it's all a game...

it takes time to understand this really simple thing...and sometimes, it can take a lifetime...in case the point is still vague, and i'm pretty sure it is, i'm talking about a fight...

a sort of an inner struggle, which everyone at some point or the other has to go through...just that sometimes, the struggle lasts a bit longer...when the long nights seem a bit longer...and you pray for the endless summers(not applicable to tropical, humid climate) because you feel the cold...how vastly strange and meaningless a life would be without any waving emotions...it's just that, there lies a smile in every drop of tear...just as happiness is a shadow of loss...its a world of paradoxes, and paradoxes make up this charmed circle...and it's paradoxes again, which make up you and me...

the cause of the struggle might vary to each heart..what matters is this tiring yet oddly treasured struggle...

and it is then, that we need to understand the simple truth...simple yet very powerful...you see, it's all just a game...and the victory is yours...play along...just play along all the way...

to Ma and Baba...

when someone loans you money, you can say, "Thank You".

when someone offers you a seat, you can again say, "Thank You".

when a traffic cop lets you off without a fine, you can keep saying, "Thank You".

to someone you owe everything to, you can't just say, "Thank You"...

(p.s. courtesy: an old archies advertisement.)

lonesome blues...

Exactly 3 months ago, on one fine morning, I decided that I had enough of it...ever since every morning I’ve been thinking thus. But the point is, does it matter? Completely beaten, tired of the same sick, stale thoughts...and most importantly, craving for something new...it’s like beating your head against the wall, until either of the two gives in...really, come to think of it, are we all condemned like Sisyphus? Till as mr.camus says, the ‘final why’ arises?

Yeah...I hang up my soul to the ceiling above me and try to have a conversation with it. Worth it? at times certainly...when you are too conked up to think rationally(now that can happen EVEN if you’re NOT drunk). It’s like, you let yourself being pinned down and let others rape you emotionally. Maybe this arises from a deep lack of self love. And then you want to put an end to all of this...but wait, not so fast...remember, condemned like Sisyphus? So you can’t. And you yet again keep beating your head against the wall, have absurd, crazy conversations with your soul dangling from the ceiling...that’s a scary thought...was kafka right when he said, “the only meaning of life is that it stops”...life to kafka, some say, was extremely complicated. Nah...life couldn’t be simpler to the dear man. Depressing maybe, but certainly not complicated.

Walking the same street again, and not feeling the same. Instead what you encounter is a bunch of terrorising memories(cherished at some point of time), snatching you away from reality each time you want to cling to it. For me, I don’t even try...they will succeed, they are the stronger ones...the only way I can fight back is to let them do their job, and not mess around with them too much. What’s the use? If someday, they decide to leave on their own, I’ll heave a sigh of relief...but aren’t we condemned forever? A mistaken dream-mistaken for reality...shreds of laughter lace the sky...some moments turned bitter...and the ultimate losing of self...maybe never to be regained again

And then, what made me write all this?

Lonesome Blues.
I fill up this page with some unwanted scenes,
The sparkling wine of music flows, though forever,
When the rains are here, I shall lie to the glory of my lover,
Whose love evergreen shall this mortal soul drink…
Tonight I draw upon the grave sweetness,
The fevered heart receives in shame and pain,
To the merrier moments I plead in vain
To stay, stay and drown these days…
If I were looking for a greater joy,
In the depth of this womb, dark and blind,
It was to end in a futile cry of the mind,
An effort to see through the Greater Ploy…
If I were to swim the strangest ocean,
And I were to sail away with the slow dreams,
Let me hold your hand to go beyond the smallest streams,
To feel the warmth, for the dawn of heaven…

I seek for no answer; is there none?
Tired eyes stare at the unexplained sun,
Of greater deeds lost and undone
In the charmed circle of lonesome blues…


-Siddhartha Chatterjee.

shadow of the storm...

Shadow of the Storm.

You know girl, there might be a way out of this,
And Sunday might be just the day you missed,
You know why, u never looked up and down and right...
And as you walk along the sea, it could‘ve been you and me,
But you know, you’re miles apart the light,
You’re lost beneath the skies, because you’re free...
The waves of life just touch you once
There’s no other way, no other chance
But you can try to change the road you take,
Or can’t you just change the smile you fake...
You know girl, the time is never really gone,
The seas are never calm, just a shadow of the storm
That’ll rage inside you, cause you never saw the bit that was torn...
And while the nights were long, this time it seemed a bit longer,
And the words are just a way, you see your world today,
But you know, these things could have been a bit better...
It’s just a dream, some dream gone wrong,
It’s just a moment which has taken too long,
It’s the time, I couldn’t set right,
The lights were too blinding and bright...
But girl, you’re way beyond this now,
You stole a life you’re living, don’t know how,
You know why, you kissed the winds with just a little doubt...
But girl, there might be an end to this,
And Sunday might be just the day you missed,
And the seas are never calm, just a shadow of the storm
Inside you...you’re lost beneath the skies because you’re free...

- Siddhartha Chatterjee.

the fighters...

Life was moving slowly, slow and steady...the weather had been good for the past couple of days. It even rained the other night, quenching the thirst of the not-so parched earth, cooling the nature and lighting up a fire in many hearts.

Happiness isn’t exactly the way I would describe it, but a general air of acceptance hung around. The usual mundane work, struggling against the self to sit with books, searching desperately for a bit of desire to go through them...yeah...that’s the way it was...when it struck...

Like the cold, depressing wind out of nowhere, it was as if a million dementors had been set free to feast on my soul and feasting they were...that’s how the news came...exams for more than a month...from the 10th of april till the 14th of may... what have we done to deserve this? A bunch of students like us, who never hurt a fly(figuratively)! The hangover of exams is bad enough, and then if it is for a month...I’d rather give up my soul before the ‘dementors’(read: examiners) can snatch it away...

Just that there’s another way of looking at the whole thing...fight back!! Like producing a patronus...and a whopping strong one at that. If you’re looking forward to break our spirits, and imprison our souls, we are the freedom fighters who’ll keep fighting for the freedom from the exam blues. And so party every time we take an exam(thank god for the long gaps in between). But come what may we won’t let this helluva one month get into us...we will NOT let the dementors suck our souls to satisfy their hunger.

UNITED WE STAND...DIVIDED WE FALL...

macher jhol...

A Bengali meal without ‘macher jhol’ (fish curry) is incomplete. The ‘mach’ holds the lives of many Bengalis, and though I dig mutton(kosha mangsho/kochi pathar jhol), chicken, pork and beef, there is nothing like a brilliant ‘macher jhol’. And this happens to be one of the many things i miss after i came to Delhi. Many a days, I slept dreaming of ‘ghee bhaat’, ‘alu shedho’(boiled potatoes), dim shedho(boiled eggs), alu posto, mushur dal, murir ghonto(a specialty comprising of the head of a fish and rice), parshe mach( a type of fish), pabdar jhal, chingrir malaikari, shorshe ilish, ilisher paturi, doi mach...the list is hopelessly long.

Ever since I was a kid, mach had been my favourite along with many other dishes. I’ve never been much of a quantity person than a quality one...in other words I might not eat much, but I love to eat good. Back in the days of Durgapur and Kolkata the realisation never actually dawned that how would life be without the traditional Bengali ‘macher jhol’...now i know the answer...staying in a hostel where they NEVER EVER serve you fish(save for the few ‘bird flu’ days, and that too badly cooked fish), made me realise that yeah..life without ‘macher jhol’ is like a bird without wings...well, I am this passionate about the dear dear ‘macher jhol’. and with no offence to the food habits here, man, 'rajma chawal', and 'ghatti ki subji' are poor or rather no substitute for a well cooked ‘macher jhol’...

Living the days like this, I once happened to go to C.R.Park, during my early days in delhi. C.R. Park(Chittaranjan Park) as the name suggests is the Bengali settlement in delhi with many Bengali cuisines scattered here and there, ‘babumoshai’ and ‘ma tara’ to name a few. That day when i had pabdar jhal at ‘ma tara’, I could at least locate the lost bit of life...since if not home food(I can’t expect heaven after all) the food was superb and the pabdar jhal was awesome. Some complained that 80 bucks for a pabdar jhal was too much...but I thought it was worth it..at least after days of having ‘rajma chawal’, I could finally breathe again.

It was a long wait indeed for a amazingly satisfying ‘pabdar jhal –bhaat’, but each moment was worth the wait...Long live ‘macher jhol’!!!

to be (a fool) or not to be...

It was sometime back, when I came to know this guy called Shujoy. He had wanted someone after so long; after what seemed to him like ages...and well, one and a half years is definitely not a short span of time. after all we aren't historians, you see...

the question is, was he wrong?was this unjustified? well, different people might think different ways and to each his own. dash it all, there ain’t an answer for every goddamn thing on earth.

it all began on that chilly afternoon at momo's point(a popular student's hangout),when he saw her...and he wanted her. he just felt that she could drag him out of the shit he was crawling in…and bring him out clean. he doesn’t know her name, what she does, where she stays…in short, he doesn’t have the slightest damn clue about her. just that he happened to see her at an eating joint. he visited the place twice after that with absolutely no darned work to do, just to pursue the dream he had dreamt. Tens and thousands of girls – cute ones, ugly ones, fat ones, slim ones, he suffered them all…but that dream just remained a dream…

I sometimes hear them say, life gives you just one chance – grab it or leave it. well as for the one 'chance' all he could do was to curse himself that why on earth didn’t he go up to her that day? But hey,before i hear you guys say, "jackass", lets hear him out. you see, the thing is, she was gone...and yeah...it happened just like that…within a second. One moment he saw her right there and the very next moment she’s gone. Was that a fair chance?

I don’t know if at all this is possible…after all life isn’t a cliched bollywood flick. And reality hurts…hell, he knows that, doesn’t he? But yet, knowing and being fully aware of all this, he still wants her, by some miracle…by some goddamn miracle. Are all his ideas about love so false…so wrong, so bloody screwed up?

hah, now the question is, do we care?i mean, beat this fellas,the jerk went to the same restaurant twice after that for abolutely NO work...and mind you, he didnt go there to HOG...I mean, how silly can a person be??what does he have instead of a brain?something filled with rosy, romantic thoughts?did he seriously think even for a moment that he would see her?one face amidst the teeming , millions of students?ok, now give me a break...i wouldn't even call hm a die-hard romantic...just a dumb jerk...

hell shujoy, what you actually need is a real great clean-up of your brain..so long buddy...