Brun Muskaa - Kheema Ghotala - Caramel custard !!!

Its 3am Nov 19^th’07….I’ve had a 14 hr shoot schedule of a corporate film for a leading multinational wherein I had to play an International soccer trainer….my entire body is aching /painfully moaning / givin a feel of an all over cramp….feelin terribly dead and worn out….still I’m kinda charged up with the stories that hav been piling up, a few sips of my fav baileys…a cosy corner on my 11^th flr bedroom window sil…a slight nip in the air….nice soft piano conversation music doin the mood aptly….i cannot not write in this kinda atmosphere……so here u go readers…..

October 22nd..2007....I am the owner of this laptop...a dream i had dreamt years back...frm that day onwards, every slick laptop i'd see, i'd wanna own that...

Durga Puja this time was an experience i have been missing for the last 5 yrs...it was such a trip

down the nostalgia lane...the air….the pulse of the ppl….the laughter …the magic smell in the air…of festivities….of new clothes…shoes….fragrances of varied brands..of different indivisuals….a new tomorrow….new minds (seemingly washed with an air mixed with gallons of Budweiser )...innocent smiles of people with all the limited resources they ever had..being joyous n satisfied abt it and thanking Maa Durga for whatever has been bestowed as blessings…got the opportunity to hook up with quite few of my school friends with whom I happened to take a walk down our common memory lane…the locality of our school…puja at durga bari…Sari clad women during puja…..the right mix of purity n oomph….setting the temp at the optimum level…..the aura of existence around…everything was so gripping that it almost felt like a film being played on a huge live screen…whatever be it, it felt so right so “right here, right now”…

Back to Bombay..on 28^th…in the same rat race..all over again, the same anxieties / uncertainities / question marks…

"Hey, hows life ?"…a simple question that I , as a matter of fact, every human being keep bumping into frm every direction possible….friend….relatives….elders…close ones…distant ones…acquaintances…strangers….assholes….the list goes on….i’ve personally felt that I’ve been able to give the most honest reply of this question, to only the stranger….with whom I don’t need any kinda mask that I’d probably need with someone ne I know at some /any level….fabrication comes by default the moment I have to share any information with someone with familiarity…quite sad…on that pretext, I wish sometimes, if the world was full of strangers who wudnt have any familiarity with each other..…so as to avoid pretence of all magnitudes / form / fabrication….

I’m kinda mind fucked at the moment….its a 360 degree perspective….

Professionally, inspite of all the great possibilities that ppl think I am about to bump onto ( and even I believe in them quite strongly ), can I really go out there and announce to maa that I am ready for marriage ? I don’t think so….there s still a huge question mark on my so-called future figuritatively…on whether I’d be able to save at least 10 lakhs next year or no…not sure..something that any ordinary father of a daughter would worry about….i cant possibly help them understand that theres a bright tomorrow that I can offer to any woman who agree to share a life with me… I cant possibly make them explain in real terms…that I’d actually make it big one day very soon…very big…so big that I’d actually be the identity of my parents…and they would be fine with it…

Wait a minute……is it true that even if the professional scene was all tailor made set, wud I still be up n ready for getting married…for a relationship, may be yes….a rock-solid and meaningful one…which wud have elements that may culminate into something substantial….but straight to marriage ? well, dunno….really…..

Love….a concept which has changed manifolds over the past few years….especially over the years of my stay in bombay…its much more crass…hard hitting…rugged…rough edged and crisp here….than it used to be in calcutta….may be its not about the place…but about my mental / social / emotional / spiritual / sexual conditioning of the moment..which is the way it is whilst I hav been in in this city…a city of independence…a city wherein u can get everything…for “an instance….trust me, everything is “instant” here….remember hearing the word for the frst time when Maggie noodles was launched…come to think of it, the city bears a stark resemblance with Maggy noodles…just a coupla mins and u r done with it….for some illegible reasons I have come across at least a big buncha women who are acutely commitment phoebic..and they are not necessarily all super young …they fall in an average age group of 27…and they very firmly believe that commitment is quite archaic and they’d kinda run away from any kid who came their way talking of a conceivable future…the word “future” is quite an avoidable illusion for this bunch..and the only exciting and “worth bothering” concept to them all , is the present …or to be more precise, this particular “instance”…

Writing….Penning down ur thoughts.........Why do I find it so theaurapetic….so clinical that there are moments whn I get an adrenaline rush of penning down my inner state of affairs and it’s a “ have to.. have to” write kinda situation & it doesn’t come outov ur system, exactly the way I am conceiving it unless I feel the moment is right…its been a long long time that I have so intensely felt the need to write….to vomit all the pent up stuff choking my psychic hard drive and be done with all the inventory, piling up over the past ten months of non-writing hibernation….but funnily, I wudnt land up saying…fuck it now, lets write…u knw that whole drive wasn’t quite there….nothing was really kickin my butt hard enuff to make me do that….as for excuses that I’d give myself, it’d be - oh I dont have a laptop, oh I dont have mucha stuff to document….but may be now, I wanna…may be because inspite of nothing very different has happened in my life over the last few weeks, I still wanna write bcz I had a chance meeting with a stranger…something that I hav been wanting to happen for quite some months now…in my whacky wilderness of “free-falling” thought bubbles, I’d conceive situations, adapt screenplays, do shot-divisions, imagine dialogues & virtually shoot well etched scenes on my psychic image screen outov it….followed by permutations n combinations of possible course of actions undertaken by main characters of the scene, one of which wud obviously be me..and the other would be this interestingly refreshing / free flowing / suave / sophisticated yet careless girl…very very ‘70s…havin a intensely strong mind of her very own…very confused yet very grounded…very private yet very see thru.…as much as u could prolly graze thru her naïve glossy texture without her knowledge, getting a glimpse of a sensible soul that resides in that 5’9” healthy frame…most of the guys I knw, wud call her fat… but to be thouroughIy honest, I find her pleasantly healthy…and reasonably attractive….her entire physicality….her being….dunno if its her unavoidably unnerving eyes../ the calm and almost see thru look it’s capable of givin…or is it her “seen it all pal ” kinda smile at the far corner of her luscious paira lips….or is it her firm yet free flowing walk…or is it her “don’t pee on the wrong tree”….kinda aura…or its it…shit, I can go on n on….

Knw what, the funniest thing she said….” Oh cmmon, obviously u dint walk up to my table with just a plain / simple / harmless conversation in mind “…and she made that comment so unapologetically…..that reflected that more often than not, she has an idea what goes on in a man’s screwd up mind……now on one hand, I do accept and understand her perspective… but then what exactly does she think as to why I did walk up to her…………

U asking me ? well, to be shamelessly honest it was her way of carrying herself…that made me take note of her….not apologetic about anything….yet not rough edged…her eyes would speak loads whenever I caught them giving me a glimpse / glance or something…they’d be followed by a cute nose marking a good punctuation before her luscious lips take over…one of the very aesthetic pair of lips I’ve seen in a long long time and when they part revealing the nicely coined gems inside, I’d be shameless enough to stare at her again….hey, just a thought..even when they wudnt part, just a hint at the far corners wud be equally mesmerizing…in short she does appeal to me and itches me enough to go up to her table at a coffee shop & make no bones about striking a conversation…and so I did it…and guess what….she was glad that I did it…

There were a few pregnant / embarrassing pauses in the first ten minutes of our first day’s chat, but eventually I guess both felt at ease..,she’s a damn private person…. but man when she, inadvertently, starts opening up…& u give her the right kinda attentive listening, theres no stopping….wat u experience is an open smooth informative book…and then when u make her realize that, she zooms back in her shell…her name’s unique, just like her body language..do I have the liberty to say I find her thought…even if I don’t, I do say bcz inspite of the fact that she thinks she ‘s fat, I think she’s hot , not only in the way her mind functions but also in her physicality…eyes /eye brows / lips / hands / feet…the works…that’s enuff for now..aint it….am in a good mod to show this to her tomorrow and make her blush more than she does very day even with the slightest of compliments…..oh enuff is enuff…cant go on bragging about her till eternity…or may be I can…not sure…..

Work’s suddenly looking up….hey, not complaining…trust me….am shooting for a corporate film for a big multi national wherein I need to play the part of an international soccer player training three school kids.…it felt so great during the audition for this project when I gotta show a bit of my soccer histrionics…something that I thought had eroded…but man I surprised myself with whatever I did wit the soccer ball…it was such a trip down the nostalgia lane…in those monsoon afternoons when I’d be soaked in rain n mud from head to toe…having a blast playin soccer with my para cousins / friends…followed by scratches / bruises all over ..slight fever….firing from maa-baba….mugging up for the next day’s exams…that’s a brief snapshot of an average childhood monsoon day….time zooms past before u cud snap ur finger…Two international films will be starting in less than two months frm now…which will get me in all time busy mode in a long time….besides the new tv show for which there have been some major rounds of negotiations…don wanna loose it and yet don wanna undersell myself….kinda tricky clash inside my mind…

Its gonna be a bright sunlit morning, in sometime….my baileys got over….i’m pleasantly high…with the golden dawn about to set in…freak, I havnt met her in a coupla days….& she hates writing texts…which obviously, doesn’t make life any easier…..darn !! am sure she’s busy with work….or may be a show she’d spoken about…till then, I gotta vent it out @ my Blog…..needless to mention, am too dead to run a spell check at this hour....

So, hang loose babes and giggle while u fiddle….….Brb…..in a bit….

Scrambled Brains...Sunny Side Up !!!

Its been a while I’ve been wanting to write........

Since I came back frm shantiniketan early march….went thru a sea of “emotion” waves in my coupla days stay in Shantiniketan and my 10 day stay in cal thereafter…the waves at shantiniketan were more to do with how drastically people grow apart from each other… for the better or for the worse…how wide and un-familiar, spaces become, between people who’ve spent early days of childhood together…it may seem to be a very natural occurrence but doesn’t hit u till u face it one fine morning when u choose to meet these old buddies after ages…and within a span of say ten minutes, u figure that u ppl are speaking different languages altogether…to an extent u don’t really wanna meet them far too often…becoz u knw u r gonna confront more of those moments filled with awkward silences rather than “real catching up” on old times…its so very painful….and it hit me real hard this time when I had a session of the sort ,when I decided to catch up with them over a morning cuppa chai….nothing seemed right…neither the chai nor the conversation which almost boiled down to questions like if I had the opportunity to get in the physical proximity of any hot Bollywood siren...if I ‘ve seen x, y, z in person….which ultimately graduated to questions which meant “ how much do I make a month”..and all I cud do is smile and look at them …

Yeah…. Quite a few scattered phases in infinitesimally small fragments of time….which I tried to gather, nurture, give shape to and then document …but then I’d keep askin “Whats goin on ? “…the answer wud usually be – “I dunno”…looks like, there’s lotov traffic.....of information…mood swings...people.…desires…needs of the hour…..mine & of people around…..expectations at all levels.…a huge gap between expectations set n met….feels like just the other day when i had stepped out for a nice, brisk, straight, un-adulterated walk wherein I’ll come across a docile breeze, refreshing my growing mind n life.…and here I find myself at crossroads…no , may be that’s not the word…nothing is majorly wrong but life lacks that major spark…it not abt “NOT HAVING ” : a) unlimited money b) enough women attention c) not to be able to afford a particular life style / brand d) a holiday destination…..

But its def. about contentment of the heart…its def about feeling blissfully satisfied after making love….lying bare bodied, next to someone special…. gently playing with her finger tips, inhaling the concoction of her natural aroma & the intoxicating perfume, she’s used right beneath the ear lobes.….murmuring to myself…ahh this is it….its def about “not having a life” in the whole scheme of business & things….on the surface, my everyday looks so smooth to any outsider….have a decent place to live…a sorta decent amount of money that I earn every month….some decent new work opportunity coming my way….but still I’m not content…what does it mean ? am I too ambitious…too optimistic…too impractical…too immatured…..too greedy…..am I ?

I don’t think so….

Was missing baba last night like hell….passed by several nostalgic lanes….criss crossing each other….of sultry summer afternoons when he ‘d take me to school….walking…down the posh mandevila gardens road…looking at the apartments in awe….looking at the shining big cars in awe…days used to look so monotonous….so predictable….so very known…the usual rigorous classes till afternoon…then maa will be standing outside the gate in the scorching heat amongst the sea of guardians to take me back home….we’d sometimes make conversations which wud be so regular…so much of small talks….then the usual bouts of football session with my “para” buddies at the ground in our backyard….(which would easily be of the size of a 7 a side football ground)…tired /sweaty / exhausted….back home….a quick wash and I’d be famished…never knowing where and how the subsequent snack (jolkhabar) came frm….it’d be such a typical Calcutta middleclass day for an average school goer….but why do I miss that “so regular” flavour in those days…the simple joys that a bottle of thumps up or a bar of amul milk chocolate would bring one evening to me and my sister…and we’d happily share it in such an ecstatic mood….i miss that sorta contentment….i miss the immense feel of comfort that baba would bring us with his incessant fanning (with a wooden hand fan, popularly known as “haath-pakha”) all night long bcz of the usual powercuts (load-shedding)….and some times running his fingers on my back….in a very weird way I am still so hugely attached to a particular bath soap that baba used most of his life…”mysore –sandal”….and the smell is something I instantly attach baba with, bcz he wud smell of the sandalwood after his evening shower , when he’d come frm the puja with the plate of “Prasad” (usually fruits & baatasha )…Gosh, he used so much an intrinsic part of my mundane life…and an integral part of my mundane trip of nostalgia….it feels so unreal to even imagine that he’s not around physically….The “kalipuja” evenings (diwali) would be a day I would look forward to for the sheer pleasure of the “baaji” that baba would buy me…even my cousin tubun dada (now a software pro in NYC) would successfully get me serious into making of a list of crackers (“Baaji’r taalika) that I need to buy…how crazy !! and believe me the first item in the list wud be “Atash baaji-10 packets”, not knowing that it was a generic name for all sortsa crackers…I miss all that foolishness…the naïve textures of the growing up years…blindly trusting everything n everybody…be able to laugh at myself….i so miss all these in myself…Cant ever forget baba’s face, so complacent when he’d see me thrilled, unveiling the pack of crackers…wish, I ever cared to find out, how he bought them…year after year….

Its been a while I wanted to write these down so that it stops choking me on an every day basis…U knw may be one of the reasons I’ve remained single for the last 18 mnths is that I have always (in my subconscious) looked out for someone with whom I feel like sharing these…my childhood…my “so very middleclass days”…(not that I enjoy any upgradation in state, today) and try n find hers….to share what you wanna give ur children that u imbibed from ur previous generation in terms of human qualities…

U don’t get them easily….rarely, u come across someone, u badly wana talk n discus ur family with, and explain the intrinsic bond u share with them…primarily bcz most of the people wont even understand the language u r talking in…and even if they do, they’d rather focus on other logistics….

Know something…. What I find immensely funny, is a fear that has been settling on my psychic platform for some time now ..its this whole thing of raising a kid in a “digital / virtual / instant” city like bombay…wherein an average kid doesn’t have enough opportunity to play outdoor games….be with nature…sweat it out…get bruised, tough , weathered , seasoned….mentally n physically…when I look at an average kid @ shastrinagar, lokhandwala, or @ pali hill or @ carter road or @ peddar road or @ malabar hill…..They all look very delicate / spoon-feds / very programmed / not worldly wise ( but having information that I dint have until I graduated ) / not knowing how it feels to play football / cricket with a rickshaw wala’s son….stuff that I have had an ample scope of….

Funny !! here I am….single for the past 18 months…affected by the fear of raising my kid in this city….which obviously means, there’s this latent , intense compatibility to the idea of getting married and sharing the rest of my life with a woman….am sure, u laughing…aint u ?

Moved into a new apartment...a very volatile phase...

Awright guys , here's raising a toast to one of the most volatile phases of my life in terms of personal aspects...moving into a new house, which looks more like a 4 star hotel, right across the road where my previous apartment...so in a way , its the same old para / locale of shatrinagar, lokhandwala...but life never cease to amaze me and continues to throw fillers on how uncertain, the ways of existence can get...specially in a concrete jungle like bombay....till about 4 days back, i was kinda morose with thought of movin into an apartment which looked kinda shabby (becoz thats all i cud afford, to stick around lokhandwala )...and 4 days frm that day , at about 2am, i kept gazing frm my 11th floor bedroom french window..first at the 7 storied building right across the road wherein i had ocupied an apartment for 26 months..with so many million memories -- pleasant & otherwise that have partially shaped my personality pattern as on date...but it definitely will remain one of my fav houses becoz just 2 months before baba passed away in 2005, all the four of us - baba/maa/mamam/ myself spent the most valuable 60 days of ou lives in that 580 sq.ft space...so it will always remain locked in a special corner of my heart...

then i kept gazing at the road, which looked kindov less busy at 2am....on n off cars lookin like lit up match boxes zipping in n around the entire stretch of Linking road...with a small glass of "sula red", the moment felt awesome n weirdly refreshing...i kept sitting on my broad window sil till about 4am....me n my "sula red"....my current apt does look a little too done up to an extent that i feel mildly guilty to be stayin in here...the guilt adds on whn flashes of maa's bedroom in calcutta comes across my memory screen...by joe, its time i do up the whole goddamn 100 year old room...sorry maa, gimme another month or two and its gonna be taken care of....

Women continue to shower their attention on me with varying proportions & ways...some one called me to say that she found it very rude of me to hang up two nights back with a silly excuse...basically my 3 year old ph was givin me trouble and my ph battery was gettin discharged very often..so i told her i'l spk the next morning...and she thought it was an excuse...anyways, i still explained to her over 29 minutes that it was genuinely a technical problem with my ph that made me hang up and not otherwise...Why do women get so creative while on an imagination trip ??

I'm missing someone....to quite an extent and the proprtion of missing in growing in "Geometric Progression"....she spent a few hrs on her way to and back frm her business trip and we did feel a nice / very comfortable / mildly cosy tinge in the air around us....but nothing more..alas !! i so wish she saw my new house....she went back to her work place...i've preserved the awesome liquor choclates & wne she got me......but she's got exams around the corner / plans for higher studies in the immediate horizon....etc....i do understand she's got a bit too much on her plate of immediate life....but why the hell do i keep missing her so often....and i knw she's aware of it....and i knw she doesnt dislike it all that much :):) i so agree, whn she says " u sucha dog "....

Another good thing the year started off with, is the new job offer that Mamam got with Regus...A mid sized American multinational, into workspace outsourcing / with an existing presence in all metros / opening up their shop in calcutta....a small set up wherein the growth opportunity is reasonably steep....mamam did very well in the interview and thereby grabbed the offer...its gonna really really pump up her level of self confidence which was gettin affected by the growing exploitation in her current jo with IBM....above and all, Maa also needed to see a bit more of her...and varying shift timings can be cancerous in the long term for any young individual....so am really really a whole lot relieved that she got thru....
Its been 24 hrs in my new apartment and i continue to get amazed by the impecably done up interiors...but again, its too much of a hotel...my attempt in the immediate fuure is gonna be to make it feel like a home....the huge screen tv / the digital lighting all thru the apartment / the supper rich leather sofa's the granite seating by the french windows all feel very endearing....but waht the hell, may be i'm destined for all this...so what, am on rent...i must have done good karma to qualify to spend some bit of my life in a house like this...i guess its time i shud stop feeling guilty about it....

B R B.......

"Thoughtless-ness" - no less than an Explosion !!!

Life never ceases to " S O C K " u in the face...its such an ineveitable thing that keeps reminding how insignificant / helpless /limited u r in this magical existence...still u love this life / this whole farce of occupying "space n time" in a finite / real time universe....

The whole deal of expressing what u exactly have in ur heart is so intoxicating, yet complicated that u can face the most stiff rapid fire round of 9 millions questions, the moment u ask a "reasonabaly interesting woman" --- "R u seeing someone ? "....dude, in no time u'll start getting a heady feel n slip into a mental state wherein the world seems to be crashing on ur skull as if it just experienced a free fall....

"Free fall" also reminds me of the random motion of particles in some aparently super arbit chapter of particle physics that i used to browse thru, some point in time...except that the particles gets replaced by thought waves that keep bombarding ur psychic screen and display illegible images....Gosh !!! u must be mumbling " As illegible as it gets"...but trust me, am not even makin any effort to make any sense here...am not even attempting to co-relate / simulate isolated thought sparks here and allowing them a free willy on the readers minds...:)

Life's seen quite a few bumpy rides over the past coupla months...which obviously have left me so much more learned / liberated / totally "screwd up in the head" for a moment or two /smarter / less emotional /n tryin to see some sense in the art of "detatched sex" ( a concept, some 18 year old hand explained over 45 mins, some three years back).....

Till I figure out a better and less complicated state of mind.....Cheers....

Being Single !! A dichotomy...

Yeah really.....in my 34 years of a small stupid life, apart frm two instances...the first one for 7 months and the second one for 18 months....i haven't been with a woman in what u call a relationship...yeah surely there have been times whn i hav felt seriously attaracted / attached to a beautiful woman...but they cant technically be labelled as an affair....actually come to think of it, i find it a BIG misnomer...."relationship" cant necessarily be wit someone you are attached to romantically / sexually...it can be with any stranger u come across every day of ur goddamn life...the people who take the same metro as u r...the same security guard who greets u at the entrance of ur office gate...for me, it can be the different spot boys of different sets that i go to shoot...the different co actors ...etc....

My point in this posting is to analyse n evaluate the so called independence that i enjoy in my life (according to all my male and female frnds in a serious affair with a partner)....most of the films that i hav seen in my entire life has been by myself....which is kind strange to a lota ppl...but i have really enjoyed the fare....specially after moving to bby i found quite a few so called strange ppl like me sitting in a multiples screen by themselves , enjoying a film no less than others....i hav realised my approach of watching a film very very clinically and not frm a purely entertainment perspective...its been there since i took up my career seriously just after leaving my assignment with the TCS BPO....

When i look at all those friends of mine in a relationship...in a situation whn they r not with their partners, sulk as to how miserable life is for them being with a particular man / woman...how he/ she demands time /dictates likings , dislikings towards virtually everything...in short rule life..or rather its bad as whn ur life is taken over by some other individual...leaving very little of it to urself....i fail to understand why a partner tries to impose upon choices to their conterpart...why dont they understand its not an implication of their much "sworn-in-love".....funnily whn i think of relationships timed 30 years back, i see the same things used to happen without much revolt frm the women folk (which is so utterly unfair)....so, nothing much has changed....really....in the way men still throw their "so called" (silly) weight around....very very rarely i come across couples who in the absence of their partners cherish life and the journey that they are traversing with thier loved ones....rarely do i see men/ women discussing what sorta positive transformations they have undergone being with someone special....how they understand each other's silences ....how, even after having a long day at work, they wanna run back home and instead of crashing, share an amazing cuppa ginger tea on their windopw sil and break out in a steaming passionate love making session.....

The above might sound as if i am advocating "not-being-with-someone"....but then u gotta read further....

External seasonal pressures have highlighted my singledom more to me than my loneliness in a city like bombay....a very very consumerist / super mall attitude dominates the entire infrastructure in the city....wherever u go, there r flashy / glossy stuff thrown at ur face...all of which comes with a hefty price...Valentines day /Christmas / New year /Mother's Day / Father's Day /Friendship day /and sortsa days happen to be very succesfully marketed concepts that assure a good monet making opportunity for businessmen...ignoring this clinical root cause, most of the teenage couples and even the more matured ones are seen everywhere hand in hand goin on a shopping rampage....and these moments neither touch nor affect me.....

What does affect me are some crucial mundane moments of "just-with-myself"...either after a long shooting schedule /or immediately after waking up in the morning whn i'm makin my cuppa tea...or on weekends whn i gotta browse thru my ph book for the num i need to dial for a company....most of the times, i dont end up calling anyone...but sometimes i do feel like....a really sudden good news makes me depressed to no ends sometijmes, cuz i dont hav someone special to share it with....likewise something unpleasant...if u r tryin to tell me that family n parents do come handy in these situations, i quite not agree with that....there r moments in life ...there r situations in life which generate a particular feeling or urge in u which only that special someone can complement.....

I'm glad with life ..the way its shaping up for me...luckily i am still meeting very very interesting women who bring along a whole new perspective on myself and download that information on my psychic hard disc...it surprises me...makes me feel good....tells me that smart nice intelligent and beautiful women still find me interesting....and as such draws a nice paintbrush file in my mind...which is full of subtelity....full of underplayed shades....full of coy-ness and hints....nothing very obvious.....strangely, they r the ones who make me feel like spending monets without my usual mask, with them....without any fear, any reservations, any shame, any concious awareness of my flaws (how ever many they are).....hey..i like it....thats why i think women have always been the best news to ahve happened for MANKIND !!!

Okay..wake up now....

Cheers !!!!

Oct 2nd...Happy Bday Baapu...

The second day of October has a vastly changing overtures amongst ppl at mass in a city like bombay...and am sure its not a thing that only this city feels...its a thing of the current generation...a thing of the age we are all in, is a better way to put it...

On one hand it has a quality of rewinding our minds to the days of Baapu-giri in terms of mannerisms...in terms of tolerance...a cause he championed...in terms of the philosphy that he imbibed in generatiuons / times that dawned later....on the other hand, it does a heart ache thingy for all those millions who take this DRY day with a pinch of salt...not that i'm an alcoholic (on the contrary i've grown up with a super delicate taste bud prefering only good wines / liquors ) ..but most of my guy and women friends in bombay get busy around 11pm on October 1st with sole endeavour of stacking up volumes of Absolut / JD's / single malts /Bacardi's for the next day....its so hilarious when u see them achieving this milestone with an utmost sincerity.....

Yesterday was a washout....I was tellin someone that i loverains but not whn its happening on a Durga puja day...it ruined my entire Nabami plans....anyways, did go in the evening to the nice Yari Road puja that i discovered this year...a very homely feel to it....homely faces....a feel good vibe....met joy n tara there with heir kids...they dragged me to the andheri station puja pandal only to realise tht it wasnt as exciting as we thought it wud be....A great discovery in the recent past of my life is a place called Calcutta Club near Oshiwara which makes the most awesome authentic bengali cuisine....damn affordable....and outof the world authenticity....called for some great mutton biriyani / kosha mangsho /payesh....ahhhh....made my Nabami......

Maa n sis are doin okay...they are slowly registering the fact that we actually spent a Durga puja without baba for the first time.....Today is Bijoya Dashami....another day that brings along a sea of baba's memories...things which he used to do.....anwyays, Shubho Bijoya to every one reading this.....cheers....

September 28th.....

Durga puja this year is scheduled way too ahead than usual...instead of the usual 3rd week of october thingy its a end sep stuff this time...Maa & mamam are in bombay with me this year ....primarily to run away frm the hullaboo of kolkata durga puja....too many memories of baba to erase n ignore during these special festivities that keeps floating on the surface of our awareness...sucha weird feel this time...the first Durga puja without baba...anyways....

Had a nice audition for a new anurag kashyap ( a dear friend) film...hope i get it...a start to finish 45 days schedule in october...this project can lead me to Maniratnam's next project Lajjo with Aamir n Kareena...did a good job in the audition...rest is all whatever's in store for me....

Fountainhead continues to grip me with apt attention...someone said it gives one a new route of self introspection...i cant agree any more to that....

The rest of the year is gonna be way too crucial for me in terms of personal & professional changes in life...a weird vibe that keeps giving me alert popups in my brain cells...and thankfully its not a eerie feel...professionally i foresee myself being a part of some very ambitious / my kinda film projects...and the symptoms seem to grow with every passing day...on a personal level also i somehow get a feel of a mild transformation of my inner self that has just set in...which is primarily an influence of people i met in the recent past...they are continously helping me look into myself with very different perspectives...cant cease to feel grateful every night before crashing....hope it continues....hey is it goin way beyond ? don worry...u'll know what i mean..soon...even i'll know what i mean...very soon....cheers....