Hostel Part II

[This is a continuation of the earlier story I did about my hostel life. The same precautions and parental guidance are valid in this case too. ]

Hostel helped me to grow up. Our college and hostel was located in the same campus. It was far from the city. So there were hardly any time pass apart from playing football or cricket in the afternoon after college is over. We spent our time by going college, by not going college, by drinking tea at chacha’s shop just outside the campus, or eating the fabulous ghoognee(a chatpata dish made of chhola) with mudi.

Ragging days were over and it was time to befriend between ourselves. Freshers welcome was coming soon. Every college has its own heritage of giving fresher’s welcome. Ours was the fabulous choreography, of course by our senior girls. None admitted it but I am sure everyone loved it. There were really beautiful girls giving us a dancing welcome, something we had never thought we would ever get, not even if we someday win a nobel prize. And our mind raced. For seniors, whoever reads this post, “No, we strictly didn’t fantacise about your girlfriend!”. We were a bunch of loosers on the second floor. None of us were handsome, none of us ever capable of doing anything in life. We stayed in the anonymity of our second floor life. Ground floor and first floor knew that there are people who are there on top of them, but none really knew who are these morons. We became friends through this united second floor feeling. And there came a blow.

As soon as the ragging days were over, people came out with their own ideas of harassing other people. When I say harassing, it was not exactly harassment, it was simple fun but sometimes a bit overboard. At least the person on whom the prank is being played will definitely think so.

I remember one night after a tough day at college (having done woodworks at the workshop it was definitely one of those rare physical labour days ) I was sleeping hard. Suddenly a splash woke me up. I was so deep in sleep that suddenly it felt like a flood has come into my room. and I woke up, in the darkness I could figure out a guy moving outside my room through the open window. I woke up to fully to realise a dirty underwear hanging on top of the mosquito net of my bed giving that flash effect!

My friends and I retaliated. We invited those two guys who did this to play prank on two of the other guys from our floor. They agreed not knowing the gangster move we played beneath this. They had cocme to scare the two of the most peaceful guys of our floor. And the plan we had was, as soon as they come, we have to shout as if thieves have broken into. And then give those two a nice beating. The plan went on excellently and the next morning, there were cries of pain from two rooms.

These were petty hostel rivalries. These faded away as we grew up. Slowly there formed groups among ourselves.

1. Group A: group of nerds. Every college has them. They read hard, usually bespectacled, use a lot of PJs and laugh out loud at them. Some people considered me to be a part of this bunch initially due to good results in the beginning. As my results went down gradually, they lost all the hope they had about me and I was no longer (not even in ppl’s thoughts) a part of this.
2. Group B: group of Casanovas. These people were hugely interested in girls. From day1 they had their eyes set up on picking up girls. They talked about which girl to be picked up. They used to bet on who will pick which girl. They even went on to bet which hostel guys will have all the girls and all stupid stuff.
3. Group C: group of sports buff. A lot of my friend circle belonged to this group. This people ate, drank and dreamt of sports. There were people who used to play football after coming back from college then during the evening, there started the looong period of table tennis, carom volleyball etc. And if it was winter, we had our beloved cricket and badminton tournaments.
4. Group D: group of street smarts. The most respected group of the college. These were the people loved by all. They might be short on funda, short on their patience to study but they had a brain to overcome all. These people usually featured in all activities of college enthusiastically, scored good ranks and had a high CGPA.
5. Group E: group of addicts. By addicts I don’t mean cocaine or heroine though. But I am sure there were a couple of fellows regularly taking those. The most popular in thing in hostel was N10 tablets. Another spasmo tablet. Never knew what they are for or what pleasure they gave to these people. Some of them ruined their lives. Some, when I last heard, were on the verge of doing the same.
6. Group F: group of madhatters. I love to call them so as essentially these people never fit into any known types. They were a brand of their own. Some of them singers, some of them poets, some of them loners, some of them gamers and some of them most creative people on earth!

More to come on this…a lot more groups were there. Stay tuned…

Coast to Coast

Made by Andrea Micheloni

People of the Sun

Someone has tagged me! In my long bored blogger life for the first time. And I am thankful to her...But this brought about some problems to me. The rules of this tagging thingy as I got to understand is that you need to

1. Put shitload of songs onto your music player (have to be a digital player...winamp on your lappy, Ipod, whatever you've got)
2. Keep it on shuffle mode (if this doesn't make sense to you, choose a different player)
3. For each question hit the next button and you don't have to really listen to the songs...
4. You must write the name of the song that comes up like this as the answer of the question...whatever goddamn it means.

As I told I don't even listen to songs that much. I have one play list made of a few selected songs and I listen to them again and again and again...and then when I get bored with them I give them a break....and then I listen to them again! :-(

I know I am pathetic. But what to do? So I got hands on my roomies hard disk and loaded all I could see onto Winamp!!
Now the rest was quite easy.

IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY?” YOU SAY?
Lyla (Eric Clapton)
:-O Don't know why but I do say that!!

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Somebody to love (Jefferson airplane)
Oh ya baby that’s who I am!


WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
The first cut is the deepest (Sheryl Crow)

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
London calling (The Cash)
Yah it is infact. From tomorrow starts another week of to and fro journey of London...I hate my job!

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
Sorrow (Pink Floyd)
Another bingo!! How am I doing this!!


WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Living Las Vegas (Sheryl Crow)
I want to do that maan!! That's my life's motto...

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Things have changed (Bob Dylan)
I never wanted to...but you know things do change...sometimes for worse!


WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS?
Bring your own bomb (Systems of a down)
They do bomb me sometimes though! :-)

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Just might make me believe (Sugarland)


WHAT IS 2+2?
Touch my bum (the cheeky song) - by cheeky girls
If you ask such stupid questions again...I will continue to be rude like this! :X

DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
The Road Jack Beat(Cassidy, freestyle RAP)
I have no idea how to tell it to you...

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Anarchy in the UK(Sex Pistols)
Yes indeed you have brought anarchy in my life while in UK...

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Pump It (Black Eyed Peas)
Yah that's pretty much sums up it.

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
The Seventh Seal(Van Halen)
By the way to you really mean grow up? Or you mean grow old? How do I grow up more?

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Downtown train(Rod Stewart)
I am in trouble today!

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
A million love songs(Gary Barlow)
I love you too, ppl!

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
You Got Another Thing Coming(Judas Priest)
well ahem .... may be!

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
A Design for Life(Manic Street Preachers)
I am flattered!

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Running with the devil (Val Halen)
yes that's what I do all the time!

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Can't anybody hold me down (Puff Daddy and Mase)
None can dude!

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Sacrifice (Eric Clapton)

Please don't .. I really don't mean it!

WHAT SHOULD YOU POST THIS AS?
People of the sun(Rage against the machine)

Phewww!! and you thought I am afraid of being tagged? :P

Hostel part 1

[This post is for consenting adults only! I bear no responsibility for those echor e paka, less than 18 year olds who read this! a guardian must accompany them while reading this post, and decide whether or not to let their sons to an engineering college hostel! For girls who have lived in the pinky pinky paradise of their mother's lap the following post might seem to be rude, for the guys and other type of girls this was my life in hostel and I am being absolutely honest about it...There will be more posts coming on it as time passes by]

No dude, this ain’t gonna be the review of the Quentin Tarantino flick. Those are not as amusing as real life can be. Trust me my hostel life was ruder, violent and a step in the guy’s world with a hilarious touch on it. A whole new world where you get to know guys from Bengal’s remotest places to the posh and sexy ones telling us stories of hooking with a high class escort! Life was never as educating as this.

I went to a residential engineering college in West Bengal. Life one fine day became different for me. There you go alone in a completely different world devoid of any parental insurance, empty of motherly care. It was a man’s world.

First day when I faced ragging I just came to the college to get admitted. My father was with me. He was a man of middleclass values and morality. Already pouring his anxiety in my ears as words of wisdom and advice, he was visibly worried to let his son be alone. There were those much feared tribe of people around, the so called seniors looking like street goons with their unshaved faces. I got called from a second year hostel. My father waited outside. I, worried and nervous, went ahead towards the hostel while my father waited on the street. It was a classic scene. I was growing up.

My first ragging with my father standing nearby was not much exciting. It was a bunch of kind seniors who were good natured and asked me couple of half wit questions before asking me to go join my father.

As time passed by I grew into the hostel. Or rather hostel grew inside me like a parasite. Or better to say probably a mutual symbiotic relationship was created between me and hostel. All the hostilities from the seniors were nothing before this growing bond. This was a bond which taught me life.

I still remember the first few days, every day after college some or other seniors used to call me. I was probably one of the most unlucky guys around. I was a quiet calm fellow always living in the shadows. But somehow my hunters would find me out. I was pretty naïve at that time. Having come from Siliguri I didn’t know many things. Yes, I hadn’t seen a full porn movie yet. It was banned on siliguri cable not even on the late night. I hadn’t known the local slang for masturbation! I didn’t know the exact terminologies of a female anatomy. I didn’t know cursing to the fullest extent.

So the ragging sessions became learning sessions for me. I learnt all these things plus a few more. I learnt how to read a news paper when after every word you insert “My C***k” and then after another word you insert “your c**t”. I learnt what will be the trajectory if a drop of water falling from tip of Madhuri’s nose to the very end and places it would travel. I learnt how to calculate PCM of myself. I learnt also how to propose to a senior girl!

Our college in that manner was civilised when we joined. None actually got me naked and spanked me on my butt. None actually ordered me to have a zebra fashioned moustache (probably because my moustache was quite thin and unnoticeable that time). None actually made me play “lalu bhulu” with a fellow guy. And I am thankful to my seniors for these. As, if I were asked to do these things, God knows what I would have done, but for one thing was sure the guys who were coming to join this hostel as our successors, things could only get worse.

Battlefield Gatwick!

I was hiding behind a bush. I could feel the bullets raining all around me. I was crawling on the muddy soggy woodland. My goggles were all blurry with myst. It was a cold winter morning and I had a bad hangover from the previous night. Suddenly there was something moving on far right of me. I was beneath the remnants of dead fallen tree. I could not move, as if I did the whole tree would move and the “something” moving on my right would not think twice before shooting me. I moved my righthand slowly. I tried to aim the gun I had towards the guy on my towards this object. My shoulder bumped against the wood while doing so. I froze. I stopped breathing. I tried to gauge whether my object got my position. Then I moved again. I positioned my gun with more care this time. Aimed and shot a burst of 10 shots.


“Player down!” shouted the referee. And the player was down, and then came a burst of shots from another near by tree. One of the black musketeers were there and there I went down.

We were playing paintball at Gatwick. It was a place with three marshals and a bunch of crazy people. We ran across woodlands to grab the opponents base, we defended castles, we attacked castles, got divided into different wings we called each other alfa and deltas we had a lot of bruises all over our bodies, and most importantly we had fun.

Calcatians don’t bite….3

So this time what I really saw in calcutta? Nothing much really. This city has been able to keep its old smell with a hint of make over though. It wears miniskirt these days and kisses without shame. PDA is not a thing to feel shame about. Sex is on the rise as it is evident by all the MMS sites and the number of Bengali scandals there. Yes I am a pervert and I frequently venture into those sites. Do you have a problem?

Somethings which caught my eyes this time was the plethora of tv channels. There seemed to be n number of tv channels on the cable network. Star ananda, 24 hours, ne bangle etc etc. and the good part of it was that all these are news channels. Local issues really needed a voice and these channels if managed and handled properly can be just that.


But like all other Indian news channels these also tend to go overboard with certain issues. Just like they got with Rizwanur case, and just like they got with the UFO case. Star ananda had called two eminent astronomers to understand that the glowing thing on the sky is nothing but our very own venus and not a UFO. Jeesus Christ. Also like their news paper star ananda almost covered all the daily events in Suchitra Sen’s life in those few days while she was under treatment in belleview nursing home. Can imagine why she took this self imposed denial from the media and limelight. Guys for gods sake, no need to imitate English media. They have already killed their princess by doing this, do we need to go the same way? Also is personal life of a celebrity so much of an enticing thing for the avg Bengali people? I would say there is a lot of good thing which Indian media can learn from the british media, and being neutral can be one of them. But I saw our media is more keen on learning the paparazzy tricks.



Star ananda had its mind set on showing off mamata banerjee on the nandigram issue. Then CPM cadres attacked their pressmen and things changed overnight. The much praised and so called cultured CM of west Bengal suddenly became the demon of the day. And ananda went all ga ga about the cpm brutalities in Nandigram. We are not kids and we understand politics dude. Try something more subtle next time.

This Calcutta reassured me of one thing that human beings still live in this city. The procession by city’s eminent intellectuals in protest of inertness of government in nandigram was something which showed being unpolitical sometimes can be the biggest political statement. But it also raised a point of doubt in my mind. How much of hearitness was really in it. How much of all these hullagullas were driven by true concern for people? Why this voices didn’t shout before? Why now? The unpolitical character became a bit dirty and a lot more unclear in my mind. But I hope it was simple conscience which made people do these things and not by some other agenda driven by others. Calcutta a city of aantels truly showed still there are aantels who apart from being aantels can sometime think of real and hard lived issues as well.



Calcutta also revealed its real smell in the night of navami when I went on a night out trip through the city to have a glimpse of the most beautiful puja mandaps of this year. And all I can still remember is the foul smell of urine everywhere. Calcutta pissed and it pissed in its pants it seems. A place like New Alipore can be so dirty is something I can hardly imagine.

More to come on Calcutta and calcatians…

Calcatian’s Don’t Bite……………..2

Since I am such a comment hunter and my reader(s!!!???!!!) have threatened me of not giving comments until and unless I write some good things about Calcutta, here I am and there you go.

Calcutta as was portrayed in my previous topic looked like a city of brainless dumpers (god knows what that means) or in other words a city of modern English educated smarties. Which I am afraid is a too much of generalization of a city which far far greater than any other city of India in colour, in culture and in liveliness. If you want to see Calcutta and its life in true colors, u have to come with me for a ride which I took on last Wednesday.

I was supposed to go to a bank at Girish Park. When I finished my work, it was 1pm and I still had quite sometime at hand. I chose to roam around and capture some of the city moments in my camera.

1. I traveled to Park Street. I went to the place where thousands of people came together to do a civilized protest against the mysterious death of Rizwanur Rahaman. I sat on the pavement, there was nothing worth capturing there at that point. There was nothing which I could take a snap of and show people that see this is Calcutta and this is how the people of Calcutta are. That is a pity. But sitting there at the pavement, I could feel the energy, the sentiment and the same sympathy that those people had who came to light a candle for a guy who is from a different religion, whose life probably doesn’t have similarity to any of ours life, who was born anonymous and death made him famous. I have little to do with Rizwanur’s death and nor do I know what all went in between the husband and wife’s families. I was simply amazed at the response people gave and the way they accepted a muslim fellow’s marriage to a rich hindu girl. I am sure if you were in somewhere south or somewhere west of India, this would not happen. Bravo Kolkata.

2. The next stop was at Victoria memorial. I still remember the day when my parents brought me to this architectural wonder. I looked at it with awe. This time was no exception. I looked at the memorial, and was lost in memory until something broke my spell. A guy, in yellow t-shirts and jeans was saying to a girl, “bolo amar bou hobe?” [“Tell me,will you be my wife?”]. and quite amazingly the girl responded with a soft and quite Hollywood style kiss on the guy’s lips. A sweet simplicity which is the bloodline of this city touched me and that sweet sound of the kiss kept on ringing in my head and heart for the rest of the day. People suddenly have grown up here.

3. The last part was the most tiring of my journey. I was returning home and I had to catch a local train from Dumdum junction to the suburban area where I live. It was a train fully crowded. And as usual there were hastles at every station. People had to struggle with great vengeance. In Agarpara stop, I noticed an old man (I guess his age would be somewhere near 75) running after the train and jumping on to it with an amazing dexterousness. Kolkata lives at the age of 75 too. It struggles to live on, and it succeeds. Then there was this boul(a kind of singer from the Vaishnava Sect) who started singing a song in the tune of a rabindrasangeet in that jampacked train. Then there was this blind kid, who had a speaker on his back, a harmonium hanging from his shoulders and singing, “ek bar bidai de ma ghure asi” and suddenly I was all emotional. May be it owes a lot to the fact that I have been staying abroad or that I love my mother tongue dearly but still I would give credit to the city which stays, at this age of superfast globalization, a virgin when it comes to its people and their unscathed lifestyle. These trains are the bloodlines of Calcutta, and they truly portray the life of it.

Don’t know whether I have blabbered a lot in this post or I have talked nonsense too much. May be I’m a sentimental fool to think in these lines but these were the moments which touched me quite a lot and I am just being true to myself.

Calcatians don’t bite….1

I have never been a calcatian. I have always had lot of problems with this city. To tell you the truth we never got along nicely. Neither did we this time.

As the readers know, I grew up in a small town called Siliguri. Growing up in small towns have their disadvantages and advantages. I knew greenery. I knew how nice it is to look at kanchanjungha right when you wake up in the morning. I knew how nice it feels when all of a sudden you meet someone on the road and smile back. I knew how to go on your cycle and get lost in a rain forest. I knew how cold exactly the water of Teesta is. Like this I knew a lot of things. There were things I didn’t know as well.

When I passed the so called hurdle of JEE which is most dreaded and respected GOD of West Bengal these days, I came to join college in a small village and I got to know some Calcutta guys. Guys of Calcutta were a thing to see for us. Although siliguri is a quite modern city compared to the other mofussils of Bengal (Thanks to the proximity of the nepali and pahari gorkhas- the girls are simply to good in the hills), still we always felt a tinge of inferiority complex when we met those convent educated Calcutta guys. Fortunately for us though, there were only a few to fall into this category.

I still remember a conversation from my early days in college, where someone was telling about his preparations before JEE counseling. He actually got a fair amount of guess (!!??!!!) of how much he is gonna rank (which incidentally was something so obscure I have no idea how he got it right), and he went around to all the colleges he could get admission to find out which college has which dept in shape. That was the time when private colleges were forming up in Bengal. We hardly had 6 colleges under private control, and we being the backbenchers had to choose one of those alone. Whatever, my point is not how this guy did his research and all, or what all parameters he actually calculated to say which dept is good in which college, or whether he did some crash course from AICTE for accreditation of colleges! My point is calcatians do these things, they do these things simply to show their class and we were so much shadowed by the calcatian’s aura I felt ashamed. I felt ashamed that I didn’t do any research at all, one of my teachers told me that I was an idiot not to get through JU or BESU, so I can go to hell and get admitted to any engineering college. Another of my teachers told me that I should look for electronics and gave me two colleges’ names which he believed was good. I kept faith on my teacher. While in counseling, the guy asked me what I want, I said I want electronics, that guy replied u have the following options. I heard one known name in that options list (which was a very short list though), and there I was getting admitted to a college and making the most important decision of my life (or atleast it seemed to be so at that juncture of my life). So you see we small people (a direct translation of “chhote log”) don’t stand a chance when it comes match a calcatian. There was another guy who within the first few days announced that he was from South Point school which has the world record of most no of students in a class. I and a few others who were from the land of “far far away”, were awestruck again. South Point!!! The school of all those bespectacled geniuses whose pictures feature in the front pages after every HS or Secondary results, those who clearly announce after their feat that they want to do research in NASA or treat poor people of India, make medicines of cancer, win noble prizes, fuck Katie Moss, lick G W Bush’s arse and God knows what! Then he announced another bombshell, the higher secondary topper was his batch mate and he copied the last sum of the second paper mathematics from this higher sec topper to secure his 80%. He also announced he has never believed in luck, he believes in being at the right place at the right time with the right people. God Damn us small towners.

These people had a different chain of thought in their heads. We didn’t know a lot of things at that time, and that is the essence I am trying to give out in my meaningless essay. Have u got it? If not its not your problem, you see we people don’t know to write English properly. Never read in convents you know! I remember one of my friends wife quipping about this strange breed. SHe told me about one from this tribe saying once "Ishhhh...this road is so kada pachpach. so disgusting u know!" Readers who don't understand bengali I am sorry i do not have enough knowledge in english to translate it.

[this is the first of a chain of posts I wish to do about calcutta and things i like and I don't like about this great and beautiful city.... the starting I am doing with a not so pleasant note but keep reading and I am sure you will find that I am not so much nagging about thsi city after all...]

Taking life as it goes…

It’s not an easy job. It’s not an easy job to take life as it goes, to take it easy. It creeps in silence; it advances its army of darkness in your mind. And slowly it engulfs your senses. The expectations fall apart, and suddenly the whole world becomes black and white loosing all its animated colors.

When I grew up, I grew up reading Sarat Chandra, Tagore’s romantic works. My father gave me a book on English poetry’s romantic age. That was an amazing book with small annotations in my father’s unintelligible handwriting on the margin. I read those poems with the eyes of Columbus looking at the new world. The attraction towards the fairer sex became known to me.

I wanted to fall in love like every other adolescent of my age. Romanticism became a way of life for me. I still remember those lively discussions with my mates about the definition of love and how to find them. I thought I knew it, and it’s only a matter of time to find it. I wanted to create something like those poems and I knew it by heart that it’s possible only if you fall, and fall hard in love.

There were these numerous diaries that my dad used to get from different well wishers, and I loved those. Those became the first breeding ground for my poems. I spent sleepless nights in the thoughts of an unknown lady who will make my life more charming, more delightful. Love was all over me and unlike kids of today I didn’t know something so powerful is not something of a child’s play.

All these things at a point became obsession for me. I fell in love almost everyday with the girl sitting next to me, with the girl whom I talked to for one minute to ask a question in my biology tuition, with the girl who on an ashtami was wearing that beautiful sari and that hypnotizing perfume.

And quietly, deep inside my heart I knew I have never known love. I wondered around the city on my bicycle only to see my school mates roaming around with good looking girls on their way back from tuition. I saw a lot of my seniors in school settling down with the girl of they loved. I envied them, as the grass is always greener on the other side.

Later I thought one need not look for love. It is something that should look for you. And someone told me that whatever happens to you is for good. Although the latter one is a cliché and everyone knows about it, at this point I started believing it as it came out of a girl and she let me know this after turning down the first offer I could ever frame up or rather to say could accumulate enough courage to place.

I grew up with all these. Not having love in life was something that demoralized me. I always wanted to have someone to talk to. Someone to share my heart’s content with. With all due respect to my mom, she could not possibly be the one to share a growing up kid’s all the thoughts. She could not become the one. My continuous hunt went on.

When I met her, I was 24. Not really a kid anymore. Living away from my parents had already given me a bit of maturity. All 18 years in a boy’s school had taken its toll and I was never smart enough to talk to girls till this point. Now things were changing. I was no longer desperate and I was no longer single and looking. Rather I was only single.

We had some previous connections to get us introduced. Both of us were aliens in a new city. We didn’t know what to do and how to live out our life in there. We spent time together. Weekends came and passed; days became long and then short again. Our proximity became unmatched to any past time. Suddenly one day I, for the second time in my life, fell again. I asked the question and straight came the answer “NO”.

But this time there was a separate tinge in the answer, a little pickle like taste, a bit of spice and that no remained in my life till date. How sweetly one can say a yes in disguise of a NO! Life changed for me. For the first time I was a proud boyfriend of a nice girl. Things are never this straight in life. Like the countless waves in marina beach, events in life come and go and the only thing they leave behind is the wet sand. Our relation too became sour, sourer and sourest, when we decided to part. Parting was not an easy job at least not for me. She seemed to take it quite easily. I could never learn the trick. Probably the born romantic in me didn’t let me learn it. I broke. I even got determined to win her back. I swore that she will never be happy without me. I cursed the distance between us, I cursed my destiny. But as an end result, I was back to square one, this time more devastated than ever. I don’t know how these events take place. Are there any rules of statistics, probability which govern them? Are there any laws of natural phenomena which can rationalize why people behave as irrationally as I did? As I said in the beginning, it’s never easy to take life as it goes, and it’s harder to take life easy. Loves labor was lost, and so am I.

[A fictitious diary of a broken mind]

Dadu

I have always been influenced by elders. Elders have always blinded me with their achievements, their struggle for existence and success in it, and their advices. Now that may not be much of a thing what a “Kool” dude would have wanted to do. But I did.

I will talk about my grand parents today… well don’t have that much time to talk about all of them but let me talk about at least one of them here.

He is my mother’s father- Rabindra Nath Halder. He was the one who probably had the biggest influence on me. From my childhood I have heard people saying this is the guy who fits in perfectly in his grand father’s shoes. Well truly I wish I could.

He was a great personality. I have never managed to see him young, quite obviously as he is my grand dad. But I can imagine his youthful glory days. He was tall and stout. His eyes were intelligent and expressive. And he had a memory which I have never seen in anyone else.

When I look back into my life, I try to recollect my earliest encounters with his wit, intelligence and thoughts, I go back to a day of summer when I came to Kolkata to spend sometime at our always so beloved didabari (although the house was owned by Dadu, as we called him, it was named after our much loved dida, grandmother).

Dadu used to call me and start with 4 liners of a poem. Most of them I have never read nor have I heard anywhere. And in some cases lines of poems which I should be knowing but forgot because of my usual lack of concentration, and after reciting those lines, Dadu used to ask me tell me dear, who has written these famous lines?

I, as should be the case, lost the duel of intellect most of the time. I was no match to his memory. But those losses those questions and answers those battles of intellect made me determined next time I will not forget this. And I will prepare more. I wonder at the age of 70 how he remembered all those poems which he last read probably during his college days. And mind it, later on when I have seen his health breaking down, when I have seen his bent structure, when seeing him I have been afraid and thought about my own future, still he was spot on with his poems and those 4 liners.

Sometimes I wanted to run away, and play with my cousins. Sometimes I didn’t want to talk to Dadu about literature and I found some ways to avoid him. Just what the youth does…I guess. But now I feel guilty that by doing so, so many enlightening sessions I have lost. So many inspirations never reached me. Probably I would have been a different person had I been a bit more enthusiastic.

Dadu apart from all his literary abilities was a man of great abilities also. He was a civil servant, working as a magistrate for Govt of West Bengal. He was a proud Govt Official and wanted me to be one. He had always wanted me to go the same route and even higher. When I resisted saying that there is nothing but corruption in govt officials he never believed me. He talked about high ideals and people like Mahatma and Bidhan Chandra Roy.

When I started going to college which was quite near to Kolkata, I started to look at Dadu from a bit different angle. I wanted to analyse him. I wanted to know him as a distant person would have known him.

But I never really could actually. Whenever I looked at him, my respectful eyes and my love for him never let me look at him like a distant person. I was close to Dadu, much closer than his own son could ever get, and much closer than anyone else I got to know.

I used to come for every weekend to Dida bari. Our childhood fantasyland had already lost its charm immensely by that time. I will tell that story some other time. But those weekends was a sense of responsibility that grew inside me. Those two old people who despite their difficulties of survival (as they were living on their own at the age of 84 and 74 respectively my Dadu and dida) expected me to come home every weekend.

Every time my train got delayed, Dadu would stand on the nook of the road, expecting me on one of the numerous autos that passed by. I would take Dadu on those Saturdays to Bank when he needed to pick up his pension. A meagre amount for a magistrate though. And he was growing old, his hand used to shake quite a lot while signing.

One day the bank manager denied him his pension as his sign was not matching. What an irony. A life long devotee of honesty, a brilliant scholar, an honest govt official, a judicial magistrate is begging for a peanut amount (3000 rs)!!! The bank manager confidently asked me to prove that he is RN Halder who holds this pension account.

I fortunately by that time had come out of my small time naivety. I called my uncle and (Dadu’s son) who was a big manager of the same bank and only then the matter got resolved. And when it did, I told the manager, this is what happens to honest people in India. Why bother being one?

Dadu was in pain. He was humiliated, trembling. And I was in pain too.


My Dadu left me left all of us 3 months ago. On his bed while asleep. He faced much pain during his last few days. But his death was peaceful. I, who claimed to be the closest one to him, was sitting in UK in a restaurant having a glass of wine. I have never felt guiltier of my existence since then.


I am crying now. But surely he didn’t want me to. When I talked to him last over a phone and he was on his deathbed, Dadu just had one wish that time. He wanted to see me. Which I could not. I am crying now and I can hear his rhythmic voice chanting lines from Rabi Thakur and then sudden question “bolo to Ankan, er porer line ta ki?”

Isle of Skye

Never really thought of going anywhere the last long weekend. As it came I was more willing to take long naps during those three days and forget everything about work. Then suddenly it struck me. The passion which drives me roam around all over the world my globe trotting inner self…

And on Friday night I found myself with my back pack on a bus ride to the northern valleys of Scottish highland. Can’t say the bus ride was fun. The buses in England are crappier than what you would find in a Chennai to Bangalore route. There you get those nice cozy Volvos with extreme luxurious seats with ample leg space. Here being a tall man as I am it becomes extremely difficult to travel on a bus. Last time while going to paris I sweared that I would never board a bus again in England for a long journey but I did it again just to take the same resolution again.

But this time I was prepared. With my IPOD in one of the numerous pockets of my six pocket cargo and another carrying my PSP, I was loaded for the sleepless night that followed. Watched national treasure while going and then listened to the wonderful melodies from Bong Connection which kept me going. The breaks were enjoyable too. Midnight cappuccinos with a puff of Marlborough amidst a light freshening shower is truly something!!

Morning I found myself standing in Perth. A northerly town of scottland, with strange English speaking people around me…


Let’s cut the crap a bit here. I am not here to write some fucking travelogue. I am here to share an experience which I think very few of you have had. That experience is called Skye.

On Sunday morning we started for Skye. Not knowing what to expect we were full of jokes and amusing expectations. But what we saw after a drive of three hours (which were colored with enumerous breaks alongside the roads) we saw a curved bridge going skywards and then landing on a small Island with broken coastline with the see and lochs invading into it every now and there. And that is Skye.

Over the next day and half what I saw was enough to give my camera shout for break. And finally I realised that how many ever photos I may take I will never be able to catch the beauty of the land which lies in front of me.

An island as calm as one can ever imagine that is skye my friend. Some of the land scapes are so full of nature and greenery that I felt many of these places may not have been touched by human beings. Especially the road that goes from Portree to Old man of Storr. It’s a single lane which goes over a vast valley and suddenly out of nowhere you will get to see the storr and its strange rock formations.

We got down there and started rock climbing. And once we were on top, the whole world became a separate place. Blue ocean surrounding the place and dark cullin mountains at the horizon. I thought snaps will be less to carry this whole piece of beauty home. And now I know words also are far lesser (or truly speaking I do not know such words in English which can) to describe this beauty.



My recommendations would be if you go to highlands go to Skye.

Indipendence Day

Independence day this year was different. Standing on British soil, we a bunch of 70 odd Indians got together in a meeting room of our office. We shared our views about freedom. We had a quiz about independence and India. And finally we stood together to sing our national anthem. I closed my eyes and started singing aloud to feel all around me different accents(Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Hindi,Bengali and all) singing along in the same tune and in harmony.

I discovered a new Jana Gana Mana Adhinayaka this independence day. I discovered India. I had goose bumps and I felt, suddenly, proud to be Indian.

Jai Hind.

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Irritation

I am a very irritating guy. Not that I irritate the hell out of others. But I myself am very much prone to irritation. The whole of today morning i was irritated with Gordon Brown, my manager, my lead myself and hundred other things. Then in the afternoon i got irritated with bill gates my fiance again myself and in the evening with Nokia, English weather and my room mate.

It was a highly irritating day also. Morning i woke up from a pain in my stomach. why? No i didn't eat a full chocolate cake the previous night. I had stomach pain because of my laptop...actually i fell asleep with my laptop on my belly. And somehow i slept for 8 hours like that. Funny?? Ya I know.

Then suddenly my alarm started ringing. i shouted i screamed i told politely to snooze. But my mobile is not voice activated so that i lying at one end of the room with a sore belly and a laptop on top of that will say something and it will oblige me. My mobile is, basically, deaf. So I had to get up.

moved the curtain aside and saw the beautiful English summer outside. lot of cumulus-nimbus clouds down pouring like hell. tremendous wind and a lovely muddy patch just in front of my house which I will have to cross while going to office. Bloody Bollocks!!

I said that, and that reminded me I have a client meeting right at 10 and if I don't start running I will be late. Then I cried as i pulled out my new £30 trouser from the washer and it has shrank by half to give a feel of three quarter. Cursing myself I got irritated again. Got more so when i noticed the small notice attached inside the trouser saying: dry clean only!!!!!

Then I spilled milk on the floor, spilled coffee on that and had to clean that mess. Started towards the tube station and halfway in that bloody rain remembered i haven't brought my Oyester. So had to get back. then a car made a nice muddy muddy mushy mushy pattern on my white shirt.

And then thanks to Mr Gordon Brown the train was late. I think trains run more on time in Calcutta than this bloody hell.

that was not the end of it. Although I ran and almost reached the venue on time my client turned up late. I think Brits are learning Indian standard time from Indians.
and so it went on...can't be asked to write anymore on irritation. Its kinda irritating.

Some senti talks....

Slowly a feeling of indifference is growing in me. And I am not enjoying it. I know that i have a responsibility towards my family, towards my country and to myself by fulfilling the other wishes. But slowly and steadily something deep inside me tells me, "what the heck".

May be I am tired and may be I am stressed. Does it happen to you all? At one point of time you just want to leave all that you have and be free. Alone with yourself.

Long back I wanted to become an ideal son. I knew my parents want me to be the first boy in the class. I fought for it. I tried and studied hard. Sometimes I succeeded and sometimes I could not. But then a sense of who the hell cares came into me. I slowed down. I forgot my targets and i wanted to enjoy. Started reading all those wonderful novels which were there in my bookshelf during study hours. Started Sharat Chandra when i was in class V. and gradually my marks graduated downwards. It’s funny how I reacted to it though. In the year 1991, I got admitted in to Siliguri Boys High School. It was a huge school with a huge bunch of kids accumulating in the campus from all over the city. It was the best school for the middle class Bengali speaking people. Although everyone actually agreed that the study standards are really low in that school but the results of higher secondary and secondary are really good. Also the class I belonged to, having one’s kid reading in Siliguri Boys was a status symbol at that time. My parents wanted me to read there too. As my elder sis was already in Siliguri girls the onus was on me to “go get it Boy!!”

I tried hard as usual. And I was in.

So there I was with 300 other kids of the town there sitting in a filthy room with a tin roof, without any ceiling fan sweating like hell. I realized life in here is not gonna be easy. I prepared myself for the intellectual battle that awaited there. Then came the first exam. And the result also followed. I was eighth among the 300 and obviously it was a bad result. I scored 50% marks in Bengali which is below my standards. Now I never knew who actually set those standards for me and neither do I wanted to know but I knew that was awfully wrong to get so low marks. My father went to the school asked for a review or a scrutiny or anything for that matter. Finally it was revealed that I actually scored much more than those meager marks. And I finished second. I stopped crying(all these times I was crying because I could not make the mark I could not make my parents happy).

I can tell you that’s called Bengali middle class life story. That’s how all of us belonging to this typical class grow up. Half in fear of not making others wishes come true, half in fear of not finding others wishes same as our own wishes.

The followed a frenzied saga of high and lows. One exam I reached top the next one I was down to the ground. Probably the exam I would reach the top (not quite the top though I never became first in that school) the effort I would put in for that would do a negative effect on me and the next one would pull me down drastically. My mom found out this trend very soon. She became relaxed in a way. She used to tell me this time results are going to be bad just don’t run away from school I am not gonna hurt you when you come back. Things will be fine.

They are great people - my parents. They always wanted me to do great. I was a kind of apple of their eyes to sudden stardom. A fame that is not-so-easily touchable by ordinary people like they were. But they never pushed me. They never gave up on me although I could never really fulfil their hopes of becoming first boy of the class.

I suffered miserably in secondary. I was down with the result. I didn’t cry as I was a grown up by that time. But my mom understood what was going on in me. One summer afternoon when I was standing on our terrace and looking blindly at the sunny and abandoned streets of Siliguri she came and told me,”good that you didn’t do well this time may be the next time you would..remember the rule of alternate success!!” I started laughing and that was one moment in my life when I understood what role parents play in your life in your success.

I did fairly well in my HS. My name came into the front page of the local newspaper. And I called my mom with the news from a telephone booth that although this time also I could not fulfill their dream and could not become first in the school, still my result was fairly well and I am the 8th in the district.

She was crying. All she wanted is this bit. A fame, a glory for her son. When in her all “have not” life she can really forget all the poverty and all the mediocrity that scathe our lives. We have come one step further. We are no longer ordinary.

I really never did well after that. Never could be anyone worth a mention anywhere. And my mom since then has been deprived of that heavenly smile that I cherished for so many years that came after that.

Now that I wanted to write about something else and have come to something else I have suddenly realized that after all I am not so much indifferent to everything. Let my love forget me, let my life forget me. There are still two people on another side of the earth who still cares and waits in silence for the days of glory for me. They are my ma and baba.

Simple Fun

Fun can be very simple. Like what we did today. There is a notice in men’s toilet in our office. That says “if any of toilets go faulty please contact so and so…” We wrote a comment below that- Toilet Assurance Solution Design(trouble to report).

Now that wouldn’t be fun for those who don’t know what trouble to report is and what solution design means and what is assurance. But it was for us who all the time are talking about assurance, solution design and troubles.

Another kind of fun was seeing a friend drunk the other day. He went drunk after a couple of glasses of wine and started shouting how much prestige Himesh has brought India with his latest flick (or should I say freak) “Aanpka Sunnroooooooooooor”!!

First few times I took the representativehood of all those blasphemous bastards and tried to point out how miserably we have failed to hide Himesh inside India and now he has reached Germany. And people all over the globe are laughing at our cinema. But he was not to be taken aback by all those bloody nonsense. And then my anger my nationalism and my rudeness gave way to humour. The next few hours were simply fabulous watching someone praise himesh as if he were his boyfriend. God save India.

There was a third funny incident which I didn’t find funny. Happened in transformer movie. Where an Indian call center guy with his funny accent tries to sell a package deal to a US Marine (those who do not know what a us marine is please read “Jarhead” by Anthony Swoff. Its basically a special species of animals who are terribly dangerous, expert in rape and murder and dreaded for their futileness all over the world.) and in that process gets the major almost killed. The public were roaring in laughter as if that is the funniest thing they have ever watched in their life.

So fun is of various types. You can have fun by pulling a girls skirt in the wide daylight and laugh your ass out all your life thinking about it and how you the goddamn lucky bastard didn’t get caught. But I would call you a rapist and demand for a prosecution. You can have fun at saying all bongs are horrendously meek and they don’t work they come to office late everyday without fail and all those normally people say about bongs, but I would call you a racist. You can say that all tamils are bloody idiots who do not know anything outside tamilnadu and my take on that would be such a poor take on joke.

Such was a funny movie which my room mate was watching today and laughing his ass out. “Partner” as the name says (could have been also named hitch-hindi). Well there is nothing funny in an over aged Govinda who it seems have left all the wonder with his dulheraja days and now have been left with a huge amount of buffoonery along with another muscular buffoon who calls himself Salman Khan (what a dhabba in the name of all Khans in Bollywood)!!

Fun my dear its all Fun.

Love ??

love and life are two different things and often we make the mistake of mixing these two. More often than not we see hindi film heroes go the debdas way just because a girl has ditched him, or even worse did not look at him, or sometimes has done the mistake of sleeping with the other man rather than sleeping with him. All these sentiments while on screen gives it a superiority it doesn't deserve, while looked at in the light of practicality becomes very sick, irrational sentiments.

Love is Love and should be looked at it as love only. Its not the only part of one's life, and its not the ultimate thing in one's life. Now don't look at me like preity zinta of dil chahta hai and start preaching that one day i will understand the importance of love and blah blah blah. I do understand that. I know that loves gives a lot and it can potentially take a lot too. And my objection is there. Is love such a great thing that you can allow it to take a toll on your life? I guess not. To me love is the name of a relationship, the relation which can not be described in any other name. Its a bit more than friendship and there is no blood ties lying beneath to give it a name and so we call it LOVE...


Friends, believe me love is no big deal. Its a mistake that people do. start trusting the other with their life. And so when it goes wrong, it feels like life torn apart. But have you ever questioned why? May be I am sounding too much defensive, may be i am a bit too negative here, but do think of the possibility that when love goes wrong what happens to love? definitely it is not something which should have the liberty to ruin your life...forget life not even a day or not even a moment of your precious life. Love is a sweet thing to have, a thing to feel proud of that you are loved by someone, and to love someone with same intensity is even more proud thing to do. but i do feel its not life.

Mudiwali Budi( The Old Lady Who Used to Sell Mudi)

Its a tale of love and pain. Love when it becomes unconditional it is heavenly feeling which my mother experienced. That was a long time back.
THat time I used to stay in Siliguri- A small town in West Bengal( on the chicken's neck of north eastern India).

We had a house in that town where I grew up. We did not have a very affluent life. Everything me and my sister asked were not to be fulfilled just by wishing for it. My parents made me understand the value of money and the hard work that goes behind to earn it. But parents words were not enough untill i saw poverty in my own eyes.
An old woman used to come to our house to sell Mudi (kind of puffed rice very popular in Bengal). She was old, too old, i would say, too carry that huge sackful of mudi on her head and walk around. But she seemed to me surprisingly stron inspite of her thin stature. She used to come everyday and sit in the varandah for a while in those hot summer afternoons. My mom used to sit with her for sometime. And the old lady would tell her lifestory. It seemed to me like an endless saga of pathetic incidents pain poverty and sobbings. Which although I was not from a affluent family seemed quite odd to me. I could never believe that life can be this tragic. Somehow it seemed unnatural and blown out of its proportion. She used to come everyday and sit there, probably in my mom she got a friend who would listen to her day to day life lessen her boredom loneliness for sometime atleast.
I used to mock my mom. I used to tease her calling her mudiwali's best friend. Mom would scold me to talk like that. But i never stopped. I thought this lady comes because my mom gives her things( like old clothes, sweaters and all...Once a piece of jewellery as well for her daughters marriage).
What i gathered from the other things that my mom later told me is her life was very painful. and she is very poor. Somehow her son is going to a school in the night to pass the secondery atleast. and her daughter will be married soon( which she was and soon she became the source of another unfortunate event).
This lady was all by herself. She lost her husband as soon as she got pregnant with her second child. She had to work even in her labor months on the field and its only hard work which made her earn a living for her two children. she was lonely and living in a place where few ppl cared about her. In her village none really was a friend to her to whom she could talk aand probably relieve herself from her agonising lonliness. So there was my mom.
As I said earlier I thought this was a give and take relation between these two individuals. I tried not to think as my mom's son, but some third person who doesn't know any of the subjects and analyse their condition. I while doing that I more and more became convinced that this was a petty poor rich relation, the poor is living totally on the consideration of Rich( The word RIch is to be taken relatively here).
But what I failed to notice is the other small gifts that is coming from the woman to my mom, and the smile in my mom's eyes. My mom knew she is poor and can not probably afford to give gifts, but everytime she came she used to come with some or other small things like a small ripe mango from the tree just beside her house in village. a half of a Rohu Fish which her son had caught while fishing in a pond nearby. These gifts were unique in nature. Mom always wanted to discourage her from bringing gifts as she feared this would put additiional pressure on this old lady. But she never stopped. Once she said, "eigula je ani tumar jonno ete amar bhalo lage. "Probably it gave her the chance to give off the burden of all those things that mom used to give her and stand side by side to mom. Probably these enabled her to think mom as a friend and not as a giver. Mom also told me the same thing when one day i asked her. I got a new angle of this relationship that day. I learnt friendship.
Then came the time when we were moving out of Siliguri to Kolkata( previously known as Calcutta). I was not there at home that time. Dad, Mom and didi were there. Few days before the day of departure, the lady came home. My mom had already told her that we were shifting to calcutta. that day it became a spectacle really when she started crying. She was sad. She was crying like a mother who is going to loose a child. She was crying and telling who will talk to me if you go away? who will care for me? when after many days mom told me about this i saw those blinks of tears in her eyes. and I knew there was love. there was friendship a kind I never experienced a kind which I would die for to feel and a kind only people who are very lucky like mom can feel. I am proud of you mom. I really am.

[The picture on the side is not the real woman just an illustration copied from Google Image search]

Samsing Travel- Written in Bengali

tokhon ami Kolaghat college err second year er student...bari theke onek dure hostel e din katai..second year complete kore ekmaser chhuti te deshe firechchi...desh mane holo Siliguri...tomra kojon siliguri cheno jani na kintu siliguri amar kachhe khub e basto ar modern shohor ekta...ebong oboshyoi gola bajie ami tokko kori kolkatar loke der sathe je kon kon bapare siliguri bhalo...to sebar siliguri ese jothariti amra char murti hoechhi ek jot: ami , Piku, abhirup ar sanjib...sobai boys' school er bondhu...sebar hotat pratik e dilo prastab ta chal kothao ghure asi.. ami bollam,'ghurte jabi kire ekhon to almost barshakaal charidike khali brishti bonya'...kintu bakirao utsaho peye galo tai ami o raji hoe gelam...
kintu kothai jaoa jai?? jaiga thik kora ta khub mushkil er kaj hoe daralo...nana munir nana mot..keu bolchhe darjeeling..keu bolchhe karseong..keu bolchhe funtshiling...keu bolchhe kalimpong...keu abar soja gangtok...kintu kono tai amder monoputo hochhilo na. karon esob jaiga guloi amader bar pachek kore jaoa hoe gachhe..tokhon pratik e dilo idea ta..oi amader idear bhandar chhilo chirokal...bollo je chal samsing jai! Samsing?? Abhi bollo seta abar kothai re? keu konodin naam sone ni... but that was the whole idea...emon ekta jaigai jaoa jekhane keu konodin jai na...jekhankar shanto sundar jeeboner bhagidaar hoa...jekhane nodir jole pa chubie bose thakle thandai jokhon payer lom gulo khara hoe darai tokhon tar onbhuti ta ke nijer kore paoa. eisob onek kichhu asha nie ar adventure hisebe berie porechhilam amra charjon.... 2 b contd
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Bari te esei chechamechi jure dilam...ma bag dao...sweater dao...ei dao sei dao...packing korbo...ma kichhui jane na esob voyonkor plan sune akash theke porlo...porer din jalpaiguri te bonyar red alert roechhe...ghontai ghontai local cable channel balason, teesta, mahananda sobar water level nie report aschhe...Kintu amrao beparoa...jabo jokhon thik korechhi tokhon jaboi...ekta bag e kichhu habi jabi jinish dhukie nie berie porlam...Bari theke cycle nie pikur bari...sekhan theke soja bus stand... kintu bus stand e ese mathai porlo baaj. sob bus cancel hoe bose achche odlabari te bonya hoe gachche ar kono bus jachhe na oi route die. Kintu latest khobor paoa obdi chalsa te tokhono haalat thik thak sutorang chalsar bus gulo ghure ghure jachhe. thik kore fellam je ar tahole chintar kono dorkar nei...oi ghuronto pothei ber hoe pora jak. Bus er tkt kete fellam chalsar jonno. Uthe porlam ekta mandhata amoler ekta lorjhore bus e... bus er haalat dekhe abhi bollo bonyai e bus to bhasbe bole mone hoi...karon lohar ar kichhu baki nei puro tai kather toiri tai amader kono chinta nei. Ami o ekmot na hoe parlam na. bus sevok hoe madarihat die jete parchhe na tai bus er route puro ulto dike ghurie deoa hoechhe..bus jabe tista canal er pase je sodyo pathar fela rasta ta roechhe tar upor die. O rasta ta amader khub favourite. Ami ar piku bohudin gie o rastai cycle chalie giechhi onekdur obdi...jekhane boikunthapur forest range suru hochhe tar ektu age ekta swashan ghat achche chhotto ekta naam na jana nodir dhare. sekhane gele ek pash die boye jachche tistar upor sodyo kata ekta canal ar onno dike sei sundari nodi
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ei khane ese amader purono ekta experience bole di...ekdn oi rastai ami ar piku cholechhi. seidintai chhilo bodhhoi prothom dn oi pothe. Char dike gachh gachhalir majhkhane pathar fela rasta...tar opor cycle nie laje gobore dosha dui adventurer. rastar ekdike sei amader priyo nodi ta chhilo. onno dike amader canal ti. ekjon jol die bhora..,joler gorbe gorbini hoe nachte nachte cholechche ...arekjon jeno thik sorbohara...tir tir kore tar jibon nie boye choleche edike odike kono rokom e sob badhar pash katie. onek khon dhore cycle chalanor por hotat kheyal holo je ekpashe nodi ta to ar nei kothai jeno kono jadukar ese ek fush mantar die bata ke dieche haoa kore. amra dujonei khub chintai pore gelam. erokom rata rati nodi ke to haoa hoe jete dekhi ni kokhono...rastar pase canal ta thik e cholchhe kintu onno dikta chhilo onekta nichcu jekhan theke bechara nodita boye jachhilo...to kichhuta back track korar pore ter pelam je nodi ta hotat kore canal er niche ese haoa hoe gache. Amra dujonei chorom excited vugorbho basini ekti nodir abishkar korte cholechhi amra dui adhunik livingstone. cycle nie rastar paser soru paye chola poth beye niche neme ja dekhlam se prokritir aschorjo noi...manush er dara sristi kora ek aschcorjo. Tistar canal ta ekhane ese boye cholechhe ekta bridger upor die..ar tar nich die amader dukkhini nodi ti nijer moto apon bege boye cholechche. Sei nodir jole pa dubie amra dujone bose porlam ekta pathore. mathar upor die tokhon boye cholechhe borshar gorbini canal tar 20000 cusec er chondo nie...payer niche ektara bajie apon pothe cholechche amader dukkhini. Sei din je engineer oi bridge ta baniechhilo tar upor khub sroddha holo ei nodi tike bachie rakhar jonno.. tar ostitwo lunthan na korar jonno. technology ar nature er ei sohobaas e amra dujonei mohito hoe sei khane canal er niche bose joler chonde mashgul hoe gelam.
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fire asi amader journey te. To amader sei chena pothe amra raona holam ojanar sondhane. Elo rangapani. Bus e uthlo besh kichhu chhagal ar murgir jhuri. amar payer niche ek ekta murgi bhorti jhuri lagie die bollo je tumi baba ektu pa die chepe boso..noito bata ra palie jabe. ami o pa die ektu chepe chupe boslam. bus bhorti lok. ar tar modhyei ek badamwala badam bikri suru korechhe. motamuti bus na bole ekta hut bolai bhalo...jai hok kharap lagchhilo na bapar ta. erpor amra chole elam sei canal ar nodir modhye die boe chola pahture rastai. tar opor die amader bus dulte dulte lafate lafate egie chollo. jani na totokhone amar payer chape murgi gulo bikot chechcamechhi suru korechchilo koikata nischoi potol o tulechhilo...kintu kichhui korar nei. obosheshe sei rasta teo chena ongsher pala sesh hoe elo ek notun rajyo. ekpashe ghono bon boikunthapur range. tar theke duek bar chital horin era uki mere dekhe galo kara aj tader shanti nosto korte esechhe. tar por onekkhon bon er majhe die cholar por hotat kore charpas forsa hoe galo. hotat kore onekta akash ese galo amader mathar upor...obak hoe samne takie dekhlam bishal book nie samne sue roechhe rongini teesta. tar neel jol prochondo probaho ar ohonkar er dala sajie. Teesta amar mote duniar sobtheke sundari nodi. er rup er tulona paoa bhar. gorom e ei teesta jokhon tir tir kore shanto hoe boye chole tokhon taake kono gramyo grihobodhu bole bhabte ektu o osubidhe hoi na. jeno sondhyer snan sere pradeep jalate esechhe tulshi tolai. ar jokhon borshai sei teesta hotat kore proloyonkori rup nie cholat cholat sobde kapie dai ...atonke fire takie dekhi sei mohimamoyee rup seeno sakkhat dakate kali.er haat ar tandav theke jeno rokkhe nei karo.
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teesta paar hoe amra probesh korlam jalpaigur jelai. gramer majhkhan die edie cholechhi odlabarir dike jani sameni bonya hoechhe kothao. Prochur lok odik theke chole aschhe edik pane. amra tao egie cholechhi. odlabariri samne ese amader bus ekta onno chhotto rastai dhuke porlo. erpor theke kichhui temon chintam na.ar ektu ghum ghum pachhilo...klanto chokhe chokh lege elo. hotat kore tarapor jokhon chokh khullam bus jure loker chechamechi sune bujhlam chalsai pouchhe gechhi. chalsa theke dhorlam ekta jeep. sei jeep e motamuti 15-20 jon moto lok hoe driver ekgaal hese jeep chhere dilo. chalsa thekek rasta ta hotat pahari hoe uthlo. pahar er ga beye amra charjone uthte laglam samsing pahar er upor. dudike cha bagan er sobuj er majhkhane die amra egie gelam sekhane jekhane ar age jaoar jaiga nei. rastar sesh prante ese ekta chhotto pahari gram...Samsing.