Wednesday, January 23, 2008

The Road...

One day, I will set out with a bag
And traverse that dark blank road, outside...
The road that stretches its uncouth body like a lazy giant,
Waiting between my house and yours.
I will walk upon it one afternoon, slowly with careful steps,
And pick up those trampled dreams, those broken moments,
A couple of half-mumbled promises, some unsent letters,
A few unheard lines, few muted songs,
Those fast-fading memories and my naive poems…
All of which, the road keeps in its belly.
They are mine. I shall collect them,
And lay them all, where they rightly belong…
In that freshly-dug grave,
Right in the bosom of my beautiful garden...

Monday, January 14, 2008

you girls...!

We had all met in the ‘Eng Lit’ class of 2002…2002! Gosh! The amazement is still lurking as I type this…Is it a coincidence that we all chose to study Literature…? and how apprehensive…a little lost…dazed we were during the first few days in that awe-inspiring university… :)…no …I don’t want to make this a ‘Jab We Met’…this comes purely as the impulse of a couple of hours, when I am feeling pretty nostalgic…not a tear-jerking attempt mind you…just the simple feeling of lazy and vacant nostalgia…the five of us…how different, how happy, how irritated at times, how easy with each other…blissful!…there was sometimes, a sense a tension, miscommunication, coldness, misunderstanding, competition and the bunch…but then one smile, one heart-to-heart, one meeting, one class-lecture together, some scribbling on the back-page, one session in the canteen…and it was all back on track!
We do crib…to each other…. at times about each other…childish…we know yaar!
We want more of each other’s life…of each other’s ambitions, plans, happiness et cetera…but it will never change…the feeling of wanting each other around…being part of each other’s life…it will never go… ansa, sohini, rashu, deba…and yes…dear me!…now no tears you ladies!!;)

Friday, January 11, 2008

The Calendar...

It’s marked in the new calendar hanging on your wall.
The new white calendar, carrying in its belly, smell of the old printing machine,
Commanding you to get into the solid black boundaries
Of its multiple boxes…
It has planned it all for you…a day to cry, a day to laugh, a day to feast,
A day to pray, a day to remember a friend, a day to slice a cake, a day to fight, a day to meet, a day to pretend.
It’s all planned…
You too can enjoy the game…
Pretend to plan, pretend to arrange, pretend being your own master, pretend to change.
You move on from place to place, searching for the right box to rest…
It just hangs there…blinking from the wall…
The chequered body smiling at you,
It watches you in the trap…your box…my box…it has got us all…

Friday, January 4, 2008

an attempt...


Its too clichéd a thing to even talk about I guess… but each day brings its pangs to me anew…well pang is too strong a term may be, with its ‘-anngg!’ resounding a little too much! But let me talk about it nonetheless…about being misunderstood through my words…particularly when their text forms the mode of transmitting my ideas…and emotions, if there are any which ever reach out through them…its surprising how despite knowing the language for years, having used its words, read them, almost grown up with them, one is misunderstood…misquoted…even by people who know you since eternity…! Okay, we have read in books, the views of Saussure and Derrida, of how Signifier and Signified are arbitrary etcetera…and the ‘lag’ that remains in conveying the meaning…but then, if to write…to talk…to communicate…to express…to share in totality…are essential to your life, what do you do!…And yet I write…hoping my text will miraculously and completely connect the Signifier and the Signified!…phew!some mess it is!

Eating up a Storm...!


In that little fragment of living which passes under the name of college life, our gang found itself constantly haunting eateries…No, we were not the type to survive on fagging and boozing (you may add “only”)…good food beckoned us constantly and bad waiters beckoned us out! Of course there were the typical college\university canteens to hang around, but self-proclaimed connoisseurs like us couldn’t resist trying the greener/not-so-greener pastures. From aloof waiters to stinky food, from cash-crunches to candle-lit lunches (yes, you got it right! there was a power-cut)…we have seen it all!! And of course taken it all in our stride, there wasn’t much choice you see…While in the historic College Street Coffee House we encountered intimidating waiters in white, swooping in upon us like Satan’s fiery troop of rebel angels, demanding their share of a fat tip, in Jadavpur we constantly haunted an eatery which in turn was haunted by bad instrumental (almost weeping) melody and frequent power-cuts! I thought we were their special customers till time and experience taught me better…neglected orders, aloof waiters, constant queries of-“Arr kichu lagbe?”(“Anything else”), perpetual stare… it all had only one sentiment in disguise…which went something like-“ what the hell are these lazy, miserly, critically-analyzing, boisterous, quick-eating, late-leaving, no-tip-paying set of female gluttons doing here?” Sounds grand to me even today! On the greater/graver occasions, which included frequent but no-nonsense window-shopping, birthdays, post-class-test lunches, sessions on heart-aches\heart-breaks etc, we shifted base to the more lavish eateries in Golpark and Gariahat. No, we didn’t at all mind putting up with preposterous lovers, sinking and floating by turns in to each other’s eyes, or bloated mammas stuffing their untiringly yelling kids…They only strengthened our bond with the world and its miseries…we had other challenges up our sleeves…such as mustering the courage to gobble the hopeless new recipe we ordered for our connoisseur tongues and counting pennies to pay the unexpectedly high bill we frequently incurred! Of course we were also fond of promptly moving out, that is, before the waiter could discover he had been paid no tip…What little but strategic triumphs! I wonder whether they remember us! Whether they had nightmares the day we visited their joint. No…It wasn’t that bad! Of course they won’t recognize us! But I am sure the day they have an adamant set of noisy and miserly customers to attend…they will suffer from a sense of déjà vu!!