Rant and rave.

Some people write about themselves with startling clarity and freedom.Their writing also has a stamp of authority which cogently convinces the reader about their personal experiences,success or failure.Of course I admire such people.They are everything that I am not and perhaps never can be.Every time I start writing about myself my fingers protest and my throat dries up.Perhaps it is also because I have an attention span of a three year old and every time I start to focus on one thought,my mind cannot linger on it long enough to register it so I may be able to write it down somewhere.You might start to think that that's largely spurious and ironic because I have written so much already and I am surely not writing about the presidential elections.But what the hell right? It's my blog page and I am allowed to be what,incoherent? Messy? Yes all of that.I think my inability to clearly write about anything arises out of my hypersensitivity to grief.Grief doesn't move or transfix me.It shuts me.And over the past few years I have been aggrieved by at least 10 incidents that have contributed to collective shutting down of my-1.Creativity 2.Expression.3.Immeasurable love for music.4.Sociability.And I have no idea how I am going to be able to revive all of that.I remember as a kid I would be asked to write about each rhyme my mother would teach me the previous night and on one such occasion I failed to do so after this madman traipsing across the road suddenly stopped at our door.I remember staring at the person bemusedly for as long as he stayed and then crying a lot.I am NOT exaggerating and from that day on my hypersensitivity to grief has been on the rise.Now this madman incident certainly warranted that reaction and so have many such incidents(not considered among the aforesaid 10).It is the bane of my existence.It has killed me in the past and it continues to gnaw at my existence.I cannot move on and cannot forget grief.Now I can't blame God for he has thrown in indemnities embodied by innocent parents,two exquisite friends and a patient lover.
I am so sure that Woody Allen IS my doppelganger because we both have fat noses and we both react similarly to life and its cruelty(Except he has fat money and I am nothing but a fat monkey).I am reminded of his ever so sardonic quote-“I took a test in Existentialism.I left all the answers blank and got 100.” I also admire people with parochial thinking.You know the ones that heartily chew on a piece of meat while the TV flashes the news of a child stuck in a borewell,or a rape or a murder.I also admire people who heartily chew on another person's stupid,loving heart while planning on chewing on,ripping apart their next.Such people I love and admire.I think and I am sure that my biggest regret in life is that I cannot be someone else.Excuse all the rant and 'rave.You have most certainly wasted 5 mins of your life.

I'll come back.

I sniffed the tang in the air today before it started raining and I remembered you. You and that desultory conversation in Aunt Jenny’s hall. Talking about random things glibly,happily.You would curl your nose up in disgust every time I’d touch your share of salted cashew and look away smilingly as soon as I’d withdraw my hands. We would touch beads of water on the window with our fingers and trace them back and forth to write our names, draw patterns of indistinct figures. Sometimes our fingers would touch, linger and the moment would be lost amid giggles in crescendo. Lost? Perhaps that moment has transcended into a world where it is safe. Safely kept away like a treasure. Never forgotten. Never lost.I tiptoe into that world every night, take a look at it and smile a lot. Like tonight.

But life is a desultory journey right? You think something yet you can’t linger. Yes  I have to let go of you, yes  my dear friend, my indispensable treasure. I’ll come back. Please believe I’ll come back.

Nor'westers,you.

Nor'westers remind me of you.Every time I sniff the tang in the air I think about you and I reckon how the ebony clouds hovering above the brick-red patch of sky perfectly mirrors your face after your late afternoon wash,with the vermillion slightly smudged on the forehead.The last time we had it,it was only a fake alarm and you kept whining about the sweltering heat with that characteristic screwing of the nose,while pulling the clothes off the string,barely dry.This would be followed by a staccato of "Kee gorom!".Yes your words are infused into the rhythm of my memory like a beautiful song.A song slightly distant in the memory.The essence of it beautiful,still.


We had it again today,Ma.Except today,it rained.Rained heavily.

You loved summer and ice lolly.You still love summer and everything that comes with it.I love you and I love the way rivulets of powder mixed with sweat run down your temples,the way you frown at the throttling sun and crave for a crate full of ice lollies.But you can't,because the mossy phlegm on your handkerchief safely tucked under your shirt and the inhaler in your pocket scream you can't.Because you have cold.Because you are old.Because craving for ice lollies or harping on one's happy past don't become a good old man.Baba,be a good fellow,be mellow.

Idiocies

1. As a kid,every time my father would wrench the remote out of my grip to watch cricket ,I would wonder what is so special about cricket that fathers and uncles would watch them for hours happily removing their minds from everything else in life for the duration of the game?!The moment it would end,snap and they would jolt back to reality.Of course now it's a cosmic truth that Bengalis and cricket are inseparable but back then it baffled me to no end.So then I gave myself a rather funny explanation for it.I assumed all the cricketers were Bengali and as Bengalis,fathers were obliged to watch their brothers play.It was familial duty after all.And then I remember mumbling good wishes to my extended family on the screen every time there would be a match and never complaining again about sacrificing my daily dose of cartoon on the old Cartoon Network.

2. My cousin and I as kids were convinced that incense sticks were mosquito repellents.That is to say,we confused them with mosquito coils and were convinced that one of the reasons mothers lit incense sticks was to drug the mosquitoes with their fragrance.So one fine evening,as I was sleeping a very deep sleep,the mosquito net tucked under the mattress to prevent the mosquitoes from entering my safe haven inside,accidentally slipped out.The mosquitoes lunged at me.What followed is a rare act of heroism.The said cousin thought he was the only available savior because my mother was away,cooking and he immediately lit an incense stick and shoved it through the space between the net and the mattress to save me.Of course he announced his act of heroism to my mother who came running to observe the pandemonium-smoke spiraling out of the hole burnt on the net and the daughter wailing painfully.And of course I live to tell the tale.

(I presume someday my kids or other kids would read this.So a word of warning-I have a bad sense of humor and you should absolutely abandon such beliefs if you have them already.)

3. I used to think we live inside Earth as opposed to living on it.And we had to carve our way out to the surface  to visit far off places.And the subway was the secret passage to these places and the metro,the medium.That's why it was called 'Patal rail' and only that,right?

4. I used to have a fetish for long hair and was convinced that contact with any random woman's long hair would help my hair grow faster.So I would deliberately stand close to random women with long hair and hope to see my hair grow over night thanks to contact with talismanic long hair of said women.

5. I used to think brides are goddesses descended upon earth to make uglier people prettier.I used to be mesmerized by their beauty,the gleaming jewelry and the bright red vermillion smeared on the temple.I would stand agape studying the lineations on the bride's face while secretly hoping to be touched by the fairy/angel in disguise.This would go on until my mother would nudge me to follow her to the dining table or to exchange niceties with familiar faces.(This belief is retained to some extent because Indian brides,irrespective of how ordinary they look on the rest of the days,on the day of their wedding,they are goddess-incarnate.)

*Yawns* Saving some for later.Have a nice day.

Rereading The Third Level by Jack Finney

These days,when students take up Science for plus two after class ten,their main agenda is to qualify one of them competitive exams.They spend hours inexorably juggling 'important' subjects such as Math,Physics,Chemistry and the heartless parents haul their kids up to get through the premium institutes for engineering or medical science.Unfortunately,amid all the juggling and hauling up kids ignore English.I am not saying this observation is general but it is most certainly generic to most schools I have come across.At least such was the case back in my school.And there is this disheartening notion about students shifting to Humanities in college after having studied Science in school that they failed miserably at the latter so they had no option but to take up English because apparently it was 'easy' to score back in school.Consequently the teachers teaching English in a class full of kids exchanging notes on Calculus,Organic Chemistry etc even in the English periods are totally disheartened at such a sight and end up teaching most chapters half-heartedly.
One of these chapters which seemed almost unintelligible to most of my classmates back in school is The Third Level by Jack Finney.I was teaching my student and he complained that he could not understand most parts of it in class.It piqued me.Of course I couldn't tell him it isn't the teacher's fault but the fault lies with the students.At this point I am beginning to feel most of you would think I am being snooty,but trust me I am only,sincerely making a plea to all the CBSE students studying English (Core) to take interest in the text.It's a very interesting text and so are most of the chapters.And I am only making an effort to raise your interest as a student who loves the subject.So here goes.
When we study a story/novel/poem,it's important that we also briefly study the author's background.Jack Finney,an American, wrote at a time when America was taking the helm at the Second World War(1939-1945).He was deeply aggrieved by the helplessness left in its wake and was a witness to the indictment of the war.Plenty of young boys were sent away indiscreetly and most of them never returned.This disturbed most authors writing during the aforesaid period and they explored many a crises which came as unfortunate consequences of the war through their writing.For them,like most of us,writing was an outlet for their pent up angst and distress.Some of them created a Utopian world which would be their means to escape into a world devoid of hardships and crises while others wrote fantasy,they wrote about time-travel etc all with the common motive of experiencing the 'other'.
So when the protagonist of the story,Charley,extremely dissatisfied with his ordinary life,wavers into the non-existent 'Third Level' at the Grand central Station and wishes to travel to Galesberg with his wife,he is certainly hallucinating.However,having failed to enter the third level a second time he turns to his Psychiatrist friend,to help him get better insight into the current state of mysterious happenings.Both the psychiatrist and Charley's wife Louisa refuse to believe him shrugging the incident off as a figment of imagination ( which indeed it is ).What's important to note here is the disconnect between the sequestered mind of our protagonist and people who are close to him.This disconnect is symbolic of the gradual, incipient chasm carved out between two people with the onset of the modern era.This inability to understand one another is ironically highlighted when the Psychiatrist sends Charley a letter,after having wavered into third level himself (He too is hallucinating of course) which the latter discovers in the midst of blank first day covers ( Note how Charley doesn't receive any letters from anybody and the only letters he has are first day covers with blank pages collected over the years).It is ironical because a psychiatrist is supposed to cure our mental illness,whereas,in this case,he is afflicted by the same disease he is trying to cure highlighting the extent of the mental disease.The story ends with the couple convinced that the third level exists after all because the psychiatrist has confirmed it and the latter cannot be questioned.
The story is a brilliant metaphor for the modern day existential crises plaguing the human mind so much so that it builds an illusory world of happiness and how it refuses to jolt back to reality.
Trivia-Jack Finney is the author of the brilliant novel The Body Snatchers which was adapted into the movie starring Nicole Kidman ,The Invasions.

Nada

I feel so anachronistic at times.So old.You know that moment in between conversations,meetings when you suddenly feel you don't belong.Or maybe you're not as indispensable as you might like to be among people YOU deem as indispensable.Yes these days I feel it all the time.
I am also in a non-creative limbo.What is that supposed to mean now? Who decides if I am creative? Who decides if I am well-read? I haven't read Harry Potter.Yes I haven't and it's a confession.The more the popularity kept jarring on my ears,the farther I retreated. Is that even an explanation? Anyway now I feel erudition is incomplete without Harry Potter.So I will read it.But when? I got caught up in the doldrums of everyday life and I didn't finish Nine Lives.So the book review isn't happening anytime soon because I have an exam in less than 45 days.Of course that is no excuse either.
I check my blog page everyday hoping to be able to write about the ordinariness of my life.That one quality I love most and confound at the same time.I stare blankly at the screen for some time,groan,and leave.Is that possible? Yes you reader do you feel your life swinging between two extremely opposite emotions on alternate days? Happy on Sunday,Irritable on Monday,Excited on Wednesday,and so on...? I am beginning to lose the train of thought.This is the worst post ever.

Pent up angst and anger.

So lately I have been going through my college notes plus other notes that I have collected over the year for scholarly ( Hneh I love that word.Also adding that 'n' makes the common 'heh' irritatingly nasal and accentuates my disgust ) purpose and I have arrived at one conclusion.Since we are so used to copying left and right from literary reviews written by other noted critics and shamelessly,dastardly producing them in our answer scripts that we,as students of literature hardly ever evolve.We might become more knowledgeable but do we really evolve as students of literature? Can we not put our foot down and produce what we truly,discreetly feel about the texts we read in the answer scripts? Since time immemorial we have been hearing notable alumni of our very own Calcutta University complain about the course structure and how it endorses only rote-learning as a means to doing well in exams but unfortunately they have been only fastidious naysayers and not true alumni because then they surely would have come up with more novel methods of teaching in class,suggested updated texts or better still would have suggested other texts in class and encouraged us to read them so as to identify the intertextuality between the latter and the ones to be read for the examination.Sadly,my professors are such megalomaniacs that you can't even openly share your views lest they should ban you from the class.I am just disgusted and very very sad.Dear Lord,send me to a good univ for PG.Please oh please.*contorts with anger and helplessness*

For once, 
let's not be literary 
but literal. 

Let's break free 
from the chaotic reviews 
unduly reduced 
from innocent gazes 
at snippets of life 
to blurry mazes 
of tired thoughts gone rife. 

For once, 
let's be literary 
And literal.


P.S-My posts are getting lamer by the day and I am only getting more elusive.

Jibber jabber

I would like to marry thrice,yes-
Firstly,I would like to marry a Japanese because the Japanese are amazing storytellers.Look at the gamut of  works they have added to their literary oeuvre especially works of Haruki Murakami,Kazuo Ishiguro et al.I think what makes their writing so profound are the two death blows-The Second World War which continues to mutilate lives some 70 years after the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and of course the series of earthquakes.Each one wiping a civilization off the country's face.And when you read them you realize that they are the ones endorsing the aphorism Carpe Diem best.So then I'd like to marry a Japanese and get sufficiently inspired for writing a novel/story and then cheat on him with a South Indian guy.
Yes,my second marriage would be to a South Indian guy because I like their cuisine.Most people I know who have shifted to the southern part of India on the pretext of work or studies complain about South Indian food.Yeah I know one argument could be eating that stuff on a daily basis makes you sick but I don't care I can binge on South Indian food for days.
And then after garnering storytelling skill from the Japanese and after getting bored with South Indian cuisine I'd like to settle down with my boyfriend because we'll both be old by then and I will put use to my storytelling skill  to keep our lives going.

I can't help thinking that I am a rare cross between Christopher ( Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time anyone? ) and Alvy Singer.Yeah that's right,I am stupid and paranoid and I am scared of everything,practically except I don't puke when life gets chaotic but I let out a squealing "I hate!" to express my general hate.(But then I would like to believe I am also witty :( )

It's nice how I have had such amazing experiences of reading,watching and listening stuff that's rendered me speechless.Never Let me Go ( The movie ),Feist's music.Ah how I love my personal space again !

Bemused.

I am up at 6am after ages. These days I am mostly asleep all day and I hardly do any work so I can’t really complain about my erratic sleeping patterns. But what makes this morning special is not this faint and vain hope of setting my bio clock aright. It’s special because this one morning ushered me into a realization of sorts. So I decided to write about it before I dozed off into my routine 'day slumber' and killed it.

There are these moments in one’s life when one can quickly trace one’s steps back to defining moments in one’s life- important decisions, academic and otherwise and they appear as fleeting images before one’s eyes like those little toys that play picture pages with the turn of a key. So as I turned this figurative key of my memory, it showed me several pictures that make me bemusedly calm. They made me think about my stay at Valsad where I had made the best of friends. I also had a brush with my ex-boyfriend and some lost friendships and I realized how I hate the whole idea of being an ex. Somehow a broken relationship or a friendship always leaves a secret kernel of guilt and shame reinstating each time you are referred to as ex that you could not secure a convenient place in their lives. Yet we continue to keep wishing them well and not linger on these pictures longer. We keep turning this metaphorical key to play pictures, to revive our memories, to smile at some and cry a little.

It also made me realize why I love literature so much. I have never endorsed that literature is meant for people who manage to dissect, analyze and deconstruct everything they read, or is meant for people with finer ‘eyes’. I hardly regard it as a subject. In fact, I believe it’s an ideology that one cultivates ever since one is born. It is innate. So then why do some pursue it as subjects meant to carve out a career while others don’t? Well that is because there are some of us willing to cultivate and broaden this ideology and have incumbent roles to play that is to dole out our developed ideas to the ones that chose to broaden and cultivate other ideologies, also innate and vice versa. I believe (I don’t say this like most of our insolent professors with an air of superiority) the moment we all realize this, education would make more sense. So there, I love literature because it is for everybody. It is capacious yet intriguing. And this love is only getting stronger by the day, no matter how many death blows at my academic career try to douse it.( This would make sense to people who know me.)

I am currently reading this book called Nine Lives : In Search of the Sacred in Modern India by William Dalrymple. Yes  he is one of the notable organizers of the Jaipur Lit fest and once you read him you will feel truly indebted to him as an Indian reader. I can’t stop thanking Souradeep for making it happen to me even though he demurred at first because he is selfish when it comes to sharing an amazing reading experience such as this unlike me, I am more selfish *wide grin*. Yes  I will come up with a book review for sure because I really want to document my reading experience.

P.S- I know this is a rather incoherent post because my mouth feels sluggish, I am hungry and 6am is an unearthly hour for me. And writing at this hour, is a feat in itself. Thanks for reading me. Have a nice day.

Mundane post.

So here comes another mundane post.Another needless post about my obscure life,about my uneventful life.I hit the sack at 11:30 pm hoping to set my biological clock aright but hell,here I am ,wide awake, hooting and booting.Well,never mind.There are a few things I chanced upon last evening. So I thought I might as well write about them before I lost the train of thought and gave in to airy nothings (Kill me!).So these things are a video and some old letters that resurfaced from amid old phone bills and documents.The video had me in tears because it revived my affinity with old hindi songs.While most of my friends back in school listened to the Backstreet Boys and Shakira I listened to old hindi songs.Yes that's because I have this intrinsic cord that reacts to basic hindi songs.No not the songs that jar your head and make you feel giddy but the ones with proper classical notes and entity.Like this one-Manna Dey's rendition-'Poocho na kaise maine rain bitai'.
The song is based on the raaga 'Ahir Bhairav' which is a brilliant synthesis of the raagas 'Bhairav' and 'Ahiri'.Manna Dey's rendition is soul-stirring and to my surprise even before the song got over I had tears in my eyes.I have always maintained that some works of art are transcendental.Not just memorable but they transcend accepted notions/perspectives/understanding of the aforesaid and they make you experience the 'other' and it is at this precise moment of realization/epiphany that one is so choked and at a loss of words that one cannot help but cry.That is what precisely happened with me.I had also experienced something similar when I had read Norwegian Wood last year.
Cleaning your study table might seem like a trip around the world. But hey,how do you feel when a letter containing your first poem resurfaces from the motley of needless objects on what is supposed to be your 'study' table? Funny? Nostalgic? Well I blew a snot bubble laughing insanely and almost pooted my pants. I did. PLEASE read. It was titled...


Introspection.


As this sultry night,
breaks the twilight of my emotions,
I realize I am too prone,
to emotional convulsions.


My eyes search support,Oh!
My heart is weak for the violent palpitations!
Mourning the death of my happiness,
I now curse my strange disposition.


I am unfit,gullible,Yes!
That's my ultimate confession.
My feelings betray me,
no one to combat the burning sensation.


Reality and my dreams,
have always been in dissension.
I silently break down in suffocation...


Waiting for the one hand,
that can wipe out my grief,
and lead me to divine ascension.


PS-I was in class 9. I was heartbroken.
xD *snorts and runs*

Hate list continues...

5. I hate people who borrow my books and forget to read and return.No wait that includes some of my friends and my stupid boyfriend.I can't afford to hate them.Cardinal sin.They will send you repining texts reassuring you how sorry they are but will altogether forget before it's long overdue and you begin to forget that you had once owned those books that now lurk in shoddy racks with the pages dogeared and turned transparent due to deposition of dust and tea stains.So then I dislike such people.No I am neither an academic nor a scholar but my books are an extension of myself and I feel this incipient pain within me when they are away from me for long. *sniggers*
6. I dislike people who harp on their past with disgust and irony.People that occasionally scream " Look did I really write/say that? Oh! How could I?" .My advice to such people would be-own up guys.The emotions behind such expressions in the past were real when you felt them.So don't be ashamed and own up.
7. I hate elders that scoff.Not scold but scoff.I chance upon such people almost everyday but can never rub one cosmic truth in their faces that I live by-"Respect is mutual".
8...*yawns* Later!


P.S-I am enjoying writing here after a long time.Helps getting the gamut of chaotic experiences in order.
I read a beautiful short story by Rohinton Mistry titled 'Auspicious Occasion' and I am overjoyed.I think the feel that short stories render is more intriguing than the stories themselves.The stories might ostensibly seem incomplete but the feel they render makes you feel everything has come full circle.Of course these are just some short stories not all and Rohinton Mistry is amazing at that.I am an insomniac and I hardly study.So there,
8. I hate myself and my lunacy.

"When I grow up,I want to be a little girl"

Whenever I am upset or extremely disgruntled,I do a little exercise- I trace my steps back to times in the past when I had been perfectly happy and content and my steps always take me through a blurry maze of events that had taken place in school,some friendships until they finally stop at this one time and refuse to move beyond that.I have always felt that thoughts are little elves in our heads and they have their furtive intentions.So last night as I lay my mind open for the elvish thoughts to act upon it,they took me back to this one person I had met back in the year 1999.He was my first friend and the only friend from Valsad,of whom I have a distinct, happy memory.As we grow up,as we find our lives cramming up with more people without purpose,more thwarting experiences, it is the memory of such friendships that keeps one going.It keeps me going at least.You also realize that the more distant the memory,the better.So then you get hours to trace your steps back to the event and its tough and time-consuming but it takes your mind off the hurt or the anger that you presently experience.I remember playing snooker board game with him at times,and at other times we would simply giggle together while discussing sundry details of school.I remember wishing badly that I could keep him but he had to leave because he was on a vacation and had put up in his aunt's place who happened to be our neighbor.he had promised me to be back soon however we both knew inwardly that was never happening.So ever since that day,that moment I have treasured the memory of the innocence and the effortless friendship.It is indelible.I wonder if he remembers me just the same.I wish. I am reminded of a random post on facebook which read, "When I grow up,I want to be a little girl"

Listless.

I'll just list the books I am currently reading while sitting astride a plastic chair that is screaming for help under my weight.I will also list a number of things and people I presently dislike.

So here are the books-

A Sort Of Life by Graham Greene.

Black Dogs by Ian McEwan.

Short stories by Rohinton Mistry,and,

poems by Agha Shahid Ali.

The things and people I dislike ( They are not listed as per increasing/decreasing degree of dislike or hatred hence the order is random and arbitrary.I frequently let out a squealing "I hate!" when such things or people get on my nerves and express my general hatred towards the following.) 

1.I hate Arnab Goswami.Yes that surly,ill-tempered curmudgeon who is a journalist with Times Now.

2.I hate people who are judgmental.Rather people who are not discreet about their judgment.Yes such people I hate.They are social misfits. Such people should be killed. ( I am presently resisting my urge to name such people)

3.I hate my college.Period.

4.I hate crowded trains.Yes I am a daily commuter and I travel by local trains so crowded trains ruin my day.

I am sleepy and irritated.The list is endless.I'll get back later.

Totally random.

I am beginning to feel guilty for not posting here frequently even after claiming satisfaction at owning a page on the World Wide Web.My life is uneventful.Besides nobody reads my blogs naturally because I never read theirs, because I am hardly ever online from my dysfunctional PC and my humble mobile is ill-equipped for blogging.I am not a part of any literary circle which I am sure does help people to write because one is always curious about the comments on the literary exegesis or even random write-ups.Also,none of my friends,I gather,blog anymore.So I am pretty forlorn on the web sphere.But then again it's a relief that nobody reads me because attention makes me feel fuzzy.It truly does.

Since nobody reads me I can't resist the temptation of divulging sundry details of my uneventful life.

Presently my only discernible activity is sitting.And reading occasionally.That does not make me hopeful about my future since I have an exam in few days.However,I must admit that I am having the time of my life.Besides hobbling around at home I also cook sometimes because I enjoy cooking.I associate cooking with strength because it takes a lot of courage to cook with considerable amount of uncertainty.I never follow instructions and I follow my instincts while adding spices etc.My study room was no less than a pandemonium at hell until recently but I felt accomplished after cleaning it notwithstanding the backache left in its wake.I don't have pets and I never get bored because every now and then I invent new ways to amuse myself.I can sit staring vacantly at the window sill or sniff the curious tang in the summer wind that blows mysteriously without whisking off leaves or small buds.Its a sad excuse for a wind.I see children whimpering and trailing after their mothers while returning from schools in the afternoon and an occasional baby wobbling its head and drooling in the mother's lap.I enjoy watching kids,more precisely babies.The way they wobble their heads and clasp the free end of their mothers' sarees in small fists amuses me.My boyfriend says I am senile and lazy and that unlike others my age I am not 'active' or sociable.However he refuses to see I partake in these little day-to-day activities with great joy and I am pretty stoked at the end of the day.I enjoyed writing this.

That's my desk with the book I am currently reading and my desktop on it.
Yeah right I am jobless. :/

Gah!

I like everything that's ordinary.
So if you're extraordinary please make a hasty exit from my life because you make me feel fuzzy and that hurts my head.And you will become my beloved if you travel by local trains,eat chine badam,crunching them noisily,do not study and weigh at least 60kgs.

Pity.

In the second week of February 2012 , as the whole world celebrated the week dedicated to ‘love’ by exchanging heartfelt greetings with their loved ones and had immense ‘fun’ culminating in reckless drinking and PDAs and so on, a forlorn woman tried having her share of deserved fun at a local bar in Kolkata. Later she was raped in a moving car, at gunpoint.

Without much hope, she courageously reported the incident to policemen at a nearby police station. They jeered at her in return and offered her a night of ‘fun’ at Tantra because after all, it was Valentine’s Day. The chief minister, a woman herself and the custodian of a ‘progressive’ state, alleged that the incident had been ‘contrived’ to malign her party. This shocked many and made them wonder how the same woman who waited outside Jyoti Basu’s office with a deaf and dumb rape victim and refused to budge until justice be adjudicated, could say something so illogical in such a grave moment of crisis.

This recent rape incident reminded me of this one debate I had participated in back in school. My argument demanded frequent use of the term ‘rape’ and I clearly remember that I was asked to replace it with the phrase ‘trespassing on women’s chastity’. Of course it made my speech unnecessarily long-drawn but ‘safe’ and ‘moral’. I lost. I lost my argument.

Returning to the case at hand, what I personally fail to understand is how people and the custodians of law distort the term ‘rape’ and do not deal with it professionally. What is rape then? Of the myriad interpretations, one thing might I add is settled-it is definitely immoral. “How could a separated mother of two , Anglo-Indian , go to a bar at the wee hours of the night and drink?”, “ What was ‘she’ doing there?” are some of the questions raised by the custodians of law and our ‘celebrated’ chief minister, Mamata Banerjee. It is interesting to note how social aspects which are otherwise irrelevant to the case are brought in and how they distort the case further- Marital status, caste, interests. In India, it is observed that women who transgress the roles they are expected to play in the society are always considered immoral. It is indeed a shocking fact given that our country, particularly our state, is believed to be progressive and all that. Rape, we all must realize is basically a crime. Like murder, like larceny, it’s a crime and the culprits must be penalized like what every law, in every other country demands.

I salute the victim for her indomitable courage and congratulate Damayanti Sen and her team for identifying the hooligans .Apparently, the case seems to have been solved but what remains unsolved and shall remain unsolved is the deep-rooted problem of prejudice that makes one’s will to fight and the law skeletal.