Nail Polishing

I am upset. I am sad. And I am indignant. At my perfectly painted nails being screwed royally.

It had been quite some time since I wanted to paint my nails a dark chocolate color. The nail polish bottle was calling out to me. But I had been too caught up with a beautiful coral red and a perfect shade of magenta pink to pay heed to its calls.

But I couldn’t ignore the summons of my nail polish bottle anymore.  (The red color on my nails was beginning to peel away- Plight of a housewife). So anyways, I take out my nail polish remover bottle, clean my nails and give myself a nice little pampering manicure that was long overdue.

My nails start to glow and I feel proud of them again. So I bring out my choco baby, and tell her she can finally sit pretty on my nails. Two careful coats with a base coat do the job for me.  Perfectly manicured and painted nails- the fruit of my hard work. And they start to look like they were borrowed from Filmfare or Femina (or Cosmo if I may dare say). And I am a happy pampered woman again.

But no… the Gods above have something else in store for me. The power goes out and I am bathed in darkness. It’s scary to say the least since I am home alone (the hubby’s out of town).  Considering I was watching a scary movie during my manicure, which centered around a family moving into a new house and strange things start happening when they watch a particular soap on TV every afternoon; I kind of feel the hairs on my back standing up. I was watching television too! And we have moved in only recently…

Nonetheless, I gather up my wits, telling myself that is just a figment of somebody else’s imagination, so I shouldn’t let it scare me. After all, the hubby calls me Bengal Tigress!! I fumble for the matchbox in the dim, unhelpful light of the mobile screen, and fish out a candle. I bargained for one, but I get two. Too good, I say.

But it was said too much too soon. As I carry the candles to the balcony to check if the entire neighborhood is soaking in the same darkness, I see a shadowy reflection on a picture on one of the walls of my room. Two flickers of light and an indistinct figure. It takes me a while to realize it’s me, as the old fear gets ready to creep back into my mind. I push it away into the dark corners, instilling some sense and logic instead.

While I am busy fighting my inner darkness and the demons that live there, one of the candles has burned enough and hot, molten wax drips onto my fingers. Jolted out of my reverie, as I try to save myself from the sudden attack of the liquefied villain, it drips further down onto my perfectly painted nails!!

Oh the pain! Nope not physical hurt. The pains of seeing your hardwork go waste, or shall I say waxed.

Check out the smudges on the finger tips

Now my nails have a fourth coat of wax on them. I tried peeling it off… but the polish is coming off with it, making it look so ugly! 

Damn you power cut. Damn you scary movies. And damn you wax!

My pedicure saved the day a bit though. There was no wax dripping on my toes. Thankfully.

 But my nails look awful!!! :( :(

Mon kharaper dupur bela

Mon kharaper dupur bela

Poronto rodey bikeler barta niye ashe

Bindu bindu ghaame chokher jol mishe jay

Nonta shadey mlaan din

Esho hey godhuli… rangiye diye jao

Brewing tea- trouble

For a person who has always had her morning tea served at her bedside all life, being a married woman is a freaking tough job. You still want your tea, your husband wants his too, but who will brew the beverage, without brewing trouble as the by-product?
Removing the warm, snuggly covers of the blanket, stretching lazily in bed while you are still half asleep, the image of a hot cup of steaming tea lulls you back to dreamland, while you expect it to sprout appendages and walk to your bedside. Probably it would present itself on a colorful tray decorated with a few fresh daisies picked from your garden in the morning, take a little bow, and say, “Madam, tea is ready.” For some reason the mug likes to refer to itself as a third person.


Who cares? As long as you can take a sip and say, “Wah! Taj!!”


But nope… that is not gonna be happenin. You will wake up in the morning, and while you are still stretching lazily trying to shrug off the last shreds of sleep from your body and mind, a voice will drone on near your ear (left or right, depending on which side of the bed is your area); “Chai banao” or “Chai Lao”. Never a request or a hint of appeal in the voice- just to massage my ego a bit- it always sounds like I was born to wake up every morning and disregarding my own need to cling to the bed for those extra five minutes, meant to sprint to the kitchen and magically produce the beverage.
Why o why, I ask?
I am a woman. Hath not a Woman eyes? Hath not a Woman hands (NOT for brewing hot beverages), organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions (to test that last one, try getting me outta the bed!); fed with the same food, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means (though sometimes only a little pampering and love is enough), snuggled and comforted by the same blanket, as a man is?
If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you anger us, do we not snap?
And if you DO ask us for tea, early in the morning, we definitely do snap. All you will get is, “Dude, get yer own.”
Seriously, how tough is it to get out of bed once in a while, and getting the tea and newspaper for your woman in the morning? There are loads that we go through all by ourselves anyways; atleast try sharing the tea controversy with us… it’s a free country and the Mughals were kicked out long back. No use trying to keep up to the long lost Maharaja heritage.


Dude! Get Real!

Saturday Blues

It's a saturday. I hate to work!!! hmph!!

Neverland... I flew away

I would fly into Neverland...


Sample the sweetness of the chocolate mountains there
Soak myself in the fountain of pure innocence

Trot to the flower garden, wipe a little color off a pretty flower
And inhale the beauty of the sunflower

Drench in the happiness of being in a flawless land of love and dreams

Where the sun shines bright and warm,
The birds peck and coo in symphony

A simple universe, where wishes come true without any fine prints

Where the heart wants what it wants
And where the heart gets what it wants...

Love, laughter, happiness and tears-
Of Joy

Hopes and dreams visit you every morning
Like the faithful milkman at your door

Where promises are delivered and never broken into a zillion pieces

Where clouded thoughts do not draw sly kaleidoscopes in your mind

And the heart soars high up in the sky like an eagle freed from chains...

If only I could fly to Neverland...

She had been through cloudy nights enough for the sunshine to be taken from her. She fought for it. Took a few lives.
She lived. In lieu of the lives.
She loved herself too much.

Butter.... the best thing to happen to mankind

She said, “You are the butter to my bread… the breath to my life…”

He promised, “I will make sure it is a thick spread.”

And she fell in love with him all over again…

The Huge Internet!!

Created by Online Education

Tanya

We leave on Sunday for Himachal to get Tanya married to Sandy. I met her today and roamed the Esplanade streets in what seemed to be the last page in this chapter of our life.

Post her wedding, life will be different. Though we didn’t meet regularly for the last few years, when we were both in Kolkata, we still knew we there for each other- staying in the same city, breathing the same polluted air, passing the same places on our way to work or play.

We didn’t meet each other, because we didn’t need to- the mere knowledge of the other’s presence and the assurance that we could meet up whenever we wanted to, was enough to keep us going in our individual lives.

An odd movie outing, or a hot cup of coffee on a cold winter afternoon were the innocent pretexts of our meetings, and at the end of each shopping spree or adda, the goodbyes came naturally- without much thought or a sense of loss.

“She’s just a phone call away, and we can always meet up for dinner next Saturday”, was what I thought on those occasions. But the weekends obliviously rolled into Mondays and the din of the city and the weight of our responsibilities sucked us into a vortex of mechanized, frantic struggle for a living.

Summers turned into winters and raw, sour mangoes gave way to sweet oranges, but our meetings never increased; nor decreased. A chat on the phone, a stay over at each other’s house was how we connected, but the real source of sustenance of our friendship went way back in the past when I had shared my life with her in a faraway hostel room in an alien city.

She had been like a sister to me, sharing my joys and my sorrows, laughing at my jokes, teasing me for my extra fat, taking care of me, fighting with me, staying up late at nights, so we could munch on Haldiram’s ‘Salted Kaju’ and watch ‘Remix’ on TV after I returned home from work at 5 am. She even cleaned our usually unkempt beds and the room we shared, as a birthday surprise for me. It sure was a relieving and welcome sight. A neatly made bed was unimaginable those days.

She played her guitar those mornings, as I sat listening, smoking a cigarette. Sometimes I would join in and sing a couple of lines of the song she strummed on her guitar.

La la la ra la la ra la la ra la la la ra
La la la ra la la ra la la ra la la la ra
La la la ra la la ra la la ra la la la ra
Bhalo lage shopner maya jaal bunte
Bhalo lage oi akasher tara gunte
Bhalo lage meghla dine
Nishpoloke ramdhonu khujte....
Bondhu!

She tried to learn the tune of ‘Coffee houser shei adda ta aaj aar nei aaj aar nei, Kothay Hariye gelo Shonali bikel gulo shei, Aaj aar nei’.

But she failed.

So we sang the ‘Bondhu’ song again and again, until tired and prodded by the gently rising sun, we would wind up our music sessions and drift off to sleep.

We worked nights then, and slept days.

Today I know why she couldn’t learn the tune, and why her fingers wouldn’t pluck the strings in the then unfamiliar way.

Tanya, you fool, how could you think you could play the song of loss and fond recollection, when it was time to make happy memories?

We were full of vivacity then, like rivers in their youth, gurgling past boulders and pebbles, gushing towards their destiny, on a path already set for them, but their innocence keeping them blissfully unaware.

But my dear friend, the river has reached the plains now, the pace slackened, and on the path destined, it flows through towns and cities, its responsibilities to nurture civilizations stripping it of its restless gurgling. It’s a stability long desired, but acquired at the loss of the wild youthfulness of yonder.

As you turn over a new leaf, I can only wish you my purest best, and pray that your dimple works overtime.

Try strumming the guitar now. You might be able to play ‘Coffee House’ finally.

Summer Salvation

Let your tongue feel the smooth coolness… your throat savour the taste of the liquid, as it makes its way down… flowing like a lazy river... touching different parts and bringing them alive with its rejuvenating freshness, the slight pungent taste, bringing a welcome change in your mouth… Feel the sheer pleasure when it begins its journey down to its destination… flowing, halting, touching parts of your mouth, you never knew existed… It begins from the slight opening of your lips, from where it pours itself into the welcoming warmth of your mouth, cooling every place it touches, bringing relief like the first nor’westers to the parched, waiting earth… creating havoc with your senses, as they struggle to cope with the unexpected yet pleasantly surprising taste of the fluid…

As it continues on its chosen path like a carefree little girl, gurgling her way through the banks of a river long dried, hopping on boulders, chasing the grasshoppers, laughing to herself… the liquid finally reaches the youth of its journey… it takes on a pace- fierce and passionate, and without a second look at the dreams of its childhood, it takes the plunge of its life. Flowing down the throat it numbs your mind, body and soul for a moment, when nothing else feels true but the union of the inexperienced orange drink with the very wise and experienced gullet… and when pro meets novice, the effect is dynamic. Each has something to learn and something to teach. The tyro has the world to learn and in turn teach the experienced renewed innocence; the innocence that is left behind in the rollercoaster of life. And it is this union that sings the swan song of the orange drink… it carries on in its way to the final destination, where it meets its final destiny… oblivion.

And then it is time for another gulp of your Glucon D!

Our days at TARA

Path and Sin are sitting beside each other and working from the same comp. Reason? Recession.
Path: Open my Twitter account
Sin: yeah then you can write me a msg,
(Account opened. Both accounts operating.)
Sin (Twittering): Finished watching Before Sunrise.
Path(Replying to sin’s Twitter): Told you it was a wonderful movie!
Sin: Aaare have you noticed one thing? We manage to be the Biggest losers on earth! Sitting on the same comp, Twittering to each other…
Path: Lol!! Chal lets go have lunch! Or shall I Twitter that too??

POST LUNCH
Both sitting bored on the same comp again. Full and satiated, Path belches. Sin disgusted. Both sigh like the emissions of a steam engine.
Suddenly Path: Oye!! Akshay Kumar unbuttoning his jeans!!!
Sin: Lets see lets see!! (eyes popping, she starts a mad search on the internet, while Path looks on dreamily).
Sin: OYE!! THE FUCKING PAGE NOT OPENING!!
Path: F5… FUCKING F5!!!
F5 pressed, both stare at the blank screen blankly, as it takes its own sweet time to reload.
5 secs…. Still staring… 10…. 15…
Path: FUCKING F5!!!!!
Bored yet anxious, they turn their attention to the TV screens across the floor. A particularly non-descript channel catches their attention. A woman with nothing womanly clad in a hideous stool-coloured saree is jiggling and bouncing her silicones all over the screen. It appears to be a Pak Filmfare Award…
Path: Dear God! I refuse to watch that. It is a deliberate assault on my sense of aesthetics and knowledge of the arts.

Sin: Fuck! They’ve introduced terrorism in movies as well. Mr.PM was right! Pak IS the epicenter of global terrorism.
Path: Yeah! They’ve commercialized it too. Next you know, those gun-totting barely-out-of-teen guys will wear sponsored T-shirts!!
Sin: Lets’s drink to that… RINKYYYYYYYYY………… let’s go for tea!!
They pull Rinky out of her reverie and file down for tea. Card punching is a big issue here.

Till death do us apart

Waiting with my arms outstretched

To embrace life as it comes

For it is life that I’ve been wedded to

Till death do us apart

Till death do us apart

It’s a marriage that was signed by God

And His angels high above

I held life’s hand

And walked into this world

Till death do us apart

Till death do us apart

In sickness and in health

The pledge was made

To live with life and let the smile not fade

So I’ll let the tears dry and the sun shine in my eyes

Till death do us apart

Till death do us apart

I write, I prove and I don't lag behind

The other day I read a blog where the blogger mentioned that the hardest thing for a human being is to keep thinking and writing coherently on a regular basis. Well that proves that I am a normal human being... it IS hard for me to keep writing regularly... which is why the last time I made a post on my blog was one and a half years back!!

But I am going to change that now.... I felt jealous of other bloggers when I read their frequent posts... that made me realise how much I was lagging behind in the blogosphere.... and as a human being, lagging behind is not what i was taught from my very toddler days.... we are all destined to compete in the rat race, where the dog eats another of its species.

so, while i am just tagging along and not lagging behind in all other spheres of life, why should the blogosphere be treated as a step child by the cruel mother?

so here's to the virtual sphere.... i will virtually do anything to keep writing.... even if i write incoherently... even at the cost of losing my smart image to my smarter writer friends... come to think of it, they might have had a point to prove when they wrote all their blogs; and they continue to keep writing even now!!

But I will write for the love of it, coz it helps me think... and last but not the least...

it gives me the satisfaction of knowing i am one of the rats, really and virtually :)

FAT??

A very dear friend has started the battle against the bulge. That reminded me of the New year Resolution that I had taken at teh beginning of 2007. Though NYR's are meant to be
broken but this one i wanted to stick to... not because suddenly i have become virtuous and i fulfill every promise I make, but because of all those stylish and sexy clothes that hang from the shop shelves... inciting, provoking, egging me on to buy them and wear them...Those cute tops... short skirts... hot pairs of jeans... and so one and so forth.

So coming back to the topic, I have decided to join the battle too... Strange how NYR's are forgotten woth every passing day of the year.... Goes on to show how we all start a new year afresh with lotsa hopes and desires to change things for the better... to make the world a better place to live in, in our own small ways... but everything falls into the great churning
machine... all hopes are squashed under its great weight, and all that is left is the residue, but not without a little hope that the next year will be a better one and more productive. Its
the hope that keeps us going...

Heres saying bye bye to the layers and layers of fat... Welcome a SLIM ME!!

Red is after all not a very appealing color... Not always

In my previous post I talked about how our Hon’ble Chief Minister is a very literary minded person with very delicate tastes in art and culture. His adda venue is Nandan where he drops by to enjoy the environment and discuss literature and politics… Blah blah blah.
And the very day, in the afternoon, we receive horrifying news of villagers falling victims to piercing bullets that were shot through their bodies like rag dolls being torn apart. And this incident, too, very unfortunately happened under the rule of the same CM. The police “needed to restore law and order” in Nandigram, the next venue for the SEZ.
Industrialization is an important step for every economy and its people and is not always a very welcome change, as we have seen in the recent times. No change is ever accepted with arms wide open and without apprehension, but there are ways of easing it into a people. And flexing of muscles surely can’t be one of them. How can you justify the use of force when you are encroaching on one’s own property to evict the person? The bloodbath that Nandigram witnessed two days ago has no excuse. Using rubber bullets and tear gas shells is one thing, to disperse an angry mob, but to use live ammunition and dismiss them completely from the drudgery of life is completely another. These poor people were only trying to save the only known source of their livelihood. Were there any open talks with the Government regarding the kind of benefit that they would receive once the SEZ has been set up and work started on the plot? It is a rhetorical question that I ask.
A government cannot boast of modernization and a successful economy if its hands are stained with the blood of innocent people. Our ruling party seems to take its official color a tad bit seriously. Where is the people friendly image that your Government has been posing all this time Mr. CM? Has the sense of power made you heady with success? Or is it that after three decades of your rule you have decided to take your own people for granted? Just because we have voted for you and brought you into power time and again, does not mean that we have become dependent on you and lost our voice of protest.
I have believed in the ruling party for as long as I can remember, but do not test our patience Budhha babu. We have known you as a sensitive and sensible person, and have left the ruling power in the Left hands… and this was done by choice and not by force. And though it has been long since we had eyes for only the sickle and the hammer, don’t you for once think that we have lost the power to look elsewhere.
After the horrifying incident, a minimum that was expected from the Government was a deep and profound apology at the loss of so many innocent lives, and so brutally indeed. But ego has been known to bring down many a Heracles, and such seems to be the case with the ruling party. Today the situation has such arisen that even the most ardent fan of the red club is seeing red at its actions.
Common Budhha Babu, show us some of the sensitiveness that makes you a cut above the rest of those hard hearted politicians who speak on a public forum only to gain votes, and see campaigning in the burning sun as a means to their selfish ends. We never knew you to be like that. Bring on that charm, play it all over… To err is human, Mr. CM… give us the wise old man, white haired, and clad in white traditional clothes. We do not want the callous politician that is trying to raise its ugly head within you. Make us believe in you all over again. The state needs you to hold its hand and bring it forward from darkness unto light, and not vice versa. Go on apologize for the atrocities committed by your men in uniform, and start all over again.
We still have eyes only for the sickle and hammer.

Hey am really excited today... Am meeting my dear friend Scooby after a long long time... we both have been busy, though she wont admit that she was too busy to meet up, and says its the lazy me that has been delaying our regular meetings over a bhaar of tea and a shared cigarette at our fav meeting place: Nandan. The cultural hub of The city of joy; though the great history and the cultural n political importance of the place has got nothing to do with us stupid mortals. Though the CM himself drops in whenever he can, at Nandan; it being his fav hangout too, we go there for the sheer sprawling grounds and the independence of being able to hang around the place without anyone coming over to ask if we want to order something else (poliltely and sometimes very blatantly asking us to leave) !!
It’s been our favorite place since our college days when we bunked classes and went and lazed around the Nandan grounds. This place holds a lot of memories, and going back there always brings back the happy ones.
Today I am going to create some more. So that when life sweeps us away in its unexpected tides, I can always look back and smile fondly at all the memories that we have made over the years.

Post Hibernation

After a period of long hibernation, I feel the urge to write. I do not know ho wlong this will remail, though the longer the better. As a mark of respect to the great author Sidney Sheldon, I have decided to make a collection of his best sellers. All my life I have borrowed the books from friends and foe to read SS, but now I think the time has come to pay homage to the great man. I finished his "Morning, Noon and Night" for the second time, and felt the same thrill and excitement while reading the book. You just cant put it down without knowing what happens in the following chapter.
So there I was, spending a great lazy Suanday, curled up on my bed with a Sidney Sheldon bestseller under my nose. Great read.

I Wish...

I wish you wouldnt have to go away, leaving me feeling naked in the big bad world... Coz the only thing that looks good on me is YOU...

The Clock

This clock is dedicated to all the times i want five more minutes in the morning to wake up and get ready for the day... It will serve to remind me that those five montues are precious and 5*60=300 seconds can be put into better use... the worth of time... this is what this clock will serve to remind me... I do not want to miss the bus to LIFE...

I speak...

Its three in the morning and as the world snores away peacefully, i seem to have turned into an insomniac.
sleep,sleep, sleep, where art thou? It IS really true that human beings need sleep to rejuvinate themselves, but then if one does not do anything
throughout the day, where will the need to rejuvinate oneself come from? i have taken a balcony seat to the
movie called life. i can only sit by and watch the world slide away, watch like an audience while others play
their part to perfection. what happens when you are running your fastest best, and suddenly you trip and
fall.... you get hurled so far way and you bruise yourself so bad , that you wonder if you would ever be able to
get back to those tracks again.... those tracks that had once been your sole soul's sustenance. There's a part of me that wants to scream out, shout at all the other people who are running..."how dare you
run? cant you see i have fallen? yopu should stop too!!! " thats my frustration speaking. seem to ahve lost touch
with the active world. sitting and watching life go by hasd never been my forte, and thsi time it is no
different. the only way to survivve the fight id to get beck ti the tracks. Waiting for my inner calling...