Mad Hatter’s Harpoon
Bankura is sizzling now. It’s next to impossible to venture out after 12noon.
The merciless sun beats down with all its might and furore and the hapless traveler has a torrid time. But then we have no choice, for venture out we must, for its part of our existence, as it is said that “MAN MUST EARN HIS DAILY BREAD BY THE SWEAT OF HIS BROW”.
The other day I had a lesson in humility. It was early in the morning, at daybreak; I was up and about taking a morning walk, as is my custom, when I felt like having a cup of tea from a roadside stall. Few stalls were open then and only one was fanning the flames of his coal oven. The shopper- keeper’s assistant brought out a dish containing the previous night’s leftovers of potato fries [known locally as Aloo Chop ] which he scattered to the pigs and dogs scavenging the ground in front of the stalls. There was a mad scramble between the dogs and the pigs for the leftovers with a murder of crows pitching in. I can hardly believe my eyes now, for I saw a woman emerging out of nowhere, as if a psychopomp, shooing away the birds and mammals alike and partaking herself of the food from the ground however besmirched with dust they might have been. She put them to her nose, sniffed it, found they were not all that putrid and promptly wrapped them in the folds of her saree and vanished from where she came. She never came to me begging for alms and I am not certain if she was not in the Lord’s mind when he said “I was hungry yet you did not feed me.”
Bankura like all cities surely has its vices but unlike Kolkata there is very little extortion. Street smart thugs do not approach house builders for donations nor do they insist on supplying the building materials however of poor quality they may be. This is in stark contrast to the simple Kolkatan who is left to fend for himself and who has no freedom to choose his own hardware store. I only pray that Bankura keeps alive her undefiled virtue for all eternity.
Bankura Medical College has the unique record of 15 thousand deliveries in one calendar year! Are there no other hospitals where childbirth can take place in the whole district? What are the other hospitals doing? Has Bankura’s fame spread so far and wide? It should be really taxing to the doctors and the para- medics to provide adequate care to all the mothers and their babies.
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A sight that often plagues me is of men easing themselves on the roadside in Bankura, and for that matter all over the country where I have been. The Indian male is indeed a versatile subgroup of Homo Sapiens Sapiens and has no compunction in opening his fly and exposing his genitals to the elements, such that any quick eyed woman traveling in a rickshaw can at once identify the offender to be either a Hindu or a Mussalman. And spitting everywhere is his birthright literally; wasn’t it for this very reason our fathers served time in the prisons during the freedom struggle? Pan and Pan Masala are an integral part of our subculture, isn’t it?
I was talking to a charming lady, a home maker of fifty two summers, and I casually asked her what she thought of a man who kisses his wife goodbye
in a not so public a place as Dumdum airport when heading for a trip abroad .
Mind you, it was a closed mouth kiss and not an opened mouthed one I was talking about. She was absolutely scandalized. “It is against Indian culture” she asserted and kissing in public was “open sex.” No, I didn’t tell her that our robust ancestors, who built the temples of Khajuraho and Konark for all to see, admire and seek solace according to their own interpretations, thought differently. They were no hypocrites. They certainly knew what they were doing. And those temples are the much touted landmarks of Indian culture! Poor thing, she can’t see the wood for the trees. I didn’t ask her about homosexuals and same-sex marriages though; it would have been the proverbial last straw.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Sunday, May 15, 2005
another worthy from bengal
I shall be talking about another Bengal prodigy now. He is none other than
Mr .Subir Guha, Chief Judicial Magistrate , Calcutta City Civil Court and ex- Principal Secretary, Ministry of Law, Government of West Bengal; a legal luminary indeed!
This middle aged individual was married in 1974 that is nearly 31 years ago.
He has two children, a girl aged 29 years and a boy aged 26 years. So far so good!
Now this worthy luminary decides to legalize his marriage, not with his wife of 31 years but with another woman whom he claimed to have married way back in 1995 and who has borne him a son in 1996. In his application to the Registrar of Marriages he claims to have been an unmarried bachelor at that point in time in 1995, A GROSS TRAVESTY OF TRUTH.
Agreed, his marriage in 1974 was not registered, as few marriages then were, but his children do carry his name on their Birth Certificates as the father. In addition, recourse to D.N.A test can always be had to prove or disprove paternity.
The Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court is now seized of this matter and we all hope that proper justice shall prevail in this obnoxious episode.
Little does it matter to us? Suffice it to say that this eminent personality, highly educated, gives a false declaration to the Marriage Registrar to serve his nefarious ends.
I wonder how often he sat in front of a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi while administrating justice. Did he ever suffer a pang of conscience for misrepresenting facts well known to all? What law prevented him from keeping mistresses and concubines in the sly? Why, for heaven’s sake, does he have to deny his grown up children, the offspring of his loin, their legitimate patrimony and heritage?
May 15, 2005
Mr .Subir Guha, Chief Judicial Magistrate , Calcutta City Civil Court and ex- Principal Secretary, Ministry of Law, Government of West Bengal; a legal luminary indeed!
This middle aged individual was married in 1974 that is nearly 31 years ago.
He has two children, a girl aged 29 years and a boy aged 26 years. So far so good!
Now this worthy luminary decides to legalize his marriage, not with his wife of 31 years but with another woman whom he claimed to have married way back in 1995 and who has borne him a son in 1996. In his application to the Registrar of Marriages he claims to have been an unmarried bachelor at that point in time in 1995, A GROSS TRAVESTY OF TRUTH.
Agreed, his marriage in 1974 was not registered, as few marriages then were, but his children do carry his name on their Birth Certificates as the father. In addition, recourse to D.N.A test can always be had to prove or disprove paternity.
The Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court is now seized of this matter and we all hope that proper justice shall prevail in this obnoxious episode.
Little does it matter to us? Suffice it to say that this eminent personality, highly educated, gives a false declaration to the Marriage Registrar to serve his nefarious ends.
I wonder how often he sat in front of a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi while administrating justice. Did he ever suffer a pang of conscience for misrepresenting facts well known to all? What law prevented him from keeping mistresses and concubines in the sly? Why, for heaven’s sake, does he have to deny his grown up children, the offspring of his loin, their legitimate patrimony and heritage?
May 15, 2005
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
CRY MY BELOVED BENGAL
CRY, MY BELOVED BENGAL
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
At long last we have an A class murderer hailing from a well to do Bengali family. Long have we lamented the paucity of hard core criminals among the sophisticated Bengalis. Whatever crime of deadly passion or deadlier cunning, that were committed in Bengal were done by the hired guns of Bihar or by the Urdu speaking minority living in filth and poverty in the fringes of Calcutta.
But now we have a criminal whose accomplishments will put many scholars to shame. He is a scientist with impeccable credentials; a nuclear physicist attached to the Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre at Salt Lake, Calcutta. He is Dr. Probir Dasgupta, whose wife Ileena belongs to one of the more prestigious families of Calcutta. Her father was a Barrister of repute who had a rather insidious hobby; he used to buy gold ornaments whenever he had the urge and that was not too infrequent. He had amassed a Pluto’s harvest.
Ileena’s mother was a teacher and later Principal in a reputed ladies college in North Calcutta. Ileena had a younger sister, a spinster Pritha, by name, who used to stay at her father’s house and who to complicate matters had lately taken a lover, although a shady one.
Now the picture crystallizes: between Dr.Dasgupta and the inheritance of his in-law’s property there is one woman who was on the verge of matrimony.
Dr.Dasgupta was ably assisted in his design by Ileena, the fruit of the same womb that bore her sister Pritha.
One fine morning in the month of April 2005 the unsuspecting Pritha paid a visit to her sister’s at Salt Lake, Calcutta. What transpired in the house is not clear at this point in time but Pritha was found dead and her brother –in –law was in an unseemly hurry to dispose off the dead body by cremation. It was an act of some quick thinking by the driver of Pritha’s car that saved the day for justice. Post mortem examination revealed that Pritha was smothered and throttled .Her brother in law was the prime accused and as of date it seems that he has confessed to his crime.
Whether third degree methods were used to get the confession is not known but it is an established fact that Calcutta Police is notorious in this respect.
Therein lies the rub; here we have a scholar who does away with his sister-in-law for furthering his already substantial property. What value education? A well born person turns out to be ill bred. What were the lessons he learnt at school? What did his parents teach?
There is another interesting case that shocked the discerning reader. A private teacher murdered his daughter to marry his teen-aged student! O Tempora, O Mores! This teacher
took his son, daughter and his paramour to a hill at Rajgir, Jharkhand, and finding his opportunity pushed his daughter over the cliff. Murder most foul, most repugnant! This teacher had carnal knowledge of his student’s mother [consensual] and also of his student [forcibly].When was the last time a veritable Casanova fornicated with the mother and daughter? Now this teacher is cooling his heels behind bars. The mother of the student easily dispensed her sexual favours for her daughter’s education; it seems she was also aware of the illegitimate relations her daughter had with the teacher. Avarice knows no bounds. A woman of modest means plumbs the very depths of depravity to enhance her daughter’s prospects!
What more are we to behold? Are we living in Buddhadeb’s Bengal or in Caligula’s Rome? Our sexual proclivities are getting so bizarre that Tiberius would have approved and Nero would have applauded. And we Bengalis claim to be the most cultured people in India! Agreed one swallow never a summer makes, but then such horrendous crimes come to notice in so quick a succession that we are at a loss to think otherwise.
Bengal, my beloved Bengal, what have we done to be subjected to such devilish aberrations? What God or Goddess do we worship to merit these monsters in human form? Its time now for all Bengalis, nay all Indians, to wake up and take notice of these malignant sore afflicting our body. Its not poverty that is our curse but the most ancient of the vices, greed, that is suffocating our soul.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
At long last we have an A class murderer hailing from a well to do Bengali family. Long have we lamented the paucity of hard core criminals among the sophisticated Bengalis. Whatever crime of deadly passion or deadlier cunning, that were committed in Bengal were done by the hired guns of Bihar or by the Urdu speaking minority living in filth and poverty in the fringes of Calcutta.
But now we have a criminal whose accomplishments will put many scholars to shame. He is a scientist with impeccable credentials; a nuclear physicist attached to the Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre at Salt Lake, Calcutta. He is Dr. Probir Dasgupta, whose wife Ileena belongs to one of the more prestigious families of Calcutta. Her father was a Barrister of repute who had a rather insidious hobby; he used to buy gold ornaments whenever he had the urge and that was not too infrequent. He had amassed a Pluto’s harvest.
Ileena’s mother was a teacher and later Principal in a reputed ladies college in North Calcutta. Ileena had a younger sister, a spinster Pritha, by name, who used to stay at her father’s house and who to complicate matters had lately taken a lover, although a shady one.
Now the picture crystallizes: between Dr.Dasgupta and the inheritance of his in-law’s property there is one woman who was on the verge of matrimony.
Dr.Dasgupta was ably assisted in his design by Ileena, the fruit of the same womb that bore her sister Pritha.
One fine morning in the month of April 2005 the unsuspecting Pritha paid a visit to her sister’s at Salt Lake, Calcutta. What transpired in the house is not clear at this point in time but Pritha was found dead and her brother –in –law was in an unseemly hurry to dispose off the dead body by cremation. It was an act of some quick thinking by the driver of Pritha’s car that saved the day for justice. Post mortem examination revealed that Pritha was smothered and throttled .Her brother in law was the prime accused and as of date it seems that he has confessed to his crime.
Whether third degree methods were used to get the confession is not known but it is an established fact that Calcutta Police is notorious in this respect.
Therein lies the rub; here we have a scholar who does away with his sister-in-law for furthering his already substantial property. What value education? A well born person turns out to be ill bred. What were the lessons he learnt at school? What did his parents teach?
There is another interesting case that shocked the discerning reader. A private teacher murdered his daughter to marry his teen-aged student! O Tempora, O Mores! This teacher
took his son, daughter and his paramour to a hill at Rajgir, Jharkhand, and finding his opportunity pushed his daughter over the cliff. Murder most foul, most repugnant! This teacher had carnal knowledge of his student’s mother [consensual] and also of his student [forcibly].When was the last time a veritable Casanova fornicated with the mother and daughter? Now this teacher is cooling his heels behind bars. The mother of the student easily dispensed her sexual favours for her daughter’s education; it seems she was also aware of the illegitimate relations her daughter had with the teacher. Avarice knows no bounds. A woman of modest means plumbs the very depths of depravity to enhance her daughter’s prospects!
What more are we to behold? Are we living in Buddhadeb’s Bengal or in Caligula’s Rome? Our sexual proclivities are getting so bizarre that Tiberius would have approved and Nero would have applauded. And we Bengalis claim to be the most cultured people in India! Agreed one swallow never a summer makes, but then such horrendous crimes come to notice in so quick a succession that we are at a loss to think otherwise.
Bengal, my beloved Bengal, what have we done to be subjected to such devilish aberrations? What God or Goddess do we worship to merit these monsters in human form? Its time now for all Bengalis, nay all Indians, to wake up and take notice of these malignant sore afflicting our body. Its not poverty that is our curse but the most ancient of the vices, greed, that is suffocating our soul.
Saturday, April 30, 2005
manmohan singh
Our beloved Prime Minister
Dr Manmohan Singh is our PREMIER. We may search high and low but never are going to find a better man for the august office.
A man of remarkable integrity, profound erudition and impeccable behaviour. The Lantern of Diogenes could not shine upon a worthier person.
Indian politics is a mysterious substance; on the one hand we have worthies who should be behind bars for the security of our polity and on the other hand we have a saint of a Prime Minister.
However a thought often plagues me. Am I to believe that among all the notables in the Lower House [Lok Sabha] there is no one to befit the P.M’s chair? Is the Congress party so destitute of talent? A Prime Minister should come elected by the people; he or she must face the rough and tough of the hustling.
We watched and we watched in utter amazement the non BJP coalition springing a surprise on the nation by hosting Mr. Devegowda and Mr. Gujral to the venerable chair and we were certainly not amused.
Don’t you think it was an insult to the nation?
The Congress Party should have the decency to bring Dr. Singh elected to the Lok Sabha.
Isn’t there any safe seat for the Congress? Can’t a Congress M.P be made to resign and Dr.Singh is asked to contest?
Dr Manmohan Singh is our PREMIER. We may search high and low but never are going to find a better man for the august office.
A man of remarkable integrity, profound erudition and impeccable behaviour. The Lantern of Diogenes could not shine upon a worthier person.
Indian politics is a mysterious substance; on the one hand we have worthies who should be behind bars for the security of our polity and on the other hand we have a saint of a Prime Minister.
However a thought often plagues me. Am I to believe that among all the notables in the Lower House [Lok Sabha] there is no one to befit the P.M’s chair? Is the Congress party so destitute of talent? A Prime Minister should come elected by the people; he or she must face the rough and tough of the hustling.
We watched and we watched in utter amazement the non BJP coalition springing a surprise on the nation by hosting Mr. Devegowda and Mr. Gujral to the venerable chair and we were certainly not amused.
Don’t you think it was an insult to the nation?
The Congress Party should have the decency to bring Dr. Singh elected to the Lok Sabha.
Isn’t there any safe seat for the Congress? Can’t a Congress M.P be made to resign and Dr.Singh is asked to contest?
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