​KEY HOLO?

While I sit through that brave but failed experiment called Jagga Jasoos, I tip my hat to the casting director; for one among the very few things which work in the movie's favour is the casting of Saswata Chatterjee. No one, absolutely no one but that quintessential Bengali could've done justice to the role of a 'free-spirited and slightly-eccentric' man. Am I typecasting Bengalis? Well yes. And as if that wasn't bad enough, all I'm offering as corroboration is anecdotal evidence. Then again, let's not forget that enough of 'anecdotal' does eventually get us to 'empirical'.
 
 So, here's to some wonderful Bengalis I've known!
 
Sabyasachi Mukhopadhyay: An ace swimmer and a cogent debater. He was my senior in school by four years and so he obviously had first rights over this expensive watch which I'd gotten that summer. Here’s the incident:
 
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves….Okay, let’s keep it simple. It was evening. I was rushing for Astachal and Mukko(as SM was fondly called) was returning from swimming practice. He spots me and goes on to give me a few instructions about the attendance-register at Astachal, and then, as we're about to part, he remembers "अरे हाँ, वो तेरी घड़ी खो गयी।" It was beautiful, the nonchalance with which he uttered those words. To this day I harbour a suspicion that Ram Gopal Verma lurked somewhere in that vicinity. It's plainly evident that the dreaded Bhawani of 'Shiva' had Mukko for inspiration (when after doling-out instructions to a minion about some killing to be executed, he adds 'और हाँ, जाते जाते एक cigarette packet भी।' )
PS:the watch was eventually found and duly returned.
 
Another free-spirit I have the pleasure of knowing is a batch-mate from school. Saumya Acharya. But since the anecdotes accentuating the free-spiritedness of this particular Bengali may not be entirely appropriate for this forum, we'll make do with that single line of profound wisdom which the Acharya once deigned to reveal to me. 'ग़ौर कर लिया है मैंने सब मुद्दों पर, ऐसा कुछ है नहीं life में serious होने लायक।"
 
And then there was Sumit Chawdhury. My room-mate at IIT Delhi. The man who'd gotten through IIM Ahmedabad with just a week of study (only in that last week had he
staked claim on our jointly purchased, three-year-old copy of IMS.)
 
So, there’s Chow, visiting me after a two-year stint in Japan. With a deadpan expression and in that typical drawl of his, he’s elaborating upon some snaps in a photo-album, "those are cherry blossoms.....the Japanese consider them sacred.... manifestation of life and all......it's inauspicious to pluck cherry blossoms......brings very bad luck." Then, with a small smile and with much deliberation, he pulls the snap out of the album to reveal what’s hidden underneath "here are some cherry blossoms I plucked."
 
Khoob bhalo, isn’t it?