Shelby's sweet valentine

The Dog days are here!!!!!!! I noticed something extraordinary today. On my daily visit to the florist, to pick up madre's consignment of flowers that would pave the way for another favour from the GUY who makes the world go round, I saw Shelby sniffing around the basket of roses, that the florist displays every evening. Now this was funny for two reasons, firstly, Shelby to me always appeared to be the nonchalant sort of guys girl, not into the histronics of anything mainstream like, cleanliness, food in a bowl you know, the works, yet here she was sniffing around like a pro trying to pick a flower. Secondly it was that time of the day when nikhil the neighbour's five year old son begins his evening snack while watching Shelby boss her little brats around, presumably to try and get them to start their daily home work or something ( Home work could range between chasng Swamy, the watchman to ripping to shreds the new car covers nikhil's mum idiotically buys everytime ).

So the question remains who was she trying to sneek the flower for??? colloquially who's the lucky Dog??? My sources ( ma and Chorda ) tell me, she's been necking this new stray on the block. But maybe it's for her old flame Dolby??? Who knows..the point remains, Even Shelby's been taken in by that stupid consumerist holiday...DRAT!!!

On the Wrong Side of Twenty

Disclaimer : this is going to be a long rant about the woes of twenty something single girls ( read women ) in our fair land India. So if your not a twenty something girl single or otherwise consider yourself LUCKY. not just LUCKY actually bleeding saw a leprechaun and will have the same luck for the next century grade of LUCKY.

When I turned 20, my parents looked at me promisingly. Here I was at the threshold of adulthood, old enough to travel by auto rickshaw alone...after eight ( no reference to the mint ). Old enough to cook up a storm in the kitchen ( which I don't..how many of us do really????) and generally in my case to have a cell phone. Cut to the big 25...suddenly, ambitions are long forgotten, aspirations are cast aside and everything, from the new hair cut, to the weight, to the choice of food and clothing are all potential deal breakers or makers...What is this deal that i refer to? It's the only legal form of slavery that still exists ...MARRIAGE.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to marriage , ( well not most of the time anyway ) but what is the deal with age and marriage???Here we are the at the precipice of new beginnings, a new job, or promotions at the old job. New Careers , the desire to see the world, and for some reason the full stop to all the above is the topic of Marriage.You know something is wrong when all people see when they lay eyes on you is a walking talking invitation card for the next food filled matrimonial disaster.

Oh, and if your single, that's another ball game altogether, your almost an untouchable. So what if your heart was broken so badly it never healed. So what if who you think is your soul mate, only makes art house bengali movies and is 40 years your senior, the fact that your 25 and still depend on your parents to eventually find a match for you can bring out an audible sigh from even the most hypocritical possessive mothers.

So to all the Auntyji's and Uncleji's who are dying to see their friends friends friends daughter married and well settled so that they can tuck into another one of the oh so lavish meals that i need an ENO just to get through the night, STOP IT. Stop treating us like some cattle, waiting to sold in the market. Stop telling us that we will look older than our husbands at the wedding because you know na...girls MATURE FASTER...and stop really STOP using the line " AT YOUR AGE BETA I WAS MARRIED WITH 2 KIDS " You also thought jeetendra was a super star and that Sunny Deol could act. so, there's a lot to be said about your thought process.

Shelby, her three kids and the other Guy

They came into my world on a stormy November night. Quietly whimpering in the cold brazen rain. Trying to snuggle unsuccessfully into her while still getting wet. Who's she?. she's Shelby, the stray who sun's herself in front of our gate everyday between one and four looking lovingly at her brats.Who are they? They are the brats, Shelby brought them into the world one very windy day in early November.

I'm not particularly dog friendly , some would say quite the opposite actually but that rainy day even I couldn't help myself.There they were cowering in the cold, waiting to be hugged, to be loved. Though I didn't do either, all credit to the madre and her fearless younger son, who promptly took action and rescued Shelby and her brats, they did give me premature ventricular contractions...( I skipped a heart beat ).

And since that day, Shelby stopped eating our garbage, growls everytime there is an unsightly person around, respectfully walks away when the padre or I use the gate and faithfully follows her two saviors from the main road to the gate. The brats still play around, spewing garbage all around the street, and they even tore up our car cover, playfully of course the madre observed, of course had any of her children been responsible for the same, we would probably have had to miss dinner.

And now as mentioned in the title the Other Guy. Recent observations of Shelby have led me to believe that she is currently dating the supposedly eligible Dolby ?( as I like to call him ). He's big, spotted and belongs to the neighbor. Don't think the brats are too excited, I saw him chasing them around the main road just the other day. But hopefully that will soon die down, and Shelby will find true love, but just in case she will always have her gate, the box that lies still in our garage which for one day was her shelter and my love, that I'm still scared to show but have deep within my heart for her nevertheless.

when she cried

Ever feel like you had something for a really long time...you ignored it, picked at it, hated it.... but when it went away it left you feeling utterly and completely desolate...in a word incomplete.

I've been feeling that for some time now.Not about something in particular but lots of things that i didn't even realize affected me that much.I won't list them out but the reality of the situation is that i miss them...it....it's not loneliness ,it's emptiness. Withdrawal from the existing ordinary and molding into the nowness of the routine.

It's not a temporary thing either because the void will always be there, things will fill up around it but never in it.Sometimes i think that i have actually come to almost embrace this feeling, welcoming it as my own. But what i do realize too is that there are so many out there who feel the same , think the same , and yet are living within the same routine, the same nowness.

When she Cried

Things That make me smile

The concept for this post was plagiarized fromone of my friends though not it's contents... i just thought that i would feel much nicer if i could list out some of the things that make me smile now a days.
well here goes....
musty books....and a hot coffee..
listening to my friends as they laugh , crib or otherwise...
the first spell of rain with the most fantastic aroma,
playing with balloons and making bubbles in my drinks...
hot jalebi and chocolate ice cream....
sitting and doodling at the back of class...
staying awake all night laughing at the most ridiculous of things....
when my choda screws up his face as he tastes something he dislikes...
dada when he's being my dada and baba when he tries to dance...
ma when she runs her hand through my hair and how can i forget her yummy chili chicken...
flowers in general daisies in particular...
being in charge always...
bitching over food with my friends...
wit from any one and no one in particular...
my favorite kind of music.... especially the show tunes of the 60's.
gooey cheese on my plate and dancing to my self for my self..
nowadays... when i see him look up and and see his eyes crinkle up at me which means he's smiling at least in his head...
a surprise sms late at night....
and how can i forget chocolate mousse cake from my ammas...that's all i can think of now but will update as i live on..

i don't know

i've wanted to write about this subject for a long time now... it's about me and no it's not a thesis or some narcissistic post about how great i am but it is about how confused i am as a person to me and thus obviously to others...
when people say that they know i really wonder because it seems that at most times i don't know my self....
i say something but am mostly looking in the complete opposite direction... even now as i write this i'm trying to figure out how and why is it that i choose to put foward a front which is alien to me at most times but common to all others who know me.
i am for example a very jovial happy at most times... sarcastic at evry living hour yet by my self i'm lonely..not very happy and mostly pessimistic and morose about life in general....
i've had heart breaks without any one and i mean when i say any one ever knowing yet i've helped most around me take decisions... be responsible...over come heart break but no one has ever known what i've been genuinely thinking and i'm not sure why..
i don't know why it is that i've never told any one not even my closest friends about the things that make me cry make me laugh and those that really make me happy
question is will i ever be able to .. will i ever be able to tell any one...will any one ever know me for who i am .....
it's a very generic question that i wanted to ask my self and u my reader my void...

here's to new beginnings......

i just read my last post, it was written during math class... laconic moments during math class. it was just 4 months ago but it seems seasons away. I'm working now, i have new responsibilities, new friends..( read colleagues ) i have a career.
it's funny how things shift so fast changing faster than we expect and always leaving behind with it a bag full of memories along with a tearful farewell.
but this isn't about what's lost for it never will be , it will now just co exist with something new , something unknown , something exciting..... a new beginning.
i met my friends from college today and each of us was bursting with news from our respective offices.. the cute guys, the ones without any brains , the popular ones , what we love what we hate, but, at the end of the day we just smiled and echoed the same sentiment that was flowing through each of us... we missed each other but each one of us had moved on, moved on to a new place and no we weren't going to look back but, we weren't going to forget either, life had nudged us to a new place and each one of us was ready to face it all with conviction and confidence and with the hope that we would always remain friends.....
so here's to a new beginning to all of us. we deserve the best and that's what we are going to get.

laconic moments

i was bored at 8.30 in the morning during my first hour of math the other day when suddenly i decided to try my hand at poetry.... so this is an amateurish attempt at publishing a poem written during the first hour of math.

i sit by the window and sigh,
the world goes by without an eye,
love conquers all,
i'm told;
but where is the love?
it seems unknown.

every person is alive i know,
but within them there lie,
a hole, one that can be filled
with only love i'm told,
yet all of them seem ready to run alone.


i wait and wait,
wait as i sit by the window,
looking out into the world
so as to fill my heart with love galore,
yet it goes by without even a sigh....

and then,
suddenly there is a chill,
a clod wind blows by
whispering as it flows a name....
soft but distinct i hear it
i hear a voice breath my name
and i know ...
a tear escapes my eye for i know
i know that now i'll never have
to sit by the window and sigh.

ek pyali chai

rushed mornings...cursing buses nick of time entries quiet giggling , bursts of lod guffaws classroom antics will hold no more,
lazy lunches behind the benches over gossip sometimes serious isn't seen anymore.
and heartfelt talks about the future and past as we mull over the present, successes failures like two sides of the same con will now be uttered by these lips never again with friends over ek pyali chai.
lonliness will creep in again as we march forth toward a new sequence of mornings,
evenings and nights....with different people in different ways, yet....
i'll miss them always, those who made the last few years bearable and sometimes unbearable.....
but they were around laughing, back slapping , consoling , scolding over that pyali of chai....

love's labour lost

just as the chill of the weather is setting in... a chill it seems to me is creeping into the hearts of many a person. every day i hear of anew break up, of an old promise broken and a new promise forgotten. cheating coupled with hatred seem to flavour this season of joy , love and compassion. and in the midst of it all.... i try and figure out what's behind all of this.
after several discussions with my rather analytical and philosophical friends i have come to the conclusion that man's most basic (yet acidic) of emotion from which stems his every action and emotion is the culprit. " LOVE " . love i've heard makes the world go round. love i've heard makes the desert feel like an ocean and thorns feel like roses and if history is to be believed indeed it has resulted in some of the fiercest of battles. and yet man remains it's slave..... am i a cynic? not at all i am but a realist. just as love makes one blind it also makes the blind stumble.... so, i would just like to say that instead of looking for romance every where and there by spreading un happiness jut "love" the world for what it is and learn to enjoy the season for all it's wonderful gifts.

new beginnings

I just got back from my trip to Goa and it is but natural that I post something with respect to the trip. But, I’m not here to talk about the exteriority of the trip… by which I mean I’m not going to really elaborate on the beauty of Goa or the bloody cheap goods there or even our 23 hour journey (just one way).
I want to talk about the new beginnings at Goa. It was a trip that opened my eyes to many things I had previously been un aware about. Whether it was friendship found in the most unlikely quarters or trying alcohol for the first time. So… let’s start at the very beginning. The trip started out as any other college trip would. Girls were excited ….. some because they were going to Goa some because the were getting out of Bangalore and some others I think only because the others were so excited.
In Goa as we began our journey to discover this wild and fantastic place I came across qualities I never knew my friends had let alone my other classmates. A strong sense of belonging one that I had yet to come across overwhelmed me every time I saw my friends stick up for each other , whether that friend was sick or sad. Loyalties peaked when the snake questioned the integrity of one of my friend’s actions. Wow…. If Gandhi had seen our non cooperation movement he would have been proud indeed. But the best part of the night was celebrating with breezers (my first time and I’m not hesitant to say this but I actually enjoyed them).
The surprise party for achala was a success. She had absolutely no clue. But the highlight of that night was watching a couple of my friends completely sloshed. The truth does come out at the most unexpected turns. That night as I watched my friend whom I had always considered perfect cry silently when some one mentioned some thing ( it’s too personal to disclose ) I realized that the outer façade is indeed deceptive in most cases. And also that it’s not just my life that’s screwed up big time.
All in all it was a fantastic experience. Not only because of the place but because of all that I learnt and saw and learnt to see.

aami bangali !!!!

keeping in theme with the current movie flavour ( case in point: the namesake and the bong connection) i thought i too would try to explore my roots too. p.s. this is no desertion or study about the movies, that i'll have to leave for another day. today i want to try and figure out two very basic questions," who am i" and "where do i belong".
i always thought that the answers to the afore mentioned questions were very simple. i am an indian and i belong to india. but with an increasing astonishment i have come to see that it's not enough. the fact that i am a bangali is so ingrained in my identity that i have seen it very often take precedence over the fact that i am an indian.
albeit i am a second generation bangalorean born in libya yet bangalore is not as far from kolkata as boston so why do i feel so alienated in my own ancestral city.
evrything from the language to the culture is as alien to me as to gogol ganguly. it's not that i have never been to kolkata ( or as i'd rather call it calcutta and no that's not a colonial hangup it's just that i happen to think that the name gave it that balance) infact i visit it almost once a year and all my relatives live there. it's just that i have grown up among migrant bangalis who created their own kolkata here far away from home ( remember that the telecom revolution took place in the late nineties and in the sixties Bangalore seemed a far away from kolkata as maybe Beijing). it was a new world , small compared to the cal of then , with sour food, quite people who slept at 8pm and as my mother likes to say , the kind of weather which made u forget that fans existed...... it was unheard of, absurd. yet they survived and brought up their childen as best as they could remember their parents bringing them up. they had their pujos and poites. their mukhebhaths and momos. and not very seldom their rabindra sangeet.
so i won't say i am a i.b.c.b.... try to guess that but what i would say is that i am an bangalorean bangali who before everything else is an indian from india.
"jai hind"

june

since i have managed to post something every month i thought i should probably continue this ritual. thus this post on the last day of the month.it's been a pretty eventful month what with my starting my final year of college and believe it or not i am dreading my first foot steps out of the comfortable world that student's live in. plus with the promise of the next 10 months rushing as fast as the proposed metro services in Bangalore i am already feeling pangs of nostalgia for none other than my college ( sheesh who would believe it).
well to enumerate the occurrences of this month i have made this following list.
1) college reopened after what seemed like spending an eternity at home.
2) i was made math association secretary a post that should have gone to one of my closest friends. (p.s. if your are reading you know who you are)
3) for the first time since i started driving i was so nervous at the wheels that i started shaking and haven driven since.
4)i finally am comfortable and have found a good friend in some one i used to very snobbishly look down upon. i am sorry you know that i am right? u'll probably be one of the few people i will miss when i leave this college.
5)and most importantly i realised that as wrong as it is i still haven't gotten over someone. that some one doesn't know and he probably won't ever know plus i don't even want him to know but given the overdose of romantic novels that i have it wouldn't be a mistake to hope. just hope that someday he knows.

void!!!

what do i write about i wonder as the day rushes past me with it's little trivialities. today do i share my thoughts about myself ... or should i mention something good or horrible that's engulfing this world. or should i in the heat of the moment share my heart breaks with some void called the Internet. one wouldn't think that writing is this complicated, especially to someone who gets such a rush while writing.
this post is not about writing however it is about sharing. sharing your deepest and innermost thoughts with a nameless face less void called the Internet. my heart beats with bated anticipation and my breath catches in my lungs as i wait for my blog spot to open where lie all my little eccentricities , my insecurities, my opinions and actions all in the form of a few words that tumble out faster than i can type. and why .... and why one may ask.
well it's all in the hope that some one in this huge void is reading it and calling it his /her own. that these few words are in fact making a difference in some one's life. and someone out there is saying "yes.... that's so true . i feel the same way".

ola india!

what the hell is happening. no seriously. India ....... the land of equality , liberty and secularist seems to be falling apart. the country is firstly being ruled by some fundamentalists who are pointing their murky fingers at everything from religion to art and politics.
the land where all were welcome ( proof: 200yrs of colonization) is now rejecting it's own people. i mean where else in the world currently is a known Don's wife given the post of home minister for state , or for that matter a social worker being branded a naxalite only because he wanted to come up with a rehabilitation program for their families so that their kin don't end up as naxalites.
and most astonishing is the fact that where else in the world is art being subjected to moral scrutiny especially through the eyes of probably the most immoral people in the world. i mean have they ever managed to see the world famous heritage sites in their own country of which they can't talk enough about in front of foreigners .it's these tourists who seem to understand the art more any way. which painting or piece of architecture in India that is above 100 yrs does not show nudity? i mean if one person , 1 person among those who stoned the university or arrested that artist and suspended the dean can show me anything from ancient India that does not depict nudity i will eat my words.
for a country that boasts a population exceeding 1 billion it is probably the biggest hypocrite when it's " educated and learned" politicians refuse to allow sex education in schools or even better file a subpoena in court against an actress who was kissed on the cheek by a man at an aids awareness event.
all the talk about gen x being Americanized and not caring about the country.... just makes me think that if indeed for the last 60 yrs India has managed to reach this level of " maturity" then thank god that when we will finally take over the reins the things can only get better. plus i am not entirely sure that this was the picture of India that out fore fathers who fought to make India independent foresaw. deems to me rather that we were more united under British rule than by ourselves.

a summer afternoon

It's a lazy summer afternoon. a day after my examinations which as usual did not end on a very positive note. the air outside is hot and oppressive yet like always thee is a cool.... a very slight breeze fluttering at the leaves. at home inside the atmosphere is slightly different. thanks to the wondrous compound that marble is made of the house feels like a cool oasis in the midst the summer heat. there is a prevailing silence that echoes through the empty house broken only by the dull drone of digging at a construction site nearby.

at such a time there is only one thing that can lift my spirits and that is ...a good book. a book that i can curl up with on my dad's lounge chair. it's location too is perfect. it's placed along side of a window that overlooks a street. the street i must say has a life of it's own. though it's quiet and silent at most times just as the clock strikes 4 the sound of children's play fills the air. their constant chatter.... the fighting banter and beautiful laughter can make any day seem much lighter.

the problems of a week day slip by without notice during a summer holiday.i still remember waiting eagerly for the summer vacations in school , waiting for my brothers exams to end so that we could go off to Calcutta. to Calcutta it was every summer for a month. Calcutta 's horrible summer was daunting yet the excitement of traveling together as a family especially by train was indeed amazing. but as years progressed the trips became far and fewer. then a time came when we just stopped travelling as a family because everyone was busy with their own lives... i think it was at that time that the novelty of going to Calcutta every year finally wore off.

mangoes and lots of ice cream made summers so special....the pitter patter of rain in may when it's hot everywhere but here still manages to captivate me with it's beauty.

and though the days seem longer .......in reality when it's over i always miss summer.

i am fine

considering the fact that most people who have read my prevous post have come to think that i am some morose forlorn lover i decided to post something new. something that makes others believe that in reality i am an annoyingly cheery person who analyses situations too much and uses sarcasm to sheild her true feelings.
why am i always so cheery......sometimes i ask myself. plus the disbelief with which my friends look at me all the time makes me think that i am somekind of unearthly creature....but the reality is just that it takes very little to cheer up my mood. a favourite song , a cool breze , a good book , chai with a few close friends and even to large extent.....a ringing bell , a baloon and even those little soap bubbles one can see flying around in the air during fairs make me happy.
but that does not make me somekind of a monster who has absolutely no other kind of feelings. actually it is kind of weird justifying my cheeriness compared to the dreary world outside just because some people found my last post very unlike me........
it's just that i am hurt very easily just like i cheer up very easily and considering the amount of hatered , and pain outside in the world i figure what's the use of dumping my thoughts out there too.

a ballad i attempted

i let him go. today a day before valentines day the supposed day for all romantics i confess i let him go. i don't really want him back yet i'm sad that he went.

late at night sometimes i smile when i reminiscence those little gestures of affection , those words of comfort that he always had for me that soft corner for all my little quirks.i don't really want him back yet i am sad that he will never come back.

love never affected me , sentiments repulsed me yet now as i look back i feel like a fool.... a fool who never understood that i loved him more then he ever could. it breaks my heart now to see him go and never turn back.....

why don't i want him back u may ask.......it is only because he has moved on ... moved on to different shores , moved on hopeful of never getting his heart broken again. it's simple i don't want to hurt anyone again so i want him to stay away.... i know i Will be alright coz i have my memories which will last me nothing short of a life time.

a tear

i was all right for a while
i could smile, for a while but when i saw you last night
you held my hand so tightwhen you stopped to say "hello"and though you wished me well
you couldnt tell
that id been crying
over you crying over you
then you said so longleft me standing all alone
alone and crying crying crying
crying its hard to understand
that the touch of your handcan start me crying i thought that i was over you
but its true
oh, so true i love you even more than i did before
but darling, what can i do?you dont love meand ill always becrying
over you
crying over youyes, now you're gone and from this moment onill be crying crying cryingcrying
-Don McLean
and i love you so the people ask me how
how iv lived till now
i tell them i dont know
i guess they understand
how lonely life has beenbut life began againthe day you took my hand
and yes, i know
how lonely life can bethe shadows follow meand the night wont set me free
but i dont let evening get me down
now that youre around meand you love me too
your thoughs are just for me
you set me spirit free
im happy that you do.the book of life is briefand once a page is readall but love is dead
that is my belief
and yes
i know how loveless life can be
the shadows follow me and the night wont set me free
but i dont let evening bring me downnow that youre around meand i love you so the people ask me how
how iv lived till now
i tell them... i dont know-
Don McLean
do these musings ever manage to suddenly catch a tear cascading down your face?