MY TRIP TO KOLKATA

The last time I was there in Kolkata it was the 29th of May and the gentle rains had welcomed us (my father and I) to the city. The rains were a blessing considering the fact that the temperatures in north India were waltzing around the 40 odd degree Celsius mark. My first impression of the city was that intimidation courtesy of the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, the giant imposing grey structure with freezing innards thanks to the over efficient central cooling vents. On arrival we decided to ditch the prepaid taxi booth and thought we just might give the local taxi, the giant yellow monster a chance. Sure, the cabbie took us for a ride (a very long one at that) through the city to our destination. Although my father got a little antsy at that, I was having the time of my life craning my head out of the window staring at the tall imposing modern buildings and the strong regal and resilient neo-classical style old buildings.One of life's lessons that I learned while in Kolkata was,'you are not rich until and unless you have a genuine honest to god clock tower in you own mansion'. I guess Kolkata has the skyline that might make Howard Roark squirm but as far as I am concerned, these old buildings deserve a round of applause. They have survived the blows of time, nature, environment and human negligence and have almost decided to stay strong despite the aforementioned foes. (the wonderful yellow monster) The trip was a rather short one so I am going to present my take on what I liked in Kolkata and what I would have liked to do there: 1. COLLEGE STREET: This time around when I was in Kolkata, I had actually gone to appear and entrance test which was to be held in Sanskrit College. which is on the Bankim Street. Thanks to its proximity to college street, Boi para, I did get the chance to score some books at throw away prices. This college street is not meant for idyllic book gazing, its about knowing your mind and telling the shopkeeper (who almost demands to know the name of the book) with precision what you require. Even if he can't find it in the shop, he would run down to the store house to look for your book. Relax the shopkeeper would still allow you ample time to look through his stash and decide what you may want. Even in the era of Amazon and Flipcart this 1.5 km of books stalls pack a strong punch offering rare books. So if you are in college street if you know your mind you can take your time. 2.INDIAN COFFEE HOUSE, ALBERT HALL: Bang next to college street is the Bankim Chatterjee Street where the Indian Coffee House stands tall. In fact Kolkata has a few more editions of the same chain, its the one here that is the most popular. In case you visit, make sure you try the cutlets, veg or otherwise they are good. And ofcourse the coffee (no point visiting otherwise). That's where we went next with out loot form the college street and spent the next half an hour looking intelligent (or trying or failing at it perhaps). This place has a lot of history to it, it used to be the hang out of Rabindranath Tagore, Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and many more. Do it for the coffee or history but try to be loud, the waiters tend to act as if you are invisible. 3.PARK STREET: Although its better to shop at New Market or Esplanade, but my epicurean self loves to ogle at the sights on park street. This time around I made it to Flurry's-fifth generation confectioner and an institution in its right. I tried the cheese cake there and something that goes by the name triple chocolate something. There would have been pictures but I simply gorged them at sight. Although I would recommend the cheese cake over the chocolate and cream disaster. The park street is chock a block full of fancy eateries and massive chains. However in Kolkata the 20 rupees per plate rate is still a great option. In case you want breakfast every street has multiple shops selling puri (luchi) sabji, samosa, kachori and all other cholesterol laden goodies. But its the cup of tea that steals the show. The sweet cardamom scented liquid in the earthen cups is a great way to wake up at just 3 rupees. So that's all I managed to accomplish in Kolkata within 72 hours. I know I missed out on a lot of different things but what are 'maybe next times' for?

IPL- Indian Paisa League

These few days, it's impossible to surf the news channels without being exposed(and sometimes overexposed) to the entire IPL spot fixing imbroglio. The names of Shreesant and Vindoo Dara Singh being the most popular followed by the other two players Ajit Chandila and Ankit Chavan of the Rajasthan Royals. Although Shreesant maintains that he is innocent and awaits exoneration, he should come in terms of the fact that fans are busy burning down his posters also he won't be featuring any longer in the ad campaigns of the Karnataka Government. Not so royal now, are you guys?. Other names doing the rounds are those of Sakshi Dhoni (formerly Rawat)as she sat(in the V.I.P. box) and chatted with Vindoo during a match and a Sakshi Jhalla, a Jaipur local who seems to have scored a Blackberry phone off of the infamous Shreesant. While Vindoo has been placed in police custody for betting during the IPL. In India betting is only legal if it's a horse race and clearly IPL and cricket in general are not involved with the animal. Vindoo in Custody apparently shape shifted into a sweet song bird (most news channels are going with "canary") and revealed that he had placed bets during the World Cup and the previous two seasons of IPL the entire venture earning him a whopping 17 lakh rupees. Also he has mentioned connections with Mr. Guru Mayappam (principal of CSK) and his songs threaten to unveil more starlets and veteran cricketers. These two characters are further linked to another betting whiz. This third character is linked to the D Company. And this link is THE link that makes this issue so much more serious and nefarious. The very "link" that is a threat to national security. The police is now scrambling looking for another character called Shobhan Kalachowky, a man in his 40s leading the list of fugitives.Police believe his arrest could help bust the entire betting ring in Western India. Kalachowky, cops say, is instrumental in fixing some of the IPL matches this season, and arrested bookies like Ramesh Vyas are said to be working for him. It doesn't go unnoticed that as IPL rose in popularity, it also rose as a hub for sleaze and obscenity drawing revenue for and from the glitzy, glamorous and the anti nationals. It has also been suggested that it's the IPL which has degraded the nation. While I don't necessarily agree that IPL is the reason for the degradation of this country but I find myself concerned with the quality of sportspeople this country is producing. Although BCCI has imposed a lifetime ban on the players but the real question remains, "is it enough?". Surely as the supreme court says , "you have taken your eye off the ball". I never thought I would have to say this in a cricket frenzied nation but people lets save the dignity of this 125 year old game. Let's make it a sport again. I don't know what went around Shreesant's mind when he hung that towel on his waist, but the cricket fanatics are crestfallen. Its also baffling that the neither the BCCI, nor the team owners or the players had never know of any of this. At this point I am really annoyed. How could you have never suspected? And what evidence was the BCCI waiting for even after the exposure? Yours sincerly Angry cricket fan

THREE YEARS WORTH OF RAIN AND TEA BREAKS

I hate having to start a post with a ,"its been a long while...", but it has been a really long while since I last made a post. So you may take it for granted that this "comeback post" is going to be much more scattered and unorganized. But then again my blog is called Random Life so deal with it. This post is mostly going to be dipped it nostalgia and coated with some memories. At the end of 3 years of college its the time to say goodbye. In my case I said my fair share of goodbyes over the course of 4 official and 2 unofficial farewell meetings. For the official ones we dressed up and later drenched out our make up in tears.In the unofficial ones strangely we were all smiles. But the worst of it came when all my friends had left and I was supposed to stay for 2 more days in an empty hostel room. To be fair my roommate had left quite a while ago but once you see your friends pack up their hold-all(s) and drag and stuff their airbags into the cars the real possibility of farewell presents itself. Its not really the sadness of departure alone, but its the possibility that the people who were once the closet to you make regress to become strangers over time. You may feel free and chuckle that its never going to happen to you and your friends but only time will tell. To be honest I hadn't cried the entire time I saw my friends off but once I had packed away my luggage and vacated my hostel room, I let out that solitary tear (it was followed by a couple others) and as I let it dry on my cheeks I thought to myself,"I and going to miss these idiots, I am going to miss the family I had in Shillong and I am going to miss being a TERRESTRIAL LUNATIC just as bad as I am going to miss being a part of the Biotechnology department, batch of 2010-13. Even if I had to repeat the year, its never going to be the same. There I said it, I LOVE YOU ALL AND I WILL MISS ALL OF YOU. Here are some snippets of the past couple (+1) years.

NEED HELP

I realize that it has been a long time since i have let out a single word here on blog spot,but its not like anyone really bothers. Lamenting the fate of my words i can only equate it with sending messages into a huge void unaware whatsoever of the fate of these messages. Final year of college, aah what a time. its full of a huge lot of work and at the same time a lot of free time also comes your way.At the end(well not the complete end) i realize that can be only explained with a lot of oxymoron excesses. Anyway my biggest concern at the moment is the treatment of HIV 1and HIV 2 treatment. As it is my biggest concern its only befitting that i get testes too( for which i will be receiving the results today). Anyone reading this who has a certain amount of knowledge of HAART or anything regarding the inhibitors of protease and reverse tanscriptase may please comment. Your help will be highly appreciated. On my part i would try to search up on a particular drug at a time and write a short introdction about it, uses and side effects. HELP REQUESTED..

QUITE THE TRIP

In my experience I find that I fall into the most bizarre of situations when planned to avoid any such discomfiture. One of such incidents happened when we were on a vacation in Sikkim. Here we means my mother cousin and of course me. As we all know that a tour of Sikkim is incomplete without visiting the Tsomgo Lake. To do that we had to have a vehicle which were on hire at the state transport corp. there. In order to be comfortable we decided that its best we hire out the whole sumo which is meant for 10 people to accommodate 4 instead (including the driver). I guess that had the god of sustainable use of natural resources hot on our trail.
The reason to get to the lake for was the snow. The lake wasn’t going to be frozen over at that time of the year but the hills and mountains around will probably be snow-capped Ours was one of the first cars to leave for the lake that day. Here I feel I should share a piece of info: we were staying at the deorali lodge in Sikkim and if you ask them nicely they would help arrange for the car before hand so you don’t have to haggle your morning away with the taxi guys and their brokers. Back to the trip, it hadn’t even begun that our car had to get its brake fixed. It sounds really bad for the terrain we were about to embark on but believe it or not I was oohing and aahing my lungs out didn’t realize much about it. So this must have infused my mother and my cousin with a misguided sort of optimism
Believe me from the petrol pump the road just got better and better (in terms of aesthetic appeal). I think the drivers of that route probably have on of the best jobs in the country (well minus the stiff back and tedious hour lousy pays and the list goes on...). Just tell me how many people can say that they drive past the Himalayan shadows for work everyday. The road was one of the most beautiful I had been on. Once you can see the Himalayas peeking close you know that it was worth getting up this morning.
Alas! This didn’t last much long the car had a break failure and we were stranded on that beautiful stretch with nothing much. But the view remained great as always. As ours was on of the first few cars to leave that morning we couldn’t get any cars to beg to take us back and the inflow of cars till the lake was quite inconsistent that day. There was the disaster stranded there for hours calling the hotel guy, other taxi guys or who ever we could begging the cars passing by to take us with them but some were full and couldn’t help it and some just drove on.
It was little over two hours that we finally found a car. There we were again crammed into the back of a car with the bends of the road threatening to throw me off throw that giant window at the back. But the truth be told all the three of us were having a great time. We were talking laughing out hearts out and enjoying. So when were at the lake the stiff neck from being thrown around in the car and all the other woes were forgotten. We ran up the hill (with the exception of my mother) slipped on the snow (I ate some) threw snow ball slid on it played got tired and came back. I did abstain from riding the yak on the basis of PETAish ideas, visited the markets down. And returned the same way. Really all us have those people to thank for the life.
So here it is THANKS FOR THE LIFT, BECAUSE OF YOU HAD A GREAT TRIP.

SOME IDEAS OF SOME PEOPLE

if you have ever been addicted to online farming this post might interest you. Its been about two years since last tried my hand at farmville on facebook. I still recall the time when farmville was the next big thing in my circle of friends. After chemistry class we would discuss if someone's squash crops withered (you could have then unwithered too!!)or was the Haiti relief aid crops more profitable.

Those were the days of vampire fiction and online crops. I mean, its hard not to get addicted to such farming where you don't need rains,crops mature after three days, trees are always with fruit. In short its the easiest and more gratifying to be a farmer this way. Quite shameful though that in contrast to this our own farmers are languishing in the dark and committing mass suicides.

However, I do not have any intention to get serious on this post. Put your hands up if you were on the farmville band wagon once or even if you were hot for vampires. From where I stand its ok and downright necessary to have a little slice of escapism or to be high on gullibility. As long as you know the limits you are always safe. Plus couldn't play farmville for long this time, guess it takes time to adjust with fantasy after a break.

RAIN ON ME

Its the 2nd of January 2011 and the first rain of the year today.I find rainy mornings especially beautiful although i can't say much about this one today (woke up at 9:00 a.m so missed the morning), but whatever remained for my eyes looked wonderful. Rains have different meaning for different people ranging from a way of regeneration till mass destruction. For me rains feature in my one of my favorite escapist fantasies: nestling a hot cup of tea in my hands while watching the drops tricking past. Since its a new year and i am high on optimism (way worse that crystal meth or LSD)I decided to click away.

I have come to observe that people who have grown up on flood plains have a bitter sweet relationship with rain (A NO BRAINIER). For us its the rains that nourish and rains again that destroy. Coming to think of it, rains are like mother nature's version of a seductress with an ulterior motive. Rain may make you smile but if it gets too close it will make you shed tears of blood.

Despite the doom and gloom rains are lovely.