A death long ago, a death too fresh, and dying pangs...

I don't pretend to myself. I don't pretend to anybody as such. I don't like to pretend...that's the way I've been made...

So, today, I didn't feel interested towards him. I didn't like him. I didn't seem to love him...

This is not a time when I can love...

I was wallowing in self-pity anyways. I tend to do that at this time of the year. I try to calculate how old he'd have been, whether he'd be stubborn or obedient, whether he'd be brilliant or average, if he'd have the kind of sense of humor I love...I wonder a lot of things...

Eight years, ya, he'd have been that big...and my world would have been that full...bringing him up. I like imagining my son, now that in reality, it is almost certain that I'd never have him, I imagine him all the more...whether he'd be this Capricorn person, measured and calculative, or this Aquarian, calm and soothing...whether he'd really like music, way my best friend had predicted, and if he'd sing Rabindrasangeet with an open voice, and not in a suppressed tone way I do (after all I am not trained, and I can sing only in the medium range, and my scale fluctuates)...

And other things crowd my mind...the various insults that were meted out to me, when I tried to trust in love and truth and goodness of heart...

I also remember that particular time in 2006, I was so contented with life, and so enormously pretty - I realize it now when I see my old photos of that time...I almost felt my life was well-settled, nothing could go wrong from there...

After the well-known actor and the equally famous lady politician got declared innocent (not quite, but almost), a friend commented in FB if the female-starlet who had a "shady" past would be declared a virgin as the next big news, and I started wondering my usual thing, if there is actually anything called a virgin-mother, if that is possible...

As is the case with me, I get tired of grieving...on that day I chose to live, today also, I'd rather like to move on. I don't like to blame anybody, no, I really don't. I allowed people to treat me in the way they did. The truth never changes...

On top of yet another earthquake, and the law and order situation in the state (actually across the world) going to the rots, the blow came in form of another unexpected news - my favorite author died! She simply died, and she'd never again write those heart-touching stories about the regular struggles of a common girl...I just kept on remembering those days of reading কাছের মানুষ as soon as the দেশ would arrive - how long has it been that we haven't subscribed to the magazine? My entire world is falling apart with these deaths, of people who have always been part of my real and virtual life - the way she had described the agony of the person who doesn't even know if he is just the legal father or the biological father too - all he feels is just too fond of and too scared about his missing little girl...that impeccable style of writing prose - a lady who's shunned by her husband and grown up sons finds solace in her writing skills - হেমন্তের পাখি - and above all else, me meeting her face to face during the book fair, and that secret feeling of kinship when I saw her observing people - "that's how we write, don't we?"

I'm just angry. Old friends ignite old memories - and they ask the wrong questions...why did you guys break up? Tell me, how to explain? I still have that photo of the workshop on learned optimism, a time when I was supposedly a blameless girl...standing beside the same friend...she's always been a conservative north Indian girl, I remember changing from my flimsy nightdress to more appropriate clothing, if she'd knock on my door when we slept in adjacent rooms during the workshop...would she ever be able to digest the story of why we broke up, how different the actual "we" were, from the "we" she knew you and me to be? We lacked resolve, everyone of us, you, your parents, my parents, and above all I myself...we, all of us, pathetically lacked resolve, and I feel revolted at the thought...you know why, because, at length, it is I who is the victim, everyone else has moved on in life...I'm perched on that precarious "hate me not" seesaw.

I didn't love him today, but I feel a greater kinship with him than I have ever felt with anyone else...as I was telling her about him, I felt I am telling about someone who's a part of me...in an almost assured tone...I really don't care what you, or others who have pretended to love me, have done to me. I think I have stopped caring about life...it is just a silly go-as-you-like competition for me...where I'm trying to be myself...

Fame???!!!

I have kinda started enjoying my stage appearances…the first one was in my first MNC, I conducted the antakshari on a fine akkel day, in the red and black color representing the brand…red kurti, black salwar, and a black shawl with yellow embroidery on it (funny thing is, I  can still hear my bossie shouting “red and black…red and black” in support of my costume in the best dressed person competition, but that was even earlier, in 2007, in SG). Those were olden days you know…after the occasion a full-fledged photo album was published, and there I was…looking so smart and sweet at the same time…I used to sit in the reception in the ground floor in building 30 and check out the photos…but alas…my phone didn’t have a camera then (I was still using the Nokia 6610), and I never got a copy of that photo…

 I remember reading a poem…my own poem…in some বিজয়া সম্মিলনী I guess, in our own building in Saltlake, where people got rather dumb founded that I could write such poems. Well I did such things in those days, I had written one essay, and জেঠু was so pleased to read it...he bought us kabab from some famous shop...and of course there was Pamu writing down my poems in her diary...well I used to write in those days poems like...

বিষণ্ন প্রতিমা হেন রয়েছ যে চেয়ে,

হে নারী আঁখি তোমার সুদূরের পারে...

a lot of rubbish in hindsight...but well, she was very fond of them. One such poem was

আয়নার সামনে দাঁড়িয়ে ভাবি, আমি  বোকা,ভীষণ বোকা

which unfortunately became my brother's favorite way of pulling my leg :(

But unfortunately all are lost now. Stage appearances, not many more...in my last MNC, the 31st December antakshari, and the song collection I had directed during the project party...oh was I not in love then...?

And when I read my paper (I had photos for that...thank God) and today's recitation - well today is tricky...dad can't take photos from my mobile, neither did I ask him, because I was not confident myself, whether I can pull it off properly. There was a lady taking photographs, but at length, I was too shy to ask her if she has taken my photos...and in all probability I'll never get to see the photos even if they are taken, because you see, I don't socialize much. But today was by far my biggest stage appearance, because the stage overlooked a bus stop, and a road where several buses ply...but I was like Arjun, I hardly saw or heard a thing, except perhaps I pictured once my dad swelling with pride, but that too towards the end of the poem, when things couldn't anymore go wrong, rest of the time, I was just concentrating hard...

It was quite a good time I had learning the poem, although it felt like there was this huge weight I was carrying on my head...but it brought back memories of my struggles, struggles that I won...that infamous network and circuit theory exam, where I hardly knew a thing, and worked out the answers through sheer concentration, every time I'd pray, God, let me pass this time, from next time onwards I'll study :) :)

A sore throat, asthma after ages, gurgling with iodine water, no man, I am better off without tension...living this relaxed life and reading storybooks...challenges? Let them be a thing of past, the lady doesn't fight anymore, Seleucus...

(My best friend, who was this self proclaimed astrologer, was envious of my sun line - best he had ever seen - he used to say, I'd be famous, very famous...yeah, isn't my blog famous?) - and why don't I write the name of the poem I recited today? Ah, such things are discussed in letters - mails, emails, you may say :) :)

We!

If I live you must live too -
The word is "we", not "me" and "you"...

A thousand times I prove it true,
And you walk away...I don't pursue...

O mercy I know not, 

On myself or on you,
My love, like a phoenix -

Is always born anew,
Every time you stab me,
My heart - it is set free,
It flies  far; the world, I learn,
Is heaven...yet a hellish land.
And as the pain leaves, I just turn
Back to you - to hold your hand,
I hope to build a house of sand,
And fear not your reprimand.

In life we do meet souls unkind,
Who kill our dreams, stifle our mind.

But then God sends us angels too,

A rainbow come out of the blue!

A part of our soul is safe and sane,
Amid all else uncertain...
The grief we get, it seems like bliss,
It can't impact our inner peace.

Hope is that burning incense,

That shows us light when dusk deepens.

The word is "we", not "me" and "you"...
A thousand times I prove it true.

Unspoken...

"চারুলতা"-র সঙ্গে নিজের খুব মিল পাই আজকাল। সে যেমন সারা দুপুর দূরবীন চোখে বাইরের পৃথিবীটা দেখে বেড়াতো, আমিও তেমনি এ জানলা সে জানলা করে বেড়াই, কখনো আমার পোষ্যদের মারপিট করতে দেখলে জানলা খুলে বকি, "এই কালো, এই নিখু, এত  গুন্ডামি করিস না, খিদে পেয়েছে? আয় খেতে আয়..."

কখনো বা চড়াই পাখি দেখি, কখনো শালিখ পাখি (অত এক শালিখ দুই শালিখ আমি মানিনা, তাই বেশ নির্দ্বিধায় দেখি...)

আমার ঘরে দুটো টিকটিকি আছে, একে অপরকে তাড়া করে বেড়ায়, তাদের ঘুরে বেড়াতে দেখি,গরুগুলো মাঠে চড়তে আসে, তাদের দেখি...

Along with the occasional storybook that keeps me company...now it is a John Grisham...The Broker...it talks about Italy, and the University of Bologna, one of our project partners...and also on how a person takes on a new identity...

আর তোর্ কথা ভাবি - কি করছিস, কি ভাবছিস, কেমন আছিস...ব্যাস সময় কেটে যায়।

They have coped up with their sister's death...আমি প্রথমে খুব রাগ করেছিলাম ওদের ওপর -  তোরা ভুষন্ডি কালো ভাইগুলো মিলে বোনটাকে রাখতে পারলি না রে? কিন্তু ওদের কি দোষ?

They keep together these days - together is an important word...isn't it :)

যাইহোক, শুভ নববর্ষ ১৪২২ :) Here's hoping for togetherness :) :)

The creative urge...

অনেক কিছুই করব ভাবি, হয়না করা,
দু' দিন ছুটি, সময় অনেক, লিখছি ছড়া ...
নববর্ষের প্রাক্কালে যে মগজ জুড়ে,
পদ্য লেখার মালমসলা আসছে উড়ে ,
ইচ্ছেগুলো নাছোড় বড়, তাইতো ভাবি,
আজকে নাহয় করব প্রমাণ, আমি মস্ত কবি  :P :P

Oh the photos, they always manage to make me happy...and crazy, and bouncy, and I behave in a nonsensical way...

Please, I am this sober girl ok? Very serious and stern, people find a lot of dark shades in my character...

But then the colors, the composition, the perspective, they come and bring out the child in me...and I end up writing such stupid verse...what to do tell me? God hasn't given me talent like him, this is all I can do...

When you die, where does your creativity go?

The ego battle, the bitterness, and the realization...

The last week has been nothing short of terrible. There has been so much of pressure. Pressure of winning the battle. Of restoring my ego. Of taking revenge of selfish elements that won't even let me mourn in peace.

I have never been this shrewd, ever before in my life. For once I wanted to hurt back - because people shouldn't ever feel they have the right to hurt me and get away with it...only because I can't always manage to hide the fact that I am already broken. So finally I have won the ego battle. Blasted the guy who had this buttering tendency I was talking about in an earlier entry. Sycophant...even learned the proper English word. He had the guts to call me a peer...a guy who is 11 years younger than me and has none of my professional capabilities. This is where life has brought me...my wish to live life my way...so how could I not fight tooth and nail in order to disprove this terrible realization?

I don't feel like celebrating my victory though...you celebrate a victory only when you have some respect for the opponent. Remember Hector and Achilles? You don't really jump with joy when you've killed a mosquito or a cockroach, do you? Yes, believe it or not, I am capable of this much hatred.

I guess so much hatred has arisen from experiencing the pain my friend feels. From understanding that pain, from not being able to do anything to save him from feeling that pain. That I have felt that pain too doesn't help him in any way. He is too proud a soul to accept my help. I feel so bitter that the world has brought this unto him. As much as I have my helplessness, I have this smoldering ache on not being able to heal his wounds. That he'd get ruined and people hell bent on not acknowledging their worthlessness will keep winning games they don't even deserve to play...is not acceptable to me. I fight against this disparity...

When I can't handle it anymore, I look at the pictures taken by him, I watch his favorite songs in youtube...but I don't allow myself this liberty, luxury always...it doesn't matter...my love doesn't really matter...I just pray to God all the time that my ego doesn't come between us...that I don't become like them who have hurt him...

এক এক সময় মা পাখি হতে ভালো লাগে - অসহায় লাগে, মনে হয় একটু আদর আমিও পাই, কিন্তু স্বার্থপর হতে ইচ্ছে হয় না, মনে হয় শুধু ভালবাসি :) ...

You know why? Because, way I like your favorite songs, you like mine too...ok...just 1/3 of them :) :)

One more gone...

"Jaundice" is no more. She died on a Good Friday, I guess. This morning I went downstairs and heard that she didn't come over for breakfast. Went looking for her, and came across her, as if sleeping peacefully, very much like her mother. Called her a number of times, tried to notice if she is breathing...and then gave up all hope.

She was growing up into a lovely young lady with natural kohl smudged eyes. At times I pictured her in a scarf and sunglasses, she'd look a perfect fashionista. They were growing up well, I was half expecting, all of them would live a full 10 years of healthy life.

I did promise I won't care as much for her puppies once Kutu died, but I couldn't keep my promise. My parents got involved, in fact the entire neighborhood was keen on saving the pups, we all loved them. Jaundice was my father's favorite. He gave her the name Jaundice, as she was the only tawny colored puppy...rest of them were black like their mother, and also because she didn't eat much in the initial days. Later, however, she developed a good appetite. She would nibble on biscuits from dad's hand, and then rub her face on his feet. 

We are all devastated. Her three brothers remain...their pampered sister was the first to go...

Rest in peace with your mother, sweetheart...