A Day in the Life of an Artist (by Rahul Roy)

The day was bright and sunny. Young Vincent was on his way to the cornfields in the blazing heat of summer, in his trade mark hat, sporting a rough red beard. The walk through the dry fields did not tier him. For him it was yet another regular day which he would spend on painting. He headed towards his favorite location in the shades of the tall cypresses. That morning he had decided that he would paint ‘Cornfield and cypresses’. Cypress trees in south of France has always fascinated him. The golden yellow cornfields reminded him of his nights spent at the richly illuminated Café Guerbois at Paris. It was there that he met other infamous contemporary impressionists including his friend Paul Gauguin.

 He had painted the fields many a times before. It is the same cornfield and cypress trees that he had depicted under a starry starry night in one of his paintings, few days back. The images are still fresh in his mind. The larger than life stars, the yellow crescent moon, the expanding circles of light all built up on strokes and dashes of colors. He had never seen such magnificent trees in his native Dutch country side. He is now a regular visitor to these cornfields, a stones throw away from St. Remy mental asylum, where he is admitted.

The bouts of convulsions and hallucinations during the night had drained him out of his energy. It was difficult for him to walk. The pain reminded him of his days of Borinage, the poor coal mining district of Belgium. It was there he had painted‘Potato Eaters’. A dark masterpiece showing the hard life of the dutch peasants. But it did not dampen his enthusiasm to paint. He finally managed to set up his easel, mount his canvas and started to apply thick coats of paint. Vincent has always been a voracious painter. He took very little time to paint. He often completed a picture in a single day. Mostly evident from his best known painting ‘Sunflowers’ which had to be painted very quickly before the flowers dropped. The landscape surrounding the small town of St. Remy had a striking resemblance with Arles, where he had stayed with his painter friend Paul for months.

With every passing moment the mood of the sky changed, formation of the clouds altered. The tall cypresses swayed in the winds. But Vincent kept on painting. He never stopped to take a break from work, as if he was in hurry. The clouds started to appear in his canvas as shapeless masses of violet, cypresses in flame like shapes and corn fields in his signature bold dashes of bright yellow. He had just completed yet another, masterpiece work. He wanted to continue but he could no longer. He had to return back to his asylum. He was allowed out to paint only under strict supervision of the hospital authorities. But he was not disappointed. He could paint something else in his room, might be his pair of boots, his utensils, his bedroom chairs, or his entire bedroom at the asylum.

The subject of a painting hardly mattered to him as long he had something to paint. While other used their brains he painted with his heart. His love for painting gave him immense pleasure in times of hardships. Every time he applied paint, It brought a smile on his face, though his life was a grim and desperate struggle against hunger, failed relationships, poverty, alcoholism and insanity from which he never fully recovered.

The Dead & the Undead (by Papia Ghosh)

Have you ever imagine if one night you are sleeping and suddenly you wake up and see one of your dead relatives is sitting beside you. How would you feel? Happy, frightened or sad? And what if you see neither that person can recognize you nor the same caring person as you know them. What if a person comes back from dead as an undead?

Yes you are right I am talking about the zombies, who are popularly known as undead. What are zombies? There are various opinions about them. Some says it is a creature that is fictional, appeared in books, films, games and other entertainment media where they portrays as a reanimated corpse of human body who is being controlled by someone else by use of some magic.

So typically zombies are human body without any consciousness or sense of real things. A non-conscious system that physically different from but functionally isomorphic to a normal human. For example, a system with silicon chips instead of neurons like a robot. Some researchers use the logical possibility of such a functional zombie to argue against functionalist theories of consciousness, which postulate that consciousness equals functioning. The other related idea, the zombie within, has recently been studied extensively in psychology and neuroscience. A great deal of human activity—perception, memory, learning—can be accomplished unconsciously. Some have argued that there are major neural pathways devoted to unconscious processing of visual inputs, which leads directly to motor action and physical reaction. These postulations have led some philosophers to suggest that each of us contains a "zombie within" that unconsciously produces many of our motor response, without our even knowing it.

According to history zombies are a product of voodoo spiritual belief system originated in West Africa. The foundations of voodoo were established in the seventeenth century by slaves captured primarily from the kingdom of Dahomey, which occupied parts of today's Togo, Benin, and Nigeria in West Africa, it combines features of African religion with the Roman Catholicism of the European cultures. Today over 60 million people practice voodoo worldwide. Religious similar to voodoo can be found in South America where they are called Umbanda, Quimbanda or Candomble. It is widely practiced in Benin, Haiti and other black communities of the large cities in North America. Unfortunately, in popular literature and films voodoo has been demoralized to sorcery, black witchcraft, and even cannibalistic practices, generating many foreigners' prejudices, not only about voodoo but about Haitian culture as well. The voodoo religion involves belief in a supreme god (bon dieu) and a host of spirits called loa which are often identified with Catholic saints. As bon dieu is difficult to reach, Voodoo culture worship loa (lwa in other opinions) who is subordinate to bon dieu. These spirits are closely related to African gods and may represent natural phenomena — such as fire, water, or wind — or dead persons, including eminent ancestors. They consist of two main groups: the rada, often mild and helping, and the petro, which may be dangerous and harmful.

According to the tenets of Voodoo, a dead person can be taken from death by a bokor or sorcerer by some spell or potion. Zombies remain under the control of the bokor since they have no will of their own. "Zombie" is also another name of the Voodoo snake lwa Damballah Wedo, of Niger-Congo origin; it is similar to the Kikongo word nzambi, which means "god". There also exists within the West African Voodoo tradition the zombie astral, which is a part of the human soul that is captured by a bokor and used to enhance the bokor's power. The zombie astral is typically kept inside a bottle which the bokor can sell for luck, as healing substance or business success. It is believed that after a while God will take the soul back and so the zombie is a temporary spiritual entity.  It is also said in voodoo legend that feeding a zombie salt will make it return to the grave. It is said that zombies are incapable of remembering the past, unable to recognize loved ones and doomed to a life of miserable toil under the will of the zombie master.

There are many examples of zombies in modern day Haiti. “Papa Doc Duvallier the dictator of Haiti from 1957 to 1971 had a private army of thugs called tonton macoutes. These people were said to be in trances and they followed every command that Duvallier gave them. Duvallier had also his own voodoo church with many followers and he promised to return after his death to rule again. He did not come back but a guard was placed at his tomb, to insure that he would not try to escape, or that nobody steals the body. There are also many stories of people that die, and then many years later return to the shock and surprise of relatives.” (Source: Monstrous.com)

“A case reported a writer named Stephen Bonsal described a zombie he witnessed in 1912 in this way: a man had at intervals a high fever, he joined a foreign mission church and the head of the mission saw him die. He assisted at the funeral and saw the dead man buried. Some days later the supposedly dead man was found dressed in grave clothes, tied to a tree, moaning. The poor wretch soon recovered his voice but not his mind. He was identified by his wife, by the physician who had pronounced him dead, and by the clergyman. The victim did not recognize anybody, and spent his days moaning inarticulate words.” (Source: Monstrous.com)

Modern zombies, as portrayed in books, films, games, and haunted attractions, are quite different from both voodoo zombies and those of folklore. Modern zombies are typically depicted in popular culture as mindless, unfeeling monsters with a hunger for human flesh especially brain. Zombies became a popular device in modern horror fiction, largely because of the success of George A. Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead.

According to Wikipedia, The zombie apocalypse is a particular scenario of apocalyptic fiction that customarily has a science fiction/horror rationale. In a zombie apocalypse, a widespread (usually global) rise of zombies hostile to human life engages in a general assault on civilization. Due to a large number of thematic films and video games, the idea of a zombie apocalypse has entered the mainstream and there have been efforts by many fans to prepare for the hypothetical future zombie apocalypse. Efforts include creating weapons and selling posters to inform people on how to survive a zombie outbreak.

Modern zombies come in mobs and waves, seeking either flesh to eat or people to kill or infect. They are generally incapable of communication and show no signs of personality or rationality. Their collective and almost absurd presence (since they are dead) is closely tied to the idea of a Zombie Apocalypse the collapse of civilization caused by a vast plague of undead. The ideas are now so strongly linked that zombies are rarely depicted within any other context.

Poetry With Feet (by Proma Bhattacharjee)

 “Dancing is poetry with feet” ..I had come across this proverb many years ago but as a child I thought I could not quite comprehend it… ‘how can anyone create poetry with feet? Surely one is not supposed to hold a pen with their toes and write’. But my sub conscience had probably already understood the meaning.

I remember being smitten by a Bharatnatyam performance on the television - the movements, the impeccable synchronization, the expression, the costumes..it had held me spellbound. I had seen poetry in the making. Even as a child, not fully four years old I knew I wanted to learn the magic.

And today decades later after endless hours of lessons and performances I know that it is probably the best way that this art form is defined.

Poetry is the best expression of human emotions and dance joins our mind and body in an invisible connection.

Dancing with joy is not just a metaphorical expression; it is an ultimate expression of joy.

Even those  who have never taken any formal dance lessons or even have two left feet have sometime or the other have felt  this inescapable urge to let go and let the feet and body do the talking.

Whenever we are joyous we want to dance , ofcourse contrary to what our bollywood films preach we can’t possibly start dancing on the street whenever we feel like unless we are ready for public spanking and a trip to lunatic asylum .

But parties, functions, socials are all incomplete without a dance floor. The increasing number of dance schools and discos are live proofs of its increasing popularity.

The history of dance dates back to time immemorial. The ancient Hindu scriptures describe our universe and the entire creation as a cosmic dance of God in form of Nataraj-the ultimate dancer.

Nature itself portrays the omnipresence of dance in its every movement- the flow of rivers, waves of the ocean, leaves and flowers, fluttering and dancing in the breeze in the joy of creation.

Dance as a form of art has evolved for centuries. Thousands different kinds cultures and societies have patronized different kinds of dance forms each unique in its style, presentation, music and costume. Some of these forms have survived and have been incorporated into the mainstream dance forms where as others have become obscure and obsolete. India itself with its multi cultural demography is the birth place of hundreds of such dance forms which have carved a niche in the world panorama of performing arts.

And here in this column I intend to explore these various genres of dance , some of which are very familiar and some which are not and the various aspects of it because whether as  an expression of joy or art for art’s sake or simply a medium of fitness, this art form is unparalleled.

Strong password (by Vicky Karmakar)

Passwords help us to keep our privacy secure. Imagine if your boyfriend (or ex) gets your email account's password !!

Hey ! Stop thinking and continue reading.

The most common passwords in this world are:

1. Your name

2. Your ex's name

3. Your phone number

4. Your pincode

5. "Password" as a password

6. Your Date of Birth

7. Your car number

Anyone who knows you a bit can guess all these. So it is required to set a "storng" password. By strong I mean that the password should satisfy the following conditions.

1. Minimum of 8 characters..

2. Mixture of characters (such as #,$)

3. Put in some numbers.

4. Try both CAPITAL and small letters.

5. No such word which is present in a dictionary (English dictionary).

The best way to make strong passwords.

1. Take a long sentence and use only the first character of each word.

Ex: The goat on the mountain is very brown.

So that makes the password "tgotmivb".

2. Lets put in some capital letters. Let us make "t" capital.

So, now it is TgoTmivb

3. Put in some charactes now. Replace "i" with "!".

So, now it is TgoTm!vb

Now thats a fairly strong password and you only have to remember the sentence "The goat on the mountain is brown"

So now you have your own customized password, with little practise you can by-heart it.

PS: Do not write down or store passwords anywhere that makes all your hardwork pointless. Also do not use the password given in this article and don't think I use this password. Lol !

A day at the Shankarpore fishing harbour (by Rahul Roy)

For decades fishing has been the sole livelihood for the inhabitations  of Shankarpore, a beach front in West Midnapore. Apart from being a tourist spot with breathtaking seascapes the place is known for its budding fishing industry. The natives,  mainly fishermen and their families make up for the scanty population of this beach paradise. As they say, the art of fishing has  passed down from one generation to another, from father to son. It has become a part and parcel of their simple life. For the men the day begins by collecting dead turtles, sea shells, oysters and small fishes that have been washed ashore by the sea. As the dawn breaks fishermen set sail on their trawlers and venture far into the sea for fishing. While those with small boats fish nearby. At the same time life becomes busy at the harbour where fishermen and labourers get ready with huge barrels for collecting the days catch. As loaded boats start to come in, huge chunks of ice are brought to preserve the fish. The ice blocks are prepared from the sea water by a special process in nearby factories. Each block is carried by two men with the help of bamboos that they support on their shoulders. Every morning and evening, before leaving and after returning the fishermen perform a traditional ritual. They give some offering to the boats and say a small prayer as it is the only source of their daily bread. At times they even sleep in their boats.

The fishing harbour is situated in a creek that has protruded inwards from the sea.  Boats, trawlers, launches and small canoyees of various shapes and sizes are kept along the creek. There is a 132 m long Fish landing jetty which has eased the pre project scrambling of fishing vessels for landing, berthing space and related facilities and fishing gears. Fishing activities in this region have received a new momentum with creation of better infrastructure.. Also there is a big market nearby where all the catch is sold. The jetty is also equipped with fuel, repair berth, water, approach arrangements together with workshops, power distribution system, auction hall and sewage disposable facilities. All the days catch is not sold. Some of the catch is kept for drying. The fishes are dried on huge nets that are hung from the mast of the boats. Sometimes the fishes are also left on the open ground for better drying. Turtles, shrimps, giant lobsters and prawns comprise the bulk of the catch and are the main items of export. Not only marine fishing equal importance is also given to traditional inland fishing activities of the region.

          Fishing has always remained an integral part of the lives of the people of this place and will remain so. The way traditional techniques of fishing have been entwined with modern marketing strategies and equipments are something to learn from. This tradition is also a fine example of an age old practice and profession which the locals have transformed into a mission with a passion.

Fear of the Dark and experiencing the Paranormal (by Rahul Roy)

Like every other kid, when I was small, I was afraid of the dark. Though I still am, but nowadays I try not to show it, in fear of embarrassment and I think there is no harm in admitting the truth because everyone does the same. And you can be assured of the fact that being afraid of the dark does not make you a less of a man. So there must be something about darkness that makes us all shiver and feel insecure. The same room of yours that appear so cozy and warm during the day suddenly turns into a spooky place when there is a power cut at night. Even when you repeatedly try to assure yourself that, it is the same place and it is just only dark. But much to your avail you still feel frightened and helpless. It is not the darkness that we are afraid of, it is the unknown fear and danger that we sense is lingering in the darkness surrounding us, even though it is just our imagination most of the time. We fear the unknown but it is the same unknown that draws us to it. We are all fascinated by ghost stories but we all fear the idea of encountering one someday. We remain glued to the edge of our television sets when there is a horror show on the channel. Unlike any other fear or phobia, the fear of darkness and ghosts draw our interest. This is quite unusual about something which terrifies us but is a common thing in all of us. In the blanket of darkness our imagination starts to run wild. All ghostly incidents and stories start to come to our mind. It is a natural human instinct and behavior. I am not writing this piece of article to explain the human psychology behind feeling afraid of the dark, but to draw the deep conjunction that exists between darkness and the paranormal. Yes you heard it right, the Paranormal. There is a deep union between the two. In my later articles ill try to explain the various aspects related to the paranormal. Most paranormal activities and sightings occur at night. Though these happenings have also been observed at daytime (research conducted by the Wisconsin based Heartland Paranormal Investigations) but it becomes much easier to observe, record and analyze them in the dark. There is less noise disturbance at night. You can hear even the slightest of creek of the door or the faint knock on the walls. We become hyper sensitive to our surroundings. Our senses become alert and it helps us to concentrate better in the dark with little or no distractions from the surrounding environment. This is the reason most paranormal investigations are carried out at night. It is also much easier for the paranormal entities to make their presence felt at night and in dark places. I write this piece with a simple objective to create some kind of awareness about the paranormal. I am not a paranormal expert but I do take deep interest in understanding such phenomenon. This was just an introductory write up and in my subsequent articles I will try to explain various aspects of the paranormal. So the next time u encounter or experience something weird do not fear or run away from it, but instead try to analyze it because all weird happenings are not paranormal activities.