Red Eye Tripping

Next time I fly long distance I’m going to adopt a little toddler so I can get on the plane early and find an overhead bin to store my carry-on baggage because it is impossible otherwise. At least for a polite person like me.

My flight back to college was star-crossed from the word go. I’m not sure what it was, but I started feeling very sick at the airport and threw up a couple of times before boarding the airplane. I had booked my tickets a long time back and dad had even pre-booked seats for me, but as it turned out, they were really very crappy seats, not Air India crappy, but crappy nevertheless. I was seated next to a boring, middle-aged couple who were carrying their own food and kept eating all the way through to London. Just watching them made me throw up twice in the airplane toilet. I did get around to watching Lord of War and Pride and Prejudice in between my false alarm runs to the can.

London Heathrow was not any better. The transit security check took forever and my cell phone decided to run out of batteries. The duty free shops were charging outrageously compared to India or even Paris, so I ended up buying nothing. Twenty four pounds for a carton of cigarettes, are you insane? I think it’s a conspiracy to stop people from smoking.

The nine-hour flight to Chicago was also marred from the start. For some uncanny reason the plane could not make it to the gate so they provided shuttle service to take the passengers to the plane, all three hundred of us. Sometimes I wonder how a mess up like this is even possible. Anyway, this time I took my seat between an elderly NRI nurse and a rather striking blonde. Well if nothing I could at least squeeze out a conversation with a beautiful girl, but alas, being German, she spoke no English. Perhaps she just did not want to talk to me… My stomach was a little better but I was still feeling lousy. This time I watched The Constant Gardener and Wedding Crashers, but under extreme discomfort. Partially because of my stomach and partially because of the million toddlers on board making a hell of a racket.

Chicago. I passed through immigrations quickly, but then ended up waiting forty minutes for my baggage. No matter, I said to myself, I still have four hours. I quickly moved through Customs and took the train to Terminal 3 only to be told that all flights to Syracuse had been cancelled. I still do not know how I stopped myself from flushing my head down the toilet. The next flight was at ten the next morning. My four-hour wait had now turned into a fourteen-hour wait. What is worse, they did not even give me freaking food coupons. This is the last time I fly with those American Airlines bastards.

I didn’t have much money with me and I finished most of it on a lavish dinner at O’Hare Airport as a celebration of my recuperating stomach, slightly prematurely as it later turned out. It was like Port Authority all over again, minus the illegal Mexican immigrants and gun trotting psychos. But it was still spooky because I was the only passenger in the entire terminal, the rest were the cleaning crew. One of them was watching the CNN News. A SWAT officer shot a 15-year-old kid because he was holding a pellet gun that resembled a .45 automatic. This country I tell you…

I met a whole bunch of college kids at the airport and tried to make polite conversation. It is stupid to ask a kid who goes to college in the US if she enjoys college. I have never heard anyone complain about college here. After all, if you’re forking out more than thirty grand a year for college, you had better enjoy it. You’d look stupid if you left your family and friends and spent a fortune coming to study in the US and then did not enjoy the experience. Even if one hates her college, they’re always go gaga when asked about it.

The next morning I flew to Syracuse. Just barely. We boarded the plane at 9:25 am, due to take off at 10. At 10 the pilot says that there's a slight dent in the right wing and the mechanics want to run a few tests, so be patient. I just hid my head in sorrow. The Syracuse University student next to me started writing poetry. "...and the coocooned caterpillat turned into a butterfly" Oh my God!

My baggage of course had a trip of its own. Interestingly enough my suitcase ended up in Dakota the night before but then they got it back to me in Syracuse airport. I don’t even want to know how. Thank god for that, I had some important stuff in there, including Professor Bradfield’s textbooks. US domestic airlines are such a mess and then they wonder why American Airlines and company are filing for bankruptcy.

It was so cold you couldn’t even finish a thought. Every thought ended prematurely with the exclamation “fuck, it’s cold!” I realized I didn’t have enough cash for a cab. Most of it had gone into my one-man food and booze celebration the night before. But I knew that one Hamilton student was flying in at noon and I was sure there would be more. So I picked up my baggage, borrowed a big blank signboard and wrote “Hamilton Anyone?” and parked myself by the airport exit. As luck would have it, and deservedly so after all the shit I had been through, I saw Ahn as she was walking out of the airport. Thought we'd share a cab back to college but nope, it turned out to be someone else.

There's a pre-paid taxi booth at the airport, but they are crazy expensive, so I decided to call a city metered cab. Unfortunately every Yellow Pages book in the airport had all the pages after T ripped out so Taxis weren't listed. Finally I managed to find one intact copy and dialed the first number on the list. And they sent me a limo. I was chauffered back to college in fucking limo and it cost me a fortune... but perhaps at the end of the day, I deserved it.

I have been sleeping since then and woke up to write this. Perhaps a slightly anti-climactic ending to a rather nefarious series of incidents, but I prefer drab and dull to profoundly infuriating any day…I think.

Russian Roulette

I think it's a fascinating phrase. Just like that. For some reason, however, I don't think it's exactly fair to the Russians either. Why are they always the bad guys. Even in non-political movies like Ronin, the Russians have to mess things up. And if the Russians are as bad as Russian Roulette suggests, why the hell don't they ever win? It's almost as irritating as those new "Pay Your Sales Tax" ads on TV.

The Indian government's come up with a brilliant strategy, shame parents into paying tax by targetting kids through television ads and asking them to ask their parents if they pay taxes. So, what. I can see some little maaru kid [no offense to maarus, just an example] going to his dad and saying "papa, papa, you always say honesty is the best policy, so why are you not paying the government tax? who will make the roads and bridges papa?" and the dad says "ye sab phokat me ata hai popat!" ["it's all for free silly parrot"]... A real brainstorm the Indian government has hit upon, sheer genius!

Ping Pong. The Japs actually made a movie on ping-pong. Well, it’s actually not that surprising considering they also made a very famous movie on noodles, or ramen as they call it. It wasn’t a bad movie actually. Not a typical sports movie. The end especially is particularly really well done. The movie builds in such a way that in the end, the ending becomes irrelevant. With beautiful hyperboles and smart ass dialogues and wickedly crazy characters this movie was a great watch. I wonder if they’ll ever make a movie like this on the Indian cricket team. God knows, with this entire Raj Singh Dungarpur and Saurav Ganguly episode, Indian cricket has become a freaking soap opera complete with the saas, bahu characters! I’ll leave you to decide who’s who.

I was watching Steven Spielberg’s The Terminal about a week ago. Typical Tom Hanks feel good movie, but there were some very funny subtleties thrown in there. The last line of the movie is particularly memorable. Tom Hanks gets into a cab outside JFK airport and asks the driver to take him to downtown NYC. The driver asks Hanks where he’s from and Hanks says “Krakotzia”. The driver smiles and says “Ah, Krakotzia, I’m from Albania”. So Hanks asks him, “So when did you get here?” The driver thinks for a while and then says, “Umm…Tuesday.”

Lansdowne School of Pickpockets

No I'm serious, during the pujas, these people in Lansdowne run the All-India Lansdowne School of Pickpockets. It attracts some of the best talent from all around the country. They can cut your "hidden" pocket and milk you dry before you've even paid the conductor on the bus. These people, ladies and gentlemen, the creme de la creme of the thriving theiving industry.

Interestingly, these young professionals are as selective as secretive. No cellphones, no large bags. Usually it's wallets and purses. I've never seen one at work, but I've heard they're like ninjas.

God, I love this city.

The Semester That Was - Chug, Chug, Chug...

Let me begin by wishing Happy Holidays to all. Speaking of holidays, I wonder if any of you heard about the controversy in the US - Bill O'Reily claimed that good Christians are offended by the phrase "Happy Holidays" replacing the more traditional "Merry Christmas". He went on record and said that liberal pussies like Jon Stewart were waging a war on Christmas...need I say more?

Well, the semester is over and I'm back in Calcutta for the winter. A lot has happened since my last blog. I shall provide brief accounts of them in this blog... a nice way to wrap up the year I suppose.


First up, I never wrote about the crazy Diwali celebrations we had at Ham this year. It was really great and I ended up earning the title of "The Drunken Swordmaster" by the end of the after party, but that's a different story all together.

Anyway, then a bunch of made a very interesting trip to New York City for Thanksgiving. Apart from our car running out of gas in Brooklyn and spending way too much time on the subway and taking wrong turns, it was a fun week. The highlight was, of course, the little party we had at Shraddha's sister's appartment... Yeah, that was a good party alright...

Snow... and lot's of it. Hamilton's been submerged in a few feet of snow in the last couple of weeks. Most of exam week, I spent cooped up in my room because I was too lasy to put on my snow boots and trek across the tundra to the dining halls.

My foster family... Gabi, Elena and Quang all went home for the break... I hope they bring back some good presents for me.

Megha got into Med School. We had a nice little farewell party for her. I think the gift we bought for her is still in the car boot!

I met Sethia in Calcutta and drove around and talked about life.

My flight from Newark to Cal was also very interesting. Met some old acquaintances...

Alex has not tried to kill me in recent history. And now I find myself submerged under a ton of editing work to do for my professor and answering millions of previously ignored emails et al.

However, I did find time to read both Eragon and its sequel Eldest. Kinda hard to swallow that the author is only a couple of years older than me and is already signing movie deals... I also managed to read Bill Bryson's "Sunburned Country" - a hillarious account of his trip across the Aussie outback. Next in line is Mishima's monumental (been a while since I've used that word) tetrology "The Sea of Fertility"...

Recently I figured out something very interesting about Bongs and why Christmas is celebrated with a lot of panache in Cal. I was driving down Park Street in Cal and I was happy to see that the street was as well decorated as any street in NYC... Although Calcutta has lost a lot of its indegenous Christian populace over the past few years under mysterious circumstances, Calcuttans still celebrate Christmas regardless of religion. After all this is the city of Mother Theresa and St. Xavier.

My guess is that because most of the good schools in the city are missionary schools like La Martinere and St. James', St. Xavier's et al... even non-Christian students inculcate a sense of Christmas spirit. However, it's still celebrated at a superficial level. I mean, unlike Durga Puja etc, families don't come together for Christmas. It's limited to an excuse for kids asking parents for presents and eating out and cakes and sweets! Nevertheless it's a fun time to be in Calcutta.

Calcutta and Bengalis are an enigma. Calcutta, during the British rule was the intellectual hub of India with the headquarters of the Indian National Congress and the Moderates (admit it, it was!) and 6 out of the countries 8 Nobel Laureates (as we bongs love pointing out). Bengalis took pride in the intellectual environment of the city and the westernization of the Bengali culture. Educated, English speaking Bengalis became, what I like to call, "brown sahibs". This colonial hangover still lingers over Calcutta although Bengalis have been outnumbered by the Marwaris. Even today you'll find gentlemen's clubs where women aren't allowed and English style pubs, a penchant for jazz and western classical, Voltaire, Marx, Milton... little things that one would associate with an educated sophisticated Englishman. Calcutta is perhaps the last stronghold for such people, for it is a city that still affords all these and actually encourages them. I feel so out of place in my own city.

Well I've droned on for a while. My glasses broke this morning but I also found out I did pretty well on my Finals...so it's win some and lose some I guess. Hope you're all having a great winter.

If At First You Fail, Destroy All Evidence You Tried

Friday. Diwali was successful. People enjoyed the skit. People enjoyed the dance performances. In general people had fun. I had fun too. I deserved it... the rest of the week had been super stressful. As Christina said, my procrastination curve had peaked on Friday and exploded later that evening - with a plastic katana et al.
Priya said that it was a proven fact that hangovers enhance sporting performances. She was wrong. The next morning on Saturday, I lost both my matches to mediocre players at an inter-college table-tennis tournament.
The rest of Saturday, however, progressed rather well. After a long time James and I spent some time cleaning the brain and playing chess, lazing in his suite listening to Talking Heads and Tom Waits and later admiring natural fractals on our monumental expedition to the observatory.
Feeling rather energetic, I borrowed James' iPod and went for a long walk with 'Light My Fire', 'Heard it Through the Grapevine' and 'Crosseyed and Painless' on repeat. Dropped into a random freshman's room and 'borrowed' a can of beef ravioli and chilli noodles. I decided to stop by Pragyan's room and pick up my chocolate brownie fudge ice-cream which had been lying in his fridge for days now... Unfortunately someone had neglected to turn the fridge on, so I found my beloved iced with a crust of fungi.
Dejected, I decided to eat at the diner... the rest of the evening is slightly hazy, except that the three above mentioned songs had been looping in my ears and head for the past few hours. We played hangman in the diner for an uncomfortable length of time. I was pissed I couldn't guess Judge Dredd.
Fearing that the stale warm convection currents of the radiators were messing with my head, I convinced a motley crew of friends and acquaintences to join me for a walk to the dark netherlands of Rogers' Estate, entertaining them with horror stories of naked, psycotic serial killers.
I discovered I'm not the only insane movie buff and that there are people who've probably seen many more movies than me (read: Aglae and Elena), but it's always nice to discuss obscure Chinese and Korean movies with people.
Tired from the day's hurricane, I declined to participate in any further activity and retire. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. At some inhuman hour an irritating buzz fills my head. It was my phone, not Alex. Don't know which is the lesser evil. Amit says that they (rest of the motley crew) had managed to lock their keys inside the car. If it was a 1985 Maruti Suzuki 800, I would understand how that could happen. But armed with an state of the art automatic, I imagine it would take some skill to find yourself in that situation. Unable to process their request to give them a five minute crash course on how to pick car locks over the telephone, I fell back asleep and had a lovely dream where the Maity name was no longer associated with delinquency. At four thirty in the morning the buzz returned. This time I hoped it was Alex passing gas in his machine gun manner, but it was the phone again.
A very incoherent voice was saying that they had been kidnapped by the Slovakian mafia and were being carted off to Sylvan Beach to be sold as pets to rich Arabian sheiks. My first thought was that the Slovakian mafia was very inefficient. How can you kidnap someone and not pat them down and take their cell phones away... albeit T-Mobile never works anywhere, but someone could have had a Verizon...
Shraddha was freaking out on the phone. I kept mumbling non-commital responses. The phone makes its round around the motley crew. I hear crackling background laughter and a few what the fucks. I almost fall back asleep before someone talks to me again. I think it was either Pragyan or Amit, perhaps it was both, or maybe they are the same person, or perhaps I imagined it all, I am not sure, but someone spoke to me and said that they were fine and that they were driving back to college and started laughing with a hic. I assumed that the coversation was over and fell back asleep. The next morning my neck was sore as I had slept on the phone.
I need a holiday.

"Jab Alex Ko Gussa Ata Hai..."

It was an ordinary Saturday night - cold and windy with a slight drizzle. Warmed with alcohol and a late, late night hot breakfast of eggs, noodles, and sausages I went to bed and promptly fell asleep.

Before long I was woken up by some strange noises. I peeked out, hiding most of my face under my comforter and tried to determine what was making the noise. After a few seconds, I realised my room-mate Alex was muttering in his sleep.

Thinking it was only natural I was about to go back to sleep when Alex started screaming in a deep voice, "Shut the fuck up, or I'm going to kill you, you motherfucker!" Then in another, more mellow voice he answers to himself, "Ok, ok, I'm going to keep quiet, don't kill me..." The deeper voice returned, "I don't care, I'm going to kill everyone anyway..."

Saying that he stood up on his bed, took his clothes off, walked to his computer and turned it on. In the mean time I get out of bed to see if Alex is awake or if he was sleep-walking. I wave my hand, do the St. Vitus' dance... no response. I guessed he was sleep walking. I followed him to the sink, where he poured himself a glass of water and back into the room.

Back in the room Alex walked to his desk and took out the kodachi (Japanese knife, slighlty smaller than a wakizashi) he keeps in his lower drawer, unsheathed it and started swinging it in the air narrowly missing me! (I was standing behind him). I stare in horror as Alex laughs maniacally.

I ran to the closet to fetch the baseball bat and whack him but before I could do that, Alex had kept the kodachi back on the table and was making his way to his bed. I waited for a few minutes, gripping the baseball slugger in my hand, shaking in my slippers. But, as I lowered the bat, I heard machine gun fire, "put-put-putput-putputput-put-put"... it was Alex farting in his sleep.

I wore my clothes, pocketed the kodachi and went for a walk.

DO YOU STILL WANT TO KNOW HOW HARD HAMILTON PARTIES?

The Three Pimping Warlocks of Albany

I read somewhere that six kids from M.I.T. had recently won four million dollars at various Vegas casinos simply using laws of probability. This weekend some of us decided to put that theory to test.

Location: Roulette Table 6, Turning Stone Casino, Oneida County, New York.
Time: Midnight, Saturday.
Participants: Shraddha Shah (financial officer), Pragyan Pradhan (mathematician extraordinaire!), Amit Desai (El Dhanno) and myself (lurking variable).
Initial capital: $100
Result: Hell yeah! Probability rocks!

After making a heavy kill at the roulette table after two hours, we decided to cash in our chips before we lost it all at the Hold'em tables. It was time to celebrate.

On the way back to college, 2 a.m. in the morning, we suddenly decided that we wanted to eat at Denny's at Albany, a town 90 miles west of where we were. So we did just that.

After an hour and a half of driving, with loud music and ghost stories and a video-taped karoake session, we rolled into Dunkin Donuts at Albany for some coffee.

We walk inside and two of us pretend we can't speak English too well and Pragyan acts as chief translator.

Random Dunkin Donuts dude (DD): What can I get for you guys?
Me (pointing at croissant sandwich picture): What kroi-ssanntts thing?

DD elaborately explains what a croissant is...

Me: No English.
Pragyan: They no understand English. Ve vant four cups of kaafee, please.

Shraddha takes us aside and we start chatting randomly in vernacular.

DD: Will that be all?
Pragyan: Please sir, give us another minute, eh, please, sir.
DD: Yeah dude, whatever, man.

We go back to the service counter.

Pragyan: Ok, that will be all. We've come all the way from Nepal (AN: Pragyan is from Katmandu, Nepal) yeah, to eat here, please make this good, yeah?

DD gives us weird looks as Shraddha, Amit and I talk in vernacular, seemingly fascinated by an automatic ketchup dispenser, and goes to get our coffee. A couple of minutes later our coffee arrive in these cups with special lids which can be opened like soda cans. We all pretend we have no fucking idea how to drink the coffee. So I walk up to the Dunkin Donuts dude.

Me (gesturing): How, drink?

DD very kindly opens the lid for me. I give him fancy smile. He shudders.

We take a center table and begin slurrping our coffee as loudly as we can and talk animatedly in vernacular scandalising the other late night patrons of DD, including a bunch of Union College students! Shraddha dares me to stand on a table and seduce her. I do it atanding on a chair instead, 'cause the tables were too wobbly. People start leaving.

After finishing our coffees we get back into our car and drive around looking for Denny's. We find PriceChopper's, a 24 hour supermarket. We walk in. It's 3:30 in the morning.

Shraddha walks up to random people shelving shampoo.

Shraddha: Do you know where I can get the croysaanuts?

Random guys look at each other in confusion.

1st Random Guy: Could you repeat that a little slowly please?

Shraddha: CROIY-SAA-NUTS?

2nd Random Guy: Ano... could you describe what you want?

Shraddha: gesturing It's the bread that goes round and round...

Both Random Guys: Ahh... croissants. At the bakery section in the back.

Pragyan walks to a some dude carrying a huge hunk of beef and stops him. I'm standing behind him.

Pragyan: Excuj me, excuj me, sir, can I ask a question, eh?

Beef Dude: Yeah man, sure.

Pragyan: gesturing Do I look physically capable of doing hard labour?

Beef Dude: looking confused What kind of labour?

Pragyan: You know, the hard kind...

Beef Dude: Yeah man, sure why not...

Beef dude slinks away when Pragyan is about to ask another question. We look around for another bakra. I find a lady stocking shelves in the toys department.

Maity: Do you know where I can get some paaaint?
Lady: Yes, come I'll show you.

I follow the lady to the other end of the store to the hardware section. She spends sometime showing me the different paints and textures. I pretend to listen carefully.

Lady: So what kind of paint would you like?
Maity: No, no, I just wanted to look, thank you.

Saying so I walked away.

MORE TO COME...

The Locking of Amod, Teaser Trailer

Yeah, that's Superman - the mother of all roller-coasters...

Some of us are still wondering, why the fuck do people enjoy sitting on a cart that's going to be tossed about at 2Gs on a flimsy metallic track.

But it was one heck of a ride!

To top the evening off... Amod was locked in the bathroom for half an hour!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DANIELLE.

2 Parts Hypnotic + 1 Part Absolut

There are times when I feel really pissed off with Hamilton College and the U.S. of A in general. Yesterday was one of those times. One of my friends here threw an awesome party last night - a la Stephanian format - complete with contraband and UV lights et al.

The party peaked two hours into binging and after a round of ol' Jane in the bathroom, things were nice and mellow, which explains why the extremely loud, smashing asteroids kind of loud, music totally evaded my senses.

Campus Police came knocking on the door. We asked them to join us - they decided they were better off hosting their own party with our confiscated booze. Why? We ask. 'Cause it's an unauthorised party you schmucks they reply. If that wasn't bad enough, they wrote up everyone who was under-21 and drinking. Seriously sometimes I really wish I was anywhere, even China, anywhere except for this god-forsaken country.

This morning is like one of those where you wake up and you walk around and you feel that you've committed some horrible crime and everyone except for you knows about it. It's not helping. So here I am sitting at my desk job on a bright Sunday afternoon feeling like shit. Such is the irony.

Tenma Warau [1]

After much deliberation, the name for my Bearded Desert Dragon was put to vote to my fellow dorm members. Incidentally he has been accepted as the dorm mascot and is also the symbol for our unofficial fraternity (which is funny since we have women as part of our troupe!) Chi Lambda Omega. The names up for vote were Notiggy, Fafner, Tonton and Quincy (by popular demand!). The public voted for Tonton (I dare say we have too many Star Wars and Naruto fans around...)

For me, with stories true and apocryphal the semester has begun with a rather overwhelming force. Training workshops, jobs, classes, and the usual crestfall of the mundane college life. At the rate at I'm going L.S.E. looks like a distant dream.

The new freshman batch has come in bringing with itself, the usual, the good and the bad. Perhaps as compensation for being in America, this year the international crop was very interesting. Among others there are a few nice freshman girls and Nelson Mandela's grandson . While the girls have attitudes that say "I desperately wanna be white", Mandela Jr. is well he's like Naseruddin Shah's son back in School. Ah well I guess people said the same things about us when we were freshmen.

Sometimes I get the feeling that I am like a crazy ball who doesn't really identify with any group on campus. For instance, I have many Asian (read: Chinese, Koreans, Japanese et al) friends and I am a part of the Asian Cultural Society and often "chill" with the Asian kids. But somehow, everytime, these Asians break into their vernacular diatribe, I don't feel that sense of belonging, or lack of it thereof. Then there are the rich white kids, my buddies, like James... I spend a lot of time with them. Maybe drink on weekends, smoke, or just play chess and listen to the Grateful Dead, but here too my sense of belonging is lost, for obvious reasons. For the black people, I ain't black enough. Then there are the geeks; movie watching, anime loving, book reading, trivia loving, "I never touch alcohol or any other bad things" geeks. I spend time with those types too, I enjoy their sense of humour - witty and referential and aren't always related to sex or drugs. But since I drink and smoke and party once a while I don't get enough credibility to join their ranks either. As for the Indians, well there are more Nepalis on campus than Indians at the moment. So where does that leave me in this compartmentalized mixed fruit jam? The International Students Union - the group of people caught in no-man's land? Honestly, I don't know, I think I'll just let it pass and not think about it too much. Is it really that important to have a concrete identity?

[1] Japanese Buddha's Laughing.

Not Iggy...

Yesterday in a spur of the moment decision, I bought a really awesome Bearded Desert Dragon. They're like Iguanas, only a lot more active. Right now he lives in my room in a 29 by 10 feet glass case, complete with carpetting, fake bonzai (he loves to climb), watering pools and rock formations. He loves hunting live crickets which I keep for him in a special habitat of their own and treat him to on Sundays. Other days of the week, he eats lettuce, grans and dead crickets. Right now he's only a month old and six inches long. He's supposed to grow to almost 2 feet if well taken care of.

His Highness' habitat needs to be vacuumed thrice a month and his water changed everyday and fed a healthy diet.

However, he is still unchristened. If you guys have good ideas for a name (which is not Iggy) I'd like to know.

Cheers!

Hazaar F*cked

The last one week has been exciting, not just in terms of events, what with the Mumbai floods and fires and NASA shuttle launch, but at a personal level as well.

Perhaps it’s just my naivety speaking, but I feel I would have enjoyed the 80s more than the present. Yeah, sure, not all was right with the world then either, but for some reason Upamanyu Chaterjee made me feel that I’d be very much at home.

I first read Chaterjee’s debut novel English, August in school and shelved it as a ho-hum fun read book. Last week I reread it and also managed to watch the movie. I sincerely recommend both. The sequel Mamaries of the Welfare State and Chatterjee’s other novel The Last Burden both, for the lack of a better word, sucked. But I digress…

In many ways I relate very well and empathize with Agastya, the protagonist. We’re both Bengalis who spent their formative years in boarding school, lost a parent very early, and went to college in Delhi (partially in my case) and then were lost; with no idea what to do except fantasize our ideal world with no actual inclination to try and reach there.

Agastya, who spends most of his time smoking marijuana and masturbating while training as an IAS officer in a small, hot town called Madna, does not want much from life. He just wants to bask in the Delhi sun in the winter, read, listen to some music, smoke and drink. Not quite the American Dream, but close enough for me.

So where do we go from here? We get hazaar f*cked. But I’m sure it’ll be fun. You see there in lies the rub. I’m unable to break away from my societal obligations of actually amounting to a normal Bengali man and take a chance.

Last week I also went to IS-CON, Mayapur. Shady is perhaps the first word that comes to mind. All around were clean shaven (all the way round!), saffron clad, stoned foreigners, tripping on acid and religion. To the non-discerning eye nothing seems suspect. Dad never caught anything! But one can clearly see that the euphoria on the young devotees’ faces are artificially induced. I, of course, had my little adventures during my little stay at Mayapur which I won’t delve into. Let it suffice to say that it was a welcome trip for me. It wasn’t easy. The first guy I asked gave me a look as if I had asked if we could shit together.

“Saddam Hussein is a lawyer! I feel sorry for the first guy who told him a lawyer joke.” – Jon Stewart, The Daily Show.

Row Row Row Your Boat

Oye, Bombay boys, how’s the water logging in B’Bay?

Backstroke of the West

Funnier than flushing Pickachu down the toilet in an aeroplane...

http://www.winterson.com.nyud.net:8090/2005/06/episode-iii-backstroke-of-west.html

Sixth Seduction of the Papal Kind

Seriously there’s no news like bad news is there? These days the news is filled with a blast here, a kill there, a Mamta Banerjee here, and more detonations in London. It could be the handiwork of enraged Aussie fans, considering their dismal Day 1 performance at the London test, but I’m skeptical.

But instead of tripping over the pitfalls of tragedy, we should focus on the lighter-side of things…

Well it appears that like Ms. V, there are a lot of Harry Potter haters out there. One of the more hardcore ones is a German, Gabriele Kuby; who hates HP enough to actually write a book about it. Get a job lady. Wait sorry, I forgot Germany was in recession.

The Pope happens to be another aggrieved anti-HP activist. In fact he was quoted as saying that the HP books are “…subtle seductions of children which act unnoticed and by this, deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly.”[1]. Subtle seduction of children, eh? Who better to know about that than the clerics, right?

Apart from boring stuff like China re-evaluating its currency and Francis Fanthome being asked to “take a holiday” (never liked that guy, he really screwed my ICSE!), I picked up two rather interesting stories. Three, actually:

Bulletproofing the Ayodhya shrine? Come on mate, surely the good people at DRDO are not that vella.

“Dear terrorists, new firman issued. Kill 10, take a branded T-shirt and be the best terrorist in the group. Jihad begins from July 18-20. – Osama.”
ICICI Prudential actually used this to motivate their insurance salesmen. One wonders why they didn’t dress them up like black bucks, paint a large bulls-eye on them and send them to Pataudi’s home.

On a graver note, a girl was molested in Presidency College at 11:30 am on a staircase after a sociology class by some “outsiders”. What I don’t understand is how this girl was all alone after class on a staircase in the middle of the day in a college with five thousand students? Either Presidency has a serious attendance problem, or this girl lacks friends. But who cares really, it was after all a legitimate reason to call a student strike! Disappointing world we live in, isn't it?

[1] Courtesy "The Daily Show".

Run Rabbit Junk

I had to get out of the Harry Potter groove…

It’s been an exciting few days even without Harry P. What with PM Manmohan Singh visiting the US to a red carpet reception and speaking to a joint session of the Congress and President George Bush not goofing up for the first time in a long time while introducing Manmohan Singh. So, India, US nuclear chaddi-buddies eh? But the funniest part is definitely the Pakistani PM canceling his US visit…and the Left... oh the Left.

Kaur gets thrown out accused of messing around with funds…says she’ll go to court. Face it woman, you’re screwed! I hope you have a couple of million stacked away somewhere safe.

Aishwarya Rai now claims that it’s not her voice either on the tape! Somebody call Oliver Stone.

The Hurriyat meets the Kashmiri Pandit leaders in a conference for the first time in sixteen years. I hope you’re happy now, Athar.

Dada has to play under Rahul Dravid, provided, of course, he gets to play. Is this the end of Saurav Ganguly? With a multi-crore deal with the Nimbus Group, it’s hardly relevant, is it?

Disneyland celebrates its 50th birthday with Arnie, the Gu-von-er of Kali-for-nia. Europe is over ridden with tension – everyone’s crapping their pants. Musharraf blames the Madrasas. British tabloids are making Blair look like a lollipop in Bush’s hands which is being stolen by a big bad bully.

It’s a shame that with so many things happening all around, when I go back to college, conversations as usual will steer into sex, drugs and alcohol. Come to think of it, maybe it’s me who’s got the priorities wrong!

If Dumbledore was a Mumbai Godfather…

Yesterday I managed to watch Sarkar and finish Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

It’s clear that Sarkar has been heavily influenced by The Godfather, but that doesn’t take away the fact that Sarkar is still a brilliantly well made movie. Stellar performances, excellent background score (though very reminiscent of Company) and some rather smart dialogues and camera angles made Sarkar a very worthy watch.

Half Blood Prince on the other hand was a bit of a let down after all the hype, much like Order of the Phoenix. One was hoping that the Harry Potter franchise would not become another Star Wars. Alas, it’s too late now. I still don’t understand that if the potions book was fifty years old, how could it belong to Snape? [Edit: It was originally his mother's] Interestingly enough, the contents of HBP and what is to be expected bear a remarkable similarity to a brilliantly well written fan fiction that Nisha had once showed me.

I noticed a bunch of printing errors and typos in the Bloomsbury edition. They forgot to add Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, in the list of previously published HP books in the back dust cover. There was a lot to be wanted from HBP, but in the end I agree with one review I read in ToI (forgive me!), HP6 is nothing more than a tie up of loose ends before embarking on a grand finale that is to be HP7.

However, HP6 has sparked a lot of speculation, particularly about the mysterious R.A.B. and Snape. Snape of course remains the most enigmatic character and after the movies (cheers Alan Rickman) he's become my favorite!

The HP news on television has been very irritating. It’s like the Beatle mania all over again.

I wonder if HP will become another Sherlock Holmes, to be brought back from the dead by an enraged readership?

Because You Touch Yourself At Night

A couple of days ago, by sheer coincidence, I found an old notice amongst my books, don't know how many of you remember this:

Studants' Union Society

St. Stephen's College

Cordially invite all students to a special dinner.

Venue: Mess Hall

Date: 22nd March, 2004

Time: 7:30pm

(P.S.: Please do not break down the doors this time)

Ah, those were the days when there was little to life than tormenting Tawakley and the SUS...

These days I envy Vaks to a certain extent. At twenty two, he's got it all. A job that pays him to flirt on his blog's chatterbox. Lovable little nephews and nieces who see SUS people and pink sweatshirts and like cracking perverted Santa-Banta jokes, cats to welcome him home and "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince"...sigh, one should be so lucky.

So, here's wishing a very Happy Birthday to Vaibhav Tawakley, without whom I'd be living a boring and pointless life. May he find happiness, and a woman 7000 ks away with a penchant for Brayan Adams, oh wait he already has...

Gone Fishing

Didn't catch shit...