thaumaturgist

I met her for the first time at Dipankar Basu's tuitions right before the ICSE exams. Hardly did I know we'd end up in the same school for 11th and 12th... and then stranger still I landed up at her place for geography lessons from her mother. She had many cats and a dog at her place. Nandini Mashi would quote Bonolota Sen while stroking the newest kitten Sajani picked up at some street. It would trample over our G.C.Leongs and atlas'. I always looked forward to evenings spent doing a bit of geography and learning much more than that. Today she tagged me in one of her notes on Facebook and I just had to had to had to share this with my handful of readers. Bengalis beware, you might just need a tissue at hand. Here it goes: Kal-Boisakhi

This one is dedicated to Kolkata Knight Riders and Dada. The team having played its last match of the league though did not qualify for the semi-finals they did manage to leave with their heads held high, and I applaud them for it. Also the week saw Tharoor (forced)resign, not a very good thing for Indian politics in my opinion but then we all have to accept the realities of our politics and country. Anyway all the sad news apart, Anirban had to stay back at work for a longer time today due to some disaster management project coming up last minute and I had to fend for myself. Last week A brought home plump red tomatoes which looked gorgeous and I didn't feel like chopping them, left on my own I thought of making Stuffed Tomatoes the indian way, Bharwaan Tamatar in a creamy gravy, this being the first time I am quite proud of the way it has turned out. What you need: 4 Large tomatoes- beheaded and emptied 2 large potatoes- boiled and peeled a handful of mushrooms- chopped fine and/...

I have been MIA for a while, I have no excuses for this really just that I have been watching the IPL and chanting 'go dada go' only to be disappointed almost every time. Yesterday's loss for KKR has me back on blogging again. SO... we now own a new DSLR camera which is my newest plaything, during the Easter weekend we went to this castle and park to do some photography. Here are some of those pics. hope you enjoy.

As children when parents went out we abandoned our propreity. We stopped studying and picked up the TV remote or the telephone. We had the music on full blast, it was party time and had long chats with friends over the phone, quickly hanging up as we sensed the parents coming home; picking up the abandoned text book and pretending to concentrate. Or perhaps quickly switching off the TV and pretending to be in deep slumber. Parents were pretty clever too, they would touch the TV to see if it was warm, evidently it had been running. They wouldn't really scold but all that evasiveness was quite fun. Tonight the husband is not home, but it isn't half as much fun... hmmm whatever!! p.s. ahh just remembered there are a coupla bottles of beer in the fridge--go dig!

I watched An Education today, a period, coming of age, drama which recently had quite an Oscar buzz about it. Set in the 1960s London, it tells the story of a teenage school girl(Jenny) from a conservative background and how she discovers the of essence of life and love. And it makes the viewers look at the theme of education from different perspectives. Pushed by her parents to do well in school so she can be accepted to a college in Oxford University, she meets an older man(David) unexpectedly one day who introduces her to the finer things of life; jazz, cafes, art, music and Paris. Her parents are taken in by David and loosens up in their ways with Jenny. Her grades slowly slip and finally she does not take her school final exams but in stead decides to marry David. One evening on their wat to a restaurant Jenny discovers a shocking truth about David which turns her life upside down. She blames her parents for not stopping her, she says "You are my father again, are you? What w...

The best thing about good movies are that no matter how many times you watch them there's always something new that you had not noticed the previous times. It's like peeling an onion only much more pleasant. This time it's The Bridges of Madison County : Robert and Francesca discuss Yates and a while later Francesca goes and pastes a note on the side of the bridge, I could never read what was written on the note because it fades away to quickly. This time I paused to read it, it had a quote from The Song of Wandering Aengus. Aengus is an Irish Mythic character and "probably a god of love, youth and poetic inspiration" and Robert Kincaid is of Irish descent. I think there was a connection made with that poetry and the story of Kincaid. He is an old man and finally found the woman he has dreamt of all his life, tired of all the wandering a being a "citizen of the world" he wants to settle down with this woman but he can't have her. It's a beautif...

Never in my worst nightmares have I ever imagined writing anything titled "Benimadhab Benimadhab". Bengalis who listen to modern bengali music must have already guessed what this could be about but I have a story to share. Didibhai used to listen to a lot of music, especially the radio back in the late 1990s. So naturally I had to listen to a lot of music she liked. She was the one to introduce me to all kinds of music that I associate my memories with. I never quite liked the bengali songs she would listen to. Anjan Dutta and Suman and Nachiketa, the cult music of the time. I was too young to appreciate it, I never understood what they were singing about. Today I can appreciate them even if they aren't my preferred choice of music and I believe not my didibhai's either. It has been more than a decade since Lopamudra's famous song Benimadhab aired for the first time on FM. Didibhai bought the cassette but I failed to understand why such a funny old-fashioned name ...