On a Wednesday like this...
Once again i found myself looking down the hairy armpit of a bald, middle-aged man. it was 9:30 am in the morning and i was on a bus heading towards Ultadanga. Wondrous sights like these can only be seen if you are a privileged citizen whose daily travel to his/her place of work allows you to be a passenger on one of the nearly million small sized private buses that ply around the length and breadth of Kolkata, the city of joy. But it wasn't such a bad day after all. it was the middle of the spring....back home in Durgapur even fierce and bored looking train guards were commenting on the new greenery around..."look, the leaves are still young". and the Sal forests were abloom with the most unbelievable shades of green. The grass was new, the buds were just on the verge of blooming out, the birds were constantly composing brand new sonatas, everyday.
HONK!CRASH! BANG!....SAALA CHUTIYA, DAAN DIK DIYE KAATCHISH AY?? SHAALA BAAR KETE REKHE DEBO....uffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff.!
none the least...i finally collected my voter identity card. i was one year late in doing so. but better late than never. i was pleasantly surprised at the efficiency of the election commission..they took only five minutes to fish it out of the hundreds of cards on the table, and as for myself, i was truly ashamed at my own inefficiency. i also noticed one other thing...that all government buildings in India, especially offices like the municipality, electricity board, corporation...they were mind-bogglingly complicated in their layout...and one is bound to get lost..i.e. if one was not born and brought up in this chaotic subcontinent. we kind of get used to getting lost, the loss of time, the chaos that ensues, then finally finding the right place. they say, no one can ever get lost in Kolkata. Help is right at hand.That is if you are not daft enough to ask the young and youngish traffic policemen for directions. most of the time they have absolutely no idea regarding the crossing they are guarding itself. i know. TWICE bitten, thrice shy.
back home, Nachiketa kaku a.k.a. Achinta-da, who owns and runs a small departmental shop at the corner of the Gammon bridge bus-stop, was surprised to learn that i was in my final year of msc. he told another long-time faithful customer of his who had come to buy two gold-flakes that he had been seeing me since i was two feet in height. "ei etotuku chilo..ekhon msc korchey, ay?". it is truly strange that i don't have any problems in smoking in the presence of my mother, or my sister, or my most respected guruma and talgachkaku, but i can never buy a pack of cigarettes from Nachiketa kaku. Achintada got his nickname from my sister and her friends who used to buy cola at his shop,he used to have a beard that made him look like a popular Bengali singer, Nachiketa.Nachiketa has shaved off his beard now. I know Achintada did after he smashed his chin in a motorcycle accident. his father used to guard the shop those days, and the cola sale had dropped considerably. he looked like a ill-tempered Sarus crane.
Anyways, the air-conditioning is making me get a headache. will write again later. till then, hope we don't start hating Rahman's "Jai Ho !"...now that Pussy-Cat Dolls are coming up with a rap remake and Indian National Congress have bought it as their election campaign song.HONK!CRASH! BANG!....SAALA CHUTIYA, DAAN DIK DIYE KAATCHISH AY?? SHAALA BAAR KETE REKHE DEBO....uffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff.!
none the least...i finally collected my voter identity card. i was one year late in doing so. but better late than never. i was pleasantly surprised at the efficiency of the election commission..they took only five minutes to fish it out of the hundreds of cards on the table, and as for myself, i was truly ashamed at my own inefficiency. i also noticed one other thing...that all government buildings in India, especially offices like the municipality, electricity board, corporation...they were mind-bogglingly complicated in their layout...and one is bound to get lost..i.e. if one was not born and brought up in this chaotic subcontinent. we kind of get used to getting lost, the loss of time, the chaos that ensues, then finally finding the right place. they say, no one can ever get lost in Kolkata. Help is right at hand.That is if you are not daft enough to ask the young and youngish traffic policemen for directions. most of the time they have absolutely no idea regarding the crossing they are guarding itself. i know. TWICE bitten, thrice shy.
back home, Nachiketa kaku a.k.a. Achinta-da, who owns and runs a small departmental shop at the corner of the Gammon bridge bus-stop, was surprised to learn that i was in my final year of msc. he told another long-time faithful customer of his who had come to buy two gold-flakes that he had been seeing me since i was two feet in height. "ei etotuku chilo..ekhon msc korchey, ay?". it is truly strange that i don't have any problems in smoking in the presence of my mother, or my sister, or my most respected guruma and talgachkaku, but i can never buy a pack of cigarettes from Nachiketa kaku. Achintada got his nickname from my sister and her friends who used to buy cola at his shop,he used to have a beard that made him look like a popular Bengali singer, Nachiketa.Nachiketa has shaved off his beard now. I know Achintada did after he smashed his chin in a motorcycle accident. his father used to guard the shop those days, and the cola sale had dropped considerably. he looked like a ill-tempered Sarus crane.
YO-HO-HO-N-A-BOTL-OF-RUM-!!!
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