September and October 2009

I think I’ve fallen in love, yet again. This time it’s an Icelandic band called ‘Sigur Ros’(Victory Rose). The band was formed in 1994 in Reykjavik by singer and guitarist Jón Þór Birgisson, bassist Georg Hólm and drummer Ágúst Ævar Gunnarsson, and I discovered it only days back, following a status update by Mayukh where he’d proclaimed that he loves the band. Now since I generally relate with Mayukh’s taste of music, I downloaded it, and was totally swept off my feet. Mayukh had said, “(Listening to the band gives you the feeling of) being under the blanket on a very rainy day.” Comfort and luxury epitomized. It’s like an Icelandic Simon-and Garfunkel, he’d said. And I can’t agree more.

I’m very happy because Ajju is coming back to Calcutta on the 2nd of November, and hence the CCD/Mamma Mia visits will become the order of the day once again. We’ve a lot of catching up to do, and am really looking forward to his return. Anindita too, will be visiting Calcutta some time in the next week. What terrible excitement! Two of my best friends are coming home at the same time...(Oh, my bad! Calcutta isn’t exactly the place Tiku would call home, but whattheheck?)

I have also been procrastinating the act of sanctifying my Fbook friend list. Last checked, it stood at 405, and I need to clear the mess and bring it down to 200, at the most. One more thing I’ve been putting off is watching new movies. I’ve got several tempting new(ly downloaded) movies lying unwatched… ‘Rear Window’, ‘Pierrot Le Fou’, ‘Antichrist’ etc. And I need to watch them soon. But each time I intend to do the same, I end up watching an old episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

Diwali was fun. We got drunk on Rhea’s Hiland Park chhat(eh, no, not totally sloshed, but just mild boozing) and later, had a crazy, crazy, crazy dance session in her drawing-room. Her antique-piece-loaded drawing room reeks of old Bengali bonediyana(aristocracy), the sort I associate my grandparents and great-grandparents with, the thing that many of those first-generation-rich families totally lack. I loved the old pipes and hookkahs and grandfather clocks, and pianos. There was a very odd faith-ant stuffed toy on one sofa, which despite its undoing effect on the entire ‘bonedi-baari’ feel, was claimed to be a great favorite of hers by Rhea.

The mid-term exam is scheduled for mid-November, and well, as always, my preparation is close to nil. What’s funny(well, not really, it has always been an old habit) is that I’m not even striving towards the completion of any minuscule percentage of the syllabus). Sid won’t wake up, ever, I guess.

September was great. I was the Presidency College ‘rep’ at the Loreto College fest, ‘Samagam’. We also had our Departmental Fresher’s(where I was crowned Mr. Fresher’s :D) and Student Union Fresher’s(which was fun mainly because of the disco we made out of the Derozio-Audi). September also was about a lot of hanging out, here and there, randomly, and the masterpiece was made in Taniya-and-Roli’s birthday party-cum-sleepover. The entire circle was there(barring obviously the outstation-candidates) and with the subtle and not-so-subtle undercurrents that kept flowing, the crackling chemistry between some people, and the damp-squibs some others made out of themselves, it was one helluva night.

Then the Punjab-Delhi-Haryana-Himachal tour I took with my family was refreshening. It re-established my North India connection, and made me fall in love with the North all over again. Also, in the last four months, owing to an ever-increasing requirement of proficiency in Bangla, I’ve forgotten the little nuances of a Delhi-Hindi totally. This tour helped me scratch off the surface-rust to an extent, and rediscover myself.

All in all, life’s okay. The winter’s come in quite early. The weather’s starting to turn chilly though October hasn’t faded away yet. Rudrani thinks I write like females do, and I can’t really disagree. She also insists on calling me ‘Tokai’ despite my claiming that I’m the Kolabou. Also hilarious is how Chitrangada Singh says “Signs of aging, leave them behind, Take Care!” in the new Garnier advertisement. The trailers of ‘Kurbaan’ look very promising, and Vivek Oberoi, finally, looks back in form. It has a very international feel to it, and looks straight out of some Hollywood studio. Kareena- I fall in love with over and over again, and this time’s no exception. The song 'Kurbaan Hua' is remarkable in the way it's both sympathy-evoking and also coarse,rough,and adrenaline-rush-stimulating at the same time. I’ve been making frequent visits to the Joo, but they’ll soon be no-longer possible once classes at Presidency re-commence.

Enough for now… Oh and yes, well, bleh, nevermind…. Someone looks so cute, but so what? I’ll shut up.