oh! calcutta..

guess its high time i dropped a few words on my favourite city..the city i was born in..partially grew up in..the city that i call home now..got a lot of memories attached to it..childhood memories which are all sort of a blur coz i didn't know one end of cal from the other and the entire city was sort of a maze for me..i still remember that i was struggling to recall the way from howrah station to dida's place at jodhpur park the first time i seriously contemplated running away from home (i was 5 or 6 years old at that time i think..of course i didn't do it..dad caught up with me halfway down to the main road n coaxed me back home..hehe)..so there r those memories of going all around cal with parents..every part of the city seemingly new every time i came over..and new memories a few years later when the city started to change..em bypass became all awesome..salt lake became habitable..flyovers came up..forum opened its doors (the first mall since sriram arcade!..which isn't really a mall but then we didn't know any better before..n the tube elevators were sooo cool..hehe)..puja pandals became "international"..fancy stores cropped up..ccds n baristas opened up at every corner..multiplexes n malls came up all over the place..

but even when it's changed, a few things still remain constant..n those r what i love the best..like watching the mountains of white clouds on a clear sunny day..like the grey sky of a monsoon afternoon behind the white marble of victoria memorial, partially hidden behind green trees..bandhs..those mandatory holidays that even evil bosses cannot take away..the traffic jams which make for a ready-made excuse, even if i was the one who left 15 minutes late..hehe..how the bustling gariahat more at 9.30 pm is almost completely deserted by 10.00 pm..the deathtrap that is the "auto"..sitting in front, hanging on for dear life as it rivals a rollercoaster's trail..how the cheapest of food joints serve the tastiest of dishes..how gariahat shoes last way longer than "branded stuff"..allllll the awesome awesome food..hehe..phuchka n chats..chop n singara..biryani n chinese..ilish n pomfret n watnot..and the people..love how lazy everyone is..love how still kids come out to play cricket in the streets in the evenings..how the lake is still the same..full of couples u just itch to go n disturb..durga puja and all the hustle bustle that comes with it..the old fashioned melas at every fair ground..those games which are still the same as when i was 10..

(to be contd.)

chocolates!!!

i want a box of chocolates..i wanna finish a nice biiiig box of chocolates..assorted ones..some with rum in them..some with nuts..some just chocolate..some sweet..some sticky..some bitter..some crunchy..nice round ones u unwrap n plop into ur mouth..n heaven.. *sigh*

me..chocolates..want!! *stomp stomp*

kaleidoscope of emotions..or..what u will..

as i sat down to draft a petition
my mind automatically drifted away
as i started typing words which had no meaning
i frantically tried to keep sleep at bay

but my mind being my mind
had a mind of its own
and much as i tried to reign it in
at last i had to let it go

out flowed words i never imagined i could write
poetry so hauntingly beautiful, it actually gave me a fright!

for the usual me possesses no poetry
my soul resembles a barren land
but finally as my torrent burst forth
emotions tugged at me i could barely understand

a veritable kaleidoscope it was
wild and free
yet too much too fast
i never knew what possessed me

i thought i would be able to translate it all on paper
and finally publish a piece worthy of me
but words ran dry as soon as i dipped my pen in ink
alas! poignant poetry is still not my cup of tea

hence i shall leave it at this
a mere attempt at a great feat
maybe some day i shall emerge triumphant
but tonight i am beat

best time of the day

this was always her favourite time of the day..walking home from work..late enough that the streets were deserted and quiet..but early enough that there was no real danger involved in roaming the empty streets..a light cool breeze blowing..a few of her favourite old melodies playing on the radio..the area free of the usual cacophony of life as she quietly hummed a few notes under her breath..yes this was definitely her time..

she slowly made her way to the intersection..walking lazily along..much different from her usual "march of doom" as a few people so eloquently put it..she forgot about her day..finally for a few minutes at the very least she could be free of the constant reminders of pending this n drafting that..coz once she set foot inside her flat, reality would come sneaking back in with the slam of the door..so for these lazy few minutes she let the wind ruffle her hair gently..let it calm her down..looked up at the moon and the drifting clouds..smiled faintly at some obscure memory of after dinner walks with friends..and made her way slowly towards where her life lay in wait..

blah blah blabbity blah

Nobody loves me..

Nobody cares..

I'm going to the garden..

To eat some worms..

Big fat squiggly worms..
Small thin wriggly worms..
I'm going to the garden..
To eat some worms..

funny how we remember stuff like this from way back in primary school but forget what we studied last night..


have been feeling very nostalgic for the past few days..n then i just had to go and have a 3 hour conversation with an old school friend..come to think of it, we've known each other for about 8 years now!!..how time flies..even more nostalgic now..feel reaaaaaally old all of a sudden..wanna meet friends n talk about nothing..random gossip..of who's doing what..of link ups n break ups..sum gud ol' fashioned leg pulling..play dumb charades or truth or dare..make obscure jokes only we would laugh about..reread slam books for the umpteenth time..and then update them..again..meet a long forgotten old crush n still feel a blush coming on at his sight..go back in time..explore all the "what ifs"..find out things about friends i never knew or bothered about before..talk of the books n movies we used to watch and the memories attached to them..browse old pictures n marvel on how different we used to look..prank call guys to make "popat"..talk about absentee friends..about friends who got married right after school and dropped off the face of the earth..do a gazillion things one can do only with people you've known practically all your life..

if there's one thing i hate about my life, it's that i never have enough time or energy to go meet up with friends who live like a stone's throw away from me..and it's only gonna get worse..and some day in the future, there will be no more worms to eat in the garden.. *sigh*

congregation!!

a bit late in writing this..considering i've been meaning to do it ever since i actually got on the flight back n started missing my friends..and a week later, m still missing them..

so here goes..my ode to a magical weekend..dedicated to ghosty, hosty n toasty..from your very own roasty!!
 

easter weekend of 2010..will go down at least in my history as one of my most memorable weekends..its true that friends are the family you choose..and i chose the best ones of the lot..n the craziest too thankfully or they'd never be able to stand me longterm..hehe..impromptu trips across the country are now part of the deal..people were shocked to hear that the normally terribly stingy me was shelling out big bucks to fly to mumbai to meet friends for apparently no reason whatsoever..which is what made it all the more exciting..wouldn't have enjoyed it as much if there were a reason..like a wedding or sumthing..coz then the bride would be too busy being, well, the bride..and we'd be one member short..as it was now, it was absolutely perfect..

while i was rushing to dum dum from court (actually as it turns out, i didn't need to rush..figures that there would never be any traffic when i start out early enough to account for it), it all still seemed pretty unreal..there i was..flying to a city i had never been to before..made plans with people i had never met before..absolutely unsure of where i would be when..na this all sounds scary..it wasn't..just that it was pretty crazy planning everything last minute..and an extremely boring flight later, i was in the desi version of the big apple..and there was a familiar face greeting me at the airport..and suddenly it was like it all became clear..like when ur ears pop open after the flight evens out and suddenly u can hear everything properly..and that's how one of my most amazing weekends started..

chronicling everything here would be a tedious job..and one that the lazy me is not inclined to engage in..suffice to say that i met everyone i wanted to and more..best friends..brother..one of the verrrry few people i knew only through internet and actually liked..bf..random guy i had interned with years back n bumped into again now..friends of friends..n apparently even bagged a future client!..shopped..ate..drank..roamed around the city in the middle of the night..had a few sessions of our crazy photoshoots..spent all night chitchatting about everything under the sun..n a few topics over it..drooled over hot guys in movies..watched a crappy movie n made fun of it..slept all smushed together like sardines in a can..woke up later than we planned..had a lazy drowsy afternoon talking about everything and nothing at all..shared memories of times spent together..and apart..and so much much more..

heres to hoping that this starts a trend..of meeting up randomly..congregating just because..and heres to hoping that the next destination is kol..coz, man, am i broke!

cheerio~

a moment of pure happiness ^_^

one second..n it seems everything's going well with my life..
1. going to mumbai this weekend..gonna meet all my best friends from college after almost a year..
2. getting paid tomorrow..
3. a client i had been waiting for since january finally landed up..if they had not come today, i would have had to cancel next weekend's plans..
4. joyda praised me..
5. it is raining in kol..finally!!

ps: one day i get called aunty and the next day i need to show an age proof for watching LSD..i have given up wondering how old i look really.. *sigh*

to be noted

watching mushy romantic movies while ur bf is out of town for 3 months is injurious to health..it makes one down 1/2 a bottle of vodka after a dinner of chocolate chip ice-cream..

aunty!!

remember that old hair dye ad where some not-so-old woman gets grey hair and is called aunty by the neighbour's kid?? i can still clearly hear the "aunty..aunty..aunty.." fading into the background as she makes a face like her entire life just fell apart..

well..some kids just came by for chanda..n for the first time ever, i got called aunty!!!!!! lol..it was really funny..m normally called didi at best..but wow..aunty!!..hehe..felt like i was all grown up n all..how i wish this had happened in front of my colleagues back in kolkata who think i am nearer 4 than 24..or other friends who still apparently think of me as a scraggly school girl or something..its sad that the only person here to appreciate my "aunty moment" was my 93 year old granddad who's deaf and hence didn't hear a thing.. :P

ahh..the ironies of life.. *sigh*

......

those eyes which seemed to have a mind of their own
that smile so thin it could cut you
the malice behind it barely veiled
just who had made you so?

thoughts at 2.28 am..

i just read your letter again..the one u wrote me the first night after we broke up..did u know??..it was my first ever love letter, if it can even be called that..can't i guess..but still, a letter given to me by someone who loved me..loves me still, or so you claim..the first time i read it that evening, i was furious at quite a few parts..n there were a hundred different answers i wanted to throw at u..i ended up not doing anything at all i think..i guess i needed some time to pass before i read it again calmly..and know what??..this time i felt terribly terribly sad..not angry..not sorry..not guilty..just incredibly sad..i know we will never be friends..you wouldn't be able to be that..and i don't want u to act, at least not when it's just the two of us..and you'll revert back to the guy who loved me if u stop acting as friends..and i'll start feeling guilty again and become all depressed n morose..

its funny u know..i love my friends much much more than any random guy m dating..i'd ditch the guy in a heartbeat if any of my friends needed me and it came down to a choice..that's actually what we've fought over quite a few times..my giving importance to apparently insignificant things in a friend's life as opposed to him..but that's the thing..they aren't insignificant to me..every conversation i have with them, whether it's talking about something terribly important or nothing at all, is important to me..and i find it unfair to put this one guy above all of them merely because i am dating him n m in love with him n stuff..of course, if it were a clear choice between two people in bad situations, i'd choose the person who needed me the most, regardless of whether he is a friend, a boyfriend or some random person i just met..and that's what's funny..i can't truly care about u as a friend till i know that u think of me as a friend too..which is weird coz i normally don't care what people think of me and am a friend anyway..but i guess this time it's a bit different..since u r not just any person..and if i do show that i care, you might take it the wrong way..and i do think that u need to get over me and i wouldn't want to do anything to jeopardise that any further than i already have by complicating things more..you probably think m really weird..constantly harping on u to be friends with me..like some pushy kindergarten kid..it's just that..i really do like u a lot..and i can't show it if i can't label it with a tag like "friend"..my best friend among guys is an ex (though he's blanked it out of his mind that we ever went out..lol)..that's how it always is..i either become amazing friends with guys i used to go out with or my amazing friends fall for me..hehe..

i always did think we could be good friends..of course, i had also thought that i'd fall for you, and we both know how that turned out..anyway..do u remember??..i always used to tell u that i was a heartless bitch and that it was ur job to make this heartless bitch care??..remember how i always told u to make me fall for u??..i wouldn't have said that if i didn't believe that u could do it..i guess that in time you would have..i have always known that i have trust issues..major ones..and i can't just go ahead n fall for someone..however much i wanted to..my better self would prevail and would prevent me from ever going completely overboard..i would always have a part which would doubt everything..and if ever anything went wrong, that doubting part of me coupled with a more than healthy dosage of pride would come to the forefront and keep me from breaking down..that's the secret to moving on in an instant i guess..lol..

u wouldn't ever understand why i can't trust anyone..and i don't think i could properly explain it to you either..n no i don't trust him either, in case u were thinking that i do..but in time, i've learnt to believe that he means no harm at the very least..did u know??..i started going out with him coz i was bored and coz i was curious..we used to have all these conversations about sadism..n how it would be an amazing challenge to break another sadist..i actually told him to his face that i thought he asked me out only to try and break me..imagine hearing that from the girl u are completely in love with..hearing that not only does she not have any feelings for you, but she believes u actually mean to harm her instead..imagine what he must have gone through and what he must have had to do to make that girl believe in him and even love him..she kept on throwing test after test at him, trying to make him slip up..but he stuck to his guns..if he had run away even once, that would have been the end of it..like it was with u..with someone like me, u should never leave a door open..i am known to always expect the worst..

i have never broken anyone quite as much as i've broken u i think..and i feel guilty as hell every time i think about it..the only other time that i've ever come close to feeling this is when one of my really good friends fell for me and refused to believe that i did not have any romantic feelings for him..i was merely being normal and friendly towards him, which he took to mean something more..it was then that i decided that it sends out entirely wrong signals if u r "nice" to a guy..i have not been "nice" since..rarely have i ever initiated conversations..sent that first sms..told anyone i missed them or called them up "just like that"..n the times that i have done so, i can count on the fingers of one hand..

you know what??..when he asked me out, i didn't even feel 1/100th of what i felt when u asked me out that morning..isn't it ironic??..with u, i actually thought i'd fall for u..with him, i was merely bored n curious n to some extent wanted to show that i had moved on too, i guess..silly..i genuinely never believed that i'd fall for him..i had hoped of course, like i did every time i agreed to go out with anyone..but by that time, i was more like "bleh..i don't care either way"..and i mistrusted him a lot more than i mistrusted u..or maybe because of u..dunno..

do u know the moment i stopped waiting for you??..the moment i knew it was "over"??..that rainy evening i messaged saying some random guy tried to pick me up on the street..we hadn't spoken in a few days and i was beginning to think that it was over..and i should move on..and i looked for an excuse to message..coz u know i always need to have a "reason" to message..just to see how you'd reply..n you asked me why i hadn't gone with him..i detest caveman-like jealousy or possessiveness..i do..and by all standards, i should have been delighted by your reply..dunno why i wasn't though..and..that was it..i could hear it you know..*clank*..something closed up..and i was out..

lol..1 hour and i am still rambling on randomly..pretty much disjointed thoughts..things i've always wanted to say but never could..things which i felt you would never understand..things u wouldn't wanna hear anyway..things u wouldn't believe even if u did hear them..n of course this ain't all..anyway..back to the point..i read your letter again..i cried..probably coz of the gurren lagann ost playing in the background..

ps: i am in two minds about whether to publish this..few people will know what it's all about anyway..n the ones who will, i am afraid wouldn't like me very much for airing their laundry, dirty or otherwise, in public, so to speak..

~edit~
pps: well looks like i did publish it after all..lol.. :P