Christmas Eve 2013.. Before everything became topsy turvy

Just back from a brilliantly lit dazzling Park Street.. the decorations are mostly tasteful and lovable.. specly loved the huge Christmas Tree outside Allen Park, the smaller ones at the gate and the HUGE SANTA inside.. Thanks to Robi O Nobin, Soumitra Roy, and Irene Sarkar for a wonderful Christmas Eve..an open-air musical evening with the first chill to be felt.. the power, range and rustic nature of Soumitra-da's voice is unique and dear Irene, love you as always..it was your program the drew me to Park Street on X-Mas Eve after quite some time..the only sourness of the evening is an absent-minded boo boo made by me.. and oh! how I repent not taking the camera today again with me.. this year's Park Street decorations and that of Allen Park are special.. I never knew before today that the Dept of Tourism of WB GOVT has been arranging a Kolkata Christmas Festival since last year..this year it got inaugurated on Dec 20th.. Park Street is throbbing with red caps, reindeer horns and festive spirit..

A bed

A bed is much more than a bed to children.. came across beautiful rhymes by Sylvia Plath accompanied by lovely illustrations by Quentin Blake .. the sketches and the rhymes remind me of our childhood days Ranabir Ray,Supratik Majumdar when we used to imagine that the bed was the train on which we three adventurous hunters were traveling and fighting villains who always ended up "killing" Pikludada who would ask me to shut his eyelids just as he had seen in films..tongue emoticon .. Children always imagine the bed to be their kingdom, I guess .. at least that is what I have fathomed from my experiences with Boju, Betu, Kuhu, and Tiplu.

http://www.brainpickings.org/…/the-bed-book-sylvia-plath-q…/

The poetry of days and nights

Had the fortune of catching this movie on television last week.. A unique and curious film.. Why I call it "curious" can be explained only when you watch it... Never knew until today that it had got two National Awards.. the lean, petite, young Madhabi Mukherjee with her superlative acting talents mesmerize in this film, just as she does in Baaishe Shrabon and Charulata (but to much greater depths here) .. She deserved and won the National Award for Best Actress for her performance here and the film had won the National Film Award for Second Best Feature Film ..After reading the archives I know why "Mastermoshai" looked so familiar.. He was none other than Kanu Banerjee of Pather Pachali (Harihar) fame.. Anjana Bhowmik (named Ananda) and Basanta Chowdhury also keep haunting.. Thanks to the movie channel for gifting me a film I never knew existed..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dibratrir_Kabya

Load Shedding

When genes meet good filmmaking, a touching movie like "Load Shedding" gets made! Meghla Dasgupta, daughter of Bidipta Chakraborty, niece ofSudiptaa Chakraborty, and granddaughter of Biplabketan Chakraborty acted as if she has been acting since ages.. such composure and confidence is rarely seen in a first appearance... Riddhi is as natural as ever, he acted too well when Tiklu lost his eyesight.. Nitpicking if I must, I would rather prefer the non-shaved look of a school boy and he seemed to be too big to be learning tenses tongue emoticon but maybe that was shown to portray his weak base.. The songs are beautiful.. both beautifully written and sung.. The girl who played Tiklu's little sister is an amazing actress as well! Having watched Pendulum, I guessSoukarya Ghosal has a soft spot for blindness.. All in all, it is a beautiful movie that brought back memories of our loadshedding days and the romance associated with our teenage .. and the story was so touching that it kept me awake for a while when I was trying to fall asleep. heart emoticon A big Thumbs Up to Soukarya Ghosal, Bidipta Chakraborty, and the entire brilliant team!♥
Koishorer prothom prem e poRa ba prothom premik-er chhnoya aar load shedding abicchedyo.. aaro aaro anek kichhu, ei muhurte sab theke beshi mone porchhe Baba aar Mago-r sathe kaaTano samayer kotha.. load shedding na holey toh sabaai khub byasto!

Another chance to re-live the load-shedding evenings that meant storytelling, Antakshari, Memory Game, precious time with Baba, and later on mellow thoughts of teenage years..

Dutta Vs Dutta

I have never thought much of Anjan Dutt-the film director.. hence, today I started watching Dutt V/S Dutt with very low expectations.. the moment the movie ended, the spontaneous reaction that sprung out of me was "Lovely!".. I am no one to remark whether it is one of the best autobiographical movies in Bangla or whether it is one of the best films I have ever watched on a father-son relationship.. however, the manner in which the Naxalbari movement-period, the 70-s, that old Calcutta, the north Calcutta ambience have been created deserve nothing but tons of accolades... Each character has been portrayed excellently, a special mention must go to Anjan Dutt himself, who plays his father here, the young boy named Ranodeep (playing Anjan here) who wins hearts with his natural performance, Srijit Mukherji, Shankar Chakraborty and Kaushik Sen. What a lovely actor Srijit is! I have never seen a performance where he seems to be "acting". The others like DIpankar Dutta, Manasi SInha, and Rita Koiral also do perfect justice to the roles.. No matter how much I write about the movie, I will not be able to express how though-provoking, intriguing, and enjoyable I found it.. It will remain with me as the best ever Anjan Dutt film I have watched.. What an environment and background to grow up in.. such stories and sub-plots plugged in every corner of life.. Nothing can make such good fiction as life itself! The moment when my heart skipped a beat was when Rano tried to catch his unwell father's gaze and interest, while announcing the news of Mrinal Sen selecting him for a movie, in the same manner as my brother and I do with our dad. I will remember Anjan Dutt-the director for this one film alone. I hope many will agree. Looking forward to see many wonderful performances from Ranodeep Bose in future, and from Neel as well! Feeling so happy for Senior Dutt getting to know that he was able to do what he wanted as a child.. his leaving St. Paul's did not matter.. He found his film in this city, the city of joy ..

BhaiPhonta 2015

A very strange BhaiphnoTa Day.. I guess, as we will grow older and older, we will lose people closely associated with each of our festivals and hence the festivals will lose color and glitter.. and we will have to decipher new meanings of festivals and functions..

I am glad that I was a witness to and integral part of Baba's last BhaiphnoTa.. memories that would remain etched in my mind.. my oblivious Baba, quiet, but realizing everything.. loving the fish fry and biriyani made by his dear sister.. and eating every bit of those .. all those meticulous arrangements made by my Pisi's amazing daughter-in-law.. a day that I will never ever forget.. I can feed you Biriyani for hours Baba, no matter, how slowly you chew and swallow.. I just need to get the chance again..

Puja with Baba Everywhere

So.. Finally, I step out of home on the very last day of Durga Puja 2015 around 12-15 pm.. long after even Dashami had gotten over.. Although, my agenda was to pay a visit to Hindustan Mart for buying ABhushan's essentials, I found myself dragged to Singhi Park and then to the evergreen EkDalia..

As a child, I learnt that pandal-hopping began from Ekdalia Evergreen.. that is where Baba took us to on Saptami morning, each year, without fail.. The first stop would always be EKdalia Evergreen..

Last year, on the day of Panchami, I went to my bank at Ekdalia and paid a visit to the pandal.. Looking at the idol, I realized that in my 38 years I, for the first time, was visiting Ekdalia without Baba (even if I visited the puja with friends, there had to be one visit to ekdalia with Baba).. I had a strange ache in my heart as Baba was in no state to visit pandals at that time.. Nothing could ever stop him from visiting a few Pujas like Ekdalia.. In 2010, when Ma had her angina attack and had to be hospitalized on ShoshThi, my ever-positive, ever-enthusiastic Baba made it a point to visit Ekdalia with us on our way back from Belle Vue..

Today, as I entered the Ekdalia pandal and looked at Ma Durga, I felt a certain numbness.. I remembered that last year I had prayed for Baba's recovery so that we could return with him this year.. The Goddess did not answer my prayers, as usual, and I, after giving Her a cold shoulder for the most of the Puja, finally gave in and visited Her today without Baba anywhere in this world..

Hindustan Mart was closed and it turned out to be a long walk around gariahat and golpark, some pandal-hopping, some clicking of photographs, and some shopping.. nursing the void, battling the void, and then realizing what Jethu wrote to me the other day.. I have Baba and Baba has me.. we are never to be separated..