SOME IMAGES FROM THE PARTY

At the start of the evening - all sane!!



Belly Dancing to the tunes of Golle Mara



The smorgasmic platter!!
(Notice the fallen object ... indicative of the night developing!! :D )



Enjoying the warm winter.
(and if you are wondering ... what I hold is not mine!!)



Clouds gather on the horizon the day after - time to get back to the drudgery??




P.S> Some more pictures to follow soon ... yet to finish collecting all!!

COUNTING DAYS

Its 29th December today. Two days to 2006 ... but more significantly just a month till I reach home!!
It all seemed such an innocuous statement inserted as a concluding paragraph in the first mail I received from my manager. It went like - "At the end of the 11 weeks you will recieve a well deserved two week vacation" ... little had I realized then how well deserved it would be.

I remember reading somewhere that the adjustment process in the States or Canada comes in 3 phases. Stage 1 is that of excitement, where the adrenalin rush of seeing new things and discovering new degrees of freedoms, overshadow everything else. Stage 2, the most difficult of the three, consists of falling into routine and generally getting bored with life, trying to compare with all the good things back home and complaining about life (or the lack of it!!). And Stage 3, when you accept what you get and slowly come to terms with a new culture and a new life. The last few days has probably been my transition from Phase 2 to Phase 3.

Looking back over the past week or so, time seems to have blurred all memories ... so many things in so small a span of time .... whew, amazing.
It started with the upcoming mid-term test. Given that we had a legacy from our seniors (a mesmerizing pass record of 35%), we were pretty nervous about it!! Needless to say we discussed more about it than actually study, nevertheless the hype was there. This was followed by the mid school appraisals, which we all thought would be a nightmare. Only it turned out to be a real quick affair, getting over in a day and a half. However, a note here that, I was amazed at our instructor's ability to judge us ... he was spot on for almost all of us [maybe because all of us were told we would get D - the worst grade, if at all graded ;-)]!!

Then came the much awaited break of 2 days and the Christmas party. Its rather difficult to describe it in words n so will just phrase it as "absolutely fabulous". Arabic and Spanish music, a "dance floor", with Indian/Thai/Chinese cuisine to go with an array of drinks arranged by yours truly and gang, in a 3 floor mansion provided the perfect setting for a diverse group of 22 people from all over the world to get together and party away the Christmas eve. Only to add to the pleasure was the unusually warm weather due to the Chinook winds.

Other than the aforementioned aspects, the party had another special significance ... it brought out the humane aspect in everyone, which we all strive to contain in ourselves. Given that most of us were drunk enough to be talking all sorts of things; but even people who did not touch alcohol were pouring their hearts out and it felt wonderful to be able to share their company and identify with their problems. The diversity of culture, language, race, origin all seemed ever so non-existent!!

With two days of holidaying over, it was time to get back to the same old drudgery ... that old truck and the same well whose characteristics we can recite off without looking at a log!! And as I write this post am waiting for the phone call to tell me to rush down to the Learning Center to start my operator shift!!

HISTORY RE-WRITTEN

December 2001, this 'baby' was just starting to learn to walk through the mazes of Kgp!!
December 2005, this 'old man' just retired from that fantastic place a few months back!!

The similarity between the two, Kgp celebrated its 17th and 18th GC-s inter-IIT, respectively. And most unfortunately I missed both!!

But here's wishing the entire team my heartiest CONGRATULATIONS!! To put it into very simple words, its been an awesome performance to win the Inter IIT General Championship back after four years.

N special wishes to Acro (a junior i never got to know too well) for a successful conquest!! Wish I had some pics of the teams of yore n the Gymkhana!! :)
KGP ka tempo high hai!!

A BONG MIND AT WORK

No excuses for not having posted so long. No doubt that it has been an extremely hectic last week and a half but more than that it has been a lack of creative inspiration that led to no new posts. Then suddenly a few days back I came across this article, which set me thinking about the fact that I am one of those rare, pampered, sheltered species called the "Great Bong"!!

One phrase every Bengali worth his sweater has grown up with is 'thanda lege jabey'. It is the ultimate warning of impending doom, an unadulterated form of existentialist advice. Thanda lege jabey. Thou shalt 'catch the cold'.

'Catching the cold' comes easy to Bengalis. It's a skill that's acquired almost immediately after birth. Watch a Bengali baby and you would know. Wrapped in layers of warm clothing even if the sun is boiling the mercury, the baby learns quickly that his chances of survival in a Bengali household depend on how tightly he can wrap himself in cotton, linen and wool. Bengalis have almost romanticised warm clothing, so much so that Bengali art has found eloquent expression in a form of quilt-stitchwork called kantha.

I'm sure wool-shearers even in faraway Australia say a silent prayer to Bengalis before the shearing season (if there's any such season). I'm also sure the very thought of Bengalis sends a chill down the spine of many a sheep.

In winter, the quintessential Bengali's outfit puts the polar bear to shame.

Packaged in at least seven layers of clothing and the head snugly packed inside the queerest headgear, the monkey cap, he takes the chill head on. Easy lies the head that wears the monkey cap. With a pom-pom at the top, it's not just a fashion statement; it's a complete fashion paragraph!!

For a race that is perpetually running scared of cold weather, Bengalis have a surprising affinity for hill stations too.

I remember strolling down the Walk of Fame in Hollywood on a pleasant May evening. My eyes scanned the glittering stars on the asphalt - each an ode to a Hollywood heavyweight. Suddenly, my ears caught the unmistakable Doomsday warning - 'thanda lege jabey'. I stood transfixed. The Hollywood Walk of Fame is probably the last place one would like to get caught 'catching the cold'. I turned around. There was this Bengali family braving the American chill. The young brat of the family was adamant that he didn't want any more clothing but mom wouldn't have any of it - "sweater porey nao, thanda lege jabey." I need not translate that. Mom won, and the family - sweaters et al - posed for a photograph.

Even leaving aside the "thanda lege jabe", think for once about the average middle class born kid in Kolkata; born into doting parents who think and firmly believe in the phrase "Amar chele (or meye) is the best". Remember the ad "Tumi jokhon choto chile tomakeo khaiyechi" (When you were young, you too had it) on good old DD ... yet to see one that typifies the bengali household love and warmth more!!

I am in no position to comment on the good or the bad effects of all this mollycoddling on the growing up child. There are too much statistical variations to prove either arguement. Suffice to say that the average Bong child enjoys a much more pampered, well groomed and sheltered existence during his/her childhood. The only problem is sometimes this extends to ridiculously longer periods of time, a case in point being one of my father's colleagues, whose dad used to bring him to office and take him home!!

Of course things are changing nowadays; the age old custom of 100 odd relatives fanning out in search of a 'jamai' or a 'bou' for the "kid" is fast disappearing, as is the wonderful playgroup of kids that was such a common sight in a joint family. But the warmth remains, the love remains and the bonds still remain just as strong!! In an age when you are judged by how cool or uncool you are, the warmth that the kakus, jethus and mashimas exude can melt icebergs. I, for one, wouldn't trade that warmth for any amount of cool!!

I guess, probably, the warmth of the heart is best preserved in shawls, pullovers and cardigans.

IN A QUASIPERIODIC STATE OF LIFE

Have been thinking about my present state of affairs for the last few days, which by the way have been pretty despondent with a whole lot of sleepy never ending lectures. Finally arriveth the much awaited days off, that too three ... sweeeeeeet!!

Quasiperiodicity - physics with diverse applications in chaos theory ... hmm, still remember some of the stuff from my final semester (which seems so far back in time at the moment)!! My memory recalls it to be a helical path taken by a moving particle along the circumference of a bound doughnut where the same point is never traversed twice.

As I was saying, it seemed that I was living in a while(1) loop (my erstwhile wingmate, pardon me for infringing on your copyright). Sadly my wallet convinced me otherwise!! Life seemed to have established a regular motonic pattern of its own in this sleepy little town (by indian population standards, you might even call it a village) of Airdrie.

Morning 7:30 to evening 6:30 - play TT, listen to an unending chattering of sounds which go by the name of Indonesian language and ridiculed, eat food worser than Kgp (that too thrice), get ridiculed by a Scot and study if you got time after all this.
Back to the apartments from school sleep or eat and then off to that small unhappening place described as a pub and called, for some unknown reason, "One Eyed Jacks"!!
Back again to the apartments, chat for sometime and off to sleep, only to wake up to yet another uninspiring day!!

Sounds pretty much like a while(1) loop?? So did it to me!! Only yesterday did this amazing realization dawn upon me that somewhere things kept changing. It did seem more comfortable sitting on the chairs at that very same OE Jacks, only to realize after a few pegs of vodka that my wallet had gone on a diet without me being aware of it. The temperature outside has had a free fall since last week and the number of layers of clothes on my body has been proportionally increasing ever since. Last I knew it was -25 degC outside, after which this novelty too wore off!! Thought of some other changes in my sorrounding parameters as well but I'd rather not list them all here!!

Temperatures from last week to this!!

Just suffice to say hence it becomes a quasiperiodic state in life!!