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Sandy's spaceApril 11 Bangla Rock Band Cactus' ever enchanting "Bodhu Re " Live under a beautiful full moon night
April 08 "Picasso ? Who is that ?"            Today is the 36th death anniversary of Pablo Picasso. http://picasso.tamu.edu/picasso/
I still remember the day when the news of his death was announced.... That was a long, long time ago. (8th April, 1973). the Govt. College of Art and Craft. Calcutta.
That particular morning , I was, as usual, late for the classes.
I was rushing up the wooden stairs as fast as I could, in an attempt to reach my classroom before our professor came in for the roll-call.
I could see the big clock  on the 1st floor wall showing it was well past 9.30 am!When I entered the classroom, which was on the 2nd floor of the building, I found that our professor had not yet come to the class.
I heaved a sigh of relief.. "Good that I made it!"
My classmates and I settled down and tried to concentrate on our unfinished paintings. In a few weeks time, we'd be having our final exam. While we were arranging our colours and brushes, suddenly we heard quite a bit of noise coming from the 1st floor. My classmates and I went out to find out what all the commotion was about. We leaned on the wooden railings and saw many students talking to our principal Shri. Chintamoni Kar http://www.asianart.com/exhibitions/antwerp/alphen.html
whose official residence was on the first floor of the building. As I did not speak Bengali, and did not understand the language too. The first few things that rushed to my mind were , "What happened again?... is it another Student Union agitation? ....not again!!.. Please, no Strikes or Bandhs... Final exams are just around the corner... "
(In fact, during the early '70s, the movement of all the Union strikes and bandhs were just taking shape like a strong wave. Which, later, became one of the main factors for seeing the state of West Bengal losing out many industries.
Of course, that's a different story which I am not going to indulge in here!! )
While I was still wondering what was happening, I saw one of my close friends , who was also my Rakhi brother, http://hinduism.about.com/od/rakhi/a/rakshabandhan.htm,
the final year, commercial art section student, Xitij Joshi, was actively negotiating with the principal too. I went down to the first floor. I asked Joshi why he and the rest of the students were arguing with the principal? I gathered the news from him that Pablo Picasso had died just some time ago.... Joshi and his group of friends were demanding that the principal should announce a holiday on that day to honour Picasso's death. I heard our principal in his usual gentle manner, " Why don't you honour Picasso by working harder today as a true artist like him, instead of taking a day off from your creative work? And Picasso did express he would prefer no holiday to be decleared on behalf of his death."
"Every great man's death we declear a holiday! And when it is Picasso's death, why a holiday should not be called?! ... We don't meet a Picasso in our life that often...!!"
Those were the students' answers to the principal... And the loudest voice was from my friend Joshi.
"Wow, I did not know Joshi is a great admirer of Picasso!" I was thinking... Honestly, at that age, while we were in an academic institute, we were encouraged to concentrate on straight lines, curves, light and shade... We were trying hard to find inspirations from artists like ... Titian, Raphael, Velazquez, Botticelli etc., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Masters .... and the impressionists .. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/imml/hd_imml.htm Picasso !!!  http://www.artchive.com/artchive/P/picasso.htmlHe was a living legend!! His works were far too deep and complex for us to even dare to imitate!! I was really envying that Joshi was deeper than us...!
Anyway, the arguments went on between the Principal and the students for quite a while. At last our Principal came up with a wise decision. He said, " Alright, those who want to honour Picasso by believing one should work hard, especially today, may go back to the classrooms and carry on with the classworks. And those want to honour Picasso with a day off can go home,
he or she will not be marked absent."
Many of us opted going back to class and work harder on that day. And Joshi and his other group of friends were happy that they could take a day off . Before we went back to the classrooms. Joshi got me on the side , laughingly, he asked me "Sandy, tell me who is this Picasso?"
I thought he was joking!!! "You don't know who is Picasso????" I asked.  " No! I heard about him only this morning . " "Joshi!! You don't know Picasso???" I could not believe what he had just said. "He is the greatest living legend of the modern art. " "I thought you are a great admirer of him!.. that's why you insisted so hard to honor him with a holiday!! But then why ??"
Cheekily  he said otherwise why so much fuss?... Honestly I actually did not know he is an artist too....! I thought he is some politician from India...."
I simply could not believe Joshi could be this crazy!! Later on the day, I noticed he did not go home. I found him in the college compound/ canteen area whole day happily sipping tea and whiling away the day.
After the classes were over, I met him again and I asked him " Joshi, why didn't you go home? I thought you fought so hard for a holiday today!... .What is the difference between inside the classroom and outside the classroom?"
He had no answer!! Instead he gave a laugh and shrugged his shoulders... And then he just could not stop laughing ....
 !!P.S. Joshi had never participated in any Union movement, neither in his college days nor after that.
He went off to America after he finished his final year in the Art College.
We lost contact with him. Anyway, this crazy friend of ours, definitely added colours in our lives when we were in the college.
Those days when we were dreaming to be
a Van Gogh, a Rembrandt, a Monet, a Cezanne,...
and later, dare to dream of being a Picasso.....
 (another crazy idea of Joshi's, here with his guitar,
he did not know any chord and did not play the guitar,
but he said keeping the guitar was to win the admiring looks
especially from the girls!!!)
( These black and white pictures are all Joshi's photographs )
 (L-R: Mukta, me, Subroto and *Bendang, my three senior friends who guided me especially in sketches )  (with my fresco painting. Final year in College)
 (me holding *Bendang's painting: Life Study- a portrait).
 (L-R: * Bendang, Subroto, me, Joshi and Jyotsna, the other two senior friends who helped me especially in sketches) * Bendang was the best student amongst us..
and he is still the best artist among us...He still paints seriouly...
And the rest of us ? most probably are taking a holiday like Joshi did on 8/4/1973
8th April 2009 April 04 First day to school and big step in life.                 It's hard to believe
that it is time for our little girl to start her school !Time has changed so much, in our time we started school when we were eight years old. When it was our son's time, he started school when he was four years old. But today's children start school as early as 18 months old! As a matter of fact, these are not exactly regular schools, rather play schools where children learn how to inter-react with their own age-group. The concept of this could be for the reasons, that there have been great changes in our society. Firstly, the mothers, especially the urban mothers have the oppotunity to pursue their careers even after they become mothers. Secondly, especially in the metro cities, the nuclear family system has taken over the age-old joint family system. Thirdly, the urban couple no longer desires to have more than one or two children. And, the most important change will be, a female  baby is being loved/valued as much as a male  baby in the family!In old conservative systems like ours, these changes have taken roots with positive results, which have helped us move on. Opps... I almost got out of track with all these changes in this page! I am supposed to share here our little girl's first day of her pre-school, isn't it?! Well, when she turned two years old, we were all mentally prepared to get her addmitted to a pre-school. We started introducing the idea of school to her, weeks ahead of her actually going to school. Of how to share her toys with others, no agressiveness with others and how to share her tiffins with others....etc She seems to be happiest with the idea of the tiffin box, as it will contain some cakes, fruits and a small bit of chocolate!! At last, this morning her Mummy drops her to school with her Spiderman school bag. (Oh she loves to imagine that she is the Spiderman- http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/spider-man3/ and she likes to be addressed, "Hey, Peter Parker!" There, this is what I mean by changes... http://spiderman.sonypictures.com/downloads/wallpapers/spiderman3/images/800x600/peter_sm7_800.jpg Girls no loger need to play with her dolls anymore! They are allowed to imagine they can be a hero like superman/spiderman.. fly around to save the needy and the world) And from her sketchy answers, we guess, she has not cried P.S. "Our baby girl, your papa is on his musical tour, and this page is especially for him to share your first day in school !"
2nd April 2009. March 15 Phantoms' visit.Last Friday, like any other calm evening after sunset.
I had given our little girl a bottle of milk. After that, she woke up from her afternoon nap and started playing with her grandpa out there in the balcony.
I decided to go for a bath, but before that, I sat down for my habitual daily crossword puzzle. I was trying hard to catch the eight letter word for "detective story" ..... Suddenly, I heard my husband calling me with excitement... and in the midst of his excitement I heard my little girl joining in " come, come! see ..."
 Woh... I heard lots of "'Caw...Caw.." the Crows and the Kites'..."Eeek..." "What's this going on in our backyard? Someone trying to harm the birds? The cats? Snakes? Human?....?" I was musing. Anyway, when I rushed out to the backyard balcony, my husband had the camera ready for me!!! And he said "There is something in the bush..the crows are attacking it..."
YES! I see some light!   Again my husband excitedly said
"Look there is something up on that pipal tree...do you see it?!"
 Yes! I see it, it went off in such a speed...like Phantom!!
 More noise from the crows ...
Our little girl was excited like the crows, "Big eyes... big eyes..." she was saying.
And I was trying my best to catch a perfect picture of this "big eyes"  My husband was prompting me...
" Sandy. there are three of them! Here... there...!"
  'Wait!! give me a second...' I was desperate to capture them with the camera ..it was too dark ...
' I need flash ...' and the flashlights took such long time to be recharged...!
 "I'd rather try with out the flash !'     I don't know who were more excited that evening?
The "big eyes"? My husband? Our little girl? me? The Crows ? The Kites? I had no time to notice whether our neighbours were watching all these commotions going on at the backyard and were excited like us?! Whew!! Very soon the night came, these "big eyes" took shelter in the dark Money plant http://www.jaycjayc.com/epipremnum-aureum-pothos/ I went on clicking till I no longer was able to get any sight of them in the darkness.   Actually, both my husband and our little girl were trying to flash torchlight on them
to help me get the pictures of these three "Big eyes"
[ honestly, though none of these torchlights are good at all!! but thank you, my sweeties.. these are the results of your great help!!]
 Anyway, it had become dark in the balcony, the mosquitoes started swarming around us..
So we decided to give up looking for those "big eyes" and came inside the room.
We were still excited... but with no clue as to what those three animals were.. My husband guessed those three must be of one family.. parents and the baby. Are they Koate? Loris? Panda?... I went on asking my husband "... suggest more names please!!!" He came up with "What about Civets?" Search....search..
Yes!! He is right again!! They are Palm Civets!!
When Allan and Mahua came home, our little girl excitedly told her parents "Papa.. mummy... Mmm ... big eyes!!" She would insist me to show her favorite picture of this "big eyes"  to her parents!
Till the other day, I thought I was happy to have this backyard with all my songbirds  ... with a few lazy cats and the noisy crows...Never thought we would have these "Phantom Civets" in and around here at this metro city of Kolkata! http://www.telegraphindia.com/1061023/asp/opinion/story_6883901.asp Wonder where they move about during the daytime? And whether we should feel good that, although Kolkata is such a congested city with so many humans, we are still able to find such wild animals like these civets?
http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/common_palm_civet.htm Next morning, I asked the watchman about these civets. He said "They are notorious. They come almost every evening... They enter the flats and eat whatever food are there in the house. They like fish and meat-mutton... they catch birds..etc.,... they are pest actually..!"
Sounds scary.... Must remember to lock the windows and the doors well after dark!! What an experience for us... and what an amazing phantoms visit for us.. .through this backyard we learnt so many things which,
otherwise, we, in our wildest dream would never have thought of knowing , espeically, about Civets!
http://www.thewebsiteofeverything.com/animals/mammals/Carnivora/Viverridae/Paradoxurus/Paradoxurus-hermaphroditus.html Exciting yet scary... Well, I guess, I better take this whole episode to be a fairy tale... and see through the whole thing from our little girl's point of view....
" Wow! Big eyes!!.. they have all gone to sleep..
 " she says.P.S.
I I could not think of that eight letter word for " detective story"
after all the excitement...
but my husband filled it up for me
" Whodunit"!
you are always there for me!!!  March 11 I love birds and their sweet songs You may think where have I been all these days http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_little_indians ...Actually, I am so enchanted by all the birds, insects, trees and few cats... that are in the backyard around the complex where Allan http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=212711002
Some common ones I can identify, the rest I have no knowledge of their names...
Nevertheless, the songs these birds sing, especailly early in the morning and during dusk... can bring so much of joy and comfort to the mind. the sweet songs form the birds are indeed a rare treat for a change!
As you know, in Kolkata, crows are the only birds that hate any human holding anything in hand while looking upward! http://sandyao.blogspot.com/2007/06/crows-dare-to-stand-up-for-their-rights.html they think we human are holding
Aside the crows, the rest of the birds enjoy the space and the harmony in this small backyard.
while the cat
This particular picture of the Indian Minah bird is projected with some beautiful stories by Julie Ardery in her wonderful Humanflowerproject!
and along with her, my fond songs |
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sling/stick/or even gun to aim at the birds to harm them!
taking a nap 
again.
!
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