British conductor Michael Bawtree guides a member of the Chamber Orchestra at a Calcutta School of Music programme last Sunday. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

Of dust and pills

What is it?
With my fantasies
In eyes shut light
A romance
With ghosts and flights
And wind storms
Billowing dust and rain drops
With reds and greens
And torn paper packets
Little green paper sachets
Hiding clean white pills
Tall, bitter round
Stored in straw casks
Swallowed and lost
Down deep tunnels
Flushed
Forever fading and waning
Reducing
Into thin rivulets
Causing, effecting
Rights and wrongs

Vatsala Goel,
English (hons), St Xavier?s College

Shame

I feel for you
That you have all these problems
I feel for you
That you have all these faults
I feel for you
That you are only human
That you put up all these walls

It?s time...
You admit the pain you?ve drudged on others
Blaming, hating, excusing and hurting
The one, that loved you most

I tried to change
Even attempted to take my own life
I thought it would make yours better
How hard I really tried

But only after years of abuse...
Did, I realise
Nothing I do...
Would ever make me right

Not as long as this sickness
controls you
From the inside
And it is for this very reason
I can no longer allow you to screw
with my mind

Still, every once in a while
It seeps inside my head
Every nasty little thing...
You?ve done or said

I never really had your love
No need in trying to replace it
These are your own mistakes
You need to learn to face them

I love you, mom, and always have
Though it seems you were not alone
In this destruction of me
Nearly driving me mad...

And, then, forcing me out on my own
But you know...
In the finality of things
I?m just a diamond in the rough
Yes!
I was born out of circumstance
But through it all
Made, both...

Resilient
and
Tough!

Trina Dasgupta

 

The end of many a regret

Reasons are many, options are few.
I scream, I shout, I cry,
But can anything justify
How I feel about you?
Of course not, nothing can.
Life?s empty as it is,
Devoid of the colours.

It keeps coming back every time.
A new day, old faces, revised fury.
The length though often varies.
The spectator does not care much,
But the music goes on, loud.
The violent drums beaten.
The untuned guitars strummed.

I try to strum along but
Am astray,
Am away from the track.
She strikes the familiar chords
of life.
My soul played them some time,
Now, all is silent,
My eyes still and lifeless ?

As the elegy was read
At the funeral instead
The drums rolled again
While the sirens deafened every ear
The blinding thunder
Poured rain against summertime?
Soaking, mixing tear with rain?

Barkha Sharda,
Class XII, Ashok Hall

 

Ode to Simon & Garfunkel

Prophets of the night
Tap the broken light

and tap the tune soon
before the poet
leaves the room

and a cry or a song

and the long walk home
?n? the last talk
On the phone

Ghosts in their pain
flicker down the lane

the guitar that fell
in the circle
of shadows
Still sows
A blue feather
In the far meadows

A haze on the window

?n? a blaze kills the land

and my hand taps the rock twice
and the ice hits a lock
On her faded door?

but the four-letter poem
falls among the dead leaves

I sung a dark prayer
On the gray stairs

beyond
the deaths in the park
where I
shut my eye
from the zombie
of a friend

?tell me,
would you lend
a wilderness
of my voice only??

?Sleep
till it rains?

Weep as a pin drops in silence.

Inam Hussain Mullick,
2nd year English, JU

 

Tagore Tributes Around the world, His Medal stolen and Home in a shambles here

Bengal?s bard

Days after his death anniversary, SUNDEEP BHUTORIA remembers the tributes paid to Rabindranath Tagore in other countries.

When I received an invitation to chair a Young Scholar Seminar organised at the University of Economics in Prague, Czechoslovakia, last year, I was aware that my first visit to the historic land would be exciting. But despite that, I returned with sorrow in my heart.

While talking to the Indian chancellor Ramesh Chander, I asked if there was any place of special significance for Indians. I was taken aback by the reply that Rabindranath Tagore was a respected figure there, and that his bust had been put up in the city . The next day, I went to visit the spot on Thakur Riwa (the word means street in the local language). The bust was placed atop a pillar. I stood speechless, my heart swelling with pride.

Another pleasant surprise awaited me at the Indian mission in Hungary, one of the stops on my eastern European tour, where I visited the ambassador Manbir Singh. On a wall was a wooden frame, which, on closer inspection, I realised was a menu card for a dinner party hosted years ago. I was amazed at the history of the memento. After Tagore received his Nobel Prize in 1928, he visited Budapest. The mayor had hosted a grand dinner party in his honour. The menu contained details of the meal, starting with cold soup to the hot coffee after dessert. It even mentioned the fact that the feast was organised to honour Rabindranath Tagore.

I also learnt of a cardiac hospital in Balantonfured, a village about 100 km away from Budapest, where Tagore had been treated during his visit in 1928. Singh told me that a statue of Bengal?s bard had been placed in the hospital in his memory. When I went to the village, I notice that the park was named after him, too, as was the room where he stayed, called Tagore Suite, which is reserved for VIPs. When I spoke to the director of the hospital Dr Gabor Veress over phone the next day, he asked me what the nearest airport to Santiniketan was, and which museum held the Nobel Prize medal.

I was caught off guard. What could I tell him, that the prize that had made him famous, had been stolen? The bitter truth is that my knowledge of Gurudev has been gleaned from my various foreign visits. Even the birthplace of poet Pablo Neruda, in Santiago, Chile, has a park named after Tagore. In China, a conversation over tea between a famous Chinese poet and Tagore has been recreated in sculptures in Shanghai. But here, in the land of his brith, we couldn?t even protect his Nobel medal.

Chit Chat

College kudos

The year-long golden jubilee celebration of Gurudas College is set to kick off in style on August 14, the foundation day. A small programme to commemorate the day will be followed on August 18 by a formal inauguration by Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi and a cultural extravaganza.

Satyasadhan Chakrabarti, the higher education minister, and Asish Kumar Bandyopadhyay, vice-chancellor, Calcutta University, are among the other dignitaries to be present on the occasion. Also on the agenda is an alumni meet and exhibition ? 1905: Phire Dekha.

A golden jubilee lecture series has already been started by Prof Amlan Datta. Plans are afoot to get Prof Romila Thapar to deliver the next lecture. In November, the annual cultural programme of the college, Harmonica, will be organised, paving the way for the golden jubilee sports meet in January.

Started in 1956 as a joint initiative of the state and Central governments for the education of youth displaced by the Partition, Gurudas College has progressed from strength to strength.

It now offers self-financed courses in computer science, microbiology and biochemistry in addition to honours degrees in 13 subjects from its campuses in Narkeldanga. Permission to offer B.Com degrees has been granted by Calcutta University this year. Courses in mass communication and journalism are being contemplated.

Further expansion is on the anvil, in the form of a golden jubilee complex, to house the library and an auditorium, on an acre of vacant land owned by the college. Funds are the only stumbling block. But assurances of aid have been forthcoming.

The professors of the college expressed hope that in the not too distant future, the college would not only offer postgraduate courses and research facilities, but turn into an educational and resource hub for several schools in the area. A community education project can also be started, they felt.

Career call

?Those who can, do. Those who can?t, consult?, this is a common misconception among many people about the profession of consulting. It?s a job that stimulates your intellect, deals with people and impacts the way an organisation does business. Many B-school students aspire to join top global consulting firms when they graduate.

The main reasons are excellent pay packets, foreign postings and luxurious lifestyles. But knowledge of the job and clarity about long-term goals can help make a better decision. These were some of the views expressed in a talk on ?Careers in Consulting? at IIM-C on August 10. The speakers were IIM-C alumni from Boston Consulting Group.

The guests gave an insight into the career path and nature of assignments of a consultant. Vikram Bhalla, a 1996 batch IIM Calcutta alumnus and now partner in BCG, emphasised the importance of being sure of what one wants to do in life before taking the plunge. He looked back at his experience as a student conceding that he feels he had chosen the right career but for the wrong reasons, due to lack of information. ?Take the career decision over a longer term, rather than in just three months before placements,? said Bhalla.

He asserted that consulting can provide one with an accelerated career path and exposure to a broad spectrum of management problems. Saurabh Tripathi discussed the kind of assignments a consultant works on using real industrial examples, while Shaleen Sinha reiterated how a consultant gets opportunities to work in projects with motley client teams and gain experience in various businesses.

The talk was an eye-opener for many students, while the guests were happy to return to their alma mater. The final advice was summed up by Vikram Bhalla as he quoted Steve Jobs: ?You?ve got to find what you love?Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.?