It’s not very often that I write about matters political. And this time around I am not really sure whether the issue is political, or far,far larger than that.

Benazir Bhutto was shot dead and much more than her just died.

I have not been one to keep a tab on her life but, as a relatively interested onlooker into out neighbouring country’s goings-on, have known roughly about her.

This is not about hailing as her as anything – although I have often wondered what brought back her back to a Pakistan which is falling apart (was it simply the eternal hunger for power; was she being her father’s daughter or was she trying to fix something in her homeland?).

This is about the fact that her death is symbolic of the losing battle that democracy is fighting in Pakistan; of the end to the flickering hopes that countless countrymen had pinned on her; of the triumph of religious fundamentalists (although we don’t know yet whether they were behind this, it is anybody’s guess); of the dangerous consequences of having a neighbouring country where religious hardliners might just win the day.

When I called home to give the news, the first reaction was: “Why the hell did she come back to Pakistan?” A question that I have been wondering for the last two months and one that shall remain unanswered for the time being.

I am not sure why this has hit me so hard. Maybe because this is the first assassination during my adult life that is so close to home; maybe because I could not help admire a woman who returned to her country – no matter how dangerous, how fanatic, how torn-apart, how chaotic, how ruthless – to make things a shade better. Sounds like I am hero-worshipping here. I know. But I can’t really help it at the moment.

Why did she leave a life of comfort and luxury (and security) in exile and return, knowing fully well that she might land up dead? There has to be more to it than just the hunger for power.

Think about it. It matters to us as well.

I was going through the pictures on D’s blog. Pictures are all that there are really. And an occasional line or two – poetic enough to feel like the first waft of warm, moist southern wind after a cold and damp Calcutta winter.

How many who know him know about this poetic facet of his?

In this strange moment between frames of black and white, and some colour sprinkled along, I realized that these lesser known (often unknown) facets that you know about someone (almost like a secret) make you love that person so much more. So when the world says something about him, all you do is smile – since you know something the world does not.

Last night, quite a bit into it, there was a call from across – now let’s see – about three, four seas. There were laughter and giggles on the other side; someone shrieking about what a lau is called in English; a barrage of questions about my whereabouts; rushed updates on health, happiness and would-be husbands. All this, from a kitchen which I cooked in not long ago, black leather sofas where I sat with my legs dangling over the arm rests and a life from which I have stepped out. That’s just what it felt like – like I was part of an alternate life for a while and now I have stepped out of it while others, with whom I shared that alternate life, are still living it.

In my present life, however, there are some interesting occupants: a couple of crows who come to drink from the kitchen window where I have put out a bowl of water; a handful of children who run amuck in the corridor outside my room and peer through the window grills into my room now and then (they have an expression that they might have while peering into the monkey cage at the zoo and those who know me know exactly how fond I am of children – human that is); there is a very friendly black spaniel called Snoopy in the neighbouring building; there is friendly and helpful ‘aunty’ next door who can remember most things about me except my name and… well, that is already quite a bit.

I almost wish that I could do some “value addition” to this post by saying something wise and weighty, discuss the ifs and buts or make some profound observation. But sitting in office on a Sunday afternoon, I don’t see any of it happening! But then again, was I ever the kind to opt for a 9 to 5?!

It has been a little over two months that the soil beneath my feet has changed. After all the hemming and hawing (within the confines of my cranial chamber of course) about where to work and stay, I have finally landed up in quite a decent spot. That, of course is by my definition. I have been told that I should be getting paid almost double of what I am getting at the moment, that I should be sitting in my boss' chair, that I should "realise my worth", etc. The "foreign degree" apparently should be the fairy godmother's wand. I never expected it to be, so am not disappointed when pumpkins and rats choose to remain themselves!


On a slightly different note, several things have popped in and out of my mind, leaving behind footprints of various intensities. A lingering one has been a feeling that people in my generation, more so in the following ones perhaps, are bored and unsatisfied. Whether that be with their lives or with their jobs. And yet, apparently, they have got it all. Relationships falling apart, jobs being quit and an ambient restlessness. And yet, it is my generation, more so the following ones, that has an increasing ability to get what it wants. Or is that the problem?


Does this latent knowledge make us the way we are? Does the fact that we can call it quits in a job this evening and land another soon enough actually make us quit? Does the fact that we can walk out of a relationship without any raised eyebrows (at least compared to what might have been the case a few years back) make us walk out with less of an emotional baggage? Or is it that we don't value what we have and are perenially looking for something better? The easier it is to let go, the more difficult it gets perhaps to hold on, even when holding on is the wiser option.


Bottomline is, I believe young people should be a happy and healthy lot. And when there is ample reason to be so, it's nothing but idiotic not to be so.

It has been raining since last night; the raindrops making more of a racket than I have heard in the last one year. The leaves on the trees in the garden are washed a dark green, the driveway littered with flowers, leaves and twigs, the four new-found kittens huddled in a cosy box with Kali keeping guard, the smell of onions and garlic being fried in the kitchen sting my nose twice a day, the internet connection keeps flickering, the table fan whirrs by my side while I sit at a mahogany table, the years of school and college safely kept within the closed doors of a wooden cupboard behind me...



I am home.

Broken relationships - of any kind - from my past have usually not occupied much space or time in my present. Yes, I think of the people I have left behind and carry their memories, whether pretty or ugly, but they are just that - memories. Rarely do I ponder or brood over them.

But there is one rather unpleasant baggage that these broken relationships bring along with them. One that is tad more difficult to deal with.

With that one severed tie, several others snap, or worse, get strained. If it snaps, it's better. It's over. But if it's strained, well... it can be a strain. A fundamental question arises: When that one primary tie breaks, does it (or should it) break all the other secondary ties (which were formed because of the primary one)?

Confusing?

Ok. Say you spot your ex's sister at a party? When you were still with your ex you got along with her like a house on fire. But after the ugly break-up, do you still walk up to her with a grin or do you try to be inconspicuous behind the nearest potted palm? Or better still, convince yourself that she is one of "them" and pretend that she is part of the furniture? Apart from the complete mish-mash of emotions, logic and reasoning whirring madly in the blender of your brain, the elementary practical problem of whether you should stay rooted or walk or dive for the palm requires immediate action.

So, back to the fundamental question. Does the severance of one relationship break all the other ones that it had nurtured?

I don't know really.

My eyelids feel heavy all of a sudden and I am sure it's the Bailey's. But I have to write this first.

A slideshow of photographs of Hiroshima. It's been 62 years and see where it is now. What the world goes there to see is what happened six decades ago. They come back with feelings I can only imagine. The horrors relived through what has been meticulously preserved, what is on display. That's what brings in the tourists and yes, the money as well.

And then a slideshow of an orphanage in Kupwara, Kashmir. Present day. It's been 60 years of independence, about 20 since the terrorism started. The world probably does not even know it exists. The horrors reflected in the eyes of children, smiling shyly behind the tattered covers of a book. Each childhood crammed into tin trunks with sharp, jagged edges. There is nothing that is meticulously preserved. Nothing on display. The tourists are long gone and with them the money.

The screen looks a little blur and my eyes sting. Am sure it's the Bailey's. Damn it.

Someone came visiting last night, as I lay under the cover, my toes still cold and my eyes barely beginning to make out the furniture in the darkness. She wore a pair of shorts and a loose T-shirt, her hair in a braid falling over her shoulder. She walked barefeet, lest her footfalls wake the others. She came and sat quietly by me, her weight resting lightly on the mattress. It was not a clear night outside, with patchy clouds pasted against a dark, starless sky. The blinds trembled gently in the breeze, as a tungsten glow from the neighbour's window made striped patterns on the ceiling. She sat beside me, looking at the nightness outside, as I did.

She liked nights like these - undramatic, mundane almost. She loved the moon too. And wrote poems in vain, trying to make the words feel the darkness, drink in the heady fragrance of the kaamini tree by the window, soak in the still, humid air, feel the cool window grill in her fists. She loved nights. When the dog downstairs would let out a stray bark at a feline intruder on the boundary wall, only to be hushed by the sleeping human (her head would rest again on her paws, but her ears strained to catch the slightest rustle and her hooded eyes blinked noiselessly). The glass of iced water would send condensing rivulets trickling down the window sill, the ancient fan whirring overhead, stirring the heavy air, a hidden lizard tick-ticking behind the wooden pelmet in search of its mate, the half-curtains hanging listlessly. She would sit, quenching the thirst in her throat with sips from the glass, but never the one inside.

Last night she sat beside me, looking at the nightness outside, as I did. And I knew she was not thirsty anymore.

...but I was, for that glass of iced water, the fragrance of the kaamini tree, for the dog's stray bark.

It’s a warm, lazy afternoon. The silence nudged gently by the tapping of the keyboard and the soft whir of the washing machine from the kitchen. The wooden floor feels cool below my shoe-weary soles and lies scattered with stray strands of just-shampooed hair – black, long, wispy. Damp hair feels so utterly sensuous on my back and shoulders. There is no other way to describe it really. It adds perfectly to the warmth of the sun.

Why am I writing this? Am not sure really… just one those pointless things that you have to do, without bothering to find an excuse! It’s like when you walk along a still pond and drop in a pebble to see the ripples, it’s like when you pass by a fountain and dip in your hand for a splash, it’s like when you see a rose bush in bloom and touch the petals, it’s like when you take off your shoes and walk on grass or smile without knowing why…

Once in a while it feels good to do things that you can’t really explain. You look back, smile and shake your head in half-amusement, wondering whether it was really you who did it.

I have been asked often about my life on this island and it suddenly becomes difficult to put into mere words all that I have passed through. But in a mail to a friend-I-found-again I managed to capture glimpses of this life of mine. An extract...

"Traveled some amount, fell in love - with London, met some very good people, some not so good but case studies by themselves, have stuffed myself to the gills on the strangest of food, stood on rock-strewn sea beaches, climbed misty hills, walked more miles than I perhaps ever have, tasted snow, jogged in ice-cold rain, spent evenings over coffee with absolute strangers, felt like stripping at 18 degrees..."

There are some phases in life which are overwhelming, not necessarily because of the gravity of things happening around us, but the sheer number of things happening at the same time. It is during such moments that I perhaps react the least - not that I am suppressing my reactions, just that I am not reacting at all.

It's like standing in the naked desert and facing a sand-storm that is blowing your way. You know you can't run, or hide and you stand there waiting for it to hit. All you can do is crouch and hope that not too much sand chokes you or stings your eyes. You can hear it howling in your ears, numbing everything else around you, threatening to overcome your senses. And you crouch...

When the last of the storm passes, you stand, dust yourself and look around. The desert still looks much the same and the sky is clear once again. It's almost as though there was no storm at all! Did you imagine it then?

There are reminders sometimes though, that you didn't dream it up after all. The stray grain of sand in your hair can itch, or the one in your eye can tease out a tear drop or two.

M has written an absolutely brilliant piece on racing. Truly brilliant. Have no other words or sentiments to describe it.

It got me thinking… Do I like racing? Guess I don’t. There has always been that latent fear somewhere in me of “what if..?” And yet I have been on a bike doing close to 100 kmph on a road somewhere in Bangalore. No helmets. The wind stinging my eyes. Hair flying in the wind. Yes, it was thrilling to the very core. And very, very reckless. Been on another bike. Done close to 100 kmph again. With helmets. But the feeling was so different. The bikes were different (the first was a CBZ, the second a Machismo). So were the riders.

Metaphorically speaking, I don’t like racing in life either. (Although there are those who would laugh at this, saying that I am deluding myself.) But seriously, I have never been in a mad rush to do something, anything. I get things done more or less on time – that’s about it. I was recalling my momentary urge (somewhere back in college) of sitting for CAT. A visit to the tutorial later, I realized that’s not what I want to do in life. No one at home wanted me to do what I was aiming for – “it’s bohemian, wayward, erratic, irregular” etc. And yet I did. Two years later, when placements were round the corner, I opted out of it. “Do you want to get married?” was one of the reactions. And yet I was the first to land a job in the whole batch. Well, that was a phase of a few “firsts” and it felt good.

There have of course been times when standing on the fringe has exacted its toll. But it’s worth it.

Of the many things that I remember he said, one of them was:

Even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat.

"Faster cars, bigger houses, better girls." That summed it up so well. Sitting at the the foot of an ancient tower in the descending twilight of a June evening, this sounded profound and yet so very simple. You just can't argue it or deny it. But accepting it, for me, feels like accepting the end of everything that a person can ever stand for. So, waiting for the next splurge is reason enough to live the way we are living? The footnote (if at all there is one) about job satisfaction is possibly the only redemption available.

So we wake up in our swanky apartments, go to work in swanky cars, work for 10 hours a day, get high and happy (if not pissed) on weekends, go on the occasional travel spree and do touristy things, watch the TV serial and do a 10-minute soul-searching on the past relationship, pay our bills and fill the long and short hours of existence.

I heard and saw and felt, but still didn't want to believe. We are good people, my mind kept saying. We are not bad! We love our friends and family and petting the neighbour's poodle! And then, as a confirmation of all that I was dreading, a message reached me from Silicon Valley. The next splurge had happened. That nailed it. This is the truth. The splurge is what matters.

Now, seeing the incessant drizzle against these tall glass windows I wonder if it is possible to make out just one of the droplets on the pane from the million others. Guess it is. It is the one that catches the first ray of the sun and glints with brilliance.

It is never too late to catch the sun. Never too late to glint.

I am sitting in a room which used to be home for the last nine months. It is a room once again and I don't want it to be so. Stripped off everything that I had brought with me, thought to be mine, it is now the way I had found it nine months back. Impersonal. And yet, when I had stepped in on September 13, it had appeared welcoming. I had looked around and wondered how it would be to live here. I lived, loved, laughed, cried, hated and fretted here and now someone else will.

Everything is packed and waiting to be moved to yet another room somewhere. Yes, that room too shall be home for a few months. And then I shall leave that as well.

How many homes have I left behind me? How many more shall I leave? And will there come a time when they shall just be rooms and not homes anymore?

What do I feel when I see a dream come true? A dream dreamed years ago, on a night forgotten for everything else but what I saw with my eyes shut. And now, standing amid the ruins of an ancient abbey, with the damp grass beneath my feet, the river gurgling behind the trees, the sunbeams playing hop-scotch amid the foliage, with the warmth of summer on my back, I see the dream stretching ahead of me... waiting to be touched and transformed into reality.

What do I feel...

...breathless.

A mail reached me today (that of course would sound much more romantic in the days of actual mail). It brought with it bits of a time gone by: the ring of long-ago laughter, words of half-sung songs, the faint twang of guitar strings, the hint of machine-made coffee, a whiff of cigarette smoke.

A black and white photograph must still be lying somewhere...

"We are time past that shall not return..."

It was like our fingertips touched... it was good to touch that life again.

In Calcutta there were times when I would wake up one morning and say that it felt like Durga Pujo. Every time I said "Aaj pujo-pujo laagchey" Ma would laugh. It was simply in the air - the sunlight through the leaves did not scorch, the breeze was warm and moist, the sky just blue enough. A sense of festivity would linger somewhere in the crevices of my mind through the day, secretly hoping that it really was Pujo.

Now, sitting by my window overlooking Woodhouse Road, something in the air reminded me of the lane behind the temple in Mangalwadi. The late afternoon sun, the sky, the green and, above all else, the calm. It reminded me of the 21 chicken pox-ridden afternoons that I spent looking out of the window by my bed with nothing but solitude for company. Solitude - I then learnt - can teach you a lot of things. It changes the way you look at things, also the things you look at. For three weeks I had lived on that bed, with enough energy to walk to the toilet with blisters beneath my feet, returning only to collapse in exhaustion. The window showed me a square filled with normalcy - a temple, a lane, children playing, cyclists, stray dogs, vegetable vendors, a row of single-storeyed asbestos-roofed homes. The temple bell and my pagla kokeel. Matrukrupa is one place of which I have nothing but memories... no photographs, nothing.

Now I can't help wondering how different my life would have been if chicken pox had not happened - two persons would perhaps still be there, and one person perhaps not.

...in that case, I am bloody happy that it happened!

Finally The Namesake is behind me - the book and the film, in rapid succession. The book, as always, is better. Apart from the several ways in which the book scores over the film, the story succeeds in moving its focus from Ashima-Ashoke to Gogol. The film, on the other hand, keeps Ashima as the protagonist, not even Ashoke. Gogol's angst with his name happens to be incidental, a crucial departure from the book. Now whether that is the consequence of somebody of Tabu's stature playing Ashima, or Mira Nair's interpretation of the book, is something that I am not in a position to comment on. And, of course, the glaring continuity error in the beginning is just not expected in Nair's work...

Jhumpa Lahiri's writing as such is not among my favourite. It lacks an universal appeal, with immigrant Bengali (or Indian ) families being the content and target at the same time, as was the case with Interpreter of Maladies. The film being set in a time frame which is more than a decade later than the book is also perhaps telling of the effort to make the film more contemporary and the fact that the dilemmas of Ashima and Ashoke belong more to a past generation, rather the average NRI in Silicon Valley.

On a more Leedsian level, life is suddenly devoid (however momentarily) of studies. Invigilation duty of course has added a rather interesting shade to life! It's definitely a feast if you like observing people - the morning grogginess still in their eyes, you can say who knows his stuff and who is faffing, who is just itching to get out, who is trying, who is despairing and who has just succumbed. It reminds me of all those teachers who walked the aisles with supplementary sheets and graph papers while I sat for all those innumerable exams through school and college.

I just got a whole pile of X-Files! Have rarely felt so lucky in life... Thanks to a darling, N. Fox Mulder still makes me flip!!

Ah, I almost forgot - these pictures along the side. Quite like the way they look. Wish had snapshots of New Alipore and Dada... but digital cameras had not happened back then! Also, started shooting with my SLR again - felt really good. The sheer weight of the camera in my hand, the view finder, the light metre, the focusing, the sharp crack of the shutter, winding the reel... brings back the thrill. The dark room comes after this...

Now that the intricacies of Indonesian democracy lie behind me - although I will have to revisit it once again shortly - I began watching a film from some years back. Dil to Paagal Hai. I remember watching it one afternoon when school life had come to an end and college was yet to begin. There was a telephone conversation. I said I was watching the film and the voice on the other side asked me whether it had a significance in my own life. Strangely, it did. That voice found a strong resonance in one of the characters. I knew it then. Then on the film felt very different...

Now the film feels like pure mush - sickeningly. This obsession with love is seriously over rated and I think I am in a position to claim that I know some amount about the subject. The idea of love perhaps is so overwhelming that it overshadows reality - willing suspension of disbelief at its best (or maybe worst!).

But that afternoon's conversation and what the voice said still makes sense.

After that rather grim outpouring, I thought I should write something a little lighter on the head and heart!

The cherry trees now have this bleached look and have decided to finally grow some leaves! It's amazing!

It's almost as if after the unending months of bleak and gray winter, the trees lose their minds when they see the warm glow of the sun. And in the sheer euphoria that follows (which, incidentally, causes the human female here to shed clothes at an alarming rate!) the trees burst forth in bloom - myriad shades of white and pink - in celebration. Then after having stood there all dressed up in their blossoms for a couple of weeks, they begin to feel a little silly when they realise that they don't have any leaves! So, rather reluctantly, they finally give in and the little green sprigs begin to show.

And then it's green all the way.

But what a truly captivating phenomenon! As Amitav Ghosh puts it, if you missed that one week when the tree was in full bloom, you have not know the tree at all!

Cheers to cherry blossoms!

It is very easy to sink into the thought process which constantly cajoles with the idea that everything in the past was good. Must admit it has happened to me a bit too often as well - in phases I must add. Childhood was good, so was school and home and friends and everything else that came and (sadly) went with it. But when I read this recurrent theme in someone else's thoughts, it becomes irritating. And then I realise that my past-was-good thoughts must be irritating as well, specially to someone who has not been a part of that past. Maybe even to someone who has.

The other sink pit is the 'I-have-changed' thought chain. Again an easy trap for the idle mind to fall into. The repetitive voice in the mind which keeps saying how 'I was' and how 'I am'. Along with comes all the things that 'I used to care about' but now don't. Etcetera etcetera etcetera...

Apart from the fact that it would indeed be quite pathetic if we remained at 26 what we were at 16, the thoughts somehow seem soaked with self pity.

Fact is, reading someone else's thoughts can sometimes tell you what not to think about - in unhealthy excess at least. And that is perhaps happening to me. It's a very unpleasant mirror to glance into, because the moment you do, you know what you will see and you don't like it.

What I can hope is that I have learnt something from what I have seen in that mirror. And yes, I shall keep glancing into it now and then, just to make sure that I am still on track!

Have you ever got a whiff of something in the air which immediately conjures this image in your mind? The smell makes an instant connection with something, some vision, in the past; something that you might not have remembered, least of all for the ambient smell, and yet, there it is: the image of the past, fueled by the ambient smell of the present.

Some years ago, while walking to college, nearing the footbridge, I caught a waft of the smell of burning coal. Not the strong, smoked filled smell that brings tears to your eyes, but the gentle reminder that there is a unoon being lit somewhere. And before I new it the image of Bhowanipore was in my mind. The kitchen with its coal unoon, the early morning smell that filled that room and me - standing somewhere at the door, with a step across the threshold.

More recently it happened while riding past the army grounds on the Bullet and then a sudden smell again... a moist, fresh smell. Cut grass. Brought back the school grounds when the grass had just been hacked to a manageable height and it lay in small mounds, dotting the ground. Cut grass smells different here. And there are no small mounds. There is the lawn mower.

Sometimes I think I know why people make films - at least it's a reason why I would make a film. There is this image in my mind. The light is just as soft and diffused as you would want it, the ambient sounds just the right pitch, the movement just the right pace. It's so perfect that it gives you goosebumps. And that's the way you want to keep it forever. You want others to see it through your eyes, through your imagination. Just the way you want it.

I see a small girl with pigtails sitting, hugging her knees to herself, on a small wooden plank. The plank has four, small, spherical wheels attached with ball-bearings beneath it. A pair of legs, a boy's, are running, as he pushes the girl and the plank along. He is wearing thick, black-framed glasses. There are squeals of laughter echoing through the red-cement corridor, as the wheels squeak and grate on the floor. They move at what they think is a break-neck speed, scattering everything that comes their way... and stop only when the corridor plays spoil sport and comes to an end. Undaunted, they just turn around and head the other way... with their laughter following after them.

It's almost a month since I last wrote - not that it is a drastic drop in frequency, but so much has happened. A whirlwind traveling bout and a visitor from Kerala. A much awaited break in my otherwise Leedsian life!

I think it was really needed. One, as a break. Two, as a push back into studying. Now that the first is over, it's time the second kicked in!

There is one thing though that I have realised over the months - I love big cities. The realisation dawned after the couple of trips to London. I have been in a small city for four years and I missed my original big city. But now I realise it's not just the fact that it is where home is, but the fact that it is a big city as well. I love the crowds, the bustle, the travel, the chaos and yet the ability to find your own space in it which is only yours. I love the fact that you can get lost in the crowd and yet find friends in complete strangers. I love the fact that no one will mind if you sulk or smile, if you break into a gig in a bookstore, if you read for hours at a coffee shop, if you just love being what you are. And that you get Sushi -however dry - at a train station!!

I shall now put my imagination to work and make something of Portabella mushrooms!

Oh! I forgot to mention the 'curio corner' on my table - yes, that's what I call it now. It's got:

• two photographs (from home)
• a mug (with two more photographs from my second home)
• a small statuette (is that what it is called?) - a gift from London
  
• a transparent shot-glass (from Lake District) with an acorn (from Loch Ness) atop
• a ceramic smiling toadstool (from Llandudno, Wales)
• an egg-holder (from Cambridge)

I sincerely hope that the corner shall grow and flourish in the months to come!

As words patter on a myriad ears in here,
Out there - a patter of rain drops
We try to define, describe, capture
Outside, there is a letting-go
A million droplets gather, merge, shed
While a million more condense overhead
A million thoughts, here, waiting to crystallise, form
Merging, shedding (perhaps) is still afar
They just float around, tied - like kites on strings
A gust here 'n there tips the balance
As the drops gather, the leaves tip over
Crystal beads on emerald beds of glade
Here, the mind is the bed - so soft
Absorbing, soaking. Some beads run right off.
A break in the clouds - a break in thoughts
A glimmer of clear sky and then the drizzle again
The rhythm is soothing, predictable, known
Like a cushy sofa where nothing is new
Just sink in, let the thoughts sink in - there're so many
The path of least resistence is perhaps the best
Oh bother! These patterns bore the mind
But it gives the space to get lost in
A maze to wander through - endlessly
You know the corners, smile and move on
Out there, the patter is drawing to an end
Or is it just a pause, before a greater onslaught?
The emerald beds bend no more, just a sway maybe
The crystal beads lay scattered
Like the thoughts that broke free from the kite strings...

Ghosts from the past can sometimes have this unsettling habit of materialising when I least expect them to. Not that I particularly expect them to materialise at any given point, but there have of course been instances when I have thought of them. When they do make their appearance it is usually greeted by a knee-jerk reaction from me - often with drastic consequences.

Two ghosts materialised over the last couple of months. And in both cases I reacted quite unexpectedly - even to myself. Fact is, I hardly reacted. In one case I took a long time to respond, and when I did I wasn't sure whether it makes any difference to me if I do so or not. There was no "for old times' sake" sentiment - I am not fond of all the old times for sure.

In the second case I did not respond at all. There was an urge of immediate concern simply because I still care about this ghost in some way - there are old times that I am still fond of. Once the urge was conquered, I did not feel the need to do anything at all. My ghost is at peace with me, and that is the way I shall leave it - a reaction might actually upset the apple-cart which has taken four years to settle. My ghost deserves this much.

For some strange reason I have been wanting to sit with this thing on my lap - I am talking about my laptop! Maybe it is a late after effect of the Christmas stay at Munni's (hmm... wonder how that would sound as a book - "Christmas at Munni's"? A much too obvious reference to Tiffany I guess. But that's where the similarities end). But isn't this where this is supposed to be?! On the lap? So here I am. On the red carpetted floor of my room. With a mug of water (after the tea and the soup and before more tea) for company.

And what shall I write... now that I have gotten myself into this much awaited position. Oh God! This is increasingly sounding not the way I want it to! And my sentences are far to convoluted and long for comprehension... UGH!! What is happening?!

There is this play of words with not much meaning... that is what is happening. But it feels great... as I was thinking.. that the way people speak English here is good on the years and tickles the mind. It's nice. It's nice not always to be business like and "on the job". It's nice to wander around and get lost and laugh about it. (I think the sleep after my essay results had too much of a calming effect!!)

Yesterday I thought I would start writing a story... yet again. And yet again, there was something else to do. Maybe I should be doing the course that Ajay is doing... I would officially be allowed to write what I want and maybe even get grades for it! And then there was the whole conversation - no, not with Ajay - about whether people really fall in love or is it that they love the idea of it (which is still ok) and then the murkier side about whether it is really a matter of convinience. For someone who claims that he has not been in love, he seemed to know quite a lot about it. Good conversation. The tea bags too added their bit I am sure. So... the story. The unwritten one. Lets see what happens to it... whether it finally gets written or prefers to keep wandering in my mind, opting to pop in now and then and remind me of it unwritten status...

Cambridge is beautiful. That is perhaps the best and simplest way to say it. And yes, the weather just decided to be a gracious host and let me have a wonderful time. The accompanying conversation of course made me realise the vestiges of Bristish rule that have been immortalised within Bengali culture. All in all, a fantastic experience.

Punting on the Cam, of course, still needs to be done and shall be done when it is warmer and the company even better!

Right now, however, is a time of certain uncertainties and certain certainties. But damn the uncertainties for making the certainties uncertain! Ha!

I was just wondering about my profile on this blog. What do you write in "About me"? Well, I think the question peeves me because I have been asked the same thing in countless interviews... "So tell me about yourself?" And then, like a keyed musical box, I put on a fake gentle-smile and rattle off in a voice that grates against my own ears (maybe that's why part of my brain switched off) about inconsequential and obscure nothings which are met with apparently understanding nods, hems and haws.

Lets think of Cambridge again - it is so much better. '...bridges that might have been the haunts of so many uncelebrated lovers'. Wonder how I framed that. Feels golden.

Guitar strings, piano chords, Elvis, Elton, Eric... some harmony! The day begins to darken outside, as pin pricks of window lights flicker on one by one. Harmony.

I am beginning to discover the labyrinthian existence of blogs. There are those which will talk of the colour of underwear, the taste of yesterday's lunch or abstractions that bring splashes of rainbow colours to mind. There are pained souls, lusting minds or nostalgic memories. It is a world by itself, with it's own set of the biazzare and the boring.

In fact, it is a reflection of the world that we pass by everyday... a mirror. Just that here we don't see them - their clothes, the dogs that they take out for walks, the shopping bags that they carry, the ring of their laughter. Here there are just the thoughts - free of the physical being, the constraints of the body. And they take flight with the wind of freedom beneath their wings.

Actually, it takes a little getting-used-to. So tuned the senses are to fences that when they cease to exist the senses are a tad bit overwhelmed. (I don't know why but suddenly it feels like being able to open you eyes under water in a swimming pool, where you can just see peoples' legs instead of their faces and the world seems to have turned a hazy - slightly chlorinated - blue!)

So here's to the new world with uncountable colours - a little hazy (with chlorine?) - populated with thoughts-without-faces!

There would be some, perhaps, who would say that you should not begin a new year by looking into the past, but by looking at the future. But a string of songs today brought back an image which was... I am not sure what really, but it brought back a lot of things.

Manna Dey was singing on my laptop - "Dil ka haal sune dilwala" - when a lap-lit evening formed itself in my mind. It was one of the innumerable lap-lit evenings that formed my childhood. A warm, yellow, dim glow spread through the house. The air hot and humid most of the time. The clinks of utensils sounding louder than usual in the semi-darkness. A taal-paata fan in hand. Tilting back and forth on the rocking chair. Waiting for the curtain to be lifted by an occasional waft. A mind rendered vacant with the heat and the knowledge that trying to do anything at all would end in nothing but futility. And from the ground floor, the sound of the radio...

Vividhbharati. Hawa Mahal. And what music...! It filled the air, the heat, the dim glow and every crevice of the vacant mind. The melody said that everything was really alright. This darkness too would pass...

Now, after almost 15 years, I find a sense of peace and security in that image. Strange. For while living it, I am not sure what I would find in it except the helplessness of inactivity. That is the advantage of the past I guess... it always looks better on hindsight - as Rushdie put it "the memory creates its own reality".

And today shall be tomorrow's past as well. I am living a moment that I will cherish 15 years from now... the wonders of the mind never cease to amaze!