thaumaturgist

I remember many moons ago, my parents would throw semi formal dinner parties; colleagues and bosses would be invited, there'd be a frenzy in the kitchen preparing multiple course dinners.  A fews days previous to the party there would be discussions about the menu, and the day itself would be marked partly by excitement and partly by panic.  We'd help clean the house, mostly by shoving all the junk under the bed or in the cupboards unreachable to any young children accompanying the adult. Adorned in our best clothes we would spritz on some mom's imported perfumes, ready to greet our guests at the door when the bell rang.  I distinctly remember looking forward to these parties, especially as the prized China would come out of the vitrine, the choicest matching cutlery too,  the "special occasions only" stuff. And there would be a feast. One famous appetizer, a 'go to',  was my mom's Pot kebabs, an Anglicised version of the original turkish keb...

I have arrived late to the party, it is not my usual style, most of the time I am too early, but this one time do forgive me. I (and by extension my husband) started watching Game of Thrones last month, March to be precise. Many factors contributed to my shaking off this inaction regarding the widely watched and wildly loved series, namely: boredom with Netflix, knowing that the series was coming to an end and feeling left out from the frenzy, wanting to know what all the hoopla about Jon Snow was about ... etc. etc. And unlike many of the people I know, we are actually spending the money and watching the show legally on Amazon Prime Video. In the meanwhile, we also started watching another series called Mozart in the Jungle, a story about a whimsical music conductor and the musicians of  the fictional New York Symphony. We were casually watching MITJ in between episodes of GoT to take a break from the intensity of that show, till one day I realised that it was just the other wa...

For some time I have been feeling the presence of time more acutely. I am witnessing my niece and nephew growing up too quickly and my mother growing older. I sense one of those old fashioned alarm clocks running after me ticking away, intimating that time is running out. But what is time running out for? So many unrealised dreams and unfulfilled expectations of oneself and others, buried under mundane life suddenly surface out of some bizarre happening and all of a sudden life seems like a ticking time bomb. It is quite difficult to reconcile the dichotomous mind, when you want to travel the world and go home at the same time, the two so separate yet entangled like lovers. I think most people who look to go to the furthest corners of the world are looking to go home. As I am getting older in a country that's at it's core only different because the people speak a different language from me, I find myself constantly veering towards my mother tongue, Bangla. I find myself cons...

Today  I will not care about the accuracy of my grammar and tenses and my political correctness, today is about my disappointment in mankind. I turn 31 today. It is a birthday filled with sadness, regret, hopelessness, and above all, disappointment. For quite a few months I have been contemplating closing my Facebook account, but the thought of shutting the door on my batch-mates, teachers and acquaintances kept me from taking the step. What had triggered the thought in the first place were the amounts of intolerance and thoughtless comments, pieces of news in form of video and blogs that exemplify inhuman behaviour against women, children, animals.. basically the vulnerable section of the society. I had had enough. Recently, an incident concerning my alma mater, Delhi School of Economics, Department of Geography, was in the news. A student of the final semester propagated some fake news of her having broken the record of the highest scores ever achieved. It's appalling, it...

I have often heard that one should not take anyone for granted. But, it is often the case that we do, especially the ones closest to us. We feel that our loved ones understand us and that they would wait for us to return to them. Such a fate has befallen me and my blogging space. Do not think for a moment that I do not care, I have enquired of it's health and well-being from time to time; I fell into a lazy routine where stopping for a longer conversation was too much work.  I will not lie, I wouldn't say that the thought of severing all ties hadn't occurred to me, but I stopped myself the moment I thought about all the memories I had collected, my myriad states of mind etched onto this space, the thought of losing it all with a click of a button jolted me out of those dark thoughts. I realized that this blog is like my Pensieve.  So, I am back to my virtual witter space, thought I will dust it, remove the cobwebs and gather it up like a baby close to my heart and h...

I came across this questionnaire on a fellow blogger's site  Abantor  & here are my answers. I have tried to answer them as truthfully as of this moment, a different mood and a different situation could warrant a different set of answers... but for now here it is A Questionnaire for the Immodest and Curious - Vladimir Nabokov Name, patronymic, last name:  Deepanjana Majumdar  Pen-name, or a preferred pen-name:   Raka Age and preferred age:  29 and 27 Attitude to marriage:   so far so good Attitude to children:  My attitude to them depends on the parents of the said children Profession and preferred profession:  Professionally being trained to be a geomatics expert (whatever that means) In another life would love to be a writer or involved in performing arts! What century would you like to live in?  Would have loved to live my youth in the 1960’s, seems that the world was much more liberal b...

No, this is not an episode of the Game of Thrones, I am merely stating a fact. As I sit at my dining table looking out the window I can sense the doom and gloom. The sky is a pallid grey, the young trees that had been planted in the winter of 2012 on our street are quivering and shaking before the wind that threatens to cut short their spring, the young man braves the chill with a cup of vending machine coffee in hand, donning the hood of his red jacket as he walks away My late breakfast of blueberry yogurt and müsli now seems inadequate, the heart desires warm pancakes, but I still have some coffee in the thermos left to take the edge off.  Generally, I should not be complaining, it has been pretty mild here till today,  it has rained everyday for the last 2 weeks, yes, but the temperatures had been warm enough. This city gets very little to no snow in winters, but it is not a very inspiring winter. If it is going to get cold, I may as well have some snow, no wait, what ...

There are times when dark clouds loom over one's head and the world seems like a big bad place to be in, one might even wish that it would be all over, the world would come to an end as he/she knows it. There are emotions one can feel that have no name. Moments of great joy and prospect of  something may  transform into feelings of bitter disappointment and hopelessness. Sometimes, when one is too deep into it,there are moments when one can feel trapped and liberated all at once followed by numbness and stillness. Things can sometimes seem to move so fast that it gets hard to breath, and at other times in slow motion when you just want the moment to pass by in stead of dragging on.  Talking about it never translates the gravity of the situation, but it will make one wiser when one hears the words tumbling out of his/her mouth with no restraint, or one can hope to be. Human capacity to feel and over-feel, think and over-think is immense, it is what gives shape to lan...

After a few weeks of non-stop indulgence and gluttony I thought it would be good to start cutting back on all the rich and potentially harmful diet I am so fond of. I had been sifting through a cookbook bought around Christmas after having a version of Lasagna at a friend's place for dinner. She later revealed it was from a book called the complete low-fat cookbook; she is diabetic and this particular lasagna omits the heavy bechamel sauce I don't like, and replaces it with some semolina cooked in milk to coat the top, giving it a structure and texture after the baking. It was after this meal that I took a look at her cookbook and decided it order it on Amazon. Don't be deterred by the Low-fat bit, I have never come across a low-fat cookbook that features such deliciousness. It has a number of Asian recipes, including Indian that appeals to most palates, they are mild and innovative, uses different kinds of proteins and vegetable, and has an entire section on desserts, ...

A couple of days back a friend, who also happens to be my namesake, said that I should write more about drinking. I literally laughed out loud at her suggestion, the reasons being that there really is quite a lot that I can write about alcohol and what goes around it but also because I think I have developed notoriety in relation to alcohol. It's not because I have a drinking problem (I know, everyone with a drinking problem says that) but because I can talk about it freely. I can say "let's meet for a drink" any time of the day not meaning "let's get drunk". I can hold my drink quite well, except the hindi filmy hiccups once in a while and I am usually game- if someone wants to share a pitcher of Guinness I will take it, if someone wants company for a tequila shot, I will do it- what I mean is that I am not finicky. That does not mean that I don't have my preferences- on a normal day I usually prefer a beer, like a lager (pilsner). In a pub at...

The absolutely fascinating period of exams are on. This time at a foreign university (my first), making it slightly more mesmerising. People can rediscover themselves at a time like this, these times can bring with them a revelation. We come to know exactly how much the classes preceding these exams have been meaningful, how much the students paid attention and how effectively the teachers imparted their knowledge. Just like there are two sides to a coin, this situation also has two sides to it, we (the students) think the teachers had been ineffective and they(the professors- they like to call themselves that ridiculously old fashioned way) believe we failed them by not working hard enough or  not being smart enough. I have never been very academic, never been much of anything really, but more about that later... so the idea to get a second master's degree was to give myself some credibility and a kick start to a career I never had. But being back in school makes me question my...

 For a while the weather hadn't been something to write home about, it had been dull and dismal, the cold, damp air doing nothing to one's mood. My booted feet squelched on the wet and muddy leaves gathering on the steps in front of the university building as I walked into my department to attend early morning classes, clinging onto my thermos of coffee, the only source of warmth. This had been going on for almost 3 weeks, the same bleakness in the air when a brief flurry of wind blew away the remaining weak, yellow leave still clinging on to dear life.. But today is what an Autumn day should be like in my mind, clear blue skies, sunshine, sparkling golden leaves and a nip in the air. I have friends who adore rain, who are inspired and rejuvenated by it, but I believe that the damp and constant drizzle that go on for days would  fail to evoke any inspiration even in the most ardent of rain lovers. The monsoons and the torrential rains are very different kinds of rainfal...

Waking up in a strange bed, in an unfamiliar room- sleep last night was elusive, interjected by restlessness.The streets this morning look dull and the sky is a flinty grey. I can hear the pitter patter of constant rain, a drizzle, but never pouring down unabashedly, as if it is waiting eternally for someone's arrival. We drink our coffees, bite into something sweet purely as a complement to the strong, black brew. Ready to go on our exploration, we quietly close the door behind us as we leave the strange dwelling for the day. The drizzle not being a deterrent, I let it lash on my face, I had abandoned my glasses for the much disliked contact lenses so that the water droplets wouldn't come in the way of my eyes and the sights that lie before me.  We are walking down Potter Street, ironic, I think, as it could've been Privet Drive. In the tube we count the number of stations we would need to pass to reach our destination. A little girl beside me is playing around holdi...

I was never one to believe in the phrase "absence makes the heart grow fonder," so I decided it's high time I haul myself to the Blog space before the readers move on to greener pastures.  A lot has happened in the last 4 months as you can well imagine. For starters we have a new addition to our family, the cutest bundle of joy, my itty bitty niece who turns 3 months old in 10 days. I spent the first 2 months of her life by her side trying to convince my sister to give her to me, of course it didn't work so now I feel bereft without her! What I did manage to do is insert a middle name of my choice, a way of enforcing my existence in her life. She is Nandana Malini Mukherjee and she has us all wrapped around her tiny little finger.  Three others who need a mention on my blog are the three kitty boys my sister has, Calvin, Hobbes and Casper, those three own us- they are my sister's crown jewels and bundles of joy. This year was the first time I got to se...

Virginia Woolf once said that a woman must have money and a room of her own to write fiction, I feel it holds true for blogs as well in my case. I particularly need a room with a view, either a snow capped mountain or a rumbling sea full of waves.  The last month and a half had been intensely busy, to say the least, My in laws were visiting us for the first time in out 4 year marriage and it was an event of sorts. The preparations had been going on for weeks for them as well as for us. We had to get the house in order, the guest bedroom tidied up and the refrigerator stocked. The only thing we couldn't get in order was the weather, this year summer has been playing hide and seek so the in laws has to embrace the cold and wet which certainly needed some getting used to. We had certain trips planned for this period and while all this was going on I had my online course on Literary Theories going full swing. Some days I would catch up on the studies while my mother in law coo...

June is supposed to bring with it the joys of Summer, unfortunately it feels like we have been put through a time machine and have landed up a few month ahead into the gloomy and wet coldness of November. The only source of comfort is in the home and the hearth. So, to keep warm I could think of nothing better that cranking up the oven and baking so the house smells warm and sweet and buttery. I ticked one other Nigella Lawson recipe today, the chocolate and walnut brownies. Apart from following the recipe to the tee I did a little temperature tweaking advised to me by my friend cum lil-sis who is a pastry chef. So here's the recipe : 375 g soft unsalted butter 375 g best quality dark chocolate 6 large eggs 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 500 g caster sugar 225 g plain flour 1 teaspoon salt 300 g chopped walnut Instructions: Preheat the oven to 180C / gas mark 4. Line your brownie pan - I think it's worth lining the sides as well as the base. Melt the butter an...

Hey everyone, this is definitely one of those dear diary moments. It is my first blog post from the Blogger application on my mobile, so three cheers to that. Well, the reason for my doing so is because I am on a 'Sex and the City' marathon on my laptop and did not want to open a different window to type this one out and multitasking is the modern equivalent of efficient, right? I have always claimed to be a city girl, as you all know, I have flourishingly managed to stay afloat 5 glorious years of my adulthood in the Indian Capital and I do hail from the former Indian capital but since my move to Dresden I have, slowly and unknowingly, got detached from big cities. Don't get me wrong, half a million inhabitants is not small by any means (in Europe) but when your public transport is rarely 5 mins late, it loses its big city status. Unless you are sweating with worry, looking at your watch every 2 seconds, running across streets in a frenzy to reach your appointment in tim...

It is 11 a.m. on a dark, rainy, cold 'autumn' morning in October. The husband is well on his way to yet another office trip and I have managed to a steal a day from my German-ridden week. Not that it is a first but today feels slightly ceremonious. My breakfast sits on the bedside table- a soft mauve yoghurt bursting with flavour, lightly specked with crushed blueberries, and on the bed I have the latest acquisition of a book that actually is signed by the author herself, a very dear friend. I feel rather guilty for beginning to read it so 'late in the day', but to be honest it is this book that has made me break my spell of inactivity on the blogosphere. It has nothing to do with the book per se although it is the use of adjectives and the detailed descriptions in the book that made me want to describe something as well, something I have been feeling so strongly about the last couple of weeks. Today I am writing about one of the simple joys of life that for some turn ...

Once again I found myself walking the wondrous streets of Paris. As if in a haze, I walked by the grandeur of the buildings and their gorgeous french windows. It seemed to me as though they were longing to be opened by someone coming to smoke the last cigarette in his pack while watching the world go by beneath the wrought iron railings or perhaps yearning to have new lovers murmuring sweet nothings, sharing a coquettish grin with martinis in hand. The french, the say, are arrogant sons of bitches, rude and ridiculously proud and I say why not? They can, after all, put together clothes that look fresh out of the latest Spring collection. They have what it takes to look cool and detached in suits worn in that summer haze while using public transport. They do own the word grandiose and all that the word describes. Unlike my last time , there were no festivities in the air, people were going about doing their usual business. As opposed to the chilling cold of the last time, this time it f...

Intelligent Conversation- Something that is very close to my heart; something if you are only able to have once in the entire year you can consider yourself lucky, very lucky; something that is as rare as hen's teeth. You know why? Because the art of conversation is lost, because we don't converse anymore- we are too bloody busy to have a chat. But, if I were to have an intelligent conversation, I would have all the ingredients ready at hand only to realize that I don't have the oven. Okay agreed, very bad metaphor-- but I mean the 'conversationalist', your partner in crime, your adversary, your best friend and your worst enemy all at once. These days I only dare to bask in conversational glory through books that use the literary means of irony, sarcasm, hyperbole, rhetorical questions, jocularity and double entendre. It is best achieved with the intelligent reactions of the listener. It is fun, invigorating and discursive. It is what keeps human beings alive, it is...