The Final MBBS

60 days to go...
     The plan is to study so damn much, know so damn much, that less learned people will see a halo around my head. I want to be the walking, talking, eating, sleeping dictionary of surgery. The plan is to study so damn much that Maa will think thrice before interrupting me with her silly gossips. The my parents will make me pitchers of coffee and buy me packs of cigarettes just to stimulate my sympathetic system. That is the plan. That I will sit and sleep in a sea of books and read constantly. Read on and on. There will be rows of empty cups of coffee on my table. So old that even the insects would have had lost interest in them. There will be an astray full of cigarette stubs. Everything will smell of concentration and medicine. When someone will enter the room, he/she will be intimidated to even talk. No one will ask me to clean up. People will only see a ghastly, dirty me sitting on the bed, in a sea of open books and notes, exuding a sense of enlightenment, my eyes surrounded by dark circles and head by a glow. The plan is to become the female Bodhisattwa!


55 days to go...
     Today is one of those days. Books repel me. Yet I worry about my progress. I keep glancing at the calender. But not at the clock. My head pains, my mind wants to shut down and fall asleep. But something keeps reminding me that sleep won't be that welcome either. If by chance I fall asleep, I dream. Mostly of failure. Apprehension. I wake up, fret around, sit down with a book and think about food. Beef steaks, Devil Crabs, Mocha. But with with just 500 left in my purse I guess I can't afford that.
   I guess I will go and make some really strong coffee. I guess I will try and mug some.


52 days to go...
Life is bleak. And I am utterly mediocre. I never wanted to end up like this. I guess I set my standards too high.



50 days to go...
এই asshole গুলো বলছে , " আর কোনো চিন্তা নয়, আর কোনো সংশয় নয় । যাত্রা যাত্রা যাত্রা ।"
শালা গুলো বোঝে না যে আমি পড়তে পারব না । শালা । যাত্রার নাম শুনবে ?
 Day 1 - "রণ রঙ্গিনী দেবী দূর্গা "
 Day 2 - "নকল বউ হইতে সাবধান "
KILL ME!!!!


48 days to go...
NON-CREATIVE LIMBO.



45 days to go...
Its past midnight. I lie sprawled on my bed. Books everywhere. Books I want to mug. Books I don't want to mug. Books which i shouldn't be reading now. Books which i should have read maybe two years back.
   Life is full of probabilities. The mathematicians make it very simple. But i beg to differ.
   The brown dog howls again. He had been howling intermittently since yesterday. Something must be bothering him. The unseen? No, I don't believe in all that. There is nothing that we can miss if we look hard enough. We just have to know where to look. And how hard.
   Again he howls. Its quite eerie actually. A chill runs down my spine. Every single time.
   Something moves  behind my almirah. Or maybe beneath my bed. The unmistakable sound of something moving against a polythene sheet. We all are scared of what we can't see. We are scared more when one of our remaining 5 senses pick it up. I am scared of the future.



44 days to go...
   দুটো রুটি দিয়ে পাঠার মাংসের ঝোল  আর আলু । একটা রসগোল্লা । ভাত, একটা ডিম, পাঠার মাংস, ঝোল, আলু । তারপর আবার একটা রুটি দিয়ে ঝোল আর আলু ।লাস্টে একটা রসগোল্লা ।
   খুব খিদে পেয়েছিল ।
   পড়া আর হলো না ।


36 days to go...
আমার future assymetrically অন্ধকার ।


35 days to go...
  Wise men say, "Try your hand at everything." Well, I tried doodling. Flowers. Mostly. And for the umpteenth time i realised, I'm no artist. 


25 days to go...
  Something is terribly wrong with me. Yes, i have had trouble studying all my life. But never like this. I can't bear to read. Can barely manage a few words before drifting off. Either i sit and doze, or just sit and stare at the wall. Or the incessant window shopping on the internet. Its never been this bad. Am scared.


18 days to go...
   I fight for words. but my pen goes dry. Its painful. Much like feeding , caring, nurturing a baby into a big cat and then when it bites you hard. Leaves you wondering what you did wrong.
   The string broke somewhere. Its all out of tune. Much like my violin. Maybe it will all pack itself in a box and hide beneath my bed. Maybe it will also collect dust. And then suddenly years will pass by.
   Some say, good times come in the end. Some beg to differ. I, wrapped up in my fat, soft quilt in a corner of my room, keep waiting for it. Maybe only losers wait. And again finders aren't keepers. 
   Everything is blurring out. Like the soft hum in a roar of gibberish. Not that the hum was melodious. But still it wanted to survive. But again, what are we without tune?
   Pretty clothes arrive from every corner of the country. Cotton, viscose, jersey, blend. Sheer, sequins, lace. In every color and design that you can imagine. What if when the time finally comes, I lose interest in all that? What if I put all of them at once and decide to go and have a nice soak in the river?
  I didn't sit down to write a memoir of my failure. But what will happen to the deep, angry, red wounds on my leg? Do they heal completely? Fade away just like the way I will someday? Then again, what will happen to the conscience?
  One day I shall inflate my room and we will fly away, to 30,000 feet up in the air. Just like that pig. Maybe  break down one of the thin walls and take a leap of fate.
  Or maybe I will shrink it. Make it real small and dark and sit curled up in a corner, wrapped by the thick, soft, suffocating quilt and nurse my wounds. Maybe I will fade away with them.

AnuDidi ...

       I was then a student of class VIII or IX, a girl of around 15 years. My family used to live in the Doctor's quarters of NRSMCH. At that time we used to have a servant, AnuDidi. She was a dark, lean, sweet looking,jolly 21 year old, who had a 4 year old daughter. Her dad's house was at Kakdwip and was married to a man from Namkhana. Within days of AnuDidi's arrival we became close friends. By the end of a month she was my best friend. 
      During the days that AnuDidi was a part of our household, i had almost only one thing that i liked doing: talking to her. We spent hours sitting in my room; me, a rapt listener and she, one of the best story-tellers I shall ever come across. She told me about her life back home.
      She was the adorable youngest daughter in her parents home at Kakdwip. Her village was many miles away from the station. She told me about all her friends, all the pranks she used to play on people while walking home from school. The way back from school was down a narrow lane in a thick clump of trees. She told me how she used to climb on one of those trees and drop things on people passing beneath in the gathering darkness and scare the wit out of them. There was a big pond beside her house. A big tree used to arch over the water as if bent down by arthritis. She and all the kids in the area used to dive into the water from the top-most branches of that tree.
      She used to talk a lot about a huge snake. This particular one was a male, was half of a pair, the Nag. The female had been killed many years back in a fire started by the village people. That fire burnt down a big house standing on a big plot. But no one ever rebuilt anything on that plot. The Nag still lived in that plot, mourning his long lost mate and killing whatever livestock roamed near by. But the village people let him stay. They even started worshiping him on Manasha Puja.
      AnuDidi got married when she was 16. She went to live with her husband and in-laws at Namkhana.  Her in-law's house was in a village on the outskirts of the small town. Her mother-in-law hated her. Never giving her enough to eat during meals, hitting her in her husband's absence. Her husband's sister, who visited frequently, used to join her mother in the assault. But she lived on, accepting everything silently. After her child was born, she requested her husband to take her away, for their child's sake. So, they shifted to a tiny single room shanty in the heart of Namkhana.
     Life became a lot easier after that. Her husband had a limp in one foot from Polio. He was a laborer in a brick factory. And they were in love. She used to pack food in a piece of cloth and tie her small daughter to her back with her sari and went to help her husband in the factory.She told me how after working together all morning they used to lie down beneath a big tree and take their mid-day siesta and talk and talk about love and life. She told me that she loved him so much that she couldn't bear to stay the whole day away from him. I still remember how she  used to tilt her head to one side and smile shyly every time she said, "আমার বর!" (my husband). She told me that her husband was very good to look at and how all the neighborhood girls used to be jealous of her. She told me how they used to save money so that they could rent a small TV and adult movie CD once every week and watch it together, while their daughter slept on soundly. She told me how her life went upside down when her mother-in-law came one day  and asked her son to come home with her and marry another girl. She told me how her husband left , without a proper goodbye. She waited for months in her tiny shanty room, crying and hoping that he would come back. But when all the saved money was spent and the local anti-socials started making passes at her, she had to run away to her parent's place with her daughter in tow.
    AnuDidi once told me about a horrible incidence at Namkhana: a bride was hung by her neck and burnt alive in a small hut by her in-laws and husband. Later on the body was taken down and buried in a pit in the woods. The police could find no trace of the dead woman. She told me that all the women and men of the locality had gone over to watch as the police did the investigations. In her words, incidences like that happened in Namkhana every other day. And every time something like that happened they all used to go in groups and stand and watch.
    Back at her parent's home she was forced to go to work. The jolly girl had come back with a huge burden of sorrow and a child in tow. There was no money to feed two extra mouths. So she had to leave her 3 year old daughter and go work in the city. After working at two other houses she came to us.

    That was the story of AnuDidi. My once-upon-a-time best friend. A dark, lean, sweet, loving servant. She used to braid my hair and tell me stories, for hours at a stretch. The stories never seemed to end, there were so many. She talked on and on and i used to sit and listen, enthralled, letting the villages and lives of people in the southern most part of Bengal flash in front of my mind's eyes. I loved her as an elder sister and she used to adore me.
    One day AnuDidi suddenly fell very sick. Slowly she became thinner and stopped smiling and there were stories no more. She took leave and went home, to get some rest and see her daughter. Before leaving she took a photo of mine with her. She wanted to show it to her family. And she never came back.
    We waited for a while but there was no news. We assumed that she didn't want to come back to work and Mum got another servant and life went on. But i missed my stories and my friend. 
    After almost an year we happened to have another servant who hailed from AnuDidi's village in Kakdwip. We got to know that she had taken her daughter and left for Namkhana. She missed her husband. But she never returned to Kakdwip. Her mother-in-law and her sister-in-law had burnt her alive. Her daughter was reported missing.

   Many years later I came in possession of my 1st smartphone, GPS and GoogleMap. The first time I discovered how GoogleMap functions I tracked down the nearby station and followed the rails by scrolling down and down the screen till I reached a small dot marked Kakdwip. Little way down there was another dot, near the blue stretch indicating the Bay of Bengal. It was marked Namkhana. Many times since, absentmindedly, while 
fiddling with my phone, i have switched on the Maps and reached Namkhana.

    

Nondescript It Is

Today I promise never to delete old posts.never to delete no matter how bad i feel about how i had felt at the time that i had written it. Cause i know there is no future in this, no future in "us" and yet today i so hope that there would be some.
Because sometimes I wish that night would not come and studies wouldn't be there and i could go on and on typing nondescript details about myself and my feelings into that small phone  screen.
Because somehow you make me feel worthless and awesome at the same time..
you are so good that i feel so infinitesimally small in front of you. and at other times I feel so good and appreciated that i sit and smile and radiate light maybe for hours at a stretch.
And again, rest of the time i feel like learning more, participating more, reading more, observing more just to be able to converse intelligibly with you.
It feels weird because nobody had ever appreciated me so completely for who i am and given me reasons to grow more instead of being too full of myself. and its extremely strange and disturbing to have all these conflicting emotions and feelings for/centered around one single human being.
and yet i am thankful that i came up in the scenario to be invited to jheel parties.
And yet i don't know what doom/happiness lay at the end of this particular tunnel.
yes, it is abrupt and confusing. but you already know me enough to understand the reason behind it. 

In The Lap Of Beauty

Sometime in the middle of this year I went to Bokkhali with three of my friends.A small fishing village on a deltaic island in Sunderbans.Our one-day getaway was nearly ruined by the drizzle that continued all day long.All our plans of sight-seeing were cancelled.Finally when the rains stopped it was nearly nightfall and we set out for a stroll on the beach.
        The Bokkhali beach is very different from the other beaches I have visited.There are no big waves thrashing on the sand endlessly.And the sea stayed so calm that one could easily have mistaken it for a huge lake.The day we visited the weather was also very peculiar, there was a complete lack of breeze that is so characteristic of any sea-side place.So we started walking on the breeze-less,wave-less shore with no fixed destination.
        On the Bokkhali beach if you stand facing the sea, on your right the beach seems to end in a small high rise and on your left it seems to end abruptly,just like that,dropping into the sea.The full stretch of the beach is lined by a row of lamp posts and beyond that a thickness of dark trees.As we walked on and on suddenly one of my friends pointed out that we have come a long way from the locality.Night had already fallen and not a soul was to be seen nearby.As we stood there a bit anxious,thinking whether to continue our aimless stroll or to return,the beauty suddenly engulfed me.
       How strange it was that all that time we were just walking,I hadn't noticed that in front of me lay maybe the most beautiful sight I had beheld till date.Behind me at a distance there was just darkness...the thick trees.Then the lamp posts casting an eerie yellow glow over the deserted beach.The water lashing so quietly on the sand and creating a wavy line of the thousands of crabs that kept moving with the constantly moving edge of the water.And there in front me lay the vast stretch of sea.So calm,so still and so endless...and from the horizon rose the sky, a dark blue sheet.Not a single star could be seen but just on the left there she floated...with all the light that could shine...with all the sparkle that could there be.Now naked and now clad in a thickness of grey clouds,she shone down with all the brightness possible.And the calm,vast stretch of water mirrored that breathtaking beauty.And there we stood in ankle deep water four silent statues devouring that exquisite scenery.Suddenly I felt so tiny compared to the vastness of it all.Suddenly I felt a maddening urge to capture as much of that beauty as possible to carry back with me to my materialistic life back in the city.Suddenly a terrible helplessness engulfed me as i realized that this beauty,the meaning of life,was not for me to take,not for me to keep;that may be i would never see such beauty again.But at the same time,a wild sense of fulfillment poured into me.It seemed as if that day,that moment,that vastness...it was all meant for me,just for me.And I felt on the top of the world.

" Had I

The power of Merlin, Goddess! this should be

And all the Stars, now shrouded up in heaven,

Should sally forth to keep thee company.

What strife would then be yours, fair Creatures, driv'n

Now up, now down, and sparkling in your glee!

But, Cynthia, should to Thee the palm be giv'n,

Queen both for beauty and for majesty."

        We stood there for a long time just staring a vacant stare as if trying to record every second of that experience.Finally when we turned back realising that it was getting really late,we all felt so content,so happy that each of us bore a wide smile on our faces.I checked the other three faces and yes,I hadn't seen them so happy ever in my life.

Ode To A Childhood

The first memory that I have is that of a road..a village road, made of red soil. On both sides there were rows of tall trees...what trees i don't remember,and beyond those trees a huge expanse of tall green grass. When i asked Maa where this place was and whether this even existed or was just an imagination,she couldn't believe that i actually remembered that particular place.This place happens to be a small village, far away from my home in Kolkata, in Onda,Bankura. My Maa,a doctor, used to be posted there as a rural health officer in the very initial days of her service.I was barely a year at that time.
Many a times I  heard stories of Onda from my parents.The health clinic with the adjacent doctor's quarters was some 30 mins rickshaw ride away from the railway station. The rickshaw used to rattle across the red roads and then the "al" between two huge rice fields.The grass was as tall as a full grown man; and among those tall grasses and trees and huge rice fields there was that tiny clinic where my life started..

Since then I have stayed in five different places, in and around Kolkata.In big houses,in a jungle of concrete,in places where you breathe in enough carbon particles to blacken your lungs in ten years.Travelled around most of the country from Kashmir to Kanyakumari.Seen so much beauty in the nature's lap.Made various and sometimes strange acquaintances,some I cherished and some which totally shook me.Made friends,some temporary and some for the life.Learned that the bad things in life are more important that the good ones,they help you survive, they teach you to appreciate the good times.Learned to love,learned to care.Fell in love and out of it.Saw dreams of growing big,in every aspects of life.Dreams of being happy.Learned that ultimately its happiness that mattered. Not money,not status,not anything else...but only happiness.Learned that if I could once find out what would keep me happy nothing else would matter.In these 21 years I have gone through so much and I know that there is so much more to come.

But even after all these years there is one place and one time I want to return to.That tiny village in Bankura.To that winding red road,those rows of tall trees,to that never ending expanse of tall green grass.Want to walk down that road once again,in those tiny steps,faltering every now and then,engulfing the beauty,the warmth of nature with those innocent eyes.Want to go back to that childhood,those bygone days of innocence when the world seemed so much bigger but even the smallest of things gave so much happiness...to that childhood...

To Start With...

Its been a long time since I have written...I mean, I do keep writing to myself, but not otherwise. So why suddenly this blog? Well, firstly cause i am as unpredictable as most of the people my age. My exams starting in two weeks time and instead of studying i feel this irresistible urge to do anything but study. And secondly, made a new friend who writes, writes a lot and writes quite well..and my urge doubled. So..here i am with my introductory post.