Boro asha koray...

Hitlist released a week ago. By Sandip Ray and therefore it merited ma's rare forays outdoors. I actually went a day ahead to Nandan, queued patiently for 45 minutes for the ticket counters to open.The movie just a little less than 2 hours is housefull show after show. However, the plot is so shoddy. Cinematography so arbit; Screenplay so run of the mill. A plethora of well known faces with so little to do.

Despite all the negatives, people are coming in droves. Atleast its better than the average tollywood output", ma said.

So much asha Sandip babu. Alas the ashas are not fulfilled. But we keep hoping that it will be. One of these days...he is going to prove to us that he is indeed a chip of the old block.

And that is the reason, Hitlist becomes an unintentional hit.

Lane by Lane

What a beautiful word. Oli goli. Just like the impossibly narrow, meandering, winding, curling lanes and by lanes, with houses standing cheek by jowl on either side, looming over the goli; Each house a different colour, elevation, architecture, foliage and also size depending on where on the curling and uncurling road, it lies!

Ki bhishon sundor, ki bhishon impossible after the wide expanse of Delhi. And yet, they exist and peacefully so...inhabitants know how to live and co-exist without obstructing anyone else or intruding any more than they already are into anyone else's lives!

PS - Fresh from Delh, I found narrow was the operative word for Kolkata and its lanes. But now, I feel, snug is the word.

Proper Names

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time might have made it to the Booker longlist 2004 and Boom! hasn't. So what?

Any author who has a proper name for a planet - Plonk in this case (and a chief alien villain called Bantid Vantresillion; and a side-kick Mrs. Pearce - the 85 year old alien in guise of history teacher), is definitely infinitely superior a story teller than scores of those who name planets as XYZ90748ab***yzzpt.

And Mark Haddon, you have company. Shirshendu Mukhopadyaya and his novel Patalghar. Vik from Planet Nyapcha. No wonder both stories are coherent and entirely believable. Aliens, space and time travel. Yes.

So what if I (at my age) still continue to read books for the very young (compared to me they are very young).

PS - If you haven't seen Patalghar yet, do so immediately. And if you have, watching it again will be, you agree, an absolute pleasure.

Purple Emotions

We all know that plants respond to stimuli. They also experience emotions - seen and witnessed by V, my multi-talented poet, painter, sculptor friend.

She had planted a white blossom and a purple one in rather close proximity to each other. One shot up and bloomed. The other (the purple one) didn’t. Jealous, it moped, according to V.

Then one fine day, she removed the plant which had grown in wild profusion and was shedding leaves and creating a general mess. The other languishing one, grabbed her chance and within a week, had shot up, making the most of being centre stage!

And you can't dismiss it as creative licence. They have social life. Here's proof.

Winterwonderland!

It's here. The first day of winter! It was 20 degrees this morning. Aided by the rains last night and perhaps in the wee hours too!

I know that 20 degrees is spring elsewhere and a blistering hot, droughty and horrific summer scenario in say parts of siberia...but here it is winter. And yahoo weather confirms this and says that mercury is going to dip lower and lower till we have - my god - 17 degrees on Sunday!

Out then, with the monkey tupis, maplars! The wise bengali, never leaving anything to chance has already by now, taken out his or her woollies, given them an airing under the roddur on the chaad which was there till yesterday...and a few have even had a trial wearing session - yes I met them on my way back on warm, if not hot nights, wrapped in muffler, drapped in shawls...testing it out. My mother said it was no laughing matter. Perhaps they left home very early in the morning and went back late at night. And she should know better because having laughed heartily at them (if surreptitiously... never mock a bong wearing shawls, even in warm weather) and pooh-poohed that no.1 cause of illness among bongs "season change" - I am under house arrest for atleast a week. Doc's orders... severe chest infection / congestion.

Generation Gap

First came the carved walking stick, followed by an old lady. As the bus conductor helped her in, I took her arm and helped on to the seat next to me. She must have been atleast 80. Small, wizened, short hair, saree ankle high. And ofcourse the walking stick. She bought a ticket for Shilpara, a longish way off from where she boarded.

If she can manage to move around by bus (at all) and that too in a sari, perhaps its time I should too. I just so love wearing sarees, but the thought of the commute by mini bus gives me heebie-jeebies. Don't want a situation where the bus conductor says "Here's your ticket didi and here's your sari!"

Soon, a tall well built chap boarded with his tot. The longish seat adjacent to the driver, where i was sitting was full. He stood in front of me and tried to balance himself, his tot, the water bottle and school bag. I picked up the tot and put him nex to me (there was just enough vacant space for him), while the father looked at me gratefully.

The tot on my left, soft, chubby, freshly scrubbed angel, smelling of Johnson baby powder, happily leaned into the crook of my arm that I had placed behind him to prevent him bumping his head on the metal window frame and made himself comfy. And on my other side, the old lady, put an arm on my shoulder to steady herself in the mad bumpy ride! You know, it felt really nice!

Two generations to my left and right and me - the generation gap, in the middle !

Flavor of the week: Werewolves

Although unplanned, there it was. First the amazing Ms. Fred Vargas. I chanced upon one of her books and was elated to find a fresh series to devour, having nearly exhausted, other serial writers of serial killers and criminals. Seeking whom he may devour - a serial killer-wolf on the loose or was it a werewolf? Observe - I said devour!

And hot on its heels, the most unique vampire story (atleast among those I have read or heard of) : The Reformed Vampire support group by Catherine Jinks, although chiefly of and about vampires and busting many a myth, it has a werewolf, a very good looking one!



And lastly, Bitten by Kelley Armstrong - positively swarming with werewolves...and bursting many more myths and creating a few!


Grrrrowwwl! Hungry for more....books that is...(I assume a wolf growls, being the sort who would like to see a wolf, if at all, on Telly and werewolves, not at all).