As if the real me wasn't proof enough...
As a diehard member of the reading-over-anything-else community, I cannot claim any neutrality in the manner that I watched the first part of "Ponniyin Selvan". It is not unusual for a filmmaker to let an author down. Even if the filmmaker is of the calibre of Mani Ratnam. So even as I watched the film, I kept hearing this voice in my head saying that the book(s) must be so much better.
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| 10th November, 2022 |
Be present in the moment. Appreciate what you have. An attitude of gratitude. Truisms with a history of overuse and abuse are a dime or anna a dozen and if anything, their usage seems to be only rising. There is comfort in the familiar and to criticize cliché is to risk facing reverse snobbery. We must be mindful of the hurt sentiments of those who feel excluded by any subversion of what is expected. In an age of public performance, pandering to the watching crowds is not selling out, it is the only path to engagement.
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| 21st July, 2025 |
Before heading out to South Korea, I had made cursory attempts to familiarize myself with the Korean wave of pop-culture, Hallyu. I had been largely insulated from it as part of the generation that had had a few years of pre-liberalized India experience, just enough to keep us domesticated in our tastes. In that flimsy preparation, I had heard about the South Korean government's visionary plan to use the soft power of popular entertainment initiated in the early 1990s which had eventually led to this current domination of the arena in the 2020s. The most fascinating bit about that story was how the tremendous success of Steven Spielberg's first Jurassic Park movie was the inspiration for this government policy.
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| 5th July 2025, Jeju Island, Republic of Korea |
Among the various ways that language preserves bits of our past is through turns of phrase that jump centuries and classes. That art has long been supported by the privileged is no secret and without the largesse of the nobility, many a poet, painter and the occasional philosopher would not have had the time to produce what they did. Naturally, much of their art acknowledged the greatness of their patrons often overlooking their sordid realities. Songs composed in their honour therefore were the norm, not anomalies. Carried through in that spirit, 'unsung' continues to be used for overlooked contributors whose efforts were never appreciated in a manner or time period which could have helped them find success or acclaim.
In that league of extraordinary people fall the group of people locally called 'tihadi' in Uttarakhand. Daily wage earners ready to be recruited on a daily basis for whatever odd jobs that a neighbourhood required. Here in the outskirts of Dehradun too, you would see milling around in the dozens near a designated location at 08:00 AM looking for employment in this rapidly urbanizing part of town. In a quest to clean up invasive vegetation from our campus lake, it is this pool of readily available handymen that we drew from to eventually accomplish the herculean task of ridding ourselves of our Central American overstaying guests. The so-called water lettuce or Pistia had gorged itself on the nutrients of our lake and taken up residence covering every patch of water available. Our office softened backs were more than ready to give up after the first few buckets of removal. It was due to and only due to the engagement of these relentless extractors that the tons of green goblins could be dumped out of the water.
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| 11th December 2022, Dehradun |
অনেক মাস ধরে পিছিয়ে পিছিয়ে শেষমেশ কলকাতা যেতেই হলো। মার্চ মাসে বাবা চলে যাওয়ার পর কলকাতার প্রতি মোহ তা কেটে গেছে বলা যায়। ২০২১-এ মা যাবার পরও কলকাতার বাড়িতে বাবা থাকতে দুজনকে-ই একটু খুঁজে পাওয়া যেত। আলাদা হয়ে গেলেও, দুজনকে একসাথে ভাবা যেত। এইবার যখন বাড়ি ফিরলাম, সেই কৃষ্ণচূড়া গাছের তলায় পাতলা গলিতে, মনে হলো সব কিছু আগের মতোই আছে—কিন্তু তবুও একটা অচেনা জায়গা। বিদেশ-বিভুঁয়ে, কাজের চাপে পড়লে কিংবা মন খারাপের সময়, "বাড়ি যাবো" বলে যে কাল্পনিক আশা ছিল, সেটা বাকি জীবনের জন্য অকেজো হয়ে দাঁড়ালো।
देहरादून में आए हुए मुझे भी अब 8 साल हो गए और मैं उस मुकाम पे पहुंच चुका हूं कि मेरे आने के बाद कितने बदलाव आए हैं, उन पर अपने विचार रख सकूं। यहां के जंगल, पास के पहाड़ और लुभावना मौसम इसे खास बनाते हैं और मेरे रहते-रहते ही इनमें मैंने काफी बदलाव देखे हैं। जो पहले से ही देहरादून में हैं, उन्होंने तो और भी ज्यादा फर्क देखा होगा। बाकी स्थानीय लोगों के बातचीत में अक्सर इस अनचाहे परिवर्तन की सारा जिम्मेदारी "बाहरवालों" पे ठोप दी जाती है और इस पर कुछ हद तक सहमति भी की जा सकती है। लेकिन जरा और सोचूं तो ख्याल आता है कि मैं भी तो बाहरवाला ही हूं। पर्यावरण से जुड़ा काम जरूर करता हूं पर इस दोषारोपण के खेल में मैं भी दोषियों के कटघरे में ही खड़ा हूं।