Arbit Scratchpad

WOW!! Rediscovered this old homepage which I had thought Geocities had erased: http://www.geocities.ws/shamit_bagchi/

Or perhaps redefining what a 'Good Boy' is. Is a good boy someone who is constrained by his mind to not attempt anything risky or anything not in the realm of the ‘positive’? Even avoid thoughts of the nature? Is it so because the person will get tagged negative? Do we or our social circles often enforce such a mentality? Who is a good boy? What is the definition of ‘good’ for a good boy then? Someone who experiments and then and only then figures out what is true or good and what is not. Or someone who follows pre-conceived notions, tradition and norms imposed upon us and is bounded by them - following a track laid down by others, playing by the rules and maximizing some notion of goodness and other measures of profit, wealth or fame and stature again defined by someone else. The later may not necessarily be the case. This fear of being bad or never attempting anything new doesn’t that hold back from exploring or attempting anything that is a break away from society’s sha...

O’ Bestower of lights, Of warmth, and radiant glow! There it is - the unmistakable chill Accompanying your arrival! This time however, It conceals a dizzying festive zest; And as the lights from the array of earthen lamps flicker Dancing like those intricate works on her saree’s pallu, They now infuse  Akin to the blistering variety of fireworks  Colorful bursts of joy inside of my mind! Continued from last year's ' Diwali - The Conjuror '

Note: Spoilers ahead if you have not watched it yet. I knew the movie would be full of comical antics and also emotionally charged as the promos indicated and as I knew the lead character would be deaf-mute and the heroine supposedly autistic. The Ala Barfi song in the beginning is nicely done and Ranbir Kapoor starts to showcase the fact that he has totally got into the spirit of the character he plays. Now imagine what happened. As the film proceeds I am actually trying not to get swayed by a few emotional scenes and some portions that seem artificial (all too sugary, trying too hard types) to me. Although a movie is a story after all – concocted, contrived and melodramatic like most Indian movies are, however this movie as it turns out got everything right! I laughed and enjoyed many scenes, right from the starting (till the very end actually) but I continued to somehow resist the trap of getting too involved until the scene where Barfi (Ranbir) returns home from Shruti’s...

Well I work as a product marketing manager at IBM India Pvt Ltd and was recently working on a brand new marketing project involving sales plays. I was quite excited and things were going real good. I was all charged up and the experience of the work itself was quite elevating – the doing your thing, collaborating, synthesizing, creating; for the ultimate benefit of the customer and fulfilling his deepest needs! The very best ideas or thoughts occur to you in the loo! The same happened today morning. I realized that when doing your work, you enjoy it thoroughly - you are propelled to a state that I’ll term as ‘Project Dhonuk’. That allure of creating something unique and involving all your skills and added enthusiasm, effortless effort, working long hours without a hint of being tired and being full of passion and verve. A bit of a background will be necessary here. So why give it the name ‘Project Dhonuk’? I use it as a metaphor for this creative state of heightened enthus...

You know the divine game is afoot; When your eyes close tight, When your heart constricts and restricts the flow of blood, When your breathing slows down, When your mouth dries up, When your head is dizzy and yet you smile, When love has enveloped you!

Some soulful tune plays in the tunnel of my heart - do you hear? Look up at the sky! An ochre, crescent moon shoots slivers of light! Thrumming in the dark silence of the night, Are those strains of your voice that rise and fall away?  Sequences and phrases from what you had said earlier today!

Dekhna hain zor kitna baazuein kaatil mein hain! How did they manufacture such explosive gunpowder within themselves? Leaving the foreign ruler's citadel of power and Their brutal, butchering machinery Thoroughly shattered! Some brave-hearts sacrifice themselves and turn martyrs, So the rest stay inspired to fight on! Supreme sacrifice they offer As an act of defiance against injustice. So the nation awakens united! Binding people is their life's only objective Against alien rule and its intolerable, inhuman cruelty. Bhagat, Rajguru and Sukhdev Their mother's pride; Our motherland's shining lights! The love for their motherland greater than all else Guiding lights for generations to come! No we don't have to remind ourselves about them. They are and will eternally remain indelible. Let us rededicate ourselves to our nation Whatever endeavour we may be involved in! Yet, let the interests of the nation Always remain supreme.

When you are watching a Hindi movie and if it is able to remind you of the Bourne series, Munich and a few other top-notch suspense thrillers from Hollywood stables there has got to be something happening already. And yet there are just traces of these Hollywood thrillers. What you have instead is a totally native and original script plus a Kolkata-centric story full of unpredictable twists and turns and acting that rachets up the quality to levels hardly ever seen before in Bollywood. Quote from Bollywood Analytics on Facebook: A suspense thriller like this rarely comes out of Bollywood. An editor does a good job when the audience has little to no time to get distracted or bored and here Kahaani scores well . A must watch film for movie buffs! The high score notched up by this film will be tough to beat for most films ! Vidya Balan and Parambrata have given stellar performances. Vidya depicts her anxious, scared character flawlessly. Parambrata is this police constable who ...

There is this dance sequence from the movie ‘Shirdi Ke Sai Baba’ that I came across recently, in which the ‘Lavani’ (a form of traditional Marathi song accompanied with dance) performer is singing and dancing about having forgotten all things worldly, so intense is her love for her lover.  Throughout, so graceful and sensuous - the performer has done full justice to the song and Asha Bhosle’s voice is at its lilting best! There is a constant dynamic motion as a result of jumps and other visible body movements, interspersed with subtle and slow movement of the hands (dancer’s palms painted pink) and fingers along with facial expressions in lock-step with the subtle movements that add to the grace and accentuate the beauty of the specific sub-sequence. Synchronization with the music (predominantly dholaks and sitar) and keeping up with the tempo of the singing by Asha Bhosle catapults the sequence to a level where it has a near-mesmerizing e...