august is my friend again. he goes home. somewhere towards the end i had lost faith in him. conformist. but no. i like him again.

i saw a picture of myself today. smiling. looking happy. really happy. strange thing is that i cant remember someone actully taking that picture or even being in it. compounding this sense of disjunture is the fact that i cant seem to recognise myself there. i looked at the girl in the image and asked myself "is this really me?" why does this happen? im sure im not the first peson to think like this. i guess i wont be the last either. but a strange feeling nonetheless. it was a happy day. a very happy day. i miss you, happy me. i miss that smile. like i said, right now all i can do is deal in somedays and somewheres. someday i will meet that smile again. i will see that girl again. i wont need to be reminded to say hello.

i am depressed. again. it's becoming a little tedious. i had envisioned this blog entry would be all about my sudden fascination with new york. it obviously isn't. it's just that i see nothing great ahead of me. i do not know why i have come back here once again. i had managed to hold myself up alright for a few days. then new york was simply mind blowingly amazing. but coming back to tampa has not been easy. it is such a small town. i miss the city. i miss the crazy charm of a big city. where you can get lost so easily. where you have such a multitude of sense perceptions surrounding you.
it's just about a month away from my birthday. usually by now im plotting and planning as to how make that special day extra special. now i can do nothing. i have a sinking feeling that im going to spend that sunday sitting sadly at home, dreading the monday classes as usual. nothing new. no spark. just another day. welcome to la la land. things shouldnt be this way. i should be happy. i was happy in new york. gloriously happy. things worked well that day. the weather, the city...everything looked just right. goldylocks had found the right bed, the bowl of porridge.
i shouldn't be complaining so much you know. i like the stuff that i have to read. im fascinated by derrida. and that is what i have work on now. create something that is mine.
should i aply for journalism? i dont know. i might get into the programme, but do i want to leave what i am studying right now? no. definitely not. this is what i have been looking for. but teaching? now that's a whole different ball game. and im not even too sure if i am cut out for it. but i am not shirking my responsibilities. i am carrying them out as best as i can. if i am not having any fun in the process, well then it's just too bad. the proverb is well known. you certainly cannot have your cake and eat it too. although right now i am not too sure if the cake is entirely in my possession or am i terribly mistaken?

it's time to be homesick again. what if i set aside one hour each day to be homesick? cry my little cry and then go back to reality? wish i could compartmentalize things so easily.
pujo ashchhe...kintu pujo-r gondho nei. notun jama-r moja nei. shob theke boro kotha...keu kotthao nei. honestly, i don't want to be so sad all the time. i could do with some fun and laughter you know. im not this alien from mars who loves being depressed. there's nothing happy about being depressed...i dont even like chocolates when im low.
so why cry? why plan for the day that i can leave? isn't this what everyone longs for? the US of A, a paying job, doing the things that i like...what is it? where did i go wrong? if someone asked me for my dreams right now, they'd be right there where i'm not. with mom. and poli. and dad with us. and...and..and...i could go on...but what's the point?
i was thinking today about how i could chuck my phd plans, take a degree in publishing and go home. you know something? the more i think about it, the more i feel like doing it. i know, probably chucking the phd is not something i will be able to do. but then going back is something that i have to do. compulsion. i don't want to explain myself to anyone. don't think anyone will really understand. so i'll keep them "online"...in the hope that someday, some kindred soul will tell me that this is how it really is...this is how it feels.

there are times when i begin to dread my imagination. i begin to wonder what on earth shapens the edge of memory? as i sit here in tiny little office, desperately trying to do my work, something comes up as a sudden flash and i am back where i used to be. back where i know how everything goes, i know the faces. you would think memories are a blessing. there is a flip side when you cant take them out of your mind. why do i still see those places so clarly? would i rather not then? catch 22. i see the people, the way the sunlight falls, the shadows, the hot pitched road, a thin sole. someone beside me. faces that pass by unconcerned. i can see myself standing there. i can see everyone. i can hear everone. but no one can hear me. im invisible and i do not want to be so. and this is not a dream. it is not even a nightmare.
i go with them. into places that i know only too well. i go with them, i talk to them. but know one can see me. they think im somewhere else. but im not!!!! im right there with them.....but....
what am i trying to get at? what am i trying to say? i live in an illusion? hardly. e je ghor shotyo. would i wake up where i was? how does one do that? you know my problem? i still look at the skies and imagine flying home. everything i see around me reminds me how far i am from home. homesickness. all neatly tied up into a word. yet so much is left out of it. i deal with the package and everything else that could not be packed. so much of it...............

the one thing that bothered me throughout my flight to the US was that i seemed to have no sense of wonderment. no such feeling of "wow, i'm finally going there". not even the mandatory excitement about seeing a new country. the time hasn't come for me to talk about hindsight, so i don't really know how to look at the way that i was feeling. even now this country doesn't seem to have anything new about it. or is there so much of newness that the whole effect is paling on me? or am i too much of a cynic? what is it? why do i not have the wide-eyed look about me? so truly what is new about here? a lot is. the people are. the way things are done. but not new anough? is that my problem? or it is because i have dad with me that i'm till not seeing it as a whole new place?
whatever be the answers, i remain puzzled. i agree i'm a tad too cynical too really appreciate everything here. the one thing that did interest me was when i heard americans talk about their institutions, their politics. that had an aura of strangeness about it. not something that i know or something i can enter as an insider. the thing is that i am conscious of not being an insider. in fact i perhaps subconsciously maintain my status of an outsider. but there are time when i do it so regularly that i do not have the feeling of looking in. i am habituated to the things around me without knowing them. i expect things to work or happen the way they do without really knowing or asking how or why. this creates a curious dichotomy that sadly is my life and outlook. i am inbetween looking at things as though that is how they always have been and should be, and constantly knowing that at some very fundamental level they are different. i have not dropped the us/them binary and i see no reason as to why i should. see, that is what i mean by consciously or subconsciously being an outsider. i think much as i dont like that fact, i actually don't mind being the "other".
this has been one of the very confusing posts. though, paradoxically, i actually did have something concrete to say...shite!

nothings.

time is a great bane. makes u do all sorts of stupid things. like writing on the blog for lack of better things to do. it never seems to stop raining here. not the warm comfortable rain of home. even the thunder seems a bit...odd...different i guess.
a lot of poetry could come out of this weather. but im not poetic. at least not now. well i guess thats at least a blessing, else i would have had to subject myself to the torturous non-rhythms of my over-strained poetry. or at least attempts.
so what does one write about? the weather? the people? the difficulty in getting cigarettes? or the mere lack of matchboxes? the topics are many, as i have so aptly demonstrated. methinks there's strain in my lekha which reeks of condescension. or stupidity. its amazing how closely related the two are. i think i personally like stupidity. it has a charming quaitness about it. so i have stupid write-ups. oh joy. now im devolving into self-pity. i believe the time has come when i should stop typing. but there's a hypnotic thing about the sound of a clicking keyboard in an otherwise empty and silent house. its at least way better than sighing.
could i say im sarcastic? ok so im desperately trying to be objective about myself and failing hopelessly. stupid and sarcastic. now doesnt that sound inviting!
the inbox is sadly empty. i have to admit that few people have the tenacity, or the severe lack, to sit for hours in front of this thing and hope to god that something will turn up. since i seem to have an abundance of both (or a lack of everything else), i will persist.

as i sit by an alien window in an alien land, i wonder what it feels like to belong here. what does it feel like to wake up every morning in this land of bearded trees and thank god for keeping you at home? what does it feel like when you see a stretch of road and think "home stretch!" how does it feel indeed. what i do know is what it is like to miss home. to stare at an empty strech of the afternoon and think of all the places you've ever been with your friends. al those places where you could have bee now. where you're not. the places go on fine. people there go on living. so do you. at least in theory. in part.
you adopt a strategy of blocking things from your mind. try not to think of the voices you cant hear, of the people you cant touch. cant see. sat sagor er pare...
neat rows of houses...manicured lawns. strangers. strange eyes. that's what you fear the most. the way they look at you. if i said i long to be home then that would be an understatement. its nice here...but LA's fine but it ain't home....

shib thakur er desh e

have u seen all those movies where the hero gets caught in a time wrap? the same thing happens over and over again...the same time...that it can happen in real life too is a bit of a disorienting fact. when u go by ur watch that says its 12 noon when its pitch dark outside, u begin to doubt that thing called sanity. so ok, over and done with an entire day. u've imagined what everyone else would have been doing at what particular time, cried over missing it, felt nostalgic...the works. then, voila! the day comes back. in a new land. same watch. same you. and the same time. on a different continent. told you this was going to get freaky. so what do u do in such a situation? plan a) u bravely admit that such anomalies happen more frequently than lack of money in ur pocket. plan b) (and this is the tricky one) u feel like a total dumbass alien. and that, coincidences of all coincidences, is what ur called when u land. legally. theoretically, literally, and im guessing metaphorically. remember all those times when some inner voice told u not to gape at firangs? well it comes right back at ya. and believe me, when u get the "ahem-u-look-kinda-funny-and-u-dont-sound-like-us" look...its really not funny anymore.
problem no. 2. or was it 3? oh what the hell...next problem. everything turns topsy-turvy. literally! (u knw im beginning to think that everything in this place is a litte too literal for my rather esoteric liking). a ride in a car? pleasant enough, say u? well imagine this. u think its the right side, but actually its the wrong one. the way u think they'd crash is exactly how they drive safe. switches turn the other way. taps too. up is down. no wonder that movie was made by an american. only an american cud live so easily with the right-left/up-down concept. plus they tell u the temperature outside is abalmy 82 degrees. u do a double take. balmy, did u hear? balmy? downright batty, i say. farenheit. jeez. whatever happened to degree celsius? i tell u, what this land needed was a good does of british imperialism. then they'd begin to see things the "right way".
so now comes the critical question. is everything all that bad? oh by the way, before i break into my joyful song, it costs $3 for an airport trolley. the next time u push along that wheezy old thing at Netaji Subhash airport, remember someone up there is warning u to count ur blessings, and count them fast.
oh yes. now to the nice part. things are clean, things move fast, no noise. overall a nice place. having said that glorious line, i now ask u to sit down and seriously ponder upon the connotations and varied interpretations of "nice".

it's been raining almost non-stpo for the past few days. i think all this rainy weather calls for a post. wow. of all the lame excuses i have come up with, this has to be the lamest. or the best. it might be a psychologically interesting question as to why i look for excuses in the first place. you could call me a compulsive lier. maybe there are some dark freudian explantions behind my behaviour. alright, shut up.
now the question comes, if i shut up, then who talks? im not expressing my deep seated curiosity as to the pseech-abilities of all of mankind. what i mean was, if i dont talk then who talks here? if no one talks here then what happens to the blog? if no posts are put up then this just becomes another useless piece of junk occupying a bit of cyberspace already loaded with useless pieces of junk. hence, in the interest of all of humanity and of cyberspace, i keep writng.

names and chanachur

there are moments when u wish u cud blog in bengali. not the transliterated gibberish that one is forced to put up in the name of bengali. the words. the nuances. the little twists that can only be understood when u dont have to break through the maze of english alphabets. but till then, this is my chosen language. this is the language's chosen me. perhaps that is a bit presumptuous. it is. i had to check extensively before i could rest assured that i was not maing a major spelling gaffe. gaffe. faux pas. nice words. im rather attached to them. they seem to define my actions the best. well that i am sure is not what one might call a flattering description of the self. the "other", more revealing self, has taken over now. the "other" of the "self". l'autre du soi. dear lord. i believe it is high time i look beyond theory. im beginning to think in theory. then relate things. my my, what arrogance!
i had a pretty firm idea in my heade that i would call this post "chanachur and chirebhaja". i started with "chanachur and muribhaja" but chire seemed to a better option. but now i see no reason to continue with such nomenclature. not that i did back then, but back then the sheer eccentricity of it seemed appealing. now it seems stretched. mundane. i believe i am becoming my own critic. or critique. or both? or neither? how about a change from this (and i assure you i believe this entirely) rather monotonous discussion.
where to milady? chalao panshi belghoria. aj amar hathe odhel shomoye. er por kichu na korle poche jabe. tai a frantic bid to finish it all. oooh, that had a lovely melodramatic touch to it. i think it's time to call quits.

I'm writing again. almost compulsively. something might be deduced from this i guess. like dream reading. or was in interpretation? well either ways, not my cup of tea...somebody took down all the curtains at my place today and the effect was rather startling. for one thing i didnt know the place could let in so much of light. for another, i was shown the extent to which i could be privy to to other people's lives. and vice versa. so good? or bad? or both? well predominantly bad. i dont like being looked at. not in this way. i like looking in. furtively. some would use the word peeping. some voyeur. is that wrong? coul be. again, im hovering within that grey zone of uncertainty...
but there is much to be said for those who peep in. you look in, the light shines bright. the stage is set for the daily soap opera. types. always i meet types. people who fit in. people who have maddeningly secure lives. patterned lives. routine. did i say maddeningly? funny i should be saying that, when its that maddening security that draws me there. have you ever felt this way? that you have your nose pressed against a window pane and are looking in upon a cozy family room? the trick is that you always have to be outside. in the snow. in the storm. an outsider looking in.
what does it feel to be inside? ah..but that is where the catch lies. within, the cracks become apparent, the crevices take control. the picture is spoilt. no. i like it here. outside. looking in.

it's that time of the year when time is your biggest fear....loads and loads of it....and nothing to do. you'd think that's the way to live? compulsive entertainment? heard a phrase from calvin and hobbes? who ever knew having fun was this hard work!
life's confusing. so many things that you once thought would never change...so many people...so many feelings. sometimes i wonder if words are adequate to express all thatone feels. lately i have begun to question the efficacy of words. they can hide so much. so very much. masks and more masks, that's what i make best. masks of words, letters on page, hiding all, revealing all. maybe what really scares me is the fact that my words reveal everything. if you look hard enough, it is all there. bare, naked, vulnerable. secrets are my passion. whether i like them or not, i can't avoid them. they pile up within me, stack upon stack, choking me, violently seeking a way out....being melodramatic again. masks up. face the world. belinda smiled...and the world was gay....