Wednesday, January 28, 2009
the year of the ox
there's so much rubbish on the internet about what this year of the ox will portend to us mortals in the next 365 days already that i'm not going to add my two cents worth of nonsense here. if only the world is that simple and we can understand the future simply by reading the meaning of the zodiac signs....
i'm a monkey based on chinese calender, and this is what they say about monkey people...
People born in the Year of the Monkey are the erratic geniuses of the cycle. Clever, skillful, and flexible, they are remarkably inventive and original and can solve the most difficult problems with ease...
that is laughable hah hah hah...at least in in my case that is.
almost six years ago to the day , i went to kolkata and by pure coincidence i stumbled into a huge book fair on the kolkata maidan. i couldn't remember why i ended up on the maidan but i recall coming there and watched people playing cricket. i was there for a long while and towards the evening just ambled to the other side and there it was. the 25th Kolkata Bookfair in full swing as one might say. and if you know me, i go crazy about books the way women go crazy about shoes, handbags and chocolates.
and according to wiki entry...
It is a unique book fair in the sense of not being a trade fair - the book fair is primarily for the general public rather than whole-sale distributors. It is the world's largest non-trade book fair, Asia's largest book fair and the most attended book fair in the world. It is the world's third largest annual conglomeration of books after the Frankfurt Book Fair and the London Book Fair...
there i was cursing myself for not realizing it sooner and went there directly instead of watching unknown teams playing a poor cricket match. and so i dashed about in and out of the many book sellers' booths and just about 30 minutes to closing time i found this booth selling old books on all kinds of muslim esotorica , books on mughal rules and biographies and indian histories. i felt truly dismayed because it was closing time but i did manage to buy a hard to get 5 volume hardcover copies of Dr J.C Mardrus complete translation of The Arabian Nights .
but not only that... there were some other stuff going on and i found this poor looking boy selling rolls of charcoal drawings on a dusty part on the edge of the field and i bought four charcoal drawings from him . he couldn't even understand english (which is quite rare in kolkata) and i had this beautiful bengali lady translated and haggled for me and i got the drawings for almost nothing.
and here's one of them. it's in a series of 3 . i thought i might post it here as this is the year of the bull .
i'm a monkey based on chinese calender, and this is what they say about monkey people...
People born in the Year of the Monkey are the erratic geniuses of the cycle. Clever, skillful, and flexible, they are remarkably inventive and original and can solve the most difficult problems with ease...
that is laughable hah hah hah...at least in in my case that is.
almost six years ago to the day , i went to kolkata and by pure coincidence i stumbled into a huge book fair on the kolkata maidan. i couldn't remember why i ended up on the maidan but i recall coming there and watched people playing cricket. i was there for a long while and towards the evening just ambled to the other side and there it was. the 25th Kolkata Bookfair in full swing as one might say. and if you know me, i go crazy about books the way women go crazy about shoes, handbags and chocolates.
and according to wiki entry...
It is a unique book fair in the sense of not being a trade fair - the book fair is primarily for the general public rather than whole-sale distributors. It is the world's largest non-trade book fair, Asia's largest book fair and the most attended book fair in the world. It is the world's third largest annual conglomeration of books after the Frankfurt Book Fair and the London Book Fair...
there i was cursing myself for not realizing it sooner and went there directly instead of watching unknown teams playing a poor cricket match. and so i dashed about in and out of the many book sellers' booths and just about 30 minutes to closing time i found this booth selling old books on all kinds of muslim esotorica , books on mughal rules and biographies and indian histories. i felt truly dismayed because it was closing time but i did manage to buy a hard to get 5 volume hardcover copies of Dr J.C Mardrus complete translation of The Arabian Nights .
but not only that... there were some other stuff going on and i found this poor looking boy selling rolls of charcoal drawings on a dusty part on the edge of the field and i bought four charcoal drawings from him . he couldn't even understand english (which is quite rare in kolkata) and i had this beautiful bengali lady translated and haggled for me and i got the drawings for almost nothing.
and here's one of them. it's in a series of 3 . i thought i might post it here as this is the year of the bull .
