Mind Limning

Do you ever feel as if you are a part of a movie ? you know what I mean .. like you re standing in front of the subway train and when it just zips past you u feel it takes along some moments of ur life . You probably do not know quite consciously what those moments are but it did take away something with it . Or for example when you see a park blooming with colourful tulips , you start picturing yourself in one of those very unreal romantic or self satiated moments like in a movie .
It happens to me sometimes. Ok. I am undertoning this to sound sane. It happens to me quite often . And this recurrent happening urged me to look up the technical definition of a movie and its synonyms cinema and film , and categorize this happening to a socially understandable form . And what I found was this . While film and movie could be defined as a form of entertainment that enacts a story by sound and a sequence of images giving the illusion of continuous movement , cinema is a medium that disseminates moving pictures . And I guess “ my happening “ would conform more to the latter and therefore from now on I rename “ my happening “ to
“ my cinema “. Banal I know, but seemed closest to what I was trying to see it as .( I apologise to the cognoscentes in film studies for using such dim witted definitions and phrases to communicate what I want to . )
So coming back to “ my cinema “. I don’t realise or try to figure out which scene from which movie my cinematic moment identifies with . Its just cinema like and so I was wondering if it was possible to join such moments and make a cinema in celluloid . But, for a cinema , conventionally , one needs a story and a time frame . In this case , the story is life itself and no time frame can be posed unless I come across one of these “my cinematic moments “ where I die and therefore do not see any more of such moments and thats where the celluloid ends. I realise that the celluloid is not going to comprise of eventful moments (as life is always not eventful ) that could be stringed together to make a story out of it and therefore does it mean that there is no content to “ my cinema “?
Or am I getting it all wrong ? Its all these uneventful moments that are weaved together to make a film or a story or a poem or a painting or a photograph and it then serves as the magic thing that its creator uses to communicate . The weaving pattern for each form of art is different but the source of the raw content is these ”moments “ . By now, I am not quite sure if the nomenclature of “cinematic moments “ befits the purpose of what I am trying to figure out . So let’s get to call them simply “moments “ . Sorry for being a wee bit finicky about naming things .Courtesy to my lab fridge which says in bold : Label all bottles and tubes !!! .
Yes so what I understand is while a painter weaves moments in colours, a movie maker does it with cinematic moments, a writer weaves it through words in his stories, a poet weaves it with rhyme and words (not always though ), a photographer captures the essence of these moments in frames , a singer patterns it with notes(musical) and words .
And people like me weave such moments to make a blog with very little sense . Pardon me my readers, if I have taken your mind into too much of thinking for nothing . I wanted a fellow traveller to go through this dangerous mind of mine to perceive and have an affirmation to my perception of art as an entity and its delineation into different forms .

"tor janya "

tor janya jege chilam sara raat
mombatir aalo nibhe geleo, chander aalo chilo
chander aalo nibhe giye, surjyo alo dilo
tor janya jege chilam sara raat
tararao chilo amar saathe, kokhono ba megh dhaklo tader
ekhon jemon surjyo dhakche tader
kintu tara ache , thik jemon ei akaleo amar swapno bache.

strings attached

I left my city in search of a better future. So did many others like me . When I made plans for this better future I was conscious that I was uprooting myself from my home, my city, my neighbourhood and most importantly Myself .Amongst these the one thing that has affected me to quite an extent is the estrangement from my city.
Technically speaking I am not a Kolkattan as I lived across the river and so have always been called a non Kolkatan by my friends from the city(They take pride in belonging to proper Kolkata ). I would not say I grew up in Kolkata as right after my school I left the city . So my fondness for the city grew in short vacations . But didn’t realise that this microincremental attachment had strengthened enough to bring me back to the city for a year after my undergraduation to replenish what I missed. I missed the strikes, the college politics, the bunking class to go to the book fair , the street theatres, the film festival.. the whims and fancies of a college goer . So the year passed by and I did everything I wanted to . Tried forming a band, accepted its miserable failure, lost and found myself , dreamt of changing the world and then woke up to realise that time was up. I had to leave the city for good to ensure a safe future with the materialist comforts that I saw in the movies.
That makes me a Probashi(or Porobashi) now but what still makes me think why do I still feel so rooted to the city when I uprooted myself so consciously from it ? What does it have that makes me want to go back and never leave it.? What is it that makes me cry when I sing Rhododendron ? After all, I left it because it had nothing for me .What I just have on my plate is the fact that I am not the only one. There are many others like me who left the city , reasons unknown but chords tied.
Recently I saw this movie 033. It revolves around a struggling Kolkata band (as usual !!) . So,plain and simple in content but delicate and detailed in form . It touches softly on the hidden weaknesses of an uprooted Kolkattan. The traffic, the buzz of the city life, the audience’s repulsion to a new song , the band wanting to create a wave with something original and fresh, the son who left his mother in an old house on a nameless street and his story . A girl in search of her roots , a veteran bohemian musician who makes his small abode a shelter for the band members , small intricately woven love stories and all this through some colloquial dialogues(that you and I would connect to ) and some wonderful lines from....shakti,beatles,tagore,lennon and lenin .. No more.. the rest is for you to watch
I am sure you would feel the same bitter sweet pain of having strings attached
Here you go the link to 033 http://www.banglanatokmovie.com/bangla-movie/277.htm

sadharon

******* sadharon *****
Jodi na dekhtam third theatre,
Boltam na gyaner charte kotha,
Jodi na portam rabnindranath shorot-
Tahole petam bhalobasha ferot ?
Jodi na hotam aantel somojhdar,
Jodi na kortam loukikotar bahar,
Jodi portam desher jaygay anandolok-
Tahole ki bolte amay, ahammok ?
Na hoy jhogra korlam, dale r foron niye
Na hoy kotha bollam , dokan bajar niye
Na hoy heshe uthlam hothat okaron,
Na hoy sohoj kothay katlo sarakhon;
Na hoy roilam sadharon,
Na hoy holam na tomar mohiyoshi nari,
Na hoy gailam na gaan;
Na hoy tomay dilam shudhu amar pran!