Wednesday, March 29, 2006

The Beautiful Game...


72 days left!

Concept: Dibesh Saha
All individual images are the property of their respective owners.

Crossposted at welcome to the ball game.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Bane



Sleeping with my demons,
I won’t rest until you’re dead
Bane is my religion,
And evil’s what I spread…

I can’t think straight for a second,
Now my eyes are turning red,
My aim is your conclusion,
I am what’s in your head.

Smiling to myself at night
Neither sleeping nor awake,
Rape your own reflection,
Love the demons in your head.

I’m burning up in ashes
Every time I close my eyes,
My mind’s a cemetery…
It buries me long before I die.

Angry with myself is
Not the way I want to be
Stumbling down the pathway,
Only darkness can I see.

My past has turned its back on me,
My future walks away.
Standing at the crossroads,
I’ve lost belief in faith.

This taste’s that’s in my mouth
Gets so familiar nowadays,
Living on illusions
I wait for empty death.

The voices in my head
Are the only ones I heed,
Pain is satisfaction
And pain is what I need.


This poison’s running through my veins,
These hooks they break my skin
Building walls around me,
And running from my sins.

Resting with my demons,
I can’t sleep until I’m dead.
My bane is still inside me,
I am what’s in my head…

Rights reserved.
Note: Final Version. Boys...get ready for July. Fingers crossed.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Burning the midnight oil...


Film Assignment - Genre Analysis of the Hollywood Western...Yee-Haw!

Coffee, Mouse, Keyboard, Monitor : My friends of misery...


Breaking it down...


Semiotics and Shit...(note that there was a Levi Strauss who din't make jeans)

Well at least I got an 89. Minus 6 marks for lateness. 83. What the hell....don't you judge me!

The Keys

The food was good. The food was always good. It was about a 15 minute walk from home; the name of the place was Hong Kong. Not the city but just another small restaurant located on a busy street in the middle of a bustling Calcutta. And what drew us there time and again was the special style of Chinese cooking which can be found only in India.

By the time we finished, it was around 10.30 pm. We decided to walk back instead of hiring a cab. It was a pleasant summer evening. My brother walked a few paces ahead of us. He’d had a small argument with Dad over dinner.

Halfway back, Mom asked Dad if he had the house-keys. He shook his head; he remembered my brother leaving the house last. I called out to the newest ‘suspect’. My brother replied in the negative too.

Now we started getting worried. We hurried back to the restaurant. They’d closed down for the night and we waited for at least ten minutes, before someone finally answered. We explained the situation. Surely it had fallen under the table or something. However, the staff couldn’t find it. What?! My brother went in to search under the tables. No luck.

Now it was past 11 pm. The only other spare key was inside the house itself. Locksmiths wouldn’t be available before next morning. The ever worsening reality of the situation began to dawn upon us.

My Mom asked my brother whether he was sure about not having the keys. All he could manage was a sarcastic comment. After all, if he’d had the keys in the first place…..

Mom suggested staying at a relative’s place for the night. Dad wouldn’t have any of it; he was still mad as ever. Nobody pushed the issue. There was only one option left: to break down the door.

My brother and I walked fast. We went to get help. As I walked, following the obscure shadows on the ground cast by the dim street lamps, I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of excitement creeping in. To a fourteen year old, it seemed like a challenge. An adventure. A quest!

By the time we got back with reinforcements – a couple of family friends who stayed in the same neighborhood – Mom and Dad were standing outside the main gate. This gate, which led into the driveway and which was our main entrance to the second floor of a two storied house which we owned, was a big metal gate with a thick padlock on it. The toolbox popped open and out came the hammer.

After ample doses of hammering, a couple of stares from passers-by and endless questions from inquisitive neighbors, the lock’s stubborn resistance came to a sudden halt. Now only the upstairs door stood between us and certain victory – a well deserved rest and a good night’s sleep.

By now pretty much everyone was tired of the hammer and prepared their shoulders for one colossal assault. Timber…! It worked. The door gave way with two thrusts and we were in.

We sat down. Mom made tea and we discussed the ordeal in detail. Every time we recounted the events of the night, previously skipped details seemed to come to fore. After half an hour or so, we decided it was high time to go to bed. Some people went home. Others were relieved just to be home.

My brother went to change into his night clothes. As he went to hang his jeans, something fell from the pocket onto the floor. With a clank!

Note: Assignment - a piece based on a family experience. Oh what fun it is to write....
P.S. This is my 50th post! YAY!

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

...so shall he reap


Note: Inverted colours.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Mom Dad

She’s been in bad shape for the last couple of weeks now. It’s her left leg. It might be a varicose vein or something. He’s taking her to the doctor’s today. He asks me whether I could take her instead. He’s been working all night and has come home at 6 that morning. You can clearly make out that he needs sleep.

I am caught unawares by his question and mumble a sort of positive response. I ask her if it’s ok that he’s not coming to the doctor’s. She doesn’t say anything but stares at him. Then she sighs and turns her face away. She’s in pain, and you don’t know what that sigh was for. But he knows. He starts to say something, but she interrupts, “You always have a problem taking me anywhere…”

The inevitable argument ensues, and I have to step in as peacemaker. After that come those few minutes of silence, when no one speaks; everyone stares aimlessly at the TV set.

As I go around doing my morning chores, he cracks a couple of jokes. He’s feeling bad. He wants to see her smiling again. I pitch in with some goofy comments, and finally she gives up trying to be angry. He says to me, “Only you guys can make her laugh; it’s beyond my abilities…” We all have a good laugh.

He takes her to the doctor’s as planned. He never really expected me to take her on my own.

*******

He sits in the living room while she makes parathas; it’s traditional Northern Indian bread. “Please come and get these. You won’t like them if they go cold”, she hollers from behind the electric stove.

He replies from the living room that we’ll all eat together. The TV is loud, so he has to shout over the noise. He asks her to tell us when everything’s ready. “These are supposed to be served hot”, she insists. “No, we can wait. You always end up eating alone, after we finish”, he insists back. “Go and help her; get the plates and glasses ready”, he tells me.

She pleads with him again. This time he raises his voice. This time it’s not the TV. “I told you…” he begins. “Ok alright, alright…” she cuts in. Unspoken words form an essential part of the agreement.

By the time we are having food, everyone’s forgotten about it. It’s routine. The TV is loud as ever. He reaches for the remote and switches channels. I shake my head and point out how absurd soap-operas have gotten these days. She asks him if he needs anything else…

*******

“You never have time to talk to me when you’re home. Can’t you turn off the TV for even a few minutes?” she complains. The phone rings. “Or else it’s that! I tell you, you should have married Air India. Then everyone would have been happy.”

The phone call takes ages. The next arriving flight has been delayed. That means more work. Frustrated, she finally loses patience. “I’m going to bed. Goodnight.”

After about half an hour, he’s finally done. She pretends to wake up from deep sleep as he enters the bedroom. She complains a bit, and then asks what happened with the delayed flight. He explains, but in short. She wants details.

“Not at this time of the night; I’ll tell you tomorrow”, he says in a tired voice. “You never let me in on anything…and don’t you touch that CD player now!”

The walls are really thin. I can hear their banter from my room. Just like two kids in grown-ups’ bodies. You’d never know the difference. I smile as I tuck myself in.

Note: This assignment was "Write a piece about the relationships between Men and Women". I could have picked something/someone else, but the truth is I really, really, only wanted to write about my folks. So here's to you Mum and Dad!!!

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Bane - Concept Art


I made this collage with a view to it being the cover art for "Bane". Read lyrics (below, archived) and try to relate to the picture. I'm proud of myself. What do you people think?

(P.S. Can you spot me in the mess???)

Note: Concept - Dibesh Saha
Individual images are the property of their respective owners.

Monday, March 13, 2006

Friday...Part 2

I almost thought Part 2 wasn't gonna happen. But I just had to come back to write about this. It's something which I witnessed on the way back from University (still last Friday, March 3rd). But let me begin in my usual storytelling way.

I finished with the second exam at around 4. I got my things, threw my jacket on and left feeling half dejected and half relieved. I saw Alain standing near the cafeteria talking to someone on the cellphone. Turned out that Ali, who was supposed to give him a ride back home, had completely forgotten about that and left. Alain was pissed. Really pissed. Looking around for Ali and calling him had made him lose precious minutes, and the UTM Shuttle Bus going downtown had left too. He didn't say much, but his expression said it all. His next bus was in half an hour, and since mine was around the same time, I offered to give him company. Well, actually I was quite fortunate to have his company. Otherwise it would have been the usual- me and my discman, out in the cold (I don't like sitting alone in crowded indoor places; I'm weird ain't I?).

Well anyways we talked about the test, Sergio Leone and "The Man with No Name", $ 9 DVDs at the Rogers store in which he worked, taking driving lessons, and the awful bitch that the weather was that day. I think it was around -10 or -13 that day, and I was freezing with 3 layers+Jacket on!!! My bus came before his, so I left in a hurry.

Once on the bus, it was me and my music. I had some old Metallica/Megadeth in my discman. I scanned the disc, and finally settled on Metallica's 1991 "Black Album"....aah good days were back again. As Ulrich started beating the hell out of the drums on "Sad But True", I sat back to enjoy the 20 minute ride back home.

I have this habit of leaning against the window, head resting against it, staring blankly outside. I might look dead, but I am not. I'm constantly visualizing, taking in images at random, from the past and the immediate present; making a sort of instant, mental "Video" of the song I'm listening to. Always putting images into the context of the song playing; I think I could be a good Music Video director if I got the chance...

Getting to the incident, I don't mean to be over-dramatic. But what I'll state below is exactly what happened. Not something significant, you might argue; but you are entitled to your opinion as I'm entitled to mine.

We were about halfway home, when the bus suddenly started to slow down. At first I didn't notice. I thought it was just another light. But it didn't come to a complete halt; instead continued to move slowly forward. Then I focused on the road outside. Lying on the sidewalk, face down, with his arms and legs sprawled about was a middle-aged man (or so it looked from the distance). A woman was trying to revive him, while another man was talking on a cellphone (probabaly 911). This was all happening beside a parked car.

Now, either of 2 things might have happened. The man may have had some kind of seizure while in the car. Or he might have been hit by the car, and collapsed. There was no sign of blood anywhere, but I couldn't tell for sure that it wasn't an accident.

The bus slowly made its way around the vehicle, and continued on its way. As I looked back, the woman was still trying to revive the man, and the other man was still on the phone. I think I caught about 10-15 seconds overall. As the bus moved away, I turned my face, closed my eyes, and hoped that all would be well, whoever he was. My hand hit my discman-remote and the song stopped abruptly...

Then it hit me. I wondered what it would be like if life stopped just as abruptly as the song I'd been listening to. I wondered whether life had stopped abruptly for that man lying on the sidewalk. I wondered what would happen if it happened to me. I wondered. The bus moved under an overhead bridge, and we were plunged into darkness for a couple of seconds. But soon there was light. I wondered, what if one day there was no light on the other side? All there was left was darkness?

As I pressed play, "Unforgiven" resumed and the exact words were

"What I've felt
What I've known
Never shined through in what I've shown
Never be
Never see
Won't see what might have been"

I wondered. What if I never saw what might have been...

Seven Deadly Sins...

"Oh these deadly sins of mine..."

Seven - Megadeth

Greed:Medium

Gluttony:Medium

Wrath:Medium

Sloth:High

Envy:Low

Lust:Medium

Pride:Medium



Discover Your Sins - Fun Quiz

Saturday, March 11, 2006

The Cup of Life...


...especially if you happen to be in a 2 hour lecture, with half the lights turned off! :)

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Nanduzki

I sit at my desk and look at the computer screen to check if she’s online. She is. As the voice messenger connects, I look for my ‘questions list’. She answers with a cheerful “Hello!” We exchange friendly banter before she asks, “I hope this is not going to be too personal…?” “Don’t worry”, I reply. “So, Nandita Jain…let’s start.”

Nandita talks about her childhood, being an academic prodigy, and how she decided to become an animator over a spacewoman. She remembers literally throwing all other options out of the window (read ‘throwing application forms out of a car window when no one was looking’), after she decided to apply for the National Institute of Design (NID).

“The best thing about NID is how it opens you up; you get exposure of all kinds. You lose your inhibitions, you know what I mean?” However, she also accepts the fact that being in NID has made her somewhat selfish. “I tend to think first about my work, and then about everything else. My folks are the people I’ve been most unfair with I guess…” At this point, the voice messenger hits a technical snag, and we reschedule for the next day.

*******

Nandita messages me on MSN and apologizes for being late. Her chat name reads ‘Nanduzki’. It’s two in the morning, so we do the interview via typing. I ask her about family, and more specifically her parents. She seems to open up more; perhaps it’s the ‘magic of the written word’.

“Basically they’ve been the best always, open to a lot of things which most parents wouldn’t agree to…like having a boyfriend in school. Then the time I shaved my head.” She pauses, and then adds, “I wonder sometimes what it must be like for a parent to have a kid like me. I mean the amount of patience and strength each of them have is wonderful.”

“Nowadays, we have a lot of ideology clashes; their view of the world is quite different from mine. Maybe they don’t agree with most of my decisions, but I do think they trust me. I always go by my gut instincts. I want to live life through my own experiences, you know what I mean? I have my own mistakes to make…”

“Have you ever let them down; like a major let down?” I ask. “Yup, when my Mum found out I was smoking, she was very upset. I got a major thing about ‘Where did we go wrong?’ and ‘Is this what we get in return?’

When I ask her how she felt about, she replies, “Oh, I felt sick to the core. I felt like I had betrayed them.”

When I ask her about the future, she says that she doesn’t want to make empty promises. “My parents want me to come and stay with them; and right now I have no idea where life is going to take me…but I do want to be with my folks, and take care of them when they’re old. That’s about it.”

“So basically you’re looking for a kind of compromise; a balance?” I ask her. “Ma keeps telling me that I’m no island; I shouldn’t shut everything else out and think only about work. But I believe this is the best time I can actually concentrate on building a foundation for the future, you know…”

“It’s not that I don’t talk to them, or that I don’t care. Well I guess it happens sometimes, but I don’t take them for granted. Their happiness lies in mine, and vice versa. So somewhere both parties have to reach a compromise, without hurting each other. Thank God my folks are cool with a lot of things I do…” she concludes.

At this point I’m quite satisfied with my subject, and extremely sleepy. “Any more questions?” she asks. “Yes, what’s with the name? Nanduzki?” I ask in return. “Oh, ha-ha…I like the Russian dancer, you know, Nijinski? I’m his namesake…Nanduzki! Ha-ha.”

“Ok, one last question. If you had to describe this interview in one word, what would it be?” “Hmmm. Introspective. Yeah, I’d say very introspective.”

“Fair enough”, I say to myself, as we exchange goodbyes and I sign out.

Note: This time the assignment was "a piece based on an interview". I hope I did justice to what you said, Ms. Nanduzki Vodkadrinkova!

Monday, March 06, 2006

Friday...Part 1

Hmmm......last Friday. Not good. Not bad either. But mostly not good. I can't seem to shake off the 2-exams-in-1 day curse. 2 months back I was struggling with 2 finals on the same day....twice!! These people sure can be ruthless. Under University of Toronto regulations, a student can expect upto 3 exams on the same day. Upto 2 exams can be back to back, without a break. I'll shit myself if that happens this term.

Well back to Friday and everything leading up to it. First of all, I spent all of Reading Week (week before last) lazing around, downloading and watching movies, mostly catching up on 90s classics. I think I outdid myself even lol - 7 days = 12 movies. Though I had a good time, I neglected and grossly underestimated my Film Studies assignment. By the time I was done with that, it was wednesday last week, with 2 days to go before the double mid-term thing. Damn.

Somehow I managed to will myself on, trying hard not to give in to the "callin-in-sick" temptaton. By the way, I have come to the conclusion that my attention span is directly related to the time left before any exam. You get the picture?

I pulled an all-nighter, or rather tried to. And zzzzzz.....fell asleep around 5.30 am. Woke up at 6, set alarm to 6.30. Alarm. Snooze. Snooze. Shut the fuck up you stupid thing. Snooze. 7.30. What the fuck, I'm gonna screw the test up anyways, go to sleep. 8.30. What the hell is that buzzing....damn, its 8.30. 2 hrs left. Its the same almost everyday, with a little less panic. Also my relationship with the alarm is not a very pleasant one, as you can see.

I dragged myself to University for the first test. Didn't go as bad as I thought it would. I had 2 hrs before the next exam. No respite however. Alain, Ali and I found an empty classroom and got down to studying for VCC201H5S.....Stupid Visual Culture! I still can't believe how far I've come from Accountancy and Economics to Communications, Film and the like, in 1 year. Shit man. That's quite an achievement....!

Well anyways, VCC didn't go well, which was expected. Just hope to pass by a fair margin. Problem is, I was aiming at Visual Culture to be my Specialist Program. This introductory course has certainly been a disappointment. In other words, I'm back to the drawing board. As Eric Cartman would say...."Goddamit!!!"

(to be continued)

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Dream On!

Every time that I look in the mirror
All these lines in my face gettin' clearer
The past is gone;
It went by like dusk to dawn
Isn't that the way?
Everybody's got their dues in life to pay

I know nobody knows
Where it comes and where it goes
I know it's everybody's sin;
You got to lose to know how to win.

Half my life's in books' written pages,
Live and learn from fools and from sages
You know it's true,
All the things
Come back to you.

Sing with me,
Sing for the year,
Sing for the laughter and sing for the tear.
Sing it with me
If it's just for today,
Maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you away.

Dream on, dream on, dream on,
Dream yourself a dream come true.
Dream on, dream on, dream on,
Dream until your dreams come true.
Dream on, Dream on, Dream on, Dream on,
Dream on, Dream on, Dream on......

Aerosmith - "Dream On"

Note: Inspiring. (Listen to the Aerosmith + Symphony version)