That's what it means, or it is supposed to mean. Bhasha, shobdo, ostittwo... sob golmaal hoye jaowar poreo ki jeno ekta pore thake. Ke jane chhute pari ki na...
Kya kare zindagi isko hum jo mile,
Iski jaan kha gaye, raat din ke gile
Raat din gile…
Meri aarzoo kamini,
Mere khwab bhi kaminey,
Ek dil se dosti thi, yeh huzoor bhi kaminey,
Kya kare zindagi isko hum jo mile,
Iski jaan kha gaye, raat din ke gile…
Kabhi zindagi se maanga, pinjre mein chaand la do,
Kabhi laanten deke, kaha aasmaa pe taango
Jeene ke sab kareene the hamesha se kaminey,
Meri daastaan kamini, mere raasten kaminey,
Ek dil se dosti thi, yeh huzoor bhi kaminey…
Jiska bhi chehra cheela, andar se aur nikla,
Masoom sa kabootar naacha to mowr nikla,
Kabhi hum kaminey nikle, kabhi doosre kaminey,
Meri dosti kamini, mere yaar bhi kaminey,
Ek dil se dosti thi, yeh huzoor bhi kaminey…
There is a film that goes by the same name. I love that one. But this is not a post about that film. Although this post and that film is somewhat remotely related, it's not an influence or provocation for writing this post.
One of the ill-effects of growing up is you have less friends. At some point you realise, the circle's shrinking. So, that way it isn't a post about losing friends or lost friends too. Neither is it a post about ageing, I'm done with that in an earlier post.
One of those days, when I feel I'm growing old and I've less friends to count on than I usually had. I came back from a pandal-hopping session. Incidentally it was again a Dashami, the last day of Durgapuja. But this one has nothing to do with Durgapuja, it could've happened to me anytime. It just happened that day. I was tired from walking in the scorching sun and overeating junk-food. As I reached home, I felt not like lying down but to make myself comfortable on the wide old chair in my room, that I had to bring out for my friends. Usually the chairs in my room are smaller ones, strictly for business purpose! This one on the contrary is a old one that allows not just sitting but 'leisure'. That word is in quotes, because I'll later toy with the idea. These days it's used as a heightened platform to keep useless things like unused clay pots, boxes of rejected shoes and stuff like that. The locality where I live has a water-logging problem. If it rains heavily for a few hours, rain water starts filling inside my house. That's why there's the need of such heightened platforms. That's the time when I realise how much junk simple living can produce and since you can't throw away anything for they may be needed for some unknown cause later, one has to learn the art of junk management too! Anyway, digressions apart, I had to bring that chair to my room, since my room turned into the private party spot for my friends during the pujas. I had less chairs to accommodate more friends. It turned out to be quite thought-provoking, the chair I mean. I'm planning to keep it here, but probably I wont be able to. It occupies too much space and anyway, saving your household from rainwater is much more important than fancy thought provocation!
(Confession: I stopped writing this post sometime back, wrote and published another sudden rush of feelings. I just didn't find words, gave it a serious thought to publish this one as my first unfinished post. Anyway, the point is, much has happened when it was on hold, the feeling has kind of faded away. So there will be discontinuities and forgotten promises, if any!)
So, when I was sitting on this chair with all my new, festive clothes on and my walking shoes scattered all over the place, my eyes half closed as an aftereffect of the tiredness of pandal-hopping and overeating lousy food, this thought occurred to me. It's been long, since I've been to a 'friend's home'. This does not mean that I don't have friends anymore or I don't visit their places. In fact, I do that regularly, sometimes overdo! But as I'm growing 30, so are my friends. Quite a few of them has got married, some with children. Others are too busy with their professional lives and busy keeping up their PR. These days we hardly meet and when we do for brief evenings, it's either in a coffee shop or a bar. Even when we meet at someone's home, it's a drinking spree.
The question is, What am I missing then? The warmth is still the same with my friends, at least that's the last thing I miss. The comfort is still the same, if not more. We don't have to steal/borrow/hunt food in the home refrigerator, we just buy that on the way or even better, we make a call and order stuff! There is one major change in the whole scene though. There's no one to 'bother' us these days. Most of my friends don't live with their parents anymore. Even if they do, parents know we've grown up and it's best for the interest of both to be non-interfering. I wonder, if the concept of 'interference' and 'bothering' has something to do with 'care' and 'belonging'. Coming to the big question, what is it that makes a home a "home"? What I really miss here is that time when I can drop in at some random friend's place, uninvited, even at the oddest hour. I don't have to call them before dropping in, because I know even if they are not home, his/her parents and extended family will be accommodative enough to allow me stay there, at my leisure! They will even call my friend, if possible and tell him/her to come back asap. They will take care that I feel at home and offer me water, food, entertainment and what not? I can spend lazy afternoons,days,evenings,till they push me back home. All for my own good though; they don't mind if I stay there, but they are worried that I'll get a good bashing from my parents if I return late! They don't mind if we keep each other's t-shirts or books or geometry-box for periods long enough to forget whom did it actually belong to, but they'll be very worried if I skip a tuition class or get a bad grade! We must lower our voices while calling each other those fancy abusive names and while talking about 'sex'! We must find ingenious ways to hide the fact that we've been smoking or bunked classes and went to a film.
Coming back to where I started, what do I actually miss then? Is it just the time? Is it that parental care? Is it that sense of belonging? Or is it something more abstract and obscure? Do I miss a certain ambiance? Or is it a concept of a space that I'm familiar to and call it a 'friend's home'? Is this just a nostalgia like any other or is there a more powerful yet undisclosed indication of a possible future? Or is it just a leisurely thought of a half-awakened mind, because it had nothing to do at that very moment, that very place and felt lonely?
If I knew the answers to any of these questions, this post wouldn't have been here...
There are some moments in life when you feel like dieing because it wont be worth living after witnessing such beauty. I've got a post on hold, one that is long due now. I've started writing it, but can't really get anywhere. I may publish it unfinished. But this one, I must post now. I'm afraid I wont be able to write about it, if this moment passes. I've been checking her album. She accepted the request today and she has written a post in her blog. Can't write the words of admiration that I want to as photo-comments. It'll be too much out-in-the-open. Some feelings, you need to hide. Murmur in her ears in private, in person, silently. Can't do that either. Can't fall in love with her. Twitted the moment, "There are two ways out of her eyes, love or death..." Love is an impossible option, death isn't even an option. I hate it! I know this is momentous, but moments I believe in. Eternity doesn't have the ability to hold it. Why does it happen to me? I should be dead, or in love...
Goddess, give me a camera and let me look at you.. forever... for this moment. I wanted to die, sincerely! Call me a cynic... but that's the truth!
Tomorrow is Mahalaya, the auspicious beginning of the yearly festive season of West-Bengal, Durgapuja. For my non-Kolkata friends, this post will have a lot of local references, please bear with me.
Ashtamis have always been special for me. When I was younger, I used to go to the local pandal to offer my Anjali and probably to pray for the results that were due after the holidays or may be something more worldly, like a new cap-gun for the next Kalipuja. When I grew into a teenager, those mornings seemed a little brighter. The obvious added attraction were the members of the other gender. One of my friends once said, "Never look at a girl on Ashtami or Saraswati puja, They all look extremely beautiful on those two occasions. Even if you ogle a few, never fall in love!"
As if I never knew that, as if I was going to fall in love with all of them, as if I was going to listen to him! So, I continued to satisfy my visual domain. I hope they enjoyed that too. I didn't mean to disturb them, but if one of them actually felt so, then, "Shit! I missed you!"
There have been Ashtamis when I've spent the whole day with the woman I considered the love of my life, at least for that year, at least for that puja! There have been Ashtamis on which I have had my birthday and there was no special woman with me. So I drank to glory, did all sorts of stuff. Thanks to my friends who had to tolerate me on those days! I've had a Ashtami when I was sitting at the topmost box of a giant wheel, with the woman I was trying to impress. It stopped there for half an hour or so due to some maintenance problem. I was happy because my rival was waiting for us on the ground, he had a high BP. Hell, I liked giant wheels on that day, I was dead-scared of them before that!
But lately, I have hardly had a Ashtami to remember. These days I spend my puja days sitting idle at home or partying with some chosen friends. I hardly have a puja to remember now, they all look the same. But I can't go out of town during those days either, for that would be an act of betrayal to my beloved city. I used to pandal-hop, but my friends have grown old and it's no fun doing it alone. Young-guns wont take me with them because nobody wants a spoilsport. After all, it's their time to explore things, their way.
But as the puja approaches near, I suddenly remember a certain Dashami. I have special memories of Dashamis, those antics on the truck known as Vashan-dance and the Siddhi trips to follow. The Siddhi turned into alcohol and the antics became a convenient way to convey machismo to fellow-women! Life! Anyway, this is not one of those.
This is one piece of memory that came back to me today, like a forgotten piece of an incomplete fabric. Not that the fabric looked bad without it but it just adds a new colour to the whole spectrum. I wanted to meet this certain young lady on one of the puja days. It didn't seem convenient for any of us during the main puja days. So she asked me to come to Maddox Square on Dashami to meet her. I wasn't too happy with the idea, but I hardly had an option when she said it's either that way or nothing. I've always chosen madness over nothingness!
Most of us have never been to Maddox Square on Dashami. Maddox Square is famous for its addas on the other puja days, which now has become a bit too crowded and drunk. The calm adda spot has started giving in to commercial hot-spots and the allies of new capital. Weirdly enough, all these lasts till Nabami. I noticed it on that Dashami.
She said she'll come to play vermilion (Sindur-Khela, as it is popularly known) with friends. Though it's an activity for married women, many unmarried young girls join the game. The idea wasn't new to me, but I didn't expect her to be so enthusiastic about it. Anyway, I reached the spot and found her. Unlike the other puja days, it was a gathering of hardly hundred people, wasn't at all that difficult to find her.
She was busy playing, saw me and asked me to wait. And there I was, seated on a wooden plank, which was placed there probably to serve as a make shift stage for some show last night or may be the floor of a shop that has already been dismantled. I sat there for some half an hour. She played with her friends and strangers sometimes and I watched her. As the festival was coming to an end and the day surrendered to the evening gloom, I watched her,clad in the traditional bengali red-bordered white sari, smudged in vermilion and gloomy orange twilight, that mixed the last rays of the sun with the halogen rays of the half-lit street lamps. There she was, hardly ten feet away from me, the perfect picture of youth and glory and there was I, seated on the signs of destruction and gloom, marked by the scattered paper cups, torn newspapers and fliers used for sitting, dismantled shops and what not. She'll come to me, sit with me for a few minutes, exchange a few words and then she'll be gone again, lost in the strangers and my eyes tried their best to follow her in the crowd till she came back the next time. If and when I find her and she sees me, she'll throw a few glances that meant eternity to me.
This went on for quite some time. But as the lights started to turn into mere street-lamps and the sun was already gone, I witnessed a moment pass by. I knew inside me this woman will never be mine, she doesn't even have the slightest idea about my feelings, she's too used to attention and she is just enjoying the game. I was some twenty five-ish, she was just twenty-ish. We two were too different to be together, may be she had someone else in mind. But the sheer impossibility of the situation kind of helped the image to stay on in my mind. I knew this puja is over, this relation wont work out, but much more than that was the feeling that this moment of madness that has driven me to this place, that signifies both destruction and rejuvenation, will not be here anymore. All that is here and now, will soon be gone. Everything I may have expected is just a wishful thinking and I wont mourn their passage. But all that is here and now will never be with me ever again, is what mattered. She finally got out of the play and came to me, with two friends. Asked me to take a few snaps, I did. Sat beside me and exchanged some soft words. But by then the moment had passed, the madness had already subsided. Logic has taken its place. I took a taxi and dropped her at Dakshini, she wanted to walk past someone's house. I hardly cared. Next day was her birthday.
I thought this incident had left me that very day, but it has proved that things that I keep doing just for nothing, just to reassure myself that I'm still alive in this concrete jungle, to watch myself committing the same mistakes over and over again, are the memories that define my existence, by coming back to me on a Mahalaya morning. As I post this to my blog, the old obsolete radio in my parent's room has already started broadcasting the age old voice that any bengali will recognise, even sitting in some distant part of the world. But I don't have the moral binding to listen to it now. I'll play the downloaded MP3 sometime during the day, at my convenience.
Many men have loved the bells you fastened to the rein, and everyone who wanted you they found what they will always want again. Your beauty lost to you yourself just as it was lost to them.
Oh take this longing from my tongue, whatever useless things these hands have done. Let me see your beauty broken down like you would do for one you love.
Your body like a searchlight my poverty revealed, I would like to try your charity until you cry, "Now you must try my greed." And everything depends upon how near you sleep to me
Just take this longing from my tongue all the lonely things my hands have done. Let me see your beauty broken down like you would do for one you love.
Hungry as an archway through which the troops have passed, I stand in ruins behind you, with your winter clothes, your broken sandal straps. I love to see you naked over there especially from the back.
Oh take this longing from my tongue, all the useless things my hands have done, untie for me your hired blue gown, like you would do for one that you love.
You're faithful to the better man, I'm afraid that he left. So let me judge your love affair in this very room where I have sentenced mine to death. I'll even wear these old laurel leaves that he's shaken from his head.
Just take this longing from my tongue, all the useless things my hands have done, let me see your beauty broken down, like you would do for one you love.
You didn't even have any idea whether you could have him or not. He knew there's a possibility that he can have you. I know I can never have you. Who's the best lover then?
I've always fallen for women I can never get.
Love isn't charity, that I should be happy with what you've given to me. It's like rights, either I have it completely, or I don't.
The moments we enjoy together are for both of us, but the pain that is there is only mine. You have no right to take it away from me.
Usually we all search for perfection. The perfect friend, the perfect home, the perfect lover, the perfect holiday.... and obviously the perfect life! "Perfect"! huh! And we all know, it's impossible! there is no such thing which is absolutely PERFECT. Or is there? I mean, if there is nothing perfect, then these assumptions are too perfect to be true. What a paradox this life is! Often in our search for the perfect, we fail and then console ourselves with make-shift arrangements, we manage... But sometimes, just sometimes, we stumble upon something that's just the thing we want. We meet that perfect person, arrive at that perfect place, feel we just have that perfect life... And we live happily.. just for a while... Yes, just for a while. Because after that we begin to understand that perfection is not what we want. Perfection is not worth living. We, human beings are too fuzzy to be content with perfection. Perfection is mechanical, inhuman. Once that feeling is starts brewing inside, we are no more the happy-with-perfection person. We are disturbed, we crib, we get depressed and finally we break open... No, it does not happen with all of us, not in all cases. In fact, it doesn't happen with most of us, in most cases. Because in most cases, we manage. We console ourselves, then pity ourselves, but we are too afraid to break free. We are afraid that if we do that, we'll be left alone, we feel too insecure to be insecure. But still it happens, slowly, silently... you try to stop it, mask it with all your acting skills, managing skills, being fully aware that you are just helpless. Some days you declare a cease-fire, some days you're bruised, torn apart. But you know you're not allowed to show it. In fact, you don't even know how to show it and you can't figure out what's happening to you, why is it? On one of those days, when you are absolutely confused about yourself, you do something drastic, something desperate. Sometimes it affects you so badly that it changes your life. In our search of perfection, we've found the imperfect. Since imperfection is never absolute, we are certain that we can never be happy, but this time around, we know perfection isn't happy either. Better be swinging between moments of joy and sorrow than be too sad about your happiness? Better be the insecure, politically incorrect one than be the machine-like, inhuman existence? We all make mistakes and we almost never ask for forgiveness. If perfection is just an idea, then imperfection must be the multifarious, multifaceted, multidimensional truth we all seek. I'm-perfect?
M-TV was showing it. When we grew up, there was a channel called DD2. It showed 2 hours of M-TV, from 4 to 6 in the evening, or something like that. We were not allowed to watch such 'vulgarity! But we did, who listens to 'don'ts' at the teenage? One of the videos I remember is this one....
I wasn't a fan. But some stars never "grow up". Refuse the progress of time, by embracing death before his farewell concert. Never kneel down. MJ is no more. But more than the star, it means the end of an era for us. An weird fear creeps inside me, feels like, the whole of our teenage is now part of history... dead. Can't "Beat it"....
“There is nothing more sexy in the world than a man wanting to be saved. It suggests that the man may have Depth and Sensitivity. That he wants redemption. It suggests that underneath all that trouble, there is a possibility of a SOUL. I guess many find the damsel in distress in u attractive, including me.” Good morning sms from an unknown number
"Are you serious?", she asked me. Am I serious? I've been waiting for so long to make you feel just that, I'm serious. Why so serious? Because I love you. One lazy afternoon that rolls into a cozy evening is just the setting for a matured kind of love. Call me mushy, call me romantic, the old-fashioned kind. How does it really matter? Just the day before, she gave me the first gift. It's nice. The way she gave it to me, was even better. It meant to me the care, she almost never showed for me. She's changing. She says, I'm changing too. There are certain things I hate about growing up, growing old. But there are certain others, I love. This is one of those. To be able to shake of your baggage of whatever you had gathered so far. There are moments in life, when you understand, you wont live much longer, not at least in the way you want to. Like an actor gives his best performance after the curtain rises for the last time, like a sportsman puts up his best after the penultimate whistle has blown, you live it up. You know the end is evident, you know you are too helpless to stop it, you're too skeptical to believe that it wont come. You live it up. This is too good to be true. You walk the scorching stretches of heat after doing the necessary weird stuff in life, and the last person you expect to meet is her. So, you hardly notice her. She calls you, then tells you, she'll call you up when she's free. You, being the skeptical pessimist you are, keep working your course. You almost forget about her. Somewhere deep down, you believe the call will never come. At the most she'll send a sms, which will say, "some other day probably..." or something like that. Then you come out of your self constructed closet, where you try to look busy, wearing your self-made cloak of importance! And like silently the angel of life knocks at your doorstep, you see her, waiting. Not really for you, but at the place you least expected. And you decide, this life is worth giving a try, once more. So, you drop the duties and be there. Not because you can let go, but because you feel like! and then finally, you gather the courage to ask her out, in full presence of her friends. Not that they'll mind, but somehow, it used to look odd. Then you land up in a place where you can actually be cozy with her. Cozy enough to be able to talk to her, watch her cruising through the books, steal glances of her, be close enough to breath on her neck. You just want to kiss her there, but you know that'll be too much. And you enjoy the sweet pain of helplessness and and she enjoys her toothache because you are happy to be with her. At some point, she actually wants to know about your feelings about her. You pore it out. You know it can be dangerous according to the principles you like to hold on to, but you don't care about them that much these days. She is too precious to let go, but she is too comfortable this afternoon. She's too good to be yours, but she says she's already yours, and she feels bad that you are troubled with this relationship. Then, like luck would have planned everything perfect for the evening, you decide to go for a movie. Honestly, it's trash. But that's just the best to suit the bill. Any place cozier than a film hall if you want "not to be looked at", even by her? You just feel her presence beside you. That's all you wanted, ever. The warmth of being together. Not much I suppose? It's too late and you've already promised her that you'll drop her home. You take a cab and the driver's drunk. So drunk that he escapes an accident just by a whisker all through the way. You feel worried about her, but then as you're pretensions give way to your love, because now it's too strong to be controlled, you feel like dying. You know the kind of life you want with her is not a possibility right now, so you secretly desire for a fatal accident. Impossible? So is this relationship. You truely give in to the death drive! No, it doesn't happen that way, but it would've been so good if it did. She cares.... That's good enough for now... Am I serious? Like the desert is about the rain, I am.
How does one age? Why does? The weird fact about aging is that you know you can't stop it, and the more you know it the more you age. The receding hairline, the occasional sprouts of grey, the lack of energy, the loss of flexibility, the bounds of responsibilities continuously inform you about the fact that you are, not the truant schoolboy anymore. But it's much more than all these. It is more about feeling aged than actually aging. You choose your priorities, you start planning your life, you start worrying about your future, which you secretly know, is decreasing in comparison to your past. The road behind seems to be more winding and long-trailed than the road in front. You start thinking about the finishing line and stop enjoying the race. In fact, you stop enjoying life. The only pleasure you are left with is to keep ruminating about your golden days, and you decide they won’t come back. The worst thing about aging is you start believing that you are aging and stop believing you can do stuff that will make you careless like you're 17.
But that something you like to believe may not be the truth. Even if it is, you may not lack the power to take charge and transform it. All you need is to shake of all that you've gathered so far and live like there's no tomorrow, no yesterday too! Stop planning "5 years down the line" and truly believe that you may not be alive in the next 5 minutes. Is it possible? It used to be when you were 17. You waited for the bus to come after your school, talking to your friends. When it came, you kept talking. It called for passengers. You kept talking. It started rolling. You still can't decide if you should take this one. You always knew that all bus-rides are the same, but wanted to believe that there is a better one! Or you simply didn't care. As the bus picked up speed, you decided that you should take this one. So did your friends. The bus was 10 meters away from you, and you started to sprint. You never knew, if you'll able to catch it. You never thought if you miss it or loose grip, what tragedy should befall on you. You just didn't care. Planning was never a part of the plan! Responsibility was just another word!
When you start aging, you start having 'get-together's, you stop just 'meeting'. But sometimes, just sometimes, life has other 'plans' for you! So, you get together and drink up. Drink up to glory, as if it'll stop the abuses from your boss, as if it'll compensate your loss, as if it'll give you back the days that you never planned to be 'enjoyable'. Somehow, everybody drinks without any reason but everybody wants an excuse. An excuse to justify, but to whom and why? Anyway, everybody finds one though, every time. So you celebrate that a friend's wife isn't home, you celebrate you've bunked office mid-week, celebrate that you got drunk the last night... and you meet up. As always, some arrive late. Some complain about that. Then you find the liquor shop closed, because no body remembered it's a 'dry-day'. Then the hunt begins and eventually you get everything that you needed, but you forget the dinner. As usual, you push each other to go buy food but nobody seems to leave. As the bottles start getting empty, the debates heat up. From politics to cinema, from music to in-laws, for and against marriage and all that's under the sun.
You eventually feel hungry and you don't have the number for the home delivery. You realize it's late enough to go home. But then, someone proposes, let's not go home tonight, let's enjoy the night, let's go for a drive. And somehow, none of you seems to have a problem with the idea. You know you've classes tomorrow, you've an important meeting, you've to reach early... You tend to forget, you've a 'home', where you'll have to explain a lot of things for this weird decision, you can't even guess what your special ones, your spouse, your parents or whoever you 'care' about will do if they come to know about this. You know they’ll eventually come to know. You just don't care. So, you decide within 5 minutes, make a few phone calls within 15 minutes and within the next 20 minutes, you're on the road, in a friend's car, who is as dead-drunk as you are! Those who are a bit too enthusiastic, sends a few sms too people he knows will feel the punch. Those who are not so eccentric, switch off the phone. You remember, you never had one, when you were 17! The best part of the whole story is, you don't know, where you'll be going, when you will come back, if you do, at all! How weak and useless your long decided 'plans' feel before such an impulse. You have simply let it go...
So, you roam aimlessly for sometime, and then hit the highway. You have no idea where it leads to, but who wants to go on a journey, that has a destination? You hit the highway, because you know it’s not going to end soon. Somewhere deep in the night, in the middle of nowhere, you find a food joint. You stop and have food. After all, you felt very hungry quite a long time ago! But once the food is in, the 'plans' are out again... and you hit the road once more. You know you can't go back. Your landlord has closed the door for the night, you've declared you're staying over, you've even informed your parents or in-laws that one of your friends is injured and you are in the hospital! Yeah! He is driving the car actually, but that’s not a surprise at all. You've always come up with innovative and strong alibis, for coming home late from school!
You hit the road for the second time and this time you decide not to stop, before you are stopped. You have no idea about the roads and there is no one awake to ask for directions. The CD player in the car keep playing the songs you always cherished as a teenager. Whenever it shuffles to a song that you don't know, you skip it. Huge trucks whoosh past your car, the line of trees that marks the end of the road in the dark, look like some dangerous forest, visibility is down to 4 meters. Pack after pack, cigarettes provide the light to the interior of the car, the cold drink bottles where you had mixed your last bit of alcohol pile up at the back. Then you feel it once more, the sense of responsibility that has been burdening you for last 4-5 years is somehow gone, you have not only stopped planning things, you have stopped worrying how and when you'll die. Just like you never cared about your grades and its consequences when you were 17.
Finally, at some point near dawn, your car has to stop. You’ve reached the sea. You can't go on any more. So, you sit beside the sea for sometime. The night appears to fade and give way to the new day. You have a cup off tea. You watch the sun, rise from the waves. You have reached a new dawn.
Then you turn back, for you know you must go back to your routines. This time the road seems shorter, even if you know you'll have to drive back the same 200 kilometers that you've already traveled. By now, you feel a little sleepy. Those heated debates that kept you awake through the night, seem to have lost their significance. The dizziness that kept you guessing about the uncertainty of your life is gone. The heat of friendship, which made you comfortable in the stuffy car, has started giving its way to more material concerns. As you reach the limits of the hometown, you start strengthening your alibis. Those responsibilities that always felt like a burden to you, comes back. You have to 'drop' your friends at their respective places. Everything seems to fall in place. The well chalked out 'plan' of life takes over once more. But as each friend wave to you before turning back for the last time, each of you know, you feel like 17, again.
It's Christmas time in Washington The Democrats rehearsed Gettin' into gear for four more years Things not gettin' worse The Republicans drank whiskey neat And thanked their lucky stars They said, 'He cannot seek another term They'll be no more FDRs'
I sat home in Tennessee Staring at the screen And an uneasy feeling in my chest I'm wonderin' what it means
So come back Woody Guthrie Come back to us now Tear your eyes from paradise And rise again somehow And if you run into Jesus Maybe he can help you out Come back Woody Guthrie to us now
I followed in your footsteps once Back in my travelin' days Somewhere I failed to find your trail Now I'm stumblin' through the haze But there's killers on the highway now And folks can't get around So I sold my soul for wheels that roll Now I'm stuck here in this town
So come back Woody Guthrie Come back to us now Tear your eyes from paradise And rise again somehow If you run into Jesus Maybe he can help us out Come back Woody Guthrie to us now
There's foxes in the hen house now Cows out in the corn The unions have been busted Their proud banners torn To listen to the radio You'd think that all was well But you and me and most folks know It's going straight to hell
So come back, Mahatma Gandhi Rise up, old Joe Hill The barricades are coming down They cannot break our will Come back to us, Malcolm X And Martin Luther King We're marching into Selma As the bells of freedom ring
So come back Woody Guthrie Come back to us now Tear your eyes from paradise And rise again somehow
When some random thoughts come to my mind and I can't access the net, I write them as long text messages and save them. Often I delete them, forget them, but I put up a few in my blog. New developments.. hmm.. This one's from last night..
In our pursuit to legitimize the 'other'/marginal' we often forget that the 'dominant'/'normative' is also a position. One can choose that, being fully informed and empathetic to all possible positions. Once two people start their journey towards the different possible positions of a relation they have to make an effort to negotiate each other. What's lost in this process is the spontaneity of a relation. After a point they may not be able to bridge the gaps anymore. A relation depends on spontaneity when it's a breathing space for the persons involved. After that, it's just role-playing.one gets bored with that, when one is able to understand that. The "pleasure contract" breaks down.
hmm.. a lot to worry about. I found another forgotten sms, but I'm not in the mood to put it up here right now.
I'm gradually learning not to get attached to people, to manipulate things, to pretend like a chameleon.. no, not like chameleon.. like a human instead.. since the later kind seems much more skilled in that.. attachment is bad. i always knew it. but then that's human nature, to pretend, to act against oneself. i thought i am more than what i am. consequences... that's what people call "fraud", "ditch", "breach of trust".. etc etc... that's what people call, "taking advantage" but then, are we not always told to, taught to do just that? take advantage? the whole human civilization progresses on that.. progress.. such a funny term! do we "progress" in love? affection? relationships? does relationships "progress"? at what point do you decide that you don't need someone? something? what do you decide to do after that? with it? with yourself? burn it? throw it? crush it? forget it? ignore it? REPRESS IT? IT will Return.. for sure.. yeah! psychoanalytic crap! what did you expect? Intellectual debates?
Vision is cursed.. when you see something you want to touch.. you desire... you are cursed, you already know you can't touch it, have it like you wanted... touch is cursed... sound is cursed too.. why did you have to listen to all those you ever heard? life would've been easier, probably.. if you didn't... world would've been a better place, if you couldn't remember... feel... or it would've been much worse.... jhor asbena.. ashena... "shudhu ashe firey bedonar chapa kanna..." and you weep... deep inside... can't show, can't see either.. you can't even feel.. but you do feel... and you almost know, there isn't a single you... you can almost touch that.. but what? Knowledge is cursed... Cursed is this existence...
Anindya da, We were right. Dev wanted someone who'll just shut up and listen. HELL, they blabber too much! But then, Dev wanted a redemption too... which never happens and I know you differ. Can't help that too.. But let's not play the "who's more affected" game. We already know what everybody knows!
I seem to have lost my mind. Can't remember things, randomly! And keep remembering things that I shouldn't have. Can't find my complete Ghazal collection, 2 DVD's. One of them being a 8.5GB one. Can't remember whom did I give many films from my DVD collection. The very best of contemporary Hindi Cinema. My research material! And I've started finding weird stuff from completely unexpected places. It was fun when I used to find a coin or two from the pockets of some trouser that has already been washed. That doesn't happen anymore.
Found a long text message saved in my drafts. If sent, it'd take the length of 5 sms. It says,
"Given my situation, I can have a beautiful life, if a few lives are destroyed.But everything else will remain beautiful if I get destroyed instead. I'm too tired of sacrifices, this is the only time I wanted someone so passionately, selfishly for myself. Destiny it seems, I loved you... with all my existence, beyond morals and possibilities. Only once I wanted to become myself, beyond my projected self. Only this once, I wanted to spend my whole life with someone. Turned out to be the greatest mistake of my life. Hope you'll live happily ever after in the life you chose. Wish you all the luck and yes, goodbye... forever."
I forgot it existed, but I remember why I wrote it. Why? I can't rectify those grammatical errors and I don't wish to do so. Since when did language started belonging to the ambit of desire? Deleted..
I was looking for a note that may reveal, who has got the DVDs that I need and can't find. I know my friends have got them and I usually never write it down, but still... may be I had, because sometimes I write them in some diary or pad, whatever I find ready at hand, then forget, usually! Didn't find what I was looking for, but found this note at the last, torn page of one of the pads...
"Why do you care,even if I'm not well? You've certain expectations from me, though you deny that. In fact, I would say all of us enter into some kind of relationship with a charter of demands on our mind. You should be happy that you're getting what you want. Yes, you had to experience a few hick-ups in the beginning, but I guess that's part of the deal, isn't it?"
Since when did I start scribbling such stuff? Strange!
Ekta pen drive kinechhi. Agey ekbar ekta kinechhilam, seta bari niye ashar agei rastay kothay ekta pore gelo. Hate it! Sei shok-e r kena hoyni.. etodin-e kinechhi and I love it!
Agerta 2GB chhilo, eta ekkebare 16GB... Yes, you read it right!16GB.
Well, I usually overdo it, when it comes to digital technology. So, here's more... read it or shut up!
Features
Fully compatible with Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Easy Plug and Play installation JetFlash® elite Software pack includes: -PC-Lock Function: Makes JetFlash® a key to lock your computer -Secret-Zip Function: Compress and/or Password protect saved files using AES Encryption -E-Mail Function: Use your JetFlash® to Securely Send, Receive and Save e-mails -AutoLogin Function: Automatically login to websites where you have a password -Favorites Function: Store all your favorite website addresses on the JetFlash® -DataBackup Function: Backup, Restore and Synchronize your Data using the JetFlash® Driverless USB powered. No external power, or battery needed
Specification
Dimensions: 60mm x 16.5mm x 8.1mm Weight: 7g Certificates: CE, FCC, BSMI Transfer Speed: Read 14 MByte/s, Write 8 MByte/s
