Some days are always better than the rest...

Bossie, you know what...I am drunk today...most surely drunk on old old memories...of us, of our days together...of the chats we had...the walks we took, your touch, your presence...and this is once again what JK Rowling's excessive use of the F word has done to me (I am reading the Cuckoo's Calling now - so back to back novels by her - quite like the Harry Potter days) - so F it all, I know you are this stupid married man with a kid - but hell I am very very lonely and desperate for a job and nothing is going right in my life...when I discover on the TV one of those movies that you talked about (released during the time we were together) and I return to my time machine.

And you know what I do? You have any idea what I do? I put my iPod on charging, after what seems like ages. In the last 5 months since coming to Kolkata, I haven't charged it, I have never used it even once to listen to a song. If I have been desperate I just logged in youtube...but then given the disastrous internet speed here, F, I had to give it up. Once in a rare while I downloaded songs through keepvid.com and played in my mobile...that's all I did, you see, my nice new blue iPod stood abandoned - way you and all the rest abandoned me.

And then...today happened. A guy just unknowingly impressed on me that he cares. He even complained why I don't care about him. The great mystery that human mind already is, who can ever say what sparks off things. Standing ignored for all these 5 months, this is one guy who has come back to me again and again, precisely 3 times in all these months, in two of the instances, including today, a chat on gtalk led to a subsequent call, which cheered me up substantially. No, I don't think of love, particularly because, I am no more in the age to fall in love - I need to settle down, and there is no practical chance that I can settle down with this guy. You see, I know the pros and cons too well.

But then I opened up a little - a wee little bit to the idea that things might change. I might get a job, I might just get married and have a caring enough husband who might not abandon me. Some positive thoughts came after ages, some romantic thoughts followed them, and in this small peephole I had opened up to let in sunlight, the sweet, dizzying breeze of my once upon a time life came back.

1. I listened to that recording of our last night's conversation (time stamp tells me 09-10-12 12:49 am, he was on his way to catch his Kuwait flight - from where he'd return for his engagement - but then I had no notion of these things and was just asking if he has eaten properly) -
Me. I still don't get it
He. I ate Lunner
Me. What?
He. Lunch and dinner together is called Lunner
Me. In which language?
He. I am coining this new word in English. Idiot...breakfast and lunch, you call as brunch, then why don't lunch and...

That's all - I remember having hurriedly closed off the recording in fear that he might get to know (way he had gotten to know that I am accessing his mailbox regularly). I didn't want to do the same mistake twice, didn't want to alienate him, oh God, I just didn't want to lose my Boo again on any account. God, I never knew that this is the very last time he's ever speaking romantically to me...that he's gonna abandon me - has already abandoned me and chosen another girl - I just didn't know.

2. Found this photo of mine with an alfa romeo convertible, taken in Singapore. I was of course looking for some other photo - but this brought back a surge of feel good - oh if only I could get back to that life - who knew things will degrade and leave me in the state I am today...a total pauper...

3. Found the photo I was looking for...the one taken in Bintan, me, him and the baby...it seems I can spend my life looking at the photo (ya of course, for this will never be a reality in my life right? I just gotta get punished for no fault of mine - or just cause myself pain by bringing in blame for things I haven't done, which just accidentally happened - ya that's gonna be my life - whereas the perpetrators of my destruction live on in super bliss) - but then...amid all bitterness, oh I had that life, I had that time even if for once...If only my heart hadn't turned into stone because of the turn of events, I believe I could have cried with joy seeing the photo.

4. Watched Bhool Bhulaiya on the TV (once again - can't help quoting yet another chat at yet another point in time with yet another person I had loved and trusted - me: kalki movie kaisi tthi he: mast...dont go by rating me: ok ok he: badiya movie thii) and just longed to listen to the song আমি যে তোমার one more time...went to youtube...the streaming was ok but the audio got distorted after a while. And out of sheer madness I groped in my purse and fished out the iPod.

I know tomorrow will be another of those horrible days when I won't even feel like waking up. I am certain these days that I am gradually getting into the grip of permanent depression - I just don't feel that urge anymore - begging hurts man - nobody helps. The bastards will give lecture - oh you shouldn't have left your job, you see it is a pyramid - there is less space on the top - bloody hell I am not interested in knowing the corporate structure in India, be it pyramid or rectangular parallelopiped - if you can help me do that else go to hell. You know D'bhai, I feel the entire world is living in their own sweet dream, they don't realize reality. Oh it is just happening to her, it will never happen to me, I am this perfect smart ass you see. I know you'd tell me, language Mamon. What can I do D'bhai - I just don't wanna leave my parents and go back to Bangalore. This is the only bit of family I am left with - anyways the rest of my life after them is going to be maddeningly lonely - why doesn't God let me have at least this much? You understand na D'bhai, all I need is some work, some work that won't get on my nerves, or make me feel belittled - any respectable bit of work, for which I don't need to beg. I hate begging D'bhai...I don't know why the world turns me down like this?

Wanted to watch both Highway and অভিশপ্ত নাইটি - but then couldn't bring myself up to get out of home - I told you its getting worse - I feel so guilty to enjoy life without a job. If things continue like this, I am sure I won't be going out for Durga Puja next time...will it really come to that?

Color amid monotony...

I have a throbbing head today - I am hardly aware of anything else, it throbs too much. Today is one of those days when you just feel like giving up. For a person like me who can't handle rejection too well, who knew that rejection will become a way of life? I will be forever abandoned by the job market only because I had taken a break in my career? Even people who had tried to help initially will grow weary of my nagging and look away and purposely ignore me? I'd become a burden to the very family whose shelter I was seeking? Like Paul's plight in The Rocking Horse Winner, I'd hear whispers everywhere - we are poor and you are not contributing. Oh but how do I explain how earnestly I want to contribute? What if there isn't a glimmer of hope?

I am becoming sick and tired of this meaningless existence. Neither can I concentrate on anything else, e.g. preparation for GMAT. Money has been my driving source since I started working. May be because from those very first days I had been supporting my family. Now, getting like 1/4th of my erstwhile monthly take home as interest money doesn't seem sufficient at all.

I somehow find I don't fit in anywhere, not even in my own family. Neighbors are actually kind, they have never misunderstood my coming back as being fired from job etc. Instead they are eager for my parents to set up an arranged marriage. How on earth does arranged marriage happen? I am gradually stepping in my dead friend Samapti's shoes perhaps. The very girl, whom I had tried to help during her depressed state, but who anyways later committed suicide. I never ever thought I, the strong willed and talented me, will be in quite a similar state of mind. How life has pushed me around. Perhaps nothing else except my gullible and dreamy nature is to be blamed. I trusted people, that was my greatest fault. And oh, just how much I want to kill Karthik before I die. And I see him flourish every single day. God, you needn't help me, leave me to my evils, but punish him - he is one person who doesn't deserve to be happy, please God, punish him. I had been able to live on after everything else that occurred in my life, trusting this guy who personifies falsehood, killed me.

One more reason for my depression might be reading "The Casual Vacancy". I'd like to just tell J K Rowling, lady I can understand what it took to write that out. I tell you, there won't be one such author for ages to come.

These days, the only moment of happiness is the afternoons when I make coffee for my family. Creamy well brewed coffee, with a little plate full of biscuits and occasional presence of samosa or other tasty tit bits. That's the bliss moment - that takes away the entire days pain and ill treatment. This reminds me, grrrrrrrr I must write here once again about the terrible hell hole which my previous organization was. PF claim and Form 16 are the last two straws connecting us - and I'd have to tolerate the torture for some more time I guess. Absolute worthless support functions I tell you. I had painstakingly scanned the PF forms (in absence of a scanner, had to manage with my digicam and pasting the images on a word document and conversion from word document to PDF online - a long process in all), all I wanted the Finance desk guy was to review the forms before I send them across. This was the precious reply.

Sorry we will not check scanned copies, you can send us the forms & if there are any discrepancies we will get back to you.

Just imagine the idiocy of this statement. How can an IT company have this policy of not checking forms online? I have managed Partnership and Alliance channel in the organization - I have executed a number of deals online. How lame an excuse can one give, just for the sake of harassment? For it is my precious time and money that goes in sending the forms once again all the way from Kolkata to Bangalore. Doesn't matter to them. And in view of this jobless situation, I am in so dire need of money that I couldn't even complain about this. Just flared up in my mind and had to gulp down the anger. And once again, for the umpteenth time, thank God, I washed my hands off that wretched place. Even if I never again get a job and this decision proves to be a professional suicide, I won't regret it a bit. You just can't exist in such an obtuse place.

I also must write here about the girl who discovered me through this blog and wrote to me. She's really become (as she put in one of her mails to me) a soul sister. We exchange at least one mail per day and share the days experiences and our thoughts and views. In this apparent friendless void, she is a life saver - she is really sweet. She is much younger to me, lives in the north east part of India and calls me D'bhai (of course she learnt it from my blog). God has strange ways of calming you down when you are at your wits' end. This nanhi pari (little fairy - as I call her after Rani Mukherjee's character in Veer Zaara as described by SRK) tells me that she truly believes I shall have good days. Her words do not bring back the lost faith, but still makes me wonder a bit, may be she's right?

So to end up, as you might know, আজ ভাষা দিবস. International Mother Language Day or World Mother Tongue Day, as they call it. Though international, it is mainly a day to celebrate Bengali, my mother tongue. I don't know which other people have laid down their lives to be able to speak in their language. And I tell you, I, the girl who has been taught in an English Medium school, and have lived outside her own place for a major part of her life, and even probably thinks in languages other that Bengali, through all thick and thin, there is one thing I have realized, there is nothing sweeter than my language. And you know, today in the morning I was shedding ample tears thinking of all the regular issues, no geyser in the bathrooms, no sofa set in the drawing room - my inability to give my family the minimum amount of comfort. And then in the evening, mom suddenly suggests, out of her naivety, why don't we buy a তক্তপোষ - nothing but a four legged divan, much cheaper than a sofa. And it triggered off the memories - a small poem I had read as a kid,
ও রে ভাই শক্তচোষ, আমি হচ্ছি রক্তচোষ, মোদের নিবাস তক্তপোষ (apparently two bedbugs greeting each other), and then Suman emerged from nowhere, and I sang aloud to my family with such a pride -

তক্তপোষ বা মেঝেতে বিছানা, দড়িতে লুঙ্গি, শাড়ি তিনখানা,
তারই একপাশে পড়ে আধখানা বেওয়ারিশ বাসি বিসকুট,
দরজায় আছে নম্বর লেখা,
তাই দেখে দেখে ঠিকানাটা শেখা,
যদিও বাসার আসল ঠিকানা ১০ ফুট বাই ১০ ফুট!

Poverty, frustrations, sir aankhon par :) Only thing that makes me fight the throbbing head and the growing sense of dejection are these moments...

Love is in the full moon :)

Never thought I’d venture out to write such poetic stuff at this age. For how on earth can I deny that I am middle aged. It is entirely a different story that I never feel my age. I don’t feel any bit more than 20 – perhaps even younger. The most important reason behind that is perhaps the fact that I didn't experience the stress involved in having a family with someone entirely unknown, or at most half known. For in no relation of love can you know your fiancé fully enough before marriage. But look at me, I have all familiar people around me, I know them from the time I was born, or perhaps in case of my brother, 4 years later – but that hardly counts. I know them substantially – so their idiosyncrasies don’t weigh down on my mind to that extreme extent, which can bother my childishness. Ya, I have grown aged for a while during the turmoil I faced in my relationships, in my last organization, office stress was also there…but then, you know what – all those things apart, I was always able to live life on my conditions – that’s what has kept me fresh for so long…

And nowadays life is absolute bliss – if you’d believe me, apart from the occasional depression caused by this jobless existence, life really couldn’t have been better. I am so surrounded by nature and technology – two things I cannot do without. Here, birds come and peck on my window and close by, the hustle bustle of metro construction is going on. Amid all the constraints Kolkata, my birthplace, is transforming. I learn things I have always wanted to learn, I play a lot of patience, and read a lot of books. I do errands for mom once in a while, get on the nerves of my granny by insisting that she does more exercise (poor thing can’t even walk properly and I make her do a 1 hour work out – you see after I have come back I can see her getting stronger and more lively) and then once dad comes back home I am always being a kid and throwing tantrums – who will then say that I am 34?

So, in course of this uncharacteristic youthfulness, I suddenly discover a very strange thing. A thing I have been waiting for since a long long time – and if it has ever happened in between, frankly speaking I missed it, and can’t recollect. Flash back 1998-99 – Dil To Pagal Hai J J

Ha ha, guessed the direction I am going to take? But then, it is all because of my granny. She doesn’t eat rice on full moon days (some custom to be followed by Hindu widows) – and since these days she is becoming a bit forgetful, she keeps asking us, when is the next full moon day? So that is how I suddenly realized, why, Valentine’s Day is on a full moon’s day today.  All those dialogues, all those stupid fantastic beliefs – that you are supposed to meet your soul mate on a Valentine’s day that falls on a full moon day (over that due to my widespread idle reading, I also learnt this concept of super moon – and that this month there is only the full moon, no new moon) – and scenes and dialogues and songs from DTPH so fills up my mind that I cannot help humming aloud J Trust me, I laugh at myself for being so crazy after having seen so much in life – I must be absolutely incorrigible.

But then what’s the harm in being happy? As it is, there is hardly any reason left in life for me to be happy. I am 34, without a job, without a boyfriend, never married, never had proper sex even (thank God I don’t have to write here “never been kissed”), completely cut off from the society (self imposed or whatever – that’s a fact, and I cannot also change the fact that I am basically shy and cannot reach out), hardly have a friend (apart from those phone calls and chats and mails where does a concrete real life friend exist for me?) – in all it is no life at all, it is indeed, end of a life. Still I can’t be sad. Yes, I have stopped dreaming, stopped hoping for good things to happen, over that my health is gradually failing however much I try not to take notice of it – still why need I let my frustrations reign supreme? Yes, happiness doesn’t agree well with me – last time I was happy when that guy was supposed to come and see me – I had almost convinced myself to say yes to the proposal – I so much wanted a different life than this one, that I had forgotten all about my resolution of waiting forever for my soul mate – man, soul mates don’t happen, I’d tell myself, get going with this guy if you wanna have a healthy kid before 35…and I had almost consented to my own coaxing – whence the guy came, saw, and rejected me L Although Ananya told me that there’s nothing wrong in that rejection, everyone has their right to choose, I was so so broken down. There goes my last chance of getting married – I thought and brooded. And practically too – I know it is not gonna happen. Who will find me? And I can’t go begging for everything on earth – give me a job, give me a husband – what do I look like? A clown?

So, another Valentine’s Day coming up. As it is, there is this strange cuckoo, who coos in the midnight – I doubt if anyone other than me can hear it – it’d start around 2 am or so and keep cooing and won’t let me sleep. So Mr. Soul Mate, will you please care to turn up? Otherwise, what else, once today is over, once again I’d return to my normal “duck face” state. I'd tell myself, girl, husband is such a bother...what if he snores? And over that kids, they cry, they wake you up in the middle of the night...leave all those things...giving birth itself is so exhausting...and then God forbid, if the kid falls sick, you won't be able to eat or sleep, if he is late in returning from school, you'd be sick with worry - girl, how blessed you are to be single...and I'd make a face at myself, but still, sigh and accept that this is my life...I have to live with it, God hasn't given me a normal life...

I know, but still, how does it matter if for just a day...I am happy and romantic...and I dream?

Book Fair - the 2nd haul :)

Ah, life is so boring. Now that the book fair is over, it seems all the more boring. I didn't go there in the last two days though. In fact, after my last entry, I had chance of visiting the place only once. But the fun I had was unparalleled. Another 11 books, one মিষ্টি পান, one packet of চানাচুর, popularly known as ঘটি গরম, one Metro Dairy Butter Scotch ice cream (I had one last time too), and a hell of a ride back home in (if you can imagine the case) a Volvo bus whose door doesn't close because of the crowd, and the conductor keeps shouting, please move in, "ladies" are going hanging on the foot board. Well, the catastrophe doesn't end there mind you, when amid that crowd, you hear your doting dad's (who himself is being pushed around by the young ones who have not been taught to show any civic respect towards senior citizens) voice, "Mom, please give me your purse and wallet, I will hold them, you stand properly..." Crap, crap, crap, I am 34 mind you, 3 and 4 put together, not the kid he imagines me to be - for God's sake daddy get a grip on yourself, your daughter has visited 10 other countries of the world...she knows how to take care of herself and her things.

Ah, Calcutta, I can understand why my dear Avik-da is so terribly frustrated with you. The chief minister wants to build a giant wheel. I remember the giant wheel of Singapore to be under construction when I visited it. I was so sad that I won't be there on its opening day. Ma'am, I don't want to sound suggestive, but don't you think welcoming tourists without improving on the public transport system would be bit of a disaster? For God's sake there are not even enough taxis or rental cars. How are they supposed to travel around? Buy a car, and sell that off before they leave the city?

Well, I didn't sit down to vent out my frustrations, but remind me to do that once...I am so full of exasperation that I have almost given up. But then today, I sat down to write about the 25 lakh foot falls and the 21 crore INR business that the 38th international Kolkata book fair has been blessed with, and my small contribution towards it.

1. So believe it or not, the first publishers from whom we bought something was Gita Press. We bought a gita with large font size that granny can read properly.
2. Next was Deep Prakashani - from where I had to obey my brother's instruction and get books on Sourav Ganguli, written by Debasish Dutta, published preferably after 2007, and would be better if it had stories of his face off with Grep Chappell (those who don't know about it please read up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chappell-Ganguly_controversy). It seems I had promised my brother to get such books and had forgotten in the previous occasion i.e. when I went to the book fair on the 7th of February - and for that he has been constantly complaining. Trust me, I still don't have any memory of making such strange promises, but thankfully, I could grab two such books for impossible prices (two of them together cost me Rs 80/-) and all hard feelings have now been put to rest.
3. Asia Publishing - I had googled and found out that they publish হেমেন্দ্র কুমার রায় রচনাবলী - got the 1st and the 7th parts, ya you guessed right, যখের ধন and আবার যখের ধন। Had a good mind of buying the full set, it would cost me only Rs 1380/- but then, who will carry so many books, given the state of public transport (trust me we just couldn't find taxis - otherwise job or no job, I still can afford one once in a while).
4. Kabita Pakshik - This was a curious place we had visited last time, and found they are selling classics for extremely low prices. I insisted that we go there once again. Since the entire family has been kind of bowled over after reading ডমরু চরিত - we decided to get লুল্লু - actually লুল্লু turned out to be even better, me and dad had taken couple of days to finish the former, and mom was not too impressed by it, but the latter was read up overnight by mom, dad and me, all three. We also got ভোঁদড় বাহাদুর and আরন্যক।ভোঁদড় বাহাদুর was one more thing I finished overnight. In fact none of us have time to do our regular work (e.g. cooking for mom, share trading for dad and Java lessons for me) - you see, we have so much to read :) Well, about the publisher, good attempt no doubt, but still, the spelling and publishing errors cause a lot of pain.
5. Well, Sahitya Academy - which has been taken over by the government, so they won't give the 15% discount due for my book fair privilege card, as they didn't receive any circular. But then I had to get this work of বুদ্ধদেব বসু  - the first volume, having read so much about his flaring intellect, and not being acquainted with his writing, I just couldn't leave the book behind. And then dad insisted I get for him yet another জীবনানন্দ - this time the gentleman's biography by some other Das fellow. Trust me, I just can't understand why on earth my dad is so obsessed with this crazy poet - at any nook and corner of our house you can discover a জীবনানন্দ book. I am not a fan - I do not understand why a person would go and smell the non existent grass on the tram line and be run over by a tram in the process - why God ever created such a person is beyond me - my dad is his disciple in a way, and all I can do is to accept that much. I don't have a poet living in me anymore, the world was able to kill it off long back. I fail to grasp this enigma of a person. In all, we had just curiously stepped in to take a look at the পশ্চিমবঙ্গ stall, and was enlightened to see বাউল গান being played there with Tabla and Harmonium (ideally a বাউল is supposed to play only with his একতারা and some ঘুঙুর kinda thing to keep the rhythm). But then we saw the books and lost a major chunk of our money, sans that 5% extra discount (Rs 26 it amounts too - sigh sigh) :D :D
6. Ya, this one was a surprise even to me - I got a book written on লোকনাথ বাবা from M. C. Sarkar. I mean, I am not a religious person, no. But then, from my very childhood, I have been taught to worship Him (my grandma, i.e. dad's mom was from the Nag family of বারদী , the family who first hosted Him once He came down to the plains of Bengal) - and in my childhood, before that boat accident happened which kind of split off the family and took away my two cousin brothers and my eldest uncle, we used to have লোকনাথের উৎসব in a real big way. Somehow, I felt like reading up on the only God-man I believe in - in the modern day crises of corrupt God-men everywhere, this seemed a must. I don't know the result of reading the book - my faith in Him has not been affected in any way by the book. What I primarily realized was - such books cannot really impact ones faith. We never were a part of any of the business following His worship - my parents have always kept us away from that - in fact I hardly speak about the fact that I belong to a family directly blessed by Him. All we have been taught is to live a good life, then He will take care of the rest. We have tried to be good, despite everything that tried to direct us away. That's all. I strongly believe, He made me read the book, like He has always been with me in all my decisions, without trying to influence.

So another book fair over. Man, do check out this book - http://www.pratikshanbooks.com/booksonart/rabindra_chitravali.html I actually saw this in the Pratikshan stall and was too scared to even browse properly. This is book fair, where they allow you to touch a book worth this much money - and if you have the patience, you can check out the entire book too!

So far as I can see, I won't be leaving my city and going away anytime soon. May be I'd be there for the so many more book fairs to come. But then, this was like reincarnation. A gush of life after 10 long years. Those will be like celebrating an usual birthday.

Boi Mela 2014!

A pleasure which words can't describe. It is almost like the peace of mind a pious person gets when he reaches his temple. And, oh, so long a gap, that I hardly remember when was the last time I visited the book fair. Those days when I used to be a student, there was hardly any money, and I'd select and shortlist and then again be forced to cut down on the list, given my budget. One of the first books I got from the book fair was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I simply felt I have got to get the original version of this book, I can't bear to miss one single word of the story. I remember the book had cost me 80 bucks then, And I perhaps used to get a pocket money of 20 paise per day (6 Rs a month) which was later revised to 10 Rs a month. You can well imagine, how much pain I had to take to accumulate the required money.

The next phase belonged to the various শরদিন্দু অমনিবাস I'd buy. One a year, or maximum two. I was giving tuition then, so I had a little more money at my disposal.  And as it is not in my habit to ruin a book in any way, I used to write with a pencil, in the front page, my name followed by the book fair year. Those were good days.

Did I tell you about the cultural program I attended on 26th January? It was the reunion of dad's college, There was a tabla rendition by Bikram Ghosh and his band, Rhythm Scape, and it was followed by a musical evening with none other than Usha Uthup. How I enjoyed man, it was like...I was living and breathing after a long long time. And guess what, I even shook hands with the lady, and said a short and smiling "Ma'am, pleasure meeting you" whence the lady winced, it seems my diamond ring hurt her :O

This book fair was no different, may be even more blissful a feeling. Got 9 books in all, and I know it might sound childish, but I really want to write down about them.

1. From Rupa - A Ruskin Bond edited collection of Horror Stories, A Hundred Lamps, a collection of short stories written on the medical profession and a book on Suchitra Sen (more for my mom than for me - though having some good photographs and a biography of such a dynamic lady didn't seem a bad idea at all, though I am a little bit irked by the craze that has followed her death, I have always been her fan, death doesn't make her special all of a sudden).

2. From Projapati - Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (how I wanted this ever since my childhood, being this huge huge fan of the author) and Father Brown stories (have always heard about him - couldn't resist buying, now that I am done with most of the other famous detectives)

3. From Mitra O Ghosh - Got a collection of কিরীটী রায় - this one for my mom, and well, of course I'd read too

4. From Karuna - Got a ত্রৈলোক্য নাথ মুখোপাধ্যায় - ডমরু চরিত - remember reading his work from South Point High School Library, those days all I'd read was ত্রৈলোক্য নাথ মুখোপাধ্যায় and বিভূতিভূষণ বন্দোপাধ্যায়।

5. From Dey's - guess what? Ya man, ever since I lost my সুকুমার সমগ্র I wanted to get another copy, and finally did. And how I was laughing like a child reading excerpts of হ য ব র ল and লক্ষ্মনের শক্তিশেল - in fact it was like, I'd first recite a para or a part and then open the book and show dad just how correctly I remember.

6. How we went around looking for Signet Press. Like my সুকুমার সমগ্র I had lost my চাঁদের পাহাড় as well. And it is such a craze in this book fair, almost all publishers have published copies. But me and dad had decided that if we get it, we'd get the original one. And finally, we could locate the stall. Ah, here lies the book, the same cover that I had as a child. Only, it was paperback then, now they have republished with a hard bound cover.

This much for one day, and I definitely plan to go back. The arrangement is nice, though the return journey was not as smooth as the onward journey, given the roads have been made one way. But, otherwise, there were maps available, I duly collected my privilege card (which entitled me for 5% extra discount if I buy more than Rs 500 worth of books from a particular stall), and gladly noticed that there is plentiful arrangement of free packaged drinking water. Really a good gesture. Moreover, reading the books was so pleasant. Read some pages of আরন্যক after a long time - couldn't recollect much. But read almost the whole of ক্ষীরের পুতুল and could remember it entirely. And I also noticed, the quality of printing has gone up a lot after desktop publishing came into vogue. I once remember buying this collection of O Henry short stories - my, I had to sit with a pen to correct the spellings. It is much better now. Aparna Sen gave a speech on the occasion of hundred years of Indian cinema, dad was very eager to see her once. I lectured dad a bit on mid life crisis, whence he retorted and said, all Sens' are dying, so he dare not miss this chance - and I took him to the auditorium all the same. Going anywhere with dad is so much fun, but I don't want to stress him out, as it is he is 67, and was visibly in pain after continuously walking for 5-6 hours. So we took a taxi home, and spent all the money we had saved in discount. That is precisely the fun of book fair - I sign off (or sigh off) saying the same old thing - I so much want to live in this city - wish I had some job. God, please listen to me for once...as they say, have mercy :)