Sa Re Ga Ma....

Like almost every 6-7 years old, I too used to take music lessons. I loved music and enjoyed singing a lot....though I was not too good at it! It isn't that I don't enjoy it anymore but I was kind of obsessed with it then.
Seeing my enthusiasm, my mother admitted me to a nearby music school when I was in my second standard.

On our next visit to Kolkata, my father bought me a harmonium. I loved it. I just had one complaint against it. The upper removable cover of the harmonium and the front portion of the bellows had the name of the shop,"DAS FLUTES", engraved on it. I wanted my name or at least my surname to be engraved instead of it. I asked the shopkeeper to change its upper cover but the shopkeeper and my father laughed off my request! I was very angry on both of them :D!

Back home, initially I used to wake up quite early in the morning for riyaaz, thus disturbing the sleep of my parents and my poor neighbours! But then after some days this impulse of mine faded away and my practice was more or less limited to just the evenings!

As a child, I never missed any chance to show my skills whenever someone asked me to sing. I remember, once one of my aunts had come to our house and she asked me to sing. I sat with my harmonium and started singing right from the beginning, all those I had learnt in the past months. After some time when I showed no signs of stopping, she just turned the pages casually and saw that there were 30-40 more sargams left.She asked me apprehensively if I was going to sing all that was there written in the diary.... and I happily nodded my head saying yes, without interrupting my singing :P....

As of now I can recall another related funny incident. My sister had once mocked at me saying I had learnt music uselessly.... as never did I get a chance to record any song like big singers get :D! My singer's ego was hurt :P ! My father came to know about this incident and he brought a blank audio cassette for me.
He said to me that he would record my songs on it :P . I was overjoyed! I sang on my harmonium and recorded it on our tape recorder! For the next few days I played the cassette and listened to my own songs :D . My sis told me then that there wasn't any significant difference between me and Lata Mangeshkar :P! We both are unmarried, we both are trained singers :P , and most importantly we both have recorded songs :P ;)

The sweet memories of my childhood related to the harmonium are tucked safely in my mind. It is still one of my prized possessions as it used to be when I was young :) ....

How to NOT make chilli chicken!

Believe me friends....its really difficult to prepare non-veg dishes than the veg ones. At least I find so. So, I have decided to cook vegetarian food more often than non-veg in future :D (bad luck for someone :P )

2-3 days back I decided to cook chili chicken yet another time. The first time I had tried my hand in cooking chili chicken, it turned out to be a disaster. My mother and sister couldn't have the gravy because of the over usage of the ingredients!! Though I pretended to enjoy it to the fullest :D


This time I tried to be careful about the quantity of ingredients I used. At first I marinated the chicken with corn flour,vinegar,etc. As long as I don't have to deal with fire, things are fine with me. Now I turned on the gas oven and put the wok. After it got heated, I put the oil in it. I was very much aware of what happens when you fry something in hot oil. Its really more 'violent' when you fry chicken or fish rather than vegetables! Last time a little oil had splattered on my hand. Though a little oil spurt isn't that dangerous :P ,yet just the idea of it freaks me out! So while the oil was getting heated, I went to my cupboard and took out my lab apron and put it on :P .... but then suddenly I realized that my forearm was bare and I needed something to cover it. So I took a towel and wrapped it around. :D

By the time I was 'prepared' to fry the chicken, the oil got heated up. I lowered the flame and put a piece of chicken in the wok. Suddenly there was a 'terrible noise' and oil started splattering. I ran out of the kitchen with the khunti in my hand, as if the ghost of that chicken was haunting me! My mother came to my rescue and put the chicken pieces in oil and asked me to continue frying. The oil spurting hadn't stopped and I was wondering if its safe to start frying! I couldn't gather enough courage and again called on my mother. But by that time, the pieces were over fried!

After the chicken, came the frying of onion,capsicum,etc! I fried them myself. Everything went on well. At last I put the over fried chicken pieces and the chicken stock along with some cornflour in the wok and mixed them with the fried vegetables. The gravy turned white! I called my mother again. She said I had put excess cornflour. My sister was worried right from the beginning thinking about the fate of our dinner! She was now considering maggi as a better option!

My mother tried to nullify the effect of the extra cornflour, yet there was an unpleasant taste in the gravy! At last she had to put the entire thing in a pressure cooker (!) ! It worked!!!! The unpleasant taste was gone and we all had that HAPPILY for our dinner. :D

Dreams and hopes

The title may sound somewhat philosophical and the content may too. But this is the only topic I can think of now.Just a haphazard thought :)

I dream about things I hope for. There are a lot of random things which I hope to happen. But what I fail to realize is that my dreams don't have a concrete base to stand on.

I consider hope a very dangerous thing. It gives us an illusion of the beauty of a dream. But what it hides from us can be experienced only after our dreams begin to shake. Worst is the case when hopes get entwined with someone else's. The dreams become so very complex and precarious. Its like two different persons building a "house" with playing cards on the same piece of cloth. And when a slight pluck displaces the cloth, the cards fall down within a second.
But after they fall down we fail to distinguish our cards from that of the other person's. We had been so engrossed in building it that all the cards,now, seem to be the same! Hopes are nothing but these cards and what we build with them is a dream.

Not hoping for anything could be a solution to not dreaming and thus, there would be no expectation from life. It would free us from the unwanted distress associated with broken dreams. But isn't it impossible for humans to stop dreaming.... to stop hoping and wishing for something?
I wish I could hold on to all my dreams. Watching dreams break, which had been nurtured in our mind, is quite hurting. Why do dreams break? Why isn't there any adhesive that could hold them together?

MOSQUITO CONNECTION

Hi friends!!...I am back with my next post.I have kept my promise of sharing with you all the reason why I have a soft corner for mosquitoes :P! I hope I didnt keep you all waiting for long!Anyways...here it goes...HAPPY READING :)

Gone are the days when I used to get attacked by mosquitoes on every visit to my mama-bari.Their annoying chorus used to put me off.They seemed to be resistant to the mosquito repellent coils that remained lit perpetually!And how can I forget the itchy red bumps that developed on my limbs after their uncountable bites.Given the size of the mosquitoes,one could easily mistake them for humming birds! ;)

Nowadays I hardly find any mosquito in my mama-bari.At home,sometimes I feel as if mosquitoes have become extinct!

From my childhood I have been very kind to mosquitoes.However irritating their humming is....or however painful their bites are,I never kill mosquitoes.NEVER! I just shoo them away!Once someone had even said me that I must have been a mosquito in my previous life.But I dont mind :)!Whenever I try to kill any mosquito,I am reminded of the 'fact' that she could be someone's mother,someone's sister,someone's daughter,someone's wife or even girlfriend(!) :P...The other reason is also the bloodshed that is involved in the 'murder' of a mosquito is too much for me to bear :D...

As I grew up,my relationship with mosquitoes grew stronger.I learnt that mosquitoes are really innocent creatures,oblivious of the presence of the parasite that takes her shelter and is the actual causal agent of malaria!Mosquitoes feed on our blood for a very noble reason.Then why are we so cruel to her?Giving her little blood of ours would,in no way,make us anaemic! If we need to eradicate malaria,we should fight against out 'real' enemy,whose victims are both the mosquito and we people!Why bother the poor mosquito?Spare her,friends!Don't commit the heinous crime of killing an innocent mosquito!

I look forward to the day when some kind of vaccine could be developed against that cunning malaria parasite.I hope the day is not far when,instead of blaming the mosquitoes,we and our fellow mosquitoes would join hands and go to the immunisation centres together,hand in hand,and make this Earth a peaceful place! :D

I don't believe in miracles...I rely on them

Okay friends,so this is that time of the year again when the chirping of birds seems to be monotonous to me.....when I am unable to differentiate between red and green,or blue and yellow,or even brown and orange!!All seem black and white to me.Yeah...it is now that once again I realise the 'nashwar-ness' of this life and the uselessness of getting into this earthly 'moh-maya'...."I ought to be concentrating more on how to swim across the 'bhao-sagar' than on these trivial things",something inside me echoes :P...
Even a mosquito seems to be luckier than me during this time..(Actually I really do have a soft corner for mosquitoes :D !You all will get to know more on this in my next post!So,keep checking my blog ;) :D )

What you all are thinking?No...I haven't lost my mind (Literally :P)!These symptoms are of approaching exams and it is now that I realise how,in the past months,I have only mastered the art of wasting time :D !

At times I do think what is the need of studying and why the hell do we need to sit for exams :( !"DUST THOU ART TO DUST RETURNEST"....then why??(Any satisfactory answer to this is welcome ;) )

Anyways...once again I resolve to study consistently in my next session..(Nevermind even if its one of those thousand resolutions which is going to die away once I pass this critical situation :D ).For the time being I pray to God to overlook the time I spent lazing around and to wave His magic wand for a (never ending) last time!

I hate people who BELIEVE that some miracle would come as their saving grace,after wasting time in the entire session!Arrey baba....why believe??Rely on them na :D!God never lets His children down. :)

MY FIRST CLASS AT PRESI

A rainy morning was the beginning.i just hate rainy days-- "water water everywhere"!and this was the start of a new chapter in my life......the first day of my college.i woke up pretty early..i guess at 7 o'clock...(thats quite early for me :D )..There was a kind of enthusiasm....and a disbelief too..i couldnt believe that finally my school days were over!

I had my class at 10 o'clock.I had planned the previous night that leaving my house at 8:30am would be enough for reaching college on time.The journey to the bus stand took 20mins and there I saw a neverending line for bus!I stood at the end of the line and heard some women grumbling on the irregularity of the bus service.A little later a bus arrived...."I would miss the last window seat",I said to myself.though it was raining quite heavily and I wouldn't be able to open the window,but i still wanted to sit on a window seat.I skiped my turn,and stood in the next bus' line,oblivious of the time.it was when i left my turn,i realised that it was 9:20am."I would be late",i mumbled,"but the window seat is worth it"..I pacified myself.

After about 10mins the next bus arrived.I was delighted to get my desired seat.I occupied my seat and took out my cell and started sending sms-s!I had wondered before what would I do for 45mins on my way to college....and the idea of sending sms-s seemed a good idea :D !

9:55am and still a long way to go.It was obvious I wouldn't reach on time.I started feeling guilty for leaving the first bus for a silly window seat!I called up one of my classmates to inquire if the class had started.Thankfully the class did not start yet but I learnt our HOD was going to take the first class.now that was a bad news.first day of my college and I was going to be terribly late in my first class.Silly thoughts began to criss cross my mind...."would our HOD mark me as a late comer in the coming 3yrs of my college life??after all first impression is the last impression"!!


10mins past 10...and I was standing infront of CU!another 6-7mins walk from here.I literally began to run,at the same time careful of not slipping ( I m very (in)famous for slipping and falling in the most unexpected situations :P ,and the wet road just increased the probability!!)....

I finally reached Baker's.As I began ascending the stairs....I was reminded of the story my biology sir had told me once...actually it was a true incident....it was on these stairs of Baker....where Netaji had slapped Oten,a white professor!As I was climbling,I started wondering if it was actually here where Netaji had actually stood and slapped him.I had no time to wait there and ponder more on the incident.I started walking fast through the corridor.


A man standing in the corridor asked me "first yr??"...I nodded nervously "yes"....he replied back,"class shuru hoygeche to.....".....i didnt wait there for him to end.....and his voice slowly faded away..."taratari jao.....sir rege jaaben....".....this only made me more nervous!

I was literally frightened when I knocked on the door,expecting a "good" scolding in front of the entire class!"how embarassing it is to get scolded on the first day ....infront of new class mates"...i wondered!I asked feebly if I could come in....From inside came a voice.."come in".....I looked at the entire class and then gave a glance at the professor standing infront of the projector screen...."take your place"..he said to me..

I looked for place in the dark....and sat in the last row of the gallery.the class ended after about half an hour.I had attended the first class of my college :)