Good times

• When you laugh like crazy for no reason at all,
• When you can just be yourself without a care,
• When memories jostle for space in your head,
• When you know this is the happiest you can ever get,

You know you are with friends.

What I'm loving, what I'm not

The weather is perfect. Christmas seems already in the air. A lot of weddings taking place all around. Great time for weekend trips/picnics. I'm loving it.

What I'm not loving is that I've got my MA finals from December 26.

That's doesn't mean I'm studying all day. Like now I'm writing this post when I should be studying Shakespearean criticism. I'm not really worried about the exam and that's what worries me.

Thing is, when you are out of touch with studies for a long time, it's REALLY hard to get back into the serious-studying mode. When I began preparing for this exam, my concentration span was 5 minutes. Literally. After a few months now, it's climbed to around 30 minutes. Hmmm, not bad! The question is if it's enough to pass me.

My seniors have inspired me by saying "It's really tough to fail in MA!" Err... but you got to put in SOME effort, right?

Anyway, I think I'll just be optimistic. Two years ago, I did a post called Weary way towards MA and now I'm nearing the end of the "weary way". Well, it's not been that weary. The last two years, I've been busy making sure it's not weary at all. Ask me how. By staying far away from my books.

Oh let's not ruin my day by thinking about exams! Something more interesting is that I've created a new blog.

It's called stray travels. I'm yet to write the first post. It's going to be on travel but I'll have to decide exactly what kind of flavour I'm going to give it.

Koh Phangan: Nature and Nightlife

"I guarantee that you will sleep on the beach if you don't book a hotel room before. It's the time of the full moon party and everything is booked on Koh Phangan," my travel agent in Bangkok had told me.

I still didn't book a room.

Marzia, a member of Couchsurfing, a hospitality exchange network, had assured I could stay at her place and I was banking on that even though I had never travelled this way before. I was going around Thailand on a shoestring and what's life without some uncertainties?

Seventeen hours after leaving Bangkok and tired from an overnight bus and a three-hour boat journey, I stepped on Koh (meaning island in Thai) Phangan, a hilly island in the gulf of Thailand.

Koh Phangan, which is 70km from the mainland, is part of the Samui Archipelago, which includes more than 40 islands. A large part of the 167 sq km island is tropical forest and there are small hills where it is possible to trek and even camp. There is a lot of wildlife in the forests, right from monkeys to beautiful birds. The waters around the island are excellent diving grounds with corals.

And of course, there is the world-famous full moon party that takes place on a beach called Haad Rin, south of the island. The full moon party is one of the world's largest rave parties and attracts between 10,000 and 40,000 visitors, a large chunk of whom are westerners in their gap year.

I met my host in front of a departmental store in Srithanu, a hamlet in the north of the island, where my host stayed. Marzia is from Italy and she was staying on the island for six months doing a yoga course. She had rented a beautiful blue cottage amidst a lot of green. Another couchsurfer (a member of the Couchsurfing network), Jonas, from Germany, was already staying with her, she told me, and another friend of her's, Sandra, would join her in an hour or so. So, me and Jonas may have to sleep on the floor.

"No problem. I have my sleeping bag," I said.

After a quick shower and lunch, I rented a motorcycle (it's cheap and a great way to go around the island), and went to check out the party beach with a couple of other friends that I had just made — Dana from South Korea and Chorita from Bangkok. It was nearly 20km from Srithanu through some villages, through the town and over the hills. The last bit just before you reach Haad Rin is like a roller coaster over the hills.

The atmosphere on the beach seemed getting ready for the once-in-a-full moon event. There was a football tournament under way on the beach and a DJ playing English and Thai numbers. Some people were lazing on the sand, some dancing, some in the water and others racing on water scooters.

I came back to Marzia’s around 8.30 in the night to find she had four or five friends over who had cooked lots of different stuff for dinner. We sat in Marzia’s verandah (we had to block the entrance with a chair to keep the friendly dog out) and had a great time sharing travel stories and dancing to world music with the nearly-full moon shining on us. And everyone fell in love with some sohan papdi I had taken along from India.

The next morning, Jonas and me went to Marzia’s school for a free yoga session and I realised yoga was definitely not my cup of tea. At the end of the session, they asked us to meditate for 20 minutes and the two of us nearly dozed off. Then we decided to check out a waterfall on the island and Dana and Chorita came along with us. The Phaeng waterfall had very little water but the hike to it was fun. Later in the day, the four of us explored the Haad Yao and Haad Salad beaches, northwest of the island. We found Haad Salad better because the water had less seaweed in it, but I cut my foot on an underwater rock. At an eatery close to the beach, I tasted pad thai, a typical Thai dish of stir fried rice noodles and a lot of other things, for the first time and fell in love with it.

The next morning, the day of the party, we went to check out the venue. Temporary structures had been built along the beach for DJs to set up their consoles. Temporary dance floors, chairs and tables were being set up. A lot of people were sunbathing and swimming and everyone talked about the night’s party.

On the way back, Jonas stopped to buy a hammock from a famous hammock-maker called Mr Moon and I couldn't resist buying one too. Though it cost me 1,500 baht, the hand-woven hammock was really comfortable. And Mr Moon told me: "It's can hold 250kg. You can get in with your girlfriend!"

We were back to Haad Rin at 8.30pm. We bought 100-baht tickets (actually an orange wrist band) and entered the beach.

I was surprised to find the event so well organised despite having all the ingredients of turning into utter chaos. There were security personnel everywhere. There were lifeguards keeping vigil to ensure drunk people did not drown in the sea and there was a fenced area right on the beach set up by an NGO where completely drunk and out people could just plonk down and sleep.

The entire beach had five or six DJs playing different kinds of music and there were temporary shops lined up all along that sold “buckets” for around 200 baht. Buckets are actually miniature buckets that had a cocktail of whatever drinks you prefer, the most common of them seemed vodka and Red Bull, and some straws. Then, there were local men who would walk by you whispering: "Pills? Pills?"

Many people had their bodies painted with florescent colours. Some had just prints of someone’s palm on their bodies, some men had messages like: “Body on rent for 20 baht”.

Then there were the fire games. The craziest of them was where two persons, standing on high platform would swing a long rope on fire in circles and the party-goers had to jump in the middle of the circle. Every now and then, someone fell or got entangled with the rope. But most of them are usually so drunk they don’t realise the burns until the next morning when they discover the black marks.

I hung out with Jonas, Dana, Chorita and some of her friends for some time and then I joined a group of three girls and a guy, who were a lot of fun. I hung out with them until the guy got so drunk he couldn’t walk and we had to carry him out. Two of the girls went to get a motorcycle to take him to his hotel but never returned (I later got to know they got lost. No wonder, they were so drunk!). So, I got him and his girlfriend on a taxi and returned to the beach and hung out with an Italian girl I had met on a taxi that evening, and her brother, before heading back to Srithanu around 3am because I had to catch a boat at 7am.

It’s easy to make friends at the full moon party because everyone is in a good mood and everyone wants to make the most of the experience. It’s wise not to get very drunk because then you cannot enjoy it. Just go with the flow and don’t limit yourself to one group when you are there.

When I was leaving, there were drunk-and-out people snoring on the beach, men and women peeing into the gulf of Thailand and some making out in the sea. You may love it or you may find it absolutely disgusting, but at the full moon party, there are no restrictions.

Two weddings and a farewell

On March 11, I was invited to two weddings. One was that of my friend from kindergarten, Snigdha, and the other, of a neighbour. The kind of profession I'm in makes one extremely unsocial because of the sad hours (I work between 3-10pm, so I miss most social functions).

However, I made sure I found time this day. I told my boss I HAD to leave early. As it is, two weddings in a day was bad. You couldn’t eat properly at either of them! But going to neither was definitely worse. Plus, I had got this new suit that I wanted to wear but wasn’t getting an opportunity.

My boss spoke to the reporters and asked them to file their stories early. On D-Day, I went to office at 2, completed work that usually gets done around 10, by 7:15 and left office at 7:30.

Then I drove down the jammed BT Road and reached the first wedding at 9pm — perfect timing.

I said hello to Snigdha, met up two of my favourite teachers and couple of old friends. And the food was really good, so I didn’t really save much space in my tummy for my invite number two of the night. The fish butter fry was awesome, so I had three of them. So was the biriyani and the chicken.

When I was leaving, it was drizzling. And that turned to bit of a downpour by the time I reached home. And when I reached home, there was no power. My parents had already been to the wedding and back. So I took an umbrella and walked because it was just a couple of minutes away.
Wedding number two was chaos. The unexpected rain had ruined it all. The marquee was set up on a playground. The buffet area was in the open and had no shade. When I went there, the place where you could sit and eat (which had a shade) was packed and there were about a hundred additional people waiting in there to sit in the following batch because they couldn’t wait out due to the rain.

Since I had an umbrella, I walked to the buffet section, which was a little muddy after the rain, had two fish fries, said hello to everyone and left for home.

A pretty satisfying day indeed.

About the farewell, a formal farewell didn’t really take place. But it was there is the back of my mind. Another friend from kindergarten, Amrita, left Kolkata the same day for Hyderabad. She’s a lawyer and had got a job there.
I was travelling on a bus on March 10 morning when I got her call. I knew she had been talking with this Hyderabad company but I got to know only then that she’s accepted their offer and flying the very next day.

I didn’t know if I felt sad, but I sure didn’t feel euphoric. Another friend, Abhinava is leaving for Noida in a couple of months. Yet another friend, who’s studying in Bhubaneswar, would head to Mumbai later in the year.

Nothing unusual about it. Many friends have already left and several more will probably follow them. I came back from Delhi and stuck to Kolkata ever since, but you can’t predict tomorrow. The number of faces at our once-in-a-while get-togethers of old friends shrinks every year. I guess you just have to be indifferent about this fact and be thankful that we can at least be close to our friends far away through technology.

That’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Photo: Happy times together :)

Delhi's "happenning" hangout

Last week I was sitting on the roof of Palika Bazaar at CP in Delhi chatting with my friends Shambhavi and Arindam. The weather was perfect- just the right combination of chill and breeze and sun.

Suddenly there was a commotion and I looked right. This fat guy in a tight, black full-sleeves T and an equally tight black jeans was kicking this other guy and bombarding him Delhi's world-famous slangs.

Apparantly the guy at the receiving end of those kicks and behenchods was a pickpocket caught in the act. Very soon, a young sardarji (also in black) teamed up with the original guy-in-black and began thrashing the alleged pickpocket.

In two minutes, some 30 people were standing around watching the tamasha. Kids walking by tugged their daddies' hands (Kya ho raha hai papa?) and the papas, who were just as interested, joined the crowd. I saw two aunties running to the venue (Let's get there and find out what's up before the climax gets over!)

We were sitting quite near all this and contemplating whether we should shift or not when a chaiwala came to us: "Chai lenge?"

"Wahan jao bhaiyya. Aapka sara chai bik jayega," Shambhavi offered helpfully to the guy pointing at the tamasha arena. The chaiwala did just that sporting a smile. A papadwala followed suit.

While all this was happening, two cops were sitting on a bench which was less than 100 feet from the spot. And they were looking to their left and they were looking to their right and sometimes towards the sky. But they made sure they didn't look straight, where the action was on!

After some 10-15 minutes, a young cop comes along. "He looks like an intern," quipped Shambhavi. I couldn't but agree for he quite looked so. But a cop is a cop is a cop and the crowd gave the "intern" just as much respect they'd give a top officer.

Soon the "intern" fished out his yellow cellphone and called his boss. Five minutes later, the boss (who looked every bit a boss with a fat moustache and a walkie-talkie) along with a subordinate came up.

Now that the boss was here, the two cops who were sitting, decided that it was time they made a show of how much they worked! So, one of them got up, fixed his cap, and came to the tamasha-spot. "Jao ghar jao! Tamasha ho raha hai kya??!" He shooed away the spectators.

After five more minutes, the cops took away the "pickpocket" and the two men in black accompanied them flashing victory smiles.

"Wow this is such a happening place! We should come here more often," Shambhavi grinned.

Play, cafe and some grace

Finally, both my stories got published today. You can see them here (the one on the top) and here.

I was happy since it has been quite a few months since my last story and that was before I joined my present job.

This morning, I went to watch a play with a friend. She'd heard it was good and since I'd not seen a play in years, I tagged along even though it wasn't a comedy. The play was good with some excellent acting by Debshankar Halder and the other guy (whose name, sadly, I've forgotten). But I particularly remember this scene in the play where this chick is trying to seduce the dude (whose name I've forgotten). She wore a tank top and slacks and damn she looked fat and odd! The director should've figured there are other ways to dress someone sexy.

In the middle of the play, I received several text messages from people who've read my stories. One of them went: "Muchas gracias por la columna en el periodico de hoy gracias a su disposition un abrazo muy feurta Raj."

I know just two Spanish words. They are si (yes) and gracias (thank you). Since I saw two "gracias" in there, I figured Raj, the owner of the cafe, which was the topic of one of my stories today, was thanking me. I replied: "I'll visit your cafe today to have this translated."

I was meeting another friend for lunch after the play. So I told her: "Let me take you to this really cool cafe" and we went.

Raj gave me a warm smile and proceeded to explain the sms. There were quite a few copies of today's newspaper lying around but the Sunday Metro supplements (where the story was published), were nowhere to be found. Everyone wanted to take a copy, especially those whose photographs had been published. Raj introduced me to one of them as the writer. Boy it was cool!

Then we proceeded to the food. It was good as always. My friend was rather impressed with both the food and the ambiance and promised to return with her friends.

Finally, when it was time for us to leave and I asked for the check, Raj gave me a smile and a hug and said: "Not today. Next time."

I protested, but he resolutely refused.

As I walked out, I couldn't help smiling to myself. What just happened was not one of the perks of being a reporter. It's his grace that touched me.

A patch up and more

On December 4, 2010, I talked to Mrs Daisy Pradhan after some five years. It was my friend from lower nursery, Babar, and Payel's fifth wedding anniversary and she came there along with Mrs Das, Mrs Mondal and Mrs Majumdar.

The couple had eloped and there was a big hungama so the wedding wasn't that big. The anniversary was, therefore, very big. I parked my car outside my school and Norton was just leaving. He seemed like looking at the press sticker on my car with some interest. It was nice talking to messanger Swapan kaku and gatekeeper Gupta ji.

We used to have all our major school events at Shanti Manch bang opposite our school and it was great to be back. Made me remember Class 6 when I had my first crush in this place. With that setting and memories jostling for space in my head, when me and Avijit saw the teachers, we so wanted to go and say hello.

But when I saw Pradhan, my mind said: "You're not going to talk to her!" But after a while, I couldn't remind myself the reasons why I hated her and I realized I didn't really want to think hard and remember them. So, me and Avijit went and said hello to them all. Felt good.

A few days back I'd realized I've just been sleeping and working and doing nothing else. It bothered me a lot and I decided not to sleep through the day and do something. So, I began trying to write for the paper. I've already filed two stories. Let's see when they get published. And I also began leaving my place early and catching movies, hanging out with people, etc.

On December 8, I attended my first Couchsurfing meeting. I'd been wanting to go for a long time but all meets took place in the evenings and I worked on evenings. So didn't work out. But this was a Wednesday and I went. And it was so cool!

There were some local people including Swarnab (who initiated the meeting), Arindam, Karan, Prithvi and Hardika (When I asked her what she did, she said something which I didn't quite understand. So, she made it clear: "My job is to keep ships afloat." That made sense!) Tanveer, a Delhiite, who's visiting Kolkata, dropped in. Then there was Andrea from Italy, Roman from Russia (For some crazy reason, Roman liked to tell everyone he was from Italy in an Italian accent!), Eric from Germany, Christian and this other guy whose name started with a B (can't remember the unusual name), from Croatia.

Oly pub was a cool place to hang out and we had a great time. And some associated incidents made the visit more interesting. Some guy sent Hardika a note on a napkin through a waiter and there was this girl on an adjoining table who kept looking at me and when I gave her a smile, she smiled back. Sadly, that's all that happened! (Why am I so damn slow at making simple moves like asking her name?! I gotta work on this!)