Sunday 29 January 2012

I need sharp, really sharp scissors to cut through the jargon. It is killing me. At 3.50 a.m I am being murdered. I wish someone would come to the rescue. I don't even think I can be rescued or for that matter even deserve to be rescued. 

Saturday 28 January 2012

Respected Saraswati debi, - I am sorry . Or not.

I don't understand Sanskrit (want to learn but still have not) so I see no point in offering pushpanjali to Durga or any of her daughters. At least I need to know what I am saying/praying/asking for. And to put it mildly, I am not too fond of fasting. So, after waking up at 1p.m and gulping down a half a mug of black coffee, I saw Saraswati debi,a monochrome murti, with plates and plates and plates of fruits  and what not. I did not have the decency to bathe , so I was maintaining a safe distance but was later told that it didn't matter (they were tired of me hovering around in crumpled clothes, not ironed in a decade).  I promptly perched on the sofa, looked at Saraswati debi  and had my plateful of fruits, then proceeded towards Khichudi, labda, chatni . A very happy fat penguin-woman walked back upstairs. Bliss. :)

 On a full stomach I earnestly prayed for her well-being. Then I realised that she is the goddess and I should pray for my well-being, anyway I can't think on a full stomach, I feel very sleepy. Once upon a time this day was about wearing a saree, visiting some local schools where a puja was held (my school had a church and we celebrated Christmas), and then about ..well...forget it. Then there was that song "Saraswati bidyaboti, dilam tomay khola chiti ...".and those Bengali essays in school where you had to write all kinds of made-up shit "saraswati pujor ayojon shuru hoye jay aager din thekei, amader bidyaloyer chhatro chaatrira mile byasto hoye pore nana kaaj e, debir murti aana theke mondop shojja...." blah blah blah...once in an essay, throughout the entire 2-3 pages I had put the bo-phola on the first donteh-shaw..and our lovely teacher did not notice..my father did..:P . but as I said. forget it.

 Now that I have grown up, I am mature, I know what really matters in life- a good lunch.

Bye. 

Sunday 22 January 2012

I see. I see.

People party on weekends. Good for them. 

When you work, you get dressed and go out. When you party, you get dressed and go out. And that is why I stay at home.

Now imagine this scenario. People are partying, at a disc, everyone is dancing to the latest chartbuster chikni chameli types. 

so...

Chikniii chameli paua chadhake..in FULL volume..and then suddenly 








Aee mere watan ke logon, zaraa aankh mein bharlo paani.....

Have you ever seen that happen?  I haven't either. The point is, the people who party get what they want and their fun is seldom interrupted then why are people who want to stay at home treated so badly? 

I haven't asked for much, have I? Just a decent movie on TV and no maid servants.

But no, the days I am at home, the movies being aired are - Terminator, 2012, Anaconda, Commando, Jurassic Park, Drunken Master. And then perhaps they were worried about me getting bored so there was Sharktopus.  This is unfair . Highly unfair. Firstly if you are actually fusing two creatures, at least be equal and kind. Shark retains it's identity while the octo of octopus is gone. How impolite! It should have been Shatopus (a shitty magnum opus?)  .

Anyway. Why are people so unkind to few nice souls who enjoy lazing around and watching some TV. Yes I have my PC and I can watch movies there but WHY can't I get it by default? When people dance at discs , do they plug in their own IPods?  

Okay bye.

PS- A good news. Steve Irwin's shows are back on Animal Planet and I am hooked. RIP Steve. I love you mate. 

Saturday 21 January 2012

'Witness the Night' by Kishwar Desai.

Warning- Not a review.

Whenever I visit the library, I embark upon a random book selection spree. I highly envy those creatures who seem so full of purpose, settled on those sleek chairs with a notebook , taking notes ferociously as if some gigantic monster would soon appear and gobble up the reference book (on a serious note, I understand the hurry, some people actually study, unlike me ). Now my selection of books is dependent on a number of factors, like whether I am in a mood to wear spectacles or not. See, it's simple, if I wear spectacles I can see the books on the top shelf, but if on that day my nose feels particularly ticklish, I leave them in the box, on these days my choice is limited to the middle rows. I usually grab a books that look interesting, (unless they are classics of course), earlier I would glance through the last page, but experience has taught me that that is in some cases a shortcut to deception and disaster. So now i carry these shortlisted books to a table, and try to read the first couple of pages to see whether I actually want to read more. Before you condescendingly label me as stupidity personified, let me tell you, glancing through 5 books , sitting beside those erudite people is a brave act.

Upon such a routine visit I picked up this book  by Kishwar Desai. The difference was that in this case I did not read those first two pages, because I instantly knew I want to read this one. A girl in a found in a huge house with 13 of her family members murdered, she herself traumatized and the prime suspect. Sensational enough? My head screamed "Aaj Tak" stuff.  But at times I do watch Aaj Tak and the like, just to find out what the hell is it! and for similar reasons , I issued this book.

I started and finished the book today. It was, as promised, a page turner. A little predictable but not lacking pace, Unevenly written ,  reading the first sections of the book was a jerky affair but as the story progressed I was too involved to care. The protagonist is Simran, a 40 something social activist,who defies traditions and strives endlessly to find out the truth about the fourteen year old Durga accused of murdering her own family members.Yet the book is not a typical run-of-the-mill crime novel. (One can predict the culprit.)

The book presents the terrible plight of the women in certain households in North India, where patriarchy reigns supreme. From female infanticide and corruption , it does not shy away from presenting any unpalatable reality.  However at times the editorial like passages slow down the narrative. The ending is not very convincing and the book is not a masterpiece but certainly it is worth a read. It tells us nothing that we don't know about the situation, nothing that documentaries and newspapers and articles have not told us, but the disinterested lines of a newspaper or the sensationalized lines uttered by a smug  TV anchor does not come close to a book that transports you to another world and makes you literally imagine, what it would have been like to exist in such a place. As she herself says in an interview -

 "My idea was that if I could get readers to connect emotionally with what it is to be an unwanted girl child growing up, then there could be some change that could come out of that. I wanted people to feel the anger that I felt - and to think that, in some small way, that has come true is a huge reward."  (Source: http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/kishwar-desai-why-i-had-to-write-about-infanticide?pageCount=0)


Thursday 19 January 2012

Rannayana- The kitchen saga.

I have never stayed in a hostel. It has always been home sweet home for me. Yet recently,like many of my hostel-friends, I have been surviving on instant noodles. Our kitchen is still intact and food is still being dished out from there, but I was bored of the routine dal-bhaat, and of course I have this crazy weakness towards Maggi and the like. (Yippee, Top ramen, Sunfeast pasta....it's an array of colourful packets out there , all determined to confuse the hell out of you..)

Then one fine day I decided I have had enough of instant stuff and I need to cook. Dal bhaat was rejected in favour of pasta (bangla ma er anglo shontaan...except this would be italian shontan...but we'll ignore that ) . I went shopping, and picked up dried thyme, oregano, a packet of pasta (not the maggi, sunfeast ones, but real pasta)  etc etc. I cooked the pasta yesterday and polished off about 90% of that. I have often heard my mother saying that she does not feel like cooking for herself. On the contrary , being the supremely selfish creature that I am, I really enjoy cooking for myself and even the thought of sharing that irritates me. I am lazy , very lazy and if I am moving my butt and actually doing something, then excuse me - I'd want to do it for myself! 

There are exceptions of course, when the experiments don't work, then like a very loving daughter I offer the dish to my father (he can digest anything, I think he has non-corrosive metal chains instead of intestines)...he mumbles and grumbles and then eats it . Somehow I am incapable of wasting food. I feel this tsunami of guilt welling up within me whenever there's a possibility of food being wasted. 

Since I don't cook on a regular basis (God is kind to other humans) and since I can't cook anything that one can have on a regular basis (bhaat dal jhol jhal) I have practically no reason to preen and boast. So to boost my confidence, I imagine that I'm a super exotic chef , forced to work in a miserable kitchen (Have you seen Donna Hay's kitchen on TLC? It has a beach, A BEACH!  in the back ground, errrr....in that kitchen I would settle down with a pinacolada and refuse to move , leave alone cook....but that is another thing, the POINT is...there's a breathtaking beach behind her kitchen...). Behind my kitchen there's a small verandah where crows sit comfortably and scream their lungs out. .. The result of my cooking ranges from good food to utter disasters. If it's the former then sadly others seldom get a taste of it and if it's the latter, my dad's intestines come to the rescue.

Once a wife of my father's friend came to stay at our place. She stayed for a week or so. For the first few days she only slept. I was happy, I hate guests, so if they sleep I just pretend they don't exist. After the first few days of rest she finally decided to stay awake and to my sheer horror , she with her replenished reserve of energy decided to help in domestic work. My mother is a chronic patient and she was at her resigned best. One fine morning (my winter vacations were on) I wake up and I see my mother standing at the kitchen entrance with a faint smile and a very worried expression, and that woman doing something in the kitchen. I reach the kitchen and see our guest holding our strainer (chhakni) over the lighted gas burner . She was very confidently preaching - " I always clean my strainers this way, it's very easy, you'll see how clean they become, these maids nevvver do their work properly, at home I personally monitor everything" , My mother was nodding periodically. Before I could make a royal disgusted face I noticed that a light green juice was dripping down the sides of the strainer like melted ice cream, except this was no ice cream but plastic, melting on the burner.  "what are you doing? MOVE!" - was my rather impolite reaction, and I switched off the gas. She backed off like a scared rabbit. My mother had a zen like expression on her face. The woman then proclaimed "this has never happened to me in Delhi" (as if manufacturing  faulty strainers is a Kolkata speciality), I explained that she must have used a steel strainer instead of a plastic one and plastic actually melts

Our kitchen has always been a site of royal misadventures. God knows how many more there'll be, since I'm not going to get one like Donna Hay, I'd better get used to it.  


Thursday 12 January 2012

Happy New Year.

See what's the point in wishing on first Jan? You must have already received wishes from your loved ones. By now, the happy and the new -ish feeling starts to wither.

Cornflakes breakfast after a long time ( if one is eating cornflakes at 3.30pm and it's the first meal of the day, it qualifies as breakfast. right?) . Hmmph.

Things that need my attention now . NOW NOW NOW.

1. Facebook. Need to put a comma, if not a full stop on that. A great way to stay in touch, but it's messing with my already messed up head. Who is doing what? Who wore what? Who is nyaka? Who is brilliant? Who went where? Who accompanied whom? I deserve a royal kick now. I end up wasting a lot of time knowing details about a lot of people who really don't matter. Time to rein in the curiosity-horse. Deactivating the account will be an easier thing to do but the temptation , I know, will be too great. So self-control it is.

2. Food. Don't eat a lot but end up eating all kinds of unhealthy stuff. Yesterday I skipped lunch, but post-dinner gobbled up 3000 (half a pack I mean) elaichi flavoured biscuits. I am physically incapable of dieting, I don't want to. I just want to eat stuff that's nice to my digestive system.

3. Study. First two days of the week, I am motivation personified. After that things go downhill at an alarming  rate. From a tolerable 10 am, my waking-up time becomes a horrifying 12 p.m. I put it down to the weather/post-job-laziness-that'll-wear-off . This has to stop, else I am dead.

In other news (this blog has become a news bulletin of my life thanks to my lazy mind) I have started eating Eggs! The bad news is I thought that my parents, who in recent times begged/threatened me to at least start eating eggs, would stop lamenting. It turns out that I hugely underestimated their expectations, now that I'm eating eggs , my father fondly dreams of a day when I'll eat fish and whenever they cook chicken, I am asked to eat or taste at least  "ek piece". Arrrgh.






Saturday 7 January 2012

G for Gray. G for Gloomy.

No I do not recognise this winter. This stupid winter. The one without sunshine. This one.All gloom. All gray. So miserably gray. And damp.

Where is that winter I know? The one with sunshine that does not scorch.

No I do not recognise this winter. Send the one that I love back to me.


Wednesday 4 January 2012

J U L I A


Last night I watched Monalisa Smile , again. I have seen it in the past but in bits and pieces, was never lucky enough to catch the whole movie.  I just love the movie and Roberts of course.

The last scene where she is leaving in a car and suddenly notices all her students following her in a cycle , trying to keep up with the car, waving goodbye , I couldn't hold back tears when I saw that scene.

Yesterday I also read a  Henry James and my silly mind went back to that Notting Hill scene where Hugh Grant tells Julia that she'll be good in a Henry James. After all like like Daisy Miller, Anna Scott too was an American in Europe, innocent in her own way, wild and eccentric in her own way. :)

I will not say a word about Pretty Woman. There's not a single scene in that movie, which I don't love or in which I don't think - "oh- she looks soooo lovely".

PS- With a free antivirus I am on a downloading spree. God save my computer.


Monday 2 January 2012

Ma Kali in the Dustbin.

I am sure the world will end in 2012. My father, in a calendar changing spree, crumpled an old calendar and threw it in the dustbin. The calendar had Ma Kali's picture on it. All my grand protests fell on deaf ears because he thought I was joking.Alas! I was not. The dustbin is not a comfortable place to be in. I am sure Ma Kali will take revenge. With serene Saraswati , gobla Gonesh or demure Lokkhi , may be we would have had a chance- but Ma Kali. HuhuhuhuHahahaha!

So,if the world ends in 2012 you all know my father is the culprit.

My mother with her haemoglobin level hovering around 7 , wanted to go to Kalyani and gave a rather hurt-puppy look when my father and I stared at her in utter disbelief. While I am happy dozing like crocodile , my mother wants to paint the town red, of course according to her the demented doctor who has asked her to rest knows nothing.

Filled to the brim with a what-the-heck feeling.

Songs from Pakeeza and Mughal e Azam( Meena Kumari and Madhubala were so damn beautiful !! )...

 an overdose of television, sleep and green peas .... finally a clean desk.

The highly sophi BCL photo frame is now adorned with another sketch-pen drawing (FYI, I am a great artist haah!) . Hoo lala the first day of the year gone. 

With a nice plan all set for tomorrow I should be relaxed and merry, instead, strangely enough I am  in a very bleh mood.

Too many people died last year.

Too many people getting married.

All the celebrities are reproducing at the same time. Some breeding season thing perhaps.

Everyone is working but not everyone is happy. (remuneration apparently isn't the issue here).

Some erstwhile nice and fun people have turned into Gyanodis. (preachers). Annoying!

I am no longer excited about birthdays.

I am buying more books than I am reading.

I have watched The Proposal and The Devil Wears Prada a nauseating number of times. They are my top comfort movies. Now I am sick of them. Okay not The Proposal But TDWP definitely.

I will start eating eggs sometime this year. I am not getting proper nutrition, according to my omniscient father. Also I want to recall what ommelette tastes like.

I am in love with Audrey Hepburn. I am confident that Audrey and Vivien Leigh did not eat.

I am posting too much nonsense here. Need to take a break.

Rezwana Choudhuri Bonya has got a hair cut which I don't like. I preferred her waist-length hair, she looked more serene and beautiful.

I don't like Angelina Jolie but I liked Salt.

Good Night.