because....

things have been going wrong with me for quite a while now...i think right since early 08, and when my purse got pick pocketed in a very crowded metro yesterday evening around 8, i had finally had enough. i somehow got back to kalyani, told my mother the news (who of course wasn't happy, but wasn't half as furious as she deserved to be, either), blocked my ATM card, and then started ruing my loss. i didn't care much for the money which was there (which was quite a lot, incidentally). i was ruing the loss of some items with a rather large amount of sentimental value. they included :
1. my old hdfc atm card. the account is now defunct but i used to hold it jointly with dad.
2. lots of business cards, some from pune, mumbai, chennai and delhi, most irreplaceable.
3. my 2nd year ID card from FC.
4. All of Mother's blessings and quite a few of Sri Aurobindo's messages, which i had received in class XII, and during my two pondy trips.
5. a really tattered piece of paper, in which my friend sarathy had outlined the routemap and the howto for getting to pondy from pune. way back in 05.
6. the original cover of samya's hybrid theory cassette.
7. a torn Rs. 5 note which dates back to class 12, and an incident involving samya and me.

all these had absolutely zero value, monetarily. but they was irreplaceable. there was also my ID card of Kalyani and my BCL card. which now brings us to today's events.

Sometime after 1 in the afternoon today, i get a call from BCL. They ask me whether I have lost my card, and I reply yes, fearing the worst. The news which comes after that surprises me. They say that the card has been found by someone who had then called them up, and would i please contact the person? and they pass on his number. heart quivering, i call the number up. The person who picks up says that he's found my purse on the dumdum railway tracks, and that it had no money in it save a torn 5 rupee note. he adds that i can come down to dumdum station around 4 and collect it. which i did.

nothing but the cash was taken. not even either of my ATM cards, the functional AND the dysfunctional...this was way beyond anything i might have hoped for. i had given the purse up for lost...and all its contents...which included some with real deep ties to my school and college life. but i found it....

which gives me a glimmer of hope. maybe all is not lost. this is one of the few positive things to have happened to me in a long, long time...and maybe i can build on this. keep making my own luck like i used to before.

maybe, just maybe...lets see....

The Calligrapher - Edward Docx

My letters looked beautiful, no doubt, but writing when you're upset is like writing when you're drunk: it feels great at the time (profound, even) and yet when you read it back in the morning - my God. Even at the most sober of times, words are hardly to be trusted - put two or three of them together and they immediately start revolting, conspiring unintended meanings here, fermenting duplicitous nuances there, and firing off in the wrong directions as and when they please. Of course, what I would really have liked to do was write her something so true, so moving, so elegant, so witty, so insightful, so fin, so direct and so oblique that she could not help but surrender - a poem, perhaps, or a whole cycle entitled 'Songs and Sonnets'. In the end, though, I found that I could not rely on words at all beyond carrying out the most basic tasks. So I settled for three lines - the postscript from my first effort.....

I picked this book up from the British Library in the same manner (and for the same reasons) that i've usually found books and music since class 11...because it looked interesting and i was always ready for experimentation. the book looked alluring (for not just the cover) since it was woven around a collection of poems by John Donne. But it has turned out to be way better than anything I expected from it.

I shall not go into the details of the story. Or the story at all, for that matter. I shall instead focus on how the book goes about seducing (the best word I came across after careful thought) the reader. Spoken from the male protagonist's point of view, the book is witty, candid, thoughtful, dark and heartwarming at the same times. Throughout the narrative, the author keeps on making spot-on observations on life, love, relationships, London, and the universe in general. The storyline is thoughtfully conceived, well woven and flawlessly executed. It never lacks pace, and has its tastefully sprinkled share of twists and turns. and then there is the one which hits you, which would have been the most brilliant climax possible, but the author is still holding something up his sleeve. you (specially if you're well versed with your o'henry and saki) expect it, anticipate it for page after page....and the author carefully sidesteps your efforts to out think him. and then when you're least expexting it. WHAM! the book finishes off with a grand flourish, leaving you gasping for your breath.

i gobbled this book up (ok, that's not new)...and it was some of the most wicked (in a most complimentary sense) storytelling i've seen in quite a while. get it if you can, and read it.

out of _____, out of ____?

distance makes the heart grow fonder, they say....
works for me.
but it also makes the heart look elsewhere...seen it happen once too many times...

but there'll always be home, and friends. the wonderwall.
and there'll always be.
the roadside chai shop.
the place at aundh where we used to sit and talk and talk.
riding on bikes.
singing our favourite songs...out of tune.
shared memories, of which each of us have a fragment, carefully stowed away in our hearts.
going for movies together. the whole gang.
getting caught by the traffic police. and begging and haggling thereafter.
forgetting to put the phone on silent in the library. and people staring when it rang.
going to sinhagad, just sitting there and basking in the glory of our friendship...

there are some things which distance can never make us forget.
or fade.
a million miles away, but always right beside us.

for ishaan, kapil, daniel, vibhav, shanky, amit, vedant....

what?

this is about nothing in particular...
about crushed roses, maybe...
or a song which keeps playing in my head...
a tune which refuses to go away.
scraps of verses written here and there.
a half finished paperback.
a verry old photograph which got me really nostalgic.
going to see a friend off to the station.
coming back through a city of empty roads, halogen lights and unexpected draughts looking for some company.
takes and re-takes while jamming.
things left unsaid.
some said...but too late to make any difference.

wonderwall.

of friends who make my world go round...

malda and avik - my brothers. my guarding angels. the reason i've made it this far.
prateek and abhilash - my friends through all my troubles and a million memories.
samya and puja - the ones i fight with the most, and the ones who have been there in almost all my favourite photo-freeze moments...
auto, dibbo and bhupen - the ones who have walked the same roads with me for so long, that no memory is complete without them.

daniel and kapil- two people so different and so similar. full of life, and full of quiet.
ishaan (and his bike) - the one who has no clue how important he really is for me. even without his bike.
deepti - the only person who'll never be shocked at anything i say or do. my wonderwall.

once upon very long ago

photo taken on 6th may, 1994.
class II A.
teacher - aditi miss.
students -
top row (from left) - Arindam Gupta, Supratim Gupta, Souparna, Rohit, Swagata, Uttara, Mainak, Ritabrata.
2nd row - sayantani, pallabi, tania, Debashis, Niloy, Snigdha, Kaushik, Manisha, Sourav K Dhar, unknown, Tanuka.
3rd row - Nilanjana, Samik, Rounak, Shiladitya, Sayantika, Rituparna, Bidyutparna, swarnali, unknown, tanima (?).
Bottom row - Siddharth Sankar, Reetam, Soumabho, Abhishek Karmakar, Arpan, Sayan C, Debashis Pan, Arindam Ganguly.

conversation with a best friend.

Ishaan : fuck.. Dont you have 1 more yr to finish??
Reetam: results shud be out by august. round the time u return
Ishaan: Return of the King :D
Reetam: riiiite...
Ishaan: ahahahahahah
Reetam: anyway il need people around me to prevent me from hitting the slf destruct button now and again...heh
Ishaan: Tell me bout it..Luckily i have a few friends beside Phirrangs here. otherwise id be a goner..
Reetam: lol...and finally...i think i need a gf...a nice one...dont u dare laugh....
Ishaan: You cant have my girlfriend either!! Il pay for one if you want!!!!!
Reetam: dont want her....
Ishaan: Ahahahahhahahahahahahahhahaha
Reetam: and no, you dont need to pay
Ishaan: Ahahahahhahahahhahahahahhahahahahahhaha
Reetam: il be looking for one for keeps..
Ishaan: Ya thats good man. trust me. Im goin thru it!! :D
Reetam: goin thru what...paying for gfs? :P
Ishaan: I consider myself lucky to have found one!!
FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Reetam: and you almost ditched her too once, remember?
Ishaan: She pays for me OK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????
Reetam: WOW!
Ishaan: Ya i do
Reetam: so ur a professional gigolo now? with a single assignment? :P
Ishaan: And you remember the time when were unwell and i forced you to go to Barista
with me just so i could have an excuse to meet her..
Reetam: awww.....cute lover boy....
Ishaan: By pays….i meant for my needs :)
Like food
Reetam: lol. LOL
Ishaan: YOU JACKASS!!
Reetam: ya i get it...you're still so easy to rile up.. :P
Ishaan: Hey i miss this shit man!! Im kinda miserable here..
Reetam: so do i....remember the first time you brought vibhav over to my old room?
it was raining…and we had one umbrella…and we went to mcdee's
Ishaan: Fuck i dont!!
Reetam: and argued abt who'll go and order
Ishaan: FUCK I DONT!!
Reetam: you had that job then...and u used to come and have chai every evening near my place....the kothrud one
the time we 1st went to lonavla. you me and vibhav
Ishaan: Ya i remember
Hehehehe…that was fun!!
Reetam: and u used to read one piece on your friggin mobile
which took a bath in lonavla :P
Ishaan: Naazkashi na..
hahahah ya
Reetam: fuck! i miss those times....
not the mobile bathing bit...the rest
Ishaan: That phone survived so much!!
And the way it got away from me is the WORST!!
I just went to that triangle park to have a sutta
1 simple fuckin sutta and i lose it in my society!!
Ive fuckin dropped it from the 5th floor and still worked..
Reetam: thats how you usually lose stuff...
way you least expect it...trust me
Ishaan: Haha
Speakin of phones im buying the N97
Reetam; FUUUHHKK!
btw im in half a mind to post this conversation on my blog....
Ishaan: I dont mind..
Reetam: not even the gigolo bit?
Ishaan: I would be honoured :p for some reason..
Reetam: it'll be imported into my fb notes...
Ishaan: Especially the gigolo bit!!!!!
:D

beyond.

i lost a friend yesterday. he got in a bike accident near kothrud on friday...rammed into the divider while trying to avoid a car which had taken a right where there was no right. this is the 2nd such incident to happen in 2 years. last time i was there in pune, battling the worst of my demons....so it passed in a haze of stupor...kinda. this time i was in kol, at home, mostly jobless, so the news, when it finally came yesterday evening, hit me rather hard. since then i've been having the weird depressing thoughts that are so me.
the worst bit came when i was returning home yesterday by the metro. it was quarter to ten, and i was there on the platform with my back against those pillars, facing the tracks...and as the light from the train fell onto the tracks in front of me, i got this very odd thought....i was literally 3 steps away from death. that was the distance between me and the wheels...and for one (later scary) moment, i wondered about the possibilities of walking those three steps....but sense prevailed, thankfully. then when i was on the train, this song started playing on my mp3 player (which was on shuffle, for a change) - switchfoot's dare you to move...its a song which has meant so many things to me so many times...and this time too...it just blew my top...i kept on hearing the song again and again right till when the train entered garia....and the song which came on next was even more prophetic under the circumstances....good charlotte's the young and the hopeless...these are the situations which make me look up with a raised eyebrow, say 'riiiight'...and wonder whether there's someone up there smirking at me right now....heh.
i'l miss nikhil...terribly...another strand tying me to pune snapped...but its made me realise what's important once more...for a tiny moment of extreme clarity, i knew what really matters...its lost again now, but somewhere deep down inside, it still echoes...i just have to look hard enough...