Jab We Eight

Since I have not been posting for a very long time, the easiest way to break the blogger's block is to take a tag! Mad Momma usually does about 12 tags a week, so it is easiest to take one from her.

Eight Things I am Passionate About
1. Formatting
2. Children knowing their mother tongue
3. Biriyani
4. Letting people be
5. Imaginative names
6. Books
7. Indian Cinema
8. Calcutta

Eight Things I Want To Do Before I Die
1. Stay at Oberoi Udaivilas.
2. Eat at Indigo.
3. Buy an original Bikash Bhattacharya painting.
4. Go back to my maternal grandparents' place in Dibrugarh (Assam).
5. Watch a World Cup Final match starring Brazil
6. Attend the Film Appreciation Course at FTII
7. Buy the complete Asterix set (and get the complete Tintin set free!)
8. Watch a Rajanikanth movie. First day first show!

Eight Places I Want to Visit
1. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
2. Venice
3. 221B Baker Street, London
4. Jaisalmer
5. Selexyz Dominicanen in Maastricht, Netherlands.
6. Ladakh
7. The Louvre, Paris
8. Disneyland (with my son)

Eight Things I Say Often
1. ...and stuff like that.
2. What rubbish?
3. Korena, buro. (Don't do that - to my son!)
4. Aisa hi hota hain.
5. Sathiya gaya hain, kya?
6. Kiii??? (Whaaat???)
7. One plate mutton biriyani.
8. Kya baat kar raha hain?

Eight Books I Have Read Recently
1. Shaam-e-Awadh: Writings on Lucknow (edited by Veena Talwar Oldenburg)
2. South by South East (Anthony Horowitz)
3. Fantasies of a Bollywood Love Thief (Stephen Alter)
4. The End of Marketing As We Know It (Sergio Wyman)
5. Brochure of the Neemrana Group of Hotels (!)
6. Lashkar (Mukul Deva)
7. Apu And After: Revisiting Ray's Cinema (edited by Moinak Biswas)
8. Eating India (Chitrita Banerjee) - Actually, I am reading this one right now!

Eight Songs I Can Listen to Again and Again
1. Aanewala pal jaanewala hain - Golmaal
2. Allah ke bande - Waisa Bhi Hota Hain Part II
3. She's a woman to me - Billy Joel
4. Je raatey mor duaarguli bhanglo jhorey - Meghey Dhaka Tara
5. Pyaar karnewale pyaar karte hain shaan se - Shaan
6. Mera dil bhi kitna paagal hain - Saajan
7. Humne tumko dekha tumne humko dekha - Khel Khel Mein
8. Gorgeous Hamesha - Jingle from the Parachute Advansed ad

Eight Things That Attract Me to My Friends
1. Sense of Humour
2. Love for food
3. Eloquent speech or expressive writing or both
4. Laziness
5. Knowledge about arbitrary trivia
6. Confidence
7. Passion for what they believe in
8. Ability to be calm

I will pass the Eighth Topic on tagging eight innocent bystanders!

Comments

Anonymous said…
I thought biryani was spelt as biryani; you have spelt it as biriyani...am sure you have a reason behind that as well. Kindly enlighten us :)

PK
Anonymous said…
Forget the spelling. the name alone evokes passion. Life cannot be complete without savouring biriyani. 2ndly, I've become passionate about Cal once I've left the city.U wud probably been not that passionate had you been in The City.3rdly, I am not that passionate about imaginative names though I've got a name fetish - Chaitali-sounds quintessentially Bengalee.
Keep blogging, Dipto,

Ranti,Mumbai
Rimi said…
Eshob ki? Hoat eej all thees? Biriyaani eej biriyani only, eet eej how oo-ee are pronouncing eet. And eeting eet also.

Now please do a post on imaginative names. Or Indian cinema. Or Calcutta. Please, just post. I'm dead bored.

Oh, and #1 of Things You Must Start Doing: replying to comments.
Rimi said…
Also, you do know 221B Baker Street is not a real address, don't you? Ref. London-e Feluda.
@PK: As Rimi pointed out, birIyani is the English transliteration of the Bengali spelling.

@ Rimi: Fictitious address? I thought Feluda walked up to 221B and made an uncharacteristically sentimental comment about how Holmes has inspired him?
Must read London-e again!
Anonymous said…
Actually, there IS a 221B Baker Street in London - which has been converted into a Sherlock Holmes museum. It is very close to Baker Street tube/underground station - and there is a statue of Sherlock Holmes in front of this station. Definitely part of the tourism route.......

Uma
Tania said…
Nice list. They should also have 8 things you love to eat.
About the places you want to visit, I have already been to 1, 3, 7 and 8.221B Baker street has a fictiious museum which is just like how Homes apartment would be. As the other person said,its a block from the Baker Street station.
Anonymous said…
Says a lot about you!

I was searching for "Look!" under the Eight Things I Say Often.
Nilendu said…
221B is totally a valid address. Yours truly was indeed photographed in front of it with one of the Sherlocks out there. The dude had even a pipe.
Hello Dipta, I was planning to write something on Deb Sahitya Kutir, when I quite accidentally stumbled upon your gem of a blog. I have spent a lot of today reading up your lovely posts... love your sense of humour, your innate knowledge about things Bangla and the quintessentially Bengali flavour in your writing.

Rajan Chakravarty
March Hare said…
Err..as far as I remember, 'Londoney Feluda' had feluda going up to the nearest valid address to 221B and praying (rather uncharacteristically i thought!)

The museum is probably a new addition, then? Because when Ray wrote it, 221B definitely didn't exist.
Nilendu said…
Some research -

"When street numbers were re-allocated in the 1930s, the block of odd numbers from 219 to 229 was assigned to an Art Deco building known as Abbey House, constructed in 1932 for the Abbey Road Building Society (subsequently the Abbey National), which the company occupied until 2002.

Almost immediately, the building society started receiving correspondence to Sherlock Holmes from all over the world, in such volumes that it appointed a permanent "secretary to Sherlock Holmes" to deal with it."

"The Sherlock Holmes Museum is housed in an 1815 house similar to the fictional 221B. Its official address is 239 Baker Street. Opened in 1990, it displays exhibits in period rooms, wax figures and Holmes memorabilia. Both Abbey House and the Sherlock Holmes Museum declared themselves to be the "real" 221B: the outcome of a dispute between the two in 1994, when the museum applied unsuccessfully for permission to renumber itself 221. Today both have a claim: Abbey House is where 221B "could have been" and the museum is where Sherlock Holmes's post is delivered"

"In order to physically display the number "221b" on its front door without falling foul of planning regulations, it had to register a company called "221b Ltd", because companies do not require planning permission to display a company name on the entrance to a building."

Lol. The last part is "classic" Indian style fraud. Loved it.

I visited the site in 2000 and it looked as close to scam as Sukhram's mattresses.
Nilendu said…
Last note, since "Londoney Feluda" was published in 1989 - it was factually correct for Ray not to mention the 221B site. The "221b" opened in 1990.
Rimi said…
Thanks for the data, Nilendu. It's good to feel validated. As far as I knew, the Sherlock Holmes Museum came about after Londoney Feluda was published, hence Ray's claim is quite accurate. And also that this museum is not actually at 221 Baker Street, which of course your data supports. Thanks again.