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.