The Deep Cut

So the greatest show on earth is over. The timing of this post is to make sure that you don't herald the ongoing Indian Premier League or the IPL as the greatest show on earth, even by mistake! And no, I'm not referring to the wedding reception of the octogenarian Congress leader ND Tiwari either. This year was, in no doubt, the most 'fun' and 'crazy' election India ever had. There were ample amount of drama this year with crazy gambles (we had a brand new party in AAP), a nerve-wracking climax (the 49 days of ruling Delhi) and some titular characters - a seasoned villain, a working class hero, a sidekick with presumably no allegiances and lots of comic relief. Made for Bollywood, requiring no further script-writing whatsoever. Mr. Prakash Jha, you listening? Oh sorry, the socio-political filmmaker turned JDU candidate from the West Champaran Lok Sabha constituency of Bihar must be feeling a whole lot down having lost his chances this election. But it is only

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

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?

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 her at the Ami

I have always tried to keep myself aware of the world around me. Take a peek into my life, and you'll find me spending quite a lot of my time on all kinds of news feed on my HTC device. Apart from science, I take interest in politics, sports, current affairs - national and international - literature, entertainment and in so many other fields. So when everyone I met in New Delhi asked me what I do, I found myself disappointing them again and again. "How does a PhD in Molecular Biology aspirant find his way to the 13th India Today Conclave?" They couldn't believe me further when I told them of my invitation as the official blogger for the event. Take a careful note, ladies and gentlemen. Take a careful note of the kind of social apathy a gap-toothed, bespectacled science student has to face everyday in his life!

Ever since the arrival of two new neighbours, return of an exiled habit, proof of lives in the 6 rooms that face my balcony and a family of sparrows to nest under our air conditioning system, life in my neighbourhood has been different, to say the least. Freud will tell you that people tend to resist change. That they'll almost always react badly to it. But by a twist of natural law, my neighbourhood seems to have welcomed it. There is harmony, cohesion, gossip at the local 'jagrata' club and random acts of rather unusual behavior seem to have made a comeback with a reinvigorated sense of purpose. All this in a matter of months.  Mum says this is normal for our neighbourhood. And that all I needed   to realize this,  was to spend just a little more time at home. I'm guessing she's right! Like always. After fighting a legal battle for ages, the ownership of the land lying right in front of my house was awarded to the local college for women. They were supp

I have come to realize that I belong to that unfortunate category of people who cannot get any of their official work done without a couple of hiccups. The last time it was the passport office, about which I have written earlier , this time it was the Public Vehicles Department office at Kolkata. While I know how to drive a four wheeler, I have not yet procured a licence to drive on Indian roads legally. So I restricted myself to drive on lanes instead, trying to avoid hitting anybody on the road. Only once did I brought someone's door down to it's knees (so what, no one was hurt... and it was a long time ago). Being a nomadic soul (because it sounds so awesome instead of 'transfer ho gaya' ), I have never really been in one particular place for long, and so I never realized the need to get a licence there. But now I do. I need to get it done as soon as possible, as I have some spare time now and prospective reasons, such as road trips and weekend escapades!

Blame it on Benaras, if I get even wee bit spiritual and lest my thoughts wander like a Bohemian  septuagenarian,  high on marijuana. The dimly lit ghats, the serene flow of the river Ganga, the calls of 'har-har Mahadev' throughout the city, the high and mighty cows and their cow-dungs and the foreigners smoking pot here, there and everywhere make Varanasi, the most vibrant and timeless city of India.  I also heard a man burp and follow it up with  'Jai Sri Ram!'.  A city, as old as history itself, Varanasi is witness to the migration of and subsequent settlement of Aryans in India. A city, that is regarded as the holiest of all the cities in the world. A city, where if you die, you qualify for all the shortcuts that take you to the heavens. And that, was the most ancient form of reservation, ladies and gentlemen. People who die in Varanasi get the first 10 seats on the Airbus, for a direct trip to heaven (wherein they'll be roasted and fried in boiling

Its only natural, given the current state of affairs, that I promise to finish writing this post before ushering this New Year in and watch myself fail miserably. For  the delay , I beg your pardon and show the middle finger to the judgmental ones among you all the same. Christmas is long over and a change is in the air. Scientifically speaking, the day is getting longer than the night, which is a bad thing to happen to people like me! No, I'm not an Orc. Just an insomniac blogger with a self-proclamatory good taste in music. Well, where am I going with this anyway? Oh yes, change. The whole second half of last year was about welcoming 'change' and adapting to it. Lets start with a change in the playlist, shall we? 'Daughters' by John Mayer, now!

Its about time I get on with compiling this year's list of the 'Naughty and Nice', shouldn't I? Sit back, relax and get a box of tissue, just in case! Put in the music player, that mix-tape you made for that girl you knew, a long time ago. Oh but then you did't keep it anymore, thinking you'd move on.. so let me suggest a song instead. Its Christmas. So I'll only be adding to that yuletide mood.  'Oh Come All Ye Faithful' in the baritone voice of Johnny Cash sounds like a good one to start on. I had spent my New Year's Eve on train (celebrating the last day of the year without much celebration has thus become a habit) from Kolkata to Mumbai. The next six month would pass among people I had only just met, and them being amazing, was a welcome surprise. I indulged in the first bit of serious research work (something I'm going to ignore for your sake) there at IIT Bombay, and loved the flexibility in the timings I work to accomplish my

It was a long time ago when Kolkata was called Calcutta and Ballygunge was, well.. the posh neighbourhood as it still is. Being a posh neighbourhood, it used to be ridden with lazy police sergeants in the deserted afternoons, strolling occaisonally in the neighbourhood for the sake of security. This is a story of one such ambitious and veteran police sergeant and his crossing ways with my distantly related grandpa. There Will Be Blood. ... On his way to the office, like everyday, he takes his son to the Ballygunge High School. All his son's classes being in the day shift, it is almost noon by the time his classes start and he has his daily cigarette at the makeshift paan shop at the corner of the street. As an old habit, he would then laze around on the promenade till he finishes his smoke. Few walks down the street, there is an alley where seemingly the entire dirt of the city is dumped and people pee on the very sign that says "Do Not Urinate On The Wall&qu

With his retirement, it almost feels as if our favorite childhood memories are being yanked away from us. The fact doesn't sink in yet, even though we witnessed the God of cricket getting emotional yesterday. As he has always been in his career that lasted almost a quarter of a century, Sachin Tendulkar was honest and moving even in his farewell address . Just two months past my birth, Sachin Tendulkar made his debut in international cricket. So in a way, I'm one of those blessed millions who grew up watching his cricket. I wasn't too conscious to notice the number of matches that took him to score his first century, but I do remember the times thereafter when they had become a habit. It is hard to comprehend without tears in my eyes that he won't be playing for India - for it's people, for us - no more. For me, it is like one of the few remaining connections to our childhood is being forcefully withdrawn. Withdrawn into the annals of the history books. Immort

Director's Cut MK Raghavendra HarperCollins 320 Pages | Rs. 399 To be honest, however great a cinephile that I claim to be, I have read very few books or essays on cinema in India before now. Admittedly, I would consider the online reviews of popular film critics, such as Anupama Chopra and Rajeev Masand, before planning a movie outing with friends and family. But lately, not always would their views cohere with mine. It is at this juncture that I come across M.K. Raghavendra's Director's Cut - 50 Major Filmmakers of the Modern Era, published by the  HarperCollins. The author is well known among Indian film critics, and is known primarily for his scholarship and expertise. In this book, he handpicks fifty of the most revered film directors of the post-1960s world cinema and attempts to study their craft from different point of views. Political implications, social realism and even the director's mental attitude towards his work, among many. The author s

I have traversed the seven continents and have crossed seven seas to find the truth behind why most of the perfect women in Kolkata date almost all the wrong kind of men in this city. Why the smart and beautiful Bengali girls are going out with the slimy haired, cigarette smoking, sling-bag flaunting 'Ekta chumu dao na, shonamuni?'-waale Bengali boys. And as you would have it, I have emerged enlightened in this quest. All I needed was to travel by a mini-bus from the archaic Howrah station to the upscale Park Street on a rainy Wednesday afternoon. After seeing off my uncle, aunt and my cutest, youngest cousin at the Howrah station, I got on the relatively empty bus and found myself a place in the second last seating by the window. Before the bus could find a way out through the routinely heavy traffic that follows once you get on the Howrah bridge, I found the entire bus filled. Including of course, the seat behind me, where sat a relatively young man in his early twenti

In a city where everyone is capitalizing on the moolah that the IT sector seems to provide, is it but wrong on the part of an auto-wallah of Bangalore to pounce upon the opportunities laid before him?  It is the city that doesn't allow the newly-paids to make a profit. Every friend who got placed, be it in IT companies or in chemical companies, is declaring himself broke by the end of every month. 'Khoon choos le, tu mera Khoon choos le' - perks of living in the newest metropolitan, I suppose? In the middle finger that comprises wholesome expenditures in Bangalore, the auto-wallahs of the city pose as the diamond-studded wedding ring. Non-existent are those who have traveled in an auto in Bangalore, hassle-free. '20 rupees extra!' - no, this universal expression doesn't come with a question mark or with a pleading, requested tone. Its an offer you just cannot refuse. And now the auto-wallahs of Bangalore seem to have taken lessons from their Chennai cou

It was a Saturday. It was a lazy afternoon. And to top it all, it required for me to travel an hour on the Mumbai local train to reach the venue. But still I went for the 'Mumbai For Women' blogger's meet, organized by The Times of India and Indiblogger . This wasn't to be the first time I'd be part of something that would rather require the involvement of women. Like the entire nation, I too, was awakened by the sheer effrontery of the Nirbhaya gang-rape case in the capital. The unprovoked and dastardly attack brought me to a face-off with how uncivilized our society has ultimately turned out to be. That how every essence of safety that we've carefully put up for ourselves, has been rendered senseless. Why is the progressive Indian society passively accepting this situation, for the last decade? Like a fellow blogger pointed out, unfortunately we're all here at this point of confrontation because of the use of a rusted, L-shaped, metallic wheel ja

Oh Bombay! As I otherwise immerse myself completely for the cause of foul-smelling genetically modified organisms in the lab, there are only the sudden, last minute get-away plans that have been my saving grace for quite sometime now. And my saviour is one of my junior-school friends, who is now working for Fractal Analytics . Posted in Mumbai, he resides just a few kilometers further on the JVLR, making it easy for me to make quick escapes from the lab. This Saturday, with the plausible excuse being meeting a third friend, I skip my preconceived afternoon catnap to gear up for another night out with the guys. After lazily browsing for the bus routes for half an hour on Google Navigation, I called a cab-service, only to take an auto-rickshaw finally. The auto-man, for some very odd reason, immediately asked me if I had a girlfriend. (I can't possibly be that handsome now, can I?!) Sensing weirdness, I cut my route short and forcefully asked him to drop me at the IIT  main