Conversations over Bangladesh-Pakistan Match March 2012 (PART 1)

• (The Following conversations are responses to a video in youtube that portrayed the Bangladeshi Cricket Team crying after losing the Asia Cup Match against Pakistan)
  
  
  donwaqas wrote: Most of Pakistanis wanted Bangladesh to win and all my Facebook news feed is filled with regret of Bangladesh loss. Pakistani's support Bangladesh because we are Muslim brothers...Very well played Bangladesh...
  
  
• i answered: please guys....stop bringing religion here....bangladesh has ppl from different religion....thats why we are different from pakistan.....we are proud to be bangalis....we are not hindu, muslim, christian or buddhist....we are bangalis....
  
  
• and to that someone else wrote: these religions are also in pakistan but majority counts if bangladesh was a hindu state i would never have been sad for them but because they are our brothers in faith
  
  
• me: thank you, u have proved ur true colours and narrow-minded ness.....where did ur Muslim brotherhood go when your army killed muslims and raped the women in 1971???? and does ur Islam teach you to look down upon other faiths???? SHAME ON YOU.....this is the reason why we became Bangladesh because we do not subscribe to ur narrow mindedness and ur cheap religious brotherhood....
  
  
  him: i didnt disrespect any religion i am just saying that i love bangadesh only because it is a muslim state and anyone who considers it disrespecting should think over his ideology.hindu state was just an example it might be a christian state or jewish state .i have hindu frnds it doesnt mean i hate christians same is if i love muslims it doesnt mean i hate hindus 
  
  
  now another bangladeshi guy wrote: dear brother.i am a bangali like you and also a muslim. to tell you when i came here its so awesome seeing pakistani ppl commenting with loves for bd which is not maybe what we expected but i think its really very honest and kind of them we should rather start loving them for that what happened in the past is true but as you can see they are well atleast some of them are trying to make it up to us new generation is but if we hate them even if that kindness then we are not doing anything good 
  
  
  to this i got very angry and i replied: jan bhai apnara muslim bhaiyera kolakoli koren....ami jani apni apnar muslim bhai er ektu kindness er jonno byakul.....listen, they are not trying to make up for anything....many of them are only showing muslim brotherhood, nothing else....i have much respect for those who are appreciating BD team, only for their merit in cricket and not anything else...aar bhai apnake ekta kothha boli, onno karo kindness toh amader dorkar nai bhai....amra bhalo khelle amader shobai bhalobashbe etaito shabhabik 
  
  
  him: well you obviously have probs thinking positive so i can't never understand you thoughts but one question would you like ppl hating on your own country rather than being loved?if so then you my friend have got some serious issues.and manusher shathe jhogra kora bondhe koira kiso valo chinta koren life e kiso labh hoi aishobeo 
  
  
  me: eikhane negative thinking koi dekhlen bhai....bangladesh toh shudhu muslim der desh na..ontoto sheibhabe bangladesh er jonmo hoynai 1971 e..tai shudhu muslim holei paki ra jodi support kore taholeto beparta cricket er na...aar ami ekhane jhogra kore thakle eta toh ami haway kortesina apnio kichhu boltesen tai amio tar jobab ditesi etake bole discussion.....aar ami bhalo kisu kortesi ki kortesi na eitato apni na jene shudhu shudhu torker khatire bolte paren na..... ekhane onek pakistani tader kindness dekhaite giya amaderke EAST PAKISTANI boltese....eta kintu insult er porjaay porey ....bujhlen???? naki aaro bujhaite hobe?
  
  
  again the Pakistani guy wrote: bro it would have been better if you had should that hate in eng so that we might know what is in ur mind for us but dnt dislike pak for some filthy politicianz they are still playing taht blood game that they played in 71 
  
  
  
  

  
  

  • me: i have nothing against pakistanis....i love wasim akram and imran khan...not cos they are Muslims, but cos they are good players......this is what i am trying to explain to you....
  • and there is no point blaming the english.....cos they left long back and we are still fighting or supporting only a particular group to keep the division alive...and i am not showing hate to anyone....don't say things which i havent done....i am only asking u to show us respect as a nation, as a good cricket team, not just cos we are muslims....thats all
    
    
    him: u used very harsh language at the start bt anyway the point is if i love muslims does that mean i hate hindus??? no it would b a joke it is natural that a muslim loves other muslims as holy prophet(pbuh) said .and the other thing is that bangladesh really played well and almost won everyone knows that there is nothing hidden in it and about english y should blame them we r responsible for our miserable situation at the moment no ponit blaming them 
    
    
    me: really? is ur memory that short? u first said: "if bangladesh was a hindu state i would never have been sad for them but because they are not our brothers in faith" !!!!! isnt that harsh enough? what u said was plain COMMUNALISM...and when i talked about Pakistan army killing and raping us in 1971, that was FACT not harsh language...ok???? now i dont think u shud argue any further... 
    
    
    
    

    
    

    • now one BD guy wrote to that Paki guy: brother don't talk to him.let him speak..........and thanks.may Allah help us!
    • to which i sarcastically asked this bd guy: bhai apni jamat islami na shibir?
      
      
      Me to the Pak guy: u clearly said if bd was a hindu state u wudnt have felt bad for them..so when u later said that u have hindu , christian, jew friends those were bogus.....u only love muslims and undermine others...but Bangladesh does not subscribe to such communal ideas...thats why we are Bangladesh, not East Pakistan... 
      
      
      The Pak guy now replied: yeah y should i feel bad for an state which is playing against us was that an indian made video for bangladesh u can search all pak fan page they are just speaking about bangladesh have we spoken about anyother team???no y only bangladesh because we love them and point is loving muslims doesnt mean hating hindus should i show u my frnd list there are hindus from india and pakistan and from bangladesh as well u people are not getting my point 
      
      
      
      

      
      

      • me: i know that loving muslims doesnt mean hating others.....but u urself said that if BD was a hindu state u wudnt have felt bad for them!!!!!! can u deny that u said that????
        
        
      • him: no i dnt deny that i have said it.because i dnt feel bad for them.they have been playing cricket sice 1899 more than hundreds years now and bangladesh is new and they are playing like true champs and if they lost match it must hurt the and us as well.
        
        
      • me: who is THEM in ur conversation here? decide that first....then we will carry on this discussion....u said if BD was a hindu state u wudnt have felt bad....what does that statement got to do with india playing since 1899? what is ur point? and for ur info, india is not a hindu state....it's a secular state and there are many muslims in indian cricket team....
  
  
  now another bd guy comes along and writes to this Paki guy: Dear k3bb109, as a Bangladeshi I thank you for your support and also want to point out that sphinxgirl004 does not speak for the rest of us Bangladeshis. Yes, I would fight and destroy anyone who's responsible for 71 attrocities but I'm stupid enough to blame all Pakistanis. I take most Pakistanis as my brothers and sisters in Islam. 
  
  
  the Paki guy: bro we still love bangladeshis and will forever and all that happened in 71 was because of corrupt army generals and politicians pakistani nations was also sad that day and are also sad today for all that happened respect and love to bangladesh 
  
  
  BD guy: I agree. And most Bangladeshis know that the Pakistani people, especially the new generation, in general do not agree with what happened in 1971. I only have love and respect for Pakistanis for your support for Bangladesh. Also, we share a common bond, Islam.
  
  me to BD guy and Paki guy: @k3bb109 i never blamed all Pakistanis...i myself have many Pakistani friends and I love Pakistani food and especially classical music...
  
  new BD guy to me: please stop! you are humiliating the emotions of this video, people,everything .please! 
  
  
  me to new bd guy: u r humiliating our nation Bangladesh by siding with the Pakistani who himself admitted he wudnt have felt bad if BD was a hindu state....so it is all about muslim brotherhood for him..you dont understand the emotion of this video...we are bangladesh because we are Bangladeshis first, and then muslims or hindus or christians...we gave our blood to make this nation and look at what u r doing....ekei bole rajakar!!!! 
  
  
  another new BD guy to me: u are so dumb. Its a shame u call urself Bangladeshi. Its cricket. Most pakistanis are shamed of what happent in 71. and here they are showing the good side of pakistan.and being lovely to us. and a arrogant bitch like u is acting like u are the one who got raped. I dont think ur rapist is even alive. I do ask pakistanis for a formal apology for crimes committed in 71. But right now all i can see pakistanis being lovely and saying beautiful thing which is telling me to stop being a hater . 
  
  
  me: "i dont think ur rapist is even alive" is what u said.that proves our nation is still behind cos we have very short memory.and dont call me dumb.u r dumb enough to think that these guys are praising us only for our merit..i definitely appreciate those who are praising bd with an open heart....but i as a bangladeshi must refuse to accept ill-meant praises which are based on communal religious brotherhood....so i am only opposing to this particular individual who supports bd only cos we r muslims.
  
  mutasir28: that's right!! we need to see on what basis they're praising us! 
  
  
  me: thanks bhaiya...
  
  me to that another new BD guy: maybe u r from rajakar family thats why u r being so casual about the atrocities done in 71.... 
  
  
  
  

Bad Post. Good Start.

This has to end. This must stop. I can't go on in this continuous loop of helplessness and immense love for a git who doesn't deserve an iota of love or respect. I am only demeaning myself every time I fall back to those memories....mostly the bitter ones....all I have is hatred and remorse....it's so pointless and so useless...I am not ashamed...cos' I am so ALIVE...so alive that it hurts...I just need to steer this alive-ness to some other direction....I am not saying I have not started doing that...I am doing that...but it gets distracted and it falters....but I still pick up the pieces and try for the nth time...they say, Rome wasn't built in a single day....

I have tried writing my diary but in all this time I managed to put an entry only 3 days of my entire stay here....very useless I must say....Hope this is revived...Hello Quills!!!

I Am

Just
One
Dot

To Be Or Not To Be...

Incessantly accused

Repentance ignored

I stand here on the Thames

Greeting the foxes and the swans

To be or not to be

That is not the question

There is no mercy for those

Who are at the wrong side of the River

No letters

Not even a song...

Nature has imbibed Politics

You mustn't make any wrong move

Make your policies, with care

Pass the bills with a dare

And stick to it with reasons galore

This is no place for adventures

Your little adventures are condemned

And you must have a dream

But only a pragmatic one

You are puzzled at your own stupidity

You are but a needle in the hay

Of despair and remorse

And what if you did revolt

What if you did add up your wrongs

Only to experiment with the right

To test your principles 

Those very dear ones that they will not allow

You are not an avenger!

You are merely visiting life

With serendipity and chance happenings

But there you are a failure

For you shall be hanged

With the rope of redundancy

You wouldn't know where it is coming from

For someone thinks you are conspiring

No matter what good you have done in the past

You shall always be a conspirator

With partners in crime

And you shall have closed doors forever

But mind you, there are other doors

Waiting to be opened

Who knows, they are invisible perhaps

And one mustn't hurry

For these are doors of time

Time, that shall always be

And never shall not be...

SERVER ERROR

why cant i open my blog?

Unusual Thursday

Unusual Encounter 1: Three men in the park sitting just in a line across each other in consecutive benches. One picking his nose away, the second doing pranayam and the third one sneezing...nose people!

Unusual Encounter 2: While jogging back from the lake, over the flyover, towards the railway station, I see three men walking together, all in white t's and navy blue tracks...one of them has a cap written amazing thailand some year to some year....I forgot the years....and the same person had all the Millennium Development Goals (all eight) printed at the back of his t-shirt....

Unusual Encounter 3: While crossing the railway tracks on foot, saw a woman in sari fallen and rather drowsy, I don't know really...she had her eyes closed and face cribbed...other women helped her get up...and her husband trying to help her...but the man seemed to be a pauper of sorts...she seemed unhappy that he tried touching her to help her out...and he shouted at her, in public, telling all "look what kind of a wife she is"...and she kept insisting on not to touch her....and they glided away to the nearby slums just where the railway crossing ends on the side of the bazaar...

Statement of Purpose, Forsaken and Forlorn...

in scientia veritas, in artes honestas...

It would not be very wrong or outrageous to say that one could treat illness with music, paint a canvas with sulphur and cadmium, write poetry for proving a mathematical theorem and take a photograph with the blink of an eye. Indeed, music IS therapeutic enough to alleviate depression, paint IS made up of chemical substances, poetry comprises of metric rhythms and mathematical progressions, and memories are photographic images of past incidents stored in the brain. Yet, as Einstein quite rightly points out, gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love. Also, imagination is more important than knowledge. New discoveries and inventions would have been impossible without creativity and imagination.

Hence, in my mind, the scales don’t really balance when it comes to science or arts. It’s a never-ending base-superstructure (base being science and superstructure being arts) dialectical leitmotif for me. But however often this recurring imbalance haunts me, I always knew that one reciprocates the other and that there has to be a structure that houses both the disciplines. The boundary seems to get blurred in a post-structural fashion, as if by deconstruction, and the field of Anthropology wins all the votes. But one must look hard for something, sometimes consciously and sometimes even the world conspires and gets it for you when you are temporarily not looking. The moment of arriving at a juncture where a balance is struck is almost like death, which is only the beginning. One gets flashes of the past in a series of linked montages at such arrival points and it makes all the more sense, just like in the Nonsense of Sukumar Ray or in the secret anagrams of Leonardo Da Vinci.

Just like Alice, I would like to keep myself busy in all things human. I would rather indulge myself in social questions and finding scientific answers so that our planet doesn’t get run over by intergalactic bypasses and leave the residual hitchhiking survivors like Douglas Adams’s character Arthur Dent, cursed to forever brood over the planet that was really never meant to be obviously because of the insensible viscous acts of human civilization.

We have done more damage to our planet than the rodents that destroy our crops. If in science lies the truth and the key to technological advances, in art lies the honour in keeping and maintaining such advances. Human beings fight among themselves and in doing so create havoc and leave a long trail of wreckage endangering life on Earth and nature itself. If we don’t act responsible socially and resolve social problems within our communities then the relationship between human and nature will worsen. We get angry at each other and greet each other with atom bombs. But what could we do when the Tsunami washed away several lives, and stripped off the nuclear plants naked? When nature strikes back, we will all be mashed into a coagulation of useless dump that might resemble some 20^th Century Dada art but it needs serious recycling with another Big Bang. It wouldn’t even be funny!

THREE DOGS

The strangest thing happened to me today...I just finished my dinner when I happened to be at my balcony when I saw a dog eagerly staring at me from the street...I motioned it to go away, just like that...but it stared at me with watery eyes...I thought it was hungry and needed food. I went inside to get my leftover rice and went back only to find him sitting and wagging his tail....I quickly poured the rice in a cellophane packet and keeping it open dropped it down. The dog immediately went near it, sniffed and then walked in another direction and stopped as if looking for someone, another dog perhaps...saw left and right and went away without giving me any further glance...I didn't even exist for the dog...then after a while another dog came, this one thinner...went straight to my dropped food, sniffed and then peed on it and left! I was so bewildered! then after a while a third, blackish, limping, oldish dog came over, sniffed and then peed like the second dog and left...HOLY BELGIUM! i mean, really, the food I eat even a dog wouldn't! Is that what it meant? Or was it something very personal amongst the dogs like some underground activity...for UNDERdogs...LOL...See, this is why I never like dogs...or anything that can be made into a pet...they are strange and they pee in the wrong place!

STALKERS BURN IN PLASMA MOCKTAIL!!!

I have lived the most important years of my life in Kolkata...and now I just can't live the life of a criminal anymore...criminal indeed...i need to report to FRO section every time I enter and leave India. And every time I get a new Visa, I need to make a new RP (Residential Permit)...which is not a very happy job. Involves a lot of photocopying, drafting and shit work. Meaningless and in no way of any use...It's for the State of India to feel proud of exercising power. Only the extent of power they exercise varies from place to place.

The Bengal Police had been very generous and kind as to the papers to be submitted for RP...but this Kolkata Police thinks they can find the rabbit hole where I, Alice, came in through...only if they had the imagination...I am in my third year of this course and in my last semester and the officer asks me there is no proof that I am a Bangladeshi student, despite my passport photocopy, and my Bangladesh address in both Sponsorship Certificate AND my college ID card...am sure you don't understand what I am trying to say by all these jargons....neither do I...and let's say I don't want to...I have had enough...

He (Dennis -The Menace as I call), has the whim to ask me whether I know the difference between submission and inquiry...i mean, why should I? why should I have to produce the sponsor's electric bill as address proof when I have the telephone bill to provide? I mean, isn't the telephone bill also considered as a valid governmental proof of address? He wants my sponsor's Voter ID card, AND his PAN card...let's say his whole point is to discourage my sponsor to sponsor me....and how ridiculous, that if a Bangladeshi student doesn't know anyone or can't convince anyone to sponsor him/her, then he/she simply wont be able to stay here for education purpose...is that fair? does that in any way stop infiltration, and illegal migration or even terrorist acts across the border? IT DOESN'T!

But had I not been suffering like this, I really would have pitied all the OC/RP's and DIB officers for having to work in an office that literally reeks of urine excreted in the leaking lavatories by themselves...What you inhale there, is all you can deliver...he inhales urine and delivers more excreta of the State itself...i say he, since most of the officers there are male...

Like Ginsberg, I would love to say to India (the State, I mean)

INDIA, I AM SICK OF YOUR INSANE DEMANDS!!!

When will you sell your eggs to America?

p.s. India, I wish I don't have to be a burden on you anymore...ever...I wish I never miss you...I wish I never have to love you again...or live in nostalgia for you...I am preparing myself to hate you...

At this point...

I don't know a lot of things at this point....

I don't know whether I should write, paint, make films, take photos, be an academician or be a singer....i don't know how to go about them also...I don't know whether I should follow my own rules and protocols or to give value to those of near and dear ones...

I am tired of feeling guilty and ashamed for no real reason...am tired of myself and my constant need to adjust myself to my surroundings...am tired of simply existing...

I don't know the truth about many things...like all of us...only that I feel it a notch higher than the average others...or maybe I think that way, but it's not it either!

who can tell!

I am studying in an institution where the most incapable professor(?) who doesn't understand what others say and vice versa, comes off boasting that no one will have the right to question his decisions on whose ideas will be approved for degree film-making...how lame is that! Of course, he has nothing better to do in life so he is in this shit institution trying to exercise the little power that he has on deciding people's degree films....fuck degree films! I can do better...I don't mind even if I do nothing...Doing nothing is far better than boast of power with the minimum and the most insignificant of achievements...

I wish I never be in a position of power so as to exercise it in manners that affect and hurt others wrongly....in both external world and in personal life...I should not decide for others and vice versa unless the other party wants to be helped in decision-making...

Mostly I regret being born a woman...for many reasons...although am sure, I would have missed being a woman had I been a man...unlike most men who love the power and position they have in society and don't want to sacrifice those just for the whim of being a woman...(except of course Rituporno et al...) Had I been a man, I think I would have delicately handled the power that I have in society and try to come to terms with the disadvantages of being a man as well...

But mostly I want to lose weight...am sick of the lipids in my body...I want to be swift as a bird...oh soft and swift birdy...Piyu Kahan!

Will blow it all up with Vuvuzela...just can't take it anymore...

Voice of Goddess...

Was listening to Plaisir D Amour by Joan Baez...and it just occurred that I have never noticed how the quality of her voice has direct visual feelings...

"you brought me heaven right then" is like a sharp shiny knife reflecting Cosmic rays

"when your eyes kissed mine" is like the same knife cutting through butter...

"my love loves me" - the knife shredding cheddar cheese...

"and all the wonders I see" - knife cutting the last bit

"of rainbow shines in my window" -knife cutting through soft fire...

"my love loves me" - the knife squeezing in a soft, spongy cottage cheese...

I guess she has a lovely knife in her throat...and not an adam's apple!

I wish I could grow a knife in mine too...

JINXED...

I lost my black bounded sketchbook. If you ever see her, get the pages scanned for me. And upload them on Facebook or any damn site provided you are on my friend's list. I wish there were enemy lists as well...but anyway, they come in the guise of friends...bleh!

I was just thinking a few days back to take photos of my work in that sketchbook...and now it's gone! I just can't believe I have lost it...I have never lost a sketchbook in my life!

I WILL ALWAYS HATE HER...TILL MY LAST BREATH

It's time I stop getting hypocritical and not gift earrings to her...I should always remember the day in that stupid Mall...when I was lonely and was HYPOCRITICALLY offered some drinks after being insulted that "you are not good enough for my brother"...and many other times she gave me a cold shoulder being a brand ambassador to shadow patriarchy...THANKS! So long and thanks for all the fish, as Douglas Adams would have said...Cos' I can't try and like someone after a certain limit has been crossed...and for general people like her, the law doesn't go for amendment...Cos' I really do my best to be open towards anyone...after a point I am closed for ever...rather that person ceases to exist for me, or exists only in memories of hatred...

In fact, I should just leave this place...

Ode to Hatred...

I hate them...people have strong reservations for the word "hate"...even my school teacher for English had...but I love to use it as much as I use the word "love"...if people can "love" icecreams, they can also "hate" mash-kolai daal with fish flesh and bones...one doesn't necessarily go and ban the preparation of such ghastly dishes...(doesn't ghastly sound nice for a word???see, that's what am saying..."hate" is also a nice word to use)...

So where was I? Aah, about HATING them...heh...wait I will list the reasons why I hate them with numbered points...in the process I will myself be crystal clear about why I hate them so much...and so would you, ye precious readers! Here we go:

1. One of them loves to come out almost naked after a bath and sits under the fan and basks in the thought that she might actually be entertaining the rest in the room while the fact is exactly the opposite...I mean, if I see a naked woman wearing only the bare minimum first thing in the morning, imagine the curses from me she is accumulating that may take it's toll on her marital life (no one really knows where and how Newton's Third Law works!)

2. The same one bathes herself with her perfume and is very proud of that...I like to imagine that I am sharing room with a live bottle of perfume...If Grenouille was here, he would have killed and waxed her am sure! Only that he would just do that for trial, not out of love for her body odour!

3. Bad accent! Apparently English is supposedly their first language, and they are horrible in it...no proper sentence structure, much worse for a casual spoken English...only Sulakshana's spoken English could be worse than their's...but even that's debatable!

4. Very bad taste in music...and on top of it can't appreciate my comprehensive breadth and width of taste in music...I was listening to Leonard Cohen and Ray Charles once, and one of them opined on them as "old" songs...so the "new" bland music they hear is very Britneyish or Enriquesque and it's annoying (one of the songs has no lyrics except "Baby")...(About "baby", more hatred on a different context, stay tuned)...they hate my rewaz, and I hate them infinitely for that!

5. Occupies the washroom as much as possible or impossible...not much hatred for that as long as I can pee, shit and shower whenever I want to...But I hate that they are so insecure about their washroom usage!

6. Switches off the light at 10:30 or 11ish pm and I cant even use my lovely focused yellow light for reading! The only book they read is The Forsaken Bible, and that too only one of them does (well before 10pm)...the other one has the same copy of the Unholy text, just keeps beside her pillow, never saw her reading it; that explains her nakedness after each bath perhaps! At other times during the day, the former one reads some stupid trashy celebrity magazine...bad taste in reading, okay that should go under the next point...

7. Bad and/or no taste in reading books...

8. If I am awake and the door bangs somehow because of a rainstorm or something late at night, they, in their sleep, think it is my doing...silly God-fearing idiots...

9. Keeps on badmouthing Islam whenever they can. At other times, only talk of food and boyfriend and bad weather. One of them takes the reality show "Emotional Attyachar" seriously.

10. One of them (the nakedness one) needs tubelight in broad daylight to finish her shorthand exercises...

11. Prefers coffee to tea...in this hot, humid Calcutta, loving coffee is like offering black cloaks to the members of the KKK. It's just not acceptable! Coffee, acceptable...but not coffee everday! But then, to each his own...at least they are not finding my flask of tea funny...

Okay I better end about my darned roomies and move to other pastures of hatred...Well, it seems, I have problem staying with anyone and everyone...Ideally, the fault is mine...it's a fact that people have problem with me...But then, what the hell, I have no trouble living with myself!

I hate him...Short, stout and bad sense of humour...plus loves pets and encouraging and gifting my lover into keeping pets! I hate pets...I just dont relate to pets or their owners...And he also has animalesque sense of non-veg humour, which is quite revolting...and why does she have to call him "Baby"??? of all words, baby?! why why why?????? It seems I have all rights reserved to hate him and her...And anyway, she is very formal and artificial with me...tries in vain to wear a mask of goodness with a very evil smile this side of the earth, in front of me, but it all fades and the mask comes off very fast...has a huge inferiority complex...hence works hard to make herself look confident and hence superior, poor thing!

I love him...only if he would know...and enjoy my hatred towards all things above...then we could have been a nice gang of two! And gangs do finally go beyond their hatred and ride away into the wilderness!

I love wilderness...I think...I might hate the ants or bugs there, but that could be settled with Woodland shoes...reason why I can tolerate capitalism...

On moving the towel...

Ab mujhe koi intezaar kahaa...
The rat ran through the rain
I stared with my purple umbrella
On the terrace
Drenching my towel blue
Twinkle lights on the mosque
Woh jo thha dard ka karaar, kaha?
Wringing the towel, still no drops
But it's ripe with river
Aankh ki ek gaaon mein raatko khwab atethhe
Tak, take, taking it to the shade
Enough of the pangs of river!
Woh jo bahetethhe abshar kahaa???
What happens to those towels
Whose masters sleep asnore
When it rains at midnight
Urte khwabon ka aetbar kahaa...?

shoestrings...

I wish not to write...
For these are not the cruel flowers of April...

Feelings from the Crypt: Revisited...

(painting courtesy: Ruben Monakhov http://rubenm.spb.ru/)

I'm still with my caravan

Wishing you a bundle of joy

That clove sweet cigarrette

Left my lips rather coy

There the shipyard, ahoy!

And the crescent moon

Will be clouded soon

That ney flute playing in my mind

Have left the waves go blind

As they blindly roll over the steps...

Step by step

Tune by tune

I must perish

For these are the cruel flowers of April...

Spreading poison smell till May

While I paint my nails white

Let me sleep now

I shall wake up on Monday...

I see the light come shining...and I shall be released!!!

Image Courtesy: Santhosh Pai aka Sanpaiya

Is it art when men lie and compartmentalise their conscience???

Then it's definitely art to march into the unknown...cos' the unknown can't offer worse than the known...

Truth always brings happiness...in this day and age where nothing costs or hurts more than truth, I embrace truth...for it shall always remain with me and my people around me...

Amen...

be a rebel!

be a rebel!

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mera naam johnnie

mera naam johnnie

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In hateful memory of an Encountered Comrade

I wanted you dead, but
Never on the hands of our commonest enemies...
I would have savoured you alive and wounded
In the mind, not the flesh...
Just as you might think I am one of them
I too feel you are one of them
You conspired with the State
To take my Love away...
I hated you
With the last turn of the silencer
You have become the immortal martyr
Am listening to Raag Tori by Kumar Gandharva
I dont believe there are only three kinds of people
Like you.
He likes you. Perhaps loves even.
You didn't have to defeat me like this
But that you did
I shall gallop along now
You can haunt me and make him love you
Does death make one better?
Even if it does, do I quiver?
But I wanted you dead
Never on the hands of the State
Or of mine...

The Man and the Tortoise: A Prophecy

I love you. Not your tortoise...on whom u painted lovingly...

I know you dont....it's okay...even if it isn't...

The Address

By the busy lane, there is an address. Lives the hearty one. My tooth hurts, but it ain't a sweet one...(I am selling myself to myself...eh!) Have you heard Joni Mitchell lately? Just crossed my mind...so where were we? Bloody address. Bloody identity crisis! Last night i slept in sweat, my fan is filled with filth. But am buying lights, lots of them...spotlines and clear ones, all sorts...even twinkle lights...will they heat up my address? But thats not sufficient. For what isn't sufficient is inevitable. I am preparing for an exam that never frightens, which probably doesn't even exist in this huge blob of a Universe...

They teach us about collective deviance and expect us to have collective obedience (even dumbness) in 30, Mother Teresa Sarani. And in 40, Daley Road, it was cold, really cold, and I could call oranges mandarins, and deans by their names; there this lady slept on my bed while I shivered (with cold not dreams) on the carpetted floor...and the carpet wasn't Persian, though my student was...And there are other roads and alleys that have been alzheimered in my mind...

I can invent words...dont get shocked...i can turn addresses into empires or ruins...and i am only joking, you know...you can leave your hat on! Yes you, am addressing you to take a peek into ur head underneath...

Some addresses lament...They lament on the bare bones...I have a hard time filling forms...they always ask about addresses. Permanent and present. Correspondence of late. Am out watching a match between Mohammedans and Abahanis...you can watch Mohanbagan and East Bengal instead...I'll catch a swine flu just so i dont have to fill up immigration forms...You get masks from the medicine shops, yes that's the address...call me if you die...i lost my sim...but i can buy plenty...dial any number...try 666...or else, don't let a key unpressed. Anonimity will triumph; at last, an unknown number will get you through to the other side...Alice is waiting...follow the rabbit...

Man-Woman Dialectics and Winter

Winter first. Global warming has robbed us off the chill of winter here in the tropics...The smell and memory of winter are 10, Paribagh and songs of Mehedi Hassan...films like Silsila, Lamhe, Ashiqi and much later, 1947 Earth...it's a nostalgic concoction to which later concoctions have tried hard to sink in only to be immiscible...oh i forgot to mention 1971 spirit, Kajal mama, my parents, a houseful of student activists, left-wing politicians of Dhaka, Masud Rana, bhapa pittha, Memory bakery pastry and love...

"dil-e-nadaan tujhe hua kya hai/akhir iss dard ke dawa kya hai..." - Ghalib

"....hum hain mushtaq , aur woh bezar/iya elahi iye majrah kya hai"

woman proposes, man disposes...man proposes, woman composes...disagree, disagree! help yourself. Who said I am preaching here man-woman dialectics? Who's saying that I have the answers? It's not my job. Ghalib, Neruda, the like and the unlike have done their job well. Am only stuck in the negation of man by negation of woman and vice versa. I don't understand it one bit. So shouldn't you...

Read At Your Own Risk

KOLI YUG....ghor Koli Yug...am sure of it! Something is going to happen, like some Nuclear War...or something thousand times more hideous than that! Or maybe a stagnancy will occur that would make people be like that Farmer guy from SIN CITY...

trust, simplicity, honesty, warmth, everything is dwindling away...KHOY KHALI KHOY...Changes are also bad, nobody seems to agree on that....everyone jives in, CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE!!! Does it really change???? Does anything REALLY change? Whose intentions are what, you never know...I feel dizzy in this flimsy warp of a city...

I am sick of everything being connotated to sexual pleasures, physicality blah blah...I like to call it Seification, just like reification...Everything arty and crazy and free and open invariably has to have some seified concept or the other, according to intellectuals and big people!!! As if salvation lies in polygamy, and how creatively u can lie....I heard somewhere " A hypocrite is one who starts believing in it"...or something like that, I dont remember the exact words, but i can remember the essence...why is it important to lie creatively? WHY???? Just, WHY?

Why should I live in a world where i have to constantly doubt the intentions of every and anyone brushing past by in life???? Why do I have to live in a world where people laugh at others' miseries??? Worse still, why do people spend their time spontaneously or strenuously to make others feel miserable? Why is it important to save your brain from diseased teachings? Why is everybody looking for profit??? Why can't we all seek peace instead of pleasure???

Hedonism, I abhor...The answer is not blowing in the wind...the answer surely lies in chequebooks and credit cards...just like "Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose except your ROLEX WATCHES"!!!

Competition is like a plague...standing like a giant Nosferatu...I can never get myself to feel the pangs of competition...yes I have mourned for not achieving something, especially when things dont turn out as expected...but that's a human condition....and that's not the point really...I can fill a page advising on doing this and that to eradicate problems, obliterate the foes and turn forlorn lores into chores, but I shall refrain...cos am myself in this "TOTAL PERSPECTIVE VORTEX"

There have been too many conflicting deeds done and with all the hatred in this world, it's impossible to pull us all out of this viscous circle...even Hope seems like a weak advocate...The blind lady with the scales now wears a Rayban sunglass...Life is fun! Fun and interesting and happening, but insensitive, ruthless and cruel too...We should stand in front of mirrors for hours...

Life, Death and Death...

1st November 2007

You have not seen life if you have not got on the Picnic Garden Minibus from Maidan Metro Station or Park Street at 6pm. The smell of sweat, the pressure of people around you...you don't need to hold on to anything...the crowd itself keeps you standing...the pressure cradles you to your destination...you keep breathing despite the sweat and the suffocation. If you are lucky, you might get a seat and laugh as much as you want at the others suffering. The probability is such that you'll get both sides of the coin. Hence you'll laugh lesser and lesser and instead offer to hold the bags of those others, who are standing...

This is death, compared to the life I was pondering about. You have not seen death unless you have stood up awake all night staring at the ceiling and not being able to sleep, like an owl. I sometimes see an owl perching on a tree brach outside. It doesn't convey anything. Even the crow has taken the form of magpies. They are everywhere and fearless. They draw closer and closer to me if I have food in my hands. Brave and abated. YOu run instead of shooing them...cos' they come in gangs if you underestimate them.

Death is a place where there are more cars than the number of people. They (the cars) stand like beetles and crabs. How I wish they could be washed away by the waves lashing on the shore...

2nd November 2007

I got handed in a letter by the bank asking me to choose an insurance policy ($23.75 per month) so my loved ones don't have to worry about my funeral or liabilities when I die. It's worth $300,000. I just can't help thinking of the movie "Double Indemnity"! Makes me grin...only two days before my 23rd birthday!

My advice to all ye readers: insurance is a death trap. In fact, anything which makes a contract with you for more than 3 months is a death trap. Let the spiders weave it. Just ignore!

Laze around...

it's been long i haven't written anything mindless...disconnected....disjointed...yet meaningful...i want my sentences to do exactly what Eisenstein's montage does to meaning in films...i am sick of introduction, body and conclusion...sick of going by the rule...making my life a summary of the summaries that summarize the one big Summary...

what if i write an idea...and write another idea which is an implication of the former...but not having any conjunctive phrases to link??? what if??? i mean, are the readers of the brain too idle not to pick up the obvious link??? what if i choose to be a little cryptic?

moreover, what use is a conclusion if it doesn't say anything new not mentioned in the introduction??? i mean, whats the fun in writing if u cant surprise the reader in the end? it would reduce the fun to only reading the introduction....damn...

i need to breathe through words...not get stifled by them...

Some Like It MONROE

Billy Wilder.

He may like it HOT...but I like it MONROE...

Film Genre and Perception

If we could think of films as paintings of different styles and forms, be it history painting, landscape or portrait painting, we would be able to solve only some of the problems of defining “film genre”. It is important to identify genre as a problem, and interpreting it, more so, at least from a film critic’s point of view. In Chapter 8 of his book “Image and Mind” (1995), Gregory Currie speaks extensively of the ‘interpretive problem’. He explores the ways in which film narrative and literary narrative differ. Others such as Noël Carroll and Richard Allen have theorized the nature of moving images in great lengths. Grodal presents models for interpreting film genre by transcending to a psychological perspective from a philosophical one. In this essay, we shall only ponder about film and film genres, and how we, as spectators or film critics, may interpret it.

Genre comes from the French word for ‘type’ or ‘kind’, which was initially used to categorize literary works or paintings, and is now widely used to classify films. The problem arises from the fact that no film of a particular genre can incorporate all the elements of that genre. In concomitant, no definition of genre is capable of defining all aspects of a film of a certain genre. (Langford 2005:Preface)

Genres are meant to be defining but not limiting a particular style or convention of all filmic elements. The building blocks of genre films are reflective of one another, thoroughly patronizing, and not original. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre). However, there is no hard and fast rule to that concept. Genres are able to attract a specific target audience and so they exploit our portion of the brain that loves repetition or wants to feed itself with overtures of the same iconography or narrative. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre). It is also surprising how the audience enjoy watching the kind and extent of violence that they would normally loathe in real life. (Altman 1996:279 in Langford 2005)

Torben Kragh Grodal has explored some of the important aspects of our thought processes which aid in our interpretation of films. He believes that “emotions are not irrational forces but necessary motivators for cognition and the possible resulting action”.(Grodal 1997) He describes how we interpret film genres from their narrative patterns, thus bringing about emotional effects in viewers. Signals from the screen travel via the visual cortex to the association areas and frontal areas, finally reaching the pre-motor areas of the brain. This process can be inhibited at any point or channeled in opposite directions to bring about a specific response in the viewer. According to his four-step model, it can be theorized that after the initial basic perception of image consisting of shapes, texture and figures, a memory matching occurs. The brain searches for visual cues that are stored in the memory as visual structures with affective values to be matched with the current image. A film which allows it to be represented/recognized in such a manner is termed as ‘lyrical’. The third step of this model involves “construction of diegesis”, which eventually leads to identification with the characters and/or context. This may produce different sorts of reactions, but Grodal stresses on three categories: voluntary telic (goal-oriented responses), paratelic responses (semi-voluntary ones that are repetitive and not goal-oriented), and autonomic responses (involuntary responses such as laughing, crying, shivering, or an increased heart beat rate). (Anderson 1998)

Cinematic images, like paintings, are ‘detached displays’ (i.e. they do not belong to the space and time the viewer resides in), but they differ in a way that in films, something or the other is happening, whereas in paintings there is no question of anything happening. This is because pictures or slides are static whereas films consist of moving pictures. However, this idea can easily be dismissed if we consider films of comic strips such as Oshima’s Band of Ninjas, or films of photos such as Godard & Gorin’s Letter to Jane and Michael Snow’s One Second in Montreal, or films made up of only sentences such as Michael Snow’s So Is This. Yet, the possibility and the expectation of movement in films will always be lurking in our minds, unless we are conditioned into repetitive viewing of static elements in films. Even then, stasis in films is always a stylistic choice rather than a necessity. It is aesthetically prescriptive in nature. On the other hand, describing paintings or slides as static is like stating the obvious. Carroll stresses that a more appropriate synonym for films is moving images rather than moving pictures, as the term image encompasses both pictures and abstractions. Then he goes on to locating the borderline between our perception of theatres in comparison with that of films by citing other theorists such as Roman Ingarden, elaborating on words versus spectacle as dominant factors in theatres and films respectively. He also engages in a fine brainstorming of the focus of performance in the two medium.(Carroll 1996) We may simplify our understanding of the matter as the difference between writing on a paper with pen and typing in a computer using a keyboard. The mental processes that differ in the two instances may be likened to the difference in perception of film narrative and literary narrative.

Richard Allen throws some light on fictional and non-fictional depictions being common in that both can be recognized by looking rather than by reading. To analyze depictions, it is important to recognize patterns without having to process imaginations of seeing the patterns. (Allen 1997). In her article on Cognitive Science and Film Theory, Cynthia Freeland ponders upon the debate of film as an illusion. She refers to two psychologists, Joseph Anderson and Ed S. Tan, who endorse the pro-illusion theory, as opposed to the philosophers Carroll and Currie who are contra. Anderson thinks of film as a set of illusive stimuli that can be run like a program in the viewer’s mind. (Freeland 1997). Contra-illusion theorists believe that the primitive subsystems of the brain cannot distinguish between an object seen and a depiction of the object seen. In such a theory, illusion is something that we can live with.(Currie 1995)

Film genres and sub-genres may be classified as the Western, the Musical, the War film, the Gangster movie, the horror film, the science-fiction film, Film Noir, the Documentary, the Holocaust film, Pornography, Transgenre and Metagenre films. But this is not a fully comprehensive list. When it comes to interpretation of films, Grodal’s typology of film genres is particularly helpful. This includes the canonical narrative, lyrical, obsession, melodrama, horror, schizoid, comical and the metafiction genre. The lyrical genre involves perceptual, nonlinear time, networks of associations, fusion of world and mind, intensities or saturations by proximal focus of attention, no telic enacting, possibly paratelic or autonomic 'motion'. Lyrical elements can be found in many film genres. The canonical narrative expression involves telic voluntary enacting (acting out), linear time, construction of objective world, cognitive and emphatic identification with subject, tension, distal focus of attention; the self is quite absorbed to the situation and the actions arise from intense, external desires or aversions. John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939) and Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944) are categorized as Western and Film Noir respectively but they can be both thought of having a canonical expression. Obsession involves paratelic/involuntary enacting, often progressive-regressive or non-linear time, some saturations and proximal focus of attention. Melodrama involves perceptual, causal enacting, autonomic reaction, construction of objective world, cognitive and empathic identification with 'object', fatalistic fusion of 'subject' with 'object', saturations and autonomic response combined with proximal focus of attention; one of two response is likely to occur - either positive (falling in love) or negative (tragedy). A lot of different kinds of films can have elements of melodrama in them. Early Neorealist films such as Roberto Rossellini’s Roma città aperta (Rome Open City, 1945) as well as many film noir movies have melodrama in them. Ritwik Ghatak’s Meghe Dhaka Tara(The Cloud-Capped Star, 1960), Komal Gandhar (E-Flat, 1961) and Jukti Takko Aar Gappo (Reason, Debate and a Story, 1974) have high melodramatic elements in them. Horror genre of films (e.g. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960)) involve causal enacting, autonomic reaction, construction of subjective world, cognitive and emphatic identification with object, aversion between subject and object, tensions, saturations, or autonomic response, proximal focus of attention; the film experience derived from this genre consists of strong feelings of fright, hate, desire, heroic courage are enacted in a subjective world, experienced from the point of view of the victim. Schizoid films involve causal enacting, construction of subjective world, cognitive identification with object, fragmented space, intensities and saturations, proximal as well as distal focus of attention; the response is likely to be alienation, objectivation, the self is cued to take a 'voyeuristic' position. Comics involve causal and autonomic enacting, rejection of emphatic identification with object, rejection of objective world, autonomic response; the response is autonomic (parasympathetic) reception at a high level of arousal, based on a redefinition of the reality-status of the arousing phenomenon, and we laugh at the failures of the protagonists. Billy Wilder’s Some Like it Hot (1959) is clearly a comic. Some comedies of Chaplin are also capable of making us cry and laugh at different point. The metafiction genre involves mediated identification with subjects and objects via cognitive and emphatic 'frames' (personae, all types of schemata), several focuses of attention; the response is mastering, learning, true ideals, self development
strategies for avoiding conflict
idealized self images. (http://www.olavegeland.com/epm37.htm). Many of Satyajit Ray’s films such as Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road, 1955), Aparajito (The Unvanquished, 1956) and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu, 1959) are metagenre films according to Grodal’s typology, but are otherwise known to be feature films.

All said and done, it is important to appreciate film as a language, with the shots as words, the mise-en-scene as letters of the word, with editing and cuts resembling conjunctions and punctuations. The language of cinema is that of the camera mostly. In such contexts, it would be incomplete not to mention montage: Eisenstein noticed that if different shots, each meaningful on its own, can be joined together, a structured filmic sentence would emerge. If a shot doesn’t have a distinctive meaning of its own, it can be joined to another similar shot or a one completely opposite in meaning to the former one, to make a sentence out of a film. This technique of making meaningful shots directs the feelings and moods of the viewers, and undoubtedly serves to convey what the director actually prescribed.(Ray 1982) Again, we may please to think of the gaps between each paragraph in an essay as a montage. A montage may sometimes act as a brain-breather, especially following scenes which are quite intense. Paragraphs in an essay allow us to tread upon different seemingly unrelated aspects of the same topic or argument. Our mental processes are such that the moment we finish reading one paragraph and move on to the next, our preconceived notions prepare our mind to read a totally opposite, new and/or an elaborated form of the former paragraph. The same aim can be achieved for shots in a film joined together in a montage.

How we perceive film genres may vary between cultures and different regions. But as long as we have film as a language of its own, film makers and film critics will follow a certain grammar to interpret film. According to Ray, Westerns have a more ballad-like quality which is missing in Gangster films, which have harshness and less well-defined qualities. He also likens the twirl of lethal weapon around a finger to a trill or turn in Mozart or Haydn. (Ray 1976). André Bazin speaks of the lyricism in Westerns that the landscape and other iconographic elements have to offer. (Bazin 1956). Interpretation of film by mass viewers may vary substantially between people of the same culture/religion, let alone people of different regional or cultural origin. In 21^st Century, the concept of genre is getting more and more complex and we are offered with films that have elements of different genres put together.

REFERENCES

Genre. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre

Film experience as a prototype for Self Experience http://www.olavegeland.com/epm37.htm

Allen, R. (1997). Looking at Motion Pictures. Film Theory and Philosophy. R. A. a. M. Smith. Oxford, Oxford University Press: 88-89.

Anderson, B. (1998). "Review: [Untitled]." Film Quarterly 52(Autumun No. 1): 87-88. http://www.jstor.org/cgi-bin/jstor/printpage/00151386/ap040145/04a00520/0.pdf?backcontext=page&dowhat=Acrobat&config=jstor&userID=96cb72ba@anu.edu.au/01cc99331600501c5cccf&0.pdf

Bazin, A. (1956). "Beauty of a Western." Cahiers du cinema 55(January).

Carroll, N. (1996). Theorizing Moving Image. New York, Cambridge University Press.

Currie, G. (1995). Image and Mind. New York, Cambridge University Press.

Freeland, C. (1997). Cognitive Science and Film Theory. Santa Fe, American Society for Aesthetics. 2007. http://www.class.uh.edu/cogsci/CogSciFilmTheory.html

Grodal, T. (1997). Moving Pictures. New York, Oxford University Press.

Langford, B. (2005). Film Genre. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press Limited.

Ray, S. (1976). Our Films, Their Films. Calcutta, Orient Longman Limited.

Ray, S. (1982). Speaking of Films. New Delhi, Penguin Books India.