I was subbing a copy on a science show. It dealt with pressure, density and vacuum and brought forth these images from Class VII, the terror, the rough-paper of the physics book with its killingly bland diagrams that today seems curiously maya makhano because I remembered baba drawing those experiments again and again to explain those principles to me. And they seemed so tough, so tough and baba would say, how can you find it boring? It’s so interesting, it explains everything. And pressure was a terror, and I was always a very average student, but I remember I did well in the class test and I remember the teacher’s opaque recitation of the principle, smooth voice and smoother handwriting and red lipstick. She thought she was explaining and the smart ones in class probably got stuff too, despite the bad teaching. But it seemed so like a puppet talking. I know because I have spoken like that sometimes, with my mind completely somewhere else, and people haven’t understood even though I wasn’t saying a thing wrong.
But think how pressure diagrams can seem so loving in recollection, even the fear and the hate.
Is literature, writing, feeling an exercise in indulgence? I thought I would leave all that behind, but it has gripped me again. And I am without any spine to deal with it except to take refuge in silence. Also, it seems so infernally stupid that I have nothing to say. So I choke with rage and sputter.
(the pic is a refraction diagram. Eta slightly easier chhilo)

I feel very very depressed. When will this ever end? When will I have, among other things, nice delicious sex?
But that’s not the worry exakly. What is, is how depressing everything. I am 26, not on the road to what I want to do. I want to quit and sit at home and then find something else to do, apply to begin with. If that doesn’t work, something else. I am tired of being cautious, of distrusting my instincts, of second-guessing myself constantly. We are all given what we deserve.
I got myself a beautiful blue book shelf, it’s huge, tall and wide.
I have a black, soft dog who looks at me demandingly, with complete conviction that I am the one she will go to for whatever it is she might be wanting. She yelled in rage when I came back home last night, at having been shut out for so long (two hours). She sleeps curled up on her paws at the foot of my bed and lies lazily on her stomach beside me, her fat tail erect after I have just woken up and am deciding to get out of bed.
I watched a serial about vampires and people yesterday. Six episodes back to back. The concept is awfully kinky, but the acting is quite awful, it’s so sad. They think they can pull it off by piling on the sex appeal and shut out every other aesthetic sense? But there’s also this town, Bon Temps, which is almost a village, really, and there’s this tremendous atmosphere: the black woman who is a complete drunk and a devout Jesus groupie, mane oi bhishon classic Bible belt stuff, like, who goes to an Obeah (that what they call traditional healers/ mystics???) to get the demon (the alcoholism) out of her. This Obeah drowns a caged possum, into whom the demon has passed into, in a tub of water. There are layabouts, like Jack Stackhouse, mama’s boys, over the hill, heavily-made-up, thrice-divorced waitresses. And then, ah then, there’s the vampire bar Fantasia and fang bangers, who like to hang out with vampires and being bitten by them. And True Blood, artificial bottled blood for vampires trying to go mainstream into society. There are vampire rights groups and staid vampires who watch TV and invite prostitutes for a shag in exchange for blood, a potent aphrodisiac and rich, spoilt hippie girls who are addicted to it.
Then there is the broad broad accent that’s wonderful. I really love it.
The title song is the kinkiest. I had initially thought it was real footage put together, but found they’d actually gone and shot it. Tar moddhe, there’s a shot of wall graphiti saying ‘God hates fangs’ and a newspaper headline saying ‘Angelina Jolie adopts vampire baby’. Both of these two were told me by the boy, which effectively lured me into wanting to watch the series. And then I armtwisted him into downloading the season for me as a birthday present. Sweet love, hahahahaha. So, he doesn’t like it, because it’s not interesting enough, which I see. It won’t hook you, or exhaust you like House, by engaging your head, emotions, curiosity at the same time, giving rise to a thousand possibilities. But oh, ah, I am sold on all of what I wrote before.
All of it so so kinky and only if there was a thaash bunot, it could be so much more. Eesh, aha re. Mane, the sexy vampire Bill Crompton looks like a complete addlehead, off his rocker, when he smiles dnaat ber kore. Karon, haashle toh dnaat berobei, so you can’t really help it. That’s unfortunate. And Anna Paquin’s always had very curious expressions, mismatched with what she’s saying. Now you know it’s just that she can’t act. Also so unfortunate. I want to think that southern 25-year-old women who can listen to other people’s thoughts are like that, mane, not earthy, sweaty, in-you-face like us. Perhaps they do have this kind of fogginess.

It’s a pitTy, really. I wish Alan Ball had directed it too.

I want to leave, dear whoever you are that is sunshine and all things hopeful, help me go away. I want to breathe, not feel mouldy dampness clinging to every breath I take, not struggle to talk, to think, because all that you do makes you want to bolt, revolts your senses.

1. Bare jeans suck. Unequivocally. Their bad fit is unparalleled. I have seen no worse in my short jeans experience.
2. I had horrible momos the like of which I haven’t had in a while. Probably a close parallel would be momo in a hari of shinni, as a friend of Madhura and Dibbo saw in a dream.
3. I was sitting outside a shop beside Chungwa today, shortly after the ore baba, live music session had ended. Singers and their patrons spilled out. I sat for a very long time, nursing my tea and a Gopalji cake, bland and very soothing. No one noticed me. The singers, besequinned in shiny clothes, synthetic sarees, loudly flirted with their customers over tea and muri aloor chop. It felt good that no one considered me a presence. I have wanted that for a long time. To melt in a crowd.
There was a man among them. In his 50s, thin, balding, cheap slippers, ironed shirt and trousers who wore a watch on his right hand. He had a thin leather bag on his shoulder. He was distributing 100 rupee notes to the singers. He tried to touch the women. I am wondering, does he spend a great deal of the money he earns on this? Perhaps it’s a small pleasure in an otherwise nondescript life. I suppose one would dislike him, his lechery, his habit of giving out money. But it’s not what I feel. It feels ok.
And can I write about the clothes they wore? I can’t get over it. Or can’t have enough of it. The horribly uncomfortable-looking synthetic sarees worn in the think of summer, with choomki of the sort you used in your craftwork at school, the bangles, the lipstick. Have you liked things on others that were completely alien to you? Their laughter, toothy smiles, the chatter….. eh, the moment has passed.

4. I like solid colours, not fading ones. I almost bought a black three quarter trouser in cord that I didn’t like. I had set my sights on the sale for so long that I couldn’t bear to leave without a bargain, and the jeans, as we now know, were all from Bare, which is and always will be an unequivocally horrible brand for jeans.

Travel does not bring me exuberant happiness, I don’t find myself smiling when I am alone on a road away from home. It is perhaps a bit like Forrest Gump, who only knew that he had to run, not the why. I went on the trips I did because I wanted to go away from where I was desperately. In Darjeeling, I did not think. I think one can accept that one will not be exuberantly happy to travel, but that one will need to go away again and again, to be on the move. Perhaps it is peace for an unquiet mind in this. And reconfirming faith in oneself, in one’s ability to stand up for one’s happiness, to push one’s limits a bit for it.
I wish it is always like this. I wish to travel more and more, for longer periods each time.
When you return home, you think you are such a different person, you will certainly handle the world differently. But everything remains the same, agonizingly. You don’t find more strength to deal with your hell, you want to go away from it even more desperately.
About Darjeeling, there isn’t much to write, great food, very crowded.. I was very quiet, I hardly spoke and the slight cold makes talking something from an even rarer realm. The quiet is a very even state of the mind. I want to go away again and again.

I had an ordinary day today. The pleasure of days ordinary is that you savour simple things, things absolutely without incident. Also, like today, when I was cleaning our drawing room basin while sweltering in the heat, you feel the pleasure of it in the recollection of it more than while actually doing it.

It’s back to Calcutta summers again. You can’t walk five steps, or turn in bed without sweating a little for it. And today I watched night change into day. I’ll remember it by my first sight of the day: the loose petals of radhachura swaying in the rare cool breeze. I had watched Ugly Betty and then began watching an Indian film on world movies about a boy who becomes an elephant catcher in the forest, and nice though it was, I changed channels and found Mrs Parker and The Vicious Circle. Which I liked very much. The rhymes spoken with that tight nasal droning voice, the preciseness of the poetry, and her need for her dog. At one point, she tells her editor: “Woodrow Wilson died.” And he says, “Yes, about a year ago.” And she says something I don’t remember, but WW was her dog. And even while thinking of the dull pain of losing your dog, you think that she named her dog after the President. And the dogs change, and you think of her need for an animal, even though she can’t care for herself much. And I thought of Floppy. Her huge round soulful eyes, that stay that way even when I am late in feeding her, does she complain? Or is she too sad, resigned, or doesn’t know any better than me?

After seeing the morning, I looked up Dorothy Parker on the Net, to songs from Travis’ The Rubber Band. And I love the songs, but my head was throbbing, and I thought my eyes would melt out of my socket with the strain of it, I wasn’t wearing my specs. And DP’s rhymes in writing felt plain, a little tiresome, I wanted each song to be over so I could concentrate on the poem. And then I’d had enough. I switched off everything and went to sleep. And Floppy came in from the verandah and slept at my feet.

Ends

I am writing here after a long time. So much has happened. I think I look forward to Floppy at the end of every day. Whenever anything goes wrong, even more. You would think it’s a selfish way of looking at someone, in terms of their use for you. But as House would say, we do that with everyone. And it’s easier to think of that about people.
Things at home: I want to go away. My grandfather is going to have an operation to have a growth in his urinary bladder removed. They’ll biopsy it and find out if it’s malignant. Dadu is 83 years old. About. He can hardly walk now. His mind is lucid, though he does find it difficult to remember things, and he can’t read the newspaper. He is also very selfish. In a vocal way. Not like my father at all. Not like me either. My mother is like him.
Floppy is very naughty. She’s destroyed one sofa completely, holed the other, eaten bits of the corners of the big one. She’s also destroyed my pillow, torn two of my bedsheets. Chewed the corners of tables, broken a few plastic bowls, peed on my bed, bites and scratches us. She’s about five months old, I think. They say it’ll stop when she’s a little older. I look at her extremely grave face with the white muzzle and moustache and I cuddle her to death. She has unbelievably silky ears. I washed her forehead with shampoo today too, and it came out shiny too. I was thrilled.
A senior colleague of mine has said, if my husband and I lived together, our marriage would explode. And someone also said, she was a peripatetic prophet. She’s my classmate and married to a techie and living in America.
Because of the recession, people are all sitting tight on their jobs, even if they hate it. You are lucky to have a regular source of income. As my boss has taken a 5 month leave, I do both our work. They are 8 hour days on an average and a bit of work, but I don’t mind. For the time being. Work is perhaps always an anesthetic.
I love the songs of Gulal. My boyfriend says they are earthy. I love the full-throated singing. When Piyush Mishra sings Duniya in his perfect diction, with the Urdu words dripping from his lips, with casualness and great mastery, it seems to me, I feel intensely attracted to him. I remember his hooked face in the film and his belly straining against his vest. And then the round framed glasses
I went to the handicrafts fair today. I bought a jute owl. It has large wings and jute tassles hanging below. Met a very senior reporter there. He kept fingering me whenever he encountered me. When I returned home and thought about it, I could easily summon a dazzling smile and polite reply. But there, I was breathless.
I think I am big on gestures, but no good with actual responsibility. Right now, that doesn’t bother me too much.
Floppy is sleeping beside me on the bed. I sometimes say what my father used to when I was very small and we were in Delhi: tui meyeta chinir cheyeo mishti. The sweetness of this had been lost when I was growing up, when my father gave me a pretty bad time and the words only tasted bitter. But now he is not, and all the nice things seem better still, as real life incidents in the present don’t intervene.

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.