Respite from The City of Joy

As I fly back home early Sunday morning, a lot of things that started in last 2 weeks would come to a halt. I 'd call it - Respite from The City of Joy...

It will be a respite from living alone in a room. A room that has nothing you could call your own. A room, that is only there to serve as a roof on your head, and where you could sleep. Sleep that you squeeze in between work!

It will be a respite from maddening traffic on dingy roads of the city. From poorly managed traffic and from poorly managing traffic police force. From yellow ambassadors, that make a lot of noise and from their drivers who charge you double of what the fair metre shows.

It will also be a respite from hogging at places like CCD, Azad Hind, Fingertips, Honey Da Dhaba, BB's etc. Oh! the list is endless. It will be a respite from chicken hakka noodles as the only good option left while looking at the menu (most of the times). From coffee, toasted bread with butter and black pepper, at 2 PM.

It will be a respite from an-early-to-bed-and-early-to-rise-city, where you dont get to see many people after 6 pm. Respite from a place where most of people work with a laid-back-attitude. The only thing that energizes them at work is initiation of a Dharna.

And finally, this is going to be a respite from Weekends without A

But, the best part of Kolkata: choco-fudge cookies at monginis (I gotta go buy a lot of these today), mishti doi, rosogulla, the Gurudwara where we had nice kesar milk at 4 AM, our funniest attempts at speaking Bangla (no matter how incorrect our bangla was, we all got the accent right!) and sea-food festival at bar-be-que nation on valentines night!

Well, I might have spent all fortnight at the wrong places of the city, however this is what and how it has been all this while.


Already aware of another trip next month,

Yet soaked in an overwhelming respite

Sweety.

The Anthem from the City of Joy

जागे हैं देर तक हमें कुछ देर सोने दो
थोड़ी सी रात और है, सुबह तो होने दो

आधे अधूरे ख्वाब जो पूरे ना हो सके
एक बार फिर से नींद में वोह ख्वाब बोने दो...


With higher-than-ever-hopes of flying back this weekend,

Sweety.

From The City of Joy

(The post was typed on MS Word on Feb 16 however being posted today due to lack of a lot of things, one of which is TIME!)

The Fussy Eater seems to have landed at the right place, it seems.

Last 5 days have been great, work wise. I lost track and was back on track before it was too late. But the stay has been even greater because of the kind of Food. Not that I have developed taste for Bengali Food, but I have loadsa options so I don’t miss dear Delhi. The only thing that I am missing about Food is Cooking it myself! The cook at this guesthouse told us stories how some Punjabi guests made great Rajma Chawal during their stay… pitching us to do the same too…

Had a great dinner Valentine’s night. Tried veg sushi too, though didn’t like it much. Would definitely go for other variations sometime.  Chicken Hakka Noodles is the new staple diet these days. Had a great time with boiled egg sandwiches, cheese balls and coffee the other night (Read 4 AM).

Catching up on some bangla too… words like “tada-tadi” (quickly) and “lebu” (orange fruit) have some funny stories attached to them.

Though I am carrying lots of Mills and Boon Romance, but have hardly had a chance to flip a page.

The FM stations here seem better than the ones in capital. They play all Bangla, Hindi & English! Most Bangla songs that I’ve heard seem to have same tunes as the Hindi ones, so nothing sounds Greek and I start humming the Hindi song. :D

Got this PJ SMS this morning from A:

Handle this PJ…

Who is the leader of ducks?

…

Ans.: Frog

…

How?

Because, he is MainDuck!!!

You know what that means?

To me it means, the Frog back home is waiting to be kissed ;)

Homesick but Hopeful,

Sweety.

From an airplane window

Has it ever occurred to you, that you boarded an early morning flight, high on caffeine, with sleep miles away from you, and with all intentions to catch up on sleep while on board…?

Friday morning was one such morning for me…

I so love to be on a window seat, it’s hard to explain! And then the view as you go up and high, higher, and higher… Seeing roads below on the ground, roads as thin as lines on your palm…

Checking in, I settled for the last seat of the A 320 machine, I knew its one seat you couldn’t recline on, I still took it because it was the only window seat available…

Seat next to me was still vacant when they said – boarding full - but the man on aisle seat was one scary figure. Long white beard on dark brown skin, and a paunch…

And then, off we flew… I get a sudden high the moment I realize front wheels have left the ground… is it my love for airplanes or just the excitement of the flight, I am yet to know that.

For the “nth” time, I pictured A waving at me when he saw me off at the airport. The embrace, the look in his eyes and the silence between us…

Once the ground was too far, I shifted focus to the clouds. Sky was the deepest of Blue, but the farthest point showed signs of an early sun. In a few seconds we were above a thick layer of clouds. They looked fluffy and soft. There was a point when all I wanted was to jump off the plane and land on the fluffy clouds. I think the only thing I wanted to survive this landing was Flubber… you’d know what I mean if you have seen the movie…

Spotting another airplane at a distance adds up to my excitement all the time. When I saw one this time, I imagined that someone from the other plane must have noticed us too, and would be glancing just the way I am.

As my gaze shifted from that to the distant sky, what I saw, I think, I won’t get to see again… I saw the Sun rising, coming up gradually, nothing extraordinary about a sunrise, except this was a close-up!

Few minutes later, I noticed the famous Howrah bridge below while I gorged on the Chocó-almond cookie, we were about to descend and I was moving towards the beginning of an indefinitely long stay away from home…

From the city of joy,

With tears welled up in eyes…

Already Homesick…

Sweety.