Of droughts and espressos

I still enjoy my beverage,

Slow and sip,

And am sure as night

That you take them for work.

 

Do you still exist?

Your favourite comedian

Has started looking like you.

The way you spoke,

Wore your sweater,

Bit your lips to hide annoyance.

 

Somewhere out there,

That is just beyond my fingertips,

I found your strokes on the paper

In two languages.

 

Always the mindful.

And I vaporized

Some milliliters of tears - 

This drought can not afford more than that.

 

Will wait for our months, I suppose - 

Clouds - storms.

Will play on boost

And silent my hum.

Will prepare myself the leisurely beverage

And an espresso for you.

Don't let it go cold.

Do exist, for it.

Back, but Why?

It’s not just difficult going back to words written when one's profession requires words spoken at a constant pace, it's daunting. What do i have to say that others have not already expressed? What do I have left to argue that others have not already pointed out? But how does that lessen my experiences in any way? I never started this blog to gain popularity or gain followers. I knew that I needed to spread my words out into the world. How many do even follow me and follow blogs anymore after all? I wouldn't even consider a single person. and maybe that's why it's much easier now to write what I wish to - knowing that hardly anyone would be interested and reading this. Isn’t there a certain masochistic pleasure in knowing that no matter how much you express, nobody will ever understand what you are trying to say?

 

I’ve been within my house for the last 5 months and still counting. If anybody reading this doesn't understand the significance of that, you are lucky. Either you are oblivious to what is happening all around, or you did not bother to check the date on which I am writing and publishing this post. These are the days of Covid19 pandemic. Period. Nobody requires any more explanation.

 

I have always been habituated with a a considerable amount of sound and noise around me. I have lived in the suburbs but the kind that is trying to make its name in the list of urban areas with a lot of ambition and resilience. So naturally, we have had an alarmingly rising number of horns honking every year. And then I moved to a more urban and sophisticated part of the city which, ironically enough, is eerily silent after sundown. We have a shopping mall about half a kilometer from our house, and that's about the only place in the neighbourhood that sees any gathering. So the first one year or so in this neighbourhood was enough to make me doubt my auditory abilities remaining intact. However, just as any other cockroach surviving on the resources received, i too got used to the lessened noise and hushed tones.

 

The last 5 months have been different, for obvious reasons. Since the days of my starting with school, i had remained at home, without any occupation, for only three months at a stretch and that had driven me to almost insanity. These 5 months have not done that, i hope, as i still have my vocation and remain busy for the better part of the day. But it has definitely made me afraid of the voices in my head. Now I completely refuse to believe that only the cuckoo ones hear the voices and the better part of the population does not. i am a firm believer that most of us hear the voices that we consciously try to avoid, just that we are not confident enough to accept that we do actually hear them.

 

So my escape-route has been adding external noise to submerge the internal ones. By the way, I never deny that I am an escapist. And I don’t even take it as an insult if anyone else calls me that, for after all the greatest knowledge is knowing the self, right? All the while, as I am working or cooking or cleaning or even brushing my teeth, I keep some music or audio book or sometimes simply old movies playing on my phone. Needless to say, it drives my partner crazy, but I suppose it is better that he turns crazy before I do! Sadist meets masochist, you see!

Epiphanies and Bollywood disappointments

So as they say, it is really not the world outside but your own heart that makes you who you are. The eternal and irreconcilable conflict of nature versus nurture, where what you are and what you are made, try to balance themselves equally trying to share the credit or shrug off the blame for the ultimate result. And thus, after an evening all by myself at a busy square in a Spanish city, I come to conclude that the exterior can not change what you feel inside unless you are ready to change it with your own conscious decision. And then you may as well be in a remote village of an unknown district of an under-developed country, but you may be a happy and content being. Well, this may not be a new revelation to many but this epiphany - when it comes on a personal level - tends to throw light on the events and their respective responses by the surrounding people.

Today, after a couple of depressing and distressing days in this foreign land, I decided to take a walk by myself. Well, I did not really walk that much, as my pedometer app showed a pretty dismal step count. Anyway, I took a tram and then a metro and went to a busy square of the city and sat there for sometime. And I spoke to two people who are pretty close to my heart, and in my home land. But those are just the inconsequential details. What I realized as I came back home was that it is really important to look at myself from a perspective. The more I am tied down by the strings and ropes of log-kya-kahenge and expectations, the less I give happiness a chance to find its way into my heart.

And the problem with happiness is that Bollywood has created such unrealistic picture of selfless love and selfless happiness that now if you try to talk of what makes 'you' happy, you sound like a selfish witch. *wink* And then again Bollywood has given such coming-of-age movies like YJHD where a Bunny still has to come back to a Naina to find true happiness and get tied down to family and Maratha Mandir's DDLJ show with popcorn. I still wonder, why couldn't he have chosen his kind of life and just gone ahead with his passions? Even at 30 and married, I simply don't get the logic of this movie. I can understand Aditi's decision that anyway she was not able to do anything worthwhile with her life, so she got married and the man was pretty docile as well, so I am sure she would have been able to continue with her wild ways every now and then that she got tired of being 'the good wife'. Anyway, it is always better to leave Bollywood to itself. May be I could write a proper review of any of the latest brainless creations like VDW. *wink*

Age has something to do with it

I know that I have never really felt my age and the post I am going to write today can be easily brushed off by terming it ‘escapist’. Yet, there is something more to it than meets the eye.

A month ago, I turned 30. Some say that age is just a number, while some say a woman should not reveal her age. I don’t agree with both groups. I don’t think that age is just a number, because every time we turn another day older, we have lost another day to time. We have lost another day to do something different, to do something better, something more. And no, we definitely do not need to hide our ages because it is not only insulting to our intelligence but also teaches us that it is okay to be dishonest and pretend that age has everything to do with beauty.

But the problem lies in the fact that I don’t think I am where I thought I would be once I reached the third decade of my life. It’s not that I am disappointed or regret anything. No, I don’t. And yet, I guess I thought I would have made at least one trip abroad by this time. May be saved more. Or been a better cook. Or even sing better.

Well, the singing part is mostly my fault, because I have stopped practising, and I hope to begin someday all over again. As for the cooking part, I try to whenever I can, and just like most people who have the luxury of hiring a cook, I like to try experiments and not the traditional dishes. But I need to concentrate on the day to day food as well, because it seems like these are the toughest ones. No, I haven’t taken any trip abroad yet, and I have not really saved up much. But the fourth day of the new year should be a good time to start doing so. And as for a trip, I did travel all by myself last year, which can be considered a real achievement for somebody coming from a protected household as mine. Well, come to think about it, I am really proud of that one trip to Bangalore.

 

And so, we come to the end of yet another post. I guess I just run out of things to write once I sit down and write. And at other times I have so much going on in my head. So it can be a good idea if I write down things at the moment and try to write them down late one. 

Bye.

BARO-BHUJA

দশটি-তে আর ঠিক কুলিয়ে উঠতে পারছেন না।

এক হাতে হাতা, তো অন্য হাতে ঝাড়ু।
তিন নম্বরে ঝোলে বাজারের  থলে,
তাতে থাকে পেঁয়াজ, আদা, আলু --
( টোম্যাটো তো আবার ওনার ও নাগালের বাইরে!)

চার নম্বরটিতে বয়ে বেড়ান মুদিখানার ফর্দ।
উনি সংসারের কর্ত্রী বলে কতা !
চাল - ডালের খোঁজ রাখেন মশাই ?

পঞ্চমে থাকতেই হবে একটি তানপুরা,
দেখে শুনে সংগীতজ্ঞা কন্যা আনা হয়েছিল যে!
ছয়ঋতু জুড়েই ষষ্ঠ হাতে থাকে একটি ছাতা,
আজকাল তো নটায় রোদ, তো এগারোটায় বৃষ্টি।
হাঁচলে - কাশলে সংসারটা কে দেখবে?

মেজাজ সপ্তমে চড়ানোর জো নেই,
তাই সাত নম্বরে থাকে ওয়াশিং পাউডার Nirma,
মেশিন থাকলেও, "একটু হাতে করে রগড়ে নেবে বৌমা?"

আহ্লাদে আটখানা হয়ে সপ্তাহের আট নম্বর দিন যখন যান বাপের বাড়ি,
আট নম্বর হাতটিতে থাকে মিষ্টির বাক্স,
বাবা-র বড় প্রিয় নলেন গুঁড়ের রসগোল্লা।

নবগ্রহের প্রার্থনাতে নবম হাতে শাঁখ,
দশ নম্বরটিতে পূজোর ঘন্টা।

এগারো নম্বরটির প্রয়োজন পড়ে ফাটা গোড়ালিতে বাঙালির প্রিয় বোরোলিন লাগাতে --
আর শেষ টা?
কলম ধরতে।

Disclaimer: This is a complete work of fiction and is in no way intended to hurt anyone's sentiments or sensitivity.