The Plath Obsession, Again.

She committed suicide at the age of 30. Second attempt successful.

Imagine.

Cigarettes.

I have come to realize, that I cannot let go of cigarettes. They complete me somehow. They calm down my nerves during building pressure, due to work or due to thoughts. A sense of calm and relaxation flows through me the moment the smoke enters my lungs. Even more calm when I see the smoke flowing out of me. It has become a part of me now, perhaps in habit. I don't even remember when it started, but I do remember always being fascinated by cigarettes, from as far back as I can remember, when I would see my father and people around me smoking. I would even suck on one of them cigarette candies from New Market (Calcutta) as a kid just to get the feel of it. And today, frustration creeps in when my lungs don't get the sufficient amount of smoke that they need. Not a want, but a need. I could live without it, but I wouldn't be complete. At first, I thought it was a mental thing. And so I quit. She made me want to quit. And I did it for her. And for a long duration, that. What I was basically doing, on a completely individual plane, was denying the fact that I was an addict. I am an addict. I ran away from it, only to have it call out to me for more and more. It's a lot like love. It's easy only in acceptance. Hence, I accepted it. I accepted the fact that I cannot function without smoking. It is a part of my being. Just like feeling hungry and then satiating it by eating. Every time you smoke, just remember that you are being disloyal to me, She'd told me. The familiar "Tobacco consumption can lead to cancer" advertisement/warning was playing on the screen before us inside the movie hall then, which can make your stomach lurch in fearsome disgust if you think too much about it. But I still couldn't let go entirely, no matter how hard I tried. It was the forced attempt to escape that gave me great desire to return, and even greater satisfaction when I did. And then the feeling of guilt engulfing me afterwards. Followed by the horrible realization that I had got attached to something so material, and how it was so against my immateriality, and how much of a hypocrite that made me. It was too much to take. It started consuming my thoughts sometimes. And then, as mentioned before, I chose acceptance. And I stopped running away from it. And that's when it became easier. Now I knew that I could smoke whenever I wanted to. This reduced my intake to a great extent, so much so that I can go without smoking for days altogether till I feel the need arising again. The guilt vanished, and peace replaced it. And just like it was said in that movie, every time I light a cigarette, I feel that I'm rising up with the smoke, as the world falls beneath me like the ash.

What You Do To Me

“What about you? Are you happiest and saddest right now than you've ever been?"

"Of course I am."

"Why?"

"Because nothing makes me happier and nothing makes me sadder than you.”

― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

The Difference Between You And Me.

The difference between you and me is that,

I think that every minute that I don't spend with you,

is a waste of time,

whereas you think,

that every minute that you spend with me

is a waste of time.

The Escape.

Keep running

As fast as your legs can carry you

The feelings will keep chasing

You can't hide yourself

The feelings,

they'll sniff you

hunt you down

and kill you

burn you

destroy you.

So keep running

As fast as you can

With all you've got

and not.

Come out of the pit

you've dug for yourself

Come out of it and run

for your life

Don't turn around

Don't fall back

Not a minute

Not a second

Or you'll get sucked in

Deeper this time.

So just keep running.

Continue to.

Till you're far away

Far enough

That nothing

can bring you back

No more strings

to pull you back

Only then is it safe

To stop

And to look back.

Can't Breathe Easy.

It feels as if someone has pumped all the air out of my lungs.
I feel choked, something blocking my windpipe, some intangible thing.
The air goes in through my nose but just stops in my throat, forming a lump.
Tears running down my eyes, as I gasp for breath, some ground to rest my foot on.
I stop the tears but the lump keeps growing.
A cancerous growth that just refuses to go, blocking all the air from my respiration tract.
It keeps growing with every thought, and the constant reminder that you are not there anymore.
A growing knot in my chest, my lungs begin to ache.
The window and the world seem so far away.
I moan, I gulp, I try to stop the pain.
I grasp everything around me desperately, my nerves alert, trying hard to breathe.

But I just can't,
I can't breathe easy.

The Junior.

22.04.2013

I had just finished studying a chapter for my ADR exam due in the afternoon that day. I had stayed up the whole night. I went out of my room to take a small stroll in the corridors of the hostel. The birds had just begun chirping, daylight not yet fully broke. It was 6 AM. It was then that I saw her. Her door was wide open. Her lights still switched on. And there she was, lying on her bed, fast asleep, her blanket covering her up to her neck, her face pointed downwards, and her body held close in a crouch. It was obvious that she had fallen asleep while studying. In all likelihood, I wondered, she had not finished studying the entire syllabus and had perhaps intended to rest her eyes for only five minutes. It reminded me of the time when I was in the exact same place, three years ago, reading the very constitutional provisions and case laws, curling up in my blanket, cursing myself for not having studied earlier. And I stared at her, unable to tear away my amused gaze, as I saw, much wiser today, only a few feet from me, a reflection of my past.

Earth Day And All That.

Bummer.

Excerpt from one of my favourite books.

"People believe in God because the world is very complicated and they think it is very unlikely that anything as complicated as a flying squirrel or the human eye or a brain could happen by chance. But they should think logically and if they thought logically they would see that they can only ask this question because it has already happened and they exist. And there are billions of planets where there is no life, but there is no one on those planets with brains to notice. and it is like if everyone in the world is tossing coins eventually someone would get 5,698 heads in a row and they would think they were very special. But they wouldn't be because there would be millions of people who didn't get 5.698 heads.

And there is life on earth because of an accident. But it is a very special kind of accident. And for this accident to happen in this special way, there have to be 3 Conditions. And these are

1. Things have to make copies of themselves (this is called Replication)

2. They have to make small mistakes when they do this (this is called Mutation)

3. These mistakes have to be the same in their copies (this is called Heritability)

And these conditions are very rare, but they are possible, and they cause life. And it just happens. But it doesn't have to end up with rhinoceroses and human beings and whales. It could end up with anything.

And, for example, some people say how can an eye happen by accident? Because an eye has to evolve from something else very like an eye and it doesn't just happen because of a genetic mistake, and what is the use of half an eye? But half an eye is very useful because half an eye means that an animal can see half of an animal that wants to eat it and get out of the way, and it will eat the animal that only has a third of an eye or 49% of an eye instead because it hasn't got out of the way quick enough, and the animal that is eaten won't have babies because it is dead.

And people who believe in God think God has put human beings on the earth because they think human beings are the best animal, but human beings are just an animal and they will evolve into another animal, and that animal will be cleverer and it will put human beings into a zoo, like we put chimpanzees and gorillas into a zoo. Or human beings will all catch a disease and die out or they will make too much pollution and kill themselves, and then there will only be insects in the world and they will be the best animal."

Mark Haddon

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

What to listen to this Fall.

Do listen to the soundtrack of Barfi. Soothing, unconventional music, and the best part - satirical yet extremely meaningful lyrics. Add to that the classic touch here and there. Gets you into the whole thinking mood. Especially 'Ala Barfi', and I personally prefer the Mohit Chauhan version, but that's probably because I heard that one first, and it hardly matters. Also 'Kyon' and 'Phir Le Aya Dil' (personal preference - the Rekha Bhardwaj version) - the combination of the music and lyrics literally makes your heart ache. If you don't have the album already, listen to the soundtrack online here. Worth wasting a few minutes over.

A Certain Romance.

6 a.m.
The alarm rang.
He got out
from under his white blanket, sat up in bed, shut the alarm off.
He knew
today would be different. It felt different. He was smiling, he didn't know why.
Different.

He got out of the shower. Put on
his favourite cologne, favourite checked shirt, the classic pair of blue jeans he always wore,
his favourite pair of classic Reeboks, over the pair of Converse he normally wore,
and a smile.
Today was different.

He locked his door, stepped out
onto the road, into the sun, into Hope.
And he walked,
a crazy jingle playing across the street,
a smile on his face,
a twinkle in his eye, and he walked,
tossing a cent into the steel bowl
of that beggar playing the guitar around the corner,
an added cling to the jingle,
and a casual wave at old man John.
And he walked
towards his favourite coffee shop.

The bell rang as he opened the door,
and heads turned
as they
felt his happiness too.
Something different
about him today.
A cup, a tissue, a tip, and a smile
exchanged.
And the bell rang once more
as the door clicked shut behind him.

And he walked again,
as he took occasional sips from his cup,
walking in rythm
to the jingle still loud.
The sun was brighter,
and warmer
and happier
than usual.

And then she came,
from the other side,
the sun in her eyes,
the air in her hair,
her hair on her face as she tucked it behind her ear,
the breeze in her walk.
And his whole world lit up,
as he passed her by,
the momentary gaze,
the locking of the eyes,
the skipping of a beat,
that moment of recognition,
a connection unexplained,
and the never-breaking stare,
as she smiled to his smile.
A moment so still,
of eternity.

Today was different,
he remembered,
tearing away his gaze,
as he kept walking his way,
and she hers,
a knot building in his chest,
and butterflies in his stomach.
And even without turning,
he felt her wave at old man John,
and softly throw the penny into the beggar's bowl,
and he felt her happiness,
and he felt himself smile,
in a warmth that drowned his entire being.
And he hoped,
if even for a second,
she felt the same way too.

And it was,
a certain romance.

Come-back post #Umpteen.

I've been out of touch with the writer in me for quite a while now. It's something I like doing, but somehow, I've always managed to find a reason to shelf it. Not that I'm avoiding it, after all, it isn't really a compulsion. It isn't a compulsion at all. In fact, I want to keep writing. Lots of thoughts in my mind, every now and then. And I want to put them all down. Given that I've been using the blogger like a personal journal of sorts, a vent to my ever-full-of-infinite-thoughts mind, I actually enjoy writing here. Moreover, I like a little bit of audience every once in a while. And I know for a fact I don't write that bad either. It's mostly random, but it's honest. And what I've learned over the years is, honesty sells. Oh yes, it does. People love honesty. I love honesty. There's a feeling of freedom to everything honest, especially when they're confessions, guilty or not. Honesty. That brings me back to why I haven't been writing as often as I originally intended to while creating this blog.

I've been lazy. Wayyy (yes, that many Ys) too lazy for a 20 year old, I can vouch. The thoughts just keep coming and going, the self-answered questions, and a few unanswered ones, the experiences, the feelings.. And the laptop's right here, open beside me. But there's always a "better reason" to not write: five more minutes of sleep which ultimately extends up to a couple of hours or more; watching more than my daily quota of episodes of 'The Mentalist' (an awesome show I've started watching recently); lying down on my bed and doing some more day-dreaming; reading other blogs; or simply pretending to "study".
"Always one excuse or the other." (thick teacher-ish accent).
But I want to write. It's just that I don't want to make that effort of actually sitting up and typing all of that. Sometimes I wish we had a technology wherein we would simply think and all our thoughts would magically get written on their own. Very much like Rita Skeeter's magic quill, I would say. But if only even half our wishes came true, right?

A few of my friends, and also a few other people who surprisingly follow my blog discreetly, much to the pleasure of my childish desire for praise, have been telling me to write something soon 'cause they like what they read. (Discreet followers, if you be reading this, yes, you're not the only one). So that kind of acts like an inspiration of sorts to actually sit and update this page. If not for me, for them. So here I am, in yet another attempt to revive the writer in me. I like that person, and I want her to live. Besides the extremely passionate person in me who likes photography and everything to do with it, the writer in me is almost the only other person in me I'm proud of. Phew, that's intense, eh? I wish I could post half as frequently, okay one-fifth, no make that one-tenth as frequently as those Thought Catalog people (http://thoughtcatalog.com/ for all you ignorant retards), and of course not to mention half as awesome, but that's not possible.

I know this blog won't last forever. It has to end one day. Either I'll run out of thoughts and actually face the writer's block everybody keeps talking about, or I'll just grow up to realise what a stupid kid I have been wasting precious minutes of my life over a stupid little machine that cannot react to human emotions and will inevitably become obsolete one day.

But till then, I'll keep trying. And I hope one day, when I'm gone, someone somewhere will read my very own "thought catalog" here, and will remember me for the person they discovered I was.

Haunted.

The world is always changing, but I like to believe it is actually the same. It really depends on how you look at it. If the world implies the people to you, then yes, it is changing. Everyday. However, in a rather larger perspective, it isn't. People may keep adding new buildings and roads everyday, but a majority of them stay back. I believe that the people who die, or even the living people, have the capability to haunt. They haunt the place they have spent a lot of time, or even a moment worth a lifetime, at, in the form of memories, or distant echoes that somehow eerily exist. The Statue of Liberty, or the Eiffel Tower, or the Taj Mahal, or even that old house on the neighbouring street - all those buildings built so many decades (in some cases even centuries) ago..they are all haunted. Haunted by the people who lived in them, who dropped their last sweat to see the completion of their creation. Even a house where we have lived for a considerable amount of time, I don't think when we move on, we move altogether. We leave a part of us behind, the part which haunts the place forever. Even if that room or building is gone, that space of air still remains that had once touched us. We are all ghosts, whether we want it or not. And even while we're walking down the road, whether we feel it or not, there is the ghost of the person who walked it before us, maybe laughed, cracked a joke with a friend..even that laughter remains. That building over there, dark and locked, I can hear the old man changing the channel and laughing at his wife's wit, even though it has been ages since they both passed away. It does not matter if I've seen him or not, the face is unknown but the everything else - it's like I've known them all my life. I can also hear the newspaper boy shouting while professionally throwing the rolled up paper onto the balcony, waving and smiling in retort at the old couple as he passes by. I can hear the group of college kids sitting on the corner of that road, all of them without a face but with voices only well known, at 1 A.M. in the night, getting drunk and laughing, even though they are now working in different parts of the world, apart. Maybe you can hear it too, if you are open to hearing it. Or maybe I'm just not normal. My mother once told me of a very intriguing theory she came up with herself while she was growing up. It is a well know fact (for science students at least), that energy remains constant in any isolated system. It can neither be created, nor destroyed. It may change forms, but it remains. So what if we were to assume this entire universe as a whole isolated system? Also, we know that sound is a form of energy. Thus, everything ever spoken, every sound ever made, every word ever uttered, is there around us, always, invisible. From the moment Man's life on earth on began till today and continuing, no word spake has left this universe, it's all around us, in the form of energy. Every emotion, every experience expressed in words or sounds, it's all there and here to stay. It's around you right now. Doesn't that send a chill down your spine? It does mine. It's haunted. Everything is. We're all connected somehow, the different generations. Who knows where we'll go once we die. Maybe join our ancestors in some possible post-death haven, or maybe just fizz out into nothingness. Whatever be it, whether we live or die, the ghosts we leave behind will continue to stay and haunt the places we leave, as memories keen on holding on, eternally.

A Great Mind, A Great Work.

Aaj Pochishe Baishakh. Aaj kobi guru Rabindranath Thakurer dershotomo jonmo dibosh. His 150th birthday. Tagore, as he is popularly known worldwide, is more than just another Noble laureate. To me he signifies the entire rich Bengali culture and art. His music, prose, poetry, and stories both long and short, still do not fail to push us into the great depths of his vivid and beautiful imagination. It still does not fail to charm our inner senses, take us to another world altogether - his world - a world we would most willingly plunge into. He and his works are an asset and pride not just for all Bengalis, but for all lovers of art. And today, as a sign of remembrance and respect on the day of his most hyped sesquicentennial anniversary celebrations, I would like to share on this forum one of my favourite poems, and quite an appropriate one in the present scenario, by the bard. Titled 'Choddosho Shaal' (The Year 1400 - as in the Bengali calendar, this year being the 1418th year), it talks about a time 100 years down the line from when Tagore wrote this poem, when perhaps his work would be read with equal zest as had been when he was writing this. Read on.

Kobi Guru Rabindranath Thakur ke janai pronaam.

(Poem source: http://www.ganguly.de/Tagore/)

Oh Look What I Found!

Stumbled upon this on Facebook. Some guy tagged a friend of mine.

How cool is that? Right? Hats off to the guy who edited the original poster (you figured which, right?)!!

The Calvin-Hobbes Connection in Fight Club.

Yes you read it right.
Calvin and Hobbes, the popular comic strip by Bill Watterson you can never put down.
Fight Club, that awesome movie you saw by David Fincher starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton.
Oh you read it right alright.

Now read again.

http://metaphilm.com/philm.php?id=29_0_2

That's the link to the theory which says the imaginary Tyler Durden is (a re-incarnated) Hobbes, while Jack is really a grown up Calvin. Copy-paste the above given link on your address bar and go to the page to read more.

Read it.
It's fascinating.

ps- Thank you Tarun Misra, for sharing this link with me. It was a delightful read indeed!

Suddenly.

Suddenly, I feel like watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S.
All of it. From seasons one to ten.
I miss that era. Big time.
But there is ONE problem. Yeah that big.
Exams. End semester's.
Sigh.

I Must.

I must wake up early.
I must go out to jog.
I must lose some weight.
I must come back and have some fresh fruit juice (or some of the 'sattoo' dad sent me).
I must take a bath while it's still early.
I must not go back to sleep again.
I must read the day's newspaper and update myself with all the great achievements my country and its leaders have been making.
I must read the news because only by reading it will I know how the poor people suffer, and therefore I will sympathize with their fate.
I must attend all classes (and Not give attendance and escape from the back door of the class).
I must pay attention to what the teacher is saying (and Not draw random creatures on the wooden table).
I must ask questions to the teacher regardless of whether I have a doubt or not.
I must nod my head in comprehension (and mean it).
I must be a "good student" (like the vast majority of the class).
I must not have 'feelings' for that guy in my class, because "feelings" distract.
I must not use slangs or "unparliamentary language", because only the 'uncivilized' do that.
I must not skip my lunch just because what the mess serves is much similar to the served-in-jails gruel.
I must sleep in the afternoon for at least two hours, because I am a 'Bangali'.
I must wake up in time to go to the library, so that I can increase my knowledge base.
I must not go out everyday, because only "bad girls" go out everyday.
I must not talk to many boys, because then I am a slut.
I must not stare into nature and daydream, because it is a waste of time.
I must study for my exams, because my CGPA will decide my "future".
I must talk only about teachers and studies with my friends, because otherwise I am stupid.
I must not think of an alternative non-academic career, because then I am loser.
I must go on studying till it is dinner time, because only then would I have not wasted any time.
I must finish my dinner early, and finish all those vegetables. They will help me live long.
I must go to sleep early, because only then will I be able to wake up early again the next day.

Oh Yeah.

Oh yeah we won.