Since Bimbo wanted to know........

10 Simple Pleasures of my Life:

1. Reading an old favourite book. Eg) The Lord of the Rings, just got me out of a depressed spell so am particularly grateful to it.

2. Ice cream.

3. A walk around Santoshpur. The jheels look beautiful at sunset.

4. A long drive.

5. A quiet cigarette. Alone.

6. a cup of GOOD coffee. It's so hard to find one!!!

7. Craziness.

8. An unexpected phone-call from a long lost friend.

9. Old Scotch.

10. A kiss.

How do you like your "Top Girls"

If this is what is called blatant publicity or blowing one's own horn, then so be it.

Hear ye , Hear ye.

Come one, come all.

There is a play on the horizon. On the 14th of November, to be precise.

It's called "Top Girls", a British play, but like all things British these days, appropriated by us Indians and spiced up a little with our own kind of curry masala.

What's it about??

It's about what it claims to be about. Women on Top.

Do you like them that way??

If you do, or still can't decide, turn up then, at Gyan Manch at the hour of dusk and see for yourself. Perhaps we'll make it easy for you to make your choice, or perhaps we won't. Tickets from British Council.

If you don't, what the heck are you doing reading this in the first place??

P.S. This is the Jadavpur University Department of English ( J.U.D.E) play for the year. If you are an ex-JUDEan come and cheer us on. If you are an aspiring JUDEan, it wouldn't hurt you to see your prospective seniors in action !

P.P.S I'm in it. Now you just HAVE TO see it!!!

Mujhko pehechan lo/ Main hoon Don!!

The world remembers people who smoke cigars. I won't even bother to give examples.

Today, I received a present. My very first cigar. Chocolate flavoured. For my very own .
Need I also mention the plastic smile of glee that comes free with it?
A certain very special friend of mine uncannily read my mind while I was in the shower ruing for the n-th time how one of the main things left to do in my life was to smoke my very own cigar; not to steal drags from someone else's. That is dissatisfactory.
Many in college witnessed this unprecedented event. I was not about to let the event of My First Cigar go to waste. I firmly believe in the adage, if you've got it, go ahead and flaunt it!! Believe me, I did not waste a photo-op like this!
And my regard for the gifter went up a couple of hundred notches.

My friends, what a cigar!
If Fidel Castro's grandkids were to get a treat, they'd get a cigar like this!!
It was beautiful. Chocolate brown in colour. Of ample thickness.
And the smell. No, the aroma………….. it was erotic at best!!! You know, after all, what a sexual food chocolate is!! Just a sniff left my senses a-tingling.

And now we come to the actual smoking of it.
There was a fitting ceremony for its lighting and the flavour was HEAVENLY!!! So smooth, so mellow, yet not devoid of just the right degree of acridity. But the best part was the flavoured tip which left a sweet residue of chocolate on the lips after each drag. It was all said in the slow smile of blissful satisfaction to be seen on the faces of all who were honoured by a drag!! I made it last for a long time; I think for about an hour. And at last it was over. Over!! I could hardly believe it!! I stared in homage to the memory of the best First Cigar, at the stubbed-out butt of it. Then in a sort of last-rites, I threw it into the middle of the jheel. Rest in peace o remains of My First Cigar. Sigh.

To smoke a cigar one needs attitude. After all, even a Classic, otherwise admired, pales beside it. Otherwise, why would the world remember people who have smoked cigars?? Dons of the world smoke cigars. ( I say, our Don C should be snapped smoking one!! I dare say it would make a fantastic addition to the HOD's office once framed!!!)
As Don Cheadle said in Hotel Rwanda : Then thousand francs is just money; but a cigar worth ten thousand francs? That's class!!