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Here. Take every adoring glance
Here. Take morning bliss
Here. Take all my favorite words since childhood
Here. Take success, albatross in flight
Here. Take the most secret ecstasy of adolescence
Here. Take love, winding road in the hills
Here. Take missives from faraway lands
Here. Take memories, gemstones threaded in sun and rain
Here. Take this hanky, transience
Here. Take promises, run of the river
Here. Take the misery of pen on paper
Here. Take my palms, a-begging reprieve
Here. Take this bust oozing liquid fire
Here. Take ambition, a midsummer night's gale
Here. Take absolutely glorious failure
Here. Take every treasure this broken casket holds
Here. Take the call of wilderness
Here. Take countless doors ajar
Here. Take all the tears the heart would hide
Here. Take freedom, release
Here. Take affection, a pool gathered in droplets
Here. Take remembrance, take oblivion
Here. Take heaven's flag

What gives ?


p.s. (With apologies to Sunil Gangopadhyay, from whose original this is an almost verbatim translation. Except for the last line, which should have literally been : "Care to give anything?" But I wanted a twist.)

p.s.2 (On a summer holiday back home, I was browsing through a decrepit bookshelf from when I was in school. There I revisited this book. It's called "In love with you, blank sheet." Again, verbatim)

p.s.3 (I haven't got one. I envy people who do)

Listen easy

A friend sent the link to a long lost Panchamda number in Bengali. Lost to time, the fallibility of ferromagnetics or spring cleaning. Who would know?

Without preamble I share with you, then, the man and his song.



Surprisingly (it being such a wonderful composition) the hindi version is way lesser known. I don't think it was even a big hit. Maybe RD wasted it on the wrong film. Which film, which song? Quiz, anyone?

This weekend, I've also been listening to a bit of popular music. On that note, let me ask you, as is done in the blogging parlance, how fab is the music of Yuvraj? I would admit to having taken quite a liking to it. Especially the one least heard in promos. The opening of Zindagi Zindagi blew me because it sounds more like Gulzar saab and Panchamda than Rahman. The choice of woodwind, in this case a harmonica, harks back to nostalgia. From the next loop onwards Rahman takes over and it's into familiar territory. But the first four lines, wow, it's gold. The movie I couldn't bother watching. Not a fan of the Subhash the Ghai. The early reviews bear out the wisdom of my decision.

An fabulously enjoyable update on the movie and it's music you'll find here, and I quote....

Yuvraj is a film of Katrina Kaif and Salman Khan 2nd movie and in Yuvraj Movie Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif is going to be married. Everybody everyone in bollywood and salman khan and katrina kaif’s fan want to see they both married and work in films together as much as they can. Yuvraj Movie is one more movie where peoples can watch Salman khan and Katrina kaif Together in Yuvraj Movie.

Speaking of popular music, for some reason I'm unable to stop singing Tha tha karke from Golmaal returns ever since I was forced to watch it. I think it should get an award or something in the most addictive song of the year category.

In early listenings of Rab ne Banadi Jodi, it sounds easily the most lukewarm score ever for a Yashraj film, more so considering the movie presumably involves a lot of dancing.

A follow-up on me and the market meltdown will be out shortly so watch this space.

The Goddess in Autumn

A one-and-a-half-week spent in a daze of mellow wellness, not counting a minor throat infection afflicted by cold beer in Bong weather. Been to the Durgapujo in Kolkata after a gap of two years. Among many other things, a morning of pandalizing, an experimental cocktail, a dear friend paying for the whole crowd at Tangra at saptami lunch (his novel is out on a Pujabarshiki - his first step into big league, and a call for celebration) and rediscovering New Market.

Some photos. The first two at Badamtala Ashar Sangho, off Hazra road.

We gathered from the hoardings Prabhuji mithun-da is the brand ambassador for this Pujo. (Oh, yes, they all have brand ambassadors now.) Mithun-da would be proud. All in all, we liked the mood and ambiance of the setup. Very old-worldly and nostalgia.

See the old rajbari ( King's haveli) milieu on the sidelines? Update : An utube link for the pandal.

Ekdalia. Garish. I felt like calling it the moor's last sigh (at the moo-rals).

What with the recession, stock crash and all, the organizers at Selimpur Palli were of the grim view that it was the indeed the end of days, apocalypse, Armageddon, whatever. Why else would they think of putting the goddess on Noah's ark?

Rajib, the blackberry guy, was the host for ashtami evening. The inventory included a bottle of Stoli Vanil vanilla flavored vodka, one tequila (Pepe Lopez, not quite top of the line stuff, I hear), and also some VAT (but nobody was in the vatty mood). Rajib insisted that we do the Stoli first, and chase it down with Pepe shots. I suggested, on a whim, that we should try out some sort of a float with the vodka and some vanilla ice cream. Here goes.

1 1/2 oz vanilla flavored vodka

50 ml Ice cream soda/ Sprite

Two scoops vanilla ice cream

Mix the vodka, soda/sprite and ice cream into a smooth consistency. Pour in a highball glass and float a scoop of ice cream on top. Can be served with some strawberry or chocolate syrup topping. Suggested name: Stoli Scream.

The brand Tangra is now a pale shadow of what it used to be. At Kim Fa, the soup was passable, the noodle dishes (as famously put by J.A.P in recent times,) more Shyambazar than Sanghai, the less said about the Szechwan chicken the better. Maybe old man Kim was taking a nap. After all, it was afternoon during durgapujo time and the Bangali Bhadralok who wouldn't know their dim sums from their momos were all out in hordes.

Lately Rajib has developed this annoying habit of having a meal solely consisting of starters while eating out. After a coupla rounds of batter-fried chicken dumplings and babycorns, he sought to secure the kiddies' vote in his favor by announcing : All who want to eat starters only, say "aye", or something to that effect, which, sure enough, was getting some raised hands at the kids camp. Put down firmly by Subroto the mirthless girth with a gem of a statement : "Na. Ami food khabo." Which roughly translated to: "no i want to eat a proper meal", but easily became the best in hungry indignation since Major de Coverley's : "Gimme eat" in catch 22.

The Tangra Chinese are these days cheap neither. We paid 6000 bucks for a crowd of 20 not counting small kids. Sorry, Indranil the novelist payed. Not expensive really, but not dirt cheap by any standards. And the portions don't justify the rates.

The day before I was coming back, I needed to buy some red and green curry paste, lemongrass, nam pla, oyster sauce, bamboo shoots and other veggies I can't buy fresh at my small town marketplace. You can guess I'm trying to dabble in Thai cuisine. I was thinking maybe Spencer's but a friend suggested Hogg market. Hesitantly I went, probably after two-and-a half decades' hiatus. The place was a treasure trove, as ever. I got every item on my list, the way I'd wanted. Not only could I get lemongrass for Rs. 3 a stalk, (Spencer's charge 10, and sell stale stuff) every little shop at the back end alley was a revelation. I even ended up buying some Angostura bitters.

When we were little kids, people in Kolkata used to say that you could buy bat's wings and cheeta's milk at the New Market if you were paying the right price. Indeed. I perfectly see their point now.

A game of hardball


My uncle and his friends used to play ball. My uncle and his friends used to play ball on lazy summer afternoons. My uncle and his friends used to play ball on lazy summer afternoons at the Green Garden club grounds.

OK, OK, enough. What I'm driving at is, my uncle and his friends needed to raise some cash at times, to write off and replace a tattered old ball. We all did. In fact this could be the story of my own life too. Only I didn't have the one of a kind friend like my uncle did. But I get ahead of myself.

Well, my uncle and his friends would go dig into their saved pocket monies and put their athannies or whatever it would take in those blissful times, into the common kitty. Off they would march to the Unique Variety Stores, to purchase the the finest soccer ball of the day, a size 5 fake Adidas.

Then, after the dust had been sprinkled down on the Green Garden soccer field, and the battle lines been drawn, the territories marked, and the ball about to roll (I could talk in cliches till the cows came home) and there was but a bated breadth between the whistle and forty-four feet engaging in combat, from somewhere a shrill voice of discontent would spring.

It would later become clear, that Poltu kaku had had some tiff with people in the group over the choice of the color of ball, or his wish to play in the center forward position in his team, or simply that he wanted to have golgappa on the way back from Unique Variety with the leftover cash, which he was denied. Intricacies of the discontent need not be gotten into, for all that mattered now was that Poltu would not allow getting the game under way. Not one inch, any which way.

"What do you want now, shithead?" the big bullies glared down at him, but the puny Poltu would glare back with equal force. "Give him his athanni back and kick him out of the football field", somebody would proffer. But Poltu was by now squatting on the ball in the middle of the field and he would have none of it.
"Shove your athanni, who wants it? I want my share back."
"But that's all there's to it, that athanni was your share, ghonchu!"
"No, I want my share in this ball. I want a slice of this."

I really don't remember how my uncle and friends got out of it with their balls intact, it was such an old story. But I'm certain violence was not an option. Poltu's dad was the school headmaster and his elder brother was in the NDA.

I guess Mr. Gandhi, Mr. Bhattacharya and many other well-meaning people of Bengal should go ask my uncle and his friends.

Update : Looks like they did, this morning.
Update 2 : But then, did they learn the secret technique after all?

The King and I

The song on my scroll sidebar. I don't know why in my mind it associates with incessant rainfall. Isn't only because it mentions "pouring rain" once. The association probably has to do my listening to it a lot during the rains in a hazy, distant past almost two decades ago when I used to play it on my walkman while riding on a motorcycle, stopping at some dhaba for chai and a smoke when it started to pour.



This year again, a long monsoon is playing itself out. It refuses to go away. The song won't, either. Playing through my mind all this week.

The ballad of Billy the kid

The Oracle has spoken on the last of the big time spenders. As is his wont, he is absolutely thorough and masterful. Nothing, in fact, needs to be added to, or taken away from that tribute. But since he has kindly linked me in this post, I felt obliged to put forth my two bits on when and how I started to worship the same idol.

I was not a big fan of the man when in college. In fact, I never quite understood his music at that point in time. In college, we were listening to Wham, MJ, John Denver, Eagles, a little bit of Pink Floyd and Dire Straits and all sorts of wrong kind of sound, an ignominy called Modern Talking included. Coupled with the fact that lyric books were not easily available in the 80's, that we would only listen to medium wave radio and some dubious quality tapes on mediocre equipment, made the soul of his lyrics to be largely lost on me. I remember having listened to and vaguely liked Piano Man, and having read somewhere that Manna De's Bengali hit on Coffee House was loosely inspired in theme by it.

Then came 1989 and Storm Front. Even though mtv was not here yet, the crazy video of we didn't start the fire was getting beamed on DD and immediately caught our attention. The power and pace of that dynamic ode to fifty years of Americana and other world events was hard not to get swayed by. It is learnt that he had fired all of his existing band members save the trusted drummer, revamped his team and worked with a new producer to create that new sound. And new it was. It turned everything else on its head.



But the moment of truth for me came on the 1994 Grammy Awards night. River of Dreams had been nominated in more than one categories. And in the runup to the awards the song played over and over. I had never listened to anything like that before. I had hoped it would win song of the year. With due respects to The Boss and sir John, lesser numbers own that year. On the night of awards, the man performed his song. I have been frantically looking for that video on utube and other places, but it's since been removed due to third party copyright issues. (It should be mentioned here that earlier the same night Frank Sinatra was cut short during his acceptance speech for the Lifetime Achievement award.) Billy might have known he was not going to win it that night. He looked dour. At the breath reprise ending the third stanza, where he builds up a crescendo :

I don't know why I go walking at night
But now I'm tired and I don't want to walk anymore
I hope it doesn't take the rest of my life
Until I find what it is that I've been looking for....

He always takes a longish pause at this point, straightening his neck, taking a sip of coffee and all. On that Grammy night, he just seemed to stop on his tracks. A full fifty seconds maybe. Then he said, nay, made an announcement :

Valuable time is passing by. valuable advertising time is passing us by.

He took a sip from his mug, and resumed his song all on a sudden. At that very instant, he made a true believer out of this casual fan.

Heavy Duty

This was one heavy weekend. It was shaping up differently at the start, of course. Listening languorously to this favorite rendition of Faiz by Mehdi Hassan saab.

Aaye kuchh abr kuch sharaab aaye
us ke baad aaye jo azaab aaye

baam-e-miinaa se maahtaab utre
dast-e-saaqii meN aaftaab aaye

har rag-e-KhuuN meN phir charaaGhaaN ho
saamne phir wo be-naqaab aaye

kar rahaa thaa Gham-e-jahaaN kaa hisaab
aaj tum yaad be-hisaab aaye

na ga’ii tere Gham kii sardaarii
dil meN yuuN roz inqilaab aaye

is tarah apnii Khamoshii guuNjii
goyaa har simt se javaab aaye

“Faiz” thii raah sar-ba-sar manzil
ham jahaaN pahuNche kaamyaab aaye

Idly wondering how the poetry would read in translation, I looked up for something by Agha Shahid Ali. Couldn't find anything. Not on the net, that is.

With that same laziness I started playing with the first couplet. And got drawn into it. It took up all my leisure these last three days. I'm not particularly proud of the effort. I know I've flayed a golden rule of translating shayari. I shouldn't of gone for rhyming verses. Anyway here's what we did manage.

Let the clouds close in; bring on a bottle of wine, rare

Come hell or high water then, the devil may care.

Moonshine on my cup alights, at brim, the urn'd pare

The enchantress' hand, then, pours me the sun, a-flare.

Let a ray of light race thru’ my veins, burn in desire

Beauty, step out of your veil again, do me ensnare.

Pondering myriad dolors of my life, alone, I declare

My cruel concubine, always on my mind, you were.

The tyranny of your grief, inexorable, hangs in the air

Each day this bleeding heart rises in rebellion, despair.

In the heart of emptiness, echoed a silence as it were

A hush harked back, from here, there and everywhere.

Destination lay in this journey we took, dear Faiz

Success, ours on every step, far as we did dare.

Knowing fully well that this is a pretty lame job, I can't but disclose a small smile of satisfaction from the first verse. Two cliche's packed into one single radeef ! I felt like that MP from Yes, Prime Minister who could " talk in cliche's till the cows come home."

Thanks Aligarians for complete lyrics

P.S. It occurred to me last night. Does the rhyme remind you of Bianca Castafiore's piece de resistance ? OK. OK, never mind.

Glory Days

I had a close friend who has found me out after fourteen long years. We used to be in college together. We took our first jobs together in the same place. We were roommates there for almost two years.To put things in perspective, there were no secrets among us back then, no question was taboo. We could even compare, um.. lengths. (No, there was no such thing called homophobia in those days. In fact we had never known a gay person.) Some time in 1992, he left that job and later, drifted. He attended my wedding the next year. Never seen him since. After two longish phone calls of small talks and a round of who's who and where among common friends, how many kids you got in which grade, mail exchanges and some such games people play, he proceeds to ask me " Dude, did you drink your wife's milk in the days when she was nursing? I mean willfully, not accidentally?" Top that for originality.