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.

to the rain

it rained incessantly yesterday.there is this old connection between me and rains-they just do something to me.words, which lay trapped somewhere between the layers of my skin, start revolting-they twist,they turn in their efforts to leave behind the entrapments of skin and blood and set wings to fly away into the sky which is a sad shade of grey.i see them wanting to set sail and reach that little patch of blue which lies beyond the stretch of sky before my eyes.but when i cant set them free,i begin to feel almost miserable, much like the young girl who wanted to wake up and see sunshine,but woke up into a rainy day.
this is all i managed.

Stealing a peep through your blacks and whites today,
I saw how the rains tattoo words of love-
On the earth's brown face,with its small needles of silver.
I saw the clouds make love to the earth,
As they left behind watery kisses-
In secret potholes and puddles.

I saw the woman standing next to her window,
As her fingers groped for a nameless dream,
That lay beyond that grey stretch of sky.
Leaving aside your blacks and whites,I saw her sing,
As rainclouds gathered in her eyes.

P.S: Lousy.I know.

tears unexpected

i have been convincing myself that i am no longer the cry baby i was in school.i had begun to believe that i can see life as it is without letting salt water well up my eyes.
i had begun to think that i have "grown up" and then came today...
i still don't believe that i let that lump of sorrow grow in my throat and let those tears flow.
i really didn't know that i would miss people who were strangers till the last month.
life's like that...there are people who walk in and before you can walk some distance with them,they walk out.but when they leave you see footprints that they leave behind which shows you which way you need to walk,the next time you don't know where to go.
thanks to everyone in HT City who made the last month memorable for me.
will miss you.

to you two

there was something i wrote when you two got together in my old blog,but i guess i deleted it for some reason.
S,if you remember,i asked you if you are seeing her even before you did...and then that day when you said that you are,i guess i had a "oh i knew that" expression on my face.but today,after two years,i cant really bring myself to believe the truth she told me.
if i ever knew two people whose sense of security has been immense,it would have to be you two.i don't know why,i still cant internalise the truth...
it's like one of those weird things that you hear from somewhere but you know that it aint true.i wouldn't have believed if someone else told me,but it was her...
i know she is brave.but there are battles which you fight with yourself,and i am hope she is brave enough for them and as for you,S i really don't know.guess i never knew you enough inspite of those late night chats.
but to you two,i really hope this was a bad dream i have been dreaming,and you guys need to wake me up.sooner,the better.