpur. Okay (spoiler alert) we Bengalis are very likely to say, "Oh the French, they are quite like us in their food habits," "Oh, the Spanish they are very close to us in terms of weather." Like all self-respecting Bengali I'd say, 'Oh, the West Indians are so like us when it comes to celebration."

Therefore, I am part West Indian. If I didn't have the camera with me I'd shake a leg with the feather-ridden crowd. Or, better still, I would have recalled my swagger with the mike and Papa Joe. Life is indeed a carnival (read "everyday" after the fullstop.) :D

Game Over

The whole truth of marriage is:

"I don't believe in marriage. Marriage is when small-minded men decide to keep the women at home and out of their way. Now that is delusional. But, when two people who are in love with each other and who are almost as capable of making each other miserable, can vow open-eyed. Yes open-eyed. Now that's not delusional, that is radical." -- Frida

SHE

Emboldened to do what she does

Happened to be born in August

She sings aloud to the skies

And leaves no friend who's left behind

With a heart of gold and the smell of fleurs

She isn't just an ordinary one, because she takes soul energy from the Sun

Her yogic poses woe betide can awaken anyone who died

She is lonely when she's together and perfectly happy when she says 'never'

Her feelings take the better of her, her heart just plays a game of lure

She isn't the hard-hitting feminist, with brandishing fist and eyes full of mist

She is the one who can stand the test of time, resilient, and go dutch when it's the dime

When nudged she can be a-n-g-r-y, but isn't that because she's honest and free

She scoffs at half-baked ideas and loves the subtle adventures

At home with her friends and family, moments spent in company bring her glee

Loves the serenity of a beach or the solidarity of high mountain peaks

If I could be like her, well that's another story

Maybe I could play her part with glory

Never too bored to play or sway

Tomorrow for her isn't just another day...

Adaptibility

Of late my perception on situations have gone for a sixer. I have managed to unlearn all that I learnt. Yep, I have the dubious distinction of being a thinker and a profound one at that. However, it is perhaps the best channel for my communication-- the head, the intellect, the action and when all three have worked in tandem, I have managed to create a sanskara(a habit.) When they haven't, I have just given in to the situation.

I am still willing to go with the head when I am dealing with myself. My education and upbringing has taught me that schooling the mind is good. It is the way forward. When you school your mind to try and be good at something, it has reaped dividends. When you let it go haywire, it got scattered. Yoga has been of considerable help to me in terms of the mind and the body working together, in other words called the 'Yog' or connection with your divine self.

Otherwise, I learnt to teach my mind through classical music. The note 're' sounds better when you meander from 'sa' to 'ga' and so on so forth. In that case, jumping to a 'ma' directly creates a jump in the harmony. However, musicians don't always work the notes. There's nothing in a piece of paper that would tell me what the creator was thinking of the notes when he created them. That's when the magic word 'improvisation' takes over.

My tryst with jazz music of late has given me a whole new perspective on music. I found out that jazz is more about adaptibility. Say if one pulls a tune over MJs 'Billy Jean' or Madonna's 'Holiday' they'll chip in with their interpretation.

Small wonder then jazz musicians experience a certain taste of freedom when they go 'by the notes.' Disparate sometimes and yet completely in tune. Classical music surprised me by using some of the elements of modern day jazz.

I didn't expect to listen to some scatting with a violin. Like Mr. Morrison said that it's all in the perceptions.

An Indian dream

Punjab Sind Gujarat Maratha
Dravid Utkal Banga
Vindya Himachala Yamuna Ganga
Ujjchala Jala Dhitaranga

These words echo in my mind today as I remember my forefathers who fought 62 years back to give me a dream. A dream where I am hoisting a tricolor on top of the sunrise peak and chanting 'Vande Mataram.' The swadeshi he believed in gives me the power to say, I make my 'own goods' and I have my own gram panchayat. 60 years hence the Incredible India he dreamt of hasn't belied his expectations for most parts. Though the occasional gum-chewing youth with his KFC may have miffed my grandfather during his life time. The growth of consumerism and food chains that prepare food faster than a fly could lap up a crumb of bread didn't sit well with him either.

Let's face it, we live in a different India today, the India with sprawling paddy fields and gorur gari (a cow drawn cart) ambling down rough terrain look good in RK Narayan's short stories. The khadi that my grandfather prided his country for is now the 'in vogue' thing. But for a totally different reason. It is chic and a breathe easy fabric. Let me make no mistake but these are India in it's very core and will always be.

However, generations change and we carry on. India now is a pot pourri of cultures, both eastern, mid-western, and western. History has given us a gift. Perhaps that's what makes India exotic. I am not getting into the miniscule details of Indian hygiene sense or the railways that have a reputation for not working on time. But I am going to look at the positives now. A nation that earned it's own status of being 'independent' and dealt with increasingly hostile neighbours with little to offer by way of foreign treaties or economic advancement. I am going to say most of them (our neighbours) for us are now a liability.

I lost my great-uncle a Colonel in the Indian army during the 1971 war, whose body was mutilated and thrown into the jungles of Arunachal Pradesh while he was stocking the amunitions after the war he thought and we thought was settled. Winning was a different story altogether. We still haven't made peace with our neighbours.

However, we have travelled a while from the 1960s India, be it the overrated IT or the prevalance of the English language. Or even Bollywood. My India looks different from what my grandfather perceived it to be. A far cry from the communist manifesto or the gram panchayats that did little justice to women who went against the patriarchy.

India is still in transition, but I am not in favour of a rapid one. I would rather hope that it takes another decade to let the changes seep in.

For the most parts, I am proud to be Indian. Not just today, not just this month. But for every day of my life.

Thought for the day

'Astonish me!' I just wished to beam these words into my conscience today. :)

Testing time :)

Paying faint attention in class, writing a sloppy piece of work and then learning the ropes to pack a punch in the new write-up.

Toggling between windows (one of them being Facebook :x) only to find out that the glass door behind the macintosh has a loud sign saying -- "Don't forget glass doors are transparent and I can see your facebook account, ta."

Rubbing nose against the radio room mike to eliminate the ubiquitous hiss only to be told in class, " I like your creativity, but there's the editing and there' the editing."

The not-so-sober-party nights at Marylebone, hunting for a byline, capturing scratch on the hard disk to find that it hasn't 'captured a scratch of video,' seeing the last shiny train dwindling in the background.

Bringing the world down to get a single student discount.

And saying out aloud in class "I'm snappy, tired and edgy today, therefore, I make a good journalist today."