South City Mall

Last Sunday, I went to the South City Mall with a friend. Situated on Prince Anwar Shah Road, this shopping mall is believed to be the largest in India, spread on a sprawling area of 6,00,000 square feet. What I liked the most about the place was its well-planned layout. The wide corridors of South City Mall has seats, some wooden and some cushioned sofas, where people can rest their tired feet before getting up again to explore the area. This mall has something or the other for almost everyone. So, grocery store (Spencer's), several clothing stores, bookstores, a full floor serving delicious dishes (different counters are there to serve delicacies belonging to different regions) and a cinema hall (Fame), all can be found under the same roof. We even managed to sneak into the parking lot from the top storey to get a nice view of the surroundings and the spiralling parking zone. The only bane appeared to be the absence of an elevator that could directly take you to the topmost floor. So, we had to take the escalator, hop down at each floor and then get on the other one going to the next higher level. This small problem notwithstanding, I simply loved the place and think it's worth a dekkho.

Lastly, a caution to all those willing to visit the mall in the evening. Plan your road-map cleverly as the place in front of South City Mall suffers tremendously from traffic jams in the evening. I myself faced a big problem while returning from there and had to break my journey into three shorter versions, not before walking a distance equivalent to three bus-stops as I couldn't get any vehicle (no buses, autos or taxis).

Image: Inside the South City Mall (Courtesy: Avrajyoti Mitra)

Charlton Heston:One of my favorite heroes

For the last two days, I couldn't get time to watch the news and so missed the fact that one of my best-loved heroes had died on April 5. Though I watch Hollywood movies much more than the Bollywood ones, my list of favorite actors is a small one, the top two names being Tom Hanks and Charlton Heston.

I still remember how I was in love with Judah Ben-hur the first time I saw Ben-hur on HBO. I later came to know that for this role, Charlton Heston won the Academy Award (Best Actor). Almost everything about the film Ben-hur still remains etched in my mind....the time when Ben-hur comes to see Messala and they drink together, crossing their hands in a peculiar manner (symbolic of their friendship), the tender kiss between Judah and Esther, how Messala condemns Judah falsely to the galleys (because Judah's political views were different from him), his hardships as a slave, how his fortunes return when Arrius adopts him as a son and he is a free man again, his longing to return to his home, the famous chariot race.......the list is endless. I have lost count how many times I have watched this film after the first viewing. Each time I loved Judah Ben-hur more than before and salulated his undying spirit to fight back, his enormous zeal to be alive. Though Charlton Heston had played many roles and won acclaim (especially for playing Moses in The Ten Commandments), my favorite has always been Ben-hur.

Though I know that death is inevitable, the news that Charlton Heston is no more made me sad. May his soul rest in peace and his family be given strength to go through this phase.

Welcome showers in Kolkata

As the summer season arrived, I was dreading to get fried in the scorching heat but all thanks to the showers (what a great timing!!!), the mercury hasn't risen to unbearable limits till date. Every now and then when it threatened to, the rain came and made matters all thanda-thanda cool cool. The only sad part are the muddy roads, not to speak of the water-clogged lanes and by-lanes. But it's the price to be paid for giving the heat a miss, I guess.

Story of the past life

A few days back, I read a story (The Accountant in the book of short story collection titled The Japanese Wife by Kunal Basu) about a man who could clearly remember his past life when he was Chota Mimar. It made a fascinating read when he had glimpses of the details related to the construction of the Taj Mahal. I simply loved the story.

It wouldn't be out of context to mention a small hillarious thing here. It so happened that during my school days, we had a chapter on food fads. Some common misconceptions and beliefs were listed there like eating ladies finger makes you brainy etc. The thing which I remember till date is how embarrassed I felt when I read that liking brinjals meant that you were a donkey in the past life. I was very ashamed to even admit loving brinjals from that day onwards in public (I still can't figure out why I believed that eating brinjals would strengthen the fact that I was indeed a donkey in my previous birth!!!) and it took quite some time to get back to my normal food habits.

Transportation problem in Kolkata-Cholchey cholbey?

It seems to be ages since the roads of Kolkata breathed free off traffic jams. The situation worsens during the peak office hours. Though I'm lucky to avail of the metro services to reach my workplace thereby beating a good part of the traffic chaos on the roads, on days when I had to board the buses, autos etc, it's like a test of my patience coz you have to forget about time and destination. Rather, in this unbearable heat, you can only pray to reach you destination as soon as possible while the scorching heat boils you up.....flesh, bones, clothes..et al.

I don't know what good so many flyovers and widened roads have done as the problem still persists. Above this, count the mindless pollution caused by these baba-adam-ke-zamaney-ka-traffic. Jaywalking, idle traffic policemen and faulty traffic signals are other culprits adding to the traffic woes. As Kolkatans, is it too much if we ask for proper and chaos-free traffic. If the other metros can have it, why can't we???

Snippets

Survival of the fittest: Getting into a Garia bound auto from Jadavpur 8-B bus stand in the evening, defeating all those who are aiming for the same lone seat.

A signboard at a Golf Green crossing asking autos and other vehicles to go slower as school children pass by the route: Baccha hoitey sabdhan (Beware of Children)

On the walls of a suburban area: Honumaan chaap biri (jara khay tara honumaan na kheye lokey honumaan marka kirtikolaap kore, taha bola chilo na)

Behind an auto:
Satjug me doodh mila,
Aur jug me ghee,
Kaljug me daroo mila,
soch samajh ke pee.

Lastly, again Behind an auto: Hingshey korona, tomaro hobe (Don't be envious, you'll have it too).

Weekend activities

Yesterday was a hectic day, taking care of dozens of pending work but enjoying an old friend's company at the same time. In fact, this friend was a colleague of mine but both of us have moved from where we met at first. I went to her house yesterday, ate lunch and had a hearty and long adda session with her. Needless to say that listening to some words of wisdom from her made me feel at ease and I could feel a heavy burden off my shoulders and breathe easy after a long long time. Really, my friends mean a world to me....each different and special in their own ways.

Anyway, that was how yesterday breezed past. Today, got up early to participate in a Probhaat Feri organized by Ramakrishna Asram, opposite my house where a 3-day festival is going on, called Ramakrishna Dev er Abirbhab Utsob. However, the procession started quite late (@7 a.m instead of 6 a.m) and was going at a slow pace. I didn't complete the rounds and came back mid-way (was getting a boring affair for me). However, I intend to visit the asram in the evening to hear some words of wisdom from Swamijis (from Belur Math) who would be coming to grace the occasion on the last day.