An Epitaph...

Kutu - my first and only pet - Rest in Peace my Dear Angel...

This minuscule photo is where I assume Kutu will live on. This was taken during Durga Puja last year, I just recently noticed her lazing in the background of our happy family photograph and cropped it.

I never had a particular preference for her, she was not pretty. I used to treat the strays in my road just as I would treat any stray anywhere on earth – with a little of care that doesn’t matter to them.

Two things changed my equation with Kutu. Avik-da’s visit to our house around Christmas last year, when he said few things while playing with the strays – as we waited for his bus. He said, they are very undemanding, even if you have no food to give, they will hang around just to get a little pat on the head. He also said, what if they bite? Someday they might bite, but they haven’t yet bitten him till now. And then came Kutu’s puppies, the excitement of the kids of our neighbor just to see them, one fine Sunday morning, they were running and cycling up and down the road, and I joined them and called out to them – shall we think of names for them? The kids nodded eagerly.

I started feeding Kutu just because I was fond of her pups, and they couldn’t eat bread. They lived on her milk. It was not that I was not scared of being bitten, but Avik-da’s words gave me some courage, and I remember retorting to my mother once, saying “they are more trustworthy than many human beings” – when feeding her.

I had no idea Kutu was destined to face such a brutal death, some inhuman being would beat and stab her with iron rods. I didn’t know she had to face so much ignominy and humiliation, her body would be lying unattended for more than two days, her legs jutting out at an unnatural angle, showing her swelling underbelly, a glistening white…that I never noticed before now. In this life time I will never forget the visual of her babies clawing at their dead mother, with each sunrise, they would come back with hope that she might wake up. I will never forgive the corporation people, who are procrastinating in their duty of taking her away, making people loathe Kutu all the more, fearing that she will start smelling. Oh, she could have been spared such a death. But bless her soul, she was a noble lady indeed, she doesn’t yet smell.

As I sit in this shadow of death and despair, I wish her a better afterlife. I thank her for having given me important lessons of life. I have seen her shivering in the cold and yet keeping her babies warm. She never begged for food. While she ate, she took care that her babies don’t bother me. She was always teaching her babies to be well mannered. The people who have killed Kutu have probably killed her entire family, and a part of me too.

I am happy that she had a full life, grew up amid life’s atrocities, found friends, and had babies. I wish she could have seen her kids grow up. I will miss her. I have promised to myself, I will never attempt to feed another dog or become emotionally involved. I have lost my love for her kids too. It was my fault that I adopted her and then couldn’t take enough care of her. Please forgive me. Please be born again, somewhere, and let this not be the end.

An essential monologue...

I need to write - and that too very quickly...because after that I need to finish my night routine of brushing my teeth (much like Bella Swan - I believe it is my ritual) and fall asleep as soon as possible...because tomorrow I need to get up early and prepare for my class - I have no enthusiasm right now to study PHP :(

I won't talk about anything personal - neither about me nor about him. My brother told me it is a crime to tell personal things publicly...

I have a serious issue with the buttering tendencies of modern day youth, and it is time I criticize the young man in my team who earns his salary by virtue of buttering...thanks to the culture in vogue in my university. What beats me is how ruthless he can be about this buttering business. He has all the time on earth to write pages on the suicide attempt of some professor ... (may be not at all because he feels strongly about the incident but only because he wants to impress his professors with his thoughtfulness) - and you know, the other day, the girl in my team was just describing how she had an accident last evening...and the very same "thoughtful" young man didn't even bat an eyelid...let alone inquire further...oh he was so fidgety to be allowed to leave...so that he can go to his department and resume buttering. When it comes to people I dislike, I am not a Sagittarian anymore...I am a real Scorpio...and I have to teach this guy a lesson he will never forget...

Oh I do need to talk about the full moon lady too. My dear full moon lady, I have never loved you enough...but from the day you sent me the following message, I believe you to be my sister - I failed to understand the "real" love you have for me and trust me...I am really really grateful for that :)

Hey! How have you been? Just buzzed to say I saw a dream about you last night. We were all at my grandpa's place. Me and my husband. And you and your husband!!!! And when you introduce me to him I say "let me check if he's the real deal". To which he instantly responds "don't worry I'm not like the others" 
Thought I'd share with you

So...it won't really be a challenge to spend the next one month. Till my brother is here, I have this packed schedule anyways. Then, I have the classes, I have the workplace to confront (and establish ethics as far as I can), I have the planned exercises to do...I have my books to read...

I wanted to write about my brother too...way he is mistreated at his workplace...but I shouldn't write personal things...you know what...the child in me is no more that incorrigible child...

Oh oh and oh...there are things that are not personal. Like a God forsaken person, who dared to play with my life...trying to add me in Linkedin. If we had a professional relationship ever, I really wonder what profession he thought me to be in...such a bustard...

And Linkedin is indeed a very dear place to me...we became friends there...I felt like kicking him...but I am grown up now...I can take things in my stride...

Wish I could stop calling myself Pupu...wish I could forget my kiddo...wish I could throw away my golden flower ring...wish I had never ever met that monster of a person.

I don't deserve anything good D'bhai...how can I complain, tell me? It was all my own wrong judgment...

But D'bhai...tell you something? I learned something I had overlooked totally...I always trust শরদিন্দু didn't I tell you? He did say something about letters going unreplied :) I at least receive replies...once in a green moon :) :)

Nevertheless...

D'bhai, I am not the girl I was around 20th November last year. That much I am sure. I am not sure about anything else. Right now, I don't even remember that moment of realization, about which I wanted to write here...and then got reluctant. But for that moment D'bhai, it was love alright...I didn't mistake it...I couldn't have. It was real love that brought out real tears and real resolve, resolve which I couldn't keep finally, because I am a selfish, weak-minded girl.

And then, D'bhai, how much more truth can there be about my life, except that I have wasted it. I just don't stand a chance anywhere, not at friendship, not at love, because a dead person is simply not accepted anywhere. I have to accept that I shall never be loved, and I have to accept that I am not even allowed to love. I am not even allowed to care selflessly. Such a laughing stock I am that nobody has any trust in me. No one who has known me, would like to associate with me and become a mockery.

You know D'bhai, I never wrote about the neighbor who had just come over to advise about the driver and told his own experience. In a perfectly calm voice he described, how, on the eve of his final exams, of a course he had opted leaving his job aside, and at a time when he had just got his license, he had to drive a dying wife to the hospital - with a dead child in her womb. It was the scariest story I have ever heard. And he spoke about it in such a matter of fact way. I wanted to curse myself for thinking, why the couple doesn't yet have a baby.

I am a different person D'bhai. I feed the mother doggy knowing very well that the little milk she has might not keep her puppies alive. And it is so cold outside. I care for my friend knowing that it might not help him in any way. I live on knowing that life can be very very elusive. I am tired, I am weak, I cry myself to sleep almost every other night...happiness seems a thing of past. Some scars never heal...

Me time and me thoughts :)

“Me” time is a rarity these days. It is always “errand” time, “work” time, “training” time, “family” time, “friends” time, even “story book” time or “music” time can find a mention, but no “me” time, whatsoever. And you might rightly ask if all these factors don’t form a part of me. Yes, they do, but me time is exploration time. Time to ask myself how I feel, what I want…that has apparently stopped. Because I don’t anymore think about a future. I am contended with my present, if not happy.

As I write this, in my mind I am traveling in a BMTC bus, the one that connected my office to my home bus stop at BTM (mostly me and bhai would meet up and have dinner at Friends restaurant – I love the food there – only place where I can get at least some vestiges of European cuisine in Bangalore – and it was curiously a beer only restaurant – I never saw them serve other drinks. I could never have beer there, because bhai would make a face, but I could smell it at least). That bus goes via Jayanagar, all of 3^rd block, 4^th block and 9^th block are covered in the route. I love that stretch. All lighted up, nice shops, small quaint houses (almost a mirror image of a posh south Kolkata locality) – I miss the long distance travel. Sitting like a queen in the back seat of my car is not my idea of traveling. I am a middle class girl, who has struggled all her life. I like traveling by buses, well, at my present financial status, a less crowded bus where I might manage a window seat would definitely be preferred. In Bangalore, in the last couple of years, I had stopped taking the bus in the morning. But in the evening, if I wouldn’t be too tired, I’d rather wait for such a bus.

I slept early yesterday. Was exhausted. I don’t want to explain why, it seems futile. But then I know myself, and I’d be the last person on earth, trying to change myself. Well, I am lucky in a way, that I have got parents who don’t impose either. Really, it is not easy to get “if she is happy digging her own grave, let her do that” kinda parents. As of now, I don’t want to talk about it, talking would re induce the pain I have numbed with much effort. 

I don’t feel I need to worry too much about myself. The way the world is heading, there is not much to think anyways. It is now totally in grip of terrorism it seems. I was talking to dad the other day. And he told me how the world was almost recreated after the world wars. So all is not over yet.

Really, why do we indulge mania? We should not. If we just manage to keep our sentiments even, the world would be so much of a better place. I am one girl who thoroughly believes in freedom of expression. At least that shouldn’t be bossed over. 

Misinterpretation is an equally threatening crime. “Our God wants this…” – did God speak to you? “He’s spoken through his scriptures” – and who interpreted the scriptures?

I like this Kolkata life better than the Bangalore life. It is easy. The winter season is my favorite anyways. I am falling into a rhythm gradually. Yes, I am not too happy with the work and the workplace, but I am happy in general. Except for some nerve wrecking incidents which I probably imagine mostly in my head. Life is not beautiful, but it is not bad either. I wish I’d find my copy of Doctors, it seems very very important that I read the story once again. Re reading Hema and Kaushik wouldn’t have hurt either, but oh, somebody please retrieve my copy of Unaccustomed Earth, I can’t bear to get the paperback version for myself, and that is all that is available in the book shops.

I watched a documentary recently at the university, on the corruptions involved in the South City project. It touched a chord…I remembered how I had first gone to a theater, Nandan that too, to watch a documentary, after the “no theater before your +2 board exams” restriction was over. If I ever had any lady like grace, it was at that time, when I was turning 18. Otherwise I have always been this clumsy little girl, before and after. 

And right now I am traveling the lanes of Ballygunge Place. Climbing up the staircase to the mezzanine  floor classroom where I’d take my maths coaching classes. Sundays would be for the average students, Thursdays would be for the good students. But that apart, I have a lot of love and respect for my maths teacher. Way he used to call me লক্ষ্মী মেয়ে ...way he understood my love for mathematics, though I didn't have the talent. I remember this time of the year, dad would be having his reunion meetings at his institute after picking me up from the coaching class, I'd sit in the car and do sums in the dim twilight - clumsy or whatever, I have always been a nice girl :)

Well you can as well add mom's story too (that she and dad used to take me to a crazy doctor when I was an infant, and he'd distort my name...yet she'd understand it is I who's being called)...I don't wanna go for car servicing man, I wanna sit and write...someone please give me some me time...

Withdrawn...

After a long time I discovered my motherly nature. I am too much of a mom - I get worried even when some school going children try to cross the road unattended...(well to confess, I feel similar emotions for doggies to).

I just need some quiet time I guess. Away from everyone. And I'd be healed. I can't help it - it is my habit to care for people I love. But then everyone has brought their own destiny. And there are people who I can't bear to let go from my life.

I was telling my best friend (the lady best friend) - the other day, that I hate the men in her life, they have never treated her well. Imagine my predicament when she calls up last afternoon to declare that she is drunk, as per her own will, and she was challenged to call me up and confess that. You  may get drunk as per your own will, but why yield to a challenge to declare that? Why have an extra marital relationship after all - that too with a person who challenges you? I fail to understand with my limited knowledge of human relationships - and I can't think of a life without her. She's been there forever, since the last 20 years - she is the only logic I have to convince myself that friends don't leave me for my own fault. All I told her yesterday was to inform me once she reaches home safely. She didn't do that. I didn't call her back. At times you need to let things be, the way they are.

My dad - he fails to understand that he is growing old. The doctor advised him 7 days bed rest, and he didn't drop office for one single day. All through last week I had to cut my working hours to fetch him from office - and he'd keep grumbling, "I am not earning a penny here, why do you keep wasting your money on me?" All these while, he didn't find time to get the tests done, and he refuses to get it done from the nearby hospital - he insists on a cheaper place. When? How can you drive sense into someone's head when he refuses to listen to you?

And my undefined guy (I don't know what to call him) - I just can't bring myself up to be bitter to him. Whatever normal nonsense I say seems to hurt him, how can I give him bitterness even in a disguised form? And without that bitterness, I don't really think I'd be able to help him in any way. And then, has he ever asked for my help? He must have other more caring friends, if they can't stop him from wasting his life, how can I? And after all, it is best when you learn your lesson on your own, right? And how can I even say he is "wasting" his life. Similar situations don't always lead to similar consequences, right? He might get what he is waiting for. But how I wish he'd stop doing the things he dislikes so much (eating, sleeping and having medicines) and be brave enough to face his woes. Courage is a very necessary aspect of one's life - I have learned it the hard way. I was forbidden to eat my favorite things, prawns, ice cream - there was a time when I had to be on year long medication. I never listened to the doctor, and now my asthma hardly bothers me. I have my inhaler with me more as a keepsake than an emergency. I don't know...may be I am just frustrated. I get very upset with people reluctant to inculcate their potential (look who's talking - a girl who is anyways living in chunks...)

I should stop thinking, when I can't make a difference. How beautiful last morning seemed. I woke up when it was still dark, reached out for my ipod, put it in shuffle mode, and the very second song was Mann Mohana, a song which always calms me down. If you'd believe, I literally fell asleep again while listening to songs, and woke up after about an hour. Even today I woke up pretty early, but I don't feel similar emotions. I feel lonely, drained and helpless. I feel withdrawn...

PS - I chose  to move the curtains in my room and let some sunlight seep in. She told me that he is positive energy for me, he makes me look visibly prettier. I don't understand the concept of someone giving me positivity, himself being in such a negative condition. But in my mind I know that she said the truth, I am living life after a long long time, amid all my apparent troubles.

I don't know a more positive entity than the sun...and thank God for the omnipresence of light :)

You know what? There are more time pockets than I ever knew. Saturday was so hectic for me - meeting at the university, getting a gift, buying dad's newspaper - tried two stalls, both of them had sold out the particular paper - so I had to head to the station. Everything was normal till I had paid for the paper - and then, a train came, there was lots of noise, I looked around - and time simply stood still. It was such a happy feeling, such an overwhelming joy took me over - I can't explain...

Things that I'd rather not write...

মা, খোকন মামা-ও? মা, তাহলে সিদ্ধার্থ দা রাও তো...? মা, দিদিভাই? মা, তার মানে তো দিদা-ও? Can you imagine...my own grandma?

When Anand had talked with dad about our marriage for the first time...I remember, we were sitting in the terrace, and he was very tensed...and dad was unusually caustic. "Oh, I must consider myself lucky that she considered someone from the neighboring state", he told him in a terse voice, "tomorrow, my grandchildren may select some German or Russian...I still won't have a say in that..."

I am this girl grown up in a melting pot na? Learned Hindi from Meenu (who was a Marwari) - she knew Bengali perfectly well, having studied in a Bengali medium school, but I just spoke with her in Hindi as I wanted to learn the language. And then there was my first MNC - which can be described as - a real mini India. And then I am experimental. So, as a result I have never known my own community well.

And then, I don't like getting caught. If you read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastic_Beasts_and_Where_to_Find_Them (I myself haven't read it) - you might just find a mention of me there :P ... but that doesn't mean I will get caught with my fantasy world. I know nobody cares a fig about my fantasies, but they are precious to me na - I don't like to share them with undeserving people. I am not "following my bliss" once again, am I?

And I chuckle at the way I react to my own ways. Won't carry the dongle to office, knowing there are chances of internet outage - and would be a nervous mess there. Amid this the regular struggle would continue. This time Citibank debited 500 bucks + taxes (another 62 bucks - 61.80 to be precise). So I had to shout myself hoarse to recover it, but I was successful finally. Must mention this - Vodafone and Citibank are two organizations who take their customer complaints seriously.

And then running errands for my job and my family is how I summarize my life these days. All said and done, it was heartbreak when even in the late night my dongle won't give me proper speed. Pages would get stuck. And would you believe, I'd do some trick or so and manage to leave my ipod downstairs, but today I remembered to bring it along. And I really really need some sleep so that I can attend to the errands scheduled for tomorrow (car servicing, university, then 7-D movie date with Ananya and her daughter).

I can't explain the detachment. A lot of relatives visited us today, because they had come over to attend the ongoing religious festival. I was perfectly normal with them, laughed a lot, but it'd wear me out internally. I sent mom dad for the event in the night, and just slept off. For some strange reason, I can't stand crowded places...this quietness suits me just fine :)

Why did I write such a huge lot of rubbish today? Because I absolutely adored this one...have you seen anything more cute? (To think that all someone can think about is "pains of life"...in such a beautiful world)

My new year day...

It's been raining since the last two days. Just a drizzle, when is winter rain a threat? Because I need to get the rust proof coating done to my car, had it been a threat. I am procrastinating...but I am getting back in shape.

With a lot of effort, I finished the last book I got free from Amazon. It is a nice social novel called "Reclaim My Heart". And I just can't get beyond round 201 in Candy Crush. And I listen to music regularly. In the evening I went out to my মামার বাড়ি where I had an invitation for some religious ceremony, and heard few beautiful songs all sung by friends and family and neighbors, mostly devotional or রবীন্দ্রসঙ্গীত...

In between, I had an amazing Chinese lunch from Hatari and slept for a bit. I like this demure, dreamy, lilting weather when the sun hardly comes out. I feel comfortable and lazy, feel like stretching out - being a winter child, this weather looks perfect for me. So I tried to just close my eyes and rest for a while, and...how do I ever explain the warmth, the honey like heat that seared through me. I literally felt like...banging my head on the wall - to tell in ancient Bengali, মাথা কুটে মরতে ইচ্ছে হলো...way the old world writers used to write about their heroines. There was this turn ons and turn offs in Orkut, and I was teased once - that my turn offs are more than my turn ons. So, lying, bossing, boasting, idiocy were my turn offs. And there were only two turn ons - intelligence and candlelight. Sigh - I wish I knew what is the cause of this inexplicable physical storm (you see arousal just might be an understatement)...

I don't like things which are beyond logic. I have been a science student, an engineer...yes, I have imagination, but well...imagination hasn't been able to create such vivid sensations in my life till date. And what practically knocks me over is, I feel perfectly pure with these feelings, I don't feel a bit of guilt as I sit down for the puja...and as my mind wonders to the simple wish I get every time I listen to good music.

And it is terribly personal. I remember Veera in the last few scenes in Highway, before Mahavir is shot dead. The way she would clean the house and cook and won't even let him enter her place, before it was ready. I feel that protective. It is still not their world, it is her world. Similarly it is my world. The other person, who is driving me crazy with his presence, is still so virtual, he belongs only to me. I told you I cannot explain, I don't know why I am even trying.

D'bhai, you remember, I used to talk about my own room, decorated with a vase full of flowers, neat, clean, organized - way it has never been? I can almost feel I am finally living in that room. And I wonder (no I mean it, I really wonder) - why of all things, I had to pick up this particular ring and start wearing it in my ring finger :D :D

Rest D'bhai, I know that dreams don't come true...

Something else...you remember that story I had written about the guy I used to meet in the bus? For that story writing competition? God knows where those stories went. But I happened to see a photo of that guy, with his wife. They could well give, you know the erstwhile Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, some complex. And look at us?