Tidbits of me

I was born on the year when Salman Rushdie got his Booker for 'Midnight's Children'.

I was born on the year when the famous musical 'The Cats' was first staged.

I share my birthday with Marie Antoinette.

Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay must be proud to share his birthday with me.

I am Indian.

I am a Bengali.

I am from a typical middle class Bengali.

I am the elder child of my parents.

My parents are actually leftists, like most of the others of their generation.

My father has a transferable job.

So I have spent my childhood shifting our abode with my father once in every five year.

I was born in Kolkata, a busy and lively city.

Till 3 years I was at Odlabari, Jalpaiguri.

Odlabari is a hilly place beside the river Tista on the lap of the Himalaya.

From the lap of Himalaya we came down to plain land when I was three or four.

Till my 9^th year we were at a village named Panikotor, Midnapore.

Then I spent 6 years at a spoilt suberbern village Panchkhuri.

Now we are at Midnapore town.

I have only one pictorial memory of Odlabari.

I am playing as a shop-owner selling potatoes with a mess of vegetables in front of me at the corridor from where you can see a glimpse of Kanchenjungha.

I think I spent my most memorable days at Panikotor.

Well, that's because I spent the pre-adolescence age there.

I believe that is the age when the character of a person starts taking shape.

I still feel nostalgic for them, that jungle opposite to our quarters, those good old villagers, those potato and rice fields, those friends with whom I played cricket and scored a total of more than 10,000 runs and that loneliness.

Each summer a herd of hostile elephants used come to that jungle.

And in rainy season we, children, used to go to that jungle to collect mushrooms.

I love to eat boiled potato.

I like loneliness.

I am a bookworm.

I love reading Bengali books for obvious reasons.

The reason is Bengali is my mother tongue!

The writings of Abanindranath Tagore are altime favourite of mine.

My opinions, I believe, are flexible.

I believe the most difficult job is to pen a really good children's book, which will equally enlightening to sensible readers of all age.

'The Little Prince' and 'Totto Chan - the Girl at the Window' are two good example of such creations.

I am fond of Russian literatures, too.

They carry sweet memories of my childhood days.

I feel that Russian literature is strong in children's literature.

A recent reading to 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' had been a thrilling and enlightening experience to me.

I think, I can carry on discussions on literature for infinite time.

I have been actively associated with a literary magazine from writing, editing, illustrating to publication in my college days.

I am enthusiastic in theatre.

I have written, acted and directed several plays.

Traveling is another thing I often dream of.

But unfortunately time and money doesn't allow it to happen most of the time.

I had a dream of traveling to Artek for International Children Centre.

Well, I still have it.

As a Bengali, my soul is best echoed in Rabindrasangeet (songs of Rabindranath Tagore).

There is always at least one Rabindrasangeet for every moment I live on.

I sometime wonder how powerful Rabindrasangeets can be!

I like folk music; both Bengali and English.

I am fan of easy-listening oldies and country music.

I am fan of Rock that rocked the music lovers from 1940 to 1980.

I like Don Mclean, Harry Chapin, and Cat Stevens.

When I am distressed or lacking spirit, I listen to 'Tommy' in a dark room.

When I am cheerful or nostalgic I listen to 'Days of Future Passed'.

I don't find recent English music that much interesting.

Recent Bengali music, leaded by Suman Chattopadhyaya, Anjan DUtta, Chandrabindoo, Bhoomi, etc. and ofcourse inspired by pioneering Maheener Ghoraguli has made a mark of its own.

I like Jack Nicholson's and Maryl Streep's style of acting.

I like Meg Ryan for her tomboyish looks.

'Pather Panchali' by Satyajit Ray is the greatest movie ever made; its so compelling and heartbreaking at the same time.

I eagerly long for watching classic movies of maestros like Kurosawa, Truffaut, De sica, Renoir, etc...

But I don't get enough chance of watching their movies.

My cherished non-Bengali movies are 'The Bicycle Thief', 'Rashomon', 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', 'Almost Famous', 'Singing in the Rain', ...

I am a fan of animation.

I dream of making an animation movie out of a Bengali book from my childhood - 'Laal kaalo'.

I am not a miser.

I am certainly economic person.

But in a book store I am very unpredictable customer.

I like photography.

I wish I had a good camera.

I dream of making a book of photographs taken on road.

No photograph of that book will be of any person acquainted with me.

It will be named 'On the road'.

The second volume of it will be named 'On the road again'.

I dream of making a movie too.

The movie will be based on a Bengali novel, 'Nilkantha Pakhir Khonje'.

My ideal vacation is to spend a moonlit night in a jungle.

Alas, I have not yet been able to take such a break from daily life.

I like sea, too.

Sea is never tiring; it refreshes with each wave breaks on shore.

But the most disadvantage of sea-side is that it remains too crowded most of the time of the day.

Then why should hillside be left, I love mountains too.

But again on moonlit night sea is wonderful.

I like not-mentioned-in-tourist-guidebook places to spend my vacations.

I like surfing through personal pages and blogs.

There are so many inspiring things one can find in these pages and blogs.

My God! So many 'I' I have used.

I must be selfish and have little feeling for the group.

But this is something about me so I had to use 'I'.

Anyway, everyone is selfish.

There is nothing self-less.

Sometime I'm afraid I'll be insane soon.

But I'm sure a would-be-insane person can never thought of being insane.

So I'm not going to be insane.

This is the way I like crossing myself.

But why am I so keen on exposing myself to unknown persons?

My personality is mostly recognition driven.

May be that's why I am exposing myself.

But I'm introvert kind and till wavelength matches to open up.

It is very easy to pretend over internet.