Okay then

You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken. You are afraid to stcik out your chin and say, "Life's a fact.' People DO fall in love. People do belong to each other. Because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness. You call yourself a free spirit, a wild thing, yet you're terrified that someone's goin to put you in a cage. Well, baby, you're already in a cage and you built it yourself. It's everywhere you go. Beacuse no matter where you run you'll always end up running into yourself

To You

Dear I,

You and I don’t exist in the same world anymore. The most we get is colliding our boundaries on a social networking site, and even then, your life is so distant, so far removed from mine that it’s hard to believe that once we were in the same book, on the same page, even. You and I were last five messages on each other’s phones, and now for whatever reasons, I don’t even think I look at your number anymore.

Even though you have fallen to the wayside, in the television show of my life, you are no longer “featured guest”, I still have occasion to look at what you’re doing and where you’re going. Sometimes, I marvel at the smallness and insularity of our worlds, someone might mention your name to me, in passing, and I pause for a second, just to think about life the way it used to be. We give a lot of thought to lovers—ex and present—but we don’t think that much about friends, especially the ones that used to be.

For the most part, the death of our friendship seemed inevitable. Perhaps it was the wrong choices, perhaps it was just geography, but you, who used to be part of the fibre of my everyday life, have been patched over. Sometimes when I hear a song you used to love, or tell a story that you were a part of, I feel a pang of longing. Not longing for who you are now, in much the same way that I don’t think you give a thought to who I am now, but for who we were then. It’s hard to exist for 24 years without making an equal share of friends and enemies, and while I do think I am blessed in my friendships, having had some for over ten years, I know that it’s not possible to be friends with everyone, all the time.

Sometimes, you might have wronged me, at least in my head. That’s when I feel an absurd sense of proving to you how much better off I am. Look, look at me, look at my photos, look at my cheery status updates, look at my life, I don’t miss you, not one teeny tiny bit.

But the fact of the matter is, we’re getting older, old friend. I’m edging towards my mid-twenties (and sometimes, so are you). Did you ever imagine that we could be thirty? Did you ever imagine that we’d be here and not with each other? And so I realize, that like most things in life, I have to let you go. It’s a small, small world, and we might bump into each other someday—either at your local coffee shop or at mine. But let’s not play the nothing happened charade. Let’s acknowledge each other, either with a nod or a smile, and let’s live our lives, knowing that the other person existed, and that we were, at one point, richer for it.

With fondness,

S

Pablo Neruda wrote this for me

Yes, i'm alive, been away on purpose, been through hell(more on that later), but hopefully i'm back and here to stay, safe and warm in the crumples of cyberspace.

Read a lot through the last few months and this was something that pulled me back, i am convinced Pablo Neruda wrote it for me

"I should like to sleep like a cat,
with all the fur of time,
with a tongue rough as flint,
with the dry sex of fire;
and after speaking to no one,
stretch myself over the world,
over roofs and landscapes,
with a passionate desire
to hunt the rats in my dreams."
— Pablo Neruda

Basu's Bengal....

For every child who grew up in West Bengal in the 80s and 90s Jyoti Basu was nothing short of a war hero. Left politics would never be the same again in Bengal.

It might seem a bit unfair to judge a towering individual of his stature by the fate of the political movement he left behind. I admire him for 2 reasons; one, for having exercised an unchallenged hold on the politics of West Bengal in a manner unprecedented in politics. This in itself is an achievement. Two, Bengal remained politically immune from communal politics for years.

But no matter what he remained a committed communist, and in doing so cheated Bengal of its simplicity. He was a ruthless political party machine. He overlooked the fact that Bengal’s transition from an agricultural to a non agricultural one would depend upon basic things like health and education. Therefore his rule remains something of a puzzle to me.

But you have to admit that he built a citadel against two enemies: the Congress centralism of Delhi and the exploitation of share croppers in Bengal. His legacy remains monumental despite his regressive policies which drove industrialization out of Bengal. His historic land reforms and spectacular political fortunes still prevent the state to come out of the economic quagmire that Basu led it into. I think he owed his civility to a bhadralok cultural sensibility than to a revolutionary. The Bengali upper classes made their peace with him because he became a mascot of a genial Bengali identity.

What still bothers me is whether his contributions to Indian democracy will survive debates over his ideological fidelity to communism.

delhi 6

Delhi is almost like a dead city during its summer months. In summer I often wondered what still keeps this city going. When I stepped down from the car onto the streets of Chandni Chowk, I instantly knew what.

Chandni Chowk can be called a sub-city of sorts within Delhi. The vibrant colors and dizzyingly delicious fragrances fill up your senses. Not to miss the Hindi love songs jingled beside heartbreaking ghazals, the new lingo you learn while you overhear a ‘maal’ conversation….well, it’s all for free!

Passing through the crowded streets filled with rickshaws, cars, scooters, bikes, dogs and people , it looked like every space seemed to have been put to use, shops selling DVD players and video cameras next to old men at stalls repairing watches or polishing shoes, street food being cooked and served, and the occasional medical and dental shops. You don’t "walk" down these streets but instead you work through the crowds of thousands of other people, it is overwhelming to say the least. So I stood and contemplated the sheer number of people around me in this overheated, dusty, dirty, broken down relic of an imperial city, and let my still reeling mind turn on the fact that this was the poverty in which most of the city lived.

I had decided that that I would venture off into the quaint odd alleys on my own so I waited impatiently for the rest of the group to gather at Karim’s for lunch. Lunch was elaborate with mutton burras, roomali rotis, biriyani, chicken and firni in generous amounts. I think the men made utmost use of this opportunity, the women kept nibbling little of everything. The walk back from Karim’s through Dariba Kalan and Parathe wali galli was interspersed with more food. I guess its okay to keep eating as long as you don’t outweigh your refrigerator!!

Dr. Nigam seemed different today. He took us through the alleys of Chandni Chowk like how a father would take his kids to the zoo for the first time, stopping at just the right places for the rabri, lassi and then at nataraj’s for bhalle and so on so forth. He insisted that we stuff ourselves up with all the awesome street food. Also the number of places that he knew around the place couldn’t be covered in a single day. We missed out on Ghalib ki Haveli, Chitli Kabar and a closer look inside Jama Masjid.

Next came Khari Baoli. This walk would be a chef’s delight or a food lover’s dream walk, as it takes you through the biggest spice market in Asia. I stopped to talk to a local shopkeeper and asked him what Khari Baoli meant and he told me the name of the street indicates that there must have been a step well here and its water would have been salted. Some others said that there was a step well and it was used for washing the cattle, but today I found no trace of any step well there. As i walked down the street, I saw spices displayed outside the numerous small and big shops. Interestingly the shops are known by their number rather than their names or the owner’s name. Though the traders prefer to deal with the wholesale buyers, but they do entertain the retail buyers too. The pickles and the chutneys were mouth watering.

As we walked down the busy road and smiled at some friendly passersby, I realized that this wild, magical and subtly shocking place did for me what Gregory David Robert’s Bombay did for him. I came across a lot of ‘lin Babas’ and a lot of ‘Prabhakers’ and I mused if Chandni Chowk failed to fill up my senses, nothing ever would.

Strangely, I was far from exhausted and came back to the office to sit with the tech team for more work on the website.

For a few more glimpses go here.

and here's to Saturday

People and places have strange ways of creeping into our lives. After 5 months of being in Delhi, I have finally found companionship in places I least expected. It’s strange how some people who you never thought would remotely interest you become dear friends. What those Saturdays have done for me is beyond words really.

I think I had the toughest time with the relaxation exercise at the end of every session, I just couldn’t see what you wanted me to see. It would make me revisit all my painful memories since childhood, parents getting divorced, losing a best friend to car accident, adolescent crushes that never became relationships, breaking up with the ones that actually did and so on. I remember breaking down after your session once and telling you about it. I still haven’t quite figured that out.

Your sessions were breaths of fresh air that I frantically kept tossing in oblivious to where it took me. The ability to talk to 36 odd people without judging them is something I have I acquired. The ability to accept my flaws and work towards correcting them is what I am working on. Above all, the sanity to work under pressure situations came through those zillion small inter-personal exercises that you made us do.

I was scared when I started on this journey, now I am calmer. I know that even when the environment gets most malignant, a tiny voice in me will push me further ahead. My immense gratitude to you for having shown me a new “me”.

Copenhagen Confusions

While the entire ministry is going gaga over India's stand on carbon emission cuts, the young turks in the house yesterday created a big hoo haa about climate change too. But this little thing has raised quite a many eyebrows.
So is global warming realy a conspiracy theory? Is Jairam Ramesh listening?

and that's the way it is.......

I learnt two things on my first night out at NDTV, first i can't procastinate and second it doesn't matter if i'm trying to be rational around a bunch of kids. As my edit shift rolled from the 6pm-10pm slot to the 10pm-5am slot, things got crazier and by morning all i had were sore eyes, a back ache and a bad edit.

I have a deadline of 26th to meet and i am expected to deliver a 6-8 min documentary. The sleepless slumber today morning took me back to my lab in Bose Institute, it now feels warmer, cosier and incubated. Here i feel violated, cold and naked where a thousand eyes are watching my every move.

The icing on the rotten cake was the meeting with Dr. Prannoy Roy. His being in the same room five feet away from me speaks volumes in itself and he looked at us with the expectations a parent has from their child, and that pretty much did it.

The journey is now getting longer and longer and the destination lost somewhere on the misty road that i'm treading on.

Is it a wave of depression?No. It is a bevy of questions that i am not being able to find answers of.

Lost in translation

journal entry november 5th.........

We looked at the masters again today while discussing cubism and abstract expressionism in art. It was overwhelming and makes you realize what a human mind is capable of. I have looked at Picasso’s cubism but Marcel Duchamp came as a revelation of sorts. I think the creative work is not of the artist alone, it connects the spectator with it who adds more meaning to it by adding his/her own interpretations and thus gives the piece its wholesomeness. Though Duchamp had the elements of fragmentation and synthesis of cubists, he also had the dynamism of the futurists. This came across beautifully in his Nude descending staircase No. 2.

Pollock epitomizes the term “action painting” using his hand, wrist and whole body to paint while challenging the conventions of using an easel. Hence he consciously moved from figurative representation to a more immediate means of creating art. I understand his urgency to have his art the way he wanted it to but Damien Hirst was a shocker. The works of this artist are basically lumps of dead animals in formaldehyde. Maybe they were too zany to attract sane people. But I think Hirst is very clever, his tact was to first grab the attention, whether it will stand the test of time is a different question altogether. I think it has and definitely will. Hirst is kind of a showman, derives all his sadist pleasures from his commercial success. He has a league of his own and it here to stay.

and so it continues......

The " dope sheet " Bug

Two weeks of research led to a two page document on it; i think i read about a hundred pages on MS Word to get the whole idea into my stubborn "scientific" head.The fact that i witnessed a Lalgarh (May-June 2009) for the two months that i was at home made me reconsider whether i was actually cut out to do what i would be doing @ NDTV.
The "dope sheet " bug came along pretty quickly and i didnt need more than a minute's time to decide what i wanted to do. The Dope Sheet is essentially the foundation of a news story and it's one of NDTV's ingenious ways of making us know stuff that we all should have long back.It's a verbal,conversational presentation that we are asked to give a group of 40 aspiring journalists for around 10 mins or so.Here is what came out of it.


Naxalism and political insurgency in India: an inconvenient reality

Forty two years after the Naxalbari uprising, it is remarkable that Maoism remains a potent political force. It has survived the retreat of the Left in academia and trade unions, It has survived the rise of caste, politics, even the rise of the NGO sector, provided a platform to separate 'social' work from 'political' work.
While some Naxals of the 60s and 70s did make a few changes in their political beliefs and practices, the movement seems none the weaker for that reason. The Left landscape is a minefield of splinter groups, but for all their differences these organizations pose a serious threat to state power. Therefore, when one takes stock of 42 years of Naxalism, we should understand it as a phenomenon of the present rather than of the past.
The naxalite movement emerged from a violent uprising in Naxalbari on May 25th 1967 by the local peasants in protest of the CPI (M) government lead by Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal.Their main agenda has been to destroy the State legitimacy and to create a mass base, with certain degree of acceptability, with the ultimate object of attaining political power by violent means. This was the period in Europe, Asia and America, when new radical struggles were breaking out marked by the rereading of Marx, the rediscovery of the sources of revolutionary humanism
The Naxalite movement was a part of this contemporary, worldwide impulse among radicals to return to the roots of revolutionary idealism and they went to their base-the peasants who had a long tradition of fighting against imperialism and feudalism.

Presently the movement is restricted to an impoverished region known as the “Red Corridor” under which comes parts of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal states. The main reasons why these areas are significant in such militant activity are because of indigenous tribal populations who are disadvantaged in their relationship with other components of society, deep caste divides and low literacy levels especially in Bihar and Jharkhand.
The movement is highly organized in terms of its hierarchy and uses a 13 member politbureau with state representatives who channelize funds for procuring arms and ammunitions. Their funds come from various sources like government and non-government funds, extorting money from businessmen, contractors and even from illegal opium cultivation in some states. Their modus operandi is predominantly by attacking police stations, infrastructure like rail and road transport and power transmission; manifest themselves through civil societies on issues like the SEZ policy, land reforms, displacement etc.
Interestingly, the involvement of women has been very high throughout its inception and hundreds of women have participated in encounters and ambush operations etc but most of them are now struggling to adapt themselves to mainstream life. Some are even fighting for the rights of surrendered women militants through community groups like the Bandhumitra.
The casualties in civilian lives and security forces in these areas have been over 6000 in the last 20 years and the government is yet to show some definitive action. The obstacles faced by the government are on the lines of weak political leadership in these areas, improper coordination between the centre and the state, also the economic backwardness cannot be ruled out. Another big setback was the failure of the salwa judum campaign. Though according to official claims, the Salwa Judum campaign was a Gandhian, voluntary and spontaneous movement that began in June 2005 but it was a cult of violence let loose. There is also a very strong naxal-politician nexus in the country which has to be disrupted. On paper, several measures to tackle the problem have been taken such as setting up of task forces like the CoBRA , organizational bodies, commissions, coordination teams, a 14-point action plan etc. However, the implementation of these measures is seriously flawed with the exception of the grey hounds in AP. It is important to determine whether this is a national problem or a state problem.
While the Naxalites operate only within geographical boundaries, the government has to operate within both geographical and political boundaries. This explains the divergence of approach between different states i.e in some states, it is possible for the government to hold talks with the Naxals, in others, it is not.
A proper analysis of the Naxal threat is very important given that while some of them are mercenaries and others are ideologues, a vast majority enter the movement because they have no other choice. Despite their theoretical allegiance to Marx and Lenin, they have not made any serious effort to organize urban masses, instead evolving over the years as a political organization of tribals, marginal peasants and Dalits in a corridor of about 150 districts from Bihar to Andhra Pradesh through Chhattisgarh and Orissa. Urban upper middle class ex-Naxals might laugh off the encirclement theory, but for rural cadres exposed to the excesses of urban India after the consumer boom of the 90s the cause remains plausible as ever. Thus the tools in the hands of Naxals are ideologies tailor-made for the oppressed masses, fear of the gun, and a messiah/Robin Hood image.
Another perspective that we could look at is the idea of development with naxals in power, if they are given government resources/private resources/funds for development activity that would be credited to them it would further enhance their image among the tribals ,but the return for the government would be sustained economic ventures enhancing the quality of life of the tribals and economic improvement will eventually bring about a change in perception. Development in Naxal areas will change a lot of existing dynamics.
The intellectuals of the country can and should play a greater role in defining the threat. It is important to spread the government's reach to large parts of untouched territories. Unless this is done, no amount of force can provide a solution. The biggest danger today is that of militarizing the problem. Fortunately, within the armed forces, there is great clarity that the army should not get involved in this problem. The police force, however, is still not capable of providing security. While better training and arming of the police forces is important, it is necessary to strategize various responses. This presents a difficult intellectual challenge and the national effort needs to be directed towards addressing it.
Media interest in such an issue has been substantial with the parallel film industry showing considerable interest in the issue with films like Sudhir Mishra’s Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi and Hazaar Chaurasi ki Ma adapted from Mahasweta Devi’s novel.
The fundamental question therefore still is to understand the nature of the threat before deciding upon the approach to deal with it. To understand today's India, it is essential to listen to these voices that describe the tortuous odyssey of a political movement that had been born from the womb of the bleeding Indian countryside.

Criticism and comments welcome.

An urban intimacy

Time is just slipping me by and the worse hit is my blog.This week there was lots to do at work.The big presentation on Anderson Cooper and then continuing to plunge deeper into my dope sheet issues.I am now really getting the feel of Dr.Nigam's "pressure cooker environment".Anderson Cooper went realy well probably because we contrasted him with Arnab Goswami.

Delhi is getting more simpler,the traffic doesn't piss me off anymore as i take an auto every morning to office,i don't mind if it's raining and i have to wade through a knee-deep puddle to get home,even if i am wearing white that day.I guess i'm growing up.

Saturday got interesting as Vivek Mansukhani started with out theatre workshops,it was essentially for some people to overcome the fear of public speaking but we did some innovative team building exercises.I think it was the first time after coming to NDTV that i let my hair down,never knew that dumbcharades, mimes and role-playing could be so much fun.

Then came "Shob Choritro Kalponik" , Rituporno Ghosh's new film.An intriguing watch after ages i must say after a disatrous spate of films like Chokher Bali and Antarmahal.Bipasha Basu was stunning in her debut bengali film with her tassar and silk sarees,braided hair and her big black bindi. The film spoke of a woman's journey to self-discovery bordering on paranoia after her poet husband's death.The film stood by Ghosh's school of filmaking,his provoking script and out of the box cinematography and edits.The shots were edgy and inanely fluid at the same time taking the solitary viewer on a visual ride especially where bipasha hallucinates conversing with her alter ego.The pace of the film is intersperced with some excellent poetry by Joy Goswami and soulful Rabindra sangeet by Srabani Sen.

Monday found me in office earlier than usual.The day whizzed past like every other,now that our pace is to the power 3 according to Dr.Nigam.Looking forward to lots this week,some of them would be on the lines of

• talking to Mr.Suni Sethi,chairman of FDCI who is organising the first of its kind,men's fashion week in Delhi (and we obviously get passes for the 13th Sep finale!!)
• meeting Vikram Chandra,of The Big Fight fame who is coming to talk to us about changes that could be incorporated in his show.(Woah!!)
• the Delhi book fair at Pragati Maidan
• the innumerable plays at National School of Drama and India Habitat Centre that we bunk workshops to go to.
• not forgetting Quick Gun Murugan on thursday with the entire class.

Delhi is not so bad after all,i get to be with such nice people rather than pubbing all the time which was all i did in Bangalore with some jerks ( for some people i should be doing that here as well,Delhi's supposed to have a great nightlife and all that blah!!).

Also i read two excellent books, Hanif Khureishi's The Black Album and Mohsin Hamid's Moth Smoke. More on them later.

Credibility,anyone??

It was supposed to be another long day of the workshop on news and broadcasting, we were all doing the usual,shuffling the morning paper,getting ready with the beat of the day,discussions were burning up on the editorials... all in a wierd sequence that we've sort of become seasoned and desensitised to for the past ten days here at NDTV.

But here's the nice part,our visit to the Lok Sabha.Intimidated as i always am,it was excitement verging on paranoia that you get to be in the epicentre of the Indian polity,the powerhouse of the democracy where governments are run,bills passed and laws made for the teeming millions in the country.

The drive from Okhla to Janpath couldn't be more impatient,with the flashy NDTV id that i had i couldn't feel any less important.The press clearance made all the security checks hassle-free although i wonder if they could catch me if i stuffed weed into my bra or something!!I know that sounds corny but i guess we could manage some of it considering the women guards were too reluctant to stop their saas-bahu sagas to do their jobs.

The scene inside was nothing short of a movie set with half the house absent,the oldies dozing off at the back and the few in front too involved in bickering with the opposition even before the arguement began.Though i saw the likes of Pranab Mukherjee,Mamta Banerjee,Sushma Swaraj,Varun Gandhi...they vanished within seconds and the house was adjourned every half hour.

I mean,here we are paying taxes,battling inflation,voting these guys so that some good comes out of it all and here they were politicians (in the truest sense of the term) having living room chit-chats with each other.An elated Sushma Swaraj greeted a Pranab Mukherjee with a "Dada kamon achhen?Khawa holo?"before she scurried away for lunch and a Shatrughan Sinha interrupted every speaker (thus adding the comic element) by his famous "Khamosh" quote before leaving the house in session to address a bunch of starstruck school kids.Sure enough he would be on page2 of some local daily the next day.

I was disappointed,ashamed and disgusted at it all.These guys use big words like terrorism,nuclear deals,peace treaties and they were the laughing stock of a bunch of school kids who were more responsible,more sensible and perhaps more credible if you may say so.

I use the word "credible" because everyday we are taught that journalism is dead if you aren't credible,people look up to you and say"hey your story on swine flu made my life a little simpler,i know where i could get my daughter tested" or whatever.Credibilty adds value to an objective,trivial or massive.It helps you connect with a farmer in Rajasthan,a home maker in Pune,a school teacher in Bengal and the business tycoon in Delhi all in one go.It's just one shot at it,either you make it or break it.Period.

I walked out aghast after a forty minute session that seemed to take forever.The bunch of kids sitting in the gallery couldn't wait to get out and giggle the whole day's event at Mc Donald's perhaps.

Questions few, answers fewer, insights many. As we drove back a silent bunch, i still couldn't figure out whether i missed a step or they did climb too many together?? Then again truth is relative,works constantly on closure,it's knowable but it's definitely not belieavable.

Snuggling in....

Finally thought of my blog after a whole month...reasons many....more on them later.
As of now it's been three days in Delhi and i'm loving it.All the color,the heat,the dust,the traffic jams,the new daunting smell of things...i could go on and on.

Work is hectic,class is a mixed eclectic bunch.The NDTV mentors regardless of saying have been scaring the daylights out of us,probably because we are here to deliver so much. Ideas,innovations,brainstorms that would constantly re-brand them and ofcourse live upto choices that we made for ourselves.The mere thought of Dr.Prannoy Roy's workshops,learning camera techniques from Ajmal Jami(he covered the Kargil war for NDTV)is making me jittery.At the end of the day it all comes down to whether you can live upto all that you've ever wanted from yourself,pushing aside all frozen memories and living on the edge.It just couldn't get better.

The city is being nice to me as well,from my landlady(she's above 50 and never looked hotter) to the stranger at the Tata Indicom store(now friend) who helped fix my laptop on my first day out here;the cute family friend whom my mom insists should only be a brother to me(ouch!!) ;17 year old Kalika(roommate in my PG) whom i'm entitled to spoil.....and ofcourse phone calls from a special someone i left behind in Kolkata :(

Right now i'm busy with researching stuff that i'm supposed to know as a "journalist";i like the sound of the word,have yet to get used to it.A long night and a long way to go.....

The Dark Knight

The news was shocking.A deeply disturbed superstar left himself wide open to the vultures as he insisted on living in his own world of fancy.

The fact that MJ lived till 50 was in many ways strange.Footage of the child abuse trial of 2005 showed that he was "tiny,weak,flesh in the face visibly shrinking,pale and in very poor health".I believe facing more than 18 years in jail in more than 10 child molestation related cases;forced to sit through more than 60 days of court proceedings with 136 witnesses and innumerable pieces of evidence against him broke the man.

They say he got acquitted because of a soft jury.It kind of makes a little bit of your soul die every time the courts made a spectacle out of a man who had been so utterly corrupted by everything that's wrong with fame.

Being a showman from the age of 8 made him a terrible judge of character.He didn't know how or when to stop.Practically everyone who met ended up suing him,however he never let go of his of his profligacy till the last day.Completely broke,he lived in a $ 100,000 a-month penthouse !!! All of this has made him only a bigger target.

His controversies in terms of his alleged relationships with children were highly disturbing.any level-headed parent would consider it grossly inappropriate even predatory for that matter.If you refused to believe that his motives were sexual,i suppose you could also argue that children provided MJ with the purity and honesty that adults didn't.

I think children simply fed his messiah complex.After all this as a man who had ordered a giant replica of Da Vinci's Last Supper to hang over his bed with Christ's face replaced with his own.
And in the end it all ruined him.A decade of unemployment and overspending,a series of crippling loan-negotiations.

Now we debate as to whether we should put him with Cobain and Presley and whether he will be greater in death than in life.Well,I don't know.All i know that we are the ones who make maniacs out of them and then want them on stamps to make them immortal
To me MJ is a man of honor, a man of music,i owe him some fond memories of my growing up years.I just want his music to play on.

A Bang and A Whimper

I have this clingy problem. I get into things, hobbies, people. I throw myself into them.I find other people who are just as involved. Then something happens and just like a delicate floating balloon that was getting bigger and bigger as you kept feeling it with air, it blows up and all that's left are colorful shreds. Like take my Deutsch class ; I was on top of the world when I wrote my A1 exam and now that I can speak some too, I couldn’t care less. Ok, I hope my Lehrer is not reading this. Ahem!!

Lately, I've lost a group of people that I was very attached to. I have probably driven some of them away, others have driven me away, and I didn't even realize that until a few days ago especially after we’ve rocked some legendary crazy nights together, getting knocked off all possible liquor.

I spent some time in a weird disbelieving stupor, thinking of what really went wrong. I fumed at myself and others. I started hating people I thought I liked and who I thought liked me. I doubted. I tried to rationalize, I tried to explain and I actually tried to ask for explanation. I got a bucket of insults poured on me for simply trying to understand. I've mostly stopped keeping up with blogs, I stopped writing and all of it was killing me. I called Ma a bit too much now that I am in HELLORE which made her strangely suspicious (she always thinks I need money again!!) but also happy given that Baba doesn’t fit anywhere into my scheme of things.

I think I'm finally moving to acceptance. Admitting to myself that all the signs in favor of the good times were there and I just chose to ignore them. Embracing, that not being universally liked doesn't make me a bad person. Writing down a huge rant about everything that was wrong with them doesn't matter and it will not change anything, other than blow up the bitterness I'm trying to move away from.

The problem is - I don't always have a good way of dealing with unexpected reactions from people I've considered my friends. Most of the time, I do the only thing that always helps me. I retreat into this awesome invisible pseudo-shell where I always ran to as a scared little stuttering shy kid and removed myself from the situation. I leave. Sometimes leaving merely means stepping away for a few days, taking a break, cooling off, thinking things through before finding a better way of dealing with them. I leave so I make it through the rough patch.

I've been told to stop being bitchy and accused of always complaining, never being happy. Well I’m not. I guess it doesn’t come that effortlessly for some people. Now I feel a little bit like as if I just broken up a long painfully-romantic relationship, full of good memories, but simply too broken to fix, cracks of which I've been trying to ignore, until the pieces crumbled around me.I feel drained.

I look at my login screen and I have no idea what I'm about to do. The good thing about hobbies is that you can always pick up a new one. The bad thing about hobbies on cyberspace is that they are full of human ties, friendships,strings attached and all that and its simply impossible to let go of them, atleast some of them.

But one thing that strikes me amidst all feelings of loss and regret is relief.
Relief. Like when you come back from this long trip and you find all your stuff neatly unpacked, your bed made so you can just snuggle under covers and wait to fall asleep.

Yet another rant....

I sometimes wonder how long I’m going to sulk and consequently listen to blues, binge on zinger burgers, French fries and chocolates, have crazy cravings for things I can’t do on my own.

And friends keep blogging about how opening up helps and how friends are always there and all that.

It feels like a crime not to be happy; and with the whole NDTV thing coming up; after I fought with the world convincing them that it was I was supposed to do all along and I’d be good at and blah blah!! I guess the hunt is more fun than the kill, huh??

Lately all I’m doing after my lab work is getting a whole lot HIMYM and SCRUBS watching done and even people in sitcoms are falling in love, making babies!! Lately a close friend is expecting his first kid and send me some pics of his wife and it made me go "Awwww!! i want one of those!!" .All my girlfriends are “committed” and to quote a really close friend she’s supposedly “making out like bunnies” in Europe. That gives me a horrible visual btw. Phew!! Why me??

I started freaking out people at home so much so (given that I didn’t speak apart from monosyllables) that I was forcefully taken to Shantiniketan because Ma insisted that I needed a break. It was a good break away from all the cynical people I know and concrete jungles and all that but now that I’m back I’m onto it again, as a somebody aptly puts it I’m “feeling sad about the same thing once again”. I had promised myself that my blog won’t be a shithole for my psychobabble and here I go ranting again.

Last time I remember I was sulking because I thought I was in love and now I’m sulking because I can’t go out with my phenomenally hot neighbour on our customary walks all over Salt Lake because I’m leaving the city :-) and the outcome of it all are my regular visits to Someplace Else and rush headlong into pitchers of gold and tell off some poor friend (read Crush) because he’s happy with some chic!!!! I so want to undo that; if life would just be like my Ipod…..rewind, fast forward or shuffle.

Well the bright side of it all is I’ve watched a lot of good cinema, thanks to Max Mueller Bhavan and its Docu-forum and the upcoming “Dialogues in Diversity” featuring a series of short films selected from the 5^th Asian Women’s Film Festival 2009 supplemented by two relevant German films as well. Each of them has touched me in some way or the other, made me a little better or worse.Also I’ve done some quality reading, Franz Kafka’s Amerika, Mohsin Hamid’s Moth Smoke and Mohammed Hamid’s A case of Exploding Mangoes among a few others. The last two being the finest political thrillers I’ve come across in a very long time.

15 sachen über mich.

1. Ich hasse es,früh am Morgen aufzuwachen.
2. Ich hasse es,mein Bett jeden Morgen zu machen.
3. Und folglich krieche ich gern wiederhinein,wo ich war.
4. Ich bin eine schreckliche Köchin.
5. Ich kann für dunkle Schokolade und KäseKuchen sterben.
6. Ich habe eine sehr hohe Alkohol-Toleranz.
7. Ich habe auch eine hohe Schmerzschmelle,ich habe vier piercings in jedem ohr.
8. Ich liebe Wodka und Rum cocktail-mixturen ich mache (ausschlieβlich für mich).
9. Ich habe ein Lied,um mich an jede besondere Person in mienem Leben zu erinnern.
10. Ich habe eine Leidenschaft für Schawrz und Purpur und diese Farben beherrschen meine Garderobe.
11. Ich liebe Hügel und will ein paar jahre an einer vergessene Ecke des Kanchenjunga verbringen.
12. Ich bin eine an Schlaflosigkeit Leidende.
13. Ich habe immer einen Lieblingshund gewünscht aber nie einen bekommen.
14. Ich bin sehr impulsiv und denke nie bevor ich etwas mache.
15. Müsik hält mich am Leben,tag aus tag ein.

15 random things about me

1. I hate to get up early in the morning.
2. I hate to make my bed every morning.
3. And consequently like crawling into it the way i left it.
4. I am a terrible cook
5. I can die for dark chocolate and cheesecake.
6. I have a very high Alcohol tolerance.
7. I also have a very high pain threshold,i have four piercings in each ear.
8. I love the vodka and rum concoctions that i make(strictly for myself though!!)
9. I have a song to remember every special person in my life by.
10. I have an obsession for black and purple and these colors rule my wardrobe.
11. I love the hills and will spend a few years in some forgotten corner of the Kanchenjunga.
12. I am an Insomniac.
13. I have always wanted a pet dog but never got one!!
14. I am very impulsive and never think before doing something.
15. Music keeps me alive,day in day out. :)

For no good reason....

okay the reasons why i haven't been blogging are lame but i just can't help them:

1)i was on vacation with my folks in shantiniketan for poila boishak :-) more on that later.
2)its 42.5 degrees in kolkata and powercuts, i've pretty much lost it !!
3)i've been sulking a bit too much or maybe the dry spell lasted too long this time.
4)i'm tired of all the "what's wrong with you?"s from every living creature i know.....
5)i've been stuck with my deutsch classes and i promise you guys a post in deutsch shortly !
and the worst of them all,
6)IT has hit me again,to be or not to be?to tell or not to tell?do i or don't i?all because i can't get over IT.

Haven't i said enough?? get lost !!!

To You...

To the time that passes me by...
There were the good times.The bad times.And you.
There was the adolescence,with or without the loneliness....and you.
There were the long sweaty summer afternoons,the feeling down,and the careless scribbles across the pages.....and there was you.
The playing guitar in the neighborhood,stolen tunes and stolen lyrics....and you.
The falling in love for the millionth time,and the dull Grey sky becoming beautiful all of a sudden...and you.
The usual morning jog;on those terrible days when i was disillusioned that i needed to lose weight.
That one-sided soul-searching,intimate conversations, whatever on the roof....and you.
That horrible day when college got over and i left the city,rebelling over depression and neck-deep in vodka....and the thought that i would never see you again.
The bad days at work.Screaming and taking it out on the road that i walk on.
Mindlessly tossing coins at the street urchins and advising them to go to school.....they would just blink and run away.
Getting claustrophobic at home with mom,dad and rest of the paraphernalia and breaking down on the bathroom floor....and you.
If there's anyone who's brought me everything I'd ever cherished,it's been you.

So this goes out to YOU..........my most unusual friend.

My Inconvient Reality

I am back to a world where some questions have answers and some remain but open ended statements.
I was hit by a profound reality today when the girlfriend of a so-called friend called me up to ask me to stop talking to or messaging him.I complied without a word.
She continued to say “I knew you would understand” and then hung up.
I did understand.Life has it’s weird ways.That too a day before my b’day when I wanted to call them both over for dinner.
It just left me wondering about fragility of such inconsequential relationships.

Nevertheless Life is a positive streak,an obtrusive flash of light.I have pushed myself over the edge at times when it’s been hard.I forced myself to believe that hope is not just a four-letter word, that it implies so much more.
Right now,I’m sorting my life out,trying to find the missing pieces of the puzzle before I shift to Delhi in July. A paradigm shift from my present field of study,a colossal load of work,the pressure to prove myself……it’s making me jittery already.

I guess I am addicted to obsessing. I ALWAYS have a Current Obsession. At the moment its my internship with NDTV.Broadcast journalism is a lot of responsibility I feel. I already feel responsible for not bringing persistent and significant changes to my society, my environment and my country for these 23 years that I have walked on Earth.

I admit I’m scared.Scared of it all,homesickness,nuclear living,strange cities and strange deceitful faces,the weight of consequences and choices that I have always made on my own. My jaded and inconvenient reality.