..Where music dwells..

There was a time when I would be sitting on a mountain top, strumming a wooden guitar and singing to keep myself company. Those, unarguably, were the best days of my life.
I was all of five, when Dad introduced me to music. He had a small white Casio keyboard, on which he taught me my very first songs! And then there was no turning back.
Dad played the guitar. He worshiped Clapton, Roger Waters and Jimi Hendrix. He had a band of his own initially. But later on, he went solo. He was the first one to introduce me to some mind-blowing music - Eric Clapton, Simon & Garfunkel, Dire Straits, Pink Floyd, Don Williams, John Denver to name a few! He was the reason I got interested in Rabindra Sangeet. He was the first one to introduce 'Mohiner Ghoraguli' and 'Suman`s music to me.
I never thought much of it, until The G came along. He was hugely surprised to see Dad`s music collection. He pointed out how rare, how precious it is - To have a Dad who not only shares the same taste in music, but who knows it all, who is actually a 'musical mentor' who introduced me to the kind of music I so love, to the music I grew up listening and still do!
To me and to all others who knew him, Music defined my Dad. Oh!How I aspire to be that person he was. To nurture his legacy. To develop the kind of gift and talent he had, and what he taught me. To center one`s life around music. To make soul stirring music and share them with one`s daughters. To enrich them and help them grow musically. To never accept imperfection but patiently wait for them to catch up,wait till they get the notes just right. To pleasantly surprise the grown up daughters with his deep understanding and knowledge of music. To make the daughters feel proud.
Until his last breath(and I mean it literally), he heard the 'Sound of Silence' by Simon & Garfunkel. It was his favorite song. The song is about a growing apathy towards one another and how interpersonal communication appears to have broken down, how no one cares to listen anymore. Dad cried every single time he heard this song. And I would often wonder why. It is only now that I understand a more personal, a more deeper meaning to the song. I guess it wasnt a single reason but a collage of images the song can conjure up in the mind - the finality of silence from a personal perspective, the loneliness, the isolation, the reaching out of hands for one last touch - I guess that is what the song really means and the reason why it affected Dad so much. It was Dad`s favorite song. I haven't heard it ever since.
But I do think about Dad and his music often. I try not to give it up. It`s the richest legacy Dad left behind. And so I hang on, hoping to make him proud someday.

A long,long time ago, Renu tagged me to do a post on my favorite slow,soulful,melodies. I wonder why soulful music is always slow and sad. Why can the mind accept jarring,blaring notes as soulful? :)
Anyway,I guess I was to compile a list of 10 songs only. But that`s an impossible task. So I`m going to mention all the ones I can think of right now. This isnt a complete list of course. There can never be..

1. Sili Hawa Choo Gayi

2. Zindagi Ke Safar Mein Guzar Jaate Hain Jo Maqam

3. Badi Suni Suni Hai

4. Tujhse Naraaz Nahi, Zindagi, Hairaan Hoon Mai

5. Koi Yeh Kaise Bataye Ki Woh Tanha Kyu Hai

6. Yeh Na Thi Hamari Kismat - Chitra Singh in Mirza Ghalib

7. Baat Niklegi to Door Talaq Jayegi - Jagjit Singh

8. Man Re Tu Kahe na Dheer Dhare - Mohammad Rafi

9. Tum Itna Jo Muskura Rahe Ho - Jagjit Singh

10. Mera Kuch Samaan - Asha Bhonsle

Some Others that I have been listening to, this past week - and that all of you must listen to, atleast once!!
1. Patience - Guns N` Roses

2. Girl in the War - Josh Ritter

3. Why Worry - Dire Straits

4. Tears in Heaven - Eric Clapton

5. Bridge over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkel

6. Coming Back to Life - Pink Floyd

7. Suzanne - Leonard Cohen

8. Walls of Red Wing - Bob Dylan

9. Handle me With Care - Traveling Wilburys

10. Most of the Time - Bob Dylan

11. Green Green Grass of Home - Tom Jones

12. Walk the Line - Johnny Cash

13. This Land is My Land - Woody Guthrie

14. Fix You - ColdPlay

15. I Still Havent Found What I`m Looking For - U2

16. Girl from Yesterday - Eagles

And saving up the best for the last :
17. Mousumi Bhowmik - Aami shunechi she din tumi
I will try and translate this Bengali song into English and post it. It is too beautiful a song to miss.

So go on, listen up People. I hope you enjoy these songs, as much as I do :)

To Serve for Honor

For a while now, I have been busy preparing mock question-answers for the grad school interview. Why pursue a career in healthcare and not clinical medicine? What have I gained from my experience in the Indian Army and how will it help me in my career in healthcare? So on and so forth.
And I have been struggling with the answers.
Questions that seem simple enough. Answers that baffle me.
However, today I happened to read JP Joshi Sir`s post.
And it stirred my soul.
Indeed, 'Army is not about making a living. It is a way of life.'

Sep 2004
Mendhar, Poonch,J&K

I ran towards the helipad, all the while shouting out commands to my nursing assistants to carry the drips, injections and what have you for the casualty I had to attend.
I panicked. I panicked for a reason. I had never seen a gun shot wound of the skull, where the skull was split open,the bullet was lodged in the parietal region, the field dressing(bandage) was dripping red and the patient was talking profusely. In my hysteria, I almost snapped at him to shut up.
The moment I saw the patient(still inside the ambulance), I knew I had to act fast.For several reasons. Time is at a premium in cases like these. I didnt want the man to die. And so I decided to move him to the adjoining helipad, where I would institute first aid before he flew off to the nearest hospital(at Jammu). It would take 30 minutes by air(5 hours by road).
By the time I reached the helipad, the ambulance was already there with the patient. I ran to him and started loading an injection. The man looked up at me calmly. I started asking him questions for my record, all the while trying to stabilize my own hands before starting an I.V drip on him. I was shivering. By his side, was his buddy who kept reading out verses from a holy book(I think it was the Quran). Hysterical as I was, I asked the buddy to move and make room for me. However, the patient insisted that he be there.
"Saajid Ali, aap thik ho?" I asked.
"Hnaan ji."
"Gabrao nahi. Thik ho jaoge tum. Abhi chopper aa jayega."
"Main to thik hoon madamji. Aap mut daro."
I felt a hysterical burst of laughter rise up from within. I smiled.
"Achcha ghar pe kaun kaun hain, batao," I said(a known tactic to ease the nerves of the wounded and to distract them while instituting treatment).
"Sabhi hain. Amma, biwi, bachchein..."
"Bahut bariya. Abhi kuch aaram lag raha hai?"
"Madamji," he says and struggles to remove a stained service inland letter from his pocket.
"Yeh chithi post kar doge aap? Khatam nahi kiya hai, but abhi kar bhi nahi paunga. Jitna likha hai kafi hai."
"Zaroor Saajid Ali," I stammer,"Dekho chopper aa gaya. Tum darna nahi. Jaldi pahunch jaoge MH(Military Hospital).Phir thik ho jaoge."
"Dhanyawad madamji," he smiles.
I step down from the ambulance and walk up to the pilot to hand over the transfer documents.
Saajid Ali is brought out of the ambulance on a stretcher and loaded onto the chopper. I utter a silent prayer, clutching his letter in my hand.
As the pilot prepares to fly off, I see a wounded soldier of the Indian Army, a bullet lodged in his skull, sitting up and saluting as the chopper prepares to take off.
"Jai hind Madamji," he shouts before the din of the chopper can drown his voice, "Jai Hind!"

He never makes it to Jammu. But his spirit lives on.

And today, as I sit here trying to figure out what my biggest gain is,from serving in the Indian Army, the answer suddenly rings loud and clear.

I have been fortunate enough to know people who have served with responsibility, who have served with pride, who have served for honor. And I have been fortunate enough to do the same.
That is my biggest gain.

Happy Republic Day, People!

Proud to be an officer of the Indian Army. And I shall always be.

Let there be Peace..

This post has been selected,People!! :):)
Disclaimer: One hell of a long post! Read at your own risk! :)

The G and I saw 'Firaaq'(Nandita Das`s debut in direction) the other day. Apparently a work of fiction claimed to be inspired from a thousand true stories, 'Firaaq' tells the story of gruesome man-slaughtering, in a bid to rattle the conscience of the viewers and make them realize the horrendous crimes that took place in Gujarat in 2002. Now I am no film critic and
I`m not here to review the movie either. The reason I write this is because somewhere deep within, the fanatic in me stirs and I feel this overwhelming urge to connect.
I confess - it disturbs me - the fact that I am a Hindu fascist at heart(albeit in subtle forms). I confess that when Gujrat was burning, somewhere deep down, I did(even if for a micro second) have the thought that this wouldnt be happening if those 58 HIndu passengers on board the Sabarmati Express in Godhra werent roasted alive.
Am I in any way justifying this horrendous mass genocide? No way! Never ever! Such atrocities can never ever be condoned.
But In spite of rational thoughts and reasons, the thought did cross my mind, didnt it?
That`s how it is.
When I went to college, one of my closest pals was a boy called Adil. We were inseparable for a while. I was so completely smitten; he was the smartest guy I`d ever been with. My letters home were full of Adil and Adil and then some more.
"Dont you have any decent bengali boys in your class? How about Saikat?" my Mumma asked. She thought I was going overboard.
And so I made the first conscious turn of my life. Adil soon became history.
When I joined the Army, my closest pal was a boy named Jafar. He was my junior. But he was the only person I could relate to. He shared my passion of Ayn Rand, Che Guevara and the Pink Floyd. When he dumped his girl-friend of 5 years, a little voice inside me just wouldnt shut up. Outrageous as it sounds, I attributed his infidelity to his religious beliefs! The fact that I was in a war-torn zone where religious antipathy was overt, didnt help me any!
And so it went, little voices inside my head, grappling with what I thought I had to believe in and reaffirming time and again that those beliefs are right; those beliefs are justified.
One cant deny it. This feeling of antipathy against the other religion is mutual; lurking underneath; a thread so fine that all so often we might not even see it clearly. But it exists all the same. But you would expect one to rationalize one`s thought during the course of growing up.
I did not.
I allowed the thoughts of the previous generation, thoughts of a medieval society, thoughts of a degenerating democracy to be stashed into my brain.
Today when I see such darkness at noon, I realize that it is me and other people like me who are responsible for it. The chalice is poisoned and overflowing and we have allowed ourselves to sip from it,a hemorrhaging democracy laced with religious fascism. Like unadulterated Arsenic.
We have to stop before we kill ourselves.

'Firaaq' wasnt the only thing to have caught up with me this new year. When I was back home, I got addicted to the reality series of 'Big Boss'. The interplay of human nature is fascinating. But what got to me the most was how one of the contestants, in a fit of rage against another finalist, threw away food into the swimming pool. Everything - bread, milk,eggs, flour, vegetables, sugar, even tea. I dont know if the punishment(of going hungry for a day and preparing a meal for 15 children) was fit enough or whether the guy had the slightest regret for what he did. BUt it stunned me.
Did you know that 16,000 children die of hunger each day? One child every five seconds!!
In a world where morality in all its forms is slowly dying,we hide behind brittle carapaces where humanity itself seems mottled. Where and how do we even begin to make a change?

This time around when I was home, I realized that we had opened a new bank account for Mom(where Dad`s pension would be credited)in the month of May. It was November and she still hadnt received the Debit card for that account. I went to the bank and asked the authorized person about it. He handed me an enormous register and asked me to surf through the names in serial order to look for my mom`s name. And so I started. Going through numbers one to seven hundred and twenty seven(which took about 45 minutes because I had to decipher the hand-writing!), until I found Mom`s name. And yet I wasnt given the debit card, because the office runner was out for lunch and wouldnt be back for the next hour or so(he had the keys to the cupboard, I was told!).For a change, I wasnt fuming. I had expected something like this. Which set me thinking. Are we simply getting used to sloppiness? Have we become so used to inefficiency that nothing hurts our sensibilities anymore?

Yesterday, we completed nine whole months without Dad. Sometimes I wake up with a strange ache, longing to hear his voice just one more time. Oh! it`s been so long.. And sometimes it seems like yesterday; the pain still so raw, so fresh.
But I guess we`ll be fine. Sometimes when I hurt so bad, I think the pain will never end. It probably doesn't. And those are the times when I slash all the hurt inside me into tiny slivers of bitterness, scatter it all around my world and watch the people in it sear. And when I`m done, I`m on my knees collecting the charred remains. Smoldering fragments of past smiles and togetherness. Dying embers of burnt relationships. And ashes of past hope, now singed,dying.. And as I run around, trying to salvage the burnt remnants, I think of where I went wrong. And I think I`ll never get back my world again, the way it used to be. But I will learn to live with it. Someday I will. And then, I`ll be fine again. I`m sure I will.

Hello People,
I`m back.
And as I welcome the new year,I pledge to do my bit to make this world a better,happier,safer place.
And I start right now.
By leaving the past baggage behind. By forgiving people.
By being a better person. By being honest,sincere and happy.

Come join hands with me, as I pray for a better, happier and a more beautiful tomorrow. For you and for me.

Happy 2010, People! Let there be Peace!

On a Jet Plane...yet again!

I`m leaving for India in a couple of hours.
Yes, yet again!
This time, to drop Ma back. But I`ll be back. Soon, I promise.
Wish me luck.

Thank you All, for all the warm comments and emails. I dont think I would have survived this difficult phase without all your love and support.

Hello People,
I know I have been away for the longest time. I dont even know whether anyone reads my stuff anymore.. But I wanted to thank all of you for the warm comments and the queries. Needless to say, I miss reading all of you. And that I hope I`ll be back soon.

Words smash against each other.
Bowling pins crashing frame after frame.
The clamor of a perfect strike slicing through the soul.
Chronicles of the past carelessly strewn.
Irrelevant. Ill-timed. Inapt.
Creeping tendrils of Thoughts.
Some twirl around the tongue and snarl.
Others drift.
A coiling miasma.
Pervading. Nauseating. Gagging.
Tears plunge down to the lips, sit there and smirk.
Refusing to stay. Refusing to move.
Spikes of rage abate.
Molten lead dumped into ice.
Scared whimpers wrench the mind; twist it into a crushed pretzel,
And mindless crumbs fill the emptiness.
Then,Fear takes over.
Freezing the fringes into an iron chain swung hard.
Whiplashed again. And again.
Explosive paroxysms. Bitter ache. And a slow dying.
Bit by bit.
Piece by piece.
And yet I find no weight. Nor resistance.
Just familiar. Just self spun. And routine.
Amidst them I stand; A doleful spectator
On my knees and begging,
Collecting pieces of lucid illusions(now broken, decayed..)
that I once helped create.

A bit of this..A bit of that!

It feels strange to be back to my fav coffee shop,writing again. Almost like returning back home after a really longggg vacation.I dont know what I`ll be writing about.I dont really have an agenda; So let this be a bullet post.
***I met the G`s collegue and his wife at someone`s bday party. And the wife pretended she`s never met me before! The truth is that we have been to their place for dinner TWICE! Either she`s a super bitch who was trying to convey what perfect 'non-entities' The G and I were. Or she entertains so much that its difficult for her to remember all her guests! Whatever the reason, it left a bitter undertaste. And I`m in no hurry to attend another 'office' party again!
NOTE: Thanks to Sols, I now know she`s pbly sick(yes,literally so!)

*** A cousin`s wife has gone crazy uploading their family pics on social networking sites. It would have been one happy collection, but for the fact that her pose in each picture makes me sick. Who dangles sunglares over the front buttons(unfastened) and sticks each thumb inside the trouser pockets(sometimes even latches them 'casually'!) and stands like the Queen of Sheeba, fingers splayed out over the ample thighs, just to make the stark white stripes on the sides of the trousers stand out in contrast?? Who does it?? And ohh dear me, WHY??!! It makes my blood boil. The G says,"Ignore. Dont see them if it makes you so mad,". How can I not, when each day there are 100 pictures literally smothering my webpage?
Disclaimer: Normally I would never discuss looks and attires. Never ever.But then again, I have my moments!

*** We had a neighbourhood potluck party which was awesome - more so because we finally met our original home owners - the ones who made the house that we now own,from scratch. He(lets call him P.O) is an ex-fighter pilot of the US AirForce who fought during the World War 2 and she is a homemaker now. They are such warm,wonderful people and they so reminded me of my grandpa.
Along with Subhash Chandra Bose`s Indian National Army(or the Azad HInd Fauj), my Grandpa fought for the freedom of our country from the Britishers,1943 onwards. Incidentally the INA(and my Grandpa) fought against the Allied forces - the side P.O was fighting for!!. I had a fabulous time hearing P.O`s tales. Imagine talking to someone like that! He is the history we read about!!
I never missed my grandpa so bad.
Incidentally I have several books and memoirs that grandpa wrote - a beautiful legacy that he`s left behind.

***I finally started driving lessons. Yes, finally after three years of dilly-dallying and utter disregard(read lassitude) for the unwavering requests by The G! And guess what suddenly brought about the change?
The fact that my sister has started driving(licence et al)!!
The G was aghast at the rivalry I still feel towards my kid sister(who is no longer a kid but has a kid of her own,whom she has to drive to play school and hence the licence!)!
"Whatever works," he said.
And so its been uneventful so far, but for minor ripples. Like the time I drove the car over someone`s lawn at 12 in the night and had their dog literally rip me apart, but for the fact that I was inside the car! Seriously!
That and the fact that I stopped at a busy intersection while taking a right turn because I forgot to accelerate(I had practiced turning in a parking lot with the brakes on and no acceleration!)!! Other than that and a near hysterical G, its been great!
NOTE to all NON-DRIVERS: NEVER TAKE DRIVING LESSONS FROM THE HUBBY. NEVER EVER.

***It is Mahalaya today; 5 months and 8 days now since Dad left us.
I remember Oh so fondly of how we would wake up to 'Birendra Krishna Bhadra`s Mahisasura Mardini'. Mom Dad would sit around the radio, chatting up over hot cups of tea, while my sister and I would lazily snuggle inside the blankets and let the music soak our souls. Later Dad would bring fresh,hot jalebis from the market and we would have it over breakfast.
Today is yet another Mahalaya. A year back, if anyone would have asked me to think of a Mahalaya without Dad, without jalebis, without the radio, I would have dismissed it off as a crazy thought. BUt here I am,struggling to find a sense of peace, while all that I loved and cared for,slowly seems to ebb away..
I wont say it has been easy. But I have been making conscious efforts. Efforts not to cry or despair. Not to always grieve over what I have now lost. BUt rejoice over what I have gained all my life. Its not easy. But I am trying.
So today morning, over 'Mahisasura Mardini'(A tape which Dad gifted me JUST LAST YEAR!!Did he know he would be gone?), I prepared a batter for the jalebis and left them on the counter top to ferment.
Things are not what they used to be. But then again, neither am I.

Life does goes on, you know. And so must I..

Ohh and did anyone notice that my Indirank has fallen from 79 to 71 to 63? Is it even important? And if it is, just how low do you think I`ll stoop? :):)

That`s all for now. More later.. Have a fabulous weekend,People!