amazed!

i am amazed at myself today...
i managed to fall down again and sprain the right ankle for the umpteenth time.but that is not what amazed me...
this time i didnt cry.
the last time i fractured my toe,i remember having wept a river.
in a queer way,i am proud of myself today...
love makes u feel secure,no doubt, but it also makes you weak.
and being far away from the ones you love,makes you this rock which picks itself up and limps its way through a crowded street without holding onto any hand...
thank god,i think i am growing up.
atlast.

its crazy how we call ourselves independent today..
crazy because people still do what they are told-betraying years of education in an empowering environment,people forget they have a mind.
rubbishing all things we learn,we still love to be governed because we know that the world we live in-in the quietest corners of our heart is just in our heads...
in the real world,there is no holden caulfield really.
he never became independent of the trappings of the printed word bound by dog eared covers.

Update

i saw Hazaron Khwaishen Aisi today and have some major problems with the film!after having heard so many accounts of the Naxalbari movement from my Jethu,i felt the film was inadequate in translating into celluloid the real essence of the movement,and thus didnt quite live upto all the ravings i was subjected to,by my friends here.
guess the domestic realities of the movement for the people here and in Cal are very different-here it was just a small fraction of students in JNU who joined in but in Cal,there were thousands of homes,like mine,which saw their sons come back with cuts on their faces and bruised legs...
as i type this post,the MS Word software is drawing a red line beneath the word 'Naxalbari' and in a strange way,it is disturbing.i live in a house which is built on the land which is believed to have served as a dumping ground for bodies of the people who lost their lives in the movement,my childhood stories talked of how my uncle nearly lost his foot because a bomb happened to burst only a few metres away from him and today when i sit back recalling all this,i am told the word 'Naxalbari' isn't meant to be a word at all just because a group of American peabrains is uneducated enough to have never heard of something which changed the way my city looked...
i know,i am losing it but thank God for Amitav Ghosh and Shadow Lines-my eternal provider of solace!

My Bit

this is my contribution to the Spectators Special event by Blank Noise (See previous post for details):

The ride back home from school comprised an auto ride which we got to enjoy after standing in a queue for almost half an hour under the cruel Kolkata sun.
After one such wait,my friend (who is also a neighbour)and i finally sighted an auto which had only one seat lying vacant at the back.Refusing to wait in the sun any further,my friend decided to sit in the seat next to the driver (to his left) as i sat in that one vacant seat at the back.
Half way through the journey,i heard my friend asking the driver to keep his hands off her-to which he said,"brake lagatey gele ektu to gaye lagbei" (which roughly means,"if i have to apply brakes,there is bound to be some physical contact")
Believing it to be a mere accident,i didn't really pay much heed to the incident, until i saw the driver's hand brushing up against her chest-Once.Twice.Thrice. (This was when the auto was in motion and there wasn't any applying of brakes)
Somehow the only thing i could do after that was,to ask the auto to stop and get down along with my friend,even though we were still far from home...
So there we were,on the road again-roasting under the afternoon sun,walking silently down the road.as silent as i was in the auto,as silent as i shouldn't have been.

To Do

so how many times have you seen a sweaty hand climb up the back of the girl standing next to you in the metro,or a bus...or anywhere else?
...and what did you do after that?
slapped the man?
thanked god that it wasnt your back his hands were on?or your sister's?
or just turned away pretending that nothing really happened...
whatever you did,let Blank Noise know.
email them at blurtblanknoise@gmail.com before August 15th and let them know what role you have played as a third person witnessing some form of sexual harassment or the other.
the entries will be published in their blog at blog.blanknoise.org

so the results are finally out and i am quite happy :)
finally decided my optional paper!...i have decided to take popular fiction.i guess it would be fun to rediscover novels i read as a kid, with the critical eye.
the cafe prices have gone up again.its really sad,how we keep going there for the lack of an option and they en cash upon that and go on increasing their prices!
i think MG should do something about this instead of worrying her head off over the Green Cup!
the weather too is getting shittier by each passing day and the humidity makes it impossible to sit through lectures!even the fans move lazily,almost suffocating me to death in the fifty year old classrooms with tiny windows.
sigh,i have become such a sulk!

aaaaarrrgh!

it's that sinking feeling again..the "pre results" kind!
i know the university has come out with the results but thanks to today being a sunday,my college hasnt published them.i dont know whether that is good or bad!
at this rate i will go crazy waiting the wait for tomorrow and i know,it is this wait which will kill me...

i keeping running out of words as i get closer to departure...
it's been a long vacation...met some friends,didn't meet most and i think that's alright...it's a free country-people can do whatever they want to!
i really cant enlist what i will miss about being home...each time i leave,it feels as if a part of me is being kept back.
i am leaving loads behind this time,and hopefully taking some small little nothings back.
yes,i got a laptop and am very happy that at least now i will be able to watch movies during those dreary cold nights which never seem to end.
bye,home.

Yesterday...and Today

A few years back while coming back from school, a friend of mine had told me that the woman who stood with us in the queue in the auto stand-the woman who could hardly keep standing straight in the heat, who could barely keep her eyes open and who kept groaning out of pain-was actually one of the many women who came into the city from their villages for abortion. Women like her chose the afternoons to get back home, so that they could be home by the evening and no one would suspect a thing. On that auto ride back home, I pictured the groaning woman sitting next to me-dragging herself to the stove in the evening, and boiling rice for her family-with her sari tightly wound around her stomach, so that she doesn’t feel the pangs of the void left behind by a small spec of life, which was forced to see the light of day much before its eyes were ready for it.

Scary thought, isn’t it? I don’t know why I was reminded of all this yesterday.

You texted and we spoke of lazy afternoons waiting to be lived in Paris. I pictured us, a few years down the line-sipping coffee in some obscure café, on some nameless boulevard. Wouldn’t we then look back upon yesterday and discover that this was when time found a leak in its pipeline and dripped out into some hidden little pool? Wouldn’t we then talk of yesterday and say that this was when it all started?

P.S:Today, the woman who gave me life adds another year to her life…here’s to another year of lots of fights, loads of disagreements and a little bit of love :)

mountains,rains and red spots...

Kathmandu is no more what it was.
It is plagued with strikes and the constant debate between monarchy and democracy.
Dhulikhel and Nagarkot are just as pretty as they used to be. The rains seemed to be the finery for the pretty new bride the mountains became...the clouds were like the veil she removed to see us standing awestruck,with her beautiful shy eyes.
and somewhere amidst the running around in Thamel and gambling away in Annapurna and Soaltee,i caught a virus which makes me look like a dead body which has escaped from its coffin.as far as my eyes stretch,i can only see ugly reddish dots with white centres.
for people who still dont get it-yes,i have chicken pox.and my trip had to be cut short

Ten years hence,when we think of days like today, we will probably go on with our lives as if this day didn't exist at all.as if the bitterness,the tears, the fights...nothing existed.
maybe we will cry over spilt milk someday and yet break into a fake smile and say "fine" when the world asks,"hey,how you doing?"
we will go on this way.putting on masks after masks,till we can hardly differentiate between what was our face and what was a mask...but we shall move on,as if we don't wear any masks at all,and life is just as dandy as we say it is...
as if days like today don't exist at all.