The Deep Cut

I have always been severely judged in the way that I talk. "What is that, a colonial hangover?" I've been asked. When I moved from a city in northern India to the eastern part of the country, my first reaction was "Wow! I can't have spoken secrets now. Everyone here speaks Bengali!" - which blew my mind. I suddenly found myself relatable to the kids in the neighborhood. They spoke the same language, confided secrets in similar tongues in to their mother's ears and listened to similar reprimands from their fathers, just like the 10 year-old me. I made friends - who quickly became my closest friends - perhaps because I connected with them more personally, our mother tongue being the common factor here. Soon I developed a childhood crush on this girl who, among other common friends back then, was the only one who spoke Bengali and we used to go out skating in the evenings, hide together for hide'n seek and row together on imaginary lifeb...

(Continued from How to be a Workout Nazi ...) "I also remember a guy during those initial days of gym. He used to go Ryan Gosling from  Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011)  on us in the locker room. Although not fully nude, he would strip down to his bare minimum and do some free-hand exercises that would require lots of bending and twisting. Things, you don't want to see on your first day at gym. So, trust me when I say I braved it out there in those initial period. Trying to gel in, I stripped down myself to those shorts showing some skinny legs, lest they think I was homophobic!" The biweekly weight check and diet counselling was carried out by a professional who sits in an office at the ladies' gym. Not so surprisingly, everyone at the men's gym wants to get their weights checked all the time. After 4 weeks of working out (and two discarded, outgrown t-shirts later), I was asked to get my weight checked at the office. Little did I know, that th...

This will be an extremely personal post, so don't go reading into it too much if you don't particularly like the sorts. Remember I warned you! __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ There are times when you feel utterly hopeless. Like whatever you have done, or are doing, would ultimately amount to nothing. That in the whole seventy plus years you've lived or would perhaps live, and all the work that you've done or would do, they would simply not matter in the end. That you would not matter. Your life wouldn't matter, like so many everyday. Your name wouldn't be remembered. You wouldn't be remembered. That however much you've tried doing things against that, you've ended up achieving nothing. How can anyone live knowing that? Yesterday I went to the market to get some eggs, 'Dada, I'll buy the entire tray. We'll be having guests tonight!' I added, w...

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...

I have come to realize that my parents must've had some really bad confidant during the time I was born. Otherwise why on earth would they give a go ahead for me to be named Arindam at the age of only a couple of days? Do I, or did I ever look like an Arindam? Ughh. Arindam! So I have a problem. And before you say anything that falls along the lines of 'I told you so' please let me clarify. I've come to realize that my name wasn't always what it is now known as, to everyone. At some point of time, my parents had casually listened to some relative and had me   named  Arindam. Ughh. Arindam! What comes to your mind when you think of someone with the name Arindam? What indeed?

I've always believed in a particularly enigmatic method of time-travel. And before you abjure this piece of information raising doubts on it's credibility, I'd put forward another claim. That you'll believe me when I explain. Smell. Indoor smell, to be specific. "Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived." - Helen Keller I've always had an intensified sense of smell. When I was little, I would go about taking everything in with my nose in a dilettantish manner. Little did I know that a long time after that, those scents would come back stalking, haunting and frequenting their way into emotions every unwary moment of reminiscence. I could smell interesting odours, uplifting aromas and soothing fragrances from miles away, but I could never smell trouble that was but only two inches away from my face! My earliest memories of scent is one of the most common memories for all. Its th...

It is that time of year, when the national dress code for guys is a skin-tight shorts, borrowed from the rickshaw-puller's son who lives nearby. On top, you display your manly shaven/unshaven chest out to the world. If unshaven, the chest-hair should be of contrasting bright colours - such as magenta, yellow or sea green - if shaven, then this chain of thought is rendered pointless. The vest that used to be, better known as baniyan (no Noelle, not banyan. That's a tree!), is so deformed that you use it as a belt instead. Your flip-flops are torn but you're unwilling to let them go.. But then all that don't matter, because you're coloured entirely in black, filthy green and silver and it won't be making any difference to an unassuming onlooker, even if you go naked right now. The festival of colours, ladies and gentlemen, is an official license for people to launch a colourful assault on each other. And it always brings back sweet, and some bitter-swee...

I was supposed to write about this account of family escapade, a long time back. But in my defense, I got caught up in the routine. The rushy routine of the last academic semester in the University. But before all that, dad planned another get-away! A road trip to 'Garhpanchkot' - a hilly place covered in forest, with historical ruins and a haunted temple in the middle of tribal haven. All this in one place! Dad had booked rooms at the forest lodge, owned the forest department. Located at the foothills and almost entirely encroached by the surrounding forest, the boundary wall was the only protection we had against elephants, porcupine, quite a few types of monkeys and wild cats. Few years ago, there used to be sloth bears too. The place is located near the Panchet Hill Dam, that comes under DVC. One of the mega-projects that rocketed an independent India to its current 'mildly developed' position in the world. A massive 4.8km long pass over the river Damoda...

Not many of you may still be bathroom singers now. But nearly all of you would have been bathroom dancers as kids. Am I wrong? No, I'm not including you here, Mr. ultra-nerd kid! You were, perhaps, thinking how dense the liquid (called water) is, over your brain, which is actually denser! What all you did in the bathroom, tell me.. as a kid, and an innocent one at that! Like my Mama's son here.. innocent, taking bath in the ultra-huge bathtub! Whenever we went to Jhansi, me and my cousin brother Anshu used to plead my dad to get the thing - I dunno what to call it - the container with the atomizing sprayer coming out of it from one side, used to water the plants - a shower kind, for the veggies. A flower-shower. Veggie-shower. Yes, that. To fill it with water and pour on us. It was a time, when there was no regular water-supply available in the dry, water-starved Bundelkhand region. The city of Jhansi, included. And thus having a shower in the bathroom would ha...

There is a 28-year old orangutan at the Allen Forest Zoo in Kanpur. He was a friend.. When we used to live there, Kanpur was a lesser polluted city perhaps. And the part of town we used to stay in, was a niche in its own.. The area in our backyard was a sprawling forest covering a significant area, and deep within it was a meandering canal named Thandi pulia.. Thandi, for the place was at least 5 degrees cooler than the city itself! And beyond it, on the other end of the woods, were ruins of a hospital for the lepers. I have never been there, but I have heard about it from my mom.. The forest was a measure of quarantine in earlier times of the hospital. Now it stands desolate.. For reasons such as proximity, I was made familiar with considerably-wild animals (if not tigers!) from a very young age.. I would have almost learnt the timely calls of peacocks and other birds and what they meant had I lived there any longer; I was however, familiar with the timely visits made by...

To err is human, but to badly err, is but being a kid! The following incident dates back to the time when I was a lively little kid, full of life and with proper sets of teeth. That was long before growing up sucked the life out of me! This was the time when interviews meant telling your name, talk about your hobbies and maybe tell your parent's name, a couple of 'answer-in-yes-or-no' questions and the rest were to be handled by mum and dad. Back in the year 1996, I was changing my school from a preparatory school to one primary school. And all I had to do was show my face, blabber a bit and pass the interview. 'Don't do anything stupid and you'll pass easy..' consoled my dad before the interview. I had no idea what stupid thing I could do, but I guess wetting the pants could have been an option to ponder upon in that young age, but NOT ME! I was the superman in such trivial occasions. Interview? HA! Piece of cake.. The school in Allahabad, w...

Mothers.. they know how to love you best, know how to care for you best and definitely know how to embarrass you in front of your girly friends best.. 'Look! This was when Deep was just a year old!!' And I'd usually be naked in one of those photos she'd show to them.. My friend Rahul's mother had a ride in an brand new Audi A6.. when she got back, he asked how it was, the ride? And all she could think of, was 'Hm.. the AC was nice!' Then again, Noelle comes to the classes, having this weird expression and would declare, 'My mum's on a shopping spree for herself!' When we'd ask if she's out to buy things for her too, she turns and blurts out 'I'm not sure yet and that seemingly is killing me inside..' Recently my mum had to go on a long distance travel, and not surprisingly, she was absolutely horrified at the aspect of travelling alone without dad nor me.. it's been a while of her being absolutely sovereign, bo...