Xylophones

Rain clouds gathering over apartments, as seen from my terrace

Rain was like a musician-out-of-practice today.


For the last couple of weeks, summer was bearing down very hard on Calcuttans indeed: the heat, the humidity and the headaches. However, the weatherman seems to have found a magic talisman that shows him the weather forecast these days and the clouds came, as a relieving fulfilling of his prophecies.


To me, though, Rain seemed to have lost the habit of coming down in great abounding leaps. It was behaving queerly, like a someone who's forgotten how to play her favorite piece on a Xylophone.


The first drops came like hesitantly, like Rain was testing the notes. Tip. Tap. Splatter.


It was just experimenting, doubting if a duet with the Wind was possible. Thrash. Tap. Splash.


And suddenly, Rain found its rhythm. One quick bass of thunder to open the piece and off went rain, drenching the parched city in its moist melodies, mixing the basic tunes into a well orchestrated xylo-piece.


Impromptu performances are the best. 

A Celestial Love Story

He lay on his terrace floor and gazed at the sky, seeing nothing of the otherwise glorious night. The pain of realising that he would never be able to be together with the love of his life sheered his heart with every passing moment. If he wasn’t so steeped in pain he would have admired a night of poetic beauty: the velvety black half globe was sprinkled with shimmering specks of diamond, somewhat marred by the impeccable sphere of unparalleled gloss. As in most of us mundane creatures, pain was the only thing that forced some philosophy in to him and he looked at the Moon in a whole new light.

“All those lines and cracks must have been caused by ancient tears... but what could have caused them? What could have caused pain to such a beautiful thing?” he wondered aloud.

Miraculously and astonishingly, the Moon heard him. A sad little smile spread across the wan face.

“I cry because I can never be with the one I love, and I cry more because I cannot go far enough to forget him. If he and I come together it is the end of eternity. If we let go, it is the end of eternity too. Yet we are tied together by the strangest of bonds, the most painful and the most beautiful too. I can’t ever have him, nor can I ever give him up...”

“Who is he?” he asked, empathizing with the Moon, perhaps getting a bit hopeful too.

And the Moon answered, “The Earth, my dear.”

I Suffer from CEP

Chronic Examination Phobia.

This is what I have recently diagnosed myself with. First I thought I was dysthymic. And obviously Google helped me find substantial symptoms. Although I didn't see a shrink, I had at least a valid disease to blame this condition on, because no one believes you if you have CEP (Chronic Examination Phobia).

I've drawn up some pointers to help other unfortunate ones who are still in delusion about their true condition.

Symptoms:

1. Insomnia followed by drowsiness: often you will feel yourself unable to sleep, and then unable to stay awake. The cycle can commence anytime.
2. Increased appetite: A lot of us think this should be the opposite, but I have observed Nutella and Gems giving you the "come-here" finger oftener than usual days. Also, you may find yourself addicted to a particular food-item, the variety of which ranges from spearmint dental floss to strawberry lip-gloss.
3. Sudden realizations: This might not be very universal, but personally I tend to discover the deep hidden secrets of philosophy during CEP. I also quite suddenly discover that my reading list for fiction is getting too long and needs immediate trimmings. The Muse also finds such days best for a surprise visit, but I cannot seem to do her justice because of examination-guilt (a sub-disease under CEP, where you tend to blame everything on exams).
4. Procrastination: The 'I'll definitely do it tomorrow' syndrome, it affects us mostly in the afternoons, when the aforesaid appetite causes us to feel drowsy (ref. #2). You end up completing one trillionth of what you actually planned to cover, and still feel oddly confident about time.
5. Facebooking: The final. The ultimate. The most fatal. There's absolutely no one online, and yet you will feel more prone to surfing weird and possibly risky profiles rather than your course books.

What generally happens due to all of this is that I get cranky. I'm not exam friendly (then again, who is?) and I fear an impending exam more than the monster under my bed. As the doomsday looms closer and closer, I tend to lose my wits. I yell at people unnecessarily, I make shrewd remarks in perfectly cheerful situations, I get annoyed faster than you can say 'crap'. In all of this, I still don't feel like studying. The mere thought of learning stuff out of a book makes my skin crawl. CEP makes me melodramatic. It makes me caustic and unsympathetic. You should try telling me to revise my lessons when CEP is on: I remind myself of the vicious  wolves of Narnia. The sky looks grayer, the future bleaker and the books darker than ever. Strangely, the books seem to lose their vile-nature as soon as the exam is over. Exams just scare the living daylights out of me, though, as I don't like to admit it to anyone, no one believes me. When I think of solving an unknown, unseen paper, my stomach does gymnastics hitherto unknown to humans. Yet, I have to keep on taking one exam after another. I've calculated that on an approximation, I've been taking exams every three weeks since I joined college.

It's taxing, tiring, exhausting and I keep fearing my creative faculties suffer severe setbacks each time I take a test. And I fear that there's not much hope of ever escaping this: Life itself is an endless series of exams (unfairly they teach you the lesson only at the end), say the wise.

I conclude that I cannot be cured, or anyone else for that matter, until I vanquish the exams, or they vanquish me. Either way, I'll be dead, if you know what I mean.

The Cat Named...

No, you're not going to find the name in here. It's still in the title. The cat really was called ... That's what her name was.

My Granny had all these come-and-go pets, including this cat and some pigeons.

My mother always said the cat was older than me, but I never could believe it. She was white with black patches and a sort of pitiable face.

She had actually learnt to eat veggies because Granny being a vegetarian would only give her daal-bhaat. That cat had the weirdest dietary preferences. She would eat ordinary crackers, sweets, and sometimes even toffees.

She always gave birth to her kittens in Granny's house, and Granny obligingly played the midwife. She cleared out biscuit cartons and put newspapers in them. When the kittens were old enough, my cousin and I spent all day running after and cuddling them. We made swings from towels and forts with pillows to play with them.

They say you cannot teach a cat to do tricks. But I taught this one to sit down if I stroked its back with a stick. I realized later that this wasn't a very wise thing to do, because, now, whenever someone wanted to scare her away, she would sit down and start meowing at the sight of the stick.

I've never owned any pets. This nameless cat was the closest thing I had to a pet. She died of old age in 2009.

Summer Waali Sunshine

Sweat. Odour. Prickly-heat. Exhaustion.

But also, funky shades. Shorts and sleeveless. Nimboo-paani. Flip flops. Cute parasols. Maybe even skinny-dipping.

Summers in Kolkata aren't exactly the most awaited season of the year. The humidity is intolerable and it literally (and scientifically) saps the life-energy out of you. You almost feel like a dog, and all that sweat doesn't go you much good with acne.

Yet, summer can be fun. I love lazing around in the house, indulging in reading or music. If I venture out, all I need is a slap of sunscreen and a spritz of my favourite deodorant.

Summer has longer days, and that means more time for fun! A refreshing drink of lassi at Esplanade at once livens me up for some shopping. In Kolkata, summer also brings the Mega-End-of-Year-Sale, the Chaitra Sale: one more reason to love summer!

What I love the most about summers is the summer-rains. I would love the feel of the cool drops of heaven on those darned prickly-heats. Also, after it gets really really scorching, mother-nature relents with what we know to be Kalbaishaki, or Nor' Westers. If I don't find myself caught in one this summer, the season goes in vain.

No, no amount of Maza or Frooti or Slice shall quench my thirst of a real, sweet, yellow mango. And, okay, maybe it only adds to your waist-line, but I love mangoes and will eat any given number of it. My summer is incomplete without the pickle of unripe mangoes, our beloved Kacche Aam ka Achaar. My mother makes this brilliant mango delicacy, involving unripe mangoes in a clear turmeric curry, and I'm head-over-heals with it.

Summers are, for me, perfect for the girls'-time-out. Be it a brunch or a luncheon, summer is the time when I love to slip on that comfy cotton dress and mix-and-match hats and shades. I'll share a secret, shades are brilliant camouflages while checking out that hot-bod!

Now that summer is on, it's time to turn on the fun on full swing too. I'll shop till I drop, read that pending novel and take coolers every two hours. What about you?

Written for "The Lakmé Diva Blogger Contest", 2012.
I Love Lakme

Lazy Daze

I am basically a very lazy person.

With brutal honesty, my favourite-most hobby would be sleeping. If my mother didn't pinch me out of bed, I'd easily sleep 18 hours everyday, and still feel sleepy.

I can easily head the Procrastinators of the World United Club. I think so much that I can't do anything else.

I invent wild strategies to avoid being given chores. I pretend to be asleep, or hide in the loo, or even feign temporary deafness.

Whenever the doorbell rings, I actually flee as far as I can go from the door. Then, grab the book closest to me, even if it is something as random as a user-manual.

Sometimes even if I am hungry, I don't eat. No, I'm not on a diet. I just feel too lazy to open a packet of biscuit, let alone cook anything.

Sometimes I don't wash my hair because I don't feel like it.

Often, I don't even write, because I'm too lazy. I'm too lazy to log on or even grab a pencil.

However, I'm constantly writing in my head. I do a lot of things, in my head.

Lyadh, or the Goldfish Syndrome

Yes, one of those days when you are a goldfish.

You sleep till noon. You don't want to take your bath. You aren't hungry. You take an hour to write out a 200 word post. You aren't reading. Sometimes you blow a spit-bubble or two. You also don't know what you are thinking about. You're warm, but you don't want to stitch the fan on. There are 40 people online on your IM, but you don't know what to say to even one of them. It's difficult to even get bored.

You feel like a goldfish in a round glass bowl. Even your blinking seems stupid.

We Bengalis have a simple word for this: Lyadh.