Durga Pujo: the build up

The run up to the Durga Pujo have been good. Plenty of Puja-barshiki, plenty of shopping(oh yes!) and plenty of eating out, and ofcourse the usual as well. 

Puja-barshiki is a thick, two-hundred page odd annual magazine, that comes with the autumnal breezes as a harbinger to the festivities in Bengal. I remember pouring over them, as a kid, reading through Anondomela, adventures of Feluda, Professor Shonku, the Moti Nandi short stories, sitting in the evenings solving puzzles and crosswords. So, now that i am home for Pujo, it was almost imperative for me to go ahead and get that copy. But well, times change, tastes change, and so do pulp fiction. Its no longer the same. Now there are feluda comics, and lots of odds and ends about popular science, and Kakababu (my singularly despised sleuth, too stiff upper lip for me!), and well lots of cricket! Needless to say, i felt like a fish out of water, or more precisely, a buffalo between calves! 

Then of course, comes Pujo music. I havent had the oppurtunity to get a taste of them, unless ofcourse, you take what Metallica brought out to be Pujor gaan. No comments.

However, i cant beleive myself writing this, shoppinng has been good fun. I have been to quite a few different shops, from the old ones in New Market, to the malls and hawkers. All of them, equally crowded, but yes, with women of all ages. At times, , i felt like a misfit there, soon enough, i learnt not to bother. With the malls, shopping becomes a whole day affair, with lunch and a movie. Quite different from the days of yore, when we (cousins) used to be given an icecream, while the elders were getting bales of saris on counters to choose from. Thats also there now, but now, i dont get the icecreams!

Eating out has been enjoyable also. Especially with family. Here i still have that soft spot for old times, going back to Park Street, or Gariahat, instead of the insitu ones in malls, even after a movie. China Town is also there in the to-do list.

At the same time, there is lots of traffic jams, and rallies, given the political situtaion now in Bengal.The heat hasnt spilled over to the Pujo preparations.  Still the festivities are on, by foot or car, big or small. Hope the rains dont spoil it.

A tribute to Hercule Poirot

 

I have been spending a lot of time these days, reading and re-reading, sometimes reading once more, the amazing adventures of Hercule Poirot. Few days back, I picked up my old copy of “Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case” (the best whodunit I have ever read), and there the domino effected. Then I picked up Roger Ackroyd, the Styles, and then the short stories, and then the movie version of Murder on the Orient Express (a good movie by itself!). I must say, as I am now neck-deep in the entire mythology, I am impressed.

 

Poirot has always appealed to me in the way he approaches a problem. In his own words, from the short story The Kidnapped Prime Minister (one of the most high profile, but more ingenuous of his cases):

“It is not so that the good detective should act, eh? I perceive your thought. He must be full of energy. He must rush to and fro. He should prostrate himself on the dusty road and seek the marks of tyres through a little glass. He must gather up the cigarette-end, the fallen match? That is your idea is it not?”

The oblique reference to a certain famous English detective is not gone unnoticed by readers. He continues to expostulate his own method, which has changed with time, from being Pasteurian to Freudian, I might guess,

“But I – Hercule Poirot – tell you that it is not so! The true clues are within – here… It would have been sufficient for me to sit quietly in rooms there. All that matters is the little grey cells within. Secretly and silently they do their part…”

 

So Hercule Poirot, retired from Belgian Police, five feet four, chivalrous, dandy and limping on a leg, prone to seasickness and cold, brings down the most feared of criminals. Poirot’s idiosyncrasies doesn’t end there, from the short story The Capture of Cerebus:

“It is the misfortune of small, precise men always to hanker after large and flamboyant women. Poirot had never been able to rid himself of the fatal fascination that the Countess held for him.”

Poirot at the same time, is extremely thrifty and cautious about money, never making any speculative investment ( with the exception of fourteen thousand shares of Burma Mines Ltd which he received as a gift), in Arthur Hastings words:

“My little friend was a strange mix of Flemish thrift and artistic fervour. He accepted many cases in which he had little interest owing to the first instinct being predominant”

However, the second also played its significant role, in cases like The Arcadian Deer (in fact most of the cases from the Labours of Hercules), and in plenty of the novels he appeared in.

 

What marks Poirot from his fictional colleagues is his human qualities, the way he, on quite a few occasions, lets nemesis take its turn, not punishing the murderer, in spite of having arriving at the truth, loyalty to his friend Hastings (aside: I have noticed loyalty and friendship play a major role in Cristie’s work, sometimes murders being committed for its sake!), his hubris, from Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case:

I have no more now to say. I do not know, Hastings, if what I have done is justified or not justified. No – I do not know. I do not believe that a man should take the law into his own hands… But on the other hand, I am the law!

And then at times (The Chocolate Box being the only case he confesses having failed in), his fall:

“I should, perhaps, Madame, tell you a little more about myself. I am Hercule Poirot.”

The revelation left Mrs Summerhayes unmoved.

“What a lovely name,” she said kindly. “Greek, isn’t it?”

 

The rotundity of the characters, I suppose, makes them so lovable, in spite of their follies and vices, right from Miss Lemon, with her perfect filing system, to Arthur Hastings and his proclivity for auburn hair. In a way, Cristie invokes the armchair sleuth in all of us, trying to solve elaborate mysteries, with imagination and an easy chair, for now we know its all about the little grey cells!

 

To say the least, it has been gratifying, Monsieur Poirot.

A song of epic proportions: Achilles Last Stand

The number of times I have listened to this song, both during college and then back at home, I thought I could write something on it. One of those songs, which is so huge and grand, one seems to drown in the entire experience. One of those songs that wrap you up so completely, something that sometimes a full-blown motion picture all with its sequels fail to do ( the inappropriateness of the comparison i guess sums up how out of words i am!). That’s how big this song, I feel, is.  Colosseum rock!

One of the best drums, energetic, fast and hard, John Bonham truly drives the point home. John Paul Jones on bass, eight strung, and pulsating, like a steam engine on full throttle in a dark forest, conjures up something truly magical. As for Page, words are not enough, you have to listen to believe. Plant, on the other hand, comes up with some amazing lyrics ( as i just found out) from his Moroccan vacation.  

Achilles Last Stand, according to me, is one of those songs that really marks all that I like about Led Zepellin. It takes off from where Immigrant Song left, sums up The Song Remains the Same, carries forward Baby, I am gonna leave you, and is what Stairway to Heaven, in a way, led to: a culmination of sorts, something that is tough to be bettered. Companion of many a solitary evenings and boring afternoons, pull-me-through, pick-me-up, and toss-it-down, this song has been with me for good. Love and respect!

Talking over coffee

Coffee as a drink is not my favourite, i like tea much better, frankly. However, what excites me about coffee is the mostly meaningless discussions one can have over it. I have also spent a lot of time over coffee and conversations. Alas! Those days are long gone, and now i am left sipping my cup of tea, pondering over all and none. 

Just for the sake of indulgence, please, let me tell you of my favourite place to drink coffee. There are quite a few, but my favourite favourite was the night canteen in my college. In the peak hours (11 pm to 2am), it used to be quite crowded, and discussion ranged from politics to photographs, calisthenics to cucumbers,sports to spoofs, games and gossip, and anything under the sun we could find. It was the proverbial melting pot, if i might say so. The happy hours were in the late afternoon, when you could go and order one after playing a game of tennis or football. Or sometimes, in the evening you could just sit lazily and wonder why you are sitting lazily at this unwise hour. I liked the latter the most.

With time, and a lot of caffeine, i began to decipher that the frailty of the conversations and the strength of the coffee. Coffee left a bitter taste, and didn’t help me sleep. The conversations, though meaningless, stayed longer than they should, hovering like a bumble-bee in a compass. The concoction i realised was a bit too much for my liking. It was then that i switched over to tea, taken without milk and thought.

Bewildered by the non-sense

Quite some time, no posts in the good old blog. A school of thought believes that having ample time at ones disposal helps one write. I don’t differ, maybe it does, maybe it should, but it doesn’t happen with me. I feel much better when i have ‘work’ to do, which is at opposite poles to what i write, and i can write. In a sense, then the act of blogging feels more secure (is it the word?), cathartic. So, in the past few months, when i had more than ample time at my disposal, the blog was(is) in life-support.

What have i been doing? Well, nothing much. Except maybe, watch Television. Like cave-men gazed at their pre-historic fires, i have been watching been flipping through news channels: how land in Singur can be allotted, re-allotted, compromised, and how ancillaries, industries and farmers can live happily ever after, how Amar Singh saved the UPA from toppling, how Mayawati aspired to become the prime-minister, how N-deals were made, how the world’s richest democracy gears up for elections, et cetra . If it was shown on national television in the last couple of months, odd are high that i have seen it. 

In sports, i have been privy to India winning its first Olympic gold, live, and its bronzes, also live. Formula one, Friday night football, Saturday afternoon football, Sunday pay-per-views, Monday night wrestling, One day matches, Test matches, twenty-20, Calcutta Football League, and as a testimony to the extent of my joblessness, darting, as well. 

Movie-channels i haven’t followed so closely, mostly because of the nuisance of the remote, which prompt me to flip through at each commercial break, and soon, i seem to forget what i had been watching. I guess this happens with most compulsive T.V. viewers. However, i must say, when it comes to movies, it is the local cable channels who rule, for reasons better not put in words. 

Obviously with all this exertion i have gained weight by the kilogram. Also with the information overdose, i have acquired an immense vault of second hand opinions, which i let out at every opportune moment. The opinions being second-hand, at times run the risk of being contradictory. Therefore, i need to keep in mind what i shared with whom, e.g. “Wow! Roger played like a King!” vis-a-vis “His days are numbered”. Lately, however, i have realised, my conversational counterpart/s is also a bored old hag, and doesn’t even care what i am talking about. 

Television in a sense is a like a old bit of crayon that we used, as a kid, to fill up outlined pictures, no matter what colour you use, as long as it fills it up. In the end of the day, like the psychedelic picture that came out of such an effort, i am indeed, bewildered!