the nonsensical adda

"Cholbi?" "Chalo tahole :)"..wanna go? lets go then.. :)
I cudnt resist... not when there was the prospect of a kickass adda session, I had time, and sufficient money in the bank to nail a quart. Dad had filled in money today. So no sooner was I asked by this senior of mine, whether I was up to an adda session, with milds, anjan dutta and bp accompanying us did I jump into a Yes. It being a Saturday, the project submission on Monday seemed a distant prospect.
To non-Bengalis, an adda in the crudest explainable definition is the bongish romanticized rendezvous... in fact, you actually need to be in Cal to know how it actually is romanticized...Bangalore was a consolation... but Bangaalis have this ability to make any place seem enjoyable so long as there is cigarette, alcohol, music, and the familiar Bangaliana.
And what could have been the lawskulite's dream cheap alcoholic den but Surya? The place which is an institution in its own right, howbeit alcoholic.
But a Saturday evening meant Kannadiga crowds... nah, not the place today. The place we chose next was, rightly or wrongly, called Mangalore Paradise (perhaps Haven would have been a better name.. anyways).
And so it started. Discussions. And just like a river, an adda flows, ignorant of the paths it's gonna traverse. It just needs a trigger, perhaps a 'cheers' serves just as well. So then we had discussions, rambling about law school for no more than thirty seconds. And then it was a unanimous subconscious decision to bunk it; we had more important nonsense to talk about. IPL (no Sourav, an adda is seldom on beaten tracks), alcohol, addas in Calcutta, Calcutta rains, Communism and 'Trinamoolism', schools, teachers, badmaashis we missed, fests we flirted in et cetera. Then came literature, Tagore. And that was it. The river was now calm, settled on Tagore. The man, his life, his works, his views, his philosophy; what he wrote in 80 years could be enough material for a century-long discussion perhaps. Tagore is, at least to Bengalis till today, a figure larger than life, a philosopher who had experienced and expressed life in every form. And his music became his short hand for emoting things words perhaps can never attempt. I have always lamented my inability at not being able to read Bong really well. But nonetheless, I love the discussion when it happens, contributing whatever little I can.
It could have gone on. But the silly waiter was taking tooo long to get the 3rd quart. The cigarette was finishing.
And if Tagore could be subjected to so much dissection, another illustrious Bengali could not be left out. Satyajit Ray - a man of as high stature as his height. And his films. And the beauty. And the inevitable comparisons with Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen. Again, not having seen as many bong films as i ought to have, I devoured the discourse given by my senior. The talk on films took a general turn, and then we were talking about Roshomon and Viridiana, Deewaar and Hey Ram. Any film that had discussion material would have done.
Somewhere in the midst of the adda session I realised that this was one of those so very infrequent situations which did not necessitate bitching and sliming to pass time. Time was passing , without your getting to know how.
Then there was a topic closer, much closer, to heart - music. In its various forms, classical, both eastern and western, country, the Beatles, rock and roll, trance, Mohd. Rafi -Kishore Kumar and Lata-Asha dichotomies..and Bangla jobonmukhi gaan. Rabindrasangeet definitely had to peep in.
And finally, the waiter signalled it was time to go. The extension of 'fifteen more minutes', which had run to another half an hour had also run out. The paradise was getting pissed. We paid, and left; a little high, and wanting a little more of everything, cigarettes, whisky, time, adda. Whisky there was not to be found, even the illegal dens were inaccessible now. 12:20; no chance.
Never mind inscrutable Bong blood! Cigarette is just as fine. All these adda accompanists are pretexts.
So up on the Cauvery roof again, screaming songs to the heart's content, high but still not sleepy...and then, the inevitable. Cigarettes got over. Shit. Agreed that these accompanying guys are pretexts, but you need them, just like you need a fucking pretext for almost every other thing you do. Adda was over for the night. There was this promise that since this adda remained incomplete (like every other adda), we would meet tomorrow. More cigarettes; no more alcohol, the pocket wouldn't allow. But then, promises made during an adda are forgotten, no sooner than it ends that day. We guys knew this characteristic as well. And yet, 'yes yes, we must meet tomorrow... no work, give me a call, i won't be sleeping or sick or anything'... The better things in life aren't really repeated; I mean it's great if they are, but we shouldn't hope in such impractical directions.

the daily chronicler of nonsense

• a saturday... i never remember dates.

1. ideal music to be played in:
   

shopping malls, the shopper's stop types: backstreet boys
restaurants: saxophone
in your hostel room, with the headphones on: lucky ali

2. Jesus did not die for our sins. At least he didn't die for mine. He just challenged the institution and got F'd. Reality. Similarly, Ram was just a king. Just a king. We just try insisting he was God, to keep our faiths strong. Krishn was a good flirt, a damn good one at that.

3. Typing on MS word is easier than typing on this stupid forum. The autocorrect shit is essentially absent.

4. I miss those days when cassettes would come for 28 bucks, movie tickets for 48. Though ya, the quality has improved. But then, so has the price; and in a much greater proportion. Income sadly hasn't.

5. Actually, it'd be more appropriate to say that I miss those days of 90s middle-class demands and life-style. The mobile phone is a boon though.

6. I just remembered someone saying that this style of writing of mine is called 'Stream of Consciousness'. OK.

7. I'd try updating this post daily; I manage to think up enough nonsense to keep up to my promise; remembering it is difficult though.

8. I wanted to limit the number of posts to 6. It's a lucky number. Didn't happen. 8 is not a lucky number. I've thought of one more. But now, I am forgetting it.

9. Yes, I don't talk to myself or the wall perhaps, 'cos I blog the nonsense.

• a Tuesday/ Wednesday midnight...

1. Satya Sai Baba remarked, "Love seeks no reward, Love is it's own reward".. He is under a mistaken conception...Love, as Robert Frost had opined, is 'an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired"...

• friday, may.

1. if u can't define humility, search for definitions of hypocrisy; they're synonyms.

• thursday, or wednesday perhaps...such bother this!

1. they bitch about the cigarette... it's bad for health and all such health-conscious rubbish... but ever thought that as against that, there are so many pros? You are alone. Grab a cigarette. With friends. Cigarette. Busy, tensed. Cigarette. Happy, no one to share. There's our small friend. Sad, she's fuckin left you. Blow it out. Tired, did too much work. Relax on a smoke. Bored, did nothing. Have one. Projects? SUTTA. You fuckin need it even to reassure your self that you've had a good sex session. Phew! I should've probably thought of a career in salesmanship. :P

• 14.05

1. it's perhaps too late, but i still miss the innocence of yestertimes...memories i relive, thanks to the bliss called Music
2. no i don't want to look at your pictures; i wish to preserve the ones in my mind

• dhorajaak aaj robbar, kono kaaj nei. - Suman
  

"let's assume it's a sunday; there's no work."

1. writers (most) have an inability to differentiate between their 'good' and 'bad' works, unlike readers who do it oh so well. The writer just assumes that the reader couldn't understand the piece he tagged bad; well, his problem; my job ends with writing.
2. So these writers love all their works. Go fuck yourself, stupid reader/reviewer. Perhaps like the good father, who still loves the son people consider a waste.
   
3. Both seem justified to me.

• it's a monday, and thus the last week of my vacations has begun.

1. i haven't been a quitter regarding anything in life. Perhaps I should have been one regarding many a thing in life.

• the saturday before project submissions

1. i hate this suo motu restoration of memories from the recycle bin onto the mind.
2. wonder what's happened to the word 'poison'. I mean i used to listen to this word as a killer when i was a child. Nowadays i hear of so many novel forms of deaths that people invent, and take pains scheming. Poison, where's your importance? It's so difficult to be simple. To think of a simple life, and a simple death.

• the following Sunday; a working Sunday; and I think
  

1. where the mind is without tensions, where there are no project submissions, where smoking on campus is allowed, where the teacher doesn't mind you walking out, into THAT freedom of heaven my Father, let my college awake

remembering romantic nonsense

You think you are Independent. You think you are disillusioned with all that crap; and you think you've finally moved on. With nothing to look back; the past was anyways a bucket of ashes. And then all of a sudden they come, perhaps when you bump into the person or that familiar song that had once made you experience an emotion you'd probably laugh at now. Memories. I won't go into the glorification of the concept of memories, since they have already been accepted as being the spring roses you smell in winter and all that. But yes, they can shatter you. And believe me, bloody well. When you realize that all this while that you've been believing that the past is just not a part of the present, you've only been fooling yourself. The past doesn't leave you; never. To the braver, it perhaps just doesn't haunt. And no matter how 'tough' you are, you've probably had a past where you felt goose-pimples and your heart raced for someone. When you thought of that someone wherever you went; holidays, college, malls, restaurants...even in your dreams. When you thought that you were in love, and the feeling was painful. All this seems too corny now, right? Understandably.
You're probably even seeing someone now. But you could never feel the same way for this person; the way you had felt then. The way you felt sometime back when you crossed the song or the very person. You could probably never fall in LOVE again. Call it a shahrukh khan movie influence, but you do know that of all people who've specially felt about, that one person has been extra-special. That one person you could never forget, but who you wanted to bury under your present life. You've probably never had to make this hard an effort any other time. But ya, one rainfall, and you remember those times, the pure, platonic, innocent, unconditional love. And you are probably a fool if you think, "What a fool I was!" Well, almost everybody's been a fool then. Almost everybody has acted crazy about some person; almost everybody has listened to,and liked those cheesy songs once. And everybody's cried. There's nothing stupid.
Aah, Memories.Yes. You still feel like reliving those emotions when these guys called 'memories' randomly strike you. Of all the thinking about the person you did, of all the palpitating heart, and so on. For once, you feel like going back. Going back, wishing time had stopped there for a second, and you had not become so cold post that. Wishing things would have turned a better hue, the way you'd wanted them. But then, the pragmatic, justifying, rational, egotistic you thinks, "Good only it never happened. Would have been stupid". But don't you still somewhere secretly desire that the stupidity had happened?
We probably relish memories more than we relished those times in actuality. Memories, then you think, are just a facade. But whatever they are, those times were good, howbeit stupid. You still feel you hadn't become so cold and wordly-wise. That you'd stayed the innocent you, with your innocent dreams, innocent emotions, and innocent love. For once, just for once, you pray, God, get me back there again, make me feel that sweet pain. Just once, a taste of the old life. Probably it wasn't nonsense after all. Probably it was love. Period.

Beatling nonsensical Imaginations

Thought i'd just seen a face,
Seen her standing there on the Blue Jay Way,
Yes. Saw her Yesterday-ey-ay.
There was something in her way,
But being the Loser that I am,
I couldn't help hide my love away.
Then there were friends, And i got high (Tell me why),
Thought I Saw Lucy in the sky,
Saying Hello-Goodbye.
I imagined All my little plans and schemes,
get lost like some forgotten dream,
Float somewhere with a Ticket to ride,
In the Yellow Submarine.
They were with Mother Nature's Son,
Looking through the Glass onion,
Wanting me to follow them, Calling me on and on,
Hye Jude! C'mon! C'mon! C'mon! C'mon!!!
They were perhaps Following the Sun in their Magical Mystery Tour
Perhaps going Across the Universe.
Back then I just saw the Two of Us,
I was the Walrus.
Yet I thought I'd just Let it be.
Perhaps I should've known better than such misery,
But being a Nowhere Man,
I didn't want to spoil the party.
You may say I'm a dreamer, an Eleanor Rigby,
I don't care.
Nothing's gonna change my world.