Things I Want to Do Before I Die

It's difficult to make this list, because a) it is ever expanding and b) I might die even as I write it. But, well, here are some of the things I want to have accomplished before I take the snuff.

• Lie on a grassy lawn and watch the sky: Believe me or not, I've never done this. I'd like to try it someday. I've been told that it'll be softer than velvet or chenille. It doesn't matter to me whether it is day or night because clouds and stars fascinate me alike, though I'll be just a bit partial to stars.

Get a dog: My mother just won't let me keep one now, because apparently there's space-constrain and I'm not capable to take care of it. But I really really really want a dog. Dogs are the best to have around when you're sad and don't want to talk about it. They will just rest with you and probably lick your face if you're crying. I really feel that I don't only want a dog, but I actually need one. One day, I definitely will.

Visit the Taj Mahal on a full-moon night: I don't see the Taj as a symbol for eternal love. It is, however, a breathtaking piece of architecture. Somehow it has always fascinated me. I could gaze at it forever and forever and never get bored. And, I've not been to Agra yet. Well, that's why it's on this list!

Get a tattoo: This will definitely scandalize a lot of people. My parents. Some of my friends. My boyfriend. But I want one done, on my nape. Two little anime wings, because, some of us are always meant to fly.

Get published: Every writer's dream, no matter whether big or small. I haven't yet decided what I'd like to publish. I could be a novel. Or poetry. Or a paper. I don't know yet. I want to get published without paying the publishers, not the other way round.

Go to a real rock concert: No, I've never been to one yet. I want to scream my head of and dance like a mad woman. I would wear the band T-shirt and make the rock sign to everyone.

Catch a snow-flake on my tongue: I cannot explain why this seem to be so important to me, but it is. I've never seen snow falling. I used to dream about being in snow-land when I was younger. I don't dream about this anymore but I do want to have snow falling around me. I even wrote imaginative pieces on how it would feel like to witness my first snowfall.

Have a butterfly sit on my palm: I don't want to catch one. I just want one to sit on my palm. It makes me happy to only think about it. I love butterflies, they're beautiful without knowing it.

My Room

"A girl's room is very private!"
~ Bianca Stratford, Ten Things I Hate About You


I didn't have my own room till I was a High School Senior. Yes, I'm that lame. You just cannot explain to middle-class Bengali parents that a fifteen year old is entitled to her own room. The thing is, when we shifted to our new apartment, all I really wanted was my very own room.


"The whole apartment is yours, honey. Why do you need a separate room for?"
Parent-logic. You just cannot win.


Distant relatives, with whom otherwise hardly I hardly spoke, advised my Ma against the notion of letting me have my own room.

"She'll fall off the bed." was the sanest among the number of reasons they came up with. Someone even told Ma to check if I was "involved" with some guy. How that should affect my right to privacy I do not know, neither did I try to find out.

Anyway, I do have a room now, and it's not exactly what I actually wanted. For one thing, it's messy. There's an inch think dust on everything. There's minimalist furniture, a bed (in which I don't fit), a desk and two overstuffed book-shelves. It looks nothing like a girl's room. I don't have a butterfly wind-chime, or any wind-chimes at all. There are no delicate handmade cushions or whatever girls like to keep in their rooms.  Nor do I have labelled boxes to organize 'pens', 'clips', 'books' and 'boyfriend'. And no, I don't sleep with a teddy (or any other kind of stuffed animal). However, there is a table-fan to ease the heat during summer.

In addition to all what I don't have in my room, I also don't have a closet/wardrobe or a dresser. Or much privacy.

Right now, as I write this post, there is Three Men in a Boat lying in the space between my monitor and keyboard. I can identify a lock, an empty Coke can, some pens, a user manual to a Nokia set, a data-card adapter, a bit of wool, a pair of scissors, Sylvia Plath and an envelope in the tizzy on my right. On my left, there are three pen-stands (basically empty jam jars and biscuit tins) overflowing with pens, most of which do not work. The aforementioned Book-shelves are at my back. One of them has an electric iron stuffed into a cranny. If I am to describe the actual contents of the shelves, it'll take another post.

There are so many things I want to change about my room. I'd like a bigger bed, on which I can turn without slipping off the edge. I'd like a mirror and a closet. I'd like it if my parents didn't dump random things like winter wear and utensil cartons in my room. I'd love to have some posters up on the walls (Nirvana for one thing). I want to be able to close the door, not because I'm not allowed to, but because the stupid door doesn't fit in it's frame. It's funny how nothing in my room really fits, and that includes me.

One day, I'll have my own house and I'll build my dream room in it, whether I live in it or no.

Jurassic Jacket

When Spielberg's Jurassic Park released in 1993, we got to watch it in our country in 1995 (it was an era previous to digitization and film rolls were dispatched by hand) and I was five years old.


Obviously, I was scared to death, even though I could barely understand what was going on. I got the gist though: being chased by ginormous meat-eating lizards twice the size of a normal car is NOT cool.


Then came the nightmares which inevitably involved me being gobbled by a T-Rex or a Velociraptor. I assume it got really bad and my parents got worried.


So they took me to a fair where they had moving Dino models, life-sized. I never understood why they thought this encounter would help, it just caused me to throw a fit.


However, the next attempt was more fruitful than the previous one. I don't specifically remember who it was, but my parents bought me a jacket. It was purple with red collars and cuffs. And it had the Jurassic Park logo. You know, the one they had on the movie poster and on the automatic cars and all the merchandise.


Strangely, maybe because it was so comfy and warm and cool, the Jacket instilled a sense of protection in me. In my befuddled childhood brain, the Jacket transformed all dinosaurs into cuddly teddy-like creatures. I now presume that this Jacket is the root to my Dino-obsession.

Wearing this Jacket, I could now watch the Jurassic Park three times in a row, without flicking an eyelid. My nightmares turned into over-imaginative tea-parties with "civilized" dinos, who found belching offensive. Once I even dreamed that I had a pet dinosaur whom I had to send to a pet-school, but it was weeping when I went to see it off!


Ever since then, I've watched Jurassic Park almost a hundred and twenty times. I can almost recite the script off by heart.


And, I wore that Jacket till I was thirteen, when it started flaking out like multi-coloured dandruff.


I never owned another jacket that came anywhere close to that one.

Xylophones

Rain clouds gathering over apartments, as seen from my terrace

Rain was like a musician-out-of-practice today.


For the last couple of weeks, summer was bearing down very hard on Calcuttans indeed: the heat, the humidity and the headaches. However, the weatherman seems to have found a magic talisman that shows him the weather forecast these days and the clouds came, as a relieving fulfilling of his prophecies.


To me, though, Rain seemed to have lost the habit of coming down in great abounding leaps. It was behaving queerly, like a someone who's forgotten how to play her favorite piece on a Xylophone.


The first drops came like hesitantly, like Rain was testing the notes. Tip. Tap. Splatter.


It was just experimenting, doubting if a duet with the Wind was possible. Thrash. Tap. Splash.


And suddenly, Rain found its rhythm. One quick bass of thunder to open the piece and off went rain, drenching the parched city in its moist melodies, mixing the basic tunes into a well orchestrated xylo-piece.


Impromptu performances are the best. 

A Celestial Love Story

He lay on his terrace floor and gazed at the sky, seeing nothing of the otherwise glorious night. The pain of realising that he would never be able to be together with the love of his life sheered his heart with every passing moment. If he wasn’t so steeped in pain he would have admired a night of poetic beauty: the velvety black half globe was sprinkled with shimmering specks of diamond, somewhat marred by the impeccable sphere of unparalleled gloss. As in most of us mundane creatures, pain was the only thing that forced some philosophy in to him and he looked at the Moon in a whole new light.

“All those lines and cracks must have been caused by ancient tears... but what could have caused them? What could have caused pain to such a beautiful thing?” he wondered aloud.

Miraculously and astonishingly, the Moon heard him. A sad little smile spread across the wan face.

“I cry because I can never be with the one I love, and I cry more because I cannot go far enough to forget him. If he and I come together it is the end of eternity. If we let go, it is the end of eternity too. Yet we are tied together by the strangest of bonds, the most painful and the most beautiful too. I can’t ever have him, nor can I ever give him up...”

“Who is he?” he asked, empathizing with the Moon, perhaps getting a bit hopeful too.

And the Moon answered, “The Earth, my dear.”

I Suffer from CEP

Chronic Examination Phobia.

This is what I have recently diagnosed myself with. First I thought I was dysthymic. And obviously Google helped me find substantial symptoms. Although I didn't see a shrink, I had at least a valid disease to blame this condition on, because no one believes you if you have CEP (Chronic Examination Phobia).

I've drawn up some pointers to help other unfortunate ones who are still in delusion about their true condition.

Symptoms:

1. Insomnia followed by drowsiness: often you will feel yourself unable to sleep, and then unable to stay awake. The cycle can commence anytime.
2. Increased appetite: A lot of us think this should be the opposite, but I have observed Nutella and Gems giving you the "come-here" finger oftener than usual days. Also, you may find yourself addicted to a particular food-item, the variety of which ranges from spearmint dental floss to strawberry lip-gloss.
3. Sudden realizations: This might not be very universal, but personally I tend to discover the deep hidden secrets of philosophy during CEP. I also quite suddenly discover that my reading list for fiction is getting too long and needs immediate trimmings. The Muse also finds such days best for a surprise visit, but I cannot seem to do her justice because of examination-guilt (a sub-disease under CEP, where you tend to blame everything on exams).
4. Procrastination: The 'I'll definitely do it tomorrow' syndrome, it affects us mostly in the afternoons, when the aforesaid appetite causes us to feel drowsy (ref. #2). You end up completing one trillionth of what you actually planned to cover, and still feel oddly confident about time.
5. Facebooking: The final. The ultimate. The most fatal. There's absolutely no one online, and yet you will feel more prone to surfing weird and possibly risky profiles rather than your course books.

What generally happens due to all of this is that I get cranky. I'm not exam friendly (then again, who is?) and I fear an impending exam more than the monster under my bed. As the doomsday looms closer and closer, I tend to lose my wits. I yell at people unnecessarily, I make shrewd remarks in perfectly cheerful situations, I get annoyed faster than you can say 'crap'. In all of this, I still don't feel like studying. The mere thought of learning stuff out of a book makes my skin crawl. CEP makes me melodramatic. It makes me caustic and unsympathetic. You should try telling me to revise my lessons when CEP is on: I remind myself of the vicious  wolves of Narnia. The sky looks grayer, the future bleaker and the books darker than ever. Strangely, the books seem to lose their vile-nature as soon as the exam is over. Exams just scare the living daylights out of me, though, as I don't like to admit it to anyone, no one believes me. When I think of solving an unknown, unseen paper, my stomach does gymnastics hitherto unknown to humans. Yet, I have to keep on taking one exam after another. I've calculated that on an approximation, I've been taking exams every three weeks since I joined college.

It's taxing, tiring, exhausting and I keep fearing my creative faculties suffer severe setbacks each time I take a test. And I fear that there's not much hope of ever escaping this: Life itself is an endless series of exams (unfairly they teach you the lesson only at the end), say the wise.

I conclude that I cannot be cured, or anyone else for that matter, until I vanquish the exams, or they vanquish me. Either way, I'll be dead, if you know what I mean.

The Cat Named...

No, you're not going to find the name in here. It's still in the title. The cat really was called ... That's what her name was.

My Granny had all these come-and-go pets, including this cat and some pigeons.

My mother always said the cat was older than me, but I never could believe it. She was white with black patches and a sort of pitiable face.

She had actually learnt to eat veggies because Granny being a vegetarian would only give her daal-bhaat. That cat had the weirdest dietary preferences. She would eat ordinary crackers, sweets, and sometimes even toffees.

She always gave birth to her kittens in Granny's house, and Granny obligingly played the midwife. She cleared out biscuit cartons and put newspapers in them. When the kittens were old enough, my cousin and I spent all day running after and cuddling them. We made swings from towels and forts with pillows to play with them.

They say you cannot teach a cat to do tricks. But I taught this one to sit down if I stroked its back with a stick. I realized later that this wasn't a very wise thing to do, because, now, whenever someone wanted to scare her away, she would sit down and start meowing at the sight of the stick.

I've never owned any pets. This nameless cat was the closest thing I had to a pet. She died of old age in 2009.

Summer Waali Sunshine

Sweat. Odour. Prickly-heat. Exhaustion.

But also, funky shades. Shorts and sleeveless. Nimboo-paani. Flip flops. Cute parasols. Maybe even skinny-dipping.

Summers in Kolkata aren't exactly the most awaited season of the year. The humidity is intolerable and it literally (and scientifically) saps the life-energy out of you. You almost feel like a dog, and all that sweat doesn't go you much good with acne.

Yet, summer can be fun. I love lazing around in the house, indulging in reading or music. If I venture out, all I need is a slap of sunscreen and a spritz of my favourite deodorant.

Summer has longer days, and that means more time for fun! A refreshing drink of lassi at Esplanade at once livens me up for some shopping. In Kolkata, summer also brings the Mega-End-of-Year-Sale, the Chaitra Sale: one more reason to love summer!

What I love the most about summers is the summer-rains. I would love the feel of the cool drops of heaven on those darned prickly-heats. Also, after it gets really really scorching, mother-nature relents with what we know to be Kalbaishaki, or Nor' Westers. If I don't find myself caught in one this summer, the season goes in vain.

No, no amount of Maza or Frooti or Slice shall quench my thirst of a real, sweet, yellow mango. And, okay, maybe it only adds to your waist-line, but I love mangoes and will eat any given number of it. My summer is incomplete without the pickle of unripe mangoes, our beloved Kacche Aam ka Achaar. My mother makes this brilliant mango delicacy, involving unripe mangoes in a clear turmeric curry, and I'm head-over-heals with it.

Summers are, for me, perfect for the girls'-time-out. Be it a brunch or a luncheon, summer is the time when I love to slip on that comfy cotton dress and mix-and-match hats and shades. I'll share a secret, shades are brilliant camouflages while checking out that hot-bod!

Now that summer is on, it's time to turn on the fun on full swing too. I'll shop till I drop, read that pending novel and take coolers every two hours. What about you?

Written for "The Lakmé Diva Blogger Contest", 2012.
I Love Lakme

Lazy Daze

I am basically a very lazy person.

With brutal honesty, my favourite-most hobby would be sleeping. If my mother didn't pinch me out of bed, I'd easily sleep 18 hours everyday, and still feel sleepy.

I can easily head the Procrastinators of the World United Club. I think so much that I can't do anything else.

I invent wild strategies to avoid being given chores. I pretend to be asleep, or hide in the loo, or even feign temporary deafness.

Whenever the doorbell rings, I actually flee as far as I can go from the door. Then, grab the book closest to me, even if it is something as random as a user-manual.

Sometimes even if I am hungry, I don't eat. No, I'm not on a diet. I just feel too lazy to open a packet of biscuit, let alone cook anything.

Sometimes I don't wash my hair because I don't feel like it.

Often, I don't even write, because I'm too lazy. I'm too lazy to log on or even grab a pencil.

However, I'm constantly writing in my head. I do a lot of things, in my head.

Lyadh, or the Goldfish Syndrome

Yes, one of those days when you are a goldfish.

You sleep till noon. You don't want to take your bath. You aren't hungry. You take an hour to write out a 200 word post. You aren't reading. Sometimes you blow a spit-bubble or two. You also don't know what you are thinking about. You're warm, but you don't want to stitch the fan on. There are 40 people online on your IM, but you don't know what to say to even one of them. It's difficult to even get bored.

You feel like a goldfish in a round glass bowl. Even your blinking seems stupid.

We Bengalis have a simple word for this: Lyadh.