Footprints

I have known for sometime now that you’ve been having peeks on this blog since i introduced you to it. Take today for instance. And you haven’t stopped visiting even after everything. Digital footprints we all have. I’m not surprised. Or maybe i am, in a way? I’m amused, though.

You didn’t tell me if you actually read every post, unless it seemed it was about you. You didn’t tell me if remnant of your childhood dyslexia was getting in your way of reading long winded blah. A lot of things were left unsaid but i guessed anyway. I’m not very bad at guesswork. Tell me i’m wrong this time. Knowing would be nice.

You know, growing up is a bitch. And such fun still ! In the end, it’s only causality that you were standing by the roadside while i went  on through the endless cycles of everyday catharsis.

Puri sucks

memento

Me and Sudeep aka “mota” M G were in the same class in school since as long as I can remember. Probably from kindergarten. He was stocky, that funny fat guy who used to say and do crazy stuff in school. As a consequence he was a butt of jokes among us fellow students, teachers and he always got picked on and bullied even when was in high school. The bullies didn’t get a free pass, though, and we bystanders laughed our asses off when he got into fights. Although I lost touch with him soon after tenth standard, I was aware of his shenanigans through our mutual friends.

We old pals from school had a mini reunion of sorts this pujas on 8th October back in Durgapur. Thanks to KN who orchestrated the meetup, although poorly, as less than half of the people supposed to come actually did. Thankfully, Mota showed up. He was in a MBA program (who isn’t these days?), and working part-time at a big computer hardware store to shore up the bottomline. As apparent from the photograph, he had changed a lot. He had grown vertically quite a bit and apparently worked out a lot in the gym and built a killer body, which, according to Mota’s own admission, was working wonders with women. I wasn’t impressed by his hairdo, however. I think he has watched way too many 80s hindi movies.

He left early that day of the reunion when the photograph above was taken as he had some packing to do for a vacation in Puri next day. Two days later, he drowned, in the rough waves off the Puri beach.

I came to know today morning. OVe (the guy with glasses to the left of Mota) called me from Jamshedpur.

I always knew something like this would strike one day. It would have been an aberration had it not. But I didn’t expect that the day would come so soon.

I now really hate Puri. I never liked the vibe of that tourist haven. It beats the hell out of me why Bengalis flock to that shit of a beach “paradise” cum religious pilgri-fuckin-mage polluted by greedy opportunistic religiohacks and con men.

Pullout

This blog ain’t meant to be for politics (that was meant to be in the other blog) but when i say politics i mean political analysis and such. But this is different.

Apparently, the TATAs pulled out. It was inevitable. If i were Ratan Tata i would’ve pulled out earlier, much earlier. The people of Bengal have an uncanny ability to shoot themselves in the foot while blasting neoconservatives on Bush administration and making all-knowing comments on existentialism and Derrida. Give me a break! Seriously. But we, the people of this state deserve what happened. We do. Every bit of it.

The political opposition is a train-wreck; the so-called ‘intellectuals’ and civil society are mostly opportunistic liberal elite who’ve now turned against their patrons in the government, only after they have made a successful career footlicking the same establishment and bagged a nice big house in posh Salt Lake at dirt-cheap discount through government/Red Party power players; and then there’s the activist young people in Bengal (even their newer and better avatars) who takes their ‘activism’ as just another scoring point in their job market CV makes me wonder, do they know what they’re even doing? Do they have any idea of the effects their actions might have? God have mercy on their souls.

Yes, that means you two too Arundhati Roy and Medha Patkar. Don’t you think we didn’t notice what you did back in Singur. You two make me sick. These plastic cheerleaders of social activism should throw a big public kegger for successfully selling themselves as the face of pseudo social activism of India. They are the Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton of India’s social activism and human rights circuit. Boy I’m proud.

Isn’t it ironic that TATAs are moving to Gujarat, a state everyone loves to hate in Bengal? Now why would a socially sensitive conglomerate like the TATAs move to a state whose Chief Minister is virtually reviled by most non-Gujarati Indians? Why indeed.

Let me give a snippet of a conversation i had with Don, a 1st generation Irish Texan (yes, he can drink like an Irish) and a professor at the University of North Texas at Dallas. He was the co-chair in the “track” i was in. We hung out a lot and struck a great rapport back at the conference in Delhi.

In an afternoon diner conversation Don summed up the mentality of the people and politicians irrespective of party label back in Texas in these simple words: what’s good for business is good for us.

He (being a level-headed liberal Democrat) was speaking of it in a negative context mind you. The above philosophy is ruining the natural resources of Texas leading to an unhealthy and unsustainable economic development whose repercussions would be sudden and severe. The sad thing is most Texans don’t realize it yet. (Texas by and large is about 60% Republican, economically and socially very conservative outside the big metros of Houston, San Antonio and Dallas. Note that economic conservatism means exactly the opposite of what it means here in India.)

Gujarat is in many ways India’s Texas. They started pro-business economic reforms even before 1991. It’s socially very conservative with Hindu population greater than the national average. And when it comes to pro-business policies, industrialization, BJP and Congress, the two main political parties are like blood brothers. They know their business.

So, what now? Rest assured,

1. No more big investments in this state in the short term.

2. The state government will be blamed as much as Mamata Banerjee. Those who think Ms. Banerjee will be blamed solely when elections knock at door i have news for you. You’re wrong.

3. Mamata Banerjee will win re-election from her constituency, the most affluent and anti-left in the state. There will be no “urban backlash” big enough to take her down. As a constituent I won’t be voting for her, however. That doesn’t mean i’m voting for the commies.

4. The Left Front will lose a lot of seats in the coming general election. Last time around, if i remember correctly, they won 35 out of 42 seats. That’s the apex. There’s only one way to go from there. Downhill.

All you young people reading this. Get out of this state at the very first opportunity. You won’t regret it. No, it’s not escapism. If you love yourself you’ll know what’s right for you.

Update: You might want to read this.

Premonitions

I suffer from APS. Acute Premonition Syndrome. I see all those middle aged men every other day in streets, in movies, reminiscing with their school and college buddies about college chicks, highs school crushes, all the what should’ve beens and what ifs and I get the blues of APS. I guess it’s inevitable. Sometimes I think it’s better not to have any memory of the past. It’s better that way. Otherwise, it’s too much blues. Blues blues blues. The weight is just too much.  Then the thought that in 10 years I’m going to be 31 (and I might not live that long who knows?) makes me sit in my chair and plan all the things I’ve daydreamed about. Believe me, without proper planning daydreams remain just that, daydreams.

Meanwhile, my good friend Abhi bagged a really meaty job (besides the one he already nabbed, which he’s now ditching) in his engineering campus selections bout. And by meaty I mean he got the highest pay packet in his campus, and probably the highest of all our mutual friends. I’m happy for him. He was always a mr. smartypants.

In fact every guy from my school batch, except for those doing an MBA/Masters, has a job offer to boot, even guys who weren’t exactly “brains” and even the supposedly hopeless average joes/janes have decent paypackets to stuff their pockets. Good God! India is shining indeed.

You know

most people in this world don’t get what they deserve. There’s probably a mathematical design behind which someday a Ramanujan or Neumann incarnate will uncover.

You are one of the lucky few to be in the greener side of the grass. Lucky you.

Funny, ain’t it? How people change over such few years in between. How did you tug yourself down to such mediocrity?! Wait, I don’t want to know ’cause I already know. You ma’am deserve your destiny.

I have a lot more to say about this but my disappointment is so great I don’t even know where to begin.