whispers

fake?hurt?stupid?bitch?
am i?
maybe...
memories? oh bullshit.
friends?
lots!many!one?none?
just get lost...i don't need your sympathies.i really don't.
close your eyes and pray hard...things will get better.
you think?
yes.

Back

Airports are the only places which have become constants in my life. Living dual lives in cities tucked away in two different corners of the country, change has become a part of me. The chic flyovers give way to the potholed roads through that one journey made from one airport to another. At times, I feel like Ila from Amitav Ghosh’s “Shadow Lines”-I begin to understand her confusion at having to switch lives as she traverses a journey connected only by two airports. Places condition a life. Thus, with places, people change and lives change. Coping with changes are always difficult, especially when these changes are thrust upon you suddenly. But then, somehow, you live on. Airports become the only places which stand looking similar, even in different places. They, thus, become the only constant tile in the shifting mosaics of one’s life.They say, the only thing constant in life is change.
Things at home have changed, people have changed...or maybe, I have.

I had met this girl when she was three-I used to pull her cheeks really hard till she cried. There were times when someone had to put some antiseptic on her cheeks after the session of rigorous cheek pulling was over. I saw her grow up-from the chubby quiet little girl to a woman of words. She spoke with a conviction unmatched by anyone else. We had walked the same path for quite sometime-refusing to let change come in the way. But today, finally, change has brought down the house of cards we built and tried to guard against the winds of change.

I feel stupid and wronged. But maybe, even I have wronged.

Someday, after years of silence, a stranger will find this piece of writing and read it. All that will remain are these words-no masterpiece, but just a string of disjoint words.
For now, I move-just move without a meaning. I forget her. I forget that there was someone I walked this road with...till we forced each other out of our orbits. But somewhere, sometime I look at a shooting star and wish...wish that that long forgotten person would forgive me. Once again, forgive me. Forgive me for making it my tragedy.

P.S:huge problem with formatting

on the run...

its amazing how we get used to things.i always thought that i couldn't live without blogging,but here i am-not blogging for over a month and alive!
i have been traveling...Agra was good.i loved Fatehpur Sikri.It exudes a certain kind of mystery which is absent in the Taj Mahal.with all my respect to the monument,i feel that wasn't left spellbound with its magnificence-probably i was expecting a lot more of it.i remember Ma telling me that she had begun to cry when she saw it first.through some tv channel or the other,we have seen the Taj-within and without.that's why,perhaps,the sense of mystery,the experience of comparing the real Taj to the Taj i built up in my mind and the feeling of becoming speechless eluded me.it is undoubtedly beautiful,but somehow i had expected it to be something much more than just that.
Bangalore was fun...the weather was a welcome change from the sub-zero temperatures we are subjected to,here in Delhi.the weather reminded me of home.i felt a weird sort of freedom when i walked alone-down Brigade Road-M.G Road manoeuvring my stroller over potholes and relishing the huge tub of "Drath by Chocolate".in a strange sort of a way,i grew up.i loved getting road directions in a forced and heavily accented hindi-i realised that i'm not the only prospective cast member for the latest series of "zabaan sambhal ke"(if they decide to start one,that is) in the country!
delhi failed in all its attempts to freeze us to death.the NSD theatre festival was an experience in itself,and getting to perform in it still seems like a dream.the Delhi Book Fair started a few days back.it's nice and all,but not quite like the one back home.the collection of books is great,but a book fair is not a book fair at all without serpentine queues and chaos.
"Book fair",for me,has beem a dream which came true every year-it was a dusty dream,it was a dream where people sat on newspapers spread on the ground,the dream smelt of the faraway candy floss vendor spinning out pink webs out of his magic pot.they didnt let it happen this time,i heard.i dont know if the people there miss the young boy who sat with his friends and played guitar over endless rounds of tea,but i do.i miss the sudden smile smiled after bumping into a familiar face in the crowd.in this cold city,i miss the waft of Benfish fish fry mingling with the excited breath of a crowd which doesnt know how to stop.a book fair out of home,is not a book fair at all.
things keep happening but life,somehow,goes on-much like the images which zoom past your eyes when you look through the glass eyepiece of those big colourful tin boxes.i saw them at the Surajkund Handicrafts' festivalbut dont know for sure what they're called...i think they call it "talkey baksho" in bengali.i had seen children in old movies watching "Agre ka Taj Mahal aur Dilli ka Qutb Minar" trough them.i saw through one at Surajkund-watched those images zoom past the eyepiece till suddenly the guy told me that my time's up.
maybe life's like that too-maybe it will stop suddenly while i'm in the middle of watching the world zoom past my eyes.

Home.

I may walk down that unnamed road again,
meet those strange faces too.
Or maybe,I'll just stand and look-
at the raindrops drawing patterns on my windowpane.
Maybe I'll see myself on the glass then-
and maybe I'll cry or just silently live the pain.
Just when I'll be down and blue,
a lone raindrop would land on my cheek.
Memories will come rushing by,and
I'll be reminded of you.
Even as the world goes wild,I shall be in peace.
In you I shall find a muse,
in you-a refuge...

P.S: lousy poetry.kindly excuse.

and here's INGY....*drumroll*

yes,that's the best thing about the new year...
p.s: yeah,i am jobless...so there's a new post below this :)

kick ass

right when you think life is going on an ok-ish track,a short kick(with spiked football boots which feel like pins) lands up-right on your ass.
what a "kick ass" start to the new year!
nothing much to write,but dude my ass is an ass and was never meant to a pincushion.i can go on with my sad tale of an important body part transforming into something painful...but who the heck is listening?
just one note-there are people with better...umm..assets,better lives...go prick them.at this juncture i'm compelled to induce the age old question-"why me??!".even i deserve to sit on the couch of life comfortably,so why use mine for your pincushion?
and being the super optimist that i am,i end with hope that if i am,after all,life's "chosen one",the pins remain pins and never become the "achhla baash" we Bengalis are so accustomed to.

p.s: an "achhla baash" is a bamboo pole stripped of its green bark.there's no way i can explain the euphemism it holds through a blog.just ask the next Bengali in sight-he/she shall be too happy to help you out.with the explaining part and the giving part,as well.

The Year That Was

First things first...I find 31^st December highly overrated. Probably because I always end up spending it in the lousiest way possible-feeling like shit myself and crying without any reason whatsoever. Each year ends with me claiming that “this was the lousiest 31^st”, but I’m disillusioned, without fail, in the end of the next year.

Coming back to the topic...The Year That Was.

I turned 18 and passed my boards (Phew! Thank God) and then I left home-with tears and feeling like an uprooted plant.

The plant never found its roots back, but, in a real freak of nature, grew up. I learnt how to not cry over the phone even when I was dying to, I learnt you never have friends-you only think you have them. With so much of learning cramming up my little head, I had to grow up-into a person who broke away from the walls 18 years at home had built. I fought my demons-at least, tried to.

This year marked a year of meeting the most important person in my life. We’ve been through a lot of shit, probably more than we ever dreamt of. But we pulled through it all safely and still continue to create moments of magic which will go on and become the most cherished memories of our lives.

I lost friends and (hopefully) met some new ones. I lost hope that everything will be fine, because they never will be. I lost my belief that after fifteen years of togetherness, ties and bonds will remain the same. They don’t.

And yes, I lost my purse. Twice. My debit card. Once (thankfully!).And my ring (and then, got two new ones)!

In spite of the slaps, the drunken brawls, the high billirubin level and the sinking physics marks, I’m glad this year turned out the way it did. I learnt to live-on my own, without people whom I thought I can’t live without.

Thanks. For teaching me to look beyond familiar faces for answers to questions I never dared to ask before, and for letting me add on to my blue confetti dream...

So here I end, with eyes full of dreams which strive for fulfillment and a mind full of hopes that things don’t get any worse.

To anyone who’s wasting time reading this...Have a great year ahead!

P.S: Here’s to Ingy...the new kid on the block-the last drop of life which fell on a dying year...

winters.

Winters do something to you...whether it’s those five extra minutes you crave to stay under the quilt or the run you want to run to feel a tad bit warmer, winters bring in times which are not lived otherwise.

Winter, for me, has always marked its arrival with the smell of naphthalene balls mingling with the smell of woolens locked up over a year. Like the countless mufflers and stoles, memories come flooding out-memories long forgotten, memories recently lived and memories that will never be lived again...

I don’t know whether it’s just me, but I find colours growing brighter during the winters-the proofs to which are the vegetable markets. The violet of the brinjals, the green of the cabbage-they all grow brighter. Don’t they?

Winters got me my first blazer, my first puff of cigarettes, my first sip of alcohol, my first baking experience and my first gift from Santa! The waft of freshly fried Koraishutir Kochuri, the candy floss in the zoo which melted in my mouth, the man who sells Joynogorer Mowa and the Kashmiri shawlwallahs...tiles which make up the mosaic of my winter memories.

The Nahoum’s Plum Cake with all its glory, the Park Street Santa who never runs out of Éclairs, the streamers on the Flury’s glass walls...I can’t really tell when my winter memories mingle with my Christmas memories and make up the two inseparable faces of the coin which I call “Winter Memories”. The fake Christmas tree at home which is decked up in trinkets every year, the happy Santa whose sack overflows with bright boxes...pieces of childhood which refuse to be put under the spell of Oblivion. Our house doesn’t have a fireplace, but Santa did come visiting every year. No, I never caught a glimpse of red and white hurrying past my bed, but I always found a brightly packaged gift (which always had a note addressed to me, in a handwriting resembling my mother’s)-next to my tree which shined in all its glory-complete with fake cotton wool snow.

In this book of memories, I added a chapter this year-unimaginatively titled “Delhi” .the two degree nights, the four degree mornings; the thick blanket of fog over my college froze my bones which thawed with a sip of the college café noodle soup. The new winter clothes from Sarojini, the draught that slapped my face in the auto, the striped socks, my college sweatshirt-they all added to a major part of my “growing up”.

But no matter how old I grow, I know that some Santa is always looking at me from his igloo with Rudolf by his side, and there’s no way I’m going to believe the “truth” behind the myth. And I shudder to think of the day when the walk down New Market in its Christmas look will stop creating the magic it’s always played on me...

Some places are meant to be Neverlands forever and it’s up to them to bring out the Peter Pan in all of us...for all the winters to come.

P.S: Merry Christmas to all of you, have a great year ahead...

home...here i am

"I'll be home for Christmas
You can count on me
Please have some snow and mistletoe
And presents by the tree..."

i fell down and cut my knee.quite a deep cut.
the dettol burnt the wound.the blood stained my tweed skirt.
i sat through mill on the floss as my socks got wet.
i didnt cry.
the tetanus pinched my skin,the cotton soaked the blood.
i hailed the auto.it stopped at IHC.
the plays that day were good.performance went fine.
the claps felt good,but my knee hurt.
i didnt cry.
walked in at 11.my room was dark.
the night was cold,so was my dinner.
i looked down from the terrace-not a car on the street.
no one spoke.cigarette smoke filled the air.
i cried,i cried,i cried.

fevered ramblings

there i was.writhing in pain in someone else's bed-looking up at the ceiling of someone else's house.the fever split my head and i cried-hoping someone would listen.anyone.
hoping someone would come and put that palm on my forehead,say something to ease the pain.the tears made it even more unbearable,i couldn't get the sleep i so needed.
i called him up.once,twice,thrice.this time he shouted.there's only so much a man can take.
i couldn't go on like that...in an alien land,with a throbbing head,with a burning body.
i remembered what she had written in my diary:
"i'm sure we will always stay this way.even though you're such a chatterbox,you say it best when you nothing at all."...and here i was-crying in pain,howling for some human form by my side-tired of relating my pain to the walls.couldn't she hear me this time?what happened to the promises?forgotten with the boxes of shared tiffin?
out of sight,out of mind?well,maybe.maybe distance IS too strong an opponent for love....
it's amazing how philosophical you can get with a 100+ temperature.of the many things that you realise,the foremost is the fact that nothing stays-love,friendship,promises...nothing.
you begin to find the truth in the age old statement of man being an island.waves come,waves go...the water flows across leaving behind faint trails which get hidden under the sands of time.the waves come again,drench the island with life...and leave.this goes on till there is no island anymore.just one whole expanse of sea-no land in sight,no life around-just an endless and eternal ring of silence....
"...Then the busy years went rushing by us-
we lost our starry notions on the way.
if by chance i'd see you in the tavern,
we'd smile at one another and we'd say,
those were the days,my friend-
we thought they'd never end..."
~Bobby Vinton