Roopa....by Anurag

Here's the elegant Roopa Ganguly for you....shot impromptu by Anurag Basu at Darjeeling where he was shooting Barfee with Ranbeer Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra. Roopa plays a role in the film, her first Hindi film in a long time.

Sincere thanks to Roopa Ganguly for the permission for the photograph, sourced from her Facebook album.

Challenge Nibi Na : a brief look

Am not being able to catch up with Challenge Nibi Na - the reality show with celebrities on ETV Bangla at 9 pm due to work schedule. Caught just 2-3 episodes.

The celebs are being put through really unfamiliar and challenging tasks in a village. Like catching fish, collecting dry leaves and filling sacks with them, collecting eggs from under small baskets spread over an area, fun games like a quick run to and from a point and cutting a gourd in between and blindfolded team games. Some are finding it more challenging for their excess weight and lack of fitness while some are smoothly sailing through for being fit and in shape.

The fit brigade : Rimjhim Mitra, Sampurna, Dibyendu, Silajit.
The fat pack : Kamalika, Arindam Sil, Sohini Paul, Swastika Mukherjee.

It was surprising to find Sohini awfully fat, with her bulging stomach hanging in a white t-shirt. Swastika too looked too fat for a lead actress. Both of them really need to go through a strict fitness regimen to get back to reasonable shape.

Nondinee promo

Here's the second promo of Nondinee, the upcoming film by Subrata Sen after a long gap, starring Swastika Mukherjee. Mir and singer Dibyendu have played the male leads.

Ranjana Ami Aar Ashbona

Ranjana Ami Aar Ashbona is touching, bold and straight from the heart. Abani Sen, though a Bengali rockstar of that age is not really credible, is certainly amongst Anjan's best as an actor. Parno is impressive and so is Ranjana's voice - Somlata.

The film, though it has some elements too typical and repetitive of Anjan, takes off from where Anjan's Madly Bangalee ended and goes deep into the creative crisis of a rockstar and also has a brief but ruthlessly honest look at today's rock music and people making it. A fresh and interesting take. Recommended.

Srabanti's item number

Was pleasantly surprised to read about Srabanti's first item number in a Munni badnaam hui-resembling costume in Soumik Chattopadhyay's under-production film under the banner of Venkatesh Films on t2 Tollywood page today. It will be interesting to catch how so far the 'only seen as cute 'n' glam' Srabanti fares in the item number space.

Should be a treat to numerous netizens looking up Srabanti on the net and occasionally landing up on this blog, making the page views of the posts featuring her topping the most other most-viewed pages. Would love to have some comments from them here.

Picture sourced from : t2, The Telegraph 25 June 2011.

Jagorone jai Bibhabori...

The remade Rabindrasageet with guitar and drums in the background from Anjan Dutt's 24 June release Ranjana Ami Aar Ashbona is filling up my senses.....after Rupam's Beche thakar gaan (from Autograph) did it last Puja and Babul and Shreya's Pherari mon (from Antaheen) the year before that.

Loved Somlata Acharyya Chowdhury's voice, and Kabeer Suman's too (after a painfully long time on playback) in Jagorone, and especially the western orchestration superbly composed by Neel Dutt. Neel is keeping up with his successful experimentation with Rabindrasangeet since the brilliant Pagla hawa in The Bong Connection.

Eagerly awaiting the film.

Star Ananda 20:20

Loved the panel discussion of an eclectic mix of participants from Bangla film industry on Star Ananda 20:20 telecast last evening. The topic was : Paglu and Shotru (two recent big releases) did business worth crores. What did the industry get?

Moderated by Suman De, the panel had Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, Anjan Dutta, Raj Chakraborty, Anindya Chattopadhyay, Sujan (Neel) Mukherjee, Rahul, Mahendra Soni and Jeet Ganguly. The last two were refreshing additions to such a debate, and thanks to Star Ananda for that.

The sorry state of the stadium

It felt bad to know the sorry state of our showcase Salt Lake Stadium in this Times of India report published today. Always knew that the stadium gets a step-motherly attitude from the state government when it comes to maintenance and the ground has never got a much-needed overhaul in it's history. It's a shame for the last state government that despite earning from the stadium through hire charges for private functions, the upkeep always received a royal neglect.

Thankfully the new Minister of State for Sports (with independent charge) Madan Mitra has got into action soon after assuming duty and has ordered a maintenance drive. There are good reasons too, for if everything is upto the mark, the stadium is going to host the Argentine football team this September with Lionel Messi as the star attraction.

Also shocking to know was the state of a pride of the city - Rabindra Sadan (See this adjacent report in The Times of India).

The fate of the two

So the swearing-in of the new state government happened before a robust audience. Now recalling the speculation made in my earlier post Run-up to the elections 1 : Two distinct candidates, it has become half true. Yes, Amit Mitra is the new Finance Minister, but Bratya has been allocated the Higher Education portfolio, which he should be able to do justice to given his teaching experience in college. He wasn't given the Information & Culture portfolio (as also speculated in a prominent Bangla daily) because of Mamata Banerjee's principle that people shouldn't be given the ministries in line with their field of work by default. More thought should go into the portfolio allocation. I agree.

Am also particularly happy about the cabinet berth allocation to Manish Gupta (the giant killer who defeated the last Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya by a good margin) who wasn't really interested to become a minister. The Planning & Development department looks like in the safe hands of an Ex-Chief Secretary.

A respite!

The city was at its hot 'n' humid best for the first two days this week. Those like us who need to work on the field daily or occasionally suffered the most. It dehydrated the body to the core. The late afternoon yesterday was better but.

Today was definitely a big relief. It started as a cool, dry, cloudy day. There was heavy pouring in the afternoon. Hence it felt good being on the field throughout the day.

Hope such weather balances out the summer torture this season, which is proving to be less ruthless than its predecessors.

'Noukadubi' music launch

The unique music launch of the Rituparno Ghosh-directed and Subhash Ghai's Mukta Searchlight Films-produced Noukadubi (Based on the Tagore novella of the same name) took place on a barge on Hooghly last evening. The film has been scored by Debajyoti Mishra (Second from right in the picture). It's set to release on 20th May.

No Sunday without ‘Robbar’

A complimentary Sunday magazine distributed with the daily paper is something many look forward to, Sunday being the only day with the luxury of leisurely reading that covers a variety of subjects that a daily paper doesn’t deal with on weekdays.

In the past the Sunday magazine used to be associated only with only the English newspapers, like The Telegraph and Hindustan Times. Graphiti from Telegraph and Brunch from HT are two quality offerings that I am sure command a great readership. To many these magazines must be the main attraction of reading the Sunday papers. In the recent years one of the prominent Bangla dailies has joined the league with its unique Sunday offering – Robbar ( which means Sunday). It is from the house of Sangbad Pratidin. The paper, though paints a certain political image through the broadsheet, has been doing a competent job when it comes to the supplements (apart from Robbar it publishes Popcorn – the Friday entertainment supplement and Ami – the Saturday women’s supplement).

With Rituparno Ghosh at the helm and Anindya Chattopadhyay (of Chandrabindoo fame, who’s a competent writer too) as the associate editor, Robbar has successfully carved out a niche of being a literary magazine, offering a quality, wholesome weekend read without which my (and many other loyal readers’) Sundays are incomplete.

I was introduced to Robbar by Anindya Chattopadhyay. Went to the supplements section of the paper (at the top floor of Sangbad Pratidin office-cum-press next to Hindu Mutual House at Chandni Chowk) for some work with him in 2008. He gifted me some old issues of the magazine, and I was gradually hooked. Over more than the last two years, Robbar has refreshed its content at a healthy interval. Many columnists have left and new ones joined. But my engagement with it has grown only stronger. I am in love with its quintessential Bengali essence which, besides providing food for thought to the top end of the educated class, deals at ease with middle class Bengali sensibilities, likes and preferences, and the underlying wit in its nature.

It comprises, apart from a well-penned editorial by Rituparno, a cover story on some well-chosen aspect of Bengal and Bengali life, regular columns by noted writers Nabaneeta Dev Sen, Ranjan Bandopadhyay (about books by authors across the world), Samaresh Majumdar, Joy Goswami (discussing poetry), Chandril Bhattacharya (of Chandrabindoo fame, and an established name in sarcastic writing) and Sudhir Chakraborty. Two of the recent additions are a mythology column by the expert – Nrisingha Prasad Bhanduri and another by Sanjib Chattopadhyay. These are peppered by two serial novels - Ashtam Garbho by Bani Basu, and Kshama Karo He Prabhu - a religious thriller (a new genre) by Rupak Saha, and a food column that talks about food, food joints and the story behind them by Amitabha Malakar. Rupak’s engaging and highly informative novel is my first read in Robbar. The cover story is one of its core strengths, providing the take of a set of handpicked people from various walks of life on the subject.

You can also read it online here.

Ritu's angel

Congratulations to Rituparna Sengupta on being the proud mother of a "cute little girl" (in her own words) on 12 May 2011. She's in Singapore now, at her husband's place. Both the mother and the baby are doing well, as per Sanjay, the proud father.

Wish Rituparna and the little angel good health.

Finally....it's a green Bengal

It was sooooo disappointing not to be able to blog yesterday - The Historic Day in Bengal. Blogger was kept out of access by the site administrators.

Anyways, so finally Bengal is green now, putting an end to the longest-lasting communist rule in a democratic set up in the whole world, all of about 34 years, through the storming triumph of the Trinamool Congress & Indian National Congress coalition that won 227 sets out of 294, throwing out the ruling Left Front that managed only 62 seats. Being someone brought up in the communist-led Bengal it's hard to sink in.

Let's look forward to a new regime with renewed hopes. All the best to Mamata Banerjee & Co. Hope the life in Bengal gets only better now, albeit gradually.

A working lunch

Had an all-agency meeting at the client's office yesterday. Enjoyed the pizza and chicken wings lunch from Domino's ordered in. Never imagined Domino's served chicken wings (Picture above). The sauce used in the chicken wings added to the taste. And the complimentary Choco Lava Cake (Picture above) with liquid chocolate inside was sinfully tempting.

I used to rate Domino's after Pizza Hut as far as regular pizza is concerned at least, but liked their thin crust pizzas.

A pleasant onset

This is the most relieving onset of summer in a long, long time. A complete contrast with the cruel same time last year.

It's hard to believe that it's feeling cool at the night and the dawn. One can even feel like switching off the fan. And we've already had about 4 nor'westers by now. It's raining once almost every week. Let's see what's awaiting us.

The first D Day

One D Day is over, another coming 13th May. Kolkata, along with North and South 24 Parganas went to polls on 27th April. It was by and large peaceful and well-organised, thanks to Election Commission.

But I was disappointed by Kolkata's polling rate: just 64%, while North 24 Parganas polled 83% and South 24 Parganas 84%. The ratio is in line with the last civic poll in 2010 and general elections in 2009. South 24 Parganas did a shade better this time. Despite the stats, I expected Kolkata, being the thought leader in Bengal, to lead from the front and turn up to ink the finger in an impressive number, as this is not just another election. It is the most watched, closely fought, adrenaline-pumping assembly election in the last three decades that has shown a possibility to end the 34-year communist rule in Bengal that has made international history.

Hind : a new avatar

Hind cinema, after a painfully long wait spanning years, is opening again today in a cool new avatar - Hind Fame. Yes, it's a multiplex now, a two-screener at that (with a robust capacity of 701 seats, by multiplex standards), under the Fame umbrella, making it the third Fame plex in town.

It should be a good option for the mammoth office crowd in central business district, close to which it is located (76 Ganesh Chandra Avenue). Particularly for cinephiles like me who look for convenient (read 'not far', comfortable and moderately priced) movie-watching options post work. Am excited because it's just a less-than-10-minutes walk from my Chandni Chowk office!! The ticket prices will be kept lower than market rates, they said in an interview in a t2 preview sometime back. The theatre will cater to the burning need for good theatres in Central Kolkata, which used to be a movie buff's delight with a wide array of quality theatres like Lighthouse, New Empire, Globe and Metro long back.

Wish it all the very best!

t2 : the big bore

The 24-page t2 can really be a big bore, like today's edition. Since its debut in January it is yet to plan well to fill up the 24 pages (save a few for advertisements). The variety of features and consistency of new columns has been lacking all this while. Even MySpace, a fresh sub-section in Tollywood (Check my earlier post MySpace debuts in t2), has't been continued.

Today's edition is all about Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL 4, end to end. It covers pages on Dav Whatmore, Gautam Gambhir and Brett Lee's bites, celebrity take on KKR, fan frenzy, KKR quiz.....and two pages on how to dress like Shah Rukh (when he is with KKR) and how the suits for SRK and his KKR men were stiched!! Can you believe it? Wait, there are more. There are two more pages on....hold your breath...Shah Rukh's bowling action and a few of his other moments on-ground (including the jersy-lifting to show the packs on his stomach)!! It almost looks like an advertiser's supplement by KKR. All this is plain nonsense, from the point of view of the universe of t2 readers who are, well, not really obsessed with KKR and look for other things to spice up their day. It is a brainless proclamation of the fact that t2 is the print partner of KKR.

The new year : 1418

Shubho Nababarsho to all the readers of Kolkata Curry.

To the Bengalis and all Bengalis-at-heart : May we become better and more proud Bengalis for the right reasons and inspire our fellow people to be so in 1418.