A response

2010-01-28T07:35:00.000-08:00

It is the words that bring us together.

It is the words that let our feelings grow.

It is time then to leave the words,

And let the feeling overwhelm us.

For if you bring back words,

You bring back distances

Love is lost in the tussle

Between words and feelings.

A lost Love Letter

2009-02-12T21:56:00.000-08:00

How difficult it is to write any more,
When words are robbed of their meaning,
Some overused, some stale and
Yet others bandied and branded by the hypocrites

How difficult it is to write in images,
When the corns are grey with a farmer’s grief
When streets are filled with smoke and dust
And a naked child dying in hunger

How difficult it is to look at the sky
With high rises clawing at the sky
Sucking the blood of those millions beneath
A dusky world filled with murky nails that entail us.

How difficult it is to watch a cricket match and a movie
When/where money fumes up like sky scrapers
The fashionable world has a fashionable morality
Some entertain and some feed you

But those who feed you, die

Did you ask me
To express my love in such a time,
In such words, such images
I couldn’t but stare at you

Blankly

And you thought I couldn’t express my love.

What's wrong with the English Department of CU

2007-07-05T06:42:00.000-07:00

I was a student of this Department not long ago and I prided being a part of it. We were tired of literally too many classes. Most of the Teachers during our time have retired from service and those that are there are the only saving graces of the department at present. With the politicization of the Department being complete, the department is staffed with arrogant and unfriendly teachers, whose main purpose is to remain with the powers that be. The quality of teaching has been greatly compromised.

The Central Library has ‘progressed’ from bad to worse. By the time a student is successful in getting a library card he or she might have already qualified the part1 exam. The fact however remains that such is its cunning it steers quietly and successfully away from the probing eyes of the journalists.

The Department has always been late in publishing the results of the final examinations. It takes almost 4 or 5 months to get the result published. Nobody is complaining, because most of the students believe that it is useless wasting your time and may be by doing so, they fear you will ruffle the wrong hairs and with a friendly students union you cannot expect anything more.

The part2 exams are being held now when Calcutta roads have become waterlogged. The exams started on the third of July when the rains have actually started pouring in. The children in the streets were enjoying their day off from work with fishing nets in the streets. Most of the universities have decided in time to postpone the examination. The exams were about to start from 11. 30. Most of the students arrived at the university with the help of hand drawn rickshaws and vans used to carry goods as cars and buses were unable to ply through the college street roads neck deep in water.The condition was so worse that 5 steps of the main building was under water and the students sitting on the hand pulled rikhshaw were thoroughly drenched as the water level had reached over 5 feet. Some students were injured when they somehow arrived at the examination centre. Yet this was not the end of their trouble as they found out to their amazement that except for one gate none of the other gates were open and none of the teaching and the non teaching staff could be seen. There was chaos all around with the guardians and students not sure what to do. The vice chancellor and the controller of examinations arrived around 12.30 to discuss the course of action. Ultimately they were able to decide only at 1 o’ clock that the examination would not be postponed. The examination ultimately started only at around 1.10. A clerk from the office took all the onus on himself by announcing that it’s your choice to appear for today’s exam and students who are not willing to sit for it would be able to sit for their exam on some other rescheduled date. Some of the students rushed out of the examination hall only to find out that their parents are shouting and asking them to get in for this announcement is not official. The teachers were not able to come to the examination centre before 3.30 and the students were writing their scripts in uncertainty of whether their effort would be validated by somebody signing their answer scripts. Only three teachers of the department ultimetely arrived in the examination centre. After the head of the department and reached the examination centre she enquired politely that whether everything was all right and whether she can do anything for the students. Only thing that the students wanted her to do was to make some arrangements for food as they were all hungry by this time and which she couldn’t as there were very few non teaching staff present in the university.

Somehow the students were able to complete writing their papers and some of them were again injured on their way back to their home and I have heard a rumour that probably one of the students died on her way back electrocuted in the streets.
In the evening when their ordeal have ended and they were sitting cozy watching the television and reminiscing on the greatness of the Calcutta University they saw the news flash that said- the exams in Calcutta University were held without any interruptions.

This is not the end. Privacy is an important part of any examination. You are not allowed to write you names in the answer scripts. What if everybody knows your roll numbers? Do you think I am joking? Just make an enquiry. Not that they can afford to be vindictive, sometimes they do. This is sheer callousness. So kudos to the red revolution in Calcutta, do you get a feeling as some journalist do that nothing is wrong with CU.
And for the Students studying there I can only say- just be patient. For ‘to be properly judged or not to be’ is either at Gods mercy or is entirely accidental.

As wise men will always say just be patient.

Ektu Adda

2007-06-11T03:55:00.000-07:00

Adda

When You Feel a Little Lonely,

With the Expanse of the Sky Staring at You

And the Evening breeze smoothing away the wrinkles

of the tedius morning. Or when

A pretty girl holding somebody else's hands.

A little boy jumping with a pleasure that can never be yours.

When another's cigar is making all the smoke

Dont Feel hopeless or be Cramped for Space

Have a litle adda, with anybody

over a cup of tea

in some shady hunt

with plastic bags rolling around

and the blare of the honking traffic

Dont you care

Just go on chatting.

Make yourself heard, although nobody is hearing

Or be angry and have a fight,

be creative or contemplative

or wage war against politics and grocery.

Just show that you are still living

Only through a little Adda

Ektu Adda

A response

A lost Love Letter

What's wrong with the English Department of CU

titanic

Ektu Adda