two sides of iwo jima

I write this as I am watching Flags of our Fathers, the American version of Letters from Iwo Jima. I watched the Japanese side of the movie with Saikat about three weeks ago. I would consider Iwo Jima one of the best movies I have seen so far. From the brief first impression, I am already at love with FouF. Its definitely heading the same way. Clint Eastwood is a damn good director.

The movie gets high score from me in different aspects. The set director and the person behind the camera did a wonderful job. The colours during the war shootouts, the cold colours of the ships, the guns, the bluish-gray Mount Surabachi from far, they sure sent a shiver down my spine. Watch it in big screen and you would see excellent wallpapers in motion in front of your eyes. If you have seen Saving Private Ryan and played MoHAA, let me tell you this would make

This could very well be a Kubrik movie. War is just one facet of the movie. I have seen quite a few war movies, all kinds from showing the severity of warfare to movies depicting mockery. These two would keep you thinking hours after watching them. And any time you hear about a man made war, you would be able to see it, hear it, feel it, in the correct perspective. Wonderful editing stiches the beatiful pieces and facts together to make a movie out of reality. Just how you would like it to be.

The two talk about different things. But combined they draw the full picture of a war, of an invasion and of fighting for one's motherland. If you have not watched any of them, watch it. "Sorry for your loss". Well said, lady!!!

Land of $USA$

Call USA the land of opportunities, land of liberty but calling it the land of money is not quite right. In most of the places in this country you get lots of opportunity; personal freedom is visible everywhere and actively sought after. But you cannot just get rich here by coming to USA. I think the last fact is true about any country or place, but definitely true for this country.

Its surprising that I had the opposite perception before coming here. I am pretty sure that is the case by default for the common person on the street back home. Sure, any country has relatively richer and relatively poorer people but really poor people, who think before they spend; neh, not Americans.
Thus imagine my shock when I spotted a homeless beggar on the streets of Boston. Come winter and I read about shelter homes for homeless people.

I never give money to street beggers in India, not because I do not sympathise with them but more because begging has become an easy profession. I rarely meet someone who really needs to beg and it is nearly impossible to distinguish them from the fake beggers. I have ended up giving money to people on the streets here; again, not because I sympathised with them but I was so startled and ashtonished that I could not think what to do.

Gradually it became easier to accept the reality. I even know where some of the homeless people spend their night at. I have seen people at grocery stores, catalogue in their hands, searching for the cheapest thing and choosing products which save even a quarter. The divide between rich and poor is enormous here. I used to think that $4.00 for a sandwich is a pretty good deal but some of my american friends proved me wrong. If I were in India, I would have never considered it a good deal; there I am used to judging value by cost price (including labour). Every day I see numerous ads in TV about furnitures. They advertise how you can buy a $400 sofa without paying any interest for 1 year. I would never have imagined there could be people who need to pay $400 in installments over a year.

I guess one reason behind my misconception could be the graduate student stipend. Average graduate student stipend in Boston area, before tax, comes out to be about $2000. Thats about $12.5 per hour. I did some private tutoring sometimes. My friends sometime do. The students pay $25 to $30 per hour on average. Thats a whole lot higher than $8 an hour, which a lot of undergrads and non-funded students work for on campus. And its nearly double the minimum wage. No doubt tipping has whole new meaning here. Please tip generously .

Like most people here, I carry credit cards. More that one. I seldom use them as _credit_ cards, I use them so that I do not have to carry cash. I was shocked to hear that I am in the minority. People here have huge debt on credit cards. They get a new credit card to avail of the free no-interest transfer for 6 months or so and then interest starts piling on that too. Debt never decreases in middle class family. Number of credit cards keep increasing. I even read about people who cannot apply for credit cards anymore because of their credit history. There can be people like this ? In America! I guess thats reality.

Season's Greetings, Tilottama

My plans of watching the first sunrise of 2007 went haywire due to the rain. So, here I am, writing my first blog of 2007. Rather, creating a laundry list of predicted improvements in Kolkata/West Bengal. I plan to go through this list at the end of 2007 (with the help of Telegraph). I am telling you in advance, I will be excited even if 10% of the plans are materialised.
"Shatakoti santanere, he mugdha janani. Rekhecho bangali kore, manus koroni"

1. Useful exit ramps from AJC flyover. Those will actually reduce the congestion.
2. Main road of Rajarhat will be completely rebuilt, with the specification of the Indian Road Congress (read: so that the road can withstand a couple of monsoon seasons).
3. Infrastructure in Sector V will finally be revamped by the Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority, starting with seven arteries in tech town being repaired and then beautified.
4. The "country's first automated underground parking plaza" in front of New Market will finally be commissioned this year. The latest (N'th) date is Poila Baisakh. Keep your fingers crossed on this one.
5. The city's first off-the-river water treatment plant will be unveiled at Dhapa.
6. Solar-powered street lights, trash bins on roads, less water logging.
7. Deposition of property tax and licence fees at any CMC counter.
8. CAT-II Instrumental Landing System will be operational at the airport. The secondary runway expansion by another 440 m will be completed.
9. CAS will enter (and along with it, DTH too).
10. After all the chaos, construction of the Tata Motors plant with start in Singur.
11. After what seems like a century, tyres will roll out of Dunlop's Sahagunj factory. Talk about revival then.
12. Infosys will make a big bang entry on the 100 acres to be offered by March 2007 opposite Vedic Village.
13. Calcutta University will open a number of advanced research centres in areas like social science, modern biology, nano-technology. A slew of study centres will become operative.
14. Real high speed Broadband for home users and increased Wi-Fi (or even better, Wi-Max like Bangalore) coverage.

Good luck, Kolkata. Wish you all the best. I love you.

Casino Mein Hera Pheri

That is what I felt of the latest 007 movie Casino Royale. I generally rank higher Bond movies a little higher (not much) than the average thrillers. Friends told me that this one gives a different experience. Of course they were right, I felt bored through out the movie, felt it was just another usual Hollywood thriller (or a TV episodes of Las Vegas). Bond was more human in this movie, I felt like I was watching Spiderman with out his spidey sense. I am discouraging the effort, except I did not expect Bond to be like that. There was no gadget or car or fancy tech. And I never have seen Bond to run so much, sort of like in Terminator 2. Where did he leave his car, Dude? The hotness of Lady Bond was present. She was also adventurous but something was lacking; I could never figure out what that was though. Nearly half of the movie was spinning around a mind game during a game of Poker. It probably did not help that I dont quite know Poker and failed to appreciate what was going on.

The only thing I liked was the prince like agility and fitness of the African person killed in the embassy near the beginning of the movie. M16 chief advised Bond to get rid of his ego. But he still hold on to it during a large part of the movie. Casion Royale had been a better Bond movie (which does not necessarily mean a better movie) if Bond showed little less emotion, expressed his pride and ego, showed little less fitness and and used some cool gadgets.

Child Steps to Adulthood

ছোট ছোট পায়ে হেঁটে
অামি ইস্কুলে যাব বলে
মন্ত্রীকাকু, তুমি অাইন করে বন্ধ করলে
শিশু শ্রমিক

গ্রামে স্কুল নেই
পাকা সড়ক নেই
ঘরে অালো নেই
হাজার প্রতিশ্রুতি ভরা রেশনের দোকানে কেরোসিনও নেই
কিসের যেন উন্নতির জন্য বাবা অাজ ঘরে বসে বেকার

কাল অবধি অামি গালাগালি শুনে,
কাপডিস ধুয়ে
চুরি করে দুখানা পাঁউরুটি বেশি খেয়ে
ঘুমুতে যেতাম,
অাজ তাও নেই

মন্ত্রীকাকু, শিশুরা ভোট দেয় না!
তাই কি অমন সাহস দেখিয়ে অামাদের ভালো করতে চাইলে ?

Good Coffee - Cream = (Still) Good Coffee

A sad day for Indians. I should have said Indian intellectuals, but where
political will prevails and _only_ political will prevails, other values
and ideals cease to exist. I am referring to the OBC bill that was passed
today in Lok Sabha. I myself belong to SC category and have seen closely
what reservation can and cannot do.

Reservations at IIT doesnt automatically make the life of a reserved
candidate any easier. He has to still compete (among other SC students),
has to take IIT exams (passing IIT is way easier that graduating from IIT
in 4 years with a semi-decent score) and survive the stress of competing
with the smartest kids in country. Its tough. I have seen lots of students
from reserved category ending staying for more than 4 years or pass with
low score.

Its not that only reserved candidates lag behind. General category
students also lag behind and reserved candidate students also lead from
the front. 4 years at IIT acts as a nice filter where only merit counts. I
believe the same works for IIM and IISc. So, its not a tremendous problem
if more OBC students would be now admitted to these institutions.

The problem is with the intent (read: publicized intent) of the whole OBC
bill chaos. Why need a reservation ? The students from backward
communities don't have access to good food, healthy environment and proper
education facilities - so give them a leverage by lowering the entry
requirement. If they have the smartness in them, then proper training will
bring it out. It happens, I have seen in happen.

Now, consider the students from backward caste (SC/ST/OBC) but from the
(relatively) wealthy community. They are not really deprived of good food,
environment and education. In fact they have access to the good ones. Now
if there is an exam where all the OBC students are competing against each
other, who is going to pass the exam with better score ? Why, the students
with better education and background, of course. Ahem, ... except there
will be more _creamy_ backward student than _really_ backward student.

I could not find anywhere on the internet the arguments against creamy
layer exclusion. I am eager to hear them, really. Maybe they have some
valid reason. I am left wondering what could they be ? Could they be more
important than helping the backward classes ?

Chowronghee

কালকে শংকরের উপন্যাস অবলম্বনে, উত্তমকুমার অভিনীত চৌরঙ্গী সিনেমা দেখলাম। বইটা অাগে
ই পড়া ছিল, চলচ্চিত্র রূপায়ন বহুদিন থেকেই দেখার ইচ্ছে ছিল, বাধ্য হয়েই কালকে ডাউনলোড
করে দেখতে হল। উপন্যাসটা অবশ্য অনেক বছর অাগে পড়া, সিনেমা দেখতে দেখতে তার কিছু কিছু
মনে অাসছিল। সিনেমাটা খুব একটা ভাল লাগলো না। শংকরের ওইসময়ের উপন্যাসের একটা ধরন
ছিল, উপন্যাস পড়ে মনে হত যেন ছোট ছোট ঘটনার মধ্যে দিয়ে কেউ কলকাতার দিনরাত্রির একটা
ছবি অাঁকতে চেয়েছে। সময়ের সাথে কলকাতার পালাবদল খুব অাসতে অাসতে নানা ঘটনার মধ্য
দিয়ে অনুভব করেছি। অবশ্যই কোন উপন্যাস থেকে সিনেমা দেখার সময় ওদের তুলনা করা উচিত নয়,
দুটোর উদ্দেশ্য অালাদা। সিনেমাতে অনিন্দ্য‌ করবী, সত্য সুজাতা, এদেরকে বেশি গুরুত্ত্ব দেওয়া
হয়েছে, তবে যথেষ্ট পরিমানে নয়। ফলে সিনমাতে কলকাতার চরিত্র যতটা ফুটতে পারত তা
হয়নি, না হয়েছে সেই সময়ের ব্যস্ত কলকাতায় কি করে দুটি হৃদয় কাছাকাছি অাসত তার
উপাখ্যান। অারো ভালো হতে পারত।

তবে সিনেমা থেকে একটা জিনিস অামার বহুদিন মনে থাকবে, নিত্যহরির (শাজাহান হোটেলের
বালিশ, পর্দা-r caretaker, সাহেবদের কাছে পরিচিত Natahari নামে) একটা কথা:
পাশবালিশ এদেশের মানুষদের সর্বনাশ করেছে। অাপাতদৃষ্টিতে নিছক অামুদে মনে হলেও তলিয়ে
দেখলে অনেক গভীরেও এর প্রাসঙ্গিকতা নজরে পড়ে।

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Debajyoti Bera @ http://dtecht.blogspot.com
beagle / KDE fan
Mandriva / Inspiron-1100 user

বর্ণভেদী সুদ

সম্প্রতি দেশ এর ২ নভেম্বর সংখ্যায় বিবেক দেবরায়ের লেখা একটি প্রবন্ধ পড়লাম | অাধুনিক ভা
রতের ঋণ ব্যবস্থা সম্পর্কে লেখা; মাইক্রো‌-ক্রেডিট ও অন্যান্য প্রকল্পের ব্যাপারে অালোচনা |
প্রবন্ধে প্রাচীন ভারতের অাইন ব্যাবস্থায় সুদের হার সম্পর্কে একটি তথ্যের উল্লেখ ছিল |

মনুসংহিতার অষ্টম বিভাগে বলা হয়েছে সুদের হার হবে বর্ণ অনুযায়ী | ব্রাক্ষণের জন্য শতকরা ২
ভাগ, ক্ষত্রিয়ের ৩ ভাগ, বৈশ্যের ৪ ভাগ ও শূদ্রের ৫ ভাগ | অাইনটা কতকটা অাশর্চযের বটে,
তবে প্রবন্ধে বলা হয়েছে যে অন্যান্য সংহিতায় এই বৈষম্য সম্পর্কে একটা যুক্তি দেওয়া অাছে |

বলা হয়েছে, ব্রাক্ষণ ধার করে থাকেন যাগযজ্ঞের জন্য, ধার করা অর্থের পরিমাণ অল্প, অর্থের
ব্যাবহারে অনিশ্চয়তা কম, তাই সুদের হার কম |

ক্ষত্রিয় ধার করবেন যুদ্ধের জন্য, রাজ্য জয়ের জন্য | অর্থের পরিমাণ বেশি, অনিশ্চয়তা বেশি,
তাই সুদের হার‌ও বেশি |

বৈশ্য ধার করবেন ব্যাবসা বাণিজ্যের জন্য, অনিশ্চয়তা ও পরিমাণ অত্যন্ত বেশি | শূদ্র ধার
করবেন উপভোগ করার জন্য | অানন্দ উপভোগে অর্থ ব্যবহৃত হলে মূল বা সুদ ফেরত পাওয়ার সম্ভাবনা
কম, সুদের হারও তাই বেশি |

ঠিক ভাবে বিচার করলে, সুদের হার অাপাতদৃষ্টিতে বর্ণভিত্তিক হলেও, তার পিছনে কাজ করছে
সূক্ষ বৈষয়িক যুক্তি | বর্ণের সামাজিক অবস্থান নয়, অর্থনৈতিক অবস্থার উপর ভিত্তি করেই এই
নিয়ম, কতকটা অাজকের ভাষায় "এটা এক ধরনের risk premium - অনিশ্চয়তা যত বাড়বে, তত
সুদের হার হবে বেশি" |

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Debajyoti Bera @ http://dtecht.blogspot.com
beagle / KDE fan
Mandriva / Inspiron-1100 user

বাংলা blog

বাংলায় লিখলে blogger কি করে সেটা জানা দরকার ৷

দেবজ্যোতি

tomorrow never comes

How long does it get to fix a wiring problem (telephone) in Allston ?
If the problem is outside and I call the service provider (Verizon), its 1
day. Their service is extremely prompt; I can book a complaint over the phone
(:P) or web and pick up any available slot according to my schedule.
But if its inside the building ... forget it. Or at least, forget it if you
stay in an apartment managed by "Sunshine Realty" (whose landlord/manager has
the name "Syros"). He is extremely smart to not pick up calls on his mobile
most of the time and doesnt bother to check voice messages. And in the
unlikely event I am able to contact him on his cell, he is extremely good in
appearing co-operative. Being a perfect gentleman, he repeats his gentlemen's
word every day "I will surely send the electrician tomorrow". As it happens,
fixing the problem would require access to other apartments in the building,
so it really helps if the landlord is involved (and even otherwise, Verizon
charges a freaking $120/hour for fixing internal problems). So, being
notified via voice message on September 30th, and personally informed via
phone on October 1st, he eventually managed to get his electrician in my
apartment on 16th. At least some progress made!
Sadly the store doesnt end there. The electrician apparently couldn't fix the
problem and recommended a complete wire change from basement to my apartment.
As of today (18th October) morning, my responsible landlord told me that he
promises to fix the problem by end of next week (28/29th October). My problem
is I doubt it would be that early. In the mean time I am at home with no
phone and internet access. Yuck!

The drame above is unfolding in an apartment on Saint Lukes Road, Allston
(MA). All are welcome.