why to have a blog of my own ? I am struggling to figure out the answer.Till I have one, here are some of my direction less thoughts .....

Monday, December 31, 2007

Uncle ...?

Am I growing old…? Am I looking old…? How should I behave so that it suits my age..? Suddenly I am finding myself cornered by these questions. Being the youngest in a family of six, I always had this privilege of not growing up to take responsibilities and still treated like an infant. Unfortunately, I enjoyed this comfort even when I was studying. I was relatively young in our management school and to make the matter worse I also looked young. So my batch mate always liked me and never took me seriously…! So I never grow up while doing my MBA. My first job threw me in a Government department and found myself surrounded by oldies. They also took care of me by not giving any meaningful work to do ! I was really enjoying the protected status of being a naïve. Then I move to become the youngest of all project coordinators in a state programme. I was relieved to see that I don’t have to grow up and carried my childish acts. Everything was smooth till I decided to study again. Now I am landed up with a bunch of youngsters in their early and mid twenties and suddenly my status has changed to ( Uncle ?). Now I have some more than 10000 hours in my hand to be on the wrong side of thirty ….and this time I have to grow up ! But as usual, I still have a preference for the old status of being young. I hope with 2008 coming ahead will take a year from me and make me move backward ….towards twenty.

Wish u happy new year

Sunday, December 02, 2007

NE Extremism

I have taken the following paragraphs from an interview appeared in an assamese daily “ The Assam trubune” on 2nd December 2007. I decided to put it on my blog as most of the time such statement from Assam does not reach to other part of the country. This can help some of our country man to rethink, who believes that the whole of North Eastern Community supports the extremism and are enjoying every bit of being called anti Indians.

NE extremism has lost relevance
PANAJI, Dec 2 – The extremist movement in North East has lost its relevance and has destroyed the social fabric of Assam, feels Assamese director Sanjeeb Sabhapandit. Sabhapandit, whose film Jaatinga Ityadi is being screened at IFFI 2007, says the Assamese film is a comment on the current scenario of militancy in the State. It depicts how militancy has created a psychosis of deep fear among the people there while militants lure innocent young men and women into their fold.“Militancy has now become an easy and profitable business .... The moment money entered the extremist movement through extortions and kidnappings, the ideology began to erode and today the common man no longer sympathises with them,” Sabhapandit told PTI.

“This film is an attempt to showcase the real face of militancy which has destroyed the social fabric of Assam. We wanted to show the world the real face of militancy in North East through the film,” Sabhapandit said.Speaking about the significance of the film title, Sanjeeb informs that Jatinga is a small place in Assam where birds are said to commit suicide. But this is not the case - birds do not actually commit suicide, they are lured to death.At night, people hold bamboo torches to attract these birds and when they fly close, they are clubbed to death. However, the general folklore says that the birds come here to commit suicide, he said.“In the guise of a revolution the boys are lured into a death trap,” Sabhapandit said.Drawing a similarity between the birds and the youth, he chose name for his movie.

Sanjib’s first film Juye Poora Shoon (The Gold that has been Burnt), based on environmental preservation received the National Award for best film in 2004.“We are making a very strong statement as it is the youth, who have dreams of leading a good life, that are getting killed. This mindless mayhem has to stop. This is our message,” Rajkamal Bhuyan, the film’s producer said.“Ultimately in the name of liberalisation, they are killing the same people they claim to be fighting for. We are losing our brothers. Be it a security personnel, civilian or an extremist, ultimately it is our countrymen whose blood is being shed in this violence,” he said.

The movie depicts extremisim all over the world, with Assam serving only as a backdrop, Sabhapandit said.“While the world is becoming a global village, the issue of terrorism today affects everyone. In this changed scenario, the ideologies of Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro no longer hold relevance as there is no common enemy state today,” he said.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Sukandighi

Recently, I have come back from my two-month stay in a small village named Sukandighi near Malda. Sukandighi is very close to NH34 connecting Malda and Raiganj in North Bengal. I was accompanied by my batch mate and friend Partha Sarothy Roy. The village stay itself was an experience worth remembering, but one of the most best thing that has happened to us, is the introduction to Khon Gaan.

Khon Gaan is a kind of folk theatre and it was exclusive to Sukandighi. One explanation we have for the name Khon is that ,it is a mixture of various plots (khond) stitched together to take forward the main plot. Khon Gaan is a dying art today with very little patronage of the artists most of whom are mainly small and marginal farmers. It also cornered with the advent of electronic medium of entertainment. The events taking place in surrounding villages are staged in a different manner with a pinch of salt through khan. As such it does not have a religious element or any mythological story as the core.

We have witnessed one khon gaan show during our stay in Sukandighi . It was staged in our host family’s house and the name of play is Sati Hebla. Like in most of the folk theatre, man plays the role of woman in Khon Gaan also. The show was significant for us as well as for the whole community of sukandighi as it was staged after a gap of 7 long years.