The flavour of Kolkata

The flavour of Kolkata
The city is known for its old alleys. One such is shot by Atanu Pal.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Rituparno on Twitter

Yes, Rituparno Ghosh has joined the Twitterverse in the middle of this August. No, it's NOT a fake profile, because his tweet has been carried in t2, and also evident from his tweet exchanges with well-known Twitterfolks. Logged on to Twitter rightaway after I read his tweet in t2 today and followed him. Am interested in Twitter again after long for his tweets. Hope he stays regular

A big 'Thank you' to t2 for publishing his tweet.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Uro Chithi

Loved Uro Chithi - the August '11 film sporting an ensemble cast, by debutant Kamaleswar Mukherjee.

It's a story of one year in the life of techie Aniket caught in rough weather during the last recession - capturing abut various people in his life. The ensemble cast with Indraneil (the protagonist), Saswata, Sudipta, Rudranil, Biswanath (The surprise package), Sreelekha, Biswajit, Locket, Reshmi, Tanusree and others is spot on. Everyone was just perfect for their roles. Tight script, good storytelling, superb performances and good music make it a recommendation.

Waited long for Uro Chithi. And it was worth it! Loved the doctor-turned-adman-turned-director Kamaleswar's dialogue (especially the witty one liners) in Natobor Not Out last year. Looking forward to his next work.

Saturday, August 06, 2011

Iti Mrinalini disappoints

Yesterday I watched the film I so eagerly and frustratingly awaited all this while……only to find it wasn’t worth the wait! Sheer disappointment!

It is far, far from Aparna's best work. And sad for we the audience that it came right after The Japanese Wife.

I expected a close look at Mrinalini’s careergraph, her path to success, her exit. There hasn’t been a worthy film on the life of a lead actress of Bengali cinema in the 70′s (while we have a Nayak) and I expected Iti Mrinalini to fill that void. But Iti.. showed Mrinalini at work only as reference points for sketching her personal life. And top of all, she’s shown to work mostly in Siddhartha Sarkar’s (The character of a leading, commercially successful director, played by Rajat Kapoor, in Anjan Dutta's voice) films. Utterly ridiculous!!

Not that the film DOES NOT HAVE redeeming qualities. The performances - Konkona, Kaushik Sen, Rajat, Ananya Banerjee (the older Sohini) - are first rate. Kaushik's talent is well-known, but his Chintan Nair will stay in audience memory for long. The music, especially the title track by Srikanto Acharya (Based on Sunil Gangopadhyay's poem) is good, and the cinematography by the late Somak Mukhopadhyay is outstanding.

I loved the ruthlessly honest 'personal' take of Pratim D. Gupta on the film (The link : http://moifightclub.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/iti-mrinalini-koko-channel-in-rina-rut/#comment-5884).

Monday, August 01, 2011

Life in Metro : 3 - The 'Smart' commuter


Every daily commuter was waiting for this for a painfully long time. The new Smart Card from Kolkata Metro. The authorities stopped issuing the current avatar of Smart Card long back, forcing the daily commuters to stand in painfully long queues or buy multi-ride tickets. Now, multi-riders come with their own reality, which is not palatable.

So, when the paperless travel (Switch from magnetic paper ticket to plastic tokens) was kicked off in July '11, the subsequent announcement of fresh issue of 'Smart' cards caught many like me, who suffer long queues every morning and haplessly count the no. of trains passing by before we reach the counter, in great enthusiasm. Mine was higher as I haven't ever possessed one.

The expected date of launch was missed at least once, just like the launch of the token system. Finally the newspaper report yesterday brought the day in striking distance. Metro counters for smart cards opened yesterday itself.

Changed my route midway today after dropping my elder daughter to school at Sealdah. Travelled back to get down at Dum Dum, my stop for the daily metro ride to Chandni Chowk. The queue (only for smart cards) was as long as that of regular tickets any other day. But, fine, it was going to be the last pain before a long relief. Quickly took down the 'Must know' info of a smart card from fellow commuters, and ended up at the counter after a wait of 35 minutes. Bought the long desired object costing Rs 100 (with an usage value of Rs 120 and a validity of 30 days). Aahhhh.....life in Kolkata Metro will be different now.