The Hope I Have for Poor Ebeneezer (Christmas Babble)

 There’s something quiet about Boogie Street tonight. Macy’s is run down and it seems as if that death sentence from the blues is in effect. The printing presses of the world went off to write about the comedian who died in New York after all and that left us with some hope that someone will do some good.

Meanwhile in Sin City, someone put the chairs on the table as a dame called Nancy caught a bus to Ohio and now that its cold and empty, I looked among the debris for that lead on the succubus. I found only a box of rouge.

Winter has set in now in some parts of the world and the specters are getting ready to pay a certain Ebeneezer a call.

I take off the cowl, slip into the prepared face and I wonder if enough time has been spent preparing for this. A small snap of my fingers brings the djinn forth and I ask it to gather the elves’ artifacts together. Without warning it slips past me onto the sixth plane and Mists off into the distance, a reindeer looking to find other mates to pull cargo.

I walk to the edge of the rug and shrug on the red and white. People associate me with winter, with the Yuletide and with cake and meat and ale.

 I associate myself with cocoa and gingerbread and a large mistletoe plant which has an infestation of Grinch traps.

My quest for the succubus leads me to an alley where a boy lost his parents and became a legend that the criminals of a fictional city fear. I also remembered reading the story of a doomed planet and two survivors, one of whom is a reporter by day and leaps tall buildings at night.

And maybe this little rant that a man sitting in front of a terminal with fae lights strung up around him doesn’t mean too much factually, or the ring on his finger will as of yet take some time to reassure him he will be safe; but then again maybe this man and his stories about the stories he read about me and about Boogie Street and the man who laughs are where my succubus has gone to hide.

So maybe I should pick out the old book of tales where this ancient holiday was first named and remember the first thought that brought me gamboling into this world.

I smile as I put on the red and white and the djinn returns with my vehicle in tow. I hope poor Ebeneezer doesn’t feel too low tonight.

Off I go!

The Bilge Master

Sixty Ton Angels Gliding

“A sixty ton angel falls to the earth

A pile of old metal, a radiant blur”

Although this was not the first song I heard from the record In Absentia, it was one of the tracks whose imagery stayed with me for some time.

That was a time I don’t want to go back to. But life has a funny way of taking turns that lead you somewhere, just not here.

7^th November 2025, Aquatica, Kolkata. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun is playing softly on speakers as a music thirsty crowd slowly starts swelling around me. Steven Wilson is in town and at 7:30PM, he is going to perform less than 20 feet away from where I am standing. I’m wearing a t shirt my friend drew for me and he’s standing next to me chatting with my elder brother from another mother whose t shirt says it all. A strip of cloth on my wrist reads “Overview Tour 2025. Diamond.” I am miles away, in the mind of a confused and hurting 20 year old, whose mother has just hit him again and whose father isn’t there to stop her (he never was). I recall listening to Steven Wilson then. The year was 2015. Hand. Cannot. Erase. had just come out and somehow Ancestral and Regret #9 made so much sense to me back then, because here was a man who understood. Apparently, in half an hour that man was going to be in front of me, spectacles and long hair and guitar in hand. Was I ready? I did not know. Was I scared? No. I was not 20 anymore. I had grown beyond that, and I wanted to come and see the man who was there for me and to just enjoy myself.

The Kolkata concert was a masterclass in sound and VFX. It also boasted a fantastic setlist with songs like King Ghost, Lazarus and (of course) The Raven That Refused to Sing as the closing song.

Kolkata has become a different sort of place to be these days. One of the friends who came with us started headbanging when Staircase was being played. He was a bit skeptical about how much he would enjoy the concert, but in the end…there was a moment when something in his eyes shifted.

Behind me, a friend I hadn’t seen for a long time suddenly passed his beer can to me and kept saying, “Do send me the photos” and of course I will. To my right was a group that burst into tears at the end of Pariah and when Luminol came on, I cast a backward glance to see a mini moshpit.

When it was over, the crowd started to slowly dissipate. In a daze, I ambled off a bit and I wondered…these songs that helped me when I was sick came back to me 11 years later and I could enjoy them, film some of them and I could see the concert through to its end. I was going to be fine. I’d come a long way. It was nice to know.

A sixty ton angel glided over Kolkata yesterday night.

Thank you, Steven Wilson 

The Bilge Master

In Memory of Atish Mitra (08.10.1956 to 31.03.2025)

 I wonder what you write about fathers. They are the first man you encounter in your life after all. Do you write about their kindness or their flaws, in spite of which they tried their best for you even when they didn’t know how to make ends meet? Isn’t it also true that you look for your father in every man you meet who happens to be close to you – every friend, Roman (or in my case Kolkata bashi) and countryman? Now that the preamble is out of the way, let us talk of the many things my father was.

My father was a humble man who started influencing my life from the moment I was born (as I am sure all fathers do). I am told that my favorite pastime was nibbling his ear as a child and I recall writing about this for one of my parents’ anniversaries. He smelled of cigarettes and whiskey and loved to use Gillette Arctic Ice aftershave the most. He was also the man who poured me my first drink at the age of 16 at a party and told me not to tell my mother about the fact that he had helped me sell my soul in a mostly willing transaction to the Devil that is an OH Group compound.

I remember that when I fell sick as a child, my father would bring the music system to the room where I was resting (and fighting dragons in my head) and play a record for me. The records are still here, the man and the music system are not.

There are so many stories about my father that I could tell – the one where he made caramel custard for my mother to cheer her up in the hospital because she had had surgery; the time that he got me a GameBoy and planted the seed of video gaming in me which has led to me today enjoying a different sort of art form, and since we are on the subject of art, why not mention that he was a man who loved the Impressionist movement to bits. He came back from his first US trip (circa 2005) with a large bag full of prints by painters like Van Gogh, Manet and Paul Gauguin.

My father was the quintessential gentle giant. He took an interest in what my friends did and he would greet them briefly and he would talk to them if they had problems they wanted to share with them. Although it was rare to see him visit a theater, he did take me to see a few films, such as Spider Man 2 as a child (though he stayed outside and probably had a smoke) and he was a phenomenal Scrabble player.

e.e cummings wrote in a poem

“He sang his didn’t, he danced his did”

This line quoted above is what describes my father best. The world lost Atish Mitra too soon, and seeing as his birthday is tomorrow, I want to remember him with a song. Please scroll below for a vocal cover of James Blunt’s Monsters which I dedicate to a man who was less my parent and in all respects my best friend.

The Storm (14th September 2025)

 It is not easy being a pop culture enthusiast or a nerd. In general, people will not get your references, you will be bullied for your passion and misunderstood for the largest part of your life by so many people who are close to you. You may or may not have the maturity to chalk this up life being what it is, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury which at the end of the day actually signifies nothing.

But then, aren’t all lives stories? Isn’t freedom the right of all sentient beings and do we not have a poet who reminded us to dream of a heaven of freedom, endlessly?

14^th September 2025. 7:41AM. I am having a panic attack. Where is the bus? I’m dressed in a polo t shirt and a pair of my father’s black jeans with an unbuttoned green shirt shrugged on over the ensemble. I am 31 years old and I am going to watch a cartoon with 350 people. Where is the bus?

You’re thinking, “How can he be 31 and behaving like a schoolboy? Also, wasn’t 14^th September a Sunday?” You are right, it was. It was also kind of historic, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

14^th September 2025. 8:00AM. I see a figure walking towards me carrying a katana made of wood. We embrace. In his eyes is a light I have seen before. He’s home and he’s here to rock and roll. A white cab pulls up and a man in a red wig and haori steps out, smiles at me and says,”Hey. You’re here. Take these bags. Let’s go.”

14^th September 2025. 9:00AM. I’m walking up and down the lobby of a theater testing the acoustics. Some extreme panic seizes me.  I look up and I see my friends working on a large poster of the cartoon we’ve come to watch. I see college students standing on wheelchairs and I know, we’re going to be okay. I see an image in my mind of a crowd of thousands at a metal concert holding up a crippled man’s wheelchair so he can see the band. In that moment, my panic leaves me. I am calm. I am bringing a storm.

14^th September 2025. 10:11AM. I have put on makeup, which feels like war paint. I am no longer 31 years old.  I am a Demon Slayer in Japan, the Stone Hashira and my friend in the adjacent chair is no longer 25 and 6 feet tall. He’s Muzan, Omega Level threat and ruler of the Infinity Castle.

14^th September 2025. I’ve lost track of time. In front of me are two extremely senior people. Ma’am is 57+ and sir is 61+. I shake their hands and the entire crowd roars in welcome. I told you it was going to be historic earlier, did I not? We’re still here to watch a cartoon. On my right, I see my friend. I wave and I head over to see her nails, specially made to order to sync with today’s cartoon.

14^th September 2025. The unity of a dark theater. 350 people, seated. I make my way to my seat. I enter a different world than the one of calculators and mathematics and tall buildings. In this world, is a home which I have resided in since I was a youngling. In this world is a curious peace. As the first demon is decapitated, someone yells a cheer. That cheer becomes a roar. That roar becomes an echo. That echo is a chant.

I am home.

How did we come to this you ask? Let me tell you about one boy’s dream which he hung on to and created a space he shared with two of his friends. Let me tell you of the ridicule, the bullying and the jealousy when others saw that they could not be these three people.

And let me tell you of those who believed in them.

It took us all five years to get to 14^th September 2025. It took so much to stand there in front of those people. The body pain I felt on the 15^th was peanuts compared to what I was a part of.

We hope that next time, this dream of ours makes you want to dream again, to be a child, to remember summer vacations on your grandmother’s lap, away from the sound and fury, hearing of the same demons that we saw slain in front of us. We hope that for the sake of the child in you, you come home.

Behold, the power of a cartoon! By the way, we call it anime in this home.

The Bilge Master

 

Kingdoms (Break Me, Shake Me, Devastate Me)

 I was reading Annabel Lee and got to wondering about that kingdom by the sea. We got to know only one story about that kingdom and that story broke our hearts, but what if there were other maidens or youths and they too had high born kinsmen?

I live alone now and some say I love fiercely, but still others say I am abrasive. I personally spend a lot of time blushing fiercely and joking about diabetes. But what of my kingdom in the forested glade where there are dogs and that one neighbor who sends me eggs and guava juice for succor? What of the paintings in my dwelling that I recently put up again? What of the books and the milestone I got of making a vegetarian dish from the very first principles today? If everything Midas touches turns to gold and if Hemingway wanted to be ruined by the one he loved as a token of that love, then what am I trying to achieve? Maybe I’m waiting for someone to “break me, shake me, devastate me” or I’m just a guy wanting to be held, thrilled, kissed and killed.

In a Pratchett-esque twist of events I’m also marveling at things like the Justice League taking on a literal angel and a rookie Green Arrow prowling the Watchtower wondering who it is he’s up against. Certainly Stephen Amell and his pushps or gravity defying chin ups didn’t prepare his kid for an antagonist of this magnitude.

Thus life goes on in my kingdom. Maybe one day an Annabel Lee will come along, or someone will give me a cask of wine or maybe appeal to me to rescue him from a ramshackle house where someone’s beating heart is driving him slowly insane.

Or maybe, I’ll stop feeling disgusted long enough to pick up that gentleman racist who wrote of Pinkman and his model which was brought to life by Del Toro recently.

Or maybe I’ll hunt down my creator and ask him to take accountability for my existence only to watch him die and leave me to face this world all alone.

Thankfully, I don’t know any mad scientists with God complexes so that last one will remain in a book.

The Bilge Master

A Lunch With Kolkata Bookworms

 “Let your silence make a sound

All that’s lost can still be found

You’re too good for giving up”

~Liam Gallagher, Too Good for Giving Up

There are a lot of things I believe. I believe in a thing called love, I believe in beauty. But sometimes, I need make believe to make me believe things. I guess that’s why I cannot stop myself from buying books like a maniac. There’s just something about a book, there’s just something about people who decided to put a pen to a piece of paper and sometimes those people, living or dead, can actually bring others together.

This is the story of a bookstore and a young bunch of people who like books. At least that’s where it begins. Where it goes from there is a lot of talking, a few connections and a queer little push that seemed to come from somewhere inside me- Give these guys a chance. I’m glad I did.

This book club came into my life when I least expected it to. As I was feeling my way around, there were many people who spoke to me about a few things. Their admins, Khushi and Shreemanti asked me to drop by an online meeting and see what happens, and that’s how my journey started.

Over the course of the last month, (and I’m realizing this now), as I mourned the loss of my father, Khushi’s club called Kolkata Bookworms suddenly stepped in to fill a part of a very large void. If nothing else, it was a place where I could pop in and talk books. A few people reached out and asked me about things like Amazon Customer Care numbers or a suggestion for an entry into science fiction. I kept sharing books I got in April (and I got a LOT of books in April).

I feel like the biggest bonding exercise we did as a club was when we did the NaPoWriMo together and that was when I found there are writers here as well. Some of those poems were fun to engage with, to ponder on and I’m pretty sure one or two of them will at a later date be dug up and read again.

And then, we met! Our (at the time member, currently Pooh Bear and for me personally someone I can legit want to be like when I grow old) very own Pooji came down from Jaipur and there was a lunch!

The café we chose was one that I had walked past for years, but never bothered to go in to. It was a bright café called Grezia, done up in blue and white. It being Star Wars Day, I was obviously dressed in a Star Wars shirt and I was a little nervous if the truth be told. For all my bravado and excellent communication skills, I am now learning a little about the importance of boundaries, not just my own, but of the ones others set. But it was a sunny day, a cheerful café, John Mayer (serendipitously) had just finished singing and well, I thought “Let’s do this”.

People started to trickle in bit by bit. This is where it starts to free fall. From this point on, please do not ask me to explain time. Ask me about the conversations, I can back you up, but there were a lot of those. But as is critical in a conversation, some stayed silent, some spoke. I made mistakes, I laughed because the others laughed them off with me, and I spoke to someone about the Bible and actually understood a lot about the difference between Miltonian and Biblical Lucifer. I even feel a pull to visit a church I’ve walked past many a time. I got called out for bad mouthing Durjoy Dutta and since there have been a lot of endings in my life; I managed to pass on Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending to someone yesterday.

I don’t know at what point pizza arrived. I do remember telling someone to put chili flakes and oregano in coke and getting a weird look, but weird as it sounds, it rocks. At some point we ended up discussing what food we would like to eat until we die and the common factor may have been biriyani, but dal bati churma, dal makhni, kadhi chawal and a little healthy dose of the good old truth fit the bill as well.

While I do not remember every conversation at that table, I remember Cuddles on the Beach, randomly swapping my mixed fresh lime soda with something called Chilli Gondhoraj, a pun about how a fly determines if you are sweet or not, and wondering at the end of the day exactly when one guy happened to take 49 photos.

I have been to that locality so many times, but these people have made me realize that I will never look at that locality with the same eyes. Was it the Joey vs Chandler with a side of French Vanilla, or was it when I glanced at my watch, saw that it was 6:30PM and wondered out loud “Where has the time gone?”

I suppose life is going to go on whether I like it or not, and I suppose Brandon Sanderson (splendid little bugger) has a point when he wrote in The Stormlight Archive

“This is life, and I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. I promise you Kaladin: You will be warm again”.

It’s really good to be here, Kolkata Bookworms. Thank you for having me! If this is what an unofficial meet is like, I cannot wait to find out what official ones are like.

 

Ashesh Mitra

A Weird Guy Who Reads a Lot

"Oh, patron saint of lonely souls, tell this boy which way to go"

 Its happening again, like it always does. My writing process is being a thorn in my side. I know I want to write about highways and cars and Bon Jovi's Lost Highway, but for the life of me I cannot put two and two together and I'm frowning at the screen, sipping some tea and hoping for the powers that be to guide me. 

I always liked the lyric "Oh Patron Saint of lonely souls, tell this boy which way to go" though. It reminded me of the saying, "Red sky at morning, sailor's warning" or maybe I've been reading too much Moby Dick. That novel grows on you, let me tell you. Ishmael is initially hard to crack but after a few chapters, his story becomes compelling. I wonder how much a pirate or a buccaneer prayed honestly. Well, maybe I'll be cancelled for calling someone a pirate in this day and age but the other option would be privateer isn't it? 

But yes, the idea of asking a Patron Saint, that too of lonely souls was something that struck me back when I heard this song for the first time. As it is, a Bon Jovi song never fails to get me excited, (have you heard Always?) and this was no exception. The video was also a charming one to be honest, (linked below). But now that I've spent some time rambling like Radagast the Brown, amidst the brambles and thickets of the woods, I find that I still don't know what I want to say. Is the song a prayer, an acknowledgement of the powers that be, or something about moving on, 'coz like it or not, roads do go on and on; and "Man may come and man may go, but I go on forever". 

So much imagery in this, isn't it? I like situations like this where I go on and on talking with the person reading this and it seems to me like somewhere, something clicks in them. Now I am aware that sometimes I am an editor's nightmare and that essentially most of this, if put into a book would first be deleted or furiously scratched out with a red pencil, wielded with the sorrow of ages, but yeah, thankfully this is not a book. 

The concept of a lost highway though. Is it an acknowledgement of trying to chart a course back? Is it a plea to get away from something or somewhere? Is it an embrace of loneliness or is it just the "I cannot take this anymore, I need to drive" that happens to us from time to time? Or is it pointing out the necessity of being lost, of the two roads that diverge in a yellow wood and since you cannot be one traveler...

I never thought about Bon Jovi's Lost Highway this way, not once. Yet, after putting the song as my ringtone, some of the strains have started to come and hit me and it's prompted this piece from me on a Thursday morning and my initial intention was to just have this be a small read that you could finish on the way to work or over that first coffee but well, we're beyond that now. I will however talk about the instruments in this. There's quite a solid guitar base here, but the sound is different from the usual hard hitting that Bon Jovi does. I've found it to be a case of a more subtle way of giving hope as opposed to earlier works like Keep the Faith where he was earnestly telling the listener that it gets better and that living is possible. 

My father used to say that a car is a means of getting to point B from Point A. Over the course of time, I learnt to imbibe that philosophy for the brief time that I drove a car, but then I realised it was more about being in the passenger seat as a navigator and going along for a ride.

And, sometimes...just sometimes, you need a car to get away to point B from point A and I think that Bon Jovi is actually saying that in this song. It's a hopeful song which asks you to move ahead, stay strong and trust in the powers that be in a very interesting way.

"Hey hey! I finally found my way,

Say goodbye to yesterday

Hit the gas, there ain't no brakes on this lost highway"

And the rest...is silence 

The Bilge Master