'War' of 'Words'?Scrabulous, the e-version of the word game "Scrabble" was developed by the Agarwalla brothers--Jayant and Rajat, the alumni of St. Xavier's College, Kolkata- keeping in mind the huge popularity of computer games in India.Bandhs in West BengalThe bogey of hike in petrol and diesel prices has at last been proved to be true. A steep increase has been announced by the Minister of Petroleum and, immediately, the Left Front leadership has announced a decision to combat the evil by declaring one day’s bandh in West Bengal on Thursday while firebrand leader Mamata Banerjee has followed up with her brand of bandh for the Friday. West Bengal will have not one but two days of bandh. They must be having the interest of the citizens in mind because the monsoons are setting in and the roads would be getting flooded. Therefore, with bandhs, no one needs to venture out. They can relish piping hot khichudi and brinjal bhaja with omelette and other fried stuff that go well with khichudis. Of course, how the evil of spiraling costs would be met by bandhs is not readily understood – it appears to be of no concern to the leaders who call for these stoppages of work. Such steps do not auger well for a state that is nurturing visions of going global. IT is considered to be the lifeline and, in these bandhs, it is mentioned that it would not affect the IT sectors. But, IT sectors are not confined to a few specific pockets. The staffs who work there have to commute to and from the work places, outsiders might be coming into the city on official business, there might be persons who are slated to move out to other places. Bandhs create problems for all of them. No one can predict what will happen on the roads, when there will be sudden violence unleashed, when passing vehicles will become targets of attacks by miscreants. Calling for bandhs at the drop of a hat is an oft used tool that has become blunt. What is necessary is for people to put their heads together and work out solutions – pooling of cars, using bicycles, walking small distances are some examples. Agreed that increase in fuel prices has a cascading effect on other costs, one has to work out alternatives. Criminal mindsSix men wannabe ransomers copy-paste the outstandingly sophisticated methodology of the bomber from the 1994 Hollywood blockbuster Speed on a Bangalore milieu, and flub it. A 14-year-old schoolgirl is murdered in Noida by someone who wields a sharp-edged weapon like a surgeon’s scalpel, slices through the carotid artery and the vocal chords in one stroke, and knows enough about due process to get rid of the murder weapon/s, leaving the prosecution without the most important instrument in its armoury. The police in that first electoral redoubt of US conservatives, Florida, gripe that the television hit series, CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) Las Vegas, CSI Miami and CSI New York has served to inform criminals about the technology of cutting edge forensics, and thus the means to subvert it, along with feeding the public’s insatiable hunger for someone else’s pain through computer-generated graphics of the minutiae of severe bodily trauma.The food zone down the road…Although, someday it might have housed just a bakery, today, it has many more options to offer. The shops lining the Lord's Bakery crossing in the Lake Gardens area of Prince Anwar Shah Road have an exclusive common feature—they cater indulgingly to the taste buds of the local population. An exclusive variety of south Indian cuisine, Chinese dishes, Mughlai food, fast food and fruit juices await the foodies of the area.Grand revival plan for Chinatown legacyDeserted by 70 per cent of its inhabitants and left to rot by the civic authorities, the city’s decrepit Chinese quarter is suddenly getting the attention denied to it for four decades. The Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) on Monday announceHail the bandhsThe Kolkata Police had requested all vehicle drivers to avoid using the horns for at least one hour in the day on 5th June 2008 to show respect to the environmentalists. The idea was to keep pollution under control. If not the air pollution, at least the noise pollution could be reduced and kept in check. However, the Kolkattans went the whole hog and did not resort to blowing the horns for the whole of 12 hours on 5th June. Not only that, they did not even pollute the air for 12 hours – they just did not take out their vehicles. All because of the bandh called by the CPM to condemn the increase in cost of petro products like petrol, diesel and cooking gas. Kolkattans are determined to earn bonus points for being environment friendly because there will be a second bandh tomorrow, this time the credit will go to the Trinamool Congress. These will be followed by the weekend when the number of vehicles on the roads is usually less in number. Hail the bandhs.Travel during the Durga PujasDurga Pujas are the greatest festivals of Bengalis the world over. In 2008, it commences from the 2nd October – it is just three months away. Therefore, all those who plan to move out of Bengal to celebrate the festivals must have purchased their railway tickets by now – the advance reservations are currently available 90 days prior to the date of journey. Similar action must have been taken by those who reside outside West Bengal but would like to return to their homes to spend the Durga Pujas among their friends and relatives.Bhoomi goes to MontrealBhoomi will be the first jazz band of India to participate in the Jazz festival at Montreal later this month. Bhoomi – the music of the Earth is a Bangla Band began its journey way back in 1999 - 24th of July, to be precise. It brought a new dimension to Bengali songs and music and, within a very short time it caught the fancy of the people. Its debut album was appropriately named was ‘Jatra Shuru’. It was awarded the best Bangla band of 2003 and had composed the music for the Cheer Song of EURO 2004 that was aired on ESPN and Star Sports. One of its famous songs is ‘Tomar Dekha Nai’. Let us wish the band all the best and hope they are successful in their venture to bring back laurels for the country.Darjeeling tourists run for their livesThe agitation over Gorkhaland was ill timed – tourists were enjoying the beauties of Darjeeling and surrounding areas when the indefinite bandh started. Families got stranded and locals seized the opportunity to fleece them in all sorts of ways. It is all right to have peaceful agitations to press for the demands but when it affects the business potentials of a place, it is certainly not acceptable. The impression that tourists are carrying back with them and the media coverage this is getting spells doom for the tourist potentials of Darjeeling. Sorry Mr Dutt, my faultIt happened simply by chance. Watching two films back-to-back is nothing singular. But when the two are such that they deal with almost the same subject, the occasion requires mention. Something that happened to me a few days back. The first film was 'Chalo, Let's Go' directed by Anjan Dutt. The second 'Into the Wild' directed by Sean Penn.

I was at fault. I shouldn't have watched the two films back to back. Otherwise, I would have waxed eloquent on CLG. I couldn't. Because Sean Penn and Jon Krakauer's powerhose idea of an adventure/travelogue movie simply swept me off my feet.That, despite the various limitations of a home video watched on a fourteen inch colour television, which was no comparison for the Gold Lounge comfort of Fame that Anjan ensured for his exclusive wine and kebabs Thursday gathering of elite pressmen and presswomen.

So why did I like ITW more than CLG? Not because the former was technically better than the latter. Neither because Alaska on the small screen looked more breathtaking than Dooars and the hills on the big. And of course not because ITW is a Hollywood product, while CLG was from Tollywood. None of that! In fact, I immensely enjoyed the comfort of urban Bengali pidgin that was impossible with ITW.

It was actually the 'idea'.

So where does the idea come from? From Jon Krakauer of course, who is capable of turning a narrative on a failed Everest expedition into a breathtaking thriller—so much so that his 1997 book 'Into Thin Air' is now accepted as a masterpiece of travel writing. He does the same with the screenplay of 'Into the Wild'— based on his 1992 bestseller of the same name. And Sean Penn's camera and visual narrative does the rest. ITW therefore becomes a very honest account of a man's search for life's meaning—both by excluding society and including it.

Something that to my limited understanding was also Anjan's idea. Four friends—ala Ray's 'Aran-yer Din Ratri' trying to break free in Kolkata 2008. The problem is, it's not a radical idea. So you need to package it in a different way.

The Jon-Sean duo has been able to do it. When Chris MacCandless, the central protagonist, denies to part ways with his weather-worn Dutsun, burns his change, and finally sets off on a hitch-hiking venture to Alaska, there is a slow build-up to the character—a rebel who is totally frustrated with the American living and like a headstrong romantic, decides to give up a promising career for a life of hardship—facing nature bereft of all the trappings of human civilisation except for the basics.

Anjan tries to do it in his own way. The four friends, trying and failing at all possible off-track careers, finally choose to start a travel agency. However, getting roughed up while performing a song that by all standards was pretty good in lyrics and music, did not seem to be enogh reason for the four to radically shift gear and start a travel agency. Then there's the story. While ITW leaves a scope for society to drift in and out of the narrative, thus allowing for a variety of characters and resulting in a breadth of vision, CLG becomes static with a set of tourists who follow the four friends as their travel agency clients.
That is where CLG starts sagging. It becomes nothing different from a very smartly made big-screen fictional version of Dutt's very own non-fiction TV show—'Chalo Anjan' (if I remember correctly).

And I reiterate—I should not have watched 'Into The Wild' soon after 'Chalo, Let's Go'. My fault!Oh! Kolkata takes some getting used toI’m standing on the metro platform. It’s what, eight in the morning? I’m not looking pretty and I’m certainly not feeling great. In fact, my stomach is reeling from the dodgy paneer I ate last night and I’m perspiring like nobody’s business. Suddenly a small round figure bounds into me, extending a pudgy hand. ‘Hello Ma’am, what is your name Ma’am?’ I’m half tempted to swipe the little brat off the platform, but instead I offer an ingratiating smile and force myself into a parody of good will and kindness. ‘What a sweet, darling child’, my face says, ‘how endearing’ and ‘what awfully, awfully good English.’ Not.Prosenjit and the attitude shiftThe other day, I was talking to Prosenjit Chatterjee in a surrounding that has, as of now, been largely unfamiliar to the Tollywood-based scribe brigade.
It may be a purana practice in Bollywood, to have your personal PR, but over here it's a direct contact between the scribe and the star. The basics are simple. You SMS the star for an interview, he/she SMSes back to give you a time to call, you call and fix up the interview date and time. The bottomline—the journo needs to ensure that his/her cell number is stored in the star's cell. And that it rings often.
With a PR or a secretary to handle the media, it becomes a tad easier. Interview requests are rooted through this go-between. And unlike stars, this person makes it a point to generally take all calls coming his/her way. So in order to fix an interview with Madhuri Dixit, you call up her secretary Rikkuji, you sms Mr Bachchan for an interview and if he agrees you send the questionnaire to Ms. Rosy, his secretary.
More professional, but mostly devoid of the personal touch.
Prosenjit, by all means has been the first in Tollygunge to appoint a profes-=sional agency to handle his media affairs. And I was interviewing him in the office of that agency.
Why this, after twenty-five years in the industry? I asked.
''Something new. It becomes necessary at times. You change with the times,'' he answers.
But doesn't this take away a bit of the personal touch that Tolly-journos shared with the man they generally addressed by his pet-name, Bumba-- with the younger lot suffixing it with a 'da', I wonder.
" But you need to give new experiments a chance. Dekhai jag na byaparta kemon hoy," he answers.
Give the new a chance. That coming from Prosenjit says a lot. After all, these days he doesn't mind sharing almost equal screen and poster space with the likes of Jishu Sengupta and Tota Roy Chowdhury. That too in a mainstream venture.
Shift of attitude. And a more professional one at this point of time. Perhaps....The 'nordoma' culture: Something rottenThe first time I stepped into one of Kolkata’s infamous nordomas, it was to rescue a sinking kitten that had escaped our house in her search of her own version of foie gras. The second time I stepped into a nordoma was during the deluge of 2007, when whole streets had been converted into rivers of offal. The third time round, more recently, the nordoma denied me the pleasure of immersion but nevertheless dirtied the hooves of our car, Oswald—so named by my wife in defiance of prevailing gender norms for baptising automobiles—when, out of the necessity of dodging a rickshawallah, I directed him over a freshly cleaned out nordoma, black and viscous as tar and with a stench to fell the heavens.Brush with successImagine getting so bored in the summer holidays that you do something a bit out of the ordinary. And before you know, that little something earns you a ticket to fame. That is how life has panned out for Tirthanu Ghosh. “I had nothing to do. So To guru with loveIt was Ashmita Mohanty’s big day. The child prodigy was chosen to present Guru Pranam at Gyan Manch on June 17, as part of a tribute to Padmabibhushana Kelucharan Mohapatra organised by Shinjan Nrityalaya. Wearing a red and blue costume and heavWorld T-20: A previewAs the intensity of T-20 cricket grips the world cricketing audience, the focus shifts from South Africa to cricket’s spiritual home, England. After a tremendous IPL, players from different nations will fight it out for the biggest prize in T-20 crHave we seen the last of Symonds?There have been many characters across many sports who have managed to outperform themselves more off the field than on it. Temperamental Aussie all-rounder Andrew Symonds is definitely one such cricketer. Arguably one of the most ferocious hitters oThe favourite jinxAs the T-20 World Cup reaches its penultimate stage – the semi-finals – the hype and euphoria will also be reaching its peak. India will be represented in the semi-finals – not by their illustrious men but by the lesser hyped women’s team. TRedemption at lastRedemption at last— the second edition of the T-20 World Cup can be brilliantly summarised in these three worlds. For a team which was just a match away from exit in the opening round, scripting a fairytale story and winning the World Cup was romance of the highest order. Life had come full circle for most of the members of this very talented team who have now buried the ghosts of their agonising defeat at the hands of India last year.Let the game beginThe focus of the sporting world has shifted to the continent of Africa which plays host to one of the biggest sporting extravaganzas of the planet – The FIFA World Cup 2010. It will be a coming-of-age event not only for the country of South Africa but for the whole of the African continent which has had its own share of miseries and misfortunes over long periods of time. It was way back in 1934 that Egypt became the first African nation to have qualified for the World Cup. Since then African football has come a long way – whether it be a Francois Omambique goal stunning defending champions Argentina in the 1990 World Cup or Senegal proving to be the star find of the 2002 World Cup. With almost all African players plying their trade in major European clubs nowadays, African football has truly become global. Hence South Africa hosting the World Cup is a cry of defiance coming from the continent of Africa to the traditional soccer power houses.The Return of the King25 June, 1994 – FIFA World Cup Group Stage Match, Foxboro Stadium, Boston – Argentina vs Nigeria. 12 June, 2010 – FIFA World Cup Group Stage Match, Ellis Park Stadium, Johannesburg – Argentina vs Nigeria. Separated by sixteen years and In search of the beautiful gameUntil yesterday, thirteen matches have been played in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. But we are yet to witness sparkling and heart-beating football normally associated with an event like the World Cup. Hence, when five-time champions Brazil, arguably the m