Of Benazir and Feluda

Tried thinking of a wackier title...But let it not lead you into believing that the lady has started reading the Feluda books while in exile.

Happened to watch Arnab Goswami interview her this weekend.What a lady this one !! What poise and what elegance.If there is any Pakistani leader I`ve cared to listen to, its her.It`s such a welcome relief to hear someone who really wants some semblance of peace in the valley , a far cry from the wily backstabber of a Nawaz Sharif.

The sing-song unmistakable Brit twang notwithstanding (I loathe people who flaunt put-on accents), I found myself sitting through the entire telecast of the interview and finding myself very interested in the upcoming General Elections in Pakistan.

This lady feels so passionately about putting an end to the dictatorial regime that her determination to come down to Pakistan and fight the elections,has to be seen to be believed.Much as I wanted to believe that this is just a power hungry woman who is spouting all those never-implemented election manifesto contents.But that waver in her voice when she said that its inevitable that she`ll be arrested the moment she sets foot in Pakistan,but that wont stop her from coming down,caught me.When told that the people of Pakistan are apprehensive to buy her claims that she would fight the elections from Pakistan,and that she is just a 'Pampered princess' who will back out at the last moment,the lady spoke out 'My father brought me up as a pampered princess ,but it is all about the choices one makes in life.I chose prison ,I chose hardships, and I have chosen the hard way out by standing by my convictions and staying in exile away from my country,my family,my kids,my ailing husband.'This lady has lived through the assassination of her father ,the mental torture meted out to her mother ,the incarceration of her husband,the constant death threats to her kids and loved ones and ofcourse herself and now very well knows the consequences of setting foot in Pakistan.There sure must be a higher motivation than just power-acquisition.
We really do need a few more like her,if not many more.

This is one week ive been looking forward to.Have the possession of all the volumes of the Feluda series and cant wait to start off with them.That twinkle is back in my eyes the smell of new books never fails to conjure.
So, guys wish me Happy Reading !! Tadaaa...

Of Songs and Situations...

There is this something in certain songs that remind you of some particular stage in your life.Maybe of some bygone era..
As I pack my bags for Manipal, telling myself that this won`t be my last visit to this one place in the world where I could be myself,I do know that the contrary is a distant possibility.More about my Manipal musings in a later post.My 4 years in this place deserves a whole blog, not just a post, to its name..There you go..another marathon post in the offing..
Today as I was getting ready for office 104 FM started playing a couple of Bollywood ditties which took me back by a coupla years.'Waada Raha' from Khaki,this song will always remind me of my first year at Manipal.We were in this triple seater room , Seema,Roopali and yours truly in room 214.Neither of us had computers.I had a run-down Walkman which my sister had so lovingly(casting lethal looks which translated as 'ek scratch aya na ispe to....') given me as I boarded the train from Ranchi.Roops had got along her Philips 2-in-1 which soon became a Room-214 common property.So, in the peak summer months,after those merciless hours at the First Sem workshop, we would trudge back to our room turn the fan`s regulator to its highest speed ,draw the curtains, collapse on our beds (sweaty workshop coats and shoes still on ) and play this very song at its highest volume,while Akka would come to do pocha in our room.By the time she finished her job all 3 of us would be fast asleep , under the combined influence of the song`s melody and the cool,sweet-smelling dampness of the freshly swabbed floor , all at odd angles (my fave posture was my head and torso on the bed, one leg on the window sill and the other away from the bed on the ground...Dont tax ur brains, it is unvisualizable(if such a word exists!)).This song had this enormous capacity of putting us grumbling lot at peace,soothing and mellifluous..
And during those combined Engg. Drawing sessions it was the remix of 'Tu tu hai wohi'(remember that video of a pink clad trio sporting pink guns).All 10 girls of our section would assemble in our room after dinner, with their huge ED boards and drafters and t-squares and squeeze into every available square inch of space.Then we would distribute the Assignment questions amongst ourselves and under Seema-The ED queen`s guidance draw an assortment of lines and solids, till over 4 am.These were those times when we bonded big-time.We dint have fancy cell-phones(those who did, dint have boyfriends on them 24*7 ) or i-pods.We just had ourselves.At one point we would throw our hands up over an impossible figure and would start off about the juiciest bits of gossip about college, passing around Dry-bournvita,Matthri,Achar,Namkeen and even licking clean the 5 Rs worth sachet of Nescafe Powder to keep ourselves awake so that the next day we could proudly proclaim over phone to our parents "Oh Mommie,these profs make us work so hard...Last night I was up till 4 am doing Engg. Drawing assignments ".Even though a year later all of us drifted away to different classrooms for branch specific studies, the memories of these sessions were something we would sit and laugh and talk about for the next 3 years to come.
2nd year It was 'Dhoom Machale' throughout the 3rd sem and 'Kaal Dhamaal' in 4th sem.Blaring out from every door and window of the hostel.Everywhere you go, MIT`s fest Revels or the NITK`s fest ,everyone who could shake a toe was up on stage convulsing to the tune of these songs.
3rd year was Himesh Reshamiyannnnn`s year through and through.'Jhalak dikhlaja','Aashiq Banaya aapne','Tera Suroor' et al.Our mess wale Uncle was such a die-hard fan that the menu for every meal of the day had a Himesh number playing throughout the meal.As though 'Khane ke saath, Himesh ke gaane ,Bilkul muft'.When I thought I could bear it no more,Atif came to rescue.Thankfully, during our end-terms during those night-outs, we heard faint strains of 'Woh Lamhe,woh Baatein' playing from every hostel room that had a computer lodged inside, even from as far as the Boys Hostels.
4th year saw a resurrection of Sufi Music.Kailash Kher loomed large over every speaker,So did the new crowned prince of chartbusters-Atif and the icing on the cake was Strings which performed live during Revels.
During those last days at college,when we had our official photo-shoot for the yearbook,at the impromtptu party that was thrown right after the shoot, I found that song which would remind me of the spirit of MIT-CSE-2k7-Section 'B'.'Kya Mujhe Pyaar hai' reminds me of everything that happened in the confines of our classroom for all the 4 years of Engineering.As we hit the disc clad in our sarees and the guys dressed in smart formals and ties,the significance of the occasion finally dawned upon us. Never again would we party as a class together.Never again would we walk down to an 8 am class, a bunch of sleepyheads.Never again would we collectively curse the teacher who had vowed 'I`ll see to it that none of you pass in microprocessors'. Never again would we come back to manipal together after the sem-breaks...and a whole lot of unsaid,un-thought-about never-agains..
I dunno why I tend to associate only Bollywood numbers to such occasions although a few western numbers figure prominently in my fave songs list.Backstreet boys, N-sync , Linkin park forming an essential part of my teenage; have never managed to conjure up any memory, never reminded me of any occasion or any situation.I havent quite been able to decipher this..
I have had 'Kashmir ki kali hun main mujhse na rootho babuji..' floating in my head during a couple of wicked Lab. vivas, when the teacher-turned-villain would be poring through my observations.I have had 'Rang Barse'and 'Tujhe Dekha to ye jana sanam ' while noting down the measurements in the pipettes and testubes over the bunsen burners in Chemistry Lab, playing in my head.I have had 'Pehla Nasha' strumming through my brain during the initial classes taken by 'Pinky Sir' (He had a huge collection of Pink shirts, had the pinkest lips I`ve seen on a human being and his specs emitted a pinkish glow when he turned towards light).On more than one occasion while I would be writing away furiously in the last few minutes of a semester paper I`ve had 'Chura Liya hai tumne jo dilko' playing loudly at the back of my mind....the list of inane songs related to completely unrelated situations goes on.....Collate them,and there you have the background music of my life...

Is it just me or does stuff like this happen to few of you also ??

Mid-Week Musings

Ever felt lost and unbearably lonely in a suffocatingly crowded place ? That`s exactly how Im feeling, and have been feeling since this Tuesday.Listless , uninterested , clueless , burned out are a few other adjectives which do justice to explaining my present state of mind.At the risk of sounding overtly dramatic , it feels as though the dementors from Azkaban have come alive out of the Harry Potter series and have sucked me of all happiness...(Hehe..i can be as melodramatic as a girl can be ;) )

And I hate to admit that all this can be caused by the departure of one of few handful of people I really care about in this world.'A' left for the US on wednesday and I really can`t come to terms with the fact that I can get morose over this trivial a thing - It is just an official trip , for God`s sake!! To the point of bunking office for one whole day ,without any rhyme or reason.I can visualize that old adage - 'U never know the value of someone,till u let go' - coming alive.I never thought that I of all people would miss anyone to this extent (I have been infamous for sniggering and giggling when I heard my friends coo 'Baby,I miss u !!' over the phone to their boyfriends).I actually used to think 'What an absolute sissy !!' and considered the MISS-U phrase a highly overrated and over-hyped one.I guess not anymore !! I did believe that in the course of life we do come across someone,where we are putty in their hands.Maybe the reason for my abnormal behaviour is coz I really don`t wanna come across that someone this soon ( Im just 21 !!).Zeroing down on that someone would be such a life-changing (for lack of a better adjective) experience, coz all of ur life that very person alone ,is gonna be 'THE ONE' !! Whew ..!! I think ill just attribute my inexplicable behaviour to the fact that im basically missing those 'Puppy-eyes' and mind-numbing flash of a smile (yeah,yeah these r the very attributes paeaned by the bollywood hero for his lady-love)...

I started reading 'The Namesake', a parting gift by 'A';Which I think is kinda surprisingly thoughtful of him, to have remembered that I wanted to have a go at this book.I had already watched this movie with him last month so I really wasnt hyper-enthu about reading it.But, the jingle that he had composed for me and had scribbled in his child-like scrawl at the back of this book,proved to be the bait.
Jhumpa Lahiri appears to be a sucker for details.This is something that screamed out from every page.Everything about each of the main characters has been detailed out so meticulously throughout the book.The colour of Gogol`s uniform, the skin colour of each of the characters, the thickness of Ashima`s hair and the texture of Sonia`s mane, the fabric of Ashoke`s clothing as he shifts to every different location,which again are carefully detailed out (the rooms,the gadgets,the neighbours).Even the brand of cutlery that exists at the Ganguli`s place and Gogol`s girlfriend`s place is chronicled.She leaves precious little to the reader`s imagination, a trend that she carries over from her Interpreter of Maladies Days .
I feel it must have been both difficult as well as a bit easy for Mira Nair to have thought of making a movie on it.

Easy ,coz most of the stuff is very detailed out, and doesnt need much of a research.The book seems more like a movie-script than a novel.

Difficult, coz it is humanely impossible to cram in all those carefully detailed events in Ashoke`s,Ashima`s and Gogol`s life in a 2.5 hour movie.Expectedly a few relatively insignificant events have not been included in the movie.This oversight kinda shows up in the movie,glaringly in a few places.For starters,I feel the term namesake hasnt been defined well,in the movie, the way it should`ve been.The reasons for Gogol`s aversion towards his daknaam , the tussle within him over his unique name, the underlying pathos over how he struggles to change his name on all official and unofficial records in his first few days of University, the way he cringes everytime he has to write his name in forms,in exam-papers etc ; all this doesnt find a place in the narrative.
I almost forcibly sent my parents to the theatre to watch it bribing them by saying 'Papa, its an art movie,and on top of that a bengali one.You must watch it'.My parents , self-confessed art-movie buffs and having that soft corner for anything bengali, fell for it.On their return, I almost hopped-skipped down to the driveway to know their verdict (As if I myself had acted in it !! lol).I got a noncommittal 'It was nice" from them .On further prodding,Dad said 'It wasnt an art movie.It would be somewhere midway between art and commercial cinema.There were way too many loopholes in it.In art cinema the camera lingers on the protagonist for a nice 3-4 minutes during an important scene, that by the end of it the viewer him/her self kinda starts feeling the suffering/joy or any such emotion.that is the beauty of art cinema.In this movie They makers didnt bother to give a few characters the proper kinda ending they deserved.Character-in-Question Gogol`s girlfriend Maxine.This boy seemed to be so much in love with her and it was a serious relationship , but her track ends abruptly after Ashoke`s death'.Yeah, Dad very true..

But, nevertheless I loved the movie.Mira Nair deserves a pat on her back for having captured the Bengaliness very beautifully and esp. for having casted Irrfan Khan as Ashoke Ganguly.The accent,the look,the absent-minded nature of a Bengali professor, brought out so beautifully that at times i felt like standing up and clapping for this amazing actor.
This movie was very special for me.Infact, after watching it , 'A' and I promptly headed to a nice,cozy Bengali Restaurant '6,Ballygunge place' for a propah Bangali Lunch and promised to celebrate that day,6th April as 'Bengali Divas', year after year.A day which will remind me of my born-in-bengal status, my first movie-watching experience with the cutest bengali to have taken birth , and that very soon I would also have to suffer those I-Miss-you pangs when this cutest-bengali-in-the-world leaves for the Big Apple,just like Ashoke Ganguli did, for earning and learning and leave me yearning....