Some people have always told me that I am a masochist. But I have had no reason to believe them. Btw, yesterday I wrote "believe" as "beleive" and did not even reallize my mistake for a long time. Shows that irregular blogging can take a toll on your spelling skills. Anyway, as I was saying some people have always told me that I am a masochist. But I have had no reason to believe them.Until a few days ago. It so happened that one particular evening, I was pretty bored and had nothing to do. Which is quite a regular thing to be honest. So I decided to watch a film. Which is again a quite regular thing. And of all the films in my hard disk, I decided to watch Rituparno Ghosh's "Dosar: The companion". In spite of my roommate's sincere warnings. I am in no mood to speak of how I felt later on. And also just because I like to hop around the house or beat my chest around midday, my roommate thinks I need therapy. People are so inconsiderate!

Snippets

1) An obscenely fat woman sat on a side lower berth of Rajdhani Express, dressed in a nightie or maxi or whatever it is called, her hair open, her biceps showing menacingly as she looked at me and licked her fingers. First time in a train, I spent a sleepless night and later reallized Takashi Miike looks for inspirations at all the wrong places.

2) Delhi was great. Old school friends cooking machhbhaat for me, fellow film buffs, kebabs and biriyani from Tundai, Signature alongwith fishfries and lots of films on my hard disk. And I finally learned to stand up to everything.

3) The flight was long and quite uneventful barring the incredibly hot air hostesses in tight red skirts and the weird steward who on being asked to get me a whiskey on the rocks, smiled inappropriately and said "on the rocks? how cool is that!".

4) Turns out that having conversations with Albanian cab drivers about communists and Bollywood only results in paying more tip than you usually do. Not cool.

5) And I still haven't found a place to stay. I guess I will have to stay with the people I am staying with right now. They are very good people. Only that they decide to fight with anti-flu sprays and mosquito repellants in the morning and reallize at the middle of the night that they need something to eat and they are out of rations. Its kinda fun though.

81st post

When I was a student in elementary school, the number 10, to me, was the sign of completeness. I would do whatever work was assigned by my mother and after finishing them successfully, would not be pleased until she came and assured me that my effort was worth a 10 out of 10. Not 100, not 1000, not anything else but 10. And 9 just preceeding 10, was the sign of incompleteness to my naive mind. That is when I developed a peculiar liking for the number 81. I have never known why, but I have always loved this number. Whenever someone has asked me to pick a number between 1 to 100(which was quite a no. of times as one of my relatives is a numerologist), I have picked 81 most no. of times. Later, my mind has reasoned that since 9 was a sign for incompleteness to me, 9 squared(which is 81 btw, for the mathemetically challenged, which I am sure there are quite a few amongst my blog readers) was perhaps a symbol for the completely incomplete man that I have grown to be(yes, I have never worn a Raymonds suit). Anyways, I hope everyone gets the drift by now. I mean, this is my blog's 81st post, and I am visbly quite excited about it. So excited that I forgot what I wanted to write about cows. Yes, I did want to write something about cows. But I cant remember what it was about the tame bovine creatures that intrigued me so. Maybe sometime later when my memory stops failing me, I shall. Till then, keep your valuable comments coming about why I end up writing "everythong" or "somethong" instead of "everything" or "something" every damned time. Please to avoid cliches like Freudian slips. I mean, did Freud ever wear slips? Now that is something worth pondering over. So I will, for now.

The Delhi trip was a lot of fun. And strangely it has made me numb. Not that I am too comfortable with it. But it helps. Numbness brings peace along. And I could do with a little peace right now.

Someday I shall taste freedom. Till then I will make do with silence.

With silence comes peace, with peace comes freedom, with freedom comes silence... PoF

To Sir, with love

Long ago when I was still just about 5 feet tall, lanky and a teetotaller(not to mention thirteen years old), I first knew competiton. In academics. Our mathematics teacher introduced me to it. The man was originally a chemistry teacher. But he managed to teach us algebra in the seventh standard with equal ease. He used to assign us algebra problems in class and the first student to complete them successfully, got a "very good" in his/her exercise book. This small prize made such fierce competitors out of us, that I still remember pushing my then best friend down and running so that I got the "very good" on my notebook. One whole year of this and I ended up with the most number of "very good"s in the whole class. He never taught us maths again. Instead, he taught us chemistry. Which I was also good at, but not extraordinarily good. I was better at talking in the class, fighting behind his back and all such other noble deeds. He caught me more than just a few times. All I got was "Ah, Suddha, why do you do such things?" Considering the man's reputation for beating up even girls when he was disturbed, that was a bit of something. Few years down the line, as we moved up to the eleventh standard, I decided to leave school. For another school, ofcourse :| The news was duly conveyed to him. He smiled and wished me luck. New school was yet to begin, so I was still attending classes in the old school. One fine morning, me and another classmate ran into his chemistry lab class 10 minutes late. The classmate got a severe piece of his mind but I was let off. On being asked why was I let off, he just smiled and said "Whats the use of scolding him? He's going to leave us anyway." Later that day, in a chemistry theory class, he came upto me, stood by my side for a little, put a hand on my shoulder and said "You are really going to leave us, aren't you? Please don't." I couldn't say a thing. Instead, I just tried to hold the tears off.
I have been a student for the last twenty two years. I have come across a lot of teachers. Some I liked, some I didn't. Some liked me, most didn't. But there never was another who loved me more than him. And there never was another who gave me something more valuable than he did. Now, when a friend calls me up and says "Sir is seriously ill" or when the man himself looks up at me and says "Ese dekhe jaas bNeche roilam na more gelam(come and see if I am alive or not)", I cannot hold back the tears. I know, he won't read this ever. But this is just to let him know that we all are with him, we will do anything within our powers to get him better. Anything. This is to you, Sir. Get well. Mighty soon.

Is it a sin to be sad at someone's happyness? Someone you care for, someone you love? Is it madness to want to hurt that person for being happy? Even if it is, I couldn't care less. I can't help the insanity. I can't. Not anymore.