God's Own Creators

Kumartuli is the place very near to 'Shobha Bazaar', a common market with common people. But there lies a very uncommon talent in the hand of God's own Creators, the Kumartuli Artists.

I visited this place last post summer just before Durga (Goddess) worship. As I passed through the market, I had no idea what I was going to see. There was no sign board. I asked few guys where is place and interestingly every body knew about the place.

As I entered the small gallery, the world got changed, as I entered probably in god's own place. Here is the place where god themselves are being created and god own creators are spelling their magic all around.

So I took some shots and posting some of the best of them here. Next time whenever you visit Kolkata during July/Aug/Sep, Do Meet God's Own Creators.

kumartuli aug 2009

Dancing Trees

Tress has always been source of inspiration in my life. Imagine who are gateways of life on earth. They are none other than our trees. Scientists reveals how trees apply quantum effect to convert sun rays into energy (see here)

Recently as I looked at them, I realized probably they taught our ancestors to dance!!!

Dancing Trees

I feel pathetic dancer but these trees are inspiring me to dance. What about you?

Crow Wisdom

"A thirsty crow once found a pitcher with a little water in it. But when he tired to drink the water, he could not. The pitcher was tall and his beak didn't reach the water. The cleaver crow thought and hit upon a plan. He went on dropping pebbles into the pitcher. The water rose up to its neck and he quenched his thirst."

Wow .. what a clever crow he was !!!

Recently, I noticed that I have been ignoring one of the common thing about Kolkata, my current city, and that is a lot of crows. Crow are in front of my house, playing park, streets, market and almost every where. They start their day early at 5PM, many times I have been woke up very early morning by their chatter.

I started my research and found some interesting articles on the intelligence of crows. One of my favorite is talk by Joshua Klein and his elegant machine over crows. listen TED Talk.

What may be more interesting is how crow behave in a group. Today I saw crows seems like talking to each other in a group.

As summary, some of the fascinating behavior about crows are:

1. "Never Die Attitude"
2. "Ultimately find the way"
3. "Adaptability"
4. "Negotiate Everything", well you might seen them negotiating among themselves.

Happy crowing!!!

Gathering is not really digital.

Twitting, social networking, texting, emailing, calling, video chatting are some buzz words being told and heard all around. All of them promotes communication, meeting, talking and making the world really small.

Are they really close to say a meeting your friend on a cup of coffee or a informal get together of your best buddies at your room?

Recently, I came across to a painting, depicting a party time according to painter. Suddenly after seeing the painting, I realized what a digital gathering is not

A digital gathering lacks following:

• Eating together
• Laughing together
• A sense of physical touch
• Physical Appearance
• Body Language
• Ambiance
• Lack of Visual Memory
• Smile, and other contagious activities
• Mood transfer
• Dresses, perfumes, colors, jeweleries etc.

In Indian West Bengal, "Adda" has been integral part of the Bengali culture. In "Adda" sessions, friends use to sit for hours doing chit chat on topics ranging from politics, religion, neighbourhood, football, cricket. A lot of traditional places are there built on the themes of "Adda" sessions like T3, olypub, Coffeehouse. The concept of "Adda" involves a sense of informalism, special ambiance, eating/drinking and all other attributes of good people gathering.

I wondor whether we would be able to digitize the gathering ever or probably we should leave somethings to how the nature created them.

Saraswati Pujo (Worship)

Saraswati, the goddess of learning, is being worshiped by students, artists and anybody interested in learning. Today we also worshiped Saraswati in our office. We bought an idol from the market, and some flowers, some sweets and some fragrance sticks and here we go we have nice setup in the office. It is followed by some chanting of "mantras" and give your "pushpanjali" to the goddess (do not forget to present your wishlist to the goddess in return).

Saraswati Pujo (worshiping) is an important festival, specially, in Kolkata. Everything starts with preparing a (ondemand) temple for Saraswati. People work whole night and day to prepare a decent looking temple. It is followed by buying an idol from the market and placing the idol in the temple.

All the idols are created from clay by set of potters and artists in kolkata, doing the job for over centuries from generations to generations. Kumartuli, a potter's/artist's hub in kolkata, being in existence for a century.

The Next day starts at 4AM, with different set of activities at different places, personal house, local communities, schools and colleges, private and government offices. Some of the events are shown below:

Local Saraswati Pujo

Saraswati Pujo at Community Hall

Saraswati Pujo at school

School Painting Competition

Found Alien!!!

Today morning while walking, I was surprised to notice an alien face in a wood placed near to a house. The face looks stunningly similar to an human face (or rather an alien face).



Alien Face

Original Wood Structure

So close but yet so far !!!

I like traveling by metro to commute between the places rather than traveling by private Taxi. Well today was another day I was travelling by metro. What I saw today was very interesting.

"People do not interact with each other while using public transportation. Not only this, they do not even try to break the ice"

Well I know there would be a lot of interesting people around me and in fact each one of them will be having some interesting things about them.

Some of the possible reasons of this phenomena are:

1. While each one of then appear to be human, they do not carry / display their identity to the people around them. It makes impossible for other people to know interesting things about them.

2. People find difficult to "break the ice".

3. People are in hurry.

4. People are afraid to talk to new people.