Till 19th April 2014, You Ask We Answer (YAWA)

This is written keeping in mind that we are converging on April 19th at SPSC, St Paul to seek answers of the following queries with this slogan in mind.

BSSM তুমি জবাব দাও
জবাব চাই
জবাব দাও !!!!


Time bound Geo-affairs
a) What are the chances we will get to know about the fate of MH 370 (Malaysian Airlines) before 19th ?
b) What are the chances that the final findings that we will get to know are actually close to what happened really ?
c) Is the Ukraine crisis here to stay ?

Sports
a) Who is the top contender for the Golden Ball in World Cup Football, Brazil 2014 ? Lionel Messi or Neymar ?
b) Is Saurav Ganguly playing it slowly to build-up his position as a future Indian cricket team coach ?
c) Any guesses for the Formula One winner for Chineese Grand Prix race to be held on 20th April ?


Tech/Science/Economy
a) Do you believe the Canadian company D-Wave systems perform quantum computing ?
b) Do non-democratic countries better manage their national economy ?
c) Did Bitcoin phenomenon remind you of the Tulip mania of 1637 ?

Entertainment
a) Is Trinomool Congress an entertainment medium or a political party ?
b) Who gives you a greater kick, Kapil Sharma or Raju Srivastav ? (for the pseudo-s, assume the names are Stephen Fry and George Carlin instead)
c) Did any movie release till 19th April, which can be a potential contender in Cannes 2014 ?

Noboborsho celebrations can wait, answers to the above are more important :). Post them below or in the FB timeline. Hit it !!!

New logo design for BSSM

Courtesy:Meenakshi Roy

a posteriori analysis: Thakur and Ray Effect On Bengal

Presently, Bengal is already burdened with the career of Saurav Ganguly and decoding who is a greater political alternative, the CPM or TMC-Cong combination. Figuring out the sexual orientation of Rituporno Ghosh or commenting on the status of present band-songs of Bengal will feature somewhere lower in the table of priorities for Bengalis.

 In midst of all this, to invoke the works of Robindranath Thakur and that of Satyajit Ray, becomes a moral obligation. A defiance from the former, or to display any kind of ignorance pertaining to both,  can be an unsettling experience for you, if you are caught in a group of Bengalis. It's a metric, that will find its use in decades to come, to establish one's Bangali identity. It won't count, even if you are overwhelmed with  your childhood fascination for Sontu-Kakabu or songs of Protul Mukhopadhay; unless and until you can identify a Rabindrasangeet and able to associate the song with the particular part of gitobitaan, namely, Puja, Prem, Prakriti or Bichitra. If you don't know the name of the driver, who drives the green Ambassador  for Lalmohon Babu, you are asking for trouble and be sure to get snubbed in a Bangali adda. Your quest and your die-hard assertion for your Bengali identity will be pretty much doomed if you fail in both.

It's tough to attain the status of a Bengali. And the folks who have made it tougher are Rabindranath Thakur and Satyajit Ray, themselves. Just with the sheer volume of their works and in multiple domains, they have left you with this monumental task, of uncovering them. If you are not introduced to them in the early childhood years, be assured that you are starting two laps behind, in this marathon to exert your Bangali identity, and the gap only widens as you keep postponing your introduction to Satyajit Ray and Robindranath Thakur. Bengalis have armed themselves with these two mighty arsenals and will throw them at you according to their convenience, to make you feel uncomfortable. So, here's a tip, When in Rome, do as Romans do.

With Bengal politics, its relatively simple, all you need to know that CPM (name of a political party) came into power in 1977 and introduced land reforms in rural Bengal and there had been no substantial industrialization in the state of West Bengal. Enough for you to survive, in a discussion with the Bengalis on a cup of chaa and jhaalmuri, chop-beguni for good 3-4 hours. With sports, its even more simpler, football giants, Mohun Bagan and East Bengal have lost its relevance, all you need to do is to do a google and youtube search on Saurav Ganguly. Remember, to use, Ganguly is the captain, who changed the face of Indian Cricket by injecting fighting spirit, this will definitely come to your rescue and might cover-up  your lack of knowledge of Bengal politics. And if you are not willing to get too academic in adda, don't trouble yourself much by knowing Rituporno Ghosh or Chandrabindu, half of Bengal doesn't care.

But, when it comes to Robindranath and Satyajit, its very much part of the ethos, much like how google and facebook is dominating the web-space now. Those are the two primary tools made available to you to know the culture of Bengal. Drown yourself in the works of two, you have pretty much made yourself knowledgeable of modern day Bengalis.

 Many communities and cultures have their own set of luminaries and they are celebrated and worshipped in their respective circles, but, the primary differentiating factor with them and these two are, both of them have been soaked deep down systematically within the soul of Bengal. Rabindrasangeet had not been restricted to the snobs or heavy practitioners, watching of Satyajit Ray movies had not been confined within the artsy crowd of jhola-bag. The universalism in their works had been successful in penetrating the deep regions of Bengal and people get introduced to both, if not in early childhood, then definitely in their youth. Shakespeare-s or  Bertulocci-s are not fortunate enough, as their relevance will be trimmed down at the upper echelons of their respective communities and will in all probabilities get lost in the lower segments of societies. Neither, their works possess the defining powers of their respective culture or communities as Robindranath and Satyajit Ray. This can be due to the fact, Bengal never could produce luminaries of that kind and both very well might had been statistical outliers in the population, left with the task of providing a definition. Reasons can be offered, analyses can be made and it should be left to the experts, how and why these things happen.

Point being, legacies of both is difficult to get done with in the next decades. Followers of both can carve out niche by cherry picking any particular aspect of their works and make their careers/lives out of it safely. Needless to say, surely, both Robindranath and Satyajit Ray are bankable stars, and if you invest on them with a less-than-high premium, dividends would be rewarding for long periods of time. Both offer heavy equity securities and innate ability to liquidate them anytime you wish.

Lastly, a health caution, intellectual pretense and display of knowledge of their works, is a pragmatic tool and works just as fine amongst Bengalis,  only that, the returns are as volatile as your stocks in the free-market economy. 

Acknowledgments and Feedback for BDSA-BSSM organized Nobo-borsho Event

Sincere thanks to all the people who came and participated in the BDSA-BSSM organized Bangla Nobo-borsho of 1418.


BDSA-BSSM Crew who made this happen


Volunteering:-Rajib Bahar, Saif Rahman, Nafiz, Nadim, Rahul Banerjee, Madhuchhanda Banerjee, Arpan Ghosh,Anindya Bagchi,Joon Chatterjee, Romit Basu, Shameek Bose, Sauptik Dhar, Subhabrata Ganguli, Partha Sarathi Mukherjee, Basabdatta Chatterjee, Aniruddha Bagchi,Santanu Sarkar, Sula Sarkar, Debashish Das, Nilanjana Banerjee, Pablo,Snigdhanshu Chatterjee,Arpita Pan, Dipankar Ghosh, Amit Mitra and Saurav Mitra


Participants in the Cultural Section, who volunteered as well:-Rajarshi Guha Niyogi,Bodhisatwa Sadhu, Taraswi Mitra, Devleena Ghosh,Sajjad Azhar, Sandeep Bhowmick, Palbasha Siddique,Farhana Ahmed, Puja Das,Monzur Patwary,Sounak Basu,Subhrajit Roychowdhury,Erin,Afreen Sumu,Maroof Adil,Nandini Banerjee,Baishali Bakshi,Sohini  Roy Chowdhury,Salma,Liz Sims,Joyce,Nina ,Ishtiaque Ahmed,Sadaf Shams,Rafat ,Aman Verma,Shruti, Projjwal Banerjee, Abhijit Chakraborty,Sharmishta Guha, Silpi Sinha Ray,  and Abhreen Mukherji

Disclaimer:-Due apologies if names had been missed in the list above. 

Feedback:-Any kind of criticism and feedback for the Event is welcome.

Indulgences(Cinema post 2009)

Hollywood+NYTimes=
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/12/12/magazine/14actors.html#1
Health Disclaimer:This video be watched before reading down below.

Many of us, who have fled to this country have (re)discovered our passion for "good" cinema
and "good" food, intensity of that passion got reduced on our pursuit to professional and social developments, while we were in the sub-continent. Adherence to "good" art  and "good" food (and may I add beverages as well) is our passport stamp of being elegant. Some might not be willing to confer on this, and those who won't, will be under the Sword of Damocles of being called non-elegant.
Snobbery is good and it works wonders as it injects a humongous sense of self-empowerment within.
 And this be told, the purpose of sharing the video-link above, was to trigger on the feeling of elegant-ness(throw out the word "elegance",  its too short to convey the enormity within).

Thus ends my Prologue.

The purpose of penning down this Blog is tad bit different.  I am badly seeking for recommendations for watchable movies, that got released post 2009. I am tending to believe many of you are Netflix,Redbox, Internet (devouring youtube specifically) users who hook onto movie channels at the slightest opportunity. Some of you are festival-goers and come across many avant garde movies. There are some, who would have had put premium on entertainment value rather than anything else. So what's your List of recommendations?  Here's my mine and this is why I recommend.
Hollywood
Inception (Director:-Christopher Nolan, Lead Actor-Leonardo di Caprio):-Its a movie based on dreams. The convention did not have much to play here. This is no good versus evil plot, there is no mission to be accomplished, there is no villain, no hero, no lost-love to be found out. Serious philosophers might find this one, as a trite talk on dreams.
Inglourious Basterds(Director: Quentin Tarantino):-Fictionalized history on World War II. Taut screenplay. Hitler gets murdered by the side-kicks in the movie.

The Ghostwriter(Director:Roman Polanski) :Fictionalized history. British PM, out of office, finds himself, assassinated. Best thriller I had seen in recent times.

Bengali Movies
Shukno Lanka(Mithun Chakraborty in the lead): A Bengali movie made with an universal appeal, that can cut across the board, irrespective of financial, social, rural, urban,professional status. Bengali movies are not known to be made of this kind, the only other instant I can think of is Goopy-Gyne Bagha-Byne. It has its own share of technical and non-technical flaws, condition yourself to overlook them.

Hindi Movie
None I can think of recommending. A close miss would be Rock On(Farhan Akhtar in lead) (just for intelligent production design).


Foreign Movies
The White Ribbon(German movie that won  in Cannes 2009, for the best film):-A dramma movie, set in a village, just before World War I.  I liked it because, it did not boldly underline the drammatic moments in the movie with  background score accents. Actually, no background score at all.
A month back, I watched a south-Korean movie at the South-Asian Minneapolis Film Festival, "Poetry" which had used the same technique of no background score.  Guess, that is the order of the day.

E-version of BSSM 's Magazine 2010

Journal of Durga Pujo Collector's Edition Vol V.

Thanking the Crew and Feedbacks/Comments are welcome

Usual Suspects:
An acknowledgment has been made to some in the Magazine, at the very first page.
Officers:-Basabdatta, Subhrajit and Shameek.
Protima Design:-Kaushik, Rahul, Ayan, Soumyadeep and Arpan.
Pujo Proceedings:-Nilanjana, Debasish, Aditi, Devleena, Payel, Joon, Meenakshi, Amit, Taraswi, Arpita,
Dipta, Sonia and Shankar.
Cultural Program:-Aniruddha, Projjwal, Rajes, Sauptik, Sandeep, Nandini, Puja, Shilpi, Diya, Subhabrata, Sharmishtha, Baishali, Sayan and Sohini.
Printing:-Abhijit, Aman and Snigdhanshu.

Beyond the Usual Suspects:
Bhog:-Purnima Ganguli

Cultural:-Rajarshi Guha Niyogi,
Registration Desk:-Ajay Yekkirala, Partha Sarathi Mukherjee
Protima Design:-Sanjoy De,
Dinner:-Vijay Srivastav, Saif Rahman, Ishtiaque Ahmed,
Video Recording and Photos:-Sandipak Bagchi, Lilia Pataky, Sounak Basu.

If names had been missed out and you are aware of it, do let me (saurav.mitra@gmail.com) know, I would re-edit this Blog entry.

Feedback and comments

Please post your feedback, if possible, in a detailed manner on BSSM's presentation of Durga Pujo 2010.
 Things that got your maximum/minimum attention, be it Pujo/Bhog or the Protima or the Cultural Program or the Lunch, Snacks, Dinner or the Magazine or the Publicity or the Reception or the Parking of cars or the Time Schedule, overall spirit and camaraderie etc.. If you were pleased or displeased, do let us know.
We encourage you to be as much critical as possible.
You are welcome to post the feedback in an unidentified manner, as "anonymous" if you are bit uncomfortable about it. It's our request, don't hold yourself back.
Your co-operation would help us to Audit ourselves and it would be widely appreciated.
With your help, your "Pujo" will be better than the best next time.
Thanking you in advance,
Sincerely,
BSSM