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twilight

The evening light dims to the stars
We stand together, motionless, staring
out into the fading horizon afar
weaving dreams with our imagination.

Not a single word exchanged
Yet, our minds – they do converse
in languages unknown to scripts
but known only to the hearts in us.

The birds fly home, to their home
Their chitter-chatter filling the scene
We are still standing, resting – still
Only us – just you and me…

blank

its hard to come to terms with… i may not see him for the next one and a half years… i don’t know where he’ll be… where i’ll be… where he’ll be… where we’ll be… its tough – this love, it is tough… we refer to our situation as a test from God… in which we must excel… we must not falter… we must not give up on each other, on our love…
but dear God, why do you not see the tears in my eyes? the sleepless nights i’ve spent crying in regret… regret for the single decision that could have affected my life… why didn’t i trust him enough then? why didn’t i believe in our love then?
i think i must be punished… punished for not valuing him enough… i don’t know God… i don’t know if you consider my love worthy to make him mine one day…

unfair

he’d worked so hard for it… and it just didn’t get chosen for being in the wrong format… this is so so wrong… i feel like calling up that person and literally screaming to him to atleast look at the proposal…

love is in the air :)

my first valentine’s day when i have a valentine! ::blush:: dispatched his letter and card already… he’s hopefully dispatch mine today…

till now, all the valentines’ days that i’ve had have been ones waiting endlessly for a phone call or a wink from the person i used to ‘like’ at that time… it was so kiddish ( i now think )… i used to hope and hope, believing in that quintessential statement – someone out there loves you and you don’t even know it – or – don’t stop smiling; for all you know, someone is falling in love with your smile – and things like that… but last april, i knew it was all true… that there really exists someone for me… that there is someone i would leave everything and run to if the situation came… he is the one… and i know it… ::blush::

yes i’m in love… have been in love for 8 months now… and i don’t think that there’s any doubt in our love… i’m just so glad i’ve found him… sometimes, i’m even amazed at the minuscule probability that we met… its just too miraculous… we’re so thankful to the One up there who’s orchestrating all this…

if you’re reading this, and you’re in love, wish you a wonderful day on the 14th of feb… if you’re not in love, wait… just keep waiting without losing patience… your love will come to you…

for now, its only words… and words are all i have to take your heart away…

ic quiz 1

not done as well as i’d hoped… losing 4 marks till now… but this is of 10 pc weightage so hopefully i can cover up later..

JAM

11 30 pm, the beginning of the night
deb secy neha knocks loudly on my door
i’m not quite in a fright
except my first chem quiz’s score.

we get the fundae, ritika banging the table to often
she’s speaking like a professional, without giving me a chance to soften.

at length i break the ice
coming up with random words in a trice.
six of us initially and three passers-by join in
from what they see, its fun jammin’

stuttering and pausing, i’m jammed again and again
only to jam someone else and ramble on about Jill and Jane.

the art of jamming, i finally gather
is speaking rubbish and mindless chatter
confidence should ooze with every syllable you utter
you shall be jammed, in case you stutter.

interesting rounds like alphabet
with each sentence starting with the letter next.
also others like disconnect, called ‘disco’
connect any two sentences in the history of the game,
and you’re in a fiasco.
another involving no four letter words leaves you in a fix
counting the letters before every word you speak,
you’re almost an adding whiz.
there’s simple story building, to sharpen your skills
say your sentences with panache and the others you thrill.

jamming is fun, and though i fumble
i intend to carry on and not stumble
its with continued enthu in each art you show
that you actually as a person grow.

this thing has caught on so fast,
you’ll find us freshies jamming on the mess table
even at breakfast!

can’t wait to try it out with someone very dear
maybe i’ll have to wait till the coast is clear.

ps another round of jamming is one called rhyme
each sentence you speak has to rhyme with the previous line
as you can see, i’m still down with jamming fever
though i hope in the process, i become a bit more clever

chaos – literally

life sucks. was so enthu to go to chaos – iim ahmedabad’s fest. was even specially invited by the insti fa secy to come and even radhika was gonna come with me. only a plan of three days in exchange for which we would have to give our math quiz at some other time – basically a re test, that too approved of by the dean of the insti. was sure i would convince ma baba as well cuz chaos and techfest collide absolutely.
but then radhika called home at her place and her brother ( fourth year iitb ) told her not to go cuz being freshie girls, we’d not know where to go and stuff and lose our way generally. and cuz her bro’s telling us not to go, we must give credit to his words. so we’re not going
i’m so so disappointed. all excited and dumped in a time frame of half an hour. i was so so enthu to go and see the iim campus, hang out with all the seniors, have fun on the bus ride to ahmedabad… and best of all, miss ma quiz to give it later… i’m so so depressed…

update : iima’s fest chaos actually got cancelled because the tragic demise of one of their main people coordinating the event. it has been postponed indefinitely.
but i will go next year.

potential dengue scare

tonight is the night which decides whether i have dengue or not. have had fever for the past two nights. if i have it today, i will have to get a blood test done tomorrow. i hope and pray i don’t have dengue. its not even dengue time.

Three Girls and a Lady: Part 1

Here I write about three girls: each of whom I had a crush upon, but the matter went nowhere at all. And about a lady who took my heart away.

Shubha. The name might sound un-Bengali-ish, but it isn’t. It all started around Durga Pujo 2004, when I noticed a pair of eyes was constantly following me around. Well, maybe it was a hypothetical person behind me who was the object of her attraction, but if that hypothetical person were to exist, he/she would’ve had to be invisible to me. But anyway. Back to the story. You see, at that time I was too dumb (with respect to females) to give all this a thought; I simply ignored the glances. It was only later, in February the following year, that I felt there was something I missed. I tried to gather information from my friends, but unfortunately, I landed up with the wrong piece of the puzzle.

You see, she always hangs around with this girl who looks similar to her, and somewhere down my narrative, my trusted friend got confused and gave me a wrong piece of info. He said the girl was Shalini. Very good at acads, and stuff. Which, obviously was very interesting to me, because I’d failed to impress with my 10+2 grades (only to later surpass all by clearing JEE), and a near 90%-er being attracted to me was something that brought a sea change in me. I’d been lethargic with my studies (I was preparing for JEE at that time, with a gap year), but suddenly, I was inspired. I studied hard, and cracked the exam. It was only later that I found out I had the wrong person. The one in contention wasn’t so smart at studies, and was doing BBA at a lowly institute.

But still, a part of the credit for me clearing JEE goes to the person I developed feelings for at that time. The thing is, it was all an aberration. Neither one of the girls deserves any credit in reality.

Back to the story again. Since we could only see each other at gatherings of the local Bengali community (we were complete strangers, by the way), the next time I saw her was during Durga Pujo 2005. This time I was in college, but the situation hadn’t changed at all. She kept glancing at me. But this time, I glanced back. You see, I hadn’t realized till this time that she was actually someone (and something) else. Deary me. This went on, and on the last night of the festival, we had a concert by Abhijeet, Bollywood’s playback singer (who’s kindof a fallen star these days). She was sitting in front of the stage, and I, as a volunteer, was standing beside the stage. Our eyes met every now and then. One after another, Abhijeet dished out love songs, and I lip-synched then looking in her direction. She kept looking my way time and again. Sigh. I now wonder why I did that.

I was amazed by the fact that such a pretty girl (was she really pretty?) had a thing (yeah, right) for me. After all, I was a fat guy who didn’t really look the part. (This was also a phase of my life when I had low self-confidence; something I’ve gotten over. I now agree I look pretty cute, and, as the flab disappears, attractive. Anyway, that’s for Juturna to decide.)

And as it would be, nothing happened afterwards. I never got the guts to go talk to her. And I guess that’s what made her give up (if she was interested in me in the first place, that is) on me. In 2006, when I finally had the guts to scrap her, she replied with “I don’t know you”. And that was it. Down with jaundice, I couldn’t attend Pujo that year, and the matter was consigned to the graveyard. That was my first tryst with the second kind.

Postscript: This year on Pujo, with me leading a drastically different personal life (thanks to lady Juturna), I went to Pujo and swapped roles. This time, relieved of all pressures, I looked at her. And looked carefully. I wonder how, at some point of time, I found the face pretty. It has a perpetual frown, which makes her look old. And she’d grown her hair long, which looked horrible. It’s funny, but she did respond to my glances. However, mine were basically inquisitive glances, while I don’t know what the return glances were about.

As if I even care what they’re about. I have something else to care about. And oh my, that something is quite a handful (blush).

The Soldier

The night creeps up,
The birds rush for cover,
As if the messenger from hell
Has set foot on the earth.

The sound of a distant gunshot
Does not even register now;
He has heard it a thousand times,
And seen many a man fall.

Thankfully, the moon is out,
As he creeps across the paddy
To find a way to stay alive
A little while longer.

He stumbles upon a body;
It was his dearest friend,
Who now lay dead
With a bullet across his brain.

He will not cry, but somehow,
A teardrop falls on the face
Of the man he called brother
As he kisses him one last time.

He knows they’re out there,
But he trusts his senses,
And carries on with the game
He’d played so many times now.

Then, like an angel from above,
He catches sight of his post:
The place he must get to;
Blinded, he quickens his pace.

The will to live numbs his senses
Which were so keen moments ago;
He is about to break into a run,
When a bullet grazes his back.

He falls to the ground, unhurt,
Thankful to be still alive,
But now he knows where
His enemy waits for him.

Across the paddy, he crouches,
Another soldier, another player,
In this game of life and death
He’d played so many times now.

He turns his gun away;
He thinks he’s killed his man,
And he will now stay alive
A little while longer.

And he doesn’t even take notice,
The man who should be dead
Was now aiming for his skull;
The next moment, he falls.

A searing pain in his neck,
The world rapidly fading away,
“Oh, mother”, he whispers,
And closes his eyes forever.

Miles away, another soldier
Sits with his gun primed;
The sound of a distant gunshot
Does not even register now.

If You’re Better, You’re Wrong

That’s what my stupid frigging friends think. You see, we play this game Call of Duty over our LAN. It is a war game where you, as a soldier, have to kill other soldiers (which are basically the other members of the game). Now, all of the players here believe in the ‘open’ style of the game. They run around and fire indiscriminately at whoever they can see with their light machine guns. And that is the way they play it.

I, on the other hand, like to play the wait-and-watch game. I wait with a rifle in one spot, and as soon as I can see a soldier (who can’t see me most of the time), I fix my aim and fire. If I’m accurate enough, the bullet hits his head and he’s done. But if I miss, I lose the stealth factor and become highly vulnerable, because a rifle has a painstakingly slow rate of fire. Between two shots of my rifle, an opponent can fire twenty rounds from a machine gun. Initially, I used to get shot most of the time.

But now, my skill has increased, and I’m more accurate. So I now kill more. This, according to my friends, is wrong, because I kill from hiding. A defensive game is illegal. They don’t take into account the dashes I make across the fields to get into cover armed with a weak rifle. The only thing they can see is that I kill more and die less. So that is wrong because I create an obstruction to their style of play. So I’m kicked from the game via voting every time my score reaches an appreciable number. Although the objective of the game is simply to “kill other players”, I’m wrong because I don’t follow convention.

Same is the case in life. If you achieve anything your peers couldn’t, you’ll be branded as cunning, opportunistic, and maybe even a gigolo/whore. Just because you got something they could not. If they don’t do that, you’ll be accepted as better, and that cannot happen. Last year, when one of our seniors was appointed by a leading industry major, the procedure was described to be unfair, just because he had low grades (he was selected for his superior communication skills). Because he achieved something out of others’ reach, he must be defamed.

I’m not one who gives a damn to any such idiotic tendencies. Minions will always rant at your success; the dogs will always bark. So let them. Go to hell with your rants, I don’t care. I dare to be different.

Unintended, Unfortunate

The article at the bottom of the front page of today’s edition of The Hindustan Times was disturbing to say the least. It was about a married couple who unknowingly created incest; they were twins who were separated at birth, adopted by different families, and were kept from knowing their true identity. In the course of time, they met, tragically developed an attraction for each other, and married, only to later discover that fate had played a cruel joke on them.

The article looked at the situation in an emotionless, how-to-prevent-this-from-happening-again light. But a newspaper can’t really afford to have an emotional feel to it. It stressed on the importance of telling their children their true biological identities at some point of time in life. But what I shudder to think of is the emotional trauma they must have gone through upon realizing that the one they fell in love with and married is actually one with whom they’d shared the same womb. Between two of the most sacred human relationships, they had been crushed, emotionally and psychologically. Quite understandably, they had to separate.

I don’t really know what to write. Pray this never happens to anyone else. And may God be with them.

Tea

well, this thought keeps coming to my mind on and off… this time, when i went home in december, while visiting family friends, i would invariably be asked for tea… since i don’t drink it, i decline and then everyone laughs, jovially commenting that i’m still a kid… there is this unsaid tradition among bengali families that kids don’t drink tea…
i’ve sipped some my mom’s and cousin’s cup a million times but have never been able to appreciate the specialty in it… i enjoy coffee a lot LOT more…

maybe i should start drinking tea… most gossip and life stories are shared over a cup of tea… and i feel really really awkward about it… i’m the only not sipping along… and have kind of really lowered my diet… i don’t even get time to make coffee, and since we have a readymade tea in the morning…
i wonder if i should start drinking tea…

thank you

you love me true
and i don’t see
i’m this girl blind
and only you can help me see…

i bleed when you do
only i don’t see where it hurts
and when i do realise the pain
i see you double over in hurt.

i’m doing this too often
testing your patience time and again
i don’t know how you find
the strength to look at me again.

i’m ashamed why i keep repeating my mistakes
i don’t know how i even face you
how i look into your eyes with guilt in mine
how you look at me, your eyes swimming in tears…

i want to take you in my arms
but i fear you won’t accept me
i fear my arms will break before they touch your skin
that they’ll be burnt, singed in guilt and being selfish…

i want you back
i’ll do anything
our love will never die
this i promise this night…