Reflections

I am back from India after a holiday that seemed far too brief. I went back to Siliguri, now wracked by the Gorkhaland agitation. We had planned a short holiday in the hills but had to hastily cancel it as there was a bandh call, which in the event got cancelled. It is difficult to go for a holiday with the possibility of a Damocles sword hanging over you, no matter how beautiful the destination may be. Perhaps the agitators would do well to remember this. Once the golden goose is killed, there will be no more eggs, golden or otherwise. Calcutta where we spent a couple of days was as Calcutta always is : dusty and crowded. I visited the Mohun Bagan ground after a long time and met Subir and his friends, of which I will write at length later. I saw the lights of Park Street, looking pretty good this year; it appears that the Park Street is recovering somewhat from the raggedness that it had fallen into during the eighties and the nineties. The roads as usual were chockablock with the mo...

One of my posts (Mohun Bagan Vs East Bengal) has brought me in contact with a group of young alert and very tech savvy group of fans of Mohun Bagan who have banded themselves into a Yahoo group. One of the founders is Subir Mukherjee who commented on my post and invited me to join them. I did and am daily being entertained by their conversations. It seems to cover everything, from the best way to preserve records and digitize them to what they will be doing over the weekend (some of them will be partying I am glad to say.) There is now a lively conversation going on about the famous Pele match. This was in 1977 on the 24nd of September (I think). I had the privilege of watching the match as well. I remember that the Statesman had written during the build up to the match that it was ridiculous that Mohun Bagan should play them. Mohun Bagan had lost the Senior Division Football league title that year, losing 0-2 to East Bengal in the derby match. If I remember correctly, there was some...

I wake up nowadays to the sound of the koel’s call. It is untimely, at least that is what I would have thought in India where we associate the koel with the onset of Spring. It could , at least during my student days be heard even in central Calcutta by lanes. However I now remember that this call had welcomed me when I came to Malaysia one year ago. How time flies, it has already been a year since I came here and it is time to take stock. What are my impressions? The first thing that strikes you as you enter the country through the KLIA is the wonderful infrastructure that has been built up. The highways are better than anything I have seen in the West, and most of the other infrastructure is also impressive. It is now a semi developed country, far ahead of India or any other South Asian country. It was raining than too, just as it does every day now. And well it might as this is the rainy season: so the first lesson to be learnt here is that the seasons simply do not resemble anyth...

There are, I am told about half million Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia today. New entrants have been barred after the Global economic downturn began to bite. Still everywhere you go , in Malaysia, Bangladeshis are seen working: in supermarkets , in the construction industry, as janitors, household help and a hundred other professions that do not attract Malaysians. There are also a fairly large number of Nepali immigrants who work mainly in the private security services. I meet them mainly in the local Carrefour supermarket where I go for my weekly grocery shopping. There are boys from Comilla, Mymensingha, Jessore and every other part of Bangladesh. I like talking to them as we share a common language. I also like to know where they come from because the names evoke memories of my maternal grandparents and my mum’s stories of the lost East Bengal which was part of our country not so long ago. Last week I spent some time chatting with two of them at the local supermarket. They ...

I was watching a National Geographic programme on the Haj pilgrimage on TV yesterday. It was moving to see how a couple of million pilgrims from around 120 countries come together for a pilgrimage that has been happening for the past 1400 years. In fact the pilgrimage to Mecca had been going on for many years before Prophet Mohammad made it one of the cornerstones of Islam. Similar pilgrimages exist in all lands and in all religions. But there is no country that epitomizes pilgrimages as well as India. India is the land of pilgrimages. People have been going on pilgrimages to holy temples, rivers and mountains for well over 2500 years. There are pilgrimages all over the land. Some of them were arduous in the past, but now modern facilities, and roads have made them easy of access. One such must be the temple of Jagannath in Puri which has attracted pilgrims from all over the Indian Subcontinent for aeons. As recently as the nineteenth century, the pilgrimage to Puri from the heartla...

Bundelkhand is one of my favourite parts of India. It is unfortunately one of the most neglected parts of India as well and drought and a chronic hunger stalk the land. This does not detract from its beauty and the grandeur of a land that was once the home of the Chandela Kings who built the Khajuraho temples. It is also the home of several rivers that are in many ways unique. These include the Chambal River and the Ken both of which have carved some of the moist scenic gorges. The rivers are also the home of some of the largest populations of the Gharial, now decimated by a mysterious illness, probably related to pollution in the river. The story goes that the Moon god seduced a Brahmin girl when she had gone to the river to bathe. After the birth of her son, the young unmarried mother had to take refuge in the forests of Central India and this son, Chandravarman, grew up to found the Chandela dynasty. He started the building of temples in Khajuraho, successive rulers adding to the n...

The Malaysian philharmonic Orchestra is housed at the Petronas Philharmonic hall at the Twin Towers of Kuala Lumpur. I visited it for the first time this week. It was a weekday concert, short, about an hour, and they played Terry Riley, an American modern composer. He has been heavily influenced by Indian classical traditions and this was evident in the composition. The MPO was accompanied by a large contingent from the Malaysian Youth Philharmonic Orchestra as well. I am really not very competent to comment on the quality of the music played. However, even to my inexperienced ears, the standard did not seem to be very high. However they played with competence and I enjoyed the evening, this was my first exposure to live Western music played by a full scale Orchestra. But as always in Malaysia, the infrastructure was superb. This hall sponsored by the inexhaustible oil revenues of Petronas, is built on a grand scale, the high ceiling, the backdrop and the seats were all, at least to m...