Its a beautiful world, indeed

West Bengal Hasta Shilpa Mela (Handicraft Fair) - artists and their art from all over West Bengal - the infinite variety, the sheer artistry and skill on display. Mind boggling.

Brass work

Talk Bangla Talk

When I returned to Kolkata in 2008, one of the things I loved the most was the luxury of speaking and being completely understood and responded to, in bengali.....This is kolkata, after all.

For quite some time after that, it would take me by surprise and I’d feel a childish elation each time, I spoke to a taxi driver, a passer by, in the bank, at the movie hall in bengali....what fun. (Except Inox Forum where everyone stubbornly sticks to English...).

This was almost like the fun and the thrill that even the smallest of conversations in french would bring to me, when I was in France! Except its been three years that I am back and yet, cabbies, bus conductors, auto drivers, shop assistants will speak to me in Hindi. Even if I reply in Bengali, they will try out their best hindi on me!

Belated Durga Puja Post

The Durga Pujas.That Annual break for all in West Bengal (and elsewhere too wherever there are Bengalis, worldwide)!

four days of no deadlines, no work pressure, total standstill. And what a pleasure it is, year after year.

However, this Durga puja, I did not visit a single pandal, not even my para pujo – Maddox Square. Did not venture out for pandal hopping in the wee hours of the morning or late at night or at any other time. In fact, did not feel the slightest pang on missing out on Singhi Park, Tridhara Sammelani, Chaltabaga, Mohammad Ali Park… Nothing!

Does that mean I did not enjoy the pujos? Ofcourse not. I did. But in a different way.

Met up with pals for a long over due no holds barred Adda seesions but spaced out properly – one per day. The rest of the day was spent lazing at home – family lunch – something rarely done since I am always at work or on tour; post lunch siesta, half asleep with the anandamela puja barshiki, watching a rerun of a feluda (Kakababu was an added bonus).

Both maids were on leave so rolling out rotis with ma, catching the matinee show of the puja release Baishe Shrabon at Priya and being pleasantly surprised at its watchability; strolling on the chhad in the evenings watching the lights of the various pandals casting a grayish hue to the night sky. Cell phone being jammed with subho bijoya messages!

Ah! Abaar Ashche bochor! And with it perhaps another new way of enjoying the pujas?!

Review: The Midnight Palace by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I'll Never forget the night it snowed over Kolkata".

With such an opening sentence, how could I possibly not pick up Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Midnight Palace, run home and read it?

The story is set in Calcutta and spans a period 1916-32. The plot is interesting enough - adventure, love, betryal, magic etc but the setting is what thrilled me - Brabourne Road, Hooghly, Chowringhee Road etc and as these still exist in its current avatar ofcourse. As I was reading the lines between make believe and real life sort of blurred as I visualized these very places as they were back the, wider, emptier. "An old textile ware house, the walls of which were covered in official notices announcing its imminent demolition..." had me wondering how somethings never change in Calcutta - even today there are so many such places, just like back in 1916?

If I have my facts right, a Spaniard, living in the US has written this book. I ofcourse have no idea if he has visited India /Kolkata. Maybe he did. Maybe he took some one's help. Maybe he has a calcutta connection...I muse a bit awestruck. And then I run into the most ridiculous name of a pivotal character in the book - not an instance of getting regions mixed up (like till very recently an Indian would mean a man in a turban, no matter which part of the country he was from) . It is a horrible horrible mockery of a bengali name.

Am so very glad that it (this name) was somewhere pages down in the book and not in the opening sentence. I would have not progressed beyond the first line, never picked up the book and found out about the night "it snowed over Calcutta"!