@Lifeoholic

Condiment of life

You don’t have to be married for 10 years to say huh! and 40 to claim immortality. I think its purely a derivative business. the more you get in to the thick of your relationships, the less you think about sustaining them.

No, this isn’t about raving marriage. Its about unravelling your insides to see how we fit in to someone else’s life. It is not easy, trust me. Not for the man, not for the woman. Don’t intend to bludgeon woman addendum here but they probably end up in the wrong sides of people and end up brushing their own goose against the odds. Not sparing men here though. Just saying whats more explicitly visible to naked eyes.

When I see my parents going through a successful collaboration, I see an advent of notorious DNA amidst my veins. Not to mention the obstacles, people and misunderstandings. But watching them script their lives so beautifully says plenty about the substance in their relationship. More importantly, I wouldn’t otherwise be a part of such a glorious pathway that continues to flourish in an aura of discipline and integrity. It does say that there is more to life than sex, debonaire and subsequent melancholy. Deliciously, it also serves as a tribute to such exemplary human beings they have been and I must insist that this is random outburst of emotions, quite like it.

Coming back, the above does stem from the root I like to roost upon. Chickens might hatch quite in hordes and not seriously produce delinquency but a relationship does have its boundaries closely etched in sensitively broad borders. Easy to contemplate and talk about it but introspection will be a belligerent journey to swallow and digest. Most significantly, chewing long doesn’t help either (just in case few pick this as a conclusive trivia).

Relationships for me are prolonged delights as long as you know when to inject and eject. In scientific measures, they are made of filters and beakers. The more they are reproached and cleansed, the more sublime they become. No clueless magic mantra here, friends.

Will keep coming back to you, till it courageously impresses you to condone and keeps you gullible.

The Viru Days

Cricket before 15 years wasn’t the same. ODI was still the most popular version, opening slots weren’t as dynamic and specialist openers often decided the fate of an elusive encounter. Slam bang approach was not a part of the 21 yard strategy and full throttle test matches were still the bane of the great game. Incidentally, that was the time Virendra Sehwag was lurking around, and quite explosively, I must say. As he hung his boots, very silently, an era has ended. Truly, this time around.

Public memory has always been short, and the administrators of the game have conveniently discarded him as just-another-player treatment to once in a lifetime achiever. We don’t have to unveil a statue but a decent farewell would have accounted for a fitting tribute.

Cricketers like Viru deserve to be celebrated amongst giants of our elite fab. Not for his sluggish average of 35 in ODIs or his near inspiring almost 50-ish in tests. Well, Sehwag is not the batsman with numbers on his side. Neither is he gifted like God nor courageously hard working like Wall, not even precariously talented like Punter or someone as sustainable as Kallis. Yet, Viru has been a hardcore entertainer and a genuine match-winner. If noticed, this continues to remain a niche combination, and not many possess the ability or the flamboyance to destroy the best of bowling attacks with disdain. 15 of his 23 tons in whites are 150+ scores, which is symbolic of his daunting contribution to India’s cricketing success in the last 20 years. Not to mention, a 2 time triple centurion in tests and the lone Indian to achieve the feat amidst stalwarts like Sachin and Dravid, handful of batsman in the contemporary world have this distinction and the numbers might not go past the single figures if I take out Don from the equation. Phew!

Few cricket players belong to a generation, some last longer and very few last forever. Sehwag, quite enormously, belongs to either of them. He always had a mind of his own, and admittedly, his adamant approach led to so many of his downfalls which otherwise could have been converted in to much bigger knocks. But, Viru was never your containment player. He relied on his instincts rather than footwork and the former was backed by impeccable hand-eye coordination. As long as I remember, another player in this extinct clan was Sanath Jayasuriya. Adam Gilchrist was another such destroyer but he was far more tactical than Viru. But for me, no one epitomised the opener’s slot in world cricket better than Viru. And, evidently, he glamourised the position. For India, if Sourav Ganguly bought the charm of a southpaw to the opener’s pantheon, Viru gambled it with his swashbuckling stroke play. And his stamp was so damn fulfilling, enjoyable.

I am not sure how many from Najafgarh will make it big. But, certainly, there will never be another Virender Sehwag. He is too large for someone else to make it big. Faithfully.

Calcutta:Pujo:Dhak:Mishti:Happiness

Calcutta (sorry but I prefer Calcutta..always!) and Pujo (the bengali way) are inseparable and contagious. This is that part of the year when India as a nation is immersed in festivities – names are different, customs are differentiated but commonalities are plenty – sweets, families, people, gatherings, crowded streets, traffic (its human traffic that supersedes the former), time of discounts and plenty of shopping. This is the time of the year when gods, goddesses and people are celebrated, with pomp and glory. For me, Calcutta’s flavour remains a stand out.

Let me be very blatant and poignant here. Calcutta’s Pujo aura is seldom understood unless you belong to the city of joy. For locals, its a celebration of life. From an outsider’s angle, its a gorgeous mess. Well, let me tell you why, sighs!.

Curatively, Calcutta is a featherbed for worshipping ladies (pun intended as the scenario today is quite frivolous) and ‘Maa’ is a given honorific for the elite and alas in what is synonymously known as the cultural capital of India. It does have dimensions but in the context of Durga Pujo, the statement holds large, and with oodles of glory.

The devout begins with Sashti, Sapthami gets you roaring, the madness reaches its zenith on Ashtami and Nabami, and Calcutta waits for yet another year as we bid the goddess a tearful adieu on Dashami. Like life, Calcutta doesn’t believe in goodbyes and the next Pujo is just around the corner.

For me, it’s a unique gulp from the normal Dusshera festival that engulfs rest of India. Honestly, I don’t expect mortals to understand the fervor of Calcutta Pujo. Yes, you need to be a Bangali (yes, it’s not Bengali) and a staunch Calcuttan to digest this crazy euphoria. And remember, this is the time of the year when Calcutta is a chaos of blessing.

One of these insane years, I urge you to plan and be in Calcutta during the festive season. Be it Mumbai’s Ganpati or Tirupati’s Perumal, Calcutta’s Durga Pujo remains India’s most adoring extravaganza.

vintage bits

Coming out of darkness to regain calm is mortal, I braced out of sunshine to visit better borders.

Vision and contemplation were undoubtedly kindled,
Hopes, vicious hopes and much more played tantrums.
Curiously joyous and provocatively desirable, hungry to achieve. More.
Continuos regeneration and demanding minds let go of myself in a quest.

First, then second. First again. No, second. This time, it’s first.
Fiddling priorities, dwindling fortunes, precarious patents.
Unknown landscape, beautiful sights, urban and honed structures.
Likewise features, uniformity in cultures, compassion is contrived but evident.

Challenges galore with delights of a lifetime,
Persistent modes, dentures of a different kind, palatial motives.
Fellows of gorgeous proportions, meandering thoughts, loveable melancholy.
Strength is yourself, rest is an inspiration of undisputed valour.

Travelling met elation, staggering jewels amongst widespread.
Food, grassroots, rainbow, people, snow-laden, long stretches, heaps of roads and tunnels.
Revisit bundles of fantasy, live through filmy stones, stun self with spectacle.
When me became the epitome of precocious audience.

House of dreams live by, continue is the game of thrones.
Dreams dont end, and am a Pheonix of the stone age.
Times turn, we remember, tenaciously survive. Astound but not magnum.
I am in, am back, am enliven, I live.
I am not back, I never left.

As good as it gets

Grand Slams happen every year, champions get crowned, the vanquished gets paranoid before embracing normalcy and the next year is ready to come.
But for one that swears fascinating blend of charisma and top notch performances, a grand slam seldom braces such menace in abundance. That’s Wimbledon for you.

I dont recollect my last outing when I watched a men’s Wimbledon final at the imperious All England Club, thanks to my prophecy of withstanding priorities. Yes, truly, and indeed, I loved Wimbledon since my younger days and could give any statistician a run for his money. Perhaps, I will come back to this a bit later.

Watching Djokovic demolishing Federer today, for me, in a way, is the beginning of a new generation and end of yet another glorious era. I spoke of the same eulogy when Federer ended Sampras’s reign as the numero uno of tennis world, way back in 2001 as a curious yet talented 19 year old chap. World moves on, so does tennis and so inevitably does Wimbledon.
I know Federer did say that he loves the game and will continue but as they say, the strings wont produce the same music and not sure if we will see him in next year’s final. Yet, fingers crossed.

I dont think Federer played terrible tennis, though his 10+ unforced errors and blemished first servers were an indication of the man who wasn’t at his best, your body cannot respond with the same reflexes and vigour after 17 grand slams and 14 years at the top of the world. I just thought Djokovic was brilliant. His madness from the baseline, his accurate and powerful first serves, the passion to dominate the nets and his demeanour of furious collage – I saw all the makings of a future champion. And, sure to stay.
Some of his return of serves were bullet hits breezing past a giant of a player, and couple of passing shots will hit through me till next June. He was a bit ruffled when he lost the second set, I thought Federer fought back like a lion but a player of his stature cannot rest on missed opportunities. And, as anticipated, he came back roaring. In fact, he was never quite in danger of losing his serve and always looked towering enough to break Federer each time he pledged to retain his serve.

Coming back to my obsession with Wimbledon.

I can safely say that I grew up watching players like Sampras and Rafter. Honestly, I still keep saying that there will never be another ‘Pistol’ Pete to shoot the temperatures up. In fact, a notch higher and loved watching Boris Becker (his collaboration with Djokovic is reaping dividends) play. An era of the serve and volley, players like Borg, Lendl, Mcnroe, Becker, Edberg were great exponents of the skilful game. Its a dying art today, but thought the game kind of revived charm with likes of Sampras, Agassi, Rafter, Ivanisevic (probably the wild one of this lot). Still remember Sampras finals with Ivanisevic and Agassi, even Rafter. If one was raw power, the other was precision and grit. Agassi, was a combination of craziness and gloating talent. Such was the enormity of players then, though I admit that have not been following the contemporary quite frivolously as I would have loved to. Reliving them after all these years kind of brings the ‘me’ in me.

This year, gloriously, has been rewarding for the Indian scene in Wimbledon. 3 back to back championship titles in 2 days for Leander and Sania, was thrilled to see the young lad come up trumps in the tussle of Boys. Leander has been our warhorse for years now and his accomplishment is one for those great Indian sporting stories we would like to talk about, often and more. Pleasing sight!

Ironic to say, when I visited Wimbledon couple of months back and was basking in the place reminiscent of some great following of the sport and its history, I was kind of disappointed that we didn’t have much of Indian presence to rave about. I thought India as a nation is boggled with enormous talent and sporting abilities, and this is one place we would like to stamp an authority on. In fact, the lady we got as a guide quickly exclaimed that they would love to see an Indian Champion soon, not sure about hers but my prayers have been answered, would love to visit her again and pay the compliments with due usherness.

In Wimbledon, it only gets greener every year.

around me

day begins with a yawn, ends with probably a bigger one. life packs quite a punch amidst the most popular and common human encore.

usually, I tend to love bright mornings but escapades of our frivolous nature have plans of their own. Quite rightly so and my arrogance to demand freebies from our creative mother seems uncalled for.

sunrise, morning breakfast, work, lunch at work, long days, get back home to a much jovial and caressing life, inside stories, memoirs, the precarious wait for weekends and the dread of monumental Monday’s. Huh!

for me, there’s much more – inside and out. Such gigs take me out of my glutton head chore and place me in a pedestal of palpable passion.

lifeoholic’s

Did you find yours? Let’s do it together ☺️.

Reliving Byomkesh

Calcutta. Cha aar singhada. Country savaged by war, cities torn by partition and hatred. People in clutches of political propaganda and heist, witnessing victims of brutal animosity. Saradindu Bandhapadhyay’s witty and courageous Byomkesh Bakshi.

Well, for me, Byomkesh Bakshi embodies the waters of above. And surprisingly, he hasn’t been an ardent flavor of Cinema, as such. Satyajit Ray’s Chiriakhana, amongst the few, stands out. Ray’s class of realistic horticulture and Mahanayak’s belligerent performance made a cult out of it. Basu Chatterji’s Byomkesh was a television icon and I used to go crazy to see a young, lanky detective solving unusual mysteries with his writer-friend, Ajit Banerjee.
Honestly, I have not watched much of the contemporary Byomkesh. Though, would love to.

Let’s come back to Dibakar Banerjee’s Byomkesh Bakshi.
I must admit, was indeed a tad apprehensive about DBs Byomkesh. Evidently, I hate spoilers of legends. At the pretext of rejuvenating classics, we sometimes, churn shit out of garbage and package it with EFX to poke the audience. Worst, we buy it, eat popcorn and there ends the myriad story.
Thankfully, no fingers burnt.

Its the first episode, wherein Byomkesh encounters crime and his to-be partner, Ajit in a series of embroiled kit. The way Byomkesh is thrown at us is quite reluctant – arrogant but with a piece of an intelligent eye. We hate protruding people in our lives, and Byomkesh kettles himself with youthful bogeys to trade an investigation.
DB is aware of Byomkesh’s preceding reputation, and collages his characters carefully. And, to an extent, he succeeds at will. Couple of sequences with Ajit stood out for his uncanny resolve and respect for his relationships. If you have followed Byomkesh closely, he does remain aloof but treasures his novice helpers – Ajit and later, the oblivious Satyavati. Tales of treason loom large as Byomkesh gets embroiled in a lethal game of conspiracy and power hordes.

Few sequences stood out for sheer gobble mania – Gajanan Sikdar’s death scene, his frequent tabs with Ajit and bullish conversations around his dad’s disappearance, escape through the black cab and subsequent blood splatters in the dentist’s clinic, the roundtable climax with veritable protagonists. Byomkesh’s legend couldn’t have a better start in the tinsel world.

Byomkesh and Calcutta are an inseparable couple. The partition fed city, the usual flair of Calcutta streets, the Sealdah bound tram in Shyambazar, newspapers smirched with the next bombing tales, the morning bath in the water pipes across the streets, the Esplanade signal and the conspicuous hand laden rickshaws.
Brilliantly nostalgic!

Sushant Singh Rajput as Byomkesh is convincingly astute. His partner in crime, Ajit as Anand Tiwari does a neat job. Other notable characters come in small packages and rally around the plot diligently. But Neeraj Kabi as Anukul Guha is astounding. His caveat of emotions, a chameleon like naiveness and staggering screen presence is stamped all over this mystery tale.

Dibakar Banerjee has triggered a fortune, and I want filmmakers to lead the baton ahead.

Plenty.

Yes. Consumed. Period. Inflammable isn’t an attribute, it’s a way of getting burnt.
Hopes. Turmoil. Not over but begun. Ah, just yet.

Travel fascinates me, engulfs life over its normalcy and catapults mortals to a perceived cubicle of succumbing dreams. Yes, am fulfilled. Yes, I dream. Yes, I dare. Yes, started.

Phases co exist, precluding but stoppable. Yells but cannot sustain. We win. Efforts might go beneath but never unnoticed. Not words of wisdom, but conviction of life. Life savers. Rather.

Money sells, relationships don’t. The basis of bestowed values rests upon wealthy bank balances. Not for prosperity but for deterent rodents to feast on economic holes.

That’s, for the people. Former, is self gloated.
Good omen is like waves, comes through stones and rocks to wet us. Quite a welcome air!

Not talking about the heat wave this year, while other linguistics proved much hotter than Sun’s wrath.

Ah! You seem to consider this underrated. Well, just started to blink.

Truly, Rest in Peace..

My nerves shook when I read this story. A life never lived, this is probably one those painful stories which was never told or heard enough. Organically alive but dead as vegetable, a life destroyed by a dastardly act of vengeance. Yet, we continue to live in urban jungle with animals lurking around.

Indeed, jungle it is.

I want this story to reach every corner, and pledge together to stop such acts of vast inhuman proportions.

Please, let’s save our women.

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/aruna-shanbaug-dead-rape-mumbai-hospital-coma-euthanasia/1/438859.html