Neverland Through My Lens

LolWUT?

2012-02-09T02:26:00.002+05:30

Somebody residing on the International Date Line has visited my blog.

My dead blog seriously just became cooler.

Yo! Phoren Guy. Gracias!

Daydreamers

2012-02-01T03:53:00.000+05:30

Here I am, still sitting alone, still staring at the empty pages, reading between the non-existent lines trying to make sense of all of this, this entire life. Tried to get everything right, didn't I? But nothing, nothing ever works out, nothing ever adds up.

I'm just so tired of everything slipping out of my fingers every time. Of having to check myself whether I made a mistake or not. Whether I'm making everyone feel good or not. Not for once does anyone ever stop to ask me whether I am doing okay or not. Whether I am comfortable or happy. Never.

I'm just tired of putting up with so much of everyone's garbage for the moment. Maybe it is time to let go, once and for all. For too long have I refused to feel like the victim, the absolute victim. But the darkness around the edges of the bed suggests maybe, just maybe I really am one.
[And yes, there's a reason why this is not up on the secret blog].

Oh, MoodCourtesy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=girXRxJRdu4

Love Ballad to Oneself - Demise, Rebirth And Everything Encased Within

2012-01-26T03:44:00.001+05:30

Probably, you see, a distant poetry,

Coming to life,

Approaching you,

And then passing by,

Leaving your peace

Destroyed,

With its lyrical promiscuity.

In the grays of the sky,
And the cracks lining the glass
On the window-panes,
You see how
Indispensable
You are, and have always been.

For you expected an ode
To be sung for you,
You expected the winds
To carry away your loneliness
And bring home to you,
A permanent sense

Of belonging.
You expected remembrance,
And you expected warmth.
But the skies are gray,
The glass is cracked,
And life is cold.

Colder than their eyes,
When they looked away.
Colder than the January
That renders you older,
Every time.
Renders you even closer
To the demise of hope.

**********************************************

I speak of you,
And sing for you,
For I want you to know,
You are a part of me,
And I am a part of you.
This, a tale of rebirth,
This, a tale of Life, Death, And Everything
In Between.
There has been a summer, and a winter
Contained within Then and Now.
And as we inch towards another summer,
I know you secretly wonder,
Why I don’t smile anymore.

Everyday since Then,
Everyday since you left,
I have wished for the smile to return.
I have tried.
I have prayed.
But the erosion of my smile,
That your departure caused,
Now seems permanent.

Yes, Now, I am happier.
My smile is gone, but I am saner.
I wish You could live
This sanity too.
I wish You could smile
My smile,
And yours,
In the reassuring glow
Of my happiness.

2011 - Remembering Them

2011-12-31T16:00:00.001+05:30

And this is for remembering all those that we lost in 2011.From those in Japan, to those in Sikkim, the victims of AMRI, and illegalliquor close home, those in Christchurch, Mumbai Bombings, those in Libya, allthe casualties in the 'Arab Spring', to all those close to us that we lost- thebrother, the mother, the friend, the uncle, the son, the father, thegrandparents, the lover, the wife, the daughter, the acquaintance; and also allthose stars of eternal glory - the actors, singers, entrepreneurs, sportsstars. You shall all be remembered.

2011

2011-12-30T04:14:00.002+05:30

You can go to sleep crying and with a broken heart, You canwake up one morning to find yourself ugly and disfigured. You can break downevery moment of everyday, You can see yourself transform into a huge burden ofuselessness, You can curse yourself for being stupid, You can lose friends andtheir affection and never be able to figure out why they left you, you cantorture yourself to give up on who you loved, but you can never STOP LOVINGyourself, or give up on yourself. And there will always be some wonderfulpeople around you to get you through life. This is what 2011 taught me. :)

It Is The Sky I Sing To

2011-11-20T05:33:00.001+05:30

It’s the Sky I sing to, and the Sky I sing for.

You should know this. Today, I am no longer afraid of what people might have tosay. If you had waited around for a while longer, you would have fought offyour fears as well. Only today, I have a fear far more labyrinthine than theone I could have ever weaved when you were with me. A fear that hints atloneliness, at helplessness, at being stranded without a soul to relate with.You were clever in not having stayed back to face these fears. You were cruelto have left me to fight them all by myself.

I have never revealed your secret to your world. Neither to mine. You lured theonly ones that knew of your truth over to your side. I had sensed you would trythe same with me, and you did. Only, I resisted. Not because I didn’t want mycolors to help paint your portrait, not because I didn’t want my soul coalesceinto your absence, but because I have to answer to people. I have to live forother people.

You also owed answers to other people. You needed to finish painting the beautyof our world. If only you weren’t in such a hurry.

And now, in dark nights, when I sit alone munching at cookies, you have noright to come and disturb me, to massacre my mental sanctity and peace, the wayyou do. You have no right to use the estuaries of thought to seek entry intothe ocean of my mind, at times when I’m least expecting you to. On Christmasnights, suffocated under thick layers of fog and loneliness, I expect you tocall out my name. And every August, every drop of rainfall on my skin remindsme of your fingers teasing me, my face, my hands and limbs.

Today, I can’t sing into a stupid looking telephone, expecting your warm voiceat the other end. I do not seek to sing Summer songs or midnight lullabies orBirthday couplets to you through the phone. Instead, it is the Sky I sing to,praying to it to ferry my melody over to you, wherever you are. And who wouldknow it better than you, that it is the Sky I sing for.

In Another Morning - II

2011-10-23T10:49:00.001+05:30

And in another morning, the sun also rises,

Over Libya, where new hopes are born,

Over America, with which disappointment, is torn,

and Over Calcutta, where nothing ever changes,

Except the occasional government.

In Another Morning

2011-10-21T15:38:00.000+05:30

In another morning, (there) was a proud sunlight.
That marched into our room, with delight.
And there were incomplete dreams,
Misty, ethereal, reeking of the previous night.
There was poetry, Oh, bless the poetry,
Lyrics of reassurance, of a future bright,
There were naked limbs, and sudden smiles,
Love in the creases on the forehead, quiet.

In another morning, there was a tender touch,
And almost ecstatic was the associated joy.
There were white sheets, pristine, that gave us
Shelter, and provoked us to completely destroy,
The notions of society that surrounded us.
The white sheets had a glow that did enjoy,
Parity with the aura of ecstasy in our hearts.
So, contented was I with you, oh (my) boy.

The tales of another morning(s),
Have perished since,
Our fairytale, like all others,
Did (tragically) die.
All I can do is
Dwell in refrains,
Haunted by memories,
Of your goodbye.

Ten Years Hence

2011-09-11T00:53:00.002+05:30

I was on a train from New Delhi to Calcutta ten years(minus ten hours) back when I had first heard news of the Beginning of a new Era. Of Terror. Of Hate. Ten years hence, every day seems to be worse than the last, and every year is scarier than the last in terms of Life Security. 9/11 touched us all, and changed us all so much for the worse.

The Shortest(Lived) Love Story

2011-09-05T05:24:00.003+05:30

Because he looked at you when you weren’t noticing.

The evening time resplendence highlighted the delicate contours of the back of your neck, under the setting sun that basked in the tangerine glory of His royal farewell, lending an intrigue to your form while your soft eyes, kohl laden and soul-stirringly sad, dazzled him with their spark of innocence. He stood there, tense, observing you, measuring every gentle rise-and-fall of your soiled, weary breasts. He stood in the queue, with bated breath, as you stood behind the counters laden with freshly picked apples, waiting for his turn in receiving two red apples, his daily ration(like yours, and everyone else’s)from you. And every time you would pass him by, he would take in the arousing rhythm of your gentle walk that reminded him of the ripples in the accumulated rainwater from the winter rainfalls resulting from the Mediterranean moisture winds.

By then, you had come to know a few of your fellow muhajirs. You had to abide by the mandatory apple-pickings with the girls in the mornings, and the retiring to your tent before the flooding of the valley by the blinding opacity of the moonshine. The nights were colder than the bellowing loneliness lurking in your tent. There was the numbing grief from the separation, probably permanent, from your parents, while trying to cross the border, along with hundreds of others. You did notice him, for there was no missing the chisel-sculpted jaw line, the jet black eyes, and the nose that lent the extra dimension to his face. From his eyes you could perceive the warmth of Southern sea. The only warmth that, you felt, could be any balm on the pain of the loss of your parents. You would wish for him to look at you, but you never saw him looking back.

Because you looked at him when he wasn’t noticing.

***************************************************************

Then, the Government of the nation you had all escaped to(under delusions of a better future), refused permanent shelter to your lot, and subsequently booked you all under charges of cross-border terrorism. Defying every clause and term of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it ordered you all to be shot down.

There he stood in a queue again, a different one this time. This time at the end of the queue, there were no apples, but bullets, that awaited him. Neither were you standing behind a counter at the end of this queue. Instead, you were right behind him in this one, separated by two little girls and an old man.

Moments after the soldiers took their aim, and before the shots were fired, you turned to see him one last time. To bathe yourself one last time in the warmth that his eyes exuded. The soul-stirring sadness in your eyes kept brimming over, and together with the kohl, flowed down your cheeks, as if it had given up on its resilience. And then, for the first time, he looked at you when you were looking back, and realized that your rainwater-ripple walk was what had kept his hopes, his heart alive. For the first time you looked into his eyes to see the warmth of the Southern sea radiating directly towards you. And thus was born a love. A love, that to the world, made up the shortest love-story ever, but which, in reality, lived on after the shots were fired, lived through the global-outcry against the breach of human rights and allegations of genocide, lived on in the memories of the apple trees, and resonates till date under the evening time resplendence of His Majesty, the Sun, bidding farewell to humankind every dusk.

(Ritwik Goswami - March 2007)

O Ri Duniya[O, My World]

2011-08-20T10:02:00.001+05:30

Khwabon se sile shamiyaane taley,
Humne sajaaya hai apna ek jahaaN.

Mutthi mein na ho qaid tassavvur ki udaan,
Ang lage makhmal mulayaam wahaaN.

JahaaN na koi jism,koi jaaN,lahu se latpat,
Koi guNcha, koi sitara jahaaN na ho fanaa.

Ek aisi ho humaari duniya,hai ummeed,
JahaaN har muhajir ko mile panaah.

TRANSLATION:

Under the dome of my unchained dreams,
I've painted a world of my own.

Where flights of imagination aren't kept suppressed,
Where every being is as soft as sheets, of silk, sown.

Where no soul, no life reels under blood-shed,
Where no blossoming flower, no twinkling star is crushed.

Such will be My World, or so I hope, I dream,
Where every refugee is given refuge, no one aside brushed.

An Ode To The Rainbow Lives.

2011-08-20T03:23:00.002+05:30

There is a little violet in each dazzling bright flash
Of lightning that visits you every stormy night.

There is a little indigo in every lone ripple
On the water, that is born when you walk by, quiet.

There is a little blue clinging on to every white Cotton
Cloud that you always want to sink into, for a sleep.

There is a little green in every grass and leaf,
That, from filth, rocks and hurt, your bare feet, keep.

There is a little yellow in every fire you light
To keep the bellowing darkness a distance away.

There is a little orange in every sunset you retire to,
Bidding farewell to every numbing fatigue of the day.

There is a little red in every drop of the blood, housed
In your veins, that livens your hopes, your dreams, your life.

There is a little rainbow I have wished for you, to nurse you,
Every time your heart cries a downpour, struggling alone in a strife.

Volkswagen Tones Erased

2011-08-09T22:56:00.001+05:30

Goodbye, long surviving summertones on blog, and Volkswagen awesomeness. I shall miss you.

Lessons of Tolerance

2011-08-02T03:06:00.003+05:30

Very recently, I was discussing with three of my (girl)friends, all of them from conservative Hindu families, the possible repercussions of them falling for a boy from a Muslim background. They unanimously agreed that their parents would not accept any such relationship, and hence they themselves would never allow themselves to fall for a Muslim boy. It was disheartening to know that even in today’s day and age, people are not willing to give love a chance just because religion comes in the way. The topic was broached again, a few days later, around a couple of other (Hindu) friends of mine, and their response was along the same lines. The gravity of the realization that then dawned upon left me rather disappointed and disillusioned(I could’ve used the word ‘shocked’ for a more dramatic effect). Despite all the ‘All Indians are my brothers and sisters’ lessons taught to us in school, we haven’t really learnt the true meaning of acceptance or tolerance. Each one of us is a flaming bigot in some way or the other, though we may proclaim otherwise.

It was never, however, only about accepting and loving all Indians. We, as children were taught to love all human beings despite their cast, creed, race, religion, gender or nationality. However, the amount of Pakistanophobia and ingrained hatred that still exists among most of us Indians is shocking. There is one friend of mine, another girl, who happens to have her roots in those areas of pre-1947 India, that now lie in Pakistan. This girl happens to be regularly rendered a target of almost heinous terrorism and Anti-Pakistan jokes by all of us, by our group. Sure, if you ask us, we are just having fun, teasing her about being a ‘Paki’, and of course we hold nothing against Pakistan. But lurking sinisterly behind every one of those ‘bomb-manufacturing-units’ and ‘Please-don’t-shoot-us’ jokes, there is a delusional notion that every household in Pakistan houses terrorists. I mean, when we Indians hold such ideas about our neighboring countries, what rights do we really have to cry our voices hoarse, when any South Asian member gets picked up ‘randomly’ for extra-rounds of frisking at airports in the West ??

We, the youth of the 21st Century, still hold on to age-old notions and stereotypes unconsciously bequeathed unto us by our parents and elders, while at the same time claiming to be ‘tolerant’ and ‘accommodating’ only because it is ‘cool’ to be tolerant.I know of people who vehemently claim to be non-homophobic but yet they get rid of a homosexual room-mate, just because he does not fit their comfort zone. I know of people who (still) claim Africans and Blacks are ‘ugly’ because God did not deem them fit to be humans and hence they, as a race, should still be treated as inferiors and be kept limited to blue-collar jobs, despite having ‘Black’ best-friends. I know of people who have been reared by a single mother, who do not hesitate for a moment before narrating jokes of the ‘Women should stay in the kitchen’ or ‘Bitch-make-me-a-sandwich’ genre. However, I have absolutely no right to pass judgments on anyone because I am equally guilty of having participated in a lot of anti-Semitic, anti-homosexual, anti-Islam, anti-Marwari, sexist, chauvinistic jokes myself.

Hatred and bigotry is born out of ignorance, out of refusal to look beyond the parameters of what one believes to be right, out of being non-accommodating to the views and ideas of others. There is hope as long as we learn to think about others and their feelings. There is hope as long as we admit to our faults and take steps towards correcting them. Several of whose stories I have mentioned here might take offence and feel blamed by what I have written. All I can say is that, that has been the least of all my intentions. All I want for you all is to become bigger and better individuals, to learn to love and care more and hate less. Tolerance for name’s sake is abusing the concept of tolerance. Looking within, and cleansing oneself of all the ignorance is a step forward in becoming a true global citizen.

Pretty Woman

2011-07-26T04:16:00.009+05:30

'Coz her eyes don't shut,
And the scars don't heal.
The nights go by, dark,
She tries hard to conceal
The struggle that she wages,
All the fears she does feel,
She stands out even worse
In her life's lost show-reel.

Apologies for the terrible photographic quality, the sketch looked tonnes better on paper, but I'm stranded with a 5Megapixel phone camera, and can't help it at the moment.

Un Homme et Un Homme

2011-07-26T04:15:00.002+05:30

Favorite Quotations 1

2011-07-11T10:11:00.001+05:30

Before erasing out the particluar section of my Facebook profile, I decided to post it as a note to commemorate a few of the best lines used around me, EVER.

1.I’ve never eaten anything for nineteen years now but you’ll find no one healthier – Priyadarshini Goswami
2.I’m dying of thirst, you boob! – Ikshaku Bezbaroa
3.I anyway look better than all of them combined- Ritwik Goswami.
4.Main Bharatiya Naari hoon- Rakhi Sawant
5. Ritwik: *narrates Hindoo joke*
Aditi Bhura: hum log sabhi yahaan pe Hindoo hain
Ritwik: Nisha is a Jain, no?
Puja: Even Aditi is a Jain.
Nisha: Yes Aditi, Jain aur Hindu mein difference hota hai, aur tum Jain ho.
ADITI(faint retort): Par humlog Hindoo jaise hi hotey hai...
6. Let's bang hard (into the boat) - Adrija Chatterjee
7. Ikshaku khub jorey jorey korey... (with reference to pedaling a boat) - Adrija Chatterjee
8. [He was to take his first college-final exams under C.U. the next morning, and he was very drunk, and was sleeping over at a friend's birthday bash. While almost dozing off...] "See you(C.U.) Tomorrow"- Rohan Ghosh
9. Ritwik- "Happy Birthday... Now you're twenty"
Debadrita: "Emaa, one more year and I turn adult".
10. "You're a virgin, but you're still so good at raping things! " - Sayantika Ghosh
11. "I had a life even before I met you all"- Puja Rohra
12. "The power is in my finger"- Adrija Chatterjee
13. "God is kinda like Santa Claus, for adults." - Kurt Hummel(Glee)
14. "Labels and closets are for clothes, not people" - Unknown
15. "Who watches TV on a TV anymore, anyway? "- Eric Van der Woodsen(Gossip Girl)
16. Maths Teacher: Solve this problem
Aritri: Sir,(do) not(ask us to solve) this kind of problem, it looks very tough.
Me: Tum dekhke kaise judge kar sakti ho? Judgmental ladki!! (How can you just see and judge? you judgmental freak!!)
ARITRI: Hum dekh ke nahi, kar ke judge kiye hain ( I have judged not by seeing it, I have judged by 'doing' it ) :P
17. "Toodloo" - Utsav Akhoury
18. Me: "What I don't understand is why does Lokkhi Thakur(Goddess Lakshmi)leave for so few days. I mean if she has to return after just four days, why does she leave at all?"
Sayantika Ghosh: "In that, she is just like Lijo Varughese!!"
19. ''If I actually flirted, twenty would be forty by now!" - Adrija Chatterjee
20. "I'm a hot Sindhi, Who needs Indians?''- Puja Rohra
21. Ritwik: Tongue-in-cheek ka matlab samajhte ho babuwa? (Do you know what tongue-in-cheek means?)
Utsav Akhoury: Is it some new sort of kissing??
22: "Aami aar kothaai bolbo na"- Debadrita Modak.
23. "Tussi jaa rahe ho? Tussi naa jaao" - Sikh Boy In Epic Bollywood Movie.
24. "All the boys I'm dating are useless"- Tu Berculosis
25. "I will drink Savlon, I will drink Dettol, I will drink Harpic"- Tu Berculosis
26. "Please give me one hug. Otherwise I will go and stand in front of a bus"- Tu Berculosis
27. "I toh cannpt 'handel' only"-Anwesha Roy
28. Vikramjit :What was the surgery?
Me: Of the foot. A bony fragment had remained there after the first surgery, so it had to be removed.
VIKRAMJIT: Was it a part of a BONE?
29: Mayukh: Hi Mow-dyak(To Debadrita Modak)
Debadrita: I HABH A NAME OKAY? >:|
30. "Arrey Dhuroo"- Debadrita Modak
31. "Aaja meri aa, suhana lamha"(Trying to sing Suhana hai samaa, suhana lamha)- Sreejeeta Ghosh
32. "Baal Baara Bokachoda, Khanki'r Chhele"- Lijo Varughese
33. "Moo" - Shahana Yasmin
34. "Please don't scold" - Shahana Yasmin
35. "Teko naame ekta chhele chhilo, Nijeke mone kore superhero"- St. James' School Batch of 2009
36. "Waw Waw Caution"- Sumit Guha, Sneha Kedia
37. While playing Uno, I didn't want fours, while Rohan needed them. Before he picked his new card,
"May the Fours be with you" - Me.
38. "Mataal hobo, KaaNdbo" - Tu Berculosis (Will get drunk, Will cry)
(Describing her PoA for an upcoming party)
39. "I love being single. It is both a jhooth and a trooth"- Sreejeeta Ghosh

Joaquin

2011-06-28T20:23:00.002+05:30

Joey,

It has been eight years.

You haven’t returned to the Oak-tree house.
You haven’t returned to the serene existence by the purple fire cackling in the fireplace.
You haven’t returned to the greetings of the conifers.
You have got lost.

Remember the night my parents fought so ugly that I wanted to run away to the kingdom to the East, the land of ‘National Happiness’ ? As they clawed at each other, and their respective dignities, I had to seek refuge under your coaxing and the endless efforts to cheer me up. As the grim night grew darker, Maria’s drums and your arms around me had kept me going. The very next morning, we went off. You, me and Maria, hitch-hiking towards what we thought was the East.Joaquin, remember the psychedelia brewing amidst the diminutive tea-stalls dotting the Himalyan highways? There was the rain, the songs, the terrace farms, and the rain-water channels, the Indian truck drivers, and their garish Hindee music. There was your guitar. The numerous odes to the days in the future, the way you would set everything right, for me. We were young, we had hope. We had mattresses housing mites and ticks, and makeshift beds made out of hours of dedication, strings of ropes, and wooden planks. And, we had the love. Insect-infested, optimistic, poverty-ridden, Sikkimese love.

Instead of going East, we ended up going West to Katmando Town. Natives we weren’t, Joaquin. I never even knew where your home was. Somewhere in the States, you had mentioned passively. You had told me to believe, and I had believed. Oak-tree house had become home. There was marijuana, there was money, there were midnight-treks, and Mandarin-Nazis. There was music, a lot of it. And the inflow of dollars, Joaquin. It was all for me, you said. Indeed it was. I had my poetry, my silence, and all the dollars. Maria had her drums, and we both had your company.

Your motherland then went to war with Iraq. We didn’t need to worry, you said. The invites started coming in. The ‘Prevent Civilian Casualties in the War on Terror’ music groups, that wanted you to represent our part of the World. The land of the calm, the Himalayas, was to be represented by you, Joaquin. You told me, it was art. It was no more about the money. It was about being human, you said. I knew your life was all about being human, Joey. Your humanity had saved me. How could I not let your humanity prevent the chaos in the Middle East? Of course, I hardly knew the gist of all the words you told me about World Politics, but I knew you were right.I let you leave, Joaquin. Not knowing there would be no more serenading at three in the morning. Not knowing that there would be no more breakfast by the conifers, painting the chimneys with the shades of our imagination, feeding the mountain-dogs in the evenings. I let you leave, never to see you again. I let you leave, to lose you to a stray attack by your motherland on the suspected terror-havens. They meant to slay the worshippers of terror, they said. They ended up blowing the worshippers of Art, to smithereens. They blew my heart, our world apart, Joaquin. Your land took you away from me.

Joaquin,

It has been eight years.
It is the evening of the Katmando Night.
They shall celebrate you tonight.

Will you come to Katmando tonight?
Will you let me soothe my mind,
Touch your being with my weary sight?

Joaquin, come with me to Katmando town.
I shall revel one last time, in your voice’s sound.
Your hair jet black, the eyes almond-brown.
Joaquin, I want you in Katmando town.

Rock-N-Roll Queen

2011-06-12T00:40:00.004+05:30

Rock N Roll Queen
Where have I been?
All these years, fading silently away,
Away from the limelight's golden ray,
I feel lost, meant never to be seen
But once I was, the rock and roll queen.

Seven years of an unmatched reign,
Eleven records of a glamour, at the top
The people pining for a glimpse of mine,
They’d squeal and roar, they’d jump and hop
Unparalleled in my ways so mean,
Once I was, the rock and roll queen.

Driving down Milan, that man in charge
Josh Lucas, the Hollywood storm
Driving into a night, drunken delirium at large
A crash, one dead, one out of form
An instant collapse of all the sheen
Indeed since then, where have I been?

Rock N Roll Queen
Where have I been?
All these years, fading silently away,
Away from the limelight's golden ray,
I feel lost, meant never to be seen
But once I was, the rock and roll queen

Ainvayi

2011-06-08T03:29:00.002+05:30

The long due Bangla translation of Ainvayi Ainvayi. This was created a long back, but never posted. So, I post it now. 'Co I am bored. Ainvayi. This one actually fits the original tune. Try to sing along.

Chokhe’r du dhaare,
Shurma mekhe re,
Chhokra gulo chaay hote
Hi-fi.

Hridoye koraat i,
Amaar chole jaayei,
AaNtke uthey mon bole
Why why?

Chaaye bheja biskut hoye gelam.
Aami toh emni emni
Emni emni lut-ey gelam...

Shore daraa re, kaora,
Jeno neem er i pakoda.
Pichhu korish keno
Kokhono dainey, baaye?

Toke shudhrobo naki?
Juto petabo naki?
Mathaay marbo naaki aaj i
Dhaay dhaay?

Romeo holi keno permit chhara?
Tui toh emni emni
Emni emni lut-ey geli...

Chul set korlam gel-tel diye re,
Buk phuliye, don boithok kori re,
Shundori haraali tui
Nijer chaal ta chele
Kotha’r pithe kotha’r
Basketball ta khele.

Gel dekhe meyera khushi hoy na moteyi,
Don boithok kore jibon kaate na moteyi,
Bhaloi jaani tor mone aache theek ki
Uddeshyo chhokrader bodlaay na moteyi.
Gur dekha macchi’r moto
Aatke geli.
Tui toh…
Keno amaar goli te opekkha korish,bol?
Achoron down-market korish, bol?
Dekhi jodi shoriye janla’r porda ta, pagol,
Sheesh baajiye khali birokto korish bol?

Chhar attitude, kokhono maan shundori
Bank-cheque chaash naaki praan shundori?
EeNter ei mon ta norom kor na ektu
Dekh, aami taagda jowan, shundori,
Chhoy foot theke dedh foot hoye gelam
Aami toh…

Here's to the most adorable Bollywood song EVER.

2011-06-04T12:29:00.003+05:30

Every time an Abhinav Singh, an Adarsh Mukherjee or a Debanjan Sen leaves the world, there is a little less goodness left in the world. And, a little more disillusionment with the entity called God.

I do not know who or what saved me though. Luck, or love, I don't know what it was. All I know is, it wasn't God. Coz he doesn't exist.

D.K. Bose Akele Nahi Bhaagta

2011-05-28T06:53:00.002+05:30

Hum sab bhaagte hai. Kabhi toh kahiin se tumne bhi bhaaga hoga?

The Hundredth. 7/Z/5.

2011-05-23T03:45:00.002+05:30

This very nook, the one where I am sitting right now, was where I was when Dadu had charged at us with a wooden chair, holding it up with his two hands, under one particularly violent fit of Alzheimer’s-induced rage. Tebu was six months old then. I was all of seven years, and Buiya nine. Trembling out of fear, we had all rushed out of the room, Tebu carried by the domestic help, and out into the gully. Dadu had, after calming us, signaled us to come in, but had ordered that Mana, the domestic help, whose forcing medicines upon him had caused him to get enraged, stay out.

Dadu died a year and a half back, after suffering from the Alzheimer’s disease for almost one and a half decades. Tebu has learnt and un-learnt Canadian English and is almost in high school, and has a nine year old brother himself. Buiya is almost done with a Masters degree in English, and I’m in sophomore year of College, desperately trying to figure out the intricate nuances of Economics. The Powerpuff-Girls poster has been scrapped off the wall behind me, and the editions of ‘Desh’ and ‘Anandalok’ stacked up on the racks are there no more. But after almost twelve years and many cities, apartments, schools and life-altering experiences today, we’re permanent residents of 7/Z/5, Picnic Garden First Lane, again.How much do renovations change, really? The set-up within each room has received drastic make-overs, but each corner is still painted with indelible memories. This,and 5-Ballygunge Place were the two homes I spent my earliest years in. The place I came home to right after I was born, the place where I learnt to stand up, to talk and walk, the endless humid-summer evenings spent on the ‘chhad’, the Tents-and-Adventures games with Tebu, Mongolamashi coming to work every morning, and engaging in squabbles with Thammu, Protima bringing us small-little souvenir toys from the fairs, the ‘mela’ near their slum, , Lebu’s birth, countless family gatherings. Within the walls of this home, my years of growing up have been kept preserved carefully.

Of course, once we moved out of Calcutta, and got acquainted with other towns and their people, the strings connecting me to this place began to grow weak. Sure, there still would be the coming-back-and-spending-the-vacations here, but that too got divided between here and Jodhpur Park, Lav-Kush, Abhyudoy, Salt Lake and all those other places. Eventually, there would be entire vacations when I’d not visit here even once. The walls lost their glow, the plasters and wall-papers were eroding away, the rooms got messier, and Dadu and Thammu older. The Nidharias moved to their own home, and then to Canada. Dadu got increasingly immobile, and soon, I had no reason to spend my time here any more.

After Dadu and Thammu had moved to Salt Lake, and Dadu’s demise in 2009, 7/Z/5 was left nothing more than a lot of rooms and old rickety ‘bonedi’ furniture covered with dust. Hence, not without reason, after its having housed us for twenty two years, Baba decided to sell it off, earlier this year.

The very next month I fell fifty feet, from a window of the Rajarhat apartment. I survived, but was ‘scarred’ enough to reject any ideas of going back to the fourth floor apartment where we were staying, or the one where we were to move to. Ergo, an entire make-over for 7/Z/5, and moving back here. Life has strange ways of mocking us and our plans sometimes. Today, I’m learning to walk all over again, in the same house where I learned to walk first, twenty years ago. Very few things have stayed the same. The ‘aangan’ behind the house is where it was, though it looks so much smaller today. The name-plate on the front door still bears the name of the 5 original-Goswamis. The Maxim-Gorky and Kafka novels still lay stacked in the drawing-room book-rack. But the single-houses lining the lane then, have given way to apartment-blocks today. Today, Shilpa Shetty no longer gyrates to “Jawaani Ka Alam” on television. Today, tears do not start flowing over one missed episode of Scooby-Doo. Today, the cabinet housing all of the ‘Shuktara’ and the ‘Sandesh’ issues, or the ‘Sinhasan’ with the idols and ‘nokul-danas’ are there no more. Today, I’m no longer convinced about the prospect of the existence of a fantasy-world infested by perilous ghostly-lions (all of it cooked up by my sister), just beyond the guava tree behind the ‘aangan’. Today, the guava-tree itself doesn’t exist. All that exist are fading memories of events of Not-So-Long-Ago, the rooms exactly where they were, and midnight-musings such as these.

2011-05-14T03:36:00.001+05:30

Step away from the stars,
With you beside them, they lose their shine.
Move away from my life,
For I've stopped praying for miracles,divine.

2011-05-10T18:53:00.002+05:30

While writing 'The Eye Of Yamah', I never knew the hawk-gaze had turned toward me.

The Ninety-Seventh Post

2011-05-07T00:41:00.001+05:30

During those nights when I’d lie lifelessly in my irksomely tiny-and-white bed in the Intensive Critical Care Unit of the hospital, fleeting in and out of a drugged consciousness, sometimes I’d study the screens connected to the bodies of the other suffering souls. Those screens had every possible color depicting the various physical conditions, heart-rates, oxygen-saturation levels et cetera, of the patients, in every possible font. They resembled monsters from across the Vaitarna, one for guarding each unfortunate victim in that room, ready to grab hold of him immediately, should he lose his struggle for life. The suffocating silence looming in the dimly-lit room would be punctured at times by the nervous whispers of the visiting doctors and attendants, the heart-rending moaning noises made by an elderly occupant or the guttural, animal-like loud-cries from the bed housing a man from Kuwait, who I had heard had completely lost his memory after having fallen from about the same height as I.

All of these sight and visions would creep into my dreams, plaguing them, turning them into nightmares. There would be relief from waking from these dreams, only to be reminded that the nightmare I was living, the one I had purchased a permanent ticket to, through exercise of my unquestionable stupidity, carelessness and lack of concern for my own life, was not one I could be ever woken up from. I had fucked up. Fucked up, majorly.

Ma and Baba would visit during the visiting hours, which would be the happiest hours in the day for me. The only hours with human communication, with contact with the familiar, with anything remotely close to happiness, with warmth and love. Ma would also bring me news of my friends visiting me, friends who would come visit everyday without fail, even with the knowledge that I was recovering, even with the knowledge that they wouldn’t even get to see me. In the perplexing sanity of that room, with nothing much to do, I would think of the numerous things I could and would say to each one of them, to my friends and parents and family. So many things I’d own up to, confess, openly scream out, whine about, fearlessly opine about, and ruminate over guilt-free and in public. Now of course, back in the relatable insanity of the ‘real’-world, where every soul is bound by limitations and unspoken, unexpressed, incomplete dangling conversations, I realize, that I’m never going to say all those things I wanted to, to all those several people, ever in life.

Never There, Together

2011-05-03T23:35:00.007+05:30

They sat around the fire, as it rained outside.
Legs intertwined, one of them with a guitar,
The other with a camera, each worshipping
An art, never up for hire.

Hours of silence, weaving in a glance or two,
Of the never uttered words, that generations crave,
Of the obvious comforts in the infinite company,
By the midnight fire.
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Similar beings with dissimilar souls,
Never too long, do together last.
Each second is a dream shattered,
Reminiscent of an unwrinkled past.

Each photograph is a memory,
Wasting away under moisture and tears,
And each song is a one-way ticket,
Of return to the contagious, tragic fears.

Hope dries up, never stays around for too long,
When footsteps don't rhyme,thus ends each song.

Picture courtesy: Utsav Akhoury,once again.

Fabricated Fornication

2011-05-03T23:30:00.002+05:30

Count the bitter whip-words,
Reflected under the lilac glory,
Of her tired lips.

Count the seconds ticking away,
From the old watch-dial,
Whilst his trousers, he zips.

An old tale,
The repetitiveness
Of them,
Fabricated Fornication(s)

Patang(A)

2011-04-25T23:07:00.002+05:30

Ek woh patang,
Jo hawaa mein gotein khaati,
Ud chali,
Tair chali,
Ek kinaare se doosra kinaara,
Ek galiyare se doosra chaubaara.

Aur ek PatangA,
Jiska udaan uska apna,
Aur armaan bhi apne.
Kabhi jhund mein bhaagta,
Kabhi akele.
Andhiyara ho toh mili panaah,
Roshni dikhee toh, jalke huya fanaah.

Aapko kismein milee
Apnee dastaan?

Guzaarish

2011-04-19T21:59:00.001+05:30

Uddne waala yahi ek uskaa mann,
Ik dor se bandh chuka dekho,
Kitna ooNchaa chhalaaNg lagaaya,
Madmast nainon ki jurrat dekho.

Badi suhaani kohre waali ek nukkad,
Bulaa raha har pal iss baaNvre raahi ko,
Woh qaid akela, Waqt bhi rahi mukkad,
Bas ek mannat, ik chhutkaara haasil ho.

Khone Do

2011-04-19T13:04:00.001+05:30

Haqeeqat ko lifaafe mein daal,
Daak se bhej diya parle kinaar,

Kaagaz ki naav mein saari sachchai daal,
Bahaa diya ussey Jamuna paar.

Mujhe zaroorat nahi saari asli baatein,
Mujhe anginat khwaab bone do.

Aur raat ki sooni hatheli pakde,
Chhup chhup ke tanha rone do.

Mujhe aaj, apne aap mein hi
Khone do, jee khone do.

Translation
I have sealed reality away in an envelope,
Mailed it away to The Other Side,

Crafted all of the world's truths into a paper-boat,
Have set it sail from the banks of the Yamuna,

I don't need to face reality,
Just let me sew my endless dreams,

And clutching on to the bare hands of Night,
Let me cry to myself

Tonight, let me find solace,
Within myself

Hum Me Another Harmony

2011-04-18T01:03:00.002+05:30

For me to wane under your shadow,
We must share the same Universe.
Fortunately for your stars,
I'm not one in your sky.

Of the realms that cut through my space,
There's the denial,
The farewell,
And re-embracing,
The same cold autumn wind,
Through the city street-corners,
And the sub-urban flower-beds.

It enacts the same jubilant harmony
A celebratory arrival
Of that on who I have no claim.
A Territorial misfit,
A silver dream,
In our Universe.

***********************************************
Locked away under shadows
Of a bell-jar, of cardamom and almonds,
Cast in its image,
By a crisp sunshine,
Locked as punishment,
Locked through the absence
Of Guilt.

************************************************
Six years of the first battle,
And I'm in the midst of a second one,
Am I allowed ONE failure?

Yes, you can live each day as your last,
As much as you wish,
But you shall never be prepared enough for death...

Picture Courtesy: Utsav Akhoury

Winner/Wiener/Blah

2011-04-18T00:59:00.002+05:30

My last post was all about how I've always tried but never won.
And here I am, after winning the biggest battle ever.

Life is all about the irony, really

:D

2011-03-07T02:13:00.000+05:30

Because no matter what I did, I've never won. And never will.

Godard and Us

2011-03-04T13:37:00.005+05:30

If the youth of Jean Luc Godard's generation were "Children of Marx and Coca-Cola", the youth of today are the off-springs of Gaza and GaaNja. Nothing ever changes, in terms of every generation thinking itself to be the smartest, and the most gifted, and hence getting complacent and turning out to be an embarrassment for the succeeding generation.

Mon Amour

2011-02-27T03:49:00.010+05:30

Mon Amour
I have wrapped the eternity in my poetry, for you.
Enchained all of the world's fragrance in such lyrics for you.
I have made a thousand million
Deals for your sake,mon amour.

I've made sure your eyes don't hurt from the sparkle of the stars,
Have made a crystal sky, a dome to that end, to soothe your scars.
Picked up, them stars divine,
Each one a diamond mine,
Have traded in the impossible millions, up in the sky, for you.

Winter creeps in, the chill sets in, I revel in the warmth of your breath,
The shawl of the evening, softer than silk, calmer than death.
Raisins and almonds, I've bought for you,
Caviar, champagne and chocolates too.
Have even bought out the Garden of Eden, from the angels for you.

Just for you, mon amour.

DISCLAIMER: This is an original translation, but a translation nonetheless.

Ujaan- Festival for the Sunderbans

2011-02-12T01:40:00.005+05:30

Bengal's lost out on being parent to the national capital city. She's lost Bose, Dada as the cricket team 'kuptaan' and Ray and Ghatak. One glorious thing about her that remains as lustrous is her identity in the name of the Royal Bengal tiger(Panthera tigris tigris).

Home to this species is the largest mangrove forest in the world-The Sundarbans. The forest lies in the vast delta on the Bay of Bengal formed by the super confluence of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers, and is a home to huge reserves of biodiversity, and is also recognized as a UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE.

However, as is known to most of us environmentally aware citizens, the Sunderbans is under irrevocable peril due to the rise in global sea levels.'Ujaan- Festival for the Sunderbans' is an attempt by some concerned urban young adults to raise awareness for the conservation of this extremely sensitive geographical region.

Date: 11th- 13th March, 2011
Venue: Frazergunj-Bakkhali, West Bengal

Be there, Sons and Daughters...

My Art?

2011-01-29T01:06:00.001+05:30

So, I see you, in the portrait that you have painted of yourself.
But oh my dear boy, don't you remember, you borrowed those colors from me?

You may ask, why, oh why, did I loan out my inimitable colors to you?
No, I don't have a reply, none whatsoever, save that, I love you...

In my dreams, several times, I have painted you, your face, your smile,
In hues unknown, in shades resplendent, all of it my creation.

That's not how it is, is it? For you have it fixed, have it all planned,
And when I see her smile, her hair, so secure, I fall, out of love,
Or try to...

Love, strange, love bizarre.
Love irrevocable.
For you.
And distress,
In my life.

You shall never be my
Art.

I shall be a star, staring down at a river below.
I shall be a scar, among the wrinkles that age on you, will bestow.

I shall be lurking , beneath your smiling eyes
I shall be planting, soft kisses on your hands, under dreamy October skies.

You shall never be my
Art.

Not my art.
But my love.
My life,
Forever.

Causing heartaches,
Bruising my fantasy-lores.

I have woven satin nights for you,
I have seduced the fallen angels for you...

For you,dear Luke.
I am your fool.

Not Simple Math

2011-01-18T04:00:00.000+05:30

Even as a child, I was never convinced by the possibility of ‘forever’. I always knew nothing is for the keeps for an eternity. Every good thing has to come to an end, invariably. Relationships, friendships, success, career, life. Everything slowly reaches crescendo, and then fades out. Age didn’t need to teach me that. What I have learnt, however, is that the fading out is not necessarily painful, emotionally stressful or traumatic. Rather, the transition occurs naturally, and before one realizes, the process has already occurred. So, on the one hand, while there is no pain, on the other, there is also no way turn the tide of events and go back to how it was before.

In Class Three, I learnt, Distance=Time*Speed.
Sheer simple mathematics.
There was a teeny tiny corollary that was never taught, however.
Time increases the distance.
Always.

Teen-End.

2011-01-14T02:06:00.002+05:30

I don't like orange clothes or Mathematics, but I love Hindi romantic films and rainy days. I am extroverted, and I love being around people. I like to break out in song and dance in the middle of roads. I have got weird unmanageable hair and the longest natural eyelashes from among all the people I know. Also, I don't like communicating over phone. Hello, I'm Ritwik, and today is the last day of my teenage :-)

All Over Again.

2010-11-30T02:17:00.002+05:30

Obsess over one to the point of being haunted by one's form and soul.
Day in and day out. Wait. Pine. All In servile gratification.
All in the hope for the beginning of that never-before-experienced journey.

“It feels so right now, hold me tight,
Tell me I'm the only one,
And then I might,
Never be the lonely one.”

Prayers. Agony. Remorse and Regret.
And then move on.

Turn back to realize the intensity of the darkness lurking inside the cave that was just abandoned.
And what about a similar darkness in the one that has been stepped in right now?

They are equals in ways, aren’t they?

Results declared.
I fare miserably.
I mean almost miserably. Fifty Three.

Upset. But Relieved.
Parents almost glad. Supportive, in ways.
There is no way I could have done better with the fort night long preparation.

If you did well, you can be happy for yourself. Check me, even I’m happy for you.
As for me, I’m just waiting to fly away. From this nest, with the horrible pokey-twigs to one with delicate cotton-boll-lining.

Or is even that a mirage?

:) or :(

2010-11-27T00:34:00.007+05:30

Among all my friends, some are falling in love, and for others, there are heartbreaks. Some are so happy while others are breaking down trying to deal with issues of their own. How helpless can someone get at times? Two friends got together today, after days of deliberating whether the question should be asked or not. And then there are some coping with rejection, a few more dealing with break-ups and heartbreaks, and some residing on an a different plane of disaster altogether...

Ten Lions

2010-11-18T07:24:00.002+05:30

Ten lions have overstayed their welcome.

Just another of my great random fixtures, they have received more recognition than they deserved. However, this piece shall be used in remembering the kings, always.

2010-11-17T02:15:00.002+05:30

As I keep growing older, I realize all the
people I have bullied or got cornered throughout school,
have been such distinct individuals and in some ways, admirable in their
exclusivity, in having been the misfits they were.

Irony or Coincidence?

2010-11-09T06:18:00.004+05:30

My name is one glaring example of an irony. 'Ritwik' means one who performs 'yajnas' in every 'ritu' to please the Gods above. 'Goswami' classifies as amongst highest-order Vaishnav Brahmins, who are ideally supposed to dedicate their lives to religious ceremonies. My parents are semi-agnostics, with no staunch devotion toward idol-worship, and both my sister and I are staunch atheists. This can be referred to as 'double deviation' to the rule that names-should-define-personality.

The other day, at Rohan's birthday party, both Rohan and I had red-tees on, and were posing for photographs with napkins with the letters S,F and I on them. I vote for SFI in college, but am far from being an activist. The following conversation that ensued is as follows:
Me: This is the first time I am coming out about my orientation.
Subholina(sitting beside me) : Really? Don't you keep screaming " I'm gay" all the time, everywhere?
Me: Let me rephrase that. This is the first time I'm coming out about my political-orientation.
Subholina: I see !

Ironically, the political body adverse to SFI in college identifies itself as I.C.

Ajju, Ikshaku and I were at Aqua Java a week back, and the room was jam-packed with weird-fashion sporting young adults smoking hookah. Ajju was showing to us videos of his Great Fall at the Ice-skating-rink in Shimla, the fall that had caused a leg-fracture. He said, at the Mock-Award-Ceremony at his college,this fall had been named as the 'Best Fall'. Ajju also showed us videos of manufactured-fall-situations that had to be created just to create other nominees for the 'Best Fall' category as it is never fair to crown something as winner when there is no competition. He was almost lamenting that his fall did not really have much of a competition and the win came easy to him. Right then, one of the semi-tripping, semi-dazed dudes in the room tripped and fell. Right over my legs and the couch beside me. AND HOW! The fall came in five parts. Each time he'd fall a bit, try to regain composure, and then fall further down. All the couches toppled over, as did Ajju's laptop, playing the 'Fall' nomination videos. Pure Irony,or a Huge Coincidence is for you to decide.

Originally, I had intended to cite only these three examples in this post. However, as the creation of this post was in progress, I found myself engaged in a Facebook-chat conversation with the star-senior Aishani Roy from Oxford University(Doesn't THAT sound magnificent?). We discussed how both of us would have like Prof. Amitava Chatterjee as the new Vice Chancellor of Presidency University, and how the new VC has the same name as our preferred candidate minus a 'Va'. She is called Amita Chatterjee. "What an irony!", Aishanidi said. And this conversation to happen right when this post was in creation, as if only to add an element to the post, was a huge coincidence.

This world truly amazes me, all the time.

Dilwaali Diwaali

2010-11-05T02:49:00.005+05:30

There is a dark gully visible from my window. Throughout the year, when the roads are dark at night, the degree of visibility in that particular gully is determined by the extent of waxing or waning the moon exhibits then. The reverse holds as well, and there is this half-finished abandoned-building of a project right across that gully. I have mentioned this building several times before. How certain guys hanging out on the rooftop remind me of Chandler and Joey, and how the moonlight incident on the unused, jutting-out concrete cables makes me poetic, Concrete-jungle moon-sparks et al, and also once about the Blue Windows on the finished portions of the building. Tonight, however, is not quite like the other days of the year. On the occasion of Diwali, there are heavy laces and frills of light wrapped around all the buildings lining the gully, for the purpose of beautification. And though, just like certain Elizabethan literature heroines, these laces and frills seem to suffocate the buildings, the end of beautification has been amazingly addressed. Also, Kali Pujo is the only festival celebrated at the tiny little club in the immediate paara, so there’s a typical Orange-white temple-shaped pandal erected in the grassless field between the gully and our complex. So my room is lit up, red, green and blue. The ‘tuni-bulbs’ lining the box-grills of my window act to the effect, and if only I was a little stoned, my room would have felt like a live hard-rock café, for I even have Vintage Rock from the 60’s and 70’s and some really mellow Sikkimese music playing on the laptop.
Tonight, incidentally, is All Souls’ Day. Bangalis refer to it as Bhoot Chaturdashi. Souls descend on the Western Hemisphere on Hallowe’en. And then their Eastern Counterparts follow suit on Bhoot Chaturdashi. The minute graveyards at Kumardhubi might come awake tonight. Mrs. Jean McGinn, my beloved kindergarten teacher, she might come to visit her son, who threw her out of home, forcing her to eke out an embarrassing living out of rendering private tuitions even after retirement. I hope her soul comes back to avenge the injustice meted out to her. I remember how she was the first person to have put me on a pedestal of importance, by making me class monitor in kindergarten. I have been dethroned from and reinstated into that pedestal a lot of times since, but she made me feel important for the first time I remember, so that love for her, that reverence, I can still feel, FRESH inside me.I didn’t plan this note out; it is just taking a shape of its own. I remember how, before the first day of kindergarten, when Ma brought home news about Mrs Mc Ginn being my class teacher from the orientation program, I had sobbed for an entire day, out of fear arising out of having been allotted the scariest teacher, ‘who threw dusters to burst her students’ skulls’, in the school as Class Teacher. Now when I look back in retrospect, how unfounded and baseless the worrying of that afternoon seems.

The other time, when on Bhoot Chaturdashi morning in 2002, we landed up at the Hazaribagh National Park, and Buiya and I hatched plans of staying back at the National Park, at one of the cottages without electricity, (because we had no such prior plans, there were no proper-cottages booked for us), and how excited we got at the prospect of being visited by spirits from the dead as also Indian Tigers and jackals in the same night, and how disturbed and miserable we had been left feeling, when our parents didn’t approve of the idea, and rejected such a brilliant adventure just because they were worried about the mosquitoes. Both Buiya and I had refused to speak through the entire journey back.
The Diwali of 2005, the year when a blast had ripped the heart of Dilli just before the festival of lights, and our Tarumitra Nature Convention at St. Patrick’s, Asansol, where we planted trees, and socialized with people from other schools, and marveled at the sheer size of the Boys’ Dorms at St. Vincent’s, and the wonderful nature walks, the magnitude of the combined complex of Patrick’s, Vincent’s and Loyola. Also, Francisco Almeida, his attempts at teaching me those little nuances of Portuguese, and the way I was taken into the Anglo Indian Dinner Ceremony, long after the others had made the phone-calls back home, and had returned to the dorms and taken to their beds, and how I saw the art works by the Christian Brothers, and how impressed I had been at the sheer creativity and talent of the young artists. Also, discovering the half-dead rat-baby on the corridors, and handing it over to the Big Man, the planner of the event. The staying up nights with Alok, and dozing through the seminars and sessions the next day. And how Mrs. Sriparna Choudhury, perhaps the calmest and sweetest lady, and teacher ever, passed away to a minor accident a fortnight after this, and how shocking the incident was for the entire neighborhood-town.
Diwali in Jharkhand was so cold, snug and cute. Diwali meant November, and Chhath, and the men and women walking towards the Chhat-Ghat in colorful, fluorescent sarees and translucent shirts, and the huge assortment of gifts to the Sun God they all carried on their heads.Chhat would also mean ‘thekwas’. Every building was lined with diyas, and tuni bulbs, and the temperatures would hover between 9 degrees and 12 degrees, and even then there would be invitations from every house in the colony for the ‘parsad khaana’. Since every house housed a patient of my father or a student of my mum, there would always be the extra respect associated with being Daktarshaab or Medam’s son. A lot of this I have left behind forever. There’s no returning to any of it. But I have tonight. Suddenly now, I’m wishing there wasn’t so much light flooding in through the window. Maybe I’d be visited by a friendly soul. Or maybe Peeves. Mayukh reminds me of Peeves, it is funny really. Tomorrow is KaliPujo/Diwali 2010. Another one in the history of my life, to be fondly recalled later maybe?

Frigid it is no longer...

2010-11-03T01:44:00.001+05:30

I have been intrinsically very selfish. I will admit, that deep down, I do not think that the fault has been mine, but I feel guilty nevertheless. I have been taking an easier exit out of sticky life situations. One of ignorance, of faking unawareness and a façade of nonchalance. I have pretended not to care when I have seen others capsize and sink into a whirlpool, and have walked by, always assuming that the one gasping for breath and reaching out for a support wouldn’t want ME to be the one’s support. Internal self-loathing and other-corollaries of such insecurities prevail here. Excuses, the one might complain, and there’s no way I can blame the one. What if I never successfully allowed the bifurcation of mind and body, heart and soul, and never looked at myself from the external point of view? What if the one(s) always truly wanted me there, as now I know from their sporadic claims, and I never reached out, for fear that my hands might be seen as dirty and not accepted as an aid, as a support. Calculative I have been for long, but these those who love me, and have stayed by me for this long, can I not, for once, give in, and extend my hand to them? They need me, and I them, and with a bit more of integration, I think my mud specks can join in with their delta-of-cooperation? The past is the past, but it is never too late to begin anew. Some questions I shall never find answers to, but some insurgencies have already begun to die down and give way to greater peace. I think it is time to open up, and to let in the light. The sun has come, and I know, it is going to be alright. It might have been away for years, but I’m ready to welcome it with a grand homecoming.

Amaake amaar moto thaaktey daao.

2010-10-06T23:40:00.003+05:30

Continuing with my habit of translating songs that manage to become my obsession, I have translated the song 'Amaake amaar moto thaakte daao' from the soundtrack of the Bangla-film 'Autograph', into English. I have hardly stayed true to the pace and rhythm of the original, and have interpreted the atypical and unpredictably refreshing lyrics in my own way, and have tweaked a few words here and there for the sake of rhyme. Tell me if you like it. OR NOT.

THE ORIGINAL:
Amaake amaar moto thaakte daao,
Aami nijeke nijer moto guchhiye niyechhi…
Jeta chhilona, chhilona, sheta na pawaii thaak,
Shob pele noshto jibon…

Tomar ei duniya’r jhapsha aalo,
Kichhu shondhe’r guro howa kaancher moto,
Jodi ude jete chaao tobe gaa bhashiye daao,
Doorbiney chokh rakhbo na na na na na na…

Ei jahaaj maastul chharkhaar,
Tobu golpo likhchhi panchbar,
Aami rakhte chaai na aar taar,
Kono raat dupoorer abdaar,
Tai cheshta korchhi Barbar,
Shaantrey paar khonjar…

Kokhono akash beye chup kore,
Jodi neme ashe bhalobasha khub bhore,
Chokh-bhanga ghumey tumi khunjona aamay,
Aashe paashe aami aar nei.

Amaar jonyo aalo jelo na keu,
Aami manusher shomudrey gunechhi dheu,
Ei station er chattorey hariye gechhi,
Shesh train e ghorey phirbo na na na…

Tomar roktey aachhe shopno joto,
Taara chhutchhey raatridin nijer moto,
Kokhono shomoy pele ektu bhebo,
Aanguler phankey aami koi?

Hisheber bhirey aami chaaina chhutey,
Joto shukno peyajkoli fridge er sheetey,
Aami obelar daal-bhaatey phuriye giyechhi,
Gelasher joley bhaashbo na na na…

The TRANSLATION :
Let me exist within my own,
I have reconciled myself with my reality.
That which has stayed unaccomplished,
Let it stay that way,
Excesses mar sanity.

This nebulous light of your numb world,
Feels like shattered-glass fragments of dusk.
Should desires of flight provoke you, fly,
But my binocular vision
Shall not follow you soar,
No, not even a chance…

This voyage of mine, and a mangled mast,
I pen my tale, in its fifth cast.
I shall give way no more,
To your requests, in their late-night rust.
So I try and repeat,
And swim through this distrust.

Whenever love seeps through your sky,
And its layers, in the hours of a violet dawn,
Even as soft-slumber nests on your lids,
Do not look around for me, I’m gone.

Do not bother to switch on the lights,
My vessel’s capsized among these waves of men.
I am lost forever within these station-walls.
I will not take the last train home, ever again.
No, not even a chance…

All your dreams housed in your veins,
They rush forth and back to your heart,
Should time permit, ask yourself sometime,
Why, from between your fingers, did I depart?

In this calculative, humdrum world I don’t
Sympathize with the beans shriveled up in the fridge.
I shall not float around any more in your water-glass.
(For)I begin and end with the lunch-porridge.
No, not even a chance…

2010-09-26T14:42:00.003+05:30

So after five days of torment by a savage fever, last night at 11.15pm, I was zapped out of every will to move, talk, even to keep my eyes open. Every food tasted like chemical, every breath felt like fire. There was nobody at home, and I felt like dying. So, I randomly left my bed, and in a last bid to make myself feel good, switched the TV on. Channels 15 to 56. PURE TRASH! I felt like throwing up. Then on Sony Pix, PARIS JE T'AIME, and well, it has been 16 hours, and I've been well. No fever.

We Are A (Happy) Family

2010-09-21T00:10:00.004+05:30

So once upon a time in this forest lived an elephant-ess that was elected the Mother Mary of the forest, and so in order to stay true to The Bible, she had to stay a virgin. This meant that no baby-elephants from Mommy Elephant. So, she decided to adopt two 'pink' children. One was a shy Pink Pig, the other was a boisterous Pink Pokemon called Clefairy.

One normal day in this family:

Clefairy: Hey Piggy, I've written a poem for you. Wanna listen?
Piggy: Yeah, sure.
Clefairy: (Opera-singer-esque sing-song voice)
Piggy on the railway, picking up stones
Down came an engine and broke Piggy's bones
Oh! said Piggy, "That's not fair!"
Ah! said the engine driver, "I don't care".
Piggy: *starts wailing* Mommy Mommy look, Clefairy is teasing me by reciting that old poem again.
Mommy Elephantess: Clefairy, you repeat that one more time, and you shall go to bed without supper.
Clefairy: You always take her side, Mom
Elpehantess: Tum dono hi mere aankhon ke sitaarein ho.
Main tum dono se ek jaisa pyaar karti hoon.

Moral of the story: This is a happy-family story. Rare, in today's world.

2010-09-18T05:45:00.003+05:30

Right now I realized, some things are meant to be never grown out of. It is 5.40 am, and the sight of the rain and the dark-gray sky outside my window takes me back to the vision. I realize that the sight of it raining shall always take me back to the same vision. The vision of the hill outside my window. The heavy downpour, and the lush greenery. And me lying on my bed. Paradise within my hands' reach. Smell of the wet-hill, aroma of childhood. Forever, and ever.Always.

This isn't clinging on. This is identity.

Meow Meow.

2010-09-14T01:03:00.000+05:30

My blood group is ‘O’, but of the negative rhesus. So, according to Indian films and television, in case I happen to be crushed under a speeding vehicle or be diagnosed with blood-cancer, even if I am rushed to “the hospital” pretty early into the emergency, I shall never find any donors, and only when I am at the lowest depth of the health-deterioration trench, shall there be a ‘miracle’, and I will have a long-lost blood-relative or a holier-than-thou secret well-wisher stepping in to rescue me. There is a very high probability again that nothing of that sort shall happen and I shall recede and recede lower into the trench until finally the messengers of Yamah come for me to row me across the Vaitarna.

I personally know some ‘celebrities’. Of limited talent and caliber, but with fan-bases larger than credible actors like Rebecca Hall or Churni Ganguly. Say, Mr. X is a ‘celebrity’ I know. Now, suppose he is really accomplished at his music, and has noteworthy potential in that field. Instead of honing his existing skills and becoming a master at his craft, Mr. X almost always chooses the path to easy popularity, partying around a lot, with good-looking Ms. Y’s and Ms. Z’s wanting-and-waiting to be flaunted as his arm-candies. Then Mr. X acts in neo-intellectual indie films, which no one understands, with full realization that these films could be his only chance at fulfilling the essential ‘philm-ka-hero’ dreams. And he also balances a lot else, small-time modeling, painting, penning B-grade and/or unoriginal literature. For a short while, he is everywhere. He is blinded by the dazzle of the momentary popularity, but he loses touch with his own craft. And pretty soon, he is banished to obscurity as, well, he has been ignoring his own craft and is an epitome of mediocrity at everything else he dabbles at. Thus occurs the Death of an Artist.

I have been singing myself to sleep of late. Sometimes celebratory songs, sometimes lachrymal-gland-stimulating ones, they vary according to my mood. It helps me to be at peace with myself. It might sound like a hilarious concept, but you should try it, especially if you are sad.

Okay, random banter of the day ends here. Will continue later.

Most Memorable Bollywood Onscreen Couples Of The 00's - III (2007-2009)

2010-08-27T20:46:00.012+05:30

2007

Irrfan Khan-Tabu(The Namesake) Not stirctly Bollywood, but in this Mira Nair film, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth from 'Maqbool' came back as Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli.

Amitabh Bachchan-Tabu(Cheeni Kum)

Dharmendra-Nafisa Ali(Life In A Metro)

Irrfan Khan-Konkona Sensharma(Life In A Metro)The two found a way into our hearts through their humor. Monty, despite being a cameo, retains his place in our hearts as the most affable of the ensemble cast.Shruti isn't too interested initially, but things work out resulting in a finale with Monty's "Aami eshey gechhi!" Cute.

R. Madhavan-Vidya Balan(Guru)Poignant, very.

Abhishek Bachchan-Aishwarya Rai(Guru)Akshay-Katrina could make sparks only in Humko Deewana Kar Gaye. Similarly, Abhishek-Aishwarya made sense only in Guru.

ShahRukh Khan-Deepika Padukone(Om Shanti Om)

Shahid Kapur-Kareena Kapoor(Jab We Met)If the 90'shad Raj and Simran, the 00's had Geet and Aditya. And Anshuman :P

Kunnal Kapoor-Konkona Sensharma(Laaga Chunari Mein Daag; Aaja Nachle)

2008

Hrithik Roshan-Aishwarya Rai(Jodha-Akbar) The two good-looking crooks from Dhoom-2 came back as Azeem-o-shaan,Akbar and Mallika-e-Hindostan, Jodha Bai. Pure love ensued.

Ranbir Kapoor-Minissha Lamba(Bachna Ae Haseeno)

Ranbir Kapoor-Deepika Padukone(Bachna Ae Haseeno)

Imran Khan-Genelia D'Souza(Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na)

Imran Khan-Manjari Fadnis(Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na)

Naseeruddin Shah-Ratna Pathak Shah(Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na)

Arjun Rampal-Shahana Goswami(Rock On...)

Abhishek Bachchan-Priyanka Chopra, John Abraham-Priyanka Chopra and Abhishek Bachchan-John Abraham[:P] (Dostana)

ShahRukh Khan-Anushka Sharma(Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi)

2009

Abhay Deol-Mahie Gill
and
Abhay Deol-Kalkie Koechlin
(Dev D)
Effective and identifiable modern-day take on Devdas. Terrific screen presence of lesser known Deol, Koechlin and Gill as today's Devdas, Chandramukhi and Parvati.

Saif Ali Khan-Deepika Padukone(Love Aaj Kal)

Saif Ali Khan-Giselle Monteiro/Rishi Kapoor-Neetu Singh(Love Aaj Kal) People expected more sizzle out of Saif and Deepika. But Veer and Harleen weaved their own magic in the muhallas of Delhi and by the Ganges in Kolkata

John Abraham-Katrina Kaif(New York) The LAST SCENE justifies the inclusion of this one.

Shahid Kapur-Priyanka Chopra(Kaminey)

Ranbir Kapoor-Konkona Sensharma(Wake Up Sid) Aisha Banerjee is an ambitious, intellectual Calcutta girl. Siddhath Mehra is the typical laidback Mumbaikar. How do the two get along? Wake Up Sid shows us beautifully.

Ranbir Kapoor-Katrina Kaif(Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahaani) Box-office King and Queen come together.

Most Memorable Bollywood Onscreen Couples Of The 00's - II (2004-2006)

2010-08-25T21:30:00.012+05:30

2004

Akshay Kumar-Priyanka Chopra(Aitraaz)This one was all about the animal-instincts.

Vivek Oberoi-Aishwarya Rai(Kyun... Ho Gaya Na...)For many they did not work, For me they did. Successful or not, memorable and debated for sure. Also, Aao Na...

Saif Ali Khan-Rani Mukherjee(Hum Tum)

Irrfan Khan-Tabu(Maqbool) Our desi Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

Abhishek Bachchan-Rani Mukerji(Yuva)Lallan and Shashi,slum-dwellers both of them, redefined the word 'Chemistry'.

Abhay Deol-Ayesha Takia(Socha Na Tha)The beginning of Imtiaz Ali. AND Abhay Deol. Lovable. Believable. A Classic by now.

ShahRukh Khan-Preity Zinta(Veer-Zaara)

Ajay Devgan-Aishwarya Rai(RainCoat)

Emraan Hashmi-Mallika Sherawat(Murder)

2005

Amitabh Bachchan-Rani Mukerji(Black)This might be a controversial mention, but the tenderness and the interdependence between Michelle and Mr.Sahay qualify for one of the most poignant Big-screen experiences for the Bolly-buff in the 00's.

Abhishek Bachchan-Rani Mukerji(Bunty Aur Babli)Rural, rustic, FUN. Delectable.

Shiney Ahuja-Chitrangda Singh) and Kay Kay Menon-Chitrangda Singh(Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi)

John Abraham-Priyanka Chopra(Karam)

Jimmy Shergill-Minissha Lamba(Yahaan)The mountains and valleys of Kashmir. One taboo love. And a haunting music score. Kabhi kabhi aas-paas chand rehta hai

Saif Ali Khan-Vidya Balan(Parineeta)

Shah Rukh Khan-Rani Mukerji(Paheli) The quaint desert of Rajasthan and allthatresplendence. Visual poetry at its best.

Rajpal Yadav-Rituparna Sengupta(Main Meri Patni Aur Woh)

Sanjay Suri-Purab Kohli(My Brother Nikhil)The first time that homosexuality was not an issue of ridicule.

2006

Akshay Kumar-Katrina Kaif(Humko Deewana Kar Gaye) Their first outing together. Also, the only one in which the chemistry worked.

Ajay Devgan-Kareena Kapoor(Omkara) He was Othello, she was Desdemona. It was Uttar Pradesh, but together they worked magic in a premise removed from the original Shakespearean era.

Shah Rukh Khan-Preity Zinta,Shah Rukh Khan-Rani Mukerji and Abhishek Bachchan-Rani Mukerji(Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna) Nobody expected KANK from Karan Johar. Reason they were pissed off after the movie. Also, this one had every grave situation gift-wrapped in a lot of glitz and glamorous chutzpah,so things looked fake in parts. But there was no denying the chemistry and currents among all the leads.

Rahul Bose-Mallika Sherawat(Pyar Ke Side Effects)Atypical. Unusual. Unconventional.

Salman Khan-Preity Zinta(Jaan-E-Mann)

Shiney Ahuja-Kangna Ranaut(Woh Lamhe) One of MY personal favorites of the decade.

Hrithik Roshan-Aishwarya Rai(Dhoom 2)Charm of good-looking people(despite the terrible smooch)

Most Memorable Bollywood Onscreen Couples Of The 00's - I (2000-2003)

2010-08-25T20:39:00.013+05:30

2000

Hrithik Roshan-Amisha Patel(Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai)
The industry was yet to recover from its 90's hangover,and though the premise of the movie reeked of old cliches, this fresh pair had everyone in the audience coming back for 2nd and 3rd helpings.

Hrithik Roshan-Preity Zinta(Mission Kashmir)

2001

Dia Mirza-R.Madhavan(Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein)

Aamir Khan-Gracy Singh(Lagaan)

Akshaye Khanna-Dimple Kapadia(Dil Chahta Hai)
One of the first instances of an out-of-the-box casting, yet handled with enviable maturity, Farhan Akhtar's portrayal of Siddharth-Tara heralded the arrival of the 'new' Bollywood.

Saif Ali Khan-Sonali Kulkarni(Dil Chahta Hai)

ShahRukh Khan-Kajol(Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham)Definitely the least mentionable of the SRK-Kajol outings, this one still had a distinct charm of its own.

2002

ShahRukh Khan-Aishwarya Rai(Devdas)

ShahRukh Khan-Madhuri Dixit(Devdas)

Rahul Bose-Konkana Sensharma(Mr.and Mrs. Iyer)

Vivek Oberoi-Rani Mukherji(Saathiya)

2003

John Abraham-Bipasha Basu(Jism)The movie was widely panned by critics for being unoriginal, but this was probably the first time Bollywood was being fearless about the depiction of infidelity and sex. A lot of similar ventures followed, and there came a time when "Nothing sells in Bollywood apart from sex and SRK". With the exception of this one and Murder, none of the others passed the acid-test.

ShahRukh Khan-Rani Mukerji(Chalte Chalte)

Amitabh Bachchan-Hema Malini(Baghban)Another first. Actors in their sixties, whose children were at the time starring in movies as lead actors, came together for a love story.

Hrithik Roshan-Preity Zinta(Koi Mil Gaya)The mush angle in this Rakesh Roshan movie was probably the least important factor in this movie, but Rohit couldn't have sparkled if not for his brilliant bond with Nisha. We realized this when we observed the completely bland Priya(Piggy Chops) with Hrithik's 'Krrish' three years later.

Shah Rukh Khan-Preity Zinta(Kal Ho Naa Ho)THIS,several people would vote,was the BEST onscreen couple of the 00's.

Saif Ali Khan-Preity Zinta(Kal Ho Naa Ho)Rohit continued offering his unflinching support to Naina through the times she cried, she laughed, she fell in and out and again in love with Aman. NOW,that's the kind of men reality hardly offers. Plus, Naina-Rohit's friendship-in-love-in-friendship had that extra-edge over Aman-Naina.

Roll-House Whore

2010-08-23T23:21:00.002+05:30

There's this amazing roll-joint(no pun intended) in the gap between the Olypub and the Karnani Mansion(which according to Lijo, is a whore-house). That day, while buying rolls from that shop, Rohan,Shahana and I made jokes about us purchasing 'Whore-house Rolls'. That tussled and turned, inspired me to write a Bob-Dylan-esque piece about the 'Roll-House Whore'.

I started writing, but stopped midway, and never continued thereafter.Since I do not want my three paragraphs to get sucked into obscurity, I am posting it as a post.

Standing by the neon sign, as sedans and mercs pass by,
She unwraps her shawl, and shows some more.
Expecting the gaze of rich men, her smile conceals her sigh
This is just another night, for the roll-house whore.

Multi-chromes reflect off the leather bra, and hence light up
Her brown hair, the kohl-lined eyes, the core
Of her temple, sanctity remains, some car-door opens up
She walks in smooth, with not-much grace, the roll-house whore.

“Let’s just have sex, Conversations spoil my image”, said he
Oh, Matthew Chester of films, she realized he was
Buttons torn out, trousers removed, animal-orgasm, “What a baby!”
And then, cigarettes go up in smoke, fundamental laws.

End is where the Start is.

2010-08-16T23:40:00.001+05:30

(I)You spend long years to figure out ways to stuff them all in together. A truckload of skeletons that must be stuffed into a closet. One tumbles out, some other two get entangled at their ribs. The skull comes off a fourth, the knee caps of a fifth turn into dust. Yet conveniently, you manipulate and mutilate enough just to dispose them off, into their silent, nonchalant existence into the closet. You feel relieved. Like they have been done away with forever. Into that little wardrobe of yours, at the other end of which there is no Narnia. A wardrobe that seemingly has just one vent, just one channel. One lock. And then they have been reduced to silent nothings in your memory. You try to forget the skeletons were your creation.

So one day, you return home, or whatever you call that supposed secure dwelling place of yours. And- HAHA! They’re all out there. Defying the safety of that singular-valved-cupboard. Crippled, mangled, but vengeful. Venomous for having been tucked away for so long. They take over your own. It’s a defeat, ultimately.

(II)Ofcourse. My tales arent the ones worth narrating. Let's spend this last evening of my life listening to you.

(III)You make it a routine.
Liking them. Seeing them. Hanging out. Liking them.
They are where the world begins, and ends.
Every face.
Irreplaceable support system.
And then one defects.
You wish everything would turn to normal.

If only wishes were meant to come true.
Falling apart.
Easy way out.

(IV)Life is circular. One never departs from his flaws, but just blindfolds himself into believing it is not a circle but a line he is treading on.

(V)So tell me. Why do I not have the liberty to make my own choices?
What’s that?
You worry I shall get burned?
Well, if that fire is my only path to solace, then who are you to tell me not to take the plunge?
And what use is it.
To stay back, to dwell within you all, Only to be labeled?
Labels, conventions, yes I create them as well.
Naturally, it pains me when I need to consume what I produce.
Basic Economics. I want better, not what I can already have.
Who am I kidding?
When did I have the option?
Wasn’t fire always the only option for me?

Cinema

2010-08-14T02:22:00.001+05:30

Chhoto chhoto golpo, Bodo shob bedona,
Boroi oshohaay tahaader drishti,
Korun chokhe'r bihwalotay, bohu jug'er lanchhona,
Eshob kichhui srishtikorta'r srishti.

Tobu dhore rakhi, chhobite, muhoortey baar-chobbish
Onek osroo, onek rong'er bishaad,
Chhoto bhanga, shada-kaalo, Chhute chole ohornish,
Kokhono ba daami, technicolor oboshaad.

Kichhu kahinee tey prochur hashi, digbidik ujjol,
Foorti'r aamej, utsab aar ulaash,
Bhalobasha'r mukhor-modhu, thoNtey khushi'r kolaahol,
Preeti-prerona'r bohumookhi nirjaash.

Shobar golpe'r choritro, bhasha,dorshon bhinno jodio
E'r golpey tumi, tomartay shey,
Koto golpo-kothay jorito shobai, meshey shob nodi-o,
Jetha-shetha, elomelo bhugol chalshe...

Chhoto chhoto golpo, Bodo shob bedona,
Boroi oshohaay tahaader drishti,
Korun chokhe'r bihwalotay, bohu jug'er lanchhona,
Eshob kichhui srishtikorta'r srishti.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kalpana'r matra,Bhalobasha'r jowaar
Onek desher Onek shobhyota
Bilupto nrishonshota
Aashonno nirdoyota
Shobaike joriye
Cinema.

Blue Windows

2010-08-05T01:29:00.004+05:30

Blue windows,
Plaguing those numerous stately structures,
That, apartments, are called,
In this cold city.
Blue windows,
Contrast to the red darkness outside,
Which is the morgue, and which
The shrine, you wonder.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Every little window speaks a tale.
Felonies severe, nipped at wrong nodes.
Every blue orifice mouths
Tales of the terrible, of annihilated abodes.

Sapphire sparks of ruin, of no-remorse.
On a velvet-black reality
Lies galore, Despair soars,
The faces wallow in subverted pity.

One. Homicide. Splattered limbs, and
Entrails line walls and carpets.
Nothing taken away, often, or broken into,
Only trust capsizes, suffers silent death.

Then, assault. Of a senior or a minor.
Laws forbid, but syrupy, ambrosial,
The apples are, when taboo charms bind,
Eternal truth- still shocks, coarseness to recall.

Greed, so much. Frauds too many.
Treachery, lies, farce, deceit.
Loyalty reigns in figments, unreal.
Crushed beyond distinction, in a jungle concrete.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So much to worry about,
So little to love.
So much to cover up for,
Nothing to rise above.

Every blue window.
Every one of those.
Has a tale to narrate.
Has a chapter to close.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blue windows,
Plaguing those numerous stately structures,
That, apartments, are called,
In this cold city.
Blue windows,
Contrast to the red darkness outside,
Which is the morgue, and which
The shrine, you wonder.

Raastey Aur Filmein

2010-07-29T04:35:00.003+05:30

Road, Movie just reached the highest pedestal of road-flicks for me, which till now, was solely occupied by Y Tu Mama Tambien.

Also, I realized that my blog-template, it is straight out of the end-credits of the movie.

Strongly recommended.

Toy Story

2010-07-24T00:46:00.010+05:30

I miss Tridax. My only teddy bear in life was called Tridax. Effects of having a mom who loved her zoology way too much.
I miss Bull. Wonder under how many layers of dust he lies now?
I miss the elephant.Did he have a name? I don't think so. GNai-GNui, the hippo. The robot-stuffed-toy from Pattaya.
I miss Watto. Didu's present from 2002 USA.
I miss Dandelion, the cat. That was Buiya's. And her tortoise from Delhi. Butu from Nepal. And her Gublet.She lies ignored on the wardrobe beside my bed.DUST-COVERED.Is randomly kicked around sometimes.
I can not even remember them all. Ultra Man-the bag? Jigglypuff. Clefairy. The Sheep.Snowy. All of them bought for rupees-ten-a-piece. In a rainy weekend. They that had to be dried by being hung on the heater, barbecue style. And THEN cuddled up to.
I miss Nadumnaa, the monkey. Buiya's blue monkey, who could stick a thumb into her open moutth. Had a red bow, as far as I remember. Nadumna, Nadumna, tak-duma-dum Nadumna, Nadumna, Nadumna doom-doom-doom Nadumna.
I miss the Bor-putool(The groom-doll) that was excessively bloated in parts, and had some limbs missing, but would end up being the unchallenged groom in all the marriage occasions. Then there was Oolo, the jumbled mass of red-wool, who would be a patient guest at all the weddings of dolls. Without fail. The music in these weddings was the responsibility of the clockwork 'Drummer-doll'(alternatively, Drum-bajaano-putool), who would, once in a bluemoon, double up as the groom.I fail to remember who the brides would be.
Oh and then there were those marine organisms. The purple duck. And the dolphin that fell from my seventh-floor Jodhpur Park balcony into the open drain below.
The blue-and-white clockwork penguin with orange flippers.The incessant flappity-floppitying of the flippers.
I miss the odd hen-BFFs. Both mutilated. One had missing limbs, the other a missing beak. One was baby Pink and the other, yellow ochre.
Gublet’s soul-sister. Olive Oyl. Again Buiya’s. Every short person has a tall best friend.
Hand-made tortoise.
I miss the black Bear, that was cursed to be standing forever, and looked like a goat. My Bombay Souvenir.
I had almost completely forgotten about the Huge Dragon. HUGE it was, indeed.
Pikachu. Squirtle. Chansey. Pink fluffy Rabbit. Bugs Bunny.
Starry-eyed Stacie, Semi-celebrity Barbara and the celebrities, Barbies. All Buiya's.
The five puppies. The Three Jungle Pygmy-kids.
The doll-house that was created underneath the aalna. That one that would be regularly visited by those little rats, whose fur looked so shampooedelicate.
I almost miss Julie, MeMey and their countless heirs and heiresses, all the little goat-kids I grew up cuddling. Staright out of Jhontoo'r Maa'r Chhagol-Production-Karkhaana.
I miss these. Very much. Not always, but right now.
.

Udaan.

2010-07-24T00:16:00.001+05:30

‘Udaan’ brought back a lot of memories. Much of the movie was based in Jamshedpur-the industrial city. Jamshedpur, like Maithon, is just another industrial small town in Jharkhand(the latter is probably one-tenth the size of the former). But watching the movie with Debadrita made it even more special. The lanes and the by-lanes, the picturesque colonies with neat rows and columns of bungalows- some huge, others just about qualifying for the name, and white picket fences, white low-rise gates, and children riding their bicycles in those narrow lanes strewn with yellow flowers that have withered off from the gorgeous, resplendent yellow trees that line the bungalows- all these were uncannily reminiscent of Maithon. Of course, the fact that the two towns are separated by a meager 150 kms, adds to the obvious similarities between the circumstances and the psyche of the people the protagonist in the movie faces and the ones I have grown up with. [I strongly believe that as towns develop into cities, they turn into mirror-images of each other. Every huge city is a clone of the other, but every small town is distinct in its affection, its vulnerability, its dream-weave-lores, its colors and its very flavor].

thesethingsoftendon'tmakesense....

2010-07-21T20:50:00.004+05:30

Several stripes for a camouflage,
Several teeth to defend,
Several minds to think with,
But only one soul to befriend.

2010-07-20T23:45:00.003+05:30

There's a truth that is often quoted about Bollywood and Indian(world)politics - "There are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies here" .Guess that is applicable in real-life too. I'm just, for lack of better word, shocked. And, I could not put this up on Facebook. Thank goodness for Blogger.

See You, You see?

2010-07-14T23:02:00.001+05:30

One disaster. Today. Several more to come. Mommy dearest advises me to drop out. There's still time, she says.

PaulPredicts

2010-07-03T13:13:00.005+05:30

This 2-year-old Octopus in a German aquarium has predicted all the outcomes of the German games in the World Cup successfully, so far. The defeat to Serbia was predicted too. As for tonight's game versus Argentina, this psychotic genius has tipped the odds in favor of my(AND HIS) team- Germany. IF this forecast too comes true, not only will Germany move on to the Semis, but also, Paul's fan-following will go up higher, much higher, sky-high. Really, it will be a welcome-break from all the human-dhongi-babaas, a la Sanjay B. Jumaani and Bejaan Daruwallah.

Here's to Paul, and hoping to see the German flag flying sky high.

Boys pretty fine

2010-07-01T03:32:00.002+05:30

You can take them home, with your parents,to dine.
Sea-green eyes, they’re built on chisel-line.
They come from all parts- ‘urbs, towns and the mine,
And posh city pockets. Quite like lozenge divine,
They are boys pretty fine.
Oh, they are boys quite fine.

Some names they have, with streets that rhyme.
Take some time off, they shall refill your Rhine.
Gloss-and-nail stains on their shirts, nevermind.
The sheets are white, and suddenly the sky’s the sunny kind.
They are boys pretty fine.
Oh, they are boys quite fine.

Scary outcomes await, scared you are of Pater-canine.
Approval shouldn’t be sought; Lost glories are for to pine.
The growing protuberance ends in a new life, months nine,
And these boys have left an indelible sign.
They were boys pretty fine.
But for how long can you whine?
Pretty boys, not-so-fine…
Pretty boys, not-so fine…
Oh, they were boys quite fine.

Malhotra behne, Sachchai ko pehne

2010-06-07T14:00:00.005+05:30

1.The Malhotra sisters – Rukhsar, Inkie and Pinky lived with their parents in a huge palace in the beautiful hamlet of Kangra in Himachal Pradesh. Inkie and Pinky were born to Mr. and Mrs. Rohan and Sue Bo(ngolo)lona Malhotra, while the eldest of the daughters had been rescued by the couple from a Karachi-girl-child-trafficking-cycle, earning themselves a lot of international fame, another child(with a Muslim name) and a humongous amount of money, which they invested in building the palace for themselves.

2.As luck would have it, during the India-Pakistan Water War of 2015, a Pakistani extra-potent missile flew all the way to Himachal Pradesh, and destroyed the Malhotra Palace, killing the Malhotra parents. Thus, one fine morning, the Malhotra sisters-Rukhsar-22,Inkie-20 and Pinky-18, found themselves orphaned, and homeless.

3.The Government of India helped the sisters re-trace their roots back to Calcutta, where the sole-surviving relatives of the Malhotras lived. Mr. Aravind Bose, an estranged brother to Mrs. Bongololona Malhotra nee Bose, and his wife stayed in Jodhpur Park in Calcutta. The Boses took the sisters in, gave them refuge, but they had to be forced into doing this by the Calcutta High Court.

4. Mrs. Adrija Bose was a downright cruel lady. A true Bangali lady, she stuck to her Jibonando Das, her Satyajit Ray, and hence refused to adjust with the Himachali Hindi(or for that matter, Hindi at all) that the sisters spoke. She forced them to learn Bengali and tortured them day-in and day-out. The Boses had a gay son called Babai, who often masturbated right in front of guests and visitors and his parents. Despite his obnoxiousness, the Bose parents were blind to Babai’s flaws.

5. The Boses wanted to get rid of the sisters as soon as they could. So they married Rukhsar off to the eldest son of the neighboring Ray-household. The Ray parents- Anwesha Ray and Arghya Brata Ray believed in a matriarchal society, so the husband had taken up the wife’s surname.

6. The eldest Ray son, Vicky Ray, was a Probashi Bangali, who had attended University in Uganda, and was due to be appointed the Indian Ambassador to Kampala. He was cultured, chivalrous, and well-spoken, but not very fluent in Bangla. Rukhsar was married off to Vicky Ray, and sent off to Kampala. Inkie and Pinky were happy for their elder sister. Mrs. Bose started plotting their marriage too.

7. The news of the death of Rukhsar left Inkie and Pinky shattered. Vicky Ray said she was cruelly stabbed and killed by hungry Ugandans, but Inkie and Pinky knew there was more to that story than met the ears.

8. To solve this murder mystery, Inkie and Pinky now wanted to get married to Vicky. They thought they’d solve the feud regarding who has to endure the (as-they-suspected)-monster Vicky by herself within their own. They hatched their proposal to their Maami, Mrs. Bose, who gladly lapped up the idea, for she, as we know, wanted to get rid of her nieces.

9. The Ray parents, guilty of the death of Rukhsar, wanted to make amends. Pinky, the younger sister, and the more beautiful of the two surviving, was married off to Vicky Ray. The uglier Inkie Ray(infamous for her Ink-dark complexion), accepted marriage to Vicky Ray’s Assamese tribal servant Ooga Booga Bezbaroa, not because she was desperate to get married, but because she wanted to solve the murder mystery of Rukhsar, and not wait in Calcutta under Adrija Bose’s captivity for the news of Pinky’s death too.

10. In Kampala, Inkie and Pinky spent a month or two quite clueless. Their incessant search for their sisters’ murderer’s identity(they were quite sure who it was, they needed proofs) led them nowhere. Meanwhile, they established a very strong friendship with Vicky Ray’s gardener Leechu Kiwalima, and his pregnant ex-lingerie-model wife Mrs. Boobie Kiwalima, It amused the girls that the gardener should have a Bengali name of a fruit.

11. Gradually it kept getting difficult for Inky and Pinkie to stay in Kampala because like natural men,both Vicky Ray and Ooga Booga Bezbaroa wanted sex, but the sisters didn’t want to do them. One sister had revenge on her mind, while the other felt no attraction towards her tribal husband.

12. One evening, Mrs. Boobie Kiwalima invited the sisters over to their place for she had given birth to a son(at home, of course), who they named Poontai.

13. While she was attending to other guests, she left the baby under Inkie’s custody. The sisters were alone in a room with the 5 day old Ugandan baby, when he opened his mouth and started to speak in chaste Himachali Hindi, in Rukhsar’s voice.

14. He(or she) said, the truth was, Vicky Ray is a very very perverted man, who had a little sex-slave called Goldcoinuma Meowoof, a 13 year old Ugandan girl hidden in his Kampala apartment. Rukhsar herself had, one day, walked in on her husband performing BDSM with the minor, and had receded into depression. She had had no one to speak to about her plight. One day at night, Vicky Ray, drunk, had stormed into her room and hit her very hard with the extra-tough brinjals Leechu had cultivated in the garden. This had resulted in her death.

15. While the story was being narrated, Leechu walked into the room. He was shocked to hear his five-day old son speaking, and with a voice of a girl of twenty. He nearly fainted. To save him a lot of ordeal, Inkie and Pinky decided to reveal to Leechu what the matter was.

16. On getting to know the reality, Leechu went into a guilt-trip because he felt HIS brinjals indirectly caused Rukhsaar’s death. He promised to cultivate special Potassium Cyaninde( KCN) tomatoes in the farm, that Vicky Ray would take to the Annual Inter-Embassy Best Cultivated Vegetable Competition, and have guests and other Ugandan dignitaries consume.

17. The plan worked perfectly. The cyanide tomatoes Vicky Ray presented at the meet caused severe poisoning on the judges, celebrities and visitors at the event. This resulted in the arrest of Vicky Ray.

18. Vicky Ray was sentenced to be hanged till death. Moments before the hanging, he confessed to all the crimes he had committed, begging for forgiveness from Inkie and Pinky. He also said Goldcoinuma had been sent back to her village, and he was personally funding her education. He said that he had never intended to kill Rukhsar. He said, if Rukhsar hadn’t died, he would only be a very perverted man, like Tiger Wood, but the fact that Rukhsar had died as a result of his brinjal assault made him a very perverted ‘murderer’.

19. Before he was hanged, he kept smiling like Bhagat Singh and Khudiram Bose and sang a self-composed song, “Baal Chhirte Abaar Kobey Parbo? Classic Cigarette phoonktey abar kobe paarbo?” It was clear, he was very relaxed after having admitted to his crime. Nobody remembered the tomato-crime as such, because no one had died in that story. He attained heaven because he was just a murderer-by chance, a good-at-heart BDSM addict.

20. After this, Inkie and Pinky told Ooga Booga Bezbaroa the reality of everything. They made it clear Inkie wouldn’t have sex with him.He was sent back to Calcutta. Inkie and Pinky Malhotra became local legends in Uganda. They were adopted by Leechu-Boobie, and thus had their sister Rukhsar back as a sibling in Poontai. Inkie decided to turn lesbian and got married to Ugandan supermodel Nimashiva Ultrasexa. Pinky was always into dark men, so she too married a dark Gujarati-Indian-Ugandan businessman and relocated to London, where she became a soap actress. She later had two beautiful daughters called Raa Ee and Tit Lee. Poontai, who was Rukhsar in actuality, stayed gender confused through out her life, but later got hitched with a Paki-Brit guy called Rono Moza.

Epiphany, another.

2010-05-28T12:25:00.008+05:30

The fact that I wanted to get out of Calcutta for undergrad-college had probably more to do with the fear of getting too attached to Calcutta than with my being ambitious. Surely, it was a lot of the latter, but in all probability, now that I think of it, a bit more of the former.
And I can see now that it will happen again. After two years, when I shall leave this city for good, I shall have to suffer another heartbreak, another 2007-esque disaster.
I have cleaved in too well in this city probably. Deny korar cheshta kora ta aar ucheet noy...

A Separate Peace

2010-05-18T10:24:00.003+05:30

Cradled between the cyan-tinged darkness
That loomed ahead of her,
And the tender moonshine, pristine,
That flowed down the contours of her shoulders
Was her self,
Lifeless.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
She welcomed him into her home.
She brought him in, herself.
A little kiss on his nose,
And he was hers.
His fingers did he wrap
Around her hand,
She felt complete.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wrapped around each other
In bed, together
He was all she ever had.
In his eyes, she saw her hopes,
Reinvigorated,
Revived, restored.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Strange things happen. Even here they did.
He disappeared.
From her comforting embrace,
From her re-assuring smile,
From her lingering protectiveness,
He disappeared.
She searched for days. She searched at nights.
In gardens, on the streets,
In those little clandestine caves,
On the beaches, in the woods,
Her search left no stones unturned
No doors un-knocked
No pebbles un-trampled on.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Her tears had run dry, her throat was very hoarse.
Her faculties could not conjure
A feed-back apt enough, when they,
Removed the veil
That covered his face.
It wasn’t quite him anymore.
Only a lot of blood, and an eye.
Clawing through the endless emptiness in her mind,
She could grasp one realization.
He was never going to come home to her
Ever again.
The hopes in her eyes, died away
Or you may say, dried off,
Vaporized into another existence.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cradled between the cyan-tinged darkness
That loomed ahead of her,
And the tender moonshine, pristine,
That flowed down the contours of her shoulders
Was her self….
Lifeless,
If they saw from this world
That had taken him away from him.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the other world,
The moonshine brought into sight a path.
If they look closely enough,
They shall see her,
Walking away, his hands in hers,
Walking into a separate peace
Walking towards a new truth…
Mother and child,
Walking together to be
Eternally united.

[Inspired heavily from the movies 'El Orfanato', 'Paris Je t'aime(Place des Victoires)' and 'Changeling']
Note: The title is borrowed from John Knowles' novel of the same name, but this textual piece has hardly anything to do with the novel.

Conform.I did too.

2010-05-08T23:58:00.000+05:30

Whenever I look out of my bedroom window nowadays in the evenings, I see three guys hanging out lazily and chatting late into the night on the rooftop of the building being constructed on the plot next to our apartment block. This, together with the fact that it has rained every-evening this week(thus making it one of my coolest Mays so far),brings to absolute recall the characters- Joey, Chandler or Ross from Friends/ Barney, Ted and Marshall from ‘How I Met Your Mother’.

Today, in AC’s statistics classes, when as is usual, I couldn’t prompt him in the scribbling down of derivations (because, well, I haven’t studied one bit), he looked at me, and then looked at the remaining students and said “O porey na, kintu taao okey kichhu bolte parina. Raag hoy, kintu dekhate parina. Ki mishti heshe dey dekho... theek jeno beral chhana..” (He will never study, but I can’t get myself to rebuke him. I get angry, but can’t express my anger… Look at that sweet smile on his face. Just like a tiny kitten). The class around me was in splits.

These days I’ve been remembering Akash and Sia a lot. I think they want to haunt me to the other side as well. Suhrid has been very difficult after Sia left us all,he hasn’t yet come down from Dubai. Sameera and Kaaya still weep inconsolably at times. Over the phone though. That is a life I have left so far behind, so, so far behind. The ghosts still trouble me at times. Traffic jams and crowded streets freak me out still. I have lied a lot here and there. Lines have faded between the two compositions but I would go on to the other side gladly if only they would take me with them.
They are none of them on Facebook which makes life more difficult. Of course, I conformed. Probably this city made me conform. All of them however have been very kind to me. We wrote Kreanjalie off within days of her departure, but they have still patiently clung on to me. Probably because the vaporisation of two of us has made us learn to value each other more.

I think I’m just known to be a very uni-dimensional person now because of the things I do. I think I’m growing up and conforming into an ideal existence where I can not breathe.

One thing about me that has still not changed is how people still intimidate me. It’s odd though, how I, despite never having suffered from inferiority complexes of any sort, find people so intimidating. I need to learn to speak out. And, yes, ‘conform’, in the process.
I’ve conformed so much. And despite all these, despite having lost my identity, I’m not unhappy. I parade around the city happily, with my newest closest friends for company, and well, I don’t miss the old times any more.

Well, I think this one should end here coz it is all a lot of pointless blabbing.

2010-05-02T19:25:00.000+05:30

Imagine a cigarette as a colony of petrified pixies, cursed into that life. When the fire touches them, the curse is broken, the pixies come to life, perform a gratified ritual-dance and then fly up into the sky and disappear forever.

Sibling Inequation

2010-04-30T07:10:00.007+05:30

The other night, I had nothing to do. My sister was working on her term-paper, and I was trying to enjoy the drizzle, listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd, and munching on lemon-biscuits. The very fact that she and I were in the same room was a rare occurrence, not because we are estranged or are not fond of each other, but because despite lodging under the same roof, we lead such stark contrasting lives, that our paths hardly cross, which is weird in a city like Calcutta, where everyone knows everyone and she and I are separated by just three academic years, and have been in colleges whose students’ lives entwine quite often- J.U. and Presidency. We do chat once in a while. But on an average day, our interaction stays limited to three sentences in the morning, four at night.She and I have always been remarkably different people. Despite fundamentally advocating to similar views, having been brought up in the same atmosphere, we are as dissimilar as siblings can get. For most of our childhoods, she and I attended the same school. Throughout school, she was the quieter kid. She had fewer friends and she stuck to books and cartoons longer than I did. She was always a class-topper and retained that position with unflinching grit, never for once letting it out of her kitty. I, on the other hand, got along famously well with all of my classmates, I was definitely more outgoing, and more popular among my peers. I had my books and cartoons as well, but I shifted to Prime Time Television sooner than her. Though neither of us was particularly fond of the teachers in our school, she definitely avoided trouble with greater adroitness than I ever did. I was always at loggerheads with my teachers, most of whom found my presence in their classes severely distressing. Academically, I managed to retain my position within the Top-Three of the class and topped my class several times as well. However, Priyadarshini Goswami always remained a steadier example of a scholar for younger students of the school. We did certain things alike though. We hated returning from Calcutta after vacations. We collected Pokemon 3-D figures and tazos, shared a distaste for Mathematics, and I replaced her as the school’s safe-bet for Extempore/ Debates/Creative Writing Competitions.
She passed out of school with an all time record-high percentage of marks in the science stream (Sample: A ‘99’ in Physics) and went on to take up English for her graduate course when the norm was Medical/ Engineering for Science Students. This was another one of the few similarities between the individuals that the two of us are, that when I too passed out of school with a decent enough percentage, I wanted to follow her example and take up English too. But my destiny sent me into the Vortex of Economics and well, since then, we have grown further apart.
She and I have hardly ever had mutual interests. She hated Bollywood movies, while I went gaga over them. She was the first woman (and the only one, for a long time) I knew who hated Shah Rukh Khan. Neither did she ever realize my passion for World Cinema. Yes, we read the same kind of literature – Marquez, Ray and the Victorian Era, but she reads a lot more than I shall probably ever be able to fathom. I thrive on Country music, Queen and The Beatles, on Vintage Rock, and lot of obscure stuff, on 1960’s Bollywood music- Geeta Dutt and Lata Mangeshkar while she has been, for a long time, been unyieldingly devoted to Death Metal, Thrash Metal and all the other brutal musical genres. Back in our childhood, she and I would vote diametrically opposite sounding songs of a particular soundtrack our favorites from the soundtrack. Also,throughout our childhood, we were surrounded by non-Bengali people who she always disliked. She hated the language Hindi and never cared to learn to speak it.On the other hand, many of my best friends were Punjabi/Gujarati/Marwari and I got along with them effortlessly. Infact, my knowledge of Punjabi was far greater than hers though she was the one born there. And I've always adored Hidni. On an aggregate level, she was always the more 'phoren maal' and my inclinations have always been chiefly 'desi'.Also over time, we have changed remarkably as people. Ever since she joined college in 2006, she opened up progressively. And after I relocated to Calcutta in 2007, I started mellowing down. Now I find it quite difficult to make conversation with a stranger. In other words, my social awkwardness is slowly reaching its pinnacle while she has almost completely erased off any such un coordination.So, the other night, we spoke for a long time. I got to know a lot about her life, her boyfriend, her music, her clique, her addictions. And we both had another epiphany regarding how different our lives are and how little we know about each other despite seeing each other speak on the phone, move around, work on the Internet and have dinner everyday. I still can’t relate with her life at all and I’m sure neither can she with mine. Yet, despite the love-hate relationship we’ve shared, the obvious rivalry that follows, and the mutually-acknowledged nonchalance about each other’s day-to-day affairs, I definitely am very fond of her and I know she feels the same about me.

Trivia: She and I often joke about how she should have been born a boy and I a girl.

2010-04-27T15:57:00.004+05:30

I am now a writer of international repute. I don't know whether the word international would be 'internacional' in Spanish, but I think it is safe to assume so, since those Spaniards often barter a 't' for a 'c'. Yes, well, the proof of my international fan-base is the 'Visitors' widget on the blog. There have been visitors from Almaty City and Lima, from Vancouver and Gwalior. Woah! I feel important.

There was a fight today as well. Everything was hunky-dory yesterday, but today a hair-straightener, a cell-phone and the television(almost) were smashed. This is the first public acknowledgment of the series of such incidents, but it's true. Not everything stays in the closet forever. Yes, I do see that smirk on your face after you read the 'closet' word, and on my blog at that...

I have also been trying to make sense of the Simple Keynesian Model, but without much luck so far. I seem to be going around in circles. I start out and return to the same spot after a lot of toil. These vicious cycles have enchained me within their toxic grasps. And yes, it's funny how I'm going back to being abstract.

Certainly Moist

2010-04-14T22:44:00.000+05:30

From this distance,
It seems painted. The eternity and beyond.
The same paint, the perspectives.
Gray it is doomed to be.
Blessed it neither is with the colors
Nor with the magical opposites.
Blacks or Whites.

Only when the texture dissolves
The frames capture and encase more
Unspoken resplendence
Of this vapor, unearthly.
Dark, with peripheral wisdom.

Certainly moist.
Certainly hazy, and dug into trenches of no-escape.
Yes, the texture dissolves.
Not necessarily sync-ed with my escape,
Or yours.

Like in this one, the nets come down.
Inexplicable, it has been always.
Too long. Still pursued.

I know I shall never
Move away from this illusion.
Cling on, forevermore
And move on, move on, move on
The quest ends.
Sometimes, it does.

End.
Holy
Cross-trances.
Petty psychedelia.

Oh.
This, an end.

Not yours probably.

Badlaav

2010-04-10T19:24:00.003+05:30

Sehme huey aashiyaane,
Bujhe huye yeh dhun
Madmast they jo deewaane,
Tham chuke woh dhadkan, sun.

Andher bani hai siyahi
Un kahaniyon ki yeh anjaam
Gumraah caravan, ek tanha raahi
Bikhre neendon ke khoye paigaam.

An Ordinary Love Story

2010-04-05T22:48:00.001+05:30

I distinctly remember them.
Gurdass Singh was a cable operator by profession and claimed credit for being the person who got the optical cable-lines in our colony digitalized. Mum was never very fond of him for he would ‘elope’ with the money she would pay him for our half-yearly cable-wire updating and would return only when he would be promised some more. He played football in the evenings and swore his throats out to his friends. He was just another regular 25 year old Sikh guy in our colony, fourteen kilometers from Amritsar. His dazzling smile stood out effectively when he would reason with my mum why she should pay him a bit more than she considered logical.

And there was Sanobar Shifa. I never saw much of her within the colony but every morning when I would wait for my school bus with a dozen other kids near the entry-point into the colony, I would see her walking past us with a poignant nonchalance a part of her face, into the mosque- the only one in the locality. Always accompanied by her brother, she would be usually dressed in a salwar-kameez, and her petite structure moved as if in rhythm. There was something rebellious about her, though I never figured what it was.

I did visit the Gurdwara because I loved the soothing charm of Shabad-Gurbani and the fact that it was the coolest hang-out spot for me and all of my friends. The guys could also fool around with the Army-equipments, the mud-trenches and the netted-ladders while the girls would mostly giggle, engage in bicycle-races on the field outside. It was one such Saturday morning at the Gurdwara when I heard they had eloped. Gurdass Singh and Sanobar Shifa had run away together.

It was not a sacrilege. Love never was. So we were told by Head Granthi Sartaj Singh, the grand-old-man that presided over the Ik-Onkara chants, the ‘sajda-sessions’ and the langar-management in the afternoon. Anwar Qadri, the one man-manager of the tiny mosque echoed his views. Everything was in harmony. The Shifas and the Singhs though, were visibly enraged. Each family hurled profanities against the other in shameless public spectacle. Things were getting out of hand with every below-average-income family of the colony starting to take sides and the above-average-income ones sticking their noses up at the situation, and the communal harmony getting ruined effectively.

A fortnight later we had a deployment consisting of members of both religious communities come over to our bungalow. As one of the most beloved men and a trusted doctor at that, my father was to help solve the dispute. Dad didn’t have much solving to do. As it turned out, both communities had reconciled themselves with the blasphemy committed by a member each, of their own, and promised to leave the couple at their own peace if only they returned from their own obscure existence from some unknown village in Haryana Gurdass Singh had last made a call from . “Daktorsaab, if you so order them, they shall pay heed”, they reasoned.

It took Dad nearly a week to get in touch with Gurdass and Sanober, for those were the days prior to mobile-phones. Gurdass was exuberant, Dad said, to know that his family and Sanobar’s had agreed to settle all of it without as much of a blood-bath. He told my father “Daktorsaab, I shall never be able to thank you enough for the sense you drove into my folks’ minds”, despite Dad truthfully dis-acknowledging anything to do with the decision.

Gurdass Singh and Sanobar Shifa came home together. Sanobar’s parents took her home promising to Gurdass a grand wedding reception within a month. Over the next three days, I did wait for my school-bus where I usually did, but I did not see Sanobar Shifa making her way to the mosque. In fact no one saw her. Gurdass Singh did keep playing football for a couple of days. Then one evening he too didn’t come to play football.

That night, at around 9 pm, there was a vehement knock on our main-door. My mum opened the door only to find an inebriated Gurdass Singh tumbling inside, with gauntly red and swollen eyes. Clearly, he had been weeping for so long that even his tears had dried up. He looked at my Mum and weakly said, “Medam, Daktorsaab ruined my life too bad. I had my trust in him”. He said ever since their return the Shifas had not let Sanobar meet him even once and had kept her under constant house-arrest. He did not know what their motives were, but he suspected sinister foul-lay. In that one evening, while my Mum consoled the colony-cable operator, I saw her weep too. In Gurdass’s drunken banter was the resonance of every heart that ever got shattered despite love having stayed very alive.

Later that night, Dad revealed the news to us over dinner. The Shifa’s had hatched a conspiracy jointly with the Singhs to get Dad ask their respective scions to come back to the colony before marrying Sanobar off to a fifty-year old businessman and family friend of the Shifa’s, in Karnal

That was it.
No one ever saw Sanobar again. Her sisters did keep up with their bicycle-races though none visited the mosque, which was apparently where their elder sister had first met her love. Gurdass was saved from a suicide attempt in the Beas, by his friends. His life they could save, but his smile was lost. He hardly played football ever again, neither did he quarrel over money, though one time he did come over and apologize to Dad for blaming him for the end of his love-story. Five months later, we moved to Dehradun, and we’ve not heard of Sanobar-Gurdass ever since.

This was one love-story that remained unsung. Neither did it reach a “Happily ever after” culmination, nor was it characterized by bloodbaths, over-the-top long-lingering after-effects, and no one even got to know how the two people suffered. It was born out of nowhere, in a quaint small-town mosque, and it died in obscurity, amidst two families warring for their own honor in their religious perimeters, despite it having been vetoed positive by both the religious heads. These aren’t the stuff stereotypical love-tragedies are made of. This one consisted of an over-confident doctor in a settlement of semi-literate people, a heroine that didn’t battle her plight and shake the shackles of marriage-to-a-man-thirty-years-older-to-her off, and run off once again with the man she loved, and a hero whose greatest displays of breakdown were one jittery-drunken cribbing hour to a lady who refused to pay him more than he would ask for his services, and a half-hearted plunge into a semi-tributary of the Beas. It was just a love that I’ve seen perish in full-bloom, a love story that no one has bothered to remember.

2010-04-01T22:10:00.003+05:30

You see, you all are cool people. You listen to Pink Floyd while smoking marijuana and the ‘grass’ really makes you feel like you are dwelling within Elysian Lawns. So by virtue of such things that you do, you are more than perfectly licensed to laugh at me if I tell you that Ila Arun and her mustard-and-nicotine tonsils get me high.And I'm that uncool. Deal with it.

Also, I hear Mr. Ragupathi is retiring in a month. Surely that's a good thing in a way. But the question is how good is it? I mean Adolf Hitler too was a characteristic of 1940's Europe, right? With his (self-inflicted)departure, a lot changed in Europe. So with this man's departure(as well of his wife's, scheduled for two years later) a lot of things are going to change in De Nobili School, Maithon. Not that things have stayed the same ever since I left(2007) though. All the political/financial debacle that the school underwent, I am merely happy all of that is now over, and the school is back in experienced, able and dependable hands.

Kokhono neem-tikto, Kokhono modhu-mishto...

2010-03-22T17:02:00.003+05:30

Boiraagi mon tomar je shaahebjee,
Amaar bukete je aachhe koyed aaj obdhi,
Bhalobasha'r rokkhok,amaar ishwor tumii...

Chand-aar-taara
Dekha holo shaara.
Lojjay morey je amaar mon,
Hey bhogobaan,
Lojjay morey je amaar mon...

Uhm-Huma...

Lifestillgoeson

2010-03-18T15:13:00.009+05:30

Well, not that I had no idea about it, but nevertheless, it looks more impressive when definitively tabulated like this. After the terrible unfocused-ness of the two years, the never being able to get myself to study, the feeling of loss when everyone around me seemed to know so much more, the numerous flak from various teachers for not being 'serious' enough/not having the ability to grasp the content of the syllabus, I finally did beat most people at the game they claimed to be better than me, and managed to come 5th in my entire batch at St. James', in the ISC exams...

http://kanishkkanoria.blogspot.com/2009/05/isc-results-st-james.html

I've also had this epiphany about Chotopammu. Her name is Gauri Khan. It is hilarious really that despite their real surnames being Lahiri or something of that sort, they choose to use the 'title' 'Khan'. I mean they must be among those very few Khans that are Hindus. And to top it, ChotopaMmu's name is Gauri. Hilarious, really! More importantly, at age 60(?), she has joined Facebook, and has started adding her family members as 'friends'. Facebook's reach continues to baffle me. Many came and fizzled out- Orkut, Twitter, Google Wave(several never even took off), but Facebook is still going notoriously strong.

I promised I'd share a few photographs- snippets from my life, so here I go...
Shahana and I at College-Holi.

Bhaang at College-Holi(Manisha, Aishani and Sayantani).

Rhea, Ikshaku and I on Holi, the day we celebrated at Hiland Park, with a lot of friends. The three of us went Bhaang-hunting all over South Calcutta in a cab(refer to photo). The taxi-meter ran upto Rs. 160, but we were unable to procure any Bhaang.

Debadrita and I at the Chakmanik Resort- Mansi, where we went for our College-picnic.

With Puja, Sayantika and Debadrita at a temple in the Chakmanik Village. The four of us,with Manimanjari, went on a special road-trek all over the village while all of the others stayed confined within the perimeters of the resort.

At Chakmanik. Pubali,Manimanjari,Sriparna,Ahona and me.

Taniya, Shresht and I. At Shashank's place, on his birthday. We surprised him right in the morning,by turning up at his place. The plan was made by his mum and Rhea together.

A few of us that turned up to surprise Shashank. Shashank in the middle.

Police Line, Please Do Cross

2010-03-08T18:13:00.002+05:30

This side of the police line.
Looks too textual.
And monotonous.uni-dimensional.monochromatic.

The audience on the other side is already bored.
They do not want to cross anymore.

Hence I shall
quite soon
post some photographs.
Snapshots of no consequence
to the audience, or the one killed.
(Was it me? -the latter?)
Well, still I shall.
Not in this one.
Maybe in this one.
Later shall I decide.

What I Miss....

2010-03-08T03:04:00.004+05:30

Memories are infinitesimally more relishable when one has people to share them with. As a child, I had to move quite a number of times, owing to the nature of my dad’s profession. As he served the nation, by helping those that protect her and her people, with his medical services, I got to be a part of the livelihoods of a variety of ‘peoples’, but my own childhood became, to an extent, fragmented. We resided away from our hometown, our people, our cultural fabric. We had to anchor ourselves in waters which weren’t ours, and lived lives which we would have to abandon. I made friends that I knew wouldn’t be forever for me to keep. Those days are long gone, and I have been living in my home-town for close to the last three years, I have made friends in this city, and got on with life. But sometimes, I do remember school. A relic or a memento in some corner of the house brings to total recall the most wonderful, the diverse range of experiences that school was. It doesn’t help that I’m in touch with only one friend from the days I remember as ‘School Days’, and when I repetitively undergo epiphanies that most of my present friends are in touch with all of their miniature-day friends, and when I witness them discussing their days of school-uniforms-getting-stained, drawing-lessons-and-basic-math, junior-school-silly-revenge-tales and Noddy and Enid Blyton and Cartoon Network, it feels like pin-pricks that the people I shared them with are forever lost(well the Facebook and Orkut accounts exist, but in effect, they ARE lost).

Around a week back, a friend from Class 5, Rituraj Jain added me as a friend on Orkut. I remember the times when we used to sit together and discuss things like Civic-sense in Jamaica, and his Mc Donald’s cap. After he had left school, in the nine years of interim, I had thought about him, and about what had come of him quite a few times. So, naturally, I began frantically searching for a photograph of his the moment I came by his profile. While going through his three albums, I was actually picturing the head of the same ten-year old boy, from the Class 5 Class-Photo, on a grown-up’s body. Disappointment hit me when I realized that none of the twenty-five photographs in his Virtual-albums were of his own. He has evidently grown into a nature-lover and pretty much a family-guy. All the photos were either of trees, plants, and the encasing skies, or of his parents, sisters, and extended family. Neither has he replied to my “How and where are you these days, man?” query yet. This is the tenacity of the communication-cord that today connects me and my school-friends.

The world too is changing rapidly. What is true today ceases to hold any meaning tomorrow. Such disruptions even in minute things upset me. I have grown up watching the Filmfare Awards- India’s Academy Awards. The best and the biggest stars and planets of Bollyverse come down to celebrate the best of the bygone year. The grandest performances, the best attires, and the most-memorable moments – these are all what Filmfare is all about. Everything in Filmfare becomes a part of Bolly-history. I want to be a part of the legacy, I used to say to myself every year after watching the event on the television screen in my mundane, dichromatic room. This year’s event, which I watched last evening, seemed less colorful than my SAB life. The lustre, the magnificence, the visual opulence, everything seemed lost. The once-glorious stars and starlets seemed dull and pale, the smiles seemed mechanical, the speeches diplomatic and rote-learnt. Where was the old-charm, the life, the warmth? It seemed like an ugly-cousin of the more-restrained Oscars.
As I die every night, a new I is born every morning. Yesterday’s me isn’t today’s me. Last moment’s me died as the moment passed by. Nothing stays the same. Only the ghosts of yesterday permeate their way into today no matter how solids are the walls of indifference I create to insulate myself, and haunt the happiness out of me, and take it back to yesterday. Similarly shall today’s ghosts bring tomorrow’s happiness back to today. The balance is restored but the walls between the days dissolve resulting in such inarticulateness, to such incoherence of words and thoughts.

Colors of Hippo

2010-02-25T05:10:00.003+05:30

Right from the time I happened to see a certain Video Jockey with flaming-green hair-streaks and a perfect ‘Nowhere-man’ of an English accent on MTv announce that one could hope to win ‘Hip Hippo Hampers’ if one sends in one’s love-life-related-problems to be solved by Dr. Louve(in Pink, of course), I knew that this would become a phenomenon huger than The Joker, huger than Tiger Woods, even huger than Tuni’r Ma(for those who don’t agree, let me remind you that the phenomenon has been detonated just recently, for the spark to reach the concrete, palpable structure proper of the dynamite of potential, it shall require some time). And what a confident entry into the arena of Lay’s and Cheetos and the banana-chips that are sold in standalone theatres and train compartments (and more recently, Bingo) the magnificent Hippo has made! Armed with a pan-harmonic slogan “Pyar baaNttey chalo”(Spread the love), much aptly suited for today’s terror-torn Earth, the advertisements depict the outstretched arms of THE Hippo,after whom(I guess it’s safe to assume) the company has been christened, invading their way into half-a-dozen frames with people engaging in fights, wordly abuses or corruption, and when offered Hippo chips, all misdoing and sinister activities terminate and all the people at fault realize their errors and accept their mistakes, do sit-ups and namastes- all to finally accept the Hippo chips the Hippo-arms were offering to one-and-all. They say, they at Hippo believe that the root cause of all evils is hunger, and the only way to wipe off crime is to remove hunger at all levels. And they believe, Hippo will do just that. A novel concept, with its heart at a very right place, you might think. However, the first time I opened a pack of Hippo-chips, I was left very disappointed. Those that claimed to be the messiahs of the hunger-struck have very visibly bowed down to commercialization and consumerism and have manufactured packages which are just 45% full.

Anyway, the diplomatic individual that I am, I wish to make no comments on corporate-corruption. Especially in light of the tension prevailing in college, post the student-council elections, where there are more allegations than truth(and several true cases as well) of students assaulting their fellow-students of the opposite political affiliation, I have resolved to face every individual with a lot of love, a wide smile, and as one friend from college suggests very wisely, with packets of Hippo chips. The delicious flavors and the mind-numbing aroma of Hippo shall, I hope, soothe the blazing fury that is currently residing within so many people in college. Holi is just a few days away, and it is one festival which is celebrated with great harmony in the country. So, I would beseech my college-acquaintances to follow Hippo-ethics in life, and step out of the monotony of a single-colored existence, whether blue or red, and embrace all the colors of the world( and of Hippo). I have even heard that the benevolent honchos/messiahs at HippoCorp have decided to distribute for free one Hippo-picture-frame with every two packets of the snack. So go ahead. Get yourself photographed with one arch-‘enemy’, put a smiling-Myspace-Facebook variety of photograph of the two of you into the Hippo-frame, and spread the love this Holi. Hip Hip Hippo! All Hail Hippo!

Dil Toh Bachcha Hai - English Lyrics.

2010-02-06T02:09:00.005+05:30

Can’t take my dazed eyes off your burning charm;
Can’t bite off the silky threads of passion, so warm;
Old Age has left me dwelling only in blacks, whites and grays;
Wonder why then the chromatic clouds of youth loom large these days;
Oh God! The pulse is rising, steadily quite
The glow of the face succumbs to a sorry plight
Fear grips me, a forsaken bed causes dismay.
The child in me lives like a newly-conceived sun-ray.
A fresh twig, an unripe fruit, you may say.

Who would’ve ever known, this shielded heart
Would resort to mischief so cunning?
Some holiness of spirit, that instinct doth impart
Was what all expected from one so stunning.
It creates chaos and compels with pursuit.
It dwells on thoughts of no consequence, absolute.
There is none as mischievous as this very heart.
Let it be stopped, let it be cropped,
Deception would tear me down, with tears left to be mopped.
Love seems formidable; I fear it may do a giveaway.
The child in me lives like a newly-conceived sun-ray.
A fresh twig, an unripe fruit, you may say…

Never here. Never more.

2010-02-05T02:09:00.004+05:30

Speak to me about worlds that don't exist, about colors that are out of bounds of the rainbow-realms. Speak to me about fantasies that don't make sense and dreams that aren't worth the realisation. Speak to me about lost pasts and the golden enigma. None of it makes sense anyway, none of it fits in.

[Inspired from 'This Side Of Paradise' by Francis Scott Fitzgerald]

November and December 2009, and January 2010

2010-01-23T20:51:00.003+05:30

To start with, my sister just knocked on my door asking me to leave the door open. Flustered by the prospect of a sudden, random intrusion into my privacy, I asked her the reason behind the demand/request. She said, she was feeling scared in the other room, alone. It’s 2 in the morning, and my twenty-one year old sister with a chin piercing and death-metal inclinations is feeling scared of being alone in a room.

Of late, I’ve been going out quite a lot. Birthdays, festivals, random socializing occasions, movie-marathons, I’m doing them all. Well, studies was supposed to attain ultra-importance right from the beginning of 2010, but that, I guess, is not happening soon. So, on one hand I’ve been keeping the company of culturally-inclined Bangali kids, the ones who love World-Cinema, and indie music, folk-rock and Bob Dylan, the ones who understand theatre and can perform an autopsy of Orhan Pamuk or Franz Kafka’s style and body of work, and get high on marijuana under the moonlight, while on the other, I’m finding myself around Marwari and Gujarati kids, in little black dresses, and expensive black shirts, ones that ‘chiggy-wiggy’ to Hindi music at ‘raat ke dhaai baje’ and drive around the city in expensive and huge cars, and choose to watch ‘Chance Pe Dance’ over ‘A Christmas Carol’ and garnish their vocabulary with ‘like’ and ‘yaaa’…
I mean no offence to anyone though. I’ve grown up with lots of different kinds of people around me, and so, these little limitations of both clans never bother me much. I derive the best of both(or more) worlds.

At the birthday party I hosted along with Aritri and Nisha, at my uninhabited Rajarhat apartment, a lot of spilling happened. I was scared about the walls, but thankfully, the freshly painted ones didn’t get too badly stained, and I didn’t really un-build the ones I construct for my own privacy. What was extremely strange was, seven-and-a-half(one of them- a ‘patiala’) pegs of ‘Magic Moments’ did almost nothing to me. I remember speaking with a hushed voice, and serving food to the guests after the intake. Having a high capacity is one thing, and not getting affected after seven-and-a-half pegs is something at an entirely higher level. Scary, much.

Strangely enough, among the people I’ve been regularly meeting of late, are some guys from my batch of St. James’, ones I’d never ever spoken to for more than five-minutes-at-a-stretch while in school. While the closest friends from De Nobili continue to fizzle out(interactions with even Aritra and Anindita have dropped drastically, blame it on my non-acceptance-of-phone-calls-policy ;the others having disappeared from my life even before), the ones from St. James’ continue to grow more-and-more prominent in my sphere of school-friends. It’s strange, really. I’d honestly never thought that I’d pursue communication with anyone apart from Ajju and Ikshaku after school, but these things, I guess, just happen.

There has been another satisfying turn in the flow of events. I’ve got myself involved in LOK- a forum created with a vision to help promote young talent in Calcutta- help unravel precious talent in the fields of dance, theatre, movie-making, music, elocution, painting, photography. The idea was conceived by a friend, Soumyajit, and he invited me to be a part of this hugely ambitious venture. The official inauguration was held on the 3rd of January. For the event, the team got a folk-theatre group from Chhattisgarh to Calcutta. Apart from a performance(Raja Phokalwa) by the group, a myriad of talent was up on display in the form of a photography exhibition, some live skits, songs and dance sequences, live-painting, self-composed poetry recitation done by friends from LOK itself. The modus operandi of the entire event was maintained strictly at ‘constant-interaction-with-the-audience’.

Also there has been a series of deaths this winter. This winter(2009-10) has by far been the coldest winter I’ve ever experienced in Calcutta. It reminded me strongly of the ‘interior’ majestic winters of North India, the six-degree celcius mornings in Maithon. The temperature dropped to ten degrees one day in December 2009. Apart from Dadu, Himumashi(Ma’s only sister)’s father-in-law, a very healthy man(as opposed to Dadu’s fifteen long years’ suffering), the winner of the Mr. Calcutta pageant a few decades back, passed away to a double heart-attack. He was fit enough to enjoy a normal game of cricket one evening, and the next morning, he had gone up in smoke. The others that breathed their last were a classmate’s grandmother, an old lady in a neighboring building, an aunt of a friend from LOKtheatre, and the illustrious, longest serving chief minister of any state of India, the man who was betrayed by his party from becoming the Prime Minister- Jyoti Basu.

I have, as of now, despite several rounds of planning and yearning, not yet watched the evidently mediocre movie ‘Pyaar Impossible’. Well, of course, I understand and appreciate good Cinema, but there are times when the content doesn’t matter and this movie is one such movie for me. I know that there is nothing novel or innovative about the movie, but I still feel this immense desire to go and indulge myself because of the mere presence of the utterly-edible, the perfectly-awesome, totally-and-phenomenally-gorgeous Priyanka Chopra in the movie. Among the movies I’ve watched recently and loved, however, is the magnum-opus, the path-breaking movie, which took more than a decade to be created, the first-of-its-kind, entirely 3Dimensional movie ‘Avatar’. It was a totally new experience, watching this movie. I also enjoyed ‘Chungking Express’, ‘Juno’, ‘Rocket Singh’ and the predictable-from-start-to-finish-yet-thoroughly-enjoyable ‘Three Idiots’.

Other memorable events in the last three months include the annual fest of Presidency College, ‘Milieu’, that was held in the last week of December. For the ‘Impact’, our team, consisting of Biaas, Kaushik, Shahana, Taniya and me, had a winner right from its very conceptualization, with ‘Khoon Bhari Shaam’-a Indian version of the International tear-jerking, hormone-cycles-upsetting melodrama of a novel, ‘Twilight’. Also, the ‘Indian Ocean’ performance and sneaking in all of my non-Presidency friends into the Presidency enclosure for the same is something I’m not going to forget in a hurry. Also brilliant was the Christmas Eve, which I spent with some of my best friends, having an amazingly memorable time at various places.Another important event that happened in November was the mid-term exam. For the first time in my life, I found myself at the bottom of a class, academically. With a meager thirty-eight out of a possible hundred (and only five students below me in this chronology), I’ve obviously become one of the most scorned students of my department (Well, at least sharing a sour relationship with teachers is nothing new for me). I do not know whether my cataclysmic downfall was because my present classmates are more in love with text-books than any previous set of my classmates (quite justifiable, they are after all, students of the most esteemed Economics department of the sub-continent, their attachment with academics is sacrosanct), or whether I have sailed farther out in the dangerous ocean of ‘non-association-with-course-material’. I am hoping to make a come-back in the ‘toppers-of-class’ list, but the chances of that occurring appear to be very, very bleak. This fact should be clearly evident from the reality academics found mention at the very end of this post, after everything else. Which is to say, this note, ends right here, abruptly, like all of my other life-update notes

Happy Birthday To Me... and thanks everybody.

2010-01-15T01:05:00.001+05:30

That belief just got re-iterated.

However much I might continue to try and find life-driving forces from my depression.
The fact remains, I’ve got(and always had) amaaaaaazzzinggg friends and an awwwwweeeesommmmme family.
I can never thank anyone enough for all of them.

Happy 19th Birthday to me…

Gloom and despair aren’t around the corner, Success is. Celebrations are.
Everything will fall into place. Everything will work out.. :) :)

Oder Utsab- psychedelia and prevarications.

2010-01-13T03:52:00.002+05:30

Rukkho kesh, molin haashi, chhinobicchino beshobhoosha,
Shushko twake'r jeerno abedoneyo ghor bendechhe rongeen nisha,
Aaj shobar utsab, shorbomoney shato anando, abhilasha,
Notun, shushojjito ei unmottow bheere eraao khunjchhe nijeder bhasha.

Kochi moner komol gothon, bastober kothorotar bimukh,
Bojhe na ora, e utsab'er hullor, e toh noy oder shukh,
Mrito akansha'r sahasra anuranan, utsab toh muhoorter'i agontuk,
Moner ronokshetry hridoy bideerno, antarer jwaala sarbograshi,sarbobhook.

E shaaj, e shajja, ora alaada, osrudhaaray porishfuto,
E utsaber maadok akorshon, tobu shob aashfalon-i boddo sfeeto,
Shubechhabarta'r maya'r bish chene na ora, cheenir prolepta toh jhuto,
Kaaya'i jaader ekmaatro obolombon, taader khushio paalay na khultei mutho.

Him

2010-01-06T03:46:00.002+05:30

There was a kid.
Charming in some ways, Exasperating in more.

From what I remember of him, he was always talking. Or screaming. Or laughing.
Frankly, I sometimes got an impression that he thought he owned everything. He was Omnipresent. He was all over the place. Those were the initial days.

We had taken a liking to him initially. His confidence was attractive. What was unsettling though, was the fact that he defied all conventions. He did not behave his age. He did not behave his gender. He did not behave his linguistic or cultural identities. He was not one of us. It was this very recklessness that had drawn all of us to him then. He was nothing like any of us ever knew. He was not one of us. He was a mystery none of us could decipher. He dreamt big. We all knew that, by the end of college, we all would have respectable jobs or equally enticing scholarships in the glamorous universities in the West. And we would have our own families. We also knew that none of that would apply for him. Though naturally the most brilliant among all of us, we knew he would not tread the paths of conventional wisdom. In fact, very often he would claim that he would give up his life in the quest for new things. Maybe blue lemons. Or Lunar-flavored ice-creams. Or an entire new ‘All That Jazz’ sequence that could put Catherine Zeta-Jones and Rob Marshall to shame.

He looked great, was an eloquent debater, a star footballer, the most elegant dancer in college. Yet, he never found popularity. Most of us were secretly jealous. He was something none of us could ever be. His way of looking at life was not feasible for kids like us that had always had a very-grounded upbringing, to adopt. Surprisingly, he never had a girlfriend despite the girls, that we were smitten by, drooling over his very existence. We would suspect him to be gay, but then, he never even got a boyfriend either. That lack of interest towards acquiring a partner eventually got him tagged a social misfit, despite all his talents. He still didn’t care.

Well, things happened in our lives as well. We, the guys, found girlfriends in the girls that were besotted with him and the girls in our group found boyfriends. We preferred spending time with our respective partners and would hardly hang around as a group any more. He was always alone, but sometimes we would invite him to spend some time with us for, well, his presence ensured great photographs for every moment that we spent. He was brilliant behind his camera; he seemed to possess a lust for photography.

In the later days, we all gained much more prominence. He had started out with great promise, but I feel he had somehow sensed the latent feeling of prejudice that people had against him, which led to his quiet acceptance of a circumstance-catalyzed-fizzling out. On the exterior, he still was his jovial self, but something had gone awry with him. The sparkle in his eyes had reduced in its brilliance. Also, he had started looking weaker and leaner.

I topped my class when we graduated. He ranked a close second. Only, he did not turn up for the convocation ceremony, which was a week after the results, which in turn was four months after the examinations. We partied throughout that evening, after our convocation. We drank, and got wild. And we did miss the great photographer who would have captured the entire evening in his camera. Not much though. The four-and-a-half month hiatus had given us the opportunity to wipe off from our memories, the guy-whose-initial-glory-we-could-never-match-up-to, and the guy-whose-steady-downfall-none-of-us-would-have-ever-wanted-to-have.

The news reached us the next morning. He had just bowed down to rapidly-dividing-groups-of-cells in his liver. We were sad. We visited his parents. We did not wish this for him. Yet, somehow, somewhere, within all of us, lurked a sense of relief. The guy who could’ve dazzled the world with his brilliance had withdrawn from the race, leaving for all of us the opportunity to become The Famous One, and not friends of The Famous One. He had failed. He had not created anything worthwhile. Anything that the world would remember him for.

His way of expressing his emotions had always been Over-the-top.And corny. He claimed people would love him for his being Corny. Even in his death, he wrenched out Love from all of us through one such corny act of his. His letters reached us a week after his death. Each letter enclosed a charmingly written poem for the person it was addressed to, and a photograph of the respective person with him. He and his disarming smile, he and his intensely kind eyes, he and hypnotizing charm. He had indeed created. Beautifully heart-rending souvenirs for all of us to remember college by. He had created something WE would remember him for.

Abaar Bashee, Abaar Rongeen

2009-12-30T16:24:00.003+05:30

Uchhashe’r mukto moho, stobdhotaay taar khonosthayee protipholon.
Birohe lukiye byarthota, cheharaay shei obhibyakti’t nischup aashphaalon.
Aashbe phire abaar, choopichoopi gutipaaye, abar ei muhurto, ei shomoy, ei deen.
Purono bochhorer bashi smriti, notun bochhorer notun bikele hoye uthbe pher rongeen

Nirbashon

2009-12-30T16:23:00.001+05:30

Nirbashon,
Swechhae hyaeno jibonjaapon,
Klanto chhaya te besh…
Obhimaaner
Berajaal, tukro smriti
Kobe holo shuru, janaar aagei shesh…

Dadu, hues of sepia, and dusty old photographs...

2009-12-22T02:36:00.009+05:30

Dadu passed away three days back, leaving behind an even more mitigated proportion of males in my close family. For, I’ve never had any uncle, and I never had the other grandpa. My mom and dad have a sister each, and both my grandmothers are very healthy and active. And also, I have a sister, and I was always closer to Ma than Baba. Even with this humongous amount of feminine presence in my family, I always had Baba and Dadu. Now with Dadu gone, I find my gender representation in my family at irredeemably serious peril.

Also, Baba wanted a photograph of Dadu for the Sraddho ceremony. Thus came tumbling out of the racks, the old, thick, ‘original-full-version-Oxford-dictionary-ko-by-great-margins-beat-karnewaale’ family albums. Well, I had forgotten about the existence of most of those photographs – we were leafing through the albums after that long. I was four, I was two, I was one, I wasn’t born yet, my sister’s birth, my parents getting married. Jodhpur Park, Picnic Garden, Ballygunge Place. Bokaro, Delhi, Ferozepur, Amritsar. Army camps and parties, Bangaali bonediyana , Jharkhand small-town tranquility, the Raybahadur Kumarnath Bagchi legacy, all the great family ethics and values, all the aristocracy-which my ancestors certainly do not hope to see surviving through me...Despite the fashion sensibilities having arrived and departed in cycles – (Floral prints, khadis, checks), the times only moved forward. My weirdly round face chiselled down, my sister now has straight hair instead of the ‘hujoorbujoor’ curls, Ma and Baba’s black tresses and glowing skin have been replaced by salt-and-pepper, and wrinkles. So many of the distant relatives smiling out from those old photographs have since, moved over to the other side. We lost some to accidents, some to diseases and some to old age, the latest being Dadu.

It is the same end which awaits us all. The Inevitable. Only we do not know when it is going to thrust itself across our paths. It is not scary really; rather there is something very poignant about it. And in those old photographs, people look so happy. They all look younger and better than they do now. Some have been married off, since. They all have their own kids- those aunts that were present for my mom’s baby shower( ‘shaad’) before I was born, they are mothers themselves now. Quite some of the people in the photographs have had messy divorces. And there were even a few who spelled their own ends.

Well, THIS wasn’t intended to be a sad and depressing note, but I’m afraid, it is turning out to be one. What I really want to highlight is, Change, truly is the only constant, so, despite cynics and elders and professors telling me off about my lack of a sense of responsibility, or about my immature and unconventional-and-disturbing way of life and thought processes, I am not going to fret about what will happen and when and blaady-blaady-blah. Everything will change, everything will fall in place. As Hagrid had said,”Whatever will come will come and I will have to face it when it does…”

Chocolates.

2009-12-09T02:51:00.007+05:30

Well, chocolates.
How special are they?
Do they really deserve more of that unquestioned, unaudited kind of love than a good little angel like me ever got?

What is with all the craving for chocolates?
All that they can do is - touch my tongue, and then melt on it, then coat it with a gooey, sweet layer of itself.
They are highly expensive, but they melt like 'ekdom neka poshto' or 'nonir putool'...

If I indeed have to make love to something that is expensive, ANDmelts,
I'd rather choose Gael Garcia Bernal over chocolates.

Is there a chocolate-Penelope Cruz or a Chocolate-Gael Garcia Bernal anywhere?

Turning Thirty/Old

2009-12-09T01:46:00.001+05:30

4th December 2009

I was watching the 14th episode of the 7th season of the sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S- ‘The One Where They All Turn Thirty’, which explored how paranoid people, in general, get when they turn thirty. While Rachel argues, “I’m still 29 in Guam” on her thirtieth birthday, Joey accuses God saying that the Omnipotent had a deal with him, “Let the others grow old, not me” on his 30th, and says “You’re Chandler no more” on Chandler’s, and Monica blurts out a drunk-speech claiming she could do whatever she wants to, since she was 30, on her 30th… Also, Chandler and Monica, themselves thirty as well, present a card to Rachel for her 30th that goes “Happy Birthday, Grandma”, to poke fun at the newest kid to have crossed the barrier-of-twenty.
This particular syndrome finds mention in a lot of places. The fact that whenever a person turns any-multiple-of-ten, whenever the second digit of one’s age goes from 9 to 0, and the first goes on to become the next integer, one particularly feels a great deal older. Not that I relate with it. When I turned ten, I don’t think I was particularly sad, and I haven’t turned twenty (or for that matter, nineteen) yet.

But how would it feel when I turn thirty?
I guess I will be feeling down and blue. Most of my friends know how I want to die at twenty nine, for, well, thirty is too old.
Right now, it seems like an event that is due sometime a light-year away. It is too distant a prospect to be given a serious thought. Life, however, has always terrified me with just how fast it is. It’s so fast that a person is a child at a point of time, and suddenly he’s in high-school, and then in college, then he gets married, has children, retires from his job, and the very next thing he knows, he is preparing himself for his death. This, I know, shall apply to me as well. I will turn nineteen next January, then twenty, and then thirty before I know. I have always loathed growing up, growing old.

We all keep some targets fixed in life. I know I want to be on the top of the world by the time, I’m twenty six, and I want to enjoy success for four years, and then make a quick exit out from life while still at the pinnacle. But will I still look at life the same way when I’m thirty? Won’t I want to live on and enjoy my success, IF I am successful? won’t think of myself as an old loser, with nothing to live for, when I’m thirty. That won’t quit be possible? I will have the desire to live, to enjoy, even then .And for all you know, the messed up, laid-back person that I am, will I be able to achieve anything at all by thirty?

In the words of some wise man, “You’re as young as you feel”. I have an upper-hand here, though. I don’t feel older than fifteen currently. And I know for a fact that my age might render me old, but with my tastes and way of living life, I will never be too old to enjoy. I wonder what use that will be of, since most of my friends will have become too grumpy and serious with life by then, and the teenagers and young people will obviously not want the thirty-year-old-me to be a part of their activities. I wonder, I wonder what all that shall be like?

However, right now, I am eighteen, and I have a very good life, with the right balance of overwhelming joy and mind-numbing sorrow, and I have got great friends, and good education, and wonderful family, and if this blog exists till 15 January, 2021, we shall read this post again, and discuss all of this in a new light.

6th December 2009

I, indeed, am feeling very old these days. Only today I was attending the 12th birthday party of one of my only three first cousins, and well, I was made to watch Dhoom-2 with a bunch of kids, aged between ten and thirteen. All of these kids, the new-age tech-geeks, gadget-gurus had a unique take on every scene of the movie, and I was not only feeling left out, but also weirdly uncool and back-dated. Well, most of the comments they made were pretty silly, but still some of the things they discussed, and their way of looking at me with non- acceptive eyes made me very uneasy. These kids on the verge of stepping into their teenage, made me, almost stepping out of mine want to sing the My Chemical Romance song “Teenagers scare the living shit out of me…”

Seven Altercations

2009-12-05T16:20:00.001+05:30

Seven shoes
That wait outside,
Three pairs, and one.
Color-synced when sold
(They) Pray in the cold.
Whims of love undone.

Seven pigs
Pink, round and oink,
That, to piglets, do give birth.
Garbage cans
Hay and grease from the barns.
They divide, rule in real mirth.

Seven keys
Potion and old degrees,
Unlocked to anarchy and terror.
Holy myths,
With tragic truths,
To the hollowness hold out a mirror.

Seven buttons
The neck greets the knees,
They, charming curves enclose.
Love turns blue
Pity takes a clue.
Blooming tales perish and close.

Seven coins
Pride, Deja vu with pink noise
From a legacy ancient, arise
Bury 'em deep
They are not yours to keep
Glory from these profits, a surprise.

Seven windows
Grainy sunlight shimmers,
A culture blends in with the dark.
Morgues of lust,
Crude passion infects like rust,
Shameless intrusion shows its spark.

Seven altercations
Explain to the moment,
Time merges love and hate.
Yet unexplained,
Its mystery remained,
Over such combustion do fantasies debate.

Pehli Baar Mohabbat Ki Hai - English Translation

2009-12-03T19:41:00.010+05:30

I just translated the delectable 'Pehli Baar Mohabbat Ki Hai' from the movie 'Kaminey' into English. I have tried to stay as true to the original Hindi lyrics as possible, but there are some modifications, mostly additions, made to the content of the song, which can be interpreted as my creative liberty.

The original Hindi song:
Thode bheege bheege se thode nam hai hum,
Kal se soye voye bhi to kam hai hum.
Dil ne kaisi harkat ki hai,
Pehli baar mohabbat ki hai,
Aakhiri baar mohabbat ki hai.

Aankhein doobi doobi si surmayee madham,
Jheelen paani paani hai bass tum aur hum,
Hmmm baat badi hairat ki hai,
Pehli baar mohabbat ki hai,
Aakhiri baar mohabbat ki hai.

Khwab ke bojh se, kapkapati huyee,
Halki palkein teri, yaad aata hai sab,
Tujhe gudgudana, satana, yunhi sote hue,
Gaal pe teepna, meechna, bewajah besabab.

Yaad hai peepal ke jiske ghane saaye the,
Hum ne gilehri joothe matter khaaye the,
Yeh barqat unn hazrat ki hai.
Pehli baar mohabbat ki hai,
Aakhiri baar mohabbat ki hai

THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION:
A little misty, a little drenched are we
A placid sleep, we haven’t had of late, have we?
Our hearts are chanting a new rhyme
Love has thrust itself across us, this is the first time,
Love has entered our lives; hopefully the one and only time.

Eyes stay half-shut, smudged by an enigmatic kohl
The water in the lakes shine, reflect our forms, our souls.
These facts puzzle us, within us new tunes chime,
Love has thrust itself across us, this is the first time,
Love has entered our lives; hopefully the one and only time.

Dreams set the soft,
Lids of your eyes in a flutter.
Memories rush back,
In my senses, they mutter.
Those playful tickles, the allegations,
Teasing, and all the merry titillation,
Beside each other, while we lay.
Your cheeks that
Invite, and all the admiration
On the slightest hint, you say.

I remember, you may test,
Under the cool shade of the old peepal tree,
We indeed did taste,
Almonds from the squirrel, honey from the bee.
This song is, (no doubt, the best)
About the sweet afterglow of those moments of glee.

Walks. Through City Roads.

2009-11-13T22:59:00.003+05:30

I walk. Long distances.
Presidency to Ballygung Phari. Or Kalighat Metro Station to Ballygung Phari. Or City Centre to Hyatt Regency… and those countless other routes.
I walk whenever possible.
Walking is my most favorite means of conveyance.
It also gives me the feeling that I’m not depending on anyone else to transport me elsewhere. I’m independent.
Walking lets me soak in so much of the city.
I walk past so many people.
Some look lost. Some look determined. Some look too pleased with themselves.
Some walk alone.
Some walk with another person. Just one. A friend. A parent. A lover. And sometimes, even a stranger.
Some walk in huge groups.
Some walk as a cluster of a few-similarly clothed individuals.

However, something, most unfortunately, is common among all of them.
They, (almost) none of them, really look around to See. To absorb the world around.
They do not pause to look at the careless wall-graffiti on the walls on both sides.
The incessant wars being waged through those ‘dewaal-likhons’.
They do not pause to admire the delectably marvellous sight of sunrays seeping through pauses and recesses between those hundreds of tree leaves, that could have otherwise formed a green dome overhead.
They do not perceive the sheer bliss in the smiles of the children that call the roads their home.
They do not look at how every alternate manhole is left uncovered in a certain central Calcutta street.
They do not enjoy the aroma of the scented flowers on those trees the names of which they mightn’t know.
They do not derive the immense sadistic pleasure from kicking the small pebbles lining the pavements, from being able to dislocate them from where they had been resting peacefully.
They do not experience the wrath unleashed by the rain-gods on the little kittens that try to desperately find shelter and end up meowing relentlessly, in tones that evoke terrible sympathy.
Hence, they lose out on an extreme variety of potentially motto-of-life altering experiences, encounters, events and/or episodes.

The Moon-Lore

2009-11-09T01:10:00.004+05:30

I was the one that painted blemishes on the moon. Popular Culture might be of the opinion that there is a Dame-Spin-Yarn(no pun intended) or ‘Chorka-kataa-buri’, aged seven hundred thousand and twenty, who is perceived by Earth-dwellers as the dark spots that tarnish the beauty of the moon. The Chinese say there is the hare, brewing potions of immortality for the moon-God. Sugar-coated fables for the comfort of young children. Mothers, once upon a time, knew of my story. It made their teeth chatter. They never narrated my story to their children. Ergo, Mothers today do not remember me and my-minister-of-war, Darkness. We, that had embarked on that ambitious expedition aimed at conquering the youth, and love of the Moon. We, that on being refused, had taken her captive, and had inflicted ourselves, and some terrible physical wrath, upon her.

The moon, despite our obnoxious attempts at possessing her, still retains her grace. She illuminates and hence resists the lecherous sexual advances of the Darkness of the night sky, every night. Darkness has been fighting on my side since the beginning of times. When I was younger, and more aggressive, it used to frustrate me to see my all powerful minister-of-war failing to overpower the dainty lass more than just once a fortnight. On that one night every two weeks, when the moon has to give in, only because she has been resisting for too long, I used to go on a rampage. I used to unleash my supreme wrath. All of Death’s minions would then rise from the Underground and we would feast on human bitterness .I used to return late, in the early hours of the morning, to the seductive comforts in the cold stares that Silence, my minister-of-war’s devoted wife, would direct towards me, while allowing me to become a part of her. For some hours few.

Now in my death bed, I feel guilty. As a child, when I used to stare out of my window on a moon-lit night, the psychedelic effect of the illuminated hill-slope just beside my window, would leave me enthralled, enchanted. I would lap up the vision of brownies and elves merry-making in one corner of my garden. And then there would be visits from the silver-cloaked fairies from the other side of the rainbows, from the folks of the Tree Closeby.Tree Closeby spoke to me only when I would visit it on moon-lit nights. It spoke to me about its only sibling, the Faraway Tree, in an absolutely far, far away land. My love for the moon dates back to those days.

Even now I wonder, now when I am old, I am withering away. She, despite having existed under servile fearfulness, still retains her glow, her youth. Maybe, if I had made an approach with an aim to love from my heart, and not merely to conquer, maybe then, I could have had her as my own. But as my one time friend Aslan had said to me, “One should never wonder ‘What-if?’. Aslan and I had drifted apart many years back. Even he had advised me not to desire merely to conquer, but to learn to love. I never paid any heed to those who mattered. Now when I have only some hours to live, I regret, I regret…

Phera.

2009-11-04T02:41:00.002+05:30

Jaatra hoke na deergho,
Hoke na shey khonosthayee,
Jaatra sheshe tomay, amaay
Phire aashte hobei...

Aami bohukal takiye dekhechhi, shunechhi.
Surjaaste’r shomoye paakhider kakoli,
Bhebechhi, jaatra sheshe bashay pherar
Uchhash i ki taader modhur koli?
Phera’r e niyom er longhon
Hoyni aaj-o, e niyom chironton.

Joler buke aalor abha
Ei achhe, pormuhurte gaayeb, ei jhilik
Rong’er chhota akaasher gaaye
Raater aagomone muchhe jaayo theek
Jaar ghotechhe aagomon
Hobei tar kromosho gomon…

Aami aachhi, ei muhurte
Nishash-proshshashe ullashito,uddipto
Poncho-podaartho’r ei kaaya
Taader to gontobyo oi ontorikkho.
Phere shobai, poth aar koddur?
Jaay, phere, barey barey andhaar aar roddur.

Jaatra hoke na deergho.
Hoke na shey khonosthayee,
Jaatra sheshe tomay, amaay
Phire aashte hobei…

Ten fingers and Uneven Toes

2009-11-03T01:34:00.009+05:30

We all have. At least most of us do...

Given below is the first 'Misfit' poster. I plan to design several of these.And this was created when I was in a fight-arena pitted against Macroeconomics at around 2000 hours today...Watched a terribly cliched and crass (German) slasher flick called 'Dead in Three Days...' on World Movies today. And I always used to think that the 'them' at World Movies had some good taste...

Bleh.

More later...
I have written a Hindi poem...