Too Hot to Touch: Why branded products are so costly?

It was an lazy afternoon in the weekend when the SMS came. A newly setup mall is giving huge 30-40% discounts on clothes. As freshers who just entered in the list of officegoers, we badly needed clothes. In student life we used a single Tshirt for a whole week. Used the same cloth for attending classes and while sleeping. But in office you do need to look decent.

Me and my friend Ajit got ready and we took an auto to reach the mall. The new mall was big. Really big with all leading brands present there. We came near the men section. We browsed through Lee, Levis, Wrangler, Spyker and even higher priced brands like Adidas, Reebok, Nike etc. Most of the jeans were priced around Rs. 2500 and none of the sandals were below Rs. 1500.

Picking up a random sandal my friend Ajit said to me, "See these sandals? Back at home I used to buy sandals from Sreeleathers or Khadims. They were priced around Rs. 300. And see these, none of these shoes are below 1500. I see no reasonable difference in quality."

I replied, "Brand boss, brand. If you want brands like Reebok, Adidas and Nike, you have to pay the price."

- "But why?" said Ajit. "If the price of the raw material is same, if the quality is same, the price should also match."

- "But the local brands are made by hand. Like I know a couple of families in my native place who sew clothes for some local brands at their homes. They are not permanent employees... they just work on a contract basis and also paid poorly. Whereas the big brands have their own factories across the globe. The people who make the products are full time permanent employees who are treated well, paid well."

- "No sir. Not always true. Just google a bit with 'Nike Adidas factory poor condition' and you will get it. There have been reports that many of the big brands like Nike and Adidas treat their workers poorly. Most of these brands have their factories in south east Asia; in countries like Indonesia and Vietnam. The reports say, the workers live in extreme poverty and face prosecution and physical assault. Both Nike and Reebok have been accused of using sweatshops for production." 

- "What is a sweatshop?" I didn't have a clue. In response Ajit opened Wikipedia in his old Nokia and read aloud:

"The U.S. Government Accountability Office defines a sweatshop as an employer that violates more than one federal or state labor law governing minimum wage and overtime, child labor, industrial homework, occupational safety and health, worker’s compensation or industry regulation."

- "And yes," he continued, "the sweatshop controversy is long sticked with brands like Nike and Reebok. Often they spend a few bucks on the factories to stop the shouting media. But soon the fish comes out of the closet. Just google the word sweatshop along with your favourite brand and you will see it."

- "This is gross. I have to think twice before I buy my any Nike or Reebok products in future." I said.

- "Well, NO. Not at all." Ajit clarified. "I have nothing against Nike and Reebok in particular. I am just using the names just to explain easily. Infact, recently both the companies have taken affirmative actions to improve labor conditions. Which is good. Even my favourite jacket carries the Reebok logo. I am not saying anyting against any brand in perticular. Many other companies also try to save money by setting up factories in south-east Asia and with poor labor condition. I am just curious about why these branded sandals and jeans costs so much compared to the local ones. See, having big factories and full time employees is not the answer."

I still tried to justify, "Compared to the local ones, the brands need to support bigger supply chains. Their procedure is way too much complex than the local ones. This requires money. See, they have so many managers and executives."

Ajit snapped, "No company employs executives and managers to increase production cost. That's rediculus. They have the whole big system to decrease production cost. Not to increase it."

Giving up on the shoes, we came near the Jeans section. I picked up a Levis and noted the price tag area. Apart from the 2500 INR price, it listed the original manufacturer. Some Greatway Pvt. Ltd. at Ludhiana.

- "See? This trouser is manufactured by this local company. What Levis does is just marketing. In fact, this is true for most of the brands. They just contract with different local manufacturing facilities spread across the globe. Mostly they prefer countries like Vietnam, Indonesia and China, where it is illegal for workers to organize, and where wage rates are very low. All these companies are besically marketing companies who spends millions of dollars to make the brand. They make sure everybody recognizes the brand logo."

I nodded. What Ajit was saying does make sense. In all the price tags I could see the name of the company only under 'marketed by'.

Ajit continued, "And this explains the illogically high price of the branded merchandise as well. Persons like Sachin Tendulkar or Shahrukh Khan do not come cheap"

- "You mean all the money spent on TV ads are included in the MRP?"

- "Yes sir. And not only TV ads. Apart from the regular advertisement methods like TV, Radio and News Paper ads there are other ways like buying an IPL team, sponsoring F1 race or organizing musical festivals. You might be very amazed to see your favourite brand is bringing Shakira in town but be careful, this event might create an equally amazing hole in you pocket."

- "You mean to say, quality wise there is no difference between the branded ones and the local ones?" This is obviously not true. The branded ones definitely has better colors better designs.

- "I don't exactly say that. The brands can employ expensive designers which the local ones can not. They also have stricter quality control to keep their brand image intact. All I am saying is, even if I admit these factors, the branded products are priced way higher than they should have been. And this is because the price also include the marketing costs. As I said, persons like Sachin Tendulkar or Shahrukh Khan do not come cheap."

- "Then why people buy branded products? Among my friends, nobody wears a pice of cloth which is not branded." said I.

- "You have a very rich set of friends then. Anyway, this is exactly the advertisement campaigns are meant for. The companies do repeated ads, sponsor events, put up hoardings and this way establish their brands. So that, when you wear a Reebok shirt, anyone who looks at the shirt knows that you are wearing a Reebok shirt. Then they portray anybody who does not have the brand as a loser. As if girls are really going to come running to smell your armpit if you apply AXE deodorant. But believe it or not, by repeated advertising they actually make your subconscious believe these stuffs."

I know these situations. Now Ajit will go on alone and deliver a reasonable sized speech. I did not interrupt him. Ajit continued.

"And slowly, these brands become status symbols. Consider you case only. As all your friends wear branded t-shirts you can not see anything beyond that. Because of the advertisements, you will feel like a loser if you wear a shirt of a local brand. I visited a friend once. Even the eggs they eat is branded and carry holograms. This way, the marketing does not remain only the merchant's need any more. It becomes the need of the consumer also. As the money spent in marketing directly translates into brand image, you will not buy a shirt if the company does not spend a part of the price in advertisements. It's like, the consumer is requesting the merchant to charge him extra for the advertisements. Silly. But true."

"Then how does a new brand enters the market? I mean why doesn't a new brand comes which presents equally good product with far less price?" I asked.

"It is not easy. You, the consumer will not let it. To enter the market, it has to put an equal amount of money and effort in advertisements and also make the price at par with the leading brands. If the new brand costs any less, the consumers will typecast it as the cheap brand meant for losers."

"DJ&C for example" I mumbled. The TShirt I was wearing was of DJ&C a brand owened by the Future Group. While the quality of the TShirt was pretty good at much less price, it did not fit well with the Lee Coopers. It did felt like a loser.

"Don't take names. But yes. May be true. By the way, have you noticed how the same quality TShirt/Kurta is priced differently in Fashion@BIG Bazaar, Pantaloons and CENTRAL?"

"Yes." I said. I went to Pantaloons a few days ago and did not find any piece of cloth with price less than Rs 400. But at Big Bazaar there were good quality TShirts at Rs 250. 

"This happens inspite of all three of the market chains is owened by Future Group. This is because different chain of super markets cater different market segments. The quality of the product does not determine the price; the pockets of the target consumers do."

I remembered an old joke on Mullah Nasruddin in which the king comes to buy an omlette from Mullah's shop. After eating when the king asks for the bill, Mullah charges Rs 1000 for one single omlette. Astonished, the king asks, "Why? Is the egg so rare in this place?". Mullah aptly replies, "No your majesty. Egg is not rare at all. Rare is a customer like the king". This is so true. Go buy a cup of coffee in any Cafe Coffee Day and you will know. But I didn't understand how buying overpriced coffee or t-shirts can be a status symbols.

Ajit sensed my amazement. "How marketing shapes and steers consumer need is worth another discussion. Have you ever bought a 1000 rupees stuff at 40% discount while the product actually costs 550? And the most interesting part is you didn't actually need that stuff. You just bought it because there were discounts. That's called anchoring. But we will continue talking later. Now I think we are hungry. Let's have some branded foods at KFC or McDonalds. I can only see these two restaurants around."

---

Few references on working conditions in the factories of Nike, Adidas etc:

• http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/121790850350380.xml&coll=7
• http://www.stanford.edu/class/e297c/trade_environment/wheeling/hNike.html
• http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0308-03.htm
• http://www.oxfam.org.au/explore/workers-rights/Nike
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweatshop
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike_sweatshops
• http://www.ehow.com/about_5485125_Nike-sweatshops.html

Why I actually liked Ra.ONE

Since the very release, Ra.ONE was getting extremely poor reviews among my friends. Multiple jokes were floating around in Facebook on SRK, Ra.ONE and the over enthusiastic promotions of the movie. I remember a classy one in which SRK is ready to do the dishes of a family if they agrees to watch Ra.ONE.

Yet I happened to be inside a multiplex to catch a noon show of Ra.ONE. I was not really expecting much out of the movie given the reviews I read. I went to the theater mainly because there were no alternatives. Watching Ra.ONE still seemed better than Himesh Reshammiya's latest Damadamm! or Hema Malini's Tell Me O Kkhuda (even with God being reinforced with a double K).

We opted for the 3D version of the film. The movie started with a good title sequence that made it clear that the 3D qualiy was not bad. Although as the movie progressed, most of the scenes in the movie looked 2D to me. :-/

Then the movie started. The opening scene was hilarious. First I thought this is the same SRK stupidity. But then I had a second thought and realized that scenes like this will set this film apart from a regular Hollywood style action film. I mean, if you want to watch a serious action movie go watch an English movie. This movie is an action film dipped in typical bollywood achaar. Like every other bollywood movie, it has songs, dance and melodrama. This makes the movie so Indian; so bollywood.

This movie is supposed to be a science fiction. The fiction part is typical bollywood melodrama. But I have no problems with it as I liked the way the movie did not try to follow Hollywood action movies. But about the science part, I have only one adjective: STUPID (with bold, capital and underline). The whole idea of blending of digital and real world seemed bogus. You do expect the sci-fi flicks a little bit less stupid. Like what logic can you give when a software bot uses mobile phone signals to bring a plastic statue to life? And then the plastic statues become the villain and the hero of the movie. What does the director think about his audience? Grass eating creatures?

Let me tell you the plot of the movie in brief here. The movie starts with Prateek, a video game addicted teenager who is inside a hilarious video game dream. Prateek's father is Shekhar who is himself a video game developer. Shekhar looks like kind of stupid yet noble fellow. (Like all movies, stupids are always noble). He is portrayed as a typical South Indian who eats noodles with white coconut chutney. Well, this is different. I was really bored seeing the same Punjabi and Bengali stereotypes in bollywood films. This film brings the South Indian. For a change.

Shekhar's recent project is on a new video game called Ra.ONE (pronounced as Raavan), named after the name of it's villain. The hero is G.ONE which is NOT pronouced as g-o-n-e gone. Did the film makers never think about what 'gone' means in English? I don't know. Whatever, G.ONE is pronounced as jeevan meaning life. 

On the day of the game launch, the highly advanced AI of Ra.ONE starts to think on it's own and becomes conscious. When Prateek engages in a game against him, he vows to take revenge and then I don't know how, Ra.ONE comes out of the computer to a statue. Then it engages in a killing spree and even kills Shekhar. It then looks out for Prateek who plays under the screen name of Lucifer. And about time, Jenny, an employee at Shekhar's company, brings the G.ONE statue to life. Then a series of fights. Typical bollywood style belly scratching comedy, some melodramatic glycerin extracts and the final fight. That's all in it.

Then why did I like this film? Mainly because it resisted the urge to be like a Hollywood style action film and became a bollywood one. Jist don't categorize it as a science fiction or an action movie. Expect something in the line of Main Hoon Naa or Om Shanti Om and you will not be disappointed.

Baajlo Tomar Aalor Benu -- Mahishasurmardini and Us

I can never sleep on the night before Mahalaya. Be it the never ending list of resolutions I take on this day or the recurring memories of past Durga Pujas or may be the incessant barks of the street dogs outside; something or the other never let me sleep on this perticular night of the year. But this year one reason superseded all the other reasons: I was going to miss the Durga Puja at Calcutta for the third consecutive year.

I slept for around two hours last night, woke up at 4 am, turned on my laptop and double clicked on Mahishasurmardini.mp3. If you haven’t passed your childhood in West Bengal, you can not possibly gauge the extreme nostalgia we feel with this one and a half hour long radio program. Mahishasurmardini, written by Bani Kumar, composed by Pankaj Kumar Mallick, with vocal inputs from legendary artists from the golden era of Bengali Music and of course narrated by Birendra Krishna Bhadra, that is somehow got mixed in our genes. The show started in way back 1930. Since then the radio show is broadcasted on channel A of All India Radio, Calcutta every Mahalaya, 4 am sharp. Earlier, the show was a live one but as time passed, All India Radio decided to have a recording instead. At that time, the present version was made which was later released in Audio Tapes/ CDs by Saregama HMV. In nearly every household of Bengal, the Chandipath by Birendra Krishna Bhadra is echoed… since time immemorial. 

I remember those two years at IIT Bombay when we used to gather at the Main Ground at 4 am to listen to Mahishasurmardini together. As the sun would not rise in Mumbai till 6:30 am in October, 4 am was deep in the night’s darkness. But it was amazing to see how the darkness faded away with our collective enthusiasm. Such was our enthusiasm that we refused to play the piece using the mp3 file we had. Instead, we used an Internet Radio Sevice that relayed Calcutta-A signal from All India Radio all the way from Calcutta in real time. In the next year however, the online radio service was stopped in the following year and we had to use Washington Bangla Radio which I thing plays the mp3 anyways. Such was our enthusiasm that even some of our non-Bengali friends would come and join us to listen to the program. Big thanks to them. The only hiccup we faced was convincing the Main Ground Security what this bunch of 50 odd people was going to do in the main ground in the middle of the night. This year this event is being organised in Hostel 9 Mess instead of the Main Ground. Poor chaps… they will surely miss a lot.

Passing Thoughts

Many things to talk about

1. The hilarious jokes floating around about Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and the UPA government in Facebook these days
2. Train accidents that happen in every alternate week
3. Paoli Dam: has anybody seen it yet? I am paying the price of not having a personal internet connection
4. New place new job and new life... Well Puna as a place has it's pluses and minuses. Talking about weather, roads, greenery in one hand and the famous autowallas on the other hand. 

But feeling too lazy

রাঙিয়ে দিয়ে যাও

রাঙিয়ে দিয়ে যাও যাও যাও গো এবার যাবার আগে--
তোমার আপন রাগে, তোমার গোপন রাগে,
তোমার তরুণ হাসির অরুণ রাগে
অশ্রুজলের করুণ রাগে॥
রঙ যেন মোর মর্মে লাগে, আমার সকল কর্মে লাগে,
সন্ধ্যাদীপের আগায় লাগে, গভীর রাতের জাগায় লাগে॥
যাবার আগে যাও গো আমায় জাগিয়ে দিয়ে,
রক্তে তোমার চরণ-দোলা লাগিয়ে দিয়ে।
আঁধার নিশার বক্ষে যেমন তারা জাগে,
পাষাণগুহার কক্ষে নিঝর-ধারা জাগে,
মেঘের বুকে যেমন মেঘের মন্দ্র জাগে,
বিশ্ব-নাচের কেন্দ্রে যেমন ছন্দ জাগে,
তেমনি আমায় দোল দিয়ে যাও যাবার পথে আগিয়ে দিয়ে,
কাঁদন-বাঁধন ভাগিয়ে দিয়ে॥

বিচিত্র > ১৬

রাঙিয়ে দিয়ে যাও - ১

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One More Time, One More Chance

Yesterday night I saw a Japanese movie called "Five Centimeters per Second". It is a chain of short stories about two people in love but separated by distance. Really nice and touching piece of animation. I strongly recommend that you see it.

At the end, it had a song named "One More Time, One More Chance". This is a single from Japanese singer Masayoshi Yamazaki. I could not help reposting the lyrics in my blog post.

What else need I lose, before my heart will be forgiven?

What pain need I feel, before I can see you again?

One more time--I don't want the season to change

One more time--That time we spent joking together

I'm always searching, watching for a glimpse of you

On the opposite platform, in alleyway windows

Not that I could hope to find you there

If I could have any wish I would be with you now

There's nothing left that I won't do

I'd give everything just to hold you again

Anyone would do if I just wanted

To hold back my loneliness

But on a night like this

When the stars themselves seem like they might fall

I can't fool myself

One more time--I don't want the season to change

One more time--That time we spent joking together

I'm always searching, watching for your face

At intersections, in my dreams

Not that I could hope to find you there

Granted a miracle, I'd want to show you

A new morning, the person that I'm becoming

I'd finally tell you that I love you

I'm lost in memories of summer,

A pulse that fades to nothing

I'm always searching, watching for a glimpse of you

In the city at dawn, in Sakuragi-cho

Not that you would ever come here

There's nothing left that I won't do

I'd give everything I have just to hold you again

I'm always searching, watching for some part of you

In shops when I travel, in newspaper stories

Not that I could hope to find you there

Granted a miracle, I'd want to show you

A new morning, the person that I'm becoming

I'd finally tell you that I love you

I'm always searching, watching for your smile

At train crossings, waiting for the express to pass

Not that I could hope to find you there

If I could live over and over again, I would always go back to you

The most important thing of all

=================

Here is the version directly from the movie 5 centimeters per second.

---

Lyrics copied from: http://goo.gl/AWT8D

Help With Care - a 60 Seconds UNCUT Movie (and the making of it)

For the annual post graduate cultural competition, PGCult2011, we prepared a 60 seconds uncut movie. Ok first let us see the movie, then we will talk about it.

The video had to be a single shot of no more than 60 seconds. No editing was allowed in between. Not even adding a sound track.

The shooting spot was beside the main road out side IIT Campus. We had a real shooting experience while filming the shot. It was just like what is portrayed in television or films when they show shooting. People were gathering all around us. We had to create a barricade so that they don't come inside the frame. People were really very helpful to us. We were really taken aback by the enthusiasm they showed. We have to say them a big thank you. Thank you all.

We had to face some real movie making constraints on the spot. Like, we can not film a BEST bus without prior permission. We can not show the child getting the cigarette from a cigarette shop because selling cigarette to a minor is illegal. We had to do minor changes in the plot on the spot. That is why a tire shop sells cigarette in our movie.

Let us give the credits here. Our hero, Nilesh was a local boy and performed really well. DamC and Victor gave him full support. The main idea was from DamC which was further enhanced by Victor and others. Abhirup did a great job behind camera; just like a professional. Me, Debarghya, Gourab, Parmod did some plot refinements and crowd management. Here is a 14 seconds making-of video that shows us in action.

It was really an experience we can not forget. At the end when we were taking snaps with the people gathered there, we got touched by life. Without those pictures, this blog will be incomplete.

This is us with all the kids in the locality. But the cameraman Abhirup is missing...

Abhirup joins us in this snap.


Happy moments.


Me with the actors and our hero.

Crossing the pipes

If you come up to the terrace of our hostel and look towards north, the first thing you will notice is a series of five parallel pipes. Those pipes lie just beside the wired fence of our hostel. Huge in size, those sky blue colored pipes carry water from Vihar lake and supply that to a huge portion of Mumbai population. Just behind those pipes there is this lively locality called Chancawalli.

Yes, it is the same place that reminded me of my hometown long ago. It is the same place where band parties practice each evening. It is the same place we visited for the Urus Festival. Although this place is just behind our hostel, to reach there the formal way is all the way around Powai lake. Why can't we just go there directly?

May be we can. Five of us started investigating. Finally we entered the beautifully kept and protected lawn of our hostel through a secret side passage. In a shabby and dark corner of this lavish green lawn there was the rabbit hole. We crept in.

And one by one, we were out. It was 6:30 in the evening. Fishermen in the Powai lake were packing up with fresh fishes in their collection. There was a narrow walking path running side by side insti fence. We went ahead. In five minutes we reached the pipes.

The pipes were huge; as tall as me. How to climb? We started walking forward. Then someone found the ladder to reach a manhole. We climbed up and started walking on the pipes towards Bhandup. I had seen localities jump from one pipe to another at ease. But for us it was unimaginable. Pipes were round and if by chance you slip, something or other in your body will break.

Night was falling in. Some part of our mind was telling us to go go back. We had heard people talking about this place. They say this is not a very safe place to be at night. All types of crimes are abundant. Although we saw no evidence, if someone kills you and throws between two pipes, nobody will find your body before next morning. Besides, we could not find any way to cross the pipes. And towards front as well as towards back, the pipes were endless. We came down at the next manhole.

But there was a portion of our brain, that kept telling us to move on and we did not stop. And after 10 minutes or so, we found a platform and a ladder. We went up and found that the platform joins the three of the pipes. But the fourth one had to be crossed some other way. Between the fourth and the fifth pipe, there is pipeline road. And I had seen an underpass to cross the fifth one. Hence, our final hurdle was this fourth pipe. We reached the third pipe using the platform and then again started going forward until we found a ladder in the fourth one. We dropped down and one by one climbed the ladder. Finally we were in the pipeline road. It was 8:00 pm in the night. And it was still not a safe place to be. We had decided not to go back in the same route. Hence the only way forward was through the pipeline road towards Renaissance Hotel.

The pipeline road ends near the entrance of NITIE. And there is a check post of Mumbai Corporation there. Should we really be here. We must have better excuses. Thankfully they did not ask anything from us. Finally we reached the spot of the Urus Festival, by foot.

And our journey continued. This time we took the road (public road this time) beside NITIE hostels and then Vihar Lake Road. When we looked down, we could see the locality beside Aarey Powai Road. Then we reached the bus depot. Just after the Bus Depot, there is the entrance of Vihar Lake.

Did we reach Vihar Lake? Wow! We could not believe this. But sadly enough, the entry to the park was restricted by the Mumbai Corporation. After all Vihar Lake supplies drinking water to a large portion of Mumbai. The guard stopped us. But we kept requesting. I don't know what worked finally, but after a lot of persuasion he allowed us to go inside on condition that we will not go beyond his eyesight.

Then we came face to face with the vast beauty. Vihar Lake at night. Deep jungles of Sanjay Gandhi National Park were in the opposite side. Evening breeze was curving patterns in the dark water. We stood still in the mesmerizing vastness for a long time. On the other side of where we were standing, there was a cliff and below there was jungle. Deep jungle.

We took a bus from the depot to come back.

---

Disclaimer: Although the places mentioned in this post is real, the event not necessarily. Trying to correlate this post with reality is simply a waste of time.

Mirch - Movie review

While writing the review of this latest movie by Vinay Shukla, one word that comes in my mind first is: “weird”. This movie is really weird. It's a collection of four short stories that are loosely connected by a wannabe director who narrates his script to a probable producer and how they can identify themselves within the story. All the four stories share a common theme. It's about how women can fool men if they want and how they can cheat with the man knowing nothing. Well its woman who cheats in this movie and at times their tricks catches the Z-level. All the stories are simple yet catchy. Although at times the men look like more fool than they really are.

There are plenty of talented actors scattered in this movie. Rajpal Jadav, Prem Chopra, Shreyas Talpade, Boman Irani, Konkona Sensharma all are great. Especially Konkona and Boman – you look stupendous on screen. Really. And of course Sahana! Sahana Goswami is really a talented actress. Although I liked her performance in Rock On more, she really needs a mention here. Arunodoy Sing tries to act, but when compared to others, he performs rather badly. But the most charming performance was definitely by Illa Arun. Wow.... I love her accent.

Pitobash Tripathy can be seen in many key roles in this movie. I have to say, this man is going to create his own genre of acting in Hindi Cinema. He is in all the four short stories here and also in the outside connecting story. In the first one he is the friend of Rajpal Yadav, second story makes him the prime servant of the king, in the third one he actually plays himself: Pitobash and in the fourth one he is the room service person. For those who does not know, Pitobash Da is an engineer and we studied in the same college. He is three years senior to me. Wow... it does make me proud.

The editing of this movie did not look impressive to me. The sequences between the films (the outside/ connecting story) is often too long and boring. In fact, the connecting story only annoys ourself except one scene near the end of the film. I think it would be far better if the film would be presented as just a sequence of four stories. The outside story only bored me.

The music is far from being impressive. The lyrics written by Javed Akhtar Ji failed to put a dent on me probably because of the music. It's the same Kamasutra type music. Just bored me.

I would rate the movie in the bucket of Above Average or a BB. This translates to a 8 out of 10. It is definitely not in the league of Life in a Metro, Veja Fry, Rang De Basanti, Taare Zameen Par etc which the movie itself mentions. But it's not too bad either. At least this one is... what's the word... Hatke.

Eatables, Drinkables etc.

This post is more like a teaser. A log. Or an index. Don't be confused.. I wrote this post because I was bored and had to kill some time. Do expect some weird grammar here...

After the Urus mela at Chansawalli, we went to Mahabaleswar. Cameras were unable to catch the beauty hence I am skipping the pics this time. But the trip was awesome (especially the chorus in the whole night bus travel energized with some doses of WM). The initialization of the next day was blocked for a while because the other group were taking bath. Can u imagine! They can not even skip it once. Contrast this with us. We skip bathing out of no reason. For example, I skipped bath today. The corn butter, the ice-gola were among the other things that are hard to forget. And did I forget to mention the STRAWBERRIES???

Then came Saraswati puja. To summerize, mesmerizing environment, a good cultural program, great Bengali food for two days and one visit to Sunny (BP this time, two stipends in one month has some externally observable signals).

Today is, well, so called St. Valentines day (who cares... real people can make each day one). Yesterday we had a full chicken dinner at Nirmal Lifestyle mall. Literally, a chicken dinner.

Urus Mela at Chancawalli

Urus (Urs) fesitval is presently going on at the Chand Shah Wali Baba Dargah at Chancawalli, Mumbai. Yes, it is the same Mela that can be seen just behind our hostel. The sounds of bollywood songs, dholaks and motorcycle stunts echo in the corridors each night. Two days ago we decided to visit there.

Although the Mela is within 500m Euclidean distance from our hostel, that direction is blocked by a pretty high barbed wire fence. Hence, we had to take the only route through the Main Gate and then surrounding the Powai lake. It took us 45 mins in Mumbai Jam and 50 rupees auto fare to reach the site.

And then we saw it. An extravaganza of life. Extraordinarily vivid and living gathering of thousands of people. Yes, the mela was big enough. With balloons to Motorcycle Stunts to roller-coasters and foods. The rates were cheap and fun was affordable. It took me back 10 years when small things in life gave me tremendous happiness. We shot at little balloons, rode a roller-coaster, tested our gambling fate with ring throwing (and we won Rs. 100 cash!). The mela looked a lot like the mela's I used to see in my childhood days.

Except of course, the food. Most of the food items I didn't even saw previously. We tested halwa-paratha where the parathas are 2 feet in diameter. We had greasy-spicy chicken roll dipped in pudina chutney.

Near the end of the Mela there was Chand Shah Wali Baba Dargah. In the adjoining ground Qawali performance was going on. This is the first time I saw any live Qawali performance.

People say pictures are worth thousands of words. Hence I will talk no more. Instead, let me present some of the moments of the gathering. Pictures are taken by my friends (Abhirup, Victor and me)

People and life -->



We rode this one -->



Roller-coasters -->



Little Balloons for shooting practice -->



One of the numerous food stalls -->



Colors and more colors -->



Chicken roll dipped in pudina chutney -->



The roll and moghlai shop -->



Halwa-parathas.. note the size of the parathas -->



And the decoration and colors of the halwa -->



The Qawali singers at the Dargah ground



These are we -->

DSpace at West Bengal State Central Library -- Digital Library for Bengali Books

I recently came across:
http://dspace.wbpublibnet.gov.in/

This website contains catalog of numerous books in the public libraries in West Bengal. Many books that are obsolete now, or hard to get hands on, are there. But the most interesting part is: this website stores the SCANNED E-Book versions of the books that are freely downloadable. The website is also easily navigable.

I browsed the History section. This section contains more than 450 books on History specially History of Bengal. The other sections are also pretty rich.

আমি মারের সাগর পাড়ী দেব

This song is the most motivating song that I heard recently, thanks to the serial Ganer Opare. I cannot suppress the urge of making another post on this song.

This songs talk about how the limited I will try and to reach the perfect I through the sea of hardship. The limited I have no fear now. The perfect I is separated from the limited I by a sea of hardship. The limited is determined to cross the sea with his limited resources because at the other side of the sea there is peace, there is solace. That is, when the limited I will cross the sea of hardship and reach the other end, he will be united with the perfect I. He will be perfect and will have peace. In the journey, the limited I is sure God will help him. All he needs to do is keep the journey on; fearlessly. When the day will end, the limited I knows, he will reach the shore. The days of hardship will be the offerings at the kind feet of the Godhead.

Bengali:
---------

আমি মারের সাগর পাড়ি দেব বিষম ঝড়ের বায়ে
আমার ভয়ভাঙা এই নায়ে ॥
মাভৈঃ বাণীর ভরসা নিয়ে ছেঁড়া পালে বুক ফুলিয়ে
তোমার ওই পারেতেই যাবে তরী ছায়াবটের ছায়ে ॥
পথ আমারে সেই দেখাবে যে আমারে চায়--
আমি অভয় মনে ছাড়ব তরী, এই শুধু মোর দায়।
দিন ফুরালে, জানি জানি, পৌঁছে ঘাটে দেব আনি
আমার দুঃখদিনের রক্তকমল তোমার করুণ পায়ে ॥

- রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর

পূজা, ১৯৯

Ganer Opare version from youtube:

Movie Review: V for Vendetta

When the end credit was rolling, I was wondering who might be behind this amazing motion picture. And then the names came. This kind of awesome screenplay can only be expected from Wachowsky Bros.

Behind every good movie there must be a great storyline. I have to say the story is powerful here. The movie is set in a future UK. America has fallen and UK is under the dictatorship of Sutler (John Hurt). A masked man suddenly appears and blasts off Old Bailey and threatens to demolish the parliament in exactly one year’s time. The government calls the masked man terrorist and tries to nab him but their attempts fail. In the process the masked man abducts a BTN television worker. I would not like to reveal anymore. Be sure, once started you would not be able to stop the movie.

This movie also has a clear message. In the fight of terrorism, how much are we ready to give up? We have already given up much of our privacy and freedom. We do not complain when we are checked again and again under metal detectors. We do not complain when random security guards check our body before entering any damn shopping mall. We do not complain when we are always being watched under n number of surveillance cameras. We do not complain when we are not allowed to even read certain types of literatures. Even in order to criticize Extreme Red don’t you need to first read it? What would we do, if in the name of national security the government wants to install cameras in the bedrooms also? What if the government wants total compliance in return of complete security? What is better? Anarchy or dictatorship and tyranny?

The end scroll of credits too has the impression of Wachowsky Bros. The music track is a nicely mixed composition of Dholaks, Pardesi-Pardesi and Churake dil mera; truly Wachowsky signature.

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Image copied from MediaWiki foundation and is as per the Non-free media use rationale of Wikipedia.

হে ভৈরব শক্তি দাও

This RNT song is one of the most motivational songs for me. In this song, the poet prays God to remove everything small in him. Every small, unworthy stuffs must be removed to make space for the grand.

A few months ago I heard the instrumental version of this song. Then I searched a lot in the web but could not get it. Then suddenly I got it one day from my DVD collection. The song starts with "সর্ব খর্বতারে দহে তব ক্রোধদাহ"

Lyrics:
--------
সর্ব খর্বতারে দহে তব ক্রোধদাহ-
হে ভৈরব, শক্তি দাও, ভক্ত-পানে চাহো ।।
দূর কর মহারুদ্র যাহা মুগ্ধ, যাহা ক্ষুদ্র-
মৃত্যুরে করিবে তুচ্ছ প্রাণের উত্সাহ ।।
দুঃখের মন্থনবেগে উঠিবে অমৃত,
শঙ্কা হতে রক্ষা পাবে যারা মৃত্যুভীত ।
তব দীপ্ত রৌদ্র তেজে নির্ঝরিয়া গলিবে যে
প্রস্তর শৃঙ্খলোমুক্ত ত্যাগের প্রবাহ ।।