Tale of late evenings-now and then

This weekend I happened to go out with my mother and then I got a view of the sky and the setting sun bathing the clouds in its crimson glory after a good many days….infact a good many many good many days at that……
Looking at the sky as the day gracefully gave way to the beautiful evening…I realized all of a sudden that my go at economic independence(!!!) had cost me my favourite part of the day~the late evening….

I remember days before December 2009 when I used to be alone at home in the evenings and used to think “another day ends again without any news of joining” and sigh at my bad luck…My idle times would come pouncing at me and I would think that anyone anywhere who has some work is luckier than me(the grass is always greener on the other side of the river..u see!!!).. n at that time I used to look outta my windows and see school children going home with their mothers-some licking ice lollies,some hopping in tune to some unknown music……some chasing each other without any reason and laughing gleefully…….I just wanted to go back to my childhood and be the kid I used to be and then again I wanted to be the hunk returning from office-his otherwise stainless corporate clothes a little ruffled here and there due to the whole days work………I wanted to be anywhere,anytime but not at that moment……But then the corporation lights lit up one after the other somehow it filled me with hope that tomorrow would be a better day…..

Cut to Scene2-
I was undergoing my ILP -2 in Chennai and I used to return home during dusk.Sometimes as I walked down the streets, the horizon being bathed in the goodbye halos of the red sun would soothe my nerves and fill me with a great sense of serenity.
Then again there were days when my head would be muddled up trying to fathom some
intricate detail of JAVA and then the world around would seem unknown in that very halo.I would long for a known face,a known voice to share the so called frustration(aww!!at that time I was foolish enough to take it as frustration,,,dat in itself frustrates me now:P)….I would wish that the magic which changes the surroundings at dusk would touch me and take me back home to Kolkata where atleast I could crib and CRIB in peace about how tough Java was and all….and someone would actually understand it…but that was not to be……because Java or no Java nobody here understood my language and cribbing in English is not quite so fulfilling……poor me!!!:P




Cut to Scene3-
Now I spend entire days couped up in my cubicle and cut off from the world outside.For 5 days of the week I see the sun high up in the sky when I come to office in the morning and by the time I take the bus back,dusk has given way to night….Yes,the dusk eludes me now….So does the rush of emotions and tribulations that the sight of the setting sun started in me…I am better off without my emotions and thoughts being in a chaos as described above,but then am I!!!!!!

Surprised!!!!!!!

Life never ceases to surprise me~ just when I feel that I know about it “pop” comes a surprise and I realize that I don’t know anything about life at all.

Let me share the latest event that made me feel like this.It was the 8th of august 2010 and my mother was leaving for Kolkata after her 7 days stay with me at Chennai.I was a little sad,but I had grown used to living alone for quite sometime-so my pensive mood dint manifest in anything more than just a glum expression.But then something very strange happened..two of the girls in my PG burst into tears seeing my mother leave.

To tell you frankly,I was kind of stupefied and stood there bamboozled as to what exactly was happening.Here was my mother about to leave me and if at all I should have been the one shedding the tears..but what the heck…two unknown girls whose association with my mother did not stretch more than these 7 days were crying hysterically.

I dint know what to feel-whether to feel ashamed for my lack of tears ot to feel overwhelmed by the tremendous affection shown by these girls towards my mother.
My emotions ranged from “what the hell!!” to “oh my god” as I tried to figure out the cause of such an event.So here are the numerous so called hypothesis that my hyperactive brain came up with~
Maybe the girls saw bits of their own mother in mine and were sorry that she was leaving(sounds kinda far-fetched even to me!!!:|)


Maybe they had gotten used to the cheer and enthusiasm that my mother spreads around her and their tears where an expression of foreboding at losing that from their immediate environment(see..am getting good at making hypothesis:P..but still this sounds kinda melodramatic!!!)

Maybe my mother was too lovable to let go(and as I finish up this sentence,my insides burn with jealousy coz I am VERY possessive about my mum and I will NOT share her with anyone…….n here I sound like a smitten lover..ehh!!!!)


Enough of my stupid hypothesis and postulates…..but still I have to say “amma k nie kottogulo lemma baniye dilam”-amii sei….rofl……

My hand was itching to write…so here I did it…..please do kindly bear with me people….

free????

22years of living at home and being cared for n looked after by parents and one fine morning i was told I was to leave all of it and live away from them at Guwahati.What was my first reaction?Was it happiness or sadness or a mixture of the above two.Going by my first line, u will be tempted to vote for the latter but no.It wasn’t sad for me at all since I had waited for this call since a few months n pined n fretted to be liberated from the state of being completely idle.

Loads of shopping and preparation later I was in Guwahati in Assam.It was middle of December and bitterly cold and I gagged at the thought of waking up at 6 in the morning to attend office everyday.To me it seemed a task I would never manage to accomplish and by never I mean NEVER.Then again we had fixed mealtimes and my parents were pretty sure that I would surely die of starvation(u would also be if u knew me half as well!!!).

The first few days went pretty smoothly given that my parents were here to get me anything I wanted.But then my parents left for Kolkta and truly for the first time in 22 years I was by myself.I was happy,sad,nervous....i don’t know.There are some emotions which can’t be described by any of these words.I was happy that there was no one to ask me questions ,no timelimits to stick to...nothing...It was kind of liberating..or was it?Was I really free?

I wake up at 6 cursing the whole lot of my company,get ready by 7:30 and go down for breakfast.I grab a quick bite and am in the office-bus by 8 am.One hour of bus journey later I reach office and classes commence.Office gets over at 6 and I hour later I am back in hostel,having a lot of time to waste,but hardly having any of my vitality left for anything other than eat n sleep.

So what’s amiss?I do have meals but if I miss the time anyday..I am free to complain as much as possible about my hunger,but nobody is bothered to give me something else to eat.I remember my days at home when i used to bother everyone a lot if the same dish got repeated for consecutive days and here I eat the same sabzi n dal twice daily and I dnt complain since I know its useless.I,someone to whom a meal remained incomplete without a non-veg dish in the end,has settled to eating the tasteless vegetarian food served here without a word.So many little things in life that I took for granted then, are no longer so obvious.Back then, my clothes where washed and ironed in time and kept ready for me..here I have to find out which of them needs cleaning and deposit them at the laundry at a fixed time in order to get that clean feeling that I took for granted at home.I have to keep a lookout for the biscuit packets to be empty so that I can get new packets in time or else go hungry for evenings on weekdays.

I do have the time to go out on nights..but then I think about all the pros n cons n decide more often than not that its a bad idea.And that reminds me how I used to be cross with my mom for not letting me stay out late into the night.For the first time in my life I realise that with independence comes great responsibilities.

I feel grateful to my parents for giving me so many years of blissful life without having to worry about a thing.I realise now what it takes to keep a house running and I feel ashamed to realise that I never thanked my mother for looking after the minutest of details to ensure that the irresponsible pig in me had a great time.Here is to my mom n dad- a big THANK U...I know it aint enough and nothing I ever say or do will be ever enough to thank them enough.But still THANK YOU mom n dad..thanku for everything...

N.B-Great big thanks to ADITYA for giving me a great amount of strength in the hours of loneliness out here and reminding me that I could fly when I dint believe my legs to be strong enough even to walk...Though he is mentioned the last in this writing ,to assume that his efforts were the least will be a mistake which I would request everyone to refrain from doing...

RaNd0m Th0uGhts

Since for some time now, I haven’t got a thing to do and am idle in the truest sense of the term , my mind has got its fair chance of wondering around and is abuzz with all sorts of weird ideas . I have given myself the independence to think about anything and everything under the sun.
So today is viswakarma puja , the puja of the engineer god. That makes me think aren’t god and science two totally different things. I mean they both try to explain stuff like creation of the universe in totally different ways. One resorts to mysterious powers to explain it while the other tries to explain it in terms of existing physical phenomenon. And technology itself is a child of the sciences focusing mainly on its application side . So, the million dollar question is How come we have a god of technology? Strange isn’t it? Is it an effort to explain the explainable using inexplicable or is it the reverse ? Kinda confusing!!!

Since I find confusions tiring, I move on to the next topic. I decide to read the newspaper. There is this front-page article on Shashi Tharoor and what he posted on Twitter. What I learn from the newspaper is that someone, who was actually a journalist had left a tweet for Tharoor saying :”tell us minister,next time u travel to Kerala,will it be cattle class?” and in reply Tharoor had posted “absolutely, in cattle class out of solidarity with our holy cows”. This little joke on his part had left the whole party twitching because they wondered “was Tharoor taking a potshot at Sonia Gandhi” or “was he throwing the tweet at Rahul Gandhi”[said the newspaper].What do we call this? If u ask me, I would say it’s simply outrageous. All this time I thought that the 1st page was about all the important news in the country [how silly of me!!!] and never guessed it included following ministers and their comments on social network. And we talk about responsible journalism, right?
So, I dump the newspaper and move on. I stand in the balcony and look up to see kites flying in the sky. Kites of various shapes and sizes play hide and seek with the clouds. It’s a joy to watch. Suddenly I see a kite swishing down through the air. It’s a yellow kite with a red tail. A band of boys go running towards it, wind in their hair and eyes in the sky. One of them catches it and emerges with a triumphant smile on his face. Others follow him with a little disappointment showing on their faces. It is then that they spot a second kite coming down and forgetting everything they start running again. I feel that this running after a kite somehow symbolizes the journey of life. We run after a goal, some reach it and some don’t. But for both groups there is another new goal to achieve [or another new kite to catchJ] ,newer heights to scale with little time for despair in between. Wow!!Am impressed with my own philosophy.
Then I come into my room and remember that the next day is MAHALAYA . ie . the day that marks that DURGAPUJA is just 7days away. This day is marked by a special program on RADIO and TV called “Debi abahon” .It is basically welcoming of the mother goddess from her holy abode to earth through Vedic chants. There is this recital of it by BIRENRAKRISHNA BHADRA that is telecast early morning on radio on this day. PUJO for many Bengalis is incomplete without it. It really makes one feel the arrival of something divine. The strange thing about it is that this recital heard at any other time of the day any other time of the year doesn’t produce the effect that it produces on that particular day. I am myself one of those sleepyheads who fails to keep her eyes open after a few slokas and so I got myself a cassette of the whole thing. But it didn’t have any such effects when played at other times. You may well attribute it to my typical Bengali sentiments, but I can’t and neither do I want to change it.
Filled with a deep sense of pride at being a BENGALI, I switch on the computer and start listening to music. And guess what makes me shake my head~”it’s my life” by BON Jovi. What do u call that!!!

Waiting for your comments. Do tell me what do u really think of it?

The ever elusive LOVE

There is something elusive about love. Though there are all sorts of efforts to rationalize and explain this 4 lettered emotion, but does there exist any single universal interpretation of it? I guess no.

As far as I am concerned, this word has changed its implication to me over time. When I was a child, I had my due share of fantasizing over fairytale romance. At that time, all it implied to me was that by some magic some handsome prince would come to me on his flying horse(or pokhiraj as it is called in Bengali)and take me away. But as to how it involved any emotions, love or whatsoever, never crossed my mind.

Then in my teens, I fell in love for the first time. I was besotted by him, swooned over him, wanted to marry him even(even though I had literally no idea of what a marriage implied) and waited all day to catch a glimpse of him. I was literally ready to kill for him and trust me my heart missed a beat whenever I heard his name. He was none other than SHAHRUKH KHAN..(forgive the caps…I still love err..like him boss).

Then came the serious part. I was nearing adulthood(I mean the legal one)

when I met Him. Lets not take names here, let me call him T. So T was this popular guy who had a HUGE fan following especially among the girls and I was this geeky girl, trying to be invisible especially around him. But “man proposes n god disposes” so they say and this case cupid decided to intervene or so I guess. Keeping aside the details, in all fairness it could be said that we were into a relationship[were we?]

Then adulthood came, some things changed between us. Mathematically speaking the equations weren’t quite right between us[god help engineers like me].So it was more of an intermittent love affair, we were in and out of the relationship alternately for 2-3 months-but we were together. Right? Lets not dwell on that part too much. But this whole time I had such high expectations from love. Love is pure, ties two souls together, looks beyond imperfections and so on and so forth..phew!!!The very thought that I thought these to be true makes me giggle. And all this time I was legally an adult[god bless the law] and an impractical goat of an adult[can’t help saying].

Then one day it was over. No more of intermittent single and committed status on orkut .For a few days felt free like a bird. I could do whatever I wished, no huge phone bills, no lying at home about extra pocket money-infact it felt good. But then suddenly it felt bad too. I was on a visit to Shillong in winter.The weather was perfect,the scenic beauty breathtaking and everything was flawless. But something inside me wasn’t alright . Every time I saw a great place, I remembered him, saw something breathtaking and I craved for him…Something made me long for him all the time. That I guess was the point when I realized what love was all about. To me it was and still is something that makes the imperfect perfect and the mundane interesting and even the boring tolerable.

Now am 22,reasonably reasonable and practical[at least I think so].Now T is committed to someone else. I don’t really blame him because I myself no longer believe that it’s possible to wait for love and all that crap . But then there is a great big BUT here . T and B [let that be T’s new found lady love] are committed to each other mind and soul. There isn’t a reason to think otherwise. But where do I stand? The most practical ones among u will say , move on. But I simply can’t. I keep remembering him every moment. In my lonely moments I can still see the way he crinkled his nose when he smiled, the way he frowned when offended ,the way he walked, the way he talked and everything to the minutest detail.Even now something of importance happens and I long to tell him about it.Can anyone now tell me, what this is all about ? Do my feelings lose all their relevance just because he loves someone else? Is it illegitimate of me to love him now? Or is it unethical?

This dilemma in its turn makes me think about love again.What is it about love that differentiates it from its ill-reputed lesser versions like stalking , crush , obsession etc? Is it simply the fact that love is supposed to be a two-way affair ? But why does my feeling have to be renamed depending on someone else ? Other emotions are not so susceptible to other peoples’ viewpoint as love is and all this time I believed love was so divine and pure and what not[!!!].I guess there is a fine line of demarcation between love and obsession. But the irony is that a stalker also believes himself to be in love..right? Its all so messed up..or is it me who is all messed up?

Comments are eagerly awaited. And a word of caution to all-all characters ,places and events described herein are imaginary. Any resemblance whatsoever to any person is purely coincidental.

devD

DEV-D,the latest cinematic interpretation of Sharatachandra Chattopadhyay’s novel Devdas , has done two things to the classic.

First, it has put the classic on a modern footing,making it more acceptable to gen-x
who might have found the previous renditions of the same too melodramatic.It indeed
has put some sort of realistic limit on the expressions of the characters which makes the
the emotions completely in sync with the story,and never for a second drifts into “over the top” melodrama.The story has a unique absorbing power and tempts u to go on and on till u reach the end..the credit goes to the style of story telling n kudos to the film editor for that.

The second effect,is a bit on the negative side.Modernising the story has in some parts taken the innocence out of the love story.Its more focused on the sex part of it.The childhood interaction between dev n paro needed much more dan its allotted single sequence to establish the blooming of love.. Infact in the whole film there isn’t a single romantic dialogue between dev and paro..all are rather tiltillating stuff …dev shares a lot more with chanda then he ever did with paro in the movie..afterall the moment he saw paro he seemed much too eager to jump into bed with her rather than talk and share…but that sharing part is very much there between dev n chanda…to bring out dis fact I will describe a scene from the movie…

It’s a sequence where chanda is telling dev about her past.. her father instead of trying to support her in those trying times(when her mms scandal was doing the rounds), embracing her and saying “whatever was to happen has happened and I will be with you” he had sought relief from the stigma by committing suicide...dev at this juncture embraces her lovingly and says those exact words…

-aint that wonderful??isnt that what love is all about..playing the role the other side needs at the moment and giving the required affection and support and sharing the pain and joys alike…always n forever…that little moment shared by dev and chanda filled my heart with joy…joy at having discovered that love has indeed found its expression in the film….

Devdas-till these days remains the symbol of eternal love..As all literature its open to interpretation..this novel is no exception…wadever be the ineterpretation, it is successful only when the essence of true love is present in it..and in this movie though for a single scene I found that sparkiling moment..and that makes it if a “saga of love” to me and that’s what devdas stands for…..long live LOVE….

LOOKING BACK......

Emm…so my college life is about to end…the moment I pen down these words the full impact sinks in and I am filled with so many mixed feelings…but recently I have been thinking about this..what actually makes these days as beautiful as they are….

That question might bring a variety of thoughts to ur mind…but the one that strikes me
as being most logical is…its not the place…not the time nor the people around you…but our perspectives at this point of time that makes these days so special…the freshness with which we looked at the people and events around us..absorbing everything like a sponge and making them a part of us....the way we accepted people around us…the way we believed them…..laughing our hearts out at jokes which others would find simply outrageous….everything was due to the fact that our hearts were not burdened by those shattered dreams….or by those experiences which taught us that looks could be deceptive, people merciless……


I look back now and realize how much impact time could have on the way a person looks at life…once upon a time before I entered college I used to long to grow up…how I wished to see myself grown up and matured…..Now that I am at the brink of leaving college I miss my innocence….i miss my ability to trust people blindly….i know that the end wasn’t always rosy whenever I believed…but the very ability to be able to trust was so much refreshing…so reassuring…I feel am too grown up and that is so Boring……


Nebody has nething to add to it…feel free to comment….