I wish

It’s my one year in Boston today. As a recap, this is after 17 years in Nagpur, 4 in Surathkal, 0.5 in mysore, 0.5 in bhubaneswar, and 2 years in College Station TX.

Boston is different from all the other places I have been before. This place has 4 distinct seasons. You really need 4 distinct set of clothes for the four seasons. The trees are four different colors. And now coming to think of it, I do like the fact that we do not like the winter. It’s so good to have not liking a season over the other unlike say California where people have no choice as it is sunshine year round.

Aah, enough of false praising. I really would love a warmer place, a place like Miami or Houston or Austin, or say a place like Bangalore.

Bangalore, it is my favorite place. As you might have noticed above, I have never stayed in Bangalore but I still love it and I think that is my final destination ten years down the line. Ask the people of Bangalore, and they will say “Oh, so much traffic, things are so unnecessarily priced” etc. But the simple fact that I am still interested in hearing these people out who say so shows my concern. The reason may be because I have never felt any place as my own. Though I love Nagpur a lot, there is nothing in Nagpur to hold me. Though there is enough to hold me in Kolkata, I really don’t feel any connection with that place. I do feel sad about the issues like Singur because of being a Bengali and I also secretly do not like when non Kolkata people bash Kolkata, but when it comes to me being a part of the people and the city, I feel like an outsider.

On the other hand, Bangalore has always been a pampering place for me, thanks to my brother. When I went there the first time, bro was new in his job and he spent a lot and we were always eating in good restaurants, going to the fancy malls, buying expensive clothes etc. Then, during my stay in Surathkal, this became the place where I used to come when I needed breaks from the college life. I ran there once for Holi. In first year, when I was really afraid of my seniors, Bangalore was a soothing comfort. I will come by an early bus in the morning, and then always get cheated by the Autowallas on my way to Dada’s place but all to be reimbursed by him. His roommates also ensured I have a nice time. Overall it was always a fun place. Then, the one year after college, Bangalore became the place of dreams because it had all my “college friends” and it was a place where you had all the good paying companies. I yearned for Bangalore even in my first few months in College Station when I was still making friends and I was always jealous that my college friends are having so much fun together.

Thinking on practical terms, may be staying anywhere else will be no different than what I have been imagining about Bangalore, because few years down the line, when I will eventually think about coming back to India, none of my friends will be single and may be not even me. Things might be totally different. But there still be the Forum mall with it’s characteristic smell (if not already blasted by the terrorists) and there will always be newer and better eating places, either my brothers favorites like Parivar, Nagarjuna, Amravati and Sues kitchen or the one with the get ups like “Chandni chowk” or fancy names like “Rumali with a view” (As if the rumali rotis have a hole in the middle to peep out while eating). And of course those out of the world Bangalore Times articles talking about trends which nobody follows and finding terms like Gastrosexual ( Just heard this term from Umesh, apparently it means “women of Bangalore” nowadays like men who will cook food for them). I am very sure this is also a BT finding.

But then, I may meet my brother again by surprise on the stairs of PVR cinemas, introduce our friends and move on.

Scary thoughts on the blasts

Lot is happening around the world, especially those which bother me like Ike, Georgia, Singur and to a bit even the US presidential elections. But this post, I would like to discuss the blasts happening in the Indian cities.

Yes, enough has been written about it, and various views. There are many topics to discuss on. They are:

1) What is government doing?

2) Is it justified to have an anti terrorism law like POTA

3) Is what was earlier known as the “Mumbai spirit” actually “Mumbai cowardice” or “Mumbai apathy”?

4) Should we begin to suspect all Muslims?

5) What do the terrorists really want?

Let us begin with the last question. I wish and I can just wish that they would tell me “We want azad Kashmir and nothing else.” If I had power, I would have immediately said “Yeh lo, and take this extra 1 square meter from ladakh too, and please stop this”. I wish it was as simple, and if it is, I urge the politicians please do this right away. But we all know that is not the case. I think the reason for the blasts has to be something else, and it might not be entirely based on reason, region or religion. It very well might be, they had nothing else to do. These big terrorist organizations, once found that everything is already ok in this world but they have these huge infrastructure established and they will go jobless if they do not do anything, started brainwashing people. And where else will they get such a large population to influence and to attack. Yes, Indonesia has the biggest Islamic population, but then they can’t create havoc there, because it is all Islam. India becomes a natural choice.

No I am not typecasting the religion, I am just typecasting terrorism. To sound more secular, let me bring out a Hindu example. What would VHP and Bajrang dal do if India was a Hindu nation?

Now this drives me to the next point. See how in he above explanation, I had to do Hindu bashing for the sake of sounding secular. This is what I am so concerned about and this is what Rajdeep has also discussed in his blog. Why do we have to do our own religion bashing just to sound secular? Even in common life, we consider a Muslim good if he is clean shaven, he takes part in festivals like diwali and holi alongwith Eid and he even goes to temple. We the Hindus say “See, that is how a Muslim should be, and see, how we accept such good Muslims to our society and we think we are tolerant hindus”. But that is not right. We should also respect a Muslim who does not want to participate in Holi or Diwali. Frankly speaking, Holi diwali are not even Hindu festivals, they are Indian festivals. How many Muslims do take part in the “Sathyanarayan katha”?

So now that we see that it is all about a change in mindset for all the people is needed, we look at what is the government doing for this? And the answer is obvious, not only nothing, but just the opposite. Ideally the government should have made conducive atmosphere for the peaceful co-existence of the two communities (which I think occurs more by naturally than by the government) and change the mindset of the young people through education. Considering that it is the government who designed the CBSE syllabus, I would say it was a job well done. So you see the government would have been actually helping the problem if it just stopped what it was doing but no, they just did the opposite. They started appeasing one community and thus actually creating differences between those who would have become an ally over time.

And now the most difficult question, so what can be done now? And I am afraid the answer is : I have no idea..

Ganesh Chaturthi

Yes, after a long long time, I am back to my old blogging style. Musings. This times that year kinds. And this one is about Ganesh Chaturthi.

Lord Ganesha has been in my life since I had senses, but in a very peculiar way. The Lord has never been my primary point of inspiration. But he has always brought joy. All hindus tend to have one primary god, though Hinduism believes in polytheism. It can be a good study in itself to see how this is across India as well as classes and subclasses amongst people. But that is not the point of discussion. Anyway, so that way, if I have to choose my primary god, it has to be goddess Saraswati and I would like to believe that it came naturally to me. As a student, it is goddess Saraswati who gives you knowledge and you should pray to her to score good marks in exams. Being a student till last year, you can imagine that she has to be THE goddess for me. And now that I started work, logically speaking I should change to Goddess Laxmi, the goddess of wealth, but I do not like to change. And here comes lord Ganesha. People say, he is the god of knowledge and god of wealth. I think he is also the god of sane thoughts. In short, he is highly capable of being THE god. But, for some reason, he never features that prominently in Bengali culture.

For me, Lord Ganesha has other significance. I was born and brought up in Maharashtra. The land of “Ganapati Bappa Morya”. So every year, Ganpati puja was a big festival in my colony. This also coincided with the “Durga Puja Shopping” commencement. This process involved going to Nagpur city 14 km away and buying new clothes, going to the various ganesh pandals across the city and finally a good dinner at some restaurant. So you see, Ganesha commences the happy season.

Later, when I moved to Karnataka, I realized, it is equally big here and in my college it was a regular event. Infact, this was my first day at Surathkal. I was sitting in the auditorium where the idol was established. It is here, I sat with the people of my state “mattha party” and were introduced and thus made friends who not only made the following four years enjoyable, but even became the most trustworthy friends for life.

Then I came to Texas A&M. Who would have believed that out of the zillions of Hindu festivals celebrated across India, this will be the one that is celebrated in A&M? Yes, diwali, holi rakhi all are celebrated, and I believe even Durga puja and Saraswati puja, but none at the same level as Ganesha utsav. I know the reason too and that is the timing. This coincides with start of fall semester and what better way to start a semester than prayers. I could have ignored this celebration as I do with nearly 95% of the traditions followed in the Aggieland, but as luck would have it, I stayed with Marathi roommates here and hence never missed this occasion. And as luck would have it, this was not only the place where I met many of the friends for first time in college station, but also the place where I met my advisor, the person who shaped my career.

This is the first year; I will have nothing special to do, but now comes the best part: The reason which made me write this blog. It is not me who realized this connection, this subtle realization that knowingly or unknowingly, I have been following this tradition since I was born. And no prize for guessing who made me realize this. Of course, it has to be Maa. And yes Maa, I will definitely do something this time too.

Any good writer, Jane, Jhumpa or JKR, would have stopped here, but no, I want to write more. This may not even be a strong point, but I cannot not mention about it.

The prep of durga puja is described by a poem as follows:

Shiuli phool-er gondhe momo,

Pujar thane dhaker baari

Bhorer aalo fotar aagei

Pounche Gechi taratari.

Somehow I always associate durgapuja with this poem. The poem is pretty meaningless so I won’t dare to do a mundane translation, but it is the first line: Shiuli phool which is a tiny white flower with orange stalk, the frangrance of that flower is the mark of start of the puja season, and the first time we use this flower, is ofcourse for ganesh chaturthi.