WTF!

Neither Rushdie helps nor Gurdjieff,

with their wiseacring pages,

Neither help torrented discographies,

of the Doors and Guns n roses.

I am still knocking doors,

tirelessly for a clue.

I am still depending

on tentative guesses!

I have exhausted consolations,

and the Gtalk therapy.

the calls back home....

and the prescriptions.

But also my hope.

My courage.

Surely my will!

the dread only grows!

Finished today.

Exhausted some more.

Tomorrow,

opens another door...

Just WTF is this!

WTF!

SHE

Chris Etheridge / Graham Parsons

She'll let you in her house
If you come knockin' late at night
She'll let you in her mouth
If the words you say are right
If you pay the price
She'll let you deep inside
But there's a secret garden she hides


She'll let you in her car
To go drivin' round
She'll let you into the parts of herself
That'll bring you down
She'll let you in her heart
If you got a hammer and a vise
But into her secret garden, don't think twice


You've gone a million miles
How far'd you get
To that place where you can't remember
And you can't forget
She'll lead you down a path
There'll be tenderness in the air
She'll let you come just far enough
So you know she's really there


She'll look at you and smile
And her eyes will say
She's got a secret garden
Where everything you want
Where everything you need
Will always stay
A million miles away

KoLkata 2

Kolkata is not “lazy” or “laidback”. It is throbbing passionately, simmering (literally and metaphorically) with only a semblance of laziness if you will. A colleague says, the judgment that Kolkata is lazy may have arisen from a general tendency to label everyone and everything involved with the arts, literature and other such leisurely activities as “laidback”. Kolkata has exemplified aesthetics since forever, thus, falling prey to being labeled if you like. Locals here have options of and time for theatre, concerts, exhibitions and hence not running around like headless chicken in malls in Kandivli, malls in malad, malls in Andheri and malls in Mulund. Not yet! Anyhow, a city which was at the forefront of political, social and artistic reform and movement cannot be lazy, not THEN and not NOW.
I have seen very few beggars in Kolkata and none at all at traffic lights. I do not know the reason. I have seen women, dressed like how we do back in Mumbai, but I have seen very few women. There are still a larger number of independent, quaint homes lining the lanes of Kolkata than high-rises or apartments. This, however, may not be the case after a year. No pigeons (read that Ramya) except for at the Dakshineshwar temple! I have not seen too many fancy cars and the roads seem like the domain of the yellow ambassador cabs. The streets are FULL of them and their size and color makes the swanky esteems and civics look dim-witted, lackluster and boring! The sheer number of these darting yellow blobs with the sun beating down upon them casts a YELLOW glow on the entire frikking city. Kolkata gets its color from them AND from the dusty dark green shutters adorning windows of ALL houses. And I thought the color of Kolkata was RED :-)

Speaking about connections I feel with this place, I discovered something that added to it. My ever so charming hotel is situated right next to a 3 storeyed brick red building by the name of "Jamuna" and anybody entering the lane leading upto my hotel cannot fail to notice the white alphabates bolted vertically on the brick red wall! I see my own name each day as I enter the lane that leads to my hotel. And it feels great!
And to boot, I stumbled across in crowded goriahat on a ballet school by the name of "Udayan".
I love Kolkata!

I return tomorrow and not at all with a sigh of relief as is usually the case. Rather, kolkata is now one of those "living-things" I write about and talk to. We are exchanging good-byes and i have promised to return.

KoLKatA

8th April 2009:
This is the day I flew ALL ALONE for the first time in 27 years. I lost most of this landmark of a journey to overpowering slumber. The much touted “long” flight to Kolkata was not long, not when I would have liked to catch up on a few more hours of sleep. I flew across the country in just a few winks. It took a few winks to get to Kolkata! Hell!

Colin described Kolkata as “a city that is like a beautiful, intellectual woman one wants to have a relationship with”. To me Kolkata is like a melody; painfully tugging at my heart and bringing a lump to my throat. It swamped me in nostalgia even though I have no associations with this city. I am thinking Kolkata is a wrong place to be in if one is looking to get over a relationship! Or I would think it is a bad place even if one is happily in one! It rather dramatically pushes you into catacombs you thought you found your way out of! I think Kolkata rakes up sweet pain. I do not know how the real Kolkata is. I never will. My perception of it will forever be affected by Tagore’s stories and The City of Joy. Maybe these poets, authors and filmmakers made Kolkata hard to be just another city, maybe Kolkata IS difficult to be just another city. The conclusion is it is very well NOT just another city, whether it owes this to its artistic portrayal or to itself.

My first impression of the streets of Kolkata was that I will NEVER have to go WITHOUT anything here! The streets, all of them, are lined with such an abundance of tiny shops seeming like they are selling everything under the sun or almost, that all I need to do to get what I want in Kolkata is take a short walk! In an hour-long drive around the city I saw shops, cafes, multi-cuisine hotels, residential buildings, ponds, gardens, colleges, schools, hospitals, a fine arts academy (of course!), a mall, a crossword, a theatre and there was not a doubt left in my mind about Kolkata and what it got! It got everything. And it shows it. One doesn’t have to wait to get to the market area to see the market, to the residential area to see homely homes and to the corporate area to see offices! Markets are everywhere, people live everywhere and everything co-exists everywhere. In extremely narrow lanes opposite Tolly Club, are quaint houses with indecipherable names (I bet they are worth getting to know. Bengali names always are), in Bangla script, adorned with typical green shutter windows (dust coated but charming) and trees. What are not charming are the aberrant and abrupt skyscrapers. They fail to blend. They herald a new Kolkata rising with an avaricious eagerness, towering over the old city and looking tawdry next to the existing homes. Amidst bustling narrow streets, small houses, cycle rickshaws, rickety blue buses and the anachronistic trams are the anomalous skyscrapers! Kolkata appears to be in the middle of a skyscraper epidemic. In the midst of a Heightened Mania!

Kolkata, by virtue of what it means to me and does to me is NOT a place for me to be alone in. Or be “without work” in. Kolkata should not see me idle. I react to idleness in Kolkata!