I am not the one about the long silences, no. I am the mindless yet entertaining chatter. I am the fall back guy when the silent one needs to fill the space. So my absence was barely being busy at other fronts.
As life has been at what it does best, i.e being unpredictable. I have been rendered jobless. OK that sounds horrible. I have quit after 6 months of ego fighting (read: sword) with my evil Bengali boss. Irony, aint it? So what came as an impulsive decision has turned out to be an albatross on my neck. I know a few people who might be doing the 'I told you so' dance right about now, but well, I am only human and follies are my forte.
December was fun with a trip to Turkey and planning my first ever New year party for friends at my very own place! Yes, my own frikkin awesome flat. It is a happpy feeling when you have lived and paid rent for almost, ummm, forever.. So yeah!
January was a month in which I got down to updating my resume, mailing people, putting my ego aside and following up on whether people received my resume (which ofcourse they did!) and calling up the very same people yet again. I would never hire me if I was the 'people' I mentioned above. Also, was introduced to a new festival, Uttarayan. In Gujarat, they fly kites like nobody's business. I got into it pretty fast, much to his amazement. I guess he should've predicted it, what with my love for sports of all kinds.
While the festival and the wait to get a response from the 'people' kept me happily ignorant of a whole month passing without a job, February brought with it a promise of going and staying with Ma and Baba for a while. I hogged on bengali food, on mutton, chicken, fish and dry fish (yes, we dont leave any kind of fish) and watched theater and movies and sat on a big field with a beer bottle in my hand and a cousin who has started to look very similar to the 21 year old me, the beer guzzling and the dont-care attitude towards authority and public parks included.
Cometh March and just like old times, the exam fear has gripped me. Only that it isnt about exams anymore. Onto my third month of unemployment, I sometimes wonder about life beyond. If I even want to work anymore. Ideally, I should just start writing that book I have always wanted to. But, being a middle class, intelligent and independent woman (we are a type, I swear am not gloating) I must work, preferably in the best place in this city. And thus, neither do creative juices for the book flow, nor does the phone ring.
If I was racist about small towns before, you shouldnt start a debate about it with me now. My loathing towards anything that isnt Delhi has increased by leaps and bounds and I have my ways of keeping it normal. I watch sitcoms.
Yes, I watch endless sitcoms and love the fact that every dysfunctional character in every show can make me laugh. By that logic, I can make myself laugh at me too. And that keeps the peace.
I will be heard more often from now on, pinky swear!
Showing posts with label kolkata. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kolkata. Show all posts
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Friday, July 10, 2009
Ideal date!
It was a fine place to meet, she had decided. After all, she had always imagined this. They guy whom she would love and marry, would have to like a few things about her being a Bengali. And on top of that list was theater, movies and some Kolkata street food. And this chance had come once in a blue moon. He had agreed to come to Kolkata finally, to meet her cousins and see her city. And she had asked him for a date in Academy, the haven of intellectuals, of artists, of painters, of students who debated on world issues over plates of chicken rolls. And yes, thats what she was there for. Chicken rolls. The tastiest ones ever made on earth are actually made right here, in the small kitchen canteen of Academy...Sigh..
They decided to meet at her place, and from there, she took him to Academy, in a bus and then in a taxi. Throughout the journey, she kept talking. Talking about how she came there as a kid, how she literally memorised why each place was famous, and how she wondered how she would be able to remember all these places all her life.He kept smiling and soaking in the flavour of the city. So unlike Delhi, so classic in its being, so very laid back in its attitude and so very rich in its legacy...He could see where she got all that varied hues from...
The taxi stopped in front of a very gloomy blue-grey coloured building, with a huge garden in the front. The garden had statues of all shapes and sizes in it. Most of them were black or grey in colour and they looked as if they had been taken out of some other era and put here in modern Kolkata.
"And this is it! Academy! My favorite place in Kolkata! My folks would bring me here everytime we came for vacations and make me watch atleast one bangla natok. I would be itching for it to end so that I could get to the best part."
"Which is?" he asked with some of her excitement rubbing onto him.
She smiled and took his hand and took a right from the entrance. They kept going inside to what looked like a lonely lane behind the huge building. While he started to think it was one of her kinky ideas, the scene suddenly burst to life. There were hundreds of people in front of a small dingy canteen. The canteen looked like some matchboxes had been put on top of each other. The walls were chipped, the paint was worse than gone. A thin man was at the counter, swiftly taking money and handing out round coupons in yellow, red, green...
He was so amazed by the sight of this little joint, he didnt realise that she wasnt beside him anymore.
"Dada, ekta chicken roll and duto alur chop, ar duto mirinda!" she shouted out. She turned back and gestured him to come towards her and take the coupons to the kitchen inside.
He edged across the crowd, took hold of the coupons from her slender hand and looked around, not knowing which way to head. Also there were too many non vegetarians around him for comfort. Thankfully, she returned by his side and together, they handed their coupons to the sweaty man behind the slab.
While she waited impatiently, he wondered, how different they could be..She was a non veg lover, dreaming of good fish curry on most of the days and demanding what she called 'kosha mangsho' on a good Sunday. And here he was, a Jain boy, who ate just to survive, good veg food with not much thought put into it. On dates, while she would ask for chicken sanwiches and donuts and ice teas, he would have a paneer puff or a spinach sanwich! And yet, there was love...
When the plates came, he was almost guiltily greedy towards the smell that came from the chicken roll in her plate. Very quickly, he took a bite of his alur chop and gulped some Mirinda. Yummy. All around him, people were eating, talking with mouths full and discussing what sounded like Rabindra Nath Tagore, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, Marx and sunday's kosha mangsho. What a different clan were these Bengalis, he wondered...
She had sensed he was in his own world, thinking of something of great importance, and brought him back to reality by saying, "So you like Kolkata?"
And he waited sometime and said, "Very very much..I used to wonder why I love you, and now I am wondering why I love this city..And somehow, everything fits..."
They decided to meet at her place, and from there, she took him to Academy, in a bus and then in a taxi. Throughout the journey, she kept talking. Talking about how she came there as a kid, how she literally memorised why each place was famous, and how she wondered how she would be able to remember all these places all her life.He kept smiling and soaking in the flavour of the city. So unlike Delhi, so classic in its being, so very laid back in its attitude and so very rich in its legacy...He could see where she got all that varied hues from...
The taxi stopped in front of a very gloomy blue-grey coloured building, with a huge garden in the front. The garden had statues of all shapes and sizes in it. Most of them were black or grey in colour and they looked as if they had been taken out of some other era and put here in modern Kolkata.
"And this is it! Academy! My favorite place in Kolkata! My folks would bring me here everytime we came for vacations and make me watch atleast one bangla natok. I would be itching for it to end so that I could get to the best part."
"Which is?" he asked with some of her excitement rubbing onto him.
She smiled and took his hand and took a right from the entrance. They kept going inside to what looked like a lonely lane behind the huge building. While he started to think it was one of her kinky ideas, the scene suddenly burst to life. There were hundreds of people in front of a small dingy canteen. The canteen looked like some matchboxes had been put on top of each other. The walls were chipped, the paint was worse than gone. A thin man was at the counter, swiftly taking money and handing out round coupons in yellow, red, green...
He was so amazed by the sight of this little joint, he didnt realise that she wasnt beside him anymore.
"Dada, ekta chicken roll and duto alur chop, ar duto mirinda!" she shouted out. She turned back and gestured him to come towards her and take the coupons to the kitchen inside.
He edged across the crowd, took hold of the coupons from her slender hand and looked around, not knowing which way to head. Also there were too many non vegetarians around him for comfort. Thankfully, she returned by his side and together, they handed their coupons to the sweaty man behind the slab.
While she waited impatiently, he wondered, how different they could be..She was a non veg lover, dreaming of good fish curry on most of the days and demanding what she called 'kosha mangsho' on a good Sunday. And here he was, a Jain boy, who ate just to survive, good veg food with not much thought put into it. On dates, while she would ask for chicken sanwiches and donuts and ice teas, he would have a paneer puff or a spinach sanwich! And yet, there was love...
When the plates came, he was almost guiltily greedy towards the smell that came from the chicken roll in her plate. Very quickly, he took a bite of his alur chop and gulped some Mirinda. Yummy. All around him, people were eating, talking with mouths full and discussing what sounded like Rabindra Nath Tagore, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, Marx and sunday's kosha mangsho. What a different clan were these Bengalis, he wondered...
She had sensed he was in his own world, thinking of something of great importance, and brought him back to reality by saying, "So you like Kolkata?"
And he waited sometime and said, "Very very much..I used to wonder why I love you, and now I am wondering why I love this city..And somehow, everything fits..."
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