What a Miss!

This year I had planned to attend two festivals - Kala Ghoda Festival, Mumbai and Jaipur Literature Festival. Both of them flopped. Couldn't go to Jaipur Literature Festival and can't attend Kala Ghoda festival either.

The Jaipur Literature Festival is just over. So, I was just estimating the amount of miss I had. This year, among others, the most distinguished prsence was that of Orhan Pamuk.

It was my cousin from Agartala who had referred to me his name after he grabbed one of his works from Agartala Book Fair, two three years back. Since then though I am planning to get his book, it has not materialized yet. Hopefully I will get his book next month after my current stock is over.

J M Coetzee was also invited, another author whose book I am planning to read for quite sometime.

The other people who were present in the fair were Mirza Waheed, Chimamanda Adichie, Adam Zagajewski, Anthony Sattin, Mohsin Hamid, Ahdaf Shoujef, Basharat Peer , Martin Amis, William Dalrymple, Vikram Seth and others.

The Kala Ghoda festival has not started yet. Once it is over, I will sit to estimate the amount of miss!

Strange People, Stranger Incidents

Day before yesterday a friend of mine had called, after a long time, and started accusing me for some decision that I have taken recently. I was in a defensive mode so I didn’t really charge him back neither did I try to prove myself correct as it would be a futile effort. But honestly, I was upset for him behaving that way.

We come across many people in our life time. We get along with some really well in a short span of time and the rest always remain strangers no matter how much we spend time with them. We expect from the near ones. We expect that they will actually understand our stand in life. They will understand the reason behind every decision we take and even if they don’t understand, they would at least try to understand before jumping to any conclusion.


But life never stops to surprise. This was not the first time someone was reacting to me like that. But I didn’t really expect that to come from this friend, whom I used to consider as good as a best friend of mine. Clearly, he couldn’t really understand my stand. I can accept that. But what hurt me was that he actually jumped to a conclusion just like strangers do.

Life is bad sometimes. But it is good rest of the times. :)

Movie Time

Recently we have taken the plan for English channels in our Airtel Digital TV service. Earlier, we had not taken this plan and suddenly we realized that we have nothing to see in TV except for some weekend movies. All channels keep showing serials one after another. I watch one serial though: Sasural Genda Phool. But other than that I was left with no reason to sit in front of the TV except for news shows and some talk shows.

Ever since we have taken this plan, I have been watching one after another movie. Friends call and they find me watching some movie. So in last two weeks I have see the movies like: The Confessions of a Shopaholic, The Italian Job, The Godfather II, The Hangover, Meet the Parents and Mission Impossible III.

The Godfather II was a real gem in the list. It was worth waiting four years after reading the novel to watch this. I could see some differences in the movie plot from the novel. I don’t have the book with me, so can't really cross check though. But since Mario Puzo himself was involved in the script writing for the movie, then whatever differences were there, they are welcome!

A Wish Fulfilled

When I was working in TIS in Bombay, I used to see those girls of my age in the office who were so smart and confident to take training sessions. I used to wonder if I could ever do it in my life. Considering the fact that I grew up in a small town studying in Bengali medium government school where there were no extra curricular activities, I was no match to them.

But after working for more than two years as an Instructional Designer, I have gathered some knowledge to be a veteran here :) So, when my manager asked me to take a training on the basics of E-learning, I was more than happy to arrange it. Though I was a little nervous initially, but as I started it, it was not bad.

Actually it was quite satisfactory. And I am happy that one of my wishes has actually fulfilled.

A Forwarded SMS

Sometime back I got an interesting sms forwarded. Copying it here:

God said: "I cannot be every where so I created MOTHER"

Devil replied: "Even I cannot be every where, so I created MOTHER IN LAW" :P

(This fact is not true for many girls. But for some, this is very true :))