My plays/skits, we call it NATOK

Another Durga puja has started and as I read through my past year puja blog, I feel I have missed out a lot. And I also realize that durga puja is not something to be covered in one blog and owing to the fact that I don't see myself taking part in the durga pujas in near future, I better be a bit kanjoos about sharing all my ideas.

So this is about plays. Well let me first tell you that I am very stage shy and my tension really shows up on stage also. But still I managed to act in 4 plays during various durga pujas.

The story would be incomplete without mentioning my family background in terms of the play. All of them more stage smart than me, my mom a regular in playback singing, has done only one play in her childhood as the small girl in Rabindranath’s “Dakghor. My elder brother was lucky enough to be one of the two kids who approach a granny to tell a story where the story was the drama, so he was just for a minute. But best role award goes to my dad who acted as one of the victims in Jaliyanwala baag massacre. So four plays by me is a feat in itself.

Anyway my first play was according to the family traditions. The story was a small boy wanting to meet the sun and asking everybody on the way. He asks the ants, he asks the nilkanth or the Indian roller (a bird). I was one of the newborn little birds who hopped away and later was dragged back to the nest while the mom was talking to the kid. That was all I had to do. Hop and get pulled back. This was when I was in 1^st standard.

Second was more substantial. It was a big play about the mess the durbar creates and catches an innocent boy for a thief. I was one of the courtiers who keep cracking jokes.

The hard part came when in a scene I had to do “kaan pakadke uthak baithak” (situps holding ur ears) and show the convict his punishment. Even though I was a small kid of 10 that time, it hurt my ego too much; I planned to backoff from the play. Mom n dad scolded me a lot but when they saw that I was adamant, they finally had to accept it. But the director aunty understood my problem and twisted the role a bit. So while I said the dialogue, somebody else did the action. During the play, because of that act, the guy was an instant hit. And me a mere actor.

The third one came when I was in 7^th standard. This time I was the lead. Not because of my acting skills, because I was the so called “brainy” guy in the colony and I could memorize the loads of dialogues I had to deliver. This play was all about some mischief committed by the boy and his 2 friends. The boys sis had a crucial part too. I mention it here coz this girl was also there with me in the other 2 plays. Her nickname is tuktuki.

Anyway, people really appreciated my role this time and I was glad about it.

The fourth play was a year later and it was a real good one. It was about a woman and a man scheming of kidnapping a girl and we 5 people, dampen their plans. I was the fourth important amongst the 5. The funniest part was a birthday scene. It was the last scene itself and the last part of that was there was food served and we said three cheers and cheered our glasses and started eating! We were asked not to eat it but just to pretend until the curtain falls and later do whatever we want. But the bhukkad me had to act oversmart! I couldn’t stop putting the samosa in my mouth and as predicted I did choke and started coughing spoing the end scene. But overall it was real fun.

Again I conclude abruptly here! There were no further plays.

Mangalore-My love (beware, its too long)

Often during my conversations with Vikram, even now, suddenly we feel a craving to forget everything in the present and go back to the good old days, of college and hostel life.
But readers wait! This is not another of "Oh those good old days..those were the days" kind of story where its all about how hostel was funny and ragging was a blessing in disguise. Infact I planned to write a detailed description of all places, but then thought better i be some brand ambassador of Karnataka tourism. Instead I describe one incident here which sort of summarizes my love of what I like about Mangalore, rather DK district.

It was around 2^nd week of November 2004. I was in Infy Mysore and was aspiring for MS in US. Since me and Vikram had started this venture together we decided that it was high time we go back to the college (I graduated in June 2004 from NITK) for transcripts and recos. I started from Mysore, in Ideal Travels and reached Surathkal at around 5:30 am. Vikram arrived at 6:30 and we booked a room in Maharaja hotel, though it was a more common practice amongst the ex-students to stay with the juniors in the hostel blocks, but we had too much work to take it to hostel and frankly we were afraid of the numerous questions by the juniors.

Now let’s fast forward a bit, went to college, missed on one prof (out of station) and the other professor said no. Only one of them had agreed to give reco. But surprisingly, the best and the most strict professor and erstwhile HOD, Late Dr. P N Shridhar voluntarily agreed to give me recos. These things took up the whole day and since the success rate was only 66%, even Vikram had similar experiences, we were pretty down.

I don’t even remember what I did that day afterwards, but I remember sharing my frustration with mom over phone who suggested to further approach the prof who rejected saying that as teachers are inherently good people, he will agree. And believe me, it worked, the prof was really happy and said he wanted to see my real zeal. Well all went well and things were finally in place by 12 noon though we had to be back at around 2.

Oops, here my story actually begins. Such a long prologue, but well that’s my style!

Anyway, so now we have 2 hours to spare in NITK. We rush to the sadashiva temple near the college beach. This is one temple I like immensely mainly for its quiet atmosphere. Here our usual frightening priest was waiting. Frightening I say because he has typical Brajesh Mishra looks and I have a feeling that he doesn’t like college students coming in all odd dresses and without bath and pray and never even bother to put something in the donation box. But it was a rule that he will serve the holy charnamrit and a tiny ball of chandan to all who offer prayers.. He did that with such a pathetic face. But things change as soon as you ask for 7 Rs or 10 Rs Prasadam. This time we were prepared. We were earning J. I donated a new rs 5 in the hundi and asked him for another 7 Rs prasadam. Vikram, the rich obviously went for the 10/- prasadam. Now he gave us a broad smile, chanted mantras for us for 5 minutes, gave us big balls of chandan and of course a broad smile. Whew, we were relieved. After a hurried tour of the other surrounding temples and a hurried look at the art on the temple walls, we had to sit in the temple before leaving the temple as taught to us by Ananth.

It was barely 2 seconds and we set off again towards the beach. Happily eating the 17/- worth of prasadams, we spent an hour in the beach. We were quite silent in the beach. And each of us was thinking about ourselves. Generally I always feel this way when I go to the beach. The vastness of the sea makes me so humble that I feel I should pour my heart out to it as it can absorb anything. This way, when it was nearing 2 I never knew and had to run to reach the college.

The work was over in an hour and now the real fun was going to start! A race against time. 8 hours in hand and so many places to go. So here we go! Take a bus to surathkal. Typical bus, with lots of women dressed in their best of saris and tones of jewelries is a regular scene in the buses. And there is a marriage somewhere everyday. Anyway, in 5 minutes we reach suarthkal, hurriedly leave the transcripts and reco in the hotel and set off for the bus again. But alas, not so soon. Mr. Vikram has to have juice in Oasis. Now this is a wonderful place worth mentioning. It looks shabby where any parent will ask his pupils not to go. But surprisingly after cautious try for a few days, when nothing happened with these wonderful and thick 5/- juices, we had become a fan. My favourite was unconventional carrot juice and rose milk, but Vikram preferred the apple n grapes. After some 4-5 glasses each we catch yet another local bus with even more jhatackpatack women in even more jhatatckpatack saris and jewelries and head full of gajras. Well to tell you frankly, I really like the simplicity in these women, these old traditional dressing sense is lot better than so called “aaj ki naari” wearing short tops but then always pulling it down.

After half an hour we reach NMPT bus stop. The panambur beach is nearby. We had time shortage, so we took auto for a distance of about 1.5 kms which we generally love to cover by walking. And here we are again: In front of the sea. But this is entirely different. This is not where I loose myself to the sea, but here I see the sea of people merging with the Arabian sea. All sorts of people, the family types, the bunch of high school riends, the shy couple, the bold couple, the old uncle and aunty, the rich family, the poor family but everybody now equally madly in love with the sea. The food in this beach varied considerably. From gobi Manchurian to sugarcane sticks, form boiled wet whole groundnuts to the favorite “Churmure”. But we had other plans for food. We went far away inside the jetty! Now water was on all the three sides. We sat on the rocks and as usual we started talking about careers and it dwelled to my favorite topic o how I wish to own the “N V Hegde” house just next to the KREC beach.

It was almost 5:30-6:00 when we left that place. Took another bus this time and reached Saibeen. The biggest mall in Mangalore that time. It did have those swanky shops but not the usual branded ones, instead u see all local names. And full of Dubai merchandise. Vikram had to renew his neck chains bead. And then how can we miss the chamcham and the Badaam Milk of Shreyas sweet shop in the ground floor. After more window shopping and buying something totally unnecessary from Joofri’s superstore, we head for our final destination. Jyothi circle.

Here it was almost 7, stomach half full but so many places to go. Firstly there has to be poptates eatery. Poptates the Persian chicken grill shop specialized in chicken rotisserie. We finished a whole chicken between the two of us. This was just the appetizer. After that we had to go to Hao ming Chinese restaurant though we were not even a bit hungry. But coming to mangalore and not going to Hao Ming was like going to Agra and not seeing the taj mahal. So as if to appease the Hao Ming Goddess, we went and had some noodle dish. Now we were filled till the chest. After this we went to the new place “Liquid Lounge”, the swanky new pub in mangalore. Ordered some drinks and thought this will be it. But there was chicken salad and the rani salad which we had to order. Don’t ask me why we had to. You should never ask those questions when Vikram is around. As soon as we saw the quantity, we had almost given up our hopes to even inish half of one, but believe me, they were so so tasty that in no time, we see empty plates ahead of us. Now full upto the neck, we start heading back towards the bus stand. But then our eyes fall on Iceberg. Another analogy like the Agra one suggested and we head there. We couldn’t even walk. But we order 2 ice creams there. Thankfully, I guess icecream took no extra space and fit itself in all the small vacant places left around the stomach to neck. Now we dragged ourselves somehow to the busstand and caught the bus to Surathkal. The express bus (pronounced EsssssPresssssssss) literally flew to Surathkal in no time at all. I saw Vikram eyeing towards Sads restaurant. I was like “ no Vikram, I finally give up.” But then he said, “not the restaurant buddhu, the paanshop.” Asking the paanwala to put extra gulab…(ooops I forgot this name, but it’s a sweet jelly with embedded rose petals) we eagerly looked at it and each of us trying to grab the one which had more of it. And believe me, that paan digested all the food we had. Kit really had miraculous power.

Finally our trip came to an end. We packed our bags, checked out of hotel and caught our buses back to Mysore/Bangalore. While coming back I realized that this may be my last trip in a long long time. But then proper justice was done to all the places.

Mangalore for me is the beach. It is the temples, it is the richly clad women with flowers on their heads, it’s the fish stink that lingers all the time. It is the nice blend between modern and old. It’s the rich religious mix (Hindu, Muslim Christian in equal numbers) of the people and it is the district of highest literacy percentage in india (if I R rao is to be believed, which I do) but over and above all, It is the city of the heavenly food.

The bengali in me

Born and brought up in Nagpur , studied in Karnataka and now in the US, there is very little Bengali left in me. To add to it, I seriously hate Calcutta and the Red Brigade. At one time I hated cricket and so was Ganguly.
But ya there is no doubt that no other Indian language has achieved even half of what bengali literature has done. but its not a time for reminiscence about the past. I had liked Sharat Chandra Chattopadhdhyay immensely ( for all those who don't know, he is the one who wrote Devdas/shrikant etc.) but that was until i had read Shrikant. The story is wonderful but the continuous mention of "bangalir gorbo" (bengali's pride) really pissed me off. My mom asked me to ignore that and concentrate on the other aspect of the book but I couldn't.
Anyway this is not the point. Inspite of so much hatred, I don't know I think deep down somewhere unconsciously the bengali in me is still wide awake. I realised it when inspite of not being a big fan of Ganguly, I was deeply hurt when he was sacked and when people had created the controversial website ihateganguly.com . I tried to shove off those feelings by justifying myself of not being bengali but humanitarian. But when the reverse thing happened, I was surprised on my stance. This was the Chappell idol fiasco. I was very happy and was telling people about how creative the Bengali Murtikaars are by shaping "Mahishasura" as Chappell, and i was thinking that it is violation of freedom of expression when his creation was destroyed.
But when i compared that with my stance on ihateganguly.com, I think its just the bengali feeling in me, nothing else can justify my stance unless we take it to indian and non indian lines which will be foolish.


This also makes me wonder whether this is the reason why I like Rani over Preity, Sushmita over Aishwarya and Bipasha presently over anybody else? Is that why i wanted Antara Mitra to be the Indian idol2? Doesn't the feeling that all nobel laureates of India are connected to bengal feels my heart with a little pride? Do i like Arundhati and jhumpa a bit more because they are bengalis? Am i proud of the fact that the best quizzers in India are from bengal???

I guess my feelings were a lot influenced by my lifecycle. In the school days, it was all bright and shiny bengaliis all around me. The annual academic results annoucement was mostly a bengali affair, the Durga Puja was the most well managed event in my Defence Campus. But I hated the frequent load sheddings and the mosquito bites of Kolkata.

In NITK my views changed, I tried to compare regions based on the tiny sample of people that came there! I thought the bengalis are dumb,lazy and ill mannered the marathas are bright, shiny and well mannered. While the latter might be true, no doubt the first one is false. I think we can't judge people based on geography. We can't even say that there are exceptions to a generalization. Generally the exceptions are so big a percentage that they can't be called exceptions anymore. But ya during this NITK times, Calcutta became the city with lowest power cuts, highest average vehicle speed metropolitan in the country and there was kolkata shining.

Now i guess i have a more mature view. I can really see things with an open mind and I know that this feeling of being a bengali can never subside in me. Rather it is absolutely human to have feelings for your state. And as for the angst over others, try to keep that to minimum. I guess i should extend these feelings to nationalities , religion as well. I have off late felt proud of being a texan too. :)

As i conclude this article, I wonder about the last para. I claim i can see with an open mind, but may be some new ideas will open up 5 years henceforth. Here is a song, which though written in bengali is I guess true for anybody.This song has got the same status in Bangladesh as vande mataram in india- an alternate anthem.

"Dhono dhanne pushpe bhora
aamader ei boshundhora
Tahar maajhe aache je ek
Shokol desher shera.
She je shopno diye toiri she desh
Smriti diye ghera
Emon deshti kothau Khuje paabe nako tumi,
Shokol desher raani she je aamaar jonmobhoomi,
she je aamaar jonmobhoomi, she je aamaar jonmobhoomi"

Here is teh complete list, thanks to vivek:

dhanO dhannye is one of the most beautiful patriotic songs of Dwijendralal Roy.

dhonO dhanne pushpe bhorA AmAder ei boshundhorA
tAhAr Majhe Ache desh ek shokol dhesher sherA
she je shopnO diye toirI she je sritI diye gherA
emon deshti kothao khuje pAbe nAkO tumI
she je shokol desher rAnI she je AmAr jonmobhumI
she je AmAr jonmobhumi she je AmAr jonmobhumI

chondro shUrjO grohO tArA, kothay ujon emon dhArA
kothay emon khele torit, emon kAlO meghe
O tAr pAkhIr dAke ghumiye pOrI pakhIr dAke jege
emon deshti .......


etO snigdhO nodI tAhAr, kothay emon dhumrO pAhAr
kothay emon horIt khetrO AkAsh tole meshe
emon dhAner opor dheu khele jay, batAsh tAhAr deshe
emon deshti....

pushpe pushpe bhorA shAkhI, kunje kunje gAhe pAkhI
gunjoriyA Ashe oli, punje punje dheye
tArA foolEr upor ghumiye pOre foolEr modhU kheye
emon deshti

bhAyEr mAyEr etO snehO, kothay gele pAbe kehO
O mA tomAr choron dutI bokkhe AmAr dhorI
AmAr ei deshete jonmO jenO ei deshete morI
emon deshti.......