Public Buses And How They Affect Me

I love my independence. My family loves it even more. They never panic if I return home after midnight. They do not subject me to extensive sessions of rebuking if I go clubbing five days a week. And they let me travel alone. So, despite hailing from a family with four four-wheelers (Oh yes, I AM showing off!)-all in extensive use, I am not allowed to use even one, for my daily use. My family wants me to grow up. And be self-sufficient. So, public vehicles(mainly buses) are what I depend on, for daily commuting.

Thus, I risk my life and dignity every morning and evening and night. For getting onto any speeding bus(most buses refuse to stop at the proper stops, but prefer to pick people up from every inch between two stops)is a challenge in itself. Some UsainBoltisms later, I am on the bus, but only for name’s sake. More often, I am hanging outside while ducking and saving my head from several other vehicles zooming past me-as if in a video game. Yet, sometimes I feel hanging outside is better than being inside. Once inside the jampacked mousehole, I notice that even the worst and the least worthless of the personalities in the world(or the city) have assumed strangely overwhelming senses of dignity. So there are the men with bigger boobs than normal women and women with more impressive moustaches than regular men clicking their tongues with irritation if any part of my body comes in touch with any of theirs. They frown at me, they glare at my low-waist jeans, they scowl at my huge bag, and then they all give me a shove with their elbows. I go places...well, within the bus, much like a shuttle-cock. And then MY elbow accidentally hits the fattest Masheema on the bulging flabs near her belly. And then there’s a huge chaos. All the women nodding in sympathy with the fat-moustached-pinksaree-greenblouse lady, and the conductor asking me to stand upright. I suddenly feel… “The world hates me”.

Even if rarely I get a place to sit, more often than not, within a minute of getting the seat to myself, an exhausted lady gets onto the bus. My sense of chivalry inhibits me from keeping the seat to myself, and I offer the seat to the lady, who takes it without a “thank you” or even half a smile. And I am back to standing, with people sweating all around me, and the humidity inside steadily on the rise(These days the rains are quite frequent, and EVERYONE knows how horrible it is to travel in a public vehicle, full of ‘normal’ people that refuse to let the windows remain open, when it is raining outside). Even I am sweating. My hair gel gets washed away with my sweat. And I start smelling like a Zoo-tiger cage. And then it happens to me… The desire to blow all the people around me up, kill them, shoot them somehow and just make space for myself… Somehow…

I have only started to travel in public hours in peak office-hours quite recently, only after I started college. In any case, I never was much of a North/Central Calcutta person. My northernmost limit of parts-of-Calcutta-I-regularly-visit used to be St. James’ School near Moulali… Now though I travel along the same route, the northernmost limit has been stretched to Sealdah-College Street. And at 10 am, you have to be at Sealdah to believe how crowded Calcutta CAN BE… There’s still more good news. With the ban on public-vehicles-older-than-fifteen-years effective, and the reduced no. of public vehicles plying, the situation will definitely become sweatier, smellier, and the clicking of tongues will surely increase manifolds…

"Au Revoir, School Life"

College is going to start this week. School life ends here, finally. I had a most marvellous school life, totally free from bullying, problems like inability to fit in, like getting lost in the crowd, being not able to perform brilliantly in academics. I never really had problems in school, apart from my teachers never being too pleased with my antics, my clowning around in class, my unstoppable blabbering, my hanging around with girls, my not being adequately respectful towards them etc. And yes, I’ve also been let down by several friends, cheated on, manipulated, lied to, hated by many, envied by many more(several people have complained that I’ve done the same to them, and some of these allegations were definitely very true)…. And though these had really hit me hard towards the end of Class 10(and had caused me to sober down totally in Classes 11 and 12), I decide to forget all of that today. I will carry forward all the good memories (they are the ones that dominate), and will never regret anything about this part of my life. For every blunder I made, every person that tricked me, everyone I befriended, every Physics period I spent trying to take over school-journal-distributio

n duties- all of these have opened up newer avenues of realization, of hope, of triumph, of understanding life to me. I’m grateful for all of it, I’m grateful to all the people I met, I’m grateful to the several people I loved in this journey (and there were many), I’m grateful for every dreaded butt-pinch I’ve received as punishments from Mr. P.T.Thomas, and every ‘put eet een a baux’ I’ve heard from Mr.S.Chakrabarty. I’m grateful for every Aloo-Bhujia I’ve shared with Nancy Rakhroy at the back of the classroom, for every bulletin-board chart-paper I’ve brought from the Book-Store, for every Volley Ball match I’ve witnessed supporting my house, for every overnight camp I’ve participated in, for every ‘Iced Eskimo’ I’ve had, discussing things as diverse as Mamata Banerji to our life-secrets, with Arvind Rajagopal and Ikshaku Bezbaroa at Ballygunge Circular Road CCD… I’ve loved it all. And nothing will ever erase any of these from my memory….

Observe People- Just a thought

Inspired by the last scene of Benjamin Button, I came up with this:

" Some people dance in the moonlight coming into their dark rooms, some people kiss beside the Jadavpore Lake.Some people are guitarists in rock bands,some like cats and others hope to swim past the Palk Strait.Some people don't know how to tie their shoelaces,some people have the hots for Nicole Kidman, and yet some others are our mothers.Some people believe their goatees will bring them bad luck in exams,some other's eyes gleam at the mention of Lucknow, or of Batata Puri.Some people are monotheists,some deliver pizzas,some spend time on Facebook, others watch movies religiously. Some people live in the past, others in Missisauga..... All these 'SOME's come together make up the brilliant collage called 'People/Society' around us..."

It's true. Observing people can be an interesting and rewarding pastime. Once you get to know people, the various idiosyncrasies that constitute them, you can relate much easily to newer people you meet, or adapt to difficult circumstances without much hassle. You can also use the experiences,or tragedies you've known other people to have emerged unscathed from, to help you survive through similar turbulent experiences.
Call me a bitch/ gossipmonger or a jobless ass if you want to, but I like to know about people in my vicinity,and their lives. This doesn't necessarily mean I have to make friends with every one of them, or divulge MY life secrets to them, but I just try to know the people around me... It, I feel, will be of help in the long run.

Rains...

“Now I, Now I wish it would rain down, down on me
Yes I wish it would rain, rain down on me now
Yes I wish it would rain down, down on me
Yes I wish it would rain on me” : Phil Collins


I have always loved the rains and have never been able to quite understand why all poets and singers and normal people associate ‘Rain’ to distress and despair. For me however, it has been one thing that has made me happy. Maybe it has got a lot to do with staying in a particularly hot, humid, over-populated yet brilliantly resplendent country, that I love the rains so much. It washes down the yellow, orange and red hues of this tropical country, and mellows down the ambience to soothing shades of blue, green and purple. It washes off the dust and SPM from the air , and the accumulated filth from the city trees, making the leaves appear lush green and fresh. I am seriously of the opinion that the smell of the wet soil after a rain is one of the best fragrances in the world.


I think the first rains I remember are the Jodhpur Park rains. I was five I guess, and I can still remember that the verandah and the terrace of our flat on the eighth floor would be flooded every time it rained. I would be playing scrabble (mostly sitting beside my grandma,rather than playing) with my sister, grandma, mom and great grandmother when it would rain. Or rummy. Some other times when my mom would be away, my sister and I would erect a tent and would get my grandmom to play ‘Trekking’ with us, while it would rain outside.

The North India rains are pretty much the same wherever you go. They cool down the cities and are a welcome relief from the heated up city buildings. It, however, rains in winter in Punjab, so people there don’t like it much. It brings down the temperatures to one-digit figures. Delhi Rains from a Hauz Khas bungalow verandah are the only ones I remember of the capital.

The Bokaro Rains wash down all the coal particles from the air. The suffocating city air would freshen up and give us space to breath.. Dhanbad and Asansol rains are pretty non-descript, and hence I wouldn’t really recall them with any particular affection.

Then there are the North Bengal rains… On every visit to Darjeeling/ Gangtok/ Kurseong I have encountered this variety. It, in a way, spoils all the travel plans. Yet there is a romantic aspect about this variety of rain that makes one want to fall in love… not just with the rain, but with North Bengal, and Sikkim. A cup of hot espresso coffee, with a delicious burger at Keventer’s and the rain outside… These are some memories I’ll cherish forever.
There is a small town called Rabangla in Sikkim. The town is nothing to write home about, but the road along which one journeys, from Gangtok to Rabangla is one of the most haunting beauties of Nature I have ever seen. Add to it the rain, and the hot soup, the fear of leeches and the Army ambience of the Army Guesthouse that had been provided by Major Bakshi for our lodging made the Rabangla Rains totally unforgettable. If I ever shoot ‘Dark Truth And White Lies”, I’ll shoot the first half of it in Rabangla, for sure.

Of course no one can deny the existence of the Durga Pujo rains in Calcutta. It takes off most of the decorations from the elaborately done up pandals, and floods the city streets, making traffic conditions all-the-worse (and subsequently the Telegraph-Metro to rate the traffic conditions during pujo as 2/10 in its post pujo edition). It spoils the red sarees and the black shirts, the new cars and the crowds’ moods… Some wise people choose to stay at home and relish the Pujo over beer,vodka and shredded shuntki, or Aloo Paratha and Dahi(Punjabi Taste buds love this dish). However my darling parents have chosen to stay in Calcutta for every pujo. And not just that, we also go exhaustive-pandal hopping every Pujo… So the kadaa(wet mud) stains on my new dress and the hours spent holed up inside the car, watching it rain outside, and new lovers cozying up while walking, while listening to Anjan Dutta go “E Kolkata Sholo Amaar”… Despite these, I love the pujo rains too, and I was a tad disappointed when it didn’t rain last year during Pujo

I saw it rain from my Class 11 classroom in St James’ Calcutta. At that time I knew nobody in the school, and nobody knew me, so I would spend all of my time sleeping in class. Nobody bothered to notice, so it was fine with me. The rain outside would cheer me up however, and despite my loathing the grey sky, the grey buildings and the inability of the rain to make its way all the way to the ground, or the classroom window-sill due to the claustrophobically small distance between the school building and the surrounding buildings, I would be happy nevertheless. There was a garbage dump on the street beside the school,which would spoil the effect of the rain, but still…
I enjoyed the rain that transformed Calcutta into Venice in my 2nd week of St James’. I hated my new school so much that I was glad the rain gave me an excuse to miss school for four days.

I have enjoyed the rains sitting in Ballygunge Circular Road CCD with my friends (two of them mainly). I have enjoyed the rain in Park Street, from Bar-B-Q, Flury’s and KFC.

My favorite rains have been, no points for guessing, the Maithon rains.
There would be the school-time rains. It would make the school appear very much like the Hogwarts they show in movies. The lush green trees, the huge playgrounds, the dark corridors lit by light-bulbs, the rain drops coming into the classrooms through the huge windows. And there would be Parents’ Night or Sports Day practices, or Extempore or Debate practices. So I’d just skip classes at length and enjoy the storm and the wind outside. The nice thing about school and the town together was it was a huge school in
a small neighborhood, that wouldn’t even classify as a town, and hence it was very much like Hogwarts. The ChotaNagpur hillocks would give it a very Alpine/Scottish Highlands’ ambience, and the rains would make it appear like a place straight out from the fairy-tale books, a place in the surrealistic realm a la Narnia, Rhye, or Heidi’s grandpa’s cottage on the Swiss Alps..
And how can I forget the home ground rains. Every distant thunder would be a signal for us to get ready to go mango-collecting. The Kalboishakhi would get the yet-to-be-ripe green April Mangoes to fall to the ground, which we had to retrieve before the children from a nearby village had come and collected them. So the Mango-collecting(this sounds weird, I’d rather settle for ‘Aam-kurono’) sessions would occur while it would be still raining. We would make our way past the snake-holes and scorpion-dens, get down in knee-deep accumulated water, and collect the mangoes in our backyard-wood. When it would be dark(it mostly would be-kalboishakhis generally attack in the evenings, after a hot and humid day), we would even have to brave the prospect of meeting a few local ghosts and evil spirits.

Maithon rains would always mean opening of the dam flood-gates. Maithon would never be flooded, for it was hilly, but the West Bengal and Jharkhand districts surely would, when all the DVC dams let their flood gates open. While this action of DVC would invite a lot of criticism from state governments and newspapers, it would be a gala event for us, small towners. The release of the dam waters (sometimes the bridge connecting Mazumdar Niwas to the mainland would drown when the dam would be too full-much to the inconvenience of the Rao Parivar) would mean a local Niagara for us… Ooh! That would be fun! Pointing at the gushing water from the school-bus, politely asking the driver to stop the bus, and relish the view…

I have also enjoyed the Car- journey rains(the variety I would meet in some of the National highway journeys from Maithon to Calcutta or vice-versa, given that two such journeys would be made every four months). Stopping the car, and enjoying the tea/ snacks at a Roadside Dhaba would be immensely pleasurable…

I have always loved the rain for one more reason. There are beautifully picturised Bollywood rain songs… from Raj Kapoor and Nargis in Shree 420 to Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukerjee in HumTum, I have loved them all and so the Rain songs bring a smile on my face-ALWAYS!

I have always loved the rain, and will always do so…Right now, sweating profusely in this hot summer afternoon in Calcutta, I have only one prayer… “Aay Brishti Jhenpe… Dhaan Debo Mepe..”

Ek Bachpan Aisa Bhi

I am in a playground. It is huge, with very many trees. My friends are frolicking all around me. I am not at all interested in the games. Is it not ‘Hide and Seek’ they are playing? Yes, they are… I busy myself in looking up at the next building’s terrace. The building is much taller than my two-storey school building. There are some faces I love, looking down at me, waving at me. Gargi Ma’am asks “Those are your parents, aren’t they?” I nod and reply in positives, with my chest broadened and my eyes glistening with glee. I am sure not many have the privilege of attending a school right next door to their homes. “Dola Ma’am surely has none of her parents so close to her at the moment”, I note with some amount of self-satisfaction. My pained heart is soothed at the very thought of this very misfortune of the lady who had minutes ago told me off for dropping water in the classroom.

My sister and I don’t get along with the children of our colony. We think we are much too superior for their standards, which we are… We both have our perfect playground just at the back of our home, within the bungalow territories. It is our Enchanted Wood, a wood with bonmurgis, squirrels, goat kids(the occasional one that has strayed into this territory), peacocks(common in the early mornings) and foxes(once in a month?) The only things that prevent it from being our perfect Enchanted Wood is that the trees don’t go ‘Wisha Wisha’ here, neither does any of the mango, jam, jackfruit, guava, or the numerous other trees have Lands visiting its top. We don’t complain though. We are satisfied with the serenity, the tranquility of this part of our home. The only disturbance is the ‘Kaho Na Pyar Hai’ songs from the just-released superhit movie coming from the distant outhouses.

I am sitting under the ‘kaamini’ tree. The dew on the grass all around me glistens under the small-town December morning sun. The garden is not very maintained really. Its quite dangerous and is infested my numerous poisonous representatives of my garden ecosystem, especially during the rains. The kaamini flowers have the notoriety of attracting the snakes with their aroma(probably the best smell in the world) and hence I can hear my mother warning me not to choose that spot for myself. I don’t pay heed. The (bungalow-type)quarter is quite far away, anyway. I know Ma can’t see me from there. I lose myself, far away from the ‘real’ world with the possible perils of reptile-fangs piercing into my skin. I am transported to the world of Georgina Kirrin. I prepare myself to meet three new kids. Julian, Dick, Anne they are… Very soon we become good friends. Not after long, I am exploring weird ship-wrecks and discovering ingots of gold in some hidden dungeons in a tiny island called Kirrin Island. I think I hear a bell. Is it Anne’s alarm clock? Couldn’t possibly be … The ‘Famous Five’ have just hit their beds after solving a mystery and earning accolades from the local police. I look up. It is the lunch bell ringing.

Sir Fernandez ,our Class Teacher,and Geography teacher is the art-director for Teacher’s Day. He is not going to come to class. Rahul Aggarwal doen't have to tell me what we are to do. We rush out of class. Our classroom is the classroom in a secluded corner of the school, just beside the bookstore. So it doesn’t really come under the surveillance of the school administration heads coming on rounds. Today it is raining hard, and the rain water has created an artificial stream that leads straight out of the school premises. We tear pages out of our Science notebooks. Fifteen or twenty sheets. Then we create paper boats. (Leeza helps me with mine). We choose the unusual colors out of Rahul’s 101 color felt pen set… We use them on our boats… the Magenta, Cyan, Holly, Plum, Straw etc color boats are divided equally between us. We set them sail on the artificial stream. My first boat sinks even before I can wish it ‘Bon Voyage’. Almost similar fates make my other boats their victim. However, I see ‘Malena’ sailing smoothly past Rahul’s boats, most of which are still floating. It wheezes past them all and soon becomes the first one to go out on the streets. I jump up in joy, and Leeza stands beside me clapping at my victory. Rahul, with a pained expression on his face, explains the circumstances under which his ‘Magellan’ slowed down at the last moment. Leeza booes him. I suddenly notice how beautiful she is..

The Chemistry class is on. Mrs. Bhattacharya is explaining to us the circumstances under which the anode sludge settles down at the anode, and the pure silver rod, acting as cathode, goes on thickening. She is a strict ,but an expert teacher. I am not paying attention though. Sneha Kedia is holding up an interesting looking box and waving it at Nancy Rakhroy. I can’t understand what could be inside the box, and why Sneha wasn’t showing it to me(with her having the habit of presenting one gift to me everyday, all ‘Best Friend’ ones). I take it from her hand, almost by force and open the lid. I find numerous colorful easily-put-onable rings inside it. I get working. I put two rings on my lower lip, three each on each ear,one each on each eyebrow, and one on my nose. To avoid attracting Mrs Bhattacharya’s attention, I hide my face behind the ICSE Chemistry Part I book, and start making weird faces at my classmates. Rohit, Kunal, Ria, Mohana and Kankana break into suppressed giggles. I try desperately to make them stop. It’s too late. My favorite teacher throws one of her favorite students out of class. I stand on the corridor. My dearest mom is teaching Biology in the next classroom.


The Economics teacher asks the other students, “Does he smile all the time?” A mousy looking classmate, whose name I don’t know, replies, “Yes sir, Always. Even when he’s being shouted at. Or being made fun of.” Some intrigued eyes turn towards me. I feel uneasy. I’m not enjoying my time in this fifth school.

It is three in the morning and I am recollecting random moments from my eighteen year old life, not necessarily the most favorite or most important. My school final exams are over and I have absolutely nothing to do. I am severely bored, and hence type down these thoughts. Who says people can’t predict the future? I can! I know what character of the PC keyboard will be used after three words? A full-stop.