Just thought that the internet should know that I have a new blog where I sometimes write about my favouritest thing in this world.

I didn't want to advertise it, because I generally hate people who post links to their blog at the slightest opportunity. (ME! ME! READ ME! ME FIRST! ME AWESOME! Argh.)

However, my shiny new blog was feeling rather desolate because no one was reading or commenting. (Primarily because no one knew about its existence. But still.).

And I did write stuff and put it out on the internet because I wanted people to read it. 

So. Here it is.

p.s. And this is the last time I shall write about it/ post a link to it anywhere, because now I know that people are aware of its existence.

The end.

I don't get it. I don't get this sense of open, exhilarating elation at the news that a brainwashed 20 something murderer who was promised 20,000 virgins in his afterlife has been sentenced to death.

I don't get the joy. I really don't.

A speedy trial sometimes does go against a fair trial. I'm just glad that, like any other civilized, democratic country in the world, we gave him a chance to defend himself, and didn't shoot him at sight. This entire episode is a tragedy of epic proportions, and I'm looking at Kasab's execution as an unpleasant thing that must be done.

The happiness at someone's death, though, eludes me.

I mention Kasab's age and his brainwashing in order to make people understand the psychology behind what he did. In order to make people understand that celebration of his execution somehow, uncomfortably, makes us more like him and more of his ilk—people who rejoice at lives being taken, people who cannot differentiate between barbarism and justice.

Inherent hatred of any Pakistani common man and all that our neighbouring country stands for is why certain celebrated bloggers make me uncomfortable. When articulate, intelligent, well-off people with a doctorate degree spew venom, we can hardly expect the common man to keep a cool head. 

Shepherds lead; the sheep, they just follow unquestioningly.

For Old Times' Sake

Because a part of me is still in that old house I grew up in. A part of me is always going to be.

When I was very young, younger than the youngest me you can imagine, I used to live in a tumble-down old house at the heart of a humid and incredible city in Eastern India. My para, as localities are endearingly called in Bengali, used to be, and still is, my favouritest place in the whole city. From the little blue gate, I used to stare at life as it rushed past my house. My school was a stone's throw away. Many of my closest friends lived nearby. And to top it all, Bhagyolokkhi Mishtanno Bhandar around the corner made the BEST kochuri and jilipi in miles. It was, in all respects, the tiniest, most perfect bit of the world that I could call my very own. Even now, when I go home for a few brief days, weighed down with a hundred things to do, I try to take a walk down the familiar streets. Straight past Patha Bhavan, down the wide, tree-lined road past the Telephone office and the the Montessori school, past Tasty Corner and South Point, past P's house, past Cakes with its incredible chocolate ganache pastry, and then back again via the main road, walking past the CESC office, maybe stopping for some phuchka on my way home. Oh my insulated, little bit of South Calcutta. How I love it.

It took me twenty four years to learn this, but today, at long last, I understood that maybe my idea of an ideal isn't everyone's idea of an ideal after all. Because today, in the course of a conversation, someone casually mentioned that that place? That place I call home? That place which is considered one of the better places to stay in my poor city with a hundred, garbage-laden streets? That place might be too dirty for someone from another state. Not too dirty for, say, an American - used to his corn fields and clean highways. Not too dirty for, say, a German - used to his impeccably ordered cities. No. Too filthy for someone from this country. In fact, so dirty, so filthy, so completely devoid of any other attribute is my home, that people from the western part of the country might faint at the filth. Faint. Someone, born and brought up in this blighted third-world country, might faint at the garbage heap that I call home.

It might just be time I went back to my city. My filth calls me, I think. And I guess I can manage without fainting.