i dont like it when people cry while talking to me.
it leaves me wondering what i should say till that moment comes when this tiny lump forms at the pit of my stomach and starts snowballing into this huge mass of something that climbs up to my throat.
i keep quiet.
and let my eyes take away from the pain of that lump.
and silently feel the little drops slide down my cheekbones and wet my lips.
i keep quiet.
and feel the salt drops seep into the dryness.

Of old photos and the lines behind them...

i have been going through old photo albums for the past few days.one of the few things my mother brought from her father's house is an old battered photo album with small square black and white photographs.the ones that you paste onto the black pages of the album.
ma's album has many photos of very beautiful women-they were all her friends in college.i figure,it was almost a custom to give your friends a pic of yours before leaving college.some of them even wrote a few lines behind the picture.my mother almost had tears in her eyes when i fished out this album and showed it to her.
one reason behind this sort of an attachment with these pictures is,probably, the fact that a photo wasnt a very common thing then.it involved an entire ritual of wearing a pretty sari,visiting a studio/calling a photographer home (not many had personal cameras back then)and holding a smile till the box camera agreed to click.
today we have photos of our friends everywhere-on our phones,in our computers and even ipods.and maybe that's why we dont attach an emotional tag to photographs.
but picture this,twenty years from now...your child fetches out a photograph and comes running to you and that happens to be the only memory of your college best friend that you can touch,see and feel.there's absolutely nothing else that you own that will remind you of her or the last few lines she wrote to you.
the picture above is of a woman called Shakuntala who was my mother's room mate.she doesnt know where her friend is or where she did her masters from...for my mother,her room mate's memory are the few fading handwritten lines written with a blue inked fountain pen behind the photo:
"Tobu mone rekho jodi dure jai chole,
Jodi puraton prem dhaka porey jay nobo premojaale...
Jodi poriya mone,chholo-chholo jol nai dekha daye noyonkone,
Tobu mone rekho..."
(Remember me if I go faraway,
If new found loves take over old ties...
Even if tears dont gather in your eyes when I'm gone,
Remember me...)

i have always associated a particular smell with hospitals-a weird combination of antiseptics,phenyles,medicines and room fresheners...makes me want to throw up each time.
hospitals are places of both death and birth,but it's always the former that i have associated with these places.
they even smell of death.even the swankiest ones.
green cloth,stretchers,dark rooms,white uniforms...and that smell.
nothing has helped me get that smell out of my system.
i hope a blog post helps this time.

Time

someone i knew very well recently told me,"i dont know what time does...i dont know if its a good thing or a bad thing"
she was right.
i dont know if what time does is good or bad...it's strange how time benumbs us.something that affected me a lot a few months back has become just another memory for me,now.and like this person,i dont know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
i went to my school's reunion yesterday.
there were these girls who had given me a tough time in school-you know the usual bitching,mud slinging and all that.but something in me made me talk to them and take super giggly pictures with them.
i guess time had forced me to move on beyond those days...
and on the other hand,none of the people i was closest to in school turned up.today,they're just memories of good times i've had.i want them to remain that way.
now,is that a good thing?

La Femme

I was thinking the other day if I’m a feminist only to realize that like most ideologies, feminism too has different brands to it.
I went to a girls’ school and I don’t remember one instance when we discussed feminism- be it among friends or with teachers. I guess all my school taught me was I had the right to enjoy what I liked and to do what I enjoyed doing.
Now that I’m in a college which is believed to be a breeding ground for feminists, I have come to be aware of the various perspectives one attaches to the ideology. People have different views- some say it’s about being treated equally with men, while some claim to be even better. There are some who believe men to be the bane of a woman’s existence while some think it’s about not wearing a bra.
The past few days in my college have been a tumultuous experience. We did things that no one thought could happen in L.S.R...girls sloganeering, carrying banners and sitting down-refusing to budge. There seemed to be a certain spell that held them all, that made them get over their own problems and made them shout out in unison. It wasn’t about the “geek”, the “intellectual types” or the “babe” anymore…it became a ground where a few hundred girls found out what’s common between each one of them, something that couldn’t be given a name. I realized that there’s a certain power Estrogen has that allows one to defy. It has this innate way of letting us know that no matter who we are, we don’t need to take shit, and we don’t need to silently listen… and it’s okay to shout. Coming together sometimes helps you conserve the voice that you would’ve lost had you shouted alone.
Ofcourse we need to shout. All of us- Men, Women, Children. Everyone needs to shout when people decide to go deaf on them. Feminism for me lies in that decision I make to shout, irrespective of who else is shouting or who else has shouted before me, and it lies in the widening of the space that allows me to shout. It is important for voices to be heard- be that of men or women. There has to be neutral ears that do not engender the voices they listen to;there has to be a complete absence of biases.
That is my brand of feminism.

it's crazy how i never get high,no matter how much i drink!not that i want to,but it's weird seeing one's friends getting as high as a kite and yet not knowing what it feels like.i remember how i was absolutely sane the last time-i infact walked a good kilometre back home.but i guess i shouldnt complain.i mean,it's not a bad thing that i am never in the state wherein i puke out the day's breakfast on someone and cant sit straight.
on a completely different note,have you ever visited a historical monument and felt like an extreme atheist?i mean,have you ever seen what human hands have done and credited them to be greater hands than those of God? i have.i went to Qutb Minar yesterday.

i've been living in a haze for the last few days-you know how you just stand back and watch things zoom past your eyes and you just absorb the haze they leave behind, and take in the the residual momentary lull.
i had to write term papers at break neck speed, meet deadlines for each of the committees i had enrolled myself in.you see, the problem with me is that i can never know when to draw the line-i just go on accepting responsibilities till kingdom come, and then cry for mercy as each one of them come biting at my ass.
i also happened to fly home for three days for my cousin's wedding.my city has changed.they say you cant say if a person has lost/gained weight if you keep seeing him/her everyday.it's the same with the city.when you stay in it,when it becomes a part of your everyday domestic trivialities, you fail to notice the little squares of the mosaic,when they change colours.
but home remains home,no matter how much it changes...the same way mothers remain mothers,no matter how intolerable their idiosyncrasies become.

p.s:took this picture during my winter break with N's new camera.very cool camera it be.

all my life,i've seen my mesho have just one best friend-debol jethu.
he suddenly passed away this morning because of a heart attack.though i have never seen my mesho get perturbed at anything but today,i can just imagine him letting go of a huge chunk of his life,which debol jethu took away with him.
i dont know if the concept of "best friends" exists today...i mean,you do have very good friends and then your boyfriend becomes the best friend.but do we really have the kind of friendship which traces its journey back to the playgrounds of school but still manages to remain the same,defying grey hair and wrinkled faces?
my sister (mesho's daughter) took the first flight to cal,because for her it's almost like losing her father.
i raced my imagination to say...50-60 years from now,would any of my friends' kids do that when i die?
scary thought.

the blogger is: IN

the last few days have been like a whirlwind...
Delhi suddenly got colder.actually,it's not so much about the cold.it's actually the wind which is making traveling in autos almost seem as if you've just mistaken Siberia to be Anjuna beach and decided to sunbathe!
after days of shouting at the Reliance people,i finally have my net connection back...so i can breathe now.i almost feel like robbing Tina Ambani of the yacht her husband gifted her from the money we pay for USB modems that dont connect!
i have also been very pissed after the Chennai trip got cancelled....it would've been fun,specially with S around.moreover,it was supposed to be a trip with new people and for a new thing-not the same old play!
college's been very hectic with a thousand deadlines to be met and the journal work.
i hope i survive all this...in one piece.
and finally,it feels great to be back :)

i turned 20 yesterday.
it's a weird feeling really...it's like "shit i'm old" but then i guess by the time i'm 21,i will be used to living in the second decade.so i should just stop making a big deal out of such things.didn't someone very famous once say,"what is age,but a number?"!
on a sadder note,i leave for delhi tomorrow with a laptop which doesnt have a internet connection.so i guess,this calls for another one of those sad hiatuses from this space.
but keep watching,i will be back (soon,hopefully).

angst

it is disheartening to see the world zoom past our city as it just about manages to peep through its shroud of smoke.it is sad when one hears of youngsters flocking the Delhis and the Mumbais for call-centre jobs.
i feel angry when i see rallies on the city roads and imagine my friends in Delhi speeding down some new flyover.i shout abuses at cabbies who strike against something which could be remotely "progressive" had it been better planned.
it hurts to see the Calcutta of my fairy tales become a story without a beginning,middle or end-a story which just goes on without a plot.
it hurts more because Calcutta is home.it's always been.
it still is.
"Shaat koti shontaner hey mugdho jononi,
rekhecho bangali kore,manush koroni"