Collected Status Messages - 2

Here is a selection of the status messages I posted on my social media account during May/June/July/September 2014 months:

(Note: The messages are not in any chronology.)

I. I still remember this young apparently hard-working little boy in one of Kolkata's bylanes selling Singharas and Jilipees. I bought sweet singharas from him. How can I forget him? His pose for my camera says all about his confident personality and his way of life on the street. I wish I had met him again. I want to though and that would be great. Just want to tell him that he had been quite famous on my Social Media circuit. Perhaps, he will not understand that. But he sure will think back to the day when I clicked his candid picture. God bless him.

II. A 'melodiously intensifying' Hindi tune burst into my head when I was riding on my motorcycle to the office. (Yes, I forsook the service of my self-chauffeured car today). I began to hum and as soon as I did that I felt I was taken over by the pulsating melody of the song that rose and fell in tumultuous waves in my head.

It breathed a whiff of fresh air into my mind’s psyche even as I kept riding my bike at the bare minimum speed (luckily!) deeply immersed in loudly humming the tune with my head enclosed in the helmet. The song I am talking about is this:

"Tum se badhkar duniya mein na dekha koyee aur

zubaan par aaj dil ki baat aa gayi.

Kya khub aankhen hain teri,

Inmein jindagani hain meri.

Jee lenge hum dekh dekh ke inko…

Baatoh mein teri ek ada hai,

Teri ada mein wafa hai.

Zubaan par aaj dil ki baat aa gayi.”

III. Just read that Google is launching ‘under-USD 100 Android One' devices in India. Wonder how big a deal that will be. Well, if it’s good then will prefer to buy one. Or else I will settle for a much-hyped Samsung Smartphone or an HTC with Android One technology will do the trick for me. But I don’t know why I can’t get my head around the handset makers of Micromax, Lenovo, Lava, and that old Spice. Never mind that! Right now though I feel very welcome to the new Android One ecosystem!

IV.

"Na Jaane Kyun,

Hota Hai Yeh Zindagi Ke Saath 

Achaanak Yeh Mann, Kisike Jaane Ke Baad

Kare Phir Uski Yaad Chhoti Chhoti Si Baat 

Na Jaane Kyun...”

I stumbled upon a new world; open in front of me when I first listened to this wonderful track by Lata Mangeshkar. I was a student then and returning home from school I was wonder-struck by this song coming on our Bush radio. I was as if transfixed and listened intently without moving. I forgot my school bag still strung on my shoulders. Na Jaane kyun…

Afterwards, I saw the movie Chhoti Si Baat and then when the song came I became a wide-eyed eager admirer of the beautiful and elegant Vidya Sinha. Amol Palekar, his co-star in the film, who forayed into television by directing his first TV serial Kacchi Dhoop (Blast from the Past) in which the actress Bhagyashree acted, too became an important actor graded high on my list. (Yes, Bhagyashree (of Maine Pyar Kiya) was a child artist in that early 1980s TV serial that came on the great Doordarshan channel!) The song "Na Jaane kyun…" Vidya Sinha has sung onscreen and never left me ever since. In fact, it brought me more closure to loving and adoring Hindi films and their inimitable songs.

V. Besides those new stories I’d be working on, I have a couple of others waiting to be published such as:

1.     "Chapter 12: Our Boss Liked to Draw Blood” (My memoir ‘Lost Days of Glory’ continues in this series). The chapter is almost ready; maybe, I'll publish it this weekend.

2.     And then there’s a short new one coming up. Not a story per se, but stuff filled with philosophical rambling, titled “Arguably, Modern Life is Rubbish”. It’s an interesting take on one’s life’s ‘issues department’. Interesting? Well, at least I think it is; I mean, I am after all entitled to my opinion.

3.     And there is a collection of titbits (of status messages mostly) I keep posting on that kosher Facebook wall from time to time. Life, my life, is pretty much filled up with such new-fangled stuff like that.

VI. Oh! What a pleasant siesta-leaden afternoon is this... What else but to slide in an old Hindi CD into my music system and listen to this beautiful song…

"Mausam pyar ka

Rang badalta rahe,

Uhin chalta rahe...

Tere mere pyar ka karvaan.

Kahaan kahaan se hoke tujh tak,

Laayi hain mujhko yeh raahein,

Choroonga main kaise yeh baahein..."

VII. On Reading 'Green Poems' by Gulzar:

Of late, I have been reading some poetry and these are a couple of poetry books I am sharing with you. 

First up ‘Green Poems’ by Gulzar are some of the finest poems I have read in the recent past. 

They are really lovely poems: about rivers, snow, rain clouds, trees, forests, mountains, the sky, the earth tree, and Kulu Manali, Bhutan’s scenic city of Thimpu. 

And Pritish Nandy’s book of 140-character poetry 'Stuck on 1/Forty'. Some quirky good stuff there!

VIII. Hear...Hear...Hear! 
It's official. I am coming up with 3 stories back to back and the titles are:

1. The Wolves of Shallow Lake City: A Farcical Marriage Circus (Written and published on my blog with the title The Wolf of Salt Lake City, a burning satire. The web link: http://arindammoulick.blogspot.in/2014/04/the-wolf-of-salt-lake-city.html)
2. The Chronicles of Wolfish People: The Moneyed Class Ass
3. Elephants, Dogs, and Hippos: The Party-Farty People

By Arindam Moulick

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Pix courtesy: Internet