My only way of handling disappointment is to take the blame myself. It is way easier to deal with heartbreaks and loneliness when I can convince myself that the mess, indeed, is not in the other person but in my brain. Because I am my strictest teacher, harshest critic, strongest monitor. The heart, it must be reigned in. The brain, it must be organized. Dependence on other people must be whittled away to zero. One must be strong and one must be independent. It is way easier to sternly rebuke oneself than it is to wait for someone else, who will not turn up anyway. Crying alone in the loo is way better than embarrassing myself in front of a second human being. No one, but no one, must know that each phone call from home is making me die a little bit inside.

It is probably not a healthy way to deal with life's problems but it works for me. Being independent is the last straw I clutch at, because nothing else seems to make much sense nowadays.

I wish 2011 would get over quickly. It's fucked with my heart enough already.

Se obujh, kheyali, se bheeshon ekaki, aabeg sob-i taar toh fnaaki.

Every day when I wake up, I pray for that strange emptiness in my heart to go away. But it never does. The bus rides to office through the dusty Noida roads are the worst. I plug in my mp3 player and stare out of the window, trying to resist thinking about it. But the problem with letting my mind wander is, it inevitably settles on the inevitability of it all, and every dusty corner I turn, I wonder why I live this life I do. Counting every penny, living in my head half the time, and choosing to stay in this city while one incredible soul battles with a hundred tubes and beeping monitors in a cheerless hospital hundreds of miles away.

First proofs, second proofs, perfect grammar, companion Web sites, who gives a fuck anyway, when each phone call from home sends you into a panic attack and all you want to do is curl up in a fetal position with a comforting shoulder by your side and you try and you try but you cannot block out everything you want to?

This is a rambling post and it shouldn't have been up for everyone to see. But I needed to get this out and I needed somebody to read it and there was no one I could mail it to. Ei mondar bajare, readily available comforting shoulders for a self-obsessed twenty three year old are hard to come by.

Blah.

Growing up is not all it is made out to be. For example, this weekend, I'm looking forward to:

1. Cleaning the bigger loo.
2. Getting the rice cooker fixed.
3. Cleaning the top of the fridge. (The red ants are killing us)
4. Pestering the plumber until he comes over to fix the leaky pipe and the broken washer.
5. Getting quilts down from the loft and sunning them.
6. Buying a nice overcoat for myself from Janpath before the temperature dips to single figure and the prices shoot up.
7. Cooking the leftover pork in the fridge.
8. Making the long overdue mutton curry for my roommates.
9. Finishing A Song of Ice and Fire.

Previous weekends usually involved extensive hours on the phone, obsessive texting, and mailing. But I've given up on the last two (because I figured there's only so much of one sided conversation one can take) and am slowly working on curtailing the first one. And therefore, I'm left with the list above.This isn't really how the life of a twenty three year old, living away from home, should be. Apart from finishing that strangely addictive book, I do not see a single thing that gets my adrenaline pumping. The future, my friend, is bleak.

Sotyi.

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart... I hate love.

- Neil Gaiman

I like to look out of the office windows on days like these, when the sky decides to tear itself apart. Rain makes me want to write. It makes me want to purge. It makes me want to effortlessly string words together so that every bloody thing churning around inside would find a specific slot outside my head. Once, I would be able to do that. But writing has gone away from me. From my hands, my mind, my head. It is time I admitted that the half-baked whines I come up with are boring at best, and mindnumbing in their ordinariness at worst. For years, since I was a little kid, writing has been like the yellow brick road. Like the platform number nine and three quarters. It's been like Malory Towers and Kanasona and every fucking place I created in my mind to escape from the grinder that is reality. It's all I've ever known. And I don't know WHAT to do with my thoughts now that the words simply do not form.

I can cook now. I can manage cranky authors. I can pay my bills. I can even deal with long distance boyfriends. But I just. Cannot. Write. Hell, I cannot even compose a semi-decent paragraph on, say, cows. Or about how I am slowly slipping back into the void I tried so hard to get out of. Or about how I'm stuck in a rut of pretend-happiness and super-politeness and cannot make myself snap out of it and grab someone by his collar and SAY 'Hey you? That thing you said? That was kinda mean. And it hurt. And I don't like the fact that I have to TELL you that it hurt. You are supposed to KNOW. So, how about I punch your face instead?'

I read like a crazy maniac most of the days. And every time I read a beautiful paragraph or a particularly breathtaking string of words, I stop myself and try to think, honestly, whether I would be able to come up with anything like this. Ever. And I know that I can't. Especially now that the magic of words eludes me completely. And every bloody time I come to this conclusion, my heart breaks just a little.

Happy post.

For all my whining and existential angst, I'm not really unhappy here. No, really, I'm not. I revel in the anonymity that this city gives me, I like not bumping into known faces at every corner, I like the fact that I can order in Kababs at midnight. I have also decided that I love winter in this city. The bright colours, the morning misty breath, the need to wear three layers well into February gives me a high unlike any other. I like the independence. I bitch about my hardships, but there's a rather large bit of me that likes paying my own bills, cooking my own meals, deciding that I want momos for dinner today. I like coming home, fixing myself a stiff drink, and reading the newspaper. Knowing that, if push comes to shove, I can muddle along without anyone's help has calmed that part of my psyche which goes by the name of Marvin: The Paranoid Android. There are days I feel like shit, there are days I feel on top of the world. But at the back of my mind, I always know that there is no one else to blame for the shittiness.

Maybe this is what it feels like to be a grown-up, and I'm not half-bad at it.

Also? In case anyone was wondering, amar autobiographyr naam debo Noshto Meyer Upakhyan. Just so you know.

The city I want to go back to, only exists in my head. The sepia tinted images roll on like an old film and make me smile. It is, however, unfair of me to expect it to stand still, waiting to welcome me with open arms when I am, myself, a completely different person now. If I can change, why can't my home? Because people leave, people change, things blow up. The adage 'more things change, the more they remain the same'? That's bullshit. Because NOTHING remains the same. NOTHING. Not you, not me, not my room, not my streets, not my head, not my heart. Especially not my heart. Today it is almost full, tomorrow it might resemble one of those soggy Marie biscuits one finds at the bottom of the jar and throws away with a cringe. I don’t know. I can’t tell. No one can. This time when I go, there will probably be someone waiting for me at the airport. Last time when I went, there was no one waiting and I took the Volvo bus home, smiling at the unfamiliar billboards and nodding to the compulsory Chandrabindoo song in my head. Next time when I go, I might be alone again, but I might frown at the billboards instead. Every time the plane lands amidst the humid, sprawling sea of humanity I try to close my eyes and breathe in the smell and try, try, try HARD to go back to how it was. It fails, everytime. Because friends leave, and there are empty spaces inside, there are empty spaces outside, and it is strange, really, how a crowded city can give off a scent of utter, desolate loneliness. I try to hug it hard, whisper comforting words, tell it that it's going to be okay, that I'll come back, that my friends will come back, that the desolate stretches will fill with laughter again. It doesn't work. Because whatever else my city might be, stupid is not one of them. Writing about it has become more and more difficult. I struggle to find the right words, the exact phrases. I struggle to fit it with the picture city in my head, long after that photo has been torn, shredded and fed to the bugs. English is a goddamn frustrating language because it hasn't come up with a word for obhimaan. My city, I think, obhimaan korechhe amar opor. And I can't blame her for that.

Jokhon class eight e portam, tokhon ekbar Tasher Desh hoyechhilo schooler annual function e. Sekhane sobai miley cholo niyom motey gaantar sathe nechechhilam. Durey takio na ko, ghaar bnakiyo na ko, cholo somaan pothey, cholo niyom mote... Onek raat kore bari pherar swadhinota othoba boshar ghore beer crate othoba dupur ektay ghum theke otha othoba chocolate cake diye breakfast saratakei niyom bhanga bole na bodh hoy. Arekta, deeper niyom achhe. Chokhe dyakha jay na, kintu bnedhe rakhe bojro aantuni te. The soul, if I may be so cheesy as to use the word, chafes against it. But the more you chafe, the tighter it grips. School, college, chakri. Bas. Er bhetore theke ja korar koro. Baire berio na ek paa-o. Swadhinotar illusion ta niye khushi thako dinbhor, kintu jei bhabbe chakri chharbo, jei bhabbe McLeodgunjer kachhe ekta cafe te koyek mash kaaj kore dyakha jaak, jei bhabbe hothat ekdin beriye pori, tokkhuni sei odrishyo niyom ek hnyachka taaney namiye anbe maatitey. Bolbe, raat dutoy bari theke beriye drivey jete parchho...ARO swadhinota chai? Oto beshi chaite nei ma, soibe na.

Happiness er jonyo kono kichhur opor dependent hoye porlei problem. As long as your own mind and a good book are enough for exhilirating happiness, you are good. The moment an external factor slips in, unnoticed, despite a thousand precautions, tokkhoni tumi gachho. Ekkebare pa pichhle aloor dom. Tokhon tomay ulto gadhar pithe choriye, mathay ghol dhele, gram theke ber kore dewa uchit.

Day 30

Your favourite book of all time:

In the light of all that I've said earlier, I can't possibly answer this question without contradicting myself horribly. And thus, with a question I refuse to answer, I come to the end of this VERY demanding tag. I mean, do you people know how hard it is to write on books EVERYDAY when you have several deadlines to meet and bills to pay and dinners to cook and parties to attend and phones to make? Anyways, it's a been a good ride. I've re-read, remembered, and written more this past month than I've done in years. And that's all, folks.

Day 29

A book everybody hated, but you liked:

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh. However, everyone hated can be translated to a couple of my friends hated. But they did have pretty strong opinions about the book. And me...well...I didn't agree. I'm generally rather fond of the period this book talks about, and I've always found Amitav Ghosh rather readable. Granted, it wasn't my favourite book by Ghosh (that would be Shadow Lines), but I wasn't overtly disappointed with it either. But then, this might just be the Amitav Ghosh fangirl in me speaking. Ah well.

Day 28

Favourite title:

And here I thought that I was done with naamkoroner sarthokota... after Madhyamik. Apparently not. Well, just so that this gets over quickly, here's my answer.Gorom Bhaat O Nichhok Bhooter Golpo by Sunil Gangopadhyay. Even though technically it's not a book, but a short story, the name is kick-ass, the story gives me goosebumps, and it led me to other brilliant stuff by the same author. Gorom bhaat. Don't these words conjure up a most beautiful image?

Day 27

A book with the most surprising plot twist or ending:

This question made me realize, with a shock, that Agatha Christie has not been mentioned even once in this long and rambling book tag. (THE BOOK TAG WHICH REFUSES TO END, BY THE WAY!) This is really strange, partly because I love her and have read almost everything she has ever written and partly because, much to the chagrin of a lot of people, I think Hercule Poirot beats Sherlock Holmes any day. Christie is superb in the way her long and rambling narrative of the typically idle, upper-class English life lulls one into a false sense of security, before BAM! the second cousin is dead, the valuable necklace is missing, and you have a dangerous lunatic on the run. To make up for not writing about her before, I will mention TWO of my favourite Christie books as an answer to today's question. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Curtain: Poirot's Last Case. The latter is actually my most favourite Christie book of all time. (I cried at the end of the book. Yes, embarrassing, I know.) The plot twists in both the books made me gasp out loud. And it takes a lot to do that.

Day 26

A Book That Changed Your Opinion About Something:

Buro Angla by Abanindranath Tagore. Because before that, my tiny brain thought it ludicrous that good painters could be good writers as well. In my defence, I wasn't more than nine at that time.

Day 25

A character who you identify with the most:

Agness Nitt, or Perdita X Dream from the Discworld books. I'm not half as sensible, nor can I sing in harmony with myself. However, there are at least three people living inside my head at any given point of time, I used to love (still do) the stage, and chocolate always makes everything better.



Look at how annoyed she looks that the vampire is trying to get her throat! Vampires manage to annoy me too! Yes dear Twilight series, I'm talking about you.

Day 24

A book you wish more people had read:

When Daddy was a Little Boy, or Baba Jokhon Chhoto by Alexander Raskin. Because it had beautiful illustrations, because it had a brilliant storyline, and because it inspired in me the life long habit of sneakily reading books in bed at night.

I will get to visit Moscow one day.

Day 23

A book that you have wanted to read for a long time, but still haven't:

Being really under read makes answering this question rather difficult. But because I haven't got that much time, I'll just mention The Outsider by Albert Camus and get away with it for now.In my defence, I started reading it and then the universe conspired against me and the book got misplaced when we were shifting houses. What makes not reading this doubly distressing, is the fact that I apparently hold a Master's degree in literature. * cringes in shame *

Day 22

Favourite book that you own:


My issue of Femina with Kunal Kapoor and Neil Nitin Mukesh on the cover. Because I think these men are hot. And because the pages of Femina are so glossy and colourful and the magazine is always filled with pictures of very expoensive but useless trinkets (e.g., a bottle of dark green eye shadow worth INR 2000). Glossy pages and useless things make me happy!


p.s. Here you go. A stupid answer to a phenomenally stupid question.

Day 21

Your favourite book as a child:

My childhood was more or less spent with, around, and lost in books. My mother was able to make me perform many an unwelcome task(noticeably, pages of hateful sums) with the promise of a good book at the end of it all. I devoured anything and everything that I came across. As a result, I had done stupid things like reading almost all of Sharatchandra by the time I was eight.Predictably, it wasn't a very good experience.
Probably because of the global communist brotherhood, my steady supply of books as a child included a lot of Russian literature, and I loved all of it. However, my favourite, till date, remains this obscure book called Chuk ar Gek by Arkady Gaidar. I read it in a Bengali translation and my copy had a cloth cover and was filled with delightful black and white water colour illustrations. The book tells the story of two young boys called Chuk and Gek, who, along with their mother, go to visit their father in the remote Taiga. It is a beautiful beautiful book.

Onek onek durer ekta shohor. Bodh hoy sei shohorer naam Moscow. Duniyay tar theke bhalo shohor ar kotthao nei...

Day 20

Your favourite romance book:

Sharadindur pray protyekta oitihasik uponyas. Kaaler Mondira. Gour-Mollar. Tungobhodrar Teere. Karon romance bolte shudhu toh hero-heroine er bhalobasha noy, romance maane ei deshtar ashchorjo itihaas, romance maane Kanasona, romance maane Atish Dipankar, romance maane boi er pata theke uthe asha jeebonto sob choritro. Romance maane bola, 'amar sokol diya tomake apon koria loilam...'

Romance maane gaaye knaata dewa. Protibaar.