The Summer Vacation That Was

I’m in the train right now, my parents sitting silently across me. I stare out of the window, the world outside blazing past me, reflecting the pace at which my summer vacation went – three whole months, a seemingly infinite duration, and yet I was on my way back to my harsher home now, my hostel, and college.

It was then that I took my laptop out, and started writing this. A little something, not too detailed though, to help me look back at those 82 days, the longest ever vacation of my life, till date. New people, new places, new friends. And not a single one I regret! And through this, I want to thank all the people for having made my summer vacations so memorable, and not let me get bored for even a fraction of a second.

Firstly, Shahana, for asking me to join her and her friends to watch The Japanese Wife, and giving me the opportunity to meet such great people like Ritwik Goswami, Adrija Chatterjee, Rohan Ghosh, Puja Rohra, Debadrita Modak, Rupkatha Sarkar, and Lijo Varughese, who were till then just familiar faces from Facebook. Also, Sayantika, along with Shahana of course, for listening to every stupid joke of mine during the movie, and laughing at the same, reminding me why we had been best friends once upon a time in the first place.

Thank you Anirvan, for going out with me numerous times, despite having a parallel social life, and introducing me to such wonderful people like Trisha Ray and Aditya Bidikar, and thank you also, Oindrilla for introducing me to Pratyay Ghosh and Neo Bhattacharya, though I knew Trisha and Neo from much before that. Thank you Trisha, for calling me over to your place for lunch, and Fight Club. :) Thank you Pratyay and Neo for those sudden facebook chat pop ups, which led to hilarious, pointless conversations! :P You too, Rohan Ghosh. :)

Thank you Abhigyan, for convincing me to watch Rajneeti, and those numerous (unnecessary, though) treats. You saved me a lot of money. :) You too, Guddu, for watching The Bounty Hunter, Badmaash Company, and Edge of Darkness with me, movies perhaps I would not have watched otherwise. :P And also, yet again, for saving some of my expenses. Thank you Chiru, for taking me to watch crappy yet keora bangla flicks – read: Amanush. You’ve started that trend in me. :P
Thank you CRY, for getting to work with and also know my own college mates (I rarely talk to otherwise) better – Aritra Bose and Sreya Saha. Also for giving me the chance to meet Arpan Biswas, who unexpectedly became such a good friend in such a short time. And also to give me the chance to meet Sripriya Poddar, Priya Gupta, Chirag Jain and Piyush Bagaria, who are really nice people. And Arpan, I guess I should thank you for the Miss Intern “award”? :P

Thank you Anirvan, once again, for watching Date Night and Shutter Island with me. It’s a pity we didn’t get to watch I Hate Luv Storys, but we got something better instead. Thank you also, for giving me the chance to watch Equilibrium practice, which kind of brought back memories of my own band practices at school. And also to finally meet Kabir Chattopadhyay. Had heard so much about him from you. Thank you Krittika for the treat at KFC, and also for inviting me over for lunch. You’re as cordial as ever. :) And also thanks for donating all those clothes, and helping me work for a cause. Thank you Aankita, for meeting me, and catching up with good times. It’s always a pleasure to hang out with you. :)

Thank you Sayoni, for calling me over to your place, and having such a great times, like old days, with you, Soumi, Chandy and also Niptika. Thank you Neo, yet again, for making me a part of the “last adda” and lunch at Grub Club, for teaching me ‘taash’ which I will definitely make use of in hostel. ;) Also for giving me the chance to meet Rohan Mittra, who I’m sure is a great guy (from what I hear). And of course, thank you for the immense help with the articles. Big treat you will get when we meet again. :) And thank you Rohan Mittra, for giving me a good dp for facebook. It was a welcome change after the Argentina Flag which was getting quite boring indeed! Hoping to meet you again during Pujo. :)

Thank you Devarchana, for meeting me almost after a year (!), and there could be no better place to meet at, than LST, where it all began. :) Thank you Trisha, Adi and Anirvan for Bon Appetite. Do go back there once again to try the mushroom on toast. Lip smacking it is! Thank you again, Trisha, for calling me to watch Toy Story 3. One great movie it was, and will top my list of favorite animated movies for days to come now. And thank you Aditto, for just being my friend, and the extremely nice person that you are. :) Oh, and also for providing me with your short stories which were quite a delightful read before hitting the sack every night. Hoping to see more of you too during Pujo. And a HUGE thank you to Anirvan, Trisha and Adi for the surprise farewell and that amazing farewell card, and that balloon! It brought back the feeling I had had last year while leaving the city for the first time, and while getting my first farewell back then. Also Aditto, for planning the mode of surprise. :)

And last but not the least, thank you Ma, thank you Babuji, and thank you Dada, for buying me every minute thing I wanted, for the vacation at Raigunj in North Bengal, for Le Chhakka, for being there with me for 4 hours till I had passed my driving test, for putting up with every little nagging I did during my stay, and loving me through and through. Also right now, for accompanying me all the way to Cuttack till I settle down in my new hostel. Love you guys like crazy!

It has been a good vacation, (barring my almost hectic internship with CRY), and I can’t wait to go back home already! Maybe it’ll be a couple of days before I actually post this online, what with all the shifting and settling down with the entire luggage. Nevertheless, this summer will always remain special to me, this summer of 2010. :)

Oitto. "Dear Diary" types.

Dear blog,

I know it has been a quite a while since I wrote to you last. More than two months to be precise. That is the longest I have been away from you since the time I created you. But you see, you can't really blame me. I have been quite busy. In fact I have been extremely busy from before my last post itself! First the regular snap tests at college. Then the seemingly never-ending series of projects and their respective presentations. And not to mention the Terror called 'End Semester Examination' - the topping to the distasteful cake - and the tensions preceding it. I have barely had time to breathe at all in those two months (March-April), with most of my time being spent at the library, flipping through class notes, or struggling with the project topics. I know I didn't write to you even after the exams ended. But you see, quite obviously, what follows after a big examination ends is a little party. And so I did indulge in some merriment, for I am, after all, also human. Then I also had a lot of packing to do for the next day, when I would be leaving for my hometown quite early in the morning. Thus a whole night of packing, devoid of absolutely any sleep, followed the much ordinary merry-making. Coming back home, that too for a vacation of almost two and half months, one would have thought, should make way for ample time to relax, with not a worry in the world. However, Fate had other plans it seems.

Now, dearest blog, you have to understand that when a person suddenly gets so much of freedom from academic pressure and tension, he/she naturally wont go back to anything that involves sitting down and writing (or, typing). And so was the case with me. I preferred going out almost everyday, hanging out with friends, watching a movie or two, KFC-ing, and you know, the usual stuff I do in Kolkata, which I don't normally get to do back in Cuttack. And by the time I actually got tired of all this, and wanted to re-connect with you, my internship at CRY started. And since then, trust me, everything I had planned for the vacation has gone haywire. Not only have I been burdened with countless research work and repeated revision of reports, but we also have had to design and distribute pamphlets. And all of this in this blasted heat. Temperatures appear to be around boiling point out here. At least the Tulip-boiling point. It's impossible to live away from the AC. Seriously. And considering the kind of lazy person I am, even dragging myself out of the house in this wretched heat everyday itself is toilsome! And then the little online job I took up. Rs.70 per article is a small pay, but not all that bad. After all, at the end of the day, I am a city-girl, with city-girl-like shopping demands - a pair of converse shoes (Converse All Star brand, no less), "few" clothes, some accesories, maybe a pair of aviator shades, and a few other things.. And considering the gallons of money my dad has already spent and still keeps spending on me, it seemed to me really mean to be asking money for my shopping spree. And thus the job. But this "little" online job turned out to be no little at all! In fact, it burdened me even more than CRY! Even though it is just 2 articles per day, the topics are insane! And they require a huge amount of research online! Which means, yet again, I have barely had the time to sleep or even breathe! I wonder how i keep landing myself into such miserable situations. But not to worry, dear blog, 'cause I have quit from the job. Yes, I have had enough. I have realised I have a life, and money can wait. Honestly. And thus, I have been able to sit in peace today and write all of this (bullshit) to you. *beeeeg smile* And I'm sure more posts are to follow soon. 'Cause right now I have a lot of ideas running through my mind. So you need not miss me anymore. :)

My next week's schedule is almost packed yet again. And when my own friends ask me to meet up and hang out, the conversation always goes "Not this week. I'm booked." And the kind of feel-bad replies I get to that - "So we need to make appointments to meet you these days?" Hmmm. I should seriously consider making a planner for myself now, the kind businessmen normally use. Maybe I should get myself a Blackberry. :D sigh... That's all for now. The more or less important updates of the happenings in my life so far, since my last post. Hopefully my next post will be soon. And a little less pointless than this. What will I do now? Umm..take a short nap perhaps. Or watch a movie maybe. And the usual Sunday-chicken is being cooked. Can get the smell from here. Smells good. Will splurge into it as soon as it is done cooking. *whistling* "Life is goooood..."

Just Another Post.

More than a month since my last post.. my blog fully constructed but not much in use.. not many thoughts running through my mind (thanks to the many exams and also the many projects being hurled at us one after the other, not to mention the disturbing presentations following each submission of project) ... and to add to all the misery, I am terribly, terribly broke, and I have also recently lost a badminton match against a weaker opponent (courtesy: Invicta 2010, NUJS Sports Fest). And that is perhaps my biggest regret so far this year. Even more so than not having studied for my end sem exams and failing in two subjects thus. All in all, this is just a forced post where I just felt like writing though I haven't really much to write. Therefore I am going to take this opportunity to mention all the important people in my life. Since my very childhood I have had the ability (I call it so, since I find it very rare among my friends from contemporary times) to make friends with whoever I meet and retain the acquaintanceship for an appreciable time. As a result, there have been many people in my life. As is the case with anybody, most people only graze past our minds, barely touching our hearts, superficial bonding; but only a few really make it to the core, make a huge impact and are of great significance to us in more ways than one... in ways they themselves are unaware of... or if it's possible, in ways even we ourselves know not...

With this I would like to make a very honest mention of all those people who have ever meant so much to me, even if for a second, that I thought it worthy enough to make a public proclaimation of it. I have been hurt and betrayed many times, that too by the closest and most unexpected of people. Still the feeling of love and belonging never left. However we maybe today, whoever we maybe today, in some way or the other, we are responsible for each other. This list follows no order but the manner in which I found them, perhaps a little later, but found nevertheless. The purpose of this list is not to send a message to anybody, or to win back affections. It is a reflection of the pages of my life, perhaps chapters, significant chapters, which I intend to look back upon whenever I feel lonely, with the hope that it will return the smile to my lips reminding me of the many memories attached with every single person mentioned here...

Sukanya Dhar
Kaushiki Datta
Rinisha Dutt
Taniya Bhardwaj
Arpita Chatterjee
Soumi De
Shahana Yasmin
Sayantika Ghosh
Sayoni Ghosh
Sanchari Pal
Rini Mukherjee
Oindrilla Basu
Mrinalini Mazumdar
Chandreyee Saha Roy
Afreen Alam
Swati Gupta
Anwesha Roy
Krittika De
Mohor Mukherjee
Ranjini (Tori) Bhattacharya
Twisha Saha
Mukulika (Moon)
Bornali di
Mampia di
Mohini Basu
Aparna Chaudhari
Piu Ghosh
Aankita Mukherjee
Pooja Saha
Swagata Ganguly
Puja Maity
Sukanya Basak
Rajiv Sarkar
Natansh Chhabra
Moharmala Mukherjee
Rajorshi (Gorky) Bose
Pubali Chakraborty
Anisha Ghosh
Dibyajyoti Sinha
Richa Gupta
Unknown guy in the bus (from Dumdum/Kajipara to Ultadanga)
Karishma Sharma
Camelia Bagh
Vaidehi Shaw
Sambit Datta Chaudhuri
Samhita Bannerjee
Arghya Brata Mandal
Rohan Kothari
Ahona Sen
Anirvan Sengupta
Sarita Rout
Priyanka Mukherjee
Abhishek Mour
Jubin Prasad Thomas
Tanya Tiwari
Bhumika Mallick
Tarun Misra
Tanuj Gautam (R.I.P)
Varun Mohan
Anish Jaipuriar
Srisatya Mohanty
Ritabrata Dobe
Ritwik Goswami
Aditya Sengupta
Siddharth Mohanty
Sudeshna Panigrahi
Mayank Sapra
Santwana Dwivedi
Akshath Goyal....

Phew! Now that was ONE list! It turned out to be longer than I thought.. good in a way.. makes me feel less lonely somehow in times like this... Coming to think of it, most of these people are probably unaware of their significance in my life. A couple of them don't even know my name, or that I even exist!
Strange world.. Stranger relations.. Even stranger ways of The One who decides all this...

A Trip To Remember...

It has been exactly two weeks since my trip to Konark and Puri, yet the beauty of the journey (and the ultimate destination, Puri) keeps making me go back to the many pictures clicked and relive the memories afresh. And since my blog will mostly be about my life and how things have turnedout for me, I've decided to upload some of the pics as a remembrance of my first ever trip to Puri and Konark. I would not do justice to them if I don't. So here follows some of the best pics taken that day.. 24.01.10.

Bonolata Sen

Arguably the most read, recited and discussed poem of Bengali literature, 'Bonolata Sen' written by Jibanananda Das in 1933 remains one of my most favorite poems of all times. The poet's imaginary lover, Bonolata Sen, embodies a mystical aura of femininity and womanly warmth. With a feel of travelling through time immemorial, and across thousands of miles, and with the pitch darkness of the night as its backdrop, the poem has a soothing allure, and attracts me to it like a bee towards a flower. The poem has all the elements of every dreamer's fantasies, and like the greedy bee inevitably drawn towards the flower, I keep coming back to the poem, reading the lines time and again, regardless of the hundreds of times I have already been through them..

Hajar bochhor dhore ami poth hathitechhi prithibir pothe

Singhal somudro theke aro dur ondhokaare Maloy sagore

Onek ghurechhi ami. Bimbisar-Ashoker dhushor jogote

Shekhane chhilam ami. Aaro dur ondhokar bidorbho nogore

Aami klanto praan ek, chaaridike jiboner shomudro shofen,

Aamare du-dondo shanti diyechhilo Natorer Bonolata Sen.

Chool tar kobekar ondhokaar bidishaar nisha,

Mukh tar srabostir karukaarjo. Otidur shomidrer 'por

Haal bhange je naabik hariyechhe disha,

Shobuj ghaasher desh jokhon she chokhhe dekhe Daruchinir dweeper bhitor

Temoni dekhechhi taare ondhokaare.

Bolechhe she, "eto din kothaye chhilen?"

Paakhir neerer moto chokh tule Natorer Bonolata Sen.

Shomosto diner sheshe shishirer shobder moton

Shondhya aashe. Daanar roudrer gondho muchhe fele cheel.

Prithibir shob rong muchhe gele paandulipi kore aayojon,

Tokhon golper tore jonakir ronge jhilmil.

Shob paakhi ghore aashe - shob nodi. Furaye e' jiboner shob len-den.

Thake shudhu ondhokaar, mukhomukhi boshibar Bonolata Sen...

For thousands of years I roamed the paths of this earth,
From waters around Ceylon in dead of night to Malayan seas.
Much have I wandered. I was there in the gray world of Asoka
And Bimbisara, pressed on through darkness to the city of Vidarbha.
I am a weary heart surrounded by life's frothy ocean.
To me she gave a moment's peace - Banalata Sen from Natore.

Her hair was like an ancient darkling night in Vidisa
Her face, the craftsmanship of Sravasti. As the helmsman,
His rudder broken, far out upon the sea-adrift,
Sees the grass-green land of a cinnamon isle, just so
Through darkness I saw her. Said she, "Where have you been so long?"
And raised her bird's-nest-like eyes - Banalata Sen from Natore.

At days end, like hush of dew
Comes evening. A hawk wipes the scent of sunlight from its wings,
When earth's colors fade and some pale design is sketched,
Then glimmering fireflies paint in the story.
All birds come home, all rivers, all of this life's tasks finished.
Only darkness remains, as I sit there face to face with Banalata Sen...