The Deep Cut

Last few weeks have been such a whirlwind that I've been all like Whaaa-?! Okay, so I really dunno and I'm also kind of clueless about what to fill you guys in with.. except.. that suddenly one day I decided to pack up my things back in Kolkata, and shove everything to the back of that giant thing they call an aeroplane (and hop in to like 4 of them - connecting flights) to travel halfway around the globe to this place named Tallahassee, in Florida. Unlike back home in India, where a state-capital city is like a big bustling, marginally chaotic city (usually the biggest in the state), the quiet and slow college-town of Tallahassee is the state capital of Florida. Not Miami, as you'd have  perhaps   thought. Don't worry, same mistake was made there! Nothing could've prepared me for that REALLY LONG journey than perhaps the craziness of American college football (which you get only here, so there goes that plan)! It was something like this: Kolkata to Delhi (2:3...

Everytime I go to the northern parts of the city of Calcutta, I feel like I have gone back in time on a time machine. Not that I go much. Had I known that I just had to wait for the budding art enthusiastic friend to come back home from her grad studies in New Jersey in order to be rediscovering some forgotten history of my own city, I would have had something to look forward to in the summer! The northern part of Kolkata, oops.. sorry.. of Calcutta, is that old part of the city where people from south seldom visit. Many among the youngsters today, do not know that this city was once called the 'City of Palaces' (now used, rather in reference to Mexico city) - you can see for yourself the dilapidated palaces and their decaying columns from Victorian times on your way to the Howrah station. But you've got to visit North Kolkata in order to truly establish this expression. Just a few steps north from the M.G. Road metro station, further away from the Calcutta ...

All my train travels being interesting, I decided to do the extreme this time. Its a screaming 42 degree celsius in Kolkata, and I decided to travel to Bangalore on a sleeper class ticket on the Indian Railways. Yes, I was the original inspiration behind movies like 'Bheja Fry' . The only sane logic in all this was that wherever I would go, the temperature could only dip. I stuffed my rucksack with everything I did not need and a handful of things that I absolutely required. Then I latched a dozen water-bottles to my hand before I embarked on the journey. Immediately, I made acquaintance with an uncle, who asked me what I do. Making no sense of telling him that 'Dear uncle, I am a jobless globetrotter currently, and still so for another 3 months' , I fast-forwarded my story to a couple of months later and told him that I'm pursuing doctoral studies in the field of cell cycle and cancer. He jumped off his seat and introduced his unmarried daughter to me. ...

Last time I wrote a blog post on visiting the capital , I ended it up with the epilogue that I will get back to you about the rest of the trip.  The part which took me on a wild-goose chase of discovering the elusive  'Indianness'  in it's history and places, brought me back to a larger realization that the thing I was looking for was only to be found in it's people . By the way, did you guys catch 2 States in the movie hall yet? The main character - Krissh - seemed to be living in the Hauz Khas area - the one place I described very well in the first part of this two-post travel series. Also, finally I'm glad that Bollywood cleared the air about the people living in Tamil Nadu after the image they usually portrayed of them in movies like Singham and Chennai Express! All the locations in this movie were either my favourite or the most memorable of all places I've ever lived in! Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai.. aah nostalgia! This movie was already written i...

While I had gone into a self-inflicted exile from blogging and major online activities in the past one month, I was roaming around the north-central parts of India. My journey started at New Delhi - the very seat of governance and strategic urbanization - and went on to rediscover the earthy Indian-ness in the obscure towns and villages of Uttar and Madhya Pradesh subsequently. Barely an hour after stepping down onto the capital city of the country, I could at least tick off one thing from the to-do list that I made prior to landing - a midnight 150 kmph bike ride with my cousin brother tearing into the ice-cold air, racing down the highway with heavy rain chasing our butts! While I was primarily engaged to the India Today Conclave commitment, I made some time to catch up with old friends living in the city. My childhood friend Tanushree took me for shopping at the Dilli Haat and the nouveau-riche locality of the Hauz Khas village. I returned the favour by treating ...

Second day in the new neighborhood, and my mum and dad still don't think it's safe for me to be let out on my own. Pity. Maybe I would just have to keep chewing my little teddy the whole day long. He's in tatters anyway. Day before yesterday, before I went into a chemically-induced semi-hibernation, I was offered the sweetest biscuit I've ever tasted. I should've known something shifty was going on then as I immediately dozed off past that. I remember being carried by unknown people inside a cagey box. There was a moment when I panicked but then I saw dad's face. He had been there the whole time, giving careful instructions to the men who were carrying me and I knew whatever was being done was, maybe, necessary. But I didn't know we were shifting to a new house! In an entirely new place! From what I've seen since yesterday, I now have a large garden to roam around. I can now be a little more carefree about hitting things with a single wag of my...