thaumaturgist

We make memories of everything we come across as children and then we use and reuse them as we get older. We made the good and the bad associations with little things that decide whether we want to do/feel them again or not in our adulthood. This is called cognitive psychology that get's built very early on in life. Explanation of that will get very dry and boring if scientific language is used, I have a better way of explaining it, through the language of Gastronomy. Very often we associate life's happenings with the food that was available to us at a point in life. We Bengalis have great associations with all seasons of the year, whether it's mangoes or kanthal (jackfruit), patishapta or narkel naru(coconut laddoos), ilish mach(hilsa) or kankra(crabs), they all herald a different time of the year. Winters in Calcutta happen only for a limited time and as such they are associated with picnics in parks around the city, a lot of badminton and a trip to the Zoo if there are a

Christmas should be a time of banked-up fines, the scent of flowers and wine, good talk, good memories and loyalties renewed. But if all else is lacking - love will do.

'When the friends are gone, when the party's over We'll still belong to each other'-- Shakira 'Underneath you clothes' You must be thinking I've got a very cheesy taste in music, but well this what I was reminded of when I took the picture last night. Dresden city centre bus stop at 10:30 p.m. The moon! Inside the Centrum Galerie Just fascinated with the tree braving out Fall and managing to get some new leaves out The Lights I saw from far away, the other end actually!

We walked to the city last evening. It's about 4 kms from home but I felt like it. We walked hand in hand through the dark crisp coolness at a leisurely pace. The path to the city is quite dark apart from the occasional street lights and car headlights that zoom pass, we also have to cross a bridge that passes over the railway lines, that bit can get especially windy but last night was mild. You can see the grand structure of the main railway station at a distance as you walk over the bridge. As we approached the city centre I was struck by the sheer brilliance of the light that emanated from there. Here we were walking in the stillness of cold november dusk, slightly introspective and a little glum but the approaching light in a flash changed the tone of the evening. I wasn't feeling cold anymore. It was warmth and happiness and energy that impressed upon me. The closer we got more Christmas decorations came into our view. The shopping malls had been decorated brig

Disclaimer: nothing to do with Federico Fellini or Mastroianni! “ Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love, the you you love, well, that's just fabulous. ” - Carrie Bradshaw- An American Girl in Paris: Part Deux! (Sex and the City) I have never known what I wanted out of life except that I wanted it to be easy. Now that certainly isn't something that happens; easier than others' can happen but never really easy! I always have an answer for the things I do not want to do but it's been quite difficult coming up with a list of all the wants. So I have a question, how

On the week days, when my husband is at work, I find various ways to keep myself pleasantly entertained. I love reading but I seem to to be doing less and less of it because I hate the silence when I am alone, I need some noise so I end up watching interviews and concerts of various kinds on the internet and watch a lot of movies. I find movies very interesting, I like watching all kinds from serious artsy kinds to horror and gore. I watch the good movies as well as the bad ones. I enjoy the expression of this particular medium, very different from novels but equally enjoyable. Unlike books movies attract a larger crowd and reaches out to all sections of the society. They bring to the mass an idea, any idea and can be highly influential. Now this post has nothing to do with a lesson in media studies and society rather it's just about a song I fell in love with called Book of Love. It's probably a very old song but I heard the Peter Gabriel version of it on the soundtrack of th

The heavy downpour blurred the windscreen of her car; she turned up the wiper a notch. Heavy traffic always irritates her but the streets of Calcutta turn dysfunctional every time the sky breaks up, it was no new feat! Through all the maneuvers the car had to come to a standstill. It had been raining all day and it felt like the darkest nights had descended at 3 p.m., the street lights have already been turned on, orange against the dark grey. Although city life comes to an almost standstill with the monsoon rains, people inside their homes secretly enjoy it, people on the streets mutter curses under their breaths but once safely inside they order hot cups of tea and beguni or Khichuri and ilish maach bhaja because it’s the perfect weather for it. The affluent love to sit with their glasses of single malt, read aloud rabindranath or hum raga desh. Maya was unusually lost in her thoughts today, she seemed oblivious of all the honking and chaos around her... Naah... am not good at writ

"In the cookie of life, friends are like chocolate chips" This post is a dedication to all my friends, from the one with who I clapped hands and sang 'oh, miller, caterpillar...' to the one who had to hear out all my headache causing banters. I love you all!! A couple of evenings back I had a chat with Ipsita and I asked her to suggest to me a topic on which I could write a new post as my mind was quite blank. After a couple of them she suggested why not write about the two years that we spent at the hostel during our M.A. degree course. It suddenly struck as a wonderful opportunity to write an ode to friendship and that amazing time of our lives called youth. Now Ipsita completely rejected the term youth but just to clarify my point I would like to digress and say.. persons b/w 15 and 24 are the youth according to United Nations General Assembly therefore next year we all become 'god-knows-whats' as we shall all turn 25, so is this not the best time to recoun

If any of you have ever bothered to go through my blogger profile then you know that the ocean is of interest to me. Sadly, I have not seen one in more than two years, and the one I had been to 2.5 yrs ago wasn't even a real beach trip as I was unwell and couldnt go unskinny dipping! So yeah I am majorly depressed about my very unhappening beach life. I have made a pact with my girlfriends in India that the next time I am there we'll go to Goa minus the men in our lives. I am so excited about it that I have already started searching for good seaside hotels and all. And if you have read my previous post you will know how minute the chances are of this plan working out!! So I have decided even if I don't get company as a last resort I shall take my husband with me and that shouldn't be too bad!

I think I just figured out the creative person, he/she isn't very different from all of us except that they take much more liberties with their speech and their disposition. Then it must be quite simple to be creative, right? I am going to try and be slightly more temperamental, a little more candid, finely rude and very careless, ahem! carefree I mean!

It's been more than a month since I posted anything on my blog, mostly due to something I had to tend to urgently in Calcutta but also because I haven't felt particularly creative. In the last one month I have realized that life hardly ever goes according to a plan, however big or small they are. When I was younger I never had any plans of my own so the only ones that came my way were the ones that the adults around me planned. I was always most interested in being included in my big sister's plans. Anything to do with her were the most exciting. I don't remember much of the things that happened to me below the age of 12 but I remember that I always looked forward to movies or lunch/dinners with my sister and her friends and sometimes with family and if they were made long before they were supposed to happen I would check the calender secretly waiting for the day to arrive; strangest thing is that almost all of those times the plans had gotten cancelled causing me much

Hey everyone I was awarded the "I love your Blog" by dreamer and I am feeling great about it! Do visit her blog and you just might find a piece of your everyday life with a twist of humour! On receiving this you may or may not: Add the logo to your blog Link to the person who passed on the award Nominate blogs of your choice Leave a message on the nominee blogs My choices are: 1. A Bengali girl in the U.S 2. The Revival 3. Looking through my eyes 4. Kodachrome Conversations

Movies and Music are a few of my most loved things... and when movies have great music they can create some truly memorable moments. From the title itself it is easy to guess that this post has some french connection. We are planning a trip to Gay Paris for the New Years and while doing some research on the city I came across the website of a restaurant situated at the Eiffel Tower. The background audio of the website is a letter that Audrey Hepburn writes to her father in the movie Sabrina, while she spends some time at Paris. Immediately I was transported back to the movie whose background score was La Vie En Rose which brought to my mind the movie on Edith Piaf starring Marion Cotillard, which in turn reminded me of another movie of hers called A Good Year also set in France, Provence. I was filled with a warm gushing feeling, a pleasant warmth that one feels at spring time. Our imagination, affected by movies, music and stories we hear can create a completely different place out o

disclaimer: Whoever wants to read this book don't read this post. Spoilers ahead! About a year back I was visiting Delhi for some work at the university and catching up with old friends. At the airport I had bought a book called Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, the name Frank Lloyd Wright catching my attention. Putting up with an old friend in her 'bachelor pad' I had a lot of time to my self while she was at work and I read my book. I had reached up to about half of the book when I left it at her place by mistake while leaving Delhi. I was almost killed of curiosity about how the book had ended but slowly I had forgotten all about it till recently when my friend reminded me of it. I quickly did a google search and realized that the story is in fact quite a real portrayal of Frank Lloyd Wrights love affair with Mamah Borthwick Cheney. I had loved what I had read of the book and I could connect with Mamah's emotional turmoil revolving around her children and lover and how sh

This too is a post from my deleted blog! Sometimes certain songs just get into the head and keeps playing over and over in our minds... it can be highly irritating like the german song I learnt in class and just wouldnt leave my head " man nehme eier aus dem stall....." grrrr.. This other song just covered my heart with a melancholic wrap... the tune has a sadness to it but I wasn't very sure of the lyrics of this song, so after a google search I found out that quite a number of people have put down the lyrics to their blogs. SO why not I? here's the song.. its even more beautiful if you hear it..after all "our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thoughts" Shelley EK Woh Din Bhi The.. Ek Yeh Din Bhi Hain.. Ek Woh Rat Thi.. Ek Yeh Raat Hain... Raat Yeh Bhi Guzar Jayegi!!!!! Raat Yeh Bhi Guzar Jayegi!!!! Koi aata hai palko pe chalta hua Ek aansoo sunhari sa jalta hua Khwab bhuj jayege, rat rah jayegi Rat yeh bhi guzar jayegi Rat yeh bhi guzar jayegi

This is a post from one of my other blogs that I have decided to delete. disclaimer: does not reflect my current mood! Alchemy- january 9th! Very often our minds are filled with thoughts that, in an attempt to shut out, we tumble over. One thought gives way to another and then another... almost always these are factual moments of one's life which have, over-time, become fictionalized in our minds. Therefore, whenever we are looking back in time and trying to remember these moments they are quite far from the realities; these are morphed ideas having some special appeal. In turn these have manifestation of different kinds like nostalgia, compunction, intrigue and chagrin... let me remind you these thoughts (which have rather become more 'imaginations') are far removed from the realities of the bygone times therefore, the manifestations are really the fabrications of the mind. Yet, we have etched them so strongly in our minds that we believe it to be the reality of the pr

Inside the Actors Studio is one of the programs Anirban successfully hooked me to, he failed with Office(british version) but I did start liking Ricky Gervais. So while searching for unwatched episodes of ITAS I staggered upon some clippings of Liza Minnelli. I found them to be very witty and touching, but the greatest part was when she sang. She sand a few songs like "Quiet Love","Dont Smoke in Bed","If you hadn't but you did"and the most romantic of all "As time goes by"... It brings back memories of Casablanca, Ingrid Bergman sitting at Rick's Cafe Americaine pleading to the pianist to play and sing the song for her when Humphrey Bogart walks in! here are the lyrics! You must remember this A kiss is still a kiss A sigh is just a sigh The fundamental things apply As time goes by And when two lovers woo They still say, I love you On this you can rely No matter what the future brings As time goes by Moonlight and love songs Never out of d

This post is about one of the finer things of life and that is wine. Wine, itself, is enigmatic, even to people who don't like drinking much of it. But I am one of them who loves it when it blooms on the taste buds with its myriad flavours, awakening the senses (only good wines do that). As a high school student I wanted to be a wine-taster at Napa Valley, it was triggered off by the new version of the movie the Parent-Trap. The Californian vineyard had singularly held my attention throughout the film. Over a period of time I gathered information on the types of wines and the different countries that make a good one. French wine obviously is numero uno followed by Italian, German, South African, so on and so forth. Although Europeans do not consider american wines to be very good Robert Mondavi surely begs to differ. French red and white grape varieties are certianly the most well known, like chenin blanc, cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay. India has tried replicating these wine v

So I was listening to my Dido collection after a really long time. I love her music and I still don't own her latest album, I know, what kind of a fan am I , right? So this song was playing when I just realized it is just the kind of song that I need to post on my blog. I dont know the people who read my blog but if any one of you is having a relationship issue with a guy who sounds like the one in the song you should really sing it to him! Lol, all the best! here goes: I've driven round in circles for three hours It was bound to happen that I'd end up at your I temporarily forgot there's better days to come I thought that I would give it just one more chance Cos' I want, tonight, what I've been waiting for But I found, tonight, what I'd been warned about You think that you are complicated, deep mystery to all Well it's taken me a while to see, you're not so special All energy no meaning, with a lot of words So paper thin that one real feeling, could

While attending classes of Social Geography of India, in the 3rd sem of my MA degree, I remember our lecturer describing India as a Salad bowl. Now Melting Pot I'd heard but Salad Bowl was a completely different take, meaning that all our individual cultures and beliefs remained in tact while there was still a lot of mixing. I agree with it mostly, because we still do try to differentiate between ourselves and the 'others', Bengalis and Tamils and Gujratis, so on and so forth; yet there is so much of who we are and what we do that are similar. After all this is what makes us Indian. Not getting into the subject of the adoption of 'western' cultural practices, I'll just talk about my experience of being Indian. I am a born and bred Calcuttan (this is from the time when Kolkata was still Calcutta), that is West Bengal in East India, although my ancestors are from East Bengal(now Bangladesh); That is too many identities all at once as I like eating my aloo posto (

Many of us who live outside our motherlands study at universities abroad, mainly the USA and UK, and Germany is also a popular destination for engineers and Mathematicians. Very often than not we need a certificate of knowledge of English Language in the forms of TOEFL or IELTS to pursue education in these countries. I have never given much thought to this procedure as I understand that English is after all the 1st language in US and UK and it is their mother tongue. But recently while searching for programs in German Universities I realized that most courses are taught in German, therefore to study them you need certificate of knowledge of German Language and for the courses taught in English you need a TOEFL or IELTS certification; it suddenly struck me that we (especially Indians)do such injustice to ourselves India is one of the very few countries that has a very strong background of English language knowledge in spite of it not being OUR mother tongue. Some of us actually speak be

It's been a pleasant week the last one.. got over with my A1.1 level of my german course and got a certificate as well, Anirban took me out for dinner in the weekend to a nice South African restaurant "capetown's" and I had a damn good alcohol loaded cocktail that made my evening!! Since my India trip in october I havent had a carefree casual evening out like this one... it was rejuvenating and I have my spirits high again. I have been watching some 1940s and 50s classics and I must say its been a while since simple but interesting movies have been made. This kind of humour, thrills or romance have been missing in almost all the movies of this era. Now every movie must have innumerable number of twists and psychotic behaviours to make a thriller or cheap thrills and baked faces for the horror genres and loads of flimsy clothing, heaving cleavages and salivating "heroes" as Romance! Let me remind you dear directors, that a quiet backdrop and shadow play is sc

I had written a post on Slumdog Millionaire a couple of weeks ago... criticizing the movie and the unnecessary politics behind its hype. I deleted it because I have changed my mind. I still maintain my stand for the fact that dev patel and Anil kapoor were totally worthless in the film! And there were a number of loop holes in the screen play. But over all the movie is interesting and it does touch up on real issues that we tend to get defensive about when the colonial gaze hovers over us (still)... Atleast if this can make the people of India conscious enough to do something, anything about it.. the movie is well worth it! As for Danny Boyle I dont like him still!