Aham Brahmasmi

“ Jokhon keu aamake paagol boley, taar protibaad kori aami… Jokhon tumi aamay paagol bolo – dhonno j hoy shey paaglaami. ” ‘Paagol’ shobdo-tar maane ki? Nijer ekta duniya’y thaka, jekhane shob rong, shob onubhuti-guloi churantoh? Jekhane kono kaaj kora’r aage ba pore kono kichhu bhaba’r proyojoniyota-e haariye jaay? Jekhane dishe-haara jeebon-er proti muhurte jukti-heen daabi-daowa korata-e ekmatro upaay boley monn a hoy? Jekhane nijeke chhara onno shobbai k matha’r byamo’r rogi boley monn-a hoy? Jekhane bhogobaan-er shonge kotha bola'r shaadh jaage? R paagol-er shonge ghor koratai ba kotota duhshadhhyo kaaj? Kotota bhalobasha jaay ekta paagol k? Kotohdiin porjontoh? Bhalaobasha e ki, naki sneho-koruna meshano bhalobasha’r mukhosh pora kichhu? R shetai ba chirokaal thaake ki? Shob kichhu ki mene neowa jaay? Shudhumatro paagol-er prolaap boley? Erokom-e aaro onek proshne’r jhor tole Samaresh Majumdar-er Onekei Eka . Uttor o dyay kichhu’r. Opor-opor noy, rokto-...

“ One could not really continue to write, or read about, the slow seasonal changes, the rural backwaters, gossipy courtyards, and traditional families in a world taken over by gun-running, drug-trafficking, large-scale industrialism, commercial entrepreneurship, tourism, new money, nightclubs, boutiques... Where was the Huxley, the Orwell, the Scott Fitzgerald, or even the Tom Wolfe, Jay McInerney, or Brett Easton Ellis to record this new world? Mohsin Hamid's novel Moth Smoke, set in Lahore, is one of the first pictures we have of that world. ” – Anita Desai When I read The Reluctant Fundamentalist , in whose pages I was first introduced to Mohsin Hamid, I was bowled over by the strength of the narrative, by the author’s refusal to take a moralistic stance (which would have been by far the easier option). It was therefore only natural that I was waiting to get my hands on this book. It was worth the wait. More so after feeling let down by Hosseini’s And the mountains ec...

Wessel Johannes Cronjé was a good fielder, a handy bowler, an average batman (which he more than made up for by sheer grit) – but, head & shoulders above all his other cricketing credentials, he was the consummate leader. Thorough, charismatic & inspirational, Hansie (essayed in the movie by the square-jawed Frank Rautenbach) was the most revered youth icon & a household name in South Africa right through his six years at the helm of the national cricket team. Cronjé, then Coach Bob Woolmer (played by Nick Lorentz) & then Chief Selector Peter Pollock (played by David Sherwood) took the prodigal Proteas from being a bunch of unsure, recently Apartheid-returned cricketers to almost becoming World Champions. The curse of a movie about a deceased much-loved-hero-turned-anti-hero is that whenever there is someone from the immediate family behind it, one invariably tends to question the authenticity of its truth-telling abilities, for personal bias is an ever-present t...

“ I no longer feel any allegiance to these monsters called human beings, despise being one myself. I think that Peeta was onto something about us destroying one another and lettng some decent species take over. Because something is significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its children’s lives to settle its differences. You can spin it any way you like. Snow thought the Hunger Games were an efficient means of control. Coin thought the parachutes would expedite the war. But in the end, who does it benefit? No one. The truth is, it benefits no one to live in a world where these things happen. ” This paragraph sums up The Hunger Games (and its fallout) so beautifully, that it almost takes your breath away. Essentially, it’s not anything new that Collins tells us – this thing that the world is like a venomous snake that has bitten into its own tail and refuses to let go – but the way she goes about in her narration. Mostly lucid, and almost always sticking to a central...

“ ...in the pages of history, as always, it is the version told by the victors, that lives on. The voice of the vanquished remains lost in silence. But what if Ravana and his people had a different story to tell? The story of the Ravanayana has never been told. ” What is the first thing that you do when you pick up a book pertaining to a genre that appeals to you, but by an author that you haven’t even heard of before (let alone read any of his/her works)? Indeed, what is the first thing that you do when you pick up any book by an author that you haven’t even heard of before? If, like me, you also have the tendency to go straight to the back page in the search of a summarized version of what to expect in the pages of said book, the quoted lines stated above are what would have drawn you in. It definitely drew me in. Yes, Anand Neelakantan, in his Asura: Tale of the Vanquished – The story of Ravana and His People begins with this promise. The statement is made, and you can...

You . Yes, you, the girl on the platform at Dadar station. In the white button-down shirt & Prussian blue pair of trousers, with your untied, windblown hair framing that lovely face. And the eyes, still laced with the last fragments of sleep, looking out at the multitude of people pushing & clawing their way in & out of the train. You made my morning.

168 Test matches, over 13000 runs in the format, with an average in the higher 50s and a joint-record of 16 consecutive victories in Test matches (although he did lose three Ashes series, a dubious distinction that he’s the only Australian captain to be in possession of). 375 ODIs, yet another 13000+ runs, with an average in the lower 40s and three World Cups in his extensive CV. 17 T20 Internationals, 400 odd runs, with a SR of 132.78. A combined tally of 71 centuries in International cricket (2779 boundaries and 246 over-boundaries) in all formats, across continents and against varying opponents. Add to that his fantastic fielding (there really should be some sort of ICC-recognized system for calculating the runs saved by each player in the field; he would surely have been a frontrunner in that record book), especially in the slip cordon and at cover (364 catches in total), and there remains no doubt that the retiring almost 38-year-old Tasmania-born Ricky Thomas Ponting is no doub...