I could be...

1. someone dejected with the ways of life, but happy taking her dog out for a walk,watering plants, talking to birds and playing the guitar.

2. someone running an ice cream parlour at one busy corner of the city.

3. someone still plagued with dandruff and hairloss troubles and using facewash 9 times a day.

4. someone happily settled , playing with kid and husband , shouting at maids while hurrying off to office.

5. someone who has finally managed to graduate from microwave to gas cooking.

6. someone happily single, ruling workplace in the day and parties at night.

7. someone who does/doesnt get excited about train journeys or about checking co passengers' list.

8. someone who is plain happy.

9. Or someone else.


Sigh!
Btw, Happy Father's Day.

Now the thing is that, I’m utterly disgusted with my helpful/merciful/generous/compassionate/sensitive and what not nature. I can’t refuse a beggar on the road and people warn me that I’m encouraging beggary ,I can’t refuse a salesman who comes to my doorstep , churns out stories of unemployment ,his incomplete education because of lack of money and hence asks me to buy some homemade/small scale industries product. People warn me that he may be a fraud, he may have some more severe intentions.

Then I encounter people who show me prescriptions of their children/spouse suffering from some terminal illness. They ask for money so that they can atleast feel , that they had tried their best to save their loved ones. People tell me that they are fake. They are not genuine. They make up such stories and fool everyone.

And I’m tired. So, am I going to question everybody’s genuineness? What if I was in their position? What if , I was in real trouble and ran from door to door and people would dismiss my plea thinking that I’m making up stories?

So this weekend I could finally manage to make a long due telephone conversation with a long ago met not-so-long distanced friend of mine.
Actually , I fear calling her.calling her means for the next 1 hour we would be on our glorious glib talk, shutting ourselves from the ongoings of the rest of the world, only stopping when enough heat is generated between the duplex device and our auditory canal .


Calling up her means first of all mourning about our common plight of single hood. Either she’ll stance instances of how every damn dumb girl of her college is committed or I’ll make her even more sad citing stories of how the girls we found so stupid in school were dangling away with their boyfriends. Then we’ll pass some expert advices on on certain very important social issues like relationship of certain filmstars, etc, relive our old crushes and mourn again on the fact that we did nothing wild at all in all our teenage.

Last weekend , I attended a couple of unwanted weddings. No, unwantedly attended a couple of weddings. Usually in such functions, me and my brother make it a point to either stick to our father or fly to some uninhabited corner of the venue to get least noticed. So there I was, this time too , at a nook of a not so huge venue. Suddenly a huge came running towards us, with a wide grin.i wanted to play a ringtone on my cell and pretend a call has come. It was too late.


Lady:so you are Ponu’s daughter?(more grin)
Me:umm…ahhh
Now another lady comes to the picture.
Lady1 to lady 2: “ arre is not she Ponu’s daughter?”
Now, I know, and as many other known relatives say, that I don’t look like either of my parents. So I resemble this Ponu?
To my utter relief , I could see my mother , on the verge of visiting this territory
And I indeed turned out to be Ponu’s daughter. These people , who happen to be my mom’s cousin , calls her by this weird name.

Then they started talking of how I wetted their clothes when one of them took me in their lap and lo ! they started having a fight to ascertain whom I had wetted .
These conversations with unknown relatives are more tyrannical than the ragging sessions in the first year of college, I tell you.


There’s nothing good on the TV except for the new vodafone advertisement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB1UPJ4leqs

I rush down from the terrace, climb up the stairs from ground floor,poke out of the bathroom door to see this ad ,whenever I hear it being played on tv.

and i love its jingle too much:

"Everyday I want to fly stay by my side...
Everyday I want to dream stay by my side...

Every morning I wish I could just play....
Wish the mornings would just stay..."""

"My mind is a garden,
My thoughts are the seeds.
My harvest will be
Either flowers or weeds"

My father’s office tour took us to a hydel power station at the border of West Bengal and Jharkhand.
This being my first train journey since watching ‘Jab We Met’ , so..you know…expectations and imaginations were really running high !
But unlike the movie, the train was not at all empty, it was full of a shit people. The women were running around wearing a whole lot of jewellery and men in their shorts and vests!
Man! This is only a one night journey and the train compartment is no way your bedroom !so , please..
The train was another crap character, stopping at every damn station…
Ok, finally after a bad night’s sleep admist cacophony contributed by kids yelling, people fighting over their seats, TTs shouting on the top of their voices, we finally reached the station..
So for the past 3 days , I have been

* Watching village girls and women passing by merrily , clad in clothes of brightest possible colours !

*Visiting the hydel power plant. Its Asia’s largest pumping project, done in collaboration with Japan.
Construction wise, it had an upper dam, lower dam and the usual switch gears,lock gates, turbine chamber, control rooms.
This visit made me realize how vast the difference between theoretical knowledge and practical experience is. I did not have the slightest hint how huge a transformer can be and what complexities it can have in its construction, whose circuit diagram we draw at one go of the pen!
The job in the field and control rooms involve a lot of expertise and tension.

*Visited the ‘Charak mela’…this ‘mela’or fair held in the villages of West Bengal for the last 3 days of the Bengali year, is all about fanatics and faith at its extreme.
People walk barefoot on burning coal,jump bare bodied on sharp iron rods, dangle a child with his body pierced brutally, from the top of a huge stick, hurting oneself in the name of god, and to top it all, on the final night they have 300-400 slaughterings.
The traditional ‘Chau nach’ is probably the only creative aspect of the fair.

*Ram navami was also slated then, when the streets came to standstill with people displaying fights with sticks and swords.

*Our driver took us to a place where bangles of hand made from ‘gala’ . it involved lot of persevearance and creativity. From next time, I go shopping , I’ll try not to bargain for handicraft goods. Their prices are justified.

*Walked the village roads in the mornings,chased herds of goats, took snaps with calves, ate at dhabas of truck wallahs in the afternoon , and counted stars in the evening lying on the terrace of our guest house!

Then , again, there was the inevitable train journey.
This time around, the journey was smooth, if I ignore the fact that the train was running only 4 hours late.i thank the sudoku in my mobile for helping me pass my time in the station.

So back to Calcutta. The taxi breezed fast over the Howrah bridge. There’s some thing in it. Whether it’s the architectural marvel, or the fact that it bridges such a wonderful city….but everytime I see the bridge..it does something to me.....

Dear bro,

I have really lost the count of the ‘scores’ of the names I have given you in all these years , and hence let me just address you as just bro! As a 4 year old, when I came to know from my grandma that I have got a brother, my only concern for the time being was –“then who will wear all my dresses?” do you remember, when you were 3 years old, how I coaxed with you to wear my white fairy gown and and how you demanded 5 milkybars to comply to my request?

Well, life was much sweeter ,years back. Wasn’t it so? Those physical fights, complaining about each other to ma & baba, those accurate bisection of a pastry you used to make by measuring it with a ruler, those home alone evenings, those fights to snatch away tv remote ,those rain drenching together on the terrace,those culinary conquests using microwave oven—I remember it all.

You know, having a younger sibling is like having your childhood and adolescence extended. Have n’t I stayed awake with you while you were spending sleepless nights before your board exams? Have n’t I helped you with all those workbook submissions? Have n’t I brought home even a small 5 star which a friend had given me as her birthday treat? And what about those saviour acts of mine ,those blatant lies,which saved you from ma’s scoldings?

But have n’t there been times, when I was angry of you? Jealous of you?

Sure , there have been.

I hated you when you made scratches on my school copies,thus letting the teacher punish me.i hate you at times, when inspite of you being the defaulter, ma says”he is younger to you, na”. I hate you at times, when I am being compared to you.

But I love you .I love you when you make sure I have all my pens in the right place on the exam day. I love you when you too settle for the butter scotch ice cream, cause I prefer it over your favourite chocolate. I love you when you agree not to tell ma, how long I chatted over the phone.i love you, when you try hard to take coins out of your piggy bank, to buy birthday gifts for me.

Thank you for all the love and care you have shown to me, thank you for all the patience you have showed to search a song I demanded, thank you for making all those powerpoint presentations for me, thank you for rushing down to ground floor to get the newspapers for me,thank you for everything else. And I assure you , there’ll be more to come!

Yours Didi

It’s a lazy wednesday afternoon, nothing interesting on the television, no friends online, no mood to study and hence this post !
Life 10 years ago
School wise , I was in 4th standard. Getting up early, packing bag according to class routine the night before, waiting for the school bus, forgetting to bring the class-work-copy-and-hence-punishment—life was similar to any other kid around!
Class 5 was the year when transition from pencil to pen took place and initially we were allowed only to use ink pens and gel pens, not ball pens. So there followed blots of ink on fingers, sprinkling ink on each other’s shirt, complaints to teacher about that, and writing in the copy 100 times “I will behave properly in class”, getting it signed by parents, and showing to the class teacher!
I used to fight a lot with my brother,with him pulling my hair with all his might and me scratching him with my nails!
School was fun , with studies and lots of interhouse competitions every other day.
I had a huge collection of comics, ranging from tintin, to asterix, to archies and henry, to our desi heroes like chacha choudhary….
My ‘mama bari’was still in jamshed pur, so immediately after exams , it was fun going there and having nice time with my cousins!

Life 5 years ago
Well, it was the 2 board exams that ruled the last 5 years of my life
It was in class 9 that we shifted to a new residence from our joint family home. Things seemed to go haywire as I missed my cousins and neighbourhood friends
It was in class 10, when we stayed back to Calcutta for the first time during Durga pujas, instead of going for a trip. And since then the Pujas have got more exciting over the years, with hanging out with friends , pandal hopping night long!
School life was at its best during classes 11-12. The pressure of board exams could not mar the joys of friendship.
Then followed, college, new friends, new life. It was finaaly in college that I gathered courage to watch a movie in theatre( I had some weird uncanny inhibition of watching films in theatre!)

Life tomorrow
College is from 11 am, so I can sleep more

Five Locations I'd love to run away to
1>rajasthan – its been 9 years I went there and i’m still in love with the forts!
2>dead sea- I really want to remain floated without making any effort
3>Venice- for its water water all around
4>vizag – the city was lovely
5> any place where snowfall occurs

Five Bad Habits I have
1>licking fingers after meal – no matter how tasty the food was and irrespective of the place I am
2>opening the refrigerator every now and then
3>buying things which I know , am not going to use
4>too much cleanliness freak at times
5>absent minded ness

Five Things I'll Never Wear
1> any wear which I feel is indecent
2> too long earrings
3> tattoos
4> high heels
5> anything leather made

Five Biggest Joys at this moment
1>listening to boyzone after ages
2>a friend will come to my place in the evening
3>my maid did not show up today, so my mom has cooked the lunch, and hence the food will not be a disaster
4>i woke up at 6 a.m and studied a lot!
5>the weather is pleasant

Something to achieve by next year
Perfection and dedication

Something that impacted me last year
Watching chak de and tare zameen par in the theatres
Watching chak de was a real experience with dialogues being buried under claps and shouts
There were lots of political turmoils in west Bengal- be it the Tata factory or the Nandigram firings.

What will i miss about 2007
Being in the first year of college

ohh god! its been only 24 hrs since i have created this blog after more than 24 days of deep dilemma whether i should create a blog or not, and i am addicted to it!
yesterday , during the whole of the bus journey from my home to gariahat , i thought n thought about nothing but what to write in the next post of the blog----!
streams of thought created ripples in my mind----i visited my childhood, i recollected some stupid fights i had with my friends, the petty arguments, the never ending quarrels with my brother----everything good n bad!
i could nt sleep---i closed the eyes--but barely could shut my mind off----what should i write next? what will be the title of my next post? how long will it be? ....i thought n thought n thought......
i woke up---again thoughts n thoughts ---no college today---no going to deposit any electricity or telephone bills---no, i did nt have any fight with ma, why am i happy?? ya, i am happy ---yaaa......i created my blog yesterday!!

so, with fear & anxiety engrossing my mind, i start off with my blog on the 7th of january , 2008 !! i had this idea of starting my blog long ago, but had the fear whether i would be able to live up to the standard of writings which i have seen in other people's blogs. i visited many blogs to get an idea of what people exactly write in their blogs. the result proved to be quite engaging. some were informative--writing on various topics ranging from hard core politics to deep delving science, some blogs entirely dedicated to a film or a television programme, some blogs for a cause & some entirely serving as a platform for posting day-to-day anecdotes , taking the old version of diary writing one step further!
so, i guess , i qualify for the last option,i.e scribbling down some thoughts over here!
its not that i am a good writer, but still i have always showed enthusiasm about this particular task, be it writing for the school magazines or writing section in newspaper supplement or be it a plain letter to the editor! so with this initiative of creating a blog, i hope i will show some improvement in this field ! so, here's wishing myself all the best!!