Christopher Nolan!

As I sit here and write this post, he is looking over my shoulder.. asking me to get on with it and get to doing what I should do... watch "Following". You should be looking at me with disapproving eyes and saying "tut tut .. get to work!" But even the meanest and most cold-hearted person would not grudge me a Sunday 10 o'clock movie at the end of a hard week. I listened to 7 seminars this week. Yes, SEVEN! and most of our string seminars are never-ending. There is a particular guy who loves to talk so much that none of his talks last less than a heart wrenching, soul tearing three solid hours. You would be asking yourself all sorts of questions about existence and existentialism during his talks... but let us not digress.

The bottom-line of this post is that I like Chris Nolan. For me, a guy who can turn Batman into something eminently watchable, is a guy with loads of genius. I chanced upon this film by the guy called "Memento" which I am sure most of you know. For the poor sods who don't, it is a masterful suspense thriller, short partly backwards in time. This non-linear narrative I found later, was a signature of this guy's direction.

When "The Dark Knight" was just about making its waves around the world, I forced myself to watch "Batman Begins". I had never been impressed with people running around in bat-suits. But to my surprise, I liked the movie, even though it had the predictable last part. With my homework firmly in place, I launched into a "Dark Knight" overdrive when I was home for just a couple of days. I went and saw the film in a theater hall. It was really worth the money and effort. If you have not seen it, even if you dont like men jumping about in stupid clothes, you should go ... this is a good film, period.

I have since watched "The Prestige" which again was quite a directorial success, according to the great Bagchi.

Now, I would sit on judgment on Nolan's debut film, "Following". Wish him luck :P
:D

"... been a long time, been a long time, been a lonely lonely lonely long time.."

Well, if you read this blog, the chances are that you know me and know the story about the fast and unsteady as well. Carrying on in the same vein, here I am again!
I have got myself a nice office room at my institute all to myself. It is heaven, as long as it lasts!

I am going to write about random things today. Maybe about the snake which crossed the road in front of me the other day, maybe about the bookshelf in my new room which I can't open, maybe about the guy who is supposed to come looking for me with stuff... but who never ever manages to turn up... maybe about the bottle of water without water which I would dearly like you to fill up for me.... and then again, maybe not!

Did you know that I love writing on a chalk board? I am sure you did not. But what the hell!

Did you know that the last book I read was John Steinbeck's East of Eden? Now you think I am showing off... well.... maybe I am. so?

There is a nice breeze blowing outside today. The sort that makes you want to walk. And chances are that if you knew me, you would know I like to take walks. Even if you did not, I told you....

At any rate, walking is better than talking to you now!

Pomodoro

bolo pomodoro r joye
bolo emon jinish kon deshe hoye.

koto deshe deshe ghure seshe
mon bole italy te eshe
bole emon sobji kono deshe nai..

to be expanded later :D

A train station... a tiny little old train station.
Five of us.... on foot. Up the stairs and into the platform....
Why are we here? Who brought us here? Was it the ghost god himself? :)
It is a beautiful station.... and it is day before yesterday!
We walk around.... go down the steps and under the tunnel and over again.
Now on the otherside.... a light suddenly out of nowhere... and a dog..
perhaps loose... they didnot stop to find out. Cowards!
A lone venture with a lurking hound (of the bagchis!!) was not very enticing prospect. So even the unwilling me followed..

Miramare .. fare you well!

Imagine

imagine a dark blue sea...
imagine a rocky shore...
imagine some dark mountains beside it...
you are on the rocks...
nothing between you and the ocean...

someone nearby is playing a guitar, softly... gently...
the sun has gone down quite a long time back
but the sky still remembers her like a lover lost...
there is a trace of light where there should have been none...
darkness, like harsh reality, is moving in to erase the last traces....

the colours of the evening turning into night .....
wish i could stay there!

I am in Trieste, Italy. Just back from the shores of the Adriatic. I am sitting on the desk of this room that I have been allotted. Strangely, even now, as I look out into the dark sea, there is music playing. Not the soft guitar, but some drums and a voice.. not bad :)
I have been here for a while. Had been to London before that. I had been thinking of my blog for a while. But as always is the case, did not get time to put pen to paper, or should we say put hands to keyboard.

A few more posts might be on their way... maybe tonight!

Sympathy for the Devil

Entertaining disenchantments...
Gripping sang-froid ...
But never illusions of a disillusionment ...
Wonder how the play would have done in a non-Shakespearian stage.
Wonder how it would have done in another age..

A thousand loves without a care
A thousand lives, not one to spare
Never a moment of doubt
Never a single bout
Of searching the black soul.

But is it really black?
Or just shades of gray...
Driven into godforsaken desperation
Where sanity begins to stray.

Could it be white?
It should not, but then it might.....
Maybe its too pure
Too pure to endure
The dirty touches, the forced crutches..

(Statutory Warning:
A word at the end
To you my friend...
"Sympathetic is Simply Pathetic!!")

I am going home... it is Asthami! There is a beautiful dawn breaking.... home is where the heart is.. heart is where home is :)

I am sitting in my room... it is bitterly cold. A gloomy evening is giving way to a gloomier night.. HRI is where work is.... work is where HRI is!

You would be amazed to know that I take refuge to pathetically silly Hindi songs to get rid of the gloom at times. Sometimes good music can make you think. Here you would not want to think, especially if you are not in the best of moods. Here you also would not want to write.... but I am making a sort of trade off... bad music and self indulgent writing...! A4 sheets of paper are looking at me though the curves of my bed partner... a red red quilt!

The train picks up speed... the wind lashes into my face. I have been told that I should not be standing at the doors of trains. But between the love and the concern of words, there is always that call of the wild, the call of the wind.... I love the sound of the train when it runs to Howrah through Bengal.... I love that wild wild embrace of the wind.. cold mornings near home.. near, but not quite there yet. I am recording my conversation with the train.. it is a one-way one though. I am not talking... and the train seems to be saying the same thing to all the rest of the people. But you are not me. You can only hear what the train tells you. And she tells me more... :)

The wind loves playing with my hair...

"They call the wind Maria"

Someone should tell Maria that I have chopped off my hair... and bring back that pearl from her eyes........ would you?

Forgotten Conversations

"When you can fall for chains of silver,
You can fall for chains of gold,
You can fall for pretty strangers,
And the promises they hold."

Sleep... no... walk with me to where the wind never stops.. follow me to those walls where the white does not blend with the red and makes them taste of salt in a bowl of milk. I don't like milk, don't like salt in it even more. So, lead me to the streets where the world descends in the day.... before the break of day. Look at me... look and look away. Tell me about that lonely moment on that hot day. And forget about the time of the day that I don't like. Because it might be that time of the day.... and like the grains of sand you hold in your palm... it might also be slowly slipping away.. don't talk unless you have to... don't walk unless you want to.

An Incomplete Murder!

I am a serial killer.... and at the moment I am thinking of killing the person in charge of our computer system. You would ask how can a person possibly take up the job of managing the computer system of a bunch of serial killers and in answering that the whole blog is going to go downhill. This was supposed to be a brilliant metaphor and an excellent post but our pathetic Internet speed has screwed up my mood!

So,.... I was supposed to tell you about the contract killer that I am. I was going to tell you that there was this particular thing that I was assigned to kill and how it kept evading me for months. The moment I thought that I had the bastard nailed, there was some divine (?!) intervention and the chap would escape. I even had the gun ready for a while. Now I guess the bullet is finally through the brain. But as they say,- it ain't over till the fat lady sings. Where I live, there sure is a dearth of women. But, I dare say, I have a feeling I would find what I am looking for.

This is a scattered post.. I am hoping to put the final nails into the bugger's coffin on Monday. Once that is done, I can come back and give you a bit more of the gory details of the murder.