It's not often that I feel like the way I did when I typed out the words I'm posting below.It was a strange,a brave feeling,a feeling like I could try and touch the sticky cobwebby part of my mind,the part that has been feeling this curious longing for quite some time.That part is hard to talk about,caught up as we are in considerations of what we sound like.But just sometimes,in a few scattered moments of feeling really,really happy,and in some ways,powerful,you realise that it really doesn't matter if you're making sense or not,whether you're sounding soppy or not-because what matters,in the end,is at least trying to put it into words,because there's not a chance in hell that you'll be able to get close to what it sounds like in your mind anyway.In your mind,it's full of beauty and pain and music,in the way an old Geeta Dutt number is.So anyway.This longing-it wasn't exactly anything I can describe,just the vague,un-pin-down-able sort of scratching at the back of my mind for I don't know what.And while I was writing this down(daring to write anything after a considerable length of time)I felt something inside me fill up,in a good way,if you know what I mean,and the hankering ebb away somewhat.I had never,as far as I can remember,felt that way before,and falling-to-pieces as the writing is,I want to have some sort of record of it somewhere,I think,testimony to the fact that I felt this complete at some point of time.

Right now, I’m sitting outside,with the planks making up the bench outside our cottage digging noticeably into my back—and before me, it’s raining. I can see the drops glistening on the blades of the grass that the bulb dangling from the thatched roof castes into relief, and beyond the circle of yellow, there’s a line of trees, rustling with the faintest breeze, and the silence on this remote place makes prominent all the unfamiliar, and very welcome, sounds of the leaves brushing, the drops hitting the different surfaces-the ground, the trees, the dripping-down; the clouds rumbling—and the entire scene in front of me flashing forth in split-seconds of startled illumination in the lightning…I can hardly remember feeling this…this exhilarated in the recent past.

You know when you expect to like everything about a certain place, and once you’re there, everything’s so damn disappointing, you want to head right back home? Yesterday was SO not one of them :)

I'm at this place called Shobuj Bon near Shantiniketan.It is this pleasant taste of slight unfamiliarity here that's so refreshing—be it the door that has to be bodily hoisted and put in front of the bathroom to give you the slight privacy, the feel of your bare feet gripping the grooves and ridges on the bamboo planks on the open macha that serves as our dining-room, and even dining on leaf-plates instead of plastic or metal ones.

But the best thing.The storms here. Uff. One has to see them to believe them. We were out in the open yesterday when one of them happened-sitting on the ghat of one of the ponds scattered all over the grounds. We’d been hearing megh-gur-gur for quite a while, and then, within a space of some 15 minutes, the wind had whipped everything around me into a frenzy, all I could see was a jumble of crazy swaying of different shapes, the patterns being wrought on the surface of the water, and I could see the wind,actually see it- hustling the spray this way or that, and out in the open, with the dusk turning into golden from the deepening blue, everything had the tang of pleasantly intimidating strangeness. The light was golden, as I said, that in itself making the scene look straight out of a CGI-enhanced film, not the yellow and neither the orangish-red that sometimes passes for that hue. It was weird, to say the least, of watching the storm live out its course, drenched to the bone and shivering,parents not even daring to let me run to my room and dry off because I'd almost stepped on a snake a few moments before. But far from being put out by the cold, I felt feverish with excitement. I longed to run out, through the leaves that threatened to whip me on my face, through the squelchy mud and the puddles red with the colour of the earth, and keep running, till exhausted, and then sit down and stay there and watch the sky split open with purple jagged lightning and hear the water drip from leaf, onto leaf, onto the ground, till it stopped raining and the world stepped out of the shade and made itself at home again.

Now,it has stopped raining . I smelt the rains today, saw it make its way towards me with long, low rumbling—and it came at last, overwhelming my senses. There’s hardly anything that can be said about the smell of wet earth that hasn’t already been said, but it wasn’t only that. It was the way the skin of a dog caught out in the rain smells, it was the way the one light shining through the trees with a greenish glow was blotted out by the slanted shards, it was the way the grass felt against my toes when I, on an impulse, ran to the nearest macha and back. It was a lot more, actually, but the forest is coming alive once more. The crickets have started chirping again. And right now, as the trees send forth their familiar odour, slightly-pungent, with a whiff of moisture, almost tangible—I feel strangely full.I don't feel like jumping around or dancing or singing or even speaking,but in a way that is probably not going to make sense to anyone,I feel like I can talk.Not that I feel particularly like talking,but I feel good enough to.Really talk,about all these barely-there things flitting through my brain,things that are a part of me,that I can really be honest about-and the ones I feel like hugging to myself most of the time.Maybe,very soon, I'll be ashamed of this sudden spurt of eloquence,but you know what?I don't want to be.At the risk of letting you find out who I really am,I want to be capable of this all my life,and never lose my sense of wonder at the only things that give me this heady feeling.Is this what it feels like to be drunk?

Maybe.

Not autobiographical,no :D Not fiction either,probably.Just a random snippet I wrote on my way to some place,and decided to post,goodness knows Why.The drafts I actually like keep rotting away,meanwhile :/

Putting my face right out of the window isn't such a good idea after all.Because the wind does not make me want to close my eyes with a pretty smile on my face like in the Alto ads.,it rather feels like the after-effect of a hard slap.Too warm for comfort.But then we reach that point where Ballygunge station is right below-and the local train rushes away with people hanging out at precarious angles.And the maal-gadi creeps in,heaped with something which looks like what I've pictured caviar as after reading about it in Asterix.Rail-lines make even dung look ethereal.And I scrunch my nose up and ignore the horrible smell at the highest point of Bijan Setu which always makes me want to throw up,because I'm craning my neck out to see the sad-looking red flag of some independent candidate flopping away by itself on the rooftop of some apartment.The sight of it reassures me,somehow.And,uh,there.We're on the other side,already.There's the market by the road,and there are the silver streamers hanging forlornly from the one branch of the one tree,but there is this vendor who has parked his cycle right below,so it's alright really.Because the cycle,with its assortment of beach balls and buckets and cosmetics and bundles of synthetic sharee-s is a happy blaze of colours,and the silvers streamers look at home.
This is why I never roll up my windows.Because in the course of those 5 minutes,I feel happy enough to wash you clear of all your little sins.In the privacy of my mind,true,but that is the only place where they rankled,as well.Yes,you never do get me,but that's alright.I'll be the stand-by,just the stand-by,never a force-or a mind-to reckon with,to just be there,to be dealt with indulgently by you.You forgive me for being bland.So will I,I Will forgive you -for never having given me credit for any thought.For never allowing for the possibility that I could think,in the first place.
And someday,maybe,when you realise this-I'll demand my respect.And we'll have an argument,or if you prefer it,a discussion-and clear this all up-and maybe shake off the garb of this placid little agreement we have called a relationship.I love you too much to be happy with just this,you see.

The kids of my building are positively evil.
They imitate the cuckoo every time it opens its mouth to coo(?) or cuckoo(??),whatever the verb-form is.They do it pretty well too.Convincingly enough for the cuckoo to fly into a rage Every Single Time.It answers at a higher volume,and the kid answers back,and this strange exchange goes on,with bird and mini-man locked in argument with mounting volume,till,I kid you not,the poor bird loses steam and fairly starts sputtering with rage.Ask Ma,if you don't believe me.This really happens.
I want to report the kids to animal rights activists.Frankly,waking up torn between hilarity and outrage and fairly choking with badly-timed laughter is getting to be a bore.

I wish I could kick the habit of talking to myself.
No,this is not an attempt at attaining there-are-voices-and-people-peopling-my-brain cooldom.See,these are real people I'm talking about.But imaginary conversations.In which I absolutely sparkle with wit and humour and manage to come up with the most amazing comebacks ever.Most often,these are extended,glow-rious versions of real conversations.Sometimes the sheer brilliance of my too-late repartee amazes me to such an extent that I break off in the middle and start grinning,and keep grinning.Ei je- :D
So back to yesterday.Here I was returning from college,and I got out of the building elevator.While closing the doors,I hadn't realised due to the level of my involvement,that I'd become audible.And there was a building kakima who had lumbered up behind me.
When I turned around,my mouth hung open mid-syllable.She looked elaborately around and over my shoulders and,with a rather angelic smile,said-'Hoe hoe,ei shob boyesh-e'.
But perhaps someday I'll write a book where I'll put in all my ideas andandand become famous for them.Like how,at the highest point of the Gariahat flyover,if you look carefully,you can see it tapering down and meeting the Golpark ground up ahead.And for all the world,the red-and-white striped railing looks like the long neck of a freak-of-the-nature candycane brontosaurus.And then these lumbersome people would talk about how brilliant I always was,instead of passing me off as some kind of a potential teenage delinquent.
But you'd probably be more interested in the red-and-white cotton confections sold at Archies for Valentine's Day.So too bad.I'll never get to gloat over the kakimas.

It's rather funny how one can wrench a 'bright side' out of possibly every sucky situation.Chicken-pox in the middle of a semester.Sounds just about mediocre horrible?OK,read:a forced 3-week unintentional holiday right in the middle of a semester that's impossibly short anyway,coupled with missing out on doing lots of other super-fun stuff that you've been aching to do.And unless you know me,you probably wouldn't know what a jumpy little creature I am,and how pissing-off it is to stay cooped-up when my energy levels are in a perpetually spiked-up state.
But turns out,it's all good,really.Because this was needed.Strangely enough,this feels like it has fallen into space.Although I'll probably feel differently when I lay my eyes on the stacks of notes my incredibly organised 'pillar of sanity' Chandrima has accumulated and kept for me,let me just enjoy these feelings while they last.
Surefire recipe for self-pity,this should've easily been-idle mind being workshop for evil thoughts and what-not.But I've been rather mature,I think *backpat,backpat* and actually been able to take a step back and sort of evaluate my standing.Oh wait,that sounds too stuffy for comfort.Well,in less-aantel terms,that means I've figured out a couple of things that was really,really important for me to have figured out.
Ah well,that wasn't much of an improvement now,was it?
But yes.Bottomline:I'm a little wiser now.And will be,hopefully,for some time to come?
And ohYes.I got to know about strange,and scary things-which I never would've unless I'd had this much time on my hands to go channel-surfing and stumble upon PSA commercials.But seriously-1411 tigers?THAT less?When I saw the Facebook group 'save tigers only 1411 left' I thought it was a scam group as usual.But seems like it's true.Arrgh.Fashionistas and interior-decorators should start dissing animal-prints and fur and scrunch up their powdered noses with a great deal of finality so that the demand for fur goes down once and for all,and poaching bloody well stops.But like all my ideas,this is also very half-baked and utopian,I'm sure.But there must be some way?
This strain of thought,again,drifted off to a curiously accusatory vein.Thoughts like 'Doubling back to drop a 5-rupee coin into a bowl or looking out for and buying CRY stationary doesn't mean you're doing anything useful.That you do to make yourself feel good.If you want to make a change,BLOODY WELL GO OUT THERE AND DO SOMETHING!'The capitals are there with a point.Jiminy Cricket can shout.And when it's somewhere around 2 in the morning and you're trying to find an angle to rest Head at which Head doesn't feel like it's having pins driven into it,it doesn't help much.But then as I said,it was necessary.And now Cricket should take a holiday.Things can rarely get more honest,and more pointless than this.This is a Blog.And this is Disgustingly Public.And this is curiously the first draft I'm actually posting after an obscenely long time,goodness knows why,because I'm sure this is too personal a post.
So umm.This post doesn't 'start off at a specific point and go to a specific point'.It probably doesn't make any point at all.It's just peppered with interrogation marks.But you must allow me to rant once in a while in my own blog,na?

This September was the first time I'd been on a plane.And I've come to this conclusion:Plane rides are shit.Train journeys are the shit.
Yes,the latrines are cooler.They don't stink.Compared to train loos,you could possibly sleep in the aircraft bathrooms.And yes,there are no roaches on planes.This time,in the Goa-to-Mumbai train,there was a cockroach family crawling up and down the insides of our compartment the whole time.But that's about it.
Right from lugging your suitcases into the compartment,trains make you feel good about yourself.The very achievement of having elbowed about 87 people and having found your berths and stashed your baggage into the nifty nooks and finally secured the much-coveted window seat fills you with a comfortable sense of achievement.And when the train finally starts moving with a mighty jerk,that's when you heave a great sigh and press your nose to the rusty window grilles and peer out,and slowly leave the electric posts and wires knotted up in great bunches above your head--behind [ :) ] Aaahh.
And if the boarding is at night-then it just gets better.There'd be small pin-pricks of light amiably twinkling at you through condensed darkness,there'd be stretches of gray and cotton-candy-ish looking clumps that you'd just know are fields and copses,there'd be shadows on the ground scrambling along with the train-with the square of light horizontally dissected by the window bars and your shadow in stark relief,and there'd be quaint little stations with one shop,one concrete bench,and a sad-looking man with one piece of baggage standing under the one lamp waiting for a train there.And slowly,the lights all around you will slowly be going off,as people tuck in,having finished the contents of their dabbas-and if you are one of those few people who will still be awake,you'll hear the fans overhead groaning with even more clarity,and snatches of songs by people playing antakshari from some far-off compartment.The cha-walas will religiously be coming around,and as you sip from the steaming bhaaNrs-you'll probably think that cha has never tasted better. I remember this one train journey from Lucknow to Lalkuthi especially well.It was a metre-gauge line(metre-gauge train?)...something of that sort,I think,which basically meant that the insides of the train were smaller,and narrower than usual-with no corridor seats.And I woke up at 3.17 a.m. (I had a digital watch then).Everybody else was asleep,so I went to the corridor and opened the side-window,and besides a blast of icy wind,what hit me was the way the train actually thundered over the endless number of bridges.I also discovered that my cargoes were really cool and could be detached at the knees to become half-pants,but before I could wake Baba up and tell him,my knees started clanking together from the sheer cold and I put the halves together again.But that's beside the point.
And as 4 rolled into 5 and 5 into 6-it started getting light outside.And the blacks and the grays turned into sparkling greens and blues and...before I knew it-we were at the sweetest litle station that I'd ever laid my eyes on.End of journey.
Now,if you dare,say that planes are better.The sanitised,hospitallish air,the over-priced food,the straight-backed slightly reclinable-seats,and the well-starched air hostesses.Blleh.They even hide the hunky stewards away somewhere.
And the trains.The food.The seats-where you can stretch out with abandon.The works.
Kono comparison cholbe na.Nyet.

Philosophy.Yes.

An intense discussion with Pompom brought this up and got me thinking.
The expression:Butterflies in my stomach.
Honestly,much as I like the little winged suckers,having something fluttering around in my tummy would either kill me with tickles(I have a morbid fear of katookootoo) or make me throw up.For me,the latter would hold true.I think.
Your thoughts? :)
P.S.:POM,I put the intense part in bold to lend it believability.See,see?