A Modern Day Gypsy

Last few weeks have been very hectic for me. Tough decisions are always tough to take. It was not at all easy to decide to leave Dubai and go. The stay in Dubai was short but sweet. We had some of the best moments in our life while living in Dubai. But as it turns out I am only a modern day Nomad ……. a gypsy of the 21st century. I have tried putting up a home in so many times in so many cities in the past decade but could never stay long enough to grow my roots and that is the reason why I am able to relocate myself to a new place with relative ease. As they say that a rolling stone gather no moss… I am on the roll once again! I do not have any regrets in leaving that place, but I am a bit sad that I had to leave in such a short notice.

The boom of the past few years had attracted people from all walks of life and from around the world. There had been a mad rush in the past years to reach there to make a living and build the city. When I landed there, it was as if a grand party was in progress. The place was humming with all kind of activities. The streets packed with cars, the malls with shoppers and the restaurants with tourists. The city which glitters like a diamond every night is full of friendly people a bit preoccupied and busy with their own life though. But as it turned out, we were a bit late in reaching there. When we moved here from Kuwait, someone told me that the party was already over and the closing ceremony was in progress, and it turned out to be very true. But I believe that this is only a temporary phase for Dubai and it will soon get back to its former self and a new set of people will rush back to this city which never stops changing its skyline.

When I was offered this option of getting transferred to Doha, Qatar by our company, I took the hard decision to leave and move for the moment. The other option was to hold on to the fort and travel up and down to Abu Dhabi everyday and that was even more difficult for my set of priorities! So I had to come to this new country, new city and start fresh once again!

I have heard a lot about this place and everyone has their own opinion and view point. When I posted that “I am liking this place” in my FB, I received a barrage of reaction from my friends… so today being the day off, I took a “get to know the city” drive in the afternoon and clicked a few snaps. I am glad to see the West Bay skyline and the way it is developing further. I can now rest assured that I have arrived to witness another megacity in the making.

Spot the real model

Few days back I had written about the living statues in my other blog A Slice of Art & Design. What a coincidence that a very similar technique was being used in one of the popular malls in Dubai last week. A few stores had come together with a Radio station (who runs a few FM channels in different languages) to host a competition. The competition was quite uncommon (I shall not comment if I liked the idea or I did not) for this city where there is a constant attempt to inject new ideas to promote consumerism.

This particular competition was called “Spot the real model”. There were a few (5 to be precise) model who were posing with the mannequins in the display windows of the stores spread all over the mall. It was exactly the same act as one of those living models. The only difference probably was that they were working under a corporate or a modeling assignment and not as street performers.

All one had to do to claim a prize (shopping vouchers) was to be one of the first three persons to spot the live model and run and report to the organizers. You would then receive a shopping voucher and you could also request your favorite song to be played over the fm station.

But for the models, it was not easy. Seating or standing there in a frozen state and people taking picture might not be all that fun. I may be guilty of taking this picture…. but I did it just for this blog. I tried asking for her permission before taking the picture using sign language. I took her silence to be her consent. Probalby I am mistaken.. probably they were enjoying the whole Paparazzi attention and were well taking in their strides. After all its all in a days work as they say.....

A man's dream

Probably there are two types of man in this world. There are those ones who let out a sigh after reading an “Andy Capp” cartoon and the ones who does not. Every morning while reading this comic strip a smile lights up my face and I always end up dreaming for a few moments "what if" I was going to spend the rest of today like Andy. But never succeeded to cross the "what if" threshold. Even if I am at home, I would not be able to spend the entire day for instance in that sofa couch of Andy. What amazes me the most is the extent that a person imagination might reach to create and keep a character like "Any" and "Flo" alive and filling up the morning of millions like me with their sense of humor and a feeling of freshness.

In the early days of my blogging I had written about the "Stay At Home Dads" where we spoke about the lucky “stay home husbands”. The lot who doesn't really have to struggle for daily sustenance and on the contrary could spend their time playing golf and socializing. But leading a life like Andy must be a dream realized only by a fortunate few or maybe an unfortunate few!

There is a bit of history behind everything in this world. If you are interested in knowing little bit about this comic strip the wikipedia probably will be useful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Capp

Our Crime Master Gogo

"Aaya hoon, kuch toh loot kar jaoonga" is a dialogue from the movie "Andaz Apna Apna" and no one can do better justice to this than my 15 months old. To put things in perspective, this is one movie I do not mind watching every time it shows up on TV because of the sense of humour and comic timing and to sum it up, I find it entertaining. The music too is entertaining with a comic as well as retro flavour. I do wonder if Amir Khan and Salman Khan are together in another movie. The villains here are portrayed as a bunch of comedians rather than the usual ruthless killers. One such character is "Crime master gogo" which is played by Shakti Kapoor. Every time he showed up, his opening dialogue was "Aaya hoon, kuch toh loot kar jaoonga. Khandaani chor hoon. Mogambo ka bhatija, Crime Master Gogo" (Since I have come here I am not going to return empty handed.)

My daughter follows the same principle and so at times we affectionately call her "crime master Gogo". While awake, she is the busiest person in the house, doing something very important on her own, which we wished so much that she didn't. If she is not doing anything in particular, she will be stalking the house, looking for something to put her hands on. Till a few months back we had our home neatly arranged with many a object carefully placed at different levels to deck up the image but not any more! with every inch she gained in height, we had to come up with new ideas to relocate stuff and had to keep doing the disappearing act till we ran out of ideas and started to pack them off to be unwrapped sometime in the future. But the great thing about her is that she is not deterred by disappointments and setbacks. She approaches targeting one particular object but if we manage to move it before she reaches, she will settle for whatever else is available and never return empty handed. If we lift her up instead of moving the object she will try and grab something that is available at the higher level. Now that she has mastered the art of climbing a chair, we have moved them away from the dining table and placed them against the wall. We had her dining chair against the wall as well and I had to put her up there one day as she cannot get out of that by herself, so that she remains convict for some time while we ran some errands. But to my astonishment she was standing on the chair and fiddling with the door security phone very happy and very excited too. We let her play with the phone to her heart's content! Aaya hoon, kuch toh loot kar jaoonga..............

She has reinforced in me to thrive to make the best use of all available situation and not to give up.

Isn't this a wonderful philosophy!

A Thought for the Day

Today as I was driving up to work, I had a thought which I would like to share with you all. It might sound a bit odd at the onset. Did you ever observe a strange resemblance the way we look at us and our cars!

As a new car is launched it becomes the most sought after object in the town. Everyone dreams for a few moments of togetherness. But only a lucky few succeed. The real character form within is often quite different from how it looks from the outside. We try to explain saying that looks can be deceptive!

The most striking fact is that the same car for which everyone vied for a few years back goes unnoticed in the crowd if it was not in the good hands. After the first owner has let it go after use and abuse, things has never been the same. It only exists as wreck of what it had been, a shadow of its former self.

But to retain honor and still held be held in high esteem after losing the youth, one has to be a Classic or a vintage model, well kept and well maintained and well cared for.

Don’t we treat ourselves and our fellow human in the same way?

So ……. the best way to remain respectful and honorable and withstand the test of time in this world is to thrive to be a classic!

That's a thought.. think about it!

An Effort Worth Taking ...

Earlier this month my fellow blogger Gaelikaa of “Gaelikaa’s diary” passed on an award to my blog and I thank her for that. I like to receive awards of all types like any other fellow human being. For awards and citations are recognition and appreciations for what we do.

I have not received many awards like most of the achievers of today’s world. I remember having received only a few of them, 3 to be precise. And out of that only one was at a national level and remaining 2 at zonal summit and nothing in the International level. Those were long way back during my college days. I do not even have the certificates as they were hanging in our college department wall when I saw them last. I hope they are still hanging on and have been joined by many more brought by the boys, who came after us!

Though I was very happy to receive the award, I was not able to put it up in my blog. I was a bit too busy doing something which I have not done in years and definitely not done it enough when other does it most. Yes! You guessed it correctly. I was preparing for a professional exam and by the grace of good God, I was successful and my score was way above average but unfortunately not the “Crème de la Crème”. It was quite difficult for me to say the least. But I was lucky to have my wife around who used to be a school teacher. She not only did take care of the daughter but also monitored my monitor so that I did not drift away from my goal. It was a good reminder of good old school days!

But as the saying goes... All Well that ends well! I am happy and so is everyone else. An effort worth taking!

Once through with that I decided to put a bit of effort on the other blog that I want to put up. It is called “A slice of Art & Design”, I intend to showcase Art and Design and Architecture in there. I invite all of you to pay a visit there whenever your time permits. I would love to hear from you.

Durga Puja ..... In our hearts and minds

The Bengali self within me does not allow me not to think and talk about the Durga Puja while at home we are celebrating the biggest annual festival. This is the time when all Bengalis come together in celebration leaving behind all their differences, well most of it! This year we did not get the taste of the Puja, we thought of going up to Muscat and then we thought of visiting Abu Dhabi but finally decided to sit back ruminating through all the earlier Puja. The only taste of Puja this year was when my brother let us listen live to the “dhaak and kasha” playing in our building for the “shandhya arti” via Yahoo Messenger voice service.

The puja in Agartala used to be the greatest in terms of fun and enjoyment and I cannot imagine having the same fun in any other time of place. Ironically I did not quite enjoy the celebrations in Kolkata to the same extent even though it is the heart of the Bengali land. But it definitely provides immense pleasure to see how vibrant a place can be and how all sections of people can have fun forgetting all their worries.

Delhi which was my next stop used to be quite a different place. For us it was the first time that we realized that the 4 days of Durga Puja could be working days. This is something which is quite unimaginable for a typical Bengali. We used to have a small theatre group of our college friends and we used to go around the city (with prior booking) and perform one act plays with portable sets, stages and equipments which we carried along in our car. I used to be the light man or the prompter and giving hands to all the ancillary works. We could perform only in the outskirts while the stars performed in the downtown. I still remember the massive gathering and celebrations in C R Park areas both the old ones and the new one that started in pocket 40.

After New Delhi, it was Muscat. Muscat had two well structured temples and is the only place in the Middle East to have proper temples. Every few years there used to be a new idol and I was there in one such occurrence while we unpacked the Goddess who came all the way from Kolkata and put her up in the altar. The ladies usually would take care of the worshipping and other rituals during the morning hours. The men folk used to gather after working hours and after few moments of socializing all used to move out to one of the auditoriums reserved for the purpose far away from the temple. It was a big community get together and invariably a “Good food – Good wine” event.

Twice I went to Sohar, a suburban town and a few hours’ drive from Muscat where the Bangladeshi community hosts two Puja. I was touched by the way they received us took us among them in spite of being total stranger and mind you this is in stark contrast to their Indian counterpart (outside India).

We love to sing the song ….

“Mehman jo hamara hota hai

Who jan se pyara hota hai

Zyada nahin lalach humko

Thode mein guzara hota hai”

(The guests who visit our homes are dearer than our lives, we do not ask for a lot and are content with whatever little we have). And they love to practice the same! Since then I only visit their celebrations! Because they are so much like us yet so different. I am not sure how many of you will agree to this?

While I was in Bahrain there used to be two Puja in the same temple, one by the Indian Bengalis and one by the Bangladeshi counterparts.

And then it was Kuwait and again we spent our time with the Bangladeshi community and we enjoyed a lot. Here are a few images of the Puja in Kuwait.

Finally Shobai ke janai Sharod Abhinondan!

Wishes to you all on this festive season!