Yay! I have only nineteen days left to go to be back in my Swades. This isn’t some NASA scientist a.k.a Mohan Bhargav talking about his homecoming to his native village but an impressionable young adult yearning to be back in the midst of family, friends, Bhaski and Cheddis after seven weeks in Singapore. Isn’t it just a four hour plane journey out of Kolkata? Yes, I know in many ways one can say that Singapore is India’s best metropolis with a decent dose of fair-skinned people thrown in. But I miss my country and all the heat, sweat, grime and traffic jams that come with it. I just can’t wait to be back in KGP bunking classes and staying up till three in the morning for the last plate of fried maggi at JCB, for the chai at Tikkas, for the endless bhaat sessions over the most absurd topics one can think of.
Singapore has been lovely though especially the last weekend. I guess it’s just one of those things that you tend to get used to. So, no matter how cozy your apartment maybe, how swanky the shopping malls, how organized the traffic- it isn’t what makes you feel at home.
Updates on my new purchases- Ipod shuffle that I can’t seem to get enough of, Canon Powershot SX210 IS digital camera that even makes my smile look natural and an electric shaver for Baba. That’s it! I am done with my gadget shopping. Having spent nearly a quarter of my salary on them, I put my hands up! But boy, does it not feel great to own these masterpieces of technology !
The last weekend was perhaps the most action packed one. Hadn’t planned it to be thus. So it seems even more thrilling that it turned out that way. Two close friends for company and my first night out in phoren land. A few lines were crossed. “Lal dupatta udh gaya re mere hawa ke jhonke se”- this jingle got immortalized in our music library for reasons having no far-fetched relations with music or melody. I traveled to the southern most point of continental Asia, watched the sunset against a picturesque blue ocean and trailed a thousand footsteps on the white sand.
And just when one thought that beauty couldn’t get more intoxicating, the full moon reminded me of a night spent under the spell of honesty and innocence when I was let into a world, familiar yet mystical at once.
It’s time to wrap up things. The shampoos, body soaps, nail polishes & chocolates are about to be piled up for people back home. I have a presentation to give for the completion of my last objective. Just hope that passes well. Had this wonderful director meeting with Harriet Guest, more like talking with a friend actually. Have never felt so good about myself after all the praise she heaped on my communication skills. I hope she meant it because I’m gonna need a lot of that in the days to come, in more ways than one.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Life is peace !
Had intended to write a much more elaborate post but so intoxicated I am with the charm of Anindo Chatterjee’s table beats drumming in my mind that I just don’t wanna wake up. A wonderful evening passed me by with the most awesome Japanese food I have tasted till now and Soha Ali Khan thrown in for some delectable dessert. Yes folks! She looks gorgeous in real life, a whole lot better than she does on the silver screen. We were just too shocked to ask for an autograph or a photo. Damn it!
And before I hit the bed on a day when a friend a few thousand miles away reminded me again and again how right it is to care and another who just seems to move away with each passing day, I donno what to say. I wish I could say , “ Why does it have to be this way ?”. But I’ll just fade away!
And before I hit the bed on a day when a friend a few thousand miles away reminded me again and again how right it is to care and another who just seems to move away with each passing day, I donno what to say. I wish I could say , “ Why does it have to be this way ?”. But I’ll just fade away!
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Just like that
Yes, it’s been a long time since my last post. A lot of water has flown under the bridge since then,literally. Nadal has been crowned the king of clay yet again, football frenzy has gripped the world and Singapore has witnessed floods. On the personal front as well, there’s been so much to talk about .I have welcomed a smartphone, a MP3 player and a brand new laptop into my family. Seriously, even for a non-gadget freak like me just the awareness that you own these cool gizmos gives an instant thrill unmatched by the joy of actually using them.
Where have I been all this while? Well except for the weekend gateway to Bintan, it’s been office-home-gym-bed-office-home-gym-bed…..,the normal routine that I have come to follow in the last one month. Somehow, I can’t seem to recollect what exactly has kept me busy in the last few days. Paying regular visits to the gym in the aspiration of having John Abraham-esque abs has been a welcome distraction. Working out really makes you feel good about yourself and the momentary pain and tiredness is what I have kind of come to look forward to at the end of the day. For one, it guarantees that you are dead the moment you hit the bed and you wake up feeling rejuvenated the next morning. New developments on the emotional front have left me feeling miserable and distraught at one moment, carefree and peaceful at the very next. The roller-coaster ride just does not seem to end. I consciously see myself going through this cycle of liking-attachment-expectation-heartbreak-hopelessness-numbness-realisation-selftalk-normalcy, again and again. I don’t know whether one can call it a quality but it never takes me long to come to terms with….you know what I mean. Maybe it’s because I seldom get attached to someone as intimately in reality as I think I do in my mind.
Bintan acted as the perfect mood enhancer though. To be in the midst of serenity is a humbling feeling really. Picture postcard settings start popping in front of your eyes every moment. Especially this one seaside restaurant we went to for lunch, the turquoise colour of the endless sea all around coupled with a cloudy sky created an unforgettable image that is captured in my mind for posterity. Standing on this wooden passageway that juts out further into the waters alone with just the wind and rain for company reminded me of this scene in the movie Namesake where Gogol and his father walk together on a trail of boulders into the sea and Ashok(the father) tells Gogol that here they are together, just the two of them and that he’ll always be there for Gogol whenever he needs him. I was alone and yet I felt so comforted, so gratified in the solitude just thanking the stars for being kind enough to have brought me here. Almost as if the Gods had destined it to be thus when all of us were getting a little iffy about the weather getting worse thus robbing us of the chance to try out the water sports, the clouds parted and Bintan was bathed in sunlight once again. Time to try out some thrills and spills. Over the next three hours, I went through the most freakishly frightening yet immensely thrilling time of my life . Thrown out of the banana boat, gliding on the waters in a jet ski at top speed and going amateur snorkeling under the blue sea- what more can one ask for! We called it a day after a round of beach volleyball and sipping some chilled coconut water at the beach restaurant. Tired as hell, I hit the bed early. Not even the mouthwatering prospect of tasting Chivas Regal for the first time in my life could keep me up.
But we weren’t done with Bintan yet. How could we without some traditional Balinese massage to cool down( or maybe spice up) things a little? And man, was it relaxing or what! Yes, the masseuse was female. Yes, we had nothing but briefs on. Yes, there was music and dim lights. But that’s about it. An hour of unadulterated pleasure passed me by in a flash and before one knew, I was done with my first visit to a professional massage parlour. Phew!
Another week is almost done and dusted. We are off to Malaysia tomorrow. Time to throw caution to the wind and try out some real stuff, stuff that I’ve been told is very easily accessible out there. Meanwhile on the work front, which I hardly ever talk about even though I’m officially on an internship, my midterm appraisal went well. Got a B which is decent. The highlight though was this meeting that I had with the Asia head of my division and he seemed really impressed talking to me. To top it all, he even talked about it to my manager just before we were to go for the midterm appraisal! The Gods do smile on you sometimes. It was one of those occasions and I couldn’t help feeling, “ Maybe I am not as hopeless as I make myself out to be”. One really needs these moments of self belief you see, when circumstances conspire to elevate your mood and you learn to start appreciating yourself for what you are, not for someone else you would like to be. Leaving with that thought, I’ll say “Truly Asia”- Here I come!
PS: Made a video on my new touchphone on the beach at Bintan , the All-Souls-Bared kind. Dunno whether I ‘ll ever bring myself to showing it to the Subject, though.
Where have I been all this while? Well except for the weekend gateway to Bintan, it’s been office-home-gym-bed-office-home-gym-bed…..,the normal routine that I have come to follow in the last one month. Somehow, I can’t seem to recollect what exactly has kept me busy in the last few days. Paying regular visits to the gym in the aspiration of having John Abraham-esque abs has been a welcome distraction. Working out really makes you feel good about yourself and the momentary pain and tiredness is what I have kind of come to look forward to at the end of the day. For one, it guarantees that you are dead the moment you hit the bed and you wake up feeling rejuvenated the next morning. New developments on the emotional front have left me feeling miserable and distraught at one moment, carefree and peaceful at the very next. The roller-coaster ride just does not seem to end. I consciously see myself going through this cycle of liking-attachment-expectation-heartbreak-hopelessness-numbness-realisation-selftalk-normalcy, again and again. I don’t know whether one can call it a quality but it never takes me long to come to terms with….you know what I mean. Maybe it’s because I seldom get attached to someone as intimately in reality as I think I do in my mind.
Bintan acted as the perfect mood enhancer though. To be in the midst of serenity is a humbling feeling really. Picture postcard settings start popping in front of your eyes every moment. Especially this one seaside restaurant we went to for lunch, the turquoise colour of the endless sea all around coupled with a cloudy sky created an unforgettable image that is captured in my mind for posterity. Standing on this wooden passageway that juts out further into the waters alone with just the wind and rain for company reminded me of this scene in the movie Namesake where Gogol and his father walk together on a trail of boulders into the sea and Ashok(the father) tells Gogol that here they are together, just the two of them and that he’ll always be there for Gogol whenever he needs him. I was alone and yet I felt so comforted, so gratified in the solitude just thanking the stars for being kind enough to have brought me here. Almost as if the Gods had destined it to be thus when all of us were getting a little iffy about the weather getting worse thus robbing us of the chance to try out the water sports, the clouds parted and Bintan was bathed in sunlight once again. Time to try out some thrills and spills. Over the next three hours, I went through the most freakishly frightening yet immensely thrilling time of my life . Thrown out of the banana boat, gliding on the waters in a jet ski at top speed and going amateur snorkeling under the blue sea- what more can one ask for! We called it a day after a round of beach volleyball and sipping some chilled coconut water at the beach restaurant. Tired as hell, I hit the bed early. Not even the mouthwatering prospect of tasting Chivas Regal for the first time in my life could keep me up.
But we weren’t done with Bintan yet. How could we without some traditional Balinese massage to cool down( or maybe spice up) things a little? And man, was it relaxing or what! Yes, the masseuse was female. Yes, we had nothing but briefs on. Yes, there was music and dim lights. But that’s about it. An hour of unadulterated pleasure passed me by in a flash and before one knew, I was done with my first visit to a professional massage parlour. Phew!
Another week is almost done and dusted. We are off to Malaysia tomorrow. Time to throw caution to the wind and try out some real stuff, stuff that I’ve been told is very easily accessible out there. Meanwhile on the work front, which I hardly ever talk about even though I’m officially on an internship, my midterm appraisal went well. Got a B which is decent. The highlight though was this meeting that I had with the Asia head of my division and he seemed really impressed talking to me. To top it all, he even talked about it to my manager just before we were to go for the midterm appraisal! The Gods do smile on you sometimes. It was one of those occasions and I couldn’t help feeling, “ Maybe I am not as hopeless as I make myself out to be”. One really needs these moments of self belief you see, when circumstances conspire to elevate your mood and you learn to start appreciating yourself for what you are, not for someone else you would like to be. Leaving with that thought, I’ll say “Truly Asia”- Here I come!
PS: Made a video on my new touchphone on the beach at Bintan , the All-Souls-Bared kind. Dunno whether I ‘ll ever bring myself to showing it to the Subject, though.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Why I have come to believe in stars?
I am in a quandary again. A zillion thoughts race through my mind which I would like to see penned down in words the moment I see them in my head. It’s like wishing there was a genie inside your brain who would instantly interpret the random images that flash by and capture their essence in words just the way you want it to.
It’s been happening to me quite often of late. I experience these euphorically hysterical moments of sheer amazement where my mind roams free of all earthly concerns, wrongdoings and right-doings into a field where I see things around me exactly as I want them to be. Probably, this is a side effect of reading and re-reading Rumi and Khalil Gibran and Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam over and over again in the last few days. It leaves you with quite a different kind of hangover in which to dream is the only way to live, to ‘love and lose’ is not something to cry over but smile at. If ever one had any doubt whether a poet can encapsulate the entire universe of human emotions in a single book or a single verse, Khalil Gibran and Rubaiyat have been complete eye openers . I am not capable enough to even talk about their writing but all I’d say about how I felt after reading them is this-“ He is like a man looking with a candle for the sun”-Rumi. I was looking for relief and I found revelation (in more ways than one).
It’s been happening to me quite often of late. I experience these euphorically hysterical moments of sheer amazement where my mind roams free of all earthly concerns, wrongdoings and right-doings into a field where I see things around me exactly as I want them to be. Probably, this is a side effect of reading and re-reading Rumi and Khalil Gibran and Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam over and over again in the last few days. It leaves you with quite a different kind of hangover in which to dream is the only way to live, to ‘love and lose’ is not something to cry over but smile at. If ever one had any doubt whether a poet can encapsulate the entire universe of human emotions in a single book or a single verse, Khalil Gibran and Rubaiyat have been complete eye openers . I am not capable enough to even talk about their writing but all I’d say about how I felt after reading them is this-“ He is like a man looking with a candle for the sun”-Rumi. I was looking for relief and I found revelation (in more ways than one).
Friday, June 4, 2010
Praptoboyoshkoder jonno
A blank page has often managed to send my thoughts into a whirlpool. I have never been a person who has a very clear idea about what exactly is it that I want to write before I start writing. The titles of my blogposts bear ample testimony to that. I write when I feel that writing will make me feel good about myself and the people who make up my world. It is my own way of taking stock of where I am headed in life and acknowledging the simple yet precious gifts that I have had for company along this journey.
Unfortunate incidents in the family in the past week have made me reflect on the unpredictability of human nature and how things which one shrugs off by saying, “ These will never happen among our kith and kin”, do take place because somebody somewhere really really messed it up, and not just for oneself, but others too. How can somebody go so far down the road of deceit and self-ruin, I find the question staring me in the face. Somebody one is meant to have regard and affection for, somebody you remember having spent joyful moments with, however fleeting they may be. I guess as one grows up, our sense of right and wrong, possible and impossible, believable and unbelievable undergo a natural transition. But there are some things in life you just wish never fell into that possibility map. They are so damn disgusting! Strangely, when it did happen, beyond the initial feeling of shock and dismay, what dawned on me was the acknowledgement of how lucky I have been to have had the loving care of Ma, Baba & Didi all my life. People who ensured that I had a normal childhood where Sundays meant washing our new car and playing cricket with Baba. One might say, ”What’s so great about it?”. Well, I used to think the same way too until I saw how terribly fractured one’s childhood can become for no fault of one’s own. This is not a place to say thanks to Ma & Baba, why even saying “thanks” would be belittling their unadulterated love and affection and all the sacrifices they have made in bringing me and Didi up as normal kids who had normal joys & sorrows.
I have never had a large, extended family, the kind where mashis & meshos & pishis & mamas & their kids gather at Pujo at the ancestral house at say, Uttarpara, for four days of unbridled fun and festivities. My world has mostly revolved around my parents and my sister and Thamma & Dadu as they used to stay with us . Dadubhai is no more. Thamma, even at this age, has lost none of her silken touch at making payesh and khichuri, things she can keep on feeding you till you say ,”Na, aar paarchi na!”. In a sense, I have missed having relatives one can spend quality time with, cousins one can play chor-police and shaap-shiri with. But as time passes by and I see how fragile these relationships are becoming day by day, how relatives more often than not instead of lending you a helping hand, a comforting hug in times of trouble are only looking for ways and means to deceive you ,take unfair advantage of you and compete with you, I wonder whether I have been unlucky at all, not having these people around. I know I am generalizing way too much here. There are many families where the brothers and sisters have absolutely wonderful ties that bind them. But I guess as one matures in life with age, the inconvenient truth that one wakes upto is this. No matter how many close friends and relatives one may be surrounded by, the only ones you can trust blindfolded are your parents and siblings( some would say there’s a question even on that). But Didi , I love you like crazy and I just can’t imagine in my wildest dreams, relations souring between us ever. So I’ll stick to that. I call it the core group, people who love you for what you are and will never harm you. And even if they are upset with you , know that it’s for your own good.
I can write pages and pages on what having Ma, Baba & Didi in my life means to me. To be honest, they are my life. And I don’t know why but with each passing day, I only seem to see them in a new light where a new facet to their awesomeness gets revealed to me. Maybe I am growing up, finally!
Unfortunate incidents in the family in the past week have made me reflect on the unpredictability of human nature and how things which one shrugs off by saying, “ These will never happen among our kith and kin”, do take place because somebody somewhere really really messed it up, and not just for oneself, but others too. How can somebody go so far down the road of deceit and self-ruin, I find the question staring me in the face. Somebody one is meant to have regard and affection for, somebody you remember having spent joyful moments with, however fleeting they may be. I guess as one grows up, our sense of right and wrong, possible and impossible, believable and unbelievable undergo a natural transition. But there are some things in life you just wish never fell into that possibility map. They are so damn disgusting! Strangely, when it did happen, beyond the initial feeling of shock and dismay, what dawned on me was the acknowledgement of how lucky I have been to have had the loving care of Ma, Baba & Didi all my life. People who ensured that I had a normal childhood where Sundays meant washing our new car and playing cricket with Baba. One might say, ”What’s so great about it?”. Well, I used to think the same way too until I saw how terribly fractured one’s childhood can become for no fault of one’s own. This is not a place to say thanks to Ma & Baba, why even saying “thanks” would be belittling their unadulterated love and affection and all the sacrifices they have made in bringing me and Didi up as normal kids who had normal joys & sorrows.
I have never had a large, extended family, the kind where mashis & meshos & pishis & mamas & their kids gather at Pujo at the ancestral house at say, Uttarpara, for four days of unbridled fun and festivities. My world has mostly revolved around my parents and my sister and Thamma & Dadu as they used to stay with us . Dadubhai is no more. Thamma, even at this age, has lost none of her silken touch at making payesh and khichuri, things she can keep on feeding you till you say ,”Na, aar paarchi na!”. In a sense, I have missed having relatives one can spend quality time with, cousins one can play chor-police and shaap-shiri with. But as time passes by and I see how fragile these relationships are becoming day by day, how relatives more often than not instead of lending you a helping hand, a comforting hug in times of trouble are only looking for ways and means to deceive you ,take unfair advantage of you and compete with you, I wonder whether I have been unlucky at all, not having these people around. I know I am generalizing way too much here. There are many families where the brothers and sisters have absolutely wonderful ties that bind them. But I guess as one matures in life with age, the inconvenient truth that one wakes upto is this. No matter how many close friends and relatives one may be surrounded by, the only ones you can trust blindfolded are your parents and siblings( some would say there’s a question even on that). But Didi , I love you like crazy and I just can’t imagine in my wildest dreams, relations souring between us ever. So I’ll stick to that. I call it the core group, people who love you for what you are and will never harm you. And even if they are upset with you , know that it’s for your own good.
I can write pages and pages on what having Ma, Baba & Didi in my life means to me. To be honest, they are my life. And I don’t know why but with each passing day, I only seem to see them in a new light where a new facet to their awesomeness gets revealed to me. Maybe I am growing up, finally!
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