Possessed, by plastic

The credit card is the bane of my existence, that is why I do without it. However, I have realized that the debit card can be as injurious to health.
I guess it was people like me who walk into flashy malls (read into the attractive snares set up capitalist commercial giants) and end up becoming quite lighter, pursewise, that the subprime crisis hit the world. People like me, only ten time more like me, who didn't think twice (which is by the way the number of times I think before that shopping binge).
But then again life would surely be quite bland without the plastic money.

Ilish

A friend of mine has a blog called ilishmaach. At first the name comes across as weird at the most misplaced. Then I wonder, why not? Come monsoons the east of this country is inundated by this phenomenal speciality cuisine. It is a freshwater fish which is easily identified by its silver color when raw and its captivating aroma when cooked. It is a common kitchen byword that you cannot go wrong with the ilishmaach. No matter how bad you try to cook it, the flavour itself will elevate the dish to perfection.
Cooking the ilishmaach has caught on the fascination of the Bengali female as much as writing poetry catches on to every Bengali male! It is an art, a form of expression which is unique to every individual. No cold salad or caviar or lasagne can compete with the magnetism of the ilishmaach.
Be it the dish with the mustard seed paste or the baked one or the crisp fries or the jeere-diye-jhol or the plain dish with eggplant or pumpkin or the spicier treat with pulses or spinach, every avatar promises to be finger-lickin’ good. It is the safest dish to fall back on to impress the in-laws or show off your culinary skills to your friends.
As the raindrops make you feel like curling up like the house cat, munch on an ilishmaach bhaja this year. That’s what I do every year.

My mango tree, I miss you

Every summer I miss the mango tree in school. It is ridiculous when I say “every year” as if I am an 80 year old! But undeniably a couple of years have passed since I have been under the inviting shade of that mango tree.

I flinch at stepping out into the sun now. I array myself with the sunscreen with a specific SPF count, my glares, an umbrella or may be a cap. However at school I could not wait to step out into the sun, away from the cool confines of that classroom. It was not the proverbial soaking up the sun but more of a kind of independence we enjoyed. Away from the controlling eyes of parents who would rather have us in a library or guzzling down glucose water in those summer months.

I along with all my friends were of a contrary opinion. We played our favorite games, ran about the arid playground till our shirts stuck to our very skins wet with perspiration. Neither did we bother to run for the deodorant nor did we ever grow tired.

Only after a bout of intense games we would rush to the washroom and splash water on our faces and necks. It would reasonably leave the floors flooded which would sufficiently tick off the cleaning ladies. They would even shout at us, but how long can you reprimand absolute cherub faces? We were always good at putting up the act.

But the pinnacle of our summer games was not in the sun. They were in the cool shade of a tree. Our school playground was a square field. The sides of the field were under careful landscape gardening having several coconut trees and small bushes and shrubs. We would play hide and seek behind these! At one end of the square was a small patch of rectangular protrusion which served as our high jump landing patch. Diagonally opposite from here stood our benign mango tree.

We would rush to its shade when panting our lungs out. We would stand on the sitting porch built around it when addressing a large crowd (read more than 5 people). This is where friends would sit and discuss trouble. This is where rebellion against almost anything, ranging from parents to government, and boyfriends to traffic were plotted.

Also we would have raging competitions of “who can fell the mango?” by hitting pebbles and such. And when that awesome juicy mango would dash on the concrete we would swoop on it like cunning eagles. Safely this was a more delicious treat compared to the choicest ones served at home.

This is where I fought and made up. This is where I would stand holding ears when punished and have the most engaging adda sessions with the other felons. This is where I made friends. I truly miss my mango tree every summer.

bored

This is irksome. I have an empty word doc open in front of me for the past couple of minutes and I just cannot bring myself to put a line on it. I scratch my head a little. Will something pop out yet? No, nothing there; bit my lower lip and cringed my forehead in absolute concentration. I minimized the window to look at the Donald Duck wallpaper. I could see myself in the black background.

I took a look at myself. This is supposed to be my worst look after hours at work and bored to death. The eyeliner from one eye had gone off. Why can I never manage with my makeup I wonder? There are a good number of girls out there who manage it just fine. A friend messaged a slew of tips just this afternoon. My curls lay hither thither. Why couldn’t I have a more manageable hair?

I guess these are those end of day blues. I would have to get out in some time from this air conditioned environment, take some sort of torturous transport back home. Where I will have the same dinner, watch an episode of FRIENDS I have watched so many times before and then talk a lot of nonsense and go to sleep.

This is what life has come to.

One of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example,'The night is shattered and the blue stars shiver in the distance.' The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I held her in my arms I kissed her again and again under the endless sky. She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too. How could one not have loved her great still eyes. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her. To hear the immense night, still more immense without her. And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture. What does it matter that my love could not keep her. The night is shattered and she is not with me. This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance. My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. My sight searches for her as though to go to her. My heart looks for her, and she is not with me. The same night whitening the same trees. We, of that time, are no longer the same. I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her. My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing. Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before. Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes. I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms my sould is not satisfied that it has lost her. Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer and these the last verses that I write for her.

The quarter century circus

Twenty-five. Twenty fucking five, quarter of a century as someone mentioned on Facebook.

As I was reading Murakami on the night of 4^th May, I had this ominous feeling that the best years of my life are past. I am not a young free spirit any more. Words like old, mature, and responsibility crept into my brain-room like gloomy school principals with sinister canes in their hands. They peered at me with their eyes which had slits like those of a goat. I felt like a Beckettian character, waiting till the clock ticks the twelve and my time runs out. Time to have lived a quarter of a century in this world.

I had almost dozed off on the couch when the phone buzzed. I knew it was Gargy. She always calls, at twelve. My birthday begins with her wishing me. But it was not her. It was my cousin. I spoke to her for a bit. It felt as if I had swallowed a stone as I kept checking the phone for her to be on “call waiting” but she never appeared. If it had been school or college I would perhaps make a sad face and throw my temper at her. Instead, I was a bit worried. What was wrong? Is she alright? Afterall the girl is in a different town.

Proves I am getting old? Thinking negative and stressing. Some Freudian explanation?

There were some other calls I attended. Cousins, friends from school and college. There was another call I expected which I never received until the next morning. I did not even meet that caller yesterday.

Honestly I woke up with not the broadest smile. As the sunlight pierced my eyes that morning through the gossamer curtains I was greeted by my parents. Papa and Ma had got me this brilliant dress which I wore to office. I received calls and replied to birthday messages on my way to office.

However it was at office that that I was in for a surprise. I am new employee here so I did not even expect anything there. Perhaps that is why it was so special. Ruchira, my colleague from work, had baked a cake for me. A homemade chocolate cake, soft and just the right amount of fluff. It was completely crazy. We put a tiny candle and did the entire birthday routine. Accommodating tiny pieces so that no one is left out was truly amazing. I cannot remember being so moved by any gift in a long time.

Everyone was so nice, getting gifts, cards, chocolates and other stuff for me. It was a truly special day. I was flooded with messages on my phone, on Facebook, on Orkut. A school friend who I was not particularly pally with suddenly put through a call, people from my old office rallied their need for a treat from me. I guess there is this child in us all who love the attention they get on the day they started off.

Of course there were people who forgot to call. People who were such close friends once. People who sneaked into gtalk and wished. Perhaps people for whom I am not important any more. Or is it?

At the end of the day as I was taken out to dinner by my parents and it rained like the limp of an old man, I sat back and thought, it is not so bad being twenty five. Not so bad to have known so many people so that even after so many people call, you can still think of people who didn’t and feel bad. Not a masochistic streak, just a thought.

I received that call from Gargy. I received the call I expected at midnight too. And the wish from my vegetarian friend. Also the mother of the cutie pie in Dubai. All of them remembered me. It has been an honour to know and be a part of this circus for a quarter of a century.

It is not often that I am demonstrative, i love all of you.

Hate thy neighbour

Why has God created neighbours? Those nosy, know-it-all, humbugs who think it is their birthright to pass judgments about your life, your friends, your decisions. Back off, I do not allow my parents to tell me whether I should do this or do that who the hell do you think you are to just walk up to me one morning and give me a sermon about life?

I was never great around preachy people, and this morning a particularly surly man totally ruined my day and there came a point in between Lords and Rashbehari when I actually was torn between an urge to strangle him, throw him off the bus or get off myself. Finally I just put my glares closer to my eyes and looked out of the window into the sun.

He has this great notion about which job is good and which is not, when a person should get married, who a highly educated and revered person in a society is. And all coming from the father of a son who is a school dropout and a daughter who is a slut who should have graduated by now but is still in school.

Why cannot these people simply mind their own business?

He gave me a slew of examples to prove that studying and studying alone can exalt you in this life. According to him Bill Gates is a brilliant scientist. True enough, but if not for his business sense Bill Gates wouldn’t be who he is. Also if you think studying business is bullshit you don’t know anything about life dear. If you think business is so trashy then don’t go do the audit firm you work for each day, because *clap clap* clarification… auditing falls in the purview of business.

Also one of the greatest scientists of all times, Thomas Alva Edison, was also the founder of the greatest company in the worl GE Capital. Have you heard of that? Why am I wracking my brain, he doesn’t even know who Narayan Murthy is and why I was comparing Bill Gates with Steve Jobs.

And it is sad because he is a JU alumni. I believe he supports all those clandestine value paths he cannot explain but thinks he should be part of just because it is a fad. And he has always been this way. Yes I know the type, I met a few during college.