Dida

They are not bitter sweet memories that I have of her. They seem to be pickled, a mixture of various ingredients, each with a lingering taste, that adds up to the picture of the great lady that she was. A spirit greatly split among her children, yet so whole. A fountain of love, joy and companionship, for the young and the old; for the near and the far. A celebration of life and culture, laying the deepest foundations in all our hearts. Such was my Dida, a simple lady with a big heart.
With Dida, it was the joy held in small moments that I most fondly recollect. Of her grand arrivals, in the middle of school seasons, a perfect foil to my dreaded lessons. Of her voice, carried across rooms, bidding people to do some chore or sit with her. Of her all white mane, glistening in the afternoon sun, streaming through the window. Of her elaborate cleansing sessions.
Upon her arrival I would firmly attach myself to her, a tail for all purposes. Thereon, I would imitate every little ritual of hers, with the commitment of a true disciple. Dida would sleep little at night and mostly doze off when the sun was just rising. What better example to follow, eh? When she would finally get up, the house would be in a bustle. A gargling and spitting session would commence in place of her morning ablutions, a portable steel basin bearing the brunt of her oral jets. Ma, who knew her routine only too well, would timely enter with the hot water kettle. Morning breakfast or rather brunch would begin with a couple of starters, which included a healthy spoon of chyawanprash, a glass of Viva dissolved in hot water, and then a portion of the cooked breakfast. Under normal circumstances, I would never get pangs of eating chyawanprash or drinking Viva, but throughout her stay I would claim these with my heart and soul. Soon after breakfast, she would get ready for her hot oil massage. I can only dream of it now. Any dissatisfaction earned the helping girl nothing more severe than a couple of outlandish nicknames; a display of affection, much disguised. After her bath, she would spend some time in prayers. She was a very pious lady. By the time she would finish, it would be lunch time. Lunch, like everything about her, was grand. I would patiently sit by her, while she offered the first morsel to the gods and then waiting for her to mix and match the items on her plate and create the perfect mouthful that I would hungrily devour. Nobody could replicate the taste that her divine hand bestowed; you could say it’s a secret recipe.
Throughout the remaining day she would sing, read and write, and engage us in a myriad of stories. Her laugh was infectious; it would rock and vibrate through her body, and light up everyone in the room and beyond. Life seemed to centre around her wherever she went.
Our family is anything but small; but she would find time to write to everyone and send her love and blessings. We cousins would create a ruckus over who should get to sleep beside her. Her heavy built and expanse of loose flesh was the real attraction; you would scarcely find a more cozy and adorable setting for your nap.
Remembering her is an honor, an inheritance of loss, a loss difficult to bear, a lesson in life, a lesson of love and above all, a boost of strength to never falter ahead.
Sleep Dida, not with the rising sun, but in peace and prosperity.

Into the Wild

It was again that time of the year when one couldn’t stop bobbing up and down in anticipation of good times to come. School had closed for the summer and the books for the new session would only arrive in the last week of the holidays. They didn’t seem all that bad at the beginning when one could go on smelling them for a whole day. But those joys could wait because my little band of brothers beckoned me to a holiday in the midst of deep forests and under moonlit nights, a place called Betla. No I wasn’t going camping alone at age seven. The group was to be a big one with all sets of mommies and daddies included!

It’s cruel to have been a tot then, because the little I remember of the place can only be described as bordering on the surreal. It was a small place, with forests all around. At night with the moonlight playing hide and seek over the forests, one felt fear and awe at the same time. The strange noises standing out in the eerie silence of the night would keep me awake until Dad would assure me otherwise. Our lodgings were simple but a novelty for us cousins. We didn’t get separated by rooms but lived like one big family in what seemed like a boarding school dorm!

Our last evening was something special. After much debate the party had decided to go for a walk towards the forests before settling down somewhere in the open for a musical evening. No sooner had the plans been made than I started pointing out to Dad the inherent evils in the design. As if hearing all those creepy sounds weren’t enough that we were going to walk right into the forest and into the clutches of unknown beasts that were lying in wait for just this opportunity. My father tried to calm me down saying we were a big group and that in itself would shoo the beasts away. I kept up the grudging tone until we came to the part where the road ahead forked into two, the right leading to an old fort some kilometers away and the left deep into the jungle. We had stopped on being hailed by an old man sitting at the side of the road. Beyond him lay a vast expanse of mustard cultivation as we would come to know later. We went up to him. Without further preamble he asked us exactly where we though we were headed? My father told him about our plan to stroll a little into the forest to which he made a tch tch sound. Dad and I had been walking a little ahead of the remaining party so that at the time of this exchange the others hadn’t caught up with us. The man told us to turn around and walk back towards where the hotels were situated. He said it was dangerous to go walking into the forest in the evenings. He confirmed what I had been droning all along the way and let dad know as much. At last here was someone who could override disadvantages kids faced and convince my parent to do the right thing. But my father wasn’t going to let go so easily. He asked what harm it could possibly do to walk a few metres down the road in this perfectly blissful moonlight. Plus that we weren’t going to actually enter the forest just wander around a bit and then head back. The old man then plunged into woeful tales of wild elephants who frequently came out to feed on the mustard and trampled everything on their way. No sooner had he finished telling us one particularly scary incident that a trumpet sounded loud and clear from the direction towards which we were heading before. Even now when I sometimes think and laugh at it, I believe I reacted more out of reflex than anything else. I freed my hand from Dad’s and made a beeline towards the hotels, screaming past my cousins who were only a little way behind us. While I ran towards the hullabaloo I saw people running past me towards the forest with all kinds of weapons to distract and drive the elephants away. Oh yes there were more than one. My Dad came running behind me trying not to lose me in the crowd that was rushing towards the scene of action. He had already warned the others who were headed back. He finally stopped me and took me to one of the nearby tea stalls. He quickly ordered two teas and then turned his entire attention towards me, trying to calm me down and assuring me that I was safe and he would not let anything happen to me. I was out of breath with all the running for dear life! And then, with the first effort I could make to talk I blasted at him saying, “Are you supposed to bring kids out in this place?” He looked lost for sometime, not knowing what to say. Then he burst out laughing and hugged me tight telling me that I was right. After tea we joined the rest of the group and trudged back to the hotel where we were up till midnight wondering what would have happened if we had come face to face with those mad elephants!

ChAnGeD EqAtIoNs

It all happened very fast, before I had time to think about it. Still seems like it was yesterday when sulking me sat with my books in the wake of a fiery argument with Mom about how I should be utilizing my time. Nothing was more routine in my otherwise upside down life! I don't think I forgot to tell her where she stood in relation to the Mom polls more than once! Those were days Dad used to send up a silent prayer before ringing the doorbell and wishing we were not going to make him the village sarpanch for all our petty issues. But his prayers mostly went in vain as both Mom and I were more than ready to snatch his opinion on who was Wrong. This went on for a long time. Before long I packed my bags and went off to Nagpur for MBA. It was great to come home in the holidays, one got treated like a guest by every near and dear one. Two years down the line am in the terror capital happily jobbing along with million other rats but one thing has for sure changed. Today it seems like I am into parenting my folks. They have their quarrels and promptly ring me up to know whose side I am on! Its funny to give them the same advice that they have been giving me just the other day or so it seems. How do you tell your parents to grow up now?

Ball Game

Every now and then I get this feeling like I am walking on a treadmill, not really going anywhere just seeming to do so. There are things in your life that you are grateful about. But then that's the problem. If only you could just have them without being grateful. And because you are grateful you think you are happy but then are you? Maybe life should be one long difficulty. At least one wouldn't be so damned thoughtful about things you don't seem to be able to get out of your mind. Or is it just possible to be dissatisfied all the time? I think that more or less means change should be constant.
One doesn't really know whether one should be angry because things are not going according to plan or because they are and to perfection. These days I feel just one emotion a little too much. I feel angry all the time. And I feel impatient. About getting back home. About finishing my chores. About finishing dinner. About finishing watching a movie. For sleep to come. For it to dawn. And round and round and round. Everything what others say seem the same thing all over again. Or maybe I feel every goddamn thing is linked. The only thing I like doing these days is cribbing a lot. But then its always better to have an audience in such cases or its a wasted effort. But nobody has time or they are just like me looking for an audience.
Its a horrible nightmare really. Getting more and more perfect by the minute. Your mind's processes are so trained that they just keep falling into the same trap again and again. You are taxed because you thought your life was dreamlike. And you want to maintain it that way. The alternative is too much to bear. You might altogether stop belonging to this world then.

Acaldama

There is an arena full of people, wild, crazy and shouting. Far across the madding crowd, the stage bathed in white light is the object of rising anticipation. A single chant fills the air like some ancient drumbeat summoning that one figure who is to redeem their lives. You suddenly step into that moonlight and commotion that defines you; you raise your hands in acknowledgement and let your voice rule the silence that follows………and then…..kreeeeeeennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng……reality dawns……you are back on the bed in your room grimacing at the fact that you have four classes lined up back to back before you can taste relief. I talk here about one of the most clichéd dreams that has formed the opening scene for many a movie……or better a dream that you have dreamt a thousand times over, different situations and different plots, as I have, but all carrying that single important message. We all want to be heroes in some or the other way.

Well a hero doesn’t always signify the masked rider off to save the damsel in distress. It is a symbol of passion, commitment to a goal, leadership, resourcefulness and strategic decisions. A hero who is not a lone figure but one in many, united in spirit with his fellows but just as different from the rest. Well believe it or not such heroes exist, in a world very different from ours but one that coexists with what we call reality. The VIRTUAL is here.

For those still in the dark about the strongest undercurrents that has gripped the nerd and the idler, the bright and the dull, the tall and the short, friends and enemies, and of course boys and girls alike (this article wouldn’t have been possible otherwise) is a sensation called COUNTERSTRIKE!!! Well with the minor exception of those poor girls robbed of precious time with their beloved who feel nothing but ‘frustration’ it is indeed a rage.

So what is Counterstrike or CS as it is called all about? Counterstrike is a tactical first-person shooter video game which originated from a Half Life modification by Minh Gooseman and Cliffe. Players join either the terrorist or counter-terrorist team. Each team attempts to complete their mission objective and/or eliminate the opposing team. Each round starts with the two teams spawning simultaneously, usually at opposite ends of the map from each other. Each player generally starts with $800 (although this amount can be modified), three magazines of ammunition, a knife, and a pistol: a Heckler & Koch Tactical for counter-terrorists, and a Glock 18 for terrorists. Players are generally given a few seconds before the round begins (known as "freeze time") to prepare and buy equipment, during which they cannot attack, be attacked, or walk/move. They can return to the buy area within a set amount of time (90 seconds is the default) to buy more equipment (some neutral "buy zones" can be used by both teams). Once the round has ended, surviving players retain their equipment for use in the next round; players who were killed begin the next round with the basic default starting equipment. Standard monetary bonuses are awarded for winning a round, losing a round, killing an enemy, instructing a hostage to follow, rescuing a hostage or planting the bomb.
The scoreboard displays team scores in addition to statistics for each player: name, kills, deaths, and ping (in milliseconds). The scoreboard also indicates whether a player is dead, carrying the bomb (on bomb maps), or is the VIP (on assassination maps), although information on players on the opposing team is hidden from a player until his/her death, as this information can be important. Killed players become "ghosts" for the duration of the round; they cannot change their names until they spawn (come alive) again, text chat cannot be sent to or received from live players; and voice chat can only be received from live players and not sent to them. Ghosts are generally able to watch the rest of the round from multiple selectable views, although some servers disable some of these views to prevent dead players from relaying information about living players to their teammates through alternative media (most notably voice as can be judged from the decision of the IT lab people to prevent us from playing during daytime not long ago). This technique is known as "ghosting". In here, the bomb maps and the hostage rescue maps are what we signify as strategy maps while the rest is popularly called ‘bhasad’ maps.

The game is played in much the same way everywhere but what makes it more interesting within a particular community as ours is the characters that it gives rise to. The fun you get out of picking on others, not to mention the ease with which one can use invectives (gali) without seriously meaning them (or am I mistaken) is an endearing feature of this game and undoubtedly at par with the CS culture outside these walls. Spilling someone’s blood with a knife is the highest honor for the killer. And his victim is undoubtedly the laughing stock of the group. Of course, there is nothing more foolish than falling from a height and killing yourself! And who would be dumb enough to kill oneself with one’s own bomb? (I will get killed if I spill the beans here) Can’t help mentioning that when I started playing the game people used to jeer at those who got killed by me. Not a nice thought really, being compared to a knife when you are trying to be a hero or heroine (please think in terms of Joan of Arc) for that matter!!! Seriously speaking I have learnt some great galis this past one year that I plan to use (under the breath) on the slow traffic in Kolkata. And I admit without regret that they will stick with me more than the financial ratios. Well I do complain when things get out of hand once in a while but there is a great sense of camaraderie between the players and I am proud to belong to the CS fraternity. ‘Muhahahahaha’ is what is supposed to shame you into revenge when you have failed to accomplish the team mission. It’s all team work or its nothing. Support given to the more experienced players or leaders for that matter is vital for survival against the brutal counter attack. And along the way there is ‘fire in the hole’, ‘cover me’ to inject a fresh dose of vigour and team spirit into you. The craze has doubled over the year with more players joining the game. And not just that, there have been instances when we have played in between classes either on the lappy or when we had slipped out supposedly in search of water! Not really out of our school uniforms are we? Every chance has been utilized to create more passion for the game.

Counterstrike has largely become a medium of expression. And the fact that one gets to create a whole new identity and a name to identify with has more than overlapped with real life. The names are anything ranging from funny to outrageous to downright blasphemous. Players usually play by their trademark names however sometimes as the situation demands whether it’s a bugging subject, a particularly allergic class, a pain-in-the-ass professor or a girl who has thwarted advances and smashed hearts (ouch!) find their way into names and the result is as one can imagine. Guess it cools hearts and takes out all the tension this way. Not that names are larger than the players themselves but even legends require a name.

I say its more than a game, its a religion.