Skip to main content

Side effects

Surprise surprise but I do occasionally think of things beyond food.

And at times it is difficult to fit these into my food and travel blogs.

So I thought I will start a new blog where I plan to hold forth on anything under the sun. After all that’s what we Bengalis do. Did I say ‘do’? Well we do talk! That’s one thing people can’t take away from us. And we are not known to be modest. So an anonymous blog won’t work for us!

Our addas (chats) over endless cups of tea and tele bhaaja (vegetable fritters) are what we lived on. Till Blogs were invented at least.

I named this Coffee House after the famed Coffee House of College Street. This was the hot spot of endless debates and discussions involving students, unemployed youths, politicians, film makers, writers, poets and philosophers. The scene had shifted to our college canteen by the time I joined Presidency College in 1992. Still Coffee House was the stuff legends were made off.

And why Mumbai? Mumbai’s been my home for the last ten year. I am madly in love with it. Frankly to me Mumbai will always be Bombay. But I thought I will call it Mumbai in deference to my hosts. That’s hardly a price to pay for the wonderful hospitality that I have enjoyed here.

So here’s hoping to many more posts on life and its side effects

Comments

Scarlett said…
Though I enjoy your food posts as well, am excited you have this other blog going. Yay! Hope to have happy times reading :)
27 January 2009 at 04:28
Moonshine said…
Many many many congratulations!!! Will add it to my list too!!!! :)

One question - how will you get the time to keep 3 blogs going????

But its really cool!!!! :)
27 January 2009 at 06:58
RJ said…
Congrats, buddy!!! Hope this one is as successful as the other two. Now, I'll have to follow another blog :)
27 January 2009 at 20:14
Kalyan Karmakar said…
Hey Scarlett, Moonshine, RJ thanks a ton.

Guess this is a cathartic blog. I was quite peeved with some stupid people right now and dashed off two unrelated posts which helped me let off some steam.

Let's see how long I can continue it before I get beaten up.

Not posting pictures will definitely help.
28 January 2009 at 04:44
Scarlett said…
@The Knife - No one is going to beat you up. We live in a democratic country, you have every right to express yourself.
28 January 2009 at 22:02
Kalyan Karmakar said…
@Scarlett....you seriously believe that we have people in India who give a damn about rights of others? Kalyan
29 January 2009 at 08:09
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The importance of being 'Nyaka'

'Nyaka' is a Bengali term which beats translation. It could mean coy, coquettish, scheming, la di da. There is no one word which captures it. The term is used in a pejorative context and has a sarcastic tone to it. Used a bit more for women than for men. Has a feminine context when used for men. I posed the challenge of translating 'nyaka' into English to fellow Bengalis in Facebook. Here's a sample of the answers that I got. I have removed the names and kept the statuese as is, hope it's not too difficult to read Bong man 1 Coy.....but that does capture the essence 14 December at 14:37 · Me No ...not entirely. A colleague just suggested precocious. Maybe its too intrinsic a Bong trait to be translated :) 14 December at 14:50 · Bong woman 1 kol-lan, difficult to get a english / hindi word for nyaka. 14 December at 15:11 · me that's the point 14 December at 15:15 · Bong woman 2 oh, i think the essence of the word 'nyaka' will be lost in translation. ...
12 comments
Read more

The impotence of middle class morality

We studied George Bernard Shaw's 'Pygmalion' in school. I remember a character, Mr Dolittle (not sure of the spelling), who made a compelling argument against what he called middle class morality . The crux was that the rich can do whatever they want, the poor are desperate and therefore have no standards to match up to. It is the middle class who get screwed (I am paraphrasing heavily here) because they have to live up to certain norms of morality without the means to do so. Closer home was this serial called ' Wagle ki duniya ' which used to come on telly in the eighties . This was about a middle aged, middle class man, Mr Wagle , and his struggle for existence. There was an episode where he had to give a bribe to a government official. Nothing new about that. But the twist was that straight laced Mr Wagle had no idea about how to give a bribe! I remember our then school principal, Mrs Kapper , gave that as an example of how all of us should be good, honest,...
16 comments
Read more

Just another day in India

I went to Hearsch Bakery near Holy Family Hospital after ages to pick up a burger for breakfast this morning. I saw an elderly gentleman, possibly in his mid sixties, standing opposite Holy Family in the alley. He was simply dressed like middle class folks of his genre, white bush shirt tucked out, grey trouser. He had a red and white jhola , the sling bag favoured by folks of his generation. He had round glasses, was slim and probably looked the way my grandfather would have looked twenty years back. A typical, middle class gent in the early years of his retirement. And he had his hand stretched out asking for alms. I remembered seeing him when I had come to Hearsch's months back. I was very puzzled even then. I wondered what his story would be. Was he abandoned by his children? Was he laid off? He did look in good health. Didn't look particularly poor. Yet, there was a strange mix of serene desperation on his face. What would have driven him to beg? Should I offer him some ...
11 comments
Read more