Maverick Misfit

Because you can...

2012-01-17T13:05:00.001+05:30

Have you ever loved because all the other choices been taken away from you?

Have you ever loved not to be, not to gain, not to win but just... just because it was what was to be?

Isn't it stupid to love and not care about what you get in return?

Have you ever loved for happiness and damn all the pain that was to invariably follow?

To love just because you can..... not for the rights, nor for the principles, not for the society, never for the things of the world but for the joy, the joy of knowing, even infinitesimally, of your life being touched, by that one person but the one who changes you forever...

To love- to laugh and cry, to burn with passion and pain, to have and lose and never have again, to fear and conquer, to know and yet be ignorant, to be and never be- to love...

Never matters -the trivialities such- like whether you are loved back or not...

Bad and wicked, beautiful and right-

It is a wondrous thing.

One day...

2011-12-17T12:56:00.003+05:30

One day I will come back bigger and better. I had promised myself, even while I found myself slinking away, like sliding in the mud after a torrential rain, unable to gain a strong foothold as much as I tried... But I did promise myself. I will not be a mere human.

I had sworn I won't feel, I won't be weak. I wouldn't care, nor would I love. I wouldn't be hurt, nothing would make me cry. I was going to be great, the epitome of all that greatness possibly can be! You wouldn't call me human, I was going to be God.

But the lures of this illusion that I am trapped in, this wondrous, scary place called the earth- in all its glory, its beauty, its inhabitants and its sterling lies. My mind would wander and in a weak moment, get ensnared in the spinning tales of love and laughter. And there I would fall back again. I resolve to rise. I resolve to be. But a bit of my heart that doesn't know to keep shut says I can't be what I want to be. For I am already what I am destined to be. Always a human. Feeling, loving, crying.

One day I was going to come back bigger and better, in a life beyond the petty, the irrelevant. But I couldn't make myself go. I couldn't make myself leave the illusion, the faith that this dry, wicked, uncaring world will love you back one day, one fine day. So, I stayed on. Or that cruel hope did.

Fall

2011-10-17T09:07:00.003+05:30

A crack in the mind,

A broken arrow that pierced

Hearts, more than one

A slip in time,

Over a small weak moment-

One that snowballed,

And ran all down

Down, down the deep crevice-

Into the unknown

Of the forbidden, in a free fall.

Oh, but what a fall!

The heart wailed,

The mind assailed,

With fears tasting bitter

But no guilt,

Over what's done and dead;

Oh, but what a fall it was,

With no rhyme, no cause.

And when you find land

Finally beneath your shaky feet,

All you want is to be swayed

And swept away, again

Into the nothingness of non-existence.

The Pioneer

2011-10-06T07:52:00.003+05:30

The world is what it is today for what you gave its people. Counting losses, like the selfish people we are, the world will be a tired place without your visions to drive it on and forward. But looking back, "connecting dots", the world learned to live through what you gave it, the way you forced it to own up to its dreams and turn them into reality. You always will be the fore-runner, the pioneer, the visionary- the one who rekindled hope and courage, and pushed us into a new era, a new world of exciting possibilities.

Today, on the fifth day of October, year 2011, the great Steve Jobs passed away. Heart-broken, and at a loss, the world mourns as one, and remembers with startling clarity the ways he has touched all our lives, in ways more than one.

We rejoice that we had the chance to be touched by your brilliance and inspired by your life, and death.

You live on, in our quest to be bigger than our dreams, beyond the limits of our imaginations.

Rest in Peace.

Steve Jobs is survived by his wife and four children. And generations of people, us, who will always remember him as the one who not only led, but paved the way, too.

Inexplicable

2011-10-01T11:00:00.000+05:30

Like many people out here, I am also posting the same article on my blog as the treasure it is. It is not to show-off, because that's not what it is, but for remembering, for realizing and understanding and finally, knowing.

Ask me who I am, I am an Indian who comes from Calcutta. And my heart is Bengali as Bengali as you can get with the terrible broken Hindi, love for dose-sambar and tandoori chicken and fish as everyday cuisine. As Bengali as you can get living with Marwaris, Punjabis, Gujaratis, Tamilians, Telugu, Keraliltes and all the others who are as integral to Calcutta as the people who have been in Calcutta for generations. And yes, if you ask us, yes, yes, yes, we are proud and take pride in being what we are.

And as the city comes alive during this time of the year, with the greatest festival we celebrate that is more social than religious... when every one of us cast aside gloom for the sparkles in life, to live... when the city is decked in lights, overflowing joy and all-soul... reading this article could only bring more joy with the bittersweet feeling of being away from the inexplicable, the wonder that Durga Pujas and Calcutta brings. Just to remember how it was, I went back on to my own recollections and treasure of pictures of the last puja I had been to (in 2009) and the feelings, the pride, the nostalgia all but intensified.

Here is the article I read, and re-read, not to gloat or to be proud but as a keep-sake as I finally understand why others don't....

Written by Vir Sanghvi (Editorial Director of Hindustan Times) on Kolkata & Durga Puja :

What 'Pujo' means to a Bengali ?

Most modern Indian cities strive to rise above ethnicity. Tell anybody who lives in Bombay that he lives in a Maharashtrian city and he will take immediate offence. We are cosmopolitan, he will say indigenously.

Tell a Delhiwalla that his is a Punjabi city (which, in many ways, it is) and he will respond with much self-righteous nonsense about being the nation's capital, about the international composition of the city's elite etc.

And tell a Bangalorean that he lives in a Kannadiga city and you'll get lots of techno-gaff about the internet revolution and about how Bangalore is even more cosmopolitan than Bombay.

But, the only way to understand what Calcutta is about is recognize that the city is essentially Bengali. What's more, no Bengali minds you saying that. Rather, he is proud of the fact.

Calcutta's strengths and weaknesses mirror those of the Bengali character. It has the drawbacks: the sudden passions, the cheerful chaos, the utter contempt for mere commerce, the fiery response to the smallest provocation. And it has the strengths (actually, I think of the drawbacks as strengths in their own way). Calcutta embodies the Bengali love of culture; the triumph of intellectualism over greed; the complete transparency of all emotions, the disdain with which hypocrisy and insincerity are treated; the warmth of genuine humanity; and the supremacy of emotion over all other aspects of human existence.

That's why Calcutta is not for everyone.

You want your cities clean and green; stick to Delhi. You want your cities, rich and impersonal; go to Bombay. You want them high-tech and full of draught beer; Bangalore's your place. But if you want a city with a soul: come to Calcutta.

When I look back on the years I've spent in Calcutta - and I come back so many times each year that I often feel I've never been away - I don't remember the things that people remember about cities.

When I think of London, I think of the vast open spaces of Hyde Park. When I think of NewYork, I think of the frenzy of Times Square. When I think of Tokyo, I think of the bright lights of Shinjiku. And when I think of Paris, I think of the Champs Elysee. But when I think of Calcutta, I never think of any one place. I don't focus on the greenery of the maidan, the beauty of the Victoria Memorial, the bustle of Burra Bazar or the splendour of the new Howrah Bridge. I think of people. Because, finally, a city is more than bricks and mortars, street lights and tarred roads. A city is the sum of its people. And who can ever forget or replicate - the people of Calcutta?

When I first came to live here, I was told that the city would grow on me. What nobody told me was that the city would change my life. It was in Calcutta that I learn't about true warmth; about simple human decency; about love and friendship; about emotions and caring; about truth and honesty. I learn't other things too. Coming from Bombay as I did, it was a revelation to live in a city where people judged each other on the things that really mattered; where they recognized that being rich did not make you a better person - in fact, it might have the opposite effect. I learn't also that if life is about more than just money, it is about the things that other cities ignore; about culture, about ideas, about art, and about passion.

In Bombay, a man with a relatively low income will salt some of it away for the day when he gets a stock market tip. In Calcutta, a man with exactly the same income will not know the difference between a debenture and a dividend. But he will spend his money on the things that matter. Each morning, he will read at least two newspapers and develop sharply etched views on the state of the world. Each evening, there will be fresh (ideally, fresh-water or river) fish on his table. His children will be encouraged to learn to dance or sing. His family will appreciate the power of poetry And for him, religion and culture will be in inextricably bound together.

Ah religion! Tell outsiders about the importance of Puja in Calcutta and they'll scoff. Don't be silly, they'll say. Puja is a religious festival. And Bengal has voted for the CPM since 1977. How can godless Bengal be so hung up on a religions festival? I never know how to explain them that to a Bengali, religion consists of much more than shouting Jai Shri Ram or pulling down somebody's mosque. It has little to do with meaningless ritual or sinister political activity.

The essence of Puja is that all the passions of Bengal converge: emotion, culture, the love of life, the warmth of being together, the joy of celebration, the pride in artistic expression and yes, the cult of the goddess. It may be about religion. But is about much more than just worship. In which other part of India would small, not particularly well-off localities, vie with each other to produce the best pandals? Where else could puja pandals go beyond religion to draw inspiration from everything else? In the years I lived in Calcutta, the pandals featured Amitabh Bachchan, Princes Diana and even Saddam Hussain! Where else would children cry with the sheer emotional power of Dashimi, upset that the Goddess had left their homes? Where else would the whole city gooseflesh when the dhakis first begin to beat their drums? Which other Indian festival - in any part of the country - is so much about food, about going from one roadside stall to another, following your nose as it trails the smells of cooking?

To understand Puja, you must understand Calcutta. And to understand Calcutta, you must understand the Bengali. It's not easy. Certainly, you can't do it till you come and live here, till you let Calcutta suffuse your being, invade your bloodstream and steal your soul. But once you have, you'll love Calcutta forever.

Wherever you go, a bit of Calcutta will go with you. I know, because it's happened to me. And every Puja, I am overcome by the magic of Bengal.

It's a feeling that'll never go away.

I wish I was home....

Distance

2011-09-04T03:23:00.000+05:30

I mean I have always imagined being in an entirely separate continent as the same as being in different cities. In its simplicity, time zones notwithstanding, you just don't get to see the person everyday.

And in its all simplicity, we humans forget to be that- simple.

When we live in different cities but the same country, we never need to call, never need to see. And add a few thousand miles to the existing hundreds, you feel you are so away from all those you love, the need to see, to talk, to be, increases manifold. Why is this so different? Is it the subconscious that says, being in the same country, different places lets you get away with the sense of security- I can hop on a train/plane whenever I want, and just zoom back home. Whilst being a thousand miles apart tells you, my whims will get lost in the labyrinth of practical trivialities like money, time and the over-powering distance.

Take for instance, my oldest and my best friend for the longest time, our busy lives never let us meet up even when we were in the same city for more than a year! Though that time was indeed interspersed with short phone calls, I never knew of the turmoil she was going through. But now that I was back home for a few weeks, she set aside all her plans, her sabbatical from the cruelties of life to be with me. For every day she could. And now from across oceans, I am more connected to her- pushing her, prodding her, lending a shoulder, a ear and simply, being there for for her.

Isn't it weird? When we have the means, we never need them. When we don't have the means, when all the ways in and all the ways out are all but restricted, we need, we yearn, we reach out for all that we didn't when we could.

But to people who we love and have never seen, the constancy in a world that remains unchanged whether you log in from one country or another, you repeat the same mistake from the lesson you never seem to learn. Sometimes the lines are so blurry, and you miss where the virtual overlaps with the real, and the real actually is non-existent.

You could deal with the anger, but not with the hurt. You could try logic but what when the love itself is illogical? You could will the person to understand but you'd know that you would't have if it were you, even if you had you tried to.

It is something about people, something about relationships, it's something about loving. About belonging and caring. It comes with responsibilities that we forget. That which we sometimes choose to set aside in times of trouble, trying to prioritize and failing.

But at the end of the day, when you almost come to losing the love you know is irreplaceable, you wake up to tears from your own eyes. Why is it we forget what we have? Why is it we value something till it is no more? Why do we hurt, when all we wanted to was love?

Why do we never grow up? Never learn?

Sometimes even an apology dripping with shared pain, is not enough.

That Dimpled Smile.

2011-08-05T16:03:00.005+05:30

So, I went visiting yesterday, to all my favorite places and places that have been temporarily shut down, much like mine own, which have been prey to the predators called careers and fast life. To me blogs are places, homes for your thoughts and sterling personality that often gets neglected or unnoticed in day-to-day busy lives.

And as I was blog-hopping I was nostalgic about my own blog and its erstwhile popularity. Yes, I didn't much care about it when I had it- because that's the correct thing to do. Now, I can safely say, I care as, alas, it's no more!.

But then what's better than a has-been blogger writing about a popular blogger on her sleepy blog? And add the layers of cream- when that blogger herself asked you to (not the way it sounds- she said, you haven't for a while and you could). And finally add the icing- when she's one of the best gifts of blogging and my dearest friend (there's lot to be had from rubbing shoulders with the mighty and famous).

Now, words are her stock-in-trade. As is the dimpled, wide smile. I can't seem to get over my fascination with the latter even after almost three years of knowing her. Is this what the more foolish call love?

She's the most strong woman I have known whose fought more battles than people twice her age and kept on smiling for the benefit of others. She's trusting but scathing, she's stead-fast and loyal but get on the wrong side she's lethal.

Sounds like a review, where I repeat myself in a new post every time (with an all-familiar tag once in a while), but she hates flattery and all the nice things about herself, so I can't seem to help myself.

Well, she is good to my ego. There was a time when I was in her blogroll and she still claims I am one of the best writers around (or one of her favorites- same difference really). I would so like to be told so and flattered in public, so she does it in private. And she hates being lauded in public so that's where I tunelessly sing her praises, always. And I am good to her ego, whatever she has of it.

She's a writer with the gift of gab, a one-liner up her sleeve for every hour of the day and more likes on Facebook, re-tweets on Twitter than I can count. The latter was for the measurement of success these days. And she's real easy on the eyes. I don't want to get into how sexy she is, as I might scare the extremists and the conservatives off the site.

So, coming back to a has-been talking about the thing-of-the-day - it should earn me some notice, faint stirring of recognition and lost readers, shouldn't it? Well, as I said there's a lot to be had having a famous friend you love (who strangely enough loves you back)

By the way, anyone know who she is?

If you don't, quit tweeting and then, blogging, dude!

Back Home - First Look

2011-08-02T23:51:00.002+05:30

Calcutta. India. Home. And the lure of the Soil.

Nothing's changed but the fourth dimension. And everything's changed!

Red has given way to green. The traffic still bursts open at bottlenecks, screaming and loud. People still throng the roads in hordes and the footpaths are still catering to the busy vendors.

The favorite late afternoon snack is still the road-side phuchhka and chicken roll. And smelly, sweaty men still hanging off the buses and trains. Or fighting with each other to get into the already crowded metros, before the tired automatic doors close on them. The red-and-yellow mini buses roaring and almost flying over the asphalt like the king of the roads, racing with each other and competing with the shrewd, yellow-and-black auto-rickshaws, which would slither in and out and across as the fastest public transport. And all the while the rich and regal yellow Ambassador taxis fly to reach destinations or crawl by the farthest lane in search of it's quarry. Hell, how I miss the constant screech and omniscience of public transport. How I love the noise, the crowd, the constancy- the life of my city.

Monsoons had just made its first rounds and I'm still waiting for its encore. But I couldn't love it less.

Travel back from across oceans and you realize how beautiful, how rich your land is. And appreciate it with dawning comprehension, with a love and a pull that goes beyond time and you and the simple.

It is hot, humid and fantastic. That's my Calcutta.

Tell Me You Understand

2011-07-24T21:32:00.001+05:30

So, the latest status message on my Facebook wall reads...

"To think blogging is one of the things I love..... The shortest route to breaking a habit- put it in the syllabus!!"

The people at the university I am at, like the people at most other universities in this country decided we don't know enough if they don't know what we know. So, even if you are armed with a Masters in the subject and here to do just research and no more dropping off to sleep in long-winded classroom lectures, the latter is exactly what they'll make you do.

Amongst the more things that you have to do, grumbling, swearing, cursing, shouting and/or crying, is a course for learning to write!!! They call it- Scientific Writing. (Imagine!)

Amongst learning to write grants to get money, proposals (to get more money), abstracts to publish etc etc, there is a section on "how to write a science blog".

One of my class mate's status read: "Do they write poems for scientists? Why am I writing scientific blog for them?"- which I found to be a very valid question.

But I considered myself luckier as hey, I love to blog, and there are so many science blogs I do read from time to time. This is an assignment I'll looove. Well, you've already read what I started off with.

So, the assignment was due today by 7pm in the evening. And I struggled with it till the last minute and like the loyal keeper of Indian time, I managed to submit it just a few minutes late. It is possibly the worst "blog post" I have written. But then the point was a scientist writing for the normal people err, the masses. Did I succeed? Can I make you the painful reader and judge? And then maybe, maybe I will write a post on science once in a while in here, just for the non-scientists. Please tell me you understand!

Glow-in-the-Dark Organs: A New Fluorescent Marker for Internal Organs

In an exciting new advent in science, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine have discovered a fluorescent probe that will enable scientists to look at the internal organs non-invasively

Fluorescent imaging is done by exciting a fluorophore with light at a specific wavelength and capturing the emitted light at another wavelength. Instruments like fluorescence microscope are used to visualize this.

Fluorescent proteins like Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) have been successfully used to visualize cells and analyze organelles. Obtained from jellyfish and corals, the discovery took the research world by storm. However, looking inside the mammalian body is not an easy feat. Blood makes visualization difficult, because it contains hemoglobin (involved in transporting oxygen from the lungs to all the tissues in the body), which is responsible for the characteristic red color of blood. Hemoglobin absorbs all wavelengths of light effectively, blocking excitation and/or emission of the commonly used fluorescent probes. Melanin in the skin also presents a similar hindrance.

Vladislav Verkhusha, leading the research at AECOM, confronted this hurdle by going out of the visible light range into the infrared spectrum. The group engineered a protein from a phytochrome of the photosynthetic bacteria called Rhodopseudomonas palustris. Phytochrome is a photosensory receptor that absorbs light in the red and infrared spectrum and is the pigment used by the bacteria to detect light for carrying out photosynthesis.

This phytochrome-based modified variant fluorescent protein called iRFP (infrared fluorescent protein) both emits and absorbs light at the near-infrared spectrum. Incidentally, the mammalian tissues are nearly transparent at this wavelength.

Published in the July 17, 2011 issue of Nature Biotechnology, the researchers describe how they developed the protein and targeted the liver in mice to test the fluorescent probe. The liver is one of the more difficult organs to visualize due to its high blood content. Adenoviral particles were used where the iRFP gene was transported and targeted into the liver cells using the infectivity and specificity of the virus. On infection, the liver cells expressed iRFP that was observed by exposing the mice to infrared light and visualizing the fluorescence emission using a whole-body imaging instrument called IVIS Spectrum.

Several experiments were carried out to show that the protein itself is non-toxic. This strong tool allows whole-body imaging non-invasively and without the use of radiation or harmful reagents usually required for such imaging.

This engineered fluorescent protein might just lead into a new era in research and pathology for how we monitor the health of an organ or tumor growth inside a mammalian body. It has the potential to be the new GFP, for larger organs, of course.

A Rainy Day

2011-05-24T23:15:00.000+05:30

The rain was a fine mist, incessant and untiring. The morning looked no different from the late afternoon – it was always the same stark grey till the lazy evening cast her shroud of darkness over the bleak day. It’s strange how it took the boring hue to bring out the green, when the sun wasn’t around with its warm and bright glare but was lost in the labyrinth of deep and angry clouds who had been lurking all week like intimidating warriors of the ancient times.

Spring was here. The calendar on the wall, the date on your phone would tell you that. But on the slow day, as you walked out, turning the collar against the fierce winds from the nearby lake, you shiver and try in vain to warm your hands, rubbing them together, against the chill that could reach your bones, if allowed.

A strange place to be lost in, battling the fickle weather, where the long afternoons give way to soot-black nights. As if evening is a disgruntled, haughty lady, making only the briefest entrance just to keep up appearances.

The wet shoes that would later squeak on the tiles, the moist, warm socks making your toes curl, as you trudge against the wind, uphill jumping over puddles and landing directly in some. The soft rain pelted tirelessly on your face, not quite drenching you but imperceptibly stealing the little warmth you had.

It was like walking through the damp and woolly clouds, as if they had stooped down from the heavens to the lowly earth for petty recreation. As the tired workers straggled home at the end of their day, pushing through the wind, scarcely guarded against the rain, the rain would sometimes come down roaring, like hoodlum teenagers playing games, their laughter apparent in the distant thunder, as the rains would catch the throngs unaware drenching them or making them run for cover, just before the downpour would become a trickle and the people would be left frustrated.

But the misty, fine rain at the end of a tired, slow day felt like sweet pricks of salvation as I dragged myself, homeward bound. You could almost taste heaven as you smiling closed your eyes against the soft drops.

And on my usual walking route home, as I crossed the barbed-bridge above the winding train tracks, I paused to stare at the myriad of greens lining the brown tracks like a mother clasping her child against her heart. I followed the trail till the tracks turned away from my view. And suddenly in a moment suspended in time, as I stood staring in that stolen moment of a busy life, as the sound of the cars disappeared in the distance, and all I could hear was the faint echo of the train that just passed by and the soft thudding of the rain around me, feeling the wet, cleansing drops on my arid face, I felt, momentarily, that there was a paradise in this world too.

The Conniving Bitch

2011-05-11T00:58:00.002+05:30

It takes all kinds to make the world.

With widened eyes, dropped jaws and a bewildered expression lending evidence to the difficulty faced by your consciousness to process "the kinds", this is the only statement that can make you find sense within the unthinkable, improbable.

Money is not everything. Did our parents not teach that? Or have we very conveniently forgotten? Or is it the paycheck that comes in gives you the misplaced feeling of being indispensable, unique? Or is it a way to protect what you don't deserve?

You come first, possessions next, people come last, if by some twisted form of "greatness" they do make to that list. Consideration, humility, honesty are not only over-rated, they are despised. Love, passion, joy, victory are all meaningful when you are the recipient.

And then you cry, when the others shun you. Have you ever thought of the ones you shunned?

You may not keep a tab, but someone does. Call it karma, call it dharma. Actions pay. Pretensions, hypocrisy, lies - they are not traits, they are the downfall. I could wait, agape and shake my head at the play, feel my values holding me back from crying out in anger. But not for long, because there is no such thing as the perfect act, the perfect lie. You do get caught and in the web woven of your own deceit.

I don't cry with elation, nor with vindictive joy at your plight. I sympathize but cannot empathize, for I have been too smart to be my own nemesis. But you made yourself your own reason of destruction. I don't gloat but I do sympathize for what I beheld, you suffer what you gifted yourself.

And your jealousy, your hatred didn't kill me, didn't hurt me, couldn't even put the faintest scratch but I have everything that I ever needed, all that which you could never touch. But then you didn't know, you and I were not at the same level to begin with.

I know what you think, people are ungrateful and life's a bitch.

Life isn't the bitch, dude. You wanna know who is, find the nearest mirror.

The Girl on Her Birthday

2011-04-26T10:30:00.005+05:30

I am my own little girl, in my own sweet world, not quite set apart for the lure of an earth, once walked upon, is too great to be ignored. I could have been God, if not for the love that trapped me and bound me to the mortals, who'd live and die, born of the soil and returned in the rhythmic circle of life.

I walked unknowing, unbeknownst, for not even I knew the purpose of the reason I was here, flitting like the untamed from one goal to the next, restless and discontent in search of meaning. The meaning of being.

As the years pass by, slowly and then in a blur of colors, joys and conquests, I begin to slow as I feel me nearing what I set out to do. Yet not knowing what it was....

But there's a reason why I walk the earth. Cynical and old, but young and idealist, I am here to make a difference. One pair of hands, and a head above strong shoulders, a whisper in the wind mingling with the other whispers, so alike till it turns into a roar, resounding off the skies, I strive as I search yet knowing I am here for a reason. A reason for which I will be remembered, even if my name will never be known.

I am here to make a difference. To prove again that amidst all the black, dirty and ugly, we are humans, with hope and love and kindness, with the true God residing within. That's what I gift myself on the day of my birth.

The White Corridor

2011-03-26T09:46:00.002+05:30

The screamed instructions
And the piercing whistles,
Wheels screeching
Drown out the incessant wails.
The white, stark and desolate,
Suffused with colors
Pale blue and green,
And with sudden splash
Of the vibrant red.
The flashing lights,
Soundless in the awry crowd
As the world waits
And the time looks on
Folded hands, closed eyes
Pained hearts and scared minds
The sun lost in a shroud of black
As frantic hands pump on
On a thudding heart
To keep beating
For yet another birth
The wait never ends
Coffee spilled cold
The hunger gone dry
Forgotten parched throat
The heroes trudge on
On fumes of adrenaline
Sleepless eyes of man
Who was God.
As the life slips through
The fingers, sweat and blood
The body turns cold
Beneath the warm touch
Facing mortality, visited by death,
Failure that haunts every try
And God turns Man, again.

Love, Marriages & Love-Marriages

2011-03-25T21:39:00.005+05:30

The sights and sounds, the words and cheers of marriages and weddings have made me contemplate this phenomenon more often than I usually would. It has just started to sink in that in a few years time (quite a few years, please) I will also be "submerged in similar bliss".

So after reading Ro's post on marriages, I begun to wonder, yet again, what exactly are the arranged and love marriages.

To Westerners, as much as it is unfathomable, the concept of arranged marriages actually intrigues them. This is how we explained it to them what it is. When a boy or a girl is ready to settle down, but haven't hooked up with someone already, they ask their parents (or their parents may ask them if they want to) to look for a match for them. Their first reaction is -oh, it's like dating, only with parents involved. Exactly! We do not have the pressure of having to find a partner before we are twenty so that we don't stay unmarried all our lives, because we can count on our family's support when it will come to finding a partner, if we haven't already.

How is it too different from dating? Except you are dating for a husband/wife and not a boyfriend/girlfriend, with the wisdom of your parents thrown in, along with your own choice.

Love happens. You cannot force it to. Marriages don't ensure love, like neither do being in a relationship. A love-marriage that signifies falling in love before getting married, doesn't really mean that. What a love-marriage actually implies is you chose your partner, without any help from your parents. Friends often set up dates, pair one friend with another but that's not called arranged, but it seems no different to me.

In every relationship, you learn to love, begin to love on one fine day and it has nothing to do how you met, and when you got married.

Arranged marriages and love marriages are real misnomers. Love can be a part of both or neither, and the marriage is not the crux of the matter. The real thing are the two people in it. Love is different from Marriage. And entirely different from Love-marriage. No marriage can ensure you love, whether be it your choice or your family's. And again, some of the most wonderful love stories that I have seen have been from arranged marriages.

The worst idea that we have is in an arranged marriage we don't choose who we marry. It is the most dumb idea to have. We always can get to choose (with some exceptions of course, of the extremists that still exist today) who we marry, sometimes we do it with the pre-approval of our parents, sometimes we get the approval later (some do have to fight for it though).

Marriages should be just that - marriage. Arranged marriages are the wrong word as it's either you or your family who 'arrange' the who-to-marry. And love marriages are all the ones that have love in it, no matter the how, the where, the when.

Personally, I fell in love when I wasn't looking for it. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have "looked" for a love-marriage, searching for a person who I can marry. It just happened that I met the man I love before I married him, even before I thought of the word 'marriage'. And I'm marrying him (whenever that is) not because it is the natural transition but because I want to, we want to (try prying me out of singlehood otherwise!). I could have married him the next day to when I learned he loved me back too, that was the height of enlightenment, the depth of understanding. It would have been the same if my parents had been looking for a boy for me. They would have chosen him, given the choice (if they had known of him - he is the kind of guy my parents would choose for me - being their daughter I had known what they hope, want, wish for me), and I would have had the same clarity of knowing that I had the first time. Only then we would have gotten married in a few months time, and now we have to wait a few years.

The best ever example of a wonderful love marriage that I saw first-hand is that of my parents. The wife of a couple (who are friends of my parents) after narrating to my mother the story of their love marriage, asked my mother, "You had an arranged marriage, didn't you?" Before my mother could say anything, my father spoke up, "No, ours is also love marriage." As the lady looked up confused, as her question was rhetorical, and my parents' arranged marriage, legendary (people find it difficult to believe) and common knowledge, my father smiled and continued, "Yours was 'love before marriage', and ours was 'love after marriage.'"

That is the most amazing thing I had ever heard anyone say. And it shut everyone up!

Love matters. How it happens, never does.

Two Years on the Trot

2011-03-11T10:31:00.001+05:30

Maverick Misfit turns two today as do I in this enigmatic, surreal world that will always be a part of me, whether I be or not.

And it seems fitting in the history of Me, the Maverick and the Misfit girl, the history of joys and more joys, of friends and clashing swords, of winning and winning more, in a world where you can never lose, a world where I also could be fleeting celebrity, that the first birthday wishes, even the reminder, came from my (my blog and I) blog-twin, my soul-sister - the quintessential best friend across time and space - Neha. Of course.

This virtual world would be the last place a normal person would associate with love and lasting relationships. But that is exactly what we get out of being an invisible but breathing entity of this cherished space in our lives. I rediscovered my knack and love for writing, explored and learned, broadened my views, traveled my country, met people, found friends, read the myriad of gems of fertile minds, celebrated, laughed, wept and cried out in outrage - all sitting in front of a glowing screen with twenty-six alphabets at my fingertips.

I was tending to my creepy-crawly (right now, I am working with worms, my model organism to study aging - yes, this writer is actually a scientist by profession - don't be too alarmed) when I received this post in my email (with an irritating post-script of explicit instruction saying 'for your eyes only'), a post of celebrating love, and a birthday.

"In every word I write, you write, being the smart and somewhat talented writers that we are, we can find each other some where between the quotes, among the sarcasm, sprinkled with love in every page of our blogs that we have traveled across... laid out in the open yet hidden from all but the one who knows"

Rephrasing what the best gift my blog ever gave me, wrote to me. the one who had written the hundredth post among others, for this blog when the blog had turned one.

In a more real world of struggling with moving ahead, balancing relationships with people you've seen and met, a chasm forms but in this world that is closer and more real for the honest beating hearts, there can never be distance, never be time lost. I pine for her, as I pine for the blog neglected in my pursuit to be the some body I envision myself as. But the love never recedes, but only deepens.

It is a virtual, surreal world but the people in it, real, more real than what they can dare to be.

So, it is my birthday today, one of a re-birth. For all people I have found, who have loved me a lot, sometimes not liked me so much (but rarely ignored me!), for the story in me, the words that now flow off my fingertips from the farthest, forgotten recesses of my mind, and to that person of my life who had literally compelled me to pick up the pen again, I live on.

And for all those who read me, for they want to, for whom I am the Misfit girl, known in spite of my forays away from this world, the ones who have kept me alive, loved me for who I am and not for what I couldn't be, I thank you for being a support system and a wonder that sustains this writer and makes this amazing world (and birthday) even more beautiful!

Once I had called blogging an addiction, but today I call it passion of survival and this blog is my baby of that unbridled, uninhibited passion.... and here my baby completed two glorious years of the several more to come.

Happy Birthday to Me!

And a Wedding!

2011-03-03T09:45:00.003+05:30

In the US of frickin' A!!

I must have really looked pitiful that God could not not notice me any further, and sent a package of wonderful celebrations my way!

I had an invitation to the wedding of two very wonderful people I have the honor of knowing and being counted among their friends. A small, quiet wedding, limited by the fact both of them are still students, not unlike me (just a few years senior), it was in no way a small celebration of joy! Being a part of an unexpected occasion, and in arrangements, preparations and the final vows, looking at the wedding so closely made the elusive happiness reappear in my life with the promise of brightening up not only the weekend, but days afterwards. So far, it is staying up to its promise.

The bride and groom were seniors from home whom I had never met but heard of. The bride makes me feel like a younger sister that I never have been while the groom is the really a king of raunchy, witty quips, great company and timeless addas. They are two people who have made their home a haven for the bereft, the lost like me, in the US. So much so, that when I am with them (too less for my liking), I forget that I'm still in the other country!

Their families weren't here but their friends from all other parts of the US were here, who had rushed to their side to share their happiness as they exchanged rings and vows. They were equally wonderful and the times we had, the fun, the laughter is something that I will always cherish. To think I didn't know of them before, it is like we'll never forget each other after. No one was family by blood but no one, witnesses to the wonderful union, was anything less than that.

We had a bachelorette party the evening before with hilarious outcomes. The bride-to-be had to clean, cook and work, which I found to be entirely wrong, a reason I chipped in to help. Indian brides, wherever in the world they may, shouldn't work the day before they tie the knot! And as I said, she, to me, is the elder sister I never had and always yearned for. At the party, everything was simply fabulous. One of our another married friends had thrown an amazing bash for her, and by the bride's explicit instruction it was not supposed to be dinner, but just high tea. We stayed at her place, on a weekday, with work calling the next day, till 3 am. And we (a friend and I) were the first to leave (since I had to go to lab the next morning and get out early to attend the wedding the next afternoon!). With great food, impromptu pasta dinner, edible chocolate body icing (don't you want to know!), aborted attempts to watch blue films and settling for jab we Met (what a demotion and disappointment for us 'kids'!!), dancing with (and like) Jeetendra to "O Taki, o taki...", mehendi that the bride insisted on applying to everyone's hands after hers had dried and loads of snaps, it was a perfect evening to set off the celebrations. While the guys decided to do something that they never do, since the women were not there anyway (and our hostess' husband was prohibited from coming back home) - drink. Of course, give it to them to come up with something sooo original! But of course they can thank their stars that we didn't follow up on our intial plans (and hopes?!) to go to a strip club! (The bride said that is the grossest thing she can think of, she'd rather watch a woman strip! ;))

The day after, I wore a saree!! A new one that my mom had given me before I had come for the Durga puja celebrations and one I had not worn. The bride not only looked resplendent but breath-taking. I'd never seen her look that beautiful. After a couple of hours of pampering at a salon, which was a lot for her, she was not only looking stunning but was glowing. As the hour approached for the Justice of Peace to arrive, the visits to the bathroom increased for the jumpy groom. (Men will be men will be men... and replace men with immature)

It was a wonderful ceremony! It was very moving, and almost brought tears to our eyes. The bride choked slightly on her vows, which was only when we realized amidst all the fun the gravity of the big step the two were committing too. It was awe-inspiring and humbling. Whilst the groom's voice carried loud and clear when he repeated his vows clasping his bride's hands firmly. It was really, really amazing.

The fun, of course, didn't stop there. It continued way after the ceremony with great Indian food, best since I have come to the States, unstoppable adda the way only Bengalis can, ribbing and taesing, unwrapping gifts, lots more photo sessions (must have clicked more than 1000 pics altgether) and sublime happiness for everyone. I had to leave early sadly, though my new friends wanted me to stay overnight, but I needed the weekend to start studying for the exam I had ignored until then.

It was a celebration - small yet unpretentious, significant and real. It was the best wedding ever!

It was a perfect picture of a perfect couple!

Of course, they are going to get married twice more in the coming year in India - a Bengali wedding and the nikaah, but this was, and will be, to them too, just special.

The groom will always remember asking his bride-to-be in the evening after work one ordinary day, chal, let's get married (the way one asks out for coffee), and replying to her question (are you serious?), I am waiting for you by the car downstairs to go and apply for the license... And the bride shrugged, A'right , I'll be down in a minute.

Little did they know, my distraught state over missing all the weddings important to me and the pleas to God for letting me attend at least one wedding, would result in them being irreversibly tied them in wedlock, forever right now!

The Anti-Marriage Force

2011-03-01T12:14:00.001+05:30

That's me. Or us. The ones who left the country just about six months ago constitute this huge task-force whose very presence in the city or even country was all that was required to keep away the marital bliss several miles away.

It can't just be the "marriageable" age that suddenly appeared unbeknown to everyone in just six months! When I was back at home, there wasn't as much of a whiff of the word "Wedding!" or even the faintest tinkling of the bells, forget the clanging that eventually ensued.

My very first-cousin, whom I talk about often as the brother who made me a tomboy (sorry, but to me he's my brother even though we have separate parents), who incidentally promised me last March that he's definitely not getting married before he's 35, for he's still too young, got hitched two weeks back!

Three second cousins got married last December and this January. Given I was very close to two of them, I was heartily pissed and sulked the mornings in the USA which was the evenings in Calcutta when the weddings were taking place.

One of my oldest friends got engaged last December and has set the date for the wedding for this December. Of course, given the time, I won't be attending. She was so busy with all the preparations, she didn't even tell me since I wasn't in the country anyway. I wasn't sure whether I should be utterly pissed and renounce her or whether I should tell her, of course, yaar, we have been friends from when we were babies, no formalities with me.

And every body had to marry right now and just could not wait till the monsoon season when I'll be in town!!

And to finish in haste the incomplete list, girls I went to school with, boys and girls my boyfriend went to school with, people we both went to college with, all are tying the knot, fast and furious, right, left and center!! Is the world really is going to end in 2012?!

The thing is I am scared of marriage, at least for now. I mean, I don't know about age but isn't it about maturity? And I'm famous for my immaturity even on this blog! (The blog that was created specifically to document all the great things about me!!) But am I so lagging behind in maturity that all the kids, yeah kids, younger to me in school, in college (I will damn well call them kids still), are getting hitched to The One (I mean, a different The One every time for each of them)?!

Why the hell should they all get married when it's the time to enjoy being single, erm, unhitched? I really love my status, I am in love with the guy whom I eventually will be marrying and yet at the same time, am unhitched enjoying a responsibility-free romance. Well, that is the scary word - responsibility. Why in the world would I take that on my head when I can enjoy a few more years as a baby daughter (sadly, also as a 'baby' girlfriend) who doesn't have to take decisions?

My boyfriend however told me, unlike us, strugglers in the world of research, they are all settled in their lives, their careers, have been earning for a while to think about taking the next step and can do it happily. But I'm am stubborn enough to emphatically disagree that it is more reason to enjoy being in love (buy anything and not worry about monthly bills) without getting married right away (go back home to your parents). Though, my boyfriend shook his head indulgently at my argument, I still hold that they should have held a couple of more years. It's just that they didn't speak to me first.

Or maybe I am just jealous of missing all the great food, dressing-up, happy times and the magic of togetherness for forever. The bride in red, the glowing faces, the look in the groom's eyes as he beholds his beautiful bride in that first glimpse, the clasped hands, the laughter, the joy, the families coming together - yeah, envy explains it better. It is beside the fact that I missed the people I love, my family and the weddings that I looked forward to from the beginning of time.

However there are still a few other people, in my life and T's (so in ours) who said it by themselves (without prodding from me) who'll never get married without us at the occasion, for the event wouldn't just be possible. His cousin (she said, who'll be there to hold me (in a Bengali ritual) when I am given away if not my brother), his best friend (he said, I'll schedule it when both of you are in town, hopefully there'll be a muhurat), my best friend (she says, are you nuts... no hope of getting married without you prodding me along), my favorite cousin (he said, I'm too young anyway, you'll get married first... I so like him), they won't take us off their list. Ever.

But then I took a major decision and devised a foolproof method to make sure that we are not taken off the list. For everyone who gets married now, without us, will be taken off the invitation list of our wedding. Whenever that happens.

Catharsis Part-X: Inwards

2011-02-24T09:38:00.001+05:30

I haven't written a story, haven't really rhymed.

All I have done is feel, sometimes be happy, and sometimes blind.

There's a world that is an illusion of people being yours without really being so. There's a world where you think you belong but you'll never do so. Amidst happiness, friends and love, the ingredients to a wonderful life, I feel lost and scared like a little kid. I love my life who's a friend only if you are one.

Compared to the shadowed yesterday, there's a brighter tomorrow. Literally, as I see. I stand in between and look at the two and realize there's something in you, and something out there, whatever happens needs to. Being God's favorite child, no harm can ever befall you. It is a bliss to be wrapped in this illusion, especially knowing that it is one.

And the strangest discovery, in this whole farce that we live through, the most truest thing is the biggest illusion of all. Love. How it stays on, no matter whether you do or not. Yes, it is a wonderful, illusive life.

The Masterstroke

2011-02-06T04:35:00.010+05:30

He was writing when he stormed into the room. "Explain what's going on."

He looked up, mildly irritated at being interrupted in his flow. Words, so frivolously used by the ordinary, were diamonds when the soot was brushed off and cut to gleaming perfection. It was what made the people stop in their tracks filled with awe. But the making wasn't something that people understood, for it was not bestowed, it was cultivated. But it was what the ultimate creation was. He looked at the crude, young man in front of him from the top of his glasses. Crudeness could be removed with a minor flourish of his genius, but the good looks and the blatant arrogance beneath his right-now scruffy bearing was what he needed. Yes, his ten-year younger brother fitted the bill perfectly.

"I asked you something, Ray. Don't make me repeat myself." Impatience and anger, just flitting at the brim, controlled with a tight rein. Admirable. Ray smiled inwardly. He was rarely wrong.

"What's going on?" Politely puzzled, Ray stretched back into his armchair.

This time Clay kicked at the leather backed chair, leaned forward and and violently thrust his face within an inch of his brother's.

"I am not marrying Claire."

Ray surveyed him calmly and said, "Yes, you are if you still want to live in this house."

"You can't make me." Clay spat out.

"I won't have to. You will." Ray looked around the papers scattered on his desk and said softly and pointedly, "As you see I'm working... Now if you are finished with your little tantrum, can I get back to my writing?"

"You fu...."

"I know you have quite a colorful language. But I don't really need a lesson right now."

Clay stood there seething, a closed expression on his face, his eyes shuttered. But Ray who was already poring down on his papers didn't see. Clay walked out in a slow gait to the giant oak doors, turned and said softly, "She was your wife, Ray."

"Close the doors after you, Clay." he said without looking up.

Clay stared back at his brother for a few unfathomable moments before closing the doors behind him.

At the desk, Ray chuckled lightly. The story was coming along fine indeed.

***

It was her wedding night. Which meant she was down in the kitchens in the dead of the night, making her way in the dark, looking for some food. She was hungry not having had a proper dinner and she had to wait till all the guests had left and the servants had retired for the night. It had been a magnificent feast and she had not partaken a single morsel of it. Clay had left several hours earlier. The guests not being an hindrance to him, as he had climbed out the window of his bedroom as only Clay could. Their bedroom. Claire almost choked on the thought.

It was a cool and balmy night. But the shivers were nothing to do with that. She was trying hard not to think about the turns her life had taken but she could little think of anything else. She went to the fridge and started rummaging through.

"Hello, love."

Claire jumped and whirled around to see Ray sitting at the kitchen table, eerily illuminated by the dim light of the refrigerator.

"I thought Clay was as randy as a young stallion, and you, my darling...." he laughed softly. "How come he let you out of his bed so soon?"

He stood up and walked around the table to her as Claire stood immobile, transfixed.

"Or are you still pining for me, love?" He reached a hand, smiled as Claire flinched, and closed the door of the fridge suddenly turning off the icy blast of cool air and sheathing them in darkness.

In the lightened darkness of the room, bathed only with faint moonlight filtering through the curtains, his eyes dropped suggestively and roved over her body, lingering at her heaving chest and the night clothes molding to it. He put a hand lightly on her breast and intoned softly, "Are you missing my touch, Claire?" As he lifted a thumb to brush, not so lightly across her puckered nipple, she jerked to life, and with a heave pushed his arms away as she ran up the stairs, with unknown tears streaking her cheeks.

Ray looked at her receding back, inwardly appreciating her tight little ass, as he braced himself. It was just getting better.

"What do you think you were doing Ray?", came his brother's voice, soft and dangerous, from the kitchen doors.

Ray turned slowly as if surprised to find him there.

Clay approached him menacingly and put choke-hold to his throat and said, "If you ever touch my wife again, I'll feed you bits by bits to the dogs. Do you understand?" Ray nodded, with what he hoped the right amount of fear and anger in his eyes.

"Claire is my wife now. You didn't want her. You set her aside. Now she is mine. And you better stay away from her."

Ray rubbed his throat, gasping for breath as Clay stomped away from him. The ball was set rolling. Finally.

***

It was slow but it was coming along. Perfectly.

The Perfect Woman

The manor house. Serene, sturdy and timeless. Witness to the passage of generations, of centuries of tribulations, of gains and losses, of treasures and misfortunes. And it would also withstand the storm raging inside now. But it would be the only one to.

The lady of the manor, a lady of impeccable upbringing and enviable lineage but with all the failings that made every woman weak. Like the child she cradled in her bosom, loving it with every breath she took even while it was sucking at her teats, sucking out her life. It could only be a woman who could love a child that her husband hadn't given her. It could only be a woman, too weak to drown a spawn, who could nurse the thing that sprouted out of the impassioned, tempestuous longing of the great owner of the manor, forcibly sated.

But she was as timeless, as predictable like every other of her race. Their bodies were the fertile ground, if not cultured, it would sprout weeds. It begged for watering, begged for seeds to be sowed. It begged and pleaded, thirsty and wanting.

A chivalrous, virile husband was nothing if it could not quench the thirsty, the parched, the wanton that a woman was when deprived. Handsome, youthful and strength, all counted for nothing when the wife, the lady, the hussy was lusting after the silent, refined owner of the lands and the lord of the mansion.

But the barges couldn't hold anymore. The waters filled and overflowed. A flood ensued. It was inevitable, as the water would come and cleanse off the scum, the rotting, and only the true would survive...

His pen poised on the last parchment, Ray tilted his head as he contemplated. One of them had to die. Which one, he mused.

***

The red of the sherry glinted brightly against the crystal of the decanter. A little known poison and the red of the sherry. Bloodless yet red. But she needed to be beautiful, more than she'd ever been in this last act. In this perfect story.

"Ah, Claire, my darling, there you are!", Ray greeted her, as she entered the library and stood waiting at the doors, her hands clutched tightly at her voluminous white skirts.

"Come in, darling, take a seat." Ray called out, as he poured the sherry carefully and appreciatively nodded to himself at her white gown. He couldn't have asked for a perfect setting. Claire walked in to the summons she couldn't ignore, her eyes pausing lightly at the crystal goblets in his hands.

"Where's Clayton?" she asked.

"Oh, he will be here in a bit, I expect. He must be tending to his beloved horses, I think" Ray said as he handed over her glass, "And we'll all celebrate together... Won't you ask what we are celebrating, darling?"

Without waiting for an answer that wasn't coming, Ray went back to his chair and said, "We are celebrating our union and our love."

This time Claire looked up puzzled, "Our love?"

"Of course, love, you know it was wrong of me to marry you when I knew I never wanted to be a husband. But I know how much you love me. Have always loved me. I set it right, didn't I? I got you a husband and yet didn't set you away from me. Wasn't it a brilliant plan? All for our love."

Claire stared at him incredulously, "This was your brilliant plan?" She laughed mirthlessly. "Our love, Raymond? You rape me, your brother's wife and call that love."

Ray smiled condescendingly, "Rape, my love? My touch, my love is all you ever wanted, wasn't it? Me? And the child you hold so lovingly to your lush breasts, you wouldn't have found so much love for that if it was rape, would you? You love it, because it was mine.

"But we are digressing. Drink up my love, I wanted to tell you about a story, my masterpiece, that I am finishing... A story like no other... we just have to wait for Clay."

Clay spoke from the doorway, "I am here. What did you want with us?"

"Oh, Clay! You are here already." Ray clapped his hands like a little kid.

"Now I can begin my story."

As Claire and Clay sat opposite him, Ray got up and started talking. "So, I wrote a novel, a masterpiece, a story so real, so deep that it will echo in the minds of those who will read it forever...

"And it is a story about a woman not unlike you, Claire." he said.

Claire and Clay waited, their faces inscrutable.

Ray continued, "Now I have almost reached the end of the novel, but one of the characters have to die. The lord of the manor, the husband or the woman whose story it is. That will be the masterstroke."

Turning around to face the others, Ray said, "And you have to help me... It is going to be simple and painless like poisoned sherry..."

Clay jumped up and knocked the crystal out of Claire's hands and it spilled with a thud on to the carpeted floor whilst a fine red seeped up the skirt of her gown. Claire sat wide-eyed and shocked.

"You are mad! Claire, you were right! He's mad! You think we are puppets in your hands, writing a book, a goddamn book, with your family cast as characters of a cheap thriller! You bastard!" Clay shouted as he lunged towards Ray. But Ray anticipatory and ready, moved with the agility of a deer and held a small, silver Colt against the temple of Claire.

"Don't bother, Clay. It is not how I want the character to die. Please don't ruin my story. And it is going to be perfect."

Clay stared scared, looking at the barrel of the firearm and the calm, mad eyes of his brother. The bastard actually meant it, he thought, all of us are just characters, when suddenly the tensed silence broke with the sound of a tinkling laughter.

"Your story? Your story, Ray?" Claire was laughing.

"You think we didn't know what you were up to?"

She turned around easily and swatted away Ray's hand as he looked on bewildered.

"You thought you had us cornered. Forcing my father to marry me off to Clay after you had spurned me, knowing Clay's righteousness that he will never touch me as a husband. But you miscalculated Ray, you made a huge error in judgement.

"You raped me not two days after my wedding to your own brother, ignoring my tears, my pleading, my hurt, my blood and justifying it all by calling it love... Thinking that our marriage was the sham you wanted it to be, you manipulated us, twining us all around your little finger. But you were wrong. The child is not yours. We did have a real marriage and we found love. Your hatred, your manipulation brought us together. And it showed us what I knew all along. That you are a mad man."

And before Ray's widening eyes, Claire moved forward and pressed her lips to his, "And you are right Ray, one of us has to die." She lifted her hand from the volumes of her skirts. The afternoon sun streaming through the high-walled windows gleamed briefly on the silver blade as she plunged it deep into the belly of the monster who had been her first husband, who had brought limitless pain to her and her own. And she could find nothing but a vindictive satisfaction as she plunged the knife again and again as the voices in her head screamed her name.

Clay wrenched the knife away from her hand, dragged her away and silently held her. "It had to be done Clay... Some one had to do it. And it had to be me. No one but me." Claire breathed heavily and looked around. "Do you think we didn't know about your story Ray? We knew it from the day Clay had leaned across this very desk and told you that he wouldn't marry your wife."

Ray looked up from the floor, the Colt still clutched in his hands, choking on his own blood and gurgled, "Cl...", and couldn't speak any more.

Claire looked at his lifeless body with disdain, and said, "Burn his novel, will you Clayton." and walked out leaving Clay staring down at his dead, demented brother with undisguised loathing.

***

The fire in the grate ate away at the manuscript, the flames slowly licking over the words that shined brightly moments before being devoured...

He had sinned and she would extract the penance. She was a woman, like every other one of her race, with a strength that surpassed man, and could rise from the ashes like an inferno and engulf all existence for all that she loved. And she could burn all that stood in her way. She could create and she would destroy like only a woman could.

Woman as she was. She was creation. And she alone, destruction. The perfect woman.

She was the last vision that he beheld, her perfect face, her flowing tresses, her beautiful, dark eyes lit with fire as she thrust her knife again and again into him. And in his death, death by her hands, he would be immortal again.

The empty Colt on the carpet remained the only witness to the masterpiece.

Our National Anthem

2011-02-03T06:11:00.003+05:30

There is a thing about that melody, the words, those uplifting notes that flow with your blood, seep into your bones and sinew and carry you with it that never fails to run a shiver done my torso... And the pride, the love, the sense of belonging, of being that I experience every time that I listen or take part in the wonder of our national anthem.

It made sense to me to stand up in my bedroom, or in front my desk at my workplace when I played the anthem. It felt that at those small moments in my own humble way I do tell that country of my birth, the country I love, the country I cherish more now as I am away.. I tell my country "thank you" for teaching me what no other place in the world could. I feel that in those small stolen moments I pay her the due respects. She has given us, and the world, so much... And me a home, a destiny, the roots and traditions to be proud of and at the same time taught me, never to be spiteful or boastful and never to stop learning.

It was always wonderful to listen to the tune play at home. Whether it was at the beginning of a movie, or impromptu, unaware in the screenplay of one, or whether it was at the flag-hoisting ceremony or at the end of a programme in school, it always created a deep-seated, wondrous sensation in the pit of my stomach that spread all over... something that the anthem could do every time without failing.

In this cold country, it was a warmth, besides the wonder that seeped through reached my numbed fingers and toes and comforted the chilling bones. As much as it made me yearn for my homeland, for my people, it made me stronger.

It strengthened my will to achieve, not as my parents' daughter, not as my family's pride, not as a Bengali but as a Indian to how the world that We Can. Amongst all the diversity that I'm learning of, all the different traditions, cultures, religions and languages, we stand with same set of principles, morals and pride of belonging.

As I wait to be, for all of us away from home, to Be... as we yearn for the home, the land like no other, like the irreplaceable mother... We strive to succeed, to achieve, to accomplish... As the Children of My Land. For all that we have been given that we forgot to be grateful for, we hope that one day we can make up for it and give something back to that country that is our real identity.

Being away taught us what we couldn't learn the easy way. Being away showed us what India really is. Being away taught us that we are Indians.

Like the national anthem that plays its silent melody in our hearts, it is the country that has made the words, the music, the feel timeless and far-reaching and that speaks to you always... only if you listen closely enough.