Somewhere in Space

Dear Friend

As 2012 is nearing an end, we are proud to have associated with you in the past year and with deep gratitude acknowledge and thank you for your support. And for those of you who are not aware of us, we welcome your support and would like you to know that we are a foundation working tirelessly to raise funds to save babies in critical care. Do visit our website www.heal-a-child.org

Or see a short film http://youtu.be/EKX_nY58c64

We have successfully conducted our first annual fundraising event “Hyderabad Walks for Heal-a-child” in association with Taj Krishna on the 11th of November and now bring to you our second annual event “Heal-a-child’s annual Christmas Fundraiser Ball” a black tie evening like none other Hyderabad has ever seen.

“The social event of the year”, which will raise the bar for gourmet food, culture, music, art and social work, closing the year with a flourish, in association with Taj Krishna.

While we raise funds for a serious cause it’s our endeavor to do so by ensuring you have an evening like never before. Our black tie ball will be an annual Christmas ball, and rejoices in the joy of giving – during the season of giving.

We will delight you with a performance from the acclaimed ‘OPUS’ entertainment company from Bangalore, with music from Broadway and old and new Hollywood greats, whilst you enjoy a 3 course gourmet meal thoughtfully paired with the perfect wines.

Following up with a fun celebrity auction revolving around art and celebrity contributions, and move on to ball room dancing as well as dancing to some popular retro music around coffee, desserts and single malts (Dalmore and Jura).

Friends, we promise an enlightening evening, full of entertainment and we assure you the buzz will resound till next year.

Date: 13th December, 2012.
Venue: Grand Ball Room, Taj Krishna
Dress code for men: Black Dinner jackets, tuxedos or lounge suits – with black bow ties or ties. Dress code for women: Ball gowns or saris in black or red, gold and green - the colours of Christmas
Donor Passes: Rs. 10,000/- per couple by invite only, limited passes available

Please block your passes now, each table seats 4 couples, so you could get together in groups and block a table. 100 % of the amount collected from the passes goes towards our funds to save babies.
We look forward to your ongoing commitment and generosity of spirit, towards our foundation and the work we do.
Regards

Sabina Xavier
Founder & Executive Director

Last night I went to a restaurant for dinner. And almost walked out because the noise levels inside were decibly high and the clusters of loud patrons were in full flow. They had kind of taken over the whole restaurant and distributed themselves across the place into groups of adults, oldies and children.

And the arrangement was very much like a choir – bass, tenor, alto, soprano etc.

Given that the eatery was low on cushioning and carpeting, the noise levels echoed tinnily and irritated all of us no end. But no amount of subtle signals to the warring party seemed to penetrate the cloud of disregard they seem to have built around themselves.

A few hundred miles away a girl posted something honest on a Facebook page and her friend signed in a like. Before you could say Mark Zuckenberg, the girls had been arrested.

And a mute public gazed in awe at a funeral fit for the Gods, except that it wasn’t God on the crucifix, just a misunderstood man…someone who had postured so much that he began to think of himself as divine, even as a bovine populace suckled at his teats in mindless servility.

At almost the same time someone found a motorcycle campaign objectionable simply because the ads had dared to christen a non brahmin bike with a brahminical name. And the wheels did not have a sacred cross tread to qualify.

Every tobacco chewing, betel spitting day I find that we are as a society regressing from undeserved vanity to moronic idiocy. And emerging with every step, hollower and hollower. Phewt!!!

Come on. Our politicians are playing ‘statue’ with cardboard cutout Gods. And dividing up territory cakes singing Happy Birthday tunes. And the lights go off because the Government did not pay a power bill, and the water supply stops because the roots of corruption have clogged the pipes.

Isn’t our claim to democracy and similar words too shallow to be entertained? Surely we deserve better. Surely we have earned it. At least some of us.

 

A young lady I am extremely fond of and hugely respect, recently insinuated that men essentially think from their groin and rarely if ever exercise their brain.

While on expressing surprise, the lady did admonish me and told me to take things ‘light’, I still feel a wee bit affronted.

I find it hard to imagine that the world is full of men who walk around with the sole purpose of mentally stripping women in their quest for sexual gratification. And I think many men stare at women in their finery only with the connoisseurs’ eye and appreciate the raw beauty of her form and face and also her fashion sense.

Not for a moment am I denying that nudity has its own appeal and not for a second do I propagate the theory that only well built men and women can carry off their nudity aesthetically. But at a generalisation that all men are ‘pricks’ I do balk.

Similarly I am sure most of my sane women friends decide on their point of view without staring at the naughty bulge in our pants.

That said and done, I do laugh at jokes that talk of men pointing in particular directions without using their hands and women nodding their acceptance by simply shaking their…But that’s in jest. In a more sober world I still feel that brains have to be respected and groins protected.

And women should dress for themselves, their friends and for the randomness of mankind (not randyness mind you) and men…well they will be men, and dress carelessly and imagine that it is in their casualness that they will find their uber chic.

So finally, how do we men think…

The groin is out. It went out of fashion with the Neanderthal. The brain is suspect since it is always involved in an extra brainular affair between its right side and left. That leaves very little space to accommodate the thinking function.

The only zone that seems to be free to take up the challenge is the stomach. Think about it…when we are deep in thought, don’t we rub our bellies? When we feel a hunger for the company of the opposite sex doesn’t our stomach gurgle? It does, don’t it?

So that’s the new image of the really brainy guy…no longer is it a large forehead facilitated by a receding hairline but it is the size of the belly. The size of the overhang. And so on.

The ancient Hindus must have known this…or else why did they indulge in ‘Pait ka Pooja’…

What is your grandmother’s name, a friend asked my toddling daughters. Their answer surprised everyone including me. Sweetly, innocently and in a jiffy my older daughter answered : Duggamma.

My friend who knew my mother’s name smiled away the error but I was intrigued. On questioning the kids I found that when my mother was alive she used to tell them stories. Stories from the Ramayana; stories from the Mahabharata and so on.

But their favourite was the story of Ma Durga, and the reason was simple enough to guess. You see when my mother told most of the stories she had no visual aids to help her art, but when it came to the story of Goddess Durga, she had the Durga face. And she used it so effectively, so animatedly that the kids began to think of her as the incarnation of Ma Durga. Being kids and being exposed to a combination of madrasi and muslim culture their name for my mother was soon corrupted into Duggamma.

The painted Durga is a common curio in Bengali homes and also homes where the people have a strong Bengali connection. Like mine.

Considering that I spent the first ten years of my life in Calcutta and it took me a little more than that to realise that I was not a Bengali of the manor bred or otherwise, you can’t blame me for the lasting impression that I have, that I am a honorary Bengali.

Well look at it this way. How many non Bengalis do you know whose childhood friends, best friends, have names like Bappa, Bobbin and Beauty. How many do you know who learnt to swim in a ‘pukur’ and in the famous Dhakuria Lake of Calcutta. Or how many people can you think of who started their acting career by enacting the role of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose perched atop a military tank fashioned from bamboo and canvas.

I still say Eeeesh when I see something yuckcky, and Omago is a common enough utterance. My favourite song is still Nizomosondhai...my favourite movie is Kabuliwala...and my favourite sweet is Rossogolla...

I am proud of my St. Lawrence education and still grin like an insane smiley when someone calls me Beejoy...

Okay, enough of background information. And before I slip into song, yes a Bengali Song about a Jeep Driver called Kali Paaglaa...let me come to the point (well what do you expect...I am enough of a Babu Moshai to be allowed to beat around the bush for a while before I come to the core of the story)...

So, this story is about how I bagged my first stellar role on the streets of Calcutta.

Every year we would wake up to a season popularly known as Poojo. This started with the putting up a pandal...installing the deity...decorating the street and the temporary temple...helping organise and distribute Proshaad...and finally of course being a part of the Bishorjon formalities...

My traditional South Indian parents, Madrasis by Bengali definition were very supportive and encouraged all the madness that the whole pada made us kids a part of, but drew the line at allowing us to get into the truck with the deity and going to the Kidderpore Docks for the immersion.

But that year was different. I had told my friends that my father had been transferred and it would be the last Durga Poojo Celebrations that I’d take part in. There was enough sorrow going around at the mention of my leaving the environs but one Dada saw something which no one else did.

He decided then, unbidden...that he would make me feel wanted by the whole neighbourhood...and he decided to involve me in jobs that would make me feel the magic of the moment again and again for the rest of my life.

For hours on end for instance, he would make me in charge of the music and PA system at the poojo pandal. I would choose which was the next 45 rpm record to be played, and I could increase the volume of the tannoy speakers if I so desired.

All he could do however on stage was to make me key projector operator. The cyclorama effect had just come into vogue. And moving titles were an innovation. How the combination worked was that after the program of the evening, the screen would be lit up in cyclorama blue and some characters would mime a shadow performance set to music. And there was a hand cranked projector back stage that had a roll of lith film that projected white letters on the screen.

Yes, laugh...but then it looked as fascinating as the title sequence of Superman and Star Wars. And I loved to be a part of the production...even had my name featured on the screen...

I guess what this Dada did for me would have qualified as a series of Kodak moments but a queer turn of events catapulted me into another sphere altogether.

You see, one of the things that the boys in the neighbourhood had decided was that they would make a mock Patton Tank for the Poojo Parade. Perhaps it had a lots to do with the fact that in the aftermath of India’s battles with China and Pakistan in the late sixties the general mood was fairly martial and demanding of heroes.

The tank was an ingenious construction. The framework was made from Bamboo, and the whole structure was wrapped in canvas that was then painted olive green. Inside were 12 or 16 tough young lads who walked in unison and literally carried the tank through the streets of the procession.

Almost at the last minute someone came up with an idea that the tank would look much better if the top was opened up and we had a look alike hero sitting atop the ‘patton’ tank. While fixing the tank to accommodate a hero was easy, the introduction of a full grown adult proved to be a pain to the tank’s pushers. And to cut a long story short, it was decided (with auto suggestions by my friend, the neighbourhood Dada) to put up a fancy dressed kid...and the kid would be made to resemble, well who else but Netaji Subash Bose...

so what if Netaji had nothing to do with the recent wars...or did he?

So I hogged the limelight across Calcutta...and as a special favour...was allowed to go to the docks in the truck.

As we reached the docks and cranes lifted the Goddess Durga gently and lowered her into the Ganges a thousand cheers went up into the air...I however was crying...my first performance for Durga Ma was destined to be my last...

and when many years ago, my mother passed away...I looked at her burning embers and said what I had said so many years ago...Bye Bye Duggamma...