Goldas...

First Sunday, then Me and now Nilu.. All of us have now fathered a child. In between Suvro and Sandy's got married and is making their own stray attempts (are they?? I am not too sure). I cant help but get nostalgic.

I was trying to think when did we all first get together. It was certainly not a one day event but rather a series of circumstances that put us all together. The coagulation started around 1986-87. Its now almost 2 decades since then and it makes me feel ancient.

The catalyst of my friendship with Sunday was H.B.Sarkar and Salt Lake. If H.B.Sarkar wasnt running a bus service and if we were both not staying in Saltlake we would never have met leave alone gelled. He was not my type and neither I was his. Sunday was the introvert types who used to keep to himself and interact with only a few. I still remmember the mad rush for the window seats but Sunday used to well avoid that. Very typical of him. He still doesnt rush and always reaches late.

As for Sandip he joined CBS midway in class VII. Interestingly he was ropped into the Ankan Basu gang. But somehow nice forces realign. Always the nice guy, I have a genuine affinity bias for him. We started with one-off conversations and slowly but surely things began to fall in place. Little trips to Talapark, lots of deferred opinions, hot debates and but all blossoming into a genuine respect (Is it mutual Sandy??).

I cannot remmember how I came close to Nilu but I think it must have been Arindam or Sundaram. Again Nilu and I are rarely on the same wavelength. He used to be part of the Suvro, Subhayan, Samit Ghosh, Biswaroop group who played their own version of girlie cricket. Sorry for this but I have not seen any males running like Subhayan - a kind of Jagmohan Dalmiya of their form of cricket. Our friendship blossomed post ICSE exams. Thats when most of us learnt to fly. Each morning we used to cycle till Laketown footbridge and both sides used to meet. Nilu was the first to invite us to his house and I still remmember the Biryani.

As for Suvro he was part of the same Tala crowd. With him it catalysed pretty late since he had a bevy of male company around him. Sorry Suv but you were Subhayan's toyboy. Our Plus 2 years were pretty cloudy. And the result was each one of us had to regroup at an individual level. Quite unknowingly each one of us had to get back to the drawing board. Suvro and Arindam regrouped the best then followed by Nilu and Sunday. I am still looking at the board and trying to figure out. Suvro took a sanyas from public life. It didnt endear him to me at that point of time but today I realise the scale of effort.

Writing about those times will be incomplete without Arindam. He was my best buddy. Among all the Goldas he was the only one who was my type. From some Class V we were together. The pressures of career, third party interventions (friend, girls and family et al) and sundry other things spoilt it all. It pricks and it pricks more to think that both of us are in Bangalore and yet so far.

If I look back to our schooldays it creates a momentary emotional flood. Its terrific that we have lasted so long. Over the years our relationships have matured as expectations has got redefined. Our commitments and priorities have changed but we are still loosely together and are much less accountable. It makes me feel nice but I would have felt better if there wasnt the occasional prick about Arindam.

Splogging

Some weeks back I was dying for people to come into my blog and comment . But some sane brains are still there in my life and they helped me get back on track.

And now the same old comments are becoming my nemesis. The spammers have littered my recent posts with comments galore from Penis induction, to Music downloads to Recipes. But Google is a great company with great products. And they are ever responsive. So we now have comments moderation.

For all those who are still interested to comment on my post.. not that I care:).. will have to go through this word verification process.

Picture courtesy www.blogger.com

What this does is to prevent automated systems from adding comments to my blog, since it takes a human being to read the word and pass this step. This will help me to not receive an advertisement or a random link to an unrelated site in the garb of a comment. Google calls it "comment spam" but I choose to call it Splogging.

Enlighten dont Divide....

A recent letter from a friend sparked this mail. I feel its an important issue to share in this increasing divisive world.

I have a blind and instinctive reverence for Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. But I have not read their thoughts in detail. Recently a friend of mine who is also a great admirer of them brought their name in the context of religion, bharatmata. I have a problem with that. My hunch (its a hunch because I have not done enough reading) is that their teachings and philosophies have nothing to do with all this.

Think about this.

There were so many species on earth including homo sapiens. Because of our superior brains and survival instincts we managed to be lord of this earth. We have set our rules, divided our land as per our whims and fancies. Where does all this leave the other species. They are all left marginalised. My wife has the audacity to shoo away a street dog away for encroaching some space in my house. But on what basis..

And now the fitter amongst us are trying marginalise people on some pretext or the other. Hitler tried to do that to telling effect and has left a scar. A country like Israel's entire existence hinges on that.

Its Darwinian theory in play. But I guess its a destructive cycle. Tommorrow a more intelligent and fitter species may come and we will be swept aside. And you never know our ancestors will be shooed away..

How were coutries formed?

Countries were formed ages back out of political considerations out of sundry different reasons.Sometimes out of exigencies, sometimes religion and mostly divisive lines. Ramakrishna has nothing to do with that..

Its about Knowledge

I will be able to better explain all this once I acquire wisdom and knowledge and some more grey hair. People like Ramakrishna and Vivekananda were rare. And there are numerous like them in various nooks and corners of the world whom we do not know about. People who try to decipher the world and enlighten us.