...and before you realise...

"Long time and no see", no wonder i have been really busy - busy giving excuses. Life has taken a good turn and hit the speed gears like never before. I am here in Ottawa for the second time after just a 45 day break. When i left Canada on 3rd April, i was heart broken and i was happy at the same time. Heart Broken because i lived some of the best days of my life ever and happy because i was looking forward to people who waited for me to be with them. I must say that i had a gut feeling that i would be back here to work again - even considering the fact that my project from my company per say was not in a great shape. But to get back here in the next 45 days was truly unanticipated.

2010 has everything in it to be rated as one of the best years of my work life so far. It's not easy to get an Onsite in a 60 membered team where only 6 at a time can be here. Moreover, i got my chance so it was the turn for the others. I would not want to be modest but i think i sincerely wanted someone else to come here if that was in my hands to decide. I got a call back in 20 days time from my Manager that people here wanted me to fly back in - I think i had done well in the past 5 odd months.

It's always good to do the niche things in life rather doing something spectacularly common. Enough of self enlightenment in the post already. Let's move on and talk about those 45 days i spent in India. The first week after landing was meant to be in Bangalore. I met friends from all nooks possible, ripped my wallet like crazy. In a week's time, my bills were reading 10k+ INR already. I dropped by to Kolkata, met some of my old buddies from College. Not to mention the DCH reunion between Sid, Akash and Sameer at Jadavpur. It was all going good, as i traveled back to my hometown in North Bengal. I was thrilled by the weather - 18 degrees like, i was doing great in India. Had Mom cooked food for 6 odd days and traveled back to Kolkata to meet people who probably mean the most to me in someway - Dark Project re-united. Nachiketa did not turn up but Korak, Ugyal and Sauvik certainly did and we for the first time took our time off to relax and hangout together rather than practicing for shows or recording.

I was in Kharagpur with by soul bearers. 46.5 degrees of heat. No food till 4 in the evening - other than the consolation that i was spending my best times with DP, it was dreadful. We had our photo shoot and i think now we finally have some band photos that are worth sending to Newspapers/event managers. I was doing my bit with my DSLR, however Sauvik could not have looked more Geeky with his Analog SLR.

When i left KGP, i felt that the fun stopped for sometime but i was wrong. As always Anir is probably become my best buddy ever for our common choices. He introduced me to 3 beautiful women out of which 2 were just great company - Meet and Amy. I got so involved into our group that i did not even find time to meet my other commitments before i realised that i was supposed to fly back again. We went to Coorg, did night outs, cooked food, ate food, celebrated - as if i look back and feel that a year had passed in just a span of 15 days where everyday was a celebration. I have been honest with them and i would be honest here, i did not know that India can be this fun after i left Ottawa. Indian Ladies take a bow - you are awesome.

Not to mention that my weekly average working time in office dropped severely as i was into some kind of a rush to live my last few days in India. It became a Irony that even though people just crib to come to Onsite and put their papers for it - i was not really willing to come back again so soon. With all due respect to Gajan and Kush in particular - i had a feeling that i would miss my friends in India a lot more. It's been almost a week now and i still miss the fun...It's summers here in Ottawa - it looks like a different place all together. Girls in tank tops - 1/16th pants, sunshine, workouts.

So bottom line time - nothing in this world is fixed - so don't plan for something which is into your imagination. Live this moment - do not crib about the future or the past. The more you want something, the less it comes to you - so don't expect anything from anyone. Life is just too short - Keep your arms wide open to grab anything and everything that comes your way. But in the end, be honest and remember that LOVE WILL KEEP US ALIVE.

Soon. Signing off.

DJ

The years!

25 years, i had the privilage to walk on this earth. 25 long years it has been. With Lows and with a set of highs. I guess, it's a part of the ecosystem's phenomenon that balances things for us. What though it expects is that we never hold back too far and let a memory linger way too much because if we do that, we never move, we remain buried in the past.

In these long 25 years, i have been a poor man with no penny in my wallet to having almost a bag full of it. I have seen the world millimeters away from me. I have loved and i have lost at the same time. I have dreamt and i have failed. But as i move, i try and make each of my day better than the last one...I strive to become a better person every single day.

Sometimes i am disillusioned by the unanswered questions about this life - where i belong from and where would i reach in this long walk. One thing i have realised is, that it's no worth thinking about it. I have tried a zillion times to define the definite but only with a return of nothing. It's like a blind man trying his best to distinguish darkness out of the light.

See the other side of life now, i made friends and i mean really hardcore friends 30000 Kms away from home. I never thought that there would be a day in my life when i would feel bad to leave people whom i did not know even 4 months back and that i was upset about coming out of India. Now i am sad because i have to go back. I did not know that i would come out of the shadow of being the insecure guy in school to become one of the bold guys of my age. I never thought i could be loved after i lost it once, but now i know that there is a plateful this life has to offer that we never bother to look at. If you are one of those who likes to think about future, then you should know that you are making your present a past without living it. I loved it when one of my best buddies told me that our parents have always struggled and saved their worth to give us a beautiful day, we need to take account of that and enjoy it.

I guess, if one of you share a similar story as this one, Go out there, breathe the fresh year...If you have been a Sudipto then Man If i could do it...You can do it too. Be a self made, always.

A continuation of the last post!

Just read the last post back, only to realise that it was one of the most lame ones i have ever written. Anyway, i felt that the chronological data is not required when you write a blog because i don't think a reader really cares about it unless it's a mystery plot.

I woke up at 7:00 AM with much assistance from people. I knew i was the last one to rise. There was a door bell suddenly. A lady came in with a couple of packets and 2 cups of coffee. It felt like being in a jail receiving a bi-daily meal. I had just kept it on the TV table and even before the next breathe, people rushed inside my room to tell me that it was bad. We Indians are not used to muffins and Black Coffee (It was brown but it tasted like CCD's 20 ml expresso) for breakfast. Now where would you get Puri and Sabzee in the morning when you are in Canada. People decided to take it from outside.

We got ready and got out. Mr. Driver was all ready in his same old Blue Sweater. Though he behaved mostly as a man who is not paid well enough by his company and that his wife was too annoyed because of him driving us overnight to this place. We got on to the Bus, as i heard Madhu saying that the next stop is - The Skylon. It was evident that, not only the software professionals use copy and paste but it was the same with Civil Engineers too. This Skylon thing looked the same copy of CN Tower, only that it was shorter in height. We went up the tower and the whole of Niagara was bustling all around us beneath. It was a good view. Cold morning...and you do not have much patience to things. I ran into conversations with Umesh yet again. We had coffee at Starbucks with a Butter Croissant. It was the first time i went inside a Starbucks, had heard a lot about it till this time but always chose Canada's own Hourtons over it.

It was around 10:00 AM. Mr. Driver looked into his watch and gave us 45 minutes to do sight seeing at a place called Journey Behind the Falls. This place was good. The closest to the falls i could ever get in the entire trip. I was kicking myself to have missed out on the maid of the midst thing - A ferry takes you closer to the falls and you see the water falling point blank. Wasn't meant to be, fate had chosen a different time for me to come here. Anyway it was worthy enough to see what i could get to see. Today was Valentine's day, it's hard to find a single girl on this day but i was hopeful. Only to my disgust, the crowd was us and a very few people who were probably a victim of their fate just like i was.

We made it to the bus at around 11:00AM. Tussar had a proposal of doing a simulated Sky Diving thing. I was excited too, i had seen this on TV. As soon as Madhu proposed it to the driver, it seemed like the fire just needed a bit of wind to burn. The Driver started "barking" and i by no mean want to use a sober word here because i hate people when they do it like that. I was quiet however, as Umesh suggested me to take out my ipod and take a listen to music instead of paying attention. I normally don't speak when seniors are there to take care. So it was not meant to be. We went to the shopping market in Niagara which were all Factory Outlet Stores. You name a brand and you have it here. We got some discount coupons and off we went, inside the stores. I bought a few things. I am very bad at resisting my temptation at buying stuff. None the less, they were good deals.

We went to Burger King for - My recommendation, never go to Burger King for a Burger. We reached the parking place right on time - it was 2:00 PM as the driver had grunted to us before. We got on to the bus, only to realise that Tussar had not taken any food. He politely asked Mr. Driver to stop by at a Sub. But as again i write...our gentleman (sarcasm) started grunting again. He went to the extent of comparing the cultures of Ukraine and India. I wondered, how could he make out the culture of a nation with 1 billion people having just 11 on board. I was itching to speak but held on to my nerves - Never speak when your seniors are there to take care. I put on the ipod and started listening to some random music - I like them when we are on a drive. Yes for all of you, who are a little and i mean a little curious about "what happened to Tussar's lunch?" - Mr. Driver did stop at a Subway on the way.

We reached Toronto at around 3:45 PM, and again little to my knowledge the place "to eat" was fixed - You see we Indians are very particular about our meals. If it's food, we don't see the time...and if it's Sarvana's Bhawan people don't care about what they order too. It was again the sweet smell of South Indian food. As shameful as i am, i went on to eat on everybody's plate other than my own Vegetable Dosa. I knew - I will never order vegetable Dosa again. It was awesome food otherwise.

As we saw the sun go down towards west, and as the miles ran behind us - We left memoirs in time, to cherish and to remember for - I left my Time-keeper - My Fasttrack watch awarded by my college at Niagara for the times to freeze!

A road trip to Toronto/Niagara.

We went to a road trip from Ottawa to Toronto and Niagara for a total time of 36 hours. Here's a snapshot of the experience.

13th Feb 2010, 7:45 AM: I was ready and raring to go. Pradeep had asked me to come to his room. I went hustling down, as i was already late for about 15 minutes. As i opened the door of Room Number 211, i realized that my perception of IST in EST was wrong. Indians were not the slowest in the world. I was informed that the Driver was travelling from Montreal and would be 2 hours late than the anticipated time. I went back to my room and started seeing some debate on NDTV about the recent MNIK overplayed hype. No wonder it's a good fodder for the politicians, the news channels and least to mention SRK too, because how so ever honest he is about his statements - No publicity is bad publicity.

13th Feb 2010, 9:30 AM: The mini-bus carrying about 7 people arrived to take "the 4 of us - Pradeep, Sangeetha, Savitha and Sudipto" at our Apartment doorway. Mid earth is owned by some Chinese folks, so i anticipated someone like that to come out, but that wasn't the case. The accent of the person gave us an impression that he was probably a French guy. But as it turned out, we were wrong. He was from Ukraine with a broken English accent. In the midst of things, i did not know the 7 people on board personally. But after half an hour of drive, they introduced themselves as Anuja, Asha, Harish, Madhu, Tussar, Tussar's family (wife and his kid) and Umesh. So we were on the way to Toronto, a trip in Canada driven by a Ukrainian guy working for a Chinese company with Indians on board - A world tour in it's own rights.

13th Feb 2010, 2:30 PM: After a single break in between for Canada's favorite Tim Hourtons, we reached Toronto in around this time. As the bus (i felt it was a tempo of sorts) entered Toronto, i gushed to Sangeetha that it felt as if we entered a new Country all together. Ottawa really looks like a different city. Little to my knowledge, the whole trip was pre-planned and well executed by Madhu so far. We reached a South Indian restaurant by the name of Karaikudi. Entered inside and felt that i am back in Chennai. It was chettinad food and more than half of my company were speaking in Tamil, which i was generously trying to understand. In came the waitress, she had colored her hair and looked like the face of the Indian waitresses of the 22nd century in India. None the less, i love South Indian food and we ordered for a variety of stuff. Our group was interesting. We had a Marathi Family, a Marathi girl, 2 malayalis who could speak all South Indian languages, 1 Bengali and rest all Tamil speaking people. No wonder they say that India is Countries inside a country. The Bengali was generous so he had no trouble.

13th Feb 2010, 4:00 PM: It's always a challenge to do time saving when you are in a huge group but i thought we were quite punctual - I know by this time the driver had a different opinion about us. The group was split into two - 3 on one side and rest on the other. The split was done on the basis of people who wanted to see CN towers and those who wanted to shop. I wanted to see the 3rd tallest tower in the world and hence was amongst the group of 3. So a random guide was allocated by our driver and he bought the tickets for us to go inside and above the tower. I was a bit scared of being around with two ladies, with the fear of the unknown - but they were brave and i was wrong. We set out inside the elevator, as a narrator told us that it was going up at the speed of 15 KM/hour. The lift was made out of transparent material, so we could stare outside, as i felt a bit of "stairway to heaven" kind of a feeling. The whole world started to shrink down and i could envision that the boundaries really narrowed down to a lump. We reached on top of the CN towers and it was a VIEW. We could see the entire city of Toronto from a bird's eye. They said that Niagara could be seen from there too, but it was misty. As i stared down, i felt the analogy between the proverb - "Bada ban jana" and the "height" of the tower. You look down and you see everything so symmetric, no borders, no differences - Our world (My attempt of gaining some TRP over this post).

13th Feb 2010, 6:00 PM: After our brief stay at the City Hall Toronto, we set out for our next destination - 82 miles down south, the Niagara falls. I remember the blurry memories of reading about this mammoth falls in our geography books in school. I was excited though the even dawned quietly on us.

13th Feb 2010, 9:00 PM: After resting our bags in the hotel, we had set out for the falls. It started snowing like the Christmas Carol songs. The spirits were high and there was nothing stopping us(another attempt on TRP). As we reached closer my anticipation rose. I was about to see something which had so much of hype around it. The air grew colder as we stepped closer to the falls...and here it was - The Niagara Falls. You could see Buffalo, New York on the other side of the falls - they call it the US side of it. The Canadian side looked more brighter and was outshining the US side of the story. Leaving the diplomats do their jobs, i concentrated more on the falls, i admit that i have never seen such a gigantic proportion of water falling down ever, even though about 40% of the water around the falls was frozen. People folk-ed in for the picture perfect snaps - one memory to remember forever. I was not well protected for this cold and soon realised that my hands were numb (Ironic). I ran for cover but the only place i found were my Jeans' pockets. They called it the horse shoe (probably because of the shape of the falls resembling it) which was hard for me to picture(Guess i had to be in a helicopter to visualise it).

14th Feb 1:00 AM: Realising that this trip was offering me more company than i thought of, i celebrated the dawn of the V-day in my own rights - Another year with no valentine. Well much to remember about this night than to forget. I had found out a great company in the form of Umesh. He is quite a senior folk but he never made me feel that. Our philosophies matched and we started having some good bit of conversations. We got off from Boston Pizza and followed Madhu inside the haunted house called - The house of Frankenstein. Half of the gang had left for the hotel by that time and we were 6 of us (out of which 2 were girls) getting inside a place which tried the best to "scare the hell outta us". With not much senses on the proper side i did not feel that the masked men and fake dead bodies were good enough to haunt me that night. However, it was a great experience. We walked down to the hotel and slept by 2:00 AM that night.

Rest of the story in the next post.

First weekend in Canada!

Amongst all the anxiety about stay and food, i landed here at Ottawa, Ontario, Canada on 16th November 2009. It was not such a bad experience with the flight, for the first time i traveled outside my homeland. And now, it has been 5 days already here and i have just borrowed a laptop to write this post.

When i touched down here, i thought that it was really cold. The temperature was closing in to 0 and sometimes touching and going into the negatives. I must say that now it has started becoming a lot better. I somehow realize that Darwin was so right when he mentioned about adaptation being the prime source of survival and that survival would be for the fittest. I have heard stories about the temperature going below -25 degrees here in the winter...Scary...and hence i believe that i should not care much about the pleasant weather right now (Hovering around the 0 degrees).

Anyway, first look of this City was not different than what we find in India, i should say...3 AM in the night at Bangalore would be just the same as 5 PM in the evening here. No people on the streets...No tall buildings...But the only thing, the drivers would like are the streets. I must tell you, they are pretty scared when they find a pedestrian crossing when the signal is not down (Yeah it happens here as well but then you might be run over in India if you do so). The trees look dead already and you feel that winter has arrived a lot before than any part of India here.

Today i had the chance to visit the downtown of the city. I plugged my Ipod in and it felt as if i was so close to being with the people that i was hearing on the pod. It feels a little lonely here though on the streets but i hope that's temporal and i make friends here real quick. It's so interesting to learn about the culture people possess here and then there is this challenge of them accepting you the way you are. People travel by bus here and the transportation is just great...haven't seen any discrimination yet and i feel and hope that i won't face it for the time i am going to stay here.

The girls i have seen so far are both HOT and Beautiful. Well, the surprising part is that, you don't have to even walk a meter to find them. I have honestly been influenced by the western things during my teens that i seem to like some of the stuffs that they like...but i am looking for that lead up, so that i can connect to them better.

Sure as hell, i am going to be different person when i go back from Canada. I thought that US would have been a better place to be in...but i have started to like this place more than i could have imagined...I wonder where Bryan Adams or Chad Kroger stays...Wish to trace them soon :)! Until the next time...

Leaving on a Jet Plane!

Yeah it's official. I am flying to Canada on next Saturday - 14th Nov. How do i feel about it? Well, i am not very excited to be honest. This is one time when i can surely feel what being an Indian means. It's kind of strange when people in the office hear about your trip and congratulate you. As if it is some Bumper lottery that i have won. Well anyways, sarcasm and oppurtunities are not the best of friends. On this trip i would want to do as few things which otherwise may have never been possible. I want to meet new people, as many as possible, learn their culture. Secondly it's the land of Brian Adams, NickelBack etc and hell man, i got interviewed, just a few days by Radio Canada International...at that time, i surely did not know that i would be headed to that country. Thirdly, i wish to play and spread my band's music as much as i can over there. It would be a dream come true if i can play at some show there with atleast an acoustic guitar. Opps, i forgot to mention about the work, well ofcourse that's also a plan...

Apart from the usual things, the worst part of the stay probably would be the temperature at this time of the year and esp and Ottawa. I would be completing my 25th Birthday there in just a few days. It just throws those wrong signs when i realise that i am really getting old. Christmas would be an exciting time to be there. I wish i go and come back and the days just finish up in a whisper...I definitely would miss my friends...and my mom...

A bright sunshine!

Well, as the subject line reads, i am really on the lookout for a bright sunshine to come into my life. Big times for Dark Project, as we move from strength to strength. Last Sunday we played at the Opus Bangalore. You can count the number of bands that have played there from Kolkata. I had promised the band and we did it. Pub Rock Fest is on Saturday Night in Kolkata. I am flying from Bangalore on Friday afternoon for it. I shall hit back to Bangalore on Sunday evening and i have a team outing to take care of on Monday. PRF is one of the biggest platforms to play for any band and we are no exceptions. It's so very true that the idea of Rockstars has a different meaning in the country. We are normal human beings, going about our day to day lives. We don't dope neither we are a drunkard. I make sure that in every show we play, we are as closer to the audience as possible by keeping our feet to the ground. Actually, the Rockstar attitude will not work in this country for the next few years to come. Idolizing bands, worshiping them in what they do is still to arrive in our country where the only stars are the ones living in the tinsel town called Bollywood.

I have really busy days ahead of me, considering that we have radio shows after this and then we are off to Mumbai to play a couple of gigs. Considering that i have full liberty from my office in doing all these extra cirriculars, i am really thankful for the co-operation my managers have shown. If you are a girl reading this, then you might understand the fact already that my life misses the word called "Stability". Yet this is the age to take it all and drain it all...I hope that the good gods would be kind to me.

Alls said and done, the focus now is for this Saturday. I don't want to risk the show by any chance and hence getting myself fully geared for it. We have to work on an acoustic set as soon as this show gets over for the radios. I think that missing piece in Dark Project, reference to Live gigs, is finally falling into place...I hope i am personally able to survive this onslaught both physically and mentally...After all, i am not a Rockstar yet :)!