Lucky you

December 2005, dont remember the date. It was a very windy Saturday evening. Normally in Kolkata we dont find weather cold enough, but that day it was worst in past 10-15 years. I was really upset on some of my friends in college. Had a fight with mom in the morning which made me feel like I am alone in the world. I started feeling that I am very happy that I am alone. I can spend the entire time with me. I dont need to care about anyone in the world. Took my jacket on top of a full sleeve heavy sweater and muffler to go out. Mom called from behind, I didnt listen to that. Took a bus and got down at Deshapriya Park. People say in the city that is the best place to walk around. I started walking towards southern avenue where the lake subhash sarovar is. A chilling wind was coming from the lake side, but as my blood was boiling from the frustration and anger, I ignored all these and kept walking. Lot of things were going through my mind, how bad people behave with me, how wrongly they treat me, how harsh they are on me. Suddenly the phone started ringing. I saw one of my friend with whom I had a fight a while ago. I picket the call, he said "come on buddy, whatever has happened, its between you and us. Why didnt you listened to your mom and went out in this bad weather. Just take a u turn and go home. I didnt say anything and dropped the call. My anger level went high, my mom started calling my friends just to show how bad son I am. I decided not to leave the war front any more. I will also see the end. It was quiet, almost pin drop silence around the park, except the sound of wind. I saw a small tea stall, but no one was there to have the tea. Its a pretty odd scene in Kolkata at least. That empty tea stall showed how bad the weather situation was. I took a big earthen pot full of hot tea and kept walking. I was walking unmindfully, suddenly I heard a sound. Someone, mostly an old lady chanting something. I listened carefully, it was "bhagawan tumi amare shokti dao, ami ei ogni porikha theke bachte chai, amake lorai korar khomota dao. ami jani sudin asbe, amio bhalo kore bachte parbo abar. tomar ei porikkha te ami pass haboi". If you dont understand bengali, here is the translation. "God please give me strength to fight the battle, I want to overcome this acid test (Donno how to describe agni parikhsha). I know good days are waiting for me, I will again live a good life. I will pass this test". I was kinda surprised. What kinda pray is this? I saw people praying for a good life or else asking to take him/her to the eternal peace, to the heaven. Never in my life I heard someone saying to strengthen her to fight the bad days, without asking a good future days. She was confident that if she can surpass this battle, she will see good days. I went closer, and found someone very skinny, almost invisible, is lying down on the footpath under a bench wrapping only a thin sheet of bed cover. She was shivering, very very badly. I went close to her, sat next to her but didnt know what to do. After a min, I kept a hand on her and asked what happened, why are you lying here in this cold weather. She stopped chanting and brought her head out of the bed sheet, said I dont have any other place to go my son. This is my home for last 25 years. Believe me I saw her smiling, it was very hard to identify the smile in her face, but she was smiling. The words what she said was again hardly audible to me, somehow I managed to understand what she is saying. I was pretty sure, she was not well, how could she be in this weather. I asked her not to say anything and took my jacket off. I put the jacket on her like a quilt, thinking that would make her warm. She was nodding her head, I understood what she was trying to say. She was saying if I give my jacket I will catch cold. She tried to lift her head, but couldnt. I assured her that I am fine without jacket, I have a sweater also. By that time I decided whats next. I knew if I leave that lady like this, she would die. I didnt think anything for the future, but the only thing was running in mind was saving her for this worst night. I ran to the tea stall and took 2 cups of tea with some biscuits. I asked the shop owner if he ever noticed the old lady or not. He replied, that lady is staying here since long, before he opened a tea stall here. I requested him if he had any blanket or anything which can make that lady comfortable and warm. He said "No way, why should I spoil my blanket, that lady is anyway not gonna die. o toh jomer o oruchi". The last statement means even the god of death is not gonna take that lady. I was completly stunned with this. But I was desperate that time. I asked him to take money from me and give me the blanket as I didnt have time to go and purchase a new one. That guy was astonished with this, and finally he gave that to me without taking money. He said sorry, that he behaved rudely. I rushed to the lady with all these things. I wrapped her with the blanket, took her head on my lap. I gave her my muffler also. I took her hand in my hands and started rubbing the palms. After few minutes the lady smiled again, and said thank you. I told her to have the hot tea with biscuit. she agreed, she tried to lift the cup in her hand but she couldnt. Seeing no other option, I dipped the biscuit in tea and held it in front of her mouth. She swallowed it. Like this she took couple of more times. I could see her face in the low street lamp light. I dont know whether I was wrong or not, but she looked happy. There was something in her face which made me feel like cry and sit with her for ever. All of a sudden she started breathing very fast. She was sucking her lips with the tongue, I thought she is thirsty. I rushed to the tea stall and came with a glass of water. Slowly slowly I tried to help her sipping the water. After couple of sips, I saw the water came out of her mouth. She was not breathing anymore. I couldnt cry, couldnt say anything for a while. First time in my life someone died on my lap. I couldnt do anything, Nothing. I dont remember whether I shouted or cried, the tea stall owner came running and saw me sitting there. I dont know what happened then. Only I could remember lot of people was around me...
11:00 PM in the night, Kolkata Municipal Corporation came and took her body inside a van covered in a white sheet. The tea stall owner came to me and gave me my jacket and muffler. I took those and went near to the van and put the muffler and jacket, my favourite jacket on her body. There I couldnt stop my tears. The driver started the engine, slowly the van started moving and in a few moments went out of sight. The tea stall owner came to me and said, "now you go home. Dont worry, she is in better world now. In the world where she will be happy. And you know one thing, she was happy, I saw smile on her face for the first time in last 20 years. You go home"

11:30 PM, I came home in a police van. Everyone was worried there. The moment I entered the room millions of questions were triggered on me. Only mom came to me without saying a single word and gave me a hug. I kept my head on her shoulder and cried like a baby.

That night I couldnt sleep. But I had a dream. That old lady came in my dream and said "I was right. I knew if I can survive the bad days definitely I will see something good. Thats why I always asked god to give power to survive. My son you are the only person in last many a year who fed me with his own hand. May be the biggest thing I got in my life. The best. I didnt have any expectation beyond this. Thanks a lot. Now I am happy."

That was the day when I realized how lucky I am. I have so many people around me to care for me. In this beautiful world there are millions of people who has to wait for thirty years for someone to come and make them feel that they are not alone.

My Place

I remember my first day in school. When I entered into class room, I saw some low and high benches. Four (or may be five) boys were supposed to sit on each bench. It was just 1.5 ft space on the low bench to sit and similar area on the high bench to keep your bag, books etc. The same low bench-high bench concept continued till my eighth standard. The only change came in, was the amount of space to occupy. From 1.5 ft, it came to 2 ft. In my ninth standard class room I saw individual desks. It was really a very good feeling for me at least thinking on my own desk. Geometrically I got the same space, but the comfort was more. It was designed to keep your bag under the desk-top, separate place to keep the pen/pencil started making me proud of my desk.
In college days the look and feel of the desk got changed. It wasn’t wooden anymore. The structure was framed using rot iron pipes and plywood. I was overwhelmed with the sophistication.
Once I left college and join L&T InfoTech in Mumbai, the definition of “My Place” has got changed again. In training days we used to sit on push back revolving chairs but the concept of cubicle was not there. After training when I joined in Pune office, I got my cubicle, my own cubicle. Wow!!! For me it was like dream came true. My work place, my cubicle, what else do you want in life. The size of the cubicle was almost 7ft by 6 ft which accommodates 4 persons. I got my chair, my desktop, clipboard, one small board, one big and three small table drawers, my name plate and most important my own desk phone set. I was not anyone special there; everybody around me was having the same stuffs but did they feel like me when first time they got their cubicle? May be I was so happy with all these because I never thought of all these. I saw people decorating their cubicle with show pieces. I never decorated my cubicle but still I loved mine more than anyone. It was my heaven and I liked to spend most of the time of the day their only. It was real fun working there. Like everybody I also used to share my cubicle with three other colleagues. Chit chat between works, pulling their chairs, messing up with their show pieces just kept adding more on the fun part.
Once I got moved from Pune to USA, the definition of cubicle got changed. Here I got a complete separate cube of size 8ft by 7ft. having a desktop with larger screen, attached lights for reading, some big drawers, multi functional phone set, hanger rack to keep jackets, big white board to write something. Phone set was allocated to my name so whenever I call someone, they can see my name also. I was having so much of space that I can put all my study books I read in my life. I again thought WOW!!! This is life all about. What better thing could I get? I stood in front of mirror and said to myself “Hey listen, now you got the best work place so don’t think anything better at this age and at least for next ten years”. It was true also, ten years down the line if I can get myself up to some position then only I can think of my own cabin.

I was completely wrong; something more was waiting for me. Once I moved into some other project my cubicle got changed and now I am sitting in a cubicle whose size is 8ft by 12ft. I am having all the stuffs in my cube which I can think of. I also have a separate discussion table in my cubicle. In Pune I never decorated my cubicle but now I already started thinking to decorate this one. The first day I entered in this cubicle, I was just looking at it for several minutes. I was so amazed. In the very next night a little boy came in to my dream and I saw him calling me to sit with him. It was a tiny bench and while sitting there my knees were almost touching my chin. But I started loving it. I was also shouting with them “Jack and Jill went up the hill ..... It took me to my nursery days and I realized that 1.5 ft space is still sufficient to be happy if you want to be happy.

KKR or Sharukh or Sourav?

- “KKR is back”
- “KKR has shown the critics what they are capable of”
- “The new Jersey brought KKR’s luck back”
- “Wasim Akram still rules the world”
- “We can do it without McCullam and Gayle”
I am sorry, I don’t agree with any of the statements above which are floating around. Kolkata Knight Riders just won the inaugurating match against Deccan Chargers. It’s just a single win nothing more than that. I can understand every small feelings of each KKR fan. I know how the IPL went bad last two years for KKR, especially last year. They might have every reason to jump into joys and conclude KKR is the best after defeating the defending champions. But logically speaking this win doesn’t prove the above statements.
But this win proves some other things. It’s not about KKR, it’s not about Sharukh Khan, neither about John Buchanan. It’s all about Dada, the prince of Kolkata, The Bengal Tiger, SOURAV GANGULY. I believe this win is entirely goes to Sourav Ganguly’s credit. Technically speaking what special thing was he having in his team. Four overseas players, one rejected from South African national team, one rejected from English national team and rejected from Delhi Daredevils, one who never really made it to Australian national team his permanent position and one who is part of Sri Lankan national team, but yet to get some international recognition. If you look at the domestic players also it would be hard to find any renowned national level player other than Chiteshwar Pujara. Still they able pulled off the victory. In T20 cricket, no one is favorite, so when the match started I don’t believe Deccan Chargers was having any edge over KKR. But yes from confidence point of view they were way ahead of KKR. When some controversies follow you, it is very difficult to get rid of it. But it was Sourav Ganguly, the king of comeback; even Wisden stopped calculating how many times actually he made his successful comeback. KKR didn’t play like champions. They lost 4 quick wickets, managed a mediocre score of 161 and conceded 56 runs in first 5 overs. Still they ended in winning side. The difference is made by one man only, the captain. If you remember last year almost all the matches KKR lost very closely. In crunch and crucial stage only you need a person to lead you, a person to take decision and that is why captain should be there. Statistic says Buchanan’s multiple captains never made it through. I remember last year KKR lost to Deccan in one match where in last over 16 runs were required almost similar to today’s match and first ball of the over was called noball because of sufficient fielder was not inside the inner circle. World saw McCullam arguing with umpires on that, for what reason I don’t know. In similar condition today KKR did everything right in last over. That is the essence of Ganguly. He started his international captain’s account in Nairobi mini world cup where he was given a second grade new team. He came back with the cup. He has the dare to win anything by hook or by crook. He has the dare to take out his shirt at lord’s balcony, he has the dare to take the fight to the opponent camp, he has the dare to backing up his boys who lag in performance, he has the dare to fight against selectors for his choice and he has the dare to protest against zonal partiality in selection. What other quality you need in a captain? Definite question will come if at all he is the key to success then why didn’t they perform well in 2007. Well if the entire team cannot perform, captain can’t do anything. They were losing but they were never looked like eleven different entities on the ground like IPL2. And there is one more factor, if you tie up a tiger’s face, cut his nails and ask him to fight, he might lose the battle against any one. Let the Tiger fight the battle in his own way. If still he loses then raise the question. Our Bengal Tiger is 37 already, but never looks like. Does he? He earned respect from the cricket fans that are beyond zonal discrimination. That is why still he gets a roaring welcome even in Chennai, Mumbai, Nagpur, Mohali. He is the man who is the founder of Team India from Indian Cricket team. Team India started dreaming for number one spot under his captaincy only. It was so close yet so far. The more his success gave him pride and pleasure, the more his failures gave him insult and frustration. His captaincy was taken away; he was dropped from the team after performing well. And then KKR captaincy controversy, what more does anyone can digest. Has anyone tried to see what and how that brave man thinks about life? No one even bothered I guess. They are just doing their own business. I don’t blame Sharukh Khan. I don’t think cricket really does matter to him. He is a style icon, nation’s face. He can do publicity stunts, he can lead mass. That is why in 2008 IPL; in spite of finishing at 6th he earned the highest revenue. He took the decision to remove Ganguly as captain along with his team management so he suffered with his team’s performance. But what we, the all KKR fans got out of these? Nothing but pain and agony. I lost my all hopes of seeing this team back on track, but may be one person thought it differently who never lose his hope. My thought process is nothing in front of his. I only can salute that person. The Performers, the fighters, the champions cross pass all the hurdles. People FEEL they can do it, but Champions KNOW they can do it. That is how they are different from others. Had Moti Nandi been alive he might say “fight dada fight”.

CID - turned into a comedy show these days

Let me tell you one detective story. One widow mother and her son died in an accident. They got burnt in their own house. When detectives came to investigate they found both of them we severely injured and thus were not able to run away when the fire broke up. There they found one more guy laid down outside one of the window unconsciously and semi burnt. After forensic test it was proved that the mother and her son were killed because of the stabbing not because they got burnt. Detectives started thinking that the guy they found unconscious will reveal the secret. He might be the murderer and somehow trapped into the burning house.
They found one Italian passport in the injured person’s pocket and came to know his name is Max. He came here from Rome 9 days back. The guy max wasn’t ready to talk, making excuses of being sick. With having no other option they went to that burnt house to check if they find anything there. They wanted to find the motive behind Max’s visit to India. It was hard to believe that only to kill two persons, he came so far. That means something should be there which he wanted to get from that family. While searching in the house they found one simple finger ring which was hidden inside television set. When they scanned the ring they found one code word, 3 RAT CAT 3. When they said Max that they knew what 3 RAT CAT 3 is, max died immediately by cardiac attack. From his shirt collar they came to know about the club where Max was staying in Mumbai. They went to the club and searched his room. There they found one dead body in the bathroom. Club owner said that guy is Pranav Mehta; he also came from Rome one day prior to Max and was staying in another room. From Max’s coputer they found three photographs. In one of the photograph they found Pranav Mehta, the murdered woman and her son together. While searching Pranav Mehta;s room they found one iron chest with combination lock. In the mean time DNA test proved Pranav Mehta was husband of that lady who was killed with her son in Mud Island area. To break the combination lock they used the code 3 RAT CAT 3 and that worked. There was one cell phone inside the safe. That phone doesn’t contain any dialed number or text message. But on it’s battery something was written like “15 week raam shaym”. After searching on internet they got to know it is basically a cinema hall in mud island area. They rushed to the cinema hall and found under one of the 15 numbered seat one pen drive was secretly kept. They took that and were moving to head quarter. All of a sudden senior inspector got a call from a lady from an unknown number saying in the next signal they should return the pen drive to her else she will blast the bomb kept under their seat. Detectives didn’t take chance and the lady took the pen drive. Afterwards finally they found the lady and while interrogating the whole story came in front. Pranav Mehta was a scientist working on some software against terrorism. Max and the group wanted to have it so everything just happened.
Now what’s the big deal in the story? If you ask me I would say it’s just a crap. There was no link, no base nothing. Just think, a scientist who is working against an international terrorist organization, kept data in pen drive under a seat of a cinema hall, then wrote that cinema hall name in mobile battery, then charged the mobile and kept it in a big safe with a weird combination. After that wrote the combination in a ring and hide the ring inside a television set. Why? Why didn’t he put the pen drive inside the TV? Wouldn’t that be easier?
It was so disgusting. Then why I wrote this here? Well this story was telecasted in Sony Entertainment Television’s one of the most long running, oldest show CID. The weekly, crime based serial CID came into television in 1997. It was one of the best shows. It also holds a guineas world record for 111 min continuous shot. But now the quality of the show, deteriorated so much one can’t imagine. No Story, no logic nothing. I don’t know why they are continuing the show. Do they still find it worth broadcasting!

Bollywood is sick!!!!

Progeria, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Alzheimer's disease, Anterograde Amnesia, Dyslexia, Asperger's syndrome, schizophrenic, Multiple Personality Disorder
These are not tongue twisters. Then what are these? These are the successful recipes of hit Bollywood movies in last few years. Yes, all of them are names of some unusual diseases. If you notice the trend, every year two or three movies are getting released where the central character is suffering with a rare disease. Most of the cases public liked these and those movies are either super hit or at least got some public hypes. It’s not true that bollywood has never seen this kind of script before. Remember the 70’s old movie “Aanand” where Rajesh Khanna was suffering from Lympho Sarcoma of the intestine. I don’t think before that movie many of the viewers actually knew any detail of the disease Lympho Sarcoma of the intestine. Once the movie got success, everybody came to know more about it.
But these days, script based on a disease, is not coming once in a blue moon. It’s very frequent. In 2003 Salman Khan appeared in the movie Tere Naam in which he became a mental patient after losing his mind. Next, in 2005 the movie Black came into theater, where Rani Mukhrejee was a deaf and dumb girl and his teacher Amitabh was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Viewers appreciated the script very much. 2008 released movie U me and Hum was also having influence of this Alzheimer's disease in the script.
The movie Bhool Bhulaiya, released in 2007, was based on a story where Vidya Balan is a patient of Dissociative Identity Disorder. In subconscious mind she used to do some strange things which made others start feeling paranormal activities around. Similar kind of script was seen in the movie Aparichit, released in 2006. To be precise, in this movie the hero was suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder.
When the movie Bhool Bhulaiya released, almost in the similar time Tare Zameen Par released. Here the child actor Darsheel is suffering from Dyslexia. I think this was the finest movie among all these I already talked. At least it could spread across some awareness. Then the well hyped movie Ghajni got released in 2008. In this movie Amir Khan is a patient of Anterograde Amnesia, in every 15 minutes he loses his memory. It sound silly, but the movie didn’t impacted by this. It was also hit, however that was because of Amir Khan and his 8 packs abs, not because of Anterograde Amnesia. I have not seen but heard that the Tamil movie from which Ghajhni is influenced is better to watch. Next year means in 2009, Amitabh Bachchan came with the disease Progeria in the movie Paa, where he was a kid having abnormal growth. I didn’t see the movie, so can’t comment on the movie; however people were really excited about the makeup which Amitabh put on. I hope they were not disappointed. Recently Farhan Akhtar also joins the party with Schizophrenic. He is a patient of this mental disease in his latest movie Karthik Calling where he always portrays virtual character in his life.
In this long list almost every famous actor is there, Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan, Amir Khan, Farhan Akhtar, Kajol, Rani Mukherjee, Ajay Devgan, Akshay Kumar, Vidya Balan. Then why not Sharukh Khan!! With the successful trend his movie My Name is Khan released where the character he played Rizuan is a patient of Asperger's syndrome. Now the funny part is till date he used to repeat the characters in his dialogue like “ki..ki..ki..ki..kiran”, now in this movie he is repeating the whole sentence. Well this disease made his acting life easy I guess.
Then what’s next? Hritik Roshan. Hope to see some new disease in is upcoming movie Guzarish.

Brave?? or stupid??

Yesterday I was searching for some videos on youtube, and got one interesting one. It was a clipping from a Pakistani stunt based reality show. In the show one guy claimed that he can grab a burning red hot piece of coal with bare hands. The host was saying the temperature of that coal will be 600 degree Celsius and keeping that in hand 15 seconds may damage is palm permanently. The boy said he was ready for the consequences. After that he made a comment like “My neighboring country hosts some fear factor kind of reality show and I will prove that, they can’t beat me, no one can as fearless as me. The stunt I will perform, no one from that country would have imagined.” I didn’t find anything wrong in this statement. Here neighboring country means obviously India. If that guy wants to prove himself better than the best of India, there is nothing wrong.
Now coming to the stunt, I had no idea how dangerous that stunt can be and what safety measures they took before performing the task. Because I have seen in all the stunt based reality shows, whatever stunt they perform, some safety measures they always take. So even if the contestant fails to perform the task he/she never gets a major heavy injury. But this guy was beyond all these and took the coal in his hand for 15 seconds. As a result his hand was severely burnt and he was hospitalized. In the hospital he made one more statement which made me very irritated. He said “No Indian can perform this task”. I admired his previous comment because it was natural instinct of people to prove himself best, but when he made the second comment, on that time I have seen the stunt. With the context of the stunt I must say it was the most stupid thing I have ever seen. I don’t think based on his this performance he can claim his superiority. That guy thinks stunt means doing something daring and the more you hurt yourself the more the stunt will be successful. But if you hurt yourself what is the significance of technique in doing stunt. If you hurt yourself badly in stunt, that means you failed in it. Somebody may question me on this “what is the daring part of performing any task knowing nothing will happen to you as all safety measures have been taken?” Well, what I feel is, your safety precautions can give you confidence that nothing will happen, but it can’t help you in doing the task properly.
But I can understand why that guy selected this task. They are stupid; their definition of bravery is altogether different. They don’t have right culture to distinguish between good and bad. We Indians are not stupid that we are going to perform some task which might harm us badly. I have seen people in Bengal jumping on sword, knives and many other sharp tools in some occasion. But in spite of doing these, they never hurt themselves badly. They have the right technique to perform it. Don’t you thing they are brave enough. I would say brave and matured.
People of my neighboring country are not matured enough and that is why they can’t choose the good thing always.
The story doesn’t end here. These small things can show how extremist people are there. Destruction, violence, unrest, humiliation, all these are there in their culture. That is how you find so terrorism activities there. If a college going boy can burn his hand to show his bravery certainly some day he might not hesitate to kill himself by becoming a suicide bomber.
I don’t know when they will learn what is the meaning of peace and how to gaining something without harming anyone. They should stop encouraging these activities immediately. I don’t think that day is there in future.

Cricket Commentary

Yesterday night I was watching India vs. South Africa match. Basically I was waiting for Laxman and Dhoni’s century. The commentators were full on with their analysis. On that time Laxman Shivaramakrishnan and Darrel Cullinun was in commentary box. Suddenly one small conversation caught my ear. It’s not word by word, but I am trying to quote them here.
Shiva: India is having so many support stuffs from South Africa. Gary Kirsten, Paddy Upton, Siemence.
Cullinun: Yeah. These two countries are in good relation for such a long time. Isn’t it? It’s around 150 years.
Shiva: No way, whoever are the support stuffs, its India who is playing good. It’s India who is at rank 1 and south Africa at no 2. Nobody cares support stuffs belong from which country
Cullinun: Hey am not saying that. I am saying relation between India and South Africa. Since Gandhi went there we are in good relation.
Shiva: Look, first test was all about your country. Now we are playing good. These guys are playing like champions.

Then Cullinun stopped talking on this topic. Shivaramakrisnan kept talking on the same line. Now can anybody relate Shiva’s comment regarding the statement Cullinun made? Is he dumb? Does he at all capable to sit in the commentary box?

Commentary in cricket is far far different than other sports. In a slow game like cricket where one can find plenty of time gaps between balls and over. So they need to utilize the time to speak something sensible and entertaining so that television viewers don’t lose interest in the game. Yes I am talking about television commentary only. Again it is different than commentary over radio. In TV everything is in front of you, the score, who is bowling from which end, how the shot is offered, how the players reacted. For radio, listeners look for every minute detail. If you ever listened to radio commentary you will find it is like “Dale Styne starting a new over from the pavilion end, bowling with 3 slips and one deep gulley…..he put the ball short….Dhoni goes for a pull…..but didn’t manage to connect it properly. Ball went to midwicket region, Kallis fielded the ball, and one run scored. India 556/6 after the first ball of 143rd over.”
Now days there are so many sports channels and so much cricket is being played, everybody started their commentary career. I feel in last 6-8 years the quality of commentary has deteriorated a lot. The guys who are good commentators are still doing good. But the new comers didn’t able to make any impact. Being a good player is not the condition to be a commentator. Look at Harsha Bhogle, without playing any sorts of cricket he is now an expert commentator.
Lets look into some great commentators. First name comes into my mind is Richie Benaud. His voice and style of talking is really soothing. There is no doubt about his game reading capability as well. That made him a copybook commentator. However still I think his genre is test match only. For ODI and T20 we need some exciting voice especially in death. Just like Tony Greig. I still remember his shout when Kanitkar hit Saqlin Mustaq for four to win the final against Pakistan in Bangabondhu stadium in Bangladesh chasing 314. Geofrey Boycott is another legend. How can I forget his exciting commentary in Taunton Cricket ground during 1999 world Cup. I like Ravi Shastri, Gavaskar, Holding, Harsha Bhogle and Wasim Akram’s commentary. Ramij Raja’s talking style is good but the problem is whenever Pakistan plays, he becomes partial. Whatever Pakistan does, appears good move for him. Same problem is there with Navojyot Sidhu with India. But When I see commentators like Laxman Shivaramakrishnan, Venkatesh Prasad, Sanjay Manjerekar, Ranjit Fernandez then surely I mute my Television set and enjoy the match. I can’t accept them as cricket commentator.

Phir mile sur mera tumhara

I remember when I was a kid; we did not have Television set in our house. Every Saturday and Sunday we used to go to my aunt’s house to watch movies in Doordarshan. On that time there wasn’t any cable channel available. After few years DD Metro came into picture, then one by one different cable channels came into market. In those days main attractions in TV were Ramayana, Mahabharata kind of serials. There was no commercial break in between movies. All the advertisements happened to be shown before start of the movies. Still people used to watch those commercials. In those days, each and every advertisement was great and touchy. “Hamara bajaj”, “Shan se bolo chal mere Luna”, “Gold Spot the zing thing!!”, “Mera Hamam” and many more. Along with these some non commercial advertisement were also getting broadcasted from State or Central Govt. The best among them was “Mile Sur Mera Tumhara” It was an audio visual which contained with a song in 14 different regional languages. Lyrics were pretty simple, a four liner message in different languages. It says about unity in diversity. The great singers and musicians of that era were involved in this 5:30 min long video. Along with them, famous people from bollywood, Sports, Literature field were also appeared in this. In this less than 6 minutes clip one could see the whole India our country, could feel our culture, and could learn our heritage. Yes the video was that rich. The message of brotherly hoods what they wanted to convey, was successfully conveyed.
This audio visual came in 1988-89. In 90’s many more other cable channels came into picture and we started to forget the old channels and old shows. But thanks to Internet and YouTube, this video again came into lime light along with some other old shows. This time the response was wider, it reached to more people, and it touched more hearts than the first time. With the increasing popularity of this video people started thinking on the line of business and decided to re make “Mile Sur Mile Tumhara”. The same production team started working for it and finally launched the new Video.
I started watching this video with mixed feelings. I was not sure if it’s going to worth or not. After the whole 18 min video I asked myself “What a crap is this?” It is no where near to the old one. In the new one, they are able to gather more famous musicians and film stars but they failed to create the essence. The secret of success in the old was there in its lyrics, but in the new they caped the lyrics their try to change the sur made the song worse.

If you see the casting of this video you can find every success people from bollywood appeared in this. The Khans, the Bacchans, Ranbir Kapoor, Shreya Ghosal, Shaan, Sonu Nigam, Alka Yagnik, Shankar Mahadeban, Juhi Chawla, Priyanka Chopra, Shilpa Shetty, oscar winner Rehman, Grammy winner Anushka Shankar …the list is long. But believe me Sharukh Khan with a same old and monotonous pose of stretching hand singing Mile Sur Mera Tumhara, Deepika Padukan’s appearance with short dress, Shankar Ehsan Loy’s performance on dessert, Sonu Nigam playing with the melody of the song, Ameer Khan’s “kya bolti tu” remix, nothing could able to touch my heart. Shivamani playing with weird musical instruments can portrait his personal excellence but that wasn’t required here. Presence of the current bollywood glamour queens Aishwariya, Deepika, Priyanka, Shilpa was just for endorsing the song, nothing more than that. Here the people and performance in the song just had overridden the cause of the song. Everybody is there in the song, but I couldn’t see the Unity in diversity in it.
In the old one Amitabh, Jitendra and Mithun, the hit trio of that time appeared together but their singing with putting hands on each others shoulder was more touchy and meaningful than their stardom.
Still this song will be a hit because it will easily win the heart of fan clubs of each of the celebrity’s. This is nothing but a well planned fully commercial music video which is made to be popular and this doesn’t deal with any message or anything else. However the stage was all set to have something special which can unify us again. In the context of all the separatist issues like Maoism, telangana, Alfa, Ulfa, RSS, MNS, racism, terrorism, this song could represent our values, our ethics. It could show us the path of a better India, but it failed to do so. 10 years down the line this song will not be there as a single entity. Kisi ka sur kise se milte huye nahi dikhega.

Kankana Ganguly - Is she there?

When I started chatting in yahoo, I did not know whom to chat, how to chat. Then I learned about various chat rooms, chat abbreviation, chatting tricks etc and made lot many friends online. I used to change my chat id everytime, so I can say I have a lot of them, but I don’t remember the older ids. But one id I will never forget in my entire life, “Kankana Ganguly”.
I created this female character just to have some fun with some of my friends, just to see how they talk with strangers and especially with girls. First person whom I hit was Anshuman Sarkar. He is my neighbor, however now he is more than my own brother. One night I just send him an instant message from Kankana’s profile. Soon I got the reply, “who are you and where did you get my id?” I was ready for the answer as I knew he was a frequent visitor of some of the chat rooms. I just mentioned one of them. Then we started talking. He never expected me behind all these. I tried to make him talk something silly, something what he does not talk generally in front of friends, so that later I can make some fun out of those. But I failed. The conversation was going on in boring direction. Then I shifted to plan B. I started trying making him feel that I am a person who stays near by him only and one day we could meet. But he was smarter than me. Within five minutes he told me “hey raja (my nick name) don’t try to bluff. I know its you”. When I denied, he called my land line. He knew I used to access internet using my land line phone connection only and at 1 am in the night connection busy means I am using internet. But my original id was not online so rests were very easy that Kankana and I are same entity.
After Anshuman I targeted some of my college friends. There I tried to pretend that I am a girl who knows everything about them and challenged them to find me. Every night I used to tell them what they did in college. Somehow they started feeling that Kankana is not a girl it is some one from our class only. The first accused was me only. But I denied. Saptarshi said he can find out easily if it was me or not when next time Kankana would log in. Picture was clear to me. He will take the same trick by calling my land line. To fool him again I took help of Anshuman. I asked him to be online as Kankana from his home so that my phone line doesn’t come busy. In that evening I got call from Saptarshi that how come my phone line is not busy and I am talking to him where Kankana is online. Their believe that I am Kankana just crashed. But I wasn’t able to continue this bluff for long. Saptarshi and Debargha figured out me as Kankana very soon. It was my fault only. One day in college they asked me to take a girl’s name randomly who is not from our college. I took a name eventually it was the same question what they asked last night Kankana and both the answers were same. I did the blunder and paid for it that day in college. Don’t ask me how I paid.
After this, Kankana went to sleep mode. But she had to make her return very soon then. This time she came for Dhimoy Chakraborty. I met this guy in orkut. Very humorous and decent. Personally I did not know him before but after some scrap exchange in orkut, I found him a good friend of me. I remember me, Dhimoy, my sister, Anshuman and some more orkut friends, we had one get together in botanical garden as well. Now back to Dhimoy. What we (me and Anshuman) found about him is he used to send scrap to all the girls around and whenever we ask why you send scrap to unknown girls, he used to answer us “I know them” and “they are like my sister”. There we felt the need of Kankana to test Dhimoy. But being a good friend, Dhimoy knew about Kankana part. So Kankana opened her account in orkut as Sulagna. We set the trap in different manner. We wanted to test if Dhimoy sends scrap to unknown girl or not. So we made Sulagna as a good friend of mine and Anshuman. We three started exchanging scraps. Those scraps were clearly visible to Dhimoy. After a few days I got one message from Dhimoy in Yahoo asking who was Sulagna and was she someone whom I knew. I said no, she was just an unknown friend of mine. That’s it; it was all set for Dhimoy. The very next night Dhimoy posted a scrap to Sulagna’s scrap book. It was a small piece of Poem. Yes!!!! We trapped him so easily. To make Sulagna a real character we did a lot. We added 50 odd friends first. Then added her name in one school community and one college community. Some more profiles had to be created as good friend of Sulagna. Else her scrap book would be full of scraps saying “who are you” “nice to meet you” “may I know you” etc etc which might lead to think Dhimoy that someone is making prank. We enjoyed our success. I guess Dhimoy still doesn’t know that Sulagna was a fake character.
Soon after Sulagna episode, Kankana reappeared in yahoo. This time the target was Kaushik Sinha. He is also my neighbor and a very good friend of mine. One day he asked me about any unknown girl’s chat id. The moment he asked me, I planned the whole thing and I introduced Kankana to him. For him Kankana is still alive I guess. When I left Kolkata and was sure in next few months I wont be able to come online regularly, I just made sure Kankana got a job is a small village in Rajasthan where Internet connection is not available. The best part of this episode was when Kankana had a good friendship with Kaushik, every body around Kaushik and me knew who is Kankana except Kaushik. So in any occasion whenever me, Suman, Amit, Anshuman and Kaushik we meet together we used to ask Kaushik about Kankana. His expression about the conversation with Kankana was really hilarious. He was ready to go any where to meet Kankana also. All these ended in 2006 when I got my job in Mumbai. After that I never logged in as Kankana for three years.
A month back when I came to US, in one lazy morning I logged in as Kankana and after clearing the entire offline messages I went into one of the Calcutta Global Chat room. I wasn’t chatting with anyone, just watching how weird messages I was getting. All of a sudden one message came from an id (also present in that chat room) which I felt I knew and chatted before as Kaustav. I checked my own address book and found I was right. It was Partha Nandy. I met this guy in a rally (against OBC quota) and he became a good friend. Eventually his cousin brother is also my chat friend. It was grand father of co-incidence that he entered into same room with Kankana and pinged her. For me it was a god gifted opportunity. Without wasting any time I started talking to him. I started giving him all the info which I knew about him. He was totally surprised, and started guessing me randomly. He was so confused, so confused that I can not explain here. For him it was impossible to think that Kankana is not real and it is a prank because he pinged Kankana, not that Kankana sent him im from nowhere. He has literally become mad to know who this Kankana is.
I did not get time after that to talk with Partha or Kaushik as Kankana or as Kaustav. I don’t know what they would feel if they read this blog. I want them to read this article in front of me. I wanna shoot them while reading.