Listening to the other side of the Anup Ghoshal LP record. It has a song special to me – মধুর নুপুর রুমু ঝুমু বাজে…

It was the first classical song – or at least the song with Teentaal as the beat on the tabla – that my sister had learnt. Many a practice was done to get back to the “som” correctly…

Reminded me of the old days of playing with Nazrulgeeti songs that my sister used to sing…

Brought out one more vinyl record from the India trip, cleaned it up and listed to it. Nazrulgeeti by Anup Ghoshal. One of the favorite songs for my mom is on Side A – “Nai chiniley amaay tumi”

I think the words go this way…
“Nai chiniley amaay tumi
Roibo aadhek chena
Chaand ki janey kothay fotey
Chaandni raater hena”

Roughly translated…
“So what if I remain a stranger to you
Somebody vaguely familiar to you?
The moon does not know either
Where the fragrant flowers bloom in the moonlit night”

To my parents, there was none – nor would there be ever – a better actor than Uttam Kumar. The one time they came to the US, Sharmila would get them Uttam Kumar movies from an Indian story nearby and they would spend whole day seeing the same movie over and over again.

Got a vinyl record from Kolkata with some of the songs from their favorite Uttam Kumar movies. Cleaned it up today and listened to it.

The first song was particularly melancholic…

“Boshe aachhi patha cheye
Faguner-o gaan geye
Joto bhabi bhuley jaabo
Mono maaney na”

I sit here awaiting you
Songs of spring humming in my mind
Much as I try to keep you off my mind
The heart defiantly refuses to comply.

… calming down with some instrumental music.

Just this morning I was talking to my Geography teacher from my middle school days – Mrs. Jayanti Bhowmic. And this blog reminds me I need to call up my English teacher from those times – Mrs. Devyani Biswas. The love of geography and the love of writing that they had instilled in me came together on Nov 2, 2014 when I had decided to track my blog readers by country. The blog itself was over nine years old by then. So, all the tracking has been in the last six years or so.

Reached 149 countries this morning with that one reader from Tajikistan logging in. I am sure he/she was completely lost in the internet-dom and landed on my page. But I am tantalizingly close to reaching the landmark of 150 countries.

Some interesting facts:

Most commonly hit page is : About Me

Second highest hit page (I have no idea why) is a translation of a Bengali poem that accompanied a photo I had taken with my DSLR.

Most hits from China? The puzzles posts !!

Loving the turntable…

Every year, like clockwork, I wish you enough. It is an outstanding perspective-setting story from Bob Perks that reminds us of all the blessings we already have and how, to truly enjoy the benefits of life, we have to endure the pains too.

Even against that backdrop, it appears to me that wishing you enough this year is not enough any more. Not in a year that enveloped each and every one of you with the dreaded pandemic that upended your and your family’s lives as you knew it.

In a year when the person who had originally wished me enough got the dreaded cancer affliction, in a year when I came to the realization that the goodbye I had waved to my mom earlier in the year was going to be the last goodbye to her ever, in a year when I got cut off from my friends in the hospice – worse each one of them died without even being able to see their near and dear ones thru as much as a glass window, it seems it would be blissfully insensitive just to wish you enough.

This year, therefore, I wish you more than enough.

Whatever it is that makes you happy, I wish you a little more than you yourself are wishing for.

And in that pursuit of happiness of yours, should you be looking for some company, I wish myself that you will accept me in that journey – at least for a while. For, the best answer to the question of “What is more important – the destination or the journey?”, I have learnt this year, is “the company”.