Kaberi Dutta Chatterjee's Blog: Life and Laughter, page 20

Which jobs will survive Robotic Revolution?

Which jobs will survive Robotic Revolution?.

It’s almost scary the way robots are taking over manpower. Telemarketing, cold-calls, cleaning, singing, talking, etc have already been taken over by the bots. We have created our own Frankesteins, and we don’t even realize that if we don’t control cheap robots replacing human labor now, one day we will starve ourselves to death.

For now, which jobs do you think will survive the Robotic Revolution?

What career advise will you give to your children, that will not clash with the bots?

We would love to hear your opinions and debates on the topic.

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Filed under: Serious matter

What’s On

What’s On.

Now Graphic Design and Film making services added. Click on the tab and be surprised!

Filed under: For a thought....

What’s On

What’s On.

FinalDraft’s first news publication is hot off the press! News World is out!

Read, subscribe and let me know what you think of it!

Filed under: For a thought....

An Extract on this Devi Paksha in India

Mahasthami, September 30, 1994

Mahasthami. The climactic day of the festival. The entire household had been downstairs since dawn in new clothes and ornaments. The women wore a red liquid, called alta, on their feet, and anchal over their heads. The men wore dhoti [33] and silk kurtas [34]. Everything smelt of flowers, incense and happiness. The dhaki (drummer) played on the drum incessantly. The goddess was obliterated inside a thick smoke from the incense.
Neil was feeling nauseated. He was woken up at five in the morning by the sound of the drums. He stuck in his room till late morning. He asked Manik to serve him tea and breakfast in his room. Mahamaya came up once wearing a red-bordered crème-colored sari and lots of jewelry. She said, “At least, come down today. Put on your new clothes and come down. Everyone’s missing you.”
He shook his head in negative. “I have work to do. I have to go out.”
Mahamaya didn’t say a thing. She didn’t know how long it’d take for things to revert to normalcy. Whether it would at all, or not. She didn’t know what she should do about the whole affair.
Neil went out around lunchtime wearing his favorite blue T-shirt and jeans. He, rather, crept out in the midst of a dramatic aaroti [35] being performed in the thakurdalan, that transformed the arena into some kind of a transcending mystery.
He subconsciously scanned the crowd. And then he spotted her. She was standing on the thakurdalan and had seen him. Her eyes said, “Don’t go.”
He lowered his eyes, heaved a sigh and crept out. The streets were dusty and sunny. It was a warm day.
“Neil…” He turned around. Tuli had come out with all the ornaments, in a peacock blue kanjivaram sari with the aanchal over her head. Her feet were bare!
She came running to him. He stood transfixed. She had never looked so beautiful before!
“Where are you going?” she panted.
“Go back! You shouldn’t come out like this.” He scanned around. People were beginning to notice her.
“Don’t go anywhere. Please stay back.” She was pleading, her eyes watery.
“Why?” Neil asked before he realized it.
“Because I love you. Because I am dying inside…

Motherhood Over?

Motherhood Over?

It’s been a while. My parenting role is taking a new turn. Thought I must share this, as I am a little ahead of my friends in parenting timeline being the mother of an 18-aproaching boy. He has a decent moustache, a beard that which I can only feel when I kiss him cheek to cheek, and he shaves twice a week. Neighboring girls slither past him and he romps past them. This is that stage, when you need the mom the most, yet you don’t need her doing micro, ‘irritating’ things for you. So my role is changing and suddenly I find my nerves relaxing. Initially it was a devastation! My child growing up???!!! WHY God why? Why me? My baby was so cozy in my arms, I fed him so well, I sung him all the songs I could to remember to make him sleep. I had the best parenting plans. Sleepless nights, fevers, immunizations, childhood asthma, painful styes in his eyes… first tooth, first walk, first talk, first flipping over in bed, first toothless smile on seeing me after a while. He was okay. Why did he grow up so much!! I was fine with him… carrying him in my lap and cuddling him to sleep.

I know! I know! There’s a phrase for this!!! “EMPTY-NEST SYNDROME”. The faster you can accept it, the faster you move on.

And that is why I dived deep into my motherhood self that happened almost 18 years back and scolded the mom in me always wanting to cater to her baby’s needs. “WITHDRAW!” “LEAVE HIM ALONE” ” MAKE HIM RESPONSIBLE”. “GO FIND A JOB, HE NEEDS SPACE”… space from his mom? My other half meekly protested. “YES” I growled and recited Kahlil Gibran.

“You are the bows from which your children

as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with His might

that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves also the bow that is stable.”

“Once your child doesn’t need you, then you move back and relax.”

I cried alone for days. I am sad. Depressed. Frustrated. Dejected. Betrayed. Uncared for. Unloved.

At night, while relaxing on the sofa and watching the soapy soaps, I’ve often cooed him out of his den, ‘Baaammmmm’… And he too knew this was the call when Mom is at her emotional worst. He abandoned his online friends and came to me smiling. Like an ostrich, he dug his head into my lap, and knew I would be happy. In that upside-down pose, with only his head in my lap and the rest of the body sticking out like an ostrich, I am sure he too was happy.  And then so many times he fell asleep in that pose.

…..I tried NOT to remember one time when he had just started to crawl… had fallen asleep on a rug…..

He too is bending backwards to help me get independent of him.

And I got independent soon. I stopped checking on his clothes, (don’t read closet), his room’s temperature at night, his food habits.

I am confident about my upbringing.

I learned to spend my times alone. With my work, thoughts, writings and business, and TV.  Now I am now just a friend to my son. A roommate.

“Hi!”I ask him when he gets back home. “How was the hang out?”

And he is fast becoming an independent, self-thinking, decision-making person, I should be proud of!

……. kind of selfish to say, but him without teeth… I was much more comfortable with….

Hmmmmm……………. Lately I am feeling that I’ve formally completed motherhood…. :O

A mother of a 17-year-old

Filed under: For a thought....

Motherhood Over

Motherhood Over

It’s been a while. My parenting role is taking a new turn. Thought I must share this, as I am surely ahead of many in parenting with a approaching-18 boy. He has a decent moustache, a beard that which I can only feel when I kiss him cheek to cheek, and he shaves twice a week. Some surround girls slither past him and he romps past them. This is that stage, when you need the mom the most, yet you don’t need her doing micro, ‘irritating’ things for you. So my role is changing and suddenly I find my nerves relaxing. Initially it was a devastation! My child growing up???!!! WHY God why? Why me? My baby was so cozy in my arms, I fed him so well, I sung him all the songs I could to remember to make him sleep. I had the best parenting plans. Sleepless nights, fevers, immunizations, childhood asthma, painful stys in his eyes… first tooth, first walk, first talk, first turning around in bed, first thrill on seeing me after a while. He was okay. Why did he grow up so much!! I was fine with him.. carrying him in my lap and cuddling him to sleep.

I know. I know the one-word for this!!! Empty-nest syndrome. The faster you can accept it, the faster you move on.

And that is why I dived deep into my motherhood self that happened almost 18 years back and scolded the mom in me always wanting to cater to her baby’s needs. “WITHDRAW!” “LEAVE HIM ALONE” ” MAKE HIM RESPONSIBLE”. “GO FIND A JOB, HE NEEDS SPACE”… space for his mom? my other half faintly protested. “YES” I said and recited Kahlil Gibran. “You are the bows from which your children

as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with His might

that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves also the bow that is stable.”

“Once your child doesn’t need you, then you move back and relax.”

I cried alone for days. I am sad. Depressed. Frustrated. Dejected. Betrayed. Uncared for. Unloved. At night, while relaxing on the sofa and watching Bade Acche Lagte Hain, I’ve often cooed him out of his den, ‘Baaammmmm’… And he too knew this was the call when Mom is at her worst emotional best. He abandoned his online friends and came to me smiling. Like an ostrich, he dug his head into my lap, and knew I would be happy. In that upside-down pose, with only his head in my lap and the rest of the body sticking out like an ostrich, I am sure he too was happy.  And then so many times he fell asleep in that pose.

…..I tried NOT to remember one time when he had just started to crawl… had fallen asleep on a rug…..

He too is bending backwards to help me get independent of him.

And I got independent soon. I stopped checking on his clothes, (don’t read closet), his room temperature, his food habits.

I am confident about my upbringing.

I learned to spend my times alone. With my work, thoughts, writings and business and TV.  Now I am now just a friend to my son. A roommate.

“Hi!”I ask him when he gets back home. “How was the hang out?”

And he is fast becoming an independent, self-thinking, decision-making person, I should be proud of!

……. kind of selfish to say, but him without teeth… I was much more comfortable with….

Hmmmmm……………. Lately I am feeling that I’ve formally completed motherhood…. :O

A mother of a 17-year-old

Filed under: For a thought....

Review of Neil Must Die

Review of Neil Must Die

The book is a work of fiction but you find a certain sense of connect to the protagonists. The conflict plays out in your mind and you can easily relate it to epic romance sagas, where the love is sacrificed for the sake of love.

Filed under: For a thought.... Tagged: aaquib, blackbuck, India, Kaberi Chatterjee, Neil Must Die

Watching Hell in Peace

By Aneesh Chatterjee

I escaped.
I escaped my home. I don’t even remember
if I ever called it my own. 
I wasn’t a victim; I was not oppressed. 
My life was average, normal, unnoticed, blessed. 
Of course there were spines. Creatures, vile. 
But who doesn’t deal with that? I did for a while. 

Yet, I escaped. Without knowing why back then. 
But now that I’m here, I’m beginning to see. 
My home was a hell-fire, and I was protected, 
oblivious to the suffering and screams around me. 
The reach of evolution has brought us close,
and perhaps a bit too close for my taste. 
For here, in the comfort of peace and security, 
I’m seeing what I might have had to face. 

My home was burning. 
Prisoners of the corrupt, the greedy, the sickest bowels of humanity,
stared at me through their bars with eyes that demanded
justification for my freedom. 
Or perhaps they merely stared;
perhaps the hell-fire is stronger within my heart, tearing my conscience to pieces, 
at the thought that I was randomly selected
to leave the pit, and enter the kingdom. 

What gives me the right? I asked. 
So did they. I could hear them scream.
I was a citizen of my home, cursed to suffer within it every day. 
This life – this happiness – it wasn’t even a dream. 
My friends toiled and burned and fought, 
with me watching from a distance, indifferent and confused.
I don’t know if they ever asked me for their loss,
but I know I can never provide,
what they have been refused. 

My home is filled with monsters,
creatures that ruin lives for a living.
From here, it’s all clear: the sickening acts are too dark to see. 
Innocent souls assimilated, destroyed, lost and grieving;
I couldn’t imagine what it would have done to me. 

But I escaped. I was protected well.
I was one of the lucky few who had no stories to tell. 
My hands are soft still, my psyche unharmed. 
I am safe, sound and secure; no reason to be alarmed.

So why does it burn? Why do I cry?
Because it’s my own home? Because that’s where I’m supposed to die?
Is this patriotism, or sympathy? Or is it just plain confusion?
I am lost in my own fortune, my faltering delusion. 

My home is beautiful. 
Its colors outshine the brightest of any other. 
Its life, laughter and arbitrary adventure are found nowhere else in this world.
It tastes wonderful. Could I stay there forever?
No one could not. The living quarters are too cold. 

And so I escaped.
I watched millions of my people fall below as I rose to the skies,
left to be thrown in the construct of psychological torture
and die or live a slave. 
I wished I could bring some of them with me. But then I realized,
the real world is not so fulfilling.
Not a dream.
Not so brave. 

I escaped because I was given the chance. I was guided without hindrance. 
Guided away from the colors, lights, laughter and tears,
from the blood-curling screams and turbulent fears.

Today, here, at this moment in time,
I know I can never go back.
My home is a sin of humanity,
in itself, a crime. 
I couldn’t care less what it lacked. 

I cannot love my roots, 
I cannot state my blood with pride. 
All I can do is watch the place burn, 
as I allow my own flames to subside. 
I will never make the mistake of calling it my own.
For that day, I escaped.
I escaped from my home.

Filed under: For a thought....

I died today

I died today. A number of people have come to see me. I don’t know them much.

I died in my sleep. The doctor declared massive heart attack, and had left an hour earlier after pronouncing me dead and handing in the death certificate.

I look around. Most of the guests are wearing something white. It is a working day and some have driven miles direct from their work to pay their respects to me. Some came in short skirts and revealing blouses. Some probably picked up a Junior Chicken from McDonald’s or a Tim Horton’s coffee and bagel on their way. They had to. They would have to go back home and cook dinner and eat. They would become very hungry by then. Most of them are my husband’s friends and colleagues. The Service Ontario has been notified. I had donated a few organs and they would come to get the organs before the funeral.

My husband is completely disoriented today. Today is his salary day and I used to make a number of payments. Now he hasn’t a clue how I did that. He wanted to learn that so many times, but he was a slow learner, and I had lost patience. Now he will be delayed in his payments and his credit rating may fall. He may even get a few collection calls.

He is smiling a lot welcoming the guests, and then he is realizing he shouldn’t be smiling. Because the faces of the guests are quite stoic. Some are even hugging him and then he is starting to cry. He doesn’t know whether to smile or be normal and welcome guests. Or what kind of an expression he should maintain. I guess it happens to most of us. He is just flummoxed. The doctors tried hard, but left just a while back. I could not be resuscitated.

I glide over the strangers in my bedroom. I knew that. I knew I can glide. I had seen an over-dose of YouTube after-life experiences. I look across. My body is draped in a bed sheet. Thank god for that, since I am wearing not such a decent night-dress.

I glide across the living room. My son’s room. It is locked. I can knock. But I needn’t. So I glide through it. He is sitting on the floor with his head resting on the bed and his shirt wet with tears running down his eyes and throat. His eyes are closed. My baby! He is crying for ‘Mama’. I feel tears sting my own eyes. I want to hug him, hold his hands, but I don’t. Not because I don’t want to scare him, but because I want him to become stronger without me. How I wish he had found a nice little girl who would love him. But his “I don’t like girls” attitude shooed off all girls in his vicinity. I hope he finds one now. I sit beside him and rest my head (?) on the bed like him. I feel a surprising calm. Surprisingly, his tears too dry off. He looks at the sky, his jaws protruding, his eyes stronger!

My boy! Now I can leave him alone. I would have to anyway. This is a one-way ticket. I could never come back. Where would they take me? Heaven? Hell? Or back to Earth? I felt all my freedom of living was now going to end. Now I will be at the mercy of being analyzed what good or bad I did during my lifetime. Maybe I’ll meet God. I want to. I have quite a few things to ask him. I didn’t want to come back and face all these stupid things all over again.

But I was so calm and peaceful sitting here beside my fast-maturing boy, that I just wanted to sit here invisible all my life… err death. Can’t I just do that?

There was a furor outside. All formalities were over. They were taking my body away. My husband came to call my son. He nodded, “I’m coming”.

Then my atheist, 26-year-old Quantum Physicist son looked directly at my direction and spoke: “Ma I know you are here. You know what? I prayed to your God for your last wish. I prayed that you don’t have to be born again.”

(Reading so many short stories sent to me during the Tagore O’Henry contest inspired me to write my own. Not for any contest, just like that.)

(This is a work of fiction. Resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental. )

EOM

Filed under: For a thought.... Tagged: Death, die, God, Life

Words rape me at night!

My Immigration battle…

What so many people want to know

I thought of writing these down last night. The words were dancing before my eyes up and down, and I shut my eyes tight to sleep. I turned over on my stomach and clutched onto the pillow for support. No, I’m not sitting up, getting off the bed and turning my computer on to write them down, at 3 am in the morning! I had a decent morning hour to wake up. I couldn’t afford to spend the whole night writing and expect the world to understand in the morning that I was raped with words last night. Oh! Why do I get these brainwaves just before sleeping? Why is the night so short? Why does the world wake up in the morning?

Neverrrr mind…

What were crawling inside my brain were not just words and letters. They were serious issues I wanted to talk about. To let my readers know the real story. I kept silent for long enough. So much that I was beginning to believe that the truth never existed. I was slipping into a state of denial. I had to re-visit my past. A familiar flame crawled up my neck. A sense of déjà vu. Yet, I had to face it.

There were too many questions I was facing of late. I am exasperated. Noooo… I haven’t developed a Canadian accent. Noooo… I don’t eat just hamburgers and bacon, just because I’ve changed my country of residence. And yes, my teenage son CAN speak his mother tongue.

These and many, much more I was planning to write about yesterday night, err… early morning… errr… dawn? Is 3 am ‘dawn’? What do you call that hour? (Mood: Perplexed >:( )

I am an immigrant. In this immigrant-friendly country called Canada, I am from India. I am a Bengali. From a city I am soooo proud to belong, Kolkata, and I firmly believe “what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow and the world thinks day-after-tomorrow”.

Let’s forget what I am today. Let’s forget I am an author, journalist, that I own a publishing house, that I have my interviews published in various news portals, maybe you even know my name. Let’s forget all that.

The year was 1998, when I saw a small black-and-white ad in a newspaper. It was an ad by Canadian High Commission inviting new immigrants.

I wrote a hand-written letter to them. Earnestly asking how may I apply. We never had Internet those days and, moreover, I didn’t have a computer. Owning a computer was a luxury. And we were middle-class people.

But I had a dream. A dream for my two-year-old child. I didn’t have money to apply. I didn’t even know where I could get any money. I wasn’t even working. But I dared to write that letter to the High Commission.

The Canadian High Commission did not throw my hand-written letter into their bin. They send me a fat package containing the application forms and the guidelines to apply.

That set the ball rolling.

However, I didn’t have any money. I didn’t have a passport. I didn’t even have a ration card to apply for a passport. I didn’t exist!

I needed a reference. In India, ONLY references worked. Luckily I had my birth certificate to prove that I existed. I impressed a local Counselor to write a reference letter for me to obtain a ration card for me and my son. I smiled a lot at him.

So I applied for a ration card. Then for a passport, for me and my son. That roughly took eight months, taking the country’s red tapism into consideration…. So much that I had forgotten I applied for a ration card when it arrived.

Ok. I need to mention something here that would get you guys exasperated. It’s like a Bollywood film, where you get so exasperated that the hero and the heroine are crossing paths several times, but not uniting. For me, my hero was Canada and I was the heroine. (LOLS )

This would also reveal the existing administration system that ran India at that age. Today things are better. Today you don’t need your legs to apply, you just need your fingers… err, just the right forefinger would do.

But for me, I had to use my legs. And wear out several shoes in the process.

Ok, getting to the point. On the day I went to apply for passport, I stayed overnight at my parent’s place. This was the winter of 1998. Then, early morning at 6 am, leaving my toddler son with my parents, I took a bus to the passport office when the sky was just beginning to brighten into daylight. I checked and re-checked all the documents that I needed to apply for the passports.

Kolkata Passport Office

The passport office would open at 10 am. Though I reached there at 7.30 am, trying to be early, I found myself standing at the end of a long queue of over a hundred people that never moved for three hours. At the end of the three hours, the line started waddling and I realized we were moving.

I reached the counter at noon and smiled when I handed my application. The ‘friendly’ man at the counter looked at all my documents and handed them back to me. “Your son needs to put his thumb impression here,” he pointed an empty space. “You missed it. NEXT…”

I don’t know how I am writing this, because even talking about the exasperation I felt at that time, gives me the creeps. My fist tightens. I don’t remember his face, so even if you now make it legal, I cannot punch him. But I can punch all those men sitting behind such counters one day. If you ask me, can I do it now? I’d say… NOOOOOO!

Ok. Calm… calm down. I have started to talk about it, I might as well finish and not keep the readers on a tenterhook.

Infuriated. Maddened. Frustrated. Annoyed. What else? I found 23 synonyms to exasperated. But ok. All of it.

I called my dad. Well, don’t expect a cell phone, for we never knew of its existence back then. I went downstairs, went into a phone booth across the street, and called my dad. Luckily, God spared me the horror of learning that he had already left for work. He hadn’t! So I just asked him to pack my son in whatever way he was and bring him over to the passport office. My dear dignitary two-and-a-half-year-old needs to SIGN!!!!

My dad reached there in a cab past 1 pm. My all-important toddler put his thumb impression on the paper and after I started the process all over at end of the queue, I reached the counter and deposited my form at 3 pm, this time without another hindrance.

Emerging from the battlefront, my toddler savior and I started to walk down the street towards the bus stop, when he looked up at me and asked, “Mom, aren’t we going to Canada?” He thought we were taking the flight there and then. I laughed and held his hand tight.

That day I promised to myself. Come hail, hell, or high waters, I am getting my son and myself OUT of that system.

I landed at Toronto Pearson International Airport exactly 11 years later.

Pearson International Airport

Chapter 2: In the cradles of corruption

After six months of waiting, my passports arrived. But that was after I had approached the local police station, ran from pillar-to-post in the police headquarters asking for my file, barely slipped bribing officers, when my innocent face appealed to someone, I guess, and an officer came to my residence for police verification. He “umm…”ed and “humm…”ed quite a few times. I offered him tea and sweets. But didn’t understand he wanted the paper stuff. (Notes! Bribe! The end of all administration, legal, political, social, ethical system in India!)

I smiled a lot and didn’t know how to ask him to take a bribe. I’d never given anyone a bribe. “Sir, would you like a bribe?”… Oopps… Okay. “Sir, please accept this envelop for some sweets for your family.”… That was a rather accepted phrase in India and he couldn’t put me behind bars for giving that. As I thought and posted a smile on my stiffening face, he stood up to leave. THINK! Think girl! How much cash do you have at home?

Some 30 rupees, perhaps. 30 rupees bribe? Gosh! He’ll throw your papers in the gutter and put you in jail! Can I offer him a check? No no. This is illegal. You can’t bribe a cop with a check! As I thought and thought he said goodbye and left.

My sister, also my neighbor, screamed at me. “You should have let me know! I could have come with some money!”

Nevertheless, the passports arrived by courier two weeks from then. It was the beginning of my fight against the corruption. And I never gave another bribe for the next 10 years till I flew out of my motherland.

Now for the application. I needed Rs 30,000. That was a lot of money for me, particularly since I wasn’t working. This time, my husband lent a han

Canadian High Commission office, New Delhi

d and took a loan from a bank.

I filled up the application forms. Ran for months from pillar-to-post to get my mark sheets, my certificates from college, which were, for some reason, never mailed to us. Then I decided to personally visit the High Commission in New Delhi and deposit my application forms.

I left for Delhi on July 2000.

A friend of mine in Delhi was kind enough to give me a car with a chauffeur to travel to the High Commission office. I reached the office and st

ood at the end of a short line. The line moved fast and I reached the counter in half-an-hour. I deposited the immigration application forms.

“Ma’m your forms have expired. You need to download new forms from the computer. These are old forms and cannot be accepted,” the girl at the counter told me brashly and handed me back the forms.

I spun around and held myself steady. Then walked towards my friend’s car in a stupor. That was the only time I felt I would give up. Slip. Fall. I was at the end of my tether. I felt I was not destined for this.

Chapter 3: Rescued!

I gathered all my guts and courage to reapply, this time took help of the agency, WWICS (World Wide Immigration Consultancy Services), a year later, after I joined back work with one of the leading newspapers in India, Hindustan Times, in 2002.

I took a chunk loan against all my gold jewelry and the application was finally filed with the High Commission on January 4, 2004.

Then began that endless wait for five-and-a-half years! The damn application was forever getting filed! So whenever anyone asked me updates about my “Immigration to Canada” I would tell them, “Please ask me that only once a year.”

My husband never came to terms with the reality. He always coughed and laughed whenever the topic of Canada came up. “Khuh khuh… Chill guys! Please remain seated at the airport when you go to see her off… because she’d be back by the next plane. Lollss…”

Incidentally, after my landing here in Toronto armed with my teen-turning son, the reality ACTUALLY hit him like ice-water that I had gone for good. So, he packed his stuff, quit his resounding job and flew across the world like his existence was on fire, two months later.

It’s astounding how he handled the menial jobs with a positive attitude, never breaking down, making my life much smoother than I thought it would be. Today he is a well-settled banker and I have a publishing house to handle. After three years, I dare today to write about the immigration battle, which was far bigger for me than the settling down battle here in Canada.

In front of the Niagara Falls, on our fourth visit in March, 2013

Filed under: For a thought....