eshechhe sarat, pujor porosh and all that jazz. well eta ke sarat bole beshi bola hobe na. pujor porosh porjonto achhe. you see each day and swear that it is so much more beautiful than the one before. it couldnt possibly get prettier. and then you see the next day. and it is prettier. so all that is there. majhe majhe ekta pujo puo gondho-o paoa jaye. kintu byas okhanei shesh. ar kichhu nei. not a moment tp spare. run run run. and just wen you think you're done running, you just have to put yourhead down and run some more. sometimes i get the feeling that i am the one i am trying to beat. how far can you push yourself. after that magical week in scotland i havent seen another moment when i can truly say that i havent had a care in the world. mom told me that it is time to grow up. part of that involves no more whining. shotti-i to, ar keu keno shunte chaibe? kharap lagchhe, mon mejaj gorom hoye achhe, jai chai tai nagaler baire. keu keno shunte chaibe eta? tar cheye borong ami-i shuni lok er dukkher kotha. conceptually better. better to be the sufferer than the one inflicting the suffering. has no connection to what i was writing. but it's there anyway.
okay, so i'm venting. big deal. tell me, who cares? really, who does? nobody. and i dont blame them. that is the logical thing to do. i'm just going to have to go back to that mirror of mine. repeat after me: my life is perfect. i want nothing more. i am so happy. thrilled to bits.

too soon to write? technically yes, i guess. haven't even left the country. but since when has that stopped great minds? so a performance it was. a little nervous, yes. even patchy. but worth the while. oh so worth the while. i know not all conferences will be like this. in fact this might even be the exception. but it was a nice start. a very nice start. and who said academics don't get to perform? they do! and boy is it fun performing! now i have no reason left to feel left out when i think of people acting in plays and deriving a sense of belonging from those acts. i had my group here. i'll have another group the next time. hopefully just as nice. hopefully just the same people. ah we are hopeful!
the one thing i can say with a huge degree of certainty is that i haven't been this happy since i moved to the US. reminded me of old times. old people. but without the sadness. each moment came up as another one to be enjoyed. each feeling to be savoured. how many people can get so lucky? how many indeed.
the stories, there are many. the moments, there are many. recounting them is not my purpose. at least not right now. savouring them is. and so that is exactly what i am doing. savouring the feeling of being young again. of having no cares. of having the luxury of imagining oneself to be grown up. the right to be playful. the right to have fun. some people to have fun with. basic you would say. there are two sides of a coin.
and oh beautiful it all was! for once i do not have the words. and neither do i need them. i have the pictures in my mind and they say it all. here's one of them, just for starters.

another life of waiting. for what? i know not. i wait. like the proverbial idiot. do idiots wait? profound question, but i dont have an anwser. these days i dont have too many answers. what do i do? how do i make it right? sometimes i think i am doing it all wrong. it was my fault that all this happened anyways so who am i to crib. but crib i still do, hoping for one of those miracles to emerge from somewhere. let it go girl, let it all go. let the good times go. let the bad times go. question is, how? how do i stop myself from staring into something i dont want? i was afraid of meeting him. now i'm petrfied. what difference does it make? none, i know. oh but i love him. i love him so much. he is my baby. was. all has changed. changed so much that i no longer know anything anymore. i look at myself now and i dont recognise the girl i was. so how will he? two strangers will meet in a world without possibilities. i know i will get over this. someday. somehow. till then i will crib. hey, i can do that much can't i? juvenile. but of course i am juvenile. but at least when i talk about her he talks. otherwise the silence is too much for me. i was never one for silences anyways. never one for living a life without words. and when words are all you have how can life go on without them? if life can go on without him, then words are mere pebbles on the beach. of pebbles and of scribbles. not me. it was not me. the smell, the memory, the rain, the smile after the rain. it is not me any more. it was. not so long ago it was. i was there. now i am not. people come. people go. life goes on. he said, move on with your life. i am trying baby, i am trying. but i love you too much. and there is no way i can tell you. if there had been invisible words you would have seen all my love in letters. as you would have heard it in my silences. i know you know. you know i know you know. but is it only me? am i only a distant memory? self pity, gir, this is all self pity. grow up. get out of it. shit happens. life goes on. so will yours. you will look back and laugh. i keep telling myself that but why do i find it so hard to believe? why do i find it so hard to end this? even these words? why do i feel the moment i will stop writing all of it will come crashing back on me again? because i know only too well that it will. so i keep on writing. in a vain hope that i will be able to keep all else at bay. if i succeed you will know. if i fail, even then. it seems only yesterday that i met him. only yesterday we were spending a lifetime all in one night. i can see her right now. huddled beside the window, clutching her blue little cellphone and typing out her life as the rain comes pouring down. he's right there, waiting for her. her little boy. his girl. a girl in a blue dress. his girl. she liked that. she wanted to be his. when she crossed the road, she could imagine him standing there at the bus stop, smiling a smile only he could. she can see it all. the room, those stolen hours, the birds in the wide open sky under which they sat...where did it all go? why did it all have to end? there is no answer.shadows, he says. shadows came in the way. yes, he is right. they did. she let them in. time and again as he tried, she messed it all up. now its just not fair that she asks him to back. what is gone is gone. shadows took them away? maybe it wasn't only the shadows. maybe it was. what difference does it make?
let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. love is not love that alters when it alteration finds, or bend with the remover to remove. o no, it is an ever fixed mark that looks upon tempests and is never shaken. it is the star to every wandering bark, whose worth's unknown although it's heighth be taken. love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass comes. love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom. if this be error and upon me proved, i never writ, nor no man ever loved.
pretty words. but it ends. they all do.

they were strangers. who knew each other only for a lifetime. then the night ended. then the song ended. but while it lasted it was good and that's all that really matters. the question is, where do all these songs go once they end? do they just disappear? do they stay somewhere hidden?
they sat and asked each other how the chinks appeared. no one really knew the answers. or maybe they both did, but what was the point? so they are strangers once more in a world full of strangers. and so it begins all over again as the paths go their different ways. but the memories remain. with the good times and the bad. the walks they walked. along dusty roads...one hungry dog, a packet of biscuits. yes it's all good. she asks herself, will the paths cross again? will they walk together? he answers with his silence, one that she has come to know so well. where did it all go so horribly wrong? why did shadows cloud the dreams they had? she knows. oh yes she knows so well. she's paid the price, she's paying for it every day. back to old love songs, sappy movies and a certain dravid. a life she had dared to leave behind. she wishes him a world of happiness, a world without shadows, a world full of rainy days and stolen kisses. it's finally all about her again. only about her as the world swirls around in with its madding crowds. yes, it's all good. once again.

i have been watching this tv series called "Californication" (oohh how terribly american that sounds. tv series. anyways). after a very long time i actually found something i liked so unabashedly. as unabashedly as to watch 13 straight episodes back to back. i like the guy. evidently aging does not have to make someone look bad. the opposite has definitely happened in this case. i love the humour. i love that sarcasm. i dont know if its just me or if there is something in the air that says that this world could do with a lot more tongue in cheek, plain old fashioned sarcastic humour. now is that an oxymoron? to some maybe. i love.
and there is something so terribly appealing about a goodlooking man who is willing to engage in an intellectually amusing stychomathia with the necessary deadpan face. all in all, a good combination. how much i am going to like the next season i do not know. what i do know is i want the story to have the cliched happy ending. it is just so fitting. i mean, look at it this way, dont we have enough unhappy endings as it is in this world? why extend it to the movies? thus i finally discover the philosophy behind sop. but let me tell you this, those people who make and buy that sop are lonely people, heart broken perhaps. hoping against hope that some of that cinematic charm rubs off onto their miserable day-in day-out existence. well as things stand, i like what i see, ideology or otherwise. or was it philosophy?

you reach a point when nothing you write makes any sense any more. what is the best way to return to that phase of writing something meaningful? something that truly makes you feel good. makes you feel that you have a few of those grey cells still functioning. taking a break? i have taken many. too many. i think that is why right now i'm facing this block. well as things stand, even now iam producing a precious load of horseshit. i need to do something. and do it fast. i just don't know what to do. change of venue? where to? the only other place which is of any real consequence is my room. and i know only too well that that is not going to help. i know because i have tried. so this place is it? too much noise today. i need a break. i need to go home. im not writing anything useful anymore because i want to go home. and it's just not working out. too many things falling to pieces all at once. i don't know what to do anymore. i know i will finish this. i know that. simply because i have no alternative. but that feeling really does not help.

what if nothing existed beyond my field of vision? what if all that i see before me is all there is? the incessant rain pouring down the wet huddled trees, the white grey sky, the white bars on the window. this is my universe. this is all i see. what if everything beyond were merely a speck in time? memorial hallucinations. what is it that i fear?

the goldfish

have you ever heard of something called the goldfish syndrome? probably not and you probably don't want to either. couldn't care less etc etc. well since i know i will tell you. coercion? you could say so. do i give a damn whether you listen to me or not? unlikely. oh yes, the goldfish. well it's disarmingly simple really. if you put a goldfish in a tiny fishbowl, chances are that it is going to get bored. the situation is then thus: it feels like bouncing off the bowl's wall in a desperate attempt to break out of it. it's not necessary that the world outside is conducive to the goldfish's survival. what is of paramount importance is to break out of the bowl. unfortunately few goldfish ever manage to even scratch the surface and spends its days swimming round and round the fishbowl. i shall not presume to tell you how it feels because i am not a goldfish. i can however tell you how a person might feel in an analogous situation, but by now you have probably guessed those emotions anyway so i shall spare you the agony. moral of the story? nothing really. you could buy a larger fishbowl or the fish could try jumping out instead of breaking the walls. in either case, i don't know the answer.

rainy days and sundays go rather well. only if i didn't have the evil/not-so evil kings hanging over my head liike that god-awful sword. democles? was that the name? oh bugger. never mind.
i am to be "bloody, bold and resolute" about certain actions of mine and i love the idea. just the execution bit has me in a bit of a quandry. how the hell do i start? oh i know i know, just start and it will happen. how brilliant my thoughts are today, i am positively overwhelmed. hah.
the depressive charge has been fired again. oh how i wail when i think my blog seems depressing. my blog? depressing? u must be kidding yourself! yes, i agree it's sad and mopey, a tad dopey, unhappy-sorts....but depressing? nah, now you're reading too much into it! hooray, there is a point to be celebrated here--you are reading the blog.
people write all sorts of things when they are sad, but what do you write when all you are is sad? i mean, give me a break already. but hey, not without a reason say i. so now i am publicly justifying myself? this is crossing the limits somewhat. o all ye hapless readers who stray into the path of my cosmic blog, disregard my moans and groans and unhappy wailing. having said that, you might actually end up disregarding my whole blog if you do follow my advice.
it's a jolly holiday with mary, mary makes the sun shine bright. nice song, nice lines. drawbacks? no mary, no sunshine (which is actually positively lovely) and certainly no holiday. go figure.

no one really ever visits this blog. not like i am writing for an audience, but its sheer lack can be quite amusing at times. ah well, such is life. my office walls are still very very bare, but i have seemingly lost the initiative to impose changes. i dont like changes i think. of any kind. so i shal let it be. maybe this is a bit like a duel wit myslef. how long can i hold out here. silly question. obviously only as long as i must. what a depressing little thought. i have to stop myself from going through other people's albums on orkut. quite the voyeur you see. but no, it is time i consciously try and put an end to it. else i will continue using that as an excuse to get upset or feel depressed. how ridiculous! as if i need more reasons. as i am amply demonstrating, i can be quite funny if i so choose.

obviously im back. nothing special about it. sadly nothing new. i wish there was. there are imes when i start to envy other people for the happiness in their lives. how sad and low can a person go? this has to be pretty close to the lowest.
but let's try a new tack. imagine this is the composition class. write about where you are. the campus can look pretty. on days. like today. cloudy. cold. windy. and pretty. tree-lined avenues, snug little coffee shops. see i can say nice things about the place. a bit lonely but usually a good book can cure that.
actually why dont i say nice things about this place? because im afraid i'll grow to like t and then not want to leave? i doubt. but maybe there is an element of truth in that statement as well. maybe i am shutting myself off from enjoying. maybe i cannot or for some freak reason do not enjoy it here. oh i like the way i put that! "some freak reason" indeed! how hypocritical can u be?!
i should do something about my office. looks rather...how should i put it....empty. white walls dont make for stimulating viewing u know. or maybe they do for minds more creatively charged than mine. i need to put something up. i will try and decorate. deadeningly white.
shoulders straightened (i do slouch an awful lot), chin up. onward to battle. or the next cup of coffee. and a smoke. hmm....this is getting rather inviting.
ps. "awful lot", "rather inviting". no wonder i dont fit in. bloody brit.

money money money...is seriously funny

happy thoughts and happy posts. i have been told that m blog is becoming a tad depressing. i think i see logic in that. hence the desperate drive for change. on a happy note, i have been defrauded of $2200. how happy? well im not quite sure but for some obscurely weird reason i find this situation to be rather amazing. isnt this what they all say about money? easy come easy go? wll hopefully not this easy go. hopefully i shall get the money back. please oh please do not ask me how i landed myself in such a mess. i seem to be specializing in such messes. well not that i lose such vast amounts on a daily basis, but just that i seem to be perpetually in some scrape or the other. on a secondary train of thought (why not plane or car or bicycle i wonder. how very poststructuralist), if i did have such vast amounts of money to be lost on a regular basis (now i can finally pinpoint the sadist in me) that would certainly say something about me. wouldn't it? i mean, mum would have absolutely no grounds for saying that i spend too much. i simply get defrauded. im tickled pink.
the sad story all started with one silly email which i, in my infinite genius, thought to be a genuine mail. out goes the account information and hey presto! i have a debi card fraud on me pretty lil hands. aint it al just mar-ve-doo! bank lady has been very nice. told me to go file a report with the police. e ki jadavpur thana-e giye library card harano-r jonne diary kora naki! ki abdar! jai hok, now i shall make my weary way to the cops to tell them my sad story. im positive they'll think me to be the freshest idiot to have ever walked the famed american soil. and i do not blame them.
as of now i shall consider my options. mope. moan. wail. hmm....im certainly imaginative.

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....