In the Name of the Students and the Gains (Pains?)

I did it, yes!!! Last eight months I was able to pull out one after one blog and believe me or not, I surprised myself than anyone else. Generally, Thursday is the D-Day and only once, I failed to post it on time, because I was away and late by a day. Even it is an odd page only, still is not that easy because I hardly have any time for this and often Thursday itself I remember that I yet to find a topic and write it out for the blog which due on that particular day. After editing when I finally post it, I do not bother much about the few mistakes left behind, because I wanted to write a simple memoir with some of my thoughts and not wanted to be literally correct or never tried to step in the shoes of any bards. While writing I always tried my best and remain politically correct, avoid writing a thing which may hurt some one, no I am not going to say that I never hurt by others, I want forgive them and not forget them, because they are my real source of inspiration. Now onwards things will get worse as I am planning another blog, only for my students.

Left alone other students, while talking about my Engineering students certainly request god to save others from them. As per their schedule, they have to appear for two Semesters in a year, May-June is the time for even Semesters and odd one in December. Every time their preparation starts for the said Semester just month before it and keep harassing me (word is too hard? Nope!) such way that last December I was almost verge of breaking down. I told them seriously that ‘This is impossible for me, if you are studying like this then please do not come for next Semester, otherwise I am going to quit’. I was damn serious, but some of my other students given me certain guidelines or rather call it timelines, some said just wait for another four years and then go ahead and retire and some advised me to wait for another three years and so on as per their own needs.

Often have to cross the boundary and that mean putting myself in a grieve situation. Once such occasion, I found myself in hot soup and experienced my worst mental dilemma. In my whole life whenever I appeared for an examination, never sneak peek through other examinees paper, even sometime I may not fully prepared for it. My dearest student RSN, day before going to his practical examination told me ‘Mam, if I need anything then I may call you at 2a.m., keep your cell ON otherwise I have to wake you’. Anyway, he never called on that night neither waked me up but he did a thing that made me nervous. He called me from examination hall and that the moment, which will be very difficult for me to forget. Helping him, it was totally against my principle and at the same time I was feeling pity for him, finally what happened between us let it be a secret between us.

After relaxing a bit in month of December I came up with the idea to write a blog, where I can write down a few things that mostly never go inside their brain. Why not? They really possess a very costly brain, no match to our, see amount of bucks spend on each.

I also coming up with another blog where I will publish a few excerpt from my stories, that will be a fortnightly. Most of my free times will be preoccupy by these things. Also planning to launch an E-magazine with my students and hope in coming months I am getting into it.

!!!So totally bogged down by the blog, frankly not a bad thing to do, enjoying every moment of it!!!

Longed for a power boon?

Yesterday, 20th January was a special day. In Vedic calendar it is month of Magha and yesterday was the 5th day, also known as Vasant Panchami, time for Saraswati puja, considered to be a very auspicious day too. Saraswati puja meant a lot for me during my early days. When we used to study, not for the jobs we studied only because we have to study. Our parents wanted us to study, so we studied and learn a bit during the journey. On those days we were so scared that if we failed to pray Saraswati properly then we might even failed in the examination. Sounds very funny, life was all fun for us.

Goddess Saraswati (Goddess of learning) always having a special place in me. Everybody from musicians to scientists in India pray to her for guidance and knowledge. Even look at the deity itself, it is bit different from others, with very neat and clean looks and always in white. Those who first imagined it really had a great artistic views and imagination. Even today, I cannot totally ignore the goddess Saraswati. Of course, now I am looking beyond of those failing or passing logic.

Frankly speaking, I am not very happy; I think Saraswati was not too kind to me. I do not know if I was expecting too much, because I am not a Kalidasa, sitting and cutting the same branch of a tree. Only tree I ever climbed was my neighbour guava tree that too when I was in Kolkata. How foolish I was why never ever tried the way Kalidasa did; now it is too late. In my next life ( reincarnation - you cannot call it Sach ka Samna, may be Samne ka Samna) I wish to repackaged myself as a super fool as Kalidasa and let me see if I can too manage a boon from my beloved goddess. Past is past, still don’t you think she was bit biased, I mean concerning Kalidasa.

After coming back to Kolkata, this time around once again encountered with various pujas and other religious activities. I was least bothered by all those, difference only in case of Saraswati puja and here I am the one who is little biased. Started the rituals in my office after couple of year I realized that your most prize possession on this day is the priest. They are really one you looked for and wait for the way a soldier’s wife waits years after years for her husband to return from battlefield. If they promised you a date on 8a.m. in the morning then you can expect him by mid afternoon, that also if you are very lucky one. End of third year I stop performing the same. Last five years am doing it at my home. Because still I cannot ignore Saraswati.

Jokes apart, I am thankful to God for whatever I got, I will end with this piece of Saraswati Sholoka -

Yaa Kundendu tushaara haara-dhavalaa / Yaa shubhra-vastra'avritha / Yaa veena-vara-danda-manditakara / Yaa shwetha padma'asana / Yaa brahma'achyutha
shankara prabhritibhir Devai-sadaa Vanditha / Saa Maa Paatu Saraswati Bhagavatee
Nihshesha jaadyaa-pahaa.

!!!In the first place why, I am complaining? I am too writing and feeling great. Even I am better than Kalidasa, I know bit Sanskrit, Ha!! Poor Kalidasa, he had no idea about English, Bengali and Hindi.!!!

Two beautiful words of Sonali Dasgupta Rossellini and A tribute to her son Gil Rossellini

Watching a documentary film is a rare thing for most of us. I can say that accidentally it has happened to me, when I saw ‘Kill Gill Vol-1’ sometime around 2006. It was a documentary of different kind, where filmmaker Gil Rossellini was telling his own story and experiences following a freak bacterial infection in late 2004 that has left him a paraplegic. It was all about his survival story and his fight with the staphylococcus bacteria. It was just awesome and moving. While surfing the net to know more about the documentary and the virus itself, I also came to know about his Indian connection that too was also very interesting one. Last week almost after more than a year of his death I stumbled to Cory O’Conner article ‘Rest in piece’, I was shocked and also surprised that a news buff like me, how missed out the news of his sad demise, then I remember the time Gil Rossellini died I was moving all-around Madhya Pradesh. I just ignored all the 20 newspaper left in front of my doorstep in my absence. Reading Cory O’Conner article, gives me the idea of other quality of the great man. I will pick a drop from Tagore Ocean to pay little tribute to his heavenly soul

Amar mukti alloy alloy ei akashe
Amar mukti dhulay dhulay ghase ghase
Amar mukti sarbajaner maner majheDuhkha-bipad tuchha kara kathin kaje
[My deliverance is in the lighted firmament, in every dust particle and in every grass of the earth. My salvation is in the universal mind and in my exertions defying all dangers and disappointments].

Finding a documentary film in CDs or DVDs is rare thing in India. I like to get hold of other two volumes also. Therefore, I am looking forward to another two of the same series ‘Kill Gill Vol-2’ and ‘Kill Gill Vol-2½ ’.

While paying tribute to an extraordinary son I also like to write a few words about his wonderful mother, most probably now she is living in some other part of the globe. Her dignity in silence is incomparable. Her resume is so outstanding and exceptional one:

- An alumni of Santiniketan, and may be studied in the presence of Tagore himself, the period which was also known as Bengal’s own renaissance. In Santiniketan she was also having some other distinguish alumni too and one of them was Indira Gandhi. Among many other qualities, she was a quality writer herself too.

In my whole life, I never saw anybody carrying a sari as she has done and that too in a land where six yards were alien. Even somebody somewhere described her –In those saris, she used to look likes deity. However, I am writing it only because I was awestruck by her two-word answer to a question asked by someone - Where and how did you acquire such a serene detachment?

Her answer was - I’m Indian.

This is it, what makes me sit up and read it repeatedly, because

!!! No matter wherever I was, I am and I will be, always an Indian, born as one and will die as same.!!!

New is attractive but old is always shining

Another year passed by and standing at the doorstep of this New Year, if I ask myself –
What’s New?
The answer is very simple one – nothing, as I am always working. Frankly speaking, there are no fond memories of New Year that can be share or written, of course, there are few ifs and buts exist in everywhere. I do not believe putting myself under any resolution. If I know that I am wrong then I should stop instantly, why to wait for 364 plus or minus days. After living a much-disciplined life, find there is nothing to prove or nothing left for me, which I can do other way. In future, I will like to do something for the unprivileged children at least what I can do the best, teaching computer and let me see if it is possible or not.

Now these days, I feel New Year belongs to the Mobile operators only, you can see real joy of New Year only on their faces; they really enjoy it more than anybody else does.

Last year around mid November, I was looking back to the year and found it very satisfactory; it was too early to do so, soon after 26/11 happened, those days were some of the worst of my life. Seeing so much blood all over the television screen and a real one, not from reel. Specially at Gate Way of India, the only place of Mumbai that remains unchanged over the year. I always have a very soft corner for Mumbai and cause is well known. This year I waited till the first morning of 2010 before assessing the year 2009 and it was too very satisfactory and most happening for me to getting the courage to write and that too here.

In India, we always celebrate two New Year, one from our own calendar and other from this Georgian calendar. Bengali New Year is more traditional one. When I was a kid used to get few bucks on that occasion, which was very rare and precious too.

Coming to those few exceptions, when I was in Singapore my friends forced me to take a few sip from a glass of champagne on that particular New Year eve, after that they started treating me like a child, as if I was very high. That was my last encounter with something like champagne. One such New Year eve that I spend at Santiniketan was also bit different from other but this one was very different from all others and that too for two very different reasons. The 1999 New Year eve was very different because, Year 2000 problem also known as the Y2K problem or the millennium bug and that time it was not look like a bug rather a monster itself. All over the globe everybody was sure, that all old computer clocks would stop ticking or something like that at 0.00-01/01/2000, but finally computers itself prove everyone wrong and broke my heart as I was thinking for a break. None of the glitches caused major incidents.

On that very New Year eve, it was Friday, I was meeting a friend in Dombivili and it was strict no-no from me for a New Year celebration. No I was not worried for the computer on which I was working, I was very disturb and thinking about the peoples those struck since 24th December 1999, in Khandar Airport in a hijacked Indian airlines plane IC-814. On 31 December 1999, evening they freed all the hostages and were flown back to India on a special plane, huge relive, no there was not a single face which known to me, but it made me sad. Also still feel very sad for the fellow who was stabbed and killed on same voyage, he was just married and gone to Nepal for honeymoon. Just think about the bride?

!!!All new things attracted us instantly, before taking our best foot forward, the last step always a most important one, while falling it may give us a new lease of life.!!!