Resurgence

The Institute: Another Home Dark clouds gathered and decided to show their strength to the sun. As the sky turned dark and wind and rain joined the coalition of clouds, our cab raced through the streets of Calcutta. The sun was overpowered and I and my brother prayed to reach our destination before the rain hits the accelerator button. That was two years ago and I was on my way to join one of the premier institutes in India for my postgraduate studies. I was in awe with everything associated with the institute. At the same time I was a bit nervous and perhaps petrified with the thought of matching the wits of some of the best brains in the country for two years. My brother, on contrary, was happy, excited and perhaps proud of the achievement of his brother. After the drive of about an hour my brother pointed out “Look we have arrived.”. There was a pang within me as I smiled and watched nervously at the board of the institute. As we entered through the gate, the two large lakes on eit...

An illustration of a phase of my life Content: Original Style: Inspired by the style of 'joiedevivre'

On Service Delivery Read the Telegraph Metro (Calcutta Edition) dated 11/02/2009 and you will find a news article in the left bottom corner titled ‘Cops run amok on train’. The article tells an incident of how two drunken cops created nuisance in a train where they harassed fellow passengers, puked and urinated (yikes!!!) on their bags. Women were chased and abused and the associated red tape prolonged this nightmare for the passengers as the GRP men at a mid-station refused to lodge a complaint citing jurisdiction problems (Apparently only Howrah GRP could have done something). The incident shows the ghastly state of affairs in two of the state based service providers: The Indian Railways and Police. I will take a few moments to ponder over the services offered by these two departments. Indian Railways: When I was a kid I felt pride in the fact that we are among the largest rail networks in the world (We still are). As I grew I understood that not everything is hunky-dory with this m...

Matt Harding and other unstructured things Have you seen the video of Matt Harding of ‘where the hell is Matt’ fame? If not then I recommend you to go to the youtube and watch it. I watched it much before (probably at the time when it was first released on youtube. A friend of mine had sent me the link). However I was reminded of it few days back when I saw the Visa ad (Yes the new Visa ad takes the concept from this video). According to the video description this video took 14 months to make and was shot in 42 different countries. In this video ‘Matt’ goes to different parts of world and dances (a very peculiar step. Attention grabbing and perhaps easy to replicate) and then he is joined by the citizens of that place in his dance. The second impact was greater than the first one and hence I am watching the video at least twice a day (I downloaded the video from the youtube for the purpose). I do not know what exactly inspired Matt to make that video but can sense a purpose. Wat...

Arbit Bakar on Republic Day Authorspeak: The ‘Cribbing’ post. However these are some of many issues that crossed my mind today and as the title suggest these are all random (For those who do not know, ‘arbit’ is an expression for ‘random’ in our institution). So if you find the post incoherent do not say that I did not warn you. I was forced out of the deep slumber by the constant ringing of my phone. ‘God damn! Why did I put it on ring mode?’ I asked myself this simple question while moving off from my bed to get to the phone. It was from my friend reminding me of an important work that I had to do in the evening. I checked the time. It was 9:30 am. I had missed the republic day celebration by half an hour. ‘So, no point remaining awake’ I thought as I dozed off again. I woke up exactly an hour later due to the ‘door-banging session’ which only my friends could perform. I can’t blame them though: I use the same against them. ‘What?’ I asked as I opened the door. ‘You missed the Repub...

A Day Yesterday was an eventful day. And no it is not just because the ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ won 10 nominations for the Academy Awards. What will be your reaction when you are woken up by an alarm when you felt that you have hardly slept for an hour? You would most probably switch the alarm off and go back to sleep. I did the same. Only that I know myself better and had a complicated alarm structure in place which was capable enough to wake even the mighty ‘Kumbhakaran’(If you are not sure who he is, please energize the Indian mythology section of your memory). So I woke up at 10 am and I had not slept for an hour, I had slept for 3. I looked at the newspapers at my door which had some news about the Satyam saga (I think Raju would have done a fabulous job had he been a novelist or a scriptwriter) and then I put it to the rack. My laptop was waiting to show me that I had to revise 12 presentations (Not that I remembered the contents of any). And so I started the endeavour to conq...

Films of 2008 Part I: My top 10 Some films listed here may not be of Indian origin/ production but are relevant in Indian context. The ordering is in no particular order. You may rearrange them according to your preferences. A Wednesday: This film vents out the frustration of ‘Common Man’. Pitted against each other the two stalwarts of Indian film Industry, Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher elevated the movie multifold. Jimmy Shergil shined in a brief role. First time director Neeraj Pandey, weaved an interesting tale into an engaging screenplay. The film had its share of flaws but it was able to highlight the message it wanted to deliver. Jodha Akbar: A magnum opus which could have been a classic was reduced to an above average cinematic experience by the dragging and long screenplay. But the movie had its moments. The sheer chemistry between the lead pair made the love story engaging and endearing. The opulent sets and clothes brought the desired period look. A R Rahma...