Buiya Goes To XLRI 15th June, 2014

So, the elder sibling left for XLRI, Jamshedpur today. First time that all four of us in the family will be based out of different cities. Feels strange as I witness the long-lost childhood blurring into a tinier speck on the horizon.

FilmSchool And Such...

Last night, I revisited my old blog after quite a while. And after an even longer sabbatical, did I get down to reading the other blogs linked to mine. Those that were started by, and used to, some time back, narrate the stories of the lives of those who I used to then call friends. Time dented some of these friendships, and as between boats that drift away amidst a gale, or sometimes even at calm sea, their voices do not reach me any more today, and neither does mine, them. Funnily, I discovered, most of these blogs too have since turned silent. The tales they had begun to sow have remained unfinished, only half-narrated. It is as if a tempest drowned their voices, like their beings got lost along the way, never to be found again. Making my way from one abandoned blog to the other felt like walking into a cemetery - very quiet, very distant and reeking of buried-and-long dead hopes and unheard-and-oft-forgotten stories. The whole experience also rendered stark the loneliness, the chasm created in my life due to the departure of these people - most of whom, at some time or the other, were cardinal to my happiness, much akin to the loneliness, the sense of loss, that typically plagues a visitor at a cemetery.

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There was a time in my life, post-school, when I was a spoiled-little-kid. I woke up when I pleased, slept when I wished to, and there was no upper-ceiling on the pocket money, thus making way for countless fine dining experiences, and hanging out at up market eateries and cafeterias, gorging on endless desserts- all at the most expensive eateries around the city. The air-conditioning in my room would be on all day and through every night. The situation intensified when, after my life altering accident, my parents started keeping no stones unturned to keep me out of depression's way. In addition to the previous liberties, suddenly, I had become the priority behind every policy implemented at home, Looking back in retrospect, I probably let them dote on me as much as they did because in my head, the justification was clear. I was dealing with paralyses and crippling handicaps at the age of twenty, so I let their attention and energies fuel my sustenance. "The parents' child is back from the dead, it is their duty to indulge the child"- I probably felt. Food kept me happy, the calories kept piling on, and when I left home last August, I was a ginormous seventy six kilos.

The first thing that staying away from home took away from me, was my sense of entitlement, the feeling that if, at home, I got adrak-wali-chai at six every evening, or if my wardrobe magically replenished itself with clean clothes, it was because of my right to such things. If before moving out of home, someone had told me that I wouldn't have, at one point of time, a bed to sleep on for close to two months, I would have probably never even gone ahead with the move. Shortly after I moved to film-school in Pune, however, for two months, I shared a two-bedded room with six other men. There, not only was there no air-conditioning, I just had a mattress to myself , to sleep on, on one 8ft*4ft area of floor space. The bathroom had to be shared with all the other inhabitants of the room as well, and my idea of "personal space" that I grew up guarding, defending and nurturing, was suddenly decimated.  The funny part, however, was, none of it hurt my self-confessed gigantic ego. None of it felt insulting or beneath- me. It all felt normal, almost a part of growing up. If I was dealing with the presence of six other men in my immediate vicinity all the time, I realized, so were they. I was just as much of an intrusion into their space, as they were in mine. Frankly, even the inconvenience wasn't as bad as I would've imagined it to be, had the situation been described to the old-and-spoilt-me. I had suddenly been yanked out of the cozy bedroom of my protected upbringing, and into the front yard of my adulthood. Today, with every hour of laundry that I do, or every cup of coffee that I make, or every time I have to sweep the bathroom floor, I am grateful for the years of comfort that was afforded to me, throughout my growing up years, by the folks back home. However, at sixty six kilos today, I am also grateful for the coming-into-my-own that staying alone has intimated to me.

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The scary part about dreams coming true is that the realization that the Utopia you dreamed up, the reality you have today, isn't quite as fulfilling as you had dreamt for it to be. 

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Residential college,in a strange city, is a funny place to be in. While you stay on campus, and acquaint yourselves with all the other residents of the campus, the non-necessity of venturing out of the campus retains your unfamiliarity with the city around you. Soon, the campus becomes an island, of known faces, and familiar idiosyncracies, amidst a wide sea, or city, of strangers. Film school, in this regard, is pretty similar to the small neighborhood- towns I have chiefly spent my childhood in. The Institute has a Central Lane, just like all of those towns would. If you took a stroll down that lane, especially in the lazy hours of early evening, you were likely to, at some point of time or the other, meet most of the residents of the town. Same is the case here. If on a late Sunday evening, I take two walks up and down the road that is the Spinal Cord to the Institute, I do invariably, end up meeting, or passing by, most of the residents of the campus, including the dogs.

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The parties, they never stop here. From 7 am weed, to 5pm beers, the babydolls as the more experienced alike, refuse to stop painting the mundane dullness of the brass world with the intoxicated shimmer of their golden selves. The bells of the hearts keep chiming at the jubilation around birthdays, and productions, and festivals, and folk nights celebrating distinct cultures constituting India, and sometimes, even without any occasion. However, for a place brimming over with so much Art, and so much creativity, and so much hope housed in every vein of every person walking its grounds, for a place with such glorious yellow and orange on branches of trees heralding the advent of Spring, for a place with such over-friendly canine companions, the Institute does become a lot to handle, a lot to process, and a lot to survive at times. Despair looms large, and is kept at bay through frivolous conversations, endless chatter, or just about anything that keeps away the having to come back to bed alone at night, and grasp certain fundamental truths about life's limited possibilities. The dreams at times start reminding one of once-upon-a-time's nightmares, and the depressiveness starts seeming imminent....

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(To be continued...)

There Are Places I (Shall) Remember... 4th February 2014

Making my way through a chilly February night, past the familiar sights of Ring Road, of Safdarjung Enclave, of Aruna Asaf Ali Marg, and JNU, when I entered my room in Vasant Kunj tonight, I was hit by a feeling of loss, stronger than I had been expecting. Everything lay exactly the way I had left them about a month and a half back. Within seconds, my life of half a year came back to me. The partly-unmade bed, the quilts and bed sheets lying lumped together- as if comforting and protecting each other from the cold- all my clothes strewn around the room, the dried up bathroom floor, the Queen poster above my bed, the green lights - given to me on Diwali by someone who had warmed November up by his presence - garlanding the television on the wall, the Vodafone Internet modem I used for Internet connectivity here, the multiple empty Hot Chocolate, Nescafe and Nutella containers that I never bothered to throw away, the jute bag bearing the World Health Organisation logo- given to me by an uncle when I arrived to stay here, in August- one that I had hung behind the front door and never got around to dislodging from there even once since then, the books on Advertising- a course that had brought me to Delhi, a blue scarf that I had managed to procure out of one of my closest friends at IIMC- my Karol Bagh auntie- that I would also wear in class with my pairs of jeans and shirts(with the Bangalore Uncle, Mr. Chaithanya commenting - "very surprisingly, you do manage to pull this weird ensemble off as well"), the empty Ballantine's bottle and glass reminiscent of one particularly wild night around Diwali - all of this lying around, just as I had, running late and rushing to catch a train to Calcutta, left them - brought back so many memories...

...Memories of my first time away from home, my first time staying alone, completely by myself, like an adult, with no one to take care of me, or to pester me. Unlike most people, who graduate from home to hostel, to finally living alone, my first tryst with independence was marked by the complete, stark "alone-ness"(and I do NOT mean loneliness) that this place offered to me. I slept when I pleased, I woke up as I wished(though, usually, in time for college), I went up to the terrace with some food when I so desired, made myself as many cups of coffee as would keep me happy(having learnt how to make coffee here itself), climbed over the gate when I got too late in coming back at night, kept wondering what the warning sign asking one to be wary of "Non Ionized Radiation" meant. I danced by myself to the music played at the parties at the farmhouse next door and ordered countless meals from Hawkers and AFC's kitchen, and watched countless episodes of Harvey Specter's squabbles with Louis Litt, and bonding with Mike...This room saw love materialize, saw several varieties of despair as I desperately tried to figure a person out, gradually understanding him and accepting him for what he is. This room was for when my best friends trooped in to surprise me on a day I had overslept and missed college, found the door open, and found me lying on my bed, half-naked, and woke me up to a torrent of laughter.

I can't help but recall, after the decision to not put up with family here in Delhi, and the subsequent four days of house hunting to disappointing results, when I first set my eyes on this room, it had been love at first sight. The decision had been made then and there, and I had moved in a couple of days later. Today, on my last night here, as I try to soak in as much of this ambience, of this room, as possible, I am reminded of one cardinal truth about life. People attach a lot of importance to staying in touch with each other. This, they believe, would help them stay in touch with their past. Yet, for all the clinging on to other people that we do, as we tread through life, we forget that our past was necessarily made up of, besides the people, the places and the times we lived in - how the flowers smelled that day, how strongly the sun shone, and how much dust flickered through the sunlight pouring in through the ventilators. And thus, though the people live on( at least for a while), the times we lived in die, and with them, so does our past - never to be brought back to life, exactly similarly, even with all the people involved.

For the Love of Delhi

When I returned to Delhi in June of this year, I had old memories of the city coloring my vision, just as much as the anticipation of a new life. It took me a little bit of convincing myself to learn to be objective about the city, and not let my past seep into my present or (what was going to be) the future, in any way, positive or negative. I was, after all, making a much required escape from my home town, after feelings of claustrophobia and an over familiar terrain, along with sudden estrangement from a majority of people I had held dear, had begun to take over my being, after six years in the city. I needed out, and I was getting a way out, and I needed to make the best out of it.

Cities are like people. They greet and interact with different people differently, leading to a variety of opinions being formed about them by outsiders. Some are more universally loved, like New York, others are more frequently dissed, like New Delhi. Speaking of New Delhi, most outsiders complain of the unfriendliness, primarily. They say that the men are boastful, obnoxious and lustful, and the women are loud and snobbish. The dominant popular opinion is that the city is unsafe, it is dishonest, arrogant and non-inclusive. They speak of the ridiculous amount of power held by some, who could go around making everybody else's life a living hell. Even with a nod acknowledging that some of those things are certainly true, to an extent, I say, one needs to look beyond the obvious, and acknowledge the ways in which the city is worth celebrating.

Delhi, to me, is a beautiful city. The roads are wide and clean(er than the rest of the Indian cities). There is no offence to the olfactory senses like what one has to suffer in Kolkata or Mumbai. The roads, at least in South Delhi, are clean, and the metro, is almost sparkling(despite the commuter-load). There is almost as much beauty in the chaos of the North, as the order in the South, with the resplendent lanes of Chandni Chowk, and the maddening chatter of KamlaNagar. Also, the people of Delhi look splendidly beautiful. It is not just the tall, fair version of Punjabi beauty one would normally associate with the city I speak about though. Sure, the dazzling dames and the bewitching boys are a treat to the senses, but strangely enough, even the average auto-rickshaw driver or the old man travelling in the metro- they all look beautiful, going about their life, with indomitable energy and spirit- something that Delhi seems to infuse into everyone.

Again, how can you ignore the contradictory charm the city possesses? The city is as new as the pomp and parties of Sainik Farms and the extravagance of DLF Emporio, as it is rooted and timeless in the magnificence of the Qutab Minar, or the endless lushness of Lodhi Gardens. It is as much grandeur as the bungalows of Vasant Vihar as the comfort in the close-knit community-lives of Janakpuri. There is as much power concentrated around Lutyens' Delhi, as there is hopelessness and discontent at Savda Ghevra.

The Delhi I once knew was the city of someone very close to me. The city I know today, is the city that is mine. Yes, I am an outsider, as I have been to every city I have ever been in, but if I feel at home anywhere apart from around Ballygunge in Calcutta, it is in Delhi. Not even for a day after returning did I feel even slightly out-of-place, it was almost like I was assimilated right in. From the upbeat euphoria at Safdarjung Enclave to the eventual quiet seclusion at Vasant Kunj, the city made me fall in love, over and over again.

For me Delhi has been therapeutic. It has been the auto journeys to and from college, where I see the city pass by, bustling, and indifferent to my existence - making me feel secure in being a stranger to everyone around me - the kind of security that typifies every individual, who like me, is perpetually on the run. However, the people I got to know in college, at the same time, make me feel as much at home, as a stable, sane, secure individual appreciates feeling- therein exemplifying another contraction.

Delhi for me has been the evenings at SDA Market, the lunches at JNU, the Diwali at Lajpat Nagar, the Metro rides to and from Connaught Place, the maddening crowd of Rajiv Chowk, the evening walks at Barakhamba Road, the getting drunk at Hauz Khas Village and the getting stoned at Gurgaon(not really Delhi, but you get the gist). It has been the best friend suggesting Al Bake shawarmas, it has been Aunty momos at Amar Colony with somebody very close to my heart, it has been North Campus and Mezban with the little pixie, and the evening coffees with Karol-Bagh-ki-Auntyji. It has been two jokers from Noida- one exasperating, and one entertaining, one girl who loves Emraan Hashmi too much, one unclejee from Bangalore, one girl who advised me to stop running from my past, a South Delhi bimbo, a theatre actor, a girl with who face-to-face Hi's were too mainstream, a perpetual-tourist, this Himachali who became my husband, among many, many others. I have met people from Bombay, and Lucknow, and Dubai, and Pune - representing some of the regions that influence the culture of the city- a condensation of people from all over India. In that, Delhi is to India what the USA is to the World- a colony of outsiders, with a culture formed out of links to everywhere. Delhi to me is as much the Banoffee Pies and Mississippi mudpies at the Big Chill Cafe, as the evening chai at the National Institute of Immunology, or the cheap Chinese from Hawker's at Vasant Kunj. It is as much the photography walks at Hauz Khas as the food hunting at Sarojini Nagar. It is as much the heat of June as the chill of December ,as much the Luchi Mangsho at Chittaranjan Park, as the Malleshwaram Cross Dosa at Carnatic Cafe, as much the Diwali lights at Khan Market as the creepy darkness at Lado Sarai... and I could go on and on.

It is December, it is winter - my favorite time of the year. The city is deliciously cold, and there is a poignant fog that looms over the city in the mornings. The nights are noticeably colder, and sometimes, here in Vasant Kunj, it becomes a little difficult to even venture outside of the room with just one sweater on.  There is absolute joy in basking in the winter sun on the terrace,  and even in lying all cosy and comfortable, underneath the blankets, cuddling up with oneself.

With a possible move to Pune on the cards, I do not know how much longer I have in this city, or how frequently I shall get to visit, either. Delhi has given me too much to treasure, too much to love, and too many fond memories to look back at. It has been integrated into my system- an even more indelible part than before. I am departing for a while, tomorrow, with a heavy heart. But, I shall be back. I do not know exactly when, but I know, it shall be soon. And no matter where I go, this city, with all its lights, and scenery, and people, and color, and love and madness, shall travel with me, a fragment of my mind, a faction of my soul, a follicle of my heart.

So, before you judge Delhi, or hate it without having been introduced to the place properly, based on what everyone says, give the city a chance. Rapes and scams might keep happening here, but from what I have seen, love and longing for more happens more often.

Of Farewells and Monkemons

Well, it is nothing new for me, really. Change town, change school, change friends, change everything. And just when the new structure stabilizes forming a roof above my head, the bricks near the base are pulled out only to have me witness the complete crumbling and falling apart of that which had begun to feel like home to me. Move on, this chapter is over, find a new home, write a new chapter, life goes on.

This is the end of another chapter. Once again, it is all too difficult to give up, and even the thought in itself is haunting. Everything is happening at such a pace, that the inevitability of all these changes and the irreversibility of the consequences is hardly sinking in now. The support system around me has begun to give way, brick by brick, and I must prepare myself for yet another fall.

You guys know for me you guys exist  in every little by-lane, every dingy nukkad, every shopping mall, every movie theatre, every restaurant, every festival, every experience in this city. And to survive the city, without you all, is going to be *some* task.

I don't know how to round this off. You all know who you are. I am selfish. And I'm not willing to let go. I will miss you all. :( 

The Hundredth. 7/Z/5.

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.

The Ninety-Seventh Post

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.

Winner/Wiener/Blah

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

Not Simple Math

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.

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.

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 :(

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...

Frigid it is no longer...

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.

Meow Meow.

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.

End is where the Start is.

(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?

See You, You see?

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

Conform.I did too.

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.

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.

Lifestillgoeson

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.

November and December 2009, and January 2010

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