Has there ever been a time when you have felt completely helpless? Like nothing seems to be going right, nothing at all. Everything is a mess, your work, your life , you .. everything seems to be out of sync?

And worse still, you cannot share it with anyone. No one. You are made to feel like that naked child who is abandoned at the pavement. The bitch who has a litter and one pup is forgotten to the ravages of nature.

You come into this world alone, and you shall have to leave alone. Some snatches from our Holy Book come to my mind. How true it is. Times like these are the ones which make you understand how many people are really there for you.

Grr...

I am angry. I am not sure if I am angry with someone but I am angry, as angry as one can get. But I am unsure how exactly I should vent out my anger. It is a situation where there is no one in particular that i can blame. It is really nobody's fault. In situations like these what I do is very detrimental.

I cry or I shout at people. And more often than not I shout at people who i know will keep on loving me just as they have always done in spite of this sudden fit of vicious temper. Losing one's temper really is one of the greatest vices of all, has it made to the seven sins? I am not sure.

From my childhood I have been protected and loved by everyone , I guess that is what has given me this amazing comfort zone about losing my temper at the drop of a hat. I am an only daughter. I guess the only person who has had a more or less rational and balanced approach towards me has been my mother. She spoils me completely though. She never really has been pampering me. My father pampers me still. And he is the shield I can take refuge behind if my mother is angry with me for any reason. But there have been times when I have had furious rows with either of them. And have said God-knows-what in my rage.

It is only in hindsight that I sit and think how wrong I have been and I should not have done this or that. But the word is really like a bullet, once shot it's gone. It's said and nothing absolutely nothing can undo that. However saying bitter stuff to people who are unrelated is a bit dicey. i cannot really expect them to understand.

I am the only girl among all my cousins. So even there I have been quite sheltered. If the bigger brothers were bad to me their parents would come to my rescue, if the younger ones were disturbing me the older ones would shoo them away. So what an only child does among his/her cousins, i.e. cry , shout, make a point and get his/her point across and taken was never really done by me.

Even in school I was among an elite group who nobody picked on. SO the natural defense mechanism which every geekish student has to protect him/herself is lacking in me.

Suddenly I am left to fend for myself. No amount of shouting or stony silences are being understood by people. How exactly do I get across the fact that I am angry, furious, totally ballistic. The thing is I am expecting too much. I am expecting that everyone will treat me like family. Everyone is going to think like my family. everyone is going to come with an icecream or a pastry to tell me it is fine.

My problem is I expect too much. I am too high-maintenance as a dear friend pointed out. I have been trying to deal with the situation and I guess this time around I am going to have to do it alone. I cannot expect so much.

Now that that is identified I need to figure out a way to control the absolute explosion that is to ensue. Generally in such situations I do some crazy shouting at someone. I had tried to cope with it once earlier and had resorted to obsessive eating to level of bingeing. But I don't think that is such a good idea after all. The thing is when I sit down later and try to think what it is that has angered me soooo much the issue seems so trivial that I wonder why am I so angry after all . I mean this is not such a big deal. It is not the event in itself and it's brevity or giganticity which invokes such moods in me but the reaction that people have.

They sit tight, lackadaisical, as if nothing at all has happened and do not even make an effort to correct the situation. I mean I know it's done , I am not asking anyone to undo it, at least try to compensate. There, there I go again.

Take a deep breath. I shall be fine. Lets find something to eat.

Ash face-powder

I would rather read a book or sleep than go to a party. Any party is but a glamour war for wannabe aunties. I may come out as a procrastinating lazy bum, because any number of times anyone would urge me to accompany them to a party I would put it of for that elusive “next time”.

I really pity this class of less educated women who were pretty faces in their heyday and had been married of to well educated, fat salaried men, the metaphorical “good catch”. These women feel horribly out of place when they are first exposed to this drink guzzling, beauty parlor frequenting, well groomed designer wear flashing breed. Soon however they are taken up in this dream torrent and they transform into beings they are not.

They watch BBC when their husbands are at work to perfect their English accents, they visit grooming classes to know the table manners and they dab on make-up when their husband casually asks them to accompany them praying they would stop to give an approving nod to the arm-candy they have dolled themselves into.

When they return to their parents, mostly in small towns they cannot be comfortable any longer without the AC neither can they understand what is the huge attraction their children have in the Playstation. They have left back the Rabindrasangeet and they pretend to enjoy the Bach their husband’s enjoy and cannot understand what Iron Maiden is all about. They cannot get their hands on a piece by Jibananda and they’d rather not read the Keats on the shelf.

So many families live their lives in such pretensions. And at night when the lights go off and she wipes off her make-up looking into the mirror in the dark as the tired husband sleeps on the bed she might hum a song and have her own moment, but just that and no more.

Falling out of love

Sometimes things happen in the lives of other people and you realize how effervescent the nature of life essentially is.

Like a friend moving out of the city. She has to go into an alien land. She has meet new people, make new friends, and learn a new language. Like my friend moved to Bangalore and my cousin moved to Paris. I keep wondering how they will cope with these new challenges.

Perhaps it is my fear of the disturbance in status-quo. Perhaps.

Life was going on just fine. Everyone was happy but, like a drop on the face of the mirror still pond, things change. And it is the inherent quality of life to change. The question is whether this change is desirable.

Like break-ups. I have noticed this, whenever someone close to me, or even someone I know has to go through a broken relationship it shatters me at some level. This is not an exercise in baring wounds but a self-reflexive discourse. Why do I have to let things which happen in other people’s lives affect me? Why do I have to identify myself in a similar position?

Boy meets girl, girl meets boy. And then they are simply hooked on to each other. So much so that being around each other becomes more of a habit than anything else. So when do you know you are in love? Not making this into an Yash Chopra inspired gimmick it is a serious question. Are two people just sticking to each other because they are simply used to it or because of their love. Do they miss each other because it is a habit to be around or because of love? And what is this concept of falling out of love?

Then there are these various romances and break-up types.

There is the school-time hook up-break up. Here the two meet during school. Perhaps in the sixth-seventh standard, when you are just exploring the concept of getting attracted to the opposite sex. You are curious, and you want some first hand experience. Friendship is taken for love, and by the time they have grown from children to adults they have had enough of each other and they fall out of love, ideally when you are in the tenth –eleventh standard.

Then comes the high school hook up-break up. You meet people from different schools during school fests or during common tuitions and you fall for that elusive girl who wears short skirts and ties her hair in the cutest ponytail or that sweet boy who is as good on the sports field as with the guitar. You fall for an image, not the person per se, but an image in your head. Then you meet the person, go out on a couple of dates. Most probably you find out she is the dumbest chick or he is the most boring lout and you fall out of love.

Then is the hook up in school-break up in college story. You were friends when you were in school, and you were together for a while. Then you went to different colleges. This is more complicated, because as we grow up things do tend to get more complicated. We change as people. Our personalities are defined. And often we realize that the person we were with during school has grown up to be a different person altogether. Their interests are different, their friends are different and you simply dissociate from each other and you fall out of love.

Then of course the most famous the college hook up-break up. You meet someone in college, he/she is enchanting and different from anyone you have ever seen and you simply cannot be without him/her. You are with that person day in day out. You discuss movies, music, sports, life , politics, food and everything on the planet and beyond and as with all the other types one day you suddenly fall out of love. Perhaps someone more enchanting captures your sight or you are bogged down by silly socio-economic pressures.

So why do people fall out of love? Only to fall in love again? Or is it the destiny of every individual to fall out of love at some time. How do you know it is the real deal?

Pujo

It is that time of the year again. I wonder what is with this particular time of the year that my heart still flies out of the window like a balloon as it used to ten years ago. I would not do math then and I cannot for the love of God concentrate on my work now.

There is something mysteriously romantic about those bamboos being bored into the footpaths cordoning off pedestrians from flooding the streets. It is that time when the city dolls up like the bride, and the people come out in their best finery for four days of being caught up in the frenzy of festive joy.

Durga Pujo is here. Today is Panchami and from tomorrow this city is going to live up to its carnivalesque best rising above the fumes of the two-stroke autos, political colours, shabby buses and broken dreams. For people who call it the choking city, you are not invited. But that is just a way of speaking. I notice this striking similarity between the Pujo with it's authentic city flavour and one of my favourite places, Jadavpur University (JU). It has an all embracing quality which is unique to it. I have known many people who crib about the city, and maintain they would be happier in any other shithole than here, but come Pujo they are the same people who are at the fringes of the whirlpool of festivities more eager than anyone else to be at it's epicentre.

It is quite a similar story in case of JU. I have known numerous people who think only dopers and drunkards are on the campus, but they are the same people who die to be part of it. Since they cannot by right of a student they enter in various forms. They may be the wannabes at the canteens, the pseudo-hippie on the grounds or the painter/poet on the bridge. We do not have any qualms in embracing them and the sundry as one of us. The broad outlook which allows us to gracefully treat people of alternative sexual preferences and poets muttering to themselves makes us accept them too.

The Pujo brings everyone together. The pallette is just one colour on those days.

I do not know the logic behind all those mad moments, the often senseless laughter that we indulge in. What I do know is that I would not leave the city on those days for the greatest treasures in the world. An article by my friend Insiya actually prompted me to write this. In the article she says she doesn't quite know what is this madness all about. When I initially read it i was stumped. How can someone be living in Calcutta and be aloof of such a major event. It is like going to the Olympics and not knowing about it's history.

Then again i questioned myself was I not caught up by the excitement of the games, the taut tension of the sportsmen when I did not know about Heracles? Yes, I thought, of course I was just as excited. It is true that knowing more gave a certain framework or fabric to the excitement, but it was similar.

The same with the Pujo I think. I cannot claim i understand the near manic frenzy in which the days go by, or why I love to hear the mahalaya at 4 in the morningwhen I cannot understand half the things said, or why I am taken in by the majestic pandals and sore my legs by walking from one to the other. I do not understand... I do not think I ever will.

I love the Pujo but. It's manic traffic, teeming people, totally unhygeinic food, queues in front of restaurants, jammed cell phone networks, not finding a friend in a ground full of strange crowds when she's just a stone's throw from me, passing comments of fashion disasters of the year. Yes I live in a shithole, as some think, but that's life. Life is not about driving around in an A.C. car and looking at people from behind the safe confines of glass. it is about getting on the road, walking with the people, the dirt and grime of rickshaw and smoke of the scooters, and dingy roads and people and more people.

And it is at these times that I realize that the Pujo is what you make of the Pujo. It can be a religious sojourn where you are one with the almighty. It can be a welcome vacation from work. It can be some lazy days for gluttony and debauchery. It can be a non-stop party. It can be discovering yourself and people you know, or you think you know. It is a time to think, rethink or may be not; may be it is time to just relax, lay back and let your heart take control.

It is time, Panchami, just this night and the festival begins. Cheers!

Drops

Oh these rains! Yes it’s the poet’s favorite season and every romantic’s dream but when you are rushing to office and need to get there in time rain is possibly the last thing you wan. And if it is rain like the one ailing Calcutta for the past few days.. well only a Calcuttan knows what it’s like.

Today morning when I was coming to office the world looked fresh and fine. The last few days a terrible downpour had lashed down on the city. While just a day ago we were grappling with a draught caution and a rainfall deficit we had to tackle flood situations in a few districts and there was a surplus.

Coming back from office was a total pain yesterday. I left office at 18:30 and reached home 20:40, while this same distance takes less than an hour to cover on any normal day. First reaching the bus stand was a torture. Autos refused to ply. Half of them had broken down, the other half did not want to reach the same fate. Cabs were reluctant to take a passenger for such a short distance, getting up on the rickshaw was never an option on this day.

Roads were waterlogged. (They still are in parts of the city), Water ranged from ankle deep to Knee deep at places. Hundreds of morbid individuals, tired after a day’s tyranny in office, looking from some solace at home, waded through. And a series of buses, cars, vans, trucks (wonder what those do in the city before ten in the night and in the office area too!) of various shapes and sizes honked and toiled through.

Once I reached the bus terminus I found myself at the end of a serpentine queue. There was a bus standing, but seats were taken. I braved having to stand in for the entire journey and got up. And let me not mention the inhuman crowd that there was. With the furious rain washing the windscreen white, and a hundred tired bodies waiting for the maddening traffic to end.

But that was yesterday.

I reached home, took a bath and a dish of the hot khichuri and ilish maach bhaja awaited me. Today is a new day, and bunch of roller coaster experiences awaited me.

The monsoons have this peculiar quality about them which no other season has you know. I hate the season. It makes roads dirty, and eventually your clothes. But then again, after a rushed shower everything looks so clean. The leaves are greener, the dirt and pollution is washed off. Coming to think of it the air itself is cleaner. I can breathe easy, without unconsciously pulling the handkerchief ( or in it’s absence my hands) to the nose. So when I walked out today morning after a lazy late sleep after yesterday’s tumultuous experience everything looked greener and fresher. I felt good, a spring in my step as I headed to office.

Suddenly out of the blue (quite literally so) dark clouds started gathering and hid the sun. I was waiting for a shuttle car, but none seemed to be ready to go where I wanted to go. After sometime, I found myself with trousers rolled up to the knee, wet umbrella in hand, bag tucked under an arm waving frantically at every passing vehicle. Now that I think about it I feel I must have looked quite a ridiculous spectacle but at that tie it was the only sane thing to do!

Finally a white Ambassador car came to the rescue. Quickly five other fellow sufferers piled up in the car and the journey to the office began. Now I do not for the love of God understand why we have a bypass which has such heavy traffic. The cars just stand there. As if it was one big all-brand showroom of cars. You have brilliant looking locomotives, but their basic motive of motion is defeated!

We trudged along, with water dripping through the windows. And the roads! God save them, whatever bits and pieces of it survive. Like a malnourished child whose ribs are exposed, the roads on our city’s bypass lie writhing under the pressure of thousands of cars. As the slow motion car advanced I was taken over by this bout of claustrophobia only to find out that all the windows were shut and 7 able bodied adults were breathing.

At this point I focused my attention outside, on the road. Billboards were stripped to the bare frames. The potholes on the road were not only giving us the Captain-Haddock-in-rough-seas experience but would have shamed the craters on the moon. A lady had lost her sandal in a puddle and was very cautiously trying to look for it in there. A kid sweetly held on to her father’s raincoat as he drove the scooter even when she was blinded by the angry drops lashing on her small specs.

I had reached. I paid some wet notes to the driver. Umbrellas were flying hither thither, after two auto changes through muddy waterlogged roads, I reached office with a drenched dress, soaked shoes and unkempt hair. And from then on I am shivering in the chill of the A.C. and waiting to go home.

Tribulations of a child

Power relations in a house hold take strange and often surprising dimensions. My latest discovery is the wardrobe.

Now mothers have a general characteristic in thinking that their children are their property. And funnily enough this sense of ownership transcends unto their kid’s belongings as well. They absolutely love the institution of deciding what the child will wear, how they will wear and how they will carry themselves.

“ The green belt does not go with the blue jeans”

Ma, it’s called colour blocking, like contrasting, a colour stands out.. that way. Please don’t make me wear that obnoxious leather thing.

“Tie your hair with the hairband”

Ma, I want to keep my hair open

“Put oil on your hair”

Please Ma, oil stinks, I’d rather shampoo

“This skirt is too short; I told you the bigger size fits you”

Ma, this is the correct size

Etcetera

Often have I waited for myself to grow up so that the oversized Tee my mom bought would fit me. More often than not, by the time it would fit me, my mother would decide that either it’s too old, or it is discoloured and should be thrown away.

So when the tattered jeans were in fashion I would wear ironed and clean ones. When stilletoes were the cool thing to do, they were just too these-are-worn-by-grown-up-ladies-in-parties! And now that flats are in fashion she wonders why I have lost interest in stilletoes.

Just yesterday my mother and I sat down at night to do a Pujo-is-here-so-lets-get-rid-of-old-clothes cleaning of my wardrobe. She wants to throw away the pajamas in which I get the most comfortable sleep. Ma, they are my sleeping clothes, I do not have to look like a princess in them. She wants to throw away my school uniform, on which a lot of..ahem.. unparliamentary stuff had been written by friends on the last day of school. She thinks it is all trash.

And a hideous red skirt is something she thinks I will wear again. Then there is this brown flowery shirt she had bought which I think I wore one and a half times( once she forced me too, and second time I complained that the tag was itching near my neck so my dear dad politely allowed me to change).

My ,mother is the most sweetest sweet. She does not want me to wear torn clothes, so she quietly donates a pair of jeans which I had toiled an entire afternoon to cut and design. What she doesn’t understand is her and my definitions of style and comfort and very very different.