Diwali.

Well, I titled this post 'Diwali' because as usual, I coudln't come up with a better title for my post. In general, I don't have anything specific to write about, but I thought I would write because I haven't written for pretty llong and I'm getting a bit bored here. I'm staying at my maternal grandmother's house(mamarbari) and my mashi has come over from bombay. My dad is finally getting me an ipod(yaaaay!). I'm going to be staying here for a WHOLE WEEK. I got my books with me and stuff but this place is too much of a madhouse to actually be able to concentrate.
The food is just heavenly and in a single meal I'm eating about as much as I eat the whole day at home. Really. The evening I arrived we had fish fries from Silver Spoon and for dinner we had chilli chicken. Yesterday there was chingri maacher malaikari and today it's Kali Pujo so there's vegetarian food, but it's still really good. No wonder I was fat in class 9. I think I'm bloating up quite a lot already and when I return to school I might actually hear people telling me I've become fat(instead of being told that I look like I'm shrinking every week).
Also, I've discovered the wonders of tea, not being able to drink coffee here. Ginger tea is really good. Basically I'm being stuffed with food all day. :-)

The other day I went to Maddyz house and Deep came over too. I played the guitar a bit and we talked a lot and Deep fixed(or did something to) Maddyz computer. We were planning to go have momos but Deep said he was 'stuffed'.
(Note: Last time Deep was 'full' he finished one plate of chow, half a plate of lemon garlic chicken and 3/4ths plate of baby corn, which was more than what me and Madhura were able to eat combined. :-). But this time he was 'stuffed', so he couldn't eat.(But I guess if we'd actually bothered to get out of the house and go to the momo place we would've gotten an insight into his definition of 'stuffed' too).

Anyway, I cant think of anything more to write. I will go shopping tomorrow. :)

Durga Pujo 2008!

....And it's over.
So shubho bijoya!
As usual Durga Pujo was a blast and I did take a lot of pictures this time. I have loads to write about. And LOTS of pictures to post!
This time it was one big party. There are lots of reasons I like durga pujo.
1. You get to wear nice clothes.
2.You get to see people wearing nice clothes.
3. You get to see good looking people wearing nice clothes and it's one time of the year you don't find very badly dressed people.
4. It's so eventful.
5. You don't have to study and you can
6. I realize the people in my complex are nice and that the species of good looking guys aren't extinct after all.
7. I get to sing/play. :)

It's all very nice the way everyone, even non-bengalis are so involved in every aspect of the pujo.
On Shashthi we went to Arunima's house and ate lots of good food, listened to a lot of Anushka and Ishani's terrible jokes and posed in the weirdest possible ways for photos.

Saptami, we went to salt lake and the pujos there were great. FD block had global warming as a theme and there was a huge half-globe and stuff. We went to a few more too.

On Ashtami I went to Ishani's house and we watched a bit of Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, but we found it pretty crappy so we listened to random music.

I must relate the manner in which Ishani fixes her computer monitor. Ishani goes behind the computer and pushes the monitor plug with all her strength while her dad bangs the top of the monitor with his fist until it flickers to life. Then her dad went away and I had to do the banging-with-the-fist part. ouch. She has this huge, REALLY huge conch shell in her house and a neighbour had come over to practice for the conch blowing competition. It made a nice, deep sound.
Ashthami evening there was an amazing dance drama. One by Rabindranath, but I forgot the name. The first 10 minutes consisted of a bharatnatyam dance with tabla and sitar accompaniment, which was really spellbinding. It was probably raag Brindavani Sarang. It was lovely.

For the first time, I attended the sandhi pujo. It started at 11:30pmand went on till I guess around 2:00. I took pictures.
You know what, I actually don't mind making friends all that much. The people are nice mostly. It was actually nice sitting through Sandhi pujo with them at night. It's nice for once not to roam about alone aimlessly.

Navami. We went to north calcutta - Mohammad Ali Park, College square and then Chaltabagan. Some day it was. Morning was utter confusion and I ended up having to take a taxi alone to Mohammad Ali Park and I was just praying I wouldn't get lost or something. The taxi driver kept talking and talking about pujos and roads and jams, which was a relief. That was the first time I was travelling that far without having ANY idea where I was going and stuff, but I did reach thankfully. Mohammad Ali Park was nice.

Outside the pandal, Ahona and Srimoi wanted daab and there was this rather colourful man selling daab. He was wearing a white shirt with yellow stains all over and he had RED teeth. I mean REALLY red teeth. The thing(weapon) he was cutting the daab with was EXACTLY semicircular in shape. I was going to take a picture but then the man started waving at the rest of us with that dagger type thing of his, calling us to have more daab and that was freaky so we just got away as soon as we could.

College square was nice, but we missed the lighting. The chandelier there was very nice.
But things cant all go well, and there was an accident. Srimoi stepped on an upright nail which went into her foot and before we knew it, there was blood streaming everywhere, all over her shoes and on the ground. The first aid centre was closed(how very logical, people don't get hurt in the morning, do they?) but we managed to get some ice. Thankfully, there was a medical shop nearby and they gave her a tetanus injection right there. Some experience.

Our next stop was Chaltabagan. The pandal was made entirely of wire mesh. Amazing. It looks like clay from far, but it's actually wire mesh. It srikes you then, that the people who make these things probably work on them the whole year. In fact, they've probably already started working on next year's pujo.

Everyone was really tired after Chaltabagan and we were VERY hungry, so we decided to go to Mandarin for food.

I came back home and watched the aarati, and kept trying to take pictures of the moon, but I couldn't and Kamalesh uncle saw me and I ended up having a pretty long photography lesson. He taught me lots about photography and I took nice pictures of the moon. :-)

After that there was a play called 'The Outcast', which was really good, though the plot was more or less like one of the typical stories from 'Chicken soup for the teenage soul', but we really enjoyed it. It had some good music in it and at the end(while the cast were taking bows) they played Rockstar(Nickelback) and everyone sang along. It was fun.

And then Dashami. The sindur khela was colourful and the way the women danced around with the dhunuchis with the beat of the dhaak, reaching a crescendo and then then slowing down again, what with all their elaborate sarees and all is commendable.

During the bhashaan we all danced like crazy, but sad thing was that this year, only the girls were dancing. :-(. This is about the only one day of the year I actually get to dance. I don't hell know how to dance, actually. I want to learn how to dance. I've decided I'll watch some of those dance reality shows. I mean, I can move but I run out of ideas. I guess I could dance well if I tried. I can only waltz decently, but there isn't much scope for that is there? ;)

So that's the end of Durga pujo. :-(

Shubho bijoya everyone!

I think I'll put some pictures in the next post, but if I might not cuz I'm already really tired of uploading pictures and posting them everywhere.