New Year... once again

So, it's 1st Jan once more. This time for 2014. And again we are all geared up to start afresh. For a "newer and better" version of life. With the same old set of people, the same old flaws and failures all around.

A time for resolutions.

Indeed.

This has never failed to stun me. Never. Just a change of a date on the calendar... and our hearts learn to hope. Again. And again. Miraculous, indeed.

Happy New Year...
Let's start all over again...

Mahalaya - the reminiscence of childhood. Forever. The fond memories of those who are not with us anymore. A strengthening of the bond with those who are (blessedly) still there. And a very special prayer to welcome a very special person in my life.

Mahalaya on Youtube (at a customized time of 7:30 am). Missing Kolkata ever so much. Still, the thrill of Pujo is a gripping sensation. Looking forward to a Pujo which is very special in all its difference this year.

The 3rd Milestone - for 10th May 2012

With a series of simple joys & simpler sorrows... and the occasional splurges of ecstatic happiness… we arrived at the third milestone !

The Rhythm of a New Life

On the 5th of May 2012, just 5 days shy of our third marriage anniversary, we heard you for the first time ever! The sound of your life... beating on, loud and steady. And our heartbeats blended with its new rhythm.


With a silent prayer, I welcome you to my life. To my world. 
Like a dream of the brightest firefly I'll ever chase...

Somehow my whole world has suddenly shifted.

For a Dream

And a Dream of a Dream...

Bukowski. Exposing the raw nerve-end.
Bukowski. Gouging at his own wounds.

Bukowski. So honest you can't read him on all days.

" You will be alone with the gods and the nights will flame the fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter".

Alberto Manguel. I love you still. All your words.

" Maybe this is why we read... to find words for what we already know"

The End ?

“It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write the last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was distinguished”… and thus, many a years back, I had been initiated into the gripping intricacies of The Final Problem. Imagine my shock when I rushed to watch the movie-version of Sherlock Holmes… and a seemingly half-witted, cantankerous chap plunged into the scene and blurted out “My name is… Sherlock Holmes”.

I jerked upright on my seat, trying to ascertain the situation. In whose imagination was this character conceived? Certainly not in Mr. Doyle’s… and hopefully not in any of us who have grown up being in awe of the great Mind. So, is this the “coming of age” of Sherlock Holmes? Our gift to a generation who prefers the easy appeal of motion picture over that of the printed words? And is that really Watson razzing with Holmes quite like that?

Now don’t blame me for comparing. If they make movies from our favourite novels, if they insist on putting faces to the characters we have always loved, then I will compare. And what right do they have to spoil my world my thrusting on me a whacko Mycroft, with an out-of-context obesity and a distasteful desire to roam about naked? That had not only ruined Mycroft for me, but also affected my visions of Sidhhu Jetha in Feluda. Somehow everything just seemed so out-of-context.

20 mins through the plot, I preferred to drift off to a blissful state of mental blankness. There's too much of Slow-Mo future fore-telling, too much of fights, for my taste. And I so missed my favourite hero who sits in his dressing gown, smoking his pipe and churning his ideas. This infinitely-more-Hollywood version prefers to smoke the cigar.

But, as it always happened in the world of Mysteries, the plot gripped me irrationally… and as the plot reached its prime, I granted the movie a second chance. Or, as Downey says, I just followed his lead! And slowly I found myself being waltzed into a world where everything looked and felt wrong, yet something quite interesting was controlling the drift. I don’t quite know when I shifted grounds and started enjoying this fanciful version of Holmes… but I found myself laughing out loud in most of the plot junctions. And how did they work out this electrifying rapport between the lead characters? The "very intimate relations" between Sherlock and Watson had somehow blended itself into this questionable-yet-enthralling bromance.

So… in an attempt to sum up, I would give the movie credit for making explicit all those aspects of the story which has always been left implicit by Mr. Doyle. The mind had played with them… on and on… and now you get the glamourized pronouncement of the same. Yet, somehow, I criticize the movie for just the same… for making us lose the subtle pleasure of it all, for damaging the imagination... ’Cause no matter how delicious the platter is to the eye, the imagination can always cook up something far better. But I do give the movie credit for the nurturing the right rhythm between Downey and Law.

So, I would rather not rate a movie like "A Game of Shadows". There are too many grey areas. And then there's Jude Law.  But, given a chance, I would probably watch the first part of this sequel… maybe just for Law and Downey. So, maybe... it's not quite 'The End' yet?