Village Post: Part 1 - Drama in the blood

I always keep talking about my small village in mostly all of my blogs. Well it's not that small also. Almost 5000 people stay in my village. It's actually a very weird place full of weird people and weird incidents ( No doubt why I am proud to be one). A full epic can be written on the place and the people and would be a bestseller without any doubt (Someday, someday). As far as social, cultural, educational and moral value goes, my village holds a very respected position in the whole district of the southern part of West Bengal. People are culturally drawn towards performing arts and every week there used to be some kind of cultural program somewhere in the village.

My family owns a school there, so being a part of the school committee and the whole cultural jingbang all around, from childhood, I used to feel very culturally inclined and used to take part in arranging such kind of activities. Every year April-May used to be a super fun month for us as the annual cultural program of the school used to happen then. Other than the performances, we used to also sort out gifts for the winners in annual sports and used to award the good students. There used to be songs, dance performances, recitation, mimicry, but the main attraction was the drama performed by present students. All students, teachers, guardians, shopkeepers, local bigwigs used to wait for that one big thing.

The year was 1994. The date was, 24th May( If I'm not wrong). Before that, all the dramas used to be of 20-30 minutes, and mostly those were based on classic books. That year we broke two rules
1. We came up with a parody which was written by the great Bengali writer 'Narayan Gangopadhyay' and had no classic value whatsoever, and 2. We got two ex-students (including myself) and my friend Arya (who never was a student of the school) to act in the drama. It was called Bhim Badh ( The killing of Bhim: the second pandava)

The story was about a drama group who is staging a play called 'Duryodhan Badh' ( The killing of Duryodhan: the captain of Kauravas). But the actor who was supposed to play Duryodhan doesnt want the villianious role and doesnt want to die in the end, so he wanted to be Bhim and approached the director Kaluda, but the director shuns him off and forces him to play Duryodhan. So he takes his revenge by messing up the whole drama, creating chaos on screen and thus making it Bhim Badh.

We rehearsed for several days, almost a month and then the day finally came. My friend Sayan portrayed Kaluda-the director, Arya was playing Krishna , Bhim was Debashis, I was playing the prompter, Souvik & Mridul were two soldiers 
(more like props, they didnt have dialogues), and my brother Inder was Duryodhan. All of us were quite well known child-actors in the locality, especially Sayan. So relatives and other people flocked the ground and the place were choc-blocked before we could even start the function

April-May is also the time in Bengal, when the Nor'wester storm happens on most of the evenings, and heavy wind with rains cause all the ripe mangoes to fall. We were all ready to perform and heavy wind started to blow. It was an open air performance, so all viewers ran for shelter. In the dressing room a visibly depressed Arya was actually wishing if his chakra could work and he could do something about the weather; fortunately the storm calmed doen in less than 15 minutes. We were all unhappy that most of the audience have ran away. But as soon as we enter the ground, we could see atleast 1000 people came that day to watch that drama. We started, We acted and we conquered. Well in between once the power went off, but Sayan, as brilliant an actor he was, didnt even miss a small cue. We had swept the whole crowd of their feets.

The cast of Bhim Badh [ from left, Me, Mridul, Arya, Sayan, Debashis, Inder and Souvik]

And then Bhim badh became a cult drama in the vicinity.  I somehow directed Bhim Badh once more, when I was in class twelve. I did that play in my high school. This time I didnt act though :). But drama has always been something that held the village together. There are umpteen anecdotes about the dramas that has happened over the years, the local actors, imported actors ( from Kolkata theatre), the actor who was specialized in playing 'conscience', the actor who pronounce Mahatma Gandhi without a 'hi' and with a 'u', the actor who was the reason behind many dramas getting stopped in between and many more. In my village posts, I will talk all about them, all about my village, and all the weird experiences of my time there. Do visit in once before you lose the weirdness in you...

I really wanna know

As my last post was about rap, I couldn't help searching through my diaries to find any of the raps which I had written during my college life. I got one...

" I really wanna know what I really really want
Every time I cut my pencil, I find the knife is blunt
I really want to own all the albums which were banned
When I try to wear jean, I end up with cotton pants

I really wanna know, what I really wanna do
I think of spiritual leaders when I go to zoo
And when I eat some beef steak, I think of chicken stew
I really wanna laugh hard, when others do boo-hoo
I end up with a slap, whenever I try to flirt
When I try to wear a polo tee, I end up with formal shirt

I really wanna know what I really really can
when the weather is cold in winter, I try to switch on the fan
When everyone's watching mushy stuff, I want to watch Batman
When I know that a pint is cheaper, I still drink from the can
So when I see a dog, I also think of a fox
when I try to wear a black one, I end up with blue socks

You really wanna know, what I really really feel?
My whole world is based on reel rather than real
I dont believe in any f#*ing religious zeal
I always check the price of things, before I pay my bill
So if this is a story of what I really really do
When I try to wear floaters, I end up with wearing shoes.


I dont even remember what the context was, but I enjoyed writing these kind of stuff. Little kiddish, but hey... who cares?  

The Rhyme Master

I have always been a rhymer, as long as I remember. When I was a kid I used to like rhymes and used to create my own rhymes. For example with 'twinkle twinkle little star' I used to rhyme 'come little close, why so far?'. My teachers used to get pissed at this so called 'bad habit' of changing 'literature'.

When I was at class four, I got introduced to the literary works of a certain gentleman named 'Edward Lear'. I read through his 'a book of nonsense' in three days and that introduced me to a certain genre of rhyming called 'limericks'. While the limericks strengthened my sense of rhyming, it also taught me how to look at every situation in a funny way. So whoever has experience my sarcastic funny side till now, you know exactly whom to blame. 

Then as I started going to high school, I got introduced to this children's science magazine called 'Kishore Gyan Bigyan'. Other than the scientific features, on the second last page, they used to have a limerick contest. They used to give the first line, and we had to finish the next three lines. And once I started sending my entries, to my surprise, they actually started putting my stuff among the top 5 entries almost regularly, and a couple of time my limerick won the first prize ( I know for a fact that they used to get at least thousand entries every month. 100 entries used to go from my school only).

After sometime because of a world-changing show called 'Superhit Muqabla',  I got introduced to a gentleman named Baba Sehgal ( I heard his albums quite late in my life). This man had a unique way of rhyming and I totally loved that. He always was a fascinating personality for me, and I got used to this new genre of music called RAP. 

I hate hip-hop music, cant stand the voice of a gentleman (not so gentle actually) named Akon and detest the new breed of R&B singers, who has no lyrical value in any of their songs. Wait... I was talking about rhyming and rap. Where did R&B come from? Ahhh... I was going to talk about the one rapper who actually made sense and for the last 14 years, I have followed each and every album of his. Marshall Bruce Mathers aka Eminem. His lyrics, his words, his way of rhyming is nothing less than sheer brilliance.

But my rhyming life actually came to a full circle in 2008. I was working in this Bollywood entertainment channel called 'Imagine Showbiz'. I had to ideate about  some Bollywood vignettes. What came out was a simple rhyme connecting two Bollywood celebrities. Originally I named it 'Khoon ka Rishta', but then as we didnt get many such 'Rishtas', we decided the name to be Cross Connection. And guess whom we approached for the music??? Baba Sehgal, the king of Indian Rap himself. 

Over the next few months, we created 60 such raps. Some written by me, some by my friend Alok. The raps were mindless, but the impact it had on people was terrific and the fun we had while rhyming can never be recreated. And the effect  baba's cross connection had on me, was immense, I rhyme at everything now. For last two years, whatever I've written, somehow or the other I write rhymes in it and I still do. Its a gift, its a curse, who am I? I am the rhyme master.

P.S: I know you guys have already watched it many times, but I couldnt help pasting one Cross Connection link. Have fun...

The real masterchef

My friends say that I am a good chef. Reason being I treat them often with different experimental food which they rejoice. But I know that I am just a cook who understands taste. There were many cases, where I cooked something and it tasted like shit, but I somehow managed to save the day by adding something on top of it and equalize the taste. That's how I became the chef. People say I got it from my dad, he cooks amazing though. Some say necessity while staying out of home made me this, well too some extent that too, but the person who got me interested in cooking is my friend Kallal, the real master chef.

Kallal was a good cook from the day I knew him. Whenever there's a school picnic, Kallal always used to be the one to cook meat. and his sense of spices were accurate, be it for 4 people or 40, spices were always perfect. He defined the proper Indian meat curry. There was one incident I'll always remember. We had a feast in our house where my classmates from our English teacher's batch gathered and we all were playing and swimming. Kallal was cooking from morning. When the food was ready, he blew our head with the taste. It was damn tasty. Everyone took second and third helping. My friend Aryabhatta, could never eat spicy stuff, he loved the chicken so much, that after his first helping, though tears ran down his cheeks because of the spice, he couldnt help saying " Kallalda, arektu mangsho hobe?' ( Kallal, can I have some more meat?)

Kallal legacy was known everywhere, even when he moved to Bangalore he was famous for his food. This photo is from the Commits college canteen where, one fine Sunday, Kallal the stud, wanted to make chicken to impress the girls. I'm pretty sure he did. At least the photo suggests he did. But I always wondered why Sahana (the extreme right one) is not looking at the dish, when she loved to eat. And why Kirti (extreme left) is so happy when she was a vegetarian. Maybe it was the salad. Nevertheless, Kallal still cooks and it will stay as his passion, But seeing him cook was what inspired me to try and experiment with food. His precision, timing and perfection is what I wanted to achieve, but being Kallal was never easy and will never be. I miss his dishes, sometimes. I hope he cooks the same now. Oh, by the way, the dish he made that day, looked like this. YUMMY........

Tere Mere Davanegere

This is a picture of a signboard and that is no rocket science. It is a very simple signboard, like the ones you usually notice on a highway or a road indicating places. Mostly at a four-way junction in small towns. When you see it, it is nothing but a small directional piece of junk. But on 19th September 2009, this particular signboard had played a very important part in my life. Well, some more people were involved in it too. 

Well three Red Chillies employees Nikita, Farhan and I were going on an office roadtrip from Mumbai to Bangalore. The show had something to do with IPL, so we had to stop a lot in between and shoot different stuff. After spending the first night at Belgaum, we hoped we would reach Bangalore the next night, but in between because of our break journeys at Hubli and Gadag, we got late for our next pit stop, Davanegere. Now none of us had been to Davanegere ever, our only knowledge about the place was that it was somewhere on NH4 and it's about 200 kms before Bangalore. We left Hubli around 5ish and it became dark soon. Because the road was getting repaired that time, we couldnt use the highway, like it should be used and drove at a very normal speed of 50 km/h. It was about 8 o clock when we started getting impatient and every little bit of light which we see on the way we thought it was Davanegere.

After we crossed Haaveri, there were no lights on the road, no signboard and it was pitch dark outside. We thought we will find some localite on the roadside and ask them but for one hour there was not a single human being to be seen. Nikita kept calling one of her friends, I was trying to concentrate in google maps, Farhan was trying to find a signboard and our driver Krishna was drowsy as hell. At about 10 pm, we found couple of guys on bicycles, local workers returning home after a hard days work. We tried asking them the direction, but neither of us knew Kannada nor they understood us. Krishna, who hails from Hyderabad came to our rescue and asked them the question in Telegu and what they said was "In about 10-20 kms there will be a left for Davanegere, if we miss that, we have to find our way out". Everyone were on their toes waiting for the left turn. 

30 minutes have passed and almost 30 kms we crossed, but there were no left turn. Poor Krishna wanted to pee for almost one hour. Finally around 10.30, Krishna gave up, he stopped the car and went to pee beside the road. After he finished, he came back, put the car lights to upper and in that blur light all of us shouted in joy. We could see the signboard which says Davanegere on our left. We got down, tried to find the left only to find a small village road deviating from the highway. I took this snap before leaving, we took the left and in fifteen minutes we were in Davanegere. Had Krishna not stopped that day, we would have wandered for some more time.

The picture is not just a snap, it is a memory of those three hours of my life. I will never forget the left turn to Davanegere ever. The picture made the story worth telling

Fifty shades of money

Well, I never believed in the phrase which says that a picture used says thousand words, I've always felt and I still feel that a picture needs at least hundred words to describe and explain many things. A picture completely misses to show the anecdote that is associated with clicking that, the moments that made that picture memorable and I feel that those are more important than the picture itself. Sometimes the stories are so awe-inspiring that the picture stays us forever in our mind.

Like it happened now. I was looking for a topic to write my blog on. Just closed my eyes and this picture was in front of my eyes, and I was like 'bingo', there's another untold story. But before I start telling my story, I want you guys to have a look at this particular photo and tell me what do you guys think about it. What story does it tell you? The guy in the photo is one of my closest friends, infact no less than my brother Manmeet Singh Gumber. What will possibly be the reason of him standing there with a Rs. 50 note in his hand and a glum face???

Well if you guys are done guessing, Let me come to the point. Let me take you back to 2009. To be exact 20th January 2009. Manmeet came to Kolkata for the first time to visit my house, which is at about 40 kms outskirts of Kolkata. So after we spent some great days at my place, a day prior to his departure, we went to do some shopping in Kolkata, we roamed around the whole day, ate a lot and came back to Sealdah station to catch down Diamon Harbour local at 6.00pm. Because Sealdah is the first station when the train comes to platform, the daily passengers jump up to the train to occupy the better seats before everyone else. So seeing this 'jumpy act of bravery' by the dailies on other trains, the Sikh blood started boling in my otherwise pure vegetarian friend, and he prepared himself to jump in and get the best seat. 
 
Now as I was a daily passenger myself for sometime during my college days, I knew the rules of getting in a South Bengal local train and I had told Manmeet, not to perform any such stunt. The train came, full of people and same number of people were waiting at the station to board the train. I told Manmeet to wait, let me go in and keep a seat for him. But Mr. Gumber, just to prove his courage, gave it a shot. He actually got up fighting through the flow of descending people. He came up to me smiling and in his eyes I could see that self satisfying smile. But it lasted less than a fused filament does. As he touched his pocket he realised that his wallet has been picked and apart from the money all his cards and papers are gone with it. The whole journey back home was a nightmare for him as he was figuring out what all were there.

The next morning he woke up and came up to our terrace and he had the 50 rupee note with him. Apparently that was the only form of money that was left with him after the incident. Though the incident was not funny, his expressions made it funnier and decided to capture it through his own camera. There he was, standing on my terrace, my friend with only piece of Gandhiji he had. Unforgettable one, isnt it?
 

Station Stories

Railway Station... The small village where I come from, railway station has always played a major role in everything. Any occasion in anyone's house, people would be waiting at railway stations to either receive people or to see them off. Anyone visiting their relatives at Kolkata, station is where they wait. From going to office/school/college daily to returning home every weekend, station has always been the most important factor in all the citizens of the small village in South Bengal. 

Everything revolved around the station. Market, school, bank, temple, factories everything. It was always full of color, full of life and full of different kind of smells. As someone who has spent 21 years in that small village, I loved the station. I loved the expressions n people's face while they are waiting for the train (the time gap between two trains was at least an hour), loved the conversations that used to happen between two individuals or among a group, the love stories that happened on it, the fights that happened over game of cards, the un-hygenic food that we used to get or the district famous icecream soda water (Gopir Jol), I was in complete awe with the place.

I used to write for a wall magazine which used to hang on one of the pillars of the station. When I was a kid, I used to read the stories on every issue of the wall magazine every day, and wait till the editor changed it every fortnight. They day they asked me to write for it, it was the world for me. I eventually became the editor of it in a couple of years and while I was at helm, the station authorities asked us to get rid of it as they were renovating the platforms. Felt very sad that day.

The station was a place for various love stories. Many couples met on the station and later on got married. I had two romantic improvements myself while waiting at the station. Every Saturday morning I used to take a train at 5:40 am to go to Baruipur, the nearest town for my English tuition. And there was this girl, blue dopey eyes, long hair, sharp nose. I was attracted towards her and so was she. Though my tuition was at 7:30, I used to catch this train, just to spend that one hour extra with her. Fun days those were, last I met her also was on the station itself, seven years ago, married and pregnant. It was me who broke her heart, was a kid then, couldn't understand the priorities in life, couldn't find the difference between good and bad. Now when I look back, I realize, she loved me... a lot. I never understood the depth...




The station also was responsible for one of the biggest accidents that I could've had. That was one of the many near-death experiences I had. It was 5 am in the morning on a Wednesday in July 2001. I was late for the train and while running towards the station I realized, that if I miss the train, I will be late for the district selection match. So I ran faster, and the moment I reached the station, the train started moving, I somehow put my kitbag inside, put one leg on the foot board and almost put the other and then my other leg slipped on the platform which was wet because of the previous night's rain. The train took pace and I was dragging my that leg somehow; I could see the station's coming at an end and if I don't pull my leg up, I wont be able to keep balance and might come under the wheels. So as last resort, I put pressure on my dragging leg, which was bleeding by then and pulled myself up at the last minute. By the way, I scored a half century that day and took two wickets and quite deservingly got selected in the U-19 team.


Station is still the important factor when I go back home to my small village nowadays. Its still the most comfortable and fast way to communicate to Kolkata. I still go there at times to see the facial expressions of people, or to have the best ice cream soda manufactured at our village, or to have the egg puffed rice that we get on the platform. But somehow now I cant connect with the station anymore, blame it on my staying apart for long or the clean and polished and well built thing that it has become. I don't get the same smell that I used to get, I dont get the comfort anymore. Now it's like any other station, and damn, I miss it :( . 


To add a little bit of  Joe Walsh onto it. 

"I was standin' at the station
Out at the end of the line
Feelin' mad, just a bit impatient
And I wish that you would make up my mind
Yes I was out there on the platform
Pay phone keeps eatin' my dimes
And I still don't have an answer
And the train's leavin' right on time
I'm fallin' down

I'm fallin' down
Standin' at the station
Won the battle
Here I am, standin' at the station
Like a gen'ral just relieved of command
I'm fallin' down
I'm fallin' down"