Oh Calcutta!

No, I am not referring to the famous restaurant which claims to sell Calcutta cuisine in Mumbai and Delhi. In fact, if you are planning to be there, please drop the plan, it is the worst and most expensive restaurant for bengali food in the whole world even if you include the seedy bangladeshi joins in London. Not that... I am referring to Oh! Calcutta with an emphasis on the exclamation marks and the way the city was referred to when the first strands of hair appeared on my upper lip...
In winter, most expat Bengali from Delhi to Djibouti would, I guess fo that. Winter is the time when Bongs fatten up on some of the best foods that Calcutta has to offer whether it is Marco Polo in Park Street or Amber further up or Bhajahori Manna further down in the city, Calcutta is the place to be in in winter. Does not matter what is your choice of food, Calcutta can take care of you.. Does not matter if you are from down south, up north further west or extreme east.. it does not even matter if you are from Southampton of from South Pole. Calcutta has something for everyone in terms of food.
My memory fades and I have heard that there are new and much fancier places coming up every day in Park Street and other locations... But, my guess is that none can beat the old haunts of mine, Royale in Chitpur, Nizam and Amini near New Market, the chinese food at Tangra, the hilsa in Ballygunge Market, the sweetmeats in BowBazar, Mouchak and the telebhaja shops on Surya Sen Street, the punjabi food near Krishna Cinema, Continental food at Skyroom, sattu, the quintessential Bihari food in any of the streets, Sindhi food at Sindhi Society in Bhowanipur.... whatever you want you will not be disappointed. Any if you are a brown sahib you could visit Nahoums, Flurys or any of the Clubs, Calcutta, Saturday or the Tollygunge.....
The best part of the food in Calcutta some would tell you is its authenticity, others would tell u is the service, yet others would tell you is the taste... all of which would be true.... In fact, I can personally vouch that the best Mughlai food is available in Calcutta and not in Delhi or in Dakhan...... But at the end of the day, the best part of the food in Calcutta for an expat Calcuttan is the part when you pay your bills..... If you are not shocked at the prices...... you would be really below poverty line or mentally challenged....
In case you believe only in liquid diet.... Calcutta is the place for you... in case you believe like is a smoke Calcutta is still the place for you..... I used to buy my liquid diet past midnight from Kola Bagan and my smoke right on the pavement adjcent to my hostel on Peary Charan Sircar Street - a much renowned street between the side entrace to the University of Calcutta and my alma mater, the Presidency College....
So every winter, whereever I am, my thoughts go back to Calcutta... Ask any Bongs, they would agree with me.....

That was my city of joy....... all other cities have been cities of pleasure but never of joy:)

Sweet Memories

Benazir Bhutto's death was very much like Mrs Gandhi's... no one dreamt that it would happen [except perhaps those who plotted them]. So most of us were stunned into silence rather than agitated with shock.
It was in 2001 [most probably] that I met her at the Taj Mahal Hotel in New Delhi, when she had come visiting. The wonderful opportunity was ceated for me by Mr Tarun Das, who more than anyone else of his age knows how technolgy can be used to reach out to people. He and my then boss Mr Ajay Khanna insisted that I accompany them to the august meeting and show Madam the wondeful website that we had created [among many other initiatives] to take care of her "track II" diplomacy.
The meeting was at the Taj Chambers in a small meeting room. Soon after entering the room, I powered up my laptop and got ready with the site which we were to show her. The machine was set on the "head" side of the table where Madam was supposed to sit.
I think it was around 12 noon when she walked in. She at that time for some strange reason had taken to wearing brightly coloured jackets over her shalwar kameez... that morning she was wearing a bottle green silk jacket which I thought was hideous...
She walked into the room greeted Mr Das and us and went straight to the laptop with Mr Das explaining what the website was all about.... By the time Mr Das has finished, she has started navigating the site and called me over to her side to explain what was what. I was quite amazed by her skills with surfing, but more than that amazment, standing next to her and bending down to speak to her, I was completely mermerised by her looks, her complexion and the way she spoke. Of course, the whiff of her expensive perfume added to the effect. I am sure, the other two gents who had met her on many occasions before, were similarly enhanted. She was fourteen years older than me.... Never mind.
On hearing the news of her death, only one thought stuck me. She came from the most dysfunctional political family in the sub-continent where no two members of the family spoke to each other. She could have decided to marry a man who really loved her, migrated permanently to London and spent the rest of her raising her lovely kids... But none of these happened to her....
She was a destiny's child and went where her destiny took her. May her soul rest in peace.

Chain Letter

BILLY CONNOLLY'S CHAIN LETTER
Hello, my name is Billy and I suffer from guilt for not forwarding 50 billion fucking chain letters sent to me by people who actually believe if you send them on, a poor six year old girl in Scotland with a breast on her forehead will be able to raise enough money to have it removed before her redneck parents sell her to a travelling freak show. And, do you honestly believe that Bill Gates is going to give you, and everyone to whom you send "his" email, $1000?
How stupid are we?
Ooooh, looky here! If I scroll down this page and make a wish, I'll get laid by a model I just happen to run into the next day! What a bunch of bullshit.
Maybe the evil chain letter leprechauns will come into my house and sodomize me in my sleep for not continuing a chain letter that was started by St Peter in 5AD and brought to this country by midget pilgrim stowaways on the Endeavour.
Fuck 'em!!
If you're going to forward something, at least send me something mildly amusing. I've seen all the "send this to 10 of your closest friends, and this poor, wretched excuse for a human being will somehow receive a nickel from some omniscient being" forwards about 90 times.
I don't fucking care.
Show a little intelligence and think about what you're actually contributing to by sending out these forwards. Chances are, it's our own unpopularity.
The point being?
If you get some chain letter that's threatening to leave you shagless or luckless for the rest of your life, delete it. If it's funny, send it on. Don't piss people off by making them feel guilty about a leper in Botswana with no teeth who has been tied to the arse of a dead elephant for 27 years and whose only salvation is the 5 cents per letter he'll receive if you forward this email. Now forward this to everyone you know. Otherwise, tomorrow morning your underwear will turn carnivorous and will consume your genitals.
Have a nice day.
Billy Connolly
P.S: Send me 15 bucks and then fuck off

Our Intellectuals Their Intellectuals

Oh what a drama is being played out in the media [now mainly print because there is nothing to "show" only to write about] over the plight or flight [depends on your political outlook] of Taslima Nasreen in/from Kolkata. Reads alomost like one of those Alistair McLean stories from my childhood.... whisked away in the middle of the night to one place across the coutry by plane, driven to an unknown destination in the morning, hidden in an unknown Delhi suburb and then disappearing to an unknown place near Delhi airport.... Reminds me of a McLean novel "Puppet on a Chain" set in the Netherlands and about a man's fight against drug lords...... Woooof.. leaves you almost breathless... But then if you have been reading more than one newspaper and watching more than one channel you would know that she went from Kolkata to Jaipur to Gurgaon and was then taken to the SPG special "guest house" near Delhi airport. Nothing hidden about it.. she has also been given Y category security which means she would have around 11 officers to protect her.... One would think Osman Bin Laden's men were after her. But as a matter of fact and unless the security and IB knows more there was not personal attack on her in Kolkata and what happened in Hyderabad was no terrorost attack either, most radical intellectuals and student politicians face that in College canteens in their youthful days.... There has so far been no court order to arrest her or Fatwa from a recognised outfit in India...

Now turn to four cases, my favourites......
1. Our iconic painter [not withstanding the some of us are jealous that he is still able to attract Ms Dixit at his age], where is he? he wants to come back to India and live here, why can't he?
2. Our intellectual par excellance [not withstanding the fact he he can still serially attract women quarter his age]... why isn't he allowed to visit India?
3. Our youung and radical teacher at Baroda university... what happened to his job
4. Last but not the least... our iconic protestor of social evils, from the banks of Narmada to Nandigram... she was physically assaulted several times in her life... In Nandigram police actually stood and watched her beaten up.....

Do we have double standards for our world class intellectuals and third rate trash authors from Bangladesh? Have we lost our collective minds...