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r hands to restrict either you can only learn to live with them the cats don t belong to me anyway i didn t go looking around to adopt them they came to me our common maker has merely assigned me the job of feeding them and cleaning their shit as long as they are with me so here i am glad that i could put some of the learning to use posted by bishwanath ghosh at 9 43 pm 6 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest saturday october 17 2020 15 years of ganga mail there was a time when this blog was all that i had facebook was still hiding in the future my books were still in the womb of my ambition i did have a column in the newspaper i worked for back then and even though it was a slice of life column where i had a wide canvas which i often painted with personal experiences the voice was that of a journalist and not a writer it was this blog therefore that helped me find my voice as a writer for several years i nourished this space like a sincere gardener growing plants of several varieties today the garden has gone to seed thoughts are now shared on facebook once upon a time i would pour myself a drink and expand on a thought sometimes as mundane as the moon or idlis or touch to produce a decent blog post today ganga mail completes 15 years i have nothing much to say on the occasion there s a lot to say actually so much that one is better off being reticent but since the milestone needs to be marked i am taking the easy way out by sharing a small portion of something i wrote this evening in chandannagar some of the shops sitting slightly apart from one another happened to be tuned into the same radio station or maybe the whole of chandannagar had just one station the song that was playing therefore accompanied them for a while as they parked the car and walked towards the strand gapuchi gapuchi gam gam kishi ki kishi ki kam kam a lightweight song from the film trishul now a childhood memory which still drenched him with youthful freshness i have a confession to make she said go on i know the opening lines are silly but i still love this song as a kid whenever someone asked me to sing a song i would sing this i love it too he squeezed her hand and what a coincidence only the other day i was reading about this song in a book sahir ludhianvi wrote this song and it s not a typical sahir song but it seems the opening lines were given by yash chopra who thought they would catch the attention of the younger generation i think he was so right because even today the song feels like someone handing you a chilled bottle of limca while you are walking in the sun didn t sahir write the songs for kabhie kabhie as well of course i love every single song from that movie i would like to tell you something what first let s settle down by the river posted by bishwanath ghosh at 9 09 pm 8 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest monday december 30 2019 a small prayer for myself as i step into 2020 in my memory i just turned 49 no year was as eagerly awaited as 2019 elections come every five years and those five years usually pass in a blink but the 2019 elections were crucial will narendra modi stay or go modi hasn t gone but 2019 is going passage of time is the most powerful force on earth no government or ideology can stop it not even god the boulder rolls on and eventually snuffs out everything egos ideologies thoughts greatness before new life sprouts on the flattened land only to be revisited by the rolling boulder decades later in other words nothing lasts what exists today won t be there tomorrow you never know when you are going to come in the path of the boulder so make the most of today be happy be happy with and grateful for whatever little you have these aren t my thoughts they are borrowed from banaras 2019 for me was synonymous with banaras about seven of the 12 months were spent writing aimless in banaras the remaining five waiting for it to come in the market now that i have a copy sitting on my desk i can say that 2019 is ending on a satisfactory note my first book chai chai came out in 2009 that makes it five books in 10 years not bad it is a different matter that the five books haven t made much difference to my life though it is extremely gratifying when some reader or the other writes to say that my work has made a difference to his or hers my life remains pretty ordinary only this afternoon i had to walk all the way to the atm to pay the chap redoing my mother in law s mattress the ordinariness is difficult to gauge from pictures on facebook not that i am complaining 2019 has been enriching in ways other than monetary i made whimsical but memorable purchases such as acquiring a mont blanc 149 and a pelikan m1000 i acquired good friends i developed a new found interest in plants i developed a new fetish for leather pen sleeves pen holders rucksacks i did up my study decorated with plants and pictures and finally have a space of my own which i share with no one except dude the cat all my life until i moved to calcutta in august 2018 i ve never had a proper desk because i was more comfortable writing lying on my stomach on the bed or a mattress my mind didn t work unless i was reclining now my mind doesn t work unless i am at my desk sitting erect that way yes someone visiting me after a gap of 10 years would tend to believe that i ve arrived the truth is far from that personal tastes may have changed as they sometimes do with increasing age and exposure but the struggle remains and the struggle is essential equivalent of the water and sunlight that a plant needs to grow going by banarasi wisdom struggle too is shiva so the five books are mere milestones not arrival only one prayer i have for myself as i step into 2020 that i become a practising banarasi life becomes a lot easier when lived the banaras way if you want to know what i mean by that read aimless in banaras posted by bishwanath ghosh at 10 07 pm 5 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest thursday august 08 2019 august and i my mother is now a memory but memories of the august afternoon i cremated her in banaras remain fresh there are pictorial reminders too of that afternoon hidden in some forgotten folder but i have no desire to access it my mother died on 28 august 2009 i received the news in chennai flew to delhi the same evening and the next morning took an indian airlines flight to banaras to cremate her she would have turned 59 on 31 august at the time i was an unpublished writer chai chai was still in the press i had no idea when it was going to come out and i had just begun work on tamarind city the road ahead as a writer was still foggy but while waiting at manikarnika ghat that afternoon watching several pyres including hers slowly reducing into ash i resolved that i must do a banaras book someday the thought transformed me from a grieving son to a writer who was collecting material her death was no longer a personal tragedy but an event i was going to report about a week later when i was in kanpur killing time as i waited for the 13th day ritual the advance copy of chai chai arrived shortly after i returned to chennai my head tonsured the book appeared in shops and on october 15 a formal launch was held at the time i worked with times of india and my office was barely two kilometres away and on my way to work i had to cross the balaji temple on venkatanarayana road when the manuscript was still with the publisher i would tell lord balaji if chai chai sells 10 000 copies i will get my head tonsured at tirupati and now i was telling him since you already got my head tonsured make sure it sells 10 000 copies chai chai went on to become a blockbuster then came tamarind city in 2012 followed by the calcutta book longing belonging in 2014 banaras was forgotten finally in october 2015 i set out for banaras and spent nearly two weeks there but that was when the idea of the border book struck me 70th anniversary of partition was nearing and i realised that if i had to produce a timely book i must start right way the banaras notebook was put aside and i began working on what became gazing at neighbours published in august 2017 i could return to banaras only in december 2018 thereafter no looking back the notebook i had put aside filled up in no time by now i had relocated to calcutta where i had finally set up a proper study i would be at my desk by 9 30 in the morning and write till lunch time as lucky charm i would wear a shawl gifted to me in banaras by the writer kashinath singh once winter melted away i placed a piece of cloth sent to me by a well wisher from banaras after he got it blessed by lord vishwanath on shivaratri on the backrest of my chair the book got done in six months it should be out soon this is the fastest i ve done a book perhaps because of the discipline i had firmly told myself two things 1 to write at least 400 words a day and 2 to not reproduce stuff already known about banaras since we are into august when memories of that afternoon make their annual visit i find myself somewhat amazed by the timing the book is going to mark 10 years of my mother s death and also 10 years of my becoming a published writer as if destiny demanded this timely tribute posted by bishwanath ghosh at 1 45 am 4 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest tuesday august 06 2019 one year in calcutta on the night of 13 january 2001 i boarded the tamil nadu express at new delhi station carrying a large suitcase and a bag the suitcase had all my clothes and documents while the bag exclusively contained music a two in one and dozens of cassettes i was a faceless man one of the countless journalists seeking sufficient elbow room in the city of delhi who had decided to move to chennai simply because he had not never set foot in that part of the country i didn t know a soul in chennai and once the train began to move even my newly purchased nokia 5110 lost connection cutting me off from the rest of the world during the 32 hour journey i had turned 30 a few days before but i was born again on 15 january 2001 the day i arrived in chennai cut to the afternoon of 6 august 2018 i am standing in an empty house in chennai waiting for the landlord to arrive so that i can hand him the keys and leave for the airport all my belongings accumulated over the 17 years have already been shipped to calcutta the day before i am going to travel light when i take the indigo flight in the evening i land at the city of joy this time not on a visit but to make a new beginning i wanted to move before i was too old to enjoy the delights of the place i had fallen in love with during the writing of longing belonging today i complete a year in calcutta despite all the complaints that people especially those who no longer live here have about it calcutta is indeed a delightful city living is believing that way i am pleased with my decisions i moved to chennai at a time when most people considered it back of beyond and therefore got to experience it before it got crowded and now i ve moved to calcutta at a time when most people with my background prefer to live in delhi noida or gurgaon with some of the best minds living elsewhere and trying to fit into other cultures i feel more important i am a bengali who made bengal his home but even after spending 12 months here do i feel settled not quite feeling settled would mean the death of the writer in me even during the 17 years in chennai i was frequently spending time in other places travelling in order to write so that i did not become accustomed and therefore blind to one particular place even of the 12 months that i ve spent in calcutta six were spent in banaras finishing my next book no i didn t live in banaras during that period sitting at my desk in calcutta i would mentally transport myself to banaras between 9 am and 2 pm every day before setting out for my office at dalhousie square at three o clock looking at calcutta with fresh eyes all over again my phone always ready to take pictures what i find most striking about calcutta is its lack of ambition bengalis are generally happy with what they have city of joy after all as long as there s fish in the daily meal for someone used to the ways of chennai it can be irritating as well as amusing to find shops in the neighbourhood including pharmacies shutting for the afternoon business cannot come in the way of adda or afternoon nap during my morning walks in the central park a stone s throw from my home in salt lake city i always run into marwari men who are invariably discussing either modi or money only the other day i overheard a marwari gentleman declaring quite uncharacteristically to a small congregation under a tree main aap logon ko ek sher sunata hoon i am going to recite a sher for you all sher means a couplet emerging from his lips the word sounded like share on the other hand the bengalis i come across almost always elderly and an overwhelming minority in the park can be heard whining about their health or speaking with pride about their children the lack of ambition in my opinion helps calcutta retain much of the old world charm in most other cities you will find the past in museums but in calcutta the past still stands on the streets and sits in people s homes if you want to see how the world looked or functioned 100 years ago come to calcutta but come quickly for things are beginning to change here as well until just five years ago trams were a common sight in the city today you ll have to be lucky to spot one but yes they still run and i ve moved just in time before they become memory should i then consider august 6 as the day of a third birth for me no i have merely relocated and not been reborn the day of rebirth shall remain january 15 for it was in chennai that i learned how to look and feel 6 august 2018 saju drives us to chennai airport arrival in calcutta posted by bishwanath ghosh at 11 34 am 3 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest saturday october 20 2018 an ending and a beginning today is vijaya dashami usually on this day for the past few years i ve been taking the flight back to chennai after spending durga puja in calcutta this year however i did not take the flight to chennai that s because i no longer live in chennai i now live in calcutta having moved here on august 6 after having spent close to 18 years in what i call tamarind city why did i move to calcutta i will tell the story some other time or may be there is no story at all ever since i began work on longing belonging in 2011 i found myself belonging as much to calcutta as i did to chennai and this shift is a mere technicality it s like being on roaming i remain rooted to chennai even as i connect with my cultural roots in bengal this morning i woke up very late exhausted by successive nights of pandal hopping before l...