Of confessions and fears..

This poetry has been published in the anthology "She The Shakti" which can be purchased HERE!


From the old photo album -

She looks back at me and smiles.

Her eyes twinkle like a cunning fox,

Her smile is of a hyena.

Her lips purse in vengeance -

All the vengeance the whole of mankind can ever conjure.

I can see her claws from beyond the frame.

She looks back at me
Eye to eye,

And takes my present away

In a way no one else can ever notice.

She is evil.

In a way no one understands,

In a way no one would, ever!

My sister, Jenny

As a child, I always knew I had a sister. She was called Jenny, and Mum sometimes adoringly called her Jane.

Jenny had fair skin, black curly hair, brown eyes, and the most beautiful smile of this world. She, I think, was two years elder to me, but Mum at times fumbled and said it could be three as well - she can't tell exactly.

Dad never said anything about her. He would go quiet every time Mum mentioned her, and which was, well, almost every evening.

- Ah, look at you, little monster. Is this a way your tie your hair? Come, bring yourself here, and give the comb to me. Oh, what rough hair you have! Look at Jane - her hair was always so soft, and silky.

- Where's Jane, Mum?

A petty matter called "Trust"!

A petty matter, a very petty matter. Pettier now, as I look back today from here, my thirteenth floor balcony, on a breezy semi-summer-semi-monsoon pretty twilight evening. Petty, but! It broke my trust. Oh, it did.

People who know me closely, friends and not-much-friends, will agree on this one thing - that I trust. I trust people, in general. "Too much!" - a few of them opines.

Yes I do. I really do. And I refuse to give that up, with anyone, unless s/he proves it otherwise. And what if they do? Well, even then, I have this huge space between trust and non-trust which is commonly called an area of benefit-of-doubt. I try to stretch its boundaries even when it comes to that. I do. I seldom have crossed its boundary, as I look back and think today.

So much for my introspection. And now, the petty matter.

This was Bombay. This was 2005. I was relocating away from my current place of stay, and I wanted to sell off my only possession in the category of "furniture", my cot. A middle-aged married couple came, saw, liked (or said so) and promised to call back in about a week. The deal was final, the transport needed sorting out, and I never thought of a booking-amount. I don't exactly remember, but I had just about two weeks or so to disburse it as I leave, and so it suited me. It was a simple affair. That simple!

But then, they never called me back. Fine, I did. A few times. They mostly didn't answer, and when they did, they said something vaguely like they were traveling, network problems, some mishaps in the family, et al. Simple, that too.

It was only after another few frantic calls, as my apartment handover day approached too near and it showed in the panic of my voice, that they really came out on the phone and said something in the lines of - we thought you'd have realised by now that we will not buy it.

That was it.

Not that it hit me monetarily. Not that I will meet them ever again, or even know that if I do. Not that it mattered much to me in any practical way I could think of. But, then! I think I had gone white back at that time. It felt like a tight slap. A tight slap! Really, it did. I mean, why didn't they just say it! Why?

It wasn't simple for me any more. 

I had trusted that some people would do something that they promised. I had trusted that they would say it if they won't. I had trusted their reasons, which were rather excuses, without a second thought. I had told everyone else who approached me on this matter that the cot is taken, and was sorry for the couple and the apparent mishap they spoke about. I didn't know the details of what they said had happened, but I prayed for them somewhere deep inside. 

I kicked myself for days together for being so stupid, so juvenile.

This one small, petty experience left in me a scar I could never get over till today. I never can, I guess. It's funny, it's silly, and more so if you hear the bargain. It was all for three thousands of rupees. 

But of course if you know, you would understand that that was not the point. That is not the point. The point is not the point. 

Trust is!

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Why am I remembering it all of a sudden?

Because, I can hear another silence aloud, and I badly, really badly, wish it strength.  I wish it strength, just so that it doesn't prove a coward again. I hope it doesn't break my trust again. I join my hands and hope.

Because, I want to continue to trust. Everyone. Oh, I so badly do!

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If you're reading this, may I request something of you?

If you've committed to something that you want to come out of, say it. For heaven's sake, say it!

Don't break a trust. Please!


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I want it my way!

"A suicide chooses to end life that he/she found unbearable but then they decide to leave behind something imperishable. Words. 

But then if someone had the clarity of thought to pen a decent note, would they necessarily kill themselves? The debate rages.

‘Dear world: I am leaving because I am bored. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool,’ wrote actor George Sanders.  

I am still searching for that one note I wish to write if I ever do decide to kill myself."

I just finished reading through one of those many articles you come across everyday on Facebook. Some of which you scroll through, some you ignore, some your handheld refuses you on! This one, however, reached me, and this particular ending got me stop and think.

A memory came back. As a kid I was first introduced to Mahabharata over those many nights that my grandmother told me its story in a humming tone as I slept beside her half listening and half occupied in jealousy towards my newborn brother, who then took my place in the space between my parents at sleep. The bit on "ichchhamrityu" ("you choose when you die" boon that Bhishma acquired intrigued me quite a bit. Of course, among many.


I loved it. I thought it could be the best boon of all. And, like most mortals, I guess, I thought I would also want to decide my own departure. Myself.

Growing up, and particularly in this age and time, those many news of sudden deaths over a hardly-few-minutes notice of cardiac arrests in which age hardly mattered became almost as frequently met as those many terminal illness detection and eventual treatment that left people waiting, unsure, for years if not ages. Often you hear people mention them in a clumsy way - s/he is still alive, right? 


No, neither of these really are the way I want it. Never!


Of course, I want it my way.

I don't now what the trigger will be. I don't know when I can when I can say it's 'nuff and call it off, I don't know when, precisely. my self love will cross that restless sense of duty towards the living so that I can brave it without guilt. I may still bother that they'd call me a loser, or an escapist. I may still ponder over what and who I am leaving behind, and if I could do any better. I may move, stop and come back many a times. Most obvious of all, I'll keep thinking what if the attempt fails. 


But yes, I'd still say it loud and clear - I want it my way!

I hope I can have it my way. I can only hope, as of now.


Oh, and I also hope the above sentence is correct. The "as of now" part of it. :)

Ref: http://millenniumpost.in/NewsContent.aspx?NID=62101

Blabber - Rituparno - 1

This is what I have been upto. Got going, and stopped myself. For the umpteenth time, since that day. To write about Rituparno, and to give up. To realise I had so much to say that I can't find enough right words.

Everytime I tried, it went in a circle. I wondered where to start, and if I could ever wrap it up? What should be my perspective, what should be the canvas. An then, gave up!

His each film, yes, just each of them, shines in the sky of the bengali celluloid grandeur. Or is it just me, exaggerating, and I must revise it to say my sky of artistic imaginations and expressions. And rights, yes. Rights.


But where I confuse and lost my way is, I see them roped by a religion called Rabindranath Tagore, in the most fantastic way, and the next minute I think of them as stars carving out the path of for a today's woman, to find her her rightful place in this big bad world. And the, it stretches.. it carves out to not just euality for woman but for human, for Human.

So, here I sit myself down again. And give it a try. Bear with me.


As just any other and most other people, I am this. A complex mix of these, and not in any particular order :

1. Loves Tagore.

2. Dreams, still.

(Yes, despite Nirbhaya, despite the 5-year old with broken glass bottles found inside the stomach.)

3. Believes in mankind. Belives in Human. Yes, inspite of point 2 above.

And funny that, in each of these three things I say above, Rituparno knew better. Hoped better, perhaps. That someday, some other day, we will live up to our rightful rights. The world will pay it's long-due dues. Someday!

..... and here, I give up yet again.

I will write on Rituparno. Someday. Yes, someday!

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You may also like:

 - My review of "Shubho Mahorot"

 - Rituparno and 30th day of May