Strawberry Fields Forever

..

a still from the movie of the same name

Little red bubbles of love, you call them.

Trembling voices and figuring woes, gather momentum

As we walk across the misty trails, like two souls lost

In abandoned passion, and the valley’s grass gently crushed underneath.

When you speak, the words fill up my mind.

Staying awhile, I know, I might find one more dream in your eyes.

As your fingers run through my hair a voice escapes me....

You're here today, it says.

Blinded, I am, but I feel your piercing gaze

Run down my face, an inch at a time,

Its placid charity echoing your warm touch.

Only, you are here today , and it is beautiful.

Not sure if you figure what you see in these eyes,

I can see your lips curl up into a smile, as you let me

Walk you through these strawberry fields.

Just a promise lingers – forever

Ruff and Me

Ruff and I absolutely love it at the park. So when I have the time I take him there in the evenings. “A little exercise like that is exactly what the two of you need”, my doctor tells me. But I think he’s read too much into the annual med test reports. But then things like chasing down the Ice-cream Man and putting his face through the park fence trying to reach out at a ball on the other side really gives him a kick. I don’t mind letting him act once in a while, in the way he used to when I brought him home with me. As I sit on the bench pretending to read the paper, I actually watch him be his inquisitive self. I think he knows that. Sometimes, I think he knows more about me than I know about him.

Usually, we find a lot of children playing around in the park in the evenings. I guess, the two of us just love sitting there watching the kids play. A lot of them bring their Frisbees. They are usually of bright colours. Some are conventionally beautiful and some exotically so. I think he likes the Frisbees more than the kids. I’ve often seen him watching the Frisbees fly past him, even as he sits without a wag in his tail or a rub on his belly (the two things he does best). I sometimes wonder, “What is this guy so thoughtful about?” when he’s busy watching the kids play. That he’s never chased down a Frisbee, is rather strange. Back home if I were to show you one piece of furniture which did not have the impressions of his teeth, I would fail miserably. So, it came as quite a surprise when he finally did what I had thought he’d never do.

It was one of those beautiful evenings in spring, a couple of years back. We had just settled down on our usual bench when I noticed this group of kids playing with a Frisbee. And, this dark blue plastic thing reflected the setting sun’s rays, off it, every time they threw it around. It was simple yet enigmatically beautiful. More importantly, it had taken Ruff's fancy. It had started to make him edgy as I could tell form the way he had started breathing now. I knew exactly what he was thinking. I knew him too well for that. “I have got to re-hook the chain to his collar”, I thought. Even as I groped around for his chain I could see the nervous energy in him reach threshold.

But, before I could even shout out his name, he had turned his head around. My orders never mattered, but tonight I didn’t want to give him one anyway. And, in any case it was too late. A smile escaped me as he leaped to his feet, sprinted right at the object of his desire, dodged the bewildered 6 year old in the way, jumped, caught it right out of the air and crashed.

The sun’s rays continued to hit my eyes off the Frisbee, now held tightly between his teeth.

His droopy little eyes assured me “... we are fine ... ” … I didn’t doubt him. Never have.

Perfume - Somewhere In Time.

A face stares out at me from under the covers, I don’t recognize. Lovely eyes, I don’t know at all. The warmth of the room is suddenly taken away, and i feel a shiver run down my spine. There is something I want to remember, but I can’t. I try harder, but all I feel is the numbness of a mind drained off all its thoughts.

I stand up and let my stupor guide me around the room for a while. Grabbing the whiskey, I pour some in a glass. Desperate to burn my throat back to sense, I stand there looking out at the busy street, some 15 storeys down. Not sure if “this is just a feeling” that I have, I try to shake myself out of this stupor. Yet again, nothing happens. I can hear a buzz in my ears. But then, I think it’s been there for some time now.

All I keep seeing are flashes of a distant place. And I can’t recognize the faces in these as well. Flashes, I’m sure, that belong to a different place and time. Sometimes I think I see a lot of younger people in them. They all seem happy.
And the next thing I know is I have been taken back to that morning. The very one which changed everything forever. Where, a receding smell of yours, still lingers. I think it’s your perfume I can smell. And then suddenly, an avalanche of beautiful light floods my eyes completely. It blinds me for a moment. And then it’s gone, and the intense pain starts all over again.

I drown the whiskey in me, in one gulp. The throat feels a sudden sting and yet I can’t make sense of any of this. It is a ritual that my mind follows, and on which I absolutely have no control. It is just like walking the streets with her. She would let you hold her hand but not quite guide her through. And you’d still love her for doing that. I pour myself another drink, smiling.

As the whiskey hits me numb I slide under the sheets, undetected. I always try not to disturb them when they are sleeping. Closing my eyes I think to myself, “.. but your perfume… it still lingers on me.”


....

Gone in 60 Seconds - The Story of TV Commercials

Here is a post in which I finally managed to put in some of the stuff I discovered during the last couple of years at B School. In this one I’ve tried to talk about the single most important reason for which I’ve watched TV in the past couple of years: Commercials!



For me, the earliest memory of television commercials dates back to the mid-nineties of the last century. The Cricket World Cup had come down to the Indian subcontinent for the first time and I remember very short films with good looking people endorsing colas and cooking oils, being aired after every couple of overs bowled during those matches. A six-foot Ian Bishop coolly holding up the classic bottle of Coke or much smaller Sanjay Manjrekar roughing it up on a whitewater raft endorsing Four Square Cigarettes are some of the very vivid images that come to my mind when I look back at the TV Advertisement scenario of the 90’s.

More than a decade has passed and the advertising scenario has only become far more complex. With the number of brands with footprints in “cross-media” advertising growing exponentially, the TV commercials segment has only grown to become fiercely competitive. A direct consequence being the exorbitant increase in the amount of money charged by some of the leading TV channels for the slots available for commercials.


Prime time slots are now way out of reach of small or medium sized businesses. Only the major players can afford to air their commercials in these overtly coveted slots these days. With the pay-TV subscribers’ count crossing 70 million Indian homes, coupled with their ever increasing market dominance (both in terms of their Top lines as well as Bottom lines), these major MNCs hardly seem bothered by the sky rocketing advertisement charges charged by some of the TV channels.
In fact, the alarming thing is the fact that if you did the Math right, the “exorbitant fees” charged for these TV commercial slots would only seem justified. For example, a prime time 10 second slot during an India-Pakistan Cricket match is likely to cost anything near 5 Lacs. Now, even if the number of viewers is only 150 million, the net charge per run of the commercial per thousand viewers comes to a meager 3 Rupees and 30 Paise, a win-win for both the company and the TV channel.
Historically, the NFL’s Super Bowl in the US has been home to the most high profile TV commercials. In fact, a 30 second slot in this year’s Super Bowl is expected to cost around 2.6 Million USD. CRAZY!

But what drives Companies to shell out 2.6 Million USD for a 30 second advertisement slot? Simply put, it is the sheer aura created around the finals of arguably the favourite sport in the US. Being one of the most widely watched events, the Super Bowl is watched by not less than 90 Million US viewers. In fact, such is the stage created that these particular Super Bowl commercials are a created to be a spectacle in themselves. Created on humongous budgets and often directed by Hollywood veterans, these specially made commercials belong to a class of their own.

One such Commercial was the one aired during the ’84 Super Bowl finals by Apple, introducing the Macintosh to the world. This particular commercial is considered to be the most renowned and successful Super Bowl Ad ever. And hence, it obviously has the most fascinating story attached to it. Created on a budget of 800000 USD in 1983, this one had been directed by none other than Ridley Scott. Although this ad was all set to become a show- stealer at the ’84 Super Bowls, only a single 60 second slot was booked for it for a price of 800000 USD. And even though being made at such a huge budget, the executives on Apple’s Board were dismayed when it was shown to them. In fact, they advised the management NOT to air it at all. But, finally when the time came, the decision to air the ad was left to the VP of Marketing William V. Campbell and Executive VP of Marketing and Sales E. Floyd Kvamme. Luckily for us, they decided to go ahead with it. The Mac Ad was aired during the first commercial break after the first second half kick-offs and the rest, as the cliché goes, is history.


But, the most fascinating thing about this particular Ad is the fact that it was aired nationally only ONCE!

And the Deal: A crunch situation in the Super Bowl finals, 90 Million viewers watching, Apple introduces The Mac in style, all yours for only 1600000 USD, and only 60 seconds of fame…….I’m sold! Gone in Sixty Seconds flat!





PS: Do watch this one when yuo have the time .. just search "1984 Superbowl Apple Macintosh Commercial" on Google and you'll get the link.

Writer's Block - The Lighter Side.

I don’t think I have stumbled upon a Writer’s Block, ever in life. But, sometimes I simply lose track of my ideas after I have written a line like “… I always knew that after such a dinner the water in the pan might come to a boil the next morning …”



For me a writer’s block is just one of those amusing things. Simply put, that’s because I am not a writer. I love to call myself a simple human being who’s partially in control of his senses in a way that serves his sanity with decent doses of pride and humility. So, sometimes when I’m too scared to wake up my roommates in the middle of the night to tell them about one of my “eureka moments” I generally end up writing. That’s how I write, rarely and unexpectedly. But that is hardly the point of today’s discussion. So here is what I feel about a Writer’s Block.

So, if I were asked to write about a Writer’s Block, then probably the first thing that would come to my mind would be the image of a constipated poet. Something I call the “there-but-not-quite-there” phenomena. One can only imagine the frustration. But here I am, going through one myself, doing just that. It is a funny thing to have, really.


I usually try and think of nice words that will impress you with the very first line that you’ve read. And, not just nice words, they ought to be funny as well because I also have to collect those brownie points from you. But I’m still not there because apart from being nice and funny, these also have to have an aesthetic appeal so that they really gel well with the nice formatting that I have already thought of. And, Oh! It will be an add on if a few of these words also go by the English Dictionary, both individually as well as when arranged together in some form of a combination. Mighty difficult stuff, huh! And after having spent an hour or so on the very first line I have again done the inevitable: completely forgotten what the whole idea was all about. All in all, it is a Jack Black rock show. CRAZY!

I am not a good reader either. Even though my reading exploits do cover a little more than the “about me” sections of peoples’ profiles on social networking sites, I have hardly ever looked beyond the sports section of the newspaper. The good thing about this is the fact that it hardly ever makes me feel guilty of having systematically murdered English language with sentences like “hw u doin ma man…” or “chck out tht rack man.. cmpltly dope! ” I mean, where are the Police? I don’t see any.

But then, even Will Shakespeare in the movie ‘Shakespeare in Love’ is seen suffering from a Writer’s Block but eventually ends up having an affair with the very hot Viola (played by Gwneth Paltrow). Not a bad deal, huh! So, there is hope, still!

The best thing about going through a writer’s block is the fact that it leaves you with a chance to look life in the eyes and smile a few extra smiles. And all of this is only until a sudden avalanche gains momentum enough to put your ‘constipation’ to rest.


So, I sincerely hope you all have a great Writer’s Block!


PS: let's just hope that with this i've finally been able to kick start this blog which has undoubtedly been suffering a seven-month coma :)

Day and Night

like a blade of grass, you don't cease to thrill ...


I haven’t been where your eyes have seen me often,
I stray elsewhere.
Like the honey-laden primrose swayed by the weight of the dewdrops on it,
I am, but happy to lose my way in the wilderness of your imagination.
Swooning, still as awake, that they make me,
These whiffs of yours play with my senses, day and night.
As if aware when they find you, my eyes browse
Through the pleasantness of this spring air, anticipating your admission….
The night sky throws the most brilliant shades of black, on thee,
Often, leaving behind reflections on the walls of desperation.

Haven’t I told you about this madness?
About these earthly sentiments that sell me to the merchant
That comes for my soul on a night so cold…
And all I know for good is I’m sold, I’m sold ….

The One without an Ending ...

We walk and we run…
We trip and we fall,
and sometimes we get up and keep running again ….


Sometimes I’ve very liberally taken things for granted. And God knows I’ve paid for my assumed liberty. Sometimes I’ve brought a relationship to the rocks and at times I’ve had to make do with a knife in a gun fight. But every time I screw things up, things have been kind enough to un-screw themselves back almost as if in a System-Restore kind of a way. So, I keep taking things for granted all the more. I’m a champion at that.


So, here is how it works. I screw up something, somewhere, somehow. Sometimes I do it over coffee and sometimes all it takes is a little unintentional planning. Then, I wait around for some time. The effects and their side-effects start showing themselves pretty soon most of the times but sometimes they act a little smart and adopt a shock and awe approach even when you are on the watch. The point is, they never fail to startle you, sometimes by their snowballing tricks and sometimes you are done in by their relentless timing to show up. I call the later the loud-ping-of-a-pop-up-during-an-important-lecture-in-class. Now, after the initial hullabaloo the dust should settle down on the area leaving behind a topographical view of problems like the ones you are likely to see on a database schema.


So there you are, restricted to a remote corner of your own small room with the possibility of finally having to change more than a few tablecloths and clean the front desk of your present, for good.

The Benjamin Button Case - Solved ...

if, Benjamin Button had aged the other way ...



Right around the edges of his pleasant disposition you could see the marks left by numerous voluntary chains of spontaneous thoughts. Among the countless secrets that lay hidden in those fine creases and folds that defined each of his facial expressions, he was aware of the ones that weren’t evident enough to the untrained eye. Like the cyclicality of the days, months and years in his life, he had perhaps had experiences that were integral and inevitable to his existence, and often threatened to impede and restrict his thoughts from straying away to a place where they would find her, staring right back.


As he finally got up from his chair, his glasses fell down. He bent over and reached for them….


In those final few seconds he managed to see the world through those eyes again, he could see a face amongst the many equipments in the ambulance. It was hers. She was smiling at him. Her hazel eyes had the same twinkle that he had once grown so fond of. He managed to reach out his hand to caress her, to move a few strands of hair that dangled off her face, lovingly, for one last time. But, instead of finding her face, it was gently moved back to his side by someone in the van. He could hear muted voices all around him.


As she faded away the little tweets on the small monitor grew on him, and his breathing got shallower. And then suddenly, it was all over.


A few years had passed and it was another lovely morning. As she passed underneath the iron gates she felt the calmness of the place engulf her. She was there to see her. Her mother meant a lot to her, and she had promised to come visit her often. “You look beautiful today”, she said to her as she placed the flowers she had brought for her at her feet. A tear rolled down her cheeks.


Of all the things that a cemetery teaches you, it teaches you to be patient.


A couple of blocks away a light breeze moved a few leaves from a white stone slab. Inscribed underneath, it read – In loving memory of …

Theories of the Recent Present

Anomalous Expansion:

Life has been a little slower since the semester papers ran us over. I mean, there were 12 different subjects that you were juggling with, just the other month, and then here you are with a project that would make a snail look formula-one technology enabled. Seems like just the other day you felt like you could do with a few extra hours in your day, and now suddenly you realize there are just too many already. So, I tried waking up late, went to office, worked-out, slept for two hours, watched a soap, talked to a friend on the phone, saw 11 back to back episodes of HIMYM, surfed for an hour and then realized that I’d practically run out of things to do till I could finally doze off at 4 in the morning.


Reverse Psychology:

I quit cigarettes sometime in the summer of 2007, after a near two year stint. I thought I’d never smoke again, and I held on to that promise for quite some time. Things changed thereafter. Life has been a sine curve since college ended. I relocated to Pune and before I knew it I was smoking again. I thought I’d quit once I’d moved down to Pune, but it’s a long distance call from here and doesn’t come cheap, and it’s not just monetary. Classic example of “Smoking kills. Either ways”


Advanced Social-Networker’s Disorder:

I post something on one of my blogs and I want fifty people to check it out in the next ten minutes. Not just check it out, but also comment on it, appreciate it, post something similar on their own blogs, and become a fan. But when nothing happens even in the next half an hour, it starts feeling weird. Then there are times when a poor soul does make a comment. If I happen to be online, I read it, dislike it most of the times, and then I either delete it on his face or just shoot back saying “back off !@#$%” … and then if no one turns up to pay a little attention to this poor soul, I crib and go on to have the most miserable day.


Musical Cyclicality:

Do you have a friend who has set his Winamp on Repeat mode? Strange being, really! Why the hell does someone need to listen to one track more than once at a time?? But no, there will be these people who just won’t care to either stop or practice variation. They’d be there, in the room, on lights-out mode, lying drunk on the bed, staring at the ceiling and listening to the same song not twice or thrice but for hours at a stretch. God help his roomies if he has a dysfunctional pair of headphones.

Yeah, there are times when I take I’ll fix you a little too seriously. My advice is to just let that guy be.

The way your Smile makes me feel

A Cliché:


Of all the things that you give me, I like your smile the best... the warmth of which tells me that you could make the hazy shades of winter change into blossoming lavenders... it is as fresh as the sparkling water found on the distant mountain tops that I can only imagine... it lights up the darkest corners in the emptiness of my eyes … it shows how you feel inside... I can see how happy I want to make you… you smile like a child... your eyes twinkle when you smile… it gives a sense of belonging even to the sage who has loved and lost and is now broke... it makes me want to fall asleep then and there and never wake up… but most of all, it makes me want to love you more… your smile… it inspires me to be a better person…

The world is your Poultry, but the Chicks are Mine !!!

How do you make a Hot Chick check You out:


Okay, this one, I just love. I usually use the tube to commute. The Kolkata Metro is a hotspot for the better looking girls in the city. The best looking ones would ditch any kind of surface transport for obvious reasons. But, here’s how it’s done. First you need to locate one of them while on the platform. Slightly loiter around without arousing much suspicion. Just let her know that you have noticed her presence. Now, when the train arrives get in the same compartment. Usually girls don’t have to stand through the journey, unlike us, the darker sex. So, take advantage of the situation and place yourself 4-5 arms-lengths away from where the beauty is seated. Now all you need to do is to NOT look at her while you are standing there. Look at what the advertisement on the wall says, look at the shoes that the people are wearing, look at your watch, look at whatever but just don’t look at her. Do this for the next 10 minutes consistently and your job is done. Now that the next station is yours, move towards the door. As the doors slide open and you are just about to exit the train, give her a quick look, and Voila! She’s looking at you.


A word of Caution: Don’t go on bragging about it though, people usually don’t like be around Losers.

status quo ante

Ah! The year ends in style!!

Now all I need to do is go back home, sleep for a day, go check out the new office and spend the rest of the summer - working during the days and sweating by the nights. Now, that qualifies me to raise doubts over my I’m in love with this life perception of things.

Nah! You know that I won’t. I mean, I won’t stop turning stones just as yet. I’m too boring to even reach out for that bottle of water on the table and crush the ant on the floor in the process. The ant lives! I can drink the water when I’m finally forced to brush my teeth come tomorrow morning as per my body clock, whenever that is.

I mean- look at me! I always find out the hard way. The last time I took a swig from a beer can which I found in the wardrobe, I had to conclude that spirit-marinated roaches can be pretty repelling. If this wasn’t enough I followed it up with smoking a gold flake king size with a piece of chocolate sticking to the upper jaw - with a paper due in 4 hours I fell asleep on the floor. I mean, what was I thinking?


I know what my problem is… I weigh too less for a girl of decent sanity to fall for me. Of course I wouldn’t die a poor purely-unhitched-soul, but then as they say – but, why take a chance? Okay, simple solution to this one- I need to bulk up, dude! Okay, 3 hour work-outs every day during the summers- checked!

But wait, why the fuck does the gym need to close down, NOW!!

Quick alternate solution to the problem - Protein Supplements!

Now, these are sure to erode the already receding hairline even further, but what about the trade-off? Eat all that nasty powder and bulk-up and get a girl who’ll then run away after the hair-falling side effect kicks in or should I continue with the mirror-cracking profile description on Orkut which in anyway is not getting me anywhere?

Add to that- my favourite movie for the week seems to be Ghost Town, which I have viewed, reviewed, watched, re-watched, eaten, slept with and drunk at least three times full. Okay, now I know what went in behind the proper screw-up in the Finance Paper.


You know, this MBA thing is killing me as a poet. No, seriously!! Previously I used to write more of this stuff … but yeah, in the end, if they pay me well, I might as well spare them all, and stop writing ... you know…


Well, status quo ante …

No !

Right! This is where I stand. See me? No? Okay, how about now? No?... Fine, I’ll wait here.

For the first time in my life, I was in a restaurant with a girl. But, I wasn’t ready to look her in the eyes. It made me uneasy. Fidgeting with the ketchup bottle, I saw how red it was from inside.The reflection in the small mirror on the wall confirmed a similar state of affairs on my face. She was anxious. She didn’t give away any reason though. For, carefully planned, I had imagined those beautiful few would be moments over and over, all of last night; actually, every night since the last few nights, to be honest.

But when it came to telling you all I did was blurt it out like it was some kind of an ultra auto-reflex muscle contraction, that had squeezed it out of me. I saw her eyes tremble. Her eyes trembled. Her lips broke into a shaky curl ; almost reminding me of how beautiful i thought her smile was. She spoke. “My turn to listen.”
When she spoke, I wasn’t there. I couldn’t feel my senses. I smiled.


Here, I stood. My first brush with a feeling I called Love. Were you there? No?... Fine, I’ll wait here.


Today, as I stand here, I can see everything. I can see how hazy you had made me. You were wearing your hair in a bun and I had my heart on my sleeves. Reckless! But, you wanted to hear exactly what I wanted to say, that day. I thank thee, for you showed me that it was “okay”.
I don’t know why I tried calling you 4 years hence. Had I said sorry, you would have asked “but, why?”


And, I don’t want to lie any more…..
Are you there, yet? No?... Fine, wake me up and I’ll happily move.

Empty Rooms

Distant thoughts float around like clouds in my empty room … they are cold, and when they condense they will wet the cheeks.. Hope is warmer, still. Like the raindrops that wet your skin, my words comfort me, myself, one at a time, or so I presume. I remember the summer breeze flowing in from the North, and the winter afternoons.. the happiest hours. None of which were wasted, none at all. My eyes see what they see and my heart has felt what it has felt…

Loved you a lot less, then ....

Your eyes inspired a lot of dreams …
In them, I sometimes could find reality …
But I couldn’t let these eyes see more of you then….
My eyes hurt – because I wanted you to be far away, then …


Tonight the moon has come out beautifully …
Like the other nights- like the night I lay awake under the stars …
The faces and their light … the things that never followed …
You can close you eyes at will and yet be far away from sleep, then….


When you walk down the valley, you’ll remember all the walks…
Nature has its course and so has a river, you can only hope you cross one....
Masters of destiny are not kind to outlaws, and its justified…
Only because you saw me smiling, you saw someone far away form me, then….


Someday I’ll sit by my bedside…
Or maybe I won’t….. The question is, do I want death this bad…..
I am still not clear in my head if I loved you or not …
Maybe that’s because I loved you, but I loved you a lot less, then……


this is a translation of one of my favourite songs in bangla......