Parinda

I am damn frustrated. I have been so since the last evening. As usual the reasons are known but the reason(s) for the aggravated frustness evade me. My very sincere apologies for yet another post starting with me “moaning” about my frustness! Can’t help it! It so happens that I invariably end up writing when I am very frust. Funny that frustness actually provides the activation energy to do something. Whoever said that frustness is worthless (although all its worth taken together is crap!)

I also gladly take this opportunity (presented by me to myself!) to thank all those well wishers who have been very consistently wishing me happy birthday on “Gandhi” Jayanti. I would also like to congratulate Manish here because he is the one (to the best of my knowledge) to have coined the nick Gandhi for me. This is one of the few successes you have had my friend. :P

So, as I was saying, I was very frust (mind the “was”). To get rid of it I watched a movie, “Parinda” directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. And while watching it I decided that I will post a review of the movie. Very true, the movie had been released in ’93 and most of the people reading this must have already watched it before the author. Who cares!

While watching the movie I skipped the evening snacks (I just hate leaving movies unfinished). Just as the movie was about to end I was obviously feeling hungry and it made me think. It made me question this habit of mine (I am extremely proud of it). But then as the end grew near Mr. Vidhu Vinod Chopra removed all these doubts and question marks (believe me one couldn’t do a better job).

The movie depicts the emotional turmoil an ordinary man has to face when he looses his dear friend (who also happens to be his love interest’s brother), when he finds out that his own brother is in someway responsible for his friends death, when he sees for real that all the public servants are corrupt, when he has to become one of the criminals to take his revenge! This is not all by any means. While you feel sympathetic for this ordinary man (by the way this character is played by Anil Kapoor) you can’t help feeling the same for his elder brother (played by Jackie Shroff) who has done all that he could to keep his kid brother away from the dirty world of which he is a part, who had actually taken this route just to make his brother’s life cozy, who can’t accept that his brother is also trotting the same path as himself, who finally fulfills the adhoora sapna of his brother by burning Anna alive. And you obviously feel for Anil’s love interest, Madhuri Dixit, who has lost her brother and is always on the verge of losing Anil. After you have to dig so much of sympathy the director also wants you to direct all your anger towards Anna, Nata Patekar (Anna’s have always been dons in Hindi movies, no one needs to be told this I guess).

Yes it is an excellent movie but still there are moments which may seem a bit weird. Like just after the death of her brother, Madhuri and Anil are happily singing romantic duet (being cheerful in every situation is one thing, but this is a bit too much). Again you have Madhuri mad at Anil a couple of times but then again a couple of lines are all that Anil requires to convince her (smart girl!). Last but not the least in the very beginning the Jackie is introduced in the exact manner so as to give a feel of some Kanti Shah (Gunda fame!) movie.

But despite all these weird things going on Chopra saab very well manages to convey his message. His message against the evils in our society, his message against the dominance of bhailog in Mumbai, his message that it’s the society which creates the crime more often than not!

Finally the things I liked most about the movie. Anil looks very childish before he gets serious about the revenge and later on that child is lost somewhere! The setting sun when Anil tells Madhuri that they would be parting for good. The look in his eyes when Anil returns to Madhuri after killing the last killer of his friend (the eyes convey all the messages!). Lastly the very last scene, where the jingle of the jhoola is the only thing Jackie hears in Anna's screams. You can't help feeling for the brother who has just lost his everything!

The making of Mahatma :D

Yet another day when I feel utter helpless. Don’t know how often will these days recur? Everything seems to be going all right and suddenly you are very depressed. It feels like I must be the most hopelessly hopeless of people to have ever lived. All the self respect, all the confidence just seems to have betrayed me. I was, just a couple of minutes ago, sitting almost totally exhausted, tired and bored. I have been trying to mend up things, trying to get a bit organized. But I fail. The frequency of these failures sends jittery signals running through my body. Things are looking bleak. Very bleak indeed! Yet another SG debacle is very much on the cards. Obviously it wouldn’t do wonders to my already eroded confidence. I am vulnerable. Worse still, I derive my vulnerability from myself. It’s the demons inside my head which I cannot fight. The same head which I thought has and would help me achieve great things in life. What a sham! I act as though I would be the last person to entertain any sort of tension, leave alone being involved in this enormous self-derogatory appraisal. I act as though I have complete control over every bit and piece of my life, albeit my life is crumbling into pieces. Sadly all that I do is act and the only thing amiss is action. What an irony! A pity actually! Even as I write this my ever-present laughter fails me. There is something really going wrong with my life or I’ll have to change my expectations drastically. This change, if implemented, won’t do me any good either. So the only viable option left with me is to fight; and fight with vehemence, because if I fail I might not be strong enough to face it. The loss, if I allow it to be inflicted upon me, might spiral me into an ever lasting oblivion from which I might never be able to redeem either myself or my self-confidence. For long have I lived life waiting for the “next” chance. Sadly we get just one chance to live. We either make it or break it. It’s actually amazing that this is the very line of thinking I had wanted to keep aloof from myself. Now that I do accept it, may be only momentarily though, surprisingly again it calms me down! There have been days aplenty which were to be a turning point. A day when I would get rid of all the vices! Now I’m too low to be even thinking such an utopian thought. To be very frank I don’t even know if such a possibility exists. Though, I very sincerely hope so! I proclaim on gtalk that “I have a dream”. I am not too sure as to what dream I mean or how am I going to go about achieving it (supposing I do!). All I know is in that dream I’m a much improved version of my own self. For me to get anywhere close to the dream I will have to actually improve myself! Quite trivial it may seem, but it indeed is no mean goal to achieve, given the abundance of my failures.

Yes, I still believe that one’s efforts can’t take him beyond what he is destined to achieve. Any case which seems to defy the above hypothesis is the failure of humans to see the obvious! Call it my ignorance but that’s what I think and would prefer to think in future. So when I think of giving this daunting task a shot, I firmly believe that the success has no way to go unless the way leads it to me. This might lead you to think that this was final nail in the ‘almost ready to be buried’ coffin of my success and my dreams. That all this gibberish was not worth anything! That this incorrigible loser is not going to change ever! But, it brings me immense pleasure to me to let you know my dear friend that you are wrong. The proof is going to follow shortly!

Cheers.

Main aur mera frustapa!

Frustness is really the “in” thing in Kgp, and given the god like omnipresence here it is here to stay, and stay long, maybe till eternity. Any given day you are bound to meet at least ‘n’ people who are frust to various degrees (here ulti frust is the most dominating one), ‘n’ tending to almost infinity. And yes the accomplishment of any arbit (un)predictable behaviour of any sort is very easily attributed to this very ailment of being frustrated, lovingly called frustness. Be it bunking all the classes or watching movies all night long or being involved in “thought provoking” bhaat sessions, there is one common reason which acts as an excuse for almost each and everyone over here.

Coming down to a more specific case, i.e. myself (yes, I love boring all of you with more and more of myself! And believe I will continue doing so!), currently I am frustness personified. I put forward to myself being frust as the reason for me to be writing this post at 4 am rather than sleeping. This after I have watched a couple of movies and haven’t possibly done a single positive thing all day long.

Since I have come to think of it now, I wonder why exactly I’m frust after all, if at all this is really the case. Not much success here either. This lack of finding a reason further aggravates the frustness in me! But to be very frank between sleeping in class almost continuously for 1.5 hrs, bhaat maaring during lab for another 1.5 hrs, frustrating a couple of friends, watching a couple of movies and talking over phone with papa and di for around an hour (whoa! I’m leading a damn hectic life out here) I don’t know how exactly I did manage to find time to get myself frust!

There seems to be no possible explanation. Unless it is being called all sort of names by friends or Sachin being given out on 99 or India actually going on to win the match or not eating sufficient khana, I can’t think of a reason. Yes, some of must have jumped at this last suggestion and thin that the case is all solved. But again I have had enough fillings of my stomach for me to be complaining. This might be the case but again a very improbable option. So here again I am left completely aghast at not being able to find this petty conclusion. Yes, one good reason might have been me being upset of my ever-makhaing acts. But had this been the case I would have killed myself at least four times given my expertise in this particular field. So sadly this last ray of hope is also lost in the oblivion.

So after this utterly butterly undiliciously unamul fault finding, I am left with just a further increase in frustness which in turn gives me reasons for the makhaing acts in future. So you know what exactly to blame for my next post. ;)

Adieu!

Frustness eraser.

First things first, I would like to extend my sincere (To whom it mat concern) heart felt thanks to all those who are reading this post even after the last two posts on this very catastrophic blog. Please do leave back a comment or two so that I have an account of the number of ”heart felt thanks” have I am now short of. Your comments will let me know that there are still very considerate, caring and brave people around me in this cruel world. I would also like to say sorry for the insanely frequent posts and for their lengths. Actually, quite unlike my belief, I seemed to have carried loads and loads of free time from Kharagpur to London. Also, as most of you must be aware, with not many new friends on my GTalk, finding a new ‘bakra’ to spend this invaluable time of mine chatting has also become very difficult (the absence of the LAN in Kgp isn’t helping either). Yes, you might say that I should study some books, learn a bit during this project. This is indeed a pretty good idea, but with me as the person to execute this brilliant idea, its not even a distant possibility. So, I am sorry once again that sadly it seems that you will have to bear with me once again.

So much for the “English mannerisms”. Moving on, all your comments and my loads of free time made me think, taking a leaf from Mr. Garam Samosa’s book (or should I say blog) , about this blog. Does this blog even deserve to present anywhere in the gloomiest corner of the web world (hope this world isn’t round and does have some corners) leave alone as prominently as a window in your computer screen? This blog, which till now has been my brainchild (yes, the brain is defective! Don’t dare say anything about the child.) did it deserve this birth? The writing which I do is that worth the pains I take? Oops! I seem to be running out of questions.

As fate will have it, thinking of the questions wasn’t good enough to consume all the time I had (can be tempted to lend you some if you can offer a good enough deal). So I delved deep into myself looking for the answers. It sure was a very difficult and irritating job to do. With all the entangled muscles, nerves, bones,…(my knowledge of biology sort of ends here) searching for the answers was one heck of a job. But again all my free time, as always came to the rescue (told you I would need a really nice deal from you to tempt me to take some free time) and I found the answers, which I enlist in the following paragraphs.

I found that this blog does deserve to be at that exact place where it is present now. This for one one simple reason – the fact that it is present at the place it is present now. Sort of confusing but all I mean is that the fact that this blog is present where it is present now is a good enough reason for it to be present at that particular location. I think its actually quite easy for us to question the things around us, but we would be actually (this does feel good sometimes, Mr. Chinmaya Kumar Sharma) much better of accepting the things we are not able enough to change.

Coming to another very important question regarding the pains it takes to blog and their worth. The pains, as it might not seem initially, are numerous. They can be roughly listed as follows – finding the time to blog, finding good topics to write on and actually (now I overdo it, just as an example for you, Mr. Chinmaya Kumar Sharma) find that spark within to convert a decent idea to well written highly appreciated piece. Here I have not mentioned the not so trivial requirements as having a computer, internet connection, keyboard, electricity, so on and so forth (having a blog suddenly seems to be a damn cool thing after all!). Going, back to the list of the pains, if you are observant enough you might have seen (otherwise read it again), blogging requires a lot of “findability” (which I hope might be supposed to quantify your ability at finding things). So once again the loads of free time I have got, helps me out and guides me effortlessly through the difficult path one must traverse before he/she can blog. Now coming to my case, in a truer sense, if you are patient and willing enough to have a look at the pains, for me there are none – no problem of time (this has already been over stated), the rest two are not my mug (here they use unusually large mugs as cups) of tea.

Finally, coming to the worth of all the not so paining pains taken, they again are numerous as you might have again not been able to conceive. Firstly, it takes quite a lot of my free time (sad… but excess of everything is actually (no comments Mr. Chinmaya Kumar Sharma) bad). Secondly, it makes you aware all the people reading this of all the free time amidst them. Thirdly, I know it frustrates you like hell to read this. Fourthly, three reasons are enough. Finally, there must be other reasons as well (I can’t even dream that I am “paramjnani”).

So finally, finally this post is over. Sorry once again for such a long post. Thank you once again for reading it through (if you indeed have). A return, literally, to the English world.

If by any chance you at any point of thought why the title? Because this has been actually got a lot of frustness rid off me. :D

The second post

Sorry for everything on this blog till now... the blog name, the title of the previous post, the post itself... everything and for this post too (to avoid beginning the next post with a sorry note!). I had thought that once I'll start writing ideas will start flowing into my mind. But sadly that is exactly what is not the case. So to keep it simple I'll write about my stay in London. This is the one thing I had thought of not writing about but as it is this is the only thing coming to my mind right now. Quite like I am studying in the IIT I had thought I'll never go!!!
So on 3rd May, I embarked on the journey from Kolkata to London. The feeling was more like, 'this can't be true'. Just 10 hours and 45 min and you are in London, a whole new world, that's what I had thought of it then. Throughout the drive from Heathrow to home I sat absorbing the feeling of 'being in London'. It was as if I had achieved a very remarkable feat (must admit all the euphoria created by friends did contribute a lot). Just a days rest and before I knew it was 7am and I was getting ready to go to office. I was really amusing first few days in the office. While I would be doing some work or chatting some person would drop by and finish all that he had to say before I could come to terms that some one is indeed talkignto me. It was actually kind of fun giving replies as "yes" and "no" just hoping that I had guessed correctly! Through this guess work I got introduced to quite a few people, turned down an offer to go to bar and may be many more things like these. I was also very happy and impressed that I had got a computer as soon as I reached office. (How could I have I ever survived without gtalk n stuff?) I had lunch with my new colleagues, all of whom were post grad or research associates. While all of the other people bought funny looking food, I kept on opening my tiffin-box with ma ke haath ka bana khana. One day I dared to eat as these englishmen did, and believe me it will take a lot of courage to eat any other of their delicacies again. I tried tea and coffee once but those were no better. One very intereseting thing I observed here is the frequency with which people over here use the word "thanks". Once while returning from a lunch we were about 4-5 people coming in a train thanking other person for not letting the door slam on his face. It was a bunch of people walking very fast and thanking each other intermittently!
But the most striking thing I noticed here was the abundance of Indians. On the road, in the tubes, buses, high streets... everywhere you go you find Indians in abundance. Have even seen shops named Palika Bazaar, Chandni Chowk, Popat Stores to name a few.
Yes! a very important part of my training is going on at home. Starting from carrying huge weights of groceries to kneading wheatflour to maaroing jhaadu and pochha.... Even didi had started calling me RAMU!!!(yes apurva you indeed are great!)
So this is almost the end of a very boring description of not so boring life I'm leading here in London. Almost coz, I have just a small incident which I would like to share. Just a gift for all your patience and perseverence.
Earlier today, I had the privilege to go to a bar for a b'day party of a post grad in office. I went there hesitating and expecting. Hesitating because I was invited by the prof and not the b'day boy. Expecting because I hoped to eat or drink something for free. But alas! I reach there and find everyone goes and pays for his own order. I bought a huge glass of cranberries juice costing me 1.45£, amazed that it was really a b'day treat sort of. I lingered on over there for some time taking leave as soon as I was asked for another round of drink!!!

Here I Am...

So... finally I too have a blog to boast of and this is the first post. So here is yet another way I have found out to frustrate you all who are already unlucky enough to know me!!! (those who don't know me and are still reading this post... something is really wrong with you...) I am here in my didi's home in London (couldn't resist boasting... as I very seldom can!!!) with nothing particular to do... feling very uninspiring and utterly depressed... (no! its not the time for celebrations yet... this is not my suicidal note!) So I come up with this blog.