२. नवल, दिवाळी अंक २०१४

खरं तर 'खगम' ही या अंकातली पहिली कथा - सत्यजित रे ह्यांच्या मूळ कथेचा अनुवाद. पण 'गांधीवाड्यातलं भूत' ह्या कथेच्या नावातला 'भूत' हा शब्द वाचून मी ती आधी वाचायला घेतली आणि स्वत:चा पचका करून घेतला. कथा अगदीच बाळबोध वाटली. मग चुपचाप 'खगम' कडे वळले. 'खगम' ही महाभारतातील एक व्यक्तिरेखा आहे असा उल्लेख कथेत आहे. मी ह्या व्यक्तिरेखेबद्दल कधी ऐकलं/वाचलं नव्हतं. पण ही अनुवादित कथा मस्त वाटली. कधीतरी मूळ कथा वाचता यावी असं फार वाटलं.

'विलक्षण सत्यकथा' मधला 'आपले अडाणी बांधव' आणि 'नेपोलियनचे स्त्रीसंबंध' हे दोन्ही लेख आवडले. त्यामानाने 'चमत्कारिक भविष्यकथन' अपूर्ण वाटला.

'संदेहकथा' भागातली अशीच अतिशय आवडलेली कथा म्हणजे सुनील दांडेकर ह्यांची 'एका कोळीयाने'. कदाचित आयटी क्षेत्राची पार्श्वभूमी असल्यामुळेही असेल. 'चीफ आर्किटेक्ट' म्हटल्यावर काय प्रकार असेल ते कळून चुकलं. पण शेवटचा ट्विस्ट आवडला. अरुण मांडे ह्यांची 'संकटमोचक' सुध्दा मस्तच. रमा गोळवलकर ह्यांची 'पुनरावृत्ती' सुरुवातीला अतिशय रंजक वाटली पुराणकाळातील कथेनुसार शिळा असलेल्या ठिकाणाचं स्थानमाहात्म्य आणि आधुनिक काळात जवळच अणुउर्जा निर्मिती केंद्र असणं ह्याची काहीतरी सांगड घातली जाईल असं वाटलं होतं पण शेवट गुंडाळल्यासारखा वाटला. खरं तर कथा अर्धवट वाटली.

'कर्नलचा कोट' ही अनुवादित कथा वाचावी अशीच. 'विज्ञान-काल्पनिका' मधली फक्त 'प्रीत तुझी माझी' आवडली. 'डाव' काही खास वाटली नाही. आणि 'तुझ्यावाचून गमेना' तर अगदीच काहीतरी वाटली. 'डस्टी', 'विलक्षण प्रतिस्पर्धी', 'ब्रेम्बली' वाचताना निदान मला तरी बोअर झालं असं म्हटलं तर अतिशयोक्ती होणार नाही. 'आगच्छ कामेश्वरी' थोड्या वाह्यात धाटणीची वाटली. जयश्री कुलकर्णी ह्यांची 'चकवा' शेवट काय होणार ह्याची कल्पना येऊनसुध्दा आवडली.

'युद्धकथा' भागातला 'युद्धाची अखेर अखेर होता होता' हा लेख खास उल्लेखनीय. 'सागरा प्राण तळमळला' ही सत्यकथा आहे असं सुरुवातीवरून वाटलं. पण नंतर वाचताना हा कल्पनाविलास आहे हे लक्षात आलं तरी थोडं गोंधळ उडालाच.  'रोमन इतिहासाचा साक्षीदार' वाचून आपणही एकदा 'कलोझियम' पाहिलं पाहिजे हे प्रकर्षाने जाणवलं.

'दत्तक' ह्या भयकादंबरीची पानं निदान मी विकत घेतलेल्या प्रतीत तरी नव्हती त्यामुळे ती वाचता आली नाही.

एकूणात काय तर काही अपवादात्मक कथा वगळता अंकाने निराशा केली. :-(

When we landed at our hotel in Ahmedabad, one of the hotel employees was drawing this Rangoli. All free-hand!

And here is what I managed to put together after a lot of efforts this time around :-)

Induben Khakharawala, Ahmedabad

Nope. I am not writing about someone I met during my recent visit to the city. This indeed is the name of the shop that is famous for its savories. :-)

I had expected to see a big shop but the place appeared quite unassuming for a shop of its reputation. I pushed open the door and instantly felt as if I was back in the sweet shop in Kolkata during Navaratri days years ago. It had the same chaotic look, lots of people picking stuff off the shelves and talking loudly at the same time. I almost stepped back in alarm. How am I going to manage to buy anything here? But a second later I realized that there was an order to this madness. The people were in fact standing in a queue, serpentine though it was. And it was moving at a fairly fast clip.

Encouraged, I stepped in. The first two choices were easy - Chapati Kachori and Khasta Kachori. I moved on to grab a pack of Nylon Banana wafers and another of Masala Pudina Kurkure. A tiny section containing sweets caught my attention. How could I give it a miss? So Topara Pak and Halvasan found their way into the shopping cart. I hadn't bothered to check the price tags when I picked up the packs so as I joined the queue I took a good look at the contents and fished out two Rs 500 notes. Surprise! When my turn came, the guy at the counter asked me for Rs 360 only. And though looking at the number of people ahead of me in the queue I had expected to be standing there for at least 20 minutes, I was in fact out in 10 minutes flat.

It turned out that I had done a smart thing buying sweets when I got a chance. Because when we reached the famous Kandoi sweets on our last day in the city, an empty shop and a security guard were the only thing in sight. When I had called the shop a couple of weeks earlier they had assured me that they are open on all days of the year. :-(

The kachoris were good. The wafers appeared a bit salty in the beginning but later on I realized that the salt had not got mixed in evenly. I should have bought 1-2 more packs of Masala Pudina Kurkure. Topara Pak (Coconut Barfi) was okay and Halvasan was heavenly.

It was much later that I realized that I didn't buy Khakhara at all :-)

Spanish - Class XII

Can't believe we are already 60% down the road. I was looking forward to learning new things for the entire 2-hour duration of the class today. But the first hour was spent in doing exercises from the sheet that was handed over during the beginning sessions of the class. It was a good revision though.

Then the teacher taught us 'Los Adjetivos Demostrativas' - this, that and that (to indicate something that is far away) - in masculine and feminine form as well as in singular and plural. Then followed the exercises. And for homework, we have to introduce the person sitting next to us in the class.

BTW, I forgot to mention one thing - the teacher told us last week that we are going to have a surprise test in December. That means at least 5 sessions' worth of material to study.

Buena Suerte Swapna! :-)

Spanish - Class XI

First class after Diwali. It didn't look like we had the full quorum of 35. But I would peg the class population at about 30. Not bad, not bad at all! The first half of the 2-hour duration was spent in going over the homework. Just when I was wondering if we are going to learn anything new today, the teacher wrote 'El Verbo "ESTAR"'. That means, well, To Be. Okay, but then 'SER' also means 'To Be', isn't it? I wonder if Shakespeare was learning Spanish when he wrote the famous 'To Be Or Not To Be'. ;-)

Our teacher has mastered the art of reading minds. These thoughts had barely come into my mind when she advised us to concentrate on the different forms of the verb for now and we will get to the usage soon enough. So we went from Yo Estoy, Tu Estas (I am omitting the tildes here!) down to Vosotros Estais and Ustedes/Ellas/Ellos Estan. Hmmm, except for the first 'Estoy', these look same as the forms for 'SER'. Cool!

And now for the usage patterns. SER is used for describing, let's see - Identity, Nationality, Profession, Colors, Material, Inherent Qualities and Possession (not of the supernatural type!). ESTAR is for describing moods/feelings, state of a place and where a place is situated. So far so good!

But then I hit a roadblock. The teacher took us through the list of adjectives that we had learnt earlier. Some adjectives are used with SER, some with ESTAR and some with both. The general rule of thumb is if something is of a permanent nature, you use it with SER, otherwise with ESTAR. Still, I found the usage pretty ambiguous. I mean, let's take something like clean - limpia if you are using it for a room - which is feminine in Spanish. This adjective, it seems, is to be used with ESTAR. But what if the room is always clean? How can it be used with ESTAR?

Must say this is the first ambiguous part that I have come across in this language. And I sincerely hope that it is also the last :-)

Elementary - Season 3

Disappointment is in the air, again! The last season ended with Sherlock accepting the proposal to work for MI6. I was looking forward to watching him apply his amazing deductive powers to some interesting international cases. Sadly, in the very first episode of the latest season, he is back after ending his association with them. :-(

I could have lived with it but for the irritating new Watson. What in the world is wrong with her? It's not as if she didn't know him. Why is she so hurt that he had decided to end their partnership suddenly? Why take such a 'holier-than-thou' attitude? And why is Sherlock trying so hard to be in her good books again? Why all the grovelling? After all, he does have a new protege now. And he does confess that he didn't miss her but their mentor-protege relationship. Boy! It sure feels as if their souls have got interchanged.

It would be interesting to see how this story unfolds.

Supernatual - Season 10

Though it seemed like season 9 had ended centuries ago, I hadn't forgotten that Dean had turned a demon by the end of it. And I had mixed feelings about the same. Sure, it was going to be painful to watch Dean turn into the very same thing that he did everything in his power to eliminate. But I was also curious about how the creators of the series were going to handle this change to his personality.

Must say that AXN did a very good job of spoiling the fun. First of all, I didn't know when the the new season was going to start. I was flipping through the TV guide on one Wednesday night and saw that the show was on at 11:30pm. What? Is this the first episode? If not, when did the show start? And which channel telecasts a new season of a series at 11:30 at night on a weekday? I had no choice but to watch. The episode began with a summary of the last season and I heaved a mighty sigh of relief. Okay, this is the first episode. I watched it with great expectations but was slightly disappointed by the time it ended. Somehow, it didn't quite measure upto the season finale of season 9.

Relax, I told myself, this is just the first episode. Little did I know that I would not get to watch the 2nd one. What happened was this. The TV guide showed that there was another telecast of the show on Saturday (10pm) and Sunday (5pm). I did check it out for few minutes on Saturday night, mistook the last episode's snippets for the repeat telecast of the last episode and changed the channel. I never bothered to check it out on Sunday. And gave the show a miss on next Wednesday thinking I will watch the repeat telecast on the following Saturday. What I completely missed out on was the fact that the new episodes are, in fact, telecast on Saturday 10pm.

So when I tuned in the following Saturday I thought I was watching the repeat telecast of episode #2 whereas actually it was episode #3. Needless to say, I was completely at sea. Couldn't figure out how Sam found Dean and how he knew how to cure him. I watched the episode anyways and afterwards found out on the net that I had missed the second episode.

Okay, enough complaining about one missed episode. Back to the latest season and associated disappointment. I still cannot stomach the fact that Dean has been cured in the first few episodes of this season. What happened? It was such a nice twist and had so many possibilities, which, alas, have been forever squandered away. I do have a lurking suspicion that he is not completely cured yet but I guess that comes from watching bits and pieces of Hindi daily soaps where characters who appear good are in reality evil and the ones who are evil are so holy that they can anyday give any saint a run for his money. Oh, and you cannot ignore the fact that Dean didn't flinch when holy water was flung at him. Unless, of course, he had managed to replace it with tap water without Sam noticing it. :-)

Good to see Castiel getting back to his old self though. I wasn't too fond of his sick look. As for the 3rd episode, vampires and werewolves have been an old story for such a long time now that I wondered if the writers of the series used them as a stopgap arrangement while they figure out how to take the show forward.

Here's hoping that one of my favorite shows finds it old rhythm back and soon!