HAPPY 2009....

Composed few weeks back but could not post..... bad net connection... busy schedule...etc etc.
I hate lists... but thought of composing one. Few days back, we had an area meeting where evryone had to tell any one wish .... there was many interesting and noble pledges. For fun, we drafted the wishes and made an e-copy of it...plan is to have it discussed in a nxt years meeting:)

I have many plans....Here is my list................whats yrs?

• Quit smoking -if failed, would restrict smoking maximum 3 cigarettes a day (CFLY). Never drop cigarette buts on the street - will keep it in pocket and drop it at next available dustbin( if quit this will automatically follow).
• Learn driving a car(CFLY). Nooo I m not buying a car.( basically I know driving - but it has to be a big field - this time want to drive on roads - despite my clear theoretical knowlege, no friend is willing to give their cars to me :(... so no option but to call the driving school guys).
• Buy a TV and take a cable connection(CFLY).
• Would try to find a life partner (CFLY)- additionally this will keep my parent's mouths shut -:)
• With few exceptions, would not read pure fiction books ( I wish I did not spend few hundred bucks on Chetan Bhagat, Shirshendu(Bengali) etc etc!!!).
• Go to 'God's own land", Kerala(CFLY).
• Learn an Indian language and improve my Assamese which is currently 75% bengali. For feasibility studies, bought an urdu alphabet book.
• For films, won't follow read_review_check_whois_there_in_it_Then_watch, rather it would be other way.
• No more staying awake late in weekend nights. No reading at bed-time.
• Get my house agreement renewed (current agreement is till Jan-09)- crap they need a lot of documents/ gaurantee etc etc for a bachelor. Lucky that they have no rules like 'bachelors can not marry' .
• Will join a gym - no I don't like 6-8 Packs - Just want to improve stamina (currently in our housing society's court, I can not play 3 consecutive badminton singles...gotta improve).
• Will convince my nephew/niece/causins who are in schools, that it is not most important to get star marks in school. Its more important to explore and enjoy and follow your respective passions. Though good result should remain a priority as otherwise many avenues would be closed. ( Got to be little careful - otherwise I'd get a thrashing from their parents).
• Would work towards getting a govt registration for the club at my village.
• not subscribing any calcutta-based newspaper - enough of mamata-budha !!!!!!!!!!!!

• note - (CFLY) - carry forward from last year.

Week that was ---

Saturday - On weekend, ended up offending a friend by a poor joke (sad, everyone is not intelligent like me to understand jokes)...had to write big emails saying - sorry:-) Today was supposed to talk to doctor (for a stomach problem) n take an appo but the doctor's phone number was in my office id. Tried the VPN to connect to my office network but thanks to the slowest-on-earth-tata-indicom-dial-in-connection, could not get the office network either (though could check india-au cricket score after day 3). The doc is my friends brother-in-law (good that, i don't have to pay consultation fees) - tomrow, wd ring up my friend's resi number to get the doctors phone number and consult him on Sunday - poor sis of mine, who came last to last Sunday- no movies or shopping on Sunday! Though she made few friends here in the compound by this time, she is not that bored - atleast that's what she said to me.
Saturday night- My sis is there…so no “party” on weekends – but weekends are not dull when you have a sister around. Planning to catch a movie on Sunday.

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Sunday - Could not manage time for a movie. May be next week....I’m desperate to prove that I m alive:) so have to add something in the blog. An old incident does not seem to be bad to place it here!
My friend Ranjan told me about this. The incidence is a year old. Ranjan always insisted that we (particularly me, my other friend Tapan) would take a thousand years of “sadhana” to reach a level of our other friend Sidheswar. We all gracefully agree the talent of Sidheswar but that difference in ‘level’ never came out to be a factor in our friendship. Enough of “alaap”, let’s go to the story.

It was a puja vacation, last year, Sidheswar started for home- his train, Teesta Bhorsha express departed from Kolkata at 8.30pm. Sidheswar occupied his seat at right time and was sipping his mineral water bottle frequently. It was a hot day. Eventually by half an hour, when the train is well past the Calcutta station, his water bottle was empty and Sidheswar went to bed ( He didn’t feel like having the dinner). Everything was fine until midnight when he got awake to go to urinals. Mind that smoking is banned on trains now a days, Sidheswar did not light a cigarette in the urinal. After returning to the seat, he saw all his belongings are gone!! A cool person, he thought of reporting the theft to police, but on a second thought, there is little hope of getting the things back, so Sidheswar decided to stay back. He uttered choicest of curses n abuses for the bag-lifter. Since it was real hot and dry, he was more worried about the other mineral water bottle kept in the bag. Since there was no way of getting back the lost items, a cool head, he decided to sleep again. Having a relieved bladder, he slept immediately. Having a sound sleep, he got up early and had a cup of tea from the “cha grom-wala”. He was feeling bad and his brain is working on various possibilities. By the time he finished the tea, so observed something unusual with his seat number. His ticket shows, he’s allocated berth #35 and he was @ berth#53. He immediately went to b number 35 and ALAS…EVERYTHING WAS THERE. His bag, gifts for near n dear ones, medicines for a relative etc etc…everything untouched!!. Now, it’s time to get down at next station…Sidheswar was cursing railways for making the seats so similar.

----Disclaimer: #1 -Those not-so-near to Sidheswar, were saying, his mineral water bottle contained something intoxicating, but we don’t believe it.
----Disclaimer: #2-The above paragraphs are just a possibility – any resemblance with any real life incidence is purely coincidental.

"HEROs" do it again..this time on a daily wage earner!!!

On Oct 29 a day after Diwali, an UP labourer has been lynched on a Mumbai local train. Allegedly some locals boarded same compartment as the poor labourer and on learning that the fellow is a "Bhaiya", the locals started beating the labourer untill he was unconsious. The heros got down in a next station and RPF took the victim to a hospital where he was declared brought dead.
Well done Raj, as one of the readers say - we don't need Pakistan's ISI to divide and destroy the country - we have you, your uncle and some of your clan to take care of their plan.
Our Media seems to define terrorism something which has an islamic flavour in it. Killing inocent daily wage earners is not terrorism. Killing a young man who dreamt of a better life for his family is not terrorism.
Thanks Raj, thanks Shiva Sainiks , thanks Mawawati and like minded psychos, we can no longer be proud of the kaleidoscopic culture and ethnicity of the country. You are real heros these days!! You are so successful in poisioning thousand minds.
Shall I , now, need Passport/Visa to move to other parts of the country which has a different language than what I speak, a different religion than what I am born to?

"Heaven gives its glimpses only to those..."

Probably everyone goes through a phase where he/she feels betrayed or denied. It's hard to accept the disappointment when u don't get something which u are made to believe yours and desired too passionately. But won't there be caos if everyone's dreams come true?
Was reading a bengali novel during my Eid vacation...got an interesting piece as quoted below ( no I m not into poetry, particularly if it is in english...but this might give you some food for thought:))
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A Passing Glimpse - Rober Frost
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I often see flowers from a passing car
That are gone before I can tell what they are.
I want to get out of the train and go back
To see what they were beside the track.
I name all the flowers I am sure they weren't;
Not fireweed loving where woods have burnt--
Not bluebells gracing a tunnel mouth--
Not lupine living on sand and drouth.
Was something brushed across my mind
That no one on earth will ever find?
Heaven gives its glimpses only to those
Not in position to look too close.

Sorry my friend - my prayers were not answered.

Yesterday when I rejoined after an extented vacation, saw an email from a friend/collegue that he would be irregular next few weeks. The email was dated 10th October when I was out of office. I came to know that his wife (who was expecting) developed certain critical complications and is hospitalized. I was wishing everything would be alright. As he was not available on cell, I SMS-ed him that everything would be OK - 'insallah' but god decided otherwise. Got the shocking news today only - his child died. I was not trying to call him as I am perplexed as what to say. May almighty give strength to my friend and his wife to bear the loss.

Back to work place.....

Reached Calcutta at around 2.30 PM. First 3/4 days after Eid, the weather was very bad in Silchar. The road condition and other basic civic amenities are getting worse day by day. Feel very sad for my home place. Corruption has taken a deep root in every sphere of life (Some of our land was acquired by highway authority and we were asked to pay the Land and Revenue officials 20% of total compensation amount ! I will write more details later - meanwhile I am trying to contact higher administrative officials…don’t know if that would help…keeping the fingers crossed for now).

Met a college junior in the airport whose flight to Chennai was scheduled in the evening. It was so nice to meet Tapash first time after college days.. Tapash came to my flat and we had an adda after quite a long long gap - 12 years to be precise. Saw off Tapash in the evening. My sister gave some sweets…time to do some ‘misti-mukh’ and call my friends here to wish Eid Mubarak and Suvo Bijoya.........logging off in 10 seconds!!

Cultivating corruption – “Maha-sarak in Silchar, ASSAM”

This Eid ( 2 oct 08) when I visited home, I saw a lot of house building activities in my village ( a village about 10 KM from Silchar town). In last two months there has been atleast 20 new houses built and similar number of houses are under construction. In a small village like mine, this appears to be a real estate boom….but in reality this has nothing to do with soaring demand for housings, no one is going to live in those houses!!

The supper highway from Imphal ( through a bridge over the ‘ Barak’) will make a crossing with the superhighway from Mizoram; the crossing is supposedly to be in our village. Some villagers would be uprooted to make way for the national development! Well this may be hard for a those villagers who are living there for generations - guess who is making hay out of it? The Land and Revenue officials advised the villagers to make concrete houses so that they can manipulate official records and get some higher compensation. Well, no advice comes for free! The office needs 20 to 30% of the proposed compensation paid in advance, so that villagers can get a ‘good’ package!! It is an ‘official deal’! The villagers are made to think that this is a win win situation for everyone!! Well, the officials are not saying this to be bribe; in fact no one is saying that – they are just showing the villagers a way to claim more compensation and in return they are taking some ‘service charge’. The brokering the 20-30% deal with the villagers, on behalf of the officials, has become a lucrative career option for many.


Few acres of our (inherited) fertile family land are in the designated highway area. My father currently being almost invalid, my uncle is running from pillars to post to claim the legitimate compensation/ sometimes to get information about the rate of compensation which is meager compared to what has been paid in other parts of the country ( Remember Nandigram, WB? We don’t have a Mamata Banerjee to exploit the situation! ). Nevertless, due to absence of a young male member who would have negotiated with the officials, we had no option but to be ‘happy’ to give the land at the govt offered price. But thanks to the hungry land officials, we cannot get anything until we pay 30% of the amount in advance!!
I feel like an escapist who work for a multinational and give advice to others not to encourage corruption. My father, my uncles are having all the pains for their legitimate money- they can not pay the 30%, they can not pay a good advocate to have an RTI petition filed in the court… I am proud of my father – you really helped innumerable persons to get established…I am proud of my uncle, who served the govt and despite many options to be richer, opted to remain same as before.


Dear reader, if you are looking for a bride, go and try an alliance with anyone working in the Land & Revenue department. It’s possible that you would end up getting gifts comparable to what is given in some of the north-Indian royal marriages. If you are in kidnapping business, get someone from L&R dept, Assam. You would probably get more than what you demanded !

Disclaimer:---
The blogger does not encourage dowry but the above lines are for those who, in any case, would have received some gifts! Kidnapping is also strongly discouraged but this is for those who are already established in this career and do everything with their own risk…. though sharing some ransom might not be discouraged):