Enchanted by chance

I am a journalist by chance, and it’s no surprise, because throughout, the courses my life have been decided more by chance than by choice. And no matter how much I want to avoid it, chance always tricks me by chance! Now it is one of these chanceful occasions of my life that I think is worth penning down.
Earlier this week, an AFC-AIFF team visited our local cricket stadium here. Now as with small towns like Cuttack, our association here was too overwhelmed to welcome their uparwalas. People ran helter-skelter, all were advised not to chew gutkha- and spit- when the big men were around, three big cars were suitably arranged for four people, not to speak of the lunch ordered that would serve at least two football teams. Nonetheless, ‘covering’ their inspection of the Barabati Stadium was an experience of a lifetime.
(See I am a person who is a proud rider an n-th hand two-stroke bike, that at times can fly like a seagull and also sleep like a snail, so for me every special moment has to be a lifetime and if that sounds frivolous so be it.)
Anyway, as with all our associations in India, the media persons were instructed to keep away from the visiting delegation and so did all except one -and by now you must have guessed that the better-than-Tintin-reporter is me! So I, having visited the barber the day before, very pompously joined the party that was inspecting every nook and corner of the stadium. And wow, what a place it is!
I have never seen the insides of a players’ dressing room before, not even of the VVIP and corporate boxes. My seven-month stint in Kolkata with The Statesman just before the 2011 World Cup allowed me to have a peek at the unfinished changing rooms at the Eden Gardens, but a fully functional locker room evoked only one feeling – I wish I were a cricketer man! Letting the delegation go on with its work, I sat on a sofa –leather-finished mind you- and also adjusted my looks standing in front of a huge mirror. My sheer childlike mannerisms embarrassed me, but who knows when the next time comes? At least for a few seconds I rolled in a sofa on which sat some great cricketers!
So thus went on my odyssey and the hangover was still there after I had filed a 500-word thrash. I had such an odd feeling and everything I saw around seemed appealing. Very much like your new crush at school or college where even if the girl says Keats was a Victorian poet you readily question Edward Albert’s sanity. (Now there’s no misogyny involved and I am a great fan of JK Rowling and Emile Bronte.) So very much in that aesthetically blessed state I stepped out of the stadium for refreshments.
Now our Barabati has a peculiar charm, at least I felt that way then. Outside it you have a gathering of vendors who would be selling you indigenously cooked ‘phoren’ dishes. If you are a connoisseur of roadside food, then, it is the place you ought to be. By the banks of the Mahanadi, for the river is a few paces away from the stadium, you can have a very sumptuous evening if you have 20 rupees in your pocket - provided a sandwich, a poached egg and a tea are all you want.
The cool river breeze then calls you and a lonely walk by the solitary banks of the Mahanadi takes you into a reverie. The black shining water, a silent dark sky, those passing clouds and an occasional star leave you in a daze and you wonder and wonder and wonder until the cell phone rings and your boss shouts, “Why didn’t you interview any of the AFC officials? I am sure they were not happy with the ground!”

to whomsoever it may concern

will my kiss fade into the twilight,
my dreams sleigh on frail snow?

you've never known who am i to you
just a face in the virtual space,
eager to sneak into your privacy
yes, just another contact in your phone book never reckoned
and if like a pop-up i infringe, you minimize me,
you can't cross me out, i know that
for the risk of a malware, or even an unwanted information.
baffled at the strange emoticons at your disposal
i have been there whole night- the green button saying ' i am available'
or some silly stupid status to initiate a love-tale
and when the grey letters flash saying you're typing, my heart leaps into filthy conclusions.
all in vain, for like your flesh you too are deceitful, tactical
always ignoring with a smile.

hence unhappy the impatient hunter leaves his game,
tracing the trail of yet another.

Ode to slavery

(Every word has a history as it tells a story, it may be of the letters comprising it if not anything else. The following lines were written over a long period of two months. The composition began in my bathroom, and in chatty sessions at coffee house, Mc Donalds the idea developed. The final knell though was rung out of much frustration. And as always no polemic intended.)

Master master know you not thine?
I am a twig of an Imperial vine !
Oh master, please renounce thy anger,
I'm the famished dog, lonely in the manger !
Whatever you say are words divine,
Let me lick thy ass, it tastes fine !
Oh please don't put that boot on the floor,
I will use my hanky to polish it more !
I need no money but your kindness,
I'm the husky, you're my harness !
Who says the British are long gone?
I'm here to ring that colonial gong!
Without your orders my life is bane,
This old age and withering mane!
Yet I look up to you master,
Even if my words are a meaningless cluster.
I am no drunkard you must know,
In two small sips my sense may go !
So Australia becomes for me Honolulu,
That's why my juniors call me ................ (it's a secret !)

Kolkata's hidden phobias, and Islamophobia

My profession, if I may be allowed to call this waywardness by that term, is supposed to take me to many places. But quite ironically I don't frequent places where I can collect 'news bites/ bytes' befitting the section I've been put into. Nevertheless, I've been quite lucky to squirm into places, and annoyingly so for many people, where I gathered certain experiences which have not been that much 'sweetening' to my already dysfunctional brain.
It is a widely known fact that Bengalis, and for that matter 'Bongs' who live in and around Kolkata, have a highly conceited notion about their culture, and 'sub-ethnicity'- for I dare not to use the macro term. A high-nosed approach towards migrants, especially those who have come from erstwhile East Bengal, is commonplace here. (And I would just like to assert here that the carefree way of putting this with the omnipresent 'here' is symbolic of the inherent and inherited acceptance of this prejudice.)
But for the present Bengali generation a prejudice, and quite ironically so, though this too is an inherited phenomenon going back to just one cohort, is palpable. It's an uncalled for pugnacity towards those who don't speak the Bengali tongue. In this group one can comfortably include the rest of India, and particularly those communities who have made an immense impact on the business here. The barb of this 'gentle hate', springing out of a 'merely naturalised difference of culture', is directed at the Marwaris, Gujratis, Biharis, and Sikhs. But while these communities are still under the 'graceful canopy' of Hinduism (this may be an aberration but I have this feeling that the Sikh community is quite comfortably thought of as very close to the Hindus) the Muslims, who have in patches become successful in certain types of business have been the worst victims possible.
Muslims in Kolkata are huge in number, and some areas do really abound in them where they outnumber the Hindus: Park Circus, Rajabajar, Chadni Chowk, Patuli and Khidderpore are a few I am aware of. And in these areas one gets a blatant view of the urban poverty: where hungry children by the embankments of high drains collect plastic waste, and chase crows and famished dogs to procure the skin of a dead animal. Now when a majority of a minority community live in these circumstances one is bound to ask where lies the reason to hate these destitutes.
One very popular, and obviously very very controversial, view which describes the political status of these people is that they are Bangladeshi refugees who have been brought in by various political factions for their own purposes. (So be it, if allegations are true.) And so why not hate them as they are not Indians?
But this very simplistic jingoism is not the reason why these homeless are hated. They are Muslims and hence not essentially the people of the land. And that's what a taxi-driver expressed. Now this was a rather odd experience for me. One day I took a taxi which had to take the Number 4 bridge over the Park Circus station- a thickly populated and a Muslim dominated area. It was a sultry Kolkata noon and a well-known RJ was at his hilarious best when the car radio went off and I heard Anuradha Paudwal singing a Ram bhajan. When the car had traversed a fair distance the bhajan also stopped. In a light mood I asked the cab-driver what the matter was and he expressed quite boisterously that he is a Hindu and feels rather 'circumcised' when he travels through such areas, and so he always plays a bhajan in order to remain 'chaste'. Now this came from a person who, to be very un-Marxist, does not have enough education to understand the sensitivity of his comments, and the foolishness too.
But my next experience left me pretty baffled as it came of a shocking confession from my room mate. Now this young man is an MBA and he works for more than just a well known corporate firm. One day we were just chatting our precious time away when he told me that he doesn't frequent the 'hotel' which I very conveniently do. The reason: the eatery is owned by a Muslim and it's a 'Halal' shop, and the Muslim owner will take every opportunity of feeding the Hindus with beef and convert them into Islam. Even if not with beef, that fellow may put in a cow's blood in the curry !
Though it is a very common belief among Hindus that eating beef would rob them of their religion, this fear in an educated Indian of the 21st century is something more serious. He fears that a Muslim will secretly feed himself the ominous pie and he would cease to lead a dignified life. (An honest confession here. I don't take beef because I do have a aversion to it which may be influenced by my Hindu consciousness. And also because I don't take red meat, for that matter I never take mutton.)
A third experience was in the local train while returning home. There was a group of young Muslims seated together and as you know the local train was crowded 'cattle class'. But there was, and surprisingly so, a seat vacant where the fore-mentioned group was sitting. I obviously pounced upon this opportunity! Then it took quite a while for me to realise why the seat was vacant. All the people who were standing on the foot-board would rather suffer than sit where the bearded 'Mollas' were. I don't know how the people with whom I sat through out the journey felt, for there were hardly any visible expressions, but the experience left me thoughtful, and so have the others.
I don't want to end this blog, if you have been patient enough to peruse through this waffle, by lecturing upon national integration or religious harmony, for there are no such possibilities in the case of the Indian union. Secularism has never been a part of the peoples lives, though we tend to behave likewise. But for our generation the challenge lies somewhere else, and it would be just foolish of us to bother ourselves with such 'nothings'. So why don't we live life in a professional manner and leave all these behind?

When stopped living for a minute

An over-crowded train halted to pass the VIP bogey;

Salty passengers quarreling for a few inches of space.

Well someone's there smoking again and a filthy fellow passing air,

Oh a few lecture on the national policy and spit on the footboard

Say if you can beat this, I'll offer you my time!

So here wheezes past the AC car: red, silver and

great golden lights,

A speed which even the deaf dogs would fear!

And the poor are again left watching those

who loot them passing.

In the soot of the uncleaned scullery someone's mother waits;

Hungry she is, but the railwayman wouldn't know that.

He has sold her long before.

So if heaven lay in that mother's heart god surely is a lie.

And amongst the rambling of a drunken husband time

sips in suffocation:

A child in the crowded compartment watching the rich

parade fast.

Outside the tired night howls of defloration as virgins are made and kept.

A cunning fox gouges at the jack-fruit, smelling the flesh by,

And calls amidst the canopy of a town declare

the hookers out on business.

But the train has started moving again, and so

life does a motion,

And women have salsa at town, just a stone bowl of emotion.

Somebody plays an old song and the wheels rattle in no rhythm,

And if you can beat this I'll bet you my time: for I'm an unheard poet out of business, yet again!

'When was the last time you smiled?' asks the child being sung to sleep.

Her mother lies to her of unknown shores to her alive keep,

Her feeble chords and harsh chores telling a tale of truth

Which the child dozing forgets at the sight of a candy.

The seller has a family to feed, the mother needs

a penny to save.

She lies, so the seller's son would have a smaller bite yet again.

Here in this familiarly unknown crowd the poor are the sellers

And poorer are the buyers.

Oh tell me who will gain and who lose?

If you can answer this I'll worship you though I'm an atheist!

Forging another return, yet again

It’s been a long time since I last posted anything. A time which has made me pretty overladen- in all collateral dimensions possible: physical, financial, social, emotional, philosophical, intellectual, and most importantly ideological. Perhaps this new shift had its origins in June when I was called for interviews at two reputed universities, and subsequently I miserably turned out to an absolute no one. In fact I have now learnt to accept this as a natural corollary to my inaptitude. That experience and the inevitable knowledge that I have to spend at least one year at home ‘preparing’ for the forthcoming exams had enough of latex to bring in a momentaneous slump as I was taken aback at most trivial of occurrences - be it the technical glitches of my service proprietor, or the spicy side of an oily curry. So much was this consternation that I was deemed to declare myself unfit for a proper and disciplined way of life.

Then came the August in its flourishing supply of good luck, at least momentarily- for I got a small job, an odd one to be honest, at a newspaper. Though I was foolish enough to think myself capable enough to carry on the job in style I proved to be otherwise, justifiably though. All the flagrant ideas that I had, which I vowed to put to use, before joining seemed to evaporate at an embarrassing rate, and once again I was the banker with a debit card but no cash balance! So frustration haunted me agian as I let myself slump into a mire of hopelessness, pondering over all wrong decisions I had taken so far.

Besieged in this curfew of my thoughts I squandered away my precious time watching documentaries and trying to inspire myself from the biographies of greats- never quite realizing that the great had their own great ways and I am no great at all. Self conjured lectures followed, unconditionally transferred over the phone to my soul-mate, who was magnanimous to listen to all crap, and never get upset even though I barked like a mad, but overfed, bull dog.

And so I kept on sneaking for opportunities, not professional or monetary ones, but those which would propel me out of the slump. This included taking a claustrophobic bus ride through the busy and crowded streets of Burrabazar on the eve of the Lakshmi Puja to get the essence of a Calcutta infested mainly by outsiders- generally known to the civilized Bengali as ‘meros’ and ‘biharis’- a move which I justified as a giant step to understand the term ‘culture’ in all its eclectic possibilities and tendencies. Battling asthma, which I had inherited long back but only realized as late as this year, I sniffed around high drains, forbidden streets- not quite doing anything though, coffee houses, shopping centres, just to energise myself and free my intellect of that never ebbing tide of cabin fever. From the posh to the filthy, I treaded all. From the famous and the rich to the game keeper out of his job- I met and talked to all. From software engineers to BPO out-sourcing fellows I lived with all, and still I was inundated in that one endemic- confusion, nurtured by an ideological despair. From Lennon to Knopfler, from Beatles to Bob Dylan- I listened to all to cajole myself out of the slump and attain a much sought after sublimity, with no success obviously.

But it was that one resilience to pen down ‘my bloody problems’ in an old diary which provided me a way out. Now I have a clear head, and I know what to do- people close to me are aware of it. Not that I am sure that I will succeed, but at least ideologically, and that is the most important, I know what I am and what I would become. I have a clearer focus if not the clearest, and I have resumed my flow to write- and that gives me immense pleasure to get back to this silly blog and share whatever I can.

As a token of this I present to you a poem which I wrote in the message box of my cell phone, in three separate message drafts, on my way back home. Though this poem needs to be edited, and which I will surely do I put this up as my friend Sayantan feels so.

I welcome myself back to this world of virtual permanence.

amidst helplessness

i am posting this with a therapeutic cause in mind.i believe that for me writing is the only and ultimate way i can solve my problems.instead of venting my shortcomings,anger,and frustration on someone i choose to articulate them here.consider these black letters the questions to my answers.

It is indeed a universally accepted idea, and obviously such an acceptance thrives from the shrewd regulation which one does to feel comfortable, that good times soon follow the bad ones. Autobiographies, biographies, memoirs, history, literature, sports and day to day events bear witness to it. ‘Hard times will pass on’ is indeed one of the most overtly used, cheaply understood, and widely acclaimed themes of our human existence, and its history.

With a proportion lesser than that of the sand particle by the shore of any sea, I am not here to refute these claims. All these should be true, and like my uncle srini I too cannot stress more than this. If not, why would all of us succumb to this delusion of things sorting amongst themselves? But the state which I am passing makes me feel, and I believe that this is true, that some things in life do not sort out; they are there not to change. No matter whatsoever happens there are a few people who, and the relationship which they inhabit in which, are so imperfectly managed that calling them an ill matched pair would be nothing but a misnomer. And when one is drawn amidst this kind of a relationship all alone, to face it every day and get depressed without any fault of his or hers is a bonus which demands an overtime of 8 hours a day!

It seems that life for me has ran amuck and instead of being blessed by what I want, not money or material things, I am always offered in bountiful things and situations which are simply not worth encountering. The facts that I have got nowhere for my higher studies, and that I am technically an unemployed person can be handled with a sensible approach. But added to these shortcomings, which indeed test me and my character, certain situations make me totally helpless. And the gross ineffectuality which I experience in these renders me frustrated. Perhaps the people who indulge in this kind of a foolish and totally dishonest relationship should realize that amidst them there is one person who is an objective observer and for whom the kind of environment they are generating can encapsulate me in a hazardous cocoon where I can suffocate to a state of perpetual depression and senselessness.

But the irony is that even though I know that such selfish people, who only flatter their false ego and lead a life plundered by dishonest compromises, will never realize what my concerns are. I will still wish they could.