We Must Love Someone

Read this on Mum-Del Flight and it seemed to be the most appropriate thing to think and feel about:

We must love someone,
if we are to justify
our presence on this earth.
We must keep loving all our days,
someone, anyone, anywhere
outside our selves.
For even the Sarus crane
will grieve over its lost companion,
and the Seal its mate.

Somewhere in life
there must be someone
to take your hand
and share the torrid day.
Without the touch of love
There is no life, and we must fade away.

 Ruskin Bond

Sweety.

Flashback Years

As I roamed around the streets A grew up in, surrounded with people who have never forgotten him despite of all these years and distances, I silently envied his childhood today.


A has spent his childhood years in Mumbai, has tons of friends who found him back, thanks to the social networking sites, while as per all of them, he had conveniently forgotten them. Stories of long cycle – rides, of building brick houses for stray pups, of stealing coins from mom’s purse to bring the pups some milk, of jumping on to grab fresh berries from trees during summer vacations, of unending hours moving about aimlessly and playing pranks on people of all ages and temperaments – it all came alive as this bunch of storyteller friends circled around me and kept going on and on. The film reeled in front of me as I shifted to a flashback movie like thing.

A week ago, when the news to my Mumbai Trip was broken out to A, he was definitely less gloomy compared to what it has been like in cases of my past work-trips. Why? He instantly started planning how I was supposed to spend my Sunday there! Though I only had a few hours, he came up with a long list of places he wanted me to see… his home, the play ground they never wanted to vacate, his school, his friends- young ones, old ones, remembered ones and forgotten ones…

While I was getting ready to step out of the hotel, I started feeling empty from within. I came to realize that while all thru the evening, everyone would be talking about him, A would be at least 1400 kilometers away, if not more.

The only way to reconcile with my heart was to sooth him by saying my eyes would still see him, jumping around in the park wearing that naughty smile on his face and with a mischievous mind. He could be running away from mom or hiding at a friend’s place so dad can never find him… so he could escape a beating!

While I went around to see all the places of his choice with his friend, he followed us virtually, with those flashback years reeling thru his mind…

Sweety.

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. 

To A, with Love...

Last weekend that we spent, was the first one we were miles away from each other... and it was different, it was weird, it was insane and it was everything it has never been since we've been married!

• Woke up in the evening and stayed up all night.
• I saw a movie for the second time. It was one movie I was so skeptical to see even once.
• As soon as it was intermission time, I ran towards the exit gate in dark, fell down, got up and ran outside again, thinking to get pop corn and come back before the intermission gets over and ended up spraining my right ankle. Too bad! I should have thought its chilling winter and spraining your leg is not at all a great idea! I should have thought you aren't here :(
• Have had 2 visits to Barista, had dark tempt and creme caramel latte, thinking of you..hoping to sit next to you next weekend and do the same
• Scrubbed every tile in the bathroom to shine, and I have outdone you this time ;)
• Strangest of all, updated my status on FB for the first ever time in life...wrote on walls and commented on pics. I have never done this before.
• Chatted with a friend after ages...loadsa girl talk is what we did. :)
• Went out for strolls and not drives, unfortunately the DL is not here yet 
• Cried and longed a lot, for reasons very unreasonable to myself.
  

I did it all with a single thought all the time - I dont want another weekend like this!!!

See, what distance from you does to me???

सुन रही हूँ सुध बुध खो के कोई मैं कहानी, 

पूरी कहानी है क्या, किसे है पता

मैं तो किसी की हो के ये भी ना जानी, 

रुत है ये दो पल की या रहेगी सदा... 

जो बरसे सपने बूँद बूँद 

नैनो को मूँद मूँद

कैसे मैं चलूँ

देख ना सकूँ 

अनजाने रास्ते...

And then some more...


बीती रात बासी बासी, पड़ी है सिरहाने,
बंद दरवाज़ा देखे, लौटी है सुबह
ठंडी है अंगीठी सीली, सीली हैं दीवारें
गूंजे टकरा के इनमे, दिल की सदा...


जो नैना करूँ बंद बंद
बह जाए बूँद बूँद
तडपाये रे क्यों सुनाये रे
गीत मल्हार के...

Sweety.