Rant alert.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

I miss so many bloody things. Like good texts. I don't want to read Dunciad. I want to read Hughes' short stories, but I don't have the time. I don't want to read Tom Jones either. Or Wordsworth or The Heart of Midlothian etc. I miss my speakers, I need some music but I don't have the money to buy new speakers. I miss my iPod but I don't have the money to repair it. I particularly missed Debopama, Sion and Banerjee while solving crossword today. They can solve this stuff within minutes and I can bask in their shared glory. Special mention, Doel: who can not only solves puzzles, but can bake cakes with mousse stuffing. I miss Subhayu, but idiot does not return calls. I miss Subhayu having a room of his own too. Hrmpf. I miss Anwesha, while she goes out of her way to vegetate in her lab. I miss Srabashi, but she is swamped with 'submissions'. I miss Doel's giggles, they can cheer up one and all. I miss Clue-do, Scrabble and biriyani. I miss I miss I miss.

After Ed-pub, as Banerjee says, we must do some Oly-pub.

Rant posts, how I hate them.

[added later]

P.s: I miss Shifu and her puns, but now she won't have pun with me anymore, she says. I miss her chicken curry, she only gets fish these days. Prayag, oh yes, how could I not mention Gay-arp? After the betrayal and "contact" building? Hrmpf. I will expose you, right here.

He has one golden (foot)ball.

He has anterogade amnesia, and as Sion says, has enough guts to read Locke despite a 15-minute memory retention span.

But, he treated me to cold-coffee.

So there, grudging loyalty: He is so-so at Jumbled words. :P

However, I don't miss Prayag. I just miss poking fun at his self-styled-Ghajini-cut.

Let winter not touch you

If you open this letter

on a late afternoon

warm, wet and ochre-

let this remind you

of a long winter left midway.

Where the earth curls up

ever-ceasing, ever-withdrawing.

Wait awhile,

for my love, unused to summer

recoils for a moment-

and in the next,

spills out, shivering and restless.

Let such inexperienced love

melt with that bit of visible sea.

This afternoon

let it melt-

into untamed accents, unknown roads.

A naked letter prays

and outside your window

summer breathes.

Let winter not touch you.

(Letters are a recurrent theme with me, a device I use quite frequently in my infrequent bursts of poetry. However, this was written because I needed to write a proper letter.)

at five past twelve last night the phone rung. i have always been wary of late night calls, always. last time it rang to tell us that my pishemoshai had expired, leaving behind a very young daughter. that was 6 years ago and i can still remember my cousin holding my hand, her bright eyes swimming with tears and asking me to tell her a story. and I told her how God always metes out justice, even if justice comes a bit too late. i meandered and told her about troikas and all things Russian. it was a stupid little story but she drank in every word i spoke.

yesterday, my mama called up to say that dida has been admitted to a nursing home. she is in her seventies, but she is as sturdy as sturdy could be. for a moment, even before hearing the rest of what he had to say, the ground beneath my feet swayed. just hours ago, i had stood in front of tollygunge metro station, contemplating whether I should go to didarbari or back to ultadanga where I live. I chose to return. A few days ago, on my way to college, an elderly lady boarded the auto with me. she too had a golden white mane, just like my dida. she wore her shankha and pola on her wrists, just like my dida. she smelt like her too, she smelt of jasmine hair oil. i decided to visit dida and dadu that day, after classes got over. needless to say, as soon as she got off from the auto, I forgot that little promise made to myself.

mama said that dida had complained of chest pains and that she couldn't see anything in front of her. there was a darkness enveloping her, bit by bit. however, the doctors acted fast and admitted her into the emergency ward. i spent half of the night with my mother on the sofa, tethering on the edge, waiting for the phone to ring. i uttered prayers, prayers that had cobwebs all over them, lying unremembered since school.

today, i went over to see my dear old lady. she was lying in a little white room, a saline bottle hung beside her. she looked alien in such a surrounding. the trademark lal paar shada saree was missing, instead she was wearing a checked uniform. her face was bloated, and she squinted to see me. however, a little red bindi rested on her forehead. maa placed a comb and a powder case beside her. she called me close, and let me hold her hand. "dida, eta ki korle?" i joked. she smiled and said "kheyechish toh? shudhu khichuri? ish, ekta omlette kore dilo naa toke?"the relief that washed through me was indescribable.

dadu too is unwell, he is suffering from dementia. his memory is like a slate, wiped clean every few minutes. he has not slept since last night, he keeps asking people about dida. today, when he saw me his face lit up for a while. as always, he said " thank you dadu, tumi ele." he recognised me, but it might not happen that easily again.

days like this change the person you are. they probe into those half lit hidden areas of the soul, turning you inside out, showing you the person you are. i have always been insecure, always needed a bit of assurance and love from people, even unworthy people. today i learnt that in this fruitless quest of making myself popular and lovable, i have ignored those who love like no other. i am very, very sorry.

and I love you.

December and the cold cold touch.

I will tell you exactly how I feel about December.

10 o'clock and I am still snuggling under a canopy of blankets. Maa presses her palm on my eyes, and it is sooooo cold because she has been washing vegetables in the kitchen. I shiver-brrrr- it is so unexpected! But you know how it is, right? There is a mine of hidden warmth in that cold cold touch. December, too, is just like that.

I Dream of Jeannie, I do

How many of you loved watching I Dream of Jeannie as a kid?

I did.

I adored Jeannie because, ah well, as she says herself, she only needed to "think and blink". The show was a must watch for me when I was around six years old. After all these years, when the only detail that I could remember was that of Jeannie's pink harem dress and the cute genie bottle- Zee Cafe decides to air it again. Most people tend to avoid it, because the show has a dated appeal they say. Heck, how? We have a handsome and reserved astronaut called Anthony, finding a sexy 2500year old genie, conveniently named Jeannie, in a bottle on a deserted island after his shuttle crashes there. This is timeless folks! She falls for him, breaks his engagement, lives in with him and eventually after five seasons he falls for her too- despite being driven mad by her magic antics. Nevermind that. What actually appeals to me, even today, is that they managed to make the magic tricks look pretty awesome without the help of any hi fi special effects. We have miniature sized Jeannie sitting atop a telephone or inside her bottle looking completely at home. Moreover, the casting is brilliant. I love Tony's friend, Major Healy, the guy is fantastic! Anyway, it is a pity that they decide to start showing this oldie just when my end semester is about to start. I plan to catch as many reruns as possible. I like this kind of humour- such a far cry from the crass sex comedies that we have on tv these days, yet utterly delightful. Besides, I think Tony Nelson is hot. You may not agree, but hey, do I care? ;)

tying up all those loose ends. no space for even a trickle. :)

So you want to be a writer?

So you want to be a writer

- Charles Bukowski

If it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.