I Cared- I Care!

My little sister is leaving for her Med. School today. For the next 5 1/2 years, the college hostel will more or less be her home. In the last 5 years of living in Canada, I have missed a lot of things that I should have been there with her for. Sri, I am feeling very sad that I am not with you today! 

I. The day you wanted
to vent your heart;
to laugh aloud
but no one heard
nor thought the joke was funny enough

II. The day you won
the “Computer Wiz.” fame;
a Performing Arts’ Distinction
or in Bhavan’s journal
published your first poem

III. The day you wanted
someone to compliment.
Praise you for things
other than grades
that failed meeting what others expect;

IV. The day you bunked
school first time;
Had a secret to share
or felt very sad
without reason or rhyme

V. The day it rained hard
and you wanted to dance;
Practice the new language
that you had started to learn
but no one else cared as much

VI. Teenage tantrums,
Late night movies,
Buttered popcorn
Company cravings-
Unrecognized, unlamented didn't go.
And today as you leave,
I add one more;
For each of those days
that I could not be there
Let this say how much I cared- I care!

The Glass Pane

There is a huge glass pane on one side of my front room; the side that looks at the lake across the little grassy slope and bare headed winter trees. Outside the glass pane, the wind is chilly and ever moving; rubbing against the little perennial shrubs - most probably Cotoneasters; brushing against the cars parked at the bottom of the slope; howling and growling at strangers and friends alike; caring for none, stopping at nothing. On this side of the glass pane, everything is the opposite, just as you would imagine. The air is warm and ever still; sitting gently atop all animate and inanimate objects; quiet and at peace with it’s surroundings. I often turn the central heating down and sit by the window pane. My usual companion is a cup of Green Tea; today it is a bowl of Quinoa and peppers. My laptop is sitting on a bright golden brown cushion as I am typing. Imagine me sitting cross legged in my blue- red spotted dress- El vestido- a new word I learnt in class today. My hair is tied up in a bun on my head. Some strands have escaped the clutches of the black rubber band and are now scattered about my ears and nape; too tiny to be held within the roll.

     It is getting cold inside the room. The heat has not been turned on since yesterday night. I like sitting by the pane with the heat turned off. Through some invisible cracks and fissures the cold wind from the outside seeps into the interior of my room. It has an amazing effect on my unclad skin. Tiny little goose bumps are spreading all over my arms as I type on. Signs of life in a muted house. On days that I sit here motionless, not thinking, just looking at the lake, the sudden irruption of these bumps on my skin draws attention to all the other quiet, uncomplaining, tireless processes that keep me alive; yet I thank them so little. The beating heart, the batting lashes, the steady inhalation and expiration...

     The wind outside is playing with the water of the lake at the moment. I see it riding on the beams of the slowly fading sun, touching and missing the little waves as they keep rising and falling. Lake Ontario is a sea in itself. It has some very populated islands in it. The Toronto Islands on its Western end, the Thousand Islands, the Galloo Island added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, the Wolfe Island which is the largest in the basin and a number of others. When for the first time I had visited the Toronto Islands, I could not believe that it belonged to a lake. It has residential houses, a forest, a generous amount of beach area, a little zoo and even an airport of its own serving the city of Toronto. It is this very amazing lake, one of the five Great Lakes of North America that I am looking at right now. A gentle blue giant playing with the restless gusts of cold Westerlies!

 

 

photo: www.flickr.com

 

The World Of Words!

❝If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.❞ ‒Nelson Mandela

Being born in a country whose population of one billion speaks several hundred languages (SIL Ethnologue lists 415), I grew up naturally learning many. My native language happens to be Bengali. But I learned the written form of it at a much older age.

I was initiated into the realm of literacy by a foreign Language, under the tutelage of English & Irish nuns, at a Catholic missionary school in India. English is one of the two official languages of the subcontinent and within a year of Kindergarten, I had successfully mastered A to Z!

The second language I learnt to read and write was again not the one I had inherited from my parents but Hindi, the second official language of India. This one came to me as a result of my father’s decision of making me capable of earning my own bread and butter, had I to travel to one of the Northern provinces close to home. And it proved to be quite a pleasant departure from the regular heavy handed subjects. Soon I pursued 3 other languages of the same family- Bengali (my mother tongue), Punjabi and Urdu.

At this time I speak all the four languages mentioned above & have a decent understanding of Bhojpuri, a language spoken in the neighbourhood of my province in India.

Four years ago I immigrated to Canada. My admiration for the study of languages strengthened in this amazing country renowned for its multiculturalism and open hearted acceptance of diversity. I was thrilled to find Canada had two official languages just like India.

Taking advantage of the abundance of time that I had at my disposal, I started to take French lessons. There were two things that immediately came to my attention;

1)      you need to find speakers of the language you are trying to learn, to be able to practice it with them on a daily basis

2)      you must start reading books in the language you are trying to learn to develop a workable vocabulary as quickly as possible. This will help you to form ‘broken sentences’ during your initial struggle to converse. Later you can fit these words into grammatical structures and refine your use of the language.

Another common sense fact about language also appeared vividly before me at this time. It is easy to learn languages of the same family at one time. This mainly happens because of the similarity of the grammatical structures & of words/ use of words. For example, French words like ‘boucher’, ‘descendre’ and ‘fleur’ translates into English counterparts as ‘butcher’, ‘descend’ and ‘flower’. And just by translating word for word from English to French, “maintenant je peux parler français conversationnel”. Although this is not a good long-term practice, it serves you well during your initial learning days.

The theory of association is also a very helpful tool. While learning new foreign words, just picture the word that you are trying to memorize. We all learn better when supplied with visuals; remember your A for Apple days?

With these mantras in mind, I am about to begin classes in Spanish. I have two months to visit Mexico and I better be able to do better than “Cómo estás?! :)

Picking one at a time...

I have a fascination with learning new things. I learned to bike at the age of 25, started taking classes in French at around 26, tried my ‘feet’ at skating at 27 and of late (without giving my age away) I have started learning to play the guitar!

It is a shiny chestnut Fender, smooth and soulful; and the best thing about this beautiful instrument is that it was given to me as a gift. So I quickly bought a music book, a tuner and a gorgeous black leather case. 

The stage was set. All I needed was a teacher…

After making a few calls, I decided to take classes at the Harbourfront Community centre. There were two reasons behind this decision- the community centre is located within a stone's throw of our house and at $6.50 an hour, the fee was very reasonable.

The day finally arrived and I reached the centre sharp at 8p.m. My anticipation and excitement were at their heights and I took out my shiny chestnut Fender from its dark black leather case with the sudden speed of a conjuring trick! In my head I could hear the masters- Clapton, Hendrix, Allman and their likes. I have had my share of exposure to different musical instruments; beginning with an Indian harmonium at age 3, moving onto the Tabla, the Tanpura, then the keyboard, a bit of Piano, a brief engagement with percussion which had culminated in some amateur drumming. So I was absolutely confident that I would strum like a professional as soon as I received instructions.

Alas, an entire hour went by just trying to figure out where exactly my fingers were or where they were supposed to be! Quite exasperated I asked my teacher, “Cliff, what is it? What’s the easy way to learn fast?” Cliff smiled and replied, “My dear, it’s really very simple. You got to pick one at a time!”

Authors@Harbourfront

Once again, this year the International Festival of Authors was hosted just across our street and at seventeen other locations across our province by the Harbourfront Centre and it featured a hundred and ninety authors from around the world and included readings by Scotiabank Giller Prize, Governor General’s Literary Awards and Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize finalists. In its 32^nd year, the IFOA boasted participants like Edem Awumey- Grand Prix Littéraire de L’Afrique Noire winner and a finalist for France’s prestigious Prix Goncourt, Ken Babstock a winner at the 1997 Canadian National Magazine Awards, Peter Behrens- winner of Governor General's Award for Fiction and Amitav Ghosh, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and winner of Arthur C. Clarke Award and Dan David Prize, amongst others.

Hearing the festive trumpets, I also went to visit the authors @ Harbourfront. As an invisible but sonorous voice set the mood for the evening, the audience was informed that each of the four authors will be reading for twenty minutes and following the first two authors, a fifteen minutes recess will be taken. Promptly thereafter, the first author was introduced. He was none other than our very own Linwood Barclay. Formerly a writer of the thrice-weekly humour column in the Toronto Star, he has also authored more than a dozen books. His reading from the prologue of a recently published book - The Accident definitely proved to be a hit with the audience, as it gradually made its way from the comic to the mysterious.

Next on stage was Amitav Ghosh with River of Smoke, the second volume of what will be the Ibis trilogy. He treated his audience to a humorous anecdote (absolutely fictitious off course) of how a man named Behram rose to prominence amongst the English passengers of a ship, when Napoleon, in exile at this time, invited him to his residence. All that can be said about the piece is that it left the audience giggling and curious to learn more.

Following a fifteen minutes break, Nancy Huston read to the audience. Huston’s books have won the Prix Goncourt des Lyceéns, Prix Elle and Governor General’s Literary Award. Her novel The Mark of the Angel won the Grand Prix des Lectrices de Elle, Canadian Jewish Fiction Book Award and Torgi Award and was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Fault Lines won the Prix Femina and was shortlisted for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Orange Prize. Huston presented Infrared, which follows Rena, a photographer who specializes in infrared techniques, who, through a parallel journey, explores her relationships past and present. The bold language, curious portrayal of characters and vividly descriptive passages in the section she read from, won her much appreciation from the audience.

The evening concluded with a reading by Heather Jessup. Currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto and a Creative Writing instructor at Dalhousie University, this is Jessup’s first novel. Set against the backdrop of Cold War-era Toronto, The Lightning Field gave us a slice of an engineer’s life who works in the suburbs of Toronto. Tragic yet hopeful, the novel explores loss and unexpected offerings.

As people migrated to the book signing desks, I took my leave of IFOA 2011, hoping to be back next year, and also hoping to meet a host of other talented authors who I could not this year...

 

Top- Audience, Bottom- Venue (Fleck Theater)

Author Amitav Ghosh at the Signing desk

With Author Amitav Ghosh

Nuit Blanche 2011

            On October 1st, 2011 we celebrated the Nuit Blanche festival in Toronto. This event is held every year, all night long and is absolutely free for all! But what does this festival celebrate? Well, this is an experience of arts of all sort: sound and music, graffiti and sculpture, visual and sensual works of art... you name it and they've got it- and all- ''l'art pour l'art''; meaning, "art for art's sake". This slogan had come into existence in France in the early 19th Century to express a philosophy that the intrinsic value of art has nothing to do with any didactic, moral or utilitarian function. And the festival too was born in France in 1989 and was initially named 'Night of the Arts'. The original plan was to keep every gallery, museum and bookshop open until midnight or later and to transform the entire city into a carnival venue. Gradually, Nuit Blanche or the 'White Night' of Arts came to be celebrated in France, every year from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and today this idea of a night-long festival of the arts has spread around the world, extending its light to our very own city of Toronto.

           On this cold windy night, hundreds of Torontonians were seen walking up and down the streets of the city with maps in Hand, and hands in pockets. Scotiabank, the sponsor of Nuit Blanche, Toronto, had meticulously planned this event, which began at 6.59 p.m. and lasted till sunrise. The map divided the city into zones A, B and C, to aid the convenience of art lovers. Every zone had a few commissioned projects, few open call projects and few independent projects presented to us not only by domestic artists but also from artists abroad. I happened to meet and talk to an artist from Los Angeles, just before he inaugurated his exhibition. This one, called "Memorias" was a commissioned one. So when my fellow stroller commented, "oh, so you must be pretty reputed in your field", he hung his head and blushed! The installation was very straight forward; he had wanted to commemorate Ontario immigrant workers by lighting candles in their memory, on a stretch of sand poured out on Yonge street. By the end of the night, there were enough candles to illuminate the dark road and also the hearts of those who passed and stopped inevitably. This is how it was:

 

The last image is significant because it added to my feeling of nostalgia. Being from Calcutta, India, I could definitely relate to this installation. Any protest, celebration, and both passion and compassion in my home city is often demonstrated by a similar lighting and/or arrangement of candles. And a work of art or not, this exhibit was definitely a work of humane sentiments.

            Another installation which arrested a lot of attention was a performance art by the duo- Tibi Tibi Neuspiel and Geoffrey Pugen. It was called "The Tie- break". The two gentlemen were re-enacting the legendary fourth set tie-break from the 1980 Wimbledon Finals between Bjorn Borg (Neuspiel) and John McEnroe (Pugen), throughout the night, for 25 minutes, after every hour. From hair and make-up, costumes  and shoes to the tennis court and commentator, everything mimicked the original, down to the minutest detail (even the 'course language'). But believe it or not, the most difficult part of the performance, according to the actors who had been practicing the moves for months now, was acquiring the original brand of white tennis balls used at the Wimbledon game, as they have gone out of production decades ago!

Other installations and exhibitions that I saw in the next two hours are pretty much the following:

 

 1. Morse Code                                  2. Soon- Forsyth & Pollard

  

3. Who's Gonna Run This Town- Kate Sansom

4. The design Exchange- Keller & Woodey

                         5. The Vault, Monster Jam- Jacob Gleeson

                           6. INFRA- Tonya Hart

There is however one special installation which I would like to mention before ending this article; it was 'The Free Shop" by Basil Alzeri, on Bay street. As the story runs, Alzeri had lost most of his material possessions to a house fire and later decided to give away whatever was left to him, on the White Night. His 'free shop' was made inside a street car (tram) stoppage and it considered his detachment from material goods. The artist's personal belongings saved from the fire were on display for the public to examine. They chose from it and took away with them, whatever they liked. Here below is the little free shop of artist Basil Alzeri:

   

My tour ended by 9 p.m. And although it was quite early, I decided that I had seen enough for this year. Some art works were "Ahh!!" and others were "blah"; but the experience was worth the walk...

24th June- RED CARPET with SHAHRUKH & VIVEK at Sheraton

This was the last of the "pre-awards" events that took place in Toronto. On the 24th of June, 2011, Vivek Oberoi and Shahrukh Khan were being awaited to grace the stage at Sheraton Hotel. Now, initially the only star projected to shine on the Sheraton stage was Vivek; but when he could not pull enough crowd, Shahrukh was called in at the last minute, to save the day!

I was really excited to attend this occasion, for primarily two reasons: 1) It was becoming impossible to get anywhere near King Khan otherwise..2) I wanted to play dress-up. So, I had planned to doll up real nice and head for the venue in the evening. All was moving according to the plan till a last hour bonus was thrown into my embrace. At about 8 in the morning, I was informed that my darling friend had given birth to a beautiful baby boy and that they were both healthy & well.

Here I proudly present to you- Rohan Benjamin Tamanamu, who I have decided to call Rishith:

         Evening was drawing close and my heart was beating faster than ever because I had planned real serious stuff for the occasion. I was getting hair extensions done for the first time ever!! Do you want to see the difference?? Ok...here...you are definitely in for a huge surprise:

Left: My lovely extensions

Right: After adding the finishing touches with my hairdresser Lisa                                                   

Having done my hair, I set off with my hubby to dazzle the pretty gathering at Sheraton..Boy I was loving my new look!! :P... Here are a few pictures from the venue:

With Hubby, in the queue to enter: Had to wait for about 1 hour before we could enter. The worst part was that people who had no tickets were also a part of this queue, despite us buying tickets previously online...Sooo unfair!

Inside Sheraton: A "red carpet" had been arranged for us to walk through before reaching the entrance of the ballroom.













The event was held in partnership with Besharam, Marla's, etc...

 1) Stage 2) Crowd gathered at the venue

From the extreme right of the ballroom, DJ Amrita from Besharam kept playing her mundane and hapless tracks as the crowd kept waiting anxiously for the arrival of the celebrities. Finally at 9 p.m.Vivek stepped on the stage. And although I am not a fan of the Oberoi boy, I do not exaggerate when I say that he lacked in both charm and glamour so much that probably the best of his fans were also disappointed that night- the dude just doesn't know the art of conversation. So, despite hearty attempts from the host- Veronica Chail, the ambiance at the venue did not warm up. 

Now, the audience at the venue had been wearing different wristbands to demarcate the category that they fell in; Green for VIP (tickets at $150), Yellow for general audience (tickets at $100 and below) and Silver (for those who had purchased their tickets when only Vivek was supposed to be attending it). These (Silver wristband) were next called to the stage to take a photograph each with Vivek.

What followed was almost 40 mins of photo-session with Vivek for "Silver wristband-ers" while the rest of the crowd killed themselves in boredom at the bottom of the stage. And everybody sighed in relief when Vivek got off the stage and left us in peace for good.

Here are some clips of our Saathiya from the venue:

 Once Vivek left, the wait recommenced. Some tried hard to dance to the tunes of SRK songs that the DJ was playing, just like I did...

 

but that could not hold the Khan's fans still for too long...

Time was flying fast...pretty ladies, gorgeous lads, food, music...everything was keeping the atmosphere alive somehow. The audience had scattered by now and one could often hear whispers like "He is not coming" or "lets leave, its pretty late". But Stalling all commotions at 12 midnight, the King of Bollywood finally arrived!

Dressed in black, wearing opaque shades, Khan drove the crowd hysterical. Here is how he looked:

Unfortunately, the lighting at the venue was so dim that Khan's pictures have not come out that well...Nevertheless, it was great interacting with Shahrukh. For some reason, I had always perceived him to be arrogant and vain. Today, my opinion stands corrected. Not only did he encourage and answer the dozens of questions asked by us, but also tried his very best to connect with the audience present there.

Some questions asked and their answers are as follows:

Q. Best song

A. amongst many- chaiyya chaiyya

Q. Secret of success

A. Work hard & try and kill the other actors at the game

Q. Why not staying on in Toronto after the event

A. Has to return urgently because he will be undergoing surgery soon & needs complete rest of 10 days before that.

Khan rocked the stage for an hour and a little more before he left. He came through as a man of great charm & personality, wit & intelligence. Overall it was a good evening today!