So, I must have written here that I am relationship-free now. I am here to say that after reading this blog that I do, I am glad once again that I am, because I too was going to settle for a lifetime of loneliness and far worse things besides. It would have been a shame to give up so much of my space and dreams to live with a piece of shit.
Bad English is my birthright
Friday, December 07, 2012
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
খুব কাশি হচ্ছে। ফ্লপি পাশে শুয়ে আছে। এমন সব সময় মনে হয় কাউকে যদি বলা যেত এই তিনটের সময়, "শোন, আমার কাশতে কাশতে গলায় জালা করছে, গায়ে একটু একটু ব্যথা করছে।" কিন্তু বাবাকে হারানো মানে এই privilege lose করা। আর কৌশিক কে না বলতে পারা হয়ত খারাপ না।
Well, I feel small and rather sorry for myself. If I were F, I would have curled up like her and stuck close to my human.
Well, I feel small and rather sorry for myself. If I were F, I would have curled up like her and stuck close to my human.
Monday, November 12, 2012
This was quite a weekend. If all weekends were like this life would be fine, bearable even. On Sunday, I went for the mother of daywalks, through Asola wildlife sanctuary. With Linus. L navigates by googlemaps, and he navigates. Me, I find out about the route, see if it works for me and go alone. I did not find much information on the Net and presumed that L didn't rely on googlemaps alone. So, net net, we were stamping through barely-there tracks, cutting through REALLY thorny branches, with innumerable scratches and thorns in our shoes. I expected - and found that L did too - it to be a 2/3-hour walk at most. I took 600 ml of water, accordingly and munchies. In the event, it turned out to be a daylong thing, with me wondering constantly whether we would be able to get out while there was light. I was thirsty and hadn't pottied, which together I find quite incapacitating. Anyway, it wasn't all that bad, because we walked almost constantly, our longest break must have been 15 minutes long, and though at moments I felt very tired, it didn't come to the point where I did not care, or thought I couldn't go anymore. Must have been close, though. L has done this often at home in Sweden, and he was fairly confident throughout that we would come out at the west. He knew which was west, for one. We found much to chatter on about, and he was a really nice companion, I have no idea how. I can't point out particular aspects of him which make it easy to get along with him, or things which I might have in common with him. Maybe he was just polite. Turned out, we had walked about 7 km, though it felt like 10. The objective was to reach one Bhardwaj Lake, marked on googlemaps, which we didn't - we skirted around it unknowingly - but we did pass one huge lake towards the beginning, before we entered Asola - probably the CITM lake 1- and saw 2 big, but very shallow, drying-up lakes and one biggish, full lake before we left. We started our walk from the opposite of a college on Pali Road, down a track that began with an open garbage dump. About 10 minutes' walking took us to the first CITM lake. Surajkund is close by, apparently. We met people who were coming back, some of whom were appreciative, some condescending, one who joyously called us lovebirds. But once past the first lake, we didn't encounter a soul, except a goat herder in the beginning, and construction workers at the end, near the place which is supposed to be a 'shelter' for monkeys who are picked up from across the city to be dumped here.
Our only companions were cows, and L said we could rely on them, but they might not be in a hurry to go west and get out, like us, right? We found them at 3 points on our way: once, when the path we were on abruptly ended where the land seemed to have sunk a couple of feet and there were cows on the other end. I politely declined the offer to go down on our bums and climb up the other end, though in retrospect, it was as easy as some of the harder stuff we did. The other point was where we were picking our way through rocks and thorny branches, and there was a cow who wanted to pass. We looked at each other for a bit. It waited and then went along, through the thorns as if they were light leaves. I now know cows are thick-skinned. The third was when we were walking through even denser bush and suddenly there were cows leaping alarmedly out of L's way. They were not reassured at all by what he had to say, viz., what's the matter, cow, etc.
The tracks, such as they were, were barely broad enough for a person to pass through, and you had to remove thorny branches out of the way. I acquired a stick - a thorny branch with no thorns at one end, where I held it - to get the branches out of my way, but L used his hands pretty much. By the end of the walk, his hands were completely scarred and very red. For a plump person, he is quite fit and agile. Parts of the way were rocky. We climbed up and down the rocks. There was a spot, towards the end of the way, a shady clearing (and we had almost no shade throughout, which made one very thirsty) with cool, black stones at one end. We just rested our bodies along it. The stones were heavenly. I couldn't have yearned for anything else at that moment. But that was about 10 minutes, and soon I was back to saying which animal I would like to be at that moment (at various points along the route, I had wanted to be a cow, a dog, a monkey and a bird, depending on the terrain and how hot and thirsty I felt). Around this part, there were the remains of an old wall. Perhaps this used to be the earlier border of the sanctuary?
We found several feathers along the way, or rather L did, and I picked them up. I would like to get them identified. We also saw a nilgai, an eagle which I couldn't identify, babblers, I think, and birds which I found later were Oriental Magpie Robins. We heard peacocks too.
L brought cinnamon buns which he had baked. I ate one of that, and my biscuits. No, they weren't cinnamon buns. Something else, but same mix of spices.
The last kilometre or so was on an earth road for vehicles. That's when we started feeling the aches and pains. We came out at Bhatti gaon. They have put up a continuous, huge, green plastic wall to demarcate the sanctuary from the village. It is quite a monstrosity, but people have made holes along the bottom of it. There are also gates. We met several pigs at this end, and man, were they scared when they saw us creeping along through the trees. One adult squealed and ran for its life #stupid peeg. The piglets with their dirty feet merely took us in with beady eyes. And then there was a black dog with a collar, who was very territorial. He wouldn't stop barking because we were there, although we were being quite fleet-footed. He meant business, alright. His mouth looked scary, shattered, like someone had bashed it in at some point.
I was quite glad to be out of this typical Jat village. We had dosas at Naivaidyam in Hauz Khas village and I rapidly called it a day, because I was feeling very odd by then, what with the no water, no sleep and no potty. I would like to go back again.
Long narratives make me fed up.
P.S. I liked Skyfall. It's quite grand, Judi Dench's extreme dodderiness and Ralph Fiennes's constant pottyface notwithstanding. I wonder what it is with Daniel Craig. He is quite charmless, has ears that stick out: he definitely fits the prototype of the East European goon far better. Yet one likes him. Maybe it's the suits, maybe the humane thing gets to people. Skyfall the droughty estate is beautiful.
Our only companions were cows, and L said we could rely on them, but they might not be in a hurry to go west and get out, like us, right? We found them at 3 points on our way: once, when the path we were on abruptly ended where the land seemed to have sunk a couple of feet and there were cows on the other end. I politely declined the offer to go down on our bums and climb up the other end, though in retrospect, it was as easy as some of the harder stuff we did. The other point was where we were picking our way through rocks and thorny branches, and there was a cow who wanted to pass. We looked at each other for a bit. It waited and then went along, through the thorns as if they were light leaves. I now know cows are thick-skinned. The third was when we were walking through even denser bush and suddenly there were cows leaping alarmedly out of L's way. They were not reassured at all by what he had to say, viz., what's the matter, cow, etc.
The tracks, such as they were, were barely broad enough for a person to pass through, and you had to remove thorny branches out of the way. I acquired a stick - a thorny branch with no thorns at one end, where I held it - to get the branches out of my way, but L used his hands pretty much. By the end of the walk, his hands were completely scarred and very red. For a plump person, he is quite fit and agile. Parts of the way were rocky. We climbed up and down the rocks. There was a spot, towards the end of the way, a shady clearing (and we had almost no shade throughout, which made one very thirsty) with cool, black stones at one end. We just rested our bodies along it. The stones were heavenly. I couldn't have yearned for anything else at that moment. But that was about 10 minutes, and soon I was back to saying which animal I would like to be at that moment (at various points along the route, I had wanted to be a cow, a dog, a monkey and a bird, depending on the terrain and how hot and thirsty I felt). Around this part, there were the remains of an old wall. Perhaps this used to be the earlier border of the sanctuary?
We found several feathers along the way, or rather L did, and I picked them up. I would like to get them identified. We also saw a nilgai, an eagle which I couldn't identify, babblers, I think, and birds which I found later were Oriental Magpie Robins. We heard peacocks too.
L brought cinnamon buns which he had baked. I ate one of that, and my biscuits. No, they weren't cinnamon buns. Something else, but same mix of spices.
The last kilometre or so was on an earth road for vehicles. That's when we started feeling the aches and pains. We came out at Bhatti gaon. They have put up a continuous, huge, green plastic wall to demarcate the sanctuary from the village. It is quite a monstrosity, but people have made holes along the bottom of it. There are also gates. We met several pigs at this end, and man, were they scared when they saw us creeping along through the trees. One adult squealed and ran for its life #stupid peeg. The piglets with their dirty feet merely took us in with beady eyes. And then there was a black dog with a collar, who was very territorial. He wouldn't stop barking because we were there, although we were being quite fleet-footed. He meant business, alright. His mouth looked scary, shattered, like someone had bashed it in at some point.
I was quite glad to be out of this typical Jat village. We had dosas at Naivaidyam in Hauz Khas village and I rapidly called it a day, because I was feeling very odd by then, what with the no water, no sleep and no potty. I would like to go back again.
Long narratives make me fed up.
P.S. I liked Skyfall. It's quite grand, Judi Dench's extreme dodderiness and Ralph Fiennes's constant pottyface notwithstanding. I wonder what it is with Daniel Craig. He is quite charmless, has ears that stick out: he definitely fits the prototype of the East European goon far better. Yet one likes him. Maybe it's the suits, maybe the humane thing gets to people. Skyfall the droughty estate is beautiful.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Winter is coming. It feels as ugly and portentous as the way they say it in Winterfell. The last few days have been a blur, a bit of work and coming back home late with the cold on my back, walking down a rather deserted road to Basat Chowki to take the shared auto home. A fair bit of walking, including the walk home from NH24. I can't understand what to do about the travel thing right now. Post-Nov, maybe it will be clearer. Among other reasons, it is such a relief when the salary comes in at the end of the month, it's like one worry set at rest: without even beginning to think of buying camera and where will the money to travel over a long stretch come from.
Cold is bad because it is mind-congealing; it's hard to hold more than one thought at a time, hard to think beyond getting to office, getting work done, how to keep from getting cold, whether to wear socks, whether to take hoodie or stole, how not to catch cold - getting fed up of trying not to catch cold and saying what-the-hell, bring on the Avil 50 and trip to la-la land. One thought at a time is a welcome thing when you are travelling; it keeps one from getting depressed, but here, in the city, if you can't multitask, you are asking for annihilation. (Professor Shonku invented a weapon called Annihilin). I can't think adventurously in winter; I am barely thinking enough to keep my life up and running: buy medicines, do groceries, remember to buy chocolate, 'should I have cake or sweets or both?' The balcony door is closed to keep out the cold and mosquitoes; আমার মনের জানলাও প্রায় বন্ধ।
The Sharodiyas are here: Sananda and Desh for us, for now. I like what Tilottama Majumdar has written for both. Quite a nice break from the odious writing on 'women's issues' that would keep appearing in the Sharodiyas. বাণী বসু তো ওই করেই ভোগে গেল। And Sunil Ganguli is dead, purveyor of titillation and decadent possibilities, and sometimes, just lovely writing. Also Jaspal Bhatti. The world is changing, changing. My cousin has had himself a daughter, and I am loathe to call and congratulate them and be over the moon on the phone. It's embarrassing, among other things.
During Pujo, I went to listen to a Chandrabindu (Vikram had once spoken of a shoot he had to do with 'those Chandrabindu guys' :)) concert. Puro buk hu hu kara nostalgia. Took me a couple of days to get back on my feet, so to speak, and remember, and remember well, why Kolkata is not a place to live in anymore. But ki sexy, ki unmadona, such allure of youth, and remembrance of a city that is probably only in the mind anymore. This Pujo was my most wholesome in years. I had so wanted to do what everybody does, for such a long time: count down the pandals, offer onjoli, listen to 'function' in the evening, eat at the stalls, and to not leave behind a sad person who wanted but couldn't do it. We did all of that this time: on two days too, and got mighty pooped. I realised again, my limited appetite for this sort of thing. I can't do it dedicatedly and methodically through 5 days, after a point, you want to just go home and relax, and that I loathe onjoli. The utter pointlessness of it, I dunno. But the bhog was yum, even line e dariye bhog neowa. I haven't seen it in Kolkata ever, that anyone can come in and have bhog at any pandal. As was getting dressed and going out, and the Anandamela at CR Park, where I ate patishapta and bad pulipithey (really bad) and gokulpithey and aro ki ki shob. F cried the whole time, I think, the day we went out twice, and I got a call from our downstairs neighbour while we were at the C'bindu concert that she had been howling constantly and could we please come.
Her eye has been watering and closed this whole week, we are taking her to the vet tomorrow. Could be a fungal infection, Mrs Katiyal says.
All of this to hide that he is married or going to marry and I don't understand or know what to do with the hurt and the rage and the praner jala and I feel physically repulsed by R, yet wish I could wrap myself in someone's arms and say 'Fuck you, chutiye.' I wonder if I am stupid in my worldly unwiseness, if I should have married when I had the chance, yet what chance, if someone makes you feel stood apart and lonely, and disappoints you at every turn, you are also waiting and hoping, no, je ekdin amar bhaggeo shikey chhirbe? Jedin shob nodi mitbey shagorey, shob shomoshhar shomadhan hobe, shedin ami tomay biye kore nebo. But people are what they are, and if you can't live them down today, you never will tomorrow. Otoeb, gechhe, apod chukechhe.'
During Pujo, I went to listen to a Chandrabindu (Vikram had once spoken of a shoot he had to do with 'those Chandrabindu guys' :)) concert. Puro buk hu hu kara nostalgia. Took me a couple of days to get back on my feet, so to speak, and remember, and remember well, why Kolkata is not a place to live in anymore. But ki sexy, ki unmadona, such allure of youth, and remembrance of a city that is probably only in the mind anymore. This Pujo was my most wholesome in years. I had so wanted to do what everybody does, for such a long time: count down the pandals, offer onjoli, listen to 'function' in the evening, eat at the stalls, and to not leave behind a sad person who wanted but couldn't do it. We did all of that this time: on two days too, and got mighty pooped. I realised again, my limited appetite for this sort of thing. I can't do it dedicatedly and methodically through 5 days, after a point, you want to just go home and relax, and that I loathe onjoli. The utter pointlessness of it, I dunno. But the bhog was yum, even line e dariye bhog neowa. I haven't seen it in Kolkata ever, that anyone can come in and have bhog at any pandal. As was getting dressed and going out, and the Anandamela at CR Park, where I ate patishapta and bad pulipithey (really bad) and gokulpithey and aro ki ki shob. F cried the whole time, I think, the day we went out twice, and I got a call from our downstairs neighbour while we were at the C'bindu concert that she had been howling constantly and could we please come.
Her eye has been watering and closed this whole week, we are taking her to the vet tomorrow. Could be a fungal infection, Mrs Katiyal says.
All of this to hide that he is married or going to marry and I don't understand or know what to do with the hurt and the rage and the praner jala and I feel physically repulsed by R, yet wish I could wrap myself in someone's arms and say 'Fuck you, chutiye.' I wonder if I am stupid in my worldly unwiseness, if I should have married when I had the chance, yet what chance, if someone makes you feel stood apart and lonely, and disappoints you at every turn, you are also waiting and hoping, no, je ekdin amar bhaggeo shikey chhirbe? Jedin shob nodi mitbey shagorey, shob shomoshhar shomadhan hobe, shedin ami tomay biye kore nebo. But people are what they are, and if you can't live them down today, you never will tomorrow. Otoeb, gechhe, apod chukechhe.'
It just brings you closer to the person you really are. I would probably never have married at 30 anyway. If ever.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Incredibly old songs playing on the radio. It's 11.30 at night. Ma casually mentioned Shamshad Begum was one, while I was marvelling. The house is suddenly filled with music. There is an ease to living that wasn't there when I was growing up. Freed from the strictures of baba, we have both learned to breathe. Now, ma is cooking chilli fish.
I have my very own sari to wear this Pujo. Ma has the lemon yelloe tussar from Kerala and the south cotton purple and green sari.
I ate bad momos, and followed it up with thin crust chicken pizza (small) for dinner and guzzling RC Cola (lemon) to cool off. The grotesqueness of this gluttony appalls me, but tastewise, the pizza was yum! Scorpio Cafe is a wonderful institution. Only if you don't have their chicken club sandwich.
Winter is coming early this year. It's already cool, though I am determined to wear my sleeveless jama kapor one last time before putting them away. In Kolkata, it's still steaming, says C.
F shredded and ate a half-smoked cigarette yesterday and mysteriously developed a watering and droopy right eye. We are a little concerned, after all, dogs aren't supposed to eat cigarettes, though the eye's mostly back to normal.
I am reading Rimi di's City of Love. I rather like it than not, never mind what Adi of words uttered in haste said. I love his blog. He reads like he's high, compulsively, slightly unhealthily. What he reviews is completely different from what I read, though I read very little, but there is a certain pleasure in seeing this evidence of an act of pleasure performed so compulsively. Dunno why it seems this way. I've read other blogs where people read and review as copiously.
These are the tangible things in days that are otherwise floating away aimlessly. There is no point to them, no centre. I go through a dazed struggle to concentrate on something. This is good enough reason to leave, I believe. It's only a matter of time. Not sure how well it will reflect on my career. But 'ah, well' is what I have to say to that. What else is there to say. I could cut through all things important but unnecessary for my present purpose and there would still be a fair bit left to settle, which I shall probably leave as they are. I do so yearn to start travelling. I mean, just the terrific ichhe, not including the planning, on which a lot is yet to be done.
Primary train tickets to book, talk to more people, thrash around the idea of an outer end in the form of a return ticket (no need, I think), draw up a daywise itinerary (I realised today that I would have to by-heart it, imagine the tedium. But I can do such stuff, I've seen, so snigger snigger.), do some bookings or at least talk at the places I plan to stay in in Gujarat (it's going to be full-on tourist season), go out and buy that camera, talk to Sudeb da about a rucksack (wish I could just borrow one and save myself 3k. Or maybe get given one, like the sleeping bag.) I am wondering how I will cart around my giant laptop, and take some kind of a computer I certainly want to. Wondering whether I should buy an external hark disk (prices have come down, for one). Wish, again, that someone would give me a Netbook.
Stupid girl, stupid castles in the air. Oof.
I've decided that my sports shoes serve my needs just fine, the beginnings of a crack in the sole notwithstanding. If they tear irrepaireably, new ones will just have to be bought on the way.
Anyway, today I succeeded just a little in getting stuff done. Sent off several difficult-to-write mails. More of that left. Content work still pending, lots of it, but I've begun engaging with the content and enjoying it. There's a meeting tomorrow and I should have drawn up a P&L for it, but I haven't.
Other tasks I am dreading: speaking to the lawyer (have no strategy for that yet), calculating, taking my share of the money and paying off the joint electricity bill for our and the flat below. It's not even the 20th, and I already keep wondering when next month's salary will be credited, and then immediately think of the rent that will be debited immediately afterward. My bank balance really took a snowdive after that first Ladakh trip. Official costs and kenakata included, I must have spent more than 50k.
I am wondering what they'll give us for Diwali.
So, you would think my life is in a shambles. But then, it's my life. I can't denounce it. I have to look forward or else it'll all come tumbling down.
I have my very own sari to wear this Pujo. Ma has the lemon yelloe tussar from Kerala and the south cotton purple and green sari.
I ate bad momos, and followed it up with thin crust chicken pizza (small) for dinner and guzzling RC Cola (lemon) to cool off. The grotesqueness of this gluttony appalls me, but tastewise, the pizza was yum! Scorpio Cafe is a wonderful institution. Only if you don't have their chicken club sandwich.
Winter is coming early this year. It's already cool, though I am determined to wear my sleeveless jama kapor one last time before putting them away. In Kolkata, it's still steaming, says C.
F shredded and ate a half-smoked cigarette yesterday and mysteriously developed a watering and droopy right eye. We are a little concerned, after all, dogs aren't supposed to eat cigarettes, though the eye's mostly back to normal.
I am reading Rimi di's City of Love. I rather like it than not, never mind what Adi of words uttered in haste said. I love his blog. He reads like he's high, compulsively, slightly unhealthily. What he reviews is completely different from what I read, though I read very little, but there is a certain pleasure in seeing this evidence of an act of pleasure performed so compulsively. Dunno why it seems this way. I've read other blogs where people read and review as copiously.
These are the tangible things in days that are otherwise floating away aimlessly. There is no point to them, no centre. I go through a dazed struggle to concentrate on something. This is good enough reason to leave, I believe. It's only a matter of time. Not sure how well it will reflect on my career. But 'ah, well' is what I have to say to that. What else is there to say. I could cut through all things important but unnecessary for my present purpose and there would still be a fair bit left to settle, which I shall probably leave as they are. I do so yearn to start travelling. I mean, just the terrific ichhe, not including the planning, on which a lot is yet to be done.
Primary train tickets to book, talk to more people, thrash around the idea of an outer end in the form of a return ticket (no need, I think), draw up a daywise itinerary (I realised today that I would have to by-heart it, imagine the tedium. But I can do such stuff, I've seen, so snigger snigger.), do some bookings or at least talk at the places I plan to stay in in Gujarat (it's going to be full-on tourist season), go out and buy that camera, talk to Sudeb da about a rucksack (wish I could just borrow one and save myself 3k. Or maybe get given one, like the sleeping bag.) I am wondering how I will cart around my giant laptop, and take some kind of a computer I certainly want to. Wondering whether I should buy an external hark disk (prices have come down, for one). Wish, again, that someone would give me a Netbook.
Stupid girl, stupid castles in the air. Oof.
I've decided that my sports shoes serve my needs just fine, the beginnings of a crack in the sole notwithstanding. If they tear irrepaireably, new ones will just have to be bought on the way.
Anyway, today I succeeded just a little in getting stuff done. Sent off several difficult-to-write mails. More of that left. Content work still pending, lots of it, but I've begun engaging with the content and enjoying it. There's a meeting tomorrow and I should have drawn up a P&L for it, but I haven't.
Other tasks I am dreading: speaking to the lawyer (have no strategy for that yet), calculating, taking my share of the money and paying off the joint electricity bill for our and the flat below. It's not even the 20th, and I already keep wondering when next month's salary will be credited, and then immediately think of the rent that will be debited immediately afterward. My bank balance really took a snowdive after that first Ladakh trip. Official costs and kenakata included, I must have spent more than 50k.
I am wondering what they'll give us for Diwali.
So, you would think my life is in a shambles. But then, it's my life. I can't denounce it. I have to look forward or else it'll all come tumbling down.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Turns out, you can go to the salt pans of Kutch alone, if you can spend some money for it. Full moon has to be figured out, though. But I am missing the sex occasionally, but also being somewhat revolted at the prospect of the person I want to have it with.
Read a lot on Gujarat this week, because I realised I have stayed totally vague about the details of the proposed trip after deciding broadly on the places. Got a few basic maps off the Net I can print out. Found out about a government guest house and a camp for Little Rann. Devjibhai Dhamecha remains a very real option. But they have to be called and spoken to. And I can't say definitively about the timings yet. The Rajasthan itinerary is starting to sound vague in comparison. Shekhawati seems a glorious idea, now that I've started reading up about it. I wish I could find a travel companion(s), but I am not sure whether I am definitively travelling alone or not. If I did, I would start looking around.
Meanwhile, I am bored out of my mind. Or I am telling myself that this feeling, this torpor of being stuck-in-a-moment-and-can't-get-out is boredom. The work is brain-congealing now that I am back in D, winter is starting to make its presence felt; you sweat and feel chilled at the same time. It is disgusting. Of course, the winter by itself is disgusting too. The zenith would be spending a few mind-barfingly tepid weeks in the winter no man's land of Calcutta. I dread the prospect. I hope not to sink into lyad again, and instead do my work and get the hell out. In Delhi, I suppose I will be so anxious to get out of the cold and loneliness, I won't be able to sink into lyad again. This feeling of dying every moment is so intense now that I have quit worrying about money. I will take what I get my hands on, and stop when panic sets in.
Next week is Pujo. I have decided to don my kasavu sari and fire-red MAC lipstick and check out CR Park with ma. Another day, we will go see the pujos in Mayur Vihar Phase I, and offer anjali. The works, mamah! I wish F could come along too. But how do I make life beyond the normal for her, except by maybe celebrating her birthday, which happened around this time, in the same spirit?
After that is over, hopefully, freedom. In between, I want to slip away to Jaipur for a weekend. Because I want to go somewhere, and also partly to see whether my plan would work, how I feel about things.
There's a rucksack to be bought in Calcutta, money and photos to recover; a camera to be bought in Delhi. Meanwhile, the money keeps flowing out of my hand.
Met a school friend twice over last week. I am, as she put it indelicately with unconscious candour, her 'new best friend', because she is chronically unable to stay alone and her husband has gone off to study and she isn't getting leave for an uncertain while. Ergo, she will hang out with whoever lives in her current part of the city. Earlier, it was other people, now. it's me. I admit that I mind. Despite pleasant hours spent and my reasons being similar, I do want the enjoyment to be genuine and mutual. Yesterday was a little less fun (I do loathe walking around malls and my knees start to hurt real soon) and I wonder when I'll meet her again.
I have been shouting wilfully at ma. I love hanging around F, and wonder how I will get along without her. But not for too long, fo sho'. I am not living here, in the cruel badlands of D, alone.
Read a lot on Gujarat this week, because I realised I have stayed totally vague about the details of the proposed trip after deciding broadly on the places. Got a few basic maps off the Net I can print out. Found out about a government guest house and a camp for Little Rann. Devjibhai Dhamecha remains a very real option. But they have to be called and spoken to. And I can't say definitively about the timings yet. The Rajasthan itinerary is starting to sound vague in comparison. Shekhawati seems a glorious idea, now that I've started reading up about it. I wish I could find a travel companion(s), but I am not sure whether I am definitively travelling alone or not. If I did, I would start looking around.
Meanwhile, I am bored out of my mind. Or I am telling myself that this feeling, this torpor of being stuck-in-a-moment-and-can't-get-out is boredom. The work is brain-congealing now that I am back in D, winter is starting to make its presence felt; you sweat and feel chilled at the same time. It is disgusting. Of course, the winter by itself is disgusting too. The zenith would be spending a few mind-barfingly tepid weeks in the winter no man's land of Calcutta. I dread the prospect. I hope not to sink into lyad again, and instead do my work and get the hell out. In Delhi, I suppose I will be so anxious to get out of the cold and loneliness, I won't be able to sink into lyad again. This feeling of dying every moment is so intense now that I have quit worrying about money. I will take what I get my hands on, and stop when panic sets in.
Next week is Pujo. I have decided to don my kasavu sari and fire-red MAC lipstick and check out CR Park with ma. Another day, we will go see the pujos in Mayur Vihar Phase I, and offer anjali. The works, mamah! I wish F could come along too. But how do I make life beyond the normal for her, except by maybe celebrating her birthday, which happened around this time, in the same spirit?
After that is over, hopefully, freedom. In between, I want to slip away to Jaipur for a weekend. Because I want to go somewhere, and also partly to see whether my plan would work, how I feel about things.
There's a rucksack to be bought in Calcutta, money and photos to recover; a camera to be bought in Delhi. Meanwhile, the money keeps flowing out of my hand.
Met a school friend twice over last week. I am, as she put it indelicately with unconscious candour, her 'new best friend', because she is chronically unable to stay alone and her husband has gone off to study and she isn't getting leave for an uncertain while. Ergo, she will hang out with whoever lives in her current part of the city. Earlier, it was other people, now. it's me. I admit that I mind. Despite pleasant hours spent and my reasons being similar, I do want the enjoyment to be genuine and mutual. Yesterday was a little less fun (I do loathe walking around malls and my knees start to hurt real soon) and I wonder when I'll meet her again.
I have been shouting wilfully at ma. I love hanging around F, and wonder how I will get along without her. But not for too long, fo sho'. I am not living here, in the cruel badlands of D, alone.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
How do you live with so much hate? I hate three people right now, all men, for all of whom I have had varying degrees of affection. One broke my trust, another was cruel, the third callous. I am always loathe to let go of people until they have shown themselves conclusively to be pricks, bastards, unworthy. This takes repeated acts of bastardiness and unworthiness, until there is a final straw which convinces me that the time to close this book is past. I've closed the book for the first two, I am considering doing it for the last, because I don't want to suffer repeated disappointments.
Two things: 1. That one does this on principle at a certain point in an association, even though feelings ask otherwise. You can take more shit, but you choose not to, to preserve your dignity, self-respect.
2. That you can't live feeling this much hate, totting up the list of people you feel this strongly against, and then feeling that your heart is full, and there is no place for light, happy feelings. That you therefore, willingly choose to let go. Let go of people you have loved, some people you still care about. Remove them from your heart, for them to do as they will.
Is this the way of life, for human beings? That you strew people by the wayside as you go along? Is this the lesson I am supposed to learn, another of the mysteries unravelled, another thing my unworldly parents didn't tell me about, that I am to figure out theke shikhe? I will learn, sure, but I wish it were neater, that others, and I, played by the rules.
If you associate with someone, you don't just shut them out suddenly from your life. It's common courtesy.
Thank you - Welcome. How are you? - I am fine: that kind of thing.
You don't break people who have opened themselves to you.
You don't hurt people where they are exposed.
This whole leaving people, it's a wholly different way of life. It means spending time with people you don't particularly care for, a casual friendship with many people who you can therefore let go of without the need to look back, because they didn't give you anything worth remembering. It also means letting go of people who did give you something just as casually, those people who you want more of.
People who incite my curiosity are the ones I love getting to know the most, far more than the troublesome attractions, where there might be nothing in the head worth sharing, or where the interesting stuff might be obscured by sex or feelingy thoughts.
All of this leaves one rather lonesome. I don't like being lonesome. I like my company, but I also like to meet people. It means going on alone if someone doesn't fit the bill, not staying with a motherfucking bastard because you, in the longest rope that you have given a person for that one act of kindness, decide to swallow the terrible things s/he does and because s/he means company as opposed to lonesomely trudging on some track, or not getting to go someplace because there are some places you can't go alone. How will I go to the salt pans of Kutch, I wonder, let alone spend the whole night under a full moon? Desert trek is not happening. I can't go and watch a Rang de Basanti type freakshow in its place, can I?
Two things: 1. That one does this on principle at a certain point in an association, even though feelings ask otherwise. You can take more shit, but you choose not to, to preserve your dignity, self-respect.
2. That you can't live feeling this much hate, totting up the list of people you feel this strongly against, and then feeling that your heart is full, and there is no place for light, happy feelings. That you therefore, willingly choose to let go. Let go of people you have loved, some people you still care about. Remove them from your heart, for them to do as they will.
Is this the way of life, for human beings? That you strew people by the wayside as you go along? Is this the lesson I am supposed to learn, another of the mysteries unravelled, another thing my unworldly parents didn't tell me about, that I am to figure out theke shikhe? I will learn, sure, but I wish it were neater, that others, and I, played by the rules.
If you associate with someone, you don't just shut them out suddenly from your life. It's common courtesy.
Thank you - Welcome. How are you? - I am fine: that kind of thing.
You don't break people who have opened themselves to you.
You don't hurt people where they are exposed.
This whole leaving people, it's a wholly different way of life. It means spending time with people you don't particularly care for, a casual friendship with many people who you can therefore let go of without the need to look back, because they didn't give you anything worth remembering. It also means letting go of people who did give you something just as casually, those people who you want more of.
People who incite my curiosity are the ones I love getting to know the most, far more than the troublesome attractions, where there might be nothing in the head worth sharing, or where the interesting stuff might be obscured by sex or feelingy thoughts.
All of this leaves one rather lonesome. I don't like being lonesome. I like my company, but I also like to meet people. It means going on alone if someone doesn't fit the bill, not staying with a motherfucking bastard because you, in the longest rope that you have given a person for that one act of kindness, decide to swallow the terrible things s/he does and because s/he means company as opposed to lonesomely trudging on some track, or not getting to go someplace because there are some places you can't go alone. How will I go to the salt pans of Kutch, I wonder, let alone spend the whole night under a full moon? Desert trek is not happening. I can't go and watch a Rang de Basanti type freakshow in its place, can I?
Thursday, September 20, 2012
The summer, as promised, has been lovely. I came back from L. Much fun was had, the meanness notwithstanding. I saw the Mulbek Maitreya Buddha. I was thinking in retrospect, though. R is not very nice either, is he? Why do I keep associating with people who I am not convinced about?
Amazement: at the typicalness of male behaviour. K has made perfectly random attempts to get in touch. You want something once it's out of your hands.
Mes projets pour l'hiver include:
desert trek, Jaisalmer, Khuri
the Rann, Dholaveera, Lothal, Pavagadh-Champaner (too much for one state, if you ask me. It's starting to sound like those crazy family vacations covering an entire state that people take)
Varanasi for noo year
MP, and a wedding
L
There is a possibility I will be heavily disillusioned after it all. You know, finding out that people are all the same, often irredeemable, and that travelling doesn't change you one whit.
Yesterday, I met a condescending prick who made me rush back to the shelter of family. I felt so grateful to have ma and F. People are mostly like this prick, niceness is a rarity.
I am (again) planning to buy a DSLR. But apart from everything else, I have to wait for next month's salary to replenish my coffers.
Nick Hornby is so neurotic.
Cadbury's Silk is yum. Finally, a local chocolate that you can eat. And, um, Gold Flake.
What else? Kolkata somewhere in between all this, though after yesterday's encounter, I feel loathe to let go of ma and F. They are my cocoon, my cushion, I am scared of what it would be to live here without one. I'll get them back after I am done with all my projets, of course.
One should leave as little as possible to chance, because chance is all round you, right, waiting to throw your plans awry. But a lot of what I am planning rests on chance. I have no foresight on how I will be after this. I am hoping for a very good time and not too many brickbats, at the very least.
And to smell of the road, to smell of the road.
Amazement: at the typicalness of male behaviour. K has made perfectly random attempts to get in touch. You want something once it's out of your hands.
Mes projets pour l'hiver include:
desert trek, Jaisalmer, Khuri
the Rann, Dholaveera, Lothal, Pavagadh-Champaner (too much for one state, if you ask me. It's starting to sound like those crazy family vacations covering an entire state that people take)
Varanasi for noo year
MP, and a wedding
L
There is a possibility I will be heavily disillusioned after it all. You know, finding out that people are all the same, often irredeemable, and that travelling doesn't change you one whit.
Yesterday, I met a condescending prick who made me rush back to the shelter of family. I felt so grateful to have ma and F. People are mostly like this prick, niceness is a rarity.
I am (again) planning to buy a DSLR. But apart from everything else, I have to wait for next month's salary to replenish my coffers.
Nick Hornby is so neurotic.
Cadbury's Silk is yum. Finally, a local chocolate that you can eat. And, um, Gold Flake.
What else? Kolkata somewhere in between all this, though after yesterday's encounter, I feel loathe to let go of ma and F. They are my cocoon, my cushion, I am scared of what it would be to live here without one. I'll get them back after I am done with all my projets, of course.
One should leave as little as possible to chance, because chance is all round you, right, waiting to throw your plans awry. But a lot of what I am planning rests on chance. I have no foresight on how I will be after this. I am hoping for a very good time and not too many brickbats, at the very least.
And to smell of the road, to smell of the road.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
It's entirely there, nowhere near going away. I found a message 'Ei kagoj porchhi' and what we had came rushing back in a torrent, the enormity of what is lost. It is indeed as if a limb has been chopped off. You have never known how to live without it. How to be 27, say, and not be that way.
It is not like baba. Not like a parent. It is a six-feet tall flesh and blood, a chest of hair, a pair of glasses. And then I remind myself, again, that it was also unanswered affections, silences, being left standing in the middle of the road, being a coward, again and again... moral turpitude?
In total, maybe not such a bad bargain.
I saw an article: on singlehood being seen as an abnormality when more and more people are voluntarily choosing to be single. I think it's stupid. Right now, I really want someone to love, but the person has to be someone I want to be with. I won't settle for drain water because I am thirsty, hence I am single. It's not an ideological position, really. Who voluntarily eschews company they enjoy?
It is not like baba. Not like a parent. It is a six-feet tall flesh and blood, a chest of hair, a pair of glasses. And then I remind myself, again, that it was also unanswered affections, silences, being left standing in the middle of the road, being a coward, again and again... moral turpitude?
In total, maybe not such a bad bargain.
I saw an article: on singlehood being seen as an abnormality when more and more people are voluntarily choosing to be single. I think it's stupid. Right now, I really want someone to love, but the person has to be someone I want to be with. I won't settle for drain water because I am thirsty, hence I am single. It's not an ideological position, really. Who voluntarily eschews company they enjoy?
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Summer has been good to me.
In spite of endless cooler breakdowns, no-water days, work going nowhere. There have been friends, far too many outings and a shutting-out of all of that eating me in the months before.
Summer, as always, has been an exercise in freedom.
Right now, it is just like Kolkata: the heat and humidity is just about bearable. Not so bad that you can't keep still, not so comfortable that you can relax and settle down.
And Dilli as the city which helped me rally, thanks in no small measure to ma and friends, but also because of what the city is, who woulda thunk. Is it an exercise in finding or losing myself? A bit of both, I suppose. The endless trips back home in autos after 10 (how I have thrown money around) looking at the night city, no one to tell you what to do, the man on the street who sits down at that hour for a drag, men who go to sleep on the pavement, men finishing up after work. And a blank in my mind: once it was happy, this return home after a full day, now it is just an absence of feeling, not knowing what tomorrow might bring. I am not complaining, just wondering what comes after this.
What a leveller it is to have ma and F, the groundedness, the feeling of home. Who knows what I might have done without them.
Yesterday, at Nehru Place: scouting for that rarity, apparently: a 2GB SD card for my camera. And IndiaFab for clothes, and dirt cheap books, bought from a slightly creepy, educated old man, who makes you wonder if he wants to fuck young women like me. Thence to Shahpur Jat in Panchsheel Park, a part of the city I hadn't been to before. L seems so un-European in his manner. I found myself liking him, and M, who I still don't quite understand, but like very much.
P leaves on the 28th, I feel so bereft, I can't even explain it entirely to myself. Our closeness has not been emotional: it is more robust. But the three days spent in their company, I haven't been this happy in a long while. I haven't relished the company of friends with whom I feel so at ease for a very long time, doing things I like to do. Friends, who, I suppose, accept me for what I am, one who knows me since the time I began thinking for myself.
One by one, all of them, the summer visitors, will leave. The season will turn again. Who knows what will happen then. I dread the news of a certain marriage, still. I am lulled into thinking that a phone call is the most normal thing, after I see a couple that works together, and then I tell myself that I have been lulled.
When the season turns, my sister-in-law will have had a baby. She has asked me to come, and I will go. But I do wonder what happens to me, though I have been schooling myself in the lesson to accept my life, whether it comes with coupledom or singlehood.
Right now, I am being a waster. I have told myself that I am not responsible for everything, that I am allowed a break till I get back on my feet and figure out what I am going to do.
It has not been boring, however. I have gone around Delhi, travelled with ma and dog for the first time, and am readying for another trip, with people I have met through another friend. Winter, apart from anything else, will be for travelling to warmer climes (Madhya Pradesh perhaps) and for seeing what I haven't of the city: more detailed old Delhi exploration (now you just become miserable and wild-eyed with the heat), including Qutb and Nizamuddin. I would like to travel more with ma if I can figure out a good place to keep F.
These days, we keep the main door open, with the metal door closed, to let in cool air. Another summer freedom, and a memory from very young days, when we stayed at Nivedita Enclave. It's weird, but I don't remember thinking we were not normal in any way, then.
In spite of endless cooler breakdowns, no-water days, work going nowhere. There have been friends, far too many outings and a shutting-out of all of that eating me in the months before.
Summer, as always, has been an exercise in freedom.
Right now, it is just like Kolkata: the heat and humidity is just about bearable. Not so bad that you can't keep still, not so comfortable that you can relax and settle down.
And Dilli as the city which helped me rally, thanks in no small measure to ma and friends, but also because of what the city is, who woulda thunk. Is it an exercise in finding or losing myself? A bit of both, I suppose. The endless trips back home in autos after 10 (how I have thrown money around) looking at the night city, no one to tell you what to do, the man on the street who sits down at that hour for a drag, men who go to sleep on the pavement, men finishing up after work. And a blank in my mind: once it was happy, this return home after a full day, now it is just an absence of feeling, not knowing what tomorrow might bring. I am not complaining, just wondering what comes after this.
What a leveller it is to have ma and F, the groundedness, the feeling of home. Who knows what I might have done without them.
Yesterday, at Nehru Place: scouting for that rarity, apparently: a 2GB SD card for my camera. And IndiaFab for clothes, and dirt cheap books, bought from a slightly creepy, educated old man, who makes you wonder if he wants to fuck young women like me. Thence to Shahpur Jat in Panchsheel Park, a part of the city I hadn't been to before. L seems so un-European in his manner. I found myself liking him, and M, who I still don't quite understand, but like very much.
P leaves on the 28th, I feel so bereft, I can't even explain it entirely to myself. Our closeness has not been emotional: it is more robust. But the three days spent in their company, I haven't been this happy in a long while. I haven't relished the company of friends with whom I feel so at ease for a very long time, doing things I like to do. Friends, who, I suppose, accept me for what I am, one who knows me since the time I began thinking for myself.
One by one, all of them, the summer visitors, will leave. The season will turn again. Who knows what will happen then. I dread the news of a certain marriage, still. I am lulled into thinking that a phone call is the most normal thing, after I see a couple that works together, and then I tell myself that I have been lulled.
When the season turns, my sister-in-law will have had a baby. She has asked me to come, and I will go. But I do wonder what happens to me, though I have been schooling myself in the lesson to accept my life, whether it comes with coupledom or singlehood.
Right now, I am being a waster. I have told myself that I am not responsible for everything, that I am allowed a break till I get back on my feet and figure out what I am going to do.
It has not been boring, however. I have gone around Delhi, travelled with ma and dog for the first time, and am readying for another trip, with people I have met through another friend. Winter, apart from anything else, will be for travelling to warmer climes (Madhya Pradesh perhaps) and for seeing what I haven't of the city: more detailed old Delhi exploration (now you just become miserable and wild-eyed with the heat), including Qutb and Nizamuddin. I would like to travel more with ma if I can figure out a good place to keep F.
These days, we keep the main door open, with the metal door closed, to let in cool air. Another summer freedom, and a memory from very young days, when we stayed at Nivedita Enclave. It's weird, but I don't remember thinking we were not normal in any way, then.
Saturday, June 02, 2012
I am considering getting a new blog, because I like the idea of people reading what I write. But I don't know how my earlier readers, few as they were, would find their way to a new blog. This blog is no longer for the public eye, I think, because the memories are too numerous, and I want to start on a clean slate if I am writing stuff that people can see. The ways of thinking, of loving, as much as the things loved, longed for and seen are so tied up with one person that whatever I write in public in this blog, it seems, will forever hark back to those times, times spent with him.
How does one do this? How does one detach oneself from one's own growing up years, impossible to think of without reference to one person, years which are bittersweet, but which seem blighted because it now seems to have led up to a path gone awry. It's like a dish, that you really enjoyed cooking, but which turned out to be like ashes because of something gone wrong in the end: then does the process of preparing it bring any joy in retrospect?
I wonder how Dibbo dealt with Madhura's going away. They were his growing up years too, far more growing-up because in college. One feels blighted, blighted by a single act, and then things are always going to be different.
As A and I were saying, it is as much about grieving baba as grieving for the loss of one person. The grief not felt then, the grief gone so easily below ground, never disabling, never debilitating. I suppose you really remember a person when you most need them, and because I really needed him now, now more than ever since the time he passed on, really, that baba's going away seems to hurt so keenly sometimes.
And then there are people who have lived without experiencing these losses, girls who never break up over a break-up, girls who lose dads only after they have lived their lives in full. It's such a blasted waste. Why did you waste my life so? Did my years seem throwaway to you? Did you think I came so cheap just because I was always there? Because you had to push and push and push to drive me out of your life?
Summer is here again. This summer will be joyless. But no fear. Summer is my season, it never is too marked by sorrow for the next summer to not promise freedom again. Then, there are the rains. Joyless, washing away all sorrow rains. Squelching through filthy streets back home, disgusted by the dirt between your toes, every year, the waterlogging, that is monsoon in my city. I never detested it too much, but now seems a good time to start, another birag to have against home, to call it less of a home. How strange it is that none of you feel Calcutta is home anymore. I still so love it, helped in no small part from seeing the city through his eyes. But even without, what other city is there to call home? So, and therefore, Kolkata is home. I've only ever known one other city, this Delhi. And who could call Dilli home, bolo? Maybe if I lived here in the 80s, with memories of Khan Market as a DDA market and east Delhi as Jumna paar, and old Delhi as not the exotic part of town, but the place you went for wholesale groceries or somesuch.
It is hard to grieve here as ordinarily as I did with Ananya over chat the other day. That was a good chat. Here, one is constrained by the rules of language, the restrictions of symmetry.
I did so like this blog. And can no longer venture here in the open, because it is no longer my own space, but the space where I have been judged and condemned. You took away so much, so much. So much of me I have to change, so that I can learn to live without you.
How does one do this? How does one detach oneself from one's own growing up years, impossible to think of without reference to one person, years which are bittersweet, but which seem blighted because it now seems to have led up to a path gone awry. It's like a dish, that you really enjoyed cooking, but which turned out to be like ashes because of something gone wrong in the end: then does the process of preparing it bring any joy in retrospect?
I wonder how Dibbo dealt with Madhura's going away. They were his growing up years too, far more growing-up because in college. One feels blighted, blighted by a single act, and then things are always going to be different.
As A and I were saying, it is as much about grieving baba as grieving for the loss of one person. The grief not felt then, the grief gone so easily below ground, never disabling, never debilitating. I suppose you really remember a person when you most need them, and because I really needed him now, now more than ever since the time he passed on, really, that baba's going away seems to hurt so keenly sometimes.
And then there are people who have lived without experiencing these losses, girls who never break up over a break-up, girls who lose dads only after they have lived their lives in full. It's such a blasted waste. Why did you waste my life so? Did my years seem throwaway to you? Did you think I came so cheap just because I was always there? Because you had to push and push and push to drive me out of your life?
Summer is here again. This summer will be joyless. But no fear. Summer is my season, it never is too marked by sorrow for the next summer to not promise freedom again. Then, there are the rains. Joyless, washing away all sorrow rains. Squelching through filthy streets back home, disgusted by the dirt between your toes, every year, the waterlogging, that is monsoon in my city. I never detested it too much, but now seems a good time to start, another birag to have against home, to call it less of a home. How strange it is that none of you feel Calcutta is home anymore. I still so love it, helped in no small part from seeing the city through his eyes. But even without, what other city is there to call home? So, and therefore, Kolkata is home. I've only ever known one other city, this Delhi. And who could call Dilli home, bolo? Maybe if I lived here in the 80s, with memories of Khan Market as a DDA market and east Delhi as Jumna paar, and old Delhi as not the exotic part of town, but the place you went for wholesale groceries or somesuch.
It is hard to grieve here as ordinarily as I did with Ananya over chat the other day. That was a good chat. Here, one is constrained by the rules of language, the restrictions of symmetry.
I did so like this blog. And can no longer venture here in the open, because it is no longer my own space, but the space where I have been judged and condemned. You took away so much, so much. So much of me I have to change, so that I can learn to live without you.
Sunday, May 06, 2012
Dear baba, this is for you. I remembered the time when you were in Vellore after the fall, and yes, I was remembering those days otherwise too. Dear baba, what I had wished for for so long (as I find) without realising how bhoyonkor it was, has finally come to pass. After you, he has left me too. Your leaving was not voluntary, but his is. Maybe it's not so bad, maybe terrible things would have happened had we stayed together. You know all about how much it hurts, baba, you have lived with it inside my head. But it was not very nice, was it? I was reading this post I wrote, and I can't imagine whether I was being stupid or whether I had gotten so used to him not hearing my plaints; I had asked to be set free, however sad and tragic it was. And it is prophetic, baba, karon exactly that has come to pass, and tragic is quite the word for it.
Amra dujonei nijer ojantey ki bhoyanok shob jinish cheye boshe achhie. We are on such different pages, it is amazing. O ekhon ja chaichhe, a marriage with a stranger in three months, sheta amar churanto illogical mone hoy. Kintu oneker khetrei sheta khatey, and there is happiness and laughter, as I was telling him. But that is again the triumph of hope over experience, and if that is what we are doing, why not he and me? Maybe because the unhappiness is a proven, and in this case, documented fact. I have been implicated by my own blog, baba! Tumi jodi thakte, amay aro onek practical hotey shekhatey. Shekhatey emon boka hote nei. Tahole amar lojjata hoto kebol tomar shamnei, amader bairer karur shamne noy, je nijer bhalobashar abhoron ekdin shoriye nitey parey, jar bhalobasha is a choice, not a given.
Amar shobshomoy i bhoy chhilo, je ami happiness pabo na. Ami ki shei pothei cholchhi, baba? Etodin er gora structure ta toh bhenge gelo. Abar notun template banabo, naki eki bhabe abar cheshta korbo? Tumi toh amay jano, tumi toh jano ami pretty noi, attractive noi, bhishon chalak ba smart o noi, ar particularly friendly ba adjusting o noi, thik Parks er moton, House e. Amar moton loker jonne ki arekta manush thake? Ami nije cheye na niley ki amay keu egiye debe? Amar chaitey apotti nei, kintu amar shotti i chinta hoy emon kauke abar pabo kina. Kauke toh charidike dekhina, ei Dilli shohore toh aroi na. Tumi keno chole gele, baba, shob shanti, asroy, bhorsha niye? Ajke ami abar rastay dariye, on my own. Mone hoy parbo, I have the will to try, which is so important, kintu eka je khub bhoy kore. Ar mone hoy, amar baggage niye ki keu amay grohon korbe? Ami bolbo, amar kukur chhara cholbe na, amar ma somewhere I can keep an eye on her na hole cholbe na. Ke debe eto? Chhele ra toh ekhono bossmen, tader ma der jonne wives leave their careers and families, but which guy makes changes to his life plan for something as little as a woman's mother? Kukurpremi jodi ba pelam, amay ki ar keu eto bhalobashbe je ma r kothao bhabbe? And not any old mom, but mine, with her complete disregard for anything that matters. Maybe I'll become like anasuadi (god forbid), or like Indrani. Ami eto chafe korlam as long as I had him, now that I don't, it seems terribly important to have him. Tumi hole amay contempt er chokhe dekhte, ar bolte ami ki shallow ar selfish. Ei jonnei tomar chole jaoa uchit hoyni. Before I even started my life, you abandoned me. How can I forgive you for that? Nobody but parents care selflessly and you left me, to deal with the world alone. Look at epshita, she still has them. She needs them, and she has them. But you, you left. You gave me such a lesson in growing up, but look at me, I am still psychologically a cripple. And I am responsible for two beings. Look, just look. She wouldn't have happened without his support. and now he tells me he was relieved when i got her, because she was a distraction, and because i really loved her. and that he can't live with her, because she is not like his daughter, she is just a dog. because he can't live with an animal. his this so called madness, everything remained the same, only i was excised from his life like a tumour. that was his madness, that was all. so summarily, baba. oboshho tumi holeo tai korte. tomra dujonei eto similar.
i hope i find someone kind again, baba. kinder than you, jodio, tao ki hoy? kinder than him, which seems unimaginable, chhelera eto bojjat. sharadindu o is quite a slave to received ideas, jodio kotoi ba judge korbe ekta lok ke tar milieu theke tule niye. tobe or moton strong, unmoved like a rock, and kind, bodhoy ar keu hobe na. i am ultimately on my own, aren't i, god? he will find happiness, is bound to. his positive aspects are so very nice, it's easy to fall in love with them. and there will be laughter and children, and i am afraid, i will forever be on the road, waiting.
Amra dujonei nijer ojantey ki bhoyanok shob jinish cheye boshe achhie. We are on such different pages, it is amazing. O ekhon ja chaichhe, a marriage with a stranger in three months, sheta amar churanto illogical mone hoy. Kintu oneker khetrei sheta khatey, and there is happiness and laughter, as I was telling him. But that is again the triumph of hope over experience, and if that is what we are doing, why not he and me? Maybe because the unhappiness is a proven, and in this case, documented fact. I have been implicated by my own blog, baba! Tumi jodi thakte, amay aro onek practical hotey shekhatey. Shekhatey emon boka hote nei. Tahole amar lojjata hoto kebol tomar shamnei, amader bairer karur shamne noy, je nijer bhalobashar abhoron ekdin shoriye nitey parey, jar bhalobasha is a choice, not a given.
Amar shobshomoy i bhoy chhilo, je ami happiness pabo na. Ami ki shei pothei cholchhi, baba? Etodin er gora structure ta toh bhenge gelo. Abar notun template banabo, naki eki bhabe abar cheshta korbo? Tumi toh amay jano, tumi toh jano ami pretty noi, attractive noi, bhishon chalak ba smart o noi, ar particularly friendly ba adjusting o noi, thik Parks er moton, House e. Amar moton loker jonne ki arekta manush thake? Ami nije cheye na niley ki amay keu egiye debe? Amar chaitey apotti nei, kintu amar shotti i chinta hoy emon kauke abar pabo kina. Kauke toh charidike dekhina, ei Dilli shohore toh aroi na. Tumi keno chole gele, baba, shob shanti, asroy, bhorsha niye? Ajke ami abar rastay dariye, on my own. Mone hoy parbo, I have the will to try, which is so important, kintu eka je khub bhoy kore. Ar mone hoy, amar baggage niye ki keu amay grohon korbe? Ami bolbo, amar kukur chhara cholbe na, amar ma somewhere I can keep an eye on her na hole cholbe na. Ke debe eto? Chhele ra toh ekhono bossmen, tader ma der jonne wives leave their careers and families, but which guy makes changes to his life plan for something as little as a woman's mother? Kukurpremi jodi ba pelam, amay ki ar keu eto bhalobashbe je ma r kothao bhabbe? And not any old mom, but mine, with her complete disregard for anything that matters. Maybe I'll become like anasuadi (god forbid), or like Indrani. Ami eto chafe korlam as long as I had him, now that I don't, it seems terribly important to have him. Tumi hole amay contempt er chokhe dekhte, ar bolte ami ki shallow ar selfish. Ei jonnei tomar chole jaoa uchit hoyni. Before I even started my life, you abandoned me. How can I forgive you for that? Nobody but parents care selflessly and you left me, to deal with the world alone. Look at epshita, she still has them. She needs them, and she has them. But you, you left. You gave me such a lesson in growing up, but look at me, I am still psychologically a cripple. And I am responsible for two beings. Look, just look. She wouldn't have happened without his support. and now he tells me he was relieved when i got her, because she was a distraction, and because i really loved her. and that he can't live with her, because she is not like his daughter, she is just a dog. because he can't live with an animal. his this so called madness, everything remained the same, only i was excised from his life like a tumour. that was his madness, that was all. so summarily, baba. oboshho tumi holeo tai korte. tomra dujonei eto similar.
i hope i find someone kind again, baba. kinder than you, jodio, tao ki hoy? kinder than him, which seems unimaginable, chhelera eto bojjat. sharadindu o is quite a slave to received ideas, jodio kotoi ba judge korbe ekta lok ke tar milieu theke tule niye. tobe or moton strong, unmoved like a rock, and kind, bodhoy ar keu hobe na. i am ultimately on my own, aren't i, god? he will find happiness, is bound to. his positive aspects are so very nice, it's easy to fall in love with them. and there will be laughter and children, and i am afraid, i will forever be on the road, waiting.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Please, please, can I quit? Please can I give in and embrace the pleasant aftertaste of melancholy? It does not hurt, only induces mild longing for what might have been. A pleasant hate for what was taken away. You can hate in peace, without hurting, having relinquished the imperative to be happy. That you wouldn't have to work so bloody hard to be happy, that you could just let go.
I came upon Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road yesterday. You know what I am saying, don't you? The book is easier than the film, it spells out the despair, the sense of doom, and when death comes, it spells out that too, I suppose. Help me, God. I want to give the boot to my present life and find something new. But I am so scared that I will find I am not special after all, that I have no wings, that I need to be rooted in one place for any amount of sanity, all while I'm dying in misery misery, all-consuming, sense-obliterating misery.
Thirty-four years in thirty-four weeks. God, what a fucking co-incidence. I will perhaps go back to journalisme. Je suis journaliste. Je travaille a ----. Je traverse tout le monde. Je n'ai pas des amis. Je ne mort pas. Oh God, please let me die. Quietly, painlessly, I am fed up of being torn apart, fed up, so fed up. Of the fear, the pain, the ground falling away beneath your feet, repeatedly, repeatedly, no music in your ears, the world like lead on your shoulders. And even then, the longing for one. I don't want to be optimistic, I don't want to relentlessly chase happiness. I want to sulk, I want to hate. And I want someone to pull me out of it, to force me to look at the sunlight even though I turn my face away. I want to be free to hate, to despair, while the world is still there for me with its possibilities. I don't want to court the world, I don't want to court people to bestow favours and kindness on me.
I came upon Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road yesterday. You know what I am saying, don't you? The book is easier than the film, it spells out the despair, the sense of doom, and when death comes, it spells out that too, I suppose. Help me, God. I want to give the boot to my present life and find something new. But I am so scared that I will find I am not special after all, that I have no wings, that I need to be rooted in one place for any amount of sanity, all while I'm dying in misery misery, all-consuming, sense-obliterating misery.
Thirty-four years in thirty-four weeks. God, what a fucking co-incidence. I will perhaps go back to journalisme. Je suis journaliste. Je travaille a ----. Je traverse tout le monde. Je n'ai pas des amis. Je ne mort pas. Oh God, please let me die. Quietly, painlessly, I am fed up of being torn apart, fed up, so fed up. Of the fear, the pain, the ground falling away beneath your feet, repeatedly, repeatedly, no music in your ears, the world like lead on your shoulders. And even then, the longing for one. I don't want to be optimistic, I don't want to relentlessly chase happiness. I want to sulk, I want to hate. And I want someone to pull me out of it, to force me to look at the sunlight even though I turn my face away. I want to be free to hate, to despair, while the world is still there for me with its possibilities. I don't want to court the world, I don't want to court people to bestow favours and kindness on me.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
OB Tampons are the most pretentious things. There is only this sad loser of a brand available in Delhi, and they are rather expensive as tampons go. I miss my good ol' local brand, manufactured at Colootola Lane, very much indeed. But haven't been home in a while. In moments of fancy, I imagine asking someone to courier a stashload to me, but then, who to ask. Also, what if it gets wet?
I had sushi with folks last week. I hope to do it again tomorrow. I feel ambivalent about the weekend, glad to have a couple of days to myself, but then the shit lurks just beneath the surface, and there's more time to make kashundi of it.
I watched Wake up Sid, all at one go, yesterday. Mane, really stupid and crazy on a workday. But it kind of holds you on, you can't let go. Konkona Sen Sharma is this unbelievably zen mohila who takes all sorts of shit with a smile, no rough edges, always holding it together. But despite Ranbir Kapoor's duh-ness, he does convey, and rather well, the immense openness that his character Sid is. Such openness, to embrace the world with all the shit it will give him, and still he would love it. It would be lovely to love such a person, to be young with him. The film has several cliches, but it also channels the wonder of Bombay. I mean, it is how I imagine it to be: a city where you could do anything. And she puts it so precisely when he asks her what she'd come to Bombay for: to be independent. It's why I came to Delhi, not to scale career heights, but so I could live a little: so that both the good and the bad would be mine: I would be responsible for it all, with no one to blame or to be grateful to. Make your own money and spend it too, and not be answerable to anybody.
I am trying to get That Girl in Yellow Boots and Hugo. I considered Daniel Craig and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but I don't think it's worth the trouble. I do like the Swedish version. And reading Maximum City. Non-fiction has this calming effect, it holds true even when shit's flying around the house. Especially so, I think.
I had sushi with folks last week. I hope to do it again tomorrow. I feel ambivalent about the weekend, glad to have a couple of days to myself, but then the shit lurks just beneath the surface, and there's more time to make kashundi of it.
I watched Wake up Sid, all at one go, yesterday. Mane, really stupid and crazy on a workday. But it kind of holds you on, you can't let go. Konkona Sen Sharma is this unbelievably zen mohila who takes all sorts of shit with a smile, no rough edges, always holding it together. But despite Ranbir Kapoor's duh-ness, he does convey, and rather well, the immense openness that his character Sid is. Such openness, to embrace the world with all the shit it will give him, and still he would love it. It would be lovely to love such a person, to be young with him. The film has several cliches, but it also channels the wonder of Bombay. I mean, it is how I imagine it to be: a city where you could do anything. And she puts it so precisely when he asks her what she'd come to Bombay for: to be independent. It's why I came to Delhi, not to scale career heights, but so I could live a little: so that both the good and the bad would be mine: I would be responsible for it all, with no one to blame or to be grateful to. Make your own money and spend it too, and not be answerable to anybody.
I am trying to get That Girl in Yellow Boots and Hugo. I considered Daniel Craig and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but I don't think it's worth the trouble. I do like the Swedish version. And reading Maximum City. Non-fiction has this calming effect, it holds true even when shit's flying around the house. Especially so, I think.
Monday, April 09, 2012
You pretty boy. You pretty, pretty, pretty boy. I am swinging between vellahood and utter despair. O says being this way is normal. That neurosis is fine. But I would like to be more stable, more disciplined in my emotions. I am trying to ignore the matter as if it does not exist. I have done the other things I usually do in the day. And written and messaged her when I could not do it anymore. I just wrote a mail to her. I am horrified by what I think I have done. But I am holding my peace now. I read a blog of a former classmate. Some of it was so beautiful and calming, I remembered the calmness of Eliot's Rhapsodies. This was triggered off by an interview of Laurie where he talks about working with Fry. He was beautiful and I felt so helpless then, because I always related them. So beautiful, so beautiful, and I seem to have tarnished it all. I wondered what nervous breakdown was and stealthily looked it up at work today. And found that as definitions go, I am far from it. Which is good, yes. If I could not laugh and do other things, I don't know what I would do. Why have the years passed, God? Why am I 28? Time was I would write to you in my diary and do sums with baba somewhere in our house, gulping down the inexplicable pain of an unrequited crush. And you helped then. You do, even now. In far greater measure than I ever deserve. Have I made three old people very unhappy? Have I broken the hearts of two of them by my thoughtlessness? But you know it was not all that. You know I felt harrassed, I wanted to escape. I didn't want to say harsh things to their face.
Be kind, dear God, be kind, again and again and again.
The summer is upon us, again. F has grown quite fat, worryingly, and my mother hasn't a clue of what's going on in my head. Yesterday night, gasping in pain and fear, I told F that I couldn't believe what was happening. She stared up at me with round eyes, but stayed by me through most of the night. O says it's good they are here, because one tends to obsess. I guess that is true. I can't give vent to my ugly grief when she is around and I whisper to F in darkness at night and in the morning after I wake up. Eventually, very soon, it subsides, and I start the day. I won't let them go right away now. I can't do this alone. I will go mad. I will take them home when the upheaval has quietened, when a plane has been reached.
I swing wildly between such divergent feelings. I know that technically I am free, but it doesn't seem to bring joy though I know it's a good thing.
Chatwin's photo on the header is very reassuring. And ya, another sad year.
Be kind, dear God, be kind, again and again and again.
The summer is upon us, again. F has grown quite fat, worryingly, and my mother hasn't a clue of what's going on in my head. Yesterday night, gasping in pain and fear, I told F that I couldn't believe what was happening. She stared up at me with round eyes, but stayed by me through most of the night. O says it's good they are here, because one tends to obsess. I guess that is true. I can't give vent to my ugly grief when she is around and I whisper to F in darkness at night and in the morning after I wake up. Eventually, very soon, it subsides, and I start the day. I won't let them go right away now. I can't do this alone. I will go mad. I will take them home when the upheaval has quietened, when a plane has been reached.
I swing wildly between such divergent feelings. I know that technically I am free, but it doesn't seem to bring joy though I know it's a good thing.
Chatwin's photo on the header is very reassuring. And ya, another sad year.
Sunday, April 08, 2012
I hope what Angshu said once, so very long ago, remains true. That I can find that energy and optimism of 2007. But such a long time has passed, I am a very different person, is there that me anymore? People do change, don't they? And ultimately, people, men, are always disappointing. And time, time, it do catch up to tell you that dreams are finite, that it's timeover eventually. It's not an infinite time for yellow sunlight filled with hopes. And then there's own crippling character, along with its flaws, to deal with.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
theoutsider
From an even longer time ago.
right. I've scouted blogosphere quite thoroughly (my purview of it, anyway), I have a deadline to meet by 10a.m. tommorow (an article I haven't thought anything about), amar pithe jhijhi dhore gachhe, so I am just in the mood for a post. Why is it that you get this critical urge to blog just when you should not be doing it?Dunno. Who cares. I spoke to this rather famous bangali shahittik today who turned out to be full of himself. Sigh, a chink in every armour, I guess. No one's perfect. Didn't get through to this other famous director, 'not easily accesible', my superior said. Which translates into "will play song from 'Guide' at you; will then switch off phone just when you've started getting your hopes high that u've tracked down the elusive guy after all. (And all that after you've chewed off your nails in apprehension thinking that you'll forget to ask ethng u meant to ask if he picked up the phn so why call him anyway)
Well, a day, a day. no probs. okey-dokey.
Got to read about 4 lines of chatwin's songlines today. wow, great. if that's how life's gonna be as a scribe, I can forget ever sitting down to read anything ever. All I'll be doing is researching stuff on google for absurdities to shore up my art.s with. I am afraid I'll even forget to miss JU.
Oh JU. I love you so much. Haven for misfits is so right. And it also gives you a kind of pleasure to see all the straitlaced ones who give you such hell in their kind of environments getting to see the other side of the coin. But it's sad really. Coz JU really takes everybody in and makes it a kind of home. All it asks for is a kind of basic honesty to yourself. I didn't give it all of mine. That's the only pity. And quietly, the biggest one. Coz it's just my size.
And another reason to crib. I haven't got anti-spam thng. on my comp. So keep getting these 'Crazy Girls' adverts. i am sick to death of seeing immense boobs. Really.
Have an interview where, a friend tells me, I'll be asked strange ques.s.
right. I've scouted blogosphere quite thoroughly (my purview of it, anyway), I have a deadline to meet by 10a.m. tommorow (an article I haven't thought anything about), amar pithe jhijhi dhore gachhe, so I am just in the mood for a post. Why is it that you get this critical urge to blog just when you should not be doing it?Dunno. Who cares. I spoke to this rather famous bangali shahittik today who turned out to be full of himself. Sigh, a chink in every armour, I guess. No one's perfect. Didn't get through to this other famous director, 'not easily accesible', my superior said. Which translates into "will play song from 'Guide' at you; will then switch off phone just when you've started getting your hopes high that u've tracked down the elusive guy after all. (And all that after you've chewed off your nails in apprehension thinking that you'll forget to ask ethng u meant to ask if he picked up the phn so why call him anyway)
Well, a day, a day. no probs. okey-dokey.
Got to read about 4 lines of chatwin's songlines today. wow, great. if that's how life's gonna be as a scribe, I can forget ever sitting down to read anything ever. All I'll be doing is researching stuff on google for absurdities to shore up my art.s with. I am afraid I'll even forget to miss JU.
Oh JU. I love you so much. Haven for misfits is so right. And it also gives you a kind of pleasure to see all the straitlaced ones who give you such hell in their kind of environments getting to see the other side of the coin. But it's sad really. Coz JU really takes everybody in and makes it a kind of home. All it asks for is a kind of basic honesty to yourself. I didn't give it all of mine. That's the only pity. And quietly, the biggest one. Coz it's just my size.
And another reason to crib. I haven't got anti-spam thng. on my comp. So keep getting these 'Crazy Girls' adverts. i am sick to death of seeing immense boobs. Really.
Have an interview where, a friend tells me, I'll be asked strange ques.s.
From a long time ago.
I have now become greatly a part of the consumerist horde. I watched hours of television today, will go and buy clothes a few days later, having bought clothes a few days back.
I also watched Khela, like every self-respecting bangali worth his aantel soul. It was very good, by the way. It was a film about a film shoot, right, and for the first time, probably, I wished I could do something like that, be a part of a shoot, I mean, it was a glimpse into a world, like, and I liked it. The vivacity, fluidity, etc etc. I would be glad if I could work in some capacity on this director’s set. Just wishing, mane who knows, he might be a gorgon, for all I know.
And I also wanted to say that I like this song: Ha rehum, I think, from the film Aamir. They were showing it on television today. I dislike the hero’s voice, and I didn’t care to watch the film. It might be good, etc, but I am not obligated to watch it, am I? I did watch Hum Tum, parts of it, hee hee, and liked bits. Very overstressed, and Rani Mukherjee wears hideous make up ALL the time, and looks like a martyr, but there’s this Punjabi MC version of the Hum Tum song I always liked. Well, this is all about popular culture and I am getting a humongous dose of that for now. I also think Akshay Kumar is a good actor, by the way, and that Bhool Bhulaiya is a fine film in parts. Saw Road to Perdition too, which I didn’t like. I had forgotten it was by Sam Mendes, a pointless film it was. And I liked the kid Mike so much too. But then, oh whatever.
The real reason for writing here after such a long while:
I was watching a piece on Nat Geo about this area in ?? where the brown bear lives. It is a cousin of the short faced bear that went extinct when temperatures started cooling. These bears thrive on the shorteye salmon (the salmon is the life blood of the entire ecosystem of the area). These salmon (and we’ve heard this story before) travel upto 60,000 miles in their lifetime. They are born in the river in this area, and soon after, head out to sea. They travel up to?? And then swim back to return where they were born,to breed. They travel upstream, in the face of really fast currents, and they are so frenzied by then, they can’t even stop to eat. It is during this return journey that the bears lie in wait for them, snapping them up as the fish launch themselves against the current. By the time they arrive, they are completely sapped of energy. The silver green salmon turn a bright red. They lay their eggs, fertilized by the male fish, and then they die.
Nature generally has it figured right, don’t you think? I think of the Aborigines, who go walkabout, and well, Chatwin who spoke of the instinctive need for mobility which, under the urge to be settled, you ignore. The fish have it figured, don’t they? They are born, and as soon as they are able, they set out. They travel the world, and then they return, home. There is a sense of rootedness, it is so beautiful, so beautiful. I wish I were like the salmon, that thought were given over to instinct, always correct, always homing to where you wanted to be, without even knowing.
To turn red like the salmon, and to die…. I think I love the world so much…
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Oli's (original post here: http://www.arcche.blogspot.com/2011/09/normal-0-false-false-false-en-gb-x-none.html)
Prayer for travelling people
If it is evening when
they set out,
collect them into the last light
and make it dawn for them.
If someone
kissed them
goodbye, let them both
remember.
Give them fewer waits at airports
or train stations or bus stops
or
rickshaw-stands. Mostly,
give them breath to
walk
far and wide and with
clouds catching their eyes.
Keep them warm.
Give them silence if they
are happy. Give them
conversation if they
are
in themselves alone
and thinking not just of
passing from
place to
place but of passing the
very world by.
Bring to them the
kindness of strangers.
Fill their eyes.
Let there be someone,
when they arrive, to
bring
them home.
Is marriage bred out of tiredness? I saw Little Children
today and it touched and built up to a crescendo in the end and I longed for a
similar plenitude of drama in my life. And the music in the end was beautiful,
quite. And I read the last part of the Eragon trilogy a few days ago and I’ve
been meaning to write about it, because it struck me so hard in the way
pleasure, fun, enjoyment becomes more and more rarefied until it is completely
banished from the psychological landscape of the book. Eragon, along with all
the major characters in the book, except Roran, follow the path of duty,
without any sense of doubt or beyond a longing for what they leave behind. It
struck me as so very curious, in that it’s written by a guy who’s barely out of
his 20s himself and he’s writing fantasy, right, which is, after all, wish
fulfilment. And though I found it very disturbing when I read it, I recognise
it as the same satisfaction one gets when I work when I want to do fun things,
because it means not having the sick feeling one gets when the weekend is at an
end and there’s tonnes of work to finish.
I am considering making this a private blog.
Monday, January 09, 2012
The plumber told me on the naked terrace yesterday, while I looked around for the first time at the crumbling concrete vista below, that marriage, money and something else only comes to those who are fated to have them. Going by how people marry here in the same way that bunnies mate (no idea if they do, really. The bunnies, i.e. The people definitely marry voraciously), you would think it would need a hand of fate to not marry. But it's something to think about. Very scary, the thought of spending the long, long years alone, or making them a blur that does not matter. What if, though? I thought while returning home today that it would be comfortable to be married. To sign a document and that would guarantee extra closeness and fewer questions asked. But that doesn't really happen. And I would be happy to marry, but not to stay in Calcutta for it. Right now, I'm getting the feeling that I am done with Delhi. I would like to go live in Bombay. But that would be another upheaval, perhaps a furthur moving away from the boy. Maybe the money won't be enough to support two people and a dog as comfortably as I can now. It would be so nice if he and I could go live in Bombay, but that I suppose is not to be. Nothing else but living till eternity in the city of my birth can be accomplished with ease.
Meanwhile, the real winter is happening, finally. Gah!
Meanwhile, the real winter is happening, finally. Gah!
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