An year, and beyond ...

Today morning there was a mail in my mailbox informing me of a new comment on my blog. This was from Bendtherulz, who reminded me that I have completed one year of blogging. He asked me how was I feeling having completed a whole year in the blog-world. I thought about it for a few minutes, and then these thoughts evolved into this post.

I first heard about the concept of the blog from my brother, who is very tech-savvy. Btw, he maintains a highly technical blog, on which he posts occasionally. I jumped up at the idea, and created my blog too. However, for a long time, I suffered from an inertia, and did not post anything. I could not think of anything to put up.

Then, one fine day, I got enthused once again, and made my first post. For first few months, I showed little activity. The low activity level was not helped by the fact that amongst my acquaintances, hardly anyone wrote or visited blogs, and I myself did not have an idea how to find blogs that will interest me. For quite a while, my blog remained primarily a reading journal. Gradually, I gained momentum, I found a few regular visitors on my blogs, and in turn, I became a regular at theirs. I kept, and keep, finding more blogs of my interest through those - and the chain grows.But my network is still extremely small.

However, in the process, I have discovered a whole new world out here, learnt new things, made a few friends. In the times to come, I hope to learn much more about things, ideas, people, cultures. I hope to get to know these friends better, and find more like-minded people.

Sometimes I debate with myself, the primary purpose of a blog. Is it the record of an individual's thoughts and feelings, like a virtual diary - not necessarily meant to be shared ? Or is it the expression of one's ideas, open to discussion with willing audience ? When I am inclined towards the first one, I feel good about having written some coherent accounts; when I am inclined towards the second, I am frustrated at not being able to express in words so many thoughts.
The bottom line is that I am enjoying myself immensely in the blogosphere. And that is the answer to your question, Bendtherulz.

Feeling content

.... after completing this sketch last week, finally, after a few weeks ...

Food For Thought

Now this gem of a thought or the "quotable quote" was given by my friend MA, when I told him about this blog, which I call "Idle Thoughts". He said:
If I am idle, how can I have even a thought. And if I have a thought, I am no longer idle.

So, I felt I had to share this on this blog :-)

Down the memory lane - IV

What's in a name

This happened a long time ago, but I still find it amusing. I am not relating this here to make fun of the person concerned, just because .
After my school, I joined a college (stayed there for a very short period). I stayed in the hostel, and the warden was a very old lady, with all her hair white (not even a single black strand!) and always dressed in white (well, these details are irrelevant, but just to give a picture). Despite her age, she walked tall and straight, and was extremely extremely strict (and if I may say so, quite short tempered). Her name was Ms Mirchandani. Because of her temparament, which terrified one and all, her name was transformed into a nickname - Ms Mirchdani (a pot of chillies), and for short, 'Mirchi Aunty' (chilli) !!

I think students have a thing about nicknaming (often unflatteringingly) the teachers, especially the ones they do not get along with very well. And more often than not, the names are passed down from batch to batch, and over the time, even the teachers get to know the nicknames! In my student life, I have come across a large number and variety of nicknames. We (my batch), our seniors and our juniors have rather disrespectfully referred to some of our teachers as Choupat (futile), GainDa (hippo rhino), Sugriva(from legend of Mahabharata Ramayana) etc.
But this incident is perhaps the most amusing and imaginative one.

P.S. Would like to request all you to share your amusing stories about nicknames :-)

Waqt

Waqt

Samay ko ikaiyon mein
Bandha nahin jata
Chah ki paridhiyon mein
Mapa nahin jata

Kabhi kabhi ek pal aataa hai
Thehra rehta hai ek sadi sa
Aur kabhi ek yug jata hai
Behta rahta hai ek nadi sa


Time

Time -
It cannot be bound in units
It cannot be measured by desires

Sometimes a moment comes
And lingers on, like a century
And sometimes, and age goes by
Flowing like a stream

P.S. Just done a makeshift kind of translation here, and I am not too happy with the result. Any help here is very welcome :-)

Old and new

Here are a couple of pencil color drawings I made ... one recent and one older one ...
They are not really good ... or at least as good as I'd like them to be, but I came to realize its not very easy to get the desired effect using pencil colors.
But anyway, I love to draw, and I love colors ...

Translation of tales, and Tales of translation

I think most of the people I know will give me an incredulous stare, if I admit that I read Sharatchandra's Devdas this weekend. How did I come to read it, anyway ? Well, my mother bought it because she was looking for something to read and she does not read english novels (which are usually what I have), and she had heard a lot about it (mostly thanks to the 'n' number of Bengali and Hindi films that have been made on this story, the most recent one being Shahrukh and Aishwarya's much publicised one). So, it was lying there, I had nothing else to read, and nothing better to do, so I picked it up.

For the uninitiated: it is the story of Devdas, a rich man who destroys his wealth and drinks himself to death, for a love that he does not acknowledge while he has the opportunity - it is not as if he was a rejected suitor who sacrificed everything for love. What I failed to understand is why has he become a legend, and why has this story inspired so many (7 or 8, I think) films.

This was the third book I read which has been translated from Bengali. The first one was 'Yajnaseni'by Pratibha Ray (translated to english), the second one was Tagore's famous 'Chokher Bali' and the third was Devdas (both translated in Hindi). Yajnaseni (Yajnaseni is another name for Draupadi) was wonderful, and 'Chokher Bali' was pathetic (who am I to criticise the work of Tagore, but well, I am entitled to my opninion). Devdas was okay (on the side of sorry, but not pathetic). I am not sorry, though, that I did read the latter two - they are considered as great classics, penned by literary giants. Perhaps they are not relevant in today's context, as they were written almost a century earlier. Perhaps they do not suit the sensibilities of the current times. But one common complain that I have with all the three is the bad translation. Frequently often, the translation is literal, and loses the intent of the author. At times, it sounds downright funny. Why can we not have a decent translation of books, even from one Indian language to other, when they share a common origin. Having attempted translating a few poems from hindi to english (where else, but in the blogosphere), I realize that translating, specially another person's work, is not easy. But I suppose that the people in charge of doing so offcially, are much more qualified than I am. So when I read a translation, I expect to read a meaningful, thorough one, not like the patchy work that I have encountered so far. In childhood, I read a lot of story books translated from Russian to Hindi or English (and believe me, I am really sorry that Mir publishers are no longer in existence after the division of USSR), and although at times the context of the stories was unfamiliar owing to a great cultural difference, the flow of words was not broken because of translation. A very likely cause is that at that age I was not so discerning. But another reason I can think of is that probably the translators of the childern's stories focussed on translating only the story. While translating serious work, and well known classics at that, the translators take their work a little too seriously, and in an attempt to preserve the literature (thoughts and ideas, as represented by sentences), tend to lose the natural flow of the story.

The time traveller's wife

This book by Audrey Niffenegger had received good reviews in several magazines, but looking at the main story plot I was not very convinced that I wanted to read it. I do not know the exact reason; it just did not appeal to me. However, at a time when I hadn't read anything for a long while because I did not find anything interesting, browsing in the book store one day, I finally decided to buy The Time Traveler's Wife. I read it over the last few days.

This is the story of the life of the time traveler, Henry, and his wife Clare. Henry meets Clare for the first time when Clare is 6 and Henry is 36, while Henry is travelling back in time. The story moves as Clare grows up according to the laws of nature, while Henry keeps moving back and forth in time, regardless of his own wish.

Although this core of the story is time travel, it is not science fiction, or even about time travel, in fact. It is about people. The entire story is related by Henry and Clare, taking turns at narration. Although I have read quite a few books in first person narrative, I found narration by two main protagonists a novel idea, quite an interesting one. Initially I had some difficulty following the story, as it brings in Henry from some future time, talking about things that have not yet happened. But after a while I got the hang of it. Also, in the beginning, I felt that the story was rather slow, but after completing about one-fourth of it, I was engrossed. I liked the book, though I cannot say I enjoyed reading it. The main downside was it was very sad - for a couple of nights while I was reading the book, I was too depressed to sleep. Some may call it the mark of a good book (or film) if it leaves an impact. But I think that things that move you need not necessarily leave you with a feeling of depression. It is claimed as a story of undying love; but I do not think it is a very strong love story, though the commitment Henry and Clare have for each other is admirable. Then it has content that I do not think is really integral to the plot (I like my fiction to be just that - unadulterated story). My summation : it was quite okay, but unfortunately did not meet the expectaions that had been raised by the raving reviews.