When words are hard to find...

Are words all that matter? And things left unsaid don't?

What can you say to a question like that. You know the answer, but interjecting between someone else's tears and saying it just right isn't easy.

Life is hard. Feelings, brittle. Friendships, a mass of interconnected wires that could shortcircuit when you least expect.

Grief arrives at the worst of times, just when someone else is preparing for a happily-ever-after. And sometimes that's enough to bring on hurtful thoughts that had remained hidden away for months, even years.

People sometimes reach out for a comforting voice that isn't coming, while the one to whom the hoped-for voice belongs goes to church to pray, but never mentions it. And the unsaid stands up like a mammoth Berlin Wall that for the time being, seems in danger of never crumbling.

But not everything is a tragedy.

Sometimes 40-somethings find long-lost best-friends-forever and giggle like jackasses across time zones and make plans to spend Christmas together. And that's when you know, life really isn't all bad.

Surprise!

Sometimes you think you know somebody inside out and then they spring a surprise trait on you that you would never have guessed they had. It's nice. Two fishy people have done the 'Surprise' routine back-to-back and I'm quite pleased about it. One lies through his teeth like a professional, the other has a fascination for green because that's the colour of the house she belonged to in school.

You think you know people... The question is, 'How much?'...

Btw... 2 latest stories:
1. A first for Bengali animation
2. Lal Kalo: Going beyond red and black

PS: Made a major goof-up on the review. A small but major one. Thanks to Coffee Stain who corrected me.

After a long time...

I'm whistling at work again. That's a good sign.

No love lost anymore

My first job. Aaah... now that was love.

This is just a marriage of convenience.

Post-Pujo post

The Pujos came, made a lot of festive noise, and it's gone already. For those whose offices were generous enough to give their Kolkatan employees four days off, "You lucky pigs!" For those whose offices didn't, "You poor things."

Surprisingly though, I didn't miss having to spend most of Durga Puja 2008 facing a computer screen. I hated having to be at work while the rest of Kolkata wore new clothes, ate chicken rolls and took photos of the heppest pujas in town... but having had two days off (Navami and Dashami ... one of which is my weekly off anyway and the other a holiday across the country), I feel light and happy and in an I-can-conquer-a-small-world-like-Pluto mood.

I read a wonderful book yesterday: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne. It's the Holocaust again, but from a refreshing, childlike perspective.

Finding answers

The most unlikely people end up telling you what you most need to hear. A good thing too. For when answers come from unexpected sources, you sit up and take notice. When it comes from Mommy-Baba-Uncle-Shunkle, it just doesn't register.

I'm not in a bloggy mood somehow. I was, say half an hour back, but the entire thought flow has gone and got lost. So tonight's blog ends with this thought:

It's not the end. It's never the end.


[The following was added 5 seconds later. After the first speedy comment made it's way here...]

But as you know now, it's never the end. So here's an interesting tidbit...

Khosla Electronics' special Puja offers that let you buy 17000-rupee LCD TVs for EMIs as low as Rs.600 per month are not extended to police-folk, lawyers, and (hold-your-breath) poor, cash-starved journos. Yes. And that info's straight from the boss's mouth.

My latest addiction

Wisdom.

Go figure.

One reason

why I dislike having a job is because it forces me to ask other people for the use of time that is rightfully mine.

Stop signs don't exist

I have no time for people who wallow in pity. I have no sympathy for those who seek it. I don't want your sympathy, thank you very much, and don't expect me to return the unasked for favour.

There are some people who keep complaining. All the time. Every day of their lives. But the tried and tested martyr act is, at the end of the day, just that -- an act. Crocodile tears that drop off self-pity-filled eyes, seeking sympathy.

But sympathy is the most useless feeling in the world. Worthy of scorn almost. It doesn't encourage you to hope. It doesn't push you to get off your butt and find happiness. In the guise of a safety belt, it pushes you further into the danger zone, making you shed more of those false tears till the line between true and false blurs, and the false tears are mistaken for real ones.

It can always be worse. Always always. And it's never that bad. Ditches on the road can always be fixed. Or avoided.

There's no problem so big that it can't be run away from. (-- paraphrasing Richard Bach)

Keep moving. There's no such thing as a STOP sign.

Some days

are good days. Amnesia strikes. And the world just goes away.

Life sucks

Old but still kicking

I feel old and washed out and permanently stressed these days. The grey hair population is increasing by the minute (the silver strands actually sparkle after a shampoo) while the grey cells are getting worn out every hour of every day. I need a break from everything. I need a day when time would just stop.

STOP.

Nice word that. A pause during non-stop activity. Just press the button that looks like this:

II

And you have time to think things over, wonder, maybe just get a glass of water.

Life has suddenly become really hectic. My guitar lies unopened waiting for me to get some time to myself. And I don't mean free time to watch TV. Just time for me to be with me.

Me-time has become such a luxury. And it doesn't help that I have this huge list of things to do and feel guilty 'cause I don't end up doing most of them on any given day. I need a planner. I sure do.

I also need a computer chair. I read somewhere that 'backache is the new headache' -- and that sure seems to be the case. No matter what I do, my spine makes me feel like I belong to the paleolithic period.

I don't wish I could turn back time. Though I wouldn't mind being in a real-life Kate and Leopold thingy. But I just want a break. From everything and everyone. Almost everyone.

I'd like to see a rainbow. I'd seen one once upon a time, after a rough month while walking to the bus stop. For 15 minutes it was right there, the whole rainbow looking straight at me... end to end.

Sometimes you just know that there are angels watching over you. This was one of those sometimes.

There was another time when this star kept peeping at me through overcast skies while I stared back. This was during the height of the Mumbai monsoons, and the star kept twinkling till I felt all was right with the world again. Then it immediately pulled the disappearing act and hid behind the clouds. But my yellowish toothy smile had returned by then.

I'd like something like that one of these days. But I do feel better now -- how many people manage to walk towards a rainbow for 15 whole minutes?? And on the bright side, the internet is working today -- it had taken the day off last night.

My sister has been sitting in front of the TV and incessantly watching Disney Channel ever since she reached the US. My cats and dogs sleep, eat, take a walk, play with each other, eat, sleep, seek petting, eat, sleep all day through. My eldest cat Thomas in fact does away with most of the other activities and eats, sleeps, seeks petting, eats, sleeps all the time.

Being able to do nothing is a precious gift. If you have it, I envy and admire you. Plus, I don't know if any of that spare time will rub off... but do look at these poor lil puppy dog eyes.

Magic

It exists. In raindrops. In old diary pages. In deleted SMSes. In long-forsaken crow nests. In dreams that come alive in the most unexpected ways. In silly blogposts that aren't quite sure what they want to say.

Peter Pan isn't the only one spending time with fairies. And Santa Clauses roam the world with or without their red-nosed reindeer. Hippopotamuses may not wear pink tutus in forest reserves unlike the hip hippos in Fantasia, but who's to say they don't get jiggy with it once all the safari-loving folk have returned to their hotel rooms?

Magic lives on. Outside of Harry Potter and Mary Poppins and fairy tale witches, wizards and enchantresses, occupying unspoken words that find expression at the oddest interesections of time and place.

I love

Mamata Banerjee.

Yes. I'm a big fan. Have always been and probably always will be. I may never vote for her, may never want her to be my country's Prime Minister. Hell! Not even my state's Chief Minister, but I can't help looking up to (figuratively, not literally -- she's much shorter than me) this diminutive rabble-rouser who's Dominatrix come down to Dharmatala.

Dharmatala.

That's where her rally was held, and each trip to the office loo (for me, not her) brought the strains of her argumentative voice into my not-so-sensitive ears. She's constantly fighting losing battles, but you think that gets her down? Oh no, it sure doesn't. Every time she gets lost on the way to winning a cause, she does the next best thing -- she simply finds another one. What get up and go. What optimism.

Optimism personified.

I'd wanted that to be the title of one of the books that I will write someday. That's also two words that fit me perfectly. And I think, they fit Mamata Di just as well as her drab white sarees. Honestly though, I wouldn't want to see her turned out in a flaming red. She's too fiery on her own, even in those kaalo paar shaada shaarees that she is always seen in. It would make a prize-winning painting though. I can see it now...

'Didi in red'. By M.F. Hussain. If he ever manages to get back into the country -- barefoot or otherwise.

Why do I love her so?

She can stop traffic. One whiff of the word bandh from her lips and revved up cars stall automatically, workaholics sleep an extra two hours, and Kolkata decides to take a day off. Sadly, this has been happening less and less of late. The word bandh seems to have lost its edge. Footballs now stay home on bandh days and cars gingerly venture out of their garages and no-parking parking spaces, but the woman still can stop traffic. And she's no great shakes in the looks department either.

I think I'd like to be a politician just like her someday. Did I mention I'm a fan?
***

PS: Moo is not happy with earlier blog. So do take a trip down to the comment section of this post and see what he is all grumbly and upset about.

Putting out the 'Welcome' mat

So I'm the man of the house now... pretty much. And I made my first purchases as man of the house:

• 6 eggs & 1 pound bread
• 100 gm butter
• 3 Metro Dairy chocolate ice-creams

Interestingly, I bought each of those items from three different shops 'cause I was scared the shop closer to home (Kaku-r dokaan) would be shut by then (It wasn't).

It isn't that I haven't bought stuff from the store before. It just felt different this time. 'Cause I knew that this time, I couldn't pass the job on to anyone else or fall back on an excuse (however much valid) like "the store was shut".

Yeah, it feels different. Just two days into the new state of being. I'm liking it so far.

I chased a story today about Yasir Arafat (not the dead Palestinian leader) being signed up by the Kolkata Knight Riders. This involved a total of 8 calls. 3 of which involved finding the Knight Riders' Kolkata office (Got lucky on the third try -- the number I called for info was the KKR office :D). Calls 4, 5, 6, and 7 involved finding someone (anyone!!) who could give me some info. Call No. 8 saw me being passed from person to person to person till I finally got a dude who didn't know about the news really... but sounded like he knew something (unlike the first guy I called and asked if the report regarding Yasir Arafat's joining KKR was true. The dude exclaimed, "Really?"... Boss, if I knew the answer, why would I be asking you?) It was lotsa fun though.

I like. I like.

Today's the first day that I feel not-so-reluctant to be a journo. :)

Day 70

Three-fifths of immediate family off to Chicago right now. Here is a picture of one of the three that got away.


I be missing her much already, especially when I turn on Disney Channel and the ad for 'Magical Do Re Mi' appears.

Day 69

Changes all over the place. Good, not-so-good, lovely -- sometimes you wish the world would just go away.

Ma, sis, and sis are off to the US tomorrow. For good. I am whoa!-man of the house now and being made to shift upstairs to keep the cats company.

Lunch today at Tamarind was lovely. Very very nice.

Busy day tomorrow. Airport trip in the pipeline. 6+ big bags and a Tata Sumo are part of the picture.

A lil preoccupied.

Day 59

Today started off well. I slept till almost nine. Ate a good breakfast. I have pinky sworn to Onn that I will not blog about food so often. So I will leave the breakfast menu for some other day.

Post breakfast, I did some writing. And listened to Banana Pancakes (the song) at least 7 times, back to back. I get obsessive about favourite songs.

Work at twelve. That's when I heard I have to go cover Dabur Gulabari Sananda Tilottama '08. And since we lost the other invite, it would have to be just me. Sigh.

I was supposed to take a lot of pictures also, but my camera conked at the last minute. Flash wouldn't come on. So no pics of the event. But that's what the photographers are there for. To click away.

On the bright side, I got to sit in the Press seats. And I got a pad, a file, and a pen. All free. :D The pen I am most happy about :D

Pageants are not for me. I don't like the clothes or the questions. The girls are mostly not half as goodlooking as you'd want them to be. Even girls like looking at pretty girls, so if a beauty pageant just has a bunch of cute girls from next door, even I end up looking at the exit and wondering if I'll get a cab home if it gets too late.

The Bombay Vikings singer was there to provide the entertainment while the babes all went to change from one sequinned outfit to another. But he messed up 'Kya soorat hai' and I was very upset with him after that. He sang a bunch of other songs, but the man from Sweden kept drinking water and going off-key a little too frequently.

The last two rounds were a breeze with no super dumb answers. I was pleasantly surprised. And then, once the winners were announced... my favourite came 2nd, Shreya's favourite came 3rd, it was time to move. The guard outside The Sonar very sweetly caught me a cab.. I suppose that's part of his job. And I came home superfast.

I have decided to not be a journo for too long. It doesn't go with the temperament. I have also decided not to participate in a beauty contest ever. Not like they are waiting with bated breath to select me, but in case they were, I would not try out.

Day 58 and August Rush

I just watched a very, very nice movie. And I don't know what to say. I feel a little bit in love. A lot bit happy. Very very fairytale-ish. This is how all movies should be :)

There's more to write about today, but I don't feel like it... Till tomorrow :)

Day 55

I have chips today... Kurkure to be precise. So I won't be looking for absent midnight snacks when midnight decides to stop by.

Today has been a surprisingly good day. I've been un-stressed and happy and just generally pleased with life. And surprised at the light-heartedness too. But it was nice to feel stress-free on a stressful day. Doesn't pan out like this too often.

Life's been more or less dull today. Sometimes there's comfort in dullness and drudgery. All in all, a good and boring day.