Wednesday, July 16, 2025

The Mask


At some point in life, one simply has to calm down. The world will always be full of noise, chaos, shouting and squabbling. But you, my friend, need to learn to sit still for a while.

Nothing worthwhile ever comes out of being agitated. In fact, more often than not, it ruins whatever might have been. On the other hand, if you remain calm, the person in front of you might feel a little intimidated. People don’t quite know what to make of someone who stays silent, so they tread carefully around them. Try to remain calm in everything you do.

Don’t think you don't have to perform at home. A house can be a battlefield too. Every marriage has its daily squabbles. It is a relentless contest for territory and control. Don’t believe me? That’s fine. Perhaps you’re one of the fortunate few who’ve found a soulmate in every sense of the word.

But for people like us, the daily-wage labourers of life, the mask is nothing short of a survival tool. A mask at the office, a mask at home, even a mask when we go to bed.

But who can you take the mask off for? Listen, I’ll tell you.

If you wear the mask all the time, you’ll suffocate. You must take it off, but do so with awareness. First and foremost, know this. Your mother is dearer than heaven. Never wear a mask in front of your mother. While she is alive, you truly have nothing to fear. There’s no one else left in the world who will hear your tears the way she does.

Don’t go crying to your father. That poor man has nothing left to give you. No one ever gave him anything either. Yes, your mother, that remarkable woman, drained him completely. You just never realised it.

There are, of course, a few friends. The ones from childhood. Even if you push them away a hundred times, they won’t leave you. Or if they do, they’ll come back. Because you need them. And they too are suffering, just like you. The only reason they haven’t said anything is shame. But there’s no place for shame between friends.

And who else can you take the mask off for? The person dearest to your heart. The one you wouldn’t hesitate to die for. The one who makes life worth living. Never, ever wear a mask in front of your child.

Let your child never see your mask. Not now, not in old age, not even in your final moments. Wearing a mask before your own child is a sin. Because in the boundless ocean of domestic life, your child is the hidden pearl inside the hardened shell of your heart.

Wednesday, November 27, 2024

My Dear Ian

How are you? Please don’t be upset that it’s been so long since we last spoke. It’s not that I don’t think of you—I think of you often. But I’ve had nothing new to share, and that’s why I haven’t written. Please don’t be cross with me, dear friend.


I hope your health has improved since the last time we spoke. Truth be told, I don’t often write to check on you because I catch glimpses of you on Facebook. You share your old blog posts there, and I see how you continue to nurture your love for writing. Your mind remains vibrant and alive, even as your body has grown frail. Perhaps one day we’ll all come to such realizations, but for me to do so, I’d need to live a very long life. And honestly, I’m not sure I have such longevity in me.

I used to wonder, what’s the point of living too long? What meaning is there in clinging to life with a weakened body? That was, I now realize, the arrogance of youth speaking. Now that my body begins to slow, my mind grows calmer, my thoughts are fewer, my memory fades, and my senses—sight and hearing—diminish, I find myself loving life more deeply. I want to hold on to it, to cherish it. It feels as though I want to live another hundred years, even if all that remains of me is my breath and nothing else functions. Even then, I’d want to live.

And why, you ask? Can you tell, why? 

Your friend,
ghetufool

Sunday, November 03, 2024

Nothing here

 Hey, I'm just trying to figure out if Office.com is more convenient than Apple Pages for keeping notes and accessing them later. Technically, I can access both from anywhere, but it feels better integrated to use Office on Windows and Pages on Apple devices. I'm not sold on LibreOffice yet—it would definitely take me a while to adjust to its somewhat rough interface. The way LibreOffice formats text, especially how it looks in emails (and even within LibreOffice Writer itself), puts me off. So, maybe I should stick with Office.com for most of my needs.  

This is a basic word processor, but it’s good enough for what I need. I’m very comfortable using Word; I’ve used it forever, both pirated and licensed. Now that I’m more financially stable, I believe in buying original software and avoiding piracy. I don’t use pirated stuff anymore, but with Word, a "lifetime" license really just means support for the product’s lifespan, not mine. It’ll reach end-of-life in about five years, which they don’t exactly spell out clearly. It’s a bit of a dishonest marketing tactic. 


I was thinking of jotting down my thoughts here. It doesn’t matter if anyone reads them—not even if I read them later. But I want to be fearless and keep writing as much as possible on topics as varied as astrophysics to fishing in a swamp full of little green floating plants. I don’t know the English name for them and won’t look it up; in Bengali, they’re called *kachuri pana*, or just *pana*. 

The truth is, I need someone to talk to. As I age, I find there are fewer people I can talk to, and I'm struggling to meet their expectations—or they, mine. This sometimes leads to breakdowns in communication, some of which can’t be repaired. The good thing about getting older, though, is that people feel less inclined toward drama. Teenagers, with all their energy (and time), can get dramatic about everything. But mature people don’t indulge in that; they just let things go when they get too heavy. Whatever lightens you, you keep shedding as you walk down the road. I’ve let go of a lot, and I’m constantly discarding old stuff from my closet. Things that once meant a lot barely get a second glance before I toss them out. Sometimes I donate them, but not out of any sense of charity—it’s just about freeing up space. Secretly, I even thank those who accept the items. I certainly don’t believe in “earning a spot in heaven” by giving things away. It’s more like I’m discarding what I don’t need. It’s the bird eating and then dropping its excess, something I’m relieved to have out of my life. 

And by the way, since I'm writing whatever comes to mind, with no particular audience in mind, you can be sure I’m going to get it grammar-checked and even edited by ChatGPT. It’s just me, ChatGPT (as editor), and you, my reader (if you’re out there). The only assurance I can give you is that I’m a real, breathing person who has no desire to become a cyborg. And if someone tries to push me into that, I’m not sure I’d resist. I have no control over where humanity is headed, nor am I particularly concerned with it. I’m practicing being here and now, breathing and typing. And ChatGPT is my perfect writing companion. 

Saturday, March 23, 2024

Of Cricket and Other Sports

I have started playing cricket after some thirty years. I can't claim to be the best bloke around in cricket, far from it, but I am one of the best batters this team has got. I have even hit sixes and fours, and people recognize my prowess on the offside, and fielding arrangements are done accordingly.

This has surprised me to no end. Since nobody will read this, I can confess without the fear of being outed that I was never a good cricketer or athlete, or anything. In every sphere of life, I have been average or even subpar. But the show must continue, and it has continued so far.

When I started playing here, I was fairly certain that I would be exposed. My bluster will have to be eaten humbly as my bat won’t even come within an inch of the approaching ball. Tail-enders have a special place in batting, and someone like me, who can't bowl, bat, or even field, has a special significance during team selection. When I was a kid, I was given to the team that was theoretically stronger than the other. I would have created the balance. Never mind, this is the story I love to narrate to people for some amusement. Can't say if such self-deprecating humor is actually tumors, but I was very convincing while narrating this favorite lie.

But not when I could hit a six and curse my destiny for getting out the next ball. As you can understand, dear reader (that’s me), the first one was an accident, and the second the normal course. I’d flip the sequence, of course, and leave the field shaking my head in disbelief. Someone give me the Oscar, please!

Anyway, seeing me playing like this has surprised myself to no end, and I have been thinking if all these are actually how we train our mind? When a batsman cannot connect his bat with the ball, is it because he is athletically slow, or is it because his mind is racing fast to have swung the bat without observing the ball? Now that I have matured and my mind is relatively calmer, I could follow the ball properly, and my hand follows my eyes. Of course, I cannot play all shots, but if I am getting out these days, it is an accident, and not because I can’t play.

Therefore, an easy conclusion for me is that our mind holds the key to everything. How we play cricket, to how we score results as students. I have a kid growing up very fast. She is connecting with the world around her, she’s spreading her roots. As a father, my biggest lesson to her should be how to get mastery over the mind. Talent and all are not really something one should bother about. Every talented person is actually a master of a certain aspect of his or her mind.

That’s what I realized in my forties.

Monday, February 13, 2023

তোমায় ভালোবেসে

 

বাংলা ভাষা লিখতে জেনে

হয়নি কোনো লাভ

তবুও যেনো বুকের মাঝে

নিশ্চুপ প্রতিবাদ

আমায় তুমি বাধ্য কর

ছোট্ট মেয়ের মতই

তোমায় নিয়ে মাততে হবে

নেইকো আমার গতি

তোমায় ফেলে এগিয়ে যাবো এই জগতের মাঝে

উর্দ্ধপানে চোখটি রেখে নক্ষত্রের বেগে

তুমি তখন পা টি ধরে আলতো ওঠো ডেকে

কিছুই করা গেলো না আর, বাংলা, তোমায় ভালোবেসে।


ঘেটুফুল 

১৩ ফেব্রুয়ারি ২০২৩

Friday, January 21, 2022

Finally, on a Mac

I have finally started using MacOS, and it surely seems impressive. If I had not been using Linux for a while, I would have been in awe of this, but those familiar with any polished version of Linux, like Zorin or LinuxMint, may not be mind-blown like usual Apple fanboys. Frankly, this OS seems like another well-made Linux version. They say Unix and Linux are completely different, but I have my doubts. Of course, I am not a tech nerd; rather, I have very rudimentary, or at best advanced consumer-level knowledge about technology. Both systems, in functionality and even appearance, feel very similar. Or it could be just that Linux copied MacOS, and may have influenced it back. I am not sure if compared to Windows, MacOS is way superior, but I am getting used to it. For certain, all those talks about MacOS being more intuitive, etc. are carefully woven marketing gimmicks. Windows is as polished as MacOS, and some more. I could, of course, be biased as a long-term Windows user who is used to the shortcuts there. It will take some time for the muscles to memorize MacOS commands. Once acclimatized, I hope Mac could be my go-to OS. Again, this is because of the Linux-like features with proper support and acceptability, both in terms of availability of applications and even socially! I don’t mind getting stuck in a walled garden if it is for my safety. I mean, come on, if I am not sure how to navigate the world on my own, I would want to stay under the watch of the police. These concerns of a big brother watching seem overblown to me.

Friday, July 09, 2021

Jethu




Jethu, as I used to call him, was fond of telling stories. Mostly, any incident from his life pinned somewhere between the 60s and 70s.
 
He was my Betal.

He was passionate about Bengal, and had elephantine memory about places and people and could connect the two easily within a particular time -- the year, and sometimes even month, if not the date. He wanted us to know the history of Communism in Bengal, and the Congress party before that. He never admitted to me that he was a communist, but he despised the current communist crop, the entire lot that joined the party after it came to power in Bengal in the 70s. ‘Benojol’, or flood water, he used to call them. He accused them of diluting the standard of the party. I am told, not by him of course, that he left the Communist movement somewhere in the late 70s. I never asked him if he was involved with the naxalite movement, but I strongly suspect he was. He never praised or citicised 70s naxalites. Like decorated veterans, he never talked about how he got his battle wounds.

Above everything else, he hated right wingers, and was really pained to see the state of the country now. “I don’t understand how we have become so full of hatred. It was never like this. There’s so much poison in people’s minds these days,” Jethu used to say often.

All his stories had hidden messages. But most of them seemed contradictory at first glance. The hardest part, therefore, was when he used to ask me what did you learn? Inexperienced that I was about his ways, and utterly incapable of deep thinking, I would blurt out the most obvious conclusion. My Betal would fly away to his chair in the verandah and get absorbed in the mounts of legal drafts stacked neatly. Luckily, my head didn’t burst out in a thousand pieces.

Over the years, perhaps I matured, or at least I realised coming to no conclusion is better than coming to hasty and wrong conclusions. That was his way of teaching people around him elements of patience, deep thinking, empathy, and perhaps wisdom. Of course, conclusions, his own interpretation, were delivered on demand. He was open to being challenged on his thinking, and I have seen him changing his mind too on decades old issues after my arguments seemed logical to him.

“Oh! I never thought that,” he would say, staring at a distance and muttering to himself.

Seeing me, he used to set aside his work and start chatting. Watching him chatting incessantly about old days, one could have got an impression that this retired old man has no other work but to live in his memories. Again, that would be a hasty and wrong conclusion, something he would have absolutely abhorred, not what one thinks about him, but the hastiness part of it. But he seemed to be bent on passing on the wrong impression, perhaps deliberately. That was his little entertainment even at the expense of himself.

Of course, he was one of the most famous and busy legal practitioners of Mumbai, and perhaps the country.

Very seldom I could catch him at home. Even on weekends, when I could get an opportunity to visit his house, he would be inevitably out of town. He would either be in Delhi, or in Kolkata, Bangalore, Lucknow, or all four at different hours of the day. Tight schedule of a busy lawyer, who changed flights like most of us change our dresses.

Or, he would be in Assam for days. He loved Assam. His PSU oil marketing company refused to release their Executive Director even after his retirement and decided to tie him down with the Numaligarh refinery. But when he was in Mumbai, especially around me, he was this chatty old man living in his memory.

My Betal.

He used to ask me about my impression of him. I sensed, like a kid, he was partial to praises. Again, that was my wrong conclusion about him. I later realised he actively sought out criticism, and thought as a journalist, I am a specialist in criticism.

Like Gandhiji, it was his experiment with truth. He was in a constant inner struggle to perfect himself. I once jokingly pointed out there was one more person like you -- Friedrich Nietzsche who was obsessed about Übermensch. I warned him about what happened to Nietzsche. And we had a belly laugh together.

By nature, and reinforced by my profession, I am always an incorrigible cynic, but what do I do with a person who trumps over me and asks me to criticise him? I had to surrender, much to his chagrin. Besides, I honestly didn’t find much scope to find fault in a person who is head and shoulders higher and superior than me in all aspects. It was perhaps his intellectual rigour, or just his huge experience and wisdom that age bestows upon one. Or, perhaps, it was the tragedies he faced in life since his childhood. I will spare the details here.

Whatever small fault I pointed out, I was astonished to find that he never ever repeated that. Ever, at least in front of me. Even a casual reference was taken seriously. And he often would poke me -- you are a ‘fankibaaj’ (shirker). You are not evaluating me enough. How will I improve? Tell me, what did you find in me?

I never replied to that last question. Deliberately.

I will try to answer it now. Again, confident of reaching all wrong conclusions. Sorry for the late response, Jethu. Because I was not sure what should be my well thought out conclusion about you. But I don't have any opportunities left now. So, Jethu, accept it with all its shallow thought elements.

Jethu, as you know, a few things become clear only after the person is gone. When one misses the person, he or she realises the departed has taken away something unique that appeared granted that time, but now appears priceless. Those aspects will never be revisited in any form. And then suddenly you feel this vacuum.

Unfortunately, vacuums have a nasty habit of not announcing their presence when the person is around. And unless the vacuum becomes apparent, one cannot point out what the void is all about.

I will try to give shape to those few voids. Feeble effort, but try I must. I'd rather point out a few important lessons I learnt from you.

I finally fully comprehend the meaning of this sentence: “When you have more than you need, build a longer table not a higher fence.”

I won’t elaborate on it. Again, that would be discussing your personal life that you surely won’t approve of. But I did learn how to walk pulling up people on your way. Pull up as many as you can bear, and nurse them back to health. Love, love, love, and seek nothing but his permission to allow you to help some more.

I learnt how to walk together holding everyone under an umbrella. I learnt the importance of the stem of that umbrella. And I learnt certain finer aspects of honesty.

Frankly, honesty is a trait that cannot be taught, or even inculcated. Either it is in you, or it isn’t there. And you agreed with me on this once. Still, at the age of 41-42, just a few weeks back in fact, I heard you scolding someone over the phone. You were at the other side of the call, but your angry voice was slipping through the speakers, enough to catch every word.

“Don’t ever lie to cover your inability. That way you are not lying to the person, you are lying to yourself," you said. "Don’t ever lie to yourself. If you have not been able to do a job given to you, fine, say I was not able to do it. Or, I was not in a mood, or even, I can’t do it. But don’t tell lies. Don’t lie on serious matters, don’t lie on light issues. Just don’t lie. Put this in your cranial, no matter what, I won’t lie. Whatever is my due, I will get it with all honesty. But I will not lie. Repeat after me, I will not lie. Say … “

Jethu, that is how I have always seen you. I never spotted you faking. You never made excuses. You had an unmistakable touch of arrogance, but that was the arrogance of truth, one could sense that. People felt secure around you. People trusted you. And people loved you unfailingly.

And you loved them back with whatever you had, doesn’t matter if they wronged you in the past. But you embraced them without malice. One interesting trait about you I noticed was that you always took care to honour an invitation. Being there with people you love at their happiness and sadness was important to you. You signed as a witness at my wedding, you rescheduled your Delhi visit to bless us at the grihapravesh of my new house. You were a thorough Gentleman.

That, my dear Jethu, is my little assessment of you.

The only thing that I didn’t like about you is your obsession with death. You often talked about your death. Seeing your lifeless body, I wondered if even death was your curiosity. Did you want to perfect death too? If so, you did exceedingly well.

You breathed your last while chatting on WhatsApp. One of those early morning personalised messages that was so unique about you. Unlike others, you never forwarded what landed on your inbox.

I am told the last message you typed was, “My life went well with all of you around. Stay Happy. Tapas.”

And you closed your eyes.

The Mask

At some point in life, one simply has to calm down. The world will always be full of noise, chaos, shouting and squabbling. But you, my frie...