Little Orange Post-its from today…

Three of my colleagues here, sharing the same office space as me. Are soon gonna be dads!

The ETA for all the kids (sets of kids maybe) is next week. Hmm...curious but true.
All of these to-be-dads have a spring in their step, or maybe I am just imagining things!

In totally unrelated events, my current song on winamp (and it's been current for the last few days now) is 'Sex is not the Enemy' by Garbage.

Check out these lines,

No evolution
Sometimes it depresses me
The same old same
Oh we keep repeating history!
The institution curses curiosity
It's our conviction
Sex is not the enemy

I won't feel guilty
No matter what they're telling me
I won't feel dirty and buy into their misery
I won't be shamed 'cause I believe that love is free
It fuels the heart and sex is not my enemy...!

Labels: Moments and Memories

Like a Bridge over troubled waters...

Sail on silver girl,
Sail on by.
Your time has come... to shine.
All your dreams are on their way.

See how they shine.
If you need a friend...
I’m sailing... right behind.

Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind.

Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.


For you, I lay me down.
Cheers,
Rohan.

Labels: Music

Not the Bong you use to Smoke up... Part Deux.

I am breaking whole new ground with my posts. To start with, this is a follow to the one before.

To cut straight through the rhetoric and to the chase. Bongs are very passionate about sport, no two ways about that. For those of us who have actually watched a big ODI or a derby clash at Salt Lake stadium, the buzz around the stadium and in the city in general is awesome. Everybody is pumped.

When India sniffs an ODI victory at the Eden, people in the stand burn torches and with the Ganges in the background, it looks like fireflies swarming the night. But let's do a reality check here, cricket, we have a fairly decent national team. Hockey, the great Indian revival is yet to arrive, but to be fair, we are still competitive. But football, being passionate is one thing, but where is the semblance of quality? You just need to see the quality of one of our national league fixtures, an East Bengal v. Mohan Bagan for example. The skill levels are abysmal!

So bottom-line, we bongs need to get real. Our supremacy over the game is Ancient History 101. Following world soccer and playing an additive role to the mass hysteria is fine, but before we beat our chests in soccer glory/pride/knowhow, lets please first look at our bare cupboards.

In agreement with Reshma's comment, most of us look back at the Pujo's with a great degree of fondness. Happy memories, of adoring aunts and indulging uncles. The sounds of the dhaak coalescing with peals of laughter.

Ok, reality check time. Last year pujo, was my first in the past five years. What happened to my wonderful Triangular Park Pujo? The Pujo is now characterized by PYT dressed in back less choli's offering a 'designer onjoli'. Guys in a rocky-esque/vicky-esque black SUV's driving up and down the road with blaring 'house music', if you didn't know better you would think you were in West Delhi!

Coming to the language bit, yeah we aren't the only ones. It just takes two bongs to start off a fantasy trip about fresh Hilsa fish in bangla. Having said that, two mallu's could kill you with their prolonged chatter about Alleppy (presumably), and the only word one is able to discern is 'Appam'. Punjabi's well yeah, every thing from a pin to a piano, is pre-fixed with the b****d word. It is funny you know, this typical punju talk reminds me of object oriented programming (yeah it's a weird mental map!). In OOPS we have objects and classes. An object being an instance of a class. With the Punjabi speak, everything is an instance of the class b****d. Everything - cars, exams, the internet, magazines, beer...the works. I mean a car cant even move on its own, unless you fill it with gas...how could it "do its sister", or anybody's relative for that matter... including yours.

Labels: World and us

Not the Bong you use to smoke up ...

It's 11:30 at night, and surprisingly I am Sleepless in Somerset.

I read Anusha's Blog today, which is pretty neat by the way. It made me realize something significant, for all my Bong/Calcutta chauvinism, I have never written a post about either!

Well, here goes a list. Some truths I would like to reiterate and some myths I would like to destroy.

1. I think South Calcutta people (especially the guys) are far neater than the one's from the north.

2. The bong obsession about soccer is way over the top. A whole generation of bong men sits up the whole night under their mosquito nets, to watch obscure matches between Fulham and Norwich City! We bongs suck at soccer now. Its almost over compensation, like why some guys buy big Hummers... you know what I mean.

3. While bong women can be awesomely beautiful in their own way. But the misplaced notion the most of them have, that being 'naaka', would somehow make them more alluring to the average bong guy… simply put, is disgusting. By the way, the closest legit English translation of 'naaka' is mawkish.

4. Why does every Bong have to be a 'dada' or a 'didi'? Why cant we just be colleagues, buddies, work mates...whatever! Even strangers!

5. Bangla bands suck! The guitar riffs are take offs. The lyrics are decadent in the guise of being progressive. And what the jack are 'jeebon mukhi' songs? Every song in world is about some aspect of life or other. So how in the good lords name are 'jeebon mukhi gaan', even a wee bit path breaking?

6. The whole hullabaloo about Durga Pujo, simply put... is this... for most bongs it's a one-week window to fix your social/love/sex life. The friendly neighborhood pujor pandal, is nothing but an exotic singles bar.

7. The bong fixation, with fish in particular and food in general! God! Either its lunch, dinner, the fish market, some recipe. Very uncharitably I must add, this whole sub conscious obsession about food, must trace back to the Bengal famine or something!

In conclusion, there are tonnes of things about us bongs that I just can't stand. But having said that, there are tonnes of stuff, I just adore!

In spite of my love hate thing with fellow bongs. I am awfully clan proud!

Labels: World and us

Suddenly Stonehenge...

Street, Somerset is two hours down the M5 from Heathrow.
As soon as we hit the countryside, the Rolling Meadows and fields stretched on forever. Having lived in the plains, the landscape flanking major highways and rail tracks is usually flat lands, extending as far as the eyes go.

But this was different, almost as if an artist had run his brush in an undulating continuum. The lush green fields dotted with grazing cattle, interspaced with bright yellow farming tracts of rapeseed and mustard. Nature's eclectic palette.

Most of the way, I floated in and out of sleep. Whenever I woke up, I took in an eyeful of the rolling countryside and then promptly slipped back into slumber.

One of those times, I opened my eyes, to see that we were driving up a gradual incline. For as far as the eyes could see, were fields of green and yellow. It almost felt like cruising in a helicopter, with man's untouched earth stretching on till the end of the world. The car steadily mounted the incline, and the landscape seemed to open out even further. The road soon forked into two divergent paths, and at the vast center of the fork, one could discern large stones arranged in a semi circle.
It was Stonehenge!

It felt surreal, vast meadows and fields and unexpectedly at the heart of all this, the stones of Stonehenge. If it weren't so real, if it didn't stretch across the windscreen, I would say I was being fanciful.

Suddenly Stonehenge.

Labels: Travel