Governor's Gandhigiri

In an act of solidarity with the people of Kolkata suffering from long hours of power-cut, Gopalkrishna Gandhi, the Governor of West Bengal, has decided to undergo the same plight as the Kolkatans by suffering a two-hour voluntary power-cut at his official residence, the Raj Bhavan from Wednesday.

Mr. Chief Minister and others holding the seats of power: Are you listening???

Bhajji's slap & Rajput's clap

It seems that the controversy surrounding Harbhajan's slap to Sreesanth is far from being over. The latest story about this seemingly never ending drama surfaced when video footage given to Sudhir Nanavati, the commissioner appointed by BCCI, revealed Lalchand Rajput, the Mumbai Indians' coach, clapping after Bhajji slapped the speedster.

Bhajji now might be wondering aloud: Mujhe itna gussa kyon aata hai???

Exhibition @ Gallery Kanishka

Gallery Kanishka on 2/1, Hindustan Road, Gariahat has put up an exhibition of Asit Poddar's photographs that showcase Satyajit Ray, the maestro, in different moods and settings. A total of 11 B&W images are put up for the show. The exhibition is open till May 30 (timings: 11a.m-8p.m).

I went to see the exhibition today and was somewhat disappointed. I thought that many images would be lined up for the show and it would take atleast an hour to view the same. However, it was all over in 5 minutes. Four frames were of the same category (Satyajit in various moods while filming Piku in 1981). Amongst the other images was the famous and often seen picture of Ray sitting in his study at Bishop Lefroy Road. So, though disappointed, it was worth the effort as I wanted to have a dekko at this exhibition. Lastly, the interesting news about this exhibition: visitors can buy 10 limited editions of each of these photographs and thereby lay claim to their own piece of art and fame.

The Adventures of Rusty: Book Review

This is a lovely book written by Ruskin Bond, an author who is mostly famous as a writer of several books for young readers but has an equally big fan following amongst the grown-ups (take my example as a point). Published by NBT, this book is an interesting read and is sure to transport the readers to their own childhood memories. The book is divided into two sections namely Uncle Ken and Running Away. Both the sections give a vivid account of Rusty's adventures. The first part deals with Rusty's eccentric uncle Ken who struggles to find a job for himself and turns at Rusty's granny's home in Dehradun every now and then. The second part deals with Rusty's plans to run away from the school-boarding at Pahargunj to meet uncle Jim (who was a sailor and whose ship was expected to put anchor at Jamnagar). The only problem was that Rusty and his friend Daljit had to cover at least eight hundred miles to pull off this feat, that too without enough money for the trip and a vague notion about the exact road map. What happens finally is for the readers to find out as I dare not spill the beans here and rob you of an interesting and enjoyable read.

So, try to grab a copy of this pocket friendly book (Rs. 25 only) with nice illustrations and take a trip back to those days of entire bliss when you were a child of Rusty's age.

Just Shut up Mr. Bush

The idiot president of the US has again given fodder to the world to laugh at him and irked Indians by saying that the increasing affluence of the Indian middle class has given rise to more food consumption which in turn has triggered the escalating food prices all over the world. Need I say that the crackbrained idioit has done it all over again. Thanks a lot Mr. President for giving us a few moments of laughter amidst the fast paced life (Of course not before fuming over your comment and cursing you a lot, though!!!)

Artist Ray, the forgotten genius.

Come May the 2nd, and all the Bengalis are reminded of the cine-genius Satyajit Ray, the ray of hope for the Bengali cinema in the international arena.
In fact, any genius generally becomes famous for his most prominent trait like Rabindranath Tagore for his poems, Arthur Conan Doyle for Sherlock Holmes, etc. Likewise, Satyajit Ray also became famous for his film making and Feluda, the Bengali Sherlock Holmes.
Generally, normal people do not bear more than a single characteristic trait. So, it is quite normal for them to handle a single trait of the genius, the most famous one. How many of us know that Arthur Conan Doyle was a professional Rugby player or Rabindranath Tagore was an excellent administrator? And similarly how many of us are aware of the other geniuses of Satyajit Ray?
Did you know (before reading this post, of course) that the great film maker, whose birthday we are celebrating today, was a great ad-designer, and that he designed advertisements for immensely popular brands such as Paludrine?He worked in an Ad agency for 65/- a month in the year 1943 and designed ads for brands like Jabakusum, CK Sen, etc.
Well, the charms do not end here. Satyajit Ray was obsessed with arts, and when he stopped working in the ad-agency, the obsession did not leave him. He designed each and every poster for his films. Along with it, he drew for Sandesh, his favorite magazine. He created headpieces and tailpieces with inline graphics for all important stories in the magazine. And he drew it with great care and perfection. All the pictures were different in moods and aptly complemented the storyline.

Ray did not limit himself with this either!
He developed fonts, his own prototype fonts. Not one, not two- four of it in total!!! Ray Roman, Ray Bizzare, Daphnis and Holiday Script, each unique in its own style.






What more could you ask from a person? Does watching a few films on the DVD do proper justice to the genius? Or reading a few Feluda novels? I think it's time to reinvent the character of Ray and do a proper on the multifaceted personality. Or else, overbanging on the film making and literary side will make the artist Ray sink without a trace.

Celebration of books

This evening I went to the Nandan premises where a boi-bajar is in full swing these days (Celebration of World Book Week, would be on till 4th May, timings: 2pm-8pm). I didn’t expect so many publications though. All the big names like ABP, Mitra and Ghosh, Dey’s, Tuli-Kolom, NBT and Oxford have their stalls here. Sadly, I didn’t have enough time to visit all the stalls. Though I bought my share of books from the fair, I would love to revisit the site once again, to complete my systematic carpet-bombing (a friend has nicknamed my combing of book-stalls by this name).