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"

New Year!

It's been a Dickensian year...you know,"the best of times,the worst of times" kind.
It's been a year of losses and gains...more or less balanced.A year of a weird way of growing up,experiencing an ascent from the petty world of school-level gossip and bitching.I'm glad i have put all that behind and have learnt to ignore them to a great extent.
i lost some friends,gained some...and fortunately,managed to clear out one of the biggest messes of my life.i met some new people and i thank god for them...they're the kind of people who you dont meet too often,or talk to every now and then,but who you know will take your call when you're in deep shit,even if it happens to be way past midnight.
it's been a year of promises,just like the last one happened to be one of seeing some of the best things come to an end.and like all promises,some ended up being broken but,thankfully,left behind no incurable wound.
it's been a great year for N and me.and for his music...here's hoping he keeps adding tunes to that blue confetti dream we dreamt a couple of years back.
let's hope 2009 doesnt get worse,in case it cant get any better.and that's that.

p.s:have a great year ahead...wish you the best of 2009

Lucky Girl!

I went into one of my pondering sprees yesterday, after watching one of the dumbest commercials in television history. Even if I was the fattest guy on earth with the equator for my waistline, I would refuse to get married to a girl who cant, to save her life, say anything beyond “Hi”…irrespective of whether she’s white, black, red, green or blue.
It’s weird how companies mint money out of prejudices. Infact, these fairness product ads tend to play on double prejudices: a) the girl just HAS to be fair and b) she always has to end up being an object of male affection in the end. Interestingly, the choice of careers for these practitioners of the “power of beauty” has seldom gone beyond modeling and aviation hospitality, barring that one ad where the girl becomes a cricket commentator and an object of male gaze.
At this point, I remember the “Lucky Girl” ad and thousands of others where the girl becomes a “winner” in life from the quintessential dark “loser”, only because she happens to be fair. I’m not fair, and neither is my mother. But then, nothing has really stopped us from becoming what we are.
These ads tend to play to popular stereotypes-the hard fact, even today, is that people in the country still think a beautiful woman is meant to be fair, which is amazing in a country of brown skinned people. Loose terms like “dusky beauty” has only lead to the exoticisation and fetishisation of the dark woman and has contributed majorly in making her “the other”.
I never thought I’d say this, but I actually respect Aishwarya Rai (Bachchan, if you may) because she turned down an offer to become the Indian face of a global fairness cream giant. These little things are important because people in the country need to realize that a woman is more than just a colour.

Ho Ho Ho

We've all been very bad girls and boys this last year.
We've sped across signs saying "School Ahead" and honked at hospital walls.
We've emptied our dustbins on the road and painted the bank walls red with spit.
We've cogged in class tests and have come out of public loos,leaving behind things for people to see and smell.
We've smoked when no one was looking and bitched about the person who's all that we want to be.
And somewhere in the process,we've all observed a few minutes of silence...
And yet Santa,you will gift us peace this year,will you not?

P.S:on a merrier note,Merry Christmas to each one of you...

apology

i'm sorry i havent been blogging at all...
i dont know how many of you visited this page and then went back seeing nothing new.my laptop got stolen from an outstation fest i was attending with my play.life's been hard since then.
but now that i'm back home,i swear to god i'm going to update soon.
i missed my blog...and ended up writing on loose scraps of paper...i intend to use my holidays and type in all that.
and maybe *fingers crossed* if i do get a new laptop soon,i will be blogging regularly again..
thanks for still visiting my blog...i will be visiting all your blogs soon :)

words have come and words have gone..
now,they just fail me.

the post pujo post

like each year,this year, too, the pujos went past in a blink of an eye...it's kind of crazy how we wait with baited breath for these 5 days and they just zoom past like a spoilt brat who has just laid his hands on his dad's car!
the other day,we were discussing which day of the pujos we love the best...i said "shoptomi" because that's the day when everyone is filled up with joy at the onset of the pujos.ashtami becomes too hectic with anjali and family meals and there hasn't been one nobomi when i haven't felt down.
also this puja,i realised i am getting more and more claustrophobic and just the thought of standing amongst crowds,gives me jitters.the only trip i made to maddox this year was in the morning and i couldnt be happier.each time i drove past that place,i saw the crowd and exclaimed how it was getting worse with each year.even when we all started dancing last evening before the bhashan,i found it difficult to stand amidst the damp smell of dhuno,sweat and alcohol.
but if there's something i love about the pujos,it's the dhunuchi naach...i think words like "beautiful" were invented for things like this.the way the sublime smoke rises from that little clay vessel-painting fluid shapes across the night sky...and the way the dancer twirls around the vessel without dropping the coir inside,is nothing short of an art.i also love the sound of dhaak...way more than the "tasha" that plays during the bhashan.
i can just go on...but i guess it's best to keep some memories to yourself-the old friends' lunch,the 5 star lunch,the nagordolna ride...
sigh,all i can hope is "aashche bochhor abaar hobe!"
and before i forget,shubho bijoya to all of you .

i remember when i was much younger,i used to keep a diary-minute details of everything i did,went into it.
the first time i waxed,i wrote something describing the excruciating pain.
and when i got my cartilage pierced last saturday,i was reminded of that long forgotten entry and suddenly began to miss my diary...
the diary,like many other things,has been a part of the childhood i have grown out of.
it's almost been like a cloak which i happened to slip off when no one was noticing.
each time i'm reminded of some old memory..it's like finding some thread,of that old cloak,that was left behind.
when i was talking to a school friend a few days back and planning a visit to maddox,i remembered how i refused to leave the golf green pandal,as a kid when any world beyond golf green refused to exist for me!
when you find these threads,you almost begin to hope to sew back the old cloak and wear it again.
but then,we realise that maybe you could have the cloth back but the tailors have all gone far away-way beyond any distance our calls can reach.
we realise that,maybe,growing up isnt that great a deal after all.

p.s:this is a very impulsive post...the language isnt at its best usage.sorry!