Bus number 47A. Many Calcuttans (now Kolkatans) will be familiar with this bus that plies a long, nearly 16 km route from Dhakuria in the South to Lake Town in the North. This was my usual ride during my CA articles days when audit assignments invariably took me to the dense business districts of Dalhousie Square. During peak hours, predictably, it was packed.                                                        (representative image. Some were more rickety!) It was during one such peak-hour journey, while returning home, that I experienced a humorous encounter. I was holding onto the grab bars overhead. The bus was at top speed, and with every lurch and turn, my body stretched for a few seconds like a dead hang, before swaying to another angle and repeating the motion. The bus halted at a stop popularly called ...

  I recently listened to a piece by Jim Reeves. So easy on the ear, so gentle. His words were deeply emotive, and the music felt complete. It sent me reminiscing and reflecting on countless happy and emotional moments. Good music is truly therapeutic, yet it can also bring in melancholy. The lyrics make the difference. When I was young, I listened to the masters like Beethoven and Mozart, Jim Reeves, Tom Jones or bands like Creedence Clearwater Revival and Deep Purple and they sounded only like pure music. It was just good to listen to. The deeper layers, the underlying structure – the 'da da da dum' of true composition – never quite came up; music was only an listening sensation. The old GEC radio was my music player. it had knobs for volume, radio stations and for selecting the short wave and medium wave bands. It did add its own sounds, cackle, static et al depending on its mood to the melodies coming from its weak speakers. Yet, it still added up to good music. Jim Reev...

  A normal day. It was early winter. Evening darkness was enveloping Calcutta as the hour approached 5 PM. The hawker was arranging his wares on the railings of Kalighat Park. The kerosene lamp was illumining the illustrations on the posters eerily. There was redemption for the sinners, but they were in punishment prescribed for each of several sins. The do gooders’ rewards were noticeably absent! The boys looked at the graphic pictures in furious red and the other primary colours. The hideous minions of the netherworld wielded terrifying instruments of torment reserved in their capabilities for each of the sins – lying, stealing, hurting, disobedience et al. The boys looked at each other in terror at the prospect awaiting them! Boy 1 “you stole my yoyo”. “Oh, you kicked me so hard, Boy 2, the swelling on my knee is not reducing, not to mention the pain”!!!                              ...