This is the kind of post people come to read blogs for, I guess. Quotidian detail with a bit of rumination, yech!
I had a lovely day today. Something I mentioned in fb. In my room, summer, with my dog, playing with her, fighting with her, beating her, being bitten by her, sigh..
Sleeping, pray throughout the day, lying awake, the cool darkness of the room with the door closed, the frequent loadsheddings, finding new ways to keep Floppy occupied. Made myself a snack in the evening, cooked after ages, that is. Then on the Net, where the descent starts. I am going off now, gah!

Which Calvin and Hobbes Character are You

http://www.quizilla.com/quizzes/result/100393/10410/

You're Calvin! You're imaginative and hyperactive. For the most part, you are an average six-year-old kid (except for your extraordinary vocabulary...) You have an imaginary best friend because most other friends your age don't really understand you.

(I think that's stretching it a bit far)

A few days ago, I found a few days-old pup mewling in a box, under a thyalagari, in the darkness while coming home. I like animals etc, like most people do, and I am not completely in love with dogs etc, though I really like them, and would actually like one if K and I set up house some day. I am generally greatly buoyed in this wish by K’s obvious rather more obvious wish for a dog. He talks of their pet Daschund Shabitri (they called him Shaboo, Shabi bhalobeshe), who would, (well, isn’t this a darling?) when the boy was a mewling infant, guard him when he had been given his oil massage and apparently left to sun on the dining table.
I brought the thing home somewhat instinctively. I was also curious, and probably a little glad to have such a young thing on my hands, even if just for the time being. I called PFA the next thing, because I knew they would take him, and that would mean that he would live.
Well yadda yadda, I brought him up to our flat, ma fed him, I got over my squeamishness and held him up by the scruff of his neck (it was flailing its miniscule paws) and put him in a clean shoe box. Frantic calls to people, to K, who suggested making him a bed of rags. When I did it, he promptly dug inside and buried himself underneath and fell asleep. The people who received my calls were all kind. Then, the PFA guy came and took him away.
He’s at their hospital, I went and saw him today, and people are asking to bring him home, or else she (it’s a she) might have a reduced chance of survival cause germs/infections abound in the hospital. Ma has thrown a fit after being told I want to bring her, she doesn’t know that I am so doubtful about it. But well, once again, it’s a wish, and a bit of curiosity, to have her, to play with her, to feed her and stuff. How hard can it be? It’s not so much guilt as dreaming how nice it will be.
I dunno what I’ll do, I might not even bring her. It will be an instinctive decision, probably. It was such a spirited thing, mane she didn’t have her mum, but she wasn’t scared, y’know, she was ever so inquisitive: think, she couldn’t even see, but she’d managed to stick her head out of that box, extricated herself out of it, and was going out for a small exploration of her surroundings when I came to her enclosure. I mean, I dunno, but this one certainly feels like it’ll live if there are people to love her, even if she doesn’t have the immunity you get from mother’s milk.

(And it was easy for one person to say it was a hasty decision to give her away to PFA. To not bother about infrastructure and pass judgement.)

i was going to feel really angry about k. i saw today's pages and they are really empty and lots of stories, and i saw the stories that are going, and most of them i like very much, and it seems like a handful of a good day's work. it might not be that enjoyable for those who have to sub it, but if you look at the pages now, you can't help but feel satisfied.
and yes, there are problems galore.
also, i am going to bishnupur this weekend or the next. haven't figured out a companion yet. i guess i can say people are welcome to join.

days that come to an end

O leaves on Tuesday. I have little idea of what to do after.

about trees

following the thread in https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=28397684&postID=5381586477227978588&pli=1

i thought of that too, that if it were being done with the permission of the authorities, you couldn't really do much, could you? but a) you have to let people know what is really happening, and what the rules are. and that rules are being grossly violated. most of us see trees with branches trimmed in so many places that we pass, but we don't know that there is actually part of an organised racket in the city. b) about taking action about it. when the tree outside my flat was being hacked off, i called up a reporter in my office who has been working this field and knows people high-enough in the hierarchy that he could make some calls to people who would ensure that the hacking was stopped. but i found that the guy who'd asked for it to be cut, had approached the local cpm goonda turned political honcho for permission and he's been given it.

the police came and eventually the forest dept officials too. but i recognise that they did it to begin with, because of the reporter's contacts. of course, none of this would have happened if i hadn't pushed both my reporter, and another actually: the guy who covers the area i live in and knew the thanar OC, to help me out. i haven't figured out yet what it will come to if the tree came in way of, say the politician honcho's real estate interests and he had to have the tree removed.

one effective tool that i see is to get it to the media. the media does only as much as it serves its own immediate interests, but this is one kind of story that papers still carry, as opposed to the version of events that people who've visited Singur will tell you.

and meanwhile, i do think we can go far by letting as many people as we can know about it.

and madhura, do you really care if people think you are overreacting? would you not do what you had to do cause people thought you were overreacting, or any other term they had for it?

Here

'What will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com

I was reading Supriya di's Novel and Modernity blog. It was extremely calming, the seamless flow of words about people in a book. Is it that in today's world, you have to learn to be happy by yourself, and never otherwise, the fragmented nature of modern existence etc..
I am listening to Indian Ocean, stuff that RIM had given me. Feels like I didn't hear before. Although it is more beautiful than not, my ear is aching a little from listening to it as loudly as I am. Yet that's the only way to listen to full-throated song, this one, anyway. I am hoping that sometime not very far into the late eve - early night, I'll tire myself out and feel at peace.

To begin with, may I say that Rock On is a horrible film. People often have reasons for liking a movie that have nothing to do with its merits. The film echoes things I remember, but well, that makes no difference. The story is, may I say, pathetic. Farhan Akhtar can act, and I loved the songs, but is it cause I nurture hidden wishes of being a groupie. Seen in the crowd of apparently ecstatic people in the audience were disenchantedly clapping extras. Heh.

I am so depressed, at the complete lack of flight, nothing, rien: it’s as if the world might not have existed and no difference would have been made either by living or dying. How can another person do so, do this? I could not have existed and the world would have been the same. And my room felt so dirty, unwelcoming for anyone except me, or anyone who would make it his/ her own. Where to from here, where can I escape?

Which fantasy, where inside my head, when all the fantasies have been explored and feel like ashes?? I wish I could take myself away to someplace where I would not have known myself.

In real life, the Adityas who go away as far as they can from what they loved don’t find it again so easily. I wish I could become another me like Aditya.

I feel so completely alone, I wish I could go away, go away.

I was awake through the night, after a three-hour sleep till 2. It’s 5.30 now, and light has awakened. In the nights, I feel free. I was watching Seven Years in Tibet, and thinking about, well, so many things.. It felt so light, and completely untied to any obligations. Why do people need drugs? For a fix of this? It was as if there was nothing you couldn’t do, nothing you couldn’t imagine, anyway. Dropped my plate of dinner, ma came along so kindly and took it away, and gave me whatever rice was left, I felt so broken at another thing going wrong in the course of the day. It was so nice, to be comforted like that, and the space to let one be: she didn’t yell at me cause I’d dropped food.
We had a fight of sorts, K and I, and I was indulging in all sorts of possibilities, of going away etc, combined with work ambitions, wishes if you like. And while contemplating dire possibilities, following them through, I thought, you know, that it was too much of a good thing to let go for this, at least. Not unless something happened that I had no control over.
The night gave over to morning, and I didn’t worry that I didn’t have enough sleep to see me through the next day, cause I didn’t have to go anyplace. That’s such a liberating knowledge. And looking at Brad Pitt as Heinrich Harrer walking down Lhasa streets in a distant shot, and of clothes, customs, and the stories about the Forbidden City that they seemed to talk about, I wondered if I would find myself doing that too.. that is, leaving what I was doing cause I didn’t like it, without something to fall back on, and look for something to do. I probably won’t, I might. I hope I do, without better back cover, though. In the mountains, there you feel free. There is something to this solitude, the knowledge of having nothing, or rather, of not having exactly that which you longed greatly for, that sets you free. There’s nothing to anticipate, and all experience comes without strings attached, implications.
And Heinrich Harrer found peace in a young boy, did he? Who was as much a reflection of his own self, as the son who he could not meet? It’s a curious tale, cause heroes are rarely so imperfect..
If I were to go far away, to indulge in those thoughts of mine again, would I welcome K back into my arms when I returned, and more importantly, would he?
It’s a beautiful morning, all the nicer cause I was awake as it came alive. I wish I didn’t have to sleep, that I could go on being awake. I want to sit down to a good bout of reading.

"I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going," Ledger said. He confided to the reporter that he took a prescription sleeping pill and, when that failed, took another.


I think he was lovely.

My horror world

It was peopled with the corpse of my father, my actual father, who was sick with his last illness, bending down to help me get something from the rotting body of the dead one. And a slit eyed wizened man who tried to kill with a chop of the hand, and whispering to someone in a hunched cupboard while trying to soak a thin book in water to make myself heard: that was a transient one. Nightmares within nightmares, knowing that I had to get through one to extricate myself from the other.
The nightmares of the awake life: believing things will be alright, dealing with silences like a wall, bloodied striking yourself against it repeatedly and pretending at the best of times that it’s nothing. God, I didn’t want to live like a grown-up this way. For the fear of loneliness, of leaving things behind….. P told me about a girl in New York State who calls up R asking him to talk to her for 10 minutes.
Will I marry in this belief, and the rest of life will be spent trying to unshackle myself and being afraid to walk away? It is so tempting at such moments to turn to him whose nirashokti you fear: to have your fears lovingly turned away.
P wrote a long time back that it was time I let myself fly, for it is time. I feel too afraid, believe me. I had hoped that someone would give me a push. And I have stood poised at the brink, waiting for years and years and years to take the final plunge…
And to see how things are, it seems like I could stand forever and become petrified in this eternal wait and nobody could care. Yes, we know nobody does care, but I don’t believe it, really.
I am afraid I will be the kind that will be unable to find peace with another. Cause none of the baubles of civilization seems to satisfy. Listen to me, yes. But if you’ve seen what flavour of happiness you like, once, nothing else will do.


I am afraid to leave, the city, this job, the trappings of this life, cause I don’t know if I will be good enough to make another. Also cause dunno if he will come there with me. Won’t. So am trying to stay as long as I can. Also hoping that some day I will find this festering compromise with life too unbearable and venture forth in desperation. I am hoping for my own desperation.

I was watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and I thought of memories that were ordinary, trivial, that would surely be lost if I didn’t keep them away somewhere. This is of an afternoon just days ago when the boy lay on me, and he shifted his weight so that I gasped with absolute certainty, ebar ami more jabo. The boy is tall, you know, and I am just a midget.

When will there be a time when that afternoon will be lost, merged with countless afternoons past, and those made later? Will there be a time? The boy is beautiful, you know, quite like the Joel Barish of Clementine Krzinski.

I watched Stand by Me, and I can't wait to read the book by Stephen King. Oh god o god I want to watch My Own Private Idaho. And River Phoenix I love.

I am home, and today seems to have greater vestige of normalcy than yesterday. I was watching Wonder Years (all thanks to B), and the episode itself spoke about regularity, humdrumness. I thought of R in office, whose father died when he was a tiny kid. I thought of A and me, a bit of martyrs, consciously bearing our scars, and I thought what it must be like for him. His and his mum’s hardships must have been greater, and his sadnesses different, cause did he know what it was to have one, a dad, at all. What would it be like for his mother, to have lived alone all her life, bringing up her son the biggest thing she did: it seems an awfully long life when without the person to share it with, and yet, how do I know what it is for such women. It must be a different frame in which they recognize their happinesses. And R speaks of those times like telling a fairytale, asking us to imagine, what it must have been like. He speaks of a lovely, pampered, delicate boy, and a mother who did everything so he could have all he wanted, and well, actually pulled it through. He told me, us about all this a long time back, but I think, y’know, his happinesses would have been no different, from say, that of Kevin, as he sat around the dinner table, the sanctuary of home, with the securedness of what came after.

I am not quite sure why I am trying my damnedest to make myself crash.

It's gonna be 5 and I haven't slept. The back, I think I am pushing too far. I am, was working hard. I should rest, but it irritates me to no end to be told what I should do cause it's good for me, I want to be left alone, given what I want, and have the space to recover my rhythm at my own pace, not with dire threats of what will happen to me in the future if I don't do all that is good for me. And it doesn't matter, it's random, and it'll pass. Excuse me if I sound like Calvin.
There's little joy in this wilfulness, but it's as if one thing leads to another, and when things are not at peace, many things happen which you wouldn't want otherwise. It's just irritating, and it seems so soon that night has ended and it's light again. The past few hours went by so fast, it seems. And tomorrow, wake up feeling peeved, bathe, eat and run. Don't do anything you remotely like.

Met Shantanu after a long time. Pleasantest meeting with him if I may say so. Found him agreeing to things, and he looks comfortable for the first time, though he is bloated. He seems to be doing well for the first time, and the self -possessedness that comes of working hard came from him. He had to leave, too soon, it seemed. He takes good photographs, quite instinctively, it seemed to me. Not like he was conscious of using craft, which I liked.

What I really wanted to write

i went to subir dutta laboratory, then walked along lenin sarani to sealdah, looked in wistfully at all the old houses that now have squatters in them, starting from lawrence d souza home. there was a tiny tiny kid crawling on the street, lawrence d souza r adjoining barir shamne anekta khola jayga, an old man played football with three young ones. ratey jokhon phirchhilam, past the book fair that was shutting shop, there was the jilipi man counting up sales, and another cooking for the group, another washing up utensils. i wanted to sit around them. tokhon mone holo nothing would give me as much peace as sitting around them and listening to what they spoke. and there was this kid, he mans the ghugni stall, he was being sarcastic at his mother: sharadin dokaner shamne dariye thako, tarpor dekhbo. koto hajar hajar taka sales hochhe, and i wondered that he caled it dokan. for him, it was. and then, well, that he would move on to the next fair. did i wish i also went from place to place, that home was where i hung my hat?

Hello Goodbye reminds of college, towards the end, when I felt free, completely unencumbered.

I was walking through Lenin Sarani today. My camera was not working, so eventually I felt criminal. And I felt, perhaps for the first time, realized that what I was seeing today and couldn’t keep pictures of, I won’t see again, though I’ll pass the same houses, people even. But what I see won’t be the same, my mind, with that happiness, won’t be. The urgency I felt was the first, I do think.
And I went for Ironman, eventually. I am seeing Robert Downey Junior post-Zodiac, so I can’t help but like him a lot, really. But the movie was not really great as superheroes go. But never mind, I only went to see what RDJ was doing..
And then eventually having dinner of a sort with A, I felt so lonely, I dunno why. That life stretched out interminably, and that the dreams would not happen. It was so sad, like being grown up, as if. This kind of grown-up I don’t want to be, that takes occasional vacations with kids, and is fat and eating out at a pizza joint with nothing before or beyond it. That nothing stood for anything, didn’t lead to other things, like a complete limbo. I am glad to be home.

Central Calcutta was so beautiful today, and it was like it would never want to come and inhabit my heart, that was what I felt saddest about: about the stagnancy of passing the same place everybody, and it not making a difference to you, ever. It seems as if that is being grown up. And that grown up I don’t wish to be.

I am addicted to the Net. Not funny.

I went to get the trouser made today. The one taking the measurements asked where I’d gotten the material from. I told him the place, but not the shop or the price. He told me it was of very good quality, that you did not get this kind anymore.
I felt very sad, for the shop that will no longer be there, your sadness, all of yours, at its loss, and of what I fear might be lost to me too.

Last Movie You Saw In A Theatre:

Khoya Khoya Chand. My first at 89 Cinemas, if I may say so. Liked it very much too, the movie, and also, watching it with the boy wasn’t half as bad as I thought it’s be.

What Book Are You Reading:

The Opium Clerk, Kunal Basu. I like it very much. Very welcome variation from the usual fare dished out in the name of Indian bleeding writing in English.

Favourite Smells:
Smell of earth after rain, smell of impending rain.

Favourite Sound:

The boy’s voice, filled with kindness. One of my favourites, anyway. And yeah, O’s: the broken voiced aai, which I manage to hear even through crowds and loud noises. She hears mine too.
That’s it, I guess. I am not really a sound person. Don’t dig them much.

Worst Feeling In The World:
Feeling your energy thwarted. Fairly common occurrence.

What Is The First Thing You Think Of When You Wake?

Office, again!

Favourite Fast Food Place:

Café Coffee Day, Park Street, I am embarrassed to say.

Future Child’s Name:
I wonder. They’ll be nice names, though, I assure you.

Finish This Statement.

"If I Had A Lot Of Money I’d…"Travel

Do You Drive Fast?

Don’t drive yet.

Do You Sleep With A Stuffed Animal?

I could have, but by the time I got to know that you could do them, I was kinda grown up. Tried, a few times, very uncomfortable.

Storms-Cool Or Scary?

Very nice.

Favorite Drink:

Coke, lassi?

Finish This Statement, "If I Had The Time I Would ….."

I have time.

Do You Eat The Stems On Broccoli?

I do, on the few occasions I eat broccoli.

If You Could Dye Your Hair Any Colour, What Would Be Your Choice?

BLUE. Emphatically. Certainly.

Name All The Different Cities/Towns You Have Lived In.

Delhi and this. Bleeding Calcutta

One Nice Thing About The Person Who Sent This To You:

I picked it up. No one sent me it.

What’s Under Your Bed?

Shoes.

Would You Like To Be Born As Yourself Again?

Sure. How would I know what it is to be anyone else?

Morning Person Or Night Owl?

Night Owl. Definitely.

Over Easy Or Sunny Side Up?

Over easy, I am guessing.

Favorite Place To Relax:

My room, O’s room.

Favorite Ice Cream Flavour:

Not quite sure.

You pass this tag to –No one, thank heavens. When you read other people answering questions about themselves, you think, ooh, it must be so interesting to write all about yourself, even answering questions, as if someone were really so interested. Then you sit down to write it and it’s a bloody pain, and you feel like answering them all dumbly, cause the questions are so stupid. Cummon, how does it matter what ice cream flavour I like, or whether I am a morning person or night owl????
This one was a relatively easy one, and I think it’ll prevent me at least for a while from answering bloody tags.

It's time to leave.

I so want to be gone.

Pushkar, a melee of people and colour, Hyderabad, hot and lonely and lots of money, Bombay, scary that I'll fall in love with it, Delhi, the place you have to go. Trekking, mountains, hope, strength. Writing, my only hope. A lover, everything. Absence, acceptance. Friends, relief. Parent, presence. The world, fear of ending. Pictures, beauty. Body, truth. Death, incomprehension.

Laughing jackass

listen:

http://aviary.owls.com/kookaburra/kookaburra.html

anglerfish: ugh

How anglerfish find mates and why:
When it is mature, the male's digestive system degenerates, making him incapable of feeding independently, which necessitates his quickly finding a female anglerfish or else dying. In lieu of continually seeking the vast abyss for a female, it has evolved into a permanent parasitic mate.
When he finds a female, he bites into her skin, and releases an enzyme that digests the skin of his mouth and her body, fusing the pair down to the blood-vessel level. The male then atrophies into nothing more than a pair of gonads, which release sperm in response to hormones in the female's bloodstream indicating egg release. This extreme sexual dimorphism ensures that, when the female is ready to spawn, she has a mate immediately available.
It's kinda unbelievable, the hideosity, also the remarkable adaptation, but the hideosity too.

Once I get Broadband, I can upload my photographs on Picassa (not Flickr, that’s for the good people), can surf, go to Orkut, blog, find out about infrastructure bonds……prattle prattle prattle

very very interesting

Several swan species exhibit lifelong homosocial behaviours, and the same phenomenon can also be found in a number of other waterbirds, notably geese and flamingoes, where it serves as a flexible life strategy.
In swans, the pair is the central social unit. The birds reinforce the unit with frequent preening and sex. Should one die, the other will usually live out the remainder of its life alone. The pair builds nests, raise cygnets and defends a territory. Two cobs, being bigger and stronger than a cob and a pen, can hold down a larger territory, and provide their cygnets with more to eat.
Such same-sex pairs represent a major fitness bonus to a pen, and pens without partners will seek out these couples, have sex with one or other of the cobs and lay eggs in their nest. She is then chased off, not being a part of the pair, and the cobs raise the cygnets themselves. Having access to more food the brood have up to ten times the survival rate of a brood with a heterosexual swan couple. From an evolutionary point of view, this is a very rewarding strategy for the cobs as well.
This situation only holds true as long as a nest and a territory is in short supply. The two males will have a fitness loss in that they (1) have no guarantee they are the actual fathers of the cygnets (not being bonded with the female) and (2) will anyway have to split reproduction between them.
A same-sex lifestyle will be advantageous in some situations, but not in others. However, having a partner is a requisite for building a nest and keeping a territory, and an opposite-sex partner may not always be available when forming pairs. Thus, the ability to form a male pair is a normal part of the Black Swans social behaviour and an example of a flexible life strategy in the species.
From Wikipedia

Lyrebird

The pic is of the Superb Lyrebird

During the early 1930s, a male lyrebird, called "James", formed a close bond of friendship with a human being, Mrs. Wilkinson, after she had been offering food to him over a period of time. James would perform his courtship dance for her on one of his mounds which he had constructed in her backyard — and he would also put on his display for a wider audience, but only when Mrs. Wilkinson was one of those present. On one such occasion, James' performance lasted for forty-three minutes, and included steps to a courtship dance accompanied by his own tune — and also included imitating perfectly the calls of an Australian Magpie, and a young magpie being fed by a parent-bird, a Eastern Whipbird, a Bellbird, a complete laughing-song of a Kookaburra, two Kookaburras laughing in unison, a Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo, a Gang-gang Cockatoo, an Eastern Rosella, a Pied Butcherbird, a Wattle-bird, a Grey Shrike-thrush, a Thornbill, a White-browed Scrubwren, a Striated Pardalote, a Starling, a Yellow Robin, a Golden Whistler, a flock of parrots whistling in flight, the Crimson Rosella, several other birds whose notes his audience were not able to identify, and the song of honey-eaters (tiny birds with tiny voices), that gather in numbers and "cheep" and twitter in a multitudinous sweet whispering. In order to mimic the honeyeaters' singing faithfully, James was obliged to subdue his powerful voice to the faintest pianissimo, but he contrived, nevertheless, to make each individual note of the soft chorus audibly distinct. Also included in James' performance was his perfect mimicry of the sounds made by a rock-crusher at work, a hydraulic ram, and the tooting of motor-horns.

From Wikipedia

David Attenborough's video of the lyrebird:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3433507052114896375

Black-hooded Oriole, Oriolus xanthornus

I saw a Black Hooded Oriole today at Jadavpur University. At the hem of the Engineering maath. I so wish I had the camera, and it was so close that even with my limited zoom, I’d have got a good shot, what with the bright light and all. Wikipedia says they are shy creatures, so perhaps I am lucky I saw one at all. It sat on a branch right above my head and chirrupped, then took off. Gliding up and down in a wave across to the other side of the grounds.
Also heard one other bird sitting right inside a baby eucalyptus. Krrruu Krrru, that kinda thing. I actually even saw the rear half of the bird, long black tail and white underbelly, it seemed big and gawky, yuuuk! I was looking around a tree, when a dove swooped out of the tree and flew off. Oof, I was so surprised I jumped!
Yennyway, I am putting up an emni picture of a black hooded oriole so one knows what it is. It’s a beauty.

Feel very bad. Is it wrong to ask for minimum decency? And is this the behaviour, the legacy of conduct we will pass on to the following generation? I wish I could up and ante and just go. For there are some things you care about, while the rest you can live with.

Feel very bad. Is it wrong to ask for minimum decency? And is this the behaviour, the legacy of conduct we will pass on to the following generation? I wish I could up and ante and just go. For there are some things you care about, while the rest you can live with.

I was going through this post of Oli’s and I remembered how we’d gone to watch a show of The Divine Child. Alliance Francaise organised it, and it happened at Rabindra Sadan, I think, in first year. It was summer and I think I was quite thoughtless, then. Mane, no deep cogitation went into my actions, and glad for that. I remember it for one, cause the director called it The Divin (as you’d pronounce diving) Child. And there were these scenes: the play is about this child that refuses to leave its mother’s womb when it finds out how terrible the world outside is. And there was a scene where the father of the child has sex with the woman whose carrying the child, can’t get rid of it, and at that, there was a wave of embarrassed laughter through the hall. It was raucous, I guess, and I remember the boys in front of us who laughed the hardest. Were they French students? Perhaps. These are memories, hot sultry afternoons: breathless, meaningless. It is only sometimes that I find the energy that was in those days in the days now.
I am reading Eldest now. My nights and days are being spent trying to finish he book. Note, it is summer now, my favourite time of year. K and I shifted my bed to my room, the first time in seven years. I am pretty settled now: the computer AND the bed in a single room. And I wonder in passing sometimes, how different things were when that bed used to be in that room.. And were they so different really? I yearned for ownership, then. That the room would be stamped mine, now no one says that I can’t stick up what I want on the walls. I am quite agreeable to sharing the wardrobe with ma.
I plan to do up the room a little, whatever my meagre imagination permits. Oli suggested photographs, and I want a lampshade that I’ll hang up, and on summer nights, I’ll close the door that links the room to the rest of the house, light the lamp, open the baranda door, and enjoy bliss.
Je ne regrette rien, goes the Edith Piaf song. I don’t know how to regret, not quite. And I feel clenched today, and it is yet summer.

Victoria Crowned Pigeon of New Guinea

Kakapo

The ancient, flightless Kakapo is the world's rarest and strangest parrot. It the only flightless and nocturnal parrot, as well as being the heaviest in the world, weighing up to 3.5 kilograms. The birds live in New Zealand, an island country which had virtually no mammals living on it for millions of years. It was a place inhabited by birds and reptiles. The only types of mammal were two species of bats. The Kakapo did not learn the defense mechanisms to combat or escape mammalian predators. This made the parrot very vulnerable when new animals started showing up. The arrival of Polynesian peoples thousands of years ago, of Europeans in the 1800's, and ultimately the pets and livestock they brought with them resulted in the massive decline of Kakapo populations from hundreds of thousands to a mere handful of birds. Mother kakapo feeding her chick. Once common throughout the three main islands of New Zealand, there are now approximately 62 Kakapo left. These remaining birds have been relocated to six predator free island habitats, where the birds are relatively safe and have been breeding!
from www.kakapo.net/en/

this here is a coppersmith barbet. it's vague, quite criminal, that, but that it's a barbet will you deny? beautiful beautiful bird. outside my window.
It's call goes knuk knuk knuk, like a hollow tin being beat. It's whole body dances to the sound, like well, it's doing a dance. It's absolutely enchanting. I also think there's another coppersmith in that tree there dehors my window. They are so lovely dear, mane I am just so happy, quite senselessly.

Kokil outside my house.

i'm bored eeeeeee. who knows what witticisms are? am also having mutton biriyani from Saina. it's very hideous, you know. but i really don't care. cause i am going to concentrate on writing two inconsequential stories, one, a tiny one, will be a work of art. yech!

Wilson's Bird of Paradise

This is what I was telling O about, of the same thing in Margo Lanagan's Perpetual Light. It's amazing, the bird, and so utterly beautiful and dainty. Just for the record, though, all Birds of Paradise taste very bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmmp3wrf9gg

This is a Southern Cassowary. Hideous bird, but wondrous too. It comes after the ostrich and the emu in size. Look at the casque.

And see this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0wsiLWLQLU I mean, I know, but still you'd think that people might look.

I feel very sick all of a sudden, pukish etc. I want to leave, not be stuck to this desk or the security of people to hold my hand when I need to. Contrary to what O says, you might not have another person to reflect yourself into even if you love. You might want to, kintu it’s just way better not to yearn if it ain’t happening. It’s like being lulled into this cushiony place. It’s no good, you must keep your distance. You can’t hope that another will be the fount of your joy.

The caption says "blue tit exercising". In all seriousness.

Life’s fucked, yeah baby but what’s
new?
Kaku has left. Something else also happened today, I think. I am so
tired, but I wish I were always this way for a long time. I can’t think and I
can’t be afraid. I wish I could be free.
Or, ooo, wonders, can I actually be
happy?
I wish you would be okay but I don’t know how much it matters
anymore, my wishing, empty wishes, empty tempty pempty 30 year-old, twenty five
year old, bumping, dumping, tumpking along, all the old thoughts, and where do
they go…
I was reading Chatwin, Brucos Chatwinos. And I read English August
and enjoy going insane. Hardly, anyway. So the barbet came yesterday morning and
we were very happy, he and I, me and I. I even had a video of it. And didi is
having a baby and C got married, and I am an old king bus riding twinky in the
sea.
Oli came and lit up my day, and we both stood at one Katapukur, under a
dusty sky and lots of trees and yellow sun bursting with the promise of summer,
and I dreamed of jholas and dusty streets. And I am looking up armadillos now.
Merry aye?
There’s a bastard that goes aye, aye. Hate him
bloody.

Our Camay is getting married tomorrow. And we wished for joy and fun and seasons in the sun.
She is the first of our lot, and it’s a pleasant sort of thinking to be surprised at the fact. Who knows what it is like to be married, and why does the world want to tear away the picture in your head and tell you that life is brutal and things are not as rosy as you want them to be? does not matter, cause I think they are rosy anyway.
Misswholeworld is the id of someone. And I really rather love it, mane there’s this completely honest no holds barred self absorption in it although it is so corny. And on the other, this deep deep yearning I find for everything out there separated from you by the transparent film of your indecision, incompleteness: no Hamlet but a fool.

I would let anything happen to let this stay, or rather push it to the worst end it might. Or the worst that could happen to me. Then I would sit amid the destruction, the pieces, and laugh. I wouldn’t have chickened out. I will have killed myself trying.
But this is all in my head, aye.

The Torment Of Existance Weighed Against The Horror Of Nonbeing.

Rules:1. Put any music player (like Windows Medias Player, Winamp, iPod) on shuffle/random mode2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.3. You must write the name of the song no matter what.
It's a hell of a lot of hard work shala.

1. IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY?" YOU SAY?
No surprises (Radiohead)
Heh heh, it’s probably what I am most likely to say.

2. WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Because the world is round, it turns me on (The Beatles)
Perhaps.

3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Exit Music, Radiohead.
Wake... from your sleep
The drying of your tears
Today.. we escape
We escape.
Not necessarily. Actually, not at all.

4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Climbing Up the Walls (Radiohead)
Actually, today is one of those rare days I don’t.

5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
The Mysterious Murder of Christian Tierra’s L (Steve Vai)
Yeah right, sure, and then I’ll grow pumpkins on the vacant lot behind my house.

6. WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Electioneering (Radiohead)
I will stopI will stop at nothing
Say the right things
When electioneering
I trust I can rely on your vote.
A bit of that, yes.

7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
A Little Help From My Friends (The Beatles)
Yeah

8. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS?
When the Levee Breaks (Led Zep)
If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break,
When the Levee Breaks I'll have no place to stay.
Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan,
Got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home,
Oh, well, oh, well, oh, well.
Don't it make you feel bad
When you're tryin' to find your way home,
You don't know which way to go?
Yeah

9. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Dear Prudence (The Beatles)
No no, not really, no.

10. WHAT IS 2+2?
Karma Police (Radiohead)
Karma police, arrest this man
He talks in maths
He buzzes like a fridge
He's like a detuned radio

11. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Strawberry Fields (The Beatles)
Yes

12. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Lucky (Radiohead)
Pull me out of the aircrash,
Pull me out of the lake,
I’m your superhero,
We are standing on the edge.
Yeah, that

13. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Octopus’ Garden (The Beatles)

14. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Answers

15. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Die to Live (Steve Vai)

16. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Let it Be (The Beatles).
Hihi

17. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Four Sticks, Led Zep.
Oh, Baby, it's cryin' time, Oh, Baby, I got to fly. Got to try to find a way, Got to try to get away, 'Cause you know I gotta get away from you, Babe.
NO, if I ever dance

18. WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Here, There and Everywhere, (The Beatles)

19. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Going to California (Led Zep)

20. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Right.

21. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Stairway to Heaven (Led Zep)

22. WHAT SHOULD YOU POST THIS AS?
Paranoid Android (Radiohead)
A calls me that occasionally with affection.

I am fucking tired of this. Harami jotoshhob

The sterile wanderer

Nothing to hope for. In fact, it is the only way to be. I can’t take this anymore I can’t I can’t I can’t. I wish I were alone. Then I would be sharp, cause I’d have only me to fall back upon. This passive dependence, sometimes answered, sometimes inutile, makes you blunt, impotent. There’s this woman, actress called Franka Potenta: Franka the powerful. Franka, lovely name. I wish there would be this violent rupture that would force change. I am completely unanchored, suddenly I dunno what to do. The weather as usual brilliant, sunlight and freedom, tinged with rancid despair. The sharp taste of rancid despair. I think I’ll try this tactic now: I’ll let things get as bad as they possibly can, then when I can’t take it anymore, I won’t hafta be responsible for my actions. Maybe then I will be free?

I just discovered that there has been a marginal increase in the number of people who read my blog. At this moment, anyway. Toh amar khoob phurti hoyechhe. Mane, I can’t write copious reams, situated from within a comfort zone, right? In fact, I don’t really want to write, I feel quite comfortable to just be, or that perhaps, hmm, things are too much in a tumble for them to be articulated. You need for them to settle. Anyway, the Amrica-residing uber yuppy, short fella is going back to home. To his work and snow, and to look outta his office at a very large parking lot, I suppose. Mane, I am not saying it’s the only thing he does, far from it.
Anyway, so while walking with him, I also met S at Oxford, with, well, S, Saptarshi, whatthehell. And P. and I was glad how I cldn’t say. Shiny happy faces, like. You would be happy in their happiness. And we were meandering in my aimless way through what seems like oft-traversed streets. And I had ice-cream, bad throat, cough blah blah notwithstanding. B says I’ve read too many books and so am screwed up. I am not for a moment admitting that as a possibility, but I mean, that’s a thought too, right? That someone thinks. I was reading August today, book I’d brought for him. And I noticed that Ogu was 24, what I am now. And I’d wondered while buying the book whether had liked the book through eyes not equipped to discern, but it was, you know, what it had always been: one of those books which are right up my alley, like The Outsiders.
Somewhere in the book, August says that you realise that not even your crisis has the dignity of being unique. I remember it from the time when I was in 2nd year, it had seemed spoken by a grown up then, and what I felt seemed to be same as a grown-up’s life. Now, Ogu feels like an adolescent and his angst that too. A been there done that kind. Or something I will not, a bit of regret. I will not be lost in the so-called Indian heartland, and it’s not dry and dusty seen through a stoned haze as Agasyta’s was, just perhaps endless struggle and bits of epiphany, familiar high drama cause it’s mine.
You know how I feel right? How both things add up to the same? I am happy, really happy. Glad to have things the way they are. And I want to write so much more, just here, but can’t?

I feel terrible. Do I lead people on only to disappoint? But I am only the way I am, you know? When did I promise great things? Or am I am a disappointment to myself, that I can do exciting things, but deliberately restrain myself, as it were? Why do I come close to people at all? We are crowded islands on an open sea. I wish we stayed that way.

I had an awesome day today, as this guy would call it. I was glad to only be on the road, walking, working out energy, that I grow stronger the harder I work. It was "awesome", and the things you fear recede to the back of your mind. Walking is indeed very comforting. I wish I eventually walk alone, that I choose the way and go alone.

I don’t think I have been in a juncture like this before, but I seem to come up against them ever so often now. I doubt if I shall ever have a family. I don’t think I can stay this way. I don’t think it has much to do with the job, but more like what I have become in the past few months. It’s killing me from inside. Must be this ma went through for so many years, I don’t quite know. What to do, I wring my hands in despair, and wait for redemption, release. If there is dying in the head, I am living it, living it. I have little left. And someone seems to be waiting in the wings waiting for me to turn into exactly what I fear to be. Oh God oh God, what despair, what is this what is this?

uhoohoohoo, ki raag..

blue-breasted kingfisher

It is comfortable to know there is nothing to look forward to and quietly rot in hell. There is indeed nothing to lose then. And when you are gone and done with it, you can always get up and start afresh. It helps then if you are alone, but it does not matter. You are alone anyway when you are this way. I like that.

i am sick, with a cold, cough and bits of asthma. lonesome and a little angry.

Hi, I went for my first birdwatch at Chintamoni Kar bird sanctuary today, and although the senior birders there said that not a lot of serious birdwatching happened, I found it very very good. Mane I was introduced to the place, to the basics of birding, and I saw some nice birds. The place is a bit like a forest, and it was ever so pleasant walking on earth paths strewn with dried/old/wet leaves. A while after we left, after I had been dropped off at a localoy, I smelt my hands, and they had the smell that villagers have, mane for me, the Puruliya, Bansa smell. I felt so glad, relieved, more than anything. It was familiar and I can’t wait to go back, to rock-climbing, trekking. And this was good in a way that trekking is not. Perhaps it is to do with the fact that I found that I liked this all by myself, without having it as a given, to like it. I can’t wait to do it all, in my own way.
I saw:
Greater coucal
Spangled drongo
Common kingfisher (such a pert beauty)
Tree pie (didja know children, that this was hnarichacha, the very same? My mum would have identified the bird, I think. This one was mobbed by a team of warblers.)
Little Grebe (at Shaatkhola, some distance away)
Cotton pigmy goose (ditto)
Black naped-oriole (ki pretty. Amader photographers have taken some lovely photos occasionally. Black-naped oriole and this blue-throated barbet, I think.)
An injured cuckoo (maramari korechhilo, they said)
White-throated? fantail
Aro pakhi chhilo, kintu sheygulo ami dekhini tai likhchhina. I wish I had my own binoculars. Mane they saw grey lapwing, aro koto ki, but I DIDN’T. So there.
Dear Jesus, it will soon be time for a better camera. It’s already time for a bird book that I will buy in this book fair.

(And I wish so hard that he would join me. More than happy, I would be relieved.)

hee hee, i've been tagged i've been tagged. think calvin rubbing his hands with evil glee and saying i am rich i am rich (his father gave him a quarter, i think, and tried teaching him the value of money) and you'll know how i feel.
pphoooey!

Well, this:
I was walking in Chandni Market today, and again, you know, after a while you enter this sense of total comfort amid tumultous crowds going about their business. And I am happiest then if I am alone. Only other person, perhaps Oli, or N (strange, but not so strange), but then, to be honest, it’s best when I am by myself. I never give this being its due. Mane, comfort with myself is like a fau that I keep saving for the hardest times which I think will come when no one is there. It’s this way with most things I do. I never give the things most easily available their due, and run after the harder ones, for the thrill of searching, and the pining if I don’t get it is a solid filler, a real taker-away from the boredom I am liable to lapse into. I seem to need little then, people only occasionally. I keen toward them, partly out of habit, and partly out of the fear of what might happen if I do actually need them. I trust myself so little. I dunno why. I am no worse than the average human..
Anyway, so I found Chin Wah, but apparently they open only after 6, and it was just after 5 then. The place is a little off the crowded Chandni Market ghinji golis. Ar tokhon ajan hochhilo as I emerged from the lane, and there were bright lights and people all around, and it was great. I wished I had a reason to keep on walking and searching for something there. Well, I bargained and got myself a DVD holder. It’s only now I wonder why I didn’t ask for a better colour. Mane it’s in a garish violet shade, and of garish colours, violet is not a real favourite. And I bought a scarf for 20 rupees in the morning, and felt really bad. Mane, I make such random purchases, and the reason for buying has long been lost, and it’s like I’ve given in to getting what takes the eye for just the moment. The moment it comes to hand, there is such a crashing sense of disappointment, cause there was no need for it.
Then I walked over for tea, and it’s a comfort, as usual, because the stall owner talks little, knows what you want. Makes good tea.
Hideous hideous, I wish I could evaporate into a particle in the atmosphere there, much as I would have liked best to exist in Vellore.

I walked to Park Street and back to get a cake for home. And rushed cause there was sthng to correct on the fucking page, which I wasn't getting in hand all the fucking time I was waiting. Somewhere I hope someone's recording that I am not the selfish monster I am made out to be.
I was panting for breath and am still sweating. (I did eat a sandwich at Park Street, the place was so fucking tempting). I am fat.

I have become one of those people who don't need to be hungry to eat. Chokher khide is no longer something to be fought, but registered as something to be answered with as much concern as real khide. I ate up three plates of fried pork momo yesterday. A chicken sandwich and a black forest cake out of merely the desire to do so. Doesn't sound like much, I suppose, but I feel like I am changing into someone else.
I also bought lingerie worth Rs bloody 595, which I can't find any functional use for.
People are getting married all over. I haven't known one year when so many people I knew got married. The boy jokingly (snidely!) said, biyer morok legechhe. Ebaba, chhee chhee.
And I did voters' ID card hearing today. If the fates and all their grandchildren are pleased with me, a card might emerge at the end of all this.
I am reading Aron Ralston's Between A Rock and A Hard Place. It's good.
And that I feel left out. But I'll be damned if I asked. Fucker, shala.

I dunno why I am writing about the boy's friend's marriage, but there's generally a biyer hirik on everywhere. C is getting married, Rituparna, a friend, is. A senior is. You almost feel as if you are obliged to follow suit. Or something. The boy had fun, I believe, as he is prone to, on such occasions, like musing what would happen if he were to tie his friend's dhuti (the friend himself being incapable of it) - mane, he said, shorshor kore akta awaj hobe, ar tarpor dekha jabe purut moshai ke ar dekha jachhe na. That is, the purut would be covered under the dhuti. I say! Also, that people should wear buzzers on their heads, and when you wished to speak to someone, the buzzers would ring or light up, and the person would come and speak to you. Mane, no random people coming up to get chatty with you, ar ki. I keep imagining this bald person in our off., going around wearing this buzzer, like bellboys. Angry giggles is a concept I now understand.
Ar toh he was awake through a lot of the night, wearing his ornate panjabi.
Oh well, whatever, I am more or less at a loss to understand why I am so excited about a wedding I havent even be invited to.
I guess I am so deprived of entertainement I would jump at anything.

Hounded at every end. People are civil only so long as you are of use to them, or less they toss you away. I feel tautly stretched, and I see no way this is ever going to change. Everything, work, life outside seems to be part of walking the same tightrope. Say a word out of line, and people scream. If you are thinking according to the way someone else thinks, they are willing to hear you out. Otherwise, you are just an irrational lout, and what you speak is nonsense. Even with your own people, you are constantly proving a point. Taking a stand. You cannot just talk.
I barely feel human. And very alone.

Can I say I am tired? He did not call, and I don't feel so well, and no one will be bothered how this edition is doing. An sms helps, you know. I am tired, just tired.

Ooo hoo, I know now that I have visitors, mane just a wee few, one of whom I know is D.sir. Who are the rest, apart from Oli? Delurk, delurk, mes amis

Achha, I was reading this blog of a junior of mine, and I want to clarify: haleem at Aliyah is NOT like sexual satisfaction, it's miserable. Haleem is palatable only when A's baba cooks it. Neither is it great when you eat it from the stalls outside Statesman House. You merely keep feeling suspicious what it is you are sending down your gullet, and the meat is not good.

And this, also from her blog:
"In college they're playing a corridor cricket series. And I wake up dreaming of jstor. Disconcerting, that."
It's something that someone who has not been to JU will not know. As I will not know of the peculiar spots of closeness that other people have with other places they love, centres of learning, to be specific. That renders it plebeian, but it's not the point really. It's so about memeories: roddur on the balcony, and chilly, dry empty afternoons when one was at a loose end.
Y'know like that song by the Chandrani woman in Krosswindz: Oi dokkhin khola janlay. And the melody is kind of let loose somewhere in the middle of the song, and it rises to the sky where it goes wherever you might want to take it.
It's something the boy wouldn't know, something Oli knows and values exactly like I do, if not more. A yearns for it, perhaps, but she wouldn't change things, C is in a hurry to move on from there. And yeah, after a little more'n a year of work, I wish I woke up dreaming of Jstor too, as corridor cricket seen from outside the classroom.
The dear dear place, how nothing can duplicate what you left behind. It's like leaving your mum.

We had lunch at Sabir today, the boy and I. And as happens so often these days, it remains inexplicable how it turned out so good, how suddenly it all became so pleasant. The light flavour of the firni, my happiness over his liking the mutton, his undivertable love for chicken bharta. And I suspect we both enjoy good meals. That he likes the taste of boiled meat, and I like it grilled, with the woodsmoke lending to the taste. And how it was like we had been living this way for years, as we walked back. I suddenly found I was walking with my hands together behind me, and he was quietly talking, and I could anticipate the pauses. And I wished bye bye, and left.
The silence.

Somebody exclaimed 'uff! angst mama!'
I think my last post wanted that, if it deserved being called a post. Hee hee, I had a good day. I habe done a lotof organisational work tooday. Hooh, my coolth, level-headedness, my thanda mathay kaaj kora...kya kehne! All thanks to a certain boy who refuses to lose his temper. Maybe now that I've said it, we will have unforeseen trouble.
You do know that a colleague is leaving and we have a supplement hanging for which there is NO matter?
I slept at 6 in the morning yesterday after two hours of watching X Files.
I can't think of profound things to say.
Well, there's Kali pujo tomorrow, and humongous sized idols are being carted all around the city.
I see them when I come home every night.
Everybody was buying lights today, and baji. I wanted to buy lights, but well, it'll all be gone tomorrow, and I haven't bought anything.

My life seems to be falling apart. Things seem to be going out of control, as I control less and less of how I want things to be. It's an indulgence, giving in to this feeling, but I just wish now, at well, 1:15 tonight, that certain things had never happened. And yet, that it did, was perhaps better. It's out of my system, hopefully.
And work, I, well, I don't know what will happen. It's like the old 'when rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy.' I can't be bothered to get up and let myself not be raped, 'cause I don't know what to do, where to go.
Oh dear God, I feel so tired. I feel so tired. I just want to get away from all this, get away. Not wake up again for a long time with a tired mind, and a tired body, to drag myself to another whirligig of confusion again. To wake up to peaceful work. But then again you have to make peace and all that, so...tired.

Park Circus. On new camera. You are not to try using it without my permission. Presuming you make the mistake of wanting to in the first place.

It's really late at night. and writing does give me a high, but i am scared i will soon discover i haven't enough information.
It's about half an hour later, and my brain seems to be shutting down. Anyway, what with the bandh and an early pick up and all, I didn't get much of a chance to make the much-looked forward to daily morning visit to the loo. So stomach sheitao janan dichhe. It would be such a comfort to be back in my room, and going into the bathroom now. Still an hour to go before I reach. Atleast Potato Man won't be there in my car, which is a real, tangiblr relief.
Come to think, amar ato night hochhe, I could make up for a day missed with a few night allowances. What a life.
I am tired.

Everything is now beginning to seem the same. Am I merely being lazy?

I am writing a horrible story, with which I shall succeed in embarrassing several near and dear ones.

My exploits o'er le weekend. I wish I could have a lost weekend too, but amar gyan shorboda atoi tontone thake je it's fat hopes that I might be able to have one of that. (Or perhaps I never am in my full senses??? I wonder)
Well, ennyway, Shubhayu and I planned to meet at Park Street on Sunday morn. Great, adventurous Shubhayu didn't mind it being a Sunday and hence no Metro at all. Just a bus ride, so I was elated to find similarly minded people.
Well, I also had the Great Conversation with the boy. So got burningly late for meeting S. Was very good talking, and then, S was very cool about me being about an hour and a half late. That was like a breath of fresh air, the freedom of childhood/college, like, when you didn't feel pressed all the time, like your breath was drawn constrainedly.
Well, I did cab it. And I got down and saw him sitting on the steps in front of Musicworld, not fuming, as I or anyone I'd thought was waiting for me would have. So I sat down and whined that I was hungry and wanted lunch, and he was ok with that change of plans as well.
Then a cheel across the street got hit, and like most unplanned things, I went over to see what happened. Then the guard who'd come out to see it, took him to the footpath, I kinda impotently asking him to do so, 'cause I am scared of birds. Well, then there were people and a girl made phonecalls, and I followed up on the calls after she left. And then, the bird couldn't stay straight anymore, and toppled to its side, what with people pouring copious amounts of water on its head, and goading it to drink copious amounts of water, I suppose. Then toh it looked at us, me and S arai chokhe, and what with people saying o to more jabe, and kamre debe, I was shit scared. I really didn't want it/him to die. And the look was not at all hingsro, just kinda kator and arai chokhe. So I called Mr D of PFA, and he got a vehicle to come along and pick it up. And oh, a liquor shop person nearby also very kindly gave us a large cardbox to keep it in, as we'd been told to. And its wings were also getting dusty lying in the dirt there. And much better than the absurd jutor baksho the laughing BarBQ watchman laughingly got for us.
Then we loped off, to Free School Street to find 'Khaliq', a beef biriyani place, d'apres S. On Sunday it's closed, we found. We'd also planned to have shwarma, and we found the eatery where it's sold, I think. Turkish Corner. We'll come back.
Well, he suggested we go to Oly for beef steak, and yaah, that's what we did. Great stuff, and I saw what the oh-so-hallowed place was like. Fairly decent, with ratty so-called carpets, and open liquor bottles with water stacked on a table. You go and pick up. It was apparently S's first time at the place when he didn't have liquor. We went over and had cold coffee at T3 after that. Then back to office. And lots and lots to talk. The cheel is good, since no bleeding anyway. And his wing was a little injured, but he'll be ok. And they dunno yet whether there are wounds on the feet. I feel very good. And it was a very lovely day.

I had to write a story. So I am writing this. I had meant a newspaper story.
Well, yesterday, my colleague and holy mother, N and I went out to get medicines for her at Chandni Chowk at 9:30 at night. Well, we did, I munching chips greedily along the way. Chandni was minus most of its bustle at that time, and we walked about among traders lazily packing up their wares, some old sad random Hindi songs kyat kyat kore bajchhe. Very pleasant. We walked along the Chandni Market road, towards CR Avenue, the road got perceptively seedier, and I was thinking of turning another way, when voila! there was Sabir. The restaurant.
It was a lovely end to a very nice walk, very relaxed, mooching about in semi-known surroundings, wondering what the piles of screws displayed are for, and N.di informing that they belonged to people who'd lost theirs. And if you found yourself needing one, you could come and buy some for yourself.
We didn't have much money yesterday, but she agreed to go along to Sabir, completely acquieseing to a wish I expressed, very pleasant, that. We decided to split expenses in half, and carefully selected a mutton biriyani and a chicken tikia kebab, to delicately match our tastes and our pockets. Roshonar poritripti. We ate and a very nice meal it was. We laughed and laughed, I whined over the gha on my lip, and how it hurt, and bit my tongue and drew blood again, for good measure. N couldn’t stop laughing. I looked around, there were men eating alone, a man brandishing a stack of 500 rupee notes, and our waiter, nice waiter, hovering in the background, and me exclaiming in loud whispers, ‘What does he want?" Again the woman couldn’t stop laughing. It was such a delight. And then we walked back, our gullets full for the moment, N.di clutching onto my arm in a clawy grip, scared that I would run into the next passing vehicle I found. We walked past the hovering car-waiters outside office, and sat at the wooden thek. Their chawala passed by, saying ‘ebar bari jao’, and we sat and chatted. We went back to get cold drink for N’s home again, then came back to office. I missed the 11:15 drop to chat some more, and we were in office laughing away still, the other blowsers in the room eventually hollering at us to stop.

There's this thing, whenever I write sad things about myself, no one replies, ok, comments. Even the boy's like that: when I am really down and out, ok just upset, I am to haul myself out of it like any healthy person.
The ravings of a madwoman will not be indulged.
It is seen as 'layzinesss', I believe.

'frequently second guesses self', is a good description of me.

I am scared, embarrassed, at my imperfection, lack of impulse.
"Consume my heart away,
Sick with desire and chained to a dying animal,
It knows not what it is."
Yeats wrote this, and I got the lines from my own blog when I googled for it.
There are times I want to be put down. Take me away God.

Oh, please believe, all the people I hold dear are not that. I am a consciousness. Without memory.
I need oblivion. Mostly from love, and the corollary, emptiness and hurt.

I think I am boring of the masterly kind. Oh if you were only to stay with me, you would discover how I nag, how I can be endlessly hurt. This is of course, my perceived perspective of another's perspective of me.
Pujo will come. I will see pujos. So thereio. Bloody.
And oh what else, I read some horrible pujo shonkhas, all really bad writing, really. I read Dirk Gently. What I need, I think, are some real speedy thrillers, to read at night. And since we are all here in Calcutta this pujas, we would all go out watching pratima, I think. And yaywoo, I look forward to taking photographs, so there.
See, how boring I am


'Labels for this post:e.g. scooters, vacation, fall'
Does it look like I am writing on any of these? I do work through pujo, y'know.

Well, this is just writing for the sake of it. Yeah, 'cause you never get to what you want to say unless you're at home. Things I found:
I don't have a life, with staying at office most of the day, and then, so irritated afterward that I merely ask to be left alone, and scream unholily when I am not.
It's not so much that, y'know. I, well, want to get away. Want to be alone. I want to go to Khajuraho, for one. I dunno how good I am with relationships. Perhaps I am not. Perhaps it's the persons we are. I want to breathe. And a lot of things that I dearly want to write and let loose over the internet, knowing that no one would read it.
I used to write stories once. Not newspaper story, but fiction story. Kotoi na shohoj chhilo shob takhon.
Aj baire giyechhilam anekdin por. Ki je shanti.

Life quite genuinely sucks. It's not funny, though it sounds that way. Jesus, I could whack all my so-called friends. Nijer ta bujhe niye shala tumi jaley porle na morei gele, karur jay ashe na. fucking buggers.

I was going through Orkut profiles of people in college now. Khub pulok holo, so am writing. Well, y'know, there's a distinct difference between people that are good and those you learn to tolerate, ar chakri korte korte you see so many of the latter kind that you forget the difference. Aj ak jon ke dekhe mone holo she was the kind I'd have liked to be friends with.
Eishob, ar the boy has had a fierce crew-cut hair-cut, like he was going to war, or to be a sailor, at the least. Ki bhoyanok, ami to prothome takachhilam i na. And I have a camera, discovering the joys of a camera. Ami ashole akhon khub khushi khushi bodh korchhi. Y'know, like Oli was saying, how you can be happy despite there not really being anything to be happy about, if someone were to hold you to the cause-effect of it. Actually, she said the opposite, but you get the picture. Blissfully happy, akhon. And you realise that you are rather lucky to be given someone with whom to share your days with. And that God gives his gifts carefully.
Ami kal akta documentary dekhchhilam Nandigram er opor: shekhane a person's intestines were puching their way out of his stomach after he'd been shot. And his wife was so quiet and nonchalant: what could she do, really. What is there to do once it's gone and happened. And you realise how close death lives to your skin, and that things might happen to those you love, need. You are glad they are all good. And the petty feel-bads seem small, then, when you think there's love enough, or maybe caring, to hold you together with another.

I am half-frozen, it's so cold in here, and my head feels as if it's been replaced with a lump of ice. How supremely unoriginal. Well, it was very different today, and I was not really surprised. It's high time.
It's a while later, and I am a bit more alive, and less dazed. Though it's just a lot of work to just get the page off the board. Now all I want to do is to go home and sleep. and I still have two copies to file.
The pages went just now. God, this is horrid. And there's the specs to take care of.

can i come said he- e.e. cummings
may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she
(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she
(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)
may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she
may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she
but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she
(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she
(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)

I am awfully scared. And lonely. I want to recede.
Est-ce que c'est le fin? De quoi, qui?

"You don't need a hair-do or 'cool' 'rockstar' clothes chains and dark glasses to do music. It's like choosing your deo when you are going to war."

www.urinnersmile.blogspot.com/ He wrote it. I love it.

Went for the health check-up thing today. Was at the hospital for quite a while, and it was like going back to Vellore, the same closeness, intimacy, peace amongst people you don't know at all. It's addictive, engrossing, makes the world bearable.
I was going through a colleague of mine's album today, and I felt, I dunno, awfully sorry for what I saw. Or rather that I had a look into the world the olleague inhabits. The structure I so dislike, and yet I rather like her. And you feel kinda bad that she's stuck in this. Though that's awfully condescending. I might be considered stuck in a structure myself. Blah. You would perhaps knew it if you saw. Y'know, it's that you realise why she migh feel outside her element now, and it sorry if the structure's the reason. Ugh I don't like it.
And I am glad for everything. For what I have been given. A blessing.

Oh it seemed forever stopped today
All the lonely hearts in London Caught a plane and flew away
And all the best women are married
All the handsome men are gay
You feel deprived Yeah are you questioning your size?
Is there a tumour in your humour,
Are there bags under your eyes?
Do you leave dents where you sit,
Are you getting on a bit?
Will you survive
You must survive

When there's no love in town
This new century keeps bringing you down
All the places you have been
Trying to find a love supreme
A love supreme
Oh what are you really looking for?
Another partner in your life to abuse and to adore? I
s it lovey dovey stuff, Do you need a bit of rough?
Get on your knees
Yeah turn down the love songs that you hear
'Cause you can't avoid the sentiment
That echoes in your ear
Saying love will stop the pain
Saying love will kill the fear
Do you believe
You must believe

I spy with my little eye
Something beginning with (ah)
Got my back up
And now she's screaming
So I've got to turn the track up
Sit back and watch the royalties stack up
I know this girl she likes to switch teams
And I'm a fiend but I'm living for a love supreme


I loved Robbie Williams once, and this song's still so good.
And does it ring true?
Am I losing my mind? I feel scared to write here, the constant rage and the hurt, this is surely not normal. And is there anyone who will be patient enough to listen? And you fall in love thinking, y'know what he said, that love will killl the pain, allay the fear, but doesn't really happen. Gets to be a bit of a farce. Should people like me be put away, and if I am quite so bad, why do friends stay? What for?
It's like the girl in Park Avenue who poured hot water in her hand as she cried for a physical outlet for the pain of just being alive. Who knows, maybe it was not that. And you wonder whether it is quite right to take someone else on board when you know this is what you can be. That you might be worse.
There's no one to ask, really.

a blog is for thinking aloud

Such an unfamiliar state of being: copy finished and I am waiting for the car. But then, it is also almost 3 in the morning. Well, the thing is, I finished reading Harry Potter. I loved it, my unequivocal reaction, thank you. And I am awfully sorry that it's gotten over.
I now have an account on Orkut as well as Facebook. It's slightly manic, if you decided to get serious about it. You have to keep tabs on one account after another to check the latest progress. Siphon friends from one network to the other, and so forth.
I have had long gchats with Debasis sir. It's rather very lovely to talk with him once more, and yet he was always just a step away.
I was reading The Viceroy of Ouidah until this Potter frenzy started, with everyone shouting out endings (bloody pilfs, and I do NOT mean A), so you had to get your hands on it, and get it over with. But may I say what a lovely pleasure it was. I efinitely don't think Hogwarts was dark. It was sun and well, magic. The boy has not read the book, but even then, might not like the fluidity that the magic's about. No, I think he will, if he reads it, and knows this is what I am talking about. Not just magic being imagination, that's so just the surface of it, but of will, choice, the post-modernist (or is it post-postmodernist) way of looking at things: you are what you make yourself. Then again, that sounds so like the Renaissance man. Rowling so gets that, although she must drench it in soppy love and we are all good. Y'know, what I am trying to say is that the vehicle is a spot clumsy, but the idea, you cannot but love it. But then, maybe it's cuz I have really hardly read anything. And inarticulate as usual. And then, what's new.

If rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy.

Came upon this for the first time in the Presidency magazine in first year. In office, pretty late. Things are not as out of control as you would like to fancy it to be. I just want to believe they are. Can I say I ache to go back to freer days, freer to move, to imagine, without the trouble of having to translate it into facts. I feel like writing again, to make things whichever way I want it. To lose me in it, if one may say so. The Tale of Genji: make up your face to be what you want it to be. This perfect perfect surface, brittle and seamless as china. Clink it and a chink will appear. Will go away to a rarefied world among clouds, The Aeneid's Elysium, where Aeneas's father Anchises (I remember) would be. What is this clutter, the sadnesses of a rag-tag mind, the rage of a mind (y'know, looking like one of those cancer-marked lungs, markes of tobacco). I really really want to lose myself in, well, the subliminal: get a high, with nothing to hold you back...Jhoom barabar jhoom gives me flight... Wild with all regret/those things that are no more, Koel Poorie doing a turn, with those wild wild eyes that seemed to have lost everything.
There is no one there, I would have wished in another time that he would be, I'll wish tomorrow. But let me go away, go away to my world of books, where the mind can be let to fly. Come with me, come with me. I cannot ever ask, request you to come along repeatedly. I don't want to forget what I have loved. Don't think I can for very long. Please know, please know.

Posting after such a long time, and there's lots od work to do. But yeah, that's very satisfying, of course the quality is another story. Well, about us, I, well, y'know, you can be angry and sulk for the luxury of it, or you can be robust about it, look at the other person's point of view, get over the anger and move on. Yeah, I'll do that, but what can I say. That I am angry, and I don't care two hoots about who might think what. Or rather, that I do, but that that's not the end all. There is the moment, and you can choose to embrace it, or crib about what's not right, and how it might have been perfect if x and y factor were alright. And I just feel angry, at what feels like cussedness, weariness. And I don't want to drag him out if he is going to feel not right, forced, I dunno what about it. I want to do my work. Ami dukkho pelam, na onno keu dukkho pelo, ei niye ami ar bhabte parchhi na.
I had a very good birthday, the happiest I remember in years. Quite usually, it is the ones nearest you that bring the tears to your eyes again and again, who for reasons of circumstance, are not a part of your happiness. And it is perhaps yet a luxury to indulge hurt. I feel angry, and wild. It's like that birthday, when I could only cry, and baba, blast him, sent ma to ask if I wanted to go and eat somewhere. Like hell I would, and be told later how much money got spent eating out, and how we could have saved if we made the same thing at home. I will waste no time for those who can't take things as they are, who hang on to past actions, and count every sin you have supposedly committed. I would rather keep away, though I might love. Keep distance.

There's much to be said for sanity, I think. It's different from doing whatever thrills you at the moment, for the sake of the thrill, without thinking of consequences, what people call irresponsible action, I suppose. It is not as heavy as it sounds. Irresponsibility for the sake of it isn't anything more than very easy fun any longer. It's a different course of life you embark on. It's a different kind of happiness, one I find myself reacting very pleasantly to. The surety of presence, of being anchored, perhaps once again. I blabber, not much sense. Somewhere, I ask my mind to please be considered in what it does.

"A member of the working middle class. A bonafide contributor to the economy and to society as a whole, even. For the first time in my short and largely frittered life, I was going to be productive."
http://positivelylowbrow.blogspot.com/2006/04/lets-face-it.html

That's how I feel. Felt. Stifled. And this too:
"saw no reason to give up everything I held sacred (the right to loaf, the freedom to sleep till two, the liberty to watch television all day until my brain began to atrophy and so on). "
This I would have perhaps continued to do awhile, like Jaydeep continues to perhaps. If I wasn't shit scared of never landing myself a job at all. I miss the footlooseness, I do. Of not having any commitment, or responsibility. It's one of the things you teach yourself, to cultivate patience. For the sake of your own needs. For shelter, calmness. Though ever so often, you wonder if you don't want to hurl it all away, your own good, with a vicious kick (yeah, that's funny), to leave yourself completely bereft, and incapable of wanting. Why people love the desert, eschew lands of plenty, and want the aridness of not having. That dream I'd had once, of a desrt girl, and I was scared by the gleam in my own eyes. Because it didn't care to wait for anybody for what it/she wanted. I wish I could be that to get what I want.
And needless to say, I did not ask for the quoted person's permission to quote him. He goes by the name of Leo, apparently.

Y'know, the people you come together with, after a while their qualitative merits cease to matter. I mean, they are with you regardless of whether they act badly or well, they are a part of you. That is a rather pleasant feeling, the assurance of presence. That apart, there's the job. Egad! people are depressed, and I never did count PR as one of my special skills ever. I can't quite think what's about to happen, and how I'll find meself dealing with it. Well, there's the boy, thank heavens, and the nocturnal parleys. A feeling that seeps into you.

I had a rather nice day yesterday. Went to the Oh Lord! MD'S review, met people there which was rather nice, had a boring lunch, bought underwear, stuff of trauma, really, met Shubhayu, which was really really nice. We sat in this nook, one of the thin golis that lead to courtyards of old apartment mansions. This one was on Park Street, a few houses after T3. There's this rather wide berth there, where you can really stretch your feet and lounge, and we sat there for a while and talked, as cars passed by, people came to dump stuff, people decked up and stepped out of houses, 'lots of activity', he said. The weather was nice, after-drizzle and all that, and we'd met after one really long time. We stepped into T3 after a while, rebutting ichhes of going into Olypub. He smoked and smoked, and had hideous sugacube after sugercube, ugh ugh ugh. But his youth, and his openness to things, his freedom, the master he is of his own time. some of it is cause he's still a student, but it's a lot a state of the mind. And there's a lot to be said for a friendship like this....

well

Reallt tired and desirous to meet the boy. Had two great days, one day of fun with the kids. Got our bags, watched 15, Park Avenue, My Brother Nikhil, met cousin and cousin's wife, and was rather surpised at how happy they seemed. They are really newly married, y'know. It's not mundane. And reality struck home with Park Avenue, and Nikhil was baba all over again. I wanted to tell the boy everything, did too. And I wonder about what O calls post-adolescence. What is it all now? It is rather very different from college, and there seems to be nothing to loving but love, quite unreasonably. Endless pleasure, and happiness, for no reason, apparently, save a person. Well, I forgot what I began with, so..

.

I got very scared today. A dada of ours asked me to smile. Is it so bad? Will I become like many I see in the room? Where do I belong, where should I be?