another tag.

1. LAST MOVIE YOU SAW IN A THEATER?way back.bong connection,i guess.
2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING?last read 'Chronicle of a death foretold'.will read 'Istanbul' next.
3. FAVORITE BOARD GAME?snakes and ladders.
4. FAVORITE MAGAZINE? robbar.
5. FAVORITE SMELLS? the whiff after a candle is put out.petrol.new paint.shoe polish.
6. FAVORITE SOUND? the clanging of trams.sirens.old advertisements on radio. ghu-ghu pakhir daak.
7.WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD: depravity.failure.denial.feeling unloved.
8.FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE? all that happenned the day before. i tend to forget otherwise.
9. FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE? i dont have a favorite.
10. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME:chompa and chameli.
11. FINISH THIS STATEMENT. "If i had a lot of money i would...blow it up for sure:)
12.DO YOU DRIVE FAST? might.if i knew how.
13. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?nah.
14. STORMS-COOL OR SCARY?cool.
15. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?i had a shiny red bus of plastic once upon a time.
16. FAVORITE DRINK?frooti.
17. FINISH THIS STATEMENT, "IF I HAD THE TIME I WOULD .....rearrange my life
18. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS ON BROCCOLI?never had it.
19. IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOR, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE?red.definitely.streaks,but.
20. NAME ALL THE DIFFERENT CITIES/TOWNS YOU HAVE LIVED IN.been in kolkata forever.
21. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?kho-kho
22. ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU: a sweetheart.
23. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED?dusty suitcases.and a verry dusty carpet.
24. WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE BORN AS YOURSELF AGAIN?i wouldnt trade myself for any other being.
25. MORNING PERSON, OR NIGHT OWL?i used to be a morning person.i prefer staying up late these days.
26. OVER EASY, OR SUNNY SIDE UP?sunny side up:)
27. FAVORITE PLACE TO RELAX?home.
28. FAVORITE PIE?dhushh.khaina:
29.FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR?chocolate.butterscotch.
30. OF ALL THE PEOPLE YOU TAGGED THIS TO, WHO'S MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND FIRST? pongy papaya,i guess.

i tag little boxes,pongy papaya,arnab,dreamy and ad libber.

nightswimming

as it turns out,night is the ideal time i could fall in love with myself.
now,falling in love with oneself doesnt necessarily require a right time or place.you can just about fall in love with yourself at the least auspicious moments.while crossing the road perhaps.
i do.i fall in and out of love with myself while crossing the road.i could be particularly elated at myself for making something as commonplace as crossing a road seem so interesting for me as well as for people around and fall head over heels on me for simply that.
but at night its a different ball game altogether.
i go for random walks around my locality,just for the information,at night and NOT because i have to cut down on the extra fat.that does probably lurk somewhere as a possible cause.but the walks are mostly meant to catch up with myself.and for people like me who couldnt care two hoots about the world,talking to self while walking can be darn therapeutic.
staying up late works for me.
so does random staring at the mirror and talking to the walls.
the other day mum barged into my room at two in the morning only to find me staring at a very red wall and talking baloney.her face contorted in a way i have never seen before.and it wasnt expression she would have donned to dissapprove my staying up late.its the face one makes on giving birth to a baby that closely resembles an ape,with verrry hairy features,tail,et al.
i probably reminded her of characters from far off lands ,preferably from marquez's stories who were insomniac,rocked on an armchair all night and talked baloney to the mute wall when not devouring fists full of wet earth from the garden.
have you heard the sound of bare feet swishing across the crude floor at night?or of clocks ticking in immaculate sequence one after the other?it seems as though my room comes alive with distinctive noises i could never perceive at daytime however discreet i stayed.i stay up for them.i stay up simply to admire the lovely motif the shadows cast on the glass showcase atop the kalo almirah.the neon incandescence falling against the palm leaves conjure the most fantastical silhouettes unlike what i have often viewed in cliche postcards and tourist brochures.thats where my sublime rests at night.amidst mango trees and random swishing of feet against cool mosaic.thats where my soul hovers at night.and when dawn breaks,the noises surreptitiously creep into lost crevices and tuck themselves away.

myriad hues

ages back when plastic crayons and pigtails with lacy ribbons still ruled my world,i had decided i would like to become a cartoonist.considering this ambition had loomed large in my life at a time when kids usually dream of becoming doctors and pilots is an amazement in itself.many a sleepless afternoons were whiled away in the baranda sprawled across the cool mosaic drawing pictures of unsteady men and rather ugly women,for however hard i tried i never could contrive the right eyes and the lips appeared disproportionate on most occassions.another picture i never grew tired of drawing was of a cat as big as a house and a tree all standing on the same plane and with mountains behind them overlooking a verry verry green meadow.i dont know why but i simply couldnt come out of that fixation.everytime a tried drawing something else,the cat always figured on the paper.and soonafter the tree,the hill,the house and the green meadow followed suit.i was much in love with the plastic crayons.the wax ones tended to conjure grotesque impressions on the facing page,and thus were much hated.
my first art teacher,a girl in her early twenties and allegedly a little cranky in the head used to sit with me for about an hour every saturday morning.she would often talk out loud to herself or smile sheepishly at me while i drew purple skies and green homes with great gusto.and inspite of whatever rumours did their rounds in the para about her apparent paglamo,i found her to be a nice,innocuous company who effortlessly lit up my insipid saturday mornings.
my art teacher in school was a major bully who held a wooden scale in her hand more often than she held a pencil.painting was more of an ordeal than a fascination in her class.her "katha bolchho keno.scale chhure marbo" boomed resonantly across the room petrifying little ten year olds compelling whatever artistic inclination they had developed over the years to rapidly fritter away.
gradullay in the years to come,although art and painting still occupied some place in my life( i have always drawn cards for teachers' day.i still do),the fascination died down somewhere.so did my 'beeg cartoonist' ambition.in a while painting had taken a back seat.drawing was reduced to a yearly affair indulged only when there's a birthday or a teachers day around the corner.
the change didnt exactly happen overnight.but i guess i was so caught up in everything new that was entering my life and at the regularity of being mindboggled by something or the other,that the change escaped me.i never realised when my most coveted dream rendered itself inconspicuous and silently slipped out of the backdoor.

and for once i wouldnt blame my folks for not taking me seriously(i hold it beeg against my parents for not really egging me to 'learn' or do much in life).painting is the cheapest hobby one can culture.ever.all you need is a drawing book and a box of crayons or maybe a paintbrush and some colours. i really could have stuck to my beeg dream.fact remains,i didnt.
and i dunno why i am saying this but i really believe,when i abandoned painting,a plethora of colours also happenned to abandon me.
and they havent returned since...

Barnoporichoy

A for AbolTabol.not the book.but my thoughts and expressions.very abstract and verry abantor.
B for bekar.what i am mostly.during larger part of the day.and even night.every waking hour.
C for Chompa and Chameli,names of my unborn twins.
D for Digama saheber cake.also,Darjeeling.
E for emni emni.for all the times i had surreptitiously crept into the kitchen to devour
mouths full of powdered horlicks.'ami toh emni emni khai'
F for fyataru.blokes like you and me who love digressing the system.who love defying everything under the sun simply for the heck of it.who have kept "cholchhena cholbena" mantra alive.
G for gadha.the most commonplace and hackneyed expletive in bangla lexicon.
H for hori-bell.(read,horrible)what each and every bangali goes through at some point in their lifetime.
I for isshhh.the most instinctive reply to all things monotonous or disgusting.
J for jadi...a regular in all utopic speeches.
K for Kak.whose meat tastes bitter and is therefore used widely in cooking shukto.
L for lal."lal ekta moja pore chheleta railing e duley jay." or,"lal ajke amar kacheh rajniti boro hoye gechhi je hay,ki kora jay..."
M for mushkil.something that is virtually engulfing me at all waking moment.
N for Na.the immediate response on being requested to run a chore.also,N.A.as in not applicable.a term that is fast becoming synonymous to my existence.
O for obak.something i have been becoming so randomly and at such unprecedented circumstances that it aint funny anymore.
P for peekchaars.(read,pictures)that i have uploaded lately on orkut.go check!
Q for quintessential bangalis.with their accents and monkey tupis.and polticks and machher jhol.sigh!what will i do without them?
R for robbar.not just the day.but also the magazine i am currently very verry addicted to.
S for Sourav.kono katha hobena!
T for taka kori.that i hope i will have lots of.someday...
U for ulto.another trait that is fast eclipsing with my persona.
V for Veto.that is keeping India from becoming a permanent member of the Security Council.hhhrrmmph!
W for Workculture.something the entire human civilisation should learn from us.
X for Xerox.that uncannily is pronounced ZErox.rather than the ideal SKErox.beats me why.
Y for yaay!(that the tag is finally getting over)
Z for Zoroastrianism.that i find way too appealing and intriguing for some ineffable reason.



I tag darkling,coffee stain,moo-lah business,dreamy and inihos.

ennui

uneventfulness is a disgusting thing to deal with.i hate whiling away time doing absolutely nothing substantial and then later blaming myself for the same.and its incredible how exhaustive and elastic this 'nothingness' is.i feel spent and content everyday as i walk back home,having done nothing really to be so filled and exuberant about.i fear being a vegetable.inert.nonchalant.immuned against changing.i fear i would start living a life where today would be no better or worse than tomorrow.it would eclipse with tomorrow and the day before.its a terrible feeling,this!like a film stuck at a point and reiterating previous shots over and over again conjuring abundant monotony.
i need an exorcist to shoo bad thoughts off my mind.too many things on my mind these days.plenty to read,watch and visit.lots of things left undone.too many errands to run.stuff to purchase.plans to make.calculate.make note of.and too little time.
procrastination is probably not a trait you would like to rejoice over.but then,you are not left with much choice when it compulsively thrusts itself at you.submission then becomes the only way out.

the old road is rapidly fading...

my 'clairvoyance' informs me that the world is fast turning into a homogenised body.
i scowl inwardly and make calculations to dismantle the software i have installed lately.
this "i-know-what-the-future-holds" software [clairvoyance] is evidently driving me ballistic.
this is what it told me last night:
clair: the whole world is too caught up in building malls and multiplexes.they dont realise what they are coming to.its a case of the triplets' lost identity.they look unidentifiably alike and in the process of resembling each other have forgotten who they really are.each one thinks he is harry and clearly there is no telling who they actually are.
me:whaddafuck are you talking about?and what is this homogenisation shit?
clair:i am telling you.in a decade or two the whole world will look so alike that it will be hard to tell them apart.
clair:i mean,given the infrastructure and all will be pretty much the same,Kolkata wont be any different from Kuala Lampur.
me:you know you could probably be hanged for talking such baloney.i mean,do you even know how Kolkata is like.and that it is impossible for 'some things' to change?Kolkata and Kuala Lampur,indeed!(snort..chuckle..snort)
clair:all i am telling you is that things will be so dreadfully metamorphosed even a few years later,that it will be hard telling what is what.technology is an exhaustive phenomena.it doesnt stop at a mall or flyover construction alone.its a chain reaction and would only stop when there is nothing else left to make/build.its like a conflagaration that scalds everything to ashes so that each can be built anew.and your city,like the rest of the world is being razed,heaped into debris and new structures are relentlessly attempting to fit into newer moulds,nonchalantly kicking aside the calciferous skeletons aligning the roadway.
thus factories are ruthlessly torn down,workers mercilessly evicted and soon after the grime had been gently swept under the carpet,with the effortless 'swish' of bulldozers,a swanky spectacle adorns the sprawling premise, obliterating all traces of an erstwhile soot emitting,dark and dingy sweatshop.
roads are widened to allow more car space,regularly encroaching pavement dwellers and pedestrains alike.and flyovers towering over the cityscape create distressing bottlenecks prodding unending constructions of more such flyovers,pretty much in parlance with the age old logic of the crisis of a war being solved by another war and suchlike!
me:(raised eyebrow,eyes reflecting concern)but isnt there any way one could stunt the process,if not clog it completely?
clair:i fear there isnt much we can do.the conflagaration has begun.
unfurl your hands.the city you so tried to cling to,has turned to ashes.
tsk.tsk.
me:...

boi mela

i am evidently distraught and utterly crestfallen.For,being the person that i am,who prefers calling the glass half full rather than half empty,the book fair issue has come as a huge setback.surely this wasnt remotely one of my premonitions.i had had nightmares about the filmfestival being called off(well,it did reach a point when it really could.So...).I was even suspecting that the fair being held in park circus might churn newer controversies from varied quarters and get reaccomodated in Salt lake again.the fact that some KOLKATA BOOK FAIR might be held in a place that isnt really 'Kolkata' had got me mindboggled last year,but then i digress.
i frankly dont have any bones to pick with the environmentalists.they are after all doing their job,but i often wonder in solitude what they had been doing all these 30 years when the fair happenned in maidan with so much gusto.but what appalls me is the sheer indifference of the guild authorities.they seem to have forgotten that there exist some small publishers,people who diligently save every paisa throughout the year to publish little magazines, pamphlets,fliers and notebooks of suchkind so that they could sell them in the book fair with little or no profit.
people who care enough to ask you your name,where you have come from,offer you a seat so that you could rest a while before going stall hopping again.some would even shove a small magazine into your jhola and on being told that you dont have enough to pay him,would squeeze your hand and whisper "ami dilam.eta poro,bhalo lagbe".
This is what my boi mela is all about.
It feels nice watching people who have come all the way from distant provinces to buy books that they know wouldn't be available in their hometowns.some come simply to eat.some get their potraits made.and some bask in the sun,frolick and make merry as if they are on a picnic. and all this,while Protul Mukhopadhyay's "ami banglay gaan gai" reverberates the premise.
i remember times when i had gone simply to soak up the ambience and eventually bumped into old acquaintances who i knew i would meet again next year while browsing books or going stall hunting.
there were men who painted their faces,wore stilts and walked across the fair egging potential buyers to procure their publishings.i had always been enchanted by such men and when little had even tugged at baba's shirt so that he would slow down a little and let me devour the "tall man''s stunts,eyes agape.it pains me to think some tinylittle thing will be deprived of such fantasies this winter.that the "tall men" wouldn't be painting their faces for the mela this year.that the man in that makeshift Little Magazine counter wouldn't be shoving magazines down someone's jhola.that there would be no kid pulling at his father's panjabi so that he be taken to the shop of his fancy.
no regular visits to any swanky bookshop could possibly make up for the void that the non occurance of the boi mela creates. its a gamut of motley experiences that nothing else could conjure.nothing.
boi mela chai.boi mela hok.

i knew i had finally found a director whose work i liked and could relate to when i watched "And life goes on"during this film festival in Kolkata.it was lucidity i was on the look out for and clearly ALGO fit my bill with startling precision.

watching "Taste of cherry" today only helped me confirm my convictions pertaining to Kiarostami and his work.for a man whose work largely throws light on the mundane existence of the Iranian people set across an arid landscape,its intriguing how Kiarostami manages to celebrate everyday living with such impeccable style and finesse.

i had noted it then and i noted it today too how Kiarostami effortlessly weaves a story around nondescript entities and shows how something as commonplace as a drive along the terrains of a dry desert can become so captutring and gripping so much that there comes a time when you start thinking as though you have been sucked into a process,although involuntarily,that now has become too engrossing to let go.

the camera mostly shoots from inside the car,positioned either beside the protagonist(the driver) or behind him.but occassionally when the drive across dry vegetation and mounds of dust becomes monotonous to the point of evoking acute claustrophobia,the camera pans on the broader panorama of Iranian topography.

Kiarostami evidently is unconventional in his making.but appreciably he doesnt do it on the face, or blatantly,so to speak.the subtlety conveniently seeps within and only surfaces when you are contemplating the film in solitude.

for me that is where his charm lies.its comparitively simpler to engage viewers' attention when the plot is sufficiently gnarled.the challenge possibly lies in elevating a simple storyline to the rank of some of the greatest films.

that's what Abbas Kiarostami does with such panache.

that's what sets 'The Man' a class apart.

for want of better things to do,or the lack of it

This,my friends,is what I do in class.err,mostly.

wind in my hair...

another bus ride across town.there were too many gawdily dressed women on the streets today.i didnt go to park sreet for,frankly,i didnt wish to be groped.
besides excessive light and psychedelia nowadays depresses the hell out of me.
park street reeks of jing bang and such like.
and i hate when those barely clad little beggars come asking for money.they have taken to selling gums these days.albeit,none buys them.but they go selling them,still.
somebody ought to give them a reward for such hopefulness.
if there is something i really lack,its hope.
i remember i had once told S that its faith that keeps us going through life.
i fear i dont have enough faith these days.

on a different note,did you know there are people who play chess on the railings underneath the gariahat flyover?its the most amusing thing i have noticed offlate.

have a happy new year all of you!

i hate mindnumbingness.it hovers around the nape of your neck for sometime before it infiltrates your head and numbs everything.
i hate being torn between indifference and overt concern.
i hate being shocked and appalled over an issue and then revert back to listening music the next minute.
i find it all too hypocritical.
it pains me to realise i am floating in a world i dont otherwise conform to.

P.S:-to benazir,
i hope your soul rests in peace.

meet me sometime and i will tell you about the excruciating pleasure of being guilty.
coax me a little more and i might even divulge one or two things about how the sun kissed the saffron sky and night fell precariously on the wet ground.
i could even tell you few things about chorai and shalik and how they nonchalantly frisked about my backyard this afternoon unperturbed by the crow's harsh cawings.
but maybe,i would let that pass.
i wouldn't want chorai-shalik to grow up hating me because i told on them.

winter is a rather strange season.its as if it yanks the memories by their ear and pulls them out from the dusty crevices they had tucked themselves in,all along.
there are so many of them triggering at me right now,that i fear if i try writing them all down,they would yield incoherence.
maybe i would post them when my expression doesnt fail me.
right now,listen to this.
sometimes melancholy can sound so heartrending.
like here...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=cH8lXbCFTCc

of winter nights and city lights...

this winter is all about winding bus rides and random walks across the city.
walking aimlessly about the city through unknown lanes and bylanes past quaint shops,roadside joints,small eateries can be very engrossing.
the last few days have seen me travelling through the same old alleys,browsing through the same old books/magazines/hoardings/posters/records.Yet,everytime the experience has left me richer than before.
I had been getting nagging thoughts about school,lately.so when i finally dropped in at elgin road on friday afternoon,my premonitions got answered.the building still stands tall but things around it have changed drastically and how!the pavements look despicable what with the peddlers having set up small eateries,std booths,paan shops on either side.there was something oddly nostalgic about the red uniformed little girls storming out of the gates,though!
the normal din hovered casually along the Academy premises.but what caught my eye was a little kid sitting on his haunches at the farthest corner smiling sheepishly at me with his grimy and soiled face.And when i tried approaching him,he jumped up and ran away clumsily,all the time looking at me through the corner of his eye.
the cathedral(St.Paul's)wore a festive look,already.the manger and the magis were mostly in place.a little away,a makeshift stage had been erected and kids pranced merrily to a rather warped version of jingle bells with added gusto.contrarily,the inside rendered a calming,benign ambience with an old lady practising hymns on the piano.the music flowed freely and effortlessly through her fingers and for a while it seemed as if it had imbued life into the mute walls and pillars.
outside,the air had grown thick and cold as it hung heavily all around.
the walk along parkstreet mostly comprised occasional halts before bookstores,galleries,hoardings while hundreds of nameless,faceless individuals scurried alongside as if tied by an invisible string of camaraderie.and two tiny travellers infront of me clung onto their father's shoulders devouring the fanfare,lights and glitz with unabashed hunger.
leaving the flashyness and psychedelia behind,i plunged into an otherwise uneventful corner.a few minutes' brisk walking and i had been transported into a different world altogether.the night air reeked of old motheaten books and timeless records.gaily festooned quaint little shops with equally eager pairs of eyes peering at me confirmed i had reached free school street.remininscences of a kashmiri shawlwallah with big,doleful eyes selling muslin shawls with so much vigour and enthusiasm although he knew i couldnt buy any,still keeps harking back.and then there were muslim boys,clad in lungi and surma rimmed eyes who sold christmas goodies in stalls.cheap incongruous hindi music flowed out of obscure bars and sometimes,unsteady men flanked by equally unsteady,flamboyant women in gawdy jewellery would come out of them,all wobbly from intoxication,cursing abuses and swearing at humanity in general...

the past few days has been pretty much full of this and much more.there were so many faces smiled at.so many shoulders brushed past,so many faces gaped at...
and every moment gifted me with an overwhelming sense of belonging,of being held together as one whole and each time it reminded me of my miniscule yet integral existence in this throbbing megapolis.

Amolkanti ar roddur

way back in school I had once recited a poem where a certain Amolkanti wanted to be roddur.the feeling fascinated me so much that i couldnt get over it for long.even now,after so many years i remember those few lines although the actual event has escaped my memory.I remember how i would ask maa if she knew Amol and whether I stood a chance to be like him.Sometimes,I would even stay up all night contemplating Amol's fate till the morning breeze lulled me to sleep.And although life then didn't have a dearth of distractions,uncannily,Amolkanti and his roddur stayed on.He would come visiting me in lazy afternoons when the sunshine strained through palm leaves to conjure pretty motifs on the mosaic.I would lie sprawled on the baranda talking immaculately about all that captured my fancy while Amol listened on.He was a good listener.He would hear me out patiently,never flinching for a moment and when time came he tucked roddur inside his backpack and off he would go,drowning my baranda in plunging darkness.

Some months later,Amol suddenly stopped visiting.Roddur still came to my baranda but somehow it didn't feel same.Maa said he probably got tired of my stories.My rendezvous with Amol thus ended abruptly.The stories would well up inside me for now,there was none to tell them to.I never again chanced upon another listener who would match Amol's standard.

And suddenly today I'm missing my friend all over again.I still don't know how Amol became roddur.Or,if he at all did.

I wish I could become roddur someday...

peekchaar

baba.

in da club

check this one out
http://http://youtube.com/watch?v=3Ki04RocqHE











and you thought being bangali is all about rabindrasangeet and machher jhol.

this one emanates from sheer desperation.
not angst.this is too delicate to be wrathed upon.
angst doesnt happen when you have your back completely against the wall.
like now.
feeling very succumbing and giving-up-on-everything~ish.
like a battle lost,a day wasted.
and the entire pallette of things to have triggered this-uncountable...
and to find your voice so feeble and drowned in a cacophony of furore can feel so defeating.

even the end of the tunnel seems so bleak.

"And life goes on..."

i have seen my system goes miserably awry if a particular routine is suddeenly put to a halt.
it is awry right now.very unkempt and largely unoriented.
life for the past one week had been rather hectic and how!
getting up at half past six in the morning and still getting late for the morning show had been a custom.breakfast still in mouth,groggy faced running after the rickshaw will be much missed.
and yes!god bless the metro.for impunctual souls like yours truly,the machine is one godsent tin can!for someone to have caught the 9AM metro from tollygunje and yet to have sat pretty in the Rabindra Sadan auditorium at 9.15 is entirely incredulous,if you ask me.
but yes.thats what i did for the last few days.
for people who havent yet figured what i was upto,i am talking about the Calcutta Film Festival that happenned between the 10th and the 17th of this month.
lets just say,the "festival" didnt start on a very happy note what with 'buddhhijibis' and commoners all raising a great hue and cry over the bloody carnages at nandigram and "how on earth could they even think of organising a 'festival' at such time...?"
posters written impromptu and rallying and picketing happenned in front of Nandan.ironically people protesting against the government and demanding a withdrawal of the festival were mostly people who after being bailed out(yes,they were arrested)continued watching the films with the same gusto as us!
Oh and phones kept ringing throughout the film screenings.and sometimes people were audacious enough to even answer them informing the caller about his whereabouts..
"arreh!Nandane achhi.ha ha...flim dekhchhi..ha ha..flim festival cholchhe toh..ha ha..aro kotokhhon?(nudging the person next to him..achha dada kotokhhon cholbe?).."and so it went.ringtones and singtones of all kinds,interjected with occassional grunts and groans from fellow audiences.
and yes,two three major faux pas happenned.films got changed just like that without proper notice.this unprofessional stance of the festival authorities and this general tendency of belittling the audience infuriated me much.it was only after we had started watching a particular film taht we realised that its not what we had hoped to watch.
and i almost always had mashimas sitting next to me eloquently translating subtitles to thier corresponding colloquial.However,glares and vindictive guffaws did little to play down the tempo.
having said all that,i still dont have enough words to describe the sheer surge of emotion watching the films back to back,the sound of an alien dialect against your ear,the psychedelic play of colours before your eyes and a gamut of ideas wreaking havoc within you.its an ineffable feeling!
inspite of the motley crowds of people swarming all around you,the ambience helps you create your own niche under the sun.and the films can totally estrange you from everything that you are abound by.
lots of people were met,long discussions conjured,dreams dreamt and fantasies woven together.
having constantly heard foreign languages for consecutive days-words that held no significance unless corresponded by subtitles scrolling below,the words came to form a crude melody,something i got so attuned to,that watching an english film with no subtitles proved so jarring i got lost in incoherence.

on the whole,the experience has left me in a daze,and i can realise breaking free will prove hard task.

pujo

verbose is the moment.
there are times when i could pass off without really saying anything.nothing illustrative.often symbolic.euphemistic.suchlike.
times flip.and they do wonderful things to your mood too.
garrulous is the mood now.the talk has to happen.its been gagged for long.only the talk can yield respite.
so conversation flows.it gurgles like a happy brook.usual chit chats.the normal exchanges.hackneyed,but in practice still.
mostly 'for the sake of it'.nods.a forced smile.hands firmly shaken.
too many people near the window huddling for space.face powders and masquarade.

pujo seemed less forced in comparison.hardly any "have-to" and "must-dos" figured on the list.one did.but that too turned out to be pleasant.
in a way pujo was whimsical.strangely "very utopic" plan worked out pretty well.
dhonpota was more than what one would call surreal.very liberating and yes,overwhelming too!funny how images in your mind's eye seem more focussed and less grainy than the ones in the photo.the image has adhered.it comes back in momentary hallucinations and strikes me when least likely.
however maddox came as a major let downer.not that much was expected.the hype has gotten too much into their goddamn heads.the dhakis play for just about a few minutes.too many happy gay people clapping and making 'hoo-haa' howls kills even that.and the place reeks claustrophobia.starry eyed bejewelled flashy juniors from school,equally hideous eye candies in tow;a demented relative;still more happy shiny juniors from school, maddox robbed me off my nobomi thunder.
another pujo gone.and i wonder how many are left on me now...