The trip...contd

Hence i reached Sounak's place.A 2 BHK flat, a laptop and a couple of unpacked suitcases. He had just shifted to the flat the last night. I washed myself clean and we set out for greames Road Apollo, Saunak's office was on the way. On the road, we found a place to eat our breakfast. We were unsure, yet we saw some guys having poori with some masala dosa sabjee. No questions, we ordered for that. The man who was serving understood that these might be some bloody IT folks, though we were not..completely...Anyways, not much of an excitement there, we set out for the bus which would take us to Apollo. Saunak was new to Chennai and did not know the bus details. We found a guy on a scooty, stoped him by and started asking in english. After sometime, he replied back..."Hindi hai kya"? As if he classified me to be an Indian. We were shocked to hear that yet, he replied back in some broken accent that Bus No. 42 would take us to Apollo. We went to the other side of the road and started waiting for the bus to come. During a 5 minute standing time period, i saw about 10 buses passing us by, none of them were 42. I ghushed into Saunak, "Do you really want to go in these"? He said, well if you are in chennai, you have to be a Batman or a Superman to travel on those buses. People were literally hanging out of the doorstep. This was worse than the number of people i saw for the first time on Bonga Local. We changed our minds. Took an auto. It had a meter, which was fully functional. Saunak with his overtly oozing intelligence asked the Auto guy, about how much he would be taking. The guy replied back saying, 80 Bucks. I was like, why did he have to ask him. Anyways, i was constantly monitoring the Meter. It read 3 Kms and i reached Apollo. I knew from the moment i got on to the Auto that, this won't be a very good day for my wallet.

So i came to Apollo Chennai, the place renowned for India's best treatment. My brother asked me to wait near the main entrance. To my shock i found that everything there was first written in English, and then??? BENGALI. It did not take me long to percieve two things. First one that Bengal doesn't have good facilites and second that Bengalies might be one ethnicity that suffers the most due to deases. I met the patient and everything looked normal there. So i was happy. We went for lunch, me and my brother. To my surprise again, i find that he has taken me to a bengali Hotel. The guy was charging prices for ordinary meals as if he was the worst victim of the Inflation and the economic slowdown. I was more eager to end the day, as it was getting under my skin. I took the 11:15, bangalore city express and came back to the place i love being, Bangalore.

The next day, people at office asked me about my experience about chennai. Now how do i tell them...Its all described better with the words above!

The trip!

The last post was full of gramatical errors and i truely regret for the fact that i am not so bad with english. Talking about english, this is one of the reasons for this post. I had come from Bengal on 14th evening flight. I got a call from my cousin brother that i have to visit Apollo Chennai to see my cousin sister's husband who was admitted there. I was almost slogging till 11 in the office that week and now i get a call from him. I have to be there at Chennai on Saturday morning. A pain in the a** but i had go. I thought chennai is just 6 hours so i can manage. I asked one of my colleagues to get the ticket details. He asked me to book it online. So i did. Going by bus coming by train. 

Finally friday nite and i am standing at Madivala. With a galaxy full of travel agents. I was wondering how i would recognise by bus. There was no bus number on the ticket. I had butterflies in my stomach already, thinking if i got fooled in some way. Ahh! There came a bus, with the same travel agency name. I go rush to its doorstep. The guy speaks in half Tamil and i somehow ask him if i can get on. He said sure you can...are you heading for chennai...the answer was madurai. I was as you would be, a dissapointed guy. Came back to the foot point and started staring at the other buses. I was pinching myslef all the time for not been to able to say a "No" to my brother. With only Maggi in my belly and a brain full of anxiety, the moment was killing me. I had been to Chennai before but did not return with much memories to cherish.Ahh!!! There you are...A chennai bus...probably the one i am looking for. Indeed it was. I went inside. A/C semi sleeper coach as it read on the ticket. Never had an experience of such a bus before. There were people sitting(sleeping) with blankets spread on thier body. I found my seat. Very unsure about how the push back worked, i asked the neighbouring guy to work it out for me. He did help in a very generous way and i asked him his little biodata. He was a pondichery based guy, working foe some company here in bangalore and was very generous again to share his word about the work he does with laser technology. I was happy to find a company for the journey though my eyes were drooling at about 11:30 in the nite. I asked the guy that i would want to take a nap and that he would have to wake me up in the morning. I was unsure about where to get down. Suddenly i get a call from Saunak, he asked me to go directly to his house after getting off the bus and that he would eventually take me Greames road, Apollo. I was more than happy to get that call. At about 12:30 i find that the whole of my body is succumbed with red bumps. Man there are bed bugs, i shouted. The guy sitting beside me was so generous that he almost offered me his blanket, obviously i did not take it.

It was early morning 6:00 am. I reached the bus terminus, i am not able to recall the name, but it was nearer to Saidapet. I get down from the bus and find that there are a streak of Auto Rickshaws, of course in a search for their pray. I had already heard horrified stories about Chennai Auto.I tried to behave as intelligent as i could by bypassing most of them. One of them asked me 100 bucks, i told him 30 and he was SHOCKED! I could very well make out that it would not be more than that anyways. I found one of the autos which agreed for 50 bucks. I discovered that the Sounak's residence was only 3 kilometers from that bus stop. I was helpless and i took the ride.

to be continued....

Those Days Contd..

Well enough words recieved on gtalk and msn...I would rather want you guys to give comments on the blog site itself...Well hence we are here with the second episode.
So that was my first day experience...Time went by...I met more creatures in our hostel...Who would mostly seem untamed when it came to living a life on your own...Well natural still..Well let me share the incident of one more day with you guys...By this time...we have more charcters into the drama...My roomies went for a churn and now i was living with 1 and half people to be honest...Yes you read it right...One and Half...Saikat had shifted to romm number 315...and one more guy who too hailed from North Bengal was staying with me...I had a tryst with this guy too...He was known as "Ghising"...Well i would call him Abhishek...A wrestling maniac and mostly a "Rock" wannabe...I know he would be shouting at me if he sees this one...He came to the hostel...at that time...we were fixing Nick names to people...This guy had one for himself...He wanted us to call him..."The Rock"...Mostly too his disliking that was not suppose to be the case...You could make out this guy coming from a long distance...He would wake every morning with his morning raga..."Pyaar aaya pyaar aaya... saj dhaj ke mera yaar aaya"...By the time he was done with even 2 lines of the song...the whole hostel would be up asking him to stop the misery...I am taking away nothing from this guys singing talents...He was good singer and had a good sense of music as well...
I know i have been a little wayward till now...So coming back...as the time was going by...the hostel mates were knowing each other better...There was this guy who looked like someone who came straight from the fields...This guy would spend most of his time playing cards in Room No. 315...which eventually lead to his pet name.."Juari"...So this is a plot which was sketched by Juari and i had no clue about it what so ever till it happened...It was about 1 o'clock in the nite...Me, Rajdeep, Saikat and Ananda were chatting in 315...Those days we used pull Rajdeep with some girl whom i would only mention the nick name here, "Kumro" (A pumpkin)...Mostly because of her size...err...if you find this names a little weird then i must tell you we had this guy Abhishek...who had taken up this non-profitable job of coining names to people...and i must say...these names really became popular...So coming back...that nite..we were chatting and suddenly there was a knock on the doors...Ananda went to open the door...OMG....Just as he opened the door..he was bursting with his laughter...which i must mention...reminded me of the the childhood tales of the "Divine and the Devils"...I hope i don't have to tell as to what i am trying to point at, out of those two...We went out one by one and were like constantly jumping all over the place...As the matter unfolded...There was a big Pumpkin which was kept at the doorstep and it had a message on piece of paper...It read.."I love you Rajdeep"...By this time...Juari had joined us and it took us seconds to realise that it was his idea...We were almost about to fall from our feet and in the mean time i got my roomie...Abhra(lal)..into the scene...as for the knowledge of all of us who still don't know what LAL used to do for the time he used to be awake...was to be with the books...with his nerdy looking "Chasma"...Suddenly...Admist all these...the hostel warden came up..He was called..."Jaga"...He got hold of Anando..."Ki tomra ekhane eto chechamechi kano korcho...(Why the hell are you guys making so much of noise)...he was sounding very rude...Anando...as his was some style..replied..."Jah baba..ami ki korlam" (What is this?? what did i do now??)...By this time...Jaga could see the pumpkin...he was already furious at anando for his miss deeds with the "Aloos"(Potatoes)...which he had already used as hand grenades onto Jagas room during load sheddings...Jaga asks us..."Ei kumro ta ekhane elo ki kore canteen theke.."(How did this pumpkin come here from the canteen??)...Anando replies with ease..."Jah baba...goriye goriye chole esche to ami ki korbo"..(What is this?? It came rolling, what can i do for that??)...Jaga was astonished with the amount of vigour Ananda was showing with his answers...He went off warning us..."I would call your parents..if this thing continues"...

Well that was one of more instance of my days at Utsab Bhaban..Seems like i can write a whole book on this one...keep posting your comments..as i would try and dig more tales...that are now.."Placed in time"...

Those Days

Actually speaking, I have no work today and hence its "Raining posts". This is about the time i was making a transition from School Life to my college life. It was around the begining of August. I had already sat at home for one complete year. Preparing for something which was never supposed to be with me, A degree from the IITs. I was almost on the verge of nerval breakdown and saw no chances of survival for my dreams. I took admission into Haldia Institute of Technology with my badly ruined WBJEE rank, bad because i was the 14th last entry in by batch. I had screwed up JEE ranks due to my IIT preps. But still here we go...Atleast i was admitted into one of the top 5 institutes in bengal at that time.

My first day at the college, was actually in the hostels. It was around 4 o'clock that i entered the hostel. It was a 4 storyed building and was called "Utsab Bhawan". Before that i had met some gurdians and their "Children" who were really concerned about how their son/daughter would walk the streets of Haldia without holding their hands. My first tryst was with this...about 5 feet tall and a little miserly looking guy...We were supposed to be 3 guys staying in the same room. I had already checked the name of my roomies from my hostel warden..and i wondered...this must be one of them...So i ask him..."Hello, Are you Saikat"...He aptly looks at me and replies..."No i am Abhra..Abhra Chatterjee"...He sounded mechanical...I put my baggages on the bed and took out a pile of Audio cassettes...The guy was with his parents...by that time...they were measuring the dimensions of the room...Abhra had a conflict with his father about it to be pentagonal or Hexagonal...I was blatantly looking at them...The moment they saw my cassettes...they were a little scared....Thankfully i did not have a guitar back then...By this time...One more guy just slicked through the doorway...A thin, almost fair guy about 5.5 Feet tall...The most striking feature about this guy was his "Coinciding" similarity with his father....I knew that this is Saikat...He dropped his bag...Left his parents...And then...By the time Abhra's parents had already gone...Asked me..."Chol bhai, ciggeratte kehye ashi..(Hey bro, lets go and have a puff)"...I looked at him i awe for about 2 seconds...And i told him..."Ami khayi na (I don't smoke)"...So he replies by saying..."Yarki marish na, tor chehera dekhe ami sob bujhe gachi...Lojja pash na..(I can make out that you smoke by seeing your face, don't feel ashamed)"...I seriously did not...But struck a good chord with this guy...

We made a plan that, since we were outside the campuss...We would go inside the college premises as i had my school mate Bikram to meet...So we set out...It was almost like 1.5 Kms walk to the campuss...We walked...Some in denim jeans...We were about 12 guys...We enter the campuss...un aware of anything...Suddenly...One of the guys...Mintu..meets a senior from his place and we ask him "Where are the first years staying"...He laughs sarcastically...and comments..."Are you guys nuts??...you should immediately go back to your hostels...If anybody spots you here...YOU ARE GONE"...We got scared like hell...and took two steps at a time to get back to the hostel...


During the evening...Saikat took me to the 3rd floor...(We were in 2nd flloor)...He got me introduced with this guy by the name of Kachan Pobi...The guy looked a little out of sorts...Was randomly speaking slangs...In particular a few...which i ll leave here because of family viewership...But someway...this guy looked too cool for the first day in Hostel...As i entered his room...I saw his roomie...A guy who was holding his trunk case all the time...We asked his name...He said.."Monojit"...We thought he must be one of those book worms who was misplaced in time...We chatted and Kanchan had already covered all the air in the room with the "tales of the conquerer"...Me and Saikat came late to the room...as we entered...I saw two guys chatting with Abhra...One guy had almost exhausted all the hair in his head...the other had all his teeth out one shot and was laughing continously making Punn...I come to know that these guys are called Anando and Rajdeep respectively...They were all taking about their 3rd roommate...Who was sleeping from the time they entered the room...This guy was called Krishnendu...

And the story continues...These guys became one of the memories in my life...Which i realised as time went by...I ll continue the saga...if you guys have enjoyed till now :).

Lifestyle of the poor and the "in"famous

This is one more time i am writing some random shit. Maybe would end up reading it myself only. This is about the struggle of me as a person being the "Poor" and the safely used word, "in" famous. Obviously i took the quote out of a song by some random band who's name i can't pronounce or write properly (primarily i am gauging my habit of amnesia right now).Ahh!! I just googled, the band is Good Charlotte.

My day begins as me waking up at 6:55 Am and getting ready to be at Sony world by 7:30 Am, somehow tiding myself with soap and detergent with a hair that i would comb only once in the whole day. I would laugh my ass off more time during my work with all the drama surrounding me (sarcastic huh!) and then would come back home by usually the 7:30 PM bus. Ohh...What a home coming...I have to do the dishes that i ate on the last day. Tiring??? Not at all. By the time i ll complete this, it would already be 9:00 PM. I ll be telling myself at this time , " Do i need to eat tonite, ya aaj ka meal skip mar dun...Waise bhi i am now 76 Kgs". Something inside would tell me, "Nahi beta kha le"... I would push myself to the kitchen..Randomly cook something to eat and by the time i ll finish this things...I ll find Abhishek on gtalk..pinging me .... "Kya kar raha hai be...mar gaya kya?"...Ahh!! I ll stumble to my comp and its already 10:30 PM. Then i would take my guitar...pluck it and think when this misery would end. Ye sochte hi neend aa jati hai...and i pass off.

This is the daily routine. I plan and think about breaking this Jinx daily...I ll call up Sauvik and bug him with my sad story...Tell him that i have no affection in life and bla bla...And then i ll even tell myself...The misery just continues for the next 23 years!!

Memoirs to live for

Dark Project, big name in my college. 2005 they were first seen on stage at The Haldia Institute of technology's riviera. I still remember back then my seniors hugged me and said that this was the best in their 4 year tenure in this college by any amateur band. Well enough fuel to make us fly for a couple of months. We never realized what it meant, just kept one thing and only one thing in our mind. We want to create music and thats it. I was the more enthusiastic guy when it came to short term fame and i think i still am.

Sauvik and Ugyal had been two people with all the patience in the world. I don't know how they manage that even when things go hayware for us. It started off all with 5 + 1 guys. Sauvik, me Ugyal, Baka, chux + Abhishek. We came a long way through. I still precisely remember Anil da's canteen and us chatting over there 2 o'clock in the night. Somedays, we have to go to Nehru for food (if i am not mistaking it with Azad) at the same time. We won't have Baka with us on most of the days, he would prefer going to bed early and would wake up when Ugyal used to go to sleep. We would rather have chacha with us. I seldom remember him and Nandi acompanying us and on somedays we would even find rakesh for company. Chux would always stay late and when i intially saw him, i always used wonder about his gentle and subdude nature. I was again amazed by this guy's temprament and persevarance skills. I still remember him eating 12 bananas at one shot. He was crazy. No need to mention here Sauvik's idea of "counting his omlets" on his site. And that day we almost cleaned his house for the whole day to find out what mess he used to live in.

Abhishek was not the regular guy in the band, he would drop in by to KGP sometimes when i would pester him to come, but i must say that he turned up at every single damn place we played at. (Well we all can only count 3), but then that is on personal note (the last show we played i thought Abhishek wanted to enjoy it badly, so he slept over a drink :D).

I don't know how to contain myself with the influx of memoires in my mind right now, but i am writing this all because today i got a call from Sauvik where in he said "Beggers can't be choosers" after getting back from Some place else. For those who are still unaware, Sauvik and Ugyal went to some place else to get us a show. The manager again defered the dates to thursday to take the final call. I know its tough on my pride, on each and every one's if you share the same thought. I wonder what we have achieved all these years. I still proclaim and i would...that this can be phenomenon with you guys.

I still try to figure out ways to get us all back into the same hut under the same umbrella. I think god has made me so lucky that i can still have the faith till the last moment. I have told this thing to Baka and Abhishek a number of times and i don't feel shy of saying it again, that you guys are the best things that god could give me.

I have never been so very dreamy as i am right now and neither i have felt so inspired ever. Life is all about living your passion (atleast watch Rock on to believe that) and for chux i guess i got a solution to your question which you were asking just days before leaving for US that "You really want a meaning to all this". I hope i didn't sound too emotionally driven, but maybe i am at midnite tonite.

Piracy - A necessary evil?

Well nothing better to discuss on, than Piracy. Its everywhere but yet we would focus ourselves to the music here. There would be supporters to it and there are some of you who might think it to be wrong. Lets focus on a case of the band, Linkin Park. We have all heard about it and as per my tenure with the western bands right from the Pop era to now. I think these are the guys who have turned it on its head with popularity. I remember people talking about Backstreet Boys back in school but if i go by my observational stats then Linkin Park's popularity take alone in India is not far less than a Himesh Reshamiya track. If we delve a little deep to discover how these people made it big on the billboards, there would be lot of facts that you would not want to believe. They started of promoting their songs on the internet far before they were actually signed to Warner Brothers. This was a strategy taken up by them where in they would go to community rooms on the net and would ask people to listen to their songs which were of course free for download. They took out their EP titled Hybrid Theory, re-recording some of the stuffs they had for free download. It worked for them big time. Even before the real hybrid Theory was released, Linkin Park already had a strong enough fan base that would make HT a phenomenon without a single note played on the vinyl. People say that HT would have sold double of what it eventually sold, had their been no piracy of the record. But to see the other side of the coin, its something which really took Linkin Park from being a band from Agoura Hills, California to a household name in remote corners of India and other countries.

Hence we can see the evil side and the divine side of piracy. Like it or not, if you are a band and your songs are pirated, take it as a compliment of your popularity. Your revenues would be hampered but take it as a case where you sell out your CD to 100 people who know about your band and to 1000 people who have copied it, you still stand a win win scenario. Its debatable and i completely agree that if your music is not good, do vote against piracy. No offense intended!

Unwound Confessionals- A confession in the Air

Welcome to Unwound Confessionals, the place where you can expect confessions of a human brain which remains human and tries hard to be mechanical. As a part of the introductory process, I, Sudipto , happen to be a guy who is reasonably young to be called an adult and too old to be called a child. As by profession, i work for Wipro Technologies, Bangalore. I a little too passionate about music and have my own band by the name of Dark Project (I ll presume that some of you might have already heard about it, yet here's the link to the parking lot: www.darkproject.co.in). I am the voice of the band which i believe consists of some hugely talented people i have ever met both when i say, Dark Project- the band and the associates. Feel free to drop by for my next post, might be too boring and might be just too much for your wallet.

Cheers

Sud1p70