Posts Tagged With: Kolkata
The Blue Guitar in Calcutta
It’s about to be one of these entirely surreal Kolkata-in-winter Sundays. Derby in the morning, darling, I was informed. This essentially translates to knocking back glass after glass of a creamy alcoholic concoction called the Brandy Alexander, and watching people who look like they walked out of a Wes Anderson film squabble for their winnings. [...]
Mother = Lunatic
It’s official: my mother has gone entirely insane. I was in Kolkata for a night and over dinner, I told my mother how much I enjoyed “The Bad Boy’s Guide to the Good Indian Girl”. My mother filled me in who was coming home from which part of the globe for Durga Puja. Family news [...]
Faithfully Yours
After watching “The Tree of Life“, three friends and I met to gush about the film to the accompaniment of gin, rum and chicken lollypops. We spent 4-odd hours gushing and dissecting the film. Of us, one is a reasonably devout Christian. Another is a mutinous Muslim. The other two are an agnostic and a [...]
Electric Feel
Any of you in India who are regular TV watchers have probably seen this ad already so this is old news to you but I channel-flipped today after ages and came across this ad, which I feel I must share. Allow me to present an advertisement for iBall’s Nirantar UPS: Quite frankly, I’m not entirely [...]
Q tip
Warning: there’s some seriously bad language that is going to crop up in this post. If you’re the kind that is offended by obscenity, perhaps you should skip a couple of posts and read about “Tangled” instead. Near the end of “Gandu”, the hero comes into some cash and his best (and only) friend tells [...]
Not a Drag
I’ll admit it. When I stood at the ticket counter of Priya Cinema in Kolkata to buy tickets for “Aar Ekti Premer Golpo” (“Just Another Love Story”), directed by a chap called Kaushik Ganguly and starring Rituparno Ghosh, I was prepared to be the one who would be weirdly embarrassed at Ghosh’s acting debut. Ghosh [...]
Calcutta Chromosome
This might seem vaguely sacrilegious but the fact is, I don’t find Kolkata a particularly charming city. People are usually struck by the city’s history, beauty and curiosities. I don’t see it, I don’t feel it and basically, I dislike the city intensely. If ever there was a miasma of a city, it’s Kolkata. It’s [...]
“Call 1912 for only electric problems”
“Hello, Calcutta Electric Supply?” “Hello.” “I’m calling from Ballygunge Place and I have an emergency.” “Madam, we are all in a state of emergency. Modern urban life is like that. But how can I help you?” “Like, I said, I have an emergency.” “Is it related to your electric supply?” “Yes. That’s why I’m calling [...]
Attention seeker
The official website for Thailand’s tourism doesn’t work too well (I haven’t been able to open it in the past 15 minutes) which is probably why the Thai consulate in Kolkata decided to host a select crowd for a fancy dinner to acquaint the city’s opinion makers to the wonders of Thailand. All those who [...]
Colourfornication
It’s mindless, messy and, when the next day you remember exactly what you did, potentially highly embarrassing. If we were talking about sex, then at least one could hope for an orgasm. With Holi, no such luck. Not in contemporary India, at any rate. The popularity of this festival probably originates in it being the [...]
World Domination
