Because Home is where the Heart is.

I believe in roaming the endless boulevards at the far end of my hometown, those crowded alleys covered by a carapace of aged concrete where sunlight never reaches, I love the disgraceful scent of fish markets and I love watching those squirrels hide beneath my favorite rhododendron tree, at the jinx of midday in some offshoot city parks where some couples spoon after sunset.

I love the slow tram rides in the dizzying rain , and the yellow cabs smoking out an exotic black gas and I love everything that's ruined and dead and old, I like everything that moves, hides, squeaks, screams, flows, bickers, falls, and often slowly kills my city, because I am privileged enough to do that.
I know.

I love Calcutta because I was born and raised there, because I belong there and I hate those posh asses who criticize this city, when they live their life on inheritance money, whose idea of having fun is limited to 'pubs' being open till midnight to midday. I hate people bickering about the fact that there's not enough job there, there's no night-life, when they do nothing about it.
Why criticize when you don't contribute? Yes we are limited. Our hands are tied.
But then we can always travel free in the metro. For fun?

But then people will always whine and rant, just like I am doing here.

It won't change the world or anyone, but then one can hope right?

With Love. 

Happy Diwali Delhi

And the night begins with the sound of crackers and car alarms.

They all go berserk like unattended kinder garden kids.

Oh and there's smoke enough to choke your eyes.

And love enough to choke your heart.

If Forgetfulness is her charm..

She has a certain style.

A panache.

 A luminescent aura.

Forgetfulness is her charm.

 Forgetfulness on summer afternoons

 And autumn’s rainy nights.

Forgetfulness as the winds droop

  And the Sails go still

 Forgetful, but never to the song

Of the quail.

And on some mornings when

The auburn sun squeaks gently upon her face,

She looks down

Eyes squint and

Spine straight,

A little too still-

And She remembers,

Remembers

The letters under

Her sill.

There, There.

Often in your dreams she would come and tell you, 
'There. there. Everything will be alright.'
And then you would wake up and nothing would change, so you'll look forward to sleep again, and your shrink will prescribe you colorful pills and you'll sleep more and she'll come to you more often and one day you'll decide you want her more than your waking life and you'll decide to sleep forever.

Sometimes, when you're chasing the eyes of a blue dog, remember that this is all there is, this one life. 
Only one. 

Wake up. I am here for you. 
Alive in this life. 
Always.

Toilet Paper Story

People who soliloquize in public are often deemed crazy by the society. By that definition, I think a writer is the craziest person alive. Imagine putting the thoughts that you often rehearse to yourself in a sheet of paper or on the surrogate computer screen.
All of the time you are like- talking to yourself.
You talking to you. You saying things to you. You smiling at you.
Damn.
Writers are crazy people.
And by the notion of such a cliché, Mr. Henry was damn crazy.

First things first.

Mr. Henry did not consider himself a writer, he was rather a man of many worlds, most of which remained confined within his skull, and often penetrated into sheets of toilet paper.

Mr. Henry was considered crazy because he used to write little stories on sheets of toilet paper.
Toilet paper- expendable, biodegradable, difficult to write on.

Mr. Henry’s crazy obsession reached epic proportion when he brought toilet papers that would last a year if used continuously by a person suffering from chronic diarrhea. A hobby gone way too far, if one may say.

But critics in the end would agree that he wrote beautiful stories. Stories made up of beautiful names and places, that if read out loud would dulcify the auditory atmosphere. More like poetry.
Poetry in prose.
The device that works nine out of ten times. 

After Mr. Henry had written continuously for a year, and weaved out his beautiful thoughts in words in a seemingly truculent manner, the world had decided to take notice.

The toilet paper company aware of the development had decided to print the stories in the next product of their toilet paper. It must have been a fair marketing strategy. If anyone listened to the Intellectuals anymore, they would hear-
‘A cultural revolution was taking place.’

A special edition of toilet paper with printed stories were now available in the honor of Mr. Henry.
It would perhaps forge the consciousness of an entire generation united in latrine reading,
much to the utter dismay and brouhaha of some well-read men frequenting public libraries.
  

The climax of the generation winked maliciously and said,
where there was a dearth of readers, the only way to reach them was by wiping their ass.

Pujo Asche

While the cold slowly seeps into everything around you, in this little Northern town, reprising the inevitability of the seasons, you subtly wish for the warm familiar things that has always invigorated you. You wish to sit on the top of some tall building in your warm familiar hometown, and watch the warm plethora of people warding of each other, in the familiar warm neon lit streets, just being a part of the familiar festive you once venerated with a puerile zeal.
’Pujo asche’ – says a radio channel.
Festivals, you think were probably designed so that people forget how pointless their life was.
They make you reminiscence the warm reveries of your youth- the sense of belonging, the rush, the phone calls, the sudden plans, the inebriated nights.
You keep observing the colourful people, all with the single purpose of looking good, at accord with the notion of beauty. And if that rational crowd full of your own memories ever disappoints you, makes you feel lonely and sad you can always look up in the night sky.
The stars, you know, they never disappoint you. They are just like you- an outsider. Ancient, distant, faint, hardly ever seen by normal people, they just glow like a resolute soldier at war and you don’t feel sad anymore. Suddenly you sense the warmth within.
That’s the warmth you so crave for in these cool afternoons.

You know, that’s where you want to remain, suspended between the festive world of mortals and the starry heaven.

‘In a week’s time, may be’, you think.

Mahalaya

'Mahalaya' reminded me of Dad's old transistor radio.

Its funny how childhood memories creep up on such auspicious days, like stumbling upon a hidden treasure somewhere, yes that's how it felt like- a little child finding his broken toy amidst a junkyard.

And may be that's why such days are important - for that little child and his lost toy. 
For that possibility of memory.