Nothing but bookshops on our walls

My heritage college has little to offer; no bookstore with overpriced books, no stationary shops or sprawled out theatres or glossy ID cards. Outside its gate, which closes only during elections, its reputation is decaying, rusting with each passing year. But I will defend, not with silly cricket-match like patriotism but with rationality. The rigorous paper that we gave to enter this college did not query who the Beatles were or who was Mark Chapman; and before I looked around I thought it was great injustice. Literature encompasses everything and we should be queried about every stream. This was before I met my classmates, many, hailing from the interiors of Birbhum, Medinipur. They do not know the significance of the Beatles; their life was not touched by them but is it not a mistake to deny them a chance to get to know it? A large section, the larger section of my college is like this, intelligent students hailing from suburbs and distant villages in the middle of nowhere who do not own SLR cameras and bands making ‘gravy’ music. As I observe a certain paper promote a dinosaur old card game with an ‘educational institution’ I sit dumbstruck, a few teenagers in branded clothes, guitars and piercings can generate business? An international denim brand won’t come running to advertise when this cobwebby college of mine organizes something, people won’t say something as it’s the best college in Asia (people actually term this to another college… in Asia… for heaven sake grow up… being best in Asia is like being tall in Lilliput, Anjan Dutta won’t use our college as the backdrop of his movies (thank god for that… phew) but I’m learning to like this place.
Ps: There is no tinge of sour grapes as I must clarify, I did not try in the other colleges that I dig above, being too far away from my house.

Chaiya chaiya :|

The journey becomes more pleasurable than the destination if I am going there by train. It’s not just because train berths cradle me to sleep or the toilets give the bowel a ‘rocking’ experience or the wisps of white clouds and blurred green fields which race the train. It’s also the people, the strange mixture of fellow passengers who are determined to entertain me with their quaintness.
Each time I board the train, I pray to my nonexistent god that he put a hot boy next to my seat as my fellow passenger. But does that ever happen? (This is a rhetorical question  ) I have aged; have covered the greater part of India through our railways but I have never pulled the chain (I mean of the train) and have never met a hot boy in the train. The usual crowd is huge families with yelling babies with the number of suitcases being triple the number of family members.

Snippets of conversation that I heard this time:
Conversation: 1
Bald history professor (to me): so dear what do you study?
Me replies.
Bald history professor: I have a son just your age. (whats the point of saying that now? Huh?)
Bank manager a young uncle just touching on baldness: you are a professor? You are a lucky species on earth. Dictating the same notes year after year (this being the C.U last changed its syllabus sometime between ice age and the time when Neolithic men arrived.) in fact I hear professors don’t even take classes now a days. Besides the vacations you get … (man glowers)
Bald history professor: you are absolutely right. We get solid three months vacations. Besides the entire year is almost like a vacation, we can attend our classes whenever we want… if we ever want it. Repenting aren’t you? That is why you should have studied during the right time. I did it.
Me thinks (who needs his son?)

Conversation: 2
Whiny nagging kid: tell me stories…. Pleeeej (whines like a new chalk on a shiny blackboard… nerve scratching noise)
Bald history professor: I tell stories all day in class, I need a break in the train.
Whiny nagging kid: then tell me jokes.
Bald history professor: I know only two jokes, dear.
Whiny nagging kid jumps to hear it.
Bald history professor: joke number one, every auto in Kolkata says OBEY TRAFFIC RULES
And joke number two, Obama got the Nobel Prize.
I laughed.
Bald history professor laughed.
Everybody stared.
Whiny kid whined even more.

A glass of water

The solution to all problems in life does not lie in a glass of water. Popularized by Coldplay and my mother and the theory that the third world is going to be about water, the importance of water has reached new heights (rather depths). Having the immunity system of a dodo I am always the first person to catch everything that’s in the air, conjunctivitis, flu (haven’t got the swine one though) or the seasonal cold that attacks milk toothed snotty kids or toothless old men (and 19 year old me). This post is dedicated to my mother, who, as I went about blowing into my handkerchief, said; all these diseases keep on happening because I don’t drink water. With the tone of someone who has studied medical till the fourth year she handed me a glass of water.
This also reminds me of a person who once suggested that I drink water when I was bellowing that I was going bald.
Next time somebody tells me to drink a glass of water I will revolt… I refuse to do something without any results. Cold and fever has no relation with water, gallons of water won’t make my hair grow and that hot water lemon trick that dieticians suggest from time immemorial won’t make you thinner. So next time somebody tries to deceive you with a glass of water, pour out my wrath/ water on them.

We will, we will FROCK you.

A friend of mine had once supplied me with a number of feminine songs, literally because the folder was named Girls. Typical to my nature I completely forgot about it till I rediscovered it today. I was ecstatic to see a folder called GIRLS … expecting to open it to get a collection of pictures of girls that I have collected over the years surfing facebook and orkut (yes my lack in life is that intense) I got a folder with a compilation of songs by girls. The term ‘girls’ here incorporates – Ashley Tisdale (a blonde girl from high school musical...Reserve your smirks till the end), Atomic Kitten (can anyone explain what these band members were thinking while naming the band), PINK, Pussycat Dolls (doesn’t pussy and cat mean the same… if I refuse to acknowledge another meaning exists of the previous word) and many more bands with equally anatomical names.
Well there was a certain song, a famous song “we will rock you” (ya I know you are giving me a look for calling it a famous song… okay it’s a classic). In this certain folder, there is a cover of this song by Britney, Be Bouncy (Beyonce) and PINK. I panicked; I thought it was another virus in my stable full of Trojans. Delicately I clicked on it almost expecting it to burst or consume all my work but it was actually a file with a song entwined with it. It had an immense build up; I could imagine Britney spears coming up from the centre in a tight glittery pink two- piece and Beyonce slithering down a rope in a cat suit like thing. The gyrations soon began in the song and in the video of my mind…. It was scary. Those ‘singers’ kept on singing rock you… in the most hip hopish orgasmic manner. (Actually thinking about Beyonce was not all that bad… ermm due to certain reasons …)
A request to all the POP-ers in the world, please leave Pink Floyd, Bach, Radiohead and Coldplay from your jaws.
Thank you.
Ps: if you stop talking to me after reading this title I completely understand.

Note:

I had a blog but then one day I was feeling low and had nothing today, (something which happens almost every day), I deleted my blog. I am reopening another one, although without any purpose for I have nothing to write. If the stagnancy in my blog bothers me I might give you weather reports and solutions to get rid of your arthritis.