PhD Acknowledgement

http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/66/51/09/PDF/PhDSudarsanTamang2011.pdf

Foremost, I would like to sincerely acknowledge Dr. Peter Reiss for supervising my PhD thesis for

last three years-with patience, professionalism and at times even steadfastness. I have benefited a lot

from his leadership quality, composed nature and sound knowledge of chemistry and nanoscience.

Moreover, this manuscript in its final form would not have been possible without meticulous

corrections and valuable suggestions from him. Dr. IsabelleTexier-Nogues has also been welcoming

and supportive to me. I thank her for extending support to me in capacity of a co-supervisor as and

when needed.

My deepest sense of gratitude to Angela, Antoine, Elsa, Chiara, Aurélie, Cécile, Grégory, Lucia,

Anastasia, Thuy, Emanuela, Fleur, Axel and all other current as well as past members of our group at

CEA for their support and love. I could not have wished for more congenial and healthy working

environment than one I witnessed in the laboratory during my tenure from July 2008 to June 2011. I

have been moved by the warmth my colleagues have bestowed upon me all these years. I will always

be thankful to Antoine and Angela for their invaluable help when my days had been inundated with

thesis related stuffs and had also to cope up with the chaos of moving back to India.

A project as interdisciplinary as this could not have been possible without a team work. Therefore, I

would like to acknowledge collaborators Dr. Marco Giardiello, Dr. Graeme Stasiuk, Dr. Daniel Imbert

and Dr. Marinella Mazzanti from SCIB/CEA; Dr. Cathy Poillot and Dr. Michael De Waard from

Grenoble Institute of Neuroscience; and Dr. Samuel Clarke and Dr. Maxime Dahan from Laboratory

Kastler Brossel (ENS Paris). Dr. Liang Li and Dr. Toufic Jean Daou are sincerely acknowledged for

setting up a strong foundation for the project initially.

Thanks and appreciation to the people in the administration at CEA and University of Joseph Fourier

for their support. Christian Lombard and Yann Kervella are thanked for their assistance with various

types of laboratory related works.

I would like to thank Dr. Stéphanie Pouget for help with XRD, Dr. Julien Gravier for DLS

measurements. Prof Adam Pron and other researchers of LEMOH are sincerely acknowledged for

helping me at various times.

I also take this opportunity to thank some of the individuals who I have helped me to shape my life

during formative years and other pre-PhD engagements. All the teachers who taught me at Rangli

Primary School, Griffith’s High School, St. Robert’s Higher Secondary School, St. Joseph’s College

tel-00665109, version 1 - 1 Feb 2012Darjeeling and North Bengal University are sincerely acknowledged for helping me built a decent

academic foundation needed for the PhD journey. I thank Dr. B.LV Prasad for his help and support

during my tenure as a junior research fellow at National Chemical laboratory, Pune. I also thank Prof

Mathias Brust for extending help during my short visit at University of Liverpool, UK.

Finally, I express heartfelt thanks to my parents for instilling in me positive values and right spirit to

live. And big big thanks to my wife, Tshering for her love and support. Without her by my side,

journey to PhD would have been perhaps akin to climbing a greased pole.

If one day goes by, and we learn nothing in that day.....that's the waste of the day. Even at 80 years of age....

The greatest triumph of civilisation is often seen as our mastery of heat. But our conquest of cold is an equally epic journey.

A famous judge once said, “where there is duty to speak silence is culpable...”
If we don’t say anything now, our own children will give pass to our ideas tomorrow and we will witness unfortunate days when they will be looking elsewhere in neighbourhood for inspiration…..
It’s a sad day when you see a man cradled by another man, grasping for his last breath and policemen trying to hold dying man’s head in position so it doesn’t fall on the ground. A friend of mine, still in a state of shock, wrote to me in my facebook profile: “I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it, that is supposed to be Gandhiwadi, if I am not mistaken” I couldn’t agree more..Of course he was referring to the gruesome cold-blooded murder of Madan Tamang.

We need to realize that Gorkhaland can’t be achieved by overnight rush of emotion and the situation we have now is a perfect testimony of that. We performed ‘ghewa’ of people who were anything but dead, we danced, we cried, we went to picnic…reserved trucks, sumos, jongas and what not to register our ‘samarthan’ all for the sake of gorkhaland.....

One party disappoints us, we jump to another. Infact, we switch flags on our rooftop so we could live a peaceful life…but unknowingly we are being party to violence by disturbing the equilibrium of majority and minority.
On the one hand we allow a flag of the strongest political party to flutter near that black ‘syntax’ on our house to substantiate our submission; on the other we hold candles to show the solidarity to a dead person whose house doesn’t have the same flag as we do. I find it rather paradoxical, a situation akin to writing ‘welcome to gorkhaland’ at entry point in sukuna…followed by ‘we want gorkhland’ at teendharey and beyond…A political party, no matter what color of the flag it has, doesn’t bring peace for us….peace in darjeeling will only come with education and awareness...

Like soap bubbles
Given a chance we grow...to that vulnerable fullest
Fly a bit racing through the fuel…then vanish.
Pull out the camera, capture the moments and cherish them all before you perish…

Your economy is your economy
Our economy is our economy
Their economy is their economy
But
Anyone’s emission is everyone’s pollution!
Because the sky is one, Himalaya is one…planet earth is one!
Who is to blame? Where race of economy is on!

You can’t put feeble voices on the backburner; they do say something, don’t they? If democracy is only for those who can speak in front of TV like a voice machine, write thought provoking columns for influential newspapers and give insights and opinions that are audible and visible to the nation and only for guys with more MLAs and MPs to count on and not for minority, weak, poor, shy, stammer, introvert and nervous and ones who do not know if the “pandora’s box” they are talking about is a bad thing like flu or inflation or a good thing they are anxiously waiting for- then there is something wrong in it. If you are dumb, learn to be numb-is this the formulae we are deriving our nation from and pinning up aam admi’s hope of India shining to? Quite tragic it is even by Left’s standards.

THE SECOND BUDDHA



This is a 45 m tall (about the length of a jumbo Boeing 707 plane and precisely 25.86 times taller than me) statue of Guru Rimporche overlooking a small town named Namchi in Southern part of Sikkim, India. Also known as the Second Buddha, he is said to have introduced Tantric Buddhism in ancient Tibet. He has eight reverential forms; the above statue is one of them. This form is referred to as Guru Padmasambhava. The remaining seven forms are: Padmajunne, Padmagyalpo, Dorje Dolo, Nima Yozer, Sakya Sengey, Sengey Dadok and Loten Chogse.
According to a legend he is said to have travelled to ancient Tibet from India through Sikkim and hence there are numerous monasteries, lakes and stupas in Sikkim revering him. He is also the founder of Nyingmapa, the oldest school (tradition) of Tibetan Buddhism. Other schools are Kagyupa, Sakyapa, Gelukpa and Bon.
This statue can be seen from miles away (even from some parts of Darjeeling, my home town) due to its imposing size and shining (due to copper and bronze paints) presence on top of a hill.

PEACEKEEPER

Today I turned 27 !!!

Scarecrow


Whenever I see scarecrows, a lot of thoughts rush to/out of my mind, as if a depressurised aeroplane at a crushing altitude had suddenly developed a leak. A few of the thoughts are thoughtful; some are annoyingly silly and others just obscure. One of the thoughts is: when we make scarecrows we invariably make human figures, don’t we? So, does that mean we all assume (unknowingly?) that we all look bloodcurdlingly SCARY to other living creatures? Well, let’s give a thought!
But I have seen some of the birds resting on the scarecrow itself, rather enjoying and scanning the field for food or grains, an ineffective scarecrow for sure. Or should I assume for a moment that some of the birds actually know Marie Curie’s quote: Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less?
I don’t know.

Many many many many thanks to Anastasia Delattre . If I had to take picture of myself for this shot the title would have been: A crazy scarecrow meets a curious scarecrow.

Moon walk


A tribute to A to Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009)


When the news of Michael Jackson’s death spread, the worldwide internet server speed was slowed to the point of almost hang. News papers and channels from across the globe broke the ‘breaking news’. Twitter, face book, orkut, blogs, virtually every website had a thing or two to say. While his music sell skyrocketed again, radio stations didn’t seem to cease playing his thriller numbers any time soon!


Suddenly even his lifelong critics had something good to say about him. This is a trend that has been going rounds from time immemorial and is here to stay forever. Admittedly, I'm a part of the same trend/system. But I want to change now. I wanna learn to clap before the person I'm clapping for hears it no more.

I'm no superman, but I promise you as long as you dont ask me to fly, I will walk with you till the end of time.

Yesterday was ‘super’ hectic. I was under tremendous pressure to give samples (large quantity) to my collaborators so that they could test it on nude mice. I had to give them yesterday, not before & not after. They wanted ‘fresh’ samples for the experiment (beginning of next week). 4 day holidays beginning from today leave hardly any room for ‘rescheduling’. Plus the whole evening slot is fixed for French class and if I miss a class, the Alliance Franchise immediately sends me an email which reads: ‘we where informed that you missed your last class……etc.’
In short, there was no time. I ran, well almost. But thanks to my rollercoaster past experiences, I perform better under pressure. And by 4:30 PM before leaving for French course, I had handed over the sample. Ball is on their court now, jai Ho!
The night turned out to be a hassle-free one with aroma of holidays in the air. Ah….!*sighs with closed eyes, deep breath*
It was time to forget smells of Chloroform, acetone etc. for a moment and ‘wake’ up my old photos ‘sleeping’ inside an old overstressed hard disk drive persistently overfed by jpeg, mp3, raw files.
This is one of them. Enjoy!

L U M I N A N C E




To give a ‘different’ perspective I decided to take this picture from inside of a cave on way to top of dent de crolles (2062m), a mountain in France. But the situation turned out to be a classic case of ‘where there is will there is limitation’. That’s right, the camera sensor failed to capture a high dynamic range of the scene. The 'stone' in the foreground turned into an anonymous black object, while 'snow' on the ground looks to me like a pile of ash or something. This is the place where HDR photography could have been extremely helpful, but I had no time to pull out my tripod, mount the camera and shoot three or more times asking all the fellow trekkers to wait for me. Shooting three exposures for HDR in my beloved Nikon d60 means headache (perhaps toothache). Yes, there is no autobracketting; I have to do everything manually by tuning the shutter speed. Any movement of camera or subject in the process will ensure the entry/comeback of GHOSTS. But this camera is worth its price :). Recently I read in a book that the ‘only camera capable of capturing truly high dynamic range in one shot is German made SpheroCamHDR’ . Apparantly, its price is the vicinity of ‘If I win a lottery’, at least for me. Not trying to prove grapes are sour but I think there is more fun in making photos where more of us is involved. The "more of us" could mean anything from imagination to composition to editing to post processing to choice of aperature to shutter speed to focal lengths to ISO...phew!!! I have met a few souls who use stones, logs and any flat surface that could be remotely used as tripod to make wonderful pictures. That could also be seen as involvement, in my humble opinion.

Celebrating 1000+ views!
I joined flickr in the end of last year. In the beginning, I would shoot only in automatic mode as shutter speed and aperture where all Greek to me, megapixel was what I ran after.With less than half of the half of the half of the half knowledge of a half frame camera on hand always dreamt of a full frame, whatever that meant. Never knew that I would grow, change and learn with every single mistake I made. Never thought, even I would recieve 1000+ views within a few months. Thank you people!

May Day has just passed. I remember how tensed this day used to be in Darjeeling during early 90s. If any two colours couldn’t blend in the hills after a spell of violent Gorkhaland agitation of 1986, it was RED and GREEN. Needless to say, Green signified Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) and Red the colour for Communist Party (CPIM). I have some faint memories how CPIM would organise mass rallies motivating hundreds of people from impoverished tea estates and other areas to come up on the street. That part was OK, but not this part: the geographical difference between areas of GNLF and CPIM stronghold was matter of just a few hills or valleys or sometimes just a few hundred odd tea bushes. Given the temperament of our people, the violence was inevitable when differences were so close. During showdowns, as a kid all I sensed was fear. Perhaps, the fears of loosing someone close. Such was the level of apprehension; even cawing of a crow would sound like a cry of ‘murdabad’. I’m not kidding!The Gorkhaland standoff has been droned though such a long time that by now, I imagine even distant Obama (or anyone with high GK for that matter) must have already heard something about: hapless Gorkhas in small part of West Bengal, which is in India, are demanding for a separate state within India for last several decades. Personally, I don’t understand what’s wrong with it. What’s wrong in having smaller states that address federal nature of Indian constitution?
In a layman’s scale, if Switzerland is dot of this ‘i’, then India would be roughly the size of this ‘O’. Even so tiny country like Swiss has 26 states called cantons for administrative simplicity. It makes me wonder why some political parties in a big and diverse country like ours are hell-bent against its own citizen to restrict the figure to 28 states and 7 union territories. Sounds like another fevicol ad to me!Several decades after, or put it this way-after 1200 plus deaths (still counting), ruling CPIM hasn’t changed the mind. Gorkhas uncompromisingly want a separate state within framework of India constitution, ruling CPIM in West Bengal vehemently opposes it calling ‘separatist’. Isn’t it a classic case of deadlock? Or should I say, two bulldozers trying to force their way through, gently?
In the mean time, Bharatiya Janta Parti (BJP) received heavy criticism from left front for coming up in ‘support’ of Gorkhaland and Kamtapur states. Even though some of the “4th-pillar-gone-slanted” news papers published the reports of BJP “clearing the Gorkhaland air”, there are confirmed reports of Hema Malini (BJP campaigner for Jaswant Singh) publicly announcing in Darjeeling, “Chal Dhanno! Aaj teri Basanti ki izzat ka sawal hai, aaj Jaswant Singh ko jitana hai aur Gorkhaland banana hai” making the crowd break into thunderous applause. Little wonder Lotus has become another favourite flower in the land of marigold, so much for the 100 year old emotional demand of Gorkhaland.Today as people back home wait for the election results with fingers crossed, I fail to conjecture what CPIM government would do with Gorkhas and Gorkhaland movement. Suppress (read as CRPF), bypass (read as sixth schedule) or accept it? And what would be the BJPs stance after the election result? Will they firmly keep the promise or will they just ‘consider’? And what about the Congress and their helping hands? Not to forget veterans: Subash Ghising and Madan Tamang either.
It is just way too complicated to make a guess at this juncture. I bet cosmic science predictions are much easier than this with those powerful telescopes. I read recently: if someone struck a match on the moon, we could predict the flare on earth, such is the precision. But, partisan politics in West Bengal is something of a mirage, what we discern may not be what it is.
But still hope is all we have!

Note: Thanks to labour’s day holiday, I got some time to put my voice across! This one’s dedicated to all the daily wage workers of tea gardens around the hills and plains.
This was also published in:

http://www.darjeelingtimes.com/news/Opinions/Hope-is-all-we-have.html

CHASING THE PERFECTION


Last Sunday it rained in Grenoble but it has nothing to do with the subject of today’s blog, just felt like starting with ‘the rain’.

Me, yes same me-a proud owner of Nikon D60 was feeling a little sandwiched between my friend Prakhar’s Semipro Nikon d300 and Ashutosh’s unassailable Canon50D. Not that D60 is any less, but I had not seen ‘better’ ones so closely until Prakhar kindly allowed me to touch Nikon d300, take a few shots with it and in the process unknowingly made me count whopping 51 focus points through its view finder. D60 has just three and I thought it was too much until yesterday. Immediately, after I saw 51 sensor points through the view finder, I started seeing glass half empty in my half full (I mean half frame) D60, such is a human mind. Then after each shot, I would stressfully run my eyes across the monitor display to check if anything is out of focus. Basically trying to find cracks where none existed before.

It took me about 20 shots to get back my mind on track. Good news is my mind always comes back, however far/wild it may have gone to. At least till now!

Being a Nikon usher, I’m a little sentimental about its products. But I do respect Canon, Olympus, Sony and Pantax too. I feel it’s not wise to compare. Each one is unique in itself. Squabbling over ever-upgrading products get us nowhere.


I was planning to share my experiences with Nikon D60 here in this blog from a long time so that someone else (like I was 1year ago) gets a feel of the product he/she is about/planning to buy, but wasn’t able to deliver. Partly because I was busy and partly because I was not motivated enough coz Nikon didn’t want to pay me. No, the last line was a joke.


Before you buy Nikon D60 (or any camera for that matter), you must know what you can and what you can’t do with it, instead of scratching head over sharpness, mega pixels etc. Of course they are important, but given a competition level in the market these days, any DSLR, irrespective of what brand it belongs to, meet with these criteria without any doubt. Otherwise, the companies wouldn’t run for long by selling just dreams (like some politicians)!

GO DIGITAL : review cum diary cum tutorial cum wishpers!

Introduction

After using Nikon D60 for nearly a year and having to learn nearly everything from scratch, I feel I’m eligible enough to revie this camera. But wait, neither my photos have been selected for National Geographic cover page nor I have earned a single penny with the photos I made. I believe in ‘help ever, hurt never’ philosophy, so it’s a part of an altruism. I have nothing to claim, all I will pour here are based on things I learnt through personal experiences, reading books and interaction with other photographers. Being a student of science, I seriously take interests in things around and when I learn or rather develop an impression to have learnt something after much effort, I like to share!


Race of Mega Pixel:
Shot with a 6MP sony cyber shot
Pixels are smallest pigments in a digital photo that sum up to form an image. Each pixel contributes to the colors and other features of the image and obviously greater the pixels in a photo, better the details. Take any picture in your computer and keep zooming it; at some point of time you should see squares. If you have already seen them, congratulations you saw pixels!
You must have witnessed 5MP or 10MP in digital cameras, that’s megapixels. Nothing scary, one million pixels is called mega pixel (pixels along length multiplied by pixels along breadth). Agreed, greater the MPs higher the details, but then there is a limit to everything. I would surely believe if someone says a cup of tea has become sweeter after adding 3 cubes of sugar. I may believe him if he tells me the same thing by adding 3 more. But then not after some point. The point is there may be considerable difference in picture quality when we go from 0.3 MP VGA camera phone to 5 MP point and shoot camera for a given print size. But then after 5 or 6 MP, I can’t believe it is always getting better and better. Nothing works like that in life otherwise so many people would not have died of diabetes. The difference between two A4 size photos: one with 5MP point and shoot camera and another with 10 or higher is barely perceptible provided other factors remain unchanged. It took me many years to realize this and I feel no remorse to break it here that even I was once running after megapixels. That said; if you have plans to take photos for billboards or something gigantic, then higher MPs should have some advantages. But if you can’t afford those expensive cameras, no worries I have seen billboards, which look absolutely flawless from a distance, but have the pixels the size of a cricket ball that are clearly discernable if looked closely. No wonder they are hung so high! My Nikon D60 has 10.2 megapixels (multiply 3872 x 2592) and it should be good enough for even a billboard hung a little higher (as usual)!


Exposure (Shutter Speed and aperture):

This is a serious matter if you are looking for serious photography. It is also a serious matter for those using cameras for fun. Sometimes it’s too difficult to have fun without knowing how to have fun, I have the experience! Shooting with DSLR could give worst results than a point and shoot camera if we missed a point or two. Besides several rules of photography and one’s personal ingenuity the basic understanding of light, exposure, camera settings is must and this is my humble attempt to share some of these with those in need, in a petit way. It took me months of reading, experimentation and interaction to know even this much. I don’t know how much I learnt and how much I should learn, but I’m already proud to have learnt one thing: you make the photos; camera just helps you to do it.

In any case, the quality of a picture depends on many factors; the most important factor is exposure. Exposure is controlled mainly by shutter speed and aperture. When you click a photo, the eye of the lens once opens and closes but don’t ask me why it is called click instead of wink. Anyway, the maximum opening of the eye is called aperture and is denoted by f1.4, F3.5, f4.6, f8, f9….f22 etc. Greater the opening (e.g. f1.4 or f 4.6), shallower the dept of field. Meaning, you have one object in focus, another in blur. On the opposite, smaller the opening (e.g. f22 etc.), greater the dept of field (DOF). Meaning, you have everything in focus, good for landscape photography.

Shot with Nikon D60at F22(small aperature opening) to acquire high depth of field (DOF)

You there? ok, the speed of opening/closing of the eye (shutter) is referred to as shutter speed. Shutter speed is denoted in seconds. Nikon D60 has shutter speed range of 1/4000 to 30 seconds, plus an additional feature called bulb. High shutter speed is good if you want to capture a moving object without any motion blur. A splash of water for instance, you can capture even a single drop by keeping shutter speed faster than 1/60 or 1/100 second depending also on the speed of the falling/rising drop. But higher shutter speed has to be accompanied by bigger aperture opening. The reason is simple, when you have higher shutter speed the lights coming from the subjects in front of your camera have less time to reach the sensor and if the opening of the aperture is not kept high, not enough light can reach the camera sensor and you end up taking an image that would be tagged as underexposed by critics. Similarly, you have an overexposed image when too much of light enters the camera (because of either slower shutter speed or higher aperture opening) in a ‘click’. It is, therefore, important to strike a balance between shutter speed and aperture opening while trying to control dept of field and motion blurs. How do we do that?
(A) By checking the light meter that D60 (or any DSLR for that matter) is equipped with (B) shooting in A mode or S mode. A mode is aperture priority mode. You give aperture value of your choice and camera will automatically take care of shutter speed to match the correct exposure. Similarly, S mode is for shutter priority, where camera takes control of aperture while you set the shutter speed of your choice. Full freedom is in M mode, where camera seems to have done nothing but wink as per your instructions, but even their you need its help to check light meter.

Some people might figure out option (C) an easy way to avoid all these hassles. Yes by shooting in automatic mode, but then a valid question pops up: why DSLR? Why not point and shoot?
Anyway, D60 has a good range (1/4000 to 30 seconds, plus bulb) of shutter speed to control how the pictures shape. And yes, aperture range is the feature that one should be looking in a lens, not in a camera. So, next time your friend’s boy/girl friend has a problem with dept of field, you can suggest them to check out the lens manual and not cry hoarse over D60!

Exposure bracketing:
Where there is will there is no bracketing. That’s right, if you are an aspiring HDR photographer, like me, sad news is Nikon D60 doesn’t have exposure bracketing, at least I haven’t found that function in last one year! But that doesn’t mean, we can’t do HDR with D60. I have done a couple of HDR following these methods:
A) By shooting an image in RAW format and developing pseudo HDR in photomatix/CS3. For the record, a RAW format is seen as digital equivalent of negative in film cameras and said to have contained more information than normal JPEG. That’s what every one says and I have a reason to believe: It occupies a huge space slowing my already wonky computer by a few seconds.

I shot this in raw format and then processed in CS3/Photomatix
B) By bracketing exposures manually. I keep camera in (M) Manual mode and shoot with the help of a tripod and for each shot I change the shutter speed (some people also call f stops) to a range of exposures both over and under. Then I process it normally in photomatix/CS3.


But even I feel exposure bracketing should have been incorporated by ‘them’!

Inclinations


Some of the things are difficult to express by lips. Those are the times I lean on to literature, music and photography. I liken Photography to writing a lyric that everyone can relate to or a story that has a message. At times I liken it also to strumming a guitar in the dead of the night for self amusement or to vent inner rants or something.
Whatever, I’ve embraced them in pursuit of elusive inner peace, they are my windows through which I can pop my head out once in a while and shout out the message of love and peace for the world, at the same time whiff some fresh air in for myself, more like a two way highway. I’d like to keep them that way.
What do I do for living then? To meet with temporal expectations and secure survival strategies I do science, which I'd seriously like to see and believe as my profession. Physical and material science, really!

For photography: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sudarsantamang/

JAI HO !

Call it a Jai ho effect or admiration for Indian culture two French women were clad in sari in one of my flatmates’ birthday celebration. Not trying to be modest, but you must rule out the remotest possibility that they might have worn sari to impress me. Plus, the songs like O Saya were very much part of the evening. Of course girls do wear sari on occasions of saraswati puja or college festivals back home, that's quite normal. But in Europe and rest of the world it is quite surprising. Is India inspiring the world through music and culture then? But let us leave that topic for people literally squabbling (in newspapers and magazines) over whether slumdog deserved Oscar or not.

Anyway, opinion is like a nose everybody has one. On the brighter side, three of the Oscars have come to India. The world is simply bold over by A R Rahman. Inspired by his music, I have tried hard to figure out what makes him stand out, but it was never easy to find that secret ingredient.

His songs kindle sufi melodies, ragas, Indian classical, western classical, Panjabi bhangras, other traditional melodies and very recently hip hop influences. The beauty is, of course, in his peerless style and presentation. The song like o saya roughly falls in the realm of HIP HOP genre. But wait, "it is beyond that". The song opens up with O saya.... hum that sustains in one chord like a typical classical instrument flute, table etc. tuned to one chord. This is accompanied by a beat that has a cry of fast moving train with a touch of Bhangra and a dash of rock. And the main part of the song is a typical RAP piece.

They can't touch me, we break off Run so fast
they can't even touch me Been that gypsy.
Touch me I'll show you tricks with my zig-zag quickly
Pick up that pack on my journey Dogs run,
they start to follow me Have my luck,
some days they suck
When you live for the buck
We get for the family

But even as things are more of hiphoppish, which some might view as Americanised, the background voice echoes in dhum tak dhum tak and ek do tin char panch se sat aath etc. and Dhols (?) keep beating to keep his indigenousness and seminality intact. But this is just a tip of iceberg. Given my limitations, there is a point where my knowledge in music goes haywire and I desperately need to rely on literature to evaluate his song's musical depth. I need a phrase or something like this one: it’s awesome!

JAI HO ABROAD !



JAI HO in ENGLAND !

SANDAKPHU, DARJEELING

6th Nov 2007 (4:30 pm)


Weather in the Himalaya is unpredictable. After climbing to 3636 m (two days walking!), there was no sign of any snow clad mountains amidst thick fog which seemed as indelible as bad memories.
Towards the evening, as we anxiously hoped fog would subside, the cloud started moving eastwards teasingly slow but fast enough to reveal sun-laden summit of mount Kanchanjanga, the third highest peak in the world and her satellite peaks for a transient moment. If the wind was not kind enough to unveil such an elusive site, we would have left with no option but to proudly claim that journey was more beautiful than destination.

On a clear day one can clearly see Jannu (also known as Kumabakarna), Kabru, Rathong, Pandim, Simvo, Siniolchu and Kangchenjunga. Turn left and you will identify Everest, Lhotse and Makalu standing proudly, while on the right you have Pauhunri and Chomolhari- a matchless panorama for you!
Sunrise and sunset reflections on these mountains are almost mystical.
For those who do not want to do this knee wobbling trek all the way to 3636 metres high, the “farther” version of this panorama is also seen from Darjeeling (Tiger Hill, Mall road, St. Paul’s etc.) and Kalimpong (Kafair etc.).

However, the Sandakphu trek not just zooms Himalaya closer it leads trekkers through amazing world of flora and fauna. Many people trek this range for bird watching, exploring endangered species (e.g. red panda), doing research on various subjects of nature while others just seem to tweak their muscles in a bid to enjoy moments and anything that comes along: mist, rain, snow and even warm tongba (millet based local beer).
If you are done with 3636 m and wish to climb higher and also see Kanchanjanga more closely, Goecha la (4940m) trek (from Sikkim) is recommended.


Information:
The Sandakphu trekking route involves famous Singalila national park and it is a punishable offence to litter around or tamper with plants and animals.
Last year two scientists were arrested for allegedly “collecting more than 200 rare beetles, butterflies and other insects” in this route. However, for those who show even the slightest morsel of admiration for nature as she is, this trek is really enjoyable! A rule of thumb seems to be,"leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but memories"

WHY on EARTH?


I lost my sense to judge. Am I theist or atheist? Am I communist or capitalist? Am I extremist or moderate?
If I am supposed to be something, call me "confused". Because if it was not for ideology….perhaps people would not have taken arms.

Caught napping!

I have book-marked a few blogs which includes aamirkhan.com, BigB’s blog amongst others. Aamir khan is not as regular as Amitab Bacchan when it comes to posting write-ups but topics are like his films-well chosen. Though I like Amitab Bachan’s writings personally. They inspire me at times. I had heard that Ram Gopal Barma, the famous Director also maintains a blog and out of curiosity I googled him.
And there was this website, which I thought was his blog, opened in the middle of the night with an ear-splitting scream (I didn't know my computer's volume had been cranked up).Imagine this: around midnight, alone in a flat, concentrating on the computer screen to see if there’s a blog or not and all of a sudden a lady with horrible looks, whose face is mutilated (it seems she is a “churail” in his new movie PHOONK) pops up in the screen and starts screaming/laughing. I was totally taken by surprise and was scared too(to be honest).
I suggest myself, “Forget about his blog, just go to sleep"!!!

Barcelona in fast forward


I… found myself basking in the sun on Barcelona beach this year. Finally, something which I had not seriously thought had come true! Yes I did see Barcelona football club’s match, I did see Lionel Messi, Henri and others. This was the match (8th Nov 2008) where Barcelona thrashed Valladolid 6-0, including a hatrick (or may be quadrick?) from Samuel Oto’o. Worth what we paid, I must say as goalless draw or something similar would not have been too good.
Lionel Messi is no doubt one my favorite soccer players. I took photos of him playing so many times that my host, who is a scientist in a local university bantered, “You took 500 photos of messi alone”. Yes, for his consolation I did take a few photos of Henry and Jersey No. 2 (I don’t know his name) too in the end.
Inside the stadium, the atmosphere was exhilarating and people were fantastic. I asked a middle aged person if he could take a photo of us against the backdrop of football stadium. He not just obliged kindly but also went out of the way! He climbed up the stairs, leapt over a few rows and stood up on top of a vacant chair, asked us to change the pose, adjusted the lense, took time to click and it was indeed a great sight to see someone doing so many things for a stranger. However, the photos merely turned into a shot with three stupid people standing in front of a huge bill board or something but that’s a different story altogether. May be he over-zoomed us with 55-200 mm nikkor VR lense in fit of excitement, blurring the background which I was particularly interested in. Anyway, his friendly gesture was commendable, I must say!
Thanks to Andreu and Cyndie and especially Andreu’s fast forward travel approach (Fast forward because we literally ran from place to place, even I had put camera on sports mode so that I can catch important pictures without motion blur), we could see almost everything that Barcelona is famous for in just three days. The world heritage sites like Antoni Goudi’s masterpiece the Sagrada Church, Torre agbar building, the arc de Triomf, hotel arts, statue of Christopher Columbus and cozy lanes of Barcelona city buzzing with music and entertainment, everything was worth clicking. A Trek to castle in one of the evenings and watching crimson colored sky after sun was gone from the top of Argentona flaked by blue Sea and city blinking with lights were the best things to treat these eyes with.
A short Mountain bike ride, Spanish “dahi handi” festival and local food (called as tapas) in a restaurant was also equally delightful.


Second day, Andreu and Cyndie explained to me about all the famous places I ought to see. I did listen to them carefully before going out but could not make it to most of them!
I thought I‘d better start with the beach. But as I strolled along the beach and took photos of people, sea and other things (so many things indeed), day was already over soon. No, I can’t blame my camera (with whopping 8GB memory card) alone for being glued to the sea whole day and unable to make it to other places of interest.


Magnetic beauty of Mediterranean Sea and sun playing hide and seek with the cloud was an intoxicating combination, too difficult to walk away from. Moreover, extremely short days during winters in this part of Europe are equally responsible for my “super flop” supposedly “one day-whole city-outing” which I end up spending in sea shore alone!
On the last day, we went to Andreu’s lab as he had some experiments to do. As I had ample time, I went out to a nearby metro and got into a train going towards “somewhere”. I had arrived at a station near national art museum unknowingly; I spent some time looking at children playing soccer with an empty water bottle. A group of people sitting on the stairs were busy sketching various portraits, while a few young couples were seen romancing.
After an hour or so I walked away from there and few yards away was an Olympic stadium (Spain had hosted summer Olympic 1992) which was surprisingly open. Yes it was free! I took my breakfast there, clicked photos, bought some momentos (from a surprised place that I had reached without knowing) and then left for the university again retracing the same path. You see, some times walking is important, having a fixed destination isn’t.
Anyway, by the time I reached university and took lunch with Andreu and Cyndie it was time to bid farewell to Barcelona already! Three days in Spain was surely more fun filled than any travel agent on earth could have claimed through their packages. Many thanks to my hosts: Andreu and Cyndie.

In loving memory of a wonderful friend: AGYA


He was young and funny. He was a dreamer, sunny bunny. Above all he was a wonderful friend.
Today he is no more with us. I feel extremely helpless and sad for not being able to be by his side when he needed me most, and when he was battling for life somewhere. I had no idea where he was and how he was until someone told me he was no more (30th Oct 2008). I admit, it is simply selfishness on my part that I did not have time to enquire his whereabouts. Really time doesn’t wait for anyone.

Now all I can do is to console myself telling it was an honour that I became one of his best friends in his small life where he made everyone around smile and laugh no matter what he had to conceal beneath his impish smile.
I remember the moments we cracked jokes together, he was famous for his Saharukh Khan caricature.
I was amongst a few people he shared all pangs with and poured his inside out.
It was last in 2006, two years ago I had received a couple of his mails including the last one.
These are the only relics of our wonderful friendship I have with me now, besides those timeless and priceless moments when we laughed, smiled, ate, played (badminton), sang (mantra songs), danced and fought together.

On 2nd of May 2006 he had written:

It is been so long that we are not in contact. Just felt that something is missing and mailed you right away. So how is life there? You must be enjoying! Coz you are the person of that kind, wherever u go make whole thing enjoyable right! Nothing so special about me, trying for a job hope to get within this month. I am really missing your company... specially your jokes. Now what to write more, take care do the best and achieve your goal. God bless you.

I had replied to him from Pune right away:

What a pleasant surprise I received a mail from Mr. Saharukh khan of Sikkim. I am fine, but it’s quite hot here........missing cool weather of Darjeeling. So when are you going to siliguri...How is the coordinator of mind set tutorial (not the director as he claims)? Give my remembrance to him too. And is k.k.k.k.k...........kiran alright . Ask him, if he misses me? Don’t worry you will get a great job...I will pray for you....I will ask my god.....के हाम्रो आग्या चै काट्को हो ?? (Doesn't Agya deserves something good?)

Take care and keep in touch.
Then we had a few mails in between. He would often write about his love life and and other personal pangs. The last mail I had received from him was on 26 October 2006:


I knew you are the only one who really stood in my bad and good times. Thanks for the support. You’ll be always in my mind. Hey I got job in a school (near Pakyong) and these days I am slightly busy. But I can’t get her out of my mind. She still conquers my heart, mind and soul. I don’t know why I love her this way????? Tell me my friend. Anyways I’ll try to console my heart, just take care and be a sedulous scholar.

I am not sure if he hears me anymore even if I say something. But still....Agya wherever you are, we all will miss you a lot. specially, your jokes, Saharukh Khan caricature, and your wonderful friendship.

I replied to his last mail with some positive words. After that I didn’t receive any mail from him. Then I too left India, went to UK and came to France and without notice two years had passed. Today I hear he is no more with us, what an injustice from the makers or are they reduced to just movers and shakers?


There are a few songs he aways liked me to sing. I know who he wanted it to be dedicated to. But now he's gone the song will only remind me of wonderful human being and his love tales. This is dedicated to the love of his life who he often dreamt of while alive.


सधैं सधैं आई रहन्छ तिम्रो यादहरू
यो मन एक्लै गुन्गुनाउछ अतीत का ती धुनहरु
कति तड़पे पर्खी रहे फर्की तिमी आएनौ बेदनामा गीत कोरे
सुनिढेऊ यो गीत मेरो अमर रहोस् त्यो प्रीत हाम्रो
हेर्दा हेर्दै पारी क्षितिजमाआँशु खस्छ थाहा नपाई
सक्ने भए फर्काई ल्याउथे ममेरी माया तिम्रो हाथ समाई
कति तड़पे पर्खी रहेफर्की तिमी आएनौ
बेदनामा संगीत रचे
सुनिढेऊ यो संगीत मेरो
अमर रहोस् त्यो प्रीत हाम्रो
सपना मेरो तिमी संगै जीउने
जुनी जुनी तिमी लाई नै पाउने
तर काहा पुग्थ्यो र सोचे जति सबै
सधैं सधैं आई रहन्छतिम्रो यादहरू........

SARCASM SOCIETY


Guys, I am new to this community.Neither my face is sarcastic nor do I sound like one. Now some of you may wonder "why the hell he is here?"Well, it all happened with my recent encounters with some thick heads in ‘some’ threads of orkut debating on ‘some’ issues .
I tried everything to fix them. Nothing worked. I tried facts, figures, data, history, geography, pol science even economics. Nothing worked. I joined this society because I timely realised that sarcasm is the only weapon I could possibly use to fix them.It is a pity, can’t even prove white is white at some places. But then I discovered that with Sarcasm and its mean means you throw all colours one by one from violet(V) to indigo(I) to blue(B) to green(G) to yellow(G) to orange(O) to red(R), making them spellbound with colors flying around, without letting them realise that VIBGYOR together is WHITE indeed.
white is thus white.
Nice weapon to fix arrogants!
Shall we begin?

I don't know why but I wrote a lot of sad songs in my college days. Like Ekantama, pari, sadhai sadhai MANTRA has made this song timeless and I'm always indebted to them for giving soul to my songs.



सपना...
छात्तीभित्र सानो मुटुथियो
मुटुभित्र केही रहरहरू थिए
तारा तोड़ी ल्याउछु भन्ने त्यो मुटुमा
आशाका केही लहरहरू थिए
Chorus:
तर सपनासबै झुठो हुँढो रैछ
जीवन त केवल सधंर्षनै रैछ
....................
क्षितिजपारी लक्ष्य छ भन्ढै
खोला नाला तरी हिड़े
लक्ष्य धेरै टारा छैन भन्ढै
आशाको दीप जलाउदै हिड़े
Chorus:
तर क्षितिजपारी मरूभुमि पो रैछ
जीवन त केवल सधंर्षनै रैछ
छात्तीभित्र....

This is one of the earliest songs I have ever written. I was barely 18 then. Music had been composed by Bhasker Dewan. I had not imagined that it would go on to become one of the most 'famous' songs of MANTRA band.

एकान्तमा....



एकान्तमा किन किन तिम्रैनै याढ आउछ
सम्झनामा अझैपनि आँखा यो किन रसिन्छ
थाह छ मलाई तिमी आउदैनौ तिमी कसैकी भईसकेछौ
तर किन किन फेरी सम्झन्छु नढुखेखो मुटुलाई किन ढुखाउछु
एक्लै हिड़्दा कहिलेकाही तिमी साथमा पाउछु
हिड़ढा हिड़ढै बोल्दा बोल्दै एक्लै पाँउदा झस्कन्छु
थाह छ मलाई यो भ्रमहो फेरी भेटिने आशानै छैन

तर किन किन फेरी सम्झन्छु नढुखेखो मुटुलाई किन ढुखाउछु
कति छिटो बितेछन् मिलनका ती पलहरू
सम्झना मात्ररह्यो सपना सबै ओझेल पर्यो
एकान्तमा किन किन.......

CIVILISATION

(A memoir on Singalila trek November 2007)
I woke up early without an alarm clock’s intervention for it was one of the most restlessly awaited dawns of my life. I anxiously peeped out of the balcony to see if the day is clear. It was still cloudy like a day before or two. ”Still cloudy?” I complained!
After taking a cup of tea with two slices of bread I crept out of my relative’s place like a mouse on the run. Narrow streets of Darjeeling wore a deserted look, with few men and women carrying water jerry cans. As I hurriedly walked towards the taxi stand, a gust of cool breeze lapped against my face rekindling my vigour, which had been damped by the fog moving teasingly slow and black cloud hovering high like enemy helicopters during war. The weather in the Himalayas is always unpredictable. You never know when the Snow clad mountains smile through the curtains of thick cloud and fog. All a trekker can do is HOPE.
Soon, I could see a reasonable crowd that had gathered in front of BATA showroom to read or buy newspapers. Now I could hear vehicles honking and people chatting. I gave a quick glance around but my questing eyes could not trace anyone looking like Saibal ‘daju’ around; I took out my mobile phone and rang him up. He said he would be there within a few minutes.
He is one of my school days acquaintances. I know him since heydays of St. Robert’s High School. He was a batch senior to me. An active member of WWF and true nature lover, he is well versed with flora and fauna of Darjeeling Hills. He treks to Sandakphu range, the highest part of West Bengal, probably more often than anyone else in Darjeeling and for me it would not have been any better than trekking in company of a person like him.
Soon, we slipped into a taxi going towards a place called Sukhia. Nishes, another close friend of mine joined us at Ghoom.
After an hour’s taxi drive through narrow and snaky road, we changed the vehicle at Sukhia. This one lead us to the place call Maney Bhanjyang, from where one of the famous treks of the Himalayas kicks off.
We were all set to start three days trek to Singalila range. If luck would hold and clouds subside we had a chance to see full-fledged Himalaya range from Sandakpu or else we would be left with no option but to proudly claim that the journey was more beautiful than destination.
We started tramping uphill along a small lane that took us through pine forests. Slowly the panorama of Maney Bhanjyang, a small place inhabited by a few hundred people was dwindling away in thick air as we persistently walked ahead throw the forest. We were perhaps walking away from the civilisation.
After an hours walk, we were amid a large desolate moor in close proximity to India Nepal Border. The place was startlingly muted. We were probably the only objects making noise through our breathing as it appeared even the wind was keeping calm for some unscientifically anonymous reasons. It was, undoubtedly, one of those rare moments when I was able to communicate with my own core properly. The place was clearly far and far from so-called civilised world busy making noises with horns, loudspeakers, phones and all kinds of gadgets. And now, it is immaterial for me how the standard dictionaries define the word ‘civilisation’, because that very moment has effortlessly convinced my dim-witted and capricious mind one thing: civilisation is merely the absence of tranquillity or the presence of its opposite-noise, chaos and confusion!

QUESTION

Today..when the whole India rejoiced together as 'Little Master' overtook Brian Lara's aggregate of 11,953 on the first day of the second Test against Australia at Mohali to become the highest run scorer in test cricket, a stupid question came into my mind:

If cricket is the largest religion in our country worshipped almost by everyone, why do we fight for religion?

I LOST MYSELF....SOMEWHERE!

When I was barely 14, I consciously decided to give up eating meats as I realised by doing otherwise we were merely living at the cost of innocent lives. For next 7 years or so I didn’t eat anything that moved (of course when they are alive). And I was so proud to be one, never felt myself selfish, never faced oneself in the mirror with guilt.
But then somehow as I grew up, I started taking the same thing that had been rejected by this very soul 7 years ago.
I can give any number of reasons for that to prove my innocence and defend myself but I won’t do that as it would be mere cunningness of me to give justifications for starting to live at the cost of innocent lives again.
Perhaps, I lost my true self somewhere or may be some of the sacred emotions got smeared as I grew up and entered the real temporal, materialistic world where the only truth seems to be, “SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST”.

Some times, I quietly sit by myself and ponder over these things-things we do; to survive, to be happy and to move ahead…….

FRENCH CLASS

Yes it's true, I am learning French. To be honest, I don't have much energy left to learn a language or something after getting worn and torn by education all these years. Can you imagine? I am studying for last whopping 23 years and still have not finished, they say it will take 2 more years to complete (my Ph.D and hence hopefully education too).
But I joined the course for two reasons: 1) they are paying for me. So it’s free, basically! 2) Learning is always justified in this planet as long as we don’t mentally go haywire and start walking around half naked with ruffled hair etc.
Anyways, we are four in the class: an American, a Serbian, one from Yugoslavia and me, Indian- all beginners. If there was anything below beginners, I would have been there. But there wasn't any.
But our professor has not uttered a single word in English so far which is quite scary !
I wonder if she has the evil intention to forcefully press on things into our heads, particularly making me feel like having forcefully overfed with saltless potatoes with hands tied to a pole or something. Or may be she doesn’t know English.
Whatever it is, a professor is speaking only in French in front of four hapless beginners who know nothing about Frence. I must say, really an out of the world combination!
But before jumping to any conclusions, I prefer to wait, may be they have some logic behind it who knows, as they are bonafide citizens of a developed nation!
On the first day, I felt like she was performing some kind of ‘abstract’ mono act play for our amusement. Only thing was she didn't dance. I could understand nothing except the alphabets and numbers she wrote on the white board, thanks to my normal eyes and also to what is called sixth sense. Much to my agony, the Serbian girl sitting beside me kept saying ‘oui’ (means yes). I quickly jumped to a depressing conclusion, “may be I am the most stupid here” But then my self motivation level is quite high you see. I also decided to say OUI come rain or shine…at least (to begin with)
Thus, my French course has finally kicked off with confident OUIs....even the professor seems to be leaping with joy now. Good for us. Whenever I say “OUI”, she exclaims, “Bravo”
That's quite excellent altogether; as it wouldn’t have been too nice to start with NO. Now, things are slowly improving, but I despearately want to go to next level, something better than confident looking OUIs.
Anyway, whatever hell is going on in that cosy classroom, I am so optimistic to come out and quote here in English: "well begun is half done".

CONFESSION

Well, I am a little forgetful; thankfully beloved ones are born in important dates. 25th December for instance! By far the most vulnerable items have been keys, umbrella, pens, wallet, dates, events, so on and so forth. Thanks to the noun or transitive/intransitive verb called FEAR, I really haven't forgotten anything substantial when it comes to beloved ones. Hope legacy will continue in rest of my life too. One can attribute it to my unrelenting love and care too. But personally I don’t want any credit for loving.Anyway, I am a writer. I don’t know, a born writer or not, but surely not fallen from sky or unidentified flying object (UFO).Quite regularly; I write for “peace of mind”, but critics never let it happen, you see. So, most of the time, it turns out be “pieces of mind”- then pieces of heart too. I become sad and decide not to write and publish again. I learn to live with a notion that we are often faulted in speech! But one fine day suddenly I realise we are faulted in silence too. “What the hell?” I ask myself “we are faulted in silence, faulted in speech?”But then choice is definitely ours. Then why not speech?So I have resolved to continue writing come what may-claps or hail stones!Well coming back to my nature, some people find me helpful, others self-fool (I mean selfish). But don’t worry about the latter ones. They are damn crazy! Seriously! Rest is fine. I am quite young, dreams are high, hopes are higher and determination is skyrocketing. May be altitude is in my veins. No wonder I was born in queen of hills (Darjeeling,2134 meters above sea level). No no no, don’t get me wrong now. I don’t have plans to go higher joining NASA! I need space true, but not that one!God bless all of us and our crazy little world !

P.S. I am simple! Forgot to write that.

CRITICISM

When you write something on public website or forum, there is every chance of getting criticised and even abused, especially if you are writing on politics. Only thing is, some use sophisticated language to abuse you, others blunt. The sophisticated abuse is like having a tooth uprooted with some use of local anaesthesia, while blunt is without. Quite same same, but different. Today someone plucked my tooth again, unfortunatly with no anaesthesia. I had written a "feel good" (this word was used by another critic at my article) article on unity of various communities in Darjeeling. My vision was something in the line of 'one world' while writing the article. I don’t have the slightest clue what pissed off this gentleman.
It says:
Dear Wannabe Paper Tiger, wannabe Vikram Seth, no matter how educated you are, doing Ph.D in France or statying in UK, no matter you have good IQ, plenty of cash, strong network, influential family background, have ability to register homepage, strong finance but what is your contribution to the society? Do you have any contribution in Mass education development in Darjeeling, did you support any NGO working against HIV, Drug addiction(Organising Rock Concert is Drug addiction facilating programme),have you ever made survey to remote areas of Darjeeling to get first hand information about the most common diseases our people suffering, why so many kidney damages, how mauch you paid to Dr.Bhutia of Planter’s hospital for that scanning machine, have you ever voiced against rising price of commodities, Child Labour, did you published any article about corrupted & Corruption, contractors and their dada giri? Now stop this historical crapyou’re your pondering on unity and Gorkhaland. Gorkhaland will be true one day when Central will make the resolution that smaller states should depend on their own resources and henceforth no more central fund will be provided. So there will be no special packages from the central. Niche ajao vai, nowadays my son can give you long lecture on Unity and Gorkhaland..se ya man! Atlast, great Da! Heavy da! Keep up man..cool! You are jewel of Darjeeling...please do more da! France ma ta jado cha hola hai! President ko GF lai chai akha na jhim kau hai bro badd gardela ni.

People have written harsher comments than this in the past. But I hardly replied to anyone. But somehow, I found this person is right as well as wrong. Right, because whatever issues he has talked about are genuine. Wrong, he could have conveyed the same thing in much better words like many others. I mean with use of local anaesthesia.Instead, he started off strongly addressing me as PAPER TIGER. Paper tiger? It wasn't amusing at all, so I wrote him back.
P.S. I wrote him back not because he called me paper tiger though, let me clarify quickly or somebody will criticise this blog too, bluntly I mean. There are serious issues! seriously!

So, I wrote:

Dear critic, since you seem to throw personal attack on me rather on my above article, I can’t keep quite for god sake. So, I have addressed all of your concerns here:
Thanks for calling me wanna be “Vikram Seth”, though the “paper tiger” was a little bit off bit and uncalled for. Good IQ? While writing an article or something, I depend on emotion and my attachment to this very place of mist and fog rather than IQ, unlike many of the journalists who come to Darjeeling with half of the sight blocked with monkey cap and robust wrap of mufflers and write ‘wonderful’ history or something about Darjeeling. Plenty of cash? I come from a middle class family of a remote place called Ranglee Rangli ot Tea Garden and I am proud to have seen all the colours of life including poverty. Thankfully, French Government has provided some fellowship to sustain a single life now. Quite ok for a Ph.D. student. Strong network? Well, trust me. Besides my strong will, I just used my bio data and some internet networks to reach where I am now. Influential family background? My father got job (group C) just in early 90s and he looks after two other siblings besides me. Plus he looks after his old dad too. My mother is a house wife. So where did you see a rich and influential family background? My contribution to the society: A) writing songs from last 10 years for almost all the (current) singers and bands of Darjeeling without a single penny from band members. Most of them sustain their living from whatever they earn from music. B) Whenever I come to Darjeeling, I make it a point to donate whatever little I can to beggars vying for attention at Mahakal temple and other areas. I know you will laugh at my miniature contribution to needy ones, but it is not too bad given the fact that I am still a student. C) I was personally associated with various tutorials while I was in siliguri and Darjeeling and am sure many of my students from Darjeeling, Kalimgpong, Kurseong, Siliguri and Sikkim have passed B.Sc. and MSc. with good marks and have better opportunities in their lives. Though I tried to keep the fees as low as possible, couldn’t keep it free as I was also not in very good shape financially. Moreover they say, free means bad or No. I am quite young, just 26 year old, and have some time to do something for my society without being known or heralded or appreciated for what I will do. Perhaps for my own contentment. Well, I have not been associated with any NGO till date, and have not written any article on Child labour, HIV AIDS, corruption, inflation and any of the things you mentioned. But I welcome your suggestion and will do what I can in near future. Thank you for that. Coming back to your remarks on my article, where did you manage to summon “historical crap”? in above article. Please explain to me in next comment.
P.S. Please let us also know about your contributions to society Mr. real tiger.
sincerely, the author

I AM STILL YOUNG
On being questioned if he is studying hard, one of my close friends often replied, “I am so busy with exams that I don’t have time to study”. I could never sense any sense in his amazing sense of humor though. But the way he uttered with no expression on his face, we laughed at everything he said.
He often made us laugh even during stressful moments of exams..
How can we forget the days (or rather nights) when we had more things to put into our cranium than we actually could at that given juncture. I can’t believe gone are those testing moments of life. I guess we have grown old. But when I said the same thing-yes the same thing, “I guess we have grown old” to another good close friend of mine over the phone the other day. He said , “ ke bhako?”
“mota buro bhakcchuina hai..to bhayish hola.biya garekai cchuina, naniharu bhakai cchaina, theth ke ko buro hunthyo!”
(What’s your problem? May be you have aleardy become old, but I have not. I haven’t married as yet, not yet made children. How dare you think we are old?)
It was a good reminder from him. Thanks to my optimistic friends. Times may have changed but they are still same. Never let the negativity touch me….even though there is a huge ocean of it all around.
Just celebrated 26th B‘day a few days back. Only 26, not even one third (As per my target), still long way to go…so much to see, so much to do..so much to learn..

A lady in the west

Sometimes, memories of childhood silently trespass my perforated mind, without invitation or permission: With a catapult in my hand I would wander about the village in quest of birds; play marbles with my best mates Birey and Dalsingh; get into nasty fights with them at times; watch ants working without any rest, then destroy their mound by peeing over; steal oranges from neighbours’ garden and eat them all till the body reacted vehemently with fever or diarrhoea the day after. And yet, I was a good boy- my mother always told me so, though my short-tempered father never really believed it.
I studied in Shivagram junior High School. It was about five kms from my house. Not really far if you have a car and a good road, but those days we had to make use of whatever little we have-two feet. On way to school, there were trees, a few canals and endless strech of tea bushes reaching as far as our eyes travelled.There was only one small hut made of straw and bamboo, cemented and dyed with rato mato (red soil), as a meagre sign of inhabitance. There lived an old, ugly looking woman. She lived alone and scarcely talked to anyone. Some people believed that her husband had been killed in a forward post during Second World War, others speculated he had eloped with a ‘other’ woman. Like everyone else even she was unaware of the truth. Her husband never came back home after the war, that was all she knew. The story about the man being in army was not totally unbelievable as I had once seen a khukuri and a tattered army uniform hanging from the muddy wall of the house. She already looked ugly with two big eyes, a blunt nose, and her ever aging skin made her look worse. All my friends were too frightened to talk to her for anything. Whenever we felt thirsty, on way to school, we would stop in front of her hut as it was the only one around. Somehow, it was always me who asked for water. I don’t know why but I never found her terrifying; for whenever I asked her for anything, generosity and kindness would shine in her eyes. Moreover, she never harmed us as her looks suggested. Looks can be deceiving at times!
One wintry afternoon, with catapult in hand, I crept out of my home with Birey and Dalsingh to chase birds. As we passed through her hut, I saw oranges in her small courtyard, where she would be often seen with shovel. Falling for them, I dared to ask the old lady for an orange.
She first looked at me, and said,
“Do not eat them. They are not ripe enough to eat yet, you will fall sick”
Those were the only words I heard from her ever since we first met.
Taking advantage of our friendship that had grown strong over months; I stubbornly began pleading for the orange. As I was about to cry (but would not have cried), she relented, “But…..only one”. Soon I was up on the tree amidst unripe oranges. I plucked as many as I could on the pretext that I would share with my friends waiting for me below the tree. We crossed the garden in three leaps even forgetting to thank her in a haste to relish the fruit. I ate most of them sharing only some with others.
The day was very cold. My lungs already fell congested, and the unripe oranges did the rest, I could not eat anything and slept early. I woke up shivering in that murky night. My father- a worried man-went to get a witch doctor that lived in another village, as the Hospital was too far. My mother, confused and frantic, kept vigil by my bedside while my condition worsened during the night. Eventually around three in the morning he arrived with a janda witchdoctor, who held my hand in his and started murmuring mantras with frightening attention. He threw rice grain in between verses of the incantation all around the semi dark room lit by a kerosene lamp. Later, after consuming a full bottle of local toddy, as a part of his fees, he told my anxious father that I had become victim of some powerful witchcraft and gave whereabouts of the witch. He declared, “The witch lives in the west!” Next day, having completely fallen in views of the top witchdoctor of the village my father inquired with all my friends and learnt about our encounter with the old lady that lived in segregation. Coincidentally, the muddy hut was in the ‘west’. He jumped at a conclusion that poor lady had done witchcraft on me. He thanked janda witch doctor who claimed to have freed me from her spell. Like an airborne disease the rumours spread around in no time. All the people developed an impression that the old lady was a witch. I was too afraid to tell the truth about the unripe orange to him as he could kick my back anytime. I could not protect an innocent old lady being defamed as I had to protect myself from my father’s wrath.
With every new day, rumours took different forms. Some people claimed to have seen her in disguise of a black cat while others saw her dancing at dead of the night. Whenever children, cows and goat fell sick all blames were put on her without explanation. Children were not allowed to go near her house as a result we had to change the route to go to school.
One afternoon, sometimes in the month of June, dark sky promised the rain as thunders rumbled in the distance. A small boy died in the village of an unknown disease. Unfortunately, the janda witchdoctor had suspected the same lady who lived in the ‘west’ for boy’s deteriorating condition, just a week before his demise.
All the bereaved relatives of the dead boy accompanied by young men of the village, in a fit of anger, promptly rushed to the old lady’s hut and started hurling stones at it. The poor lady did not understand what was happening. She tried to defend herself from the projectiles, but some of them hit her on the head and others on the back. Painfully hurt, she lost consciousness and shank to the ground.
That night, there was a storm with blinding sheets of rain, blowing away roofs of many houses and uprooting plum trees of our backyard. When a day dawned I could see an awful destruction the storm had wrought. Much to my curiosity, latter in the evening I heard someone telling my father about the witch breathing her last in that stormy night. All the people in the village heaved a shy of relief in a witch’s death. They cremated her body in presence of many janda witch doctors in Gatte Khola(small river)."The village is free from witch now", some one in the gathering was heard saying.Nobody cried for her. Somewhere, however, deep inside my heart, I felt a profound sense of guilt. I could do nothing except burrying by head in the hands.It took me many weeks to forget her face that blinked before my eyes during the night. It’s been years since, but I still remember her words of caution: “Do not eat them. They are not ripe enough to eat yet, you’ll fall sick”

LANGUAGE OF HEART
I am just one month old city-dweller in this wonderful place surrounded by Alps, but I have not really been lost as yet. Most of the people would not speak English, but still they would answer your queries somehow with genuine politeness-which I call language of heart. It’s wonderful gesture. Some times my fickle mind tends to compare these people with my own people back home, and arrive at sad conclusions. He would know the language you speak, he would no the answers you are looking for, but he would never care to help you.
A few days back, I went to supermarket to buy some foodstuff in the evening. As the days are long in summer here (it is not dark till 9:30 pm), I didn’t realise it was already 8:30 PM. When I came out of the shop, though it was not dark, the public transport system was already closed for the day. I tried to walk a bit, recollecting the road I had traced while coming by a bus, but it didn’t seem to be a very good idea as my place was far from the supermarket. I asked an old lady in English if she could tell me how to go back to my flat. Apparently she didn’t understand anything and replied saying something politely in French, which I didn’t understand. After, more than five minutes’ effort I could make her understand that I was looking for a bus to go to Rue Fournet (name of the place where I live) and subsequently she could tell me that it was too late for bus. But, what was impressive was she didn’t leave like that. First she gave me her mobile phone to call somebody I know, which I politely declined as I had not carried anybody’s contact no. As I was wondering what I would do next, she signed me with her hand that she would drive me home and she did. I reached home safely in her car around 10 pm. It was an exceptional display of humanity, which is sadly ever-dwindling in my own country. Besides national and international languages, it would be wonderful to learn another language-the language of heart.

February, 2006: as the winter had just begun to bid farewell to Darjeeling and back in my village schools had just started to resume, far across in the west part of the country (Pune) I was all set for my first ever visit to England.I was quite nervous as it was the first time I was flying in an aeroplane and also first time to any country overseas. It is usual for a person like me who grew up in one of the remotest places in India to feel a little perturbed when such opportunities knock at the door. My birth place is quite far from so called civilization. For many, the presence of silent mountains and hills overlooking endless stretch of tea bushes, the absence of skyrocketing buildings, the lack of ever honking vehicles speeding at life threatening 70 plus kms/ hr along the smooth and wide roads certainly signify remoteness.
When I was a kid, one of our teachers would often teach us in geography class that plains are like table. It was very difficult for me to visualise a place looking like a table! When my father took me with him for the first time to Siliguri, the nearest town looking like a table I was elated.
It is also not unusual for people like me living in a Tea Estate of Darjeeling to have not seen a city except for those lucky few whose parents served in the military forces. My family had less people serving in the army than others in the village. So, I am not sure if my great grand father did ever saw a city in his life; to the best of my knowledge even my grand father, who is in the eve of his life now, has still not seen one. Even for my parents there was a time when Kolkata was quite a distant place.
Well, I had not visited Kolkata till I was a young lad of 18 years. Thanks to my high school teacher who gave me an opportunity to be a part of an educational excursion team to Kolkata. So happy I was during my first ever Kolkata visit by bus that I was awake with alarming concentration throughout the journey lest I would miss a thing. We sang, we danced. Perhaps in a fit of excitement we had unknowlingly disturbed other travellers for whom the trip was just another visit to Kolkata.I still remember that moment as vividly as one from yesterday. How happy I was posing for the photos standing against the backdrop of tall buildings, Hoogly River and Victoria memorial. I ate/ drank (I don’t know which verb I should use for this foodstuff) “poochka” for the first time.
Slowly as I grew younger and certainly older, I came to town (Darjeeling) from village, stayed their for studies, then moved to Siliguri (the same table like place of my childhood vision). By this time, already so many first times had come to pass in my life. First time I went to school, first time I gave exams, first time I rode bicycle, first time travelled alone, first time I stayed away from my parents, first time I dated a girl, first time I saw a table like place, first time saw a city, a river and without notice I had already become independent if not experienced. Then I moved to Pune, first time out of the state. Then last month I came to France and its been already so many FIRST TIMEs for me and certainly more to come.

Perhaps, every moment in a life has something of a FIRST TIME…for those who set on a voyage without any punctuation,without looking back, without giving up in times of trials…just believing in a dream, a dream to live a life to the fullest….

I am too young (perhaps by some standards) to comment on secularism, caste, creed, color and religions, but I am open to learning from people of some competence like Mahatma Gandhi and Dalai Lama. By religion I am a Buddhist, but my mother named me Sudarshan, which is a typical word from Hindu mythology. During my formative years (In Darjeeling) I developed a notion that Jesus Christ was also one of my gods while I was doing plus two from a Christian school (St. Robert’s High School). As a consequence, by the time I completed graduation from St. Joseph’s college I had become irreversibly close to all the three religions. I still recall those moments as vividly as one from yesterday. I would go to Monastery, Church, and Temples with equal devotion. Even though the turn of the events in my life did not introduce me to Islam or Sikh, I had some close Muslim and Sikh friends with heart of gold. I still solemnly believe that a religion is not a criterion for one’s identity.A new born child has no idea of what religion, caste, creed and color are. It is perhaps the upbringing by the parents and judicious preaching by teachers that will decide whether the child will grow on to become Mahatma Gandhi or someone else with arms/power in hand waiting to use/strike innocent people of so called different caste, color, creed, religion and region. Moreover, whatever might be the translation of the word PAIN in different languages of the world, it feels the same..doesn't it?

In any of her disguise, kanchanjanga looks beautiful

Kanchanjanga as seen from Pelling on 13th November2007(Sikkim )

Self discovery-a journey (1st October2005)

Nothing is permanent, not even good
As season is to earth, change is to life
A promise is opposite:it goes against change
it means still, it means no change
we spent millions of seconds, say hundreds of things to make a bond stronger
but to err is human
give in and you'll get it back, stop giving the bond will surely have a crack
Is everybody pretending...or I am insane
The beauty of life is in its mysteries
Even the god is a big mystery, thats why they worship Him
Keeps us guessing..keeps us keen
lest we forget Him in happy times, treats us mean
Time has come to quit the vices
and stop playin' the temporal dices
Just a matter of time..
nothing is permanent-not even evil

Thank You

Taking time out from my hectic schedule full of chemical problems mixed with some ocassional personal pangs, I often embrace literature to find solace.And it really touches my heart when friends take their time out to read it and post some encouraging comments.Thank you all for your patience and meticulous display of love for a piece of literary work that comes into existence time and again when my imagination runs riot......

On a journey back in time

When I become an old man, I will certainly have so many things to ponder over and pass time till the sun of my life sets. 26^th August 2007, it is one of those exciting Sundays, for which I will surely turn over the calendar to put down my shaky old finger on and rekindle the youthful memories of the past. Working in any reputed laboratory is always a fun in India, as we get to meet scores of people from all over the country with diverse backgrounds. Different casts, creeds and religions are still like immiscible liquids in our country even after 60 years of Independence, difficult to mix. But when they somehow mix and work together, they look beautiful-more beautiful than a rainbow, which is just a blend of seven colors.

We have managed to mix overcoming all our differences and guess what…?

We are having a lot of fun together!!!

I must confess, I am notoriously talkative with my pen, that’s why so far I am unable to start the details of my trip to Lonawala with my friends from east, west, north and south for which I actually had sat down in front of the computer. Ok…… Let me start, the trip was decided at the eleventh hour i.e. on Saturday night. Maggie took the responsibility to call and inform everyone else about the trip, while Umesh started to search in google if there was any better place near Lonawala so we could kill two birds with one stone.

Start the trip sharp at 7:30 AM ! That was the judicious decision taken with everybody’s (which includes me also) consent.

But when Sanjay, knocked my door in the morning to wake me up, it was already 9 past something. I was ready by 10 AM after finishing everything in a tearing hurry.

Priyanka and her husband Prayag were eagerly and angrily waiting for us in their home.

A mature looking avenger, a flashy newly bought red CBZ extreme, and a girlish scooty Honda Activa were all set to zoom provided we poured some petrol in their dry tanks. It was a great site to behold, six excited people of different ethnic genus (some of them who had woken up just a few minutes earlier) and three exciting bikes of different genre hitting the four-lane highway to Lonawala.

As we were speeding ahead in the highway, I felt like singing the song by Whitesnake…

I don't know where I'm goin
but I sure know where I've been
hanging on the promises in songs of yesterday.
An' I've made up my mind, I ain't wasting no more time
but here I go again, here I go again…………

As some of us felt stomach rumbling… we stopped at one of those roadside inns vying for attention of people like us.

While we had entered the inn like jackals, after an hour of munching, drinking, swallowing, we came out like tigers.

Around 2 PM we had reached the historical Karla cave, which was close to Lonavala.

As I learnt from my friends that It is one of the most primitive rock-cut structures built in 3^rd to 2^nd Century B.C by Buddhist monks. A beautiful and well-embellished cave that we witnessed was actually built by cutting a hard rocky terrain that took us on a journey back in time, tacitly narrating interesting stories of the past -that the Buddhist monks chose isolated rocky hillsides to make rock-cut caves, which housed prayer halls within them, that the cave sites were not erratically chosen. They were selected in accordance with the Buddhist prescription that the holy men should live neither too near nor too far from the cities-not too near to be distracted by material life, nor too far to make begging rounds impractical or to put the monks out of reach of people.

The way the cave was carved out of tough rocks that refuses to get into shape easily, I was once again reminded that…

God is against fulfillment, but often, hard work pays off.

After concluding with a photo session that lasted for a few minutes, in all possible poses that we could conceive, against the backdrop of the historical cave overlooking a beautiful lush green valley we headed towards Lonawala. We were again on the four-lane highway wedged between small rocky hills. I was feeling as free as the wind that lapped against my face as our CBZ extreme zoomed ahead piercing the typical moist air that prevails aftermath of a short spell of rain in Pune. I forgot, for a transient moment, that the next day was Monday, that I had to wake up early in the morning against my will just to reach the laboratory in time, that I had to start afresh certain tasks that had failed on Friday, that I had to perform again against all odds to live without a hitch in a highly competitive world …blah..blah..blah…

All of us started lumbering uphill, having assured that our bikes were in safe parking stands. Umesh, Prayag and Sanjay once again proved that they were no less than Sherpas of North eastern Hilly areas. The first time they had impressed me was during Sinhagad fort trekking last year. The Sinhagad fort overlooked the countryside from about 800 meters above and to reach the top from base, specially in monsoon was not a trivial task. Even Priyanka and Maggie had showed “why should boys have all the fun” attitude. They had climbed in style- they walked, ran or even crawled under certain situations, but they didn’t give up.

This time too they were as good as ever. Well, It was a real “mela” out there in Lonawala, noisy and festive, with all the people, most of them men, screaming like anything. Young men with good physique flaunted their well-toned muscles, while old ones showcased full-fledged belly that was difficult to hide in a fit of excitement. Women seemed to enjoy the scenic beauty in their own way, with their spouses or friends, posing for photos, splashing the water, enjoying the tiny waterfalls etc.

We chose to explore some other waterfalls, if there were any, preferably with less or no people as all the waterfalls nearby were overcrowded. We stared plodding along the waterlogged stream delimited by thorny bushses in quest of a waterfall.

After prolonged so-called quest we found one. Though it was a ‘baby’ waterfall, yet worth searching.We enjoyed the fall without falling from the slippery rock that was to be climbed before we felt or enjoyed its current.The photos were taken to capture the moment so, in years to come, we can cherish or rather the moment doesn't perish.

Finally it was time to bid farewell to all those baby waterfalls and screaming crowd indifferent to a few helpless policemen blowing warning whistles. We started descending slowly and very carefully lest we might get hurt. The very sense of cautiousness that suddenly shot into prominence towards the evening, was missing while we were ascending as the excitement had outshone the fear of getting hurt, getting injured and getting unfit for so called life which was due to commence with yet another Monday.