Eternal Bangal-Ghoti Tussle

East Bengal defeated Mohun Bagan by 3-0 in today's match. Good. I being a supporter of EB was really overjoyed with this...and there were some leg pulling going on among the friends....teasing the MB fans and all. But suddenly it took a different turn and gave the total aspect a different colour altogether. There were some views, thrown to us.....Kolkata's problems roots from all these East Bengalis who came over from the other side of Bengal and all.

Some questions suddenly occurred to my mind. I discussed the plight of the Mother Language day in this part of Bengal. To be true, negligence that we find is all the same in both the BANGAL and GHOTI camp. But even then, while we dream that we are now Indian Bengalis, the bifurcated, truncated existence still exists !!!

At the stroke of midnight, with the magic wand in their hand the political leaders turned the home land of a huge number of people into a foreign country. India was divided, Bengal partitioned into two, And hundreds and thousands from the eastern part of the divide had fled to this part just for security. Because suddenly their neighbours, who belonged to some other religion turned their foe and the land became a foreign land....where if they wished to visit next time would require a VISA. Can any one feel the pain of the rootlessness? These folks were uprooted and shifted....they had their home, their life, their stories, their culture, their identity buried there in the ruthless turn of history and had to search for a new home. And even if they could not cope up, they had to make themselves believe that the new place, this very Kolkata, so different from Dhaka...was their home. Its is not their fault. Neither it is something that they could do anything to. They were forced to....and then if all the time they were made responsible for all the trouble.....how had they felt can well be understood.

Prof. Krishna Sen, the other day, while discussing Amitava Ghosh's The Shadow Lines was saying..."..its like a fairy tale where the hero is suddenly made into frog or this or that.....some people who were Indian were suddenly made Pakistanis....made "udbastus"....But the fact remains, political history may connote this change of identity....but that can never be true for the man himself.....I mean....its a psychological process and with a signature on the dotted lines how can some one else change me into a completely different self?"

Its true...those people left their land, mansions and all the wealth and were forced into the innumerable shanties that came up.... friends...I belong to such a family and have been nourished by endless such stories.....will you please understand one day that we are Indians too?....these "outsiders" have enriched West Benglal's culture, have added values to its systems, have taken part in the administration and have finally mingled into the mainstream to such an extent that....the way they rejoice in India's glory is no means less than you guys....

East Bengal is just a name...you have a problem with why still east?....do you ever question why our state is still called West?....Its a name...just demarcating a painful history in Bengal...true for both 'you' and 'us'. EB is an Indian team...and we all are Bengalis....dear.....we are you and you are us....

Hangover remains...miss my friends

Thoreau gave us his idea about the relationship between friendship and trust in his "Friendship" - "true friendship is based on trust, honesty and sincere generosity of our hearts."

In my opinion, faith and trust build up sincere friendship, and trust is the cornerstone to friendship. I believe that the unique approach to good friendship is trust. However, it is easy said than done. Sometimes, when I argue with my friends, we hurt each other by saying: "you don't deserve my trust", and we lose the trust of the other side. The irrational thinking leads to the consequences of breaking up the friendship.

Since I realized that friendship is built on mutual trust and mutual understanding, I have the sense of a crisis on the friendship with my friends when I find that we lack trust between us. Sincere friendship is like our health. Only when we lost it can we realize how valuable it is. Trust and understanding are very important to friendship. Where there are no trust and understanding, there is no true friendship. Sincere friendship is healthy, which is built on mutual trust and on the basis of mutual understanding.
Nowadays, friendship has the high degree of vulnerability, in the face of money, promotion, social reputations, etc. However, it is the treasure that we need to cherish. We should let the bridge of friendship be broad, smooth, and strong. The bridge is mutual trust.
Different people have different kind of friendship, and the fruit of the tree of friendship is called trust. The fruit is only for the person who irrigates the tree of friendship. Friendship needs nourishment: some nourish it with money, some with sweat, and some even with blood. So, friendship seems very greedy, and it will not be satisfied with material things.
Nevertheless, friendship is the most simple for us to get, the easiest and the most extravagant nutrition is trust. Sometimes friendship is so fragile. A casual remark will cause the collapse of the building of friendship between us. Why? It is because that the friendship of that kind lacks the steel frame of trust. How to build mutual trust with each other? Friends should share opinions and passions. After watching an movie, there is exchanging of views among the friends, showing what they love and dislike. This is the first step.With mutual understanding growing between friends, they can entrust each other to do something. This is out of trust. It is usually the case: when you want to entrust an important thing to your friends, you would think about this question "can I trust him?" When you are thinking this way, you can never find mutual trust with your friends. Trust is out of mutual understanding. As Mencius said, "It is good to become acquaintances, but it is better to know each other. It is the best to know other by heart." If you know your friends well by heart, you can trust him or her. You can understand each other well, and you know what can be trusted to your friends. It requires emotional distillation of moral development.

Interpersonal communication must be proper, no promiscuity friends. When you find your heart-to-heart friend, you find the trust between you and your friends. Friendship is mutual. If you offer your trust, you will gain trust from your friends. Trust is based on principles of friendship as well. You must adhere to the principles to tell the right from the wrong. Without this principle, there is no real trust for a healthy friendship. I cherish the hard-won friendship, and try to make the friendship lasting for a life time.

When chatting in public, you'd better not to disclose your friends' privacy when the topics are about privacy.This is something which I think I failed miserably.....making people close made me trade the wrong path of delving more than necessary into their private space. Do not use it to seek help and comfort. Since it is a trust, we must guard against the privacy of our friends in public exposure. You should not betray the trust of friends. Your attitude of friends should always be humble, and listen to your friends carefully when talking with them.

...Sometimes, tolerance is a magic power to establish trust with your friends....dont know whom to blame in this space for the collapses...

All in all, trust is the corner stone of good friendship, which needs mutual efforts and mutual understanding.

My language ... My Identity

International Mother Language Day....today is the day that the people over the world celebrate their language....their identity. It is the language that primarily shapes one's identity....and that's why a French is a French, an English is an English and I am, like innumerable others, a Bengali.
And 21st February definitely brings me a bit more pleasure, a bit more pride.....once it was said what Bengal thinks today.....the whole India thinks tomorrow.....twisting that a bit....what Bengalis thinks today, the world follows. Bengalis fought for the prestige of their mother language and that has ushered in this concept of celebrating the language.
But , to be frank....this is the day which associates a lot of other things for me....and that pains, that makes me ashamed...
It dates back to 1952....prior to that India earned her independence at the cost of partition and my Bangla was bifurcated on the religious lines...no I have never seen what then was East Pakistan and now Bangladesh. But heard a lot....from my grandmom, my father and so many other relatives...."with the magic wand in their hand, the leaders at the stroke of midnight made my home a foreign country", used to say my grand mom. What ever....then East pakistan and West Pakistan were formed...and in 1952 when the Pakistani government decided to make Urdu the national language, East Pakistan burst in a huge uproar....they speak Bangla....come on...they are Bengalis, they don't speak Urdu......while students were leading a silent march in Dhaka, the Pakistani military rained bullets on them and Rafiq-Barkat-Salim-Jabbar laid down their lives on the streets....just to keep the prestige of their mother language...which is none other than very much my own Bangla....
The Pakistani government was forced to make Bangla a national language jointly with Urdu...but the fire was far from over.....it ultimately catapulted into Mukti-Yuddha....ushering in a new country....named after my language..Bangladesh.
today while the whole world celebrate as mother language day......Bangladesh celebrate this as a day that marks the victory of their language, a day that marked their identity on the face of this earth. But its is painful, but true.....we are also Bengalis...on this side....but we celebrate this day almost as a ritual.....and just as a part of the whole other world....
Did the fight only established 'their' fight and identity?....is it not the language of 'us' too?...Its a shame that even so few of our people know about this day......
I am proud to be an Indian...I love my country for its vivacity...and for its "unity in diversity"....and never mean that we ought to be in the other side....though often I question ....what if there was no question of this OTHER? Today Bengalis in West Bengal has become a part of the conglomerated identity.....the Bengalis next door became "others" while all others became our own....and though this is not a fact that I rue...but has made us even lesser interested in our roots. The truncated identity seems to have made its way out through adopting a cosmopolitan culture....but what is alarming is that...it has resulted in the utter negligence of the root. Today we speak "Benglish"....or "Benghindi"....our parents takes enormous pride in the fact that "my ward is so fluent in Hindi and English...but his Bengali is so poor...but then that would even help".....I find knowing Bengali less than Hindi or English is a matter of great status impetus. So "Amar Ekushe" (eternal 21st) has just boiled down to a phrase that comes and goes away for the Bengalis on this side....after all it was 'they' who fought and that can never be 'our' history.....what if that was for the very language i speak.....linguistically we all are Bengalis....but by some bifurcating "shadow line", as perhaps Amitava Ghosh would have said.....we are never a united race...we are truncated,.....and for us 21st become a ritual to sing "amar bhaiyer rokte rangano ekushe february, ami ki bulte pari"....for 'them' it is all abut making the whole world know that Bangla lives and they live Bangla...

Politics first...We are CU

Its a shame on the face of Bengal's education system. Its a shameless testimonial how the ruling CPM has mastered its grip on every educational institutions in the state. Its proves how far the ruling party and its back boneless supporters can stoop as even stall the admission procedure of a student. His fault?...well.....he dares to defy the ruling party.....Ashish Samanta....He is an AIDSO worker....the student wing that is known for its relentless struggle against the misdeeds of the ruling party.

Ashish Samanta got admitted to the University for certificate course in French language for 2006-07. He passed the exam getting 69% marks. He further got admitted to the diploma course for 2007-08 session. He passed it again with a whopping 65% marks. But there lies the actual story. During this time he got involved in the campus politics and joined AIDSO, which is the main opposition in the SFI controlled CU students' council. And things turned sour henceforth. There were only 3 students in the diploma course and the university took abnormally long 9 months to publish the results!!! And when this poor guy went to take admission for further study, pre-MA that is....he was denied on the ground that admission procedure was already over.
Now....is this what is expected from one of the oldest institutions of the country?
the questions that arises
1. how the admission procedures can end even if the results of the previous standard are not out?
2. whose responsibility is it....that the results came out so late?
they bask in their 150 years of glory....but does that lie in denying a successful student his rightful claim to get admission?
shame...to be frank I feel short of words to condemn this callous act on part of the university
but then what more can be expected from them?
Its a place where from the chair professor to the chapraashi...all appointments are made on the basis of CPM recommendation.....educational qualification hardly counts....better you oil the "communist" leaders...better you are placed....more secured you would be. Its probably the greatest curse....these dumb, callous, good-for-nothing people get their jobs using their connections...and after getting through, the only thing they are concerned with is how to earn more...that they are working in an educational institution....that fate of hundreds and thousands of youth depends on them......are they the least bothered?....they are assigned with one task--change the University into another party office and they devote their time and endeavor in doing that with aplomb....I feel dumb stuck to describe.....mammoth uphill crime these people are committing....they are human?...they pose to be human makers?.....its a pity that we call them teachers....we rely on them....we are made to.....even its not enough to vent out the anger...these people will receive severe thrashing one day...but I doubt if even that would penetrate deep into their skin....after all they are "Marxists"....they must have satisfied the criteria of not having a mind, a brain and a back bone before they bagged the job
Added to this was the SFI hooligans...they boast of being the torch bearer of students' development and solution deliverer in any problem....when the opposition backed students were protesting against these faults, they were manhandled by the SFI goons and the meeting was vandalized.
what I deeply feel...they can sense that end has come.....with back stuck in the wal...they have no more lies to deliver and make people to believe....and their last resort is to snip the opposition at any cost...physical assult or stalking further studies...shame shame....shame on CPM and shame on SFI....change or WB will change the guard.

Barongbar

Tomar sporsho ami aaj o ter pai...
Kono ek bishesh muhurto,
Kono kichhu bolte chaoa
Bhalobasa kimba na basa--
Proshroy kimba shason
Kimba bondhutto...
Kono ek klanto somoye
Swapno ar bastober katakuti khelay
Pore pawa choddo aanaa.....
Seemahin protyasha,
Aar ghun dhora bhit---
Dolachole dulte thaka sei somoy...

Tarpor firey eseche sei golpo...
Ekakittwer...

Another Gibberish

I was just surfing various sites...collecting good pictures and some good quotations, as I often do...I mean that's a good pass time. I suppose I am hopelessly emotional, too much into the baseless never-ending habit of identifying myself with anything or every thing or situation I find, or may start applying a Quote that I come across to justify some events in my life---no matter how obscure and insignificant that may be.
Now, talking insignificant is another hardship as somehow I have managed to point out significance into what we pass off as insignificant...lolzzz...that's my habit, just go on and on thinking and thinking and coming up with some extraodinary idiotic ideas which I only have the guts to relish as brilliant brainchild of mine...never mind...
What I was talking about....surfing through the net I suddenly came across this one.....insignificant, Isn't it? Did we ever notice before some one took the charge to make us do it?....I suppose no. So then it is how insignificant things become significant...and then my good old habit just sank in me to bug me all the more and in no time I was just leafing through my past....horrible, terrible one all the time dragging me back...and searching out events that can be a good example of this!!!
Believe me...at your risk....lolzzzz..... one single event?...isn't our whole existence on the firm belief that we believe?
we do because we believe...we suffer because we believed.
I believed a friend....I suffered.
I believed another friend...I suffered.
I believed my university....suffered..as many of us....after all studying in CU and be not getting cheated in some thing impossible.....but the obscure unnecessary list will continue...concrete stories will continue coming up and destabilize our mind if we really want to go deeper with this idea of belief-lie paradox. After all what will remain if we even let go our this much possessions?...whet do we really have? Money, status and blah blah...I should not sound like a bull-shit sage...but then all depends on the trust....we do because we believe that doing so will make me happy...and therefore others. May be we get cheated, we fail...but do we really stop endeavoring?...no...its just its our undying habit of believing...in our own capabilities,others' enthusiasm n all .....we will believe...and then are we really cheated, broken all the time?....our parents...some real good friends?...well time may have the best answer to it.......But what I believe now is I have managed to eat a considerable time of yours and have succeeded in boring you to near death. You know this belief of mine never cheats me.....so nothing is absolute...what say?
a qoute is good but a qoute at the end....lolzzz

Significance of the Insignificant

Its really quite odd that I'm writing a blog this time. This is not the time...or...rather is there any time that can be demarcated as a significant one?
Well.....5 days...and I'm writing again...actually nothing happened and therefore no such brilliant ideas popped up. But today I was thinking....rather just Yesterday.....how far significant these insignificant days are in our life.....
Some great things cannot happen everyday...but these insignificant days testifies how far those 'significant' days means. the turn of the year was a great day...the Valentines day is just past....things happened....significant enough to mark a new vive in my otherwise drab daily routine.
But was that worth remembering?...Do I really remember?.The day came, I did what I planned to do and the matter ended there only....the only thing that is different is every day I really dont do that.
But sometimes there are those significant moments.....It happened....100 days back.....I tried...and I really know I was to some extent able to wipe out that piece of history from my closet...but it came back....100 days!!!....and we did not talk!!! I mean so many people are there, We know...but how many of them do we regularly talk with?...hardly.?....
Then why for this one?....I don't know...tomorrow will come...and this hustle-bustle of the necessity will drown the phase.....only perhaps to revive at some solitary moments...to pain or provide pleasure, depending on time solely......but at some dull insignificant time definitely only to make me realize how significant those lost days were

ha ha ha ha...written enough ...eh?....lolzzz....gibberish as usual....actually it happens...some times I feel so void....feel like going on a destructive spree....do whatever is denied to me......but ...!!!

Aaj Banglay likhbo...DHIKKAR SFI

Ami IC korina...Presidency College o porina....tobe tar pasher baritay...CU r chhatro....joriye achhi CU r rajnitite....shasok doler ghrinyo rajnitir biruddhe gorje otha protibaader ongsho hisebe.
Presidemcy college e SFI r joy....dukkhojonok amader kache....IC kori na bote...tobe mone prane cheyechilam ebareo orai jituk...jekhane CPM er facist rajnitir biruddhe gorjon...ami sekhanei tar somorthok.....
Dukkhojonok porajoy...tobe tar cheyeo bhoyaboho tar poroborti hingsa....joyer anondo ki porajito ke dumre mushre mere?...manobikotar nyunotomo chinho takeo nihshesh kore tar bhetore poishachik ullas i ki tobe joyollaser ek matro upaay?....jani na...ta hok emontao chaina...bhabte bhoy lage...jara kal jitlen....tara je byabohar, je ullaser nidorshan rekhe gelen....tar por ei college tite agami dine ki hote choleche....

Srija haspatal er bed e lorairota...take chinina...tobe seo protibad korechilo....SFI ke bolchi...
potakay je lekhen..."SWADHINOTA-SAMAJTANTRA-GANATANTRA" bojhen ganatantra kake bole?....birodhi shakti r kontho rodh kore tobei orate chan nijeder bojoy nishan?....bhebe dekhun....jader gola tipe marchen...tader pashe tader motoi aaro hajar hajar manush apnader sei kukirti dekhchen...kotojon ke marben?..koto kontho stobdho korben?...koto hingsa chhoraben?...shesh hotei hobe bndhu......kono Montri-tonoy birpungab er mohima okkhunno rokkharthe ekta college jite gelen...aar tar poroborti projay je okothyo pashobikota, je omanobik tandob apnara dekhalen....tar sakkhi amra....tar sakkhi sediner college street...tar sakkhi itihase likhe rakha sei dinta....ki jobab deben somoy ke?...jobab ditei hobe....noile janben somoy kauke khoma kore na...apnader keo na.....
Bhabte obak lage college er adhyapok der achoron....jekhane ei narokiyo tandob cholche..sekhane tara nischup.....tara naki manush gorte asen?...ei desher bhobisyot jader haate tader sothik rasta dekhate asen?...marxist rajotte aj emon durdin jekhane somajer karigorerao nitanto omerudondi pranir moto kukre thake...shasok doler podolehone uparjito chakri khoabar bhoy?...naki keboli pith bachano?...kothay bole na?..."charidike jai ghotuk ami kintu niropekkho"....lojja korbe na?...porer din jokhon srijar mukhomukho daraben?....jokhon srijake kichu shekate jaben?.....shikhbe srija?...ba or moto shoto shoto chhatro-chhatri?....kototuku mulyobodh r baki roilo apnader?....kototuku somman baki roilo?....lojja lage amar college principal er kotha bhebe...manoniyo odhyapok....kemon laglo sir?...jokhon dole dole chhatro apnar samne maar khete khete klanto hoyeo khali haate firey gelo?...kemon laglo sir?...jokhon apnar chatro apnar ei achorone churanto mormahoto hoye slogan tullo "EI dalalder chine nao...ei maati tei kobor dao"?
naah sir...amra kobor debo na.....apni amader gurujon...bhaggis Marxist hoye jonmai ni...tai ei tuku bodh amader ache.....apni gurujon....khoma kore deben sir.....jodi raager boshe kharap kotha bole thaki...ki korbo sir....jokhon maar khete khete sobai disha hara..tokhon sokolei bhebechilo apni bujhi ektu asroy deben.....hajar holeo apni shikkhok....boka manob-monon....bujhtei pareni
Marxist hote gele...ontoto e deshe....aage bisorjon dite hoy mon...tarpor mogoj r sob sheshe merudondo....tai protibad korte apnara janenna....sudhu janen toshamoder bhasha...r oi bhasha ropto kore tor tor kore promotion...Bhalo thakben sir...apnar sustho jibon kamona kori....amra orbacheen manush....birodhita kori CPM namok ekta doler...kintu ki janen to sir...itihas khub nishthur.....kauke chhare na....Ingrej theke mughal...sobbaike chole jete hoyeche...Bhoy paben na sir...sedin o apnake amra sroddhai korbo...amra to Marxist noi....

SFI vandalizes College Street

Today was a big day for Presidency College....and definitely for the whole of college street. The 2 main pillars of this area are the University of Calcutta and the Presidency College. And Presidency went to polls today. Already the students politics in India have earned a bad name...due to the exorbitant expenditure, the inhuman violence that are involved with this. The violence in West Bengal politics in now a familiar face, courtesy the ruling Marxists. Eventually the CPM's student's wing the Students' Federation of India is in power at CU while Presidency was controlled by the opposition Independent Consolidation-AIDSO alliance. Today's election saw SFI sweeping the union at Presidency too, that gives them control over the major 2 institutions. Given my political affiliation, this was a jolt for us. I represent the Opposition at the CU union....so a loss at Presidency is a major one at a time when CU goes to polls just next month and Lok Sabha polls are nearby. The loss at Presidency was on a large due to the inabilities of IC-DSO pact.....their weakness on the organizational front. Though I would not reject the foul play by the SFI, they have the backing of the Marxist goons.
And this backing showed its true colours in the violence that erupted as an aftermath. SFI had been losing the college polls down the ages....only exception being the 2001-2003 stint...the 2 terms they won in office. after a lag of 6 years they have grabbed the body again...and given the margin (6 seats) they are sure to win all the office bearers' posts....and latest news being IC-DSO alliance is going to boycott the panel polls. This is in no way a retreat...it is a protest. As the results started to pour in...the SFI goons took it to the street....they vandalized each and every opposition supporters, workers, voters they got in their way. It was even more shocking to see the students adhering to the ruling party politics....so inhuman, so violent, so much derailed of their moral standers. They would not even leave the female students.....they were tortured. A friend of mine was ruthlessly beaten up....I found an SFI supporter beating him with a helmet. Every victory in entailed with a rejoice...but if this is the way that they think to rejoice then Bengal definitely has darker days in future...Its high time Bengal has a change of guard. I could not believe my eyes....a student....he is heckling another one...his class mate so cruelly...how can this be?....they are supposed to be Marxists!!! Though the Marxists are never known for their mercy.....more ruthless, more higher rank---that's probably the Marxists philosophy says.
Added to this was the role played by the police. Those creatures are payed only to oil the goons backed by the ruling parties.....while the opposition students are being vandalized...they are standing mum....are they human?.....do they lose even the last bit of their conscience once they join the force?.....and our very very 'uncommunist' communist CM may take pride...after all who else is more expert to turn the servant of law into the slave of the ruling institution than the Marxists.
Fear creeps in to think....our future lies at these hands...a bunch of hooligans...who knows nothing about morality, the culture of tolerance, and the method to share victory with the vanquished...that is what democracy teaches....but then expecting the Marxists to respect is a gross disrespect for democracy itself....shame in this Government....shame on the CPM and their goons.....time is approaching.....they can hear the knell...it time dear.....that's why they are so aggressive....
learn...or just get vanquished...time will never give another chance.

Abused childhood ... curse that lingers

Its an issue often talked about in media, in news papers, and in intellectual seminars. As I have often said, I hate seminars....only those attend the seminars who think it is fashionable to discuss 'grave' issues....and the target...I mean those who really bear the burns are piteously left out of the scenario. Awareness hardly comes here...

Anyways....I'll just narrate a story...about a friend who had been a victim of abuse in her childhood and still today how she struggles to come out of that trauma....I am no biologist to explain the internal manoeuvrings or a sociologist to talk crusade.


First I met her when I crossed my school and entered college. I cannot take her name...the very first thing I noticed, she was extremely fussy about anything and everything that was around her. She was deliberately feminist...I mean that showed that what she shows was not actually what she meant. For her men are lecherous, women should always fight....advocated single motherhood, single woman concept.....and many more
To be precise every thing that new age urban feminism stands for....she voiced them all...and to be frank my reaction was that of instant repulsion
While I also support what I mean to be feminism....but her violent mode of expression I did not like.....but little did I know then that that was a facade. Inspite of initial animosity...we grew friends and I learnt slowly by slowly......that she was abused, and none other than her own father was responsible. The case was burried.....a middle-class family...the little girl molested by her father....probably too much for any middle class family to disclose in public...and so her house-wife mom had to cope up....and obviously she too. I understood then what was there behind her aparent male-bashing attitude....she feared men....she felt nervous, felt some impending doom in presence of men....but once friend, once a man earns her trust.....she is simply such a sweet friend, lovely one to spend time with. She fell in love with a good friend of mine...now very happy....contended.....she now says that she is learning to believe that all men are not lech...though she still believes all women are abused....

It is difficult. A girl who have seen the very first man in her life to be so inhuman, for her to come out of that and accept that there are good men.....it is extremely difficult...after all where from can she gather that trust, thet faith that good men are there? And for a man to acquire her trust is another uphill task. She even feels uncomfortable in the proximity of her male class mates. They need time.Not sympathy....but a touch that can assure her that she can do what she feels....that there are people who understands what she wants and what she had been through. And the house-wife mothers should get enough economic support from the government so as to rear the the child single-handedly....while that inhuman dirt rot behind the bars....will our media-hyped feminist ensure that?
and what about those numerous men who are also abused in their childhood?

Kolkata Book Fair 2009

Like any other events, Kolkata Book fair has become quite a name....anything we the Bengalis can do or not, one thing we can for sure --- create a hype and thereby make it irresistible for anyone to over look.

Bengal boasts of its intelligentsia. Kolkata is proudly pronounced as the cultural capital of our country...well how far substantial that is is definitely a matter of big question...still Bengali heart seeks enormous solace from the fact that we are superior to any other race what so ever in India. And therefore who can organize a better fest of books, which has become the next big phenomenon after Durga pooja...differing not in glitz and crowd...but just it is held at one place and time span is a bit more.

Well after a grueling debate regarding where the favourite boi-mela should be held, this year it is held at Milon mela ground, off ITC.
It had been a custom, Kolkatan draping in the lazy winter sun would throng the book fair ground at Maidan, dodge the crowd, leaf through the books, comment on each and every writers they can remember...even if they have not read a single book written by the same...satisfy his belly at the food park, sing some desi version of John Lennon and then return home feeling the enormous pride of being a part of the richest cultural heritage in the country.
But those ever materialistic armies hindered this annual sojourn...and the Government shifted the fair to Salt lake stadium....and I personally is completely against this shift....not because it snatches some pseudo intellectuals' opportunity to glorify Maidan and all those bull shit...but due to utter inconvinience. Given the international stature it has obtained and the crowd it pulls....the Yuva Bharati groud or the Milan Mela ground where the 2009 fair is being held...is too small. and it results in utter chaos, mismanagement.

But that has hardly cast any spell over this year arrangements.....people are thronging...Ananda publishers have managed to show to the world that people que up to their stall and thereby displaying their remaining at the helm of Bengal intelligentsia. But Mousumi Prokashani, churning out semi pornographic literature is pulling even larger crowd and thereby testifying Bengals boldness and liberated idealism....no inhibitions please, we are Bengalis. But the top draw remains Ben fish, yet again...the aroma of the fish cuisines is irresistible. aantels are seen roaming around, not entering a single stall....and not smoking (banned after all...so sad)....couples have got a fresh place outside Rabindra Sarovar or Hedua park. This year Saraswati Pooja added to the flavour all the more. Families on week end have got a reason to say no to afternoon sleep and taste the vivacity of Bengal's culture......I heard a woman saying to another..."see we have the largest number of books...all have bought so less...Bengalis don't read...what will happen......I have bout books worth Rs 4000..."
what a display ...err of what?...do I really need to mention?
but after all this is my Kolkata...and the very charm of my city....a new reason to come out and mingle..and Kolkata is sure not to give it a miss.....so Book fair will rock this time again...anyway...

Happy Birthday Nava Nalanda

My school....my Nava Nalanda....today is my school's birthday.......my Nava Nalanda turns 42.....a grown up young man.....a school whom Mother Teresa said "a small school with a huge heart"..my school....and how I was, and even I am madly in love with it....

... and often I ponder nostalgically over the memoirs of a foggy wintry morning, decades ago, the particular of which I need not trouble myself to repeat. I am sure that everybody will hear the foot steps of a young boy walking gently inside the rooms of Nava Nalanda in a white shirt, grey pants and a surprisingly large red tie. memory has eclipsed the way he did behave that day. Amidst many happenings, during the decade old school days of biting pains and painful bits, of thrilling hearts and hurting thrills, the school had become his friend------the best friend...

This camaraderie had a long way to cover through the stories obscure, incidents misty, tales long forgotten. Nostalgic feelings are stirred to the brim as I stroll down the lanes of Southern Avenue. Lost are the days, lost are the old friends, the lost classes, the lost teachers, the pricking nail of the last benches, the lost branches of the old neem, azure sky through the window small. My heart still longs to join the tune of the inattentive boy of the tiresome history classes or pour over the geography maps or chat in the class while Lalitha ma'm saying in her South Indian accented broken Bengali "kota naai"...The annual results were of great thrills to me. The prizes that I won those days boosted me up. The punishments that I suffered for some trivial mischief, then considered to be a curse, now appear as dark colours in the contrasting pictures.I boast the way, all of us, the friends helped each other in our wells and woes. Misunderstandings and quarrels have vanished deep down the heart and an emotional blanket that cloaks it brightens only the warmth of love, endearment. I know not whether it was the high intellect of out mathematics teacher, the cool strategic progress of our Bengali and English teachers, the loving nature of our geography and history ma'ms, or the inquisitive mood of our science madam...that had bound me to the coherent bond with that yellow-red building down Southern Avenue.

Nava Nalanda to me is not a memory, but a feeling. I my dreams I can still hear the school bells ringing. The oath that was there, will be the polestar of my life. Now in a life of pain and pressure, of tension and competition, of fortune and despair...my finger often leaf through the pages of the old diary. Bereft of a loving school though I am, the memories will drive me a long way through the dark days of my life and ever inspire me to strive for betterment....after all we took oath each year...."Victory will be our aim... ... ... and confidence will be our identity"