Night Train to Kolkata

Let us pretend that I am on a night train to Kolkata
Young, hot-headed, proud and tall.
Let us pretend that I am healthy, disease-free and moral.
Pretend that I believe
that no matter what, with clenched teeth and fist I will yield no quarter,
That I will never leave the city.

And for a second pretend that I believe that fingers should
shuffle between a pen and a trigger with equal elan.
That a matchstick is all I need to spark a revolution
That I will play a role when the colours change..

But take a look at what a picture the hands of time have painted.
Can you see me raising an invoice to the devil with a 40% discount?
And what this Faustian bargain has cost?
Old, meek,scared, diseased, bent, broken, beaten, lost...

Now I often pretend that I am on a night train to Kolkata...

But i still wont yield any quarter!

Protest and Youth

There has been a recent uproar about the protests at The Presidency College in Kolkata where the CM was shown the black flag and the VC was 'gheraoed'. Uproar, cause the venue is the Presidency college ( a museum ?) and at the receiving end was the VC and the CM, uproar over the 'quality' of protest and the degradation of everything under the sun especially the youth. Well nothing could be farther from the truth. While the grown ups are busy with waging war, indulging in corruption, lying on national television, selling false dreams, creating authoritarian society, misleading the mass, it is the youth who refuse to be short-sold. It is the youth who fight for independence, stop wars, rise up against a society which has been hollowed by corruption and epic lies and money laundering. It is always the youth who rise up against authoritarianism. It is the birth right of the youth to disagree and show dissent, to protest and clamour for change.

Often a lot is said about how a protest is to be registered.  I believe that to draw peoples attention whispering into their ears never works, one has to hit out with a sledge hammer and then and only then can you expect undivided attention. So what does one mean when one says that the methodology of protest has changed. Of course it has changed and it will continue to change. To register your protest if one chooses to resort to violence, anarchy, Molotov cocktails, or stand in front of an approaching tank in Tienanmen square or wave black flags or hold candle light vigil, its all OK.

So go ahead and register yours in your own capacity or as a collective union... stand up for what you think is right and reject all that you dont agree with. Its a great time that we live in, one of great opportunities and possibility and one need not agree with what is laid out in front of us. So sorry CM, VC we dont agree with you and we shall and will register our protest whichever way we think fit.

For if the youth doesnt scream, shout and wave their clenched fists then who will?

Late Too Soon

How does one write a review of a rock concert? How does one weigh the value of notes played & the poetry rendered through melodic vocals? How does one analyse the chemistry of musicians who have done music together since childhood? How does one measure the uphoria of performing for the seer joy of making good rock n roll music?
And yet you cannot but help stand transfixed when the guitarist gets into a 20 mile long solo with fingers running up and down the fender neck like an olympic hurdler running for gold across the six stringed lane. The drummer beat the hell out of the leather like a primodial entity seeking revenge off an ancient enemy. The bassist grooved with his smoothness holding the music together like a crucible of love. The vocals and the original lyrics cut through the haze and soared above the music like a kite flying unbridled between feelings and razor sharp execution. For wat is music if bereft of feelings and passion.
For a few hours the small crowed at Match Box in HKV witnessed a rock solid performance by a bunch of class musicians who believe in their craft. And am sure I spotted the Devil sitting in a dark corner of that concert hall sipping JW Black label with a smile on his face coz he was for sure paid his fucking dues!

Secret Assassination - Translated from Souvik Bandopadhay's "Guptohottya"

He had stood in a shopping mall
and revolted against the demolition of a ghetto.
Standing outside an ice cream parlour
he had protested against land grab.
With folded hands he had sought forgiveness from a family which had converted to a multiplex.
With outstretched hands he had begged for love from a car stranded at a traffic signal.
Outside the gates of a multinational company he had congregated agitating jute mill workers.
And instead of wasting time in exotic candle light marches he had caught the rapist in a fatal strangle hold.
One day while trying to write an advertisement copy he had instead written a manifesto.
And yet that day when he spat towards the sky,
while flying like a rebel kite between sadness and melancholy,
and the spit had fallen back on our faces,
we declared him a looney.
And because there can be no transaction between loonies and healthy society,
and because loonies are injurious to us,
it is heard that he was secretly assasinated.

Moog's Dominion

Harvesting mandrake roots in magnetic fields,
Knee deep in alkali, lead and other FSSAI non approved articles.
Victorian prudency sits all pretty sipping hemlock
While morality takes a long walk like a diminishing marginal utility curve toward the dusty long end of the x axis.
The harmless madman sits by the emergency seat dreaming thus,
While rapists take to the cockpit and PA system.
All other passengers in the meanwhile hit the aisle in manicured candle light march to register solidatity towards differential orientation and marriage preferences....
A child however lies scattered on 'dawn's highway bleeding' unattended, waiting for someone to blame her father!
Incredible ....... !

One for posterity

Forcing myself to write something..but it aint happening. Just one line for posterity, Lyric got his first (and hopefully last) stitches, a couple actually, on his eyebrow. Saw the little one scared and helpless being stitched. But not a sound did he make, not a ruckus did he create. Brave boy..had his favourite ice cream on the way back home.

Aint gonna work in Maggi's farm no more...

I am not sure if adding MSG or lead will improve a Brand P&L's Top or Bottomline. If it doesnt then I dont see any reason why said brand will do it deliberately as some morons in UP are making it out to be. The question rather is how has the test results indicated such high levels of MSG and lead in one of the nation's favourite and most well recognised snacking item.
Trust is built over years and broken in a second. It is not important whether MSG is artifically added or not, question is do consumers believe what you are saying. If you so strongly believe in your claim then why didnt the consumer see a full page ad on all the leading dailies from the CEO assuring consumers the very next day? Where is the aggression to fight back against these claims? Only fight back I am seeing is by ex employees still swearing by the quality standards of the company. Here too I am afraid the ploy seems to be to wait it out, let people forget.. And forget they will. For a company which prides on quality and standards much more was expected. Being so defensive has only raised doubts.
I have read on the social media how people particularly present and former employees intend to continue to consume and feed Maggi to their kids. By all means to each his own. But i'd rather be safe than sorry, so no Maggi for my son anymore...after all there cant be a smoke without a fire etc.

Katmandu

There is no God,
No unknown power !
All that there is
Ruined families and
Dark bellowing clouds at the crematorium.
And did I mention
Tears
Orphans...

Silence!

Cactus - Nagorik Bootam

As the opening notes hit your ears you wait in anticipation like in labour waiting for the baby to be born... E F# G A ..And even before you know, the vocals hit you with a philosophical doubt about yourself..almost like the opening lines of Fyodor Dostoevsky's 'Notes from the underground'. That friends is 'Nagorik Bootam' by Cactus. For a band I have deligently followed since the nineties and have witnessed the evolution of their sonic signature, this single is like the coming of age of the band. Sidhu has excelled with his single malt like vocal smoothness. Truely this song will go down as one of  Sidhu's finest. Baji holds fort like a crusader on a crusade with his steady time signatures which pins the song down like a sledge hammer. Bumpy's return to vernacular rock is simply awesome, lending a solid backbone and personality to the song. Dibyendu's vocals scratch your skin and make you sit up and take note. Ratul's distortions scream through the amp like as of the devil himself was on fire, but balanced beautifully against softer stretches with controlled precision. But the revelation in my view is Buti and his electronics. Like a digital sorcerer he lets those haunting notes drop through like acid cutting through metal. In many ways the Tom Morello-ish experimental guitaring and electronic sounds layered over a bed of Rock kind of defines Cactus' sound output today and sets them apart from the other bands. Nagorik Bootam is yet another song which is worth putting on loop and gazing outwards or perhaps inwards... Cactus for ever \m/

Priority?

Fuck it’s a Friday ! You wake up feeling nauseated from the previous evening’s humiliation in the board room. You wake up and caress your son whom you only get to see sleeping nowadays. He is asleep while you make your way to office in the morning and he is already asleep by the time you get home from said office. You reason out saying that it’s a price you are paying for the position you hold and then feel nauseated again. You pick up your mobile wondering what other message may have crept into the phone while you lay hurt on bed. There is none, which you find surprising and a cold wave makes it way up your spine.. why no messages ?You see the time on the mobile instead and an urgency to take a dump, shave, shower, dress up, stuff up and make your way to the board room to face further humiliation takes precedence over seeing your son sleep. 

To each his own Godot

I am no student of philosophy neither do I have what it takes to decipher the classics. I do not know what or who Godot is. Samuel Beckett on being asked if by Godot he meant god, replied that had he so intended he would have made it evident.I sure believe that to each his own Godot. So who is your Godot, who is the one worth waiting for, but who you know ( from the play) will never come or more dramatically, never arrive. 
For some it would be Avijit Roy and Barun Biswas, who will never return home, and yet we know they will have to return..again and again, by some other name perhaps. For some it would be 'Holud Pakhi', the bird which will never return and yet we reminisce it through songs.. 
My Godot is an abstraction called justice.