The Battle of Orchard Village

Many of the epic battles in history have unfortunately been overlooked by the media. The only way we ever get to know of them is by word of mouth. "Urban legends", some people call
them...the wiser few, know better.
The onus is on me to tell you today of one such battle. This will not be a long post since I do not intend to disturb you with the gory details. I have just the cold hard facts to present.

This battle takes place between just two entities and is of no lesser magnitude as compared to the one between Gandalf and the balrog mentioned by Tolkien. One one side is the underdog...let us call him the Hero (after all, we all love underdogs...). On the other side is something which is just not human...let's call it the Thing. The Thing has been in many such battles. For our Hero, this is the first. Our Hero is armed with a knife. The Thing is armed with a formidable exterior.
The Battle begins. As simply as I just said it. Our Hero draws first blood and plunges the knife into the Thing. But the Thing has powers which are indescribable...as Hamlet had pointed out...
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy".
The Thing exerts its power...the knife wielding hand of Hero turns against his other. Had the entire thing not been not so scary and of such utmost importance to the Hero's survival, it might as well have been branded as a cheap horror flick. The battle raged on...for an endless two hours. Time seemed to stand still, awed by the sheer brutality of this epic duel. In the end, our Hero stood straight...bloody knife in his bloody hands...the victor at last.
He was exhausted but not quite done. There were still a few finishing touches to go. His hunger had to be quenched. Thus he smote the ruins of his vanquished upon the frying pan and did what he had learnt from some marvellous hindi movies-it is called Zakhmo pe namak (aur tel aur masala) chidakna.

Finally, in a climax as poetic as the whole episode, Yours Truly had fried chicken...which, needless to say, he devoured to his utmost satisfaction, ravenous after his mammoth encounter.

The Fountainheads of Calcutta

Ever since I've got to St. Louis I've longed for home. I've thought, what is it that this place has, apart from 6-lane roads, that we don't have back in good old Calcutta (yes, I've always preferred it to Kolkata). Then I noticed something which made me waver, something that tested my conviction.
I'm talking about the weather forecasting here. I was simply amazed at the pinpoint accuracy with which the weather department predicts the weather here...and for 10 days at a stretch. It's all sunny and sweltering in the morning and they say "Heavy showers expected at night". What a load of crap, I say to myself. But as has happened on numerous other occasions, I'm left eating my hat. Come 7.30 and it's pouring like hell. I say to myself..."Heck, these guys are good". But one thing constantly keeps hounding me. Of all things, is good ol' Calcutta gonna taste defeat on just this paltry note. Is there somthing that these people can do better.
I try to forget about the feeeling but it keeps nibbling on my insides like a festering wound that refuses to heal. Then one day as I'm flipping though the Fountainhead light dawns on me. I read about how Dominique Francon publicly pans Howard Roark's work simply because she feels that the world is not ready for him. She has this to say...

" When you see a man casting pearls without getting even a pork chop in return--it is not against the swine that you feel indignation. It is against the man who valued his pearls so little that he was willing to fling them into the muck and to let them become the occasion for a whole concert of grunting ".

And immediately I thought of the weather department in Calcutta. In that moment I was the swine that hadn't till then realized the worth of Calcutta's weather department. Why should they go on predicting the wether correctly for a group of people who have no respect at all for their methods? Why should they toil day and night for a media that is constantly panning them? That's right...I know if you're a person with wits about yourself and even an iota of understanding you would say..."God! What have these geniuses been putting up with"....And only then will you realize their greatness when you understand the conflict that they deal with every day. When they predict the weather correctly it's because they want to give us the best that they can offer. When they predict it wrongly, it's not because of their ineptitude. The mere thought would be travesty. They do it because they know that the poeple don't deserve it. It makes me remember a piece of dialogue from "A Few Good Men" between Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise...

Nicholson:You want answers?
Cruise : I think I'm entitled to them.
Nicholson:You want answers?
Cruise :I want the truth.
Nicholson:You can't handle the truth.

That's it. They know we can't handle the truth. They've known all along. So they hide it from us for our own sake. And for the few bold enough to seek it, the Truth is out there, purposely moderated for our mediocre tastes by the Fountainheads of Calcutta. Hats off to them. I am at peace.