Growing up

It is one of the worst things that happens to human beings.It does not benefit the human race in any good way that I can think of. Just makes them a hell lot complicated and confused.

The first thing that growing up does is make one conscious. You become conscious about everything. The way you talk, the way you walk,the way you behave and even freaking about the way you look! I mean seriously, that is not even in our hands. What the hell would you do being conscious about something that you are not responsible for? If you don't have sharp features (like I don't) what exactly are you supposed to do about it? You are made that way for God's sake!

You also become conscious about what other people think about you. Well the fact is they can not possibly think anything good about you because sadly they are also grown ups. They doubt you. They doubt your actions and your intentions because growing up has also taught them not to trust anybody as it has taught you not to speak your mind.

You lose your sense of humour. Anybody cracks a joke and you would start sniffing for a hint of insult. You can not laugh out loud either. Every time you would feel like laughing out loud in a restaurant the fact that some stupid grown up, who has lost all energy to laugh in the process of frowning at others, might frown at you too would stop you.

You don't understand passion anymore, neither do promises mean anything to you. All you can do is crib and cry and then cry and crib a bit more. You expect a lot out of everybody even when you know that expecting is not the way relations work. And the worst part is that you know you are the one ruining it for yourself.

It's also sort of sad to grow up. You don't have anybody to blame anymore. Everything is your responsibility now. Even your heart breaks and feeling lonely. You can't go and cry with people because they expect you to behave like a grown up. Anything remotely close to a confession might end up sounding like cheesy dialogues from some crappy Hindi movie and trust me only grown ups know what's cheesy because they can't believe that a word can actually be spoken out of true emotions.

So finally what I am trying to say is that stop growing up till you can help it because after a point it'll get the better out of you.


                                       


p.s: And you need not feel guilty about not growing up. It has never served any great purpose. 

Falling out of Love

Enough about falling in love.Let's talk about falling out of it.

(Oh my God it's a bad feeling!)

I am already out of it. I don't know how to come straight about it and I feel guilty for falling out of love. But then again I can't possibly accept that to the other person who still thinks that everything is fine and we are still the couple that the world and the mother of it envies. I walk around with a burdened soul and start throwing tantrums about the smallest things. Things about him or her that were cute at a point of time now are irritating. I don't understand calling up every day or texting every hour. I don't understand the dependency anymore too. Gradually I start to rationalize my change in my mind ('getting a job has made me realize how tough life is and I can't be dependent on anybody.) I keep on telling myself  'It's ok. It happens all the time. People fall out of love. It's no big deal.( Basically I don't know 'cause I am not the one getting dumped!)

 And then finally one day the other person realizes that there is something majorly wrong. At first I deny a confrontation and then one day I burst. I tell them how it has not been working out for all this while, how I have been feeling that there is no point dragging the relationship as it will turn bitter (as if it will remain very sweet otherwise), how I feel that things have changed between the two of us.

The other person will be lost. The first thing that will come to their mind is 'When the hell did all this happen?'. The next thing very commonly happens to be 'There must be someone else'. They just don't seem to get the point that one can fall out of love even without falling in love with somebody else.Lot of questioning and having no proper answer for a while.

And then finally the leech would let go and for the rest of his or her miserable life keep on asking the same stupid question over and over again to somebody or the other or just to themselves--- 'What did I do?'

Well the point is they did not do anything.

It's just that I am too much of a sissy to stay with you because deep inside I know that I am not good enough.

                                             

                                             

Effort

How would you define effort?

Is it how you try and please your boss? Is it how you make your girl friend happy? Or is it how you maintain a good relation with your boy friend’s mother? You put in a lot of effort to buy them gifts, make them feel special or just keep them from firing you. That is usually how we see effort. Everything that we do to keep our world in place and may be add a few more lights to it.

These however are not really efforts. Sorry but these are your needs. You need them and thus you are putting in a little bit extra work to make things right for your own self and keep them that way. When you work an extra hour at office you are not making an effort. You are just making sure that you boss stays happy with you. You pay that extra buck for the perfect gift for your girl friend and you make sure that she loves you for that. You are again not making an effort.

Effort happens when you go out of your way to do something for somebody whom you don’t want anything from. Effort is that desire you have to see somebody not even remotely related to you in anyway having a good life. The kind of life you would want to have. Sadly it is a desire many of us have but very... very few of us actually manage to act upon.  However the ones who do are the real people making an effort.

These are the people who after working the whole day, fight their way through the worst traffic jams to go and teach a few kids so that they have a bit of what they actually deserve. These people also spend nights staying up till late after slogging off at office, working on magazines that do not fetch them money or even recognition. They do it just to help a cause. They go off to the remotest parts of the country for months to work. They find out more about such other people who are out there making an effort to change what is given. To do something about the wrongs those are there in the society, in us.  The things that are talked about but not worked upon. They do all this even when the NEED not have done it. Because the rest of them don’t. People talk about illiteracy but they do not do anything to make the children understand the importance of education or make it interesting to them or to empower them in any way so that they can grow up to become earning individuals. They talk about health conditions in rural areas but they do not actually do anything about it. Read the newspaper, draw a frown on the face, blame it on the government and then say ‘the NGOs are just making money for themselves’ but never go out and actually find out about the real scenario.

Good news is that we have a few exceptions who know that efforts are made when you don’t gain anything out of your work. You just grow by it.

                                                  

Done

Yes.

I am finally done with setting up the new and more legible look for my blog.

Fortunately I am suffering from a very delayed bout of fever. Two months away from home and I had not got one chance to lie down and boss around people without any guilt pangs. And as I am legally allowed to do all that now I took some time out and re-did my blog. Lots of time it takes mind you. Hopefully there won't be any more complains about how illegible my blog is and thus no avoiding reading my posts.

Happy reading.

                                                           

Cacophony

The Planet never stopped spinning and midst of all that, they tried their hands at what they called Creativity. The world saw it as Cacophony.

                                                   


                                                        

Bangla

"There she goes again!"

If that is what you think just move on to something else because right now I am going to rant my heart out. I am going to write and write and shamelessly express how much of a clannist I am. I am going to tell you how  good I feel to be a bengali and how much of self inflicted pain I am in when I have left my home.

I am going to rant about how miserable I feel when I have to say that there is nothing left in Bengal. How terrible it feels to think that going back home, to Kolkata might just as well mean not being able to live my dreams. I am going to rant about all of that.   

Having lived in Bengal for the good 20 years of my life I have learned to believe that I am blessed with a culture that is rich and dynamic. I have been customized to a mind set where my support for communism is independent of my vote for the Left Front. I am inherently political and eternally cultural. 

I am. I can not help it.

I can not help but boast of the fact that the leading poet of our country Gulzar Saab says that he married a bengali so that he could learn the language. I can not help but feel privileged that I can choose not to read anything in any other language than bengali and still not be able to read everything even if I read all my life. Tell me how do I suppress my happiness when I find out that without even having to look for them I have a collection of two thousand brilliant songs to refer to at every moment I need. I can not stop feeling that rising enthusiasm in me when I read the poetry of a young bengali poet who writes not because he wants to become a poet but because he feels that is the way to express.

Yeah yeah! You have heard all this before. And that is the best part because I share this feeling with most of the bengalis out there.

So what if we are lazy asses? So what if it took us 35 long years to realize that something is wrong with our government? So what if even after knowing that the new government is as bad or worse we will keep on saying 'Its just her second year in power.'? So what if we are ready to give another 35 years for her to cause some more damage? We still have a Binayak Sen.

We are a race where we love to live by examples. One Rabindranath Tagore and the entire community turned poet. One Sourav Ganguly and one can find cricket coaching camps right left and center. One Sushmita Sen and the all bengali ladies are beauty queens even without trying.

We love noodles and rock music but trust me at the end of the day we all are more than proud that wherever we go, to any part of the country or the world we shall always find a 'bong' too happy to discuss the latest Rituparno film.

p.s: This post is not intended to hurt any sentiments of any other culture or race. Its just that I am too much of a bengali. :D


                                     


                                    

And then again

Tell me that you love me.
Tell me because nothing in this world sounds more beautiful.
Nothing is so heartlessly painful.
Tell me because you want to say it.
Because I want to hear.
Tell me because you mean it.
Right from the bottom of your heart.
Tell me as I have known and felt
The utter meaninglessness of the phrase.
Tell me because nothing makes me feel more alive.
With the deaths and decay,
The coffins and the pyres
That are buried and are lit,
Every single day
I feel it was us.
Tell me because I know there is not a thing
That you can do to show me
How much exactly would your love measure up to.
Tell me because i won't doubt you.
Because I'll listen to you and rest in peace.
Tell me because I love you
More than I have ever expressed
Or you have ever felt.