Rite of Passage

The rite of passage was imminent; it was time for her to finally become a woman. Clutching the bottle with fear and anticipation, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then sprayed with all her might.

10 minutes later, her prize lay quivering on the floor. She smiled. Her first dead cockroach.

Tahir Shah in Haryana!

I saw Eye To Eye - Tahir Shah in the market today. With lush locks falling down his face, he sprang up and down and spoke in a distinct Haryanvi accent. Gazing admiringly, I wondered how it would be if he were to sing Eye to Eye North Indian isshtyle.

The Chirp

I tried to call out to her but with the straw sticking out of my mouth, only a muffled sound came out. Where was she? I saw an eagle flying in the distance. Wings outstretched, it spiralled round and round, reminding me of the poem by Mr. Yeats. 'Darling, can you hear me?' I finally chirped aloud, causing to drop the straw. Oh boy, the nest will just have to wait, I mused as I flew to a nearby pole.

Gurgaon Chronicles

With gleaming yellow eyes, the rat took a step back and brought out his sword. Those devilish eyes squeaked as I recognized a faint smile lurking behind his moustache. I closed my eyes in horror. Darkness.

When I opened my eyes, I was lying on the floor and the little rodent was staring at me, the same squeaky eyes smiling evilly. Unable to breathe, I closed my eyes again.

The morning after, my head felt heavy. As I got up dreamily, realisation struck; Rats! My PG was full of them. Now I love animals, but to have them licking my food is the last thing I want.

I have been in Gurgaon for roughly 3 weeks now. I still remember the first day I got down on Delhi station, with no idea or clue whatsoever, no hotel or PG, standing amidst a sea of porters and cab drivers, each shouting at the top of his voice. My knowledge of Delhi was based on the news the media presented; most of which revolved around the fact that it wasn't a safe place for women. 

I took a cab to the nearest hotel, kept the luggage and took a Mega Cab to the jungles of Gurgaon. The first time, it was eerie and I was awestruck. After the somewhat lengthy journey, met a PG person who showed me PG rooms for 2 full hours before telling me that they were all full. Then after explaining to him, that I was, in fact looking for a 'vacant' room, I finally got one. 

Cut to PG problems. 

Washroom woes added to an arrogant PG owner and to add to that, I saw a rat playing hide and seek under my tiffin box. But it's been interesting till now.

Met a lot of wonderful people (yes in Gurgaon, imagine that!), saw a big monkey (yay!), made friends, met some stuck-ups, a lot of helpful people and it's all been one exciting adventure till now. 

I guess, you never realise your full worth until you start living alone, solely on your capabilities. And I have surprised myself. I like that.

There's still a lot to do, a lot more to learn but if there is one thing I have realised in these past few weeks, it's this: I'm awesome.

The Beauty & The Beast

23 December 2009

Tomorrow would be the best day of my life. It was going to be my Graduation Convocation. I was so happy. I also had to look my best. What with all the cameras clicking around, I could not afford to look dull. I had to be at my shining best! The thing about convocation is, even after 40 years of your life, people will still look at these photographs. 

Accordingly I went to the best parlor in town. Got a bunch of their most expensive facials, manicure and pedicure. Advised some other customers on the precariousness of using beauty parlor products and how they should stick to herbal products only. The assistants in the parlor gave me a look. 

“But I’m not doing business, I thought. I’m just advising lost souls about skincare- which is as elementary as hygiene.” 

With this in mind, I went on and on about skin care and how the customer should buy herbal products and not that chemical trash they feed your skin at the parlor. ‘I know, it works. And it will work for you too’. Followed by that perfect white smile that you see on fairness cream ads. Or Colgate. Whatever.

And finally my beauty sleep ended. The assistants were still looking at me as if they would roast me alive if possible. But they were relieved to let me go. So was I. As I proceeded to the counter with my tower high nose, I looked carelessly for the 500 rupee note lying at the corner of my purse. It eluded me. “Naughty girl,” I smiled to myself. “Now don’t play hide and seek with me, Mummy needs you”. I searched and searched but there was no 500 rupee note! Only a worn out 50 rupee note.

A cold drop of sweat passed down my forehead. Panic. Blackout. My immediate reaction was aggression.  What! Those cranky assistants stole my money to get back at me! There I went to the parlor manager (who had already heard about my illustrious expertise as the next Shahnaz Hussein) complaining to her that I could not find my money. I had kept it there, yes in her parlor, and now it was gone! She was calm as she told me that none of her employees were thieves and I could go check anywhere I wanted to. 

Ears burning hot, I went and searched inside but could not find anything. As if they would keep MY money here after stealing it!

I was intent on foul play. However my paranoia was not going to get me out of there. Think think. I went back up to the counter again.

“Here ma’am I’d also like to trim my hair. It should be perfect. I have a function tomorrow.”

The lady nonchalantly pointed me to the hair stylist who spent the next half an hour styling my hair. After I saw it, I raised a fuss. “Nah, I didn’t want it that way. What have you done? It’s ruined!”

The stylist took a look and said, “But it’s perfect!”

“This is perfect? From what angle is this perfect? I look like a rabbit with a lion’s mane. How am I going to show my face tomorrow?”

I looked intently at the mirror and then picked up a spot in my cheek, “Oh no… It’s red. What did you put in my skin?”

The assistant looked at my skin intently and said, “Where? I can’t see anything?”

“Of course you can’t. I can feel it. I am having skin irritation.”

At this, the counter lady (who was also the owner) hurriedly came up to me. She looked at my face intently and said, “Look ma’am, I can’t see anything, everything is perfectly alright.”

I glared at her. Other customers were coming in and to add an element of authenticity, I started shrieking loudly. “This, this is what you call world class parlor? My skin irritation is getting the better of me. I will never come here again! Never.”

The other customers were equally surprised and looked at each other. The counter lady went to tackle them. I looked at them and said, “See what they did to my face. I’d run if I were you.”

The lady then came up to me and said, “Ma’am what is the problem?”

“Problem, problem you ask me? Tomorrow’s the biggest day of my life and you spoilt it all! Why will I pay thousands of rupees if I don’t get value for money? On top of that, you people have harmed my skin!”

“Ma’am, listen to us..”

“No you listen to me. I am never coming back again. I am horrified. God knows what your assistants will do to my face if I stay here any longer. Thank you so much for your time. And thanks for wasting my time. Have a good night.” 

With this I stormed out of the parlor, heaved a sigh of relief and promised myself to triple check my purse from now on. Even now when I go to a parlor, I pay the money in advance. That was an embarrassing moment that I’ll never forget. But as it is, good sense can rescue you from any situation!

The Andalusian Dog

I wait for the teacher in the empty class. It is air-conditioned. Oh, no. Cut. Scene change. There is one more character in the room. A guy with his laptop who eyes me now and then. I see him, sigh and sit down next to him. He has a laptop. He starts to play cheesy Bangla "romantic" songs or something to that effect. Something in my head screams, "MORON". I don't let his laptop finish the first line of the song, barely wait to hear which language it is in. I drop my bag abruptly and leave the room. Outside it is hotter. 


I move towards the open window at the end of the corridor. It has a neat bench and lots of fresh air. Cool breeze comes rushing in every three seconds. I look towards the staffroom. Another sigh, this time a deeper one. Wish he was here. So gentlemanly. He looks at me, I look at him. He even switched on the AC for me last time. He is so brilliant, so...what do you call it, "avant-garde"! I ask ma'am whether she is going to take class. She says, "Yes, Definitely. But let others come." Tough luck. 


I message one of my classmates saying it is times like these when I miss her the most. Critical times. Meanwhile the laptop guy (I have a terrible desire to call him "MORON" for the rest of the story but I will control myself), comes out with his phone pretending to speak as if on the phone with someone, just so he could come and look if I am still there. 


For the second (or third?) time, my brain screams, MORON! Try something new. So then thankfully, our teacher arrives and she saves me from further torture. Or so I thought. He and I are the only ones attending the class today. So he asks me how many classes have gone by, and I am quick to answer, "I don't know." Small Talk. 


" Have there been more than 15 classes?" He continues. 
"Yes, I think so". 
"This is her first class?" He points to the teacher. 
"No, second." I say quietly. Pointless question because she was just talking about what she taught in the first class the day before.


And then my teacher looks for help to me as she goes on teaching new things about video, film and digital media. I put in an occasional helpful nod but hardly say anything, coz let's face it, I was sleeping in the first class. And how was I to know that nobody from last class would be here? Where is he? Mr. Chatterjee? He always knew the right things to say. He is such an amazing teacher. He's so quirky, so eccentric. Sighing I sadly update my FB status, but even that's difficult when there's only two of you and the teacher is looking right at you. And yes, someone else too. 


And then comes the icing on the cake. We are shown a surrealist film. Now those of you who are remotely acquainted with surrealism know that it is a magnificent and inexplicable thing. So I won't even try to explain it. The magnificence of this inexplicable "ism" is surplussed in Surrealist movies. I had seen one such movie earlier and the class was then taken by the man who I now miss so ardently. The movie gave me a shock, and I remember feeling dizzy for the next twelve hours. This time we were shown a less sexually explicit movie. 


For those of you who want to know, an important part of surrealism was to deal with sexual repression as enshrined in Catholicism. The interpretation of dreams excited them. So what you basically have in these 1930s silent films is the release of sexual desires by means of dreams. Since the whole movie is a dream sequence, so anything can happen, anywhere. No logic of time or continuity is followed. So here we are shown this movie by artist Salvador Dalí and filmmaker Luis Buñuel called Un Chien Andalou or The Andalusian Dog. 


This was a famous sixteen minute movie which is till date considered a testament of Surrealism in Europe. The artist paints his pictures through moving images. So anyway, I never got Surrealist films. And this one had an elaborate scene where the man who is dreaming continuously holds on to the woman's bosom. She refuses, then closes her eyes, then threatens to hit him with a stick. Quite frankly, the characters moved like cartoons and I found it so funny, I wanted to laugh out loud. But all I could manage was a little smirk. And it was killing me.


The pain of not being able to laugh because some stupid guy is sitting next to me eyeing me. I don't like anybody staring at me. It is embarrassing. If I like that person, I would look away even if he was staring at me. And if I don't like that person, I'd do the same. So yeah, there's no way of knowing.So anyway, the torture ended for the class ended soon enough. And as soon as it did, I bumped my notebook and pen in my bag and ran off from the class. Halfway out of the department, I realized I had forgotten my handkerchief in class. It was a judgment call.


Hanky important or Guy, I wondered. You will leave your faithful comrade Hanky in some unclaimed classroom because you want to run away from a stupid guy? Be brave.All decided under 30 seconds. It's not much to think about, but then I think about almost everything under the sun. Even the sun. Sometimes I feel I am a big thinktank, a tank full of thought. So I take a long jump back to class, snatch my hanky and make a run for the door again. The guy is still there. He catches up with me just as I am about to put on my shoes. 


He is running so fast he almost bumps into me. "Sorry". He says looking down, searching for his shoes. I don't care to mutter a reply or even look at him. Hardly putting my feet in the sandals, I make a run for the stairs. 3 floors of stairs. I sprint down the stairs, two at a time, like Jet Lee in some Kung Fu movie. He catches up with me as if Michael Johnson.


"Hey you study in this college, na?" 


Small Talk. I hate small talk.


"Yeah", I reply continuing my flexible stair sprinting skills. Jet Lee, how I admire thee!


"Which Department?" He tries to keep up with me. My feet hurt. He's smiling.

"Comparative Literature", I mutter. I don't like being rude. I also don't like being chased down a building. Yet here I am.

And then it comes. "Will you give me your number?" Think think. He's your classmate. Quite natural for him to ask for your number. What to do.

"Why?" The word comes out of my mouth surprising both me and him. 


"Well, I would get to know when classes will happen. I don't know na, that's why." Moron. The course is about to end and you don't know timings! What an excuse!


Quietly I say, "Course will end next week. Next class is last class."


"How do you know? They said they could extend the course till May."

"We were told."


"How do you know? Did you ask them?"

Now when confronted with individuals with less IQ, I stop and explain them things with minute detailing. "Gifted" people need to be explained things. And I would have even in this case, if not....


"Sir came. He talked to us. He said this month we will have the last class. No extension."

"Actually, I am here only for this month. After that, I will leave. In May."

Wtf! Am I supposed to shed tears for you now, MORON? 


Obviously he was very hurt by my "coldness" or "indifference" or I don't know what, but he went away. I stopped for a while. Checked my mobile. Pretended to read an important message. And then resumed walking. Ouch, my feet hurt.

And I thought, "Was I rude to him? Was it bad manners? Poor guy. Did I hurt him?"


And then my devilish side kicked the angel inside me to an unconscious state and I happily went for my bus. :) 

On the Eve of Saraswati Puja

I was sitting in the lawn of a multiplex waiting for my friends. The multiplex was full of young couples or would-be couples looking dazzling in bright colors. Saraswati Puja is a revered festival in India, particularly in West Bengal. It is the worship of Devi Saraswati, the goddess of learning and wisdom. Owing to the concentration on learning, this Puja is most widely celebrated in homes, schools and colleges. It therefore also allows youngsters to interact in a more casual manner. 

May be this is the reason why this year, it was widely hailed as the "Bangalider Valentine's Day". Now I find this incessant longing to find Western synonyms to indigenous festivals and traditions, immensely irritating and foolish, but ah, what can you say? India still has a distinct colonial hangover. People pride on not being able to speak their mother tongues. Knowing English is however a must.


So anyways, the girls were bright and beautiful. The guys, well, they were just guys. Some of them really looked good but others...well. Let me tell you a story about this. As I was waiting, I found this beautiful girl in a dazzling white salwar kameez with high heeled shoes approaching. She was with a guy, who was dressed in plain shirt and pants (no traditional wear there). He was average looking and there was nothing exceptional about his features. The girl was beautiful and talking to him. 

He probably said something that made her crack up. The guy smiled. But the girl almost fell down laughing. She couldn't control it. The guy saw this. He tried to smile harder. And very soon he cracked up with laughter as well. He was looking into her eyes, her smile, her face and that gave him a pleasurable happiness. The girl was hardly even looking at him, but she touched his hands lightly in a "Gosh, you are so funny" way. This made him laugh harder. He was still looking at her. Very soon their friends came (I think it was a couple). They went to meet them. This guy, having gained some confidence now, put his hand around the girl's shoulders and she didn't seem to mind. 

From a distance, the flâneur watched. A smile spread over the corners of her mouth. "I have to write about it", she thought. 

Poetry that Speaks

dated 14September 2010

Finally a wave of fresh air. Our HOD announced with the utmost of strictness that if we did not attend this seminar, she will stop arranging seminars once and for all. Now seminars happen all throughout the month in the Dept. Of Comparative Literature but few of us ever attend them. When I joined this department, I had the good intention of attending almost every seminar that took place. However over the weeks, months, years, a lethargy (JUites refer to this as "lyadh khawa") grew and the seminars did not do anything to help. I mean while some of them were pretty good, most of them constituted of boring university professors who did nothing more than read from their typed papers. 


Sometimes they were not even audible or clear enough! And they expected us to attend those seminars! In the midst of these event-less and dry seminars, we had a sudden wisp of fresh air when a certain poet from Malta came to lecture. His name is Cassar, Antoine Cassar. And I know, I make it sound like Bond, James Bond. But you guys should know that this post is going to be about this awesome man with a flair for the dramatic (at least that's how it seemed when he recited his multilingual poems).


He began by saying that his seminar was to promote his book, Passport which was a compilation of multilingual poems. Multilingual poems are poems written in more than one language. As a student of CL, I have always been intrigued by , how to say it, "joint ventures". So naturally this intrigued me. He began by saying he will not give us a series of boring lectures but simply read out some of his poems. His first poem was "Rabbit". He told us that we wouldn't understand all the languages employed to write this poem but we should simply go with the flow. 


And it was... beautiful. The way he used different words (of different languages) to describe the sprinting, hopping and graceful jumping of the rabbit astounded us all. Who would have thought that so many different languages could have such similarity-- and that too in merely describing the sprint or hop of a little rodent? 


And then he went to a poem from his book, Passport. It dealt with the tragic life of an illegal immigrant, who is speaking to a guest. The poem begins in the words of this immigrant who welcomes this guest. The word 'Welcome' alone was written in more than seven languages. Then this immigrant begins telling his story to the guest. He explains how they were a happy family with his wife and thirteen children. But one day they found their younger son lying on the field, his leg beside his hand. This sudden description of violence jolted us all. The room was full of students as well as eminent professors and all of us got a big shock. 


The fact that this meek hospitable immigrant could speak of the violence meted out to his family so naturally astounded us all. But violence was a part of his life and so it was natural to him. The poet goes on with the poem where he talks of the other children in this immigrant's life. The poem concludes with the immigrant saying that he has been living in that piece of land for so many years, and then suddenly one morning, armed officials came to inform him that this land,was no longer his. "What am I supposed to do?" he asks regrettably. Reminds one of the days of Partition. People living in a place for years were suddenly asked to leave their homes as that place was no longer "their country" and all because the heads sitting in New Delhi drew borders with sketch pen on a paper map!


Mr.Cassar also went on to talk of the violence he had seen immigrants face. In his own words, he was form Malta which is a small country in Europe. But during his lifetime he had had to move a lot between England and Spain. This had also led to his interested fascination for multilingual poems. He spoke of the thousands of African immigrants who cross the hottest Sahara Desert every year, sometimes by jeep but most often by foot, so that they can enter Europe via Malta. 


Sometimes, these immigrants are captured by the Maltese border force. They have to spend a year in judicial custody after which the government decides whether to send them back or allow them to stay. Most are allowed to stay. But sometimes they are sent back. Once they were sent back to their African nation and the government of that African country ordered the killing of all those civilians. Their fault: They had fled the country because they did not want to join the military, against the government's wishes. All 100 were killed. 


Mr. Cassar also went on to speak about the harassments he had to face because he was from a small nation. With his light hearted touch of humor, he enacted two Bolivian guards who deliberately delayed his permit to the country because they had never heard of his country before. With a deep-set pain somewhere in his voice, he talked of the plight of belonging to a "small" nation; something that Indians will probably never have to deal with. His book Passport, was an attempt in this respect to envision an world, where people would matter more than sketch pens and paper maps; a place where people could travel and communicate freely to each other without any fear of getting shot. Which is precisely why Passport is a book of multilingual poems. 


I realized that multilingual poetry was the next step of Comparative Literature. In a world where single literature disciplines have been deemed grossly inefficient of studying cross culture contact, may be literature written in more than one language was the only way we could finally develop a more harmonious way of looking at cultures. Keeping the multilingual and multicultural context of India in mind, multilingual literature becomes all the more important. The seminar left us a lot of food for thought and made us smile long after it had ended...

Life

The slums of Kolkata are full of unbathed children, poor mothers who hide behind their shabby veils. The fathers sit outside the modest huts smoking, drinking or playing cards. The streets are full of dirt, mud and spit. The streets of Kolkata occasionally harbor a lunatic man or woman who lives on the alms of kind strangers or nearby shopkeepers. If the lunatic is a woman, then most often at nights, she might have to fall prey to the lust of some passing truck driver, some random stranger who wants to satisfy his greedy desires. I know such a woman, she stays beside a bus stop I pass on my way everyday. One day I saw a little girl beside her. 


I had not seen that girl before. And I wondered. How can this woman, who has no mental control over herself get pregnant? And then it occurred to me. Some brave bold man chose to plant his seed on this mentally unstable woman, one who has no family, and nobody to help her. After all, how else will you prove your masculinity? But now I see that little girl, playing by her mother. And curiously my anger subsides. 


This little girl is dressed in rags and is very playful. The shopkeepers around have taken a kind heart to this mother-daughter duo and probably had given them something to eat. The daughter helps her mother to eat, and then eats herself. The mother too sees that her daughter gets enough to eat before eating herself. When I see her with her mother and I see her mother's face, I find her smiling, I see her..happy. May be her mother lacks the reasoning power with which we, the highly intelligent (and sometimes over intelligent) beings are blessed with. But when you look at that smile, you realize that it is not different from the smiles of other ordinary mothers when they see their children. And curiously that smile relieves me. How can the consequence of a greedy cowardly animal act of lust give rise to something so pure, so tender, so joyful; like the love of a mother for her child? I wonder.


In a completely different street of Kolkata, I see dirt, grime and mud all around. People are making the streets  dirtier. My attention suddenly slips to one side of the street, where a mother dog is sitting with her puppies. The little ones are all scurrying around her, excited to get milk. A competition ensues as to who would get milk first. The mother dog sits patiently while the kids run around her. They are like little soft toys, a little bigger than the palm of your hands, soft ears, black noses, and body so soft that a hard touch can break them. You carry one of them and it is a trip back to innocence. Even if you go near them, they will not notice you; they are so engrossed in their play. I watch from a distance. 


The dirt, the pollution, the repulsiveness, the lust and violence---- everything vanishes suddenly! It's so full of despair, darkness yet what is it about these two scenes that blows away all the sins? I wonder. And then it occurs to me. Nature with her powerful gift of Life. Life that washes away everything bleak and gloomy. But can Life really blow away all sins? All markers of violence, indifference? Is it that easy? But how else do you explain happiness, birth following an act of hatred or repulsion? I wonder. And I wander the streets of the city, hoping to find an answer.... But the sight of life in these two varied inhospitable circumstances among these two different species astound me with a new ray of hope....

The Last Kiss

     

It was the onset of my last semester exam. I had just returned from a trip to the mountains. A friend studying in film school messaged me saying that she wanted me to play the lead in her next film. Ami Toh Sunei Attohara ('Listening to this I was overjoyed'). I held my breath steadily for the rest of the exam. What fun! Me acting in a movie! Wow..That had been a dream, since like a decade! I have always wanted to direct movies. The creative potential of the director always intrigued me. It also occurred to me that if I could not be the director, then at least I could be an actor, as then I would be able to actually act it out...So I waited. With patience. 

I asked my friend twice about the script and she said she would work on it as soon as she was finished with the heavier stuff. So I waited. With Bated Breath. After that, the time came. My friend met me one day to narrate to me the script of the movie. I listened quietly. The role was so intense that I could not say anything immediately. Just my kind of role; the kind I would love to do. And thus began our work.

We sat with the script one day. Another evening, I spent around 2 hours in the university acting out my role and discussing with her. One Saturday several still shots were taken. Further discussion was made with my co star. And shooting began from Monday. It was scheduled to happen for only two days, that is, Monday and Tuesday (Jan 10 and 11, 2011). Call Time was 6 am. :D Big Laugh. For any of the ones who know me, this is a big joke! I CANNOT ever get up early in the morning. 


As a matter of fact I am always late for my morning classes! My friend, the director knew this very well. So she chose to call me at 5:20 am! I opened my eyes, saw the phone ringing and strove to pick it up. But the ringing had stopped. And I chose to concentrate on the next best thing- trying to wake my mother up with whatever little sense I had so that she would in turn wake me up properly! (Yes I can be a very spoilt child st times. :|)

My Director called me up 20 times after that. I did not pick up the phone. Mostly coz of the fact that I was busy getting ready for the shoot and partly because I was scared she would shout at me. I said I would be at the shooting spot by 7:30 am. I was only 15 minutes late, which is acceptable by me. My Director knowing me inside out told me very directly, "Call Time is at 6 am. When will you be able to come?" I almost burst out laughing. So anyways I went on the shooting spot and soon I discovered that I was being treated like a star...It was amazing. 

Here I was sitting in the sun giving some expressions and there were bright young people with camera, sound and a bunch of other technical stuff who were doing a whole lot of physical and mental labor and I was the Star! I also discovered that even if there are two scenes in a movie, all those scenes have at least 50 shots which makes it all the more painstaking. I might be doing the same action over and over again but they take it from at least 5 different camera angles. Combine this with the sound systems and the technical snags that happen and film making is one hell of a project! I vowed that I will not act in movies ever after this project! Needless to say though, it was tremendous fun. Got to know a lot, see a lot.


The first day came to a halt. Ah finally. Sweet Bliss. I asked my Director friend when will it GET OVER? She smiled. She knew that one day of shooting was enough for me. 


The Second Day.


We prepared for a tough shoot. The final shots of the climactic scene had to be shot today. This was shot in the highest point of the college building. The Roof. It might sound very simple but it was not. We had to climb the stairs to a terrace of the main building. From their we took spiral steps only to come to a roof on an even elevated level. To reach that roof, one had to traverse through a couple of narrow cemented steps that did not have any railing. getting up was fine; it was coming down that made my heart skip a beat. Literally. So from that roof we had to go round till we came to a ladder- well not really ladder as it had a strong iron railing to go get up to the roof where the finale was shot. 

The roof was similar to the one in 3 Idiots, though the shots and frame are different in this movie. The director lost her cool and so did I during this part of the shooting. The only two people keeping their cool were my co-star and our cinematographer. My esteemed director became frustrated and threw away her notes and shot synopsis. The crew was scared to death of her. The rest of the shots progressed as they should, lots of edgy interactions between me and my friend. By the end of the shoot, I was extremely irritated and she was completely exhausted. And thus ended our extremely eventful shoot. :P 


Waiting to see the Final Print Out. 

Roots

Times change. People change. Memories Fade. But some memories..never fade. Or do they? You are traveling light heartedly engrossed in thought. Suddenly you see something. A newly built café. Quaint. Reminds you of a time lost, a memory forgotten. Another Restaurant. Heavy rain. Festive Season. You with a dear one. Little hands holding on to firm premature hands. Premature by hardship. Premature by struggle. You are seeing the world with big frightened eyes; feeling security in those firm hands. Firm young hands. Firm not by age but by overwork. The two of you enter that big restaurant. Both are extremely hungry. Greedily the menu card is opened. Dishes you don’t even know the names of. Sooo many…and they all seem so tasty. One dish. But..the price…. Okk another dish. This one costs less. But there is money only for one. How can you buy one plate of vegetable curry in such a posh restaurant? No money to order two plates. Quietly the two of you close the menu card, grin at each other at the idiocy of the prices and hold hands. Quietly the two of you step outside the restaurant in the blistering rain. The manager looks up from his newspaper. He takes a look at the departing strangers and goes back to reading.

Outside. In the Blistering Rain. The grins broaden. Wholehearted laugh. He saw us. Hehe. He didn’t say anything. What would he think? Goodness, to hell with that! Who charges soo much? We could have ordered at least something doesn’t it look bad? The premature voice of the firm hands comforts the little hands. Dhurr… Who cares? Let’s go find something to eat. Onekkhon khidey peyeche….

Times change. People… yes People also change. Sadly. But memories …do they fade that easily? You are ordering Biriyani from a posh restaurant. You keep the phone down and smile. The premature eyes have become more deeply set now. The eyes look at you and both smile instantly. Remember? Yes I do. How can I forget? Times change. But our roots don’t. Our roots make us who we are.

The bus. The quaint café. Sigh. Days of hardship are over. At least for now. But where are the premature eyes, the firm hands? The hands on which your whole world rested? The eyes were wide and bright. The firm hands had long shapely fingers. Where are they now?

Past. Togetherness. Love. Bond.

Present. Freedom. Alienation. Memory?

The bus speeds on. You look away and continue listening to music. 

Fly to Space All The Way!

And finally it is here! The dream of dreams, the vision which many of us have grown up to but could hardly think to achieve in real life- you can now pay to visit space! The first paying space tourist was Dennis Tito, who visited space nine years ago on a Soyuz rocket and stayed for seven days at the International Space Station(ISS). Though probably many might say it was easy for Tito who was a US rocket scientist before making a fortune through investment management. Being a passenger of the Russian space agency, Tito had to pay as high as an eight figure sum (some report around $20 million) for the privilege!

The cost was high and the number of seats limited; so in the past decade only six tourists had made it to zero gravity ground. But the story is different now. Reports say that by 2020, the space tourism industry could be a 700 million dollar business. For $200,000 every visit, you can now book a seat in the spaceship of Virgin Galactic, a company taken to heights by its billionaire owner, Sir Richard Branson.

Will Pomerantz of the X Prize Foundation, an institute that arranges for competitions to encourage commercial space travel says, "People grow up just fascinated by space travel. There are primitive emotions and instincts that drive people to it. It's loud, it's sexy and it is in some senses dangerous, so it gets a lot of people excited. But the people who got into this as a hobby are starting to realize that it needn't be just that."

Around $45 million has already been taken in by Virgin Galactic to reserve seats for spaceflights. Among the famous faces who plan to be on the first flights are Hollywood director, Brian Singer and former Dallas star, Victoria Principal.

The six passenger spacecraft called the Virgin SpaceShips (VSS) is the best funded and most advanced of the space tourism ventures. Burt Rutan, winner of the 2004 X Prize with Prototype has developed this space ship.

The VSS Enterprise will carry the passengers to an altitude of about 50,000 feet while being attached to a mothership. Then it will launch the rest of the way into space. The Independent reports, "Last Monday, both mothership and Enterprise flew up to that height together in a maiden test flight."

Other companies creating space ships for commercial space travel include California based Xcor, Armadillo Aerospace and Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame. Google is also reputed to fund an X Prize in order to send a robotic rover on the moon' the first commercial venture of a kind.

Looks like, holidaying in Mars and spending weekends in ISS are just years away!

Courtesy: The Independent, London

My First Steam Bath..... and May be the Last One Too!

For those of you who have been to steam baths, don't laugh. I had my first steam bath experience recently. Now I don't really do well with hotness, fire and all of those things. A very timid person by nature, I however also have a taste for the unknown, the adventurous.

Now you can well guess what it comes to when you have such a combination of both extremes in a person. It is always "To be or not to be", that is the eternal question. So after many days of hesitation I finally picked up the courage to take a free steam bath that I had on my gym receipt.

Enter the steam room. Smoke, smoke, smoke everywhere! I was scared it might be a fire! My first instinct was to run. But ah..no, I am brave, Brave girls don't run. Shit. I tried to recollect all the good things told to me about steam. Your face would glow, fat would be shed, blah blah blah! Who cares? How do I breathe? There is no oxygen mask here. Probably they should have kept one here.

So I open the door and peep outside to catch my breath. Again I close the door. Steam is supposed to be good, I tell myself. Therefore suffer in silence. Suddenly there is an abrupt noise. The steam stops completely. I get scared. What now? It resumes again after a short while. Accha ok, so this is how it goes. After three such intervals, I decide I have had enough of "Hotness". So consoling my mind about the few hundred pounds I had shed (:P) and the new "glow" on my face, I come out of the steam room.

P.S: A word of caution for all of you who have never been inside a steam room: It is literally STEAM! It is hot and it is water. It is not smoke, there is no fire. But don't forget to take oxygen masks while you are inside! :P

An interesting day at College

Today was a hard day. Well,not quite. Rather today was an interesting day. One of my classmates punched his bare hand into the door where it was glass. Out came the glass with his bleeding hand. Hhmmm......... Warm blooded creatures. I don't want to sound offensive but what kind of an idiot does that? Well...none of my business and in case any of my classmates are reading.. Don't mind my being rude.. But I have no sympathy for such attention grabbing freaks. My dear classmates- his friends rushed him to hospital and ofcourse reprimanded him appropriately. Then my teacher came and seeing no one around, she scolded us for not attending the class!!! After that followed a discussion on should we or shouldn't we have told her that my classmates had taken the wounded boy to the hospital.... Ah Lord! The discussions people pursue!!! So that was it... Oh and I forgot.... In the middle of all this we had our exam. It was HORRIBLE! My learned friends however think I am some kind of a magician.. I hold my wand and out come the marks. You can well imagine my plight. I was not inclined to studyand couldn't even do so at the library because of one of my classmates who wouldn't stop talking! Then when I was crossing the road , I took some desperate crossings. A taxi halted abruptly, A rickshaw driver gave me a "look", and a cyclist asked me whether I couldn't see where I was going... In the last two cases, it was their fault ofcourse, only the first one was my fault. So ladies and gentlemen, you see my plight... I am living in a mad,mad world... Next time more updates.. Till then Chao!