A House Full of Stories Ep. 29: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K Le Guin

 This is the first Ursula K Le Guin story I have ever read and the language was so beautiful that I decided to read it out. I hope you enjoy it! 

The Bilge Master

Memories of Betel Nuts and Asterix Comics

 This is a poem about my paternal grandmother's younger sister. We called her Chotothakuma and she was a great storyteller with a never say die attitude. Cancer took her from us. A few weeks before she died, she called me to her room and told me that she had fought many battles in her life, but this battle was one she could not win. However she also said, with a smile on her face and a  mischievous twinkle in her eye, that if Death did want her, then Death would have to catch her first.

In memory of Reba Dam, sister, aunt and grandmother. 

This festive season

We are to be merry

My mind remembers your smile

How you made us merry

How you told stories

Walking stick at your side

We never knew you would go so fast

We knew you wouldn't go gentle

I miss the twinkle in your eye

I miss the chocolates on Diwali

The Asterix comic you gifted me

Is on my bookshelf

Betel nut sellers and their masala a memory

Thank you for proving to me

That courage isn't a man with a gun in his hand

Ma sobbed over the phone

I couldn't find the tears to mourn you

I don't think that's what you'd want though

You'd want me to keep smiling

Travel by unknown roads

With your blessing to guide me

Like the North Star guides lost souls

As this festive season draws to a close

We raise our glasses to you, Chotthakuma

And smiling turn to the dying light 

The Bilge Master

Music That Heals- A Photoblog

Ever since I was a kid, music has appealed to me. I grew up in a household that encouraged me to listen to music and guided me along the path. This post is a photoblog about the band HitchHykers and their gig at Someplace Else. 

I was excited about this gig and I was also feeling anxious earlier this week about not getting a job and I needed an evening to reconnect with my musical side. So I grabbed a friend and headed over to Someplace Else to watch Apu's band though it was Bukka who invited me.

For a few wonder filled hours, my troubles melted away as the HitchHykers belted out covers of The Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath and of course Crossroads by Cream. They even played Chain of Fools by Aretha Franklin, not to mention Come Together by The Beatles 

The evening was well spent in the pub, with good people. My troubled mind found solace. My anxiety receded and music wafted over me like a balm 

Photos follow below

Thought Catalog 2

Well this has been an interesting year for sure because there's been plenty of things going on. I dont wish to dwell on things past and have started to move forward, but there are some days man...there are some days. 

Then again, from being suicidal earlier in my life to finding people and things to live for is progress, right? 

I know I've not been very regular with writing because the honest truth is this year has left me too worried to write down succintly. I need a certain frame of mind to compose, which has been largely absent. 

I have however been reading quite a few books this year and getting the channel up and running has helped. The additon of poetry to the mix has worked out and I am not a bad orator it seems. My poetry videos are doing better than my stories on a good day. 

Boredom is a factor though. What with a tricky financial situation, the urge to disappear and escape has been indulged in. 

It's a quiet morning and a friend is sleeping on what used to be my old bed, now being used as a guest room. After scratching down thoughts on paper, I decided to come here and scratch thoughts out on this platform. I've been encouraged to freewheel and so I am. 

I'm gonna be missing the book club meeting today but they've given me a lot of books to read which I shall get to doing soon. 

It's not like I haven't been writing, but I think I'm in a trap in my own head where what I write feels so personal these days that I hesitate to share it on the internet and leave the secondhand stuff for the public. 

Keeping a journal could be the reason for this. Every morning (or evening) I scratch words into it. My mind becomes clearer. 

I'm also in a phase where I like what I'm thinking, but at the same time, some thoughts are bothering me. It's a weird feeling. It's like having fifty dishes on a table in front of you and realizing you like all of them but your stomach will divorce you if you have all fifty and therefore you need to select. When it comes to food this is something that is difficult for me! 

Speaking of food, I've grown more confident in the kitchen. I used basil on instinct recently and it paid off! The dish was some rice sauteed in oil with parsley and onions and a dash of soy sauce. 

My mind just went blank. I will leave you to peruse this. There is a story I finished last month which I've been tweaking and tweaking and I think I'll just put it up and be done with it next week. Hopefully.

Ciao!

The Bilge Master 

Poetry Reading: Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass)

 I bring to you a poetry reading session featuring Walt Whitman. I have read out from the book Leaves of Grass. I shall be revisiting this book sometime in the near future because picking just four poems was hard! 

Enjoy! 

The Bilge Master

A House Full of Stories Ep. 29: After the Dance by Leo Tolstoy

 This story is a tribute to my high school principal, madam Usha Subba who taught me many pivotal things and whose mentoring played a huge part in making me what  I am today! Thank you for allowing me to do this for you ma'am and I hope you enjoy it! 

The Bilge Master

Poetry Reading: Pablo Neruda

 Since the previous poetry reading featuring Leonard Cohen's Book of Longing was a success, I've read out some poems from Pablo Neruda this time. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for your continued support!

The Bilge Master

 

A House Full of Stories Ep. 28: Graveyard Shift by Stephen King (Halloween Special)

 Happy Halloween! I bring you Graveyard Shift by Stephen King from the short story collection Night Shift. However a trigger warning must be given: if you are scared of rats, DO NOT watch this video.

The Bilge Master

A House Full of Stories Ep. 27: Crooner by Kazuo Ishiguro

 One of my favorite stories, I did Crooner by Kazuo Ishiguro for this episode. Enjoy! 

The Bilge Master

Thought Catalog 1

 It’s such a small world. This is not because of technology but because of communication. Yet at the same time, it is a very large world with a lot of seas and lands yet to see, places that hide monsters under them if fantasy authors are to be believed and places that hide bodies under floorboards if we believe a certain someone who is scared of ravens.

Yet there is music. There is science. There is nature and there is the Aurora Borealis. I want to see them all. A friend of mine took a bus to Paris playing Dearest Esmeralda on loop and now I want to go to Romania playing Oasis on loop, or maybe Green Day’s Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).

I do not know what the point I am trying to make here is. Maybe it is a reminder that I am young and I am taking myself too seriously. Maybe it is a reminder that it is time to stay up with myself all night and save my own life.

I’m reminded of a morning one day when I was a chid and the Sonodyne was still working and I had my first cup of authentic South Indian filter coffee (or as some people like to call it, filter kappi, and oh God I wish I had a cup of that sinful fluid by my side right now!) and we opened up a record and I said I wanted to put it on the player and switch it to play. We chose Rubber Soul and my mother played Norwegian Wood and Nowhere Man twice. When I read Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood, I found the book quite good and the fact that it had the song as a major part of the narrative was what sold the book to me.

I wonder how good I’d be behind the counter at a book shop. I went to Blossoms and sold A Farewell to Arms to this literature student and all it took was one quote to get that (as my friend Abhijith Menon would say), seismic shift in her eyes. She left the shop with the book. I left it with A Moveable Feast and some other titles.

I know this is random and that’s because my mind is not very settled right now. This is a form of therapy. I want you all to know I’ve stared a journal and the reason you have not had stories on the channel for a while is because I’m planning a double whammy for next week because it is Halloween coming up!

Before I sigh and sign off, I want to say that I appreciate the support of all of you.  FLTM would not be what it is without you.

 

The Bilge Master

Love Disappointed

 

“They say that anger is just love disappointed

They say that love is just a state of mind”

~The Eagles

 

I set out to look for love on a rainy day in September, dressed in my Sunday best and I thought I had found it when I knocked on your door. I was confident that the door would open and that I would be welcome to share a part of your life. I was not wrong.

The door opened into a hallway littered with mirrors. I could see myself from all angles and in all kinds of odd shapes. I was a dwarf in one mirror and a giant in another. I was fat. I was slim. The list goes on. You were there too, flitting between the mirrors- a red glimpse at the corner of my eye, that made me turn around, only to be faced by yet another distorted image of my own figure.

But it seemed to me that in my quest to find you, I had forgotten me. It seemed as if I had forgotten how much I enjoyed my own company, curled up in bed on a winter morning with a book, or cooking like a madman in the kitchen because I’d told my father I wanted to surprise him. I’d forgotten how my gut would tell me when to add salt to the chicken, or overcook it ever so slightly.

I’d forgotten how calming it all was.

And so, I gave up trying to find you and instead focused on finding me. I found a version of me that would never have been able to come to this decision. Had I made you up? Were you only a figment of my imagination? Were you akin to what O’Henry wrote in The Pendulum about how Katy was as necessary as the air John Perkins inhaled- necessary and yet scarcely noticed?

Was I someone in an Ishiguro story? Maybe I could be the man trying to save his marriage by going to Venice with his wife? Except even that didn’t work, did it?

So maybe the thing I should really love is my solitude and the friends that help me deal with that solitude when it gets too much?

Maybe, one day I shall stand atop a cliff and photograph the sea hundreds of feet below me. Maybe one day I shall go somewhere in Paris and decide that this is where my journey ends

Maybe none of this will happen and maybe I’m asleep? Maybe the alarm will wake me soon and I’ll find the dog slobbering over my bedclothes while you make coffee for me in the kitchen which is smelling of bacon fat?

I wonder…

 

Drops of Jupiter

 "Now that she's back in the atmosphere 

With drops of Jupiter in her hair, hey hey hey hey"

Train, Drops of Jupiter

You know you’ve grown up when one day you realize someone you loved won’t be around anymore and the things about them that made them them, slowly start fading; little by little, until their memory starts getting filled with gaps. You then turn to photos to try and remember a time when they smiled, and how much they smiled and giggled when reading PG Wodehouse. You want to go to the bookshelf and pull out the Wodehouses and smell them, for their smell resides in the book, and the smell is not just a smell, it is a redolence that triggers something in you, bringing them back, however fleetingly.

What you wouldn’t give for one more hello.

You know you’ve grown old when you realize that sometimes other people are not on the same energy signature as you are and therefore, no matter how painful it may seem you walk away. Love songs that seemed to be about a certain person now seem to be about a totally different person whom you met while surfing in a spider’s web. You don’t need much, just someone to talk to, but not just anyone and not just about anything.

You know you’ve grown up when you realize accountability. Some things are your fault. Some things you do need to work on and improve. If you’re lucky, the friends you make and the other people in your life will help with this, but even so some roads are meant to be walked alone.

You know you’ve grown up when you’re a year older, somewhat wiser, but somehow the opening sequence of Batman: The Animated Series is still a source of comfort. Sometimes that is all it takes really. A good book, a rooftop, a cooling cup of coffee and all the stars above you looking down at you, brightest among them the North star, guiding you.

And in those stars, if you look close enough and the light pollution is low, maybe just maybe, you’ll see them too. Maybe, just maybe, they’re the reason the North star exists, so that those memories with gaps in them become whole again.

Funny thing death.

The Bilge Master

Poetry Reading from "Book of Longing" by Leonard Cohen

 I was recently gifted Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen by my friend in need friend indeed Anamitra Munsi and I decided to read out some of the poems from the book for this week's session. 

Enjoy!

The Bilge Master

A House Full of Stories Ep. 26: The Thing About Cassandra by Neil Gaiman

 This story is a birthday present for my best friend in Romania. Her name is Mary Katerine and she's an amazing friend and person and my life would be a whole lot different if she was not in it! 

Happy birthday, Mary. Have fun listening to this story. 

The Bilge Master 

A House Full of Stories Ep. 25: The Last Leaf by O'Henry (William Sydney Porter)

 So we are now 25 episodes strong and thus I could not resist doing one of my favorite O'Henry stories and therefore I give you all The Last Leaf!

Enjoy!

The Bilge Master

Thank You My Body

Thank you my body

For being whole

For allowing me to see 

And I am sorry I have taken you for granted 

I didn't think it would come to this 

Thank you my body

For giving me imagination

Allowing me to respond to stimulus

And not making me mute 

Or deaf, like Beethoven

Who knows what he would have done if 

He had been able to hear?

Thank you my body

For giving me solace

I'm sorry I make you cry

And you're last on my list of to-dos 

On most days 

Thank you my body

For your mitochondria

For being there for me

And I'm sorry I treat you so

And don't take care of you

All the systems inside you

Demand my attention

And I give it to others 

I stay up nights pining 

For love 

When my lover left me with a person I thought 

Was a friend 

I stay up all night because I have dreams 

Of how to exhaust you more 

Until under torture 

You break

Your bones become brittle 

Your heart riddled with holes 

Foreign bodies in your ribs 

I'm sorry my body

For not listening to your cries of pain

I promise to try harder 

Don't give up on me just yet

The Bilge Master

A House Full of Stories Ep. 24: The Kitemaker by Ruskin Bond

 Welcome everyone to another episode of A House Full of Stories. Today I've narrated The Kitemaker by Ruskin Bond. He is an acclaimed Indian writer whose ghost stories and other associated stories of the macabre are to kill for. I will be doing more tales by him soon! Till then, this is The Kitemaker.

The Bilge Master

A House Full of Stories Ep. 23: Shakespeare and Co's Chinese Dumplings by Jeanette Winterson

 Hey ho! I hope everyone is well and safe. Here is episode 23 of A House Full of Stories and it features Jeanette Winterson, a writer my dear friend Sreeja Mitra got me into! 

It feels great to be back and I trust we shall have some fun again! 

The Bilge Master

Kolkata As Seen Though the Lens of Someone Who Grew Up Here: A Guest Post by Anwesha Chowdhury

 Anwesha Chowdhury is a music teacher and musician whom I’ve known for about a year or so on Facebook. While the friendship has yet to cross over into the real world, she does have a good ear and is a very talented individual as I hope what you’re about to read below will prove. I saw this posted on her Facebook about an hour ago and it made me so emotional that I asked for permission to use it as a guest post for my blog. Anwesha agreed and so here it is!

 Thank you, Anwesha. This brought tears to my eyes and it is such a rare treat to meet someone who loves Kolkata with a passion that very few can express so well. I hope you live long and prosper and keep rocking!

 The Bilge Master

 Today while on my daily walk, I walked around 16 kms, around the lanes and by lanes of the city.

Since we all treat Facebook like a blog, I thought I'd pen down something I felt on my walk today.

Recently I've been seeing posts with "The only thing to do in Kolkata is leave", "Kolkata is a trash city", etc etc. At times I laugh at this, tell my friends -ei sohor tar are kichu hobe na,(This city is dead, there is nothing that will happen in this city) while I dream of building a future here myself.

I've had many, many people asking me why I want to stay here, gotten offers from around the country. My family is here, my sister shifted back here, my better half is here, all the kids I've gotten so attached to over the years, they are all here. All of this is a part of why I'm still here, but you know why else? This is where I first sat with a group of older dadas when I was in class 10 and they told me, “Kid you need to listen to Dream Theater". This is where I had my first heartbreak that made me want to express through music. This is where I cycled around the city with my friends, while my mom thought I'm roaming the streets of Jadavpur. This is where I met my first music teacher, who I still look up to today. This is where I had countless shopping dates with my sister, only to buy chips lol. This is where I acted like a clown in school trying to get people to laugh, and acted emo with others to get them to call me weird. This is where I walked through the streets of Gariahat looking at toys I really wanted, too scared to ask my mother for anything. This is where I walked into the metro station alone for the first time going to Dumdum to my boyfriend's house. This is where my sister threatened to tell my mother about some guy I liked as a kid, if I didn't buy her chocolates every day, and I obliged with my pocket money. This is where I got wet in the rain for 3 hours with the boy who's now my boyfriend, too scared to tell each other we liked the other.

This is the city I loved in, I fought in. The city that gave me friends, I never talk to (sorry about that). The enemies I made up with. Gave me the family I hate and I love. The boyfriend I despise most of the time but love more than I love anything. This is the city that let me become the person I am today. Yes, the city is horrible at times, but it is where I built my dreams. This is the city that built me. This is not just about Kolkata; this is about my hometown. I'm forever indebted to my hometown for making me the person I am. I think it applies to any of you and whichever city you are from as well.

And someday I hope I can become a person, in this old dingy city, happy with the little money I made knowing that I made a few children believe in their dreams and played a little part in building it.

 

Translations and NB:

1.     Dada- term of respect for someone older than you in the Bengali language, used to refer to a male. Didi is the female equivalent

2.     Jadavpur and Gariahat are areas in the city of Kolkata

 

A House Full of Stories Comeback Announcement

 It's been a rough couple of months but I did get to visit Blossoms in Bangalore and have since then picked up five new books, inclusive of the complete Saki (H.H Munro). I just wanted to let you guys know that as of next week, A House Full of Stories is making a comeback. Details in the video below! 

Let's gather around our campfires and let us begin the telling of tales again! 

The Bilge Master

Hangovers of the Bibliotherapic Kind

Authors can be the best and the worst. They can make you feel. Sometimes, you find a book that refuses to get out of your head and you know that your life has just changed and will never be the same ever again. I love and hate it when a book does that to me. I love the hangover that a brilliant book leaves in my mind and I hate the fact that I can never read the book for the first time ever again, that it will never surprise me at the end of paragraph 67, when the murder case is about to get really heated or the French chef whose cooking is paramount to the well being of your newspaper is about to give notice for the umpteenth time

But what about the books you come back to? The books whose spines are worn out and whose paperback jackets have been stained with fingerprints so many times that you can quite literally read them with your eyes closed? 

Picture a cafe in Paris. Hemingway sitting and drinking beer and writing a story that was until a moment ago writing itself and now is being written. Now think of that English paper you couldn't finish which asked you about Hemingway. Suddenly you are an undergraduate again and the working world is far away and you wish to fly into a book and get lost in it, while the outside world can go jump off a cliff for all you care

I have recently become a reader again and the part of my day that I look forward to the most is when I sit with a good book and read one chapter and then another and then another. The world (as stated above) jumps off a cliff and for those stolen moments I make memories or I read someone else's memories or walk around in someone else's imagination. A book is my portal into the mind of someone else. What will I find there? 

Will Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence teach me about genius? Will Isabelle Allende's My Invented Country show me a picture of Chile which will remind me how much I love Kolkata? Or will it fall to Hemingway's A Moveable Feast which will remind me that it's very important to visit Paris once before I die? 

I look back at all the times books have given me hangovers and taken me by the hand and transported me to cities and locations in time or kingdoms with dragons and knights in them and I shed tears of joy, and anger and frustration and melancholy. From a rickety bed in India, my imagination enters a cafe in Paris or a restaurant in London or a bar on the highway in America which smells of smoke and stale whiskey drunk straight from the bottle...and I'm safe again. No matter how my day has been, I have a book

That's a good thing to come home to. You see, in all my years on this Earth, books have been there by my side while humans have come and gone. I guess that's why a book is dear to me and most of my friends are fictional or in love with people who don't exist

So the next time the world gets too much for me, I'll pick up a book...and I'll lose myself

Again and again and again

The Bilge Master

My Journey to Completing My Middle Earth Collection

 

J.R.R. Tolkien came into my world on a windy February evening when my father walked into my room, freshly returned from a tour to Chandigarh trying to sell multicoolers. I had a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring in my library. 

As I dived in, having never heard of JRRT before, I loved the name Bilbo Baggins and I just could not stop reading. I read about Gandalf’s fireworks, about how the journey to Rivendell was thought of and executed and of course I marvelled at the burden Frodo was made to carry. I think it took me about a week to finish the book, because of schoolwork, but luckily, my parents always encouraged reading in me and let me stay up late finishing books. “Lights out!” was an exclamation I never heard.

A year later, for my tenth birthday, I got the complete one volume edition of The Lord of the Rings and I was off. My birthday was in October and I spent winter of that year lost in the realm of Middle-Earth. To this day, I get chills when I read of Gandalf’s encounter with the Balrog and how it allowed him to ascend to his true form, I want to be there when the Entmoot happens and I wish I could stop feeling scared when Aragorn (AKA Strider) walks the Paths of the Dead with Legolas and Gimli. Having secured the trilogy and devoured it more than seven times in the course of the next five years, I must now take you with me to a bookstore in Salt Lake where I found Unfinished Tales and The Silmarillion. It was Tolkien time again!

But here, my search hit an obstacle and many moons passed and while I watched all the movies when they came out, humming and hawing about if the Witch King of Angmar was scary enough or if Treebeard was endearing enough, my collection of JRRT’s works seemed to have hit a wall.

And then…my father went to America and came back with The Hobbit…and the fever hit me another time, for one does not simply read The Hobbit without once revisiting the trilogy does one?

However, my quest was not yet over because one book remained- The Children of Hurin.

For what seemed like an eternity, I searched for that book. I went to College Street- they said it was out of print. I had not discovered Bookline (a quaint bookstore in the myriad bylanes of Kolkata) back then, and I thought my collection would be doomed to remain incomplete.

So, imagine my joy when my father took me to Golpark to see someone last year and because I was bored, I wandered into a small footpath bookstore and there it was!

The Children of Hurin, second-hand, 155 rupees. Hardcover.

A journey that begun as a seed in the mind of a 9-year-old boy, saw its end almost sixteen years later. I now have all the books. Sometimes I look at them and I feel gratitude to them, because without JRRT, there would be no room in my brain for Christopher Paolini, Anne McCaffrey, Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett.

I feel like I myself have gone through the length and breadth of Middle-Earth to find them all, and in the darkness bind them.

 

The Bilge Master

Writing About Writing

 "When the lights go out, will you take me with you

And carry all this broken bone

Through six years down in crowded rooms

And highways I call home?

It's something I can't know 'til now
'Til you pick me off the ground
With a brick in hand, your lip-gloss smile
Your scraped-up knees, and

If you stay, I would even wait all night
Or until my heart explodes
How long until we find our way
In the dark and out of harm?
You can run away with me
Anytime you want"

~Summertime by My Chemical Romance

This post is an amalgamation of stuff I've been feeling about the way I've changed as a writer of small nothings over the years that I've been writing my blog. Before I go any further, I would like to add that a copy of this article will be put up on my Scrollstack so you can check me out on that platform as well.

I was a teenager who was dealing with raging hormones when I started this blog and I found a safe space in it and whatever came to mind got dropped here. I've spoken a lot about the hills and plateaus of my life through this medium and I've gotten a lot of support, not just from family, friends and acquaintances but also from people who are total strangers. Some posts worked and some did not and as I continue on this journey a lot of stuff will change. The brain of a 16 year old has now become the brain of a 26 year old after all.

I think the biggest challenge for me was swallowing my ego when people said something I wrote was good and telling them that I appreciated that they liked what I was writing but would they please tell me how I could get better? 

And then...I started reading Anna Karenina and my mind just went kaput. How could a human being come up with something so amazing? It was ethereal. I turned my attention to Bernard Shaw and Ernest Hemingway and suddenly I was afraid.

After seeing what these people had done with permutations and combinations of 26 letters I was terrified. A part of me felt and knew that I'd never be as good. I contemplated shutting the blog down and I went through a sort of ostrich with head in the sand business for a while.

Then, a dormant part of me suddenly awoke and said to me one day that I do not have to be as good as Hemingway or Shaw. I have to be as good as me and get better at being me. I recalled this scene from M*A*S*H, where Sherman Potter tells someone who is suicidal that the part of us that wants to hold on is stronger than the part of us that wants to let go.

What I'm getting at is this- there will always be a part of me that will try to discourage me or warn me that I might have bitten off more than I can chew, but there will be a part of me that will whisper or scream at me to just shut up and try.

And I will try. That is all.

The Bilge Master

A House Full of Stories Ep. 22: The Wedding Present by Neil Gaiman

 Welcome back to another episode of A House Full of Stories and this time I have got Neil Gaiman for you, His graphic novel series The Sandman is coming soon and I felt it appropriate to do this story, one of my favorites by Gaiman on the channel in light of this.

Enjoy! 

The Bilge Master

The Vow by I.S. Lahiri: An Upcoming Book

 If you were a nineties kid growing up in India, the one thing you could not have missed was the cricket rivalry between India and Pakistan and in some rare cases Australia and England (for the Ashes). You would have held your breath as, on a CRT television, Shoaib Akhtar (AKA the Rawalpindi Express) bowled to Sachin Tendulkar.

Furthermore, Jeffery Archer and Frederick Forsyth would have definitely been on your shelf or in your local lending library

What if I told you that on June 17^th 2021, a book is coming which will combine the India- Pakistan cricket rivalry and the political intrigue of the above two authors in an explosive package? Allow me to introduce The Vow by I.S. Lahiri. I have been involved with this book’s pre-publication for a long time, first as a beta reader, then as a proofreader of the final manuscript and it is mind boggling!

You can find more information such as quotes and original illustrations on the Instagram and Facebook page. Below is a small video of myself reacting to two chapters of The Vow in real time. I would heartily and without hesitation suggest this book to you if a quick paced, edge of your seat experience is what you’re looking for!

 Instagram: Imagination Empire

Link to video on Facebook

Link to the official Facebook Page for The Vow by I.S. Lahiri

The Bilge Master

"Introduce a Little Anarchy": A Therapy Session to Remember

This lockdown had me a little messed up and losing my mother had me in pieces so I took therapy. It helped to have someone impartial have a few words with me once a week. I'm going to talk about the latest session, which took place on Tuesday.

There I was with a self confident smirk explaining that I don't wanna get married and would rather like to travel the world and my therapist dropped a bomb in the next sentence.

She said, "So you have a plan and should anything happen to de-rail that plan, you're screwed. It will bring disappointment, self doubt and negativity with it and this smile you have on your face will be gone in seconds. A person as creative as you should not at any point have a plan. Let this notion go and you'll live a happy life. So what if you're an engineer, who's now helping a friend with a book? So what if you didn't do English honors? You need to set yourself free of shackles you've built around you and the social structure has made you build."

She elucidated further by saying, "I'm not asking you to not have a dream. You should have multiple dreams. I'm saying you should remove restrictions and live life a day at a time, if needs be an hour at a time."

I started thinking about my friend who used to work in ONGC this morning and how one night he had called me and said "Ashesh, ONGC is not for me. I want to try an MBA." Today, that friend is in ISB doing his MBA. I don't think he has a concrete plan either.

And now I've come to realize that life is more fun without a plan, that a little bit of anarchy is required. After all, nobody is getting out of here alive so the only thing we can do is enjoy the ride.

I shall live my life a day at a time. That way, I truly shall be at peace. I'd advise you to do the same. 

The Bilge Master

A House Full of Stories Ep. 21: The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe

 This episode is dedicated to my dear friend Antonio, whose birthday it was last week. This is what he requested as a birthday present. Enjoy mate, and happy birthday once again. Live long and prosper! 

The Bilge Master

A House Full of Stories Ep. 20: First Kill by Victoria Schwab

 This is a vampire story written by Victoria Schwab who is the author of the Shades of Magic trilogy and the NYT bestseller The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. It is also a birthday present for my friend and senior from college, Debjit Lahiri whose birthday it was last week! 

Enjoy! 

The Bilge Master

Taylor Swift: More Than a Musician- A Guest Post by Riddhi Seerat Gupta

 Riddhi is a friend of mine on Facebook and one day she uploaded a status that took me back to my high school days when Love Story had first released. I give you her thoughts on why Taylor Swift for her is more than a musician

The Bilge Master

I was 11 when I heard her for the first time. It was on Disney Channel. I started my journey with Love Story and then heard Teardrops on my Guitar. I ended up singing Love Story on stage.

I was 12 and in my Green Day is the best band ever phase and I want to see them live, though God only knows if that will ever happen.

I was 13 and my body was changing and I had pimples all over my face. I had my first period and once again Taylor came to the rescue with You Belong With Me. I related with nerdy Taylor as my Virat Kohli phase started and it has not ended yet. He’s still my favorite cricketer and always will be.

I was 15, dancing to 22. She had a song for every mood. I couldn’t explain how she explained what being 22 would be like to me then and guess what? She was so damn right.

I used to scream the lyrics of Mean because I thought everyone around me was being mean.

I never stopped listening to Taylor and then came my “so damn obsessed with Taylor” phase. I remember dancing to Shake It Off on Diwali. I do not know how many times I watched the video of Blank Space. I was 16.

I was 17 and tripping on Style and Wildest Dreams. Those were my songs. I still remember the lyrics to them. Style has its own vibe. The album was 1989 and I remember my father asking me if the song was from 1989 (the year). I told him that the singer was born in 1989.

Then came Out of the Woods and No Romantics. I WAS SO IN LOVE WITH THOSE SONGS. It was also fun to guess if these songs were about Harry Styles or not.

Then, new Taylor got back and once again had a song for me- Look What You Made Me Do. I was onstage, with a mic in my hands, telling jokes while listening to Delicate with my earphones on, thinking how she wrote all this for me.

As I listen to Happiness from Evermore, I once again realize she wrote this song for me.

Thank you, Taylor. I love you.

A House Full of Stories Ep. 19: No Comebacks by Frederick Forsyth

 This is one of the first short stories by Frederick Forsyth that I read. I have narrated it here for your enjoyment. Wait till the end!

Stay safe and vigilant!  

The Bilge Master

"Your Hands Are Cold, But Your Lips Are Warm"

Picture if you will a pre teen with a pronounced acne issue playing a computer game where Riders on the Storm plays in one segment. 

Go back a little earlier to a little boy listening to The Beatles on a turntable.

Somewhere in between these two times, two things happen. The boy is guided into the world of rock music by his (somewhat senior) friend and he hears Appetite for Destruction for the first time. He also hears Angie and Stairway to Heaven and falls in love with the '70s. 

Now, come forward to the present day, when the boy who is now a man gets a call from someone who says to him that Down to the Waterline gave her chills. Watch the boy turned man guffaw loudly and send her Hotel California.

"Your hands are cold

But your lips are warm"

The Bilge Master

Belonging to Shadow

We spend a long time looking for people we fit in with and yet we often don't think of our own shadow. Some of you will say it's an optical illusion. I would agree. But that illusion stays with us from the moment we are born and leaves an impression of itself after we die. 

Some people say shadows are bad, that they are the herald of darkness. But isn't darkness a very big shadow? Where would we be without it? Can light exist without something to pierce, something to sacrifice? The next time you see stars in the sky, make note that they're there in the morning too, just invisible due to the glare of the sun. 

A shadow is omnipresent. Every object in this world, living or dead has one. There's your life companion. There's the one thing that changes as you change, moulds itself and even sacrifices itself for you. And it always comes back. As long as you live, it is there with you- watching and waiting, supportive yet silent

We are born out of the shadow of our mother's womb. We see shadows everywhere. Let the shadows in. Let them guide you, give you a place to hide. Let them be the reason light exists in your life. Dance with them, make merry. When humans fail us, we turn to gods and when god's fail us we turn to shadow. Even the moon is cloaked in shadow on some days of the month. 

Do not fear the shadow. Do not fear the dark. Instead, cast a shadow and let the world remember what you were

The Bilge Master

A House Full of Stories Ep. 18: Thanda Gosht by Saadat Hasan Manto

 This story was suggested to me by my friend Moumita who felt I should narrate a tale closer to my home country. This was originally written in Urdu and has a bit of sexual content in it. I hope you enjoy it! 

The Bilge Master

Haiku

 From a house in New Orleans

Came a boy, ruined 

Riding on a horse with no name 

Towards the city of evil

He was known to have 

Sympathy for the devil

So when in dire straits 

The Sultans of swing came for him

And took him away

The Bilge Master

A House Full of Stories Ep. 17: Misery by Anton Chekov

 Misery by Anton Chekov, a story I came across in a coursebook one of my mother's students had and a story I fell in love with and wondered why we weren't studying it in our English course. I have told it here for you and I hope you enjoy it! 

The Bilge Master

A House Full of Stories Ep. 16: The King's Jester by "Kabiguru" Rabindranath Thakur

 This week's episode features The King's Jester by Rabindranath Thakur, which I have read out from an English translation of the anthology Lipika (translated by Joe Winter), which I borrowed from the exhaustive library of Sreeja Mitra, my dear friend.

Enjoy! 

The Bilge Master

 

A House Full of Stories Ep. 15: The First Miracle by Jeffrey Archer

 Jeffrey Archer is an author I have had the pleasure of meeting very briefly. I wanted to do a Jesus themed story since it's Easter. I hope you enjoy this tale! It's called The First Miracle. This is also a shout out to my dear friend Sreeja Mitra, whose birthday it is today.

The Bilge Master

A Small Critique of Rurouni Kenshin: Wandering Samurai (Samurai X)

 

DISCLAIMER: Contains spoilers for a few episodes of Rurouni Kenshin: Wandering Samurai and Rurouni Kenshin: Legend of Tokyo, the anime

 

I first met Battousai the Manslayer when I was 12 years old and I was watching TV at my grandmother’s house. Right from the get go, I was pulled into the story and only recently did I revisit it with the mature brain of an adult and needless to say, the anime stirred something in me which prompts me to write a few lines about it.

The story revolves around the wandering samurai Kenshin Himura who was an Imperialist assassin in the revolution that preceded the Meiji era of peace in Japan and such were his exploits on the battlefield that he earned himself the nom-de-plume of Battousai the Manslayer. However, once the revolution ended, he sought to lay aside the name Battousai and live a life of peace. To this end he used a reverse blade sword or a Sakaboto and he became a wanderer, protecting people from harm. It is in this way that he met Kaoru Kamiya who ran a dojo which taught the Kamiya Kashin style of swordsmanship that also focused on protecting people with the sword as opposed to using the sword to kill.

Kenshin meets a few other characters as he walks on such as the fighter for hire Sanouske and the child samurai Yahiko as well as Megumi, the last surviving daughter of a family of distinguished doctors. The one thing that struck me about Kenshin’s companions is that they never called him Battousai or Manslayer and that is the first lesson the anime taught me: True friends will not care about your past.

Kenshin’s Battousai persona first comes awake in his fight with Jinei where Jinei paralyses Kaoru’s lungs and Kenshin is forced to fight him and nearly kills him. He breaks Jinei’s elbow and is about to deliver the killing blow when Kaoru breaks free of the enchantment and stops him. The danger having passed, Kenshin assumes his normal persona and rushes to Kaoru’s aid. However, we get a glimpse of just how deadly Battousai was as a swordsman and we realize that he earned that nickname through spilling blood indiscriminately.

I was struck with the depth of the protagonist Kenshin Himura. The two sides of his persona were so different, that it seemed as if the battle rage changed him totally. However, at the same time, I believed that Kenshin and the Battousai were the same person. It was not ludicrous. This got me thinking about the fact that people are not black and white and they are but shades of grey. Inside each of us is a dark side and a light side- a feral wolf and a peaceful one and it is up to us which wolf we feed. This holds true for Kenshin as well.

The Battousai persona rises in Kenshin for the second time when Hajime Saito comes to the dojo to fight him and find out if he has grown soft. Kenshin fought on the same battlefield as Saito and therefore is forced to go all out and thus the Battousai comes alive again. This time the darkness is a little blacker, the wood a little denser, the fight even more intense and at one point, I thought Kenshin was at the point of no return. However the intervention of the police stops Kenshin from staying in the Battousai persona. It is then that we first hear of Makoto Shishio.

Makoto Shishio, like Kenshin was a fighter in the revolution. However, he could not bury the manslayer persona and wants to take over Japan and mould it in his image. This is why he must be stopped and it is up to Kenshin to do so because Battousai is needed once again. The charm of this argument did not miss me- use a manslayer to kill a manslayer. Jinei’s last words to Kenshin before committing hara-kiri were “Once a manslayer, always a manslayer” after all.

Kenshin accepts the responsibility of stopping Shishio and to that end he goes back to his master to learn the final technique of the Hiten Mitsurugi style of swordsmanship- the Amakakeru Ryu No Hirameki. At first, Kenshin’s master refuses to teach him, but relents and trains him. For one final moment the Battousai persona awakens as Kenshin tells his master that he does not fear death, if that is what will take for him to learn the Amakakeru Ryu No Hirameki. To this his master’s reply is to sheath his sword and say that with that attitude he cannot learn the technique at all. His master gives him one night to introspect and find out what he lacks and Kenshin uses this chance- his ultimate at redemption to vanquish Battousai the Manslayer once and for all.

Then as it is with all good vs evil stories, Shishio and Kenshin duel and Kenshin wins.

What I took away from this anime was that sometimes we need to face our past and learn from our mistakes in order to become a better person. We need to face the darkness inside us and make the black parts of our personas a part of us. We also need to forgive ourselves for crimes we may have committed and we need to move ahead from the shadows. Kenshin Himura and Battousai resided in the same man. In the end the man chose to be Kenshin Himura. Was it easy? Was it hard? Is Kenshin evil? What makes a man evil? What makes a man good? Do actions really speak louder than words? What qualities redeem a man? And when life gives you a second chance, what do you do with it? Are you Battousai or are you Kenshin Himura?

The Bilge Master

A House Full of Stories Ep. 14: The Nameless City by H.P. Lovecraft

 A quote I read set me on the trail of this story and I  did it for the channel! Presenting The Nameless City by H.P. Lovecraft. What little results about this author my rushed research did is included in the video after the story is told. A link to purchase his work via Amazon is also included.

This is a present for my friend Bijoy whose birthday it is today. It is also an anniversary present for the wonderful couple Rachel and Antonio, whose anniversary was last week. I wish to meet them in person someday on this journey called life. Happy birthday Bijoy and a very warm anniversary wish to the two of you- Antonio and Rachel! 

The Bilge Master 

A House Full of Stories Ep. 13: Ball of Fat (Boul de Suif) by Guy de Maupassant

 This short story is one of my favorite ones and is by Guy de Maupassant, the God of short stories in my opinion. I hope you enjoy it and please watch till the end! 

The Bilge Master

A House Full of Stories Ep. 12: How Ionike Set the Sun Free- A Russian Folktale

Today I have the tale How Ionike Set the Sun Free, a Russian folktale!

The Bilge Master

N-N-1: A Picture That Represents Inner Peace to You

 Come one and come all to the latest N-N-1. This time I chose the theme "A Picture That Represents Inner Peace to You". I was legit blown away by the quality of entries that came forth.

It was an honor to host this N-N-1 and my sincere thanks to Anju and Norm for letting me do it! 

The first person to send me a post was Natalie who writes Wild Rivers Run South. Her post is a poem.

Sunshine and blue skies

 

The Sun came up this morning.

Again.

I was up to see it,

But didn’t have my camera.

So, I went back inside.

Ate breakfast.

Got my camera.

And went outside to see the blue sky.

 

There was a time,

When I thought there would be

No more blue skies.

I was wrong.

There is still a deep sadness,

But some of the ache is gone.

And I can see the blue in the sky.

 

The sun never stopped rising.

Clouds have just been hiding it.

And the blue skies.

But now there has been some clearing.

There will be more clouds,

But not every day.

Sunshine and blue skies are back.

Norm Houseman who writes Classical Gasbag had this to say:

I’ve been thinking about this ever since Ashesh first mentioned the theme to me. There are a lot of things that bring me inner peace. There is music, reading books, watching a good movie, visiting a graveyard, even eating a good meal. But I’ve taken pictures and written about those things before. Then I thought about artwork. We have paintings, posters, and prints hanging in almost every room of our house, and I find myself looking at them each time I enter a room.

Recently I started working on and adding to my stamp collection. I hadn’t touched it since the pandemic shut down most places. When you think about a collection of stamps you realize that it is like going through a miniature art gallery. You have etchings, landscapes, portraits, still lifes, pop art, and probably things that I’m forgetting. If your stamps are used there is a history attached to them, where they came from and where they were bound; the provenance so to speak.

These small pieces of art are accessible to everyone. I’m sure you can find pictures of recent and old stamps on the Internet. Take a look and soothe your inner being.

Barb sent me a charming post which is linked below. Her blog is The View from a Drawbridge.

This N-N-1 posed a great challenge to me. Inner peace has been elusive lately, due to the pandemic and the political and social turmoil. That, and how does one take an outer photograph of inner peace? Hmmm. I had to think about this for several days. And then I realized that the place that allowed me the time to ponder this project was the very place where I have been finding the most inner peace: the YMCA Community Swimming Pool.

I spent the first few months of this pandemic doing nothing. That had to stop. To keep from going insane and becoming too large to fit my clothes, I’m now doing a regular exercise routine for the first time in my life. I can’t control the rest of the world, but I can take charge of my health and wellbeing. At a time when I’m feeling otherwise helpless, this has been a precious gift that I’ve given myself. It’s also a wonderful way to spend quality time with my husband.

This photo is of my swimming exercise equipment. And the fact that it reminds me of the Cookie Monster never fails to make me smile.

Barb Abelhauser

The View from a Drawbridge

We now come to Cristopher LeCompte who is not a blogger, but happens to be married to a blogger (his words, not mine). His entry is given below.

My inner peace is found at home, hidden behind the trees at the end of this rainbow. The stormy spring weather means the daylight hours are growing longer and my dislike of long nights can be subdued for another six months. The large undeveloped park next door is home to coyotes, red-tailed hawks, a bald eagle and countless rabbits hiding in the brambles, hoping to avoid the predators for another day. This location is a personal treasure, my own pathway to inner peace and my escape from the rushing chaos of the surrounding city is literally a walk in the park.

 

Peace to you.

 

Cris

And lastly we come to Anju, who was the one who got me into this wonderful project way back when. This is what she has to say and her blog is This Labyrinth I Roam

Being stuck at home for a whole year now because of a global pandemic, I’ve had to come to terms with all the things that I have lost. It’s made me let go of the things I can’t control, and focus, instead, on the that I *can* control.

So, when Ashesh laid out the theme for this N-N-1, I was thrilled. Then, a bit overwhelmed. The date coincided with the busiest week of my life. But what it gave me was a real opportunity to figure out what truly gives me inner peace when things are a bit chaotic.  

For me, it’s the little things.

It is an open window when the sun shines. It is the crisp spring breeze that weaves itself into my consciousness when I’m neck deep in black mirrors and deadlines. It is blooming tulips after a long winter, and the smell of warm cinnamon and vanilla candles. It is the unexpected sound of birdsong in the late evening, and the cheeky smile of a stress relief toy puppy (introducing, Herbert Morning!)

This is my inner peace.

And with that, we come to the end of this edition of N-N-1. To those of you who participated, thanks a ton. To those of you willing to participate, get in touch with us ASAP! I personally found this experience very soothing and shall be glad to host another N-N-1 soon! 

Stay safe and vigilant.

Until next I come calling

The Bilge Master