Caro Diario!

Sometimes I wonder what this blogging is all about .. can one actually open out in the blog as he can in his personal diary? I am almost certain one can not. I wonder how one claims that my life is an open diary .. for an introvert guy like me it is impossible to think of an open diary !

Remembering a nostalgic moment 

New involvements

Another day has gone by ..

These days I am literally jobless and am spending time aimlessly. The only good thing I have been doing is I am reading "Sei Samay" by Sunil Ganguly. This is considered to be a very well researched novel depicting Calcutta in the nineteenth century. The Babu culture, the origin of Brahma Samaj founded by Debendranath Tagore, adoption of Chritianism among Bengali youth, eg. Madhusudan Dutt, the agony of the "bidhaba" (widow) at their teenage, Vidyasagar's activities as the principle of Sanskrit college... I frankly confess that hitherto my knowledge about the forefathers at the time of renaissance of Bengal was confined to a few names like Rammohan and Vidyasagar. I did not really know about the contribution of many other Bengalees at the same oeriod - eg. Ramgopal Ghosh, Daksminaranjan Mukherjee, Radhakanto Deb, Jogamohan Sarkar, Radhnath sarkar, Debendranath Thakur, and those elightened Britishers like Drink Walter Bethun, David Hare. Of course I knew the names earlier but did not have any idea about the efforts the did put into to overcome the oppositions exixtant in the Bengali conservative Bengali society at that time. Hats off to Sunil for such a research made on the ancient Calcutta. The beauty of it is you never feel that you are actually reading a piece of history as owing to the high literary power of the novel.

I have really fallen for the book ..

Meanwhile I have been addicted to another habit of watching movies. I am literally watching each and every movie coming to the halls these days. In a very short time I have watched Main Hoon Na, Yuva, Hum Tum, Lakhsya (in Hindi) and Day after tomorrow, Harry Potter and the prisoners of Azkaban (in English). Some six movies in less than a month! I am certainely addicted.

The rest of the time I am spending in front of computers .. sending emails, chatting, sms-ing and spreading out myself through all sort of free sites - Orkut, Blogger, Tripod. Hah! What a life I am spending these days ..

Little memories

My father's email reminded me that day before yeaterday was the Rathayatra, a hindu festival of worshipping Jagannath, Balaram, Subhabda - the two gods and one goddess. I wonder how I forgot that totally. I have bben away from home for a quite a while now. But I do not fail to remember these Bengali rituals as I have a deep bond with them .. a lasting memory of my chilhood is attached with these.

In my childhood days this Rathayatra used to be some 'event' in our house. I grew up alone in my family. I did not have the priviledge to share my feelings with other children. My way of observing Rathayatra used to be to decor the Rath (a wooden chariot) with flowers and leaves. I would offer the gods/goddess a plateful of "gujia" (a sweet with a shape of a liquid drop with a hollow at the centre). My uncle bought me one such chariot when I was in second standrad in school. The chariot would get decored every year. In the evening I would take the chariot on the roof and would revolve with it at least seven times. My mother used to buy me the 'talpatar banshi' (a pipe made of cane-leaves?). It used to make that typical lound sound that signifies Rathayatra. After I would finish I used to come downstairs and from our balcony I would look at the streets watching the children whistling the pipe and roaming around with their own chariots. There would be a competition as how well one could decor his/her chariot. Looking at them used to give me new inspiration to decor mine even better for the next year.

As far as I remember I stopped this business when I was in ninth standard. But even then I used to be part of the game helping my cousin decor hers. And now I wonder how the once-thing-of-joy turned into oblivion!

Monsoon poem

Walking by the seaside,
In the rain ...
My heart is filled, with
a feel of pain.

Away from the friends
In a distant land;
I spend days together
with a vagabond.

Knowing not where I'ld stop
I set myself free
And looking at the tides, coming -
I remember thee.

* * *

Recollecting some old Cambridge days ..

Monsoon in Mumbai and Mayball at Cambridge

After a long time I came back to my online diary .. well, in the mean time I was of course in touch with my personal diary, which is my very own and with whom I can not possibly be part with ..

But suddenly I felt like expressing certain thoughts in public.

It's been raining heavily for the past a few days in Mumbai ..more than that it has been extremele windy these days .. thanks to the fact that our institute is just beside the Arabian sea. I am enjoying every bit of my presence at the time of the onset of monsoon in Mumbai. There is a charm of observing "asharoshyo prothom dibos" (the first day of Asharh, the month which brings monsoon in to Bengal). The weather definitely makes you poetic and you wish you could write a second "Meghadutam" (a la Kalidasa) :-)

It's the Mayball season in Cambridge.. that brings lot of memories to my mind. Recently two of my friends there expressed two different views of the Mayball this year. One was excited for her first visit to Mayball at Clare's. One is annoyed by the hullabaloo on Bridge street. I am not going into criticism on whether or not Mayball forms an indispensible part of Cambridge student life. Let me recollect a few of my memories at St Ed's days during Mayball.

In my first year I spent the evening very lonely, as my close friend went to Clare's with his batch of lawyers and I remember looking towards the crowd thorugh the little window of F5. They were all dressed up well. Even the least atrractive girl in our college was looking gorgeous. They were all standing in the queue that moved towards the garden. The queue was exactly below my window. I spent some three hours just staring at them. Then I went to our computer room and could not remember of doing any great thing on that day. But I cooked myself that evening, alone - dal, and rice probably. I think I had an hour long chat with Avishek da after dinner.

Last year, during this time, I was seriously in trouble as I was down with an illness and could hardly move. Though I had the pleasure of the forthcoming event - that my parents were about to come in less than a week's time. But in the last year my friend and I did witness the Mayball celebrartion of St John's through the window of the Okinaga Tower of St Ed's which was according to my friend the best place in Cambridge to look ar the fireworks of John's.

Well, this much I could gather as of now.. I shall see you shortly ..