The last six months of my life have been the culmination of another cycle of thought and perhaps another stage in my life has passed. The stakes have risen to a new level and my search has entered a totally different dimension. It is time for action.

I have always shared my deepest beliefs and thoughts with anyone close enough and especially those with an open enough mind. For I have always strongly held that a thought which is not thoroughly examined is not worth accepting and what better way of analysis than throwing it around at people. People, because people possess the power to give different perspectives, because people can lead thoughts into uncharted territories, because people can breathe life into thoughts.

I would also like to go ahead on a limb and say that if people stop thinking then they are no longer human beings. By thinking I mean questioning with an open mind and equally importantly looking for answers with an open mind.

Over the past few years I have found myself questioning the basic assumptions of our current human civilization, from our accepted stands on quality of life, progress, continuous growth of economies, to my all time favorite, “why am I here?”

For years I have come tantalizingly close to the truth which led to the conclusion that something is drastically wrong with the human experience. Perhaps I found it so hard to believe that I have looked the other way and avoided taking the final step. To be honest, in the last few years I have been reluctant to pursue these fruitless endeavors, for I have had a relative time of peace and prosperity but the human being in mi, perhaps got the better of mi and for that I thank it.

So it came to pass… on a dark night sitting on my roof after an umpteenth number of cups of coffee. I said to Kunal, “There is something wrong with this ERP, isn’t it supposed to make life easier for all of us?” We were discussing an ERP solution for someone being made by someone else. Well I would not have been so obtuse if I could just name the two parties involved but neither of them was Moving Stones Technologies.

Perhaps introductions are in order here… I am mi (no it is not a nick name, more on mi later). Kunal is my dear friend and partner in crimes against the principle of life… read business partner (principle of life is where the search ended, more on the principle of life later). Moving Stones Technologies is our company, we started it, there were more of us in The Cult of The Stonemovers, but that would be a story in itself.

Kunal went something like, “What do you mean by that?” To which I said, “Making these complex ERP systems is a time consuming thankless job and more often than not you just end up raising the level of complexity. Which basically makes everyone’s life that much more difficult the vendor, the client, the implementation team, the end users and the customers. Don’t you think that life becomes that much more complex for everyone? In effect we make things that much more complicated and claim that progress has been made.” Kunal agreed and I pushed it further, “Why would people make things more complicated than they already are?”

I could hear the whirring of wheels and the tension could be cut with a knife. Just kidding…

He responded after pause, “Because they can.” Well, now after spending a considerable amount of thought, it seems that the same answer applies to a lot of things that we see in the world today and most of them don’t make sense.

I persisted…

Kunal is generally enthusiastic about discussions but on that fateful night he was not, the discussion had started on a point, I for the love of my life cannot recollect. The discussion had dragged on and as if suddenly out of nowhere stood this impasse. Fate was acting out its course of action, I could claim, but that is one of the questions that is yet unresolved, “Is there something called fate?”

I persisted, “Every time we as human beings are cornered by a problem we raise the level of complexity and seemingly solve the problem, but after a while we have to come up with a better and more complex solution to solve the complexity of the already solved problem. Why? And dude… if this continues, there might come a point when we will not be able to solve it. What say?”

“Why don’t you Google this and find out what other people think about this?” said Kunal.

Perfectly reasonable I thought. People all over the Internet write about what they think and it had never before occurred to mi to check such a thing online. I claim myself to be Internet savvy, of course nothing compares to old school mano a mano; and I thought why had this not occurred to mi before? Anyways Kunal did not seem to be in too much of a mood to continue. So we called it a morning, for the dawn was breaking and went off to sleep.

In retrospect, that night, as on other occasions in my life, it appeared that fate was in action and some action it was. What followed in the days to come was a bloodbath of beliefs.

Here today I stand humbled and humiliated forced to confess to you of a tale of us human beings… An orgy of excesses…

[To Be Continued @ IGNOBLE THOUGHTS]

NOTE: I am starting a new blog called…

IGNOBLE THOUGHTS
Thoughts rather not heard, accepted, acknowledged, encouraged and shared…

This topic will be dealt over there and not here; this is my space for personal musings whereas that would be a more public forum.

A few days back I felt like talking about my perception of the world around mi. Since I didn’t have anybody around I decided to talk to Bob (Bob is a very good friend of mine and a very good listener, also probably Bob is the only person who likes to talk about such stuff). I asked him how was life laying it out for him to play it out he replies same old. This is like a code between us since we saw the movie “Starsky And Hutch”. He asks mi how am I doing and I say not bad. Then before I forget whut I wanted to talk about I tell him that today I wanted to talk about my perception of the world around mi. Very brusquely he tells mi to stop bugging him and lookup the word perception in the dictionary first. I thought it was very rude of him to behave with mi in this fashion but Bob is a very intelligent person and I value his advise very highly so I did whut he told mi to. I looked up (the word) “perception” in the dictionary.

perception – n. 1 the act of perceiving: His perception of the change came in a flash. SYN: insight, apprehension, discernment, comprehension. 2 the power of perceiving: a keen perception. Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine perceptions (Emerson). 3 understanding that is the result of perceiving; percept: He had a clear perception of what was wrong and soon fixed it. 4 Psychology. The study of the complex process by which complex patterns of environmental energies become known as objects, events, people, and other aspects of the world.
Ref. The World Book Dictionary 1994

The dictionary guided mi from (the word) “perception”, to (the word) “perceive” to (the word) “see” through many versions of (the word) see like “see after”, “see into”, … during which I started to think about “C” the programming language, then “C++” and “C#” and then I remembered Mr. Balaguruswamy who has written some great books on learning “C” and “C++” among others and the fact that “C#” is a part of “.NET” which is made by “Microsoft” and taught to mi by Mr. A. Khadiye and that “Microsoft” has made “IE” which doesn’t render my blog “www.sublogs.blogspot.com” properly as compared to “FireFox” because of something called CSS and so on till I was guided by the dictionary to (the word) “observe” the word made mi observe what I was doing i.e. my chain of thoughts.

And I started thinking. Now let mi tell you “thinking” (suddenly I feel like looking up all words in the dictionary) is the one thing I really love doing, as you might have realized by now. People often say that I think too much. I think that everybody thinks, whut differs is whut we think about. Also often people are not consciously aware that they are thinking.

Well, I started thinking about the content of my chain of thoughts. Computer languages, teachers of computer languages, Microsoft, my blog, FireFox and finally more computer stuff. Well this is whut my world is made up of…

P.S. This article started out a year back… and I am nowhere near the end of it…

Since childhood I have always been very confused why people don’t understand mi or why I couldn’t understand them. I always felt that either there was something drastically wrong with mi or those around mi. Since there were so many numbers on the other side I thought they must be right. Some time back something very interesting happened and I realized why it was possible, to not be understood or to not be able to understand. How did it happen ? It was the drops of rain. The monsoon of 2003.

I was doing my Bachelors in Information Technology and we had a subject called Java, Ya! Java programming. By the way Java was fun nevertheless I like C# more but all my work done so far is in VB. That’s life’s confusion at it’s best. Whut we are taught in college isn’t enough, it’s never enough so I joined a coaching class for more practice and exposure, maybe a little self study could have also worked but I was too lazy, I think. Plus the classes gave mi a good place to socialize albeit with the same people I met at college. Khadiye Sir was our instructor (the same teacher at college) and my batch mates (were my classmates at college). I used to go for coaching almost everyday. Actually the timings and days kept changing. So in essence we ended up going to class almost everyday.

When the classes started so did the monsoon and it rained and rained and rained… I used to reach the classes early because I skipped lunch. The others would take their time and come after lunch. So I got 30 to 45 minutes on my own, rather mi and the rain drops. The windcheater was no good and neither was the raincoat, I got wet everyday. However I liked it. I would sit on a small wall near the coaching class and soak. As there was nothing to do I took up the hobby of raindrop watching.

Come to think of it, it was a very funny hobby, but I really enjoyed sitting in the rain and getting wet (then). Alone mi in my world. People would look at mi and sneer “Crazy guy”. I would often sing a song that I had heard when I was a child. “Raindrops keep falling on my head … ” sung by B. J. Thomas. It’s a cool song from the movie “Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid”. Then it happened.

After some days of raindrop watching I realized that the probability of two drops of rain falling at the same point was quite remote and my brain went “Hmm… interesting, very interesting”. Then one day I saw two drops of rain fall almost at the same point. So I figured that at some point in time two drops of rain would definitely fall at the same point but in the back of mi head I knew I was onto something. But I could not put a finger on what exactly nevertheless I persisted.

Damm… it was hard on my knees (Ops! head). The monsoon was drawing to an end and I began to develop a sudden sense of panic as if I were about to miss out on something very important. Suddenly one day out of the blue it struck mi that still every drop was unique because they touched the earth at different times. “Wow!!! Every drop of rain is unique!!!”. Out of sheer excitement I told everybody in the class about what had happened. “Dude, you know every drop of rain is unique!”, “How come?”, “All drops of rain have a unique point of contact with earth, time being the critical factor, blah blah blah …”, “So What!”. And as always they said, “He is nuts”. There is nothing new in that, I have heard it too many times. I won’t say that it doesn’t bother mi, it does. It still does. Although I would really love to say “Who cares, !@#$ you!!!”. The truth is that it still bothers mi, but I am getting there, little by little, everyday. I knew, there was something more to it, that there was something still left, a final twist in this already interesting experience. Every drop of rain is unique, so what else ?

The monsoon was almost over and for once I had not fallen ill, I am prone to tonsillitis and other respiratory diseases. Just when I thought I had escaped I fell sick, realistically whut else could I have really expected after all that raindrop watching. Tonsillitis, high fever, etc… the regular stuff. I got a lot of time to think about the raindrops and the eluding mystery they held, the final piece in the jigsaw. Then one day I recollected, every snowflake is unique, that’s whut they told us in school. Every raindrop is unique, hmm… Hey!!! everything in this world is unique. Everything living or otherwise is unique. That would mean that every human being is unique too!!! Now this was mind-boggling because it’s so obvious that you cannot miss it and yet it takes a lifetime of soul-searching to realize.

Very few moments in life are so life changing, like the day I went to the mountains for the first time, like when I thought that I had fallen in love for the first time, like the day I realized the power of lust, like the time when I actually did fall in love, like when love set mi free and I started to soar (and I realized one never falls in love), like the day I understood that money is important, the day I came across death for the first time, or the time when I learnt that friends can betray you, like the first time I had coffee, …

It’s been more than 2 years since. As they say there is a lot of difference in knowing, understanding and implementing. Most people get stuck on the second step where one has to accept the truth behind the lies. I’m stuck on the third one, where the truth has to be made a part of ones lifestyle almost everybody stumbles on this one. In all probability it would take another lifetime to implement this but I am trying. Everybody is different and that is the beauty of life. We all live in our own universe. There is nothing like one universe, it is a matter of perception off course. These individual universes interact with those of others around us I don’t know whether by purpose, fate or by simple chance. This is another of life’s mysteries that has puzzled mi for a long long time and so far I am nowhere near the answer.

People change, I have changed too, I am still changing. Now I don’t enjoy getting wet in the rain anymore, it reminds mi that I still have a long way to go, a very long way to go …

Just back from Cal. Went there to meet my dadi/dadima (Grandma) she doesn’t have too much time left. Meet BuaDi (cousin sister) Aritro (her son my only bhanja) and of course gather the laptop that Mitra aunty got for mi from the States. (If you happen to be reading this THANKYOU AUNTY!! MUCHO GRACIAS!!). The last task, search for a good reason why I don’t like Cal (Because it owns a part of my existence which cannot be changed). The last task was not on the “to do list” when I left for Cal, it just happened. Actually many people have asked mi this question and I was intrigued because I have never had a justifiable answer. I had answers, which I couldn’t justify to myself so it needed some serious thought.

Cal and I share a funny relationship I just don’t like the place for no logical reason just as I don’t like Bengalis in general. I just can’t get comfortable with my Father’s family or my Bengali roots. I am the “Last Of The Bhaumicks” as I like to put it. The only male child in the family, loved and pampered by one and all. I’ve had friends from various parts of the country (different religions, castes, sex, orientations ;-p, those who drink and puke and those who don’t, ….) and am equally comfortable with all. But for some mysterious reason, I just don’t like Bengalis, in-fact I have had only three good Bengali friends BuaDi, Rana and Maureen Didi (who now has officially been bestowed with the title of MadDi pronounced Maddy). All of them fall in the category of family friends or relatives, so I didn’t have to make an effort to get to know these people, they were more or less forced down my throat. Having said this, I’m not taking away anything from them, they are genuinely good people. Yes, I have had very few friends and yes, I am not very comfortable with Gorkhalis either. In fact I ain’t comfortable with people in general, but Bengalis, they top the list. Why ? Why ? Why ? It has bugged mi since time immemorial and given mi sleepless nights not to mention the sweaty, heavy breathing nightmares. (Just joking I sleep like a log but preferably through the day) I shall not give up and someday I shall find the true reasons. Yes this I vow on the blood that flows inside my body. (Ok that’s enough) Over the last couple of years I have consciously tried to change these feelings because there is no real reason I could find that could justify them. It’s been a tough struggle with only marginal success. But I think I’m getting there.

Last Sunday when I left for Cal I was very upbeat and also very sad. LAPTOP yippeee!!! I felt really guilty because dadima is very sick. Ok let mi set this straight dadima is very ill and I feel bad that she is really suffering but she has lived a very long 85 years of eventful life so its time to make a move to wherever people go after death. Honestly, I hope that she dies soon rather than suffer the way she is. This doesn’t mean I am a supporter of the euthanasia movement, I have no definite views on that issue as yet.

After I landed at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International airport I went to one of my aunts house (dad’s sister – Madhu pishi/pishima) who lives in Birati (suburbs of Cal). The first lines that I heard were perhaps “Ato diner pode eshecho, koto roga hoye gacho !!” (You have come after such a long time, you have become so thin). The other two lines that I heard everywhere I went were “Tumi tomar babar motun lago” (You look like your father, Who else am I suppodsed to look like ???) “Tumi ato bodo hoe gacho?”(You have grown up, Has any body seen anybody who is growing smaller/younger? ). But you know what I talked to my friends about it and they also get the same comments. So I am begining to feel that this is an Indian or rather human phenomenon. It was hot and very humid, more humid than Mumbai which makes things that much more difficult. And in true Bengali tradition (this too is more of a human phenomenon) she proceeded to give mi tons of rich food and was not satisfied till I acted as if I had passed out. I am not a very good eater, I eat very selected stuff that too in small amounts, I am a vegetarian, no I don’t even eat fish (How can I be a Bengali? Possibly that’s why I don’t like Bongs!!! Hmm… smelly food for thought.) but this was expected. I was visiting after 2 years or so it’s not as if I don’t get to eat at home … Ok that’s enough, I guess there’s no point in talking about this. This kind of behavior is like hard coded in our genes or something.

Spent some time with Madhu Pishi, Ashok Pishu (Her Husband), Dadima, BuaDi and Aritro on Sunday. Walked around Birati taking photographs on Monday and in the evening I got the laptop from MadDi’s place. Tuesday went to meet Mita Pishi and Depti Pishi with Dalu Kaku (dad’s brother) and just when I was beginning to dislike the whole situation met Moon-Moon Pishi which turned the whole trip upside down. Moon-Moon pishi asked mi if I liked Cal (like most of the others) and I gave her a frank no!! She was sympathetic and said it was very understandable!!! Then she went on to tell me that I must get to know the place better to be able to appreciate it and mentioned a few places I might like.

On the long journey back to Madhu Pishi’s home (the place where I was staying in Cal) I started thinking and the more I thought the more I agreed with whut Moon-Moon Pishi had just said there was a slight problem I was supposed to return the next morning. So I decided to stay another day and discover “my father’s home town” and look for a good reason for not liking Cal. I talked with Pishu who promptly proceeded to give mi a huge list of places which I couldn’t possibly cover in a day. So I short listed a few. College Street which as the name suggests has a lot of colleges on it, whut caught my attention was the famous “Indian Coffee House”. This place boasts of attending to some of the most brilliant sons of Cal rather India, which would include some Nobel prize winners, most Bengali freedom fighters (revolutionaries), naxalites and the likes. It was an integral part of what the people in Cal call “adda” culture. Was searching on the web there is no trace of it on the Internet, I feel sad. Second place Swamiji’s ancestral house, I have a lot of respect for the great man and it was one of the places that Moon-Moon pishi had recommended. Also it is close to College Street. The third one I was not too sure about Dalhousie Square (BBD Bag an office area with some very old buildings, I was interested in the buildings). So Ashok Pishu drew me a map and gave mi some tips on how to reach these places. Another thing that I would like to mention here is that the area has an amazing number of roads named after freedom fighters.

I would like to take a diversion from the flow of the talk. First let mi explain whut I exactly mean by the term freedom fighters. They are people who have fought tooth and nail (bare handed, armed with knives, swords, guns, pens, paint brushes, etc.)

Against foreign rule (East India Company)
Against redundant views like child marriage, sati, female illiteracy
Against oppression of the poor and the marginalized
Against biases based on caste categorization, religion, sex
Against ignorance as opposed to knowledge – scientists and philosophers
…

Okay, now let mi put some names, Rabindranath Tagore, Subhas Chandra Bose, Mahatma Gandhi, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Swami Vivekananda, Jatin Das, Jagdish Chandra Bose, … I apologize if I have spelled some of these names wrong and I can not even dream of making a comprehensive list. But I hope that the point has been made. Freedom in the true sense of the word. I have always had great respect for such people and their Bengali background has never really bothered mi. I some how feel, like saints, freedom fighters also cannot be categorized as belonging to some ethnic group, caste, religion, etc. They are just freedom fighters. Like terrorists are just terrorists they couldn’t possibly be Christian, Muslim, Hindu or anything else. Mi and Ashok Pishu we had a long talk about the current state of affairs of the country and how those freedom fighters would have felt about it, basically very bad and sad just like I was feeling. I think they would still be fighting for “freedom”.

So the next day armed with a hand drawn map and camera I left home around 10.15AM. I called up MadDi and she agreed to meet me at Oxford Bookstore in Park Street at 4PM. While I was waiting for the train at Birati stn. I looked around for something that could interest mi. I saw a lot of people, who just appeared to be very tired and sad which I promptly attributed to the heat and humidity. Then I tried to make some small talk with the people around mi and hit a wall. Nobody wanted to talk with mi. I tried to reason with myself, maybe because they realized I was an outsider (and was hence not welcome) but then I observed that people were not talking to each other in general. Nobody was complaining about the train being late, or about electricity problems or the bad condition of the roads. There was only one other guy who was looking in the direction from where the train was supposed to come. I found it very odd coz in Mumbai you see people peering into the distance, waiting for the train, there is a buzz on the station and people in general seem to be more purposeful. Again I reasoned with myself and blamed the heat. The train ride to Sealdah stn. should have taken 35 min (so I was told), it took almost an hour due to some technical reasons, mainly electricity failure. Hot, Humid, Cramped, Sweaty. Probably I should sue the railway people for causing mi emotional trauma, those extra minutes are some of those times in life I want to forget as soon as possible.

So from Sealdah I walked down to College street, the main street has book stalls mainly selling text books and study guides catering to numerous academic courses. It is in the by-lanes that you can find books on a variety of subjects, I have been told that sometimes one can find books which have gone out of print and are found nowhere else in the world. Wow!!! I asked a juice vendor where the Indian Coffee House was and he pointed to an old building across the road. Climbing up the stairs whutever illusions I had of the place promptly vanished, the staircase was very dark and dirty. On the first floor I saw a small board “INDIAN COFFEE HOUSE …” went in and was appalled at what I saw. One large hall a number of small tables, a lot of nondescript people, drinking, smoking, making noises which echoed and sounded like a low rumble. I talked to a few people over there and asked them about BBD Bag, they told mi that I would not like the place coz it was a boring office area and that I should probably try out Victoria Memorial. They were a decent lot who asked mi where I was from and whut I did and general stuff like that. This happened only after they realized I was from out of town. They also seemed to be more alive and were talking about some problem in their college. Had a couple of cold coffees. Met another lot, decent looking and indecent sounding (more like the scum of the earth) who asked mi more or less the same questions. I saw a very beautiful girl, one of those Bengali model kinds and had a crush on her for like 5 mins after which her boyfriend turned up and my crush got over. I feel very bad about the place and no it has nothing to do with the girl. The place looked gloomy and there was no soul to it. I should probably mention over here that this place is a heritage site and so they can’t make any changes to the place even if they wanted too. Which really sucks in this case. Because times will change and so will the people and no one changes faster than the rebels and this place was the Mecca of rebellion, new ideas, revolutionary & scientific. When you look at the place you realize the body has decayed and the soul has left. Period.

From there I walked to Swamiji’s ancestral house. It has been renovated very painstakingly and looks a very beautiful blend of old and the new a sharp contrast to where I had just come from. The exhibits depicting the life and times in which Swamiji’s family lived are very well chosen. The place is neat, clean and well organized, somehow I got an impression that the content regarding his personal ideas and life were limited. Maybe it’s a tribute to the family or how well he was raised, it’s a bit confusing. Whut I learned about his family was also very interesting, stuff like the ladies in the house were educated and even wrote books so much for female illiteracy in those days (and nowadays), one of his brothers was oriented towards communism and had probably met Lenin, cool, a family of revolutionaries. Whut this basically means is that they were much more liberal and modern than we are today. This is a very disturbing thought. I came out of the complex a little dazed and deeply involved in my own thoughts when somebody on the street asked mi, “Excuse me, What is the time?”. I looked at the voice, a young man in mid 20s, wearing a decent pair of shirt and trousers, clean shoes, neatly combed (oiled) short hair, beard a couple of days old, a pair of cheap looking spectacles and that characteristic sad look that I find all over Cal. He repeated his question and I looked at my watch and said 2.40 PM. He gave me a nod of the head in acknowledgment and walked away. I wanted to say it’s 2.40PM on 20th April 1910. Cal seems to be moving back in time. The only problems being there seem to be a fewer freedom fighters and India is already a free, democratic, secular country. (Ya Rite!)

I called up MadDi and rescheduled our meeting for 3.30 (I think). Frankly I was in no mood to continue my exploration I was feeling really bugged and a bit tired due to the heat. Also MadDi is one of those rare people I feel very comfortable with. She is upbeat and enthusiastic about life and I was in desperate need of some positivity. So again I walked from Swamiji’s place to Girish Park metro station. Yes I walked in the heat so that my pituitary glands would produce some endorphins and make mi feel better. There are some very old buildings in this part of the town and again it is sad to see them. Most of them are in a state of decay, some have been remodeled and they look even worse because of the poor effort that has been put into them. Finally I find something good to write about Cal, the Metro. Somehow the Metro has managed to remain clean and effective. What keeps it this way I don’t know but it is really well maintained and highly efficient (This shows that if we want we can work purposefully). There are only two cities in India which can boast of having such a modern mode of public transportation, the other one being in Delhi. So anybody going to Cal make it a point to see the Metro. I wonder whut is happening of the SkyBus project in Mumbai.

Oxford bookstore on Park Street is decent place a fairly spacious book shop (By Indian Standards) and also has a Tea bar with a limited range of coffee drinks. Though was a bit disappointed with their collection of fictional works. MadDi came and for some time I forgot all mi troubles. Then she asked mi why I don’t like Cal, I was distressed and tried to avoid the issue. Overall that was the best part of the day, somebody was finally talking to mi (MadDi if you are reading this that five hundred country solution is definitely not a good idea). That evening I went to meet BuaDi another person on my favorites list and her son who almost drove me nuts. He just can’t sit still, like a shark that just can’t stop swimming, he has to constantly move and drive everybody around crazy. Had a terrible time trying to get some pictures of him. I somehow feel that the guy has a definite poetic bent of mind he can rhyme almost naturally.

So it came to pass and on Thursday night all my tasks in Cal had been completed except, figuring out why I didn’t like Cal. I asked Ashok Pishu whether he too felt that the people in Cal are generally sad. Surprisingly he agreed with mi and gave it a completely different angle. He attributed it to the eating habits, politicians and the changes in social structure of the people in Cal. According to him people in Cal spend a lot on eating fish which is expensive so people are not left with much money to spend and enjoy life in general. What must be kept in mind over here is that he is talking about the general bulk of the public which is the lower middle class and poor people who don’t have too much money to throw away. Personally, I found this to be a very interesting point of view. The other reason being political incompetence which I totally agree with, there are few jobs. After the naxal trouble most industries left the state, and the youth of that generation (those who survived) were branded as naxalite. I have people in mi family who belong to that category. Like my Kaku (dad’s brother) who told mi (some time back) that being a Bengali he had difficulty getting admission in colleges in other states. Later he had problems in getting a job due to the same reason. It is sad to see that Bengalis are working in IT all over the world except in West-Bengal. Social structures like other places in India came crashing after the partition when India got it’s independence. Many people lost a lot in the partition and like Punjab, the people of West-Bengal (specially) also suffered a lot. Another factor that I feel is valid in this context is the breaking up of the joint-families. Many joint-families like mine were torn apart in the years that followed the partition and they permanently lost those fall back mechanisms that a joint-family provides.

Ate dinner at 1.30AM. Sat furiously punching away at the laptop through the night. Was writing about mi trip to HP last year in an attempt to get Cal out of mi mind. That is when I realized that the people in Cal were actually treating mi like one of their own and hence paying no attention to mi. I look like a Bengali. When I go to any other place I’m treated like an outsider. Like when I go o HP people see mi as an outsider and people talk to mi and try to be friendly. It’s only later that they realize that I’m half Himachali and that kind of makes mi a preferred outsider, somewhat like a NRI. I think if I would have looked like an European I would have had more attention and people would have talked to mi in Cal.

Got some sleep in the afternoon and almost too soon it was evening and time to leave. Now I started feeling bad. I wanted to know more about Cal. This trip to Cal at least I realized that I definitely don’t know Cal which is very different from not liking it plus I’m beginning to get a hazy picture. I know a little more, I understand a little better. Like MadDi said “you have a long way to go before you figure that out” she was talking about life when she said that, but I guess it is applicable over here too. Sometimes I wish life were a controlled experiment with fewer variables which would have made it easier to understand. Most problems like life and the one I have with Cal deal in multiple variables in multiple variables. No I’m not sleepy and repeating myself, it’s just that I don’t have better words to express the problem. But if life were to be simple, would life be any fun? Hell no!!! So, in conclusion I would say, I will always be an Indian first, Bengali by blood and Gorkhali by heart (unity in diversity hehehe!!!). Will speak Hindi better than either Bengali or Gorkhali, that’s whut life is, life is a unique funny thing. Unique because everybody and everything lives a different life. Funny because it could be sad and happy, and that too at the same time without contradicting either part (like love). Hmm… I seriously have a very long way to go before I understand life or Cal or love for that matter.

On the flight back home I decided that I will go to Cal again this time I will learn more about the place, the people and mi family. Decided to compile mi family tree and meet everybody. At least for a little while I’m at peace with myself (Phew!!!).

After landing in Mumbai I got into an auto-rickshaw (rick) and gave him directions. The rick driver asks mi “Time kintna ho gaya?” (whut is the time?). One of those charecteristic faces you can tell he is a north Indian, wearing a white pair of shirt and trousers.A tired and satisfied look on his face the kind that one gets from doing a days hard work. I tell him that it’s 9.40. He tells mi his shift will end at 11PM and that he lives in Santacruz, I ask him where his native place is, he tells mi it’s Benaras, I tell him that though I have not been to Benaras I lived for 10 years in NOIDA and 4 years in Agra both in UP, he tells mi that some of his family members live in Agra… (And it continues in this fashion till I reach home). And I start thinking again, Hmm… the humidity is much lower in Mumbai or is it…

My father, Sanjib Kumar Bhaumick, Bengoli, born in (then) Calcutta, his parents well they were from (now) Dhaka, Bangladesh. He left home at the age of 17 to join the Indian Air Force and later became a pilot. No he was not a fighter pilot he was a transport pilot. What is that? Well there are pilots in the Air Force who fly transport aircrafts basically unglamorous large, clumsy, slow moving aircrafts. Since leaving home he lived practically everywhere in India other than (then) Calcutta. In 1980 he met Kavita Thoki Bura in the Nigerian Embassy in Delhi (Mom was working there), what was he doing there? well, thats a long story … maybe will put it in some other post. Mom, Gorkhali, born in Delhi, her parents well they were from Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh. Actually Gorkhalis are Nepalis who settled in India a looong time ago. They didn’t waste too much time in getting married and I was born on 27th July 1981, Delhi Military Hospital. Spent the first few years about which I don’t remember anything in Delhi, Pune and Jorhat. Then in 1984 we moved to NOIDA for the first time. 1985-89 in Agra, short time in Allahabad, dad took voluntary retirement and we came back to NOIDA 1989-1999. Since then have been in Bombay err Mumbai (the name changed in 1995).

The most difficult question that I come across regarding my background is my mother tongue, well my father maintains that it IS Bengoli, the folks on my mothers side feel it’s Gorkhali (mom tries to stay away from this controversy and has learnt Bengoli !!) being an Indian it should be Hindi though, throughout my schooling I have studied at English medium schools and the teachers would always say “Think in English, Sleep in English, Talk in English ,blah blah blah , believe your mother tongue is English” you get the hang of it right. In the process I’ve learnt to read/write in Hindi & English, converse in Hindi, English, Bengoli & Gorkhali.

Somehow I tend to agree with my friend (who doesn’t wish to be named) “Everybody’s mother tongue is either foul or sweet”. Foul – SUDEEP CLEAN YOUR ROOM!!!. Sweet – Dear will you please get these groceries from the market?