Month: October 2010
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Nishith-babu: Small Man in a Large World
There is a proverb in Bengali which, translated, runs, While Emperors and Kings merrily fight, The small fries suffer a dreadful plight! The words conceal deep wisdom, as amply borne out by the treatment life meted out to Nishith-babu. Nisheeth-babu sold books, but he was more of a hawker than a seller.
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The Harmonium
I doubt that I would be far from the truth if I assumed that few in this community have had the good fortune of listening to S.D. Burman singing some of his immortal creations from a distance of five meters or so. I happen to belong, however, to the rare breed of human beings who managed to achieve this distinction. Serendipitously so, I must admit at the very outset. My father came from a musically inclined family and it is no wonder that his niece and my first cousin, later Meera Dev Burman, took to music. She was a lovely singer and had trained under the best possible gurus. It was probably at one of these gurus’ school of music that Meera-di met SD. I am not really too sure about this. It could well be that SD himself was Meera-di’s guru at some point of time.
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Gator-Eater: A Limerick
It is best that you munch your gator While atop a volcano’s crater
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Obituary – Tapas Majumdar (1929 — 2010)
It is hard to recount memories surrounding Tapas Majumdar, who died on October 15, without recalling the reasonably large, but not bedizened, first-floor living room of his Dover Lane residence in Calcutta. This room will remain etched in the minds of his students and colleagues from the days when he taught in the Economics Department […]
A KALEIDOSCOPE wORLD 