five days in kolkata

i went to kolkata for 5 days last week. lets be frank i absolutely hate going there especially when my brothers are not with me. i know it's kiddish but to not have some one to hang out with in a strange place i know so little about is not only dull and boring but extremely frustrating. but this time as i lay couped up in the apartment watching the sun go down at 4 pm i felt a new sensation.

it was fear. the fear of watching my grandma struggle, struggle against the odds, struggling to survive in a city that she called home as a refugee.born in an affluent family in east pakistan now bangladesh then india she saw what partition could do to families. when she came to calcutta after her marriage she was merely one of the many bangladeshis in calcutta looking to start her life afresh and now she lies in the same city struggling to overcome the doctors predictions.

and i know she will win as she always does. just as she was able to build a life for herself in a strange new city she will fight and once again emerge.

my didbhai my strength i will never forget this trip to calcutta for this was the first time i didn't want to come back, i didn't want to leave you because i was afraid. afraid that i will never again be able to call you didibhai.

chappel ka chappal

Today i was reading in the paper about the disaster in Durban. how the opposition parties are demanding n explanation from bcci chief sharad pawar about India's dismal performance in the recent one day matches. the question is ... would they have asked such questions if dalmiya a non politico would still have been the chief.

Moreover shouldn't it bee mr chappel who fields such questions? i mean his imminent training program seems to be the root cause. i wonder if he repeats the same thing to the players that he tells the press. " we are looking only at the world cup not the other matches" or" it's the process that matters not the result" the latter quote reminds me of the one thing we used to be told in school when we lost on sports day or the annual elocution contest. someone should remind mr. chappel that he's not coaching a bunch of 11 yr old for sports day but an internationally recognized cricket team of a country that takes it's cricket as seriously as it's daily cup of tea.

reality bites

Love's a complex thing . i don't pretend to understand it but i do believe in it. the years of mushy movies accompanied with a good dose of romantic novels has forced me to believe in the idealistic notion of love. the notion that i will know when the right person comes along , the notion that i will be swept off my feet when I'm faced with it and by the highly unrealistic notion that there will be a sign....... maybe lightening will strike or the clouds will rumble like never before or bells in the steeples will ring as if Armageddon is here.......

But what if that doesn't happen? how do i know that i haven't let the love of my life go just because none of natures forces thought that it was time for them to give me a sign. it's a dilemma. it's not as big as world hunger and poverty but it just makes you think . why do people sell dreams ? is reality so dark? or is it that living in a dream would make it impenetrable for reality to strike? and if it is so wouldn't that just create an uproar when it did strike?