It's taking me time to recover from my Pujo hangover :(

This year, unlike the last, I wasn't sitting on top of some hill and guzzling Champagne. I was in my favourite city, only guzzling vodka-pepsi. That's been my new find this Pujo: I admire Abhay Deol more now for introducing me to the brilliant combo of Vodka and Pepsi (remember Dev D?).

I also got my current favourite gadget: my new digital SLR Fujifilm camera! *applause* It was blissful when I captured images this season which look stunnning. This is my best shot this pujo-

Shubho Bijoya to all my readers!

When I was a child, my life was so much more secure, and change for the worst never threatened my day to day living. I knew that moving up from one class to another every year, buying new clothes and books, going for little outings with mummy, even to the tiny Safari Park was what kept my little life going, and always made me happy.

Things change so much as you grow up. This is an oft repeated line but I've started understanding it further today. One grows grave not just by age, but by the knowledge one acquires about her world. A world, that is tied together by such fragile strings, that happiness is too light a word to keep everything intact.

I'm upset about a lot of things, not JUST one. Till today, I've never had the reason to contemplate about death and understand the lives of others to continue after it. Despite the festivities in which I've been sucked in, my mind remains absent from the merry, thinking about what will happen a few weeks, or even months, from now. I could never even imagine in my wildest of dreams that my almost perfect world will be threatened so suddenly, and something I held so dearly to my heart, and almost taken for granted, might disappear someday. All of this, without informing me. Without taking my permission. Without saying even a silent goodbye.

I've never felt so helpless in my life. So out of place. So powerless, to make things right with the stroke of a wand. So much of disbelief and reasoning clouds my mind, that my tears are evading me.

Feelings

There's this person I've been trying to avoid for the last 3 months or so. Reason? My escapist attitude. I know there's a wee bit of horomones playing up on the other side, so I stopped taking calls and brought down contact to the minimum. It was he who (how shameless is he!) caught me online on Gtalk two days ago and asked, "Hey! How're you?". No reply. "So, where are you? DSE?".

Ugh. It was like taking a bullet.

Everytime I log onto the Internet these days, I somehow steer towards Coke studio. It's been the best music I've heard in the last few days. Coke studio for me isn't a very recent discovery (thanks to Nabarun), but of late, I've been listening to the sessions a lot more than usual. I love the Urdu verses and the music setup on the whole.

It's liberating, to say the least.

I've been having the worst possible sin-curve patterns of emotion. Last night, the much needed unburdening took place with K. I wasn't up for it but it so happened that I started feeling much MUCH better.

I have a feeling a year from today is going to be eventful.

Conjunctivitis is in the air, quite literally. Whenever I see an infected person (which is one out of five people I've been meeting everyday) I immediately reach for my hand sanitizer and keep my hands in my pockets so they don't go touch my eyes without my conscious guiding. I'm being more compulsive with this weather growing muggier and hotter. Suddenly today it seemed the sun was shining too brightly. Maybe the Sun is coming closer to the Earth. Or maybe the buildings in Udita have been painted too white.My eyes are threatening they'll turn a funny pink colour.

Maybe I'll escape the CPM taint this time too!

Many dreams, many lives (part 1)

I'm one of the very few people in this world who likes going to cafes alone. I, of course, have a purpose behind it. In general I love being alone and eating my food in peace, which is especially applicable to me when I'm in a foul, pensive or procrastinating mood. Today was one of those days. I was feeling jobless and I had the time to pause at Coffee World for a salad and a lemon ice tea (thanks to the heat).

I was sitting peacefully on my couch and just thinking of nothing, staring into space and sipping on my tea almost involuntarily when my mood got pepped up. The table opposite mine had just been occupied and I sat up almost alarmed for the conversation that ensued. I was sitting innocently in my couch and then began the race of my thoughts.

He was divorced and she was a lonely woman caught between her parents and her rather demanding job. I'm a pro when it comes to eavesdropping, I confess. It's a bad habit that often makes me squirm when I'm in such a situation myself and suspect others will overhear a particularly personal conversation of mine but you know about temptations...you'd rather devour the chocolate cake and relish it than regret when you see those extra pounds on yourself. That's a bad example to illustrate my point but you get it. So I listened to this rather nice guy telling his date how he's ready to put up with all her laziness and unwillingness to cook on sundays and other unreasonable demands. You'd say that's common in men: they promise and then forget even their wives' names, let alone their promises. I may be and untrained listener still and unable to pick up hints so soon, but something in the voice of that man told me he was being earnest. He was willing to put up with all the tantrums of that girl. He just needed a yes from her. Well he didn't exactly say he needed a yes but he said, "what's the harm in trying and giving it a chance?". My heart almost melted. Yeah yeah I know I'm quite gullible but you see, there's one important thing we all often forget. We forget to loosen up and try what we get. We're always so uptight in our lives and think, rather ironically, that things will chart their own course, that we often forget there are issues with us we need to sort out ourselves.

I felt things were going to be just fine between the both of them. Or I may have been very badly mistaken for all you know, but for that very moment, my heart went out to him...a guy with a heart and self proclaimed adjusting capacity of a nomad, who was ready to tell his date about his wife (the tramp?) who left him and give her the clear picture and about how he was ready to give life another shot.

I took one last sip of my tea, paid my bill and rose, taking just one look at the couple. She was busy digressing from the topic, talking about various insignificant things in her life while the guy looked at her simply. I wished for once I got to stay longer. Well I guess life's about keeping some suspense which you tend to forget ever existed later in your life. What's the significance of these little brushes we have in our lives that we forget about later? Isn't it important,then, to have a witness to our lives?

It's one of those days that Kolkata is dotted with little bamboo structures draped in atrocious cloth, housing the idol of a God with a kite in his hand. To complement this, there's "Tunir Ma" blaring from the speakers, much to my delight.This is known as Vishwakarma puja, a day when the God of machines is worshipped. There's one question in my mind though, which came first, Vishwakarma or technology?

A little flashback readers...

The oldest tools known to man were the ones invented by the early man. Fast forward to the Industrial Revolution in UK. The spinning Jenny blah blah and the world had changed as we know it. It took a while to realise, without a doubt, that technology was meant to be revered. Was it the foresight of some genius back in the BC period that machines will one day be worshipped and a God needs to be assigned,like some minister,in charge of "creating" it? Or was Vishwakarma born sometime in the kalyug?

He he :D

In case that confuses you, it's my trademark guilty laugh. I do, I undo. Technology, thou art my most understanding friend.

Quick flashback...I fell, I stood up, I got what I wanted and like an arrogant bitch, I kicked it with my left leg and that's how I am where I am today. Woohoo or no woohoo, I'm happy. I'm dumb but I'm happy. So help me, God!

Coming to more serious matters now, for all those who were frequent on my blog, kindly come back,read, comment, criticize. I've missed you all a lot and I'm here to make amends and scribble till my eyes start protesting. I'm begging shamelessly. Oh that's one thing I've gotten rid of...shame.

So...all's well that ends well,eh?

She was waiting for him to arrive at the chapel as expected. Everyone around her was drowning the serene feeling the morning had instilled in her. It was a very different morning and she thought it was a sign. She believed in signs- her friends told her that is exactly the reason why she would give up easily. She ignored them. She wasn't someone who went by what others would say. She would only let herself be immersed in her own thoughts and live her life the way she wanted. She seldom thought before she said something. She was a free bird and did not submit herself to social obligations or do anything the way the others did it. It made her sick to walk the path on which several others had trodded.

She was not perfect though. She had her fears too. She would run out of the bathroom before she flushed. That sound and the idea made her cringe and meant something of negative significance to her. The sign that something would go down the drain. It wasn't like she feared failure. She just feared her helplessness in a situation she had anticipated. It's the worst thing to happen- when you know something would go wrong, when you see that it is actually happening in front of your eyes, and you're still unable to do anything.

It was an hour past the assigned time. She was getting that horrible feeling in her stomach and looked around to see if there was anybody who felt the same panic that had now taken her over completely. She saw only one face that had a trace of fear on it. It was her father. She preferred to look away from him though.

It was one of her impulses after another 15 minutes which changed her life forever. In a moment of lull inside her head, she gently placed the bouquet of flowers on the chair beside her and lifted her dress to the height of her knees and walked out of the chapel, with everyone staring after her. She didn't care. She wasn't unused to people staring at her with shock or surprise. She walked steadily and did not look back. She went straight to her car and opened the door, slammed it behind her and started the engine. A split second and a thought, "is this right? Can I undo what I'm doing now?". She wasn't one who'd listen though. Not even to her conscience. She released the clutch and there she was on the road. "Any moment now. We'll be home and nothing would've changed".

His car was approaching the driveway to the Chapel just then. After much deliberation, he decided to give it a chance. So what if he was late? People would understand.

Then, the cars were parallel. She didn't notice him. She was consumed by something he couldn't tell. He could read her like no one, he claimed, but there was something about her then. Her eyes, which deceived him. The determination, the absence of any sort of regret...she looked just the way she did when he first met her at a pub. Unreadable and like no one he'd met before. Indifferent and unaffected. Detached. Her eyes met his. She made no attempt to stop. He had a look of confusion,she noticed. She didn't owe him an explanation, she decided. She only stared at him for a moment and turned away.

She didn't stop. She disappeared into the horizon and never looked back.