When the Mamus Mamued me!

Hey all u people, guess I’m back before I was expected to. Actually I got a very important call today! No, it wasn’t a call from any coveted B-School but was even more important than that to me. As I slept late last night as usual, coz today was a holiday for me so my plans were to sleep till late, but that wasn’t to be. At 10am or so I got a phone call & as my mother told me who it was on the line, I sat up straight to attend the call!

On the other side of the connection was a police official calling me Suvra Kant ‘babu’ & delivered me the news that I had to be there at the police station for the verification required for my Passport application. Boy, Was I happy or what! I shall be celebrating the 1st anniversary of my plan of going for a passport very soon. The poor passport form had to bear the loads of my overweight books in some corner of my book shelf for about 6-8 good months! Then poor me had to pass the trauma of filling the form & yes I also had to act like a ungootha chaap to give the thumb impression in all the forms. Then, again the forms had to wait for their companions in form of the other certificates for about a month or so. Finally many thanks to my neighbour uncle who deposited the same for me in the passport office. As if this wasn’t enough, I heard scary stories from people who said that they had been waiting for months for this prized call!

On that aspect I was lucky enough as I got the call in a span of just over a month & I didn’t mind getting up at 10am for that(on a holiday). I got ready & dressed just normally to go for the verification coz I’d heard that if they get to know that u r from a well to do family(even if u aren’t), they pounce upon you. So ready to go to a police station for the first time in my life, I took Rs.50, change from my father as I thought that if they asked for something then this would be it & then I would always have the excuses of being a student and all. But I really wanted to see how they would go about it, as I’d heard about these enough but never been in such a position before.

As I reached the police station a lady inspector/havildar/sub-inspector(sorry that ends by vocab on police officials) was taking a report of a poor woman of some kind of brawl in her house or something. This lady reminded me of all the corrupt police officials I’ve seen in the Mithun movies. She kept on interrogating the woman who was slowly getting jittery in replying the absurd queries of the lady-whatever. I interrupted her to ask for the person who had called me & the lady-*** showed me the way very politely, couldn’t believe it really, this lady could be polite also! Still overhearing the resumed conversation between the two women, I went into the room of the two people who searched my form out & asked me for my original certificates. I had not brought them then, but I still had a feeling that they could do without it just looking at their attitude but I insisted on getting them from my house as I felt that this would require an extra ‘malai’ over that Rs. 50 note later on. So off I went & got back to this place in a while. Now there were no one to lodge any complaint but we had an uncle & aunty who had come for their verification too. Simultaneously my verification also started & all sort of historical questions were darted at me. One of the two men wrote all the details on a small piece of paper & tried making sure that I was the real Suvra Kanta Roy. Lastly that uncle, aunty & myself were taken to that lady-whatever. I never expected this, but she was the one to look for the identification mark & all that stuff. First she asked the aunty that what was her profession & this apparently smart aunty replied “rosoi!”,it was nice to see someone using her sense of humour in the police station . I mean I felt that this was a really cool answer! Then I was interrogated for my details & as I said that I required the passport for joining into Wipro, I could imagine that lady thinking, “so here we have a nice bakra!”.

Finally all the formalities were completed & I was sitting alone before the two hungry wolves ready to pounce on their prey. I kept my face straight & was waiting to see how they would ask for the bribe. The one who had been writing finally spoke out & said that as I was going to join Wipro soon so I would be needing the passport pretty soon, I said that I could do well if I got it by june or so. He looked more concerned & said, “yeah that means quite early”. I kept quiet. Then they started speaking to each other, one said to the other that what would he do with this one, would he send it to Khandagiri or solve matters there itself, the other said that since babu(that is me) would need it early so he would have to solve matters there itself. Then they talked a bit of technical stuff related to my passport that were bouncers to me. I tried to act absolutely innocent, listening to them like I’d come right from the kindergarten. They continued with their useless stuff more so that I could understand, but I acted like a 7yr old in a topless bar. I wanted them to be straight & clear. I wanted them to earn their bribe from a student & wanted to see how shameless they could get.
At last he spoke out! He said so sir u may go, & just take care of our babu so that u have no troubles at all & u get ur passport soon. The exact words in Oriya were, “Au ama babu katha tike bhujibe jemiti ki aapana ku apankara passport ta subidha re mili jiba!”. While I took out my purse, I saw the lady-whatever entering the room to join the feast & what the hell! That Rs. 50 note had vanished from my purse. There was a Rs.10 note & another piece of 100. I expected all eyes to be on my purse & I didn’t look up to confirm! Just took out the 100 note & tried handing it on to the so called ‘babu’. He indicated me to keep it on the table, as if he was not even involved in such a dirty job, just because I wanted to feed those morons coz they were my girlfriends in the last birth, so he was reluctantly accepting it. I quickly left the place without looking at anyone. As I put my hand on my chest pocket to take my glasses out, I found the Rs. 50 note. Realizing that I’d made a loss of 50 rupees just because erratic allocation of places for different notes, I tried to console myself by feeling that maybe those extra 50 rupees would get me my passport before I celebrate the 1st anniversary!

Really, this was the first experience of mine of this kind. While seeing the Rs. 100 note on his table, just for a while I remembered the tehelka tapes. I’m really tempted to blame the system but no, we are all corrupt. No one cares to take the risk of revolting. Nor do ‘they’ care if someone refuses to pay, the file just won’t move thereafter. No one knows exactly how to break this deadlock, every student like me doing such a thing for the first time must be feeling a thorn piercing somewhere but no one knows the location of this thorn & how to take it out, or may I say we never even care to know because it doesn’t pierce too hard on us. Think about it!

Rang De Basanti

Friends, I really enjoyed writing my first movie review for Chocolate & still enjoy reading it again & again because I think I could crystallize my thoughts perfectly in that post & get the message to u guys! Don’t know how much u people liked it but since then I’d thought about giving a film review for many a films that I had seen. But each time I refrained from it coz somewhere or the other each of them couldn’t meet my expectations. But this movie overawed me in all aspects & as the punch-line (even movies are products these days) goes “A generation awakens” I too seem to have woken up!

No marks for guessing the film, its Rang De Basanti! I was really looking forward to see it but had enough apprehensions about it coz Aamir Khan’s last movie had promised too much & delivered too little. As I entered the theatre, the atmosphere appeared to be different. It was a matinee show & as expected the crowd was young but more importantly, they sounded young. After Dil Chahta Hai, this was the first time I saw people creating a enjoyable environment out of the movie. All the one liners were greeted with warmth & songs were accompanied with synchronous chants! A few groups were dancing on the floor. The viewer really starts envying the lives of these carefree, blithe characters who live life like most of us dream of. Every aspect of the first half makes us feel that life is meant to be enjoyed & in the course if there’s something worthwhile to do, then that can just be a part of the game.

The lifestyle fabricated by the director for the 5 students of Delhi Univ. easily wins hearts. The other characters including that of the foreigner have also been knitted well and no one feels a need to figure out who the lead hero or lead heroine is. Now this in itself is an achievement as Indian movies are attributed to have well defined lead actors right from the beginning & Rang De Basanti already starts as a trend breaker.

The music & the songs shake u at times, both literally & symbolically, especially if u r in a theatre equipped with dolby dts sound system. But the only complain that I had was that some of these songs aren’t continuous. There are pauses giving the movie a more polished look but for this reason the songs doesn’t stay with u forever! Coming to the casting part, as u wud expect, all the actors have been allotted roles judiciously & everyone does justice to their respective parts.

But the best part of Rang de Basanti is the way it’s story has been synchronized. I mean, history is shown to be repeating itself & most soothingly the history is served to the audience in a very witty way in order to keep away ennui. Then like a free flowing river the story moves on those lines of history & slowly the audience makes out why that history part is necessary in the film. According to me, whatever the movie, Rang de Basanti tries to convey is loud & clear. Even a little child can see it for himself. Most of the time our works miss out on this aspect only.

There is a message in the movie & its nothing too new, yet we love disregarding it time and again. It says that if something has to change, its we, the youth who have to do it. Just playing the blame game never helps. We are the most powerful components of the society & to resurrect this decaying system, only we have to rise out of our domains, which probably is the only thing we like about this country or system. As this famous dialogue from the film sums it all up “ no country is perfect, it has to be made perfect!”

Well, if u have not seen the movie & u read the above para, the message & stuff, then u r bound to feel that many a films based on such an issue has already been made. Yes! Maybe more than a dozen of them. However, Rang De Basanti stands way out. The way things have been depicted, the manner in which the story has been organized, the commitment that every actor renders to the project & impeccable direction makes it a once in a blue moon movie.

As I conclude this post, I still feel sad that in spite of such an effort, Rang De Basanti would not be liked by a good part of its target audience itself, the youth. The people to be blamed are not the viewers but Bollywood itself as our Hindi film industry have never taught their audience to learn something from a movie. Any film with a relevant message unmistakably goes unnoticed or at least the message goes unheard! So if u ask an average youth about Rang De Basanti, be prepared to get the answer “Exciting first half, but a rather boring 2nd half, ***** shouldn’t have died!”

Back to my old den...

Hey guys! Here I am, back after a gap of over a month now. Let’s start off with a small question for all of u; How strong are ur memories of the time when u were about 3-4 years of age? If u r’nt an elephant then I believe that all u can recollect are a few broken pieces of isolated events that were either too good or too scary on ur part. And if ur parents keep telling u abt ur childhood then it would be slightly better than what I mentioned above. Now just think what would happen if suddenly u r taken to that time again & everything comes before u as it used to be before! No I’m not going to give a lecture on a time machine but am going to relate to u how I felt when just this happened to me, when I went to Shillong last week.

Although I was born at Calcutta, Shillong is the place where I spent the first 6 years of my life. After leaving the place I never got a chance to visit it again until last week. My memories about Shillong were too sweet because I enjoyed the warmth & beauty of the wonderful place. The people around me were great and life was fun, coz I spent very little time of those years in school, yet the school too was like that of a picnic spot where even studying was fun. Our house, besides a thin stream of water flowing by a spring with a small cement bridge to cross it, had its picture firmly imprinted in my mind. My best friend then, Kutu & our games of playing Ram & Lakshman in the Ramayan(the most famous T.V. serial then) were very much in my agenda of thoughts when we left for Shillong from Guwahati last Tuesday. The pine jungle close to our house had a graveyard & even that looked scenic to me then, coz I was never told what were burnt there. I could remember a lot of things but I kept feeling restless coz every bit of memory was blurred & the only thing that I remembered clearly was the Elephant falls which was a regular picnic spot for the families which resided nearby including ours.

So we decided to go to the Elephant falls first & then move on to our old house. As there was no plan for a night halt so we could visit limited places. Everyone of our family were excited about the trip. We reached the spot & here we got our first shock. The falls which used to be broad & so natural has now turned into a cluster of narrow streams falling from a height. Even the altitude looked less than before as everything had been concreted & the natural touch was difficult to find. I kept wondering how could they limit the flow of the vociferous waters into a rather meek spring. Needless to say it disappointed me, yet I loved being there just because I could be there again! We quickly moved on & I was eager to enter the city. What I saw, at first, made me feel that I was never a part of the same city before. It looked to me like a well developed city with all facilities starting from pubs to shopping malls! People wearing the most mod outfits & roads full of expensive vehicles. Precisely the coziness of Shillong was difficult to make out. Finally I managed to spot something that mapped with my remembrance. The buses there have a frontal projection like trucks & a characteristic chimney outlet, letting the smoke out skywards on the front panel. There used to be a Police bazaar which was still there but in a new avatar. Traffic rules seemed to be too stringent as a traffic police almost fined our driver for spending just abt 30 secs in a crossing to decide which way to go.

Everything looked different but still I felt that this was a very known place to me. I tried to remember things about places that apparently had been a part of my daily life some time back, but could do little to soothe myself. Finally after some toil, with the help of some of the localites we reached the house where we used to live. Earlier the road from Umpling bus stand to our house used to be a road of boulders & mud, on which probably only my Dad’s lambretta could move. But now our car had no problems reaching our old house & it has become a bus route now. On the way my Mother showed me our regular grocery shop & houses of people who were close to us then, sadly none of our known ones stayed in Shillong anymore. I also had a glimpse of my sister’s school & the way to my school. I quickly recollected a scene of me walking to my school with a raincoat on along with my mother with an umbrella which was anything but manageable. Shillong used to be a place with over six months of rains a year. I say ‘used to’ coz we hear, now that has changed drastically.

As we reached our house, everything in my mind started to get organized together & the colourless & jigsawed picture started to get prominent. A lot of things weren’t the same, yet I had absolutely no problems in identifying them. The spring was still there, our garden space where my parents used to grow great flowers had been cemented to accommodate a car. The pine forest hardly had an existence & the graveyard had been abandoned even by the corpses. A middle aged person was there outside & as my father told him that we used to stay there 16 years ago, he welcomed us to the house. He turned out to be a Bengali scientist & said that he’d been staying in that house since we had left the place. What I was excited about was that I could get a glimpse of the house again & I had a look at the bedrooms & the kitchen. The drawing/dining room reminded me the position of our old Sonodyne B/W TV & the dining table. The verandah outside used to be the playground of me & Kutu. Time & again our cricket ball used to fall in the spring & so we had a special stick with a net to get the ball back.

So many other thoughts about my life then, filled my mind & I was just so excited. No one to meet though as almost all there had transferable jobs there, like my father & sooner or later they had left. I got Kutu’s father’s phone no. & I don’t know if I’ll ever call him. I wanted to stay back & examine every tit bit of that area. I wanted to see my school again & visit the most beautiful church in Shillong, I wanted to go to the cinema halls called Salty & Rhino where I loved to watch films, and what were my films? The posters of the movies that hung outside. My neighbours used to take me there(walking distance) & return with me satisfied of having seen an Abitabh movie in a flat 20 minutes time! I wanted to visit the grocery shop owner, Pal uncle who used to give me a chiclets packet for free every time I visited his shop with my parents. But time was playing the spoilsport & we had to Shillong before it was dark. So after taking a couple of snaps of our old house we bid goodbye to our old den & headed our way back to guwahati.

I still fancy about being in Shillong for ever. What if we’d stayed there, what if we had never left the place! Yes after being in Shillong again I miss it again, but when I think of what I’ve received from all the places where I’ve stayed after Shillong then I feel I may be asking for too much. It’s still a great place to be but probably, God allotted just six years of my life to Shillong, rest is history!