Artlemi #8

Hello Artels,

Every 14^th February I spend wondering what it is that makes this a day anything more than any other day for lovers. This year however 3 persons, answering my question with their 3 different perspectives made me realize what 14^th February stands for. Let me tell you their stories; without revealing the names for my safety reasons.

The single “dude” who believes in love- A childhood buddy of mine, let’s believe his name is ‘dude’, has always been single for his own reasons. Being in a relationship for him, as he quotes it, is “waste of my feelings”. He thinks having a girlfriend means having all kind of troubles. We spend almost every Valentine day together, hanging out with few other single friends. This year however he was out of Kolkata for a family get-together. We were on phone on 14^th morning when I asked him my question. He without taking a moment answered ‘man why don’t you google what this day stands for? You will get your answer. This day is not about lovers, it’s about love. It’s a day for celebrating love that connects people, holds them together’. I was shocked hearing this from him. The man, who prefers to be alone, was talking about love. He kept saying; ‘love is very precious man, our friends, our families, everyone loves us. That’s what this day signifies, togetherness of people. Lovers are just a part of it. Got me? Now use internet to some good use, I am going. She i……. I mean they are waiting for me, Cya’. That was my first lesson for the day; 14^th February is a day of love.

An aunt who misses falling in love- I was going out in afternoon to meet some friends when I encountered with an aunty from my flat. She is a school teacher and she should have been in school in this time of the day. She looked at me with surprise. ‘What are you doing home today? Don’t you have plans?’ she asked me with a teasing voice. I was not sure if I am comfortable with the truth so I asked her if it’s a holiday in her school. ‘Don’t tell me about it.’ She mocked anger; ‘the school was half empty. What’s the matter with your generation? It’s like you people save all your love for this day only. 14^th February, and nobody cares to come except some gloomy faces’.

‘Actually aunty I thi…..’ I was not finished when she started again. ‘I was young once too, in our times we didn’t even know about 14^th February but we did just fine. You know I think your generation doesn’t even know what love is. We didn’t have any special day; we had few lucky days when we had chances to experience love. It was way more fun that way. I miss that.’ She suddenly stopped like she had realized it was too much for her to say all this to me. ‘Now run, I am sure you are late’. She stormed up the stairs. My second lesson; 14^th February stands for changes.

Shit happens: story of a modern day Casanova- I know a boy, a modern day Casanova from our area. He is famous among ladies from a very young age. Sweet looking, stylish, smooth talker, good singing voice, passionate guitarist, he has everything that attracts Indian girls. More importantly, he knows how to use his skills to get ladies he likes. We, despite of envying him for that, love him for his charming nature. 14^th February is his day. From dating 3 different women on a single V-day to stealing someone else’s fiancé, he has done it all.

This year however, was very different for him.

I heard the story from someone on the evening get-together. Our Mr. Casanova was feeling differently about a special someone and she gave him his own medicine. 7 days of love filled moments and she left him on 13^th. Well it seems that picking a new fish in one day was too much of a mission for him. He spent the entire day sending friend requests to random girls in Facebook and now he is blocked from doing that. I was unreasonably happy to learn my final lesson of the day. 14^th February is also about paying back.

So I have learned- well, not a thing. It’s still a mystery for me. What it is that makes this a day anything more than any other day for lovers?       

Please enlighten me if you have any idea.

Bye till the 1^st Sunday of next month

ArkaĐ  

In this week's Artlemi

Poem
উষ্ণ জলের ধোঁয়া... (by Debolina Sen)


Fictional Article
Life is an enigma (by Soham Banik)


Photography
Ray of hope (by Papia Ghosh)
Good Bye (by Chirantan Kar)

Artlemi #7

Hello Artels,

Everything starts with a simple idea. The urge of achievement ignites the execution. Human needs inspire a brilliant mind and revolution comes. Everything we have around us today is simply a result of an evaluating revolution, outcome of an idea.

The idea was to make a machine with wings that human can fly and today we have jets flying with the speed of sound. A giant sized machine occupying a whole building just to calculate, evaluated to computers that we can now carry in our pocket. Telephone, television and many more human necessities was a simple idea indeed. Look around and you will see nothing but evolutions of those inventions.

When I first came to know about the difference between invention and discovery as a child, it knocked something in my mind. Two almost similar human urges divided by a thin but strong wall of imagination and idea. Discovery is finding what was already here but we didn’t know about, it is the result of the search for unknown. A new country, an unknown planet, the exact atmosphere before big bang and many more unknowns are waiting to be discovered. In other hand, innovation is developing an idea and creating what was hidden in the heart of future. It’s about assembling our knowledge and resources, mixing them, breaking and recreating them, just to have something great coming out of a simple thought.

Anyways, I am not here to teach you differences. I want to share something I am feeling these days. May be because of my very little knowledge about what’s going on around the world (trust me, that is exactly what I want it to be), I am feeling that there are not much of life changing inventions coming through; Inventions that can change our everyday life, the world around us. Just like the invention of wheel speeded our human race to development. We are growing up surrounded by gifts of science created by our previous generations. Can we think about our life without TVs, computers or telephones? I don’t think we can and that’s where my question comes- “What is our generation leaving for our future generations that they can’t live without?”

I know what you are thinking, developing what we have and taking it to the next level is also a way to make our future simpler and easier and we are actually doing great even without new inventions. If you think so, consider this- a new invention always comes as a solution to an old problem and developing those inventions are actually an act of improving the solutions but not an answer to new problems that should be solved. Hunger, war, poverty, and many more threatening problems are waiting to be solved. As I said before, everything starts with a simple idea.

I know there is a huge possibility that my knowledge has failed me with this piece of writing but when Stephen Hawkins said ‘we have nothing more to invent’, then I think I am not that much wrong. Pulling out an article like this is never easy for an amateur “writer’ like me but I knew from the beginning; if Mandela, after spending almost 30 years in a tiny cell, can come out forgiving those who put him there, my readers can forgive me for the attempt.

**P.S: Many people are claiming that ‘Sixth sense interface’ is a new invention but I kind of felt that it actually is a development, a great straight from the science fiction development but development indeed.

Hope I have not bored you with my writing; just let me know if I did.

Bye till the 3^rd Sunday of this month

ArkaĐ  

In this week's Artlemi

Poem
Why (by Shinjana Das)
Princess (by Gaurab Mukherjee)
Fear me not (by Rocky Beret)
Girl please forgive me (by Arka Datta)


Photography
The dusk (by Gaurab Mukherjee)

Artlemi #6

Hello Artels,
Last few weeks have been very dry for our blog because we have not received sufficient number of good entries. We know its tough to come up with new ideas every week and its also true many of you have things to do with life and it’s hard to mange time for extra things like this.

I know there are few who visit the blog regularly and I hope we have been able to come up with nice posts for your liking. What is important though is to have good material to post every week and for that we need people to know about us. We are trying our best for that but without you it’s a impossible job. Please let others know, we need people who are interested in sharing their creations and we also need people to enjoy our blog. I hope all of you will step up and we all will make Artlemi a great source of entertainment for everyone.

Anyways, because of this we have decided to update the blog every 15 days from now on. It will be a fortnight thing starting today.

Hope this will give you enough time to come up with good creations for Artlemi.

Bye till first Sunday of next month,
ArkaĐ

In this week's Artlemi

Poems
জীবন (by Debolina Sen)
Metamorphosis (by Shinjana Das)

Photography
For a better tomorrow (by Chirantan Kar)
Creation of the nature (by Papia Ghosh)

Artlemi #5


Hello Artels,

Hope you have spent the first week of the new year in merriment and that was why you didn’t have time to send new entries and couldn’t comment in last week’s posts. What we don’t want is to bore you with posts that you don’t even find interesting to comment on.

With new year we are thinking about some new exiting ideas for Artlemi. If you have something that you want to see in Artlemi then please mail us your ideas at datta.sen@gmail.com. Anything interesting and artistic is always welcome.

 We are starting POLL as our new add on from next week. You will have a chance to share your opinion about important things and we will see what most of us are thinking as to be the right thing. There is another thing we want to start from next week. That is ‘THEME BASED CREATIONS’

We will give you a theme and you can send us your story, poem, article, drawing, photography, based on that theme. We will post the selected entries and will post the best one under “Post of the week” section. So start sending your entries and don’t forget to send your regular posts also. Your theme for next week: Man-versus-nature. Hope you all will find it interesting.

Hope you will like the entries we have for this week. Enjoy Artlemi and don’t forget to mail us your ideas.

Bye till next Sunday,

ArkaĐ  

In this week's Artlemi

Poems

Idiorythmic Revelations (by Ananya Ghosh)

Missing Link (by Shinjana Das)

My Inspiration (by Arka Datta)

Article

Bhangra (by Proma Bhattacharjee)

Artlemi #4


Hello Artels,

Wish you all an incredibly happy new year. 2010 was a year full of interesting events. I am sure all of you have found many great moments in your personal life and surely have learnt from your mistakes. This wisdom will help you to make 2011 a better year in all aspects. If we leave aside our personal aspects for a moment, we will realize last year was surely eventful worldwide. Let’s look back for a moment to our own country, India.

Politically; like always, there were almost nothing positive. S. Kalmadi, A. Raja and many more politicians are under CBI scanner with scams and money swooping charges. Not enough improvement in public health and education aspects. Economically, things have not changed much from past years except wealthy people got more affluent.

Miserable train accidents in the first half of 2010 and Kolkata metro mishaps in the later half proved we are living way under safety with our transportations. 

Terrorism, like always, was a life taking issue. Maoists became stronger, Varanasi bomb blasts killed innocent people, still terrorists like Kashav has been treated royally. Our government sucked real hard throughout 2010.   

Not everything was a mess though. Commonwealth games Delhi 2010, despite of all the controversies, was a well earned success. India’s success in sports was superlative in 2010. Cricket and chess, like always brought glory. Boxing, badminton and athletics crossed all our past limits. We sure had our moments in golf and tennis too. It seems, with more and more talented men leaving India for better future, sports is our only chance of triumph, for today and tomorrow.  

Well 2010 is a history now. With its good and bad aspects, it was surely an important year. 365 days of our life that wont return, no matter we worked it out right or wrong, it is history. Be confident looking ahead for whatever you achieved in the first decade of the second millennium. Learn from your mistakes and never repeat, try new and exiting mistakes, there are plenty more to commit and learn. Improve your life and help others to do the same.

Enjoy your 2011 when it’s still new and keep sending your creations to datta.sen@gmail.com and enjoy reading Artlemi.

 

Bye till next Sunday,

ArkaĐ  

In this week's Artlemi

Poems
Something is missing (by Surela Mukherjee)
The yellow lantern (by Paulami Guha Biswas)
A reflection (by Shinjana Das)

Articles
North Eastern Folk-a Paradise Unexplored (Part 2) (by Proma Bhattacharjee)
In Its Presence (by Rahul Roy)

Story
In Silence (by Lipika Datta)

Photography
Lives in the silence (by Lipika Datta)
A bridge to nowhere (by Chirantan Kar)