KAMINEY

There are few very few works of art that evoke a very strong feeling of gratitude towards the creator. Very few creations evokes a singular emotion of wanting to bombard our sense of sight and hearing till our eyes go blind, eardrums bursts or our dear wallets revolt. Yesterday I came across one such work of art the bollywood movie called kaminey.

For a change all the dialogues made sense, all the plots,subplots, reactions made sense. He made us laugh with our lungs using muscles that had been dormant for a zillion years, he made us watch in awe with our neurons rejoicing every paisa of the money spent. For the first time, I saw fear in the eyes of the person holding a gun and it made all sense. I saw on screen couples using lines that made sense. I saw the most frightened face ever seen on a on screen bridegroom.It all made sense. I saw a politician and his rhetoric, his vulnerabilities and his conflicted emotions.I saw a hero run away from the heat of fight for he had to care for his child.

Even minute things like the diabetes of the local don is neatly woven into the storyline. All in all a movie to enthrall all your senses. Do your neurons a well deserved favour.

Terminator damnation

Certain artists create an air anticipation. When ones favorite movie watched legally in a theater and the only movie watched multiple times is the dark knight, one just wishes for time to fly by to cut short the long days and months to pass by and be awed at the marvel of human creativity. Alas, many a hopes are damned to be unfulfilled. With bated breath, I ventured towards BigCinemas at Ameerpeth to have a glimpse and to enthralled by Christain Bales latest movie "Terminator Salvation".

At first I thought I was lucky to get the best possible seats without any advance booking.Well law of averages is valid. My luck ran out or rather the colective luck of entire audience ran out.The movie was a shocker. The story was ridiculous and had no credibility even after suspension of disbelief. The acting was less than what is visible in one dimensional photo shoots. To rub salt in the wounds, there were no hot scenes.

Mystery,Action,Politics,Crime,Revenge,deceit,basic instincts and the triumph of love

This is one of the firsts o my life. No my first birthday or my first love or my first proposal not my first blog but my first blog for whose net time I had to pay wit my wallet.Most of my posts have been the child of a menage a trois between free internet, wella time and my self assumed command over English.Hence this is small first wherein i Have moved my ass from my room to a cyber cafe and am typing my thoughts on a god forsaken key board.My current state takes me back to the tears I shed for half an hours after I had flipped the last pages of olivers heart break @ love story.

So here I am writing another load of crap after 3 years. The culprit is the same Eric Segal. This month I read four novels Ambler warning, Doomsday conspiracy, Dead on Time and Mea,Woman and Child.Four different genres, four different authors.Till the time of Ambler warning,I was of the firm opinion that no director can do proper justice to an authors literary prowess, I thoroughly enjoyed the visions imparted by Peter Jackson to JRR Tolkein's middle world but somehow I felt something was missing.It was definitely the closest I saw a director doing justice to literature.The harry Potters and even the great Capolla found me among the disgruntled minority.

Well I was in for some surprise. I thoroughly enjoyed Bourne supremacy. So now I had a new God to worship -"Robert Ludlum". In my lazy meanderings through odyssey -a bookshop @ Hyd- I picked up a copy of his novel Rudlum. With great expectations and hopes, I sat down to read this work. But it was shit,deep shit,horse shit, bull shit and all combined in one. Well, I get that certain works of imagination requires suspension of disbelief like the great "Gunda", but reading is a brain indulging activity.You just cannot switch of your logical brain in that fashion. Mr Ludlum, some deputy secretary of US state department cannot create a war. One person can never be so powerful.This novel was supposed to be a novel but 200 pages before the mystery was revealed I was hoping the mystery i guess was wrong. Well they were some of the false hopes of my life. To sum up, some directors can create great movies from pieces of shit. After a more than brief break necessitated by non ergonomic keyboard and paid net time, I am resuming my blog on four novels I read in the past two weeks. Ludlums work was about mystery and action at least it advertised itself as one. After reading this novel,another thing that made my mind flutter how come all novels have such great reviews pasted on their back pages. It would be easy to curse corruption but I would like to believe that not all agree with me and someone might like the novels I hate.They do sell.

The next novel, I pounced upon during my exceedingly jobless training period was "Doomsday conspiracy" by Sidney Sheldon.As a matter of fact, I did have some immoral motives in reading the book.As I would like to put it Sheldon tales are good with lots of twists and turns but certain primitive behavioral aspects of mankind are better illustrated. So, I started reading this book hoping to be entertained.After Ambler warning, this piece was definitely entertaining to say the least. It had a bit of suspense, a bit of inhumanity amongst humans, deceit and the almost predictable villain in the guise of a saint. I might have liked this book primarily because my expectations from a novel had declined drastically.But i guess the reason de maitre was the fact that the need of suspension of disbelief was firmly established in the first few pages.This meant I could digest the incredible ending. But in means can decent novels be insulted by clubbing this book in the same pedestal.This book was ridiculous it shows a serious lack of application of brains. At least scientific brains. If we are to encounter an alien they would never look like creatures we saw in ET. They will be different. In fact ET was a step better. The alien there was any other creature not a GOD.How things unfolded from the chamber of the doctor to the arrest of the admiral is never revealed nor is anything said about the saint who was made to look like the devil from the beginning.

Having upgraded myself from Ludlum to Sheldon, I still found myself in search of one masterpiece to fortify my belief in joy from fiction. A book that took me in the corner of existence not registered in any of the gps devices. I picked up the long haired economist Lord Meghnad Desai's Dead on Time. This book had nothing to do with economics but was a realistic albeit exxagarated account of power play doing the rounds in the arena of politics.I would not dwell much on the plot for I shall not be half as good as the master in naratting the same thing.IF you like power play at the highest levels,you got to read it; if you dont like political dramas, you got to read it;if you like human cunning, if you like see the role of fate in changing the course of (hi)story then read it, even if you dont like any of the things I have mentioned read it. If you can read English then read it, if you cant read it pester a friend to read it and narrate the story to you.

Now about the title of this, it ends with the oft quoted words "triumph of love". I am not here to give a sermon on the power of love. But I do feel tempted to quote the opening lines of the funny movie "love actually", it draws upon experiences of people about to die, they invariably remember the moments of love. Maybe love is indeed a very strong emotion.This novel had only one emotion,it had the simplest of story lines. Yet it flooded my eyes.The novel in question was "Man,woman and child" by Eric Segal. The emotions he conveyed through simple dialogues were universal and heartwarming.IT reminded me of what one of my seniors at college told while recommending "a love story" by the same author- if you are in love you got to read it. If you are not in love, just read it once and you will fall in love. I have only one complement for this book -"If you can read read this book, if you cant read learn to read and then read it", you wont like to bid adieu to the world without shedding a few tears for what you know to be pure fiction and imaginary and yet somehow you feel sad, you hear voices, you feel emotions you have never felt before.

I shall now try to use my logical ability to play as I try to wind up this post.The triumph of love is not my own fictional creation but simple the fact a simple novel with a simple story appealed to more than three other novels of diferent genres.

lost in translation

For the infinitesimally small chunk of random people who happen to come across this page without going through my status message, I was born in Assam and have spent a large chunk of my life outside it. Currently I call Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh as my hometown. Among other things common to our generation,I find myself most comfortable in English even more than my mother tongue a few pronunciations might be off the chart but you are less likely to find me bewildered if you are using the words approved by some wise men and women sitting in Oxford.

Hence in this state of affairs, translations have been a cousin of oxygen I breathe. TO be certified as civilized, we are supposed to greet people, our nursery teacher made us lip sync good morning, good afternoon.India is a museum of celebrations I celebrated Bihu, English new year among the plethora of other festivals.The English way of wishing is prefixing the word Happy or merry. We have "Happy New Year","Merry Christmas" but we also wish "Happy Diwali" and "Shubh Diwali" but not "Good Diwali".Strange are the rules of translation.

The Making of DOGA

I guess many of you might know DOGA as a white fat chinki seen during ktj times.In fact there have been days in kgp when nobody called me by my hindu name "Himangshu Jyoti Hazarika". Before I joined this organization, I had to look around if some one uttered Himangshu to ensure it was I who was adressed to. For the uninitiated DOGA was my nick name @ IIT Kharagpur.It is an acronym for "Dean of Gay Affairs".

The acronym says a lot but you wont hget a clearer picture if you are not in kgp. Although I have nothing against gay, lesbians, I am not one. I am in fact an unabashed supporters of the rights of sexual minorities.I also realise that there are numerous rumours as to how I got this all too striking name.There were no record breaking smocches or any other physical activity. I hereby go on record unlike many ppl I have never kissed a junior(guy) by force, have never had any physical interaction with my senior guys. Since everything is in kgp context, all physical intercations are assumed to bet between guys anything else does not need a blog to be known to kgpians - last of all my blog. However I have been at the receiving end of many a males affection, I can't help that I am cuter than most if not all.

So, again reverting to the title of the post. In our first year, we had a guy called Abhishek Satapathy who proudly proclaimed to have a girl friend and a boy friend. In his own words he was bi. This was done in broad daylight in front of a professor and a first year class who were not yet familiar to the concept of bukning.So, it was news, it was breaking news.Now, in the long class hours where we understod nothing except when to respond to roll calls, we started conducting polls. Kgp has a dean for evrything from student affairs to academics to so on and so forth. We also have a DOPA(nothing to do with dope but everything to do with another form of adult entertainment). My batch mates thgought we needed a new dean for gay affairs so that people can explore other avenues in the island where God decreed that only one half of human species shall reside.This need catalyzed by the Satapathy affair resulted in a poll. Of course Satapathy was the front runner but although I did not file any nomination whatsoever, I found myself a close second.It was probably cos I was more molestable I guess. On my part, I never objected to any form of physical advance.

The next chapter of this story was played at the glorious NCC camp.In this camp the official DOGA Satapathy was not there, so at the very outset, I was appointed acting DOGA.Herein, we had to share the same floor, our mattresses got intertwinned and often I found myslef on my neighbours bed. SInce we had to run early morning in bone shattering chill, we often hudled together to warm ourselves. Interestingly, some more queer things happened, we devised a modified GPL, a pilow would be placed on someone, and a group of people would perform a sort of simple harmonic motion over the poor guy. We called this choda, I shall not elaborate on this matter on account of decency.The important thing is that choda was magnetically attracted to me. It followed wherever I went. One thing led to other and I found myself becoming the one and only original DOGA of kharagpur.

Central characters:
me, HAnsraj Mishra, Subrat Panda, Pankaj Chauhan and all from flight 4 AIR NCC IIT KGP

Adieu to five fun filled summers

It is funny but interesting that a word like myopia found itself an adjective cousin and is now reserved a whip to be wielded by the wielder of pen and keyboards on unsuspecting mortals. But at some level or another we are all myopic. In the physical, there is only a few hundred metres registered by our eyes.Even at a more intrinsic level, our memories fade as time flies by. But some landmarks do beat this trend. These memories stay on with us till we close our eyes in the grave. Not too long ago or rather five long years back, I was packing my bags, embracing myself for any form of ragging that might take place at an alien place called Kharagpur, a place I called home for five of my most memorable years of my life.

Having completed this phase of my life,I now find myself at a very interesting junction.I find myself bereft of words to describe how I feel. I am not sad, I am not overjoyed at leaving the calm village which we often likened to a prison. But every moment I brood over never fails to bring a smile on my face.But it is kind of strange to say the least. Phrases like "you can take a kgpian out of kgp but cant take kgp out of a kgpian" seems true.As things are I cant write all I want in this post.So, I shall try to write a semi autobiography.I hope they all fan out as funny. And most importantly, I would like to thank all my seniors, juniors and batchmates for feeling so many joyous moments in my life.

I am proud of being ruled by the British

Today, with the balance and perspective offered by the passage of time and the benefit of hindsight, it is possible for an Indian Prime Minister to assert that India's experience with Britain had its beneficial consequences too. Our notions of the rule of law, of a Constitutional government, of a free press, of a professional civil service, of modern universities and research laboratories have all been fashioned in the crucible where an age old civilization met the dominant Empire of the day. These are all elements which we still value and cherish. Our judiciary, our legal system, our bureaucracy and our police are all great institutions, derived from British-Indian administration and they have served the country well.

Of all the legacies of the Raj, none is more important than the English language and the modern school system. That is, if you leave out cricket! Of course, people here may not recognise the language we speak, but let me assure you that it is English! In indigenising English, as so many people have done in so many nations across the world, we have made the language our own. Our choice of prepositions may not always be the Queen's English; we might occasionally split the infinitive; and we may drop an article here and add an extra one there. I am sure everyone will agree, however, that English has been enriched by Indian creativity as well and we have given you R.K. Narayan and Salman Rushdie. Today, English in India is seen as just another Indian language.

The idea of India as enshrined in our Constitution, with its emphasis on the principles of secularism, democracy, the rule of law and, above all, the equality of all human beings irrespective of caste, community, language or ethnicity, has deep roots in India's ancient civilization. However, it is undeniable that the founding fathers of our republic were also greatly influenced by the ideas associated with the age of enlightenment in Europe. Our Constitution remains a testimony to the enduring interplay between what is essentially Indian and what is very British in our intellectual heritage.

The idea of India as an inclusive and plural society, draws on both these traditions. The success of our experiment of building a democracy within the framework of a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious society will encourage all societies to walk the path we have trodden. In this journey, both Britain and India have learnt from each other and have much to teach the world. This is perhaps the most enduring aspect of the Indo-British encounter.

It used to be said that the sun never sets on the British Empire. I am afraid we were partly responsible for sending that adage out of fashion! But, if there is one phenomenon on which the sun cannot set, it is the world of the English speaking people, in which the people of Indian origin are the single largest component.

No Indian has paid a more poetic and generous tribute to Britain for this inheritance than Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore. In the opening lines of his Gitanjali, Gurudev says:

"The West has today opened its door.
There are treasures for us to take.
We will take and we will also give,
From the open shores of India's immense humanity."

To see the India - British relationship as one of 'give and take', at the time when he first did so, was an act of courage and statesmanship. It was, however, also an act of great foresight. As we look back and also look ahead, it is clear that the Indo-British relationship is one of 'give and take'. The challenge before us today is to see how we can take this mutually beneficial relationship forward in an increasingly inter-dependent world.I wish to end by returning to my alma mater. Oxford, since the 19th century, has been a centre for Sanskrit learning and the study of Indian culture. The Boden professorship in Sanskrit, and the Spalding professorship in Eastern Religions and Ethics, stand testimony to the university's commitment to India and Indian culture. I recall with pride the fact that the Spalding professorship was held by two very distinguished Indians: Dr S. Radhakrishnan, who later became the President of India, and by Dr. Bimal Krishna Matilal. In the context of the study and preservation of Indian culture, I also wish to recall the contribution of another Oxonian, Lord Curzon, about whose project to preserve and restore Indian monuments, Jawaharlal Nehru said, "After every other Viceroy has been forgotten, Curzon will be remembered because he restored all that was beautiful in India."

Words of Dr. Manmohan Singh, prime minister of India and possibly the single biggest reason why we as a country is today economically solvent.Thus I start my defense of my belief why I believe English should not be replaced with Hindi in India. My most fundamental objection to English bashers is hypocrisy. One of these enlight(dark)ened folks said that if I am proud of India's economic might on account of our command of english, I should be proud of being ruled by the British and that I should be proud of the fact that we as a nation should be proud of the fact that we were a colony of British.so, here I am waging my war in the digital domain.

I shall try to establish my case on the following grounds
1)Hypocrisy
2)Need of Diversity
3)Dynamic state of any culture

Dwelling on the hypocrisy part of it, if we are to be ashamed of British rule, we should be ashamed of Aryan rule, we should be ashamed of mughals, we should be ashamed of being civilized. History books abound of tales of how the technically superior at a particular point of time conquered the less advanced societies and moved the wheel of civilization. If there was no invasion, probably we would have still lived in the caves. It is not that flow of knowledge is a one directional stream from the visitors to vanquished its a bidirectional affair.So if we are proud of Taj Mahal, if we are proud of Red fort, if we are proud of Ajanta and Ellora we should be proud of Victoria Memorial, we should be proud of Archaeological survey of India but for which many of these treasures would have been consigned to the dust.
We make no bones about cheering for Indian cricket team but some pseudo nationalist who are more fluent in English than Hindi feel that Hindi should have precedence over English. why should English tat give us bread and butter be the punching bag. Is it not against Indian culture to disrespect food.There is no disagreement over the fact that bulk of us have been ruled by a few since ages, how does it matter if the rulers of 150 years were born in Europe.If we are to be ashamed of British rule, we should be ashamed of parliamentary democracy, fundamental rights magna carta, rule of law. If we are proud of all these, we should be proud of whatever we have achieved under British rule.

Second thing is about diversity: Is language so important in context of nation like India where language can never be unifying factor. Language in a country like India can only be divisive ask the fighters of separate state of Maharastra and Andhra. A few argue that national language is as important as national flag.But by that logic we should also have a state religion. But we cannot in India as India allows it's citizens to practise any faith. then again some might argue that if nobody objects to us speaking our language than what is the problem in enforcing another language. for me Hindi is as foreign a language as French, Latin or Hebrew or English. No matter what you say a person cannot be fluent in all language so Hindi was my third priority with English being the first for economic reasons. I make no bones about it. If Hindi was the lingua franca of the world Hindi would have been my first priority. But real world economics are different.If I have to chose between two alien languages, I would rather chose the one that buys my food and medicines.The some would say that not all people knows English in India. That is definitely because English is not promoted as much as Hindi is by government. If all of India becomes fluent in English, the economic gains will be enormous but it seems politicians only care of their own children go to English medium schools. Merely a fact that more people in India speak Hindi should ot be the reason for its imposition. Moreover more than fifty percent of Indians do not call Hindi as their mother tongue. Well I would not like to dwell too much on statistics for they can be most easily manipulated. But ultimately It remains a fact that India has too many languages to be associated with one language. Then their is logic of why only one national animal, but how does the choice of national animal hurts my pocket. If some symbol can help give national identity without any adverse effects than why not. It may sound selfish but if I am generating revenue for myself and paying my taxes doing honest work than is it not more patriotic than professing love for a language and evading taxes.

Finally dynamic nature of culture: hindi was not spoken in India from ages. It was Sanskrit,Pali, Pakrit culture is an ever changing wheel we should never try to stop this change for it is nothing but a futile exercise.