Superman

Superman Superman

High in the sky above the skyscrapers.

Looking like a costume-clad Don Draper.

Saving the earth daily and Lois Lane too

Superman-all of us down here love you.

Superman Superman

Batman’s awesome but he can’t inspire

The way you do-we can only admire

The way you fight for us-billions of strangers

Putting yourself through a thousand dangers

Superman Superman

You don’t need to be brooding or dark

You don’t need to growl or bark

You do your stuff with a smile on your face

Up,up and away-in your red and blue dress

Superman Superman

He has a crush on the beautiful Ms Lane

His best pal is the young Jimmy Olsen

Lex Luthor may try in a thousand ways

But Superman thwarts his plans always

Superman Superman

Ages go by and people grow old

Philosophies change,hearts grow cold

But look up at the sky whenever you can

That’s not a bird or a plane-that’s Superman.

Disclaimer-This is just a tribute to one of my favourite superheroes and my first childhood hero-Superman.I don't own any of the mentioned characters.This is just a fanboy expressing his love.

A Kolkata Tale II

This is the second part of A Kolkata Tale.You can read the first part of A Kolkata Tale here- A Kolkata Tale

Amit’s diary-

08 February 4 am

It’s  4 am in the morning and  I’m up writing.I am usually a late sleeper but I found it very difficult-scratch that-impossible to sleep last night.Usually when I am up all night it’s usually watching a game of soccer or doing work stuff.But last night-well last night I just couldn’t sleep.Would you believe that?So many years gone by man and I still can’t help remembering her on this day.Maybe I wouldn’t have if I didn’t run into her last year with that Hrithik Roshan look-alike toy wonder arm-candy of hers.But still,Hrithik or no Hrithik I shouldn’t be thinking of her.Not today.Not after so many years.Heh.Maybe if I had the brains I could have opened some hotshot website in the aftermath of her pain and become a billionaire by now and had a movie made on me.Maybe I should call her.Like right now.Tell her I miss her.No no get a grip on yourself you moron.Don’t even think about that.Are you nuts?She is happy in her life now why do you wanna spoil that?Isn’t it enough you hurt her badly once?I am gonna go get some sleeping pills now.Try and sleep it off.Maybe if I am lucky tonight’s the night I will OD and it will all end.

08  February 12 noon

Ok that was weird.I finally fell asleep and dreamt that I had become a footballer.A striker at that.I was approaching the empty net with the ball at my foot but when I kicked it,it went out over the post.And I suddenly heard her voice calling from the gallery-“You are a failure.You have let me down.” Soon she was joined by my friends in the gallery,my teachers and many people I knew.They were all chanting “Failure!” at me.I tried to run but no matter how hard I ran I was rooted to the spot.And they were getting closer.Kinda like zombies.Just then I woke up sweating all over.Wow that was just like a sequence out of Federico Fellini movie.Surreal.Damn I really gotta get her out of mind.Maybe I should call her.Clear things up.No no NO!!!Things like those happen only in movies.That too crappy bollywood movies.Damn I so hate that Hrithik Roshan wannabe!He could open a business.Hrithik Roshan-stealing girlfriends since 2000.DAMN I CAN’T BELIEVE I SOUND SO CHEAP!Well fuck it.Am off to see if there’s something to eat in the fridge.

08 February 4 pm

Well that was time well-spent.What a fuck-all movie!Why do they even bother making movies like this?And no sir it didn’t help me take my mind of her like Aniket suggested.Aniket is a good friend isn’t he?I mean he’s an absolute idiot but he’s got his heart in the right place and that’s what counts I guess.He won’t dump me surely.Or won’t he?Nowadays I can’t be sure.Okay that was kinda gay.Not that I have anything against gay people.Damn I am really going into a melodramatic overdrive.I really should call her.Maybe in the meantime I can auction off my self-respect and dignity as well.But what’s self-respect and dignity in case of love?Nothing,nothing I tell you,nothing!Ok seriously I don’t think I love her.I guess Woody Allen was right.This really is painful because she’s unattainable.Yes I truly want to be a member of the club which doesn’t want to have ,me.I am neurotic now.I know.Off.

08 February 10 pm

Ok seriously I shouldn’t even be writing at this point.I have been drinking for an hour and things seem very shaky all around.Like I’m on a ship.Aniket fell asleep talking about the numerous flings he had recently.Sometimes I envy him.I wish I could be like that.I once met a couple of Ani’s  lady “friends”.To use Sheldon Cooper’s expression-dumber than a bag of rocks.Maybe I shouldn't judge.After all,what am I?I guess I am not calling her tonight.I might.I don’t think I will be in complete control of my faculties for long the rate at which I am drinking.Anything that happens after that I am not responsible for.Well that’s it I guess.Signing off now.

“You've got a way to keep me on your side
You give me cause for love that I can't hide
For you I know I'd even try to turn the tide
Because you're mine, I walk the line”

-Johnny Cash,”I walk the line”

The Greatest Performer

Come gather round him everyone

Saints and sinners,

Losers and winners,

Sisters and brothers,

Forget all others.

Come gather round him folks

Highwaymen and sailors,

Prisoners and jailors,

Noblmen and commoners,

Forget all others.

Come gather round him people

Spies undercover,

Newlywed lovers,

Scholars really clever,

Forget all others.

For you’re gonna see tricks that will make your heart stop

You’re gonna see wonders that will make your jaw drop.

His tricks will leave you gaping,his act will blow your mind

An evergreen showman like him-You know you’ll never  find

Introducing

Harun Al Rashid-Boghdad-er khalifa,juggler-er badshah

(the Caliph of Baghdad,the Badshah of jugglers)

P.S-This post is a tribute to the character Harun Al Rashid from the timeless Phatik Chand-a novel by Satyajit Ray,one of the greatest cultural personalities of the world ever.

Fernandez

Fernandez was a guitarist

Fernandez was a jolly lad.

Fernandez lived an easy life

Satisfied with what he had.

Fernandez liked simple things

Fernandez didn’t like to fight.

Fernandez liked staying home

Than going out late at night.

Fernandez was dutiful

Fernandez never shied away

Fernandez always gave his all

“A  darn good fella”  as they say

Well  everything was going fun till one day...

One day...

Fernandez fell in love.

Now Fernandez does all the things he’d usually never do.

It’s almost like a different Fernandez-not the one we knew.

His friends got annoyed with him and his guitar got ignored.

It seems a long long time ago that he played the last chord.

I told you this tale to show how Fernandez got destroyed

You can see love destroyed him-you don’t have to be Freud.

So all you merry fine young men-all you jolly jolly lads.

Try and stay away from love-be sensible,don’t be mad.

Wishes

I wish I was a cowboy

In some forgotten western flick

Riding down a valley

Wowing gals with tricks

Playing an organ in the night

When the stars are out

And the town is quiet

Pouring out my troubles

To my friend-John,the barkeep.

I wish I was a farmer

Living in the countryside

A peaceful life

A beautiful wife

And Rex,the labrador

By my side.

Work in the fields hard all day

A delicious meal later

Hitting the hay.

I wish I was a country singer

In a long black overcoat

Travelling from town to town

Singing songs I wrote

Not a care in the world

Pleasing people young and old

I wish I wasn’t me

Struggling to come to terms

With my reality

Insecurities killing me

Sorrow anew filling me

Unkind words leaving me

A little dead each day.

No Going Back

Say no to drugs and wannabe gangsta thugs

The night may be young but what’s that to me?

Elvis has left the building quite some time back

And you are still waiting-aww dude don’t you see?

The show’s over-party’s ended-go home and sleep

The jokes are old-the food’s cold-girl you can weep

Ain’t no going back now-things changed forever

You dont have a clue do ya?am trying to be clever

Universal admiration I ain’t gonna get homie

Won’t understand me,unless you really know me

But this ain’t about me-that ship has already sailed

This is about the people I know-people I have failed

I just wanted to say-I know-I really let you down

But that’s me-never the hero-always the clown

So I hope you forgive me-coz I really love ya all.

Hope ya take it in your stride-the rise and the fall.

The Truth

“What is the truth?”-Pontius Pilate trying to be a smartass.

“You want the truth?You can’t handle the truth.”-Jack Nicholson on Tom Cruise wanting to sleep with The Truth.

“I always tell the truth.Even when I lie”-Al Pacino on how he rats out everyone's secrets to Inspector The Truth.

Truth-(not to be confused with the pro-wrestler with the in-ring name R-Truth who knows just one silly rap song and sings it every time and has jobbed in more matches than anyone in the history of pro-wrestling.And all characters in this article are fictional.Including the pro-wrestler mentioned in the previous sentence.Any resemblance is purely co-incidental.Now go chew on that.)

The truth is one of the most ambigious characters in human history.It is often said to be biased towards victors and unfair towards the defeated.The Truth could also be a bad sit-com starring Gerard Butler and Jon Cryer where there is nothing to laugh about but the laughter track is still rolling on the floor laughing.But that is just digressing from  the point of the article which is to find the truth.

The truth is someone whom  everyone claims to be looking for but no-one actually likes.

Case in point-

“I am a really bad person”-to this statement the answer in 90 percent of the case should be yes TRUTHfully.But the tried and tested answer which works in this case is “No your not”.

Truth has a hot girlfriend called Lies-whom everyone likes because she’s kind of a slut and usually satisfies everyone.As is the hypocritic nature of human beings everyone claims to hate lies but everyone is in bed with her.Yet truth sticks with this cheating bitch because without Lies there won’t be the Truth.

In his young age the truth used to be a very athletic and gullible guy.All brawns no brains.That’s why he could easily be twisted and manipulated.Nowadays no one bothers with that though.Whenever there’s a job to be done everyone employs his girlfriend.

Truth used to be bosom buddies with the fictional character Yudhistira-But he wasn’t much of an adviser.When he listened to truth Yudhistira lost his kingdom,had to go live in a forrest and share his wife with his 4 bro-hams.But one day after he listened to his other pal Krishna instead of Truth-he got back everything.Since then truth is never the best friend of everyone.

Truth is usually disliked by most because he is very arrogant and brash and doesn’t care for people’s feelings.Then there’s this dude called Poetic Justice whom Truth can’t stand and hamper his work at every possible chance.

Despite all his shortcomings-everyone meets Truth once in a life face to face-and even though he is a no-good angry foul-mouthed son of a bitch-most usually feel lighter after they have met him.Which is why I guess he still lives on to this day.

And with that I conclude this article.My parents did not send me to study engineering for this.Yet this is how pathetic I have become.And that’s the TRUTH.

A Long Forgotten Story

People  don’t change all of  a sudden.People change bit by bit over time.Until they change so much that they become unrecognizable.People change because of various reasons.But a reason has to be there.Otherwise why would someone with a perfectly happy life change?I know you are wondering by now what this is all about-well,this is about my friend Rajeev.He was once my best friend.

Rajeev and I became friends at a very young age.Two frightened kids united by their fear of the unknown on the first day of school.Since then we were thick as thieves.As long as we were in school we did everything together.We played together,we fought against other kids together-we got caught and got punished together.Ah,those days!I think they have a name for that-they call it Utopia.

This went on for 10 years.We saw each other grow up-Our topics of discussion would change from cartoons and superheroes to girls and soccer.I remember at one point of time-we had crush on the same girl.FYI-she wasn’t interested in either of us.But that didn’t stop us from having a good laugh.

In Class 9,our sections were changed due to different additional.Now we got to see less of each other-We couldn’t hang out as much as we used to.Moreover I saw he made some new friends-Some people who didn’t have the best of reputation in school.I was kind of shy and introvert so I couldn’t make that many friends-Or any close friends at all.I concentrated on my studies.Meanwhile the changes in Rajeev were so marked that everyone was beginning to notice it.His dressing style had changed-he always had a cigarette between his lips.I tried to talk to him 2-3 times about this.Asked him why he had become like this-He used to react harshly on these occasions-told me that I had no right to judge him and that his new friends were far better friends than I ever was.

We reached class 11-12 and  we grew further apart.Despite not being close friends anymore Rajeev had always kept contact with me.He used to call me up late at night when he was feeling sad or when he was in trouble.I missed my friend-so I used to take whatever time I could get with him.But now he even stopped calling me anymore.Sometimes his mother would call me up and ask me about his activities in school-I had no answer for her and it is at these moments I felt guilty and in some ways responsible for Rajeev.In the meanwhile I was in a lot of trouble myself with poor grades and studies-So I couldn’t concentrate on Rajeev’s problems any more.And slowly he faded from my mind.

After school ended I didn’t see him anymore.I went through college-wasn’t too successful.And in this struggle for existence I had forgotten about Rajeev completely.

More than 25 years have gone by.I am now in my 40s a typical middle-class Bengali man struggling to make ends meet for his family.Today I was reading the morning newspaper while having tea as usual  when an article caught my eye-

“Gangster killed in shootout”

You guessed it right.The black and white picture underneath this caption belonged to my school friend Rajeev Sengupta.He changed so much as a human being over the years but his physical appearance was nearly the same.Handsome as ever.And the photograph brought so many memories back.I don’t think I will be able to concentrate at work today.

In the end I would like to say this-I don’t know the reason for his change.I don’t know whether his philosophy of living life on the edge was worse than my philosophy of living life safely in a hole.From this tale all I can tell you is that-I miss my school friend.Maybe if we were together our lives could have turned out better.Because no relationship is as unselfish and giving as the one among two best friends.

How to be an Indian Intellectual in 10 easy steps

1.Hate Orkut.Show it.Even if you don’t hate orkut-show some hatred.Ridicule it.Generalize it’s users.This will earn you 10000 points in your intellectual account.

2.Show your public hatred of Chetan Bhagat.You may like him but do you want to be an intellectual or not?Remember how many crappy and clichéd IIT novels he inspired and your job will become easier.

3.Show your hatred for Twilight and Justin Bieber.Show it regularly.Show it frequently.Nothing says intellectual better than I hate Twilight and Bieber.It’s ok if you have no idea who or what they are.Most don’t so nobody’s gonna test you.

4.Be a communist.Or act like one.Throw in the words Marx,Lenin,philosophy,ideals,Che Guavera,Communist Manifesto in your conversations.Trust me no one will know the difference.Real communists will take the word out of your mouth and give you a long-winded explaination.Fakers won’t know the difference.They will think you are some big wiseass.

5.Now,this one is worth a 1000000 points so listen up carefully-Grow long hair.Wear some junk jewellery.Doesn’ matter if you are a guy or a girl.Dope and booze and wear Jim Morrison T-shirts.Form a band with another couple of wannabe intellectuals.Post pictures of yourself playing a guitar or boozing on Facebook.There ya go.You are an intellectual.It’s ok if you have no idea of who Jim Morrison,Kurt Cobain,Metallica etc are.Most of them don’t.

6.Now you have to realize how important Facebook is for this purpose.Facebook can make you.For example if you have seen half of Citizen Kane and felt pretty bored-it doesn’t matter.Go to Facebook and like Citizen Kane,Orson Welles and anything remotely related to that movie.Because intellectual people like Citizen Kane-do you want to be or intellectual or not?then suppose you overhear or oversee a couple of guys discussing French New Wave-you don’t have to know what it is-just go and like the damn thing on Facebook will you?Facebook likes are meant for showboating only.

7.Pretend to be a soccer fan.You don’t have to be one.Just say I support Manchester United.Remember they win a lot of trophies and you want to come off as an winner don’t you?Nowadays you can also support Barcelona-And on match-days you don’t even have to watch the goddamned matches-just update your status on Facebook and tweet with the following from time to time- “Go Barcaaaaaaaa” “GGMU” “Go Messiiiiiiiii”.

8.Show your hatred for commercial Bollywood.Make fun of Bollywood in every possible way.Even if you watch every damn movie of Bollywood-but remember-you are now becoming an intellectual and intellectuals hate Bollywood!!You can be an Aamir Khan or Anurag Kashyap fan though-most people think they are “different” making “different” movies-You don’t have to know like their movies-Just praise them a lot.And your job is done.

9.Use the F-word the MF-word,the B-word a lot.Throw it in before as many words as you can.That’s what intellectuals do.Don’t you watch MTV and Channel V reality shows?F-words are the in thing-so use them.

10.Write wannabe smart-ass blog posts which are hopelessly derivative or completely devoid of humour.Like this one.If you blog no one can stop you from being considered an intellectual.

Uninspired Ramblings

I am not a bright kid-so think you can forgive me?
If I ain’t so cool tonight-think you’ll still love me?
I wanna be a smartass,pal-but I’ve had a hard day
A while back I even put my ego for sale on Ebay.
Tonight,brother-I envy the drunks and Superman
They aren’t bound by the shackles of life like I am
Wish we could just sit and chat like Kate and Leopold
I am afraid of the passing days-aware I’m growing old
My insecurities might prove stronger than my barrier
My wall of silence might succumb to my worst fears
Let’s forget all these sad thoughts-spread a little joy
You can be my Marilyn Monroe I will be Johnny Boy

So now that we got that settled-

Everybody have a seat coz am gonna let it rip
Nowadays my mind fails-inspiration rarely clicks
So who knows how long ‘tis ‘fore I end this gig
The end is near coz anyday now imagination R.I.P.