The title of this post is inspired by the song Sei Fuler Dol by Mohiner Ghoraguli, a pioneer music band from Kolkata. The link to the song can be found at the end of the post.
This is the story of how I got interested in volunteering. Back in my college days, I had a friend who was very dedicated towards social causes. Both his parents were into some kind of non-profit work, and hence his early initiation. None of this really meant much to me and I used to scorn at him as a samajsebi. He always smiled gently in reply. Once our classes got over soon and I was not in a mood to return home early. He was going to an anti-aids campaign in a red light area, and he invited me. Now, I have had a over-protected childhood and in my family children are kept secured from the unpleasant facets of life. So naturally I developed strong curiosity about the 'adult' things in life and the idea of visiting a red light area seemed very alluring.
But once we were there, the scene looked nothing like the vivid picture I painted in my imagination. The surrounding was smelly and unhygienic. All the people including the prostitutes had a sullen and deplorable disposition. I was disappointed. The volunteers were talking to the women and trying to make them aware of hygiene and venereal diseases, and something of the sort. I couldn't have cared less. I was getting irritated at the foul language and occasional obscene laughters in hoarse female voice. Then one of the volunteers just asked me to help him distribute condoms. I was petrified, I had never even seen one before! But I was grown up and in college, so I feigned courage and stood beside him to help him out. To my surprise, I could feel slowly my inhibitions melting away, and a strange sense of being in control flowing in me. That was about the first day, but that sense of control, some weird feeling of satisfaction kept me joining my friend every time he would ask me to. And I became a regular, and even an enthusiast.
There was another wing of the organisation, which works towards bringing willing women out of the nexus. Now those who know this business well, would know, this is playing hardball, and definitely much more serious than aids awareness. We had heard a lot about a specific girl called Pushpa who was considered a very prospective candidate for extraction. So in one of our camps, one of our elderly members, Sumitradi showed me, "Look, that is Pushpa!" I looked at her. She was hardly 16, big intelligent eyes, bright smile, neat dressing, definitely different from her inmates. Sumitradi called her out, but she, a little hesitant, smiled shyly. So this time Sumitradi went out of the stall and pulled her by her hand, and she squealed out loudly. Both of us got startled and looked at her hand. Her forearm was slashed by some sharp instrument, and the wound went at least 4 inches long. It was half raw, completely unattended. Had that wound been in any of our bodies, it would required at least 10 stitches. Sumitradi went completely neurotic and half-screamed, half-asked how it happened. The reply came back in another shy smile. This time could I see a hint of pain in her smile, or my vision was smudged with flooding tears?
I naturally have a sharp aversion towards violence, and this was my first close encounter with it. More I was in pain than in shock, when I heard the quiet, sweet voice say, "Didi, thik hoye jabe". (Sister, it will be OK.). I realised, how easily the girl, who should have been in a school, who deserved a loving home, who in her age should have been nurturing colorful dreams of future, has come to terms with her grave misfortune. I wanted to shout aloud, "Orey tor jaiga eta noy, prithibi ta boro shundor, tokey dekhte hobey, jante hobe", (My sister, this is not your place, life is beautiful and you should see it) but I couldn't. I knew I could do nothing to take her, and millions of others like her out of the state of subhuman misery we, the society are subjecting them to.
I am in tears when I write this, but I have to. Look at these faces. Do they look any less innocent than a neatly plaited girl walking to school in white and blue uniform? Do they look any less deserving than us, who have been pampered by our family all our life? Have you ever compared an evening of your life in that age and an evening in their life, where every minute their tender womanhood gets brutally ploughed and raked by the obscene desires of men, while their soul sheds tears of blood?
From that instant, I had committed myself lifelong towards the service of the distressed children, sex workers, people with alternative abilities and other fringe population of the society. I dream of a state where all of us will be integrated into the same social structure, with each one of us living with pride and confidence, being aware of our importance and rights in this world.
My solemn pledge is, as long as I am alive, I will fight every force which tries to subjugate humanity, through use of force and violence and I will drop dead trying to make this world more livable for our children and all future generations to come.
The link to the song is here. This song is very close to my heart, it is an outstanding lyrical rendition of the silent tears of millions of unfortunate girls.
[Acknowledgements:
1. The photograph above is taken from http://across.co.nz. They, in my opinion are doing great work. Please support them and pay a visit to the page http://across.co.nz/CalcuttaSexSlaves.html that hosts the original image.
2. The song is by Mohiner Ghoraguli. I have ripped this song from the original CD I have bought and shared it with a spirit of honesty. If you like the song, please buy their original works and support them. ]
The Withering Flowers
My (Lamenting) Ode to Phuchka
I think I am under a severe foodophilistic attack. All I am thinking apart from work is food. Today for a change I thought about the dishes I dislike most. You might be awed, but what tops my list is phuchka. For the uninitiated, phuchka is not golgappa or pani puri. Those are Marathi and North Indian variations. Phuchka in Kolkata is distinct in taste and form than these.
I have been coaxed into eating phuchka by different women at different times and on every occasion I hated it more than ever. It completely defies my reason why Bengali women find phuchka such a romantic food. They just cannot stay away from it when they are on a date. OK fine, eat it. Why can't you eat it with me just standing by your side? Why do you have to make me gulp it along with you? It does not show affection in any way to push junk down my gut when I don't want you to.
And talking about standing and watching you when you eat it, believe me you do not look cute when you are trying to stuff your mouth with more food than you can chew and tokjol running down your chin and dripping all over. Thats not the end of it! You want the phuchkawala to add more of every spice that make up the unholy concoction. Believe me my friend, it is such a turn off to have a date drooling over spicy roadside junk for half an hour and her breath reeking of rock salt and tamarind. You smell sultry. Do you think any of the above does anything to add to your grace and poise? And then you expect me to look at you as the most adorable piece among all of God's creations.
If you think you can get away with all of this please think twice before next time you complain about me stinking of tobacco, or complain about my dress sense when I wear a dark blue shirt with a brown trouser, or if you think my clothes are way too big sized for me. I wear them because they are comfortable, and that is the way it would be!
I am sure I deserve a huge applause from my Bengali brothers who has suffered the torture as I have, for sending out this message. I equally deserve the wrath of the Bongololona's, but truth remains truth, and I proudly stand by it >(:o)
The Sausage Platter
Last night, my dinner was different. I have been unfortunately working over the weekend and stressed out of working the whole of Saturday. So I decided I need to freshen up my mood by cooking something good. I decided that I will not use a single ingredient from an Indian kitchen.
I do not know what this dish can be called, but here is how to make it:
1. You would need sausages. I used turkey, please feel free to take you pick.
2. Potato, boiled and peeled. Fresh cream.
3. Vegetables of your choice, cubed. I chose broccoli, baby corn and sliced carrot.
4. Olive oil, oregano, paprika, crushed dried tomato, chilli flakes, fresh black pepper, salt.
Sautee the cubed vegetables with a little olive oil on high flame. Strew salt and black pepper and wait just enough for the flavor to emit. Your vegetables are done.
Thaw the sausages. Slit them a wee bit diagonally at 3-4 places along the length for the spices to enter. Dab them with olive oil and sprinkle the oregano, chilli flakes, paprika and tomato flakes. DO NOT add salt! Sausages are very salty already. Now put this entire ensemble into the microwave or oven and keep for 5 minutes. Turn them around, sprinkle some more spice and keep it for another 2-3 minutes. Your sausages should be ready. Depending on what meat you choose, the cooking time may vary. Please use your judgment.
Mash the potato, add fresh cream, salt and mash more into a smooth blend.
So you have your dinner ready. Mine looked like this, and tasted decent. I would rate it at 7 on 10. I need to understand the finer balances of continental spices:
If you ever try this recipe, please let me know how you liked it. If you have suggestions for improvement, you are more than welcome to comment.
My First Iced Tea
I made my first iced tea last evening. I generally drink a lot of bottled iced tea, specially during the summers to keep my body cool and hydrated.
Yesterday when I was back from work, I realized I was out of supply of iced tea and I did not feel like going out again in the heat. So I decided to make my own home-brewed iced tea.
The recipe goes like this. You need a bag of aromatic natural tea like Earl Gray or Lipton Gold. Darjeeling tea leaves would have been best but I do not have the privilege in Copenhagen. The main idea is that the more aromatic the tea is, more refreshing your drink will be.
So put the bag in a cup and pour 1/4th cup of boiling water in it and keep it covered for 5 minutes.
In the meantime, crush a couple of mint leaves in a tall glass in mojitos style and discard the leaves.
Pour the broth in the glass and mix 4 tea spoons of sugar. It will be much less sweeter than the bottled iced tea, but I prefer it that way. You can adjust the amount to your taste, or use sugar substitutes etc etc.
Pour a few cubes of ice and cold water in it and let the whole thing settle for a couple of minutes. Just before drinking, add about 4 drops of lime juice.
I was surprised at how much this drink refreshed me and I have decided to brew my own iced tea every time. For the health conscious, I did a quick search on the health aspects of home-brewed iced tea and here is what I found.
So make your own iced tea, feel refreshed and thank me every time you do so.
Milton Keynes
Today at lunch I was talking to Mia and John when I mentioned that I had stayed in Milton Keynes for some time. John asked me whether it was an industrial city and I immediately started explaining them that it was not and that it is a very special town in England. Anybody could have thought that I was putting forth a sales pitch on behalf of the city municipality about how wonderful the place is.
I had really enjoyed my days in Milton Keynes and I remembered them after a long time. The lake, the boulevards, the lonely streets in winter, Lido, XScape, easycinema, the municipal library - all of them came back to my mind in a flash. The town has a pristine church, where they have regular Sunday mass. Neatly dressed people start coming in in pairs and groups, rarely alone, and assemble in the square in front of the church. In the summer we used to have a cute, little fair on such Sundays with colorful kiosks selling varieties of sundries. Surprisingly, I have never noticed any shop selling edibles, other than the regular 'Breakfast on Wheels' van selling cold sandwitches, hot dogs and of course fish and chips. I found it funny when I learnt that in England you call pommes frites as chips, and what we call potato chips as crisps.
Milton Keynes is the only pre-planned town in England, where the government had taken out land from the wilds and converted it into a dwelling place. I think it was primarily done to take the pressure of population off from the northern suburbs of England. But due to its unusual origin, the town has some distinct features. For one, all private houses in MK look exactly alike. All the roads in the city are boulevards. The town is also remarkably bicycle and disability friendly. The municipality has strong community support for older people and disturbed youth. I had very strange experiences as a volunteer in the youth programme. It is surprising to know that how much more difficult it is for a girl to grow up even in a first world country than it is for a boy.
Let me put a few images of MK from my old repository of photographs.
This is the house I stayed in MK.
The Mall.
The Lake.
This friend of mine cooks fantastic Biriyani.
Saalon! Talli log!!!New Inspiration
I don't think I should be calling myself a blogger. I have been negligent to my blog as much as anyone could be. But today is a landmark day in my blogging stint, since I had the first comment posted in my blog! I had an immense feeling of gratification when I saw a comment posted and at the same time an urge spurred in me to write more.
This emotion made me muse on the topic for quite a while. I conclude that everyone who is creative in nature, has a desire to be heard, seen or felt. Irrespective of the form, this is a central strand that connects all of such people - self expression. So can an art form be thought about as a medium of expression? i.e. a language. Of course, it can be. Until now I did not say anything original. What next?
If an art form is a language, then it should be following the properties of a language.
Grammar. Syntactic and semantic correctness is essential for effective communication in a language. Do all the art forms have a well defined grammar? Some do, say for instance Bharatnatyam, but how about Baul? I have to find out. For now I will keep this as a hypothesis. Next time I experience an art form, I will have to be more attentive towards this aspect.
Almost all the art forms that we observe are either audio or visual or both. How about the languages, or art forms that appeal to other senses like touch and smell? Do we have a form that is completely based on smell? Well, we have perfumes. Do we have a language of smell? Possibly not. Can one be constructed? I can immediately see a practical difficulty. Odour or smell is the result of small particles suspended in air. It is a bit difficult to control them with precision. But that is really an implementation issue. I will have to see if I can create a workable model of olfactory language.
I think it is easier to construct a language of touch, or sensation. I know we have Brail, but Brail is in essence English, read through touching the alphabets. I am talking about a language which is solely based on touch - the alphabets will be different types of sensations. If this can be implemented, it will truly be the universal language of the human race. I will have to invest deeper thoughts into this as well, when I have more time.
Working the way out
I am sure I am not doing justice to this blog. It is supposed to be a journal and it has been a week and I have not posted anything. Not that I had anything worthwhile to talk about, but I should be putting down my thoughts more often, more so, if I really want to experience how I evolve as a person.
Some words tend to get overused. 'Evolve' is one of them. Everythings seems to be evolving these days. They could have as well developed, or bloomed, or even flourished. I have always looked up with awe and envy to people who articulates well. When will I learn to be 'apt' and 'crisp'? The ideas and emotions are all there. I have to become adroit at supporting them with my words.
Right now I feel a little lost in thoughts, but later in the day I plan to write a bit about my near future plans.
Why?
Trying to look back, I find this is the toughest form of question I have ever faced. I had a routine of meekly entering home from school the day our grades were published and the inevitable would happen - Mom looking at each of the subject grades and shouting "Why Sapphire?! Why???!!!". I had no answer ever.
Starting from then, these three letters have always challenged me, in many forms and contexts. In most of the occasions I have failed miserably. But as years passed, I started realising that they always made me introspect the most, and I must say that now I am better at answering why's better than I was at before (which includes trying to be smart and retort "It's my preference really!" when I do not have a suitable explanation).
With that let me try answering a few why's right here, right now.
Why a blog?
OK. This is a simple one. I think writing a blog serves a few purposes. For one, I am deeply interested to see how my thoughts, knowledge, emotions change over a period of time. Trend analysis, modelling and forecasting, you see! Secondly, I have been told time and again by my friends that I am crafty with words and that I should write. I have been contemplating about writing for quite some time and then I thought, "Why not a blog? Its such an in thing!!!". Finally, since I am interested and get involved in a lot of things, I will be writing on a wide spectrum of topics, which, after months or years together, would be of interest to some people, and they will visit my blog to extract pearls of wisdom from here. Why? I can almost imagine that this post becomes as famous as this, or this >(:o)
Why this name?
I knew this was coming, and I am prepared. The real story of how I got this name was a dream (the night kind). A couple of years back I had this vivid dream where I saw a lot of big sparkling sapphires in endless space. The color was exactly like what it would be if you hold a bottle of royal blue ink (Has it not been ages since we have seen one? Elegance, alas, is a lost art.) against the sun. The bright sunlight made them look as if they had honey-filled hearts. I could see large, velvetty, ink blue drops oozing from them, and falling somewhere I do not know. But I could distinctly hear the soft, relaxing "blob, blob, blob". When I got up, I had this name stuck in my head and I liked it very much.
Why now?
Ahem! Questions have started getting tougher! You see, everything waits for the time for it to happen. :-D
Enough of this why stuff now! We have a cool breezy night outside and Copenhagen is flaunting its best weather. This weekend there is a beer festival in Bakken, I wonder whether I will be able to make it there, after handling all the probable production issues on Friday. But first, I will really try to reach office early tomorrow. And day after. And all days after that ...
Man what a goal driven life am I living!!! And why???!!!
