Musical Sunday..overdose of metaphors

The songs are a rage ....so downloaded them this morning...and had a GREAT time !! 

1. Gobhire jao... I imagined dolphins...diving..

2. Amar chokhe thonte gaal e tumi lege acho.... tumi ki cadbury silk khachhile??

3. Notun aloor khosha aar amar/amader ei bhalobasha..... peeler kenar taka nei??  (aloor khosha??? er por ki pocha shosha??...) ..

4.ei srabon shyant shyante boro amar kache....amar kacheo..ki kaada hoy na !!

5.keu dyakhe ni ghaash e harano tomar khelar putul..... eco friendly putul !! way to go!

6.traffic er ei cacophony amader shopno chushe khay......phew !! cacophony?? (they could not find a good bengali equivalent..neither can I...next time i am stuck in the jam at science city/topsia/ajc bose rd...i'll sing this) 

7. jebhabe joldi haath mekheche bhaat...... tarahuro teh bhaat khabar dorkar ki? cornflakes nei?

8. Tomar nokher dogay tibro premer maane....no crap for this line...because I am speechless!

9.Jol jomeche buker bhetor, roder obhabe....pneumonia! pneumonia!

10. Jekhane shurur kotha bolar agei shesh....prokhha dichhilo?

p.s - I still cannot help humming the songs....because I like them :P 

Tech-NOOOOOOOOO

Technology and I don’t get along well. There are some of them who are very kind to me- Mr.Fan, his cousin Mr.A.C , Fridge granny, Tubelight aunty and so on. But there are cruel monsters lurking everywhere, so there is that teeth baring claw sharpening touchscreen thing, and that weird your-finger-is-your-mouse lappy..these are the  kind of gadgets that scare me to death.  Some rather memorable encounters are listed below.

1.B and I are walking down Elgin road, some people are taking bath on the pavements (we are slumdogs after all !). B’s mobile phone lands up in a dirty puddle. My Hygiene-freak brain’s instant reaction .. “eww eww eww here here take my bottle..wash it !! NOW!!” , B is aghast …and shoots back “THIS is my CELL” …then I realize that poor cell won’t survive the water attacks…huh!…okay go on ..enjoy your functioning bacteria soap lather stained phone ..blah !

2. I am having a rather nice evening with few school pals, a lot of madness, chit-chat and of course movies being copied-shopied on dvd’s and pen drives….one of them is particularly enthusiastic and is guarding the pc like ..well…a guard.….I go near the pc and calmly assure her that she can  let me browse the song list and I’ll start the copying process for her…she agrees. I sit on the chair in front of the pc, friend launches herself on the bed and dictates her movie choices…I click a few buttons…and PING goes the pc…paranoid friend rushes to the pc…and announces “YOUclicked on a DRIVE”…I give the perfect what-you-speak-is-greek-to-me look…and then she explains…you are trying to copy data occupying 80 GB on a DVD….yaah ..okay…mistake….sorry….but it was just a careless error ! **gasps and laughs all around**

3.Few friends have touchscreen phones which are super-sensitive and something or the other happens whenever you “touch” it…so things go like this – “hey I don’t have that song….give your phone…I’m taking that” …I take the phone and I am in the messages inbox without a clue about how to exit it..I try and woohoo I am staring at some babies…yes images folder…***resigned gasp***  … then “hey I like this pic…who is that?? Can I zoom this one?” friend – “ yaah just drag your fingers” …I give her my w-h-a-t -? Look and then she shows me how one should drag both fingers in opposite directions to zoom in !! Give me a break. 

Thanks to all this now I know what I am going to say to the salesman when I go to buy my next cell (that will not be before 2 years if thieves allow)-I’ll say  “Show me a non-qwerty…non-touch screen phone”…hate those qwerty phones….They are made for malnourished people who have bone-like fingers, they are certainly not for the well-fed chubby species like me. 

In addition to this there are softwares, os’s and what not ..Android..what on earth is that? Before you give me some stupid boring answer…pause and read what I think it has the potential to be … (why should you read that? Well, you read so far..did I ask you to ? so go on now ! )

1. Another dreaded disease like Thyroid ?? We could have an Android gland somewhere!  The next time someone says “o you are so fat!” I’ll say “ya …could be my android..I’ll have to get it checked”..

Or,

2. An adjective like schizoid.. …it can mean the exact opposite.. for instance if someone displays two personalities at the same time…think of a man imitating Big B’s baritone voice and in that voice saying kkkkkk…kirrraaaan….he has an android personality…!

Don’t tear out your hair….Yes, yes, I will stop.

Tata

Self Reflection - The non-mirror-but-super-vain kind.

I  Know

1.Orange flavour breezer is not much different from Tropicana orange juice. or Real . ( I'm not a brand loyalist you see)

2.I am positively , in caps lock, an introvert. Mostly.

3. I do not like people. The not-my-friend kind.

4. I am good at small-talk for a small time.

5. I am a roaring tigress with people I love ( tigress - roar wise only- don't get ideas) ..in many other situations I am quite a seekh-kabab.

I still do not know:

1. What I want to do career-wise. ( I go with the flow , although I wish I knew what exactly I am flowing along...a  river, a stream, a drain-pipe).Clueless is THE word. Though this in no way changes my belief that I am better off than smug people who have made stupid choices. Ha! Ha!

2. What the term follow-your-heart means. I wish it could be s simple thing, you know like a tiny thing , the size of my palm, suspended in air, moving in front of me, like darling Macbeth's sword..and I would just have to follow it. But it is not that simple...it is screaming out the names of hundred different things everyday.

I want 

1. All offices to commence work at 11 am and get over by 5.  ( what is the point in wishing for something that is possible in the real world)

2. A license to kill.

3. A treadmill. ( Mi padre is convinced that I shall hang towels on it after a few days so he won't buy me one..alas ..will have to wait for the paychecks...:( cruel cruel world !! )

4. Two Sundays in a week.

The Last Mughal : William Dalrymple

Again this is not a typical review, I do not have the knowledge or expertise to write one.

I got this book from the library just to find out what William Dalrymple's was all about. This is the first book by Dalrymple that I have read. I remember reading an excerpt of Nine Lives in a magazine and I quite liked that. But the general review of his novels (friends, friends of friends etc) was almost always "boring" or something similar. No wonder I stayed away from them and it was just out of curiosity that I picked up this one. Now I thank my curious spirit. Yes I loved it, no suspense there.

I generally like books that have something do with history. Not boring Life-and-Ideals-of-Gandhi kind of history  but totally war-kings-drama kind of history, yes I love sensational stuff. I mean it is history and if I am reading it today then it must have been something larger than life ...it may be misery but it should be larger than life misery. If I have to read about one mundane person being killed then I can just pick up my newspaper! If your judgement is that I am an insensitive sick person then well...I do not care!

Back to the book. I admit the first few chapters were a drag. I especially found the chapter titled Believers and Infidels extremely boring. But as I progressed I realized that the chapter was important to show why what happened, happened. In the beginning I could read barely 4-5 pages in a day...But I have this peculiar kind of patience when it comes to books (not humans) ..and I am so so thankful for that.

The title is explicit , it is about "The Last Mughal" Bahadur Shah Zafar , the Sepoy mutiny of 1857 and the subsequent fall of Delhi. I liked many things about the book. Firstly the tone that Dalrymple used. It was one that allowed me to visualize and get a feel of the events narrated. Nothing puts me off than a detached mundane narration of an extraordinary set of events (example: Taslima Nasreen's narration of slaughters and rapes in the most irritating manner in the first part of Lajja..it is a huge list,which is 100 % statistics and 0% emotion.Whatever rage I felt at the system metamorphosed into irritation directed at Nasreen for writing  about it like that) ...

I also liked the way Dalrymple blends a general overview of a particular event with the narration of the fate of a single family or person. You now how it would have felt to be there and you also get a broader picture. Thumbs up !

Another aspect that I liked is the fact that Dalrymple narrates the events with a lot of emotion yet never takes sides, he is impartial and equally cruel to the faults of both parties- the British and the Sepoys. So during one phase I was enraged reading about the slaughter of innocent British women and children at Cawnpore and later I was again cursing the British soldiers for practically stripping the forts and ruining the city of Delhi. The  book  avoids a simplistic reading of the situation which either declares the Last Mughal as innocent or as a culprit. Dalrymple manages to  portray the character of the emperor beautifully.

The vulnerability of the emperor is what strikes one the most. He was an old poetry loving octogenarian forced into taking sides and making decisions that he never wanted to.   We remember all the great mughals, Babur and Akbar among them,  and the sheer contrast between that glorious history and the picture of this abject old man in the book is the real tragedy which does not fail to stir. But on the other hand there was the advent of democracy, the organization skills of the British government ....yes the reader cannot take sides either.  You know that what has ended is the story of a great dynasty which was reduced to a puppet king and decadent descendants but you cannot help but lament the loss of the thriving cultural city that Zafar had nurtured. Strewn amidst the glorious events are some great insightful sections. Ghalib's poetry and the letters that some soldiers wrote to their relatives back in England were touching to say the least.

Reading the book was like experiencing the mutiny on celluloid. The sepoy attack in May 1857 and the British attack later that year and numerous other events unfold in front of the reader's eyes. Once again the book shows just how absurd and futile war is .. death takes no sides , it ravages all. You cannot fail to be moved as you read about the last emperor of the great Mughal dynasty being buried without even the hint of any ceremony, at Rangoon, far away from the land that his forefathers conquered and ruled for years.

It took me few weeks to complete this book, but that was more due to my snail's pace reading than anything else.

I am a nasty person in general and I hate so many people in the world. The feeling almost always is mutual. I was just wondering about the reasons why humanity in general tires me..

1.I do not like people giving me advice that is almost always unsolicited. This is usually in the form of an aunt telling me how fat I am when she weighs about 200 kilos and is currently spending a few hard-earned thousands at a gym.These people do it as if they are saving your life.Well , thank you but please take a long hike.

2.Just when you start liking someone, (not romantic and all, just like spending time with someone) he or she changes and reveals some royal flaw which is mind-blowing (literally, i can feel my brain tissue crawling on my face like earthworms).

3. The level of confidence in some people also leaves me spellbound. I have this relative who will eventually join the family business and is now working at a place recommended by her father and this person never hesitates to give me the most condescending advice  about my career and the way I should live my life.  She is younger than me but a 5 minute conversation with her makes me think "wow she can give dida (granny) a run for her money"..... well she can !

4. I also hate people who lack basic forms of civility. I mean h.e.l.l.o! I am not living in the amazon , I live in the civilized world so please teach yourself some manners ! There is this brother , really old brother ,who thinks it is his birthright to look through everything in my room. He even opened my purse, in which there was another purse, I told him not to open that, he did- there was Whisper Ultra in that, I gave a sweet smile which said "I guess you don't need that".  He has stopped after that. Next time, I'll say that aloud. he now just sticks to applying all the deo's on my dressing table....yes ALL ...a spray of AXE on one underarm , Nivea Body Spray on the other, and so on. he leaves my house as an olfactory treat.

There is also one family where the kid thinks his ancestors paid for my personal computer. He comes only to play video games. I mean please why don't you save me the horror and stay at home. But then I knew it was not the poor child's fault, his father came to our house and spent the evening watching a 70's flick on zee cinema while relishing the food that my mother took 4 hours to prepare (toothpricks in chingri machh and all) !!

Bleh !

Fridge er dorja ghenshe holud ek kon
maggir packet e shajano shukhi grihokon


Dhulo makha boi gulo dichhe haathchhani
mone pore dhulo balir  boimelar... shei onekgulo praani


Mobile r headphone aaj boshe royeche shaantoh
Shoptaher dourjhape tara je boroi klaanto


er majhete dutoh chokh onichha prokash kore
aaj toh rob baar, eto aalo dhukbe kyano ghor e?

Clean and Clear.

"This is not what a 20-something's room looks like."   I agree with my mom on this, but the problem is that we both have a slightly  different idea about how it should look like. I believe I need one of those Joey-Chandler type chairs , if you are not a F.R.I.E.N.D.S person then you can imagine the chair at your dentist's place...one like that...( the dentist's chair is the perfect honey-trap, you are comfortably seated before the torcher begins.)..

yes so I need a chair like that, a HUGE bookshelf which is HUGE breadth-wise, at 4 feet 8 inches ..thinking high or reaching high is out of the question and i do not fancy climbing up a ladder to get a book. I should have a laptop (yes I DO NOT have one...I am stuck with my desktop..I love it though !), with a hard drive of some zillion TB's....yes the TV and AC should stay intact and I should have a knocking system..so that I don't have one parental invasion every half an hour to ask about my dinner/career choices. I would also like a walk-in closet but it's okay, I won't stretch it too far. I have also fancied having blank walls where i can throw tubs of Asian Paint (Wake Up Sid style) while decorating it......sigh..

The sad thing is...mom's idea of what my room should look like differs from mine...it can be summed up in one line...everything in it's place. What is the big deal about keeping everything in it's place? Isn't it a projection of a hidden desire to conform to caste and class hierarchy....? I have never tried putting this across to her ...I don't like the blank, Are-you-really-my-child?...kind of a look that she gives me sometimes.

 There are days when I ultimately decide to clean up a corner...and I take the entire day to do just that - clean up a corner...then i move to another corner only to realize that the first corner has things piling up again ! Why take so long to clean a corner? well there are so many distractions ! Something or the other just tumbles out and you waste minutes thinking about it...farewell diaries  remind you about friends....an old dress reminds you about a waistline issue...cassettes remind you about cassettes.... a dozen of glittering hurts-my-eye jewellery reminds you about the terrible style-sense time when you thought they looked good ... and Arabian Nights reminds you about goromer chuti .........how on earth can some people take less than a day to clean up a corner? how?

Okay , perhaps the fact that I do not allow my maid to touch my stuff has something to do with it. I also do not like guests pacing up and down my room touching my dust-covered stuff.....excuse me? Go home...get touchy-feely with your own stuff... the dust serves a dual purpose...it is a good canvas on which one can draw stick figures and it prevents stupid "emma-ki-dhulo" type of people from touching your stuff...... no I do not have the kohinoor diamond on display on my study table...all the same , even if it is last year's xerox notes, or a photo frame with no photo...I want you to stay away from it....but there is a unique specie called "grandparents"...my grandmother never fails to remind me how so much of dust can cause lung  problems and breathing trouble....

Of course my tiktikis (lizards) pay no heed to my desires and move about freely among my stuff...that's okay...I like them...It's just that I hate their overactive metabolic system....

Tataz........ much cleaning awaits.