Friends sans borders

Perhaps, this is the best out of numerous social networking sites on which billions of people try to make a virtual world around them. I heard of virtual friends turn into real-life buddies, guys who have found their life partners on the Net, but never I came across such a space, which gives you a different perspective about friends and strangers around you!

Couchsurfing was a new term till one of my colleagues told me about this over a dosa at a south Indian restaurant in central Calcutta on a hot summer afternoon earlier this year. Since then, I chalked out numerous plans to visit different places. The best plan that I could think was at an altitude of 14,500ft at a tent on the Himalayas for a trek to the Alps!

Last month, two CS — as Couchsurfing is commonly known — friends flew down from Bangkok for a month’s tour to India. It was a great experience to listen to their side of story — particularly the discussions on environmental policies of Bush and Obama at a Calcutta café. It was something unimaginable to me to have an exchange of ideas just like that!
Through this short piece of blog, I request all of my friends to join CS, and enjoy surfing!


© Supratim Pal, 2009

Perils of Paranoia

For me, SRK is a victim of paranoia than religion. A sense of insecurity that was born soon after some eccentric fellows hijacked and rammed two flights into WTC still permeates our mind and soul. What remains is the body — frisked by securitymen here and there, then and now just to find a terrorist out of us, out of me. But can one change my mind, if I want to take on the world around me with a fearless stride? Will the gun-toting men in uniform be able to stop me from turning into a terrorist?

No doubt, we will point security lapses if an untoward incident takes place, but isn’t it more of intelligence inputs and source building that the men in khaki should work for? Guns only give rise to corruption, it cannot protect a common citizen from being blown up in a blast at a bust stand or crowded station. When I was a student of Class VII, fence and grills were constructed around our hostel and verandahs to stop kids from escaping. But I’m sure children have attempted successfully to escape from the bounds of securitymen at the gate or monks at the hostels in the past 16 years. Forget childhood, even now I am made a victim of paranoia everyday when I take the underground Metro or even entering our office.

The other day I have to explain to a plainclothes policeman at a Metro station why I keep a raincoat during monsoon and why I carry breads in transparent boxes for night shift! Our office is superb in that respect. It has recently made a rule, stating that its employees cannot enter the premises with any printed document, like a book or a magazine or even the day’s newspaper. If you insist that you really read it, you have to get a stamp on it by prying securitymen. They expect some dumb asses will do office work only and cannot read even a book whenever s/he gets bored! What a high level of paranoia — I don’t know how an innocuous piece of paper can harm my colleagues and bosses and who not — it is!


©Supratim Pal, 2009

...

She did not want me to see as a school or college teacher, although I was almost becoming so with on the verge of completing BEd more than four years ago. Her reason was simple: I would even forget to spell "ticket", whether with one ‘t’ or two at the end after numerous mistakes in scripts! It’s not that I don’t need to correct spellings or syntax everyday in my present job, but the way it was said by Topu masi when I was just seven years old was really funny.

After 22 years, when my mother reminded the same to Topu masi today, she was all tears. She stared at me for over five minutes, trying to figure out whether it is the same boy who once lived just next door in a village called Panagarh, now a bustling town in Burdwan district. I had a great time with Topu masi and Sikha masi — both remained unmarried and my mother’s colleagues in the social welfare department. On Mondays, I used to have a great piece of news for both when they would return from their weekly visit to their respective parents: what was shown in the Mahabharat on TV on Sunday. They would listen to my description of the great wars with rapt attention and Topu masi asked me which weapon I liked most.

For me, the mornings in the pre-satellite TV era would start with spiritual talk on the radio. Before I was readied for school by my elder sister, I could see Topu masi glued to Pratyahiki, a popular AIR programme based on letters sent by its listeners on a specific topic. Ma used to say: "Topu would write a letter on this month’s topic." I can’t recall whether Topu masi indeed wrote a letter or not, but she read a lot of Bengali novels and short stories those days.

Being children, we used to subscribe Anandamela, and my brush with "elders’ magazine" Desh — something a no-no in our childhood then — started at Topu masi’s desk. Had there not been Topu masi, I might not have grown an interest in studying at Santiniketan, as Samaresh Basu was writing the biography of famous sculptor Ramkinkar Baij in Desh. With paintings by Bikash Bhattacharjee, Dekhi Nai Firey, was a fascinating experience for me even if I could not make out much from them. But somewhere Dekhi Nai Firey was embedded in my mind and years later when I was keen to make a documentary film on Ramkinkar, the first thing Ma told me: "Call up Topu, she will be happy to know about it."

Images are aplenty. Cut to 2009.

I took Ma to bed no. 106 of a cancer hospital off Park Street this afternoon after a call from my mother’s another colleague. There, on a white bed, Topu masi was lying under a red chequered piece of cloth with tubes, monitors and anxious relatives counting final hours around her. She enquired my wellbeing with a voice not heard in many years. After some short conversations, when Ma reminded her of the "ticket" tale, she just smiled and stared at me. Before bidding her goodbye, I told her: "Topu masi, get well soon and we’ll have a long chat." Only a drop of tear answered on her behalf.

©Supratim Pal, 2009

Thy hand, not great anarch

How come the hand that was sought after too much for its warmth could turn out so cold overnight? I tried to find an answer to this simple question that racked my brain last night.

Well, the problem is not mine, although it might sound like that. My only concern is the guy. Is he a fool? Or, he deliberately did it to end a relationship like that. What sort of endgame is it? Every good thing ends somewhere, even if a deep love relationship between two human minds ends in life or in death. I don’t believe in life after death. To me, the guy let it happen to enjoy pain in life itself.

But can one really enjoy pain? Is it not a bit of sadist attitude on his part? Could the situation be handled differently? Did the guy of our age, brought up with an open mind, really want to harm or insult the girl in question with his touch? It’s the same paradox, rather problem, which dogged another friend of mine who married after a couple of years’ courtship. Two years maybe a short period of time to know each other, but they were confident that they could pull it through in marriage. Only 10 months into it, the girl deserted him for better life, but not before accusing him of marital rape — a serious allegation in this country now when laws are twisted to give "advantage" to women, who have been tolerating domestic violence for ages. Touch is a problem, not untouchability.

"Are these the same hands that once touched your feet? Wasn’t it paying respect?" he says, barely audible to my ears in the din of the city of joy. I could figure out pain in his eyes, where she did not find love a year ago. What is love? Isn’t it taking care of a person in distress? Isn’t it supporting someone in crisis? What is it?

One thing I know that whatever it is, it cannot be in Alexander Pope’s words "thy hand, great anarch".

©Supratim Pal, 2009

Sari shock!

Didn’t think that I have to write this, but a series of comments — some of those were quite personal in nature — on Facebook made me taking up the keys once more.

I’m not going to defend what my newspaper published today, but the nature of protest till late in evening just fascinated me. It was the sheer "power of words" — a catchline ABP has been using for quite sometime — and also a visual that stirred our morning minds, which led to protests and sloganeering outside our office. The protest continued on web space also. Most of the protesters were women, both on the road and the cyber highway, who thought that the sari-clad images done by our designer were in poor taste and humiliating for people who love traditional saris — either to wear or to appreciate.

Most of my friends and colleagues were furious over the way the visual was represented, thinking that women were the target. For long, I like debates, especially those concern the common masses. I also wanted to start a debate, taking a stand, which I may or may not like, on this issue this afternoon. One of the first comments was targeting the profession I chose some years back. I was also told that we, including my bosses, should give up journalism! Why should we? Just because some people react like that? One of the first lessons in journalism I got from Dipayan da — who nurtured many a young brain to turn into great professionals in this "cocoon" (as one of my friends said) — was that a journalist’s job is done when people react to a story, or a picture, or any visual.

Have we forgot to think things differently? If someone chooses that, does that mean he has lost his "senses"? What sort of communication is that? And it came from my sensible journalist friends and ex-colleagues! Experimenting with a new idea might be bad, but isn’t it better than printing some run-of-the-mill stories and pictures everyday? The day — it was Dashami in Bengal — Sourav Ganguly lost his captaincy, TT did a nice graphic, which I think everyone remembered till date. There were lots of hate calls and mails, like what we have been receiving now, but was there a better way to compare him with the goddess Durga being immersed in the Ganga? Tell me another broadsheet newspaper in India which experimented with so much in design and layout? The day after 7/11, when Mumbai was limping back to normality, can you remember the TT Page 1? Or on January 23, 2002, a day after the attack on American Center?

TT is not at all a "piddly paper bent on gimmickry", as it would be a really long list, which papers have been doing this for ages and on how many occasions!

I know, my friends would again bombard me with comments, and some of you may think that it’s just waste of time responding to this blog! Nevertheless, I welcome feedback and criticism, of course!

©Supratim Pal, 2009

Girl with zeal on global stage

Following is the latest article written by me for my newspaper:

Calcutta, July 10: Meeting the Prime Minister was a dream but Sanjukta Pangi, 16, stayed cool — she had a mission to accomplish.

The tribal teen had come all the way to L’Aquila, Italy, from one of Orissa’s most backward districts to tell Manmohan Singh what he could do to transform the education scene in her village, Semiliguda.

She won a promise from Singh, during the G8 summit yesterday afternoon, that his government would lay stress on rural education in the country.

The student of Government Girls’ High School in Pottangi, Koraput district, had been selected by Unicef to represent India at the J8 (Junior 8) summit in Rome along with 53 others from 14 countries, including all the G8 ones.

Fourteen of the children — one from each participating country — were picked to meet their respective leaders at L’Aquila.

“I told the Prime Minister about the J8 declaration on free and qualitative education in developing countries,” Sanjukta told The Telegraph from L’Aquila.

“Initially, I was quite tense talking to him…. I requested him to improve the transport sector in rural areas so students like me don’t have to stay in school hostels.”

After the 15-minute meeting, Singh introduced Sanjukta to world leaders, including US President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Two other Indian teenagers had been selected to attend the J8 summit: Narendra Kumar, 15, from Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh and Samuel Venkatesan, 17, from Dam Kottapalla, Tamil Nadu.
Sanjukta made the team of 14 to L’Aquila on the strength of her performances in the discussions and debates at the J8.

Sanjukta, who comes from a village near Daman Jodi, Orissa’s highest peak, said the J8 summit had made her more confident than ever about talking on child rights, especially on education for girls.

“In my village, girls are married off at an early age. I had to fight with my parents to continue to study,” she said.

At both the G8 and J8 summits, the delegates — the world leaders and their younger counterparts — were looking for an answer to climate change and carbon emission.
Sanjukta calmly told the Prime Minister: “Youths like us are the future of the world. Together we can change it into a better place for the next generations to live. My father is a farmer; he has to wait for the rains every year because industries have come up near our village and trees have been felled randomly. Are we going to a world where there’ll be no greens? We should focus on plantation and the green drive.”

Mission accomplished, she returns to her village, about 500km from state capital Bhubaneswar, next week. She promises it will be “a new Sanjukta going back to India” with a “changed mindset” for a better tomorrow.

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link: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090711/jsp/frontpage/story_11223141.jsp

All about Green Travel

My father wouldn’t have retired too early, six years before he was supposed to be 60, had there been even a proposal of extending the Metro to Barasat, as it was declared yesterday by a lady known to be maverick in nature, confused in philosophy and restless in work.
This piece is not to celebrate the ideas and ideals of Mamata Banerjee — as has been the case in the public sphere since her party’s meteoric rise to popularity in the past few months — but to share a few thoughts with you as a fellow commuter on the infamous Sealdah-Bongaon section.

Why infamous? Isn’t it derogatory? Obviously, it is.

How many of you have got only a square feet to make yourself comfortable in a place on a EMU compartment in the peak hours? I still have to do on most of the occasions. For me, the rush office hours are better than the semi-full compartments in the afternoons, when I travel nowadays to come to office. The logic is simple: you don’t need to be extra-cautious for your belongings in the office hours than lazy afternoons, when unemployed youths get active to pounce upon innocent passengers, especially women travelling alone. Although I broke my first (or, second) specs of my life on a morning train at Barasat while going to school, I still enjoy the crowd.

The crowd, in the morning office hours, is just superb. While some of them are busy playing cards on the 30/45-minute journey, many others enjoy arguing the Mamata-Buddha political equation, talking about the late night cricket match in West Indies or even the usual soccer duel between Mohun Bagan and East Bengal. I still think the commuters have a better feel of things than the intellectuals or bureaucrats chalking out strategies sitting far from the reality in an AC room!

Once I told my father — before he gave up commuting, which he started in the early Sixties when he was a student at Ashutosh College in Calcutta, in 1998 — that the best intellectuals are the people who take the morning crowded trains to office and repeat the same in evenings. Even now, I can see unknown faces talking to each other on issues like the Indo-US nuclear deal, Iran elections or even Obama’s Afpak policy. It might sound strange to a stranger to Bongaon locals, but it’s true. All you need is proper initiation before your first step inside the bogie. Otherwise you might be shoved just like my big fat maternal uncle. In short, he was told to make room for another person in a cramped compartment he was not habituated to travel!

Somehow, I still prefer train journeys to any other mode of transport. Not because it’s smoother and safer than the rest, but also for its positive impact on the environment. It’s still one of the green public transports available to us — maybe in the mode of a symbolic green EMU rakes to us! Bongaon locals are not infamous as it seems to be, they are really nice to travel on, an experience of lifetime.

©Supratim Pal, 2009

The Great Indian Trek: Last Part

Finally, we reached Roopkund — the lake created by Shiv with his Trishul when a thirsty Parvati asked for water on their way to the Kailash. The last 700 steps to reach the lake situated just below the Trishul (23,000ft, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisul) seemed an endless journey with its high gradient. The frozen lake denied us any view of the skulls and bones found scattered there. Some people say that the skulls and bones were of the Pandavas who could come only this far on their Mahaprasthan. The local people, like Mahendra, believe that the lake was created by the Nanda Devi king for his queen to use it as a mirror. But scientists had a different story to tell. With carbon-dating and other processes, they found the skulls and bones could not have been more than 900 years old. But how did they die there? Probably a severe snowstorm, with the hails as big as cricket balls, hit the people, who might be devotees of Nanda Devi. In fact, in October 2012, thousands of people would take the journey that will cross Roopkund and Junargali pass.

The descent from Roopkund was doubly dangerous with the surface getting more slippery. One of the best memories of this stretch was to get water from underground, rather under the snow. You can hear water flowing under the snow, but you can’t take it from everywhere. Only in two places, water was seeping by the rocks, and we collected two bottles full from there.

It took about another three hours to reach Pathar Nachani, from where we started early that morning only. The afternoon was sunny and the evening was brighter than Baidini with a late moonrise. We had a great dinner with payesh/kheer — made by Dhan Singh with MithaiMate and cashew nuts bought from Calcutta by Sabyasachi, who was absent at the tent though. Never did I imagine that I would ever have payesh at 14,000ft! Probably that’s the best part of trekking.

The next morning, we met Sabyasachi at Baidini again from where the journey downwards was through a dense forest. After an hour, we reached Gaurali Patal and Wan was quite far from there. The 13km trek from Baidini to Wan left our toes sore like never before, as the pressure is high on knees and toes while coming down. The night we stayed at the forest department rest house in Wan where Sabyasachi made wonderful khichdi. Wan is the last village on that road from Loharjung where vehicles can ply. But we chose to walk. It was a leisurely walk, as we didn’t have any target to reach a particular place at a specific time. The 14km walk was made easy and interesting with birds, flowers, orchids and trees. Late in the morning, we reached Kulling, a small village, from where we picked up some stuff for our lunch that we had planned to do it in a forest. For us, it was a no-cooking morning, as we still had a good stock of biscuits and other dry food. When we reached the GMVN guesthouse in Loharjung, it was almost dusk. We had a quick egg-toast and tea before trying to call up our anxious parents back home. Manas da and Sabyasachi joined hands to prepare a delicious dal, mixed with scrambled egg, that night, while I was as usual busy with the overshooting accounts!

The next day we did a 16km trek to Bekhal Taal through the forest, but memories of that trip I might scribble another day.

Pix at: 1. http://picasaweb.google.co.in/supratimtt/RoadToRoopkund#

2. http://www.facebook.com/reqs.php#/album.php?aid=117783&id=581712447

©Supratim Pal, 2009

The Great Indian Trek: Part III

Till that morning (June 1), we did not come across snow on our way. But once we hit the road above Baidini, with Sabyascahi wishing us good luck, we were taken to the world of snow — though not as deep as we would have to negotiate later.

During the tedious trek, we also tried to unravel the myth from Mahendra, who enriched us with the local version of what happened during the great yatra of Nanda Devi king. Several centuries ago, the royal entourage took the same route, which we chose. At Pathar Nachani, where we had to camp for two nights (because that was the last place where grassland was available for mules), the king, according to the myth, buried the court dancers alive. The huge boulders that we also had to pass are nothing but the nachnis (dancers) turned into stone. From Ghora Lotani — above Baidini on the other side of the mountain — we could see Pathar Nachani at a distance, though it took almost an hour to reach there.

The most interesting incident at Pathar Nachani was setting up a makeshift kitchen where meals for five had to be cooked for two days, forget the several rounds of coffee sessions. Since there was no permanent structure unlike Baidini or Tolpani, we gathered some black sandstone to make the wall of the kitchen with a roof made by a piece of plastic, which was primarily used to cover our rucksacks and other stuff on Hira’s back. As soon as we put up tents and finished the kitchen, a hailstorm hit the place for around an hour leaving patches of snow around our tents.

Why Roopkund? Again the question came to our mind some 24 hours before we actually reached there. From Pathar Nachani, Mahendra was showing the serpentine ascent to Kailu Vinayak — a little black spot in the white — etched in the snow-covered hills. That night at Pathar Nachani, everyone of us had interesting dreams. Manas da saw killing some dozen men with sharp weapons like daggers and knives, I though that I was at Santiniketan, my regular weekend retreat, from where I would have to catch a morning train to Calcutta! And, Mahendra, who scaled to that height for at least a hundred times, was also not an exception — he also dreamt blood! Will you call it hallucination or altitude sickness? Or was it because we were tensed the last night before the climax, for which we prepared ourselves for months?

At Kailu Vinayak, Mahendra tried to light the incense sticks, but in vain, as the matchsticks only helped the snow around melt into water and put out the fire as soon as it was lit. The other possible reason probably was less oxygen level at that height (15,500ft). I didn’t even try that, because after the steep ascent for almost one-and-a-half hours, I was really tired and hungry till in the morning sun we had a feast with Sunfeast biscuits and mixed-fruit jam. From Kailu Vinayak to Roopkund via Baguabasa, the road was really tough. But we somehow managed to negotiate the 2ft deep snow. Baguabasa, with a huge cave, was the last place where the tiger of Nanda Devi king could go, Mahendra told us in his inimitable way.

Manas da, the thinnest of us all, had the least difficulty to trudge, but I had the most terrible problem of my life: walking in deep snow with a hockey stick — only two ice axes were there :( — at 16,000-odd feet in the treacherous mountain called the Himalayas. Once, after Baguabasa, I almost tipped on a rock, but could regain balance on time. The next one could have been really fatal, but this time too I saw a large piece of snow and some stones on the road rolling down under my feet and I was balancing myself with only the right foot!

(to be continued...)

Pix at: 1. http://picasaweb.google.co.in/supratimtt/RoadToRoopkund
2. http://www.facebook.com/reqs.php#/album.php?aid=117783&id=581712447

©Supratim Pal, 2009

The Great Indian Trek: Part II

Reaching the top to walk on the beautiful and vast 3km long Ali bugiyal — in Garhwali, bugiyal means high-altitude meadows — was not at all an easy task from Tolpani. With a heavy foot — as our shoes were completely soaked in rain the previous afternoon — and half-empty (or, half-full!) stomach, we trudged along the slippery road meandering through a forest where rays of sun were not seen very often.

Ali bugiyal was mesmerising. Never before did I walk on such a long stretch of greens with snow-capped mountains on the right and the huge meadows on the left. This time of the year is ideal for sheep, mules and cows to feed on the fresh grass and vegetation in the bugiyal and we met many cowboys and shepherds on the way to Baidini bugiyal. We spent one of the best mornings of our trek at Ali with the green natural carpet playing host to four urbane youth from a polluted city. At 12,500ft, you can feel the cool breeze — not smart wind — blowing from the Trishul or with a binocular you can set your eyes on the range of Himalayan peaks, names of which are also not known to the villagers with cattle.

Baidini is smaller than Ali. It lacks the vast expanse that Ali offers to the grazing cattle and awe-struck trekkers but Baidini is simply beautiful for its proximity to the peaks as well as for the odd shop selling food and charas (hashish) simultaneously! For Sabyasachi, it was the last stop, as he decided not to go uphill anymore for reasons best known to him. Lalaji and Naresh, the guy who took the shop on rent this summer — nobody takes the shop twice even if they make a good profit barring the Rs 6,000 rent for three months — gave him shelter and food for two days, of course that came at a steep price. We put up our tents at Baidini at a strategic place from where both Lalaji’s shop-cum-shelter and water source would be easily accessible. No sooner were the tents ready — around 2pm — than a smart hailstorm made us scurrying for cover, but three of us braved the shower to take up our two ice axes for making small ditches around the tents so that rainwater drains out quickly.

The evening at Baidini we spent as stargazers — something we can never enjoy in the smoggy atmosphere in Calcutta. The biting cold was not a deterrence to our night-out on the grassy slopes of Baidini. How many times have you seen Arundhati so bright near Basistha? Or the constellation called Cassiopeia has so many "hidden" stars? Even the best of planetarium could not have come up with the heavenly experience that we had in Baidini that night.

We woke up the next morning with the Chaukhamba and Neel Kanth peaks reflecting the first sunbeams of the day. After a breakfast with noodles, we took the snowy path to Pathar Nachani.

(to be continued...)

©Supratim Pal, 2009

The Great Indian Trek: Part I

Why did we zero in on this? Precisely, that was the question came to my mind when we had to climb about a kilometre — and that too amid incessant heavy downpour — to reach Didna, our first stop to have a cup of tea at a newly opened house. Only during summer months, owners of these houses come to stay at this Himalayan village at 9,000ft from Kulling and other hamlets in lower altitude. Fortunately, we found the house — the first and only one to have opened its door on the penultimate day of May — with its occupants busy cooking some stuff for themselves. The Garhwali lady was also quite eager to make tea for us even before we would order! For four of us — Manas da, Sushanta, Sabyasachi and me — the first three hours of the trek from Loharjung was exhausting and made us hungry like never before. And against the backdrop of the green Himalayan forests, we finished our last packet of gujiyas that we carried all the way from Felu Modak (www.felumodak.com)!

That was the fourth day of our trip, which we had been planning for the past couple of years. The question was a bit different in the beginning — should we do this? The altitude was not very conducive to any one of us, who have never gone beyond 12,000ft ever. But we were determined to do this trek — considered to be one of the tough ones in a difficult, but beautiful, terrain. For me, it was twice challenging, as I had typhoid barely six months before we took the arduous journey along the final path (mahaprasthan) taken by the Pandavas in the Mahabharat.

Once at Loharjung on a rain-soaked windy afternoon, I forgot whether I had typhoid or any other ailments. So was Manas da, who with motion sickness had a hard time on the eight-hour travail in a Bolero from Kathgodam railway station. Although Sanjay, the driver, was superb at the wheels, he could not stop Manas da from puking four-five times on the 250-odd-km hilly stretch. The moment an elderly man in the small village — of about 100 houses — came out of a tea shop that afternoon and showed us a peak with fresh snowfall, we hardly remembered that our summer special train from Sealdah to Delhi was late for over six hours! Soon we met Narendra, the most famous guide (thanks to the Net), in the market greeting us with his evergreen smile. Though Narendra could not accompany us, as he was "reserved" by another team for their trek a couple of days later, he made sure his brother Mahendra to show us the way after charting out the route easier to tread (unlike the numerous difficult ones suggested on the Net).

Didna was the first village on the route before we camped at Tolpani for the night. In the region, Tolpani is known for silk worm cultivation, as we found several white tents put up in the forest to breed the worms. Our experience at Tolpani was a bit odd, as we had to cook noodles and khichdi at a place we thought as a thatch-roofed hut, which turned out to be a stable for mules! Besides showing us the steep road ahead through the forest, Mahendra did a wonderful stuff that night with help from Dhan Singh, the owner of Guddu and Hira. In fact, the exercise of joint cooking would follow the next few days and nights, but in that conditions the simple khichdi seemed to be biryani!
(to be continued...)

©Supratim Pal

For her

It was another May afternoon. An 11-year-old boy stood staring at a departing black-yellow cab at a new-found place called hostel till a bell rang for the evening snacks. That was the first night the boy would spend without his mother by his side. That was the first time also he felt like a leaf in a turbulent river — nothing to cling on.

Almost a same feeling happened to him when he was barely four years old. His mother was away on an official training and those three months — also the summer — were enough to make him forget about the entity called mother. On a day she returned from training, he was seen standing at a corner of the room on a bed meant for him and her mother. He refused to go despite repeated requests from the lady — who has been his companion throughout all the four years — who joined the service just weeks before, from which she would return only some 25 years later, on March 31 this year.

Images drift by just like that — of the evenings he and his elder sister waiting for a pack of Amul Crisp, of the journeys to Behrampore on DSTC buses amid the sal forests on the either side of a picturesque highway to Ilambazaar, of the occasional visit to a suburban town of Barasat from the steel city of Durgapur with two leather bags, of the evenings before the short trips while his mother would pack bags and toys and bat-balls and what not!

So much to learn from the lady with indomitable spirit to take care of the two kids, as her husband was away most of the time of the year to various cities. The way she taught her children how to pick the best of the item in the morning markets, how to be self-sufficient, how not to feel uncomfortable in any situation, how not to be judgmental about anything, how to bury the ego and move on in life has been amazing. She nurtured the tender minds with an informidable power of femininity.

Today, when the rest of the world was celebrating Mother’s Day, she was spotted in the kitchen making food for her children, quite oblivious of the fact that it was supposed to be HER day. But how does it affect her? It’s Mother’s Day for her, every day.
Probably that’s the reason she asked her son when he was on way to office: "Kal to asbi na, kothay khabi tui (Since you’re not coming home tomorrow, where will you have your food)?" I just stopped, but could not say a word in reply. That has been my Ma, as always.

©Supratim Pal, 2009

Twenty20

What are the best ways to spend 20 minutes?

The simple question came to my mind when we got an official message from our boss that we should not exceed the 20-minute limit if we go to have tea/coffee during working hours. Forget the classroom-type functioning of a newspaper desk like that of mine, I tried to bury arguments and anger to think what the ways are to spend the 20-minute timeframe.

The first thing came to my mind was that Mahadev da (our very own chai-wallah on the pavement) can easily serve a cup of tea or coffee in 20 minutes. That is not a problem at all. I can coolly step out and have my cup of tea and return to my workstation. But if I don’t come back? Instead, take a Metro or a bus back home. In a Metro, I can be almost halfway on my way home in 20 minutes. But a bus is not that fast, especially during the rush hours in Calcutta, where average vehicle speed is an astonishingly low at 6kmph. So, for my 17km journey from office, the bus would take at least 3 hours! But it won’t. The road I usually take, which links the city with airport, is a bit faster than others within Calcutta. In 20 minutes, I might reach Ultadanga, from where it would take another 20 minutes to reach my apartment near airport.

If I don’t take any transport back home, but try to spend the time at a bar near our office in the CBD area, what would be the best idea? Walk straight to Elfin, order beer, gulp it, pay and come back. Probably it would take just 15 minutes! After all, Elfin (and Chung Wah) are just next-door neighbours to us, and we should respect that if I get a 20-minute break.

In this IPL Twenty20 season, you can watch — like I did — Sachin-Jayasuriya ripping KKR bowlers apart and in just 20 minutes they rake up 50 runs in five overs. Or in election season, you can stand in a queue at a booth near you for 20 minutes to press the button for the right candidate — something I want to do on May 13. Or take a stroll by the Ganga on a breezy evening. But the time is 20 minutes!

One of my colleagues summed up the 20-minute project with an intelligent input. Foreplay: 10 minutes, play: 7 minutes and post-play: 3!!

What is your take for a 20-minute slot? Tell me....

©Supratim Pal, 2009

Phone peril

Whenever I prepare to take a bath, especially a long one during this scorching heat, why does the phone ring? Many a time I thought not to take the call, as it would have been much a problem to me, like anyone else. Whenever I think not to receive it, it has to be that of either the boss, or my friends. And the worst part is that when with a towel in hand, another around my waist, I come out of the bathroom to receive a call the other day, someone ordered me over the phone to send a dozen of slippers to his shop! Patiently I told him that I don’t deal in slippers, or for that matter any kind of shoes — though they are pretty popular these days for throwing at political leaders — he was not ready to agree!

The usual "wrong number" call that we get at our house is quite interesting. "Customer id C1234. How is the supply? Will I get it by next week?" We are bombarded with questions before I could say anything. "The last time, it was bad, as I didn’t expect that your company serviceman would ask for Rs 10 bribe just to deliver it a day in advance. Why don’t you stop sending him? Sack him." Without losing my temper, I tell the lady on the other side of the cradle: "Sorry auntie, it’s not the LPG booking centre."

One such funny incident happened with one of my colleagues, whose cellphone number is almost identical to that of a national low-cost airline. Tired of telling people throughout the day that he does not take any booking for Calcutta-Mumbai sector for Re 1, one night he could not help but informing a gentleman that his early morning flight was late by five hours!

With technology, the telephone has become a problem tool to many of us. We hardly care about one’s privacy, as we don’t think twice to call a person at 6am, thinking everybody loves to see the spectacular sunrise in a polluted city like Calcutta every morning. But I know many a people who don’t use a phone, forget its mobile version, in this small world of today. But I still wonder how do they communicate with people when necessary? Can we live without our cellphones even a single day? Can you?

©Supratim Pal, 2009

Present, past & future

Let’s say his name is Samir. A very common Bengali name, for Samir is neither a very rare person, nor a unique one. But why did I choose him to bring his story on the cyber space? The fifty-something "youth" started his public life in a theatre on the northern outskirts of Calcutta.

His stage was not in the semi-dark hall of the theatre, but he used to be omnipresent around the cinema, especially when some blockbusters movies were screened. Nobody could even watch the first-day-first-show Big B film without patronising him. He was the ruler of tickets: when the counter would open even after the scheduled time to sell tickets, how many of them were to be sold and of course, the price!

Well, we are talking about the late 1970s when there was a ceiling on the highest price of a ticket. The government used to control the cinemas unlike now when a multiplex owner here can even charge Rs 500 for a first-day ticket of an SRK film. But even in the era of government strictures with tickets being priced at paise, not even rupees, Samir was the hero outside the cinema. During that time, he could have surpassed any mid-level executive with his monthly earnings.

I met Samir just a few days back at one of the roadside tea stalls near my home. Its owner asked him to bring some fresh water from a municipality tap before introducing the man to me, a regular to his stall. I could not believe that Samir, the ruler of black tickets, has been rendered to such a frail, beggar-like self. But such is the reality that he has now lost everything, even his mental balance, as the cinema was shut down about five years ago. All these years, he didn’t go for any other job, too, thinking the once-crowded single-screen cinema would provide him another fair chance to feed his family. But it did not. Neither was it reopened even after a series of protests, nor was the fortune wheel of Samir — by then an addict to drinks — was turned. Like the thousands of workers in Dunlop, scores of jute mills and other factories in the industrial belt known once as the best only second to London.

Samir is Bengal’s past; his is the image also that of Bengal’s future.

©Supratim Pal, 2009

Tourism, in nature’s lap

For years, i thought why during vacations we go only to places teeming with people. Is there a place where we can spend our short or long breaks from usual schedule? It’s always difficult to find a far-from-the-madding-crowd tourist destination, yet with basic amenities. But we were lucky to get one, and many others, in the past few months.

For this part of the world, eco-tourism is a new concept, which is hardly a decade old. Some people, including so-called promoters of the idea, don’t understand it in letter and spirit. Last week, I went to a place in a Burdwan village, which was turned into a profit-making eco-tourism project by chopping off eucalyptus and other trees. The promoters got acres of land leased out to them by the state forest department for 30 years around five years ago. The region is rich in ancient terracotta temples on the bank of the Ajoy, one of the major flood-causing rivers in the district. This particular tourist spot, with artificial parks carved out from dense forests once dominated by dacoits even 20 years ago, attracts Bengali middle class families unaware of their misdeed to destroy Nature in patronising economic development of local villagers. True, local economy has changed with this sprawling farmhouse-cum-park-cum-tourist rest house with concrete cottages. But how much are we paying for it? Only in terms of some papers with marks of Gandhi on both sides of these?

Take the example of Bhalopahar in Purulia or Babli and Banalakshmi in Santiniketan. The places are arid in nature, but if you visit it even in scorching summer when the temperature soars past 48˚C, you will not be disappointed by the green foliage it offers. While Banalakshmi was conceptualised by one Niranjan Sanyal about 40 years ago on the outskirts of Santiniketan, the place was dry with infertile land prompting villagers to do everything apart from agriculture. Same is the story with Bhalopahar till one poet Kamal Chakraborty bought land there ushering in green revolution unforeseen before. Now, one can stay at the places for a weekend trip and help both local economy and tourism to grow. Even if there are no tourists for months (as it is quite common in summer), inhabitants of these places can sustain with farm products. Tourism does not necessarily mean uprooting plants and build huge concrete structures, but protecting nature at its best.

In this forum, I request readers to come up with experience and suggestions of eco-tourism projects that you visited in India or abroad.

©Supratim Pal, 2009

For the singer...

His was rare voice, blended of classical and typical Santiniketan gharana of Rabindrasangeet. Many an evening we aptly listened to his songs — sometimes live, sometimes on CD. Mostly i met him at Ratan Palli’s Nabadwip and a few occasions at Subernarekha too where he would fill the ambience with an aura inexplicable in a few words.

One evening, during the usual adda at Nabadwip, he told me how a piece of Ganesh Pyne thrilled him at the wash room of a person known to most of the Bengalis. He was invited by them to present a song at a memorial ceremony of Ashok Kumar Sarkar, an editor who took the family business of morning dose of newspaper to a new height. Tomorrow, March 24, would ironically be the memorial service of Vikram Singh Khangura, Vikram da for us, where probably everyone would sing “tomaro aseem e prano mon loye”, except the voice that gave us a new meaning of Rabindrasangeet for years.

His “gayaki”, the way of singing a song, could only be compared to that of his father’s, Mohan da. But Vikram da made a different and bold presence that was identified only with his voice.
It was a montage last Saturday, March 14, when I got the news of his untimely death at the age of only 36. Images of Vikram da at the addas, Vikram da at the wheels of an Indica, Vikram da with a Havana cigar, Vikram da humming some tune and many others just drift by.

Suddenly i remember Vikram da wanted a picture of Pt Malikarjun Mansur. A few weeks before he died of a massive cardiac arrest, he even told me that if i could take a printout of any picture of the classical vocalist from our digital library. Unfortunately, we did not have a good picture of Malikarjun. I called him up to inform that only to get a satiric comment with a VSK-signature laugh: “Journalists can’t unravel anything! Not even a photograph of a classical singer.” He hung up but not before asking me when i was coming next to Santiniketan.

Last week i went. Around 8.30pm, I was sitting alone waiting for others to come at Nabadwip Sweets. I made a call to Partha da, one of the regulars at the adda. Just browsing the names of who the other people i could meet that Thursday night, i stopped at one “Vikram Singh”. What should i do? Should i call him and expect to be here within half-an-hour on a Kinetic Honda?
I just deleted the entry number 236.

©Supratim Pal, 2009

Night walk

Walking in darkness is nothing new to me, rather I always enjoy venturing out in the open whenever it is possible. At Santiniketan, one of my first night outings was to the Kopai river in December 1999. It was a full moon night and one of our friends was to board a night train en route to his NET examination in Calcutta. We, as usual, went to Bolpur station, about 3.5km from where we used to stay at Gurupalli at Santiniketan, around 12.30am. After seeing him off, three of us thought that how the Kopai would look like in the dead of the night. We took a 6km cycle ride to find the lean river meandering through plantation of Sonajhuri with marvellous silhouettes i never saw on a full moon night before that. Manasda lit a beedi on the small bridge that connects Goalpara and Khanjanpur villages, and i, a non-smoker, jumped from one boulder to another to take rest on a larger one in the middle of the river that turns mighty during the rains. We came back our home, not on cycle, but on foot just to enjoy the moon-lit ambience that would be hard to find in a smoggy city like Calcutta.

Another “long walk” i would never forget was the one in Khoai in October 2007. After a brief adda at Kalor Dokan at Ratan Palli, we — Tanchu and me — thought it was high time we should go to Sonajhuri to experience the thrill and the ambience when it was about 9.30 in the night. It was not a full moon night, but flickering rays could brighten a little space around us. We parked our cycles in the Sonajhuri forest and started our so-called “atel” discussions over a “long walk” suggested by Tanchu, who would leave for Delhi some days after that. After 15 minutes of walk, we came back to the place where we had rested our cycles by a huge eucalyptus tree only to find one of the cycles was missing! Again we had to walk 4km to come back to our rooms, but this time with a heavy heart at the loss of the cycle but brimming with dark night thrill!

But the one that we did last week was the best night walk, i ever did. It’s not the kind of walk when the rest of Darjeeling was sleeping in 2001 and we three went to the Mall on the Kojagari night. I still don’t know whether it was the Kanchenjungha, or any other peak, but the white line on the horizon must be the Himalayan range. Last week, when we were coming back to Manoharpur from Kiriburu, in sheer coincidence both the rear tyres of our vehicle turned flat simultaneously around 7.30 in the evening. We knew how to overcome the crisis at a place surrounded by lush green forests and hills with no cellphone tower on the hand-held LCD screens. The only way out was walk! Manoharpur was good 12km from the spot where we eventually saw moonrise in a valley just a day after Holi. Leaving the vehicle there, we had to trudge with two local persons — driver Suresh and Nirmal — guiding us the way negotiating loose red laterite soil on the dusty road. Only after 7km of brisk walk, we could have asked for a rescue vehicle! When we returned to the small town, it was past 10 in the night, but we did not feel tired, but charged enough to keep our adda alive till 3 in the morning!
©Supratim Pal 2009

Is it written?

For the past fortnight, especially since the February 23 morning, the whole of India has woken up to its new-found reality on a screen adaptation of successful chase of dream by a slum youth. Suddenly, sociologists, economists, journalists, govt and semi-govt officials, prospective filmmakers (mostly docu-makers!) make a beeline to the tiny untidy rooms in zhopadpattis still unexplored by a section of the society that otherwise depends on services from occupants of the houses set in a congested unhygienic environment. Everyone wants a piece of story from the slums, particularly after a serving diplomat discovered one in his second novel and a British made it realistic on the silver screen.

The same happened exactly 20 years ago in Calcutta when the city was on the threshold to celebrate its 300th birthday. During that time, all lights were focused on Pilkhana, one of the largest and polluted slums on the other side of the sacred river called Ganga. Dharavi in Mumbai has its own claim to fame, so is Pilkhana in this region. Like Dharavi, Pilkhana in Howrah has been home and livelihood to thousands who deal in recycled items, most of those are toxic and harmful to skin and eyes. Like Dharavi, Pilkhana too hogged the limelight then, incidentally for a film being made in collaboration with its foreign producer. And like Pilkhana, nothing will be changed in Dharavi, because the basic condition and infrastructure at these slums have not changed in all these years.

Someone would say that the slum-dwellers enjoy more facilities now, like colour TV and cellphones, but this is nothing great compared to the lack of basic amenities like safe drinking water or proper sanitary system. Remember the image when the soil-clad child Jamal gets an autograph from BigB in Slumdog Millionaire. I’m not saying that the film has marketed poverty marvellously or the images are drawn from outer space. My only contention is that whether we really try anything to change the fortune of Jamals, Latikas and others. Portraying one slum-bred chaiwallah at a BPO office winning millions is not just the end of the success saga, but the beginning of a dream that millions like others pursue everyday. Some of us are indeed working for slum-dwellers, but they can hardly enlighten them with this piece of rags-to-riches story everyday.

To my view, people living in a brighter society, which depends so much on slum-dwellers, should come forward — not necessarily with funds always but with a proper mindset — to help make slum kids smile. I am fortunate to belong to a family, which lives just 30ft from a slum and helps them whenever there is a necessity. My parents have never turned down their pleas whenever they asked for prasad after a puja at our home. Even an autorickshaw driver uses space in front of our house to park his vehicle after a gruelling day’s work. Donating books, clothes and toys to them came natural to us. Even my father rebuked some drug and dendrite addicts of Jamals' and Salims' age to give up the habit.

Together we can really change the world around us, i believe. If the privileged class of people can take care of only one or two underprivileged family, the world would have been a new one where the line of inequality could be blurred. Nothing is written, we can change destiny of many others, too.

©Supratim Pal, 2009

Magic Reality

If you’re a daily passenger on the suburban section of Eastern Railway, you must have seen them. I’ve spotted them both on trains departing out of Howrah and Sealdah —the most popular and crowded stations in the country. But they are not commuters like any one of us; they won’t be found in a cramped compartment of, say, 17.10 Up Bongaon local or 18.45 Up Bandel local. Mostly, they take the route opposite the current of human wave — Down trains in late afternoon hours and Up morning trains.

The aisle between rows of seats is their stage to display the art. They look at even licensed hawkers with scorn if they think their show is spoilt by screaming of “peanuts”, “handkerchiefs” or “apples”! But they are not angry, because they have learnt the secret of successful trade. One of them would take out a rope from a torn bag, saying: “This one is very disobedient. It does not pay heed to anyone of us, even if I order it to stand straight. Now see the magic…” The rope — an old Indian trick — becomes stiff suddenly, not even bending a degree the moment the boy, hardly eight years old, says: “Laden!” Everybody breaks into laughter in the relatively less crowded bogie on that late winter afternoon when i was on my way to office on a Habra-Sealdah EMU local.

This one followed by three other tricks like drinking milk and filling the feeding bottle with the white liquid coming out of the toddler’s ear! The boy even changed the colour of a bunch of flowers from green to red, a la P.C. Sorcar (Sr/Jr… who cares on a train!), and the last one was to vanish a coin and got it from the collar of a gentleman undoubtedly not a thief.

The magician had two more friends accompanying him. After the three-minute show was over, they approach each one of us, asking for patronage. Most of us relented with donating a coin or two. I did not, rather i asked a simple question to the magician and his friends: “Why don’t you go to school?” The reply was brief, laden with a tinge of realism that was not surprising: “Will you give me food if I go to school? Who will feed my parents?” So much of responsibility on frail shoulders. I said the school would give you mid-day meal, but could not assure them of food for their parents and other relatives.

In our daily journeys, we come across so much of real problems that we take it for granted, as if it’s their prerogative, not mine. Why should i bother? But for them, is it a question of choice or forced situation arising out of social inequality? I don’t have the answer, probably neither the dollar-enriched NGOs that do everything to fill personal coffers nor the government’s social welfare and childcare schemes chalked out at cool comfort of AC rooms far from dusty station concourses.

Such children would always be underprivileged — that is the fate they were born with and destined to doom. Is it "written" like that of Jamal Malik in Slumdog Millionaire? Or, can we do something?

©Supratim Pal

9/11 to 26/11: History remains the same

(This piece will appear in an online US magazine in April this year)

The definition of terrorism changed the morning some youths hijacked two planes and rammed into twin towers symbolic of American might. Till that fateful morning, terrorists were known for unleashing bloodshed in several parts of the world. Meticulous planning, brainstorming followed by unprecedented attacks were not in the dictionary of terrorists before 9/11.

Just about a decade back, terrorists were known for waging war against state armies where they are based, like in Kashmir or in Sri Lanka. Take the example of Kashmir, a region otherwise known as the paradise on earth for its scenic beauty. The Valley has been in the headlines since the past 50-odd years since the time Pakistan laid its claim on the green meadows, huge glaciers and snow-capped mountain peaks. But fear lurked behind the willow and oak, with youths being indoctrinated in thoughts of separatist movement and trained to shoot people to death. It happened mostly in the late Eighties and Nineties. Jawans of Indian army fell to the bullets and grenades of youth in the villages of the Valley and alleys of Srinagar.

Around the same time, youths across the border were also taught to launch suicide attack — an act of terror that would dominate militant activities the next several decades. The seed of militancy was sown in the 1990s in a region not quite ravaged by war, but dictated by political and civilian instability. The area — compassing more than one country —became the womb of 9/11 and similar attacks later on.

This brief piece of background information was necessary before we set to look 9/11 as a watershed event in the world history.

9/11 was a unique terror plot, which includes everything that a real horror drama could boast of. It had men with arms sneaking past the security cordon of the most advanced airport, hijack of more than one aircraft belonging to the most powerful country in the world, enormity of a suicide attack the world never saw before and finally the damage in several million crores. Besides the complete razing of the twin towers that bore tell-tale names, symbolising business hubs of not only the US, but the world, the attack had a severe effect on economy across the nations.

We heard of flight hijack, but never heard or seen live at our cushioned drawing room the footage of the climax of such an incident at a place we are quite familiar with. In a weird repeat of history, billions of eyes were glued to the screen for 60-odd hours to watch how a hostage drama was unfolding in Mumbai in November. What's the distance between Manhattan and Mumbai? For terrorists, it's zero.

26/11has more than one thing in common with 9/11than the word "terror". Like in Manhattan — one of the costliest places on this planet — the terrorists chose a seafront luxury hotel — again, one of the most valuable and heritage properties in India — to begin bloodshed. In their attack, or the hostage drama, the terrorists were ruthless in not even sparing women. To gain maximum media coverage, one of the gun-toting youths called up a TV station to send the message loud and clear: that they were on a mission not for humanity, but to obliterate it completely.

Between Manhattan and Mumbai lots of places, including Madrid and London, bore marks of terror — might not be of the same enormity that the cities off the Hudson and the Arabian Sea had experienced. Unfortunately, history revisits us only with gory memories. We think that the fateful Tuesday morning of September 2001 is past suddenly one dinner turns bitter with "breaking news" tickers and scenes of a hotel in flames.

A collective voice — feared, thrilled and ready to take revenge — says that we should wage war against the perpetrators of crime. Pressure mounts on political leadership to act. Then starts a war to bomb off a race from the pages of history in the name of zeroing on a man once supported to gather arms for a possible battle during Cold War. Some show restraint also, foreseeing the outcome if two nuclear-powered nations start a clash that would amount to another world war. Some would say that let's start a crusade keeping the religious factor in terrorism in mind. Till today, there is no signal whether the archrivals would actually indulge in another bloodshed in the region, but that would not stop some out-of-the-world youths to immerse in bloodbath.

Besides the social and political spectrum, the economic history is also ruled by terror attacks. A booming dotcom industry just got out of the track after 9/11; a nation fighting global recession in 2008 finds it harder to convey the message that it was still one of the safest places with exotic locations, yoga, ayurveda and spicy foods. Shattered economy is what a terror attack on a financial capital of a country with 8 per cent growth can leave with.

People live everyday hoping to alter the frightful moment with happier days, but to no avail. History remains the same everywhere, every time a terrorist is born with anger and hatred in mind to strike at will to crack our will power.

©Supratim Pal

State of affairs

These days i am reminded of Saja, a young man of Maneybhanjang, about 90km north of Siliguri. Maneybhanjang is the base camp for trekking to Singalila range of the eastern Himalayas. Besides, the small town/village is also a business hub in that part of the hilly region where thousands of people throng for weekly haats (wholesale market).

The last time i spoke to Saja when the region was in a political turmoil with a section of people demanding separate state of Gorkhaland. Saja sounded tense, but he did not hang up before inviting me to his little hut-like home where he lives with his wife and daughter. Don’t think Saja is a grown-up man, rather he is quite junior to me. When we met him about a couple of years back at the trekkers’ stand in Maneybhanjang market on a lazy late winter afternoon, he was so eager to take us to Sanadakphu that we can’t but choose him as guide to the second highest peak of Bengal.

Saja could have been an excellent guide — as proved later when some of my colleagues trekked to Sandakphu — but for some of us, he was more than that. For a youngster with a brief criminal past could also have been a threat to any one of us, but he turned out to be a friend in a day. Be it preparing breakfast at Chitrey or playing a game of volleyball at Kalipokhri, Saja was the perfect host for seven-odd days to people like us. After our return to Maneybhanjang, we never met him again. No, he did not die, but we could not make out time to go there again.

This year some days back, i was planning a trek to Dzongri in Sikkim. I thought to call up Saja, as he is a trekking guide recognised by the forest department. I rang him up, he did not pick up the call. Another try, the phone rang continuously for 32 seconds, then the usual IVRS message that he subscriber is not picking up the phone, please call again later. What to do? A last try. Luckily, someone picked up the phone. I thought Saja, who once told me: “Mota-dada (I was quite fat then!), come once in January, and you’ll get to see a different Sandakphu with snow everywhere”, would say in his usual tone: “Mota-dada, have you become thin?” But the script was not that too easy. “Why have you called me?” asked a shrill voice with scorn in his voice. The voice was known to me, not the tone. I tried to reason, but those fell far short. After some time, he told me tourism was ruined there since the past eight months or so. People like him and others are just short of starving.

In one of the leading English dailies today, a front-page story revealed how people from the hills are now up in arms against others, outsiders like us, to get Gorkhaland for them. A state of their own. Will we be allowed there? What price have we to pay for that? Is Saja a part of the rebel movement? Who knows! I did what most of us in this situation would have done: change trekking plans. But will it solve the problem, that is bigger than my personal one?

2009 ©Supratim Pal

New Year Mantras

Every year on this day we start with new resolutions trying to bury past — especially the brutal incidents like terrorist attacks or riots or tsunamis or whatever tragic that had run a tremor in our mind questioning our values, meaning of life and death.

Everyday, we try to get to the roots of our survival; every morning, we pray that nothing untoward happens to any of us; every night, we go to sleep after watching gory scenes of murder and rape on the telly; we are so self-centred through the day that we don’t even bother to know where this had happened, when and how; we are so accustomed to inhuman existence in our life that even the death of an old lady next door hardly brings tears to our eyes — we still chase our dream to be richer by the day!

Still we apparently defy all odds and make an effort to join the sea of humanity during the mad office hours — we scarcely care whether a beggar asks for a coin or two; rarely we leave a seat to a 55-year-old man in a crowded bus or train; rather shoving becomes the rule of the day for millions of us. We join the rat race to come top in every exam, to claim the chair of the boss in office, to see an unforeseen successful face on the mirror before going to sleep — but how many of us exactly count the means of emerging victorious?

Confusion is the key word, so is chaos. Yes, the world is more chaotic than ever before… whatever happens nowadays is unprecedented… be it the floods or the avalanches, bomb blasts or terror attacks… the list is endless. The air we breathe is polluted than ever before… the food we eat is contaminated than ever before… the race we compete is tougher than ever before...

Human nature is just the opposite we can think of. The moment we think that we are ruined, an old man on a small boat would remind us that it is not; the moment we think that we are lost forever, one can see a southpaw proving everybody wrong with batting brilliance in the middle. Boy, it’s brave new world everyday. This year, let’s hold our hands together and take the oath to be more courageous, more sensible and more humane.

Happy and prosperous New Year 2009 to all readers of this delirium.

2009 ©Supratim Pal