Orkut... Au Revoir!

I lived a life in Orkut. Looking back, I can even call it a lifetime in its own. I found friends, soulmates, anchors. I found people who I then thought I can never live without.

Sigh! Some stayed, some went, some, I left. But orkut did shape the me that I am now!

RIP, friend.

But Orkut Friends, we'd rock still, won't we? :)

Of confessions...

Google had once played a game. I don't know who coded it, if at all. But that, that game, had coded my life. I believed it to be destiny.

I surrendered to it. In the richest and the poorest form of submission that has ever been.

Sigh!

Destiny, it was. But how!

এখনও আছে আগুন

ক্লান্ত ছিলে।

ছায়া দিতে চেয়ে
বনস্পতি সেজেছি,
নিবিড়ে ঢেকেছি শুকনো কাঠ খড় যত
স্নিগ্ধতায়।

কল্পতরু সেজেছি
তোমার জন্য।

নিজেকে বদলে 
নিয়েছি -
নিজেকে ছেঁকে 
দিয়েছি -

সাজিয়েছি নারীর সাজে
নিজেকে।

কারণ -
পুরুষ ডাকটা আজও তোমার বড় প্রিয়।

দুর্বল বলে ভুল করো নি তো, তুমি?

অসহায় ভেবে -
অথবা, নেহাতই মূর্খ?

করো না ভুল।

আমার এই রূপ -
আমার স্বেচ্ছারোপিত,
জেনো।

জেনো,
এখনো বারুদ জমে আছে -
এখনো আছে আগুন।

জেনো,
এখনো জ্বালিয়ে দিতে পারি আসমুদ্র -
পারি, দাবানল।

অথবা,
আপাদমস্তক -
নিজেকে,
এবং -
তোমাকে।

শুধু ভালোবাসাকে আমি আজও ঈশ্বর মনে করি।

করবও - আজীবন।

আর তাই,

বাসবো আবারও ভালো -
তোমাকেই,

এবারে - আগুন নিয়ে।

HOK...HOK...HOKKOLOROB

A day spent almost entirely on Facebook and television, sobbing, wiping tears.

Tears of pride, tears of joy. Of hope. And all that.

We are. We still are.

Oh that simple yet boldest revelation!

We may not be safe. We never would be. But then, there will be people. I am still sobbing, whispering this to myself to sleep.

Thank you, Us! Thank you!

#hokkolorob

PS: This day will go down in history. It will.

Babel Fish - Episode 2

Read EPISODE 1 here.


I step a step closer, and then yet closer, and it isn’t exactly my mind but rather my hand - my right hand - that does what all it does next. That is, it pulls out the small fishing spoon-net from the box stuck away behind the aquarium, removes the brown plastic roof of the glass-box, dips it inside the water, and waves it to and fro. Somewhat mindlessly. 

I mean, since when did hands have minds?

Babel Fish - Episode 1

Hi, there! – A rather cheerful voice quirps.

I look around. I have hardly opened my eyes now, and the voice is both unfamiliar and impractical.

As I am sleeping all by myself. So it’s just a flickering semi-dream, the sound. I tell myself and turn and try to go to sleep again.

Hey, it’s morning! – This time, it startles me.

I remove the blanket and half-raise my upper body and look around. I still cannot figure out from where it  came. Or, if it at all did, really.

I look hard, everywhere.

Here, here! Look to your right.

My list of Turn-offs

LIST OF TURN-ONs, in case you haven't read it!


As promised, I come with my list of turn-offs in men. Something that will surely interest much fewer, predictably! :/

1.       Stock brokers

There are men. And then, there are men who understand money. Way too much. They understand where money lays egg the best, and the climatic conditions and the hatchery et al. Better than anything.

I understand them very less. Appreciate, lesser!

2.       Decision makers

This one’s tricky. And one of fine balance. There is a kind who makes decisions for you. And those, who jump to conclusions. Well, I don’t like them meek and weak, but then, don’t I just love to blabber too? So, I get itchy when faced with people who’re like – “So, this is this and that is that. Next?”

3.       “Come, fall in love” people

They’ll do all they can. ALL. Online, Offline. Trust me. Only to end with taking an upper hand and saying… well, not saying anything.  Just for the love of it.

Somehow, flirting doesn’t have a clear definition and neither does it fall under sadism. It very well could.

4.       “Girls are from Venus” people

Trust me, we are just normal people. Just for a few anatomical differences. Insignificant they should be, unless you aren’t going to bed or fancying to. And even if significant, under the alternative condition that is, we still are normal people.

And no, it doesn’t contradict the point above. Not at all. You can also be just normal, you know!

5.       Office politicians

Stay away from them. Period.

(If they let you, that is, though.)

Bonus entry:

Leave it. Too many!

A strange role-play.

- What is God?


- I don't know. i knew for only those few minutes, that i was very peacefully aware that i hold all the power and i am giving shelter to all these people and they are chanting hymns for me. Not just chanting... they are very happy to have me for their god. A state of total submission.


- What is being God like?


- To be very confident and knowledgeable of the power that you hold.. Which is all the power that is there in the whole of universe.. But neither are others envious of your power, nor are you proud! It’s a very responsible kind of holding power.
…do you believe me?


- I completely do. Can you handle it, the power?


-Thanks :) Yes. That's why i said - knowledgeable, confident, responsible. And at peace with the power


- Was it a happy thing?


- Yes. Both me holding it and that sea of people giving that to me - both the sides were just equally happy about it. But then, I don't know what the next scene could be like. I just lived that one scene.


- If you had died then, would you have died happy?


- Yes. YES.

My list of Turn-Ons

This has also been published in World of Moms!


Suddenly in a romantic mood, me. 

Well, not romantic exactly. Flirtatious, rather.

So, what do you do when you are thirty-three, married, and a mother of one, and have already noticed the two grey strands as you combed your hair in the morning while rushing for office, and yet cannot but feel flirtatious one fine evening?

Well, you make a list.

Yes.

Who knows, there can well be a next life somewhere sometime, and if your folks remember to bury you along with the list you make today (yes, I refuse to be burnt) you may even find it handy then. Less likely, someday your daughter may need this list for herself. 

Or whatsoever.

But here, I feel flirtatious now, and given my circumstances,  all I can do is make a list. So I will.

Now, coming to the point. What are the things that turn me on in a man?

(Yes, I am heterosexual. Just saying. I don't like guesses.)

1.     First and foremost – Baritone voice

Oh, that’s a killer. Deceptive, yes, but still. I can give up all my demands for looks and intelligence and intellect and poetry writing and reading that a man must, must have, if only he has a voice baritone enough to make up for all that. 

Well, almost!

+ 10 if speaks good English

+ 50 if knows good poems by heart

- 20 if speaks with strong accent

- 50 if the accent is fake

2.     Checked shirts

This one is easy, but a sure win. Checked shirts are sexy. Period.

            + 20 for blue, green, white

            +10 for brown, grey

            + 25 for black and white

 - 50 for fluorescent colours

3.     Moderately tall guy. Five feet eight to five feet ten.

The exact height at which, if we hug, I reach.. well you know! I like that. :/

4.     Frames.

What’s a man without large spectacles and a changed look when you take them off?

+ 5 for rimless ones (are rimless glasses called frames at all?)

+ 10 for Black or Brown frames

+ 15 for thick frames

- 50 for any other colours

5.     Keyboards

I somehow get very impressed when someone don’t have to reach out for the mouse at all while doing stuff at the computer. Very!

+ 10 if also good with writing magical Microsoft Access codes, ones that makes humans redundant at office save for security guards and tea-boys.

- 20 If uses terrible combination on colours on tables or graphs

+ 50 if the cartoons on the Microsoft Powerpoint slides gets across the messages better than the words on them, and with a twist.

Bonus entry –

Putting a hand on my head. Staying there. Like that. For a long, long time. 

(That makes up for most of the above.)

So much for my list. 

What’s yours?

PS: Just as I finish typing this on my handheld and am getting off the cab with a customary "thank-you", comes a "welcome Ma'am" in a, well, noticeably nice voice. Erm, the driver in a checked shirt. And just as I  walk towards the elevator, musing that I should add this fact as a post-script to my this post, comes a "Good evening man" from the security guard. Yup. Checked shirt, thick rimmed black frames. There you go!

PPS: List of Turn-Offs. Coming soon!

PPS: List of Turn-Offs. Came!

Just Friends - II

I wish I could say to you, we’ll always be friends.

But you must know that we cannot; and why.

When I’ll ever meet you, I don’t think I can take your hand in a light friendly grip and then let go. I cannot but take another step closer and put my head on your shoulder, and stay like that until you move.

But yes, we can avoid seeing each other in person. We can still stay in touch. Of course!

You know what? You need to remember the face of the person you are friends with. But then, I cannot see your face anymore when I try to. I close my eyes, and the soft of your chest covers up my face and my neck and my whole, so that I can see nothing! I only smell your smell.

Cave...

There's a cave inside her heart. A cave, deep and dark.

She never had let anyone in there.

Once when she had...

Love? This.

Day 30 - My hopes for my blog

Someday, when Dhopash is all grown up and has her babies etc., she would read out her childhood stories from my blog to them and remember me fondly.

Someday, they'd connect all of it and understand me in a way they now don't.

The chaos in my mind, someday, will lead to something worthwhile reading, and fingers crossed, printing.

Someday!

Day 29 - A confession

I was not there to buy any books.