Man, woman and friendship...

So...we'd discuss these movies...Ijazat was his favorite...then there was Sadma...from these two examples only you'd understand what kind of people were we...

Like I said, I have never watched Ijazat, neither will watch it ever. His story telling is enough visualization for me. But Sadma I did watch, and it was a harrowing experience. My entire interest in man-woman interdependence stems up from watching Sadma I guess.

With a hurting head I was wondering about the peak of madness that characterized the last couple of weeks. What did I expect? It'd all end in a fairy tale? Actually for a day I was indeed in a utopia. I could feel the surge of intense joy that should have been our life. I could feel the palpable excitement. We were free, as if. And then reality struck. I don't know in what way it might have struck him. But I discovered my helplessness when I couldn't bring myself up to tell my parents and brother that I have got back my best friend. Imagine the guilt. Then how could I face the world?

Over that the last mail went unanswered. Not exactly unanswered, he asked me not to call him, he will call me later. And I can't explain the restlessness that followed. I felt like an addict, who's being denied his share of drug. And that's when poetry helped.

3 days back I had got a strange mail from one of my friends, asking for a poetry sharing initiative. It is a chain mail where you get back some inspiring poetry / quote...I had thought I'd write back saying I don't want to participate. But suddenly tonight I saw this opportunity in a new light. You write a mail, yet you don't really write it. My agitated mind got a lot of peace in thinking that I'd get to read some inspiring stuff, and if he cares to take this forward, his friends will see our names together. A good way of telling the world, and a guilt proof way too...

To what extent would I go to keep my bubble alive? I shouted at my parents - unable to find out our old notebooks where we used to scribble nonsense...it's been 14 years. Who'd explain it to me - I flared up like a tigress, sneezing in the dust, "if Anne Frank was born in our home - her diary would never have been discovered, and if Jibanananda Das was born here, his poems would have been sold off and transformed into paper packets..." :(

It was difficult though to find 20 friends to share the mail with. But thank God it was not a job search, so no ego was involved. At last I was happy to discover a healthy mixture of friends from all the stages of my life so far - school, college, University, my different jobs, my on site roomies, some stages overlapping with others, e.g. college friend in the same University, or friend from my first MNC who joined my second MNC at my reference. 20 friends, the best friend included. Best friend who seems to be just another friend...

Yeh laal ishq...

Obsession is an understatement...I have never heard a more beautiful song...

3 days running I am continuously listening to the song and it has completed a century long back, yet boredom? What does boredom mean?

Me: Mr. Booking Clerk, hello, you doing good?
BC: Doing great ma'am, how are you?
Me: Oh, you remember me is it?
BC: Ya, it is my job to remember my clients...and their preferences. So, where to this time? To the future for a change? ;)
Me: No...the future is scary...
BC: Oh, why do you say that ma'am, the future can be exciting too...
Me: No, not now...in fact, 2004? Possible?
BC: Why go to the past ma'am, I told you you'd be a mere spectator there, you won't be able to change anything...I tell you, don't go, it will only cause more pain. Try the future once.
Me: As if I can change the future...
BC: Did you speak to your best friend? Like I had suggested?
Me: (crying silently) Yes, I did...
BC: Lady, don't cry...so what did you feel after that? Did you or did you not change the future? If not the future, at least the present?
Me: (after considering this for a while) Yes, I guess I did...it was an impossibility - had I not tried, this would have never happened...
BC: (softly) What did he say? How did he react?
Me: He was surprised, and anxious, and I guess happy too...
BC: (with a broad smile on his face) Of course he would be happy, why do you even doubt that? Weren't you happy too?
Me: (eagerly) Oh yes, very...
BC: Shall I tell you something? Going against my job too, mind you...
Me: (nodded yes in an apprehensive way)
BC: Don't go anywhere now, stay in the present for a bit...face it, give it a chance, don't run away...this is not the time to run away...
Me: (breaking into fresh sobs) Why is reality always so different from dreams?
BC: Nobody has stopped you from dreaming lady...you can still dream, about the little bit of good things that reality has...
Me: (fighting to hold back my tears) He...asked me to write...said...I don't know if in a mocking tone, that...that I write well, people might want to read what I write...
BC: And...
Me: And I couldn't tell him, I simply couldn't admit the truth...that all I write these days is about him...why oh why did I take so long to discover my love for him?
BC: Ma'am, there's a group coming up for tickets...don't you lose heart...I am telling you, just keep faith in God's will...
Me: But God will never help me when I am doing something wrong...breaking someone's home...
BC: (with a strange smile) If a home is strong enough it can't be broken, and if it is not, better to break it before it collapses and buries the folks living inside...yes sir, good morning, how may I help you?
Man: How far in the future do I need to travel to see a politics free world?
I smile to myself at this query and silently walk away...what all the booking clerk has to handle...

The song is Romeo and Juliet reincarnated in verses and tune...it will tell you why and when you feel you must die for the sake of your love, there is no other way...

Why did I fight with you? I have never again been myself...
My name is love, your name is love...
This bloodshot love, this tired love, this flawed love, this disagreeing love...
Should I change my name or hide your name?
Should I quench this fire? Become detached and lost in my worship?
All I would do is to love, simply loving you would be my only work...
This bloodshot love, this tired love, this flawed love, this disagreeing love...
Let me embrace this dark night, and this cold moon,
Let me reverse the perpetual differences between day and night...
This bloodshot love, this tired love, this flawed love, this disagreeing love...

Rejuvenation...

I am in love and not allowed to be romantic...over that I am in love with a person who sleeps on such a romantic night, when the drizzle falls in a nervous tip tap, as the thunder makes you shiver once in a while...all he can do is to simply sleep like a log...

Before the weather men predicted that it'd rain, I knew it. It just had to rain...you see. In my life it has always rained whenever something good has happened...

So...what did I decide to do? What should I do? You see, the existing problem (of the wife, kid's not a problem for me) is not solved. And none of my preferences are met. He doesn't know brake from accelerator (and hasn't perhaps even heard of a thing called clutch) - so he can't teach me driving. He smokes and he drinks too...(well I drink too, I mean I can drink given a chance)...and above all else, the gentleman can't be anybody's support system right now, let alone mine. He seems to be too tired of life.

So what good has happened that it's raining tonight, and it's rained throughout the day? The season of spring and torrential rain doesn't quite go hand in hand, right? How do I know, the God with the capital G can tell that better...

All I can say is that my helplessness and fear factors have suddenly done a vanishing act...and the day has been musical...if I remember correctly, he was the person who taught me this term called rejuvenation back in college :) Yes, yes, I am the one from South Point, but he's the more well read one. What's Two Lives? He said that's a book he hasn't been able to finish in the last 10 years - I thought it's better not to mention that I have never heard of it even :P

The happiest day :)

So I got to know what I wanted to know...the wife is very much there...

Hence the principled me should essentially stop loving my most favorite person, i.e...I have to hide (or kill) my greatest and truest realization till date...else the only option is to pretend being just his friend...

Problem is that I can do neither...falsehood is not my forte...

Where do I go from here, dear God with the capital G? I feel this soft touch on my lips when he says that he gets easily tired of relationships, so if he can't keep replying to my mails, I shouldn't feel that he's disinterested towards me...

And when I bare my soul in front of this person with whom I am talking after a decade, and he gets agitated, happy and anxious at the same time, I feel as if there's a riot of vermilion on my forehead, as if Holi has come early :)

Death still seems to be the only option, only this time I can die in peace, and only after all my duties are over. Had I not lived on despite all that happened, would I have ever known this happiness? Would I have been able to hope against hope that there would be at least someone to cry for me when I die?

I can't stop loving him, and I won't pretend, even if it means complete estrangement once more... Yes, it'll break my heart one last time, but that's what love is all about...

Pouring out my heart...

I can't write what I did today, neither can I die peacefully without writing it somewhere...

I did something for myself, and I am mightily happy about it... I will never again be able to blame myself for having ruined my life because of my whims.

Let me just clarify here that I am still quite scared about showing so much courage and listening to my heart. The Internet is off, I am not even sure if and when I'd be able to publish this entry. Maybe I have done something very stupid, but dammit, who on earth doesn't have a right to want to live...

And nothing is new. I have always told him everything. Gotten scolded, embarrassed him, whatever, I have never ever hidden anything from him. In fact I rediscovered my comfort level with him - as I went on with this nearly impossible task (like nearly headless Nick :P)

No, please give it a rest. I didn't propose to him. I did a near Rukmini act, but I didn't ask him to marry me. Please, spare me that kinda humiliation. I just told him,  didn't even tell, just tried to express, through my words, that I need my best friend. And believe me, that is the entire truth. My love interest is a transient thing, nothing dependable. But at this juncture in life, I know it for certain that I can't survive without my dearest person. I had to reach out...

I have no idea if the message will even reach him. But this is all that I could have done. This far and no further. He might be someone's husband and I don't have any right on him. I have done all I could.

It'd have been a crime to pretend to him, so I didn't pretend. I just told him the plain simple truth in the way I wanted. It's for him to interpret it and take action as he deems feasible (such managerial language!)...

All I know is, if he doesn't interpret my words properly, nobody else would...but yes, of course he might have changed, it's been such a long time :) So rest is up to God (the God with the capital G)

মন তোমাকে ছুঁয়ে দিলাম...

I am finally done with my research. Research as in, picking up his scraps from that elaborate dump and arranging them chronologically. I have always been fond of solving jigsaw puzzles. Dad got me one from the book fair when I was a kid. It was a virtual national park, with lots of animals, greenery, mountains with clouds above. I like arranging things and getting the big picture. Hence this research. And the picture I get from it tells me all the more that I must die. There's no other go. The damage done is irreversible. And it's all because of my shortsighted, whimsical and terribly stupid mind.

I also realized that little is precious. If I had too many memories of him, yards of chat logs, I wouldn't have appreciated it the way I do it now. These few sentences, all from his end. I don't even remember my side, or have any way of guessing, except one or two conjectures. But read this and you'd know why this man is my poetry...

4 May 2007 18:19
going on. you?

20 May 2007 12:14
the photo's quite good.. just that if you'd have been cropped from the middle it'd look even better

2 June 2007 20:51
good news.. hope both are well

3 June 2007 14:19
what's your condition?? done with your love shuv or what? it's past your marriage age..your friends have become fathers and mothers and you... :-(

3 June 2007 18:14
don't talk rubbish... when are you getting married?

4 June 2007 22:59
age is going to be a score and a half .. why then?.. now except for a toothless and cataract-eyed person you won't get anyone else .. jump for it

5 June 2007 23:09
quite grown up now.. looking for a guy

6 June 2007 22:51
hm.. when are you coming back to the country??

9 June 2007 15:42
do your work do your work

9 June 2007 16:34
no.. she's at home.. seen my daughter's photo?

9 June 2007 16:48
(his daughter's name)

9 June 2007 16:58
I also forgot that I told you

9 June 2007 16:58
getting old as well gradually

16 June 2007 19:19
hm.. know how to cook on your own?

17 June 2007 12:26
do do .. but you must provide the flight fare (round trip)

17 June 2007 15:57
when are you back??

19 June 2007 22:54
get married you'd feel good

19 June 2007 01:35
23rd june 2007..my country .. feels damn good to simply think about it

24 June 2007 00:47
oh damn my flight got cancelled.. came back again from the airport.. 27th early morning I am returning

24 June 2007 21:20
dammit I was jumping to go to a foreign country??.. when?? whom are you confusing me with??.. i have to delete this scrap..

28 June 2007 06:18
kolkata.. atlast

21 July 2007 19:15
waiting

26 July 2007 05:42
me too means?.. this is a reply to?

27 de July 2007 11:44
your intelligence has grown right? that will do

3 August 2007 11:38
when are you getting married?

17 August 2007 10:35
you died or what?

19 August 2007 19:44
come back come back .. not only to see my daughter .. to get your own culmination

Note: I have done word to word translation, retaining original words, style and punctuation as much as possible...

The identity crisis...

I have never ever been so embarrassed...

I didn't do much work today - but the maid has been complaining about the tap of the basin in our room not working...so I decided to write to the maintenance department. I wrote this long enough letter and sat back and started relaxing again. You don't know the work culture at my university. People avoid work like plague. So I was sure that it'd take at least a week for the letter to be even noticed by the concerned people. But lo and behold, two plumbers knocked at our door not even half an hour later :O

They were going on with their work and I was engrossed in my own work, which was discovering those 20 odd html files in the Orkut dump which had his scraps. The others are of no consequence to me, though from a neutral point of view they looked pretty interesting. At least till that point in time I was having several admirers. Maybe they had just the simple inclination of being friends with me, but I had people who took out time to chat with me regularly. Strange guys whom I don't even remember (firstly I have this terribly selective memory, and then because of Anand's selfishness I forced myself to ignore and then subsequently forget and be forgotten by so many of my friends)...would talk paragraphs with me, would share their rather interesting or quite mundane thoughts or views on life...

So coming back to discovering the htmls, I first deleted everything except the 20 scrap htmls, and then realized that the system is not working. Of course I need to retain the essential files including the css, else it won't render. So having done even that, I realized I have nothing more to do with the day. There was a sound of water in the background but the guys were asking about the key for the terrace, so I assumed that they have gone off to check the water supply upstairs. I started telling the girl in my team about my philosophies, specially the ones I have recently gathered.

"So, you see, I really don't have any reason to live further...", I went on. "I have already done what I could do. I did some good work, at least some banks at some corner of the world must be running my code, if not design, and I have achieved whatever I could in my career. I don't think I have any more contributions to make professionally or that the world will give me a chance to do that. I can understand today why I was alive so long. I was alive so that I fully realize my love for this gentleman. Realize and recognize. Which I have done at long last...But at the same time I know that there is no way this can be taken forward. So it is best if I die now. There's no point in mere existence, right?"

The girl kept on listening to me quietly. Having finished my lengthy monologue when I looked up at her, daring her to contradict my thoughts, I suddenly realized that she was unnaturally calm and expressionless. I silently gestured to her, don't tell me the plumber guy is here? She helplessly nodded. OMG! I IMed her immediately - why didn't you warn me? She IMed back - I felt he wouldn't understand your rants anyways. After the tap was mended the guy was still suspicious. I had already decided that I won't sign at their work order. I had written the initial letter and signed as the manager, I simply couldn't let him know that I am that same manager who on one hand writes stern letters demanding prompt action and on the other hand is a love sick and death craving nut case. So the girl signed. He asked - whose is this stamp? I quickly replied, oh, this is the project stamp...He persisted, put that stamp on the work order...which we silently complied with. What did he think us to be? Crazy jerks who have taken control of the lab of a research project by killing the no-nonsense manager? ROTFL and rolling my eyes :D :D

But jokes apart, what I told her was true enough. I am so so tired with my attempts to live. There's no point really in continuously baring my wounds and showing my deprivation to the world. All the more why I feel this incredible urge to take this blog offline.

My entries are not the correct representation of me as a person. They make me look foolish, selfish and ignorant, perhaps depressed. They don't reflect the person I am, someone who discovers that there were 111 participants in the conference and solemnly declares, oh, that's the Nelson figure...I never show here how I read for 80% of the time I am awake and I know the latest data on politics, economics and technology. Each new invention, every plight that the world is facing. No, I never write on my thoughts about these things. I am tired of this whining and pining.

I don't even express my humor. I can make everyone laugh till their sides ache. I myself love to laugh a lot. People who don't know me, and have just read my blog will have a tough time digesting that. Yes I am headstrong and have wanted my life to work in the way I want - which didn't happen. But I have just gulped down my failures and spit the venom here. At times I so want to break free off this self imposed captivity of helplessness and negativity. Even if that costs me my life, I don't want to simply exist and be an object of universal pity.

I did some painting on my tab after a long long time. Does this tell you anything? 

Promises apart...

Promise 1: I shall stop posting things on FB - I am the last person who would intend to harm his peace of mind... (though he doesn't seem to be on FB much, and over that there's nothing explicitly mentioned...)

Promise 2: I won't take this blog offline...no I don't want to do that. What's the harm? There's one in a million chance that anybody of any consequence comes across these stories. Even if they do, they either won't recognize us or keep silent by choice. I can't take away this solitary means of my survival and expression...

Promise 3: I shall be practical, swear on God I shall be practical. I shall tell myself that I don't want a person who will stay out of home all evening and spend idle time with his friends. I don't know anything about the changes in a man I knew 10 years back. I might just not be able to bond with him now! Above all else I don't want a person who already has a wife and a grown up kid...

Having said that - can't tell you how long it has been since I had this feeling of choking with joy...eyes closed in a rarely felt peace, heart getting quenched and wrenched and skipping a beat every now and then...

জীবন কখনো কি স্বপ্ন হয়?
স্বপ্নে কখনো কি বৃষ্টি হয়?
ঝিরিঝিরি মায়া মাখা...
এই শহর তোর শহর,
তাই তো এখানে ঘর,
তবু থাকি একা একা...

Pulse...

So, the girl in my team offered me this unique thingy in the name of a toffee. Ever since I tasted it for the first time, I got instantly addicted...perhaps because finally I have realized, instant addiction is the best way out - if you take time to realize your addiction, it might well be too late...

So nowadays it is pulse all the way...

There are other madness as well...like staying up till late night...wait, that's usual right? No, because I am not getting any sleep at all. First there's this worry about mom's health, and then till recently there was a lot of work in the office too - well, thanks to partly my efficiency and partly to my reluctance to work - I seem to be quite free from the second load now. Mom's also relatively better. I should have slept well last night, but suddenly I got this whim. I must find out if we have ever talked after that infamous phone call...

And where can I look - there's nothing on FB, nothing on Google Plus either, except two solitary invitations. And then I remembered, there's Orkut! Did we talk in Orkut? Was he even in my friend list? I couldn't recollect, but wait, I have a Orkut dump. I gave a search in my tab and located it - but alas, it's a zip file. Now let me tell you - there is this infamous zip file right, where I had once stored my favorite things with a password? Ever since then I could never break that password, so anything zipped up irritates me. And it was already well past 1 o' clock in the night. Who'd go up and take out the Macbook, then start the wifi hotspot, get it connected to the internet, login to Gmail, download the Orkut dump and unzip it? Isn't it far easier to download a zip app? So be it...

So, finally the zip file is unzipped without much fuss, and I happen to start browsing the scraps backwards....the first scrap from him (i.e. the last in chronological order) was around August 2007. I was rather surprised. So...we were actually on speaking terms even after that phone call (where he had said that I am becoming intolerable - that was in 2006 so far as I remember)...

It felt strange...then why did we stop talking? I kept exploring till my head felt like splitting up...why am I doing this and what am I supposed to gain? Why don't I give it a rest? Do I really need to take the pulse of our relationship so many years later? :P

The glimpse of hope...

What does a glimpse of my room tell you about me? Here's a snap shot.

Well, so? These are mostly unread books, at least both the Ruskin Bond and the Jhumpa Lahiri one's went unfinished, I think I didn't quite finish the "Tea for Two..." one by Preeti Shenoy as well...if I remember correctly, I just rushed through the end after the elderly lady died and the plot became rather predictable. The biggest failure of them all is the GMAT book...I spent money on it on a whim, guessing that may be it'd lead me to fulfilling my life long dream - of getting a good management degree. But no, it's not that easy. You need money and you need to be free of responsibilities.

So mostly unfinished books and unfulfilled dreams, among which Casual Vacancy stands out, may be for the reason that it is a unique story that corroborates the poignancy of it all. And a semi finished tube of my face cream, stating that I want to take care of skin, but my depression rather gets in the way of my beauty routine (or my fitness routine for that matter - there are four boxes of health drinks I bought a year back - one of which you can find in the background, haven't even been able to finish one in all this time, and no, I am too lazy to walk, even though the park is just beside my house).

I am at my wits end about how to get out of this black hole of despair. I don't even get those very comforting dreams, with my best friend, anymore. My very practical system has probably finally identified them to be harmful to my well being. The silence quite consumes me. At times I feel that may be those very mushy movies from YRF are to be blamed for my over romanticism? May be there's really nothing called love and I believed in the wrong thing?

I came back to Kolkata to get a life? Life is some vestige of a job (it's still better than nothing mind you - and I am grateful for that), some worry about my parents' health, and relief when they get better (with the fact working all the time in the back of my mind that this won't last forever), may be some emotional drama with my family (realizing in the end that nobody frankly cares and I am not indispensable for anyone), and an almost non-existent social life (some friends yes, but I feel like a burden, some undesirable foreign object in their lives, some relatives yes too, but equally oblivious - everyone has their own trouble to handle, you see). Altogether, I am just living in a lonely island and going mad, and the future seems plainly depressing. I just know one thing for certain. I shall die a lonely death (not sure how painful it will be, but I am so sure that there'd be no one waiting to bid me good bye). How far away that is, and how much more of this torturous life I have left is what worries me. I have well analyzed my capabilities and ambitions. The thing I'd do best is keeping my husband happy and bringing up my children well. Yet, there's hardly any provision for that because I can't marry an unknown person, and given my past experiences, can neither reach out for love.

Why am I blabbering? Can I not give it a rest? The fact is that it is a very professional world and I am just an emotional fool.

Before I stop - the regular Pupu speaks section ;)

1. You must realize that the situation is indeed grim if your favorite hobby gives you a headache. I am nowadays plain scared of books. I still love them, because the happiness I have drawn from the book fair is definitely genuine, but the prospect of "only books and nothing else" is scary.

2. You realize that the situation is actually worse when you switch to a different hobby and get equally irritated or disinterested. Almost all the movies I have watched recently have given me a headache as well. Am I finally tired of the make believe world because I have lost faith in fairy tales, or worse still, have I lost faith in good things?

Quick review (you'd understand what I mean):

1. বাস্তুশাপ - Uff the stale kind of Bengali award-inclined filming. You look fresh as the morning dew, clean shaven and all, in a crisp white ironed shirt, when your wife is in the hospital and in coma for around two months...and your newly made girlfriend has to sport her best designer sarees every single day, under the double attack of a family crisis and an almost dying husband. Spare me the rest of the fairy tale, please...wish it was so easy to get a kiss in real life :)

2. বাকিটা ‌‌ব্যক্তিগত - This was one movie, watching which I almost felt like breaking the screen of my Mac Book Pro. বাঙালির আঁতলামোর কোনো limit আছে না নেই?

3. হর্ হর্ ব্যোমকেশ - it is so boring to watch a movie made from your favorite story, if the screenplay is improper. The director never thought of the crowd who know the storyline...give me সোনার কেল্লা, I can read it any number of times, and watch the movie throughout my life, I won't get bored. I can go on reading বন্হিপতঙ্গ as well. But the movie? Thanks but no, thanks.

4. Airlift - the only movie I happened to like. The overwhelming joy and pride in seeing the Indian tricolor makes all the difference I guess.

5. Hate Story 3 - yes, I attempted to watch this, believe me or not, and I was prepared for an erotica. I didn't know there can be so complete a lack of sense in a movie. Let alone getting excited, I sat through the movie getting abysmally angry. It is the worst movie I have ever watched, and that includes all the trash :(

6. Wazir - Too much of a show off. Ok watch - it's a Vidhu Vinod Chopra script after all, but well, like he once called Tagore as Rabindranath-da, he has somehow mixed up contexts and priorities here as well, or so it seems.

7. Bahubali - Ahh, a warrior girl wears layers and layers of flowing skirt under her uniform...the prince who is the epitome of dharma gets time to dance with item girls (not one but three) while on a critical mission...without the multimedia magic, it is pretty much what all south movies are...and besides there's the million dollar question, why did Katappa kill Bahubali :P

The only positive thing is - I guess I still enjoy writing, it seems to relieve the pressure a bit...

The music mismatch :P

Songs are unique things...in the sense that they take you away from your common sense and sense of uniformity or consistency. Let me try to explain. I am this voracious reader,  right? I read everything, American, British, whatever publication I get. And the only part that stumps me is when random songs are mentioned. The "so and so" played on the radio. How on earth am I supposed to get the context? How do I know the significance? The tune that is so familiar to the author is something I have never heard - how am I to know whether its romantic or based on a revenge saga? The author completely loses it there, probably because he can't bring himself up to believe that there can be anyone on earth who hasn't yet heard his childhood favorite song...

For example, guess what came up in my mind right now?

Aaj hi humne badle hain kapde,
Aaj hi hum nahaye huye hai...

Guess which song? I'm sure that many people from my generation might not know :D

More curious is the flow of thoughts from there. Wait, bossie used to boast about knowing a song of this type by heart, the entire song, nothing less. Which song was it? With a lot of effort I remember,

Pehle toh kabhi kabhi gham ttha,
Ab toh har pal hi teri yaad satati hai,
Ab toh har pal hi teri yaad rulati hai...

I could remember the singer but couldn't recollect his name - I could also remember that this was not the song, it was something else, sung by the same guy - and then suddenly it occurred to me -

Tum to thehre pardesi, saath kya nibhaoge?
Subah pehle, subah pehle, subah pehle gadi se -
Ghar ko laut jaoge - e-e e-e e-e

Didn't get head or tail? Come now, how can that be?

Told you! :(

If you are still reading on for some enlightenment, the original song is -

Ishq mein hum tumhe kya bataye
Kis kadar chot khaye huye hai,
Maut ne humko maara hai aur hum -
Zindagi ke saataye huye hai...

Shoo, else I'd go on singing the entire song - you don't know me, I never forget lyrics - this was most probably sung by Sonu Nigam, the other guy, if I remember correctly, was called Altaf Raza (very funny he looked)...

At a loss for speech? I feel like that when dad talks about classical music :(

To each his own poison :D (btw the songs mentioned above are neither my favorite, nor do I have them in my collection, they are just by the way songs that came up in my mind...)

Saturday afternoon analysis ;)

With every passing day I get more tired of my job. In direct contrast is the fun of staying in Calcutta and participating in events such as the book fair. The fun can't really be described in words. To understand it you need to be born in this city. Otherwise what's in a book, you can buy it anywhere. Why do I limp around for four long hours on a hurt toe from stall to stall and be amply happy about it?

The book fair resolution this time is that I shall religiously read all the books that I've bought. Whenever I see books, exhibitions, fairs, a mere book shop with that adorable smell of old / new books (the two smells being quite distinct from each other), I get on a buying spree. But I end up reading only 80% of my books - if the first few pages don't agree with me I tend to give up. I promise that this time I will show some more patience. As it is, these days I am maintaining a list of books I read, ever since I got my tab (Google Keep is another wonderful thing, only wish we could doodle there as well, you do doodle on your scratch pad...)

The social experiment with FB is making me even more tired. Hence hopefully it will stop now. I have logically analyzed. The main problem seems to be two - expectation and acknowledgement. In FB there's a sense of entitlement. I like your posts only if you like mine. And let alone FB, anywhere on the world, people lack the sense of acknowledging. E. g. I always say thank you after any transaction. I have often seen this startled look on the faces of general shopkeepers or service providers here, which tells me that they haven't ever been thanked earlier. The psychology goes like you sell or serve us, you make a profit or you get paid, why should I thank you? A lady in my office casually asked me that day, "whose marriage was it?" - apparently referring to the posts regarding my cousin brother's marriage that I had put up in FB. I didn't find any like from her, which makes perfect sense to me, why should she like some photos of which she doesn't even have a context? But FB presumes a like or a comment to be a measure for popularity, mere observation doesn't count - hence people get into a pact to live a well appreciated socially strong FB life, let's like each other's posts and make ourselves famous. And if you don't stand to gain you ignore. My gut feeling is that FB has some underlying logic to promote most liked posts instead of posts reflecting genuine thoughts. I had once posted a news article on a sick dog, for whose treatment an entire village had come forward and contributed, and it didn't receive a single like. Hence proved, a sick story of selfishness.

I should thank Saridon for being such a miracureol (miracle + cure all - as invented by the great Professor Shanku). One pain killer, and I was able to write this entry. Not only that, it's quite a doctor, I was thinking the reason for my headache is over exertion on the paining toe, but as soon as I had the medicine I sneezed several times and realized that I had got a cold as well :D The toe was really tortured and not at all tended to, after it got itself sprained on the stair case. I quite discovered that I am more of a Sudha Chandran prototype, I don't give up when I am hurt. I try to behave as if nothing has happened. That day I read a strange story in the newspaper. A guy had got run over by a train and lost his legs. While the police rescued him and were preparing to take him to the hospital, he observed to himself that what's the point in living on without the limbs, and threw himself under the next train, getting killed instantly. Escapism at it's height. But I chose not to comment. Some people simply don't have the fighting urge in themselves. And I myself can vouch that at times the depression is indeed overpowering, but nothing surpasses the joy of living. I had a grandfather who had a similar accident, and he never gave up on life. He got prosthetics fitted to both his amputated legs, and went on to do a government service earning not only money but a lot of respect from everyone. When he died of a heart attack, the last thing he said to his sister (my mom's mother) was that he wanted to live. I tell the same to myself. Since time is running out for me and probably I shall never have a child despite being perfectly healthy, I tell myself it's nothing more than lacking an essential component of life. Life itself is still there anyways. There's jealousy though, plain girlish envy of being denied a normal life - and I don't really want to fight that. If my hyperactive mind happens to think unholy things once in a rare while when I have nothing to do or don't feel like doing anything much, I don't chastise myself - e. g. for wondering on an idle afternoon about how many people are making love right now :D

As I walked around in the book fair yesterday, touching the books and feeling extremely contented, suddenly a pensive thought crossed my mind - why don't I find him anywhere? Then what's the point in living in this city? Why don't I just go back to my old job and at least revive my career. But then there's the happiness of playing with the dogs, seeing a bird pecking on my window, the claps I got after I presented my papers, the satisfaction of being able to take care of my parents and meeting my relatives from time to time. Don't know, as I keep telling Ananya, সবই মায়া :)

Short...and sweet :)

Last time when I wrote I felt so terribly restless that I had to do the unthinkable to calm myself down...anonymous or whatever, my blog is not exactly untraceable...so why am I scandalizing me...us? I don't know, though I know very well that I am still restless and still trying out odd things - like bragging about my blog in FB - once again there's absolutely no logical explanation for this strange whim :(

That's all for today, I declare myself incurably mad...no,wait - there is a cure, isn't it? :)