The Broken Nail

Once upon a time there was a girl and she had a right leg with a big-toe which had a brightly painted nail. So this girl was on a bus in calcutta which was being driven by a a person who thought none less of himself than Michael Schumacher. Whirling through heavy city traffic the bus danced its way, slamming on the brake anytime it pleased the Schumacher incarnate. Now it so happens on these prehistoric buses that metal protrusions are aplenty.
So the girl is chirrupping away happily when the fatal brakes are slammed. Her legs which were poised on one of these metal protrusions as a manner of comfort fell with a jerk and went under the metal, only the nail from the big toe refused to go under. SO it went up , up over the metal and with one quck sharp jab the nail and the flesh was open. Her white slippers went red. And there was the rebellious big-toe nail holding its head high; High above the flesh it is attached to the normally.
And all that blood.

Waiting for Godot

I face a ritualistic existential crisis each day. It is quite ridiculous when I think about it in retrospect, but I feel the same virgin trepidation each day.
I take a bus which my office provides each morning, from the same bus stop at the same time every day. Since I am a bit of a hyperventilating punctual I happen to reach the bus stop well in advance, almost ten minutes before the bus arrives. With the cobbler spreading out his modest shop on the footpath and the a few regular people scampering into overpacked buses the day has just begun.
The other people who avail the bus with me have not arrived at this point in time. Though I know in my heart that they would be coming sometime soon, I have this weird feeling that I have surely missed the bus. Invariably I am late and the bus has left without me. Whether there is some deeprooted Freudian explanation to this I do not know. But somehow it is as if my existence at that place and that time is validated by the presence of my co-passengers. Until the others are around there is this gnawing sensation of discomfort eating at my heart.
The regular school children pass me by. Still I keep a lookout for whether a familiar face has come. If even one person reaches I heave a sigh of relief. I must confess that I have never spoken to any of these "familiar faces", except for a cursory hello or a seasons greetings. Mostly they are quite unfriendly, shoving their faces (which are as it is hidden behind his thick glasses) into pink newspapers or happily lost in the sweet melody of their iPods. Yet I look for this detached sense of reassurance from these very people.
Now I know who Godot is; finally, when I don't have to write out answers anymore.

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.