The 377th

Isn't life supposed to be rife with strife
Like all roads leading to change?
Beyond the decrees against sin, commit your own.
And find love. Make it strange.

Bang in the middle of...

Nowhere. For there had literally been nothing that could've kept me from blogging all these days. err...months, or one year three months and a dozen more days to be precise. Didn't really run short of imagination or just anything to write for almost a-year-an-a-half, (life generally doesn't not turn out to be so boring, does it?) but somehow couldn't conjure up anything amidst the randomness that has been scurrying around inside. Could have been preoccupied heavily with loads of big, little imps that people of my age ought to be, but thankfully or otherwise, I've been more than jobless. I've always been of the opinion that there exists a less flamboyant and more honest excuse than "being busy" called "lazy" and, over the last-year-and-a-half I realized to have embodied the phrase in every form.Yes, I missed writing, as more often than not these days I have rued over the choice of subject I made years back..and somewhere I still foresee the day I'll exhaust every hope of science getting me anywhere near to what I had hoped for. Perhaps this blog of mine, till then, will continue to live by intermittently as a stepchild, ruled by the rarity of thought science has infused in my system. For I believe, there are still some more years left for me, to cease walking and talking like another bright scientific geek I've successfully feigned around to be so immaculately, so long. 

Let me know if I've screwed up that too though.
P.S.- Practice maketh a man perfect. Lack of it maketh a dull read.

The Last of the Titans...

I personally feel, despite him being a colossal figure in the political frame of Bengal, death to be the best thing that can happen at his age. He lived a life way too prolonged. Bearing the tallness of a position equally revered and disgraced. And dictating a state well-dominated, then under legends, now under leaders turning grotesque. A life well-frayed, which figuratively concluded with another battle in his residual days. Death probably had received him a little earlier than seventeen days, with the commencement of the medical term of "multi-organ failure", when straining eyesight and a struggling voice had to fight fervidly with age..to give way to the dying flicker of an erstwhile flame. Its often heard, that greats die with the failure of delivering greatness. And perhaps life is not livable enough for some to continue living it as breathing puppets. Not that the former chief minister of Bengal was someone complementary to controversies, but I personally feel him to possess that, which Bengal badly needs today. And that is, transcending all political margins, a Chief minister's voice. But what futher vitiates the aura prevailing today is the commercial computations of losses and gains manoeuvred amid the deceased leader's funeral. For I feel its absolutely savage for some pitiless persons to nudge emotions in helpless people, to evoke them to wish the speedy recovery for a nonagenarian person, which can serve no purpose greater than sufficing a billionaire's bread. I have my father in the press, and its him who taught me to read beyond the printed words deemed as Bible. But I really don't see any ground on why all the muck slung upon a person in his lifetime is tactfully obscured after his death under the blanket covering his corpse, only to drain business out of his cadaver. And after absurdly wasting hours leafing through them, I wish doom for the news channels which fail to refrain from avarice, no matter what, and read nothing cruel in 'selling' a person in his afterlife.

The year, when everything went wrong..

The title of the post, except for ' year' replaced by 'day', is one of the earliest essays written in those primary school times. Composed on a lighter note, it somehow still tickles a funny bone, being the most hilarious thing I ever penned on an exam paper. But, such events, perhaps, continue to be amusing only when it lasts for, 'a day'. For it can be awful and rather devastatingly painful to live a year, when everything and everyday you dare to go through, turns wrong, and nothing continues to remain hilarious or tickle the optimism in you by the slightest measure. The year just gone by has been a debacle from every possible angle of perception and it wouldn't have been anything but my blog for which I am going through the distressing year once again all over.

Anything written about 2009, would be incomplete without the apparition that occurred to me towards the end of 2008, intuitively indicating the times ahead to be difficult. Startlingly enough, the early days turned out to be a complete contradiction, going on to become indeed one of the best phases of my life. Our three nights four days in Vizag will always remain a treasure and it can potentially make me sob for days to come. As of now, I'll possibly never come over the rivetting deja vu of those mountains, beaches, forests, caves, train journeys, tunnels, hotel rooms, terrace, laughter, dinners..and I can literally go on an on about how terribly I want those five days back into my life in a permanent format..so as to slip into them whenever life becomes unlivable in its native form. Idiosyncratically, they fled past sooner than they arrived and were thankfully followed by our third semester results, which happened to be well. Luckily enough, they got better than its preceding ones, still better than my expectations and incomparably better than what subsequently came up. The next three quarters of the year, had been diametrically opposite to the first few months and I no more wonder how things could have turned so miserably wrong. Only that I always, more or less, believed that morning somehow, does show the day...till this year happened with my life.

The fourth semester exams followed hand-in-hand with some catastrophic results, giving way to heightened unrest at home front. Possibilities of a chance recovery were waning away faster than the vigour of the Leftists in Bengal, leaving me with no odds against pitifully suffering from hopelessness and hairloss. I put on weight, grew tired of ambitions, and God knows how many thousands of times, broke up. To boot that, my cellphone ceased working every alternate day and PC got dysfunctional, thankfully, just twice! I started about five novels, none of which I could conclude with and the fifth semster immunology chapters had myself perfectly screwed up. The year exasperated in every sense possible and I couldn't ask for anything from it, but to give up.

I was yet to get maddened anymore, when winters arrived bang in the middle of my exams, showing somewhat hope of surviving the year. Dec-end had been wonderful with Christmas parties and New year, which made me not quite mind the fifteen marks I disgracefully left incomplete on my exam paper. The year concluded on a vastly cheerful note than it had been throughout, and if all is really well that ends well and myths are to be believed, 2009 for me, may someday possibly turn out to be a year, unconventionally though, living worthwhile.

P.S.:- Happy new year to everyone out there..Have a great year ahead.

Sonnet to thy soul..

You travelled the corridors of my soul
When the dead hour struck nightfall
And enfolded the love pining for thee..
In thy silence, that says it all.
You whispered to me thou tales of winter
And hummed the nightingale's song
Within scarlet confines of thy heart
Sheltered me all night long
You held me across the realms of truth
To where moonlight stays by the day
Closed the eyes of the princess within,
And let her dream away..
You kept her from the canopy of pallor, till solitude stormed a clout
And beheld the princess cling to her dreams, till time had run out.

Winters, wreaths and wishes

Christmas yet again, idiosyncratic of good times, zoomed past the city in what seemed like seconds. And it has been yet another day to etch somewhere in between the countless memories that'll make me love this life for ages. I must admit, that it started as a nightmare..and ended with an unpredictably delightful climax, the details of which I do not wish to give out in my blog. But amidst everything, the high point of the yuletide celebrations had to be the coveted surprise gift I received, that absolutely made my day.

Winter is back with its colours to the city's nest, which rested on me as another excuse to coax mom to get me a long woollen overcoat in blue. Strangely enough, for the last couple of years, I find myself getting obsessively smitten by cardigans, or winterwear in that case, to be loaded with literally dozens of them in a few year's hence. And I do not wish to see any prospective vent for overcoming this obsession, living in a city where one can literally make the most of this spell. I've always believed Calcutta to be one of the cities, globally, to enjoy the most beautiful examples of winter season..way better than the Delhi chill that leaves one shrouded under comical monkey caps, or the hints of a winter season in Bombay that can make woollen pullovers a matter of shame. But apart from the season itself, the other snippets of celebrations that completed my day had to be me, trying a hand at origami, making paper wreaths from my grandmother's Christmas editions of origami books. And lastly, I loved myself hugely in the Santa look and was utterly mesmerised by Paulo's Angels.

p.s.:- Hope everyone had a great Christmas..with sincere wishes of having more of good times ahead.

Growth pangs..and Christmas eve

Exams finally got over after what seemed like eternity. And being truest to my ownself, they failed to meet up to the expections concerning them at any length. Probably that's what kept me from blogging, till almost a week after our fifth semester concluded with itself...that feeling of atonement, inevitable after shrouding a well "dreamt" career, literally for long, under layers of negligence. And amidst amends, I can't wait for this dreadful year to come to an end. No words minced, 2009 made me see through the worst of times, if 'worst' is indeed the superlative term for something so despicable. And its because of a handful of pleasurable phases woven in between this otherwise-horrible-nightmare of 365 days, that made me survive so close to its end. As of now, snippets of Christmas, and whiff of a new year hanging loose in the air, is one of such phases which'll possibly help me make it to yet another week, till the year finally ends.

Its Christmas eve today, and this time, it has been different. I've always refused to believe that anything in this world can match the nostalgia connecting me with my city more than the one encircling Durga Puja. And I can literally go on and on regarding how deadly the feeling can be, to stay away from home during the festive autumn season. Winter, probably, has never been famous for festivities, which literally, comes coupled with idol worship, has it? Its probably a period when people do not dread going out in the Sun lest they might end up within an envelope of sweat. And of course when a New year is imminent, that makes you amnesiac of all the shits life has thrown upon in the year just-spent, letting you see the most of hope and optimism for unfathomable reasons. But, somehow or else, I happened to get nostalgic today. Unexpectedly enough, I found myself missing the days I pined to visit the Park Street of Christmas..the Park Street which lost its vigour somewhere between the tiring miles walked towards college. Or the nights I hung socks in the window, filling them with anticipations and infantile enthusiasm. For some reason, I couldn't help requesting dad today to keep a surprise waiting for me in the window when I wake up this Christmas, followed by earnest persuasions to get atleast something..maybe even a Santa cap..disguised as a surprise. Sadly enough, nothing of that kind happened, and I was nonchalantly handed over a fruit cake on Christmas eve itself, with a sermon that I should try growing up someday. Growing up, well then, possibly happens this way. Its about the processes that robs you of your abilities to wish crazy or letting nostalgia get the better of you. Somewhere deep down, I sincerely wish to voice my hatred against the science behind ageing some other morning, not today. And all the more, yearn to live a grown-up life sometime hence, only to come reversibly back to my normal self. Till then, its Christmas time yet again, and I had to buy a Santa cap for a whopping 45 bucks to satiate myself.

P.S.:- This, for sure, is a lousy post..but somehow couldn't help writing down the same.Merry Christmas to everyone out there.