First Person

Hidden tribes make an esoteric subject for films. But, this one was for real — one that did not quite make news. A man belonging to the only uncontacted tribe in South America outside the Amazon basin has been sighted near a region targetted for deforestation by Brazilian cattle-ranchers. When spotted, the man hid behind a tree, and later fled. The next day an abandoned camp, a clay dish, and game ready for cooking were found nearby. The man, according to Survival International, is one of an...

Shortly after I landed in Agartala towards the end of 1988, some seemingly philosophical questions confronted me. All for the wrong reasons, you know. Not because I was a Bong who loved squandering time on theoretical balderdash. This was, after all, my first job and I intended to retain it. Come hell or high water. The issue of a philosophical dilemma was posed by this hell-water thingy. I was a simpleton, and hadn’t still lost my innocence. There was reason for me to be upset over the question...

Sometime in the second half of the 1970s there was this frail boy who one fine morning fell heads over heels in love with cricket, a game he could not play by any measure. Because he could neither bat, nor bowl, or field. He loved the game, nonetheless. For its sheer grace than anything else, perhaps. The more he realised that he could not weild the willow or hurl the cherry, the more he grew passionate about the game. He loved the game because of two players who used to be the favourite...

In the last week of June, when a young Naga woman in New Delhi was denied entry into the pretentiously titled club called Urban Pind, the talk of the town became all about racial profiling. The issue was still raging fire when animal rights activist Ambika Shukla scribbled an obnoxious canine caper in some newspaper about what she derisively thought about Nagas and “other Northeasterners” relishing dog meat. And all this after the Times of India, in March, apologised for carrying a piece...

The first time that I set my eyes on her, she managed to steal my undivided attention. As she flitted from person to another, I sat there a bit mesmerised, a bit intrigued. Not like a dead leaf of the fall, yet she almost went by the wind with gay abandon, virtually rudderless. Presently, she landed up within hugging distance of me, looked me up and down of as much as she could see, and without even waiting for me to react, scampered away. She was all of four feet nothing, not a day more than...

I was feeling slightly restless – what, with having landed up like those incorrigible Virgos way ahead of time. My first official day as a journalist. I didn’t want to be late. I sat on that uncomfortable so-called sofa in the crammed lobby of the Press Trust of India (PTI) regional office in Calcutta that rainy October morning of 1991. It didn’t quite dampen my spirits – whatever significant I do, it always seems to rain that day. So, as it kept drizzling outside, my restlessness grew. Why the...

As he, almost silently, parted the curtains and glided into the living room, it was for me as if the curtains had lifted and the show had begun. Cinemar manush (the man from the films) was how I would refer to him as whenever I saw a picture of his anywhere, as a five-year-old. The man I had loved and loathed in Tapan Sinha’s cinematic adaptation of ‘The Prisoner of Zenda’ ( Jhinder Bandi) . Ray’s actor. Charulata’s Amal. The original Bengali rock ‘n roll star, you would have known had you seen...

My experiences with the grievance redressal mechanisms of various services and service providers over the years has quite often left me with a bad taste in the mouth. So when I was faced with the choice of a DTH service provider last year, I thought there is perhaps little to choose between Dish TV and Tata Sky. After a brief weighing of the scales, I saw my preference tilting more towards the latter, mainly because I thought their prefix curried more reliability and credibility than that of the...

I am a brand loyalist – I loathe changing brands. I smoked Gold Flake Kings for eight years till I switched over to India Kings because I discovered a discrepancy both in the tobacco quality and the filter itself between the packs of 10s and 20s. I have puffed on the India Kings brand for the last 10 years. I stick to Old Monk when drinking rum and Black Label when guzzling beer. Unless the bar offers no other choice. I have worn Lees and Levis since I-don’t-remember-when. Latter-day brands have...

I had been restlessly waiting for my credit card to be delivered. I always become a bit uneasy when the expiry date of a card draws near and the new one is yet to find itself in my hands. So I was. I mean, my being uneasy. When the doorbell rang the other scorching afternoon and I peered over the parapet to see a man who could only be a courier deliveryman, I was more than relieved. Phew! There comes my Standard Chartered Bank card. But it didn’t. Not that noon at least. With an air of...