Sabya's Niche

Hi folks (wishful thinking - know there's no reader for this BS blog!) -  returning after eons. The fabric of my life has changed after being 'elevated' .. a change in profession. Undergoing a metamorphosis. Don't know where I'll end up. But the journey is important.

My son Shreyaan has arrived. He's 5 months old now and has usurped all my pastimes without much ado. He's growing up fast, giving me a crash-course in evolution. In fact my son has given me a glimpse of the entire range of emotions that can be.   It's in fact difficult to define fatherhood. Like love, it's to be felt, not described in words. The little one with its antics is almost all I think about now. He has eclipsed my life so much that I sometimes feel afraid... although it's something I wouldn't like to ward off!   Here's Shreyaan alias 'Google' for you:  

Saw the movie 'Inception'. Liked it a lot. The protagonist (Leonardo Di Caprio) is an 'architect' of dreams who creates dreams and delves into those alongwith others at times, building entire cities and scenarios as well as different levels of reality. There are 'totems' to remind one of the 'real' reality, so that one can come back from dreams. The catch is, the real-time in dreams is much longer than our real-time. E.g. if one dreams for an hour in the real world, it translates into days in a dream. The movie is excellent, exploring constructs and sub-strata of the human mind with dexterity. It's fiction, but one that makes you think of the reality of reality. Inception is, in a sense, Matrix reversed. The former tells you that we do exist in reality, but at the risk of losing our bearing if faced with semi-real realities of the subconscious realm. However, Matrix is all about 'Maya' and the unreality of our reality. Overall, Inception is ...

Saw 'Dhobi Ghat' the other day. A splendid celebration of humanity, I'd say. I could relate without knowing a bit of cinematic grammar, I can assure you. The movie by Kiran Rao (Aamir Khan's wife) is excellent. Several characters move about the entire script in their own respective paces, sometimes crisscrossing and at others just content to run parallel to each other. Sensitivity was at its very best during my experience of seeing Dhobi Ghat; it was rather lyrical. Prateik, Smita-Raj Babbar's son, and the girl who depicted the persona in the hand-held video shots, were particularly outstanding. The others were equally good. A must-see for anybody with human content.

Hi guys! Good to be back again. I was down for about a week with a serious bout of Viral fever. Have just resumed some light work. Tomorrow I'll be meeting clients and resume regular activity. In the meantime I had the time to brush up my reading a bit. Our cyber-engagements have nowadays left almost no leisure to read good old books. Both has its pros and cons undoubtedly and I myself am quite a bit of a fighter for the cyber world... yet, sometimes I miss ordinary paper books with their smell and savour. One advantage of paper books over ebooks which I felt for the last few days is that the former irritate the nerves a bit less. Whatever little glare comes off the computer screens is actually worse than the plain light reflecting off a book, you know. This apart, you could assume umpteen physical postures while reading a book which you can't even try with a computer - even if it's a laptop or netbook or some other mini. By the way, saw a nice saying on the net; it's a...

So the long-awaited Durga Puja 2010 is over. Today is Bijoya Dashami and it's time for mother Durga to return to her heavenly abode. This year the police and various public service people did an excellent job. In spite of the occasional showers and tremendous crowd, public utilities like the police, metro rail, bus and various other services worked full blast, sacrificing their own festive pleasures for us. Hats off to them for that. We did a lot of 'Pandal'-hopping and saw quite a few - those at Mudiali, Shib Mandir and Sebak Sangha in the south, College Square in central Kolkata, Chaltabagan, and our neighbourhood Mitali, Sapnar Bagan and 'Baro Park', to name some. Most of the themes and decor were splendid and it is rather a pity that so much of art, in some places full-fledged architectural marvels in their own right, goes to waste after the occasion. Anyway, that's life and we go on as usual.