of The JB…

The foot opposite the Standard Chartered Bank branch near Kolkata High Court isn’t exactly the place one would expect to find such things lying around, especially, if you know that the sort of people that work or live around that area wouldn’t know of the existence of such a thing as Bourbon and that too JB.

Some one around clearly has very good taste and knows his Bourbon..

The fever

I am in office and I can feel the fever coming. My shoulders feel heavy, like someone just slung bags full of lead over them and my head is throbbing with pain.
My eyes are dizzy. Now ,thats a good thing cause its fun watching hazy images of people floating around and nothing that anybody tells you registers.
Makes it easier to face impending troubles. I dont need to see these people.
So everyone should get a little fever every now and then.

Weird stuff...GOOD stuff!

The Piscine Passion

Never separate a simple man from his cheese they say. In this part of the continent the saying enjoys a slightly different variation; here in Bengal we never separate a Bengali from his fish!
I experienced a nonchalant display of such fixation early yesterday at the fish bazaar. Now, unless it is obvious, there is nothing I hate more than having to wake up early on a Sunday morning and being sent off to buy fish without even being given a cup of tea. I had to be the only customer in that smelly, slushy, fly plagued market who after ordering his fish stood photographing everything around him!

“Aare dada, maccher chokh deke bole deova jaye she mach bhalo kina…!”
(You can look into the eyes of a fish and tell whether it is good quality or not!),

“Mamaaaa……Ami Puri-te giye shudhui Katla, Koi, Ilish, Rui, Nadosh, Pabda, Bhola, Bhetki ja peyechi gaande- pinde shatiyechi…jibon amar sarthok holo guru!”
(Duuude…. I visited Puri and voraciously ate whatever fish I could find; now my existence makes sense (followed by a long list of fish))

“Peti norom hova chai, NOROM, tita hole nebo na!”
(The stomach needs to be SOFT, I will not accept it if its bitter!)

"Phees Cutlet, Phees Phry, Phees Chop, Phees Kobiraji, Phees Phingar, Phees Pulao, Phees-er jhol, Shorsher-tele bhaja Ilish-er gaada, jast Phees!"

(A food-shack owner screaming out his fish-menu to passer-bys!)

Watch the Bengali argue with a fish vendor over the quality of fish and you will get a fair idea how Plato and Socrates would have debated a Metaphysical phenomenon or Western Philosophical theory; the knowledge and ingenuity thrown across at each other is just unsurpassable!

"Deem chharan, Deemta chhariye alada kore deen, bhaja khabo!!" (remove the eggs and pack them separately, I'll fry them!!), I said to the fish vendor as he removed a blob of eggs from the belly of my two kilo Rui and kept it aside.

I am one of them too.

The Recession hit Kolkata Cuppa

Cant live without these, I'll admit that first off. Over the months though, the size of the average 'Bhaand' everywhere has shrunken distinctly.

Yesterday I was seated at Bankshall Court waiting for my case to be called on and realising I had time to sneak a chai I ushered a chai-walla lurking nearby. The minute he produced this dwarfed earthen pot I made a face to which his reply was priceless.

"Reesheshaan" (Recession), he said.

I bought one of these for Rs2/- like the quintessential, overpaying recession hit customer and needless to say, the 'reesheshaanary' (recessionary) earthen pot was dry after I took a single draught.

So whoever said, recession hits everything, DID afterall have Kolkata's 'Bhaander Cha-walla' in mind while making his inference!

And salutaions to the chai-walla for keeping abreast!

An ode to Cad-B

Honestly, this was a long time coming. I had earlier been introduced to the Cad-B shake during the final months of college in Pune but could never remember to write about the blessed thing. For the uninitiated, Cad-B shake is the thickest chocolate shake on the planet and by ‘thick’ I mean REALLY thick and viscous, in near freezing temperatures you can invert the glass for as long as you want and the thing won’t even flow out!

To add heavily to its sinfully addictiveness is a heap of grated chocolate spread generously on its surface, served frozen for the maximum near-orgasmic pleasure!

You can get these shakes in two sizes, Half and Full and boy you should see the difference between the two! The Full Cad-B shake is a universe of chocolate and you can’t dig deep enough into its thick, brown depths to scoop out those little chunks of chocolate floating inside.

I have often fantasised about the Cad-B shake and imagined wonderful variations of it. What if there was a Strawberry Cad-B, with chunky strawberries floating around deep in the chocolate? Maybe a Honey Cad-B with a dollop of honey on the chocolate grating..? Or for that matter even a Caramel, Mocha or a Mint Cad-B…!

If you are new to Pune or have never tasted the beverage before, maybe you should take a walk down to Deep Bangla Chowk or Kamla Nehru Park (among other places) and have one, maybe two, you can never get enough of Cad-B!

Warning: It is not meant for the “Oh I ate a pea I am gonna get fat..!” kind.

The constant duel

My present predicament has brought me to a face off between philosophy and pragmatism. All my prior decisions and actions have been taken favouring the latter whereas the former has always been set aside as fantasy, as romantic ‘gas-balloons’, gas-balloons that eventually get lost in the sky or pop.

I was standing at the edge of a cliff all this time and the coup de grace has just come through, I have finally, more or less come to terms with myself on a decision I am going to take pretty soon but this time its philosophy I am going to go with.

Philosophy, a refuge for the confused, the dazed, individuals seeking answers deep within themselves, introspecting all the time.

We shall see if philosophy brings me happiness, satiation. Mine is a rarely trodden path, a path for the brave, a walk in the hills at night, blindfolded, a path for those who are willing to endure pain in order to pursue their aspirations, an image, a single image of the perfect future.

I think its motivation that’s more like the gas-balloons, they either get lost high up in the sky or pop. It’s the motivation that needs to be garnered, protected.

A strong, single minded focus is the binding string, faith being the fabric.

Sam

Its Sam’s turn now. He leaves on the 15th of this month for Cardiff to pursue his MBA. I called him a little while back to have one of those last pre-departure chats. A Trademark “Bol Bail-ke-Bulle” (I decline to translate that) greeted me from the other side and immediately an overwhelming pain welled up inside. Although the guy kept insisting he would come back after his course was done and take up a job at Pune, I know and I am sure he does too, that this probably was going be it. The point where Sam leaves the nest.
The process began with Babu leaving Pune in 2006, Karan Singh around the same time for Mumbai and then Jeetu, followed by Bikram who eventually came back and finally myself in 2008. Mayukh plans to leave in about a year or so. Although Jeetu keeps coming down from Aurangabad and catches up with Bikram and Mayukh da, Babu hasn’t been to Pune for a while.
I dare to think what would become of Pune in about two or three years from now. Bikram would be gone and so would Mayukh da. The city for me wouldn’t be complete without the rest of the seven. The city would be the same as what it was in the monsoon of 2003 when I first set foot in it as a lone stranger. There wouldn’t be much of a point visiting it alone.
Before hanging up I wished Sameer all the very best. I couldn’t tell him how much I would miss him, I wouldn’t be uncomfortable, but if you’re reading this Sam, Carpe Diem man! Get back soon, Ehsaas hasn’t played its best gig yet!

Palone in the rain

Last Saturday taught me that you can have fun irrespective of the company, place or situation, only if you want to. That day I was pretty sure a few places in Kolkata were on their way to getting completely submerged under water, the incessant rainfall accompanied by storm like winds made it impossible for anyone to have a Saturday night out. Every street in the city was flooded and it just wouldn't cease to rain.

I had been out earlier that afternoon to meet an old friend and have a drink with him but that plan went up the chimney when he showed up badly sozzled and apologetically begged me to call the plan off, reluctantly I obliged, put him in a taxi and sent him off silently cursing him under my breath for having made me wait for almost two and a half hours while he was at another party guzzling away....

With a heavy-ish heart I made off to meet another friend of mine who lived nearby to salvage whatever was left of my Saturday evening. The both of us were in need. He wasnt feeling well and needed someone to talk to and I needed a beer. By the time I had marched half way through his place the heavens had begun spraying the city with a renewed vengeance and the winds had gotten worse. My umbrella barely managed to protect my upper half while my lower half suffered punishing lashes of wind and rain. Walking like a maniac I reached his place in about fifteen minutes , wet and pretty mad at the sheer injustice of it all.

I hadnt reached the guy's doorstep when I heard his voice from the terrace above; "Dude, dont come in, lets go out for a walk instead!"

"...only if we're getting beer!"

Within seconds he was downstairs looking ridiculous in his see-through, plastic rain-coat, a huge picnic umbrella and a silly grin on his face.

A daunting task, walking a kilometer and a half to the nearest beer store, the odds were, getting fearfully wet because of the cyclonic conditions outside, drowning and ending up in some ditch, getting run over by a speeding car blinded by the wind and rain, stepping into a drain overflowing with the filthiest water mankind has ever seen and the likes. A silent prayer and off we were.

The tiny gullys that make inlets into neighbourhoods are the worst to tackle during such heavy rains as the levels of accumulated water could get very high, sometimes as high as your privates, maybe higher and there's no telling what could be floating around in the mucky water and the slightest of inadvertent exposure of that water to your precious-s to could have disastrous consequences. Yet, we delved into it like brave soldiers holding on to each other's shoulders for support. People stood huddled underneath parapets, on the pavements on either side and gaped at us, probably wondering what could have impelled such intrepidity.

After a few minutes of wading through the water, balancing ourselves with one arm on each other's shoulders and the other holding our respective umbrellas the blessed sight of the beer shack started to appear within visual range, but hold on, why was the owner standing near the exit fiddling with the lock?

My "Oooo bhai...darao, bondho koro na, amra aschi!" (Hey there, dont shut down, we're coming!!) fell to deaf ears and in an almost Bollywood-ish (actually more like Tollywood-ish) artistryI gunned ahead leaving my friend badly disbalanced who for a few seconds wobbled around for support , then submitting to the might of the water current let himself splash into the muck face down, his gigantic picnic-umbrella floated around happily. The shutter had almost come half way down when with an earth shattering cry I tossed my umbrella at the metal shutter that made a more than audible bang!! The shutter immediately went up and peeped out a slightly scared face....

Spitting out a mouthful of gooey water and gasping desperately for breath the greedy and suffering Gollum in me spoke..."Palone...my precious!"

We stood dripping wet underneath a tree that Saturday night, the two of us, sipping beer, talking and celebrating the fruits of human endeavour. Beer had never tasted better before.

Pearls of wisdom from Loserville

I am internet dependant to such an extent that just the other day, after my boss literally lost his voice screaming at me the entire afternoon after I made a horrendously dim-witted mistake in one of my tasks, I tottered back to my chamber and looked up, “Ways to get more intelligent” or “Why do bosses yell when they really need not?” and “How not to be a complete idiot” on Google.

Wonder of wonders Google had answers!

I discovered that there actually are a number of websites that offered solutions ranging from altering one's intelligence and perceptive abilities to real life suggestions and theories like; “10 ways to live you life if you are stupid!”, “The laws of human stupidity” and “So what if I thought differently..?”
Even Wiki answers offered some rather enlightening inputs on the question, “How to cure idiocy?”.

Well, that’s another day’s story…

This evening was the worst scream fest ever and better still, before clients and other lawyers, so I rushed back to Google “10 ways to go painlessly”, “Suicide made easy” and the works. Just for a broad idea;
On came,” A practical guide to suicide from a http://www.satanservice.org/”, “suicide methods”, “A ten minute suicide guide” and “Loner today goner tomorrow…”

Never mind the internet dependecy syndrome, my point is, be informed, there are more people out there who are like you than you know.
Life may be a bucketload of trash for the most part, with a bottle or two of leftover Scotch lying around in it for you to find (trust me to come up with the seemingly weirdest of analogies but if you are like me you'll get my point), remember everybody out there is getting their behinds wooped some way or the other.

Dont believe me? .....

Check out the number of co-members I have on the "Yes, I have a stammer...sometimes I slap my thigh red to speak!" Community on Orkut.

(Noteworthy point: Apparently Mr. Chetan Bhagat too Googled 'Ways to commit suicide'; Read '2 States; The story of my marriage' to find out more; Now I have famous friends!)

Dear Blog

This evening I was given a taste of my own insensitiveness. Taste, quite literally so;

Morning time for a litigating lawyer is the busiest part of his day. It requires shuttling between courts and office innumerable times, making frenzied phone calls to clients, counsels etc, making sure everybody reaches court on time, making sure the papers have reached the courtrooms and the counsels have been briefed on the day’s strategy, documents should be filed at their respective departments by 10.00 – 10.30 am with all the formalities, stamping, punching and affirmation immaculately carried out, in the lower courts if any previous orders are to be noted after filing, you have exactly around five minutes to do so before the clerks start getting cranky, I could go on! Often such overwhelming preoccupation spills over to lunchtime and beyond and by the time we get to have lunch, its tea time! So more often than never, the best way of catching up on lunch is to grab a bite on the go, a sandwich or a fruit.

This morning I jetted out to make for a tribunal about a kilometre away from office and I had approximately four and half minutes to cover the distance. I had a thick bundle of files tightly locked under my right arm and a banana clutched in my left hand. Breakfast! Now, I had to maintain near- blinding walking speed while make sure the files do not slip out and simultaneously peel my banana and eat it! With the bundle tightly clamped underneath my chin I managed to peel the banana. After eating I tossed the skin nonchalantly underneath a lamppost and walked off, who had the time to find a dustbin? Besides during monsoons the whole area looked like a big garbage dump I thought!

The rest of the day advanced like usual when around a couple of hours back my boss instructed me to jog down to the same tribunal and pick up some papers from a counsel. By this time the area around our office resembled a Tsunami hit village, there was knee deep water everywhere and rubbish floated around in it like little bath-tub duckies. I rolled up my trouser sleeves, grabbed my boots and wading through the water I made for the tribunal. Although the thought of the mega-dirty water passing between my fingers and leaving sticky goo all over my skin gave me goosebumps I felt secured that the upper half of my body was clean and dry…….

Before my face hit the reeking water I calmly uttered the four letter curse starting with an ‘f’……

The second I stepped on that slimy skin-like thing I knew it could only be a banana peel, little did I realise that it was THE banana peel until, on my way down I looked up at the lamp post, the very lamp post under which I had chucked the peel arrogantly a few hours back!

So blog, I headed back to office that evening, completely soaked and filthy, with a mouth full of dirt and a heart full of bitterness. It’s okay to be taught a lesson or two once in a while, we all could use a little bit of introspection and realisation from time to time, but going easy on the ‘methods’ could definitely make things better, more so, efficacious!

Karma, old friend, you listening?

Love
Master.

A Gimlet for you sir...?

I never knew they called Gin mixed with lime cordial and shaken with crushed ice, a 'Gimlet'. Untill last night it was good old 'Gin, lime cordial and tonic'. And Gimlets are rather expensive. Maybe its the little cherry they put on the glass. Cherries make things pricey, dont they?

Dry County

'Dry County' by Bon Jovi and his band holds a special place in my heart for more reasons than one. First, the video is brilliantly shot, tastefully edited to match the mood of the song note by note. Essentially a song meant to infuse optimism among it's listeners, it retains the classic elements of a Bon Jovi number, the overpowering presence of big guitars and long solos, the unabashedly loud and assertive drumming, great harmonization and deep lyrics.

But what gets me dragging the progess-bar on the media player back over and over again onto one particular part of the song is the explosive crescendo that storms in somewhere around the middle....

A short, melodic lull paves the way for a ripping guitar solo spanning around 15 and a half bars and 33 seconds where Sambora locks completely with Tico Torres on the drums creating a resultant sonic mayhem with the words "Lord didn't bring me this far to leave me now..!" flashing on the screen.

Highly recommended!

Little things that fight darkness

Darkness is an odd state of affairs. Sometimes it’s as endless and unremitting as the farthest depths of an ocean and sometimes the smallest of things hammer holes into its resonant walls projecting bright and much needed rays of hope through them.

Mom wasn’t around for almost three weeks, her trip to her maternal place cum vacation seemed to last for ages, but life carried on. I was surviving in a state of limbo, a vacuum, where things around me moved in hyper-speed and I drooped around and struggled, wading and drifting in ultra-slow motion. Days took weeks to pass and weeks, months. Frankly, mom’s absence did not so much as occupy one-tenth of my concerns, not that I did not miss her but because I knew she was around, I knew she would come home.

Last night, as mom walked out of the airport, I looked into her eyes and something magical happened, something transformed in me. As she walked towards dad and me, smiling, I realised I had actually never known how radiant her smile was and how beautiful she actually was. She hugged me and in a flash all the sadness was gone, a great hollow was filled and brimming. She ran her fingers through my hair and told me calmly that things would be fine and that the tough times wouldn’t last long and I transformed immediately, I straightened up, flashed my 32, picked up her bags and bounded along towards the car. Although my little sister was away in college, for once it felt good to be together as a family, rather two-third of it.

I guess, its nature’s way, every once in a while, of reminding everybody of the importance and meaning of family and the powers it holds, also that love is only for a precious few and it’s worthwhile to try not to take the ones that love you for granted.

Cliche on its way.....'Listen to others but do what your heart says!!'
...or else you'll end up with a sitting duck of a conscience like mine as I listen to what others have to say way too much and have no regard to what I think is right cause, weird enough, what others say always comes out right! I have lost confidence in my own judgement.
My conscience is like a Taliban outpost stupidly placed underneath the open sky, alfresco, inviting some explosive-attention..."Bomb me bit***s...show me yer motherload!!"
I think its more than my conscience, its my brain....
...there you go, indecision again...I need a break!

The dark blog?

Its obvious that this is shaping up to be a pretty dark blog but be informed I never intended it to be so in the first place.

In contrast to 'God's got a twisted sense of humour' and 'Well...fiddlededee' that somewhat reflect my state of mind a few years back, I find this to be remarkably glum and for good reasons. I was going through some of the the posts last night and I thought maybe renaming this blog would do justice to it, giving it a sadder, more sober name would befit it's mood and content but just then a thought struck me; the arbit thoughts that run nineeteen to the dozen through my head arent really always sad. Though I agree I am pretty low these days, anger and frustration is not all that I feel; I feel love, I feel hopeful, I feel thankful for all the good things I have, I am thankful for who I am and I feel like a Martini pretty much all the time!

It would be interesting watching this blog's mood change when the good times roll in . I only hope it happens soon.

The silver spoon in my mouth...

Folks from the previous generation get a mean kick out of tom-toming their struggles. Some cycled for miles to get to school, some travelled by crowded buses, some carried buckets of water back home from a hand pump somewhere far away, some gave private lessons to finance their further education and some studied underneath a streetlamp.

I respect all of the above. Point taken!

But I do not agree that since we have had it better, we are scum.

I cannot explain how much it ticks me off every single day to be made subject to that routine harangue by everybody, at home, at office, in busses, in the courts, at the markets; to be told that I have been born with a silver spoon in my mouth and to be told that our generation doesnt value what we have, to be pointed a finger at and told that we 'Elite college' folks dont know shit and that we lack strength of character as we do not know what 'real struggle' is.

I only wish they had a taste of what we are put through sometimes , more often than never because of a few members of their own generation! Maybe if they'd quit being so over-proud of their humble origins and wake up, they would see that we, kids, are faced with concerns graver than they could have ever dreamt of during their times.

So typically Kolkata!

Hello blog!

It’s been a helluva long time, I missed you.

To me you have a rather anthromoprhic existence therefore I feel safe unloading the contents of my blood-pumping appendage into you, with you I have the distinguished advantage of not having to worry about your whining or complaining.

Although I am largely happy that you are always silent, I sometimes wish you could speak.

I haven’t visited you in a while and neither have I fed you with new stuff. I am at fault and I have perfectly good reasons. You see there’s hardly a point scooping your spoon inside an empty bowl for the simple reason that, well, it is empty. Another similar analogy to drive home the point would be, an empty cone is nothing without the ice-cream in it.

Well blog, I am that empty bowl right now, the empty cone. I am spent and I am highly de-motivated, profuse thanks to recent events in my personal and work life, I’ve never been lower.

But be informed that I shall be back soon.

Why is the traffic so woefully low? Haven’t I dressed you up well enough?

Love

Master.

Living a lie...

Things haven’t hit rock bottom yet but the drudgery is beginning to get unbearable and I am slipping into depression again. I am living a lie. I lie to a whole lot of people every single day from morning till night and I lie to myself. I have become a wimp, a cry baby, a coward, a pretender, a slave to circumstance, a sedentary vegetable and who is to be blamed for this? Who else?

I wake up every morning wishing I were dead instead, often hammering a nail into my head seems more withstand able then getting out of bed. I have allowed myself to be tossed about like a ball from foot to foot, I am like the stray who is loved today, hated tomorrow and loved again the day thereafter. I may work here but these don’t seem to be my people. Nobody trusts me and nobody has let me decide what’s best for me, everybody has his own way of trying to ‘fix’ me, set me right. But what is it exactly that needs fixing? Is it the problematic germ at all? And I haven’t protested either, I have allowed my mind to be raped, to be fucked; I have flowed with the flow, followed the herd and never opened my mouth once. I am tortured inside and I am mad as I know, my hands aren’t clean either.

I am sure there are a lot of things in me that could use fixing and I may be proving difficult, I may be one in a thousand, difficulty personified but who hasn’t benefited from a little time, the right kind of guidance and a little luck?
I know my own self well and I am losing this battle I’ve waged against myself.

Nobody’s opinion matters as I am all alone.

It’s always easier to wade against the current when you are at a safe distance from the waterfall but once you are in it and off the cliff, there’s no way out.

As my skills on the instrument ebb everyday something insidious, sinister, like a cancer chews on me from within. I can never give it the sort of time, dedication it demands. Standing at the brink of something great I fear to leap in. Knowing fully well what needs to be done to give me that extra edge over others I falter repeatedly. And I do not speak only about my instrument when I say the above.
I cannot put my finger on the source of this strange lack of motivation, this lethargy. Maybe there are bigger things at play here, things that have metamorphasized me from a happy guy into a reclusive octogenarian.
I really need to sort things out, to talk to someone, someone who'd have answers.
Its amusing how someone who spent most of his days listening to other's problems for hours, now has noone to talk to about his own issues.
Anybody out there who'd lend me an ear? anybody with answers? anybody at all?

A woman's instincts are never to be underestimated...
One stupid move and you risk getting into a lot of trouble, I am learning the hard way..
Whom do I trust?

I am the best 'cellphone boyfriend' ever!

The junk blogger's Literary surfeit...

I will never grace any product of my pen as a ‘literary’ work, in any sense of the term. Although I have always believed in maintaining a certain amount of content matter in whatever I jot down it’s becoming a tad difficult of late.
A few months back I suffered from the worst bout of writer’s block ever(on record), come to think of it I did have a few things bundled up inside my head which I wanted to bring down on paper and eventually up here on Blogger but I just couldn’t get myself to write. The motivation was gone!
Now, that equation has seen an astonishing reversal! I find myself doodling all over my writing-pad at office, inside courtrooms, in the car, in bed, at dinner, all the time and the frustrating part is that I have nothing to write about! I scribble mindless things everywhere because the craving to write is almost crazy but sadly nothing comes to my mind, a strong consequence of which is clearly visible through the increase in the number of junk posts on my blogs of late. Hell, I have an entire blog dedicated to junk writeups....





This is not an advertisement for http://quixoticsensibilities.blogspot.com/ at all.

My Tree...

It’s frustrating beyond imagination at times, to be called an outcast, to be an outcast. I know, because I am one, in more ways than a hundred. For good or for bad, in ways big or small, I shamelessly disagree with a random bunch of five hundred people picked from any part of this city at any point of time.
It’s a fish market outside your door and no one is who he really is. Not all can put up with my kind, we never pretend. Being who you are comes with a price tag, a proviso, that at some point in life you’ll be shoved aside and called an ‘outsider’, a ‘misfit’.
I have felt this way all my life, I am feeling it this very moment and I know tomorrow, I’ll feel it again.
But I am happy. I am not the usual shades of red, white and yellow. I am Auburn, Cobalt, Gray!
It’s not me who doesn’t fit in with my surroundings, it’s my surroundings that don’t complement me. A famous bard from Bengal had once said, “Bonyera bonete sundor, shishura matrikrore” meaning; ‘wild animals look best when in jungles and children, in their mother’s arms’. It’s as important to be different as it is to know where one belongs.

Every outcast has his home, his tree, his flock. Wheres mine?

Congratulations to me, my little doll is slowly turning into a stereotypical 'chick';
yapping with guys over the phone literally for hours, having her life dictated by brands, cheesy humour, 'dudes', being a hypochondriacal drama queen and being highly insensitive to sentiments. Although I wanted her to be someone different, I suppose I'll have to live with this.
What can I do? I love her as much as I despice her behaviour. I hope and pray she comes out of it someday.

The time has come, the time has come for me to do something drastic about my drunk-calling habits. But you really cant blame me, you know.
Last week I victimised Jeetu and of course my favourite, Bikram way past midnight! Both drawled their 'hello's and all the subsequent talk from their end went above my swirling head. I just wanted to hear those voices. They do strange things to me, like a chemical reaction of some kind or recollections from a past life.
We all have our tools for battling loneliness. This ones mine.

Life is a huge gamble, I finally admit. Either you get lucky and win or your decisions go terribly wrong and you lose, the loss drags you to the gutters. Its justified if you repent then. But, the worst kind of life is that in which there are no decisions and you repent at the end for having taken none.
So standing at the threshold of the current phase in my life is it justified to get carried away by romantic notions and make drastic decisions, real tough decisions or stick to the horizontal straightness of the path that lay before, irrespective of whether that could potentially result in my being unhappy for the rest of my days?
Everyone has the ability to make his/her life less ordinary, all it takes is courage. I need pocketfulls of it cause a decision is on its way.

The day it all stopped....

The other night on my way back from office I slowly drifted off to my good old childhood, thinking about the bygone days, events bitter and sweet when a particularly relevant incident in my life came tumbling out of the closet. Heres goes;
My father has never been one of those parents who never hesitate to hit their kids everytime the smallest of things go wrong, nevertheless I have had my share of beatings. Now that I get bashed up a lot less relatively, I realise that it actually took a lot to get my dad to lose his temper completely and believe me, getting up at five in the morning back in the days and dragging me out of bed to hammer Math or Bengali into my skull could even get the Dalai Lama screaming abuses and throwing his arms and legs about in the air.
I have always had this dangerous habit of inventing my own Math formulas, putting random 'x's and 'y's here and there just for the heck of it!! The bit that made it dangerous was that I did it on the examination papers too. It so happened that none of my teachers shared my sense of humour. So in the simplest of terms I always failed in Math. Bengali is another day's story.

One fine evening my report card came home and dad was in a particularly nasty mood, my life is all about such wonderful co-incidences, nevertheless, the minute he saw the bright red zero next to 'Math' he was baying for my blood.

I quietly sat in a corner playing with my Gi-Joes and pretending nothing had happened when dad showed up from behind and twisted my ear with what felt like all his physical strength. For the first half of the twist I was seeing rotating planetary bodies and chirping birds before my eyes and the second half was followed by awe....
There was an audible 'crunch' when dad twisted the ear and alarmingly enough, my ear, the damn thing, remained twisted! it just would not get back to its original shape! Within minutes panicky set in. I sat there Gi-Joe in hand, with a twisted ear, bawling as my parents ran around trying to call doctors. Fuelled by the guilt that he had possibly deformed his son's ear forever dad ran around the most.
Finally came the part where dad, tired of waiting for the doctor to show up, marched upto me, grabbed the ear and twisted it back to position again!
This time it was not only planetary bodies and chirping birds but flashes of light, bells and sparks!
Well, later that night I earned two more Gi-Joes so all was forgiven!

The actual good that came out of the entire episode was that, that day on dad swore never to even think of physically punishing me for my Mathematical misadventures again and he's held on till date.