What to Pray???

I just came back from a very sudden ‘hushy n rushy’ trip to Chennai… this trip was not one of the usual trip down south with 10-15 temples to visit to, with 10-15 suits to get stitched (tailor’s r damn cheap there down south!), with 10-15 friends to meet n a big shopping list… this trip was altogether different. Rather it wasn’t a trip, but a visit.

Last Sunday after a talk with my grandma (Paati as I call her) over the phone, I realized that she is seriously not well. Yeah she was admitted in hospital twice in the last 3 months but still dad never said its something serious. But this time it was. They sent her back home n she wasn’t well. Now what do that mean? Have they given all the hopes? U see mid-sem is definitely not ‘the best’ time to travel to Chennai and I didn’t really knew whether we should go or not. I mean my dad’s brother (taayaji or periappa as I call him) said she is fine and there is no pressing emergency in visiting her now. But I told mom that my internal exams will start off after next week and that I seriously cant leave Delhi till May!

Mom felt May is a long way to go and asked me if I can miss college for a week. But I had a new lab on Monday. I said if the new experiment works on Monday, then maybe I can leave. Am kindda obsessed with my labs and never like to keep lab work pending. Theory classes are still fine, I can take notes later. More-over I needed time; all of a sudden I can’t leave for a week! Fortunately the experiment started off well on Monday n I felt at-ease. Dad came home a little late on Monday n rushed to get the tickets for the next day. Dad was overworked and said he will go next week so it was me, mom n Bhai going. When the tickets arrived at 8, we started off with the packing. Took out the summer dresses from the store, u c they were all nicely packed and kept aside.

We had to catch the night 10’o clock train on Tuesday so I went off to college in the morning. I had class till 3:30 which means I will reach home by 5. But I need time to bake a cake for her. Oh she simply loves cake!! But if I tell mom, she will never approve. Cake = sugar + butter = sweet = calorie = not good for her. But I knew this might be the last time am seeing her! I just couldn’t stay in the college after 12. I had to go home and bake the cake before mom arrives. So I left college early, threw away my bag n started off with the cake making process. And it came out well :)

Mom came home at 5 n started off with the food packing for the travel. There was no clue of cake around. When dad was packing the air-bag, I slowly got the cake-box n to my surprise I found my mom with a box of ‘gajar ka halwa’. Well well… I told mom “if u had told me u r gonna make that, I wouldn’t have missed my classes!!!” n to that she said “I thought u will not allow”. I smiled ‘like daughter – like mother’.

We reached Chennai-central on Thursday morning. Train was late by 2 hrs. We went to the nearby park station n caught the local train to St. Thomas Mount from where my Periappa picked us up. I was the first one to enter the house and there she was smiling and looking as Perfect as ever. She didn’t seem to have had any problem at all. In her usual form she asked how our journey was, what we had on the way, howz studies going, howz the climate in Delhi… all her usual queries. But hold on! Wasn’t it me who should be enquiring about her? Well I didn’t really have the guts. I was happy to c her cheerful sitting in front of me. I don’t wanna know what happened to her or even how she is feeling. When I got out the cake-box she was so happy!! Yeah she was happy with the ‘gajar ka halwa’ too but I think she was happier coz of the cake.

After lunch when I was talking to Periappa, he explained that Paati got 3 blocks in her heart. And Angioplasty isn’t a good option as doctor feels she won’t be able to take it n might collapse in the operation theater. I some-how was feeling very uneasy when this talk was going. I somehow didn’t want to get the details. Its not that I don’t understand these technical terms, I have been a bio student till 12^th so I could have understood if I wanted, but it’s just that I didn’t want. I went back to my Paati who was peacefully sleeping that time. Good for her.

That night I made the dinner. Dum-alu and parantha. She always loves north Indian food and this dish was from the Northest part, Kashmir. She said oil n spicy food both r banned for her. I said I can chuck one thing, either oil or spices n she settled with the later. Well she did get slight fever that night but she didn’t complain. Next day she insisted on us going out somewhere. But we wanted to spend time with her!! She was feeling bad that we have come al the way to Chennai and didn’t do any of our usual things so she called a taxi and sent us off to beach. My favvvvvvvvvvv place!! She knew what beach visits mean to me and am glad she sent us. Yeah it did subtract the 4 hrs we could have spent with her but still we enjoyed. Sitting in the beach I was wondering if I will get to visit it again. U c, my Paati is the last connection I have with Chennai. And if something happens to her, my last connection with my so called native place is gone. Am not very fascinated with that ‘early city’ as I call it, but then I will surly miss my roots n of course this beach!!!

We had to catch next day train at 6 n Periappa gave us the deadline 4:30 to leave the house. Mom got up at 2:30 to make n pack food. I got up at 3:00 n believe me, it was for the first time I really hoped we miss the train! We were done with the packing by 4:00 but as per his deadline my Periappa got ready at 4:30. That 30 min I n Bhai were sitting next to Paati. There was so much to speak but we both remained quite. We asked her to come to Delhi with us. She is not allowed to travel now but before also she didn’t come coz she don’t want to leave that place. We understood how much she is attached to south. I tried my best to hold my tears. My Paati was sitting holding our hands. She is not a very senti lady n knows how to control her emotions. I tried learning from her. When it was time for us to leave, mom asked us to do the usual ‘namaskaram’ (Touch her feet). When I did, she said “Nalla padichu, narriya marks waange, Happyaa iru” (Study well, Get lots of marks and be happy). Yeah she knows what will make me happy. She put ‘vibuthi’ in our forehead and we left.

On the way to the station, I just couldn’t stop myself and started crying. I guess there is something seriously wrong with my eye-muscle. I guess they r weak and that’s y I can never hold my tears. I will get them checked soon. I hid my face, pretending to be looking out of the window. While I was trying to control myself I came across this church “New-Life Church”… another turn and there was another church on which it was written “Jesus …. (something) Hope” it was then when I realized that I didn’t pray anything for my Paati. It is something unusual of me. I always have a list of things to pray for. I realized there is no point asking for a long life for her, coz it’s sad to see her suffering each day. But then I can’t either pray for her to recover soon coz there isn’t one disease for her to recover from. Obviously she can’t get back to her 70’s. She is 80+! I don’t know what to pray for! I just wish she lives a happy life if not more. I don’t know what more I can do for her or to pray for her. I know she will leave me and go and when ever that day comes, its gonna be terrible. Whenever….!!

This month has been the worst month for me in my 20 years of life. I have never undergone so much emotional torture all these years. I just hope to see a lighter side of life in coming time after all I got my exams next month!!!

D Artist in ME...

While going through an artistic blog today, I felt like displaying my artistic talents in my page. Although am not a trained painter, I did invest some precious years of my life practicing glass painting.

When I was in 2^nd class, I started off with drawing classes (as a hobby class). I didn’t had a proper drawing teacher in school. The first thing I learnt to draw was a ‘colorful tree’ and my drawing madam got an insight of my talent! There was this drawing competition in some school in Kalkaji (South Delhi) in which my dad wanted me to participate. When my mom told my drawing teacher a week ago, she decided to teach me to draw an ‘Elephant’ coz according to her, I could manage a house, tree, diwali, scenery, etc. etc.

I somehow really liked the ‘Elephant’ I drew and I was silently hoping to get to draw that in the competition, after all I was practicing for the whole week! My mom accompanied me to the school and when I took out my chit the topic was “My Mother”. I was disappointed. But never the less, I decided to draw my ‘Elephant’ first. I didn’t knew how to draw human figures that time but dad had taught me ‘stick’ drawing. I made my Grey Elephant and draw a ‘stick’ lady with long hair on top of it! I remember when I came out and told my mom, she had a heartily laugh. Of course I didn’t win!

After that once when I was in 4^th or 5^th class, I had gone to some place to attend a ‘children’s party’ during Christmas with mom, dad n my brother. There was a drawing competition organized there of which I wasn’t aware of before. I didn’t even had my crayons with me but mom insisted me to participate. I really wasn’t in the mood to leave the party and sit to draw. But since mom forced me, I borrowed a pencil from someone and started drawing. It was an open topic and I drew scenery. I didn’t want to stay back for the results, I wanted to go back to the party but mom made me wait. They started with the constellation prize which I didn’t get n I wanted to run back. Mom was holding me tight n guess what??? I got the FIRST prize for that!!!! I was so surprised that I actually asked them ‘why am I getting this’? The judge told me that I had made the picture very neatly and she was impressed!!! Well… so was I :)

Winning a prize made me feel like the female M.F.Hussain and I started drawing (/scribbling) on A4 size papers (mom got a whole packet for me) and started pasting that all over the house. My dad is very fussy about the house walls and he really didn’t like that. He nailed a huge chart paper in the ‘drawing room’ and asked me to paste all my drawings only in that. But I didn’t like it coz I had to replace the old once to make space for the new once. It was then when I came to know about ‘glass painting’ from a cousin of mine who had joined classes for that in summer vacations. He told me that in ‘glass painting’ all he had to do is to get a glass sheet which he keeps on top of any picture and then with a brush he just needed to draw the out-line of the picture. He got special colours for that which were costlier than the usual water colours.

My house interior doors got glass sheets and I tried ‘glass painting’ with my water colours. I drew a flower first and it actually looked good! Well then there was no looking back. I drew… drew… drew… it was fun and easy!!! I could easily rub off with a wet duster as I was using only water colours. Dad was also happy coz it was a part of ‘interior decoration’ :)

I just clicked a few of those pictured from my mobile phone. Resolution of my camera is just 1.3 MB so pics wont be very clear but then they didn’t come out badly too!! As a friend of mine once said ‘mobile phones are not meant for photography’ but still… If I get a digital camera, I will replace these pics.

Thanksgiving.....

A topic which I kept so low and silent all these years…. I don’t know suddenly from where I got the courage to talk about it! I don’t know how long I can keep this post in my page but I seriously hope I never need to delete it off.

Am not gonna name him or give any kind of hints here but will definitely make sure that I convey my feelings… we started off together to explore life but he went a bit too fast and am left behind! Am certainly not writing it under the frustration of losing him forever but yeah it sure feels a little bad.

We met today for lunch. Though I had planned a lot more which didn’t happen, I was glad he turned up, after making me wait for 2 hrs. Well I told myself “don’t worry, u r used to it!” It wasn’t a ‘Date’ for sure but just two friends meeting up for lunch to spend some quality time together. After placing the order, the usual chit-chat began and it was going pretty good till this February side-effect started and he started off with his ‘crushes… proposals… n girls’. I wish I had never known his ideas on this topic… I wish! I wish! I wish!!! But now its too late… I wish we had never spoken about this! I wish! I wish! I wish!!!

We were never on the same boat… if it is East for me, it ought to be West for him always! But the point which shocked me was to see him going so cheap on girls that too in front of a girl! No am not here to project him as a ‘moron’ or a ‘villan’…. He is still a ‘hero’ for me and will remain one forever! Imagine a guy (more importantly your friend!!!) flaunting in front of u saying ‘girls just need security in life’, ‘if a guy expresses it in anyway that the girl means a lot to him, then the girl will fall into the trap’. He says there is no such thing like ‘true love’ and at the end of everything it’s just getting physical that matters! It was very difficult for me to keep my cool and to listen to all that, but then I reminded my self that I had invited him! Its not that he don’t have regrets for what he do… but then he said ‘if not now, then when?’ I didn’t understand ‘why should that be there, in the first place’ I mean flirting is not a law in the constitution that one has to abide to!

I tried to explain that our family background and the ethics that we are being brought up with doesn’t really give enough space for all this… he accepted that he is finding it difficult to face his parents at-times… but still…. Why??? I mean ‘fun is fun’ till others are not affected by it… but when it comes to so many people and their precious emotions, how can one be so casual about it??? If I had heard all this from someone else, I would have never believed it. But now I have no choice. He was there sitting in front of me saying all this. His ideas and thought made him sound really cheap. I know am dramatizing, but the further he said, the more I wished him to stop!

When the topic turned to me, I told him that I do have a liking towards a person but didn’t tell him the name. Though I had decided that I will tell him when I see him, but u c the things we discussed really left me confused! I didn’t want to take any step for which I will need to regret later or for which I need to feel sorry. He made me think hard!!! He was obvious that he has absolutely ‘no feelings’ for me. He sees me as a friend and am glad he does! Or else things would have gotten more complicated I guess…. He advised me to let ‘that guy’ know my feelings so that I feel light hearted. I told myself “light hearted uh??!!” After spending about 2 hrs we finally decided to wind up. I rushed back to my class and he was off after a good bye handshake!

Back in class when I told Ayushi all that happened, she was surely not very happy! We were reaching home when I suddenly took out my mobile and typed a message “I don’t know if I should let u know this, d guy I was talking about is YOU. Note - am not proposing you or expecting an answer. Its just that I wanted you to know. Lets not discuss it ever again. Hope u understand!!”. I showed it to Ayu before sending and she said “NO”!!!! I looked at the message, closed my eyes and sent it…………..

Silence… silence… we both didn’t realize what happened for some time!! It took him 7 min and 24 seconds to reply back “u have me as a frd always”. Those 7 min and 24 seconds were as if “we are waiting for our results” (In Ayu’s words!). But I kindda felt proud of myself and wanted to pat my shoulders for doing something I never ever expected from me. I don’t regret my act… coz if I had, I wouldn’t be writing it here!! I actually felt light-hearted and am really very happy. I can’t deny the fact that a tear just came rolling down when am typing, but that’s not coz of any regret!

I have him as a friend and am happy for that. He is a very nice person who will stand by me in my ‘blue-days’. I know I can trust him blindly and he really respects me a lot. A person can’t be judged based on his ideas about a particular topic right? After all in this world no two ppl can think alike or have similar ideas. What seems right to me need not be right for others but that surely doesn’t put them in “wrong” category. I realized that its just that we wont click coz our ideas don’t match but that’s not gonna put an end to our friendship! Am glad he is my friend and am very proud of him. Today’s lunch I will call a thanksgiving for making me realize a lot of things which wouldn’t have been possible otherwise! Am happy for myself :)

Neha Sourav......

This post is dedicated to two of my best friends from college… Neha and Sourav… I don’t know why I never say Sourav and Neha… though Sourav was my lab partner in 1st year and those days I almost never talked to Neha. I guess u must have guessed as yet that there is something seriously cooking between these two, or else I wouldn’t have started off naming them together.

Well… these two were born on 16th October 1987 and fortunately Sourav dropped in hours before Neha! Yeah… they both share the same date of birth till 8th digit (as Neha always proudly used to say!!!) Their combined birthday party used to be a grand celebration and a big treat for us!!!

I will write about Mr. Sourav Guha Roy first coz I befriended him first. I remember it was the day of our admission when I had gone to college with my dad. Sitting in a corner with his mother was this guy in red t-shirt with spiked hair (gelled too I guess). A big grown up full size male sitting besides his mother for admission, well it was certainly not what I expected as a preview of ‘college’ on the day of admission… but whatever… that was sweet! When college started, we were shown a lab and there we were told to work on experiments in groups of 3. Since there were no acquaintances, our teachers decided to divide us according to our roll-numbers. That was when I was paired with Sourav and Abhishek (Lamba wala). I remember 3 of us were sitting in one bench (me thinking ‘kahaan phas gaye’) when Sourav said ‘hi’ and we started talking. We were allotted our first experiment and sir asked us to do some research on the topic given. I headed for the library right away when Sourav said ‘tum log karlena… am going to canteen’. I remember I was FUMING with anger!!! I really hated him the first day! That lamba wala Abhishek was still better, didn’t do anything but at-least he accompanied me to library and passed me the books on the top rack. Lamba wala Abhishek was very irregular to college, so mostly it was me and Sourav doing experiments. Sourav sings really well and I too love to sing esply when in lab. Though most of the time I would be stuck to one line, which really used to irritate Sourav a lot, but still he never minded singing along. We were very fast in our experiments and would complete before anyone else (with hell lot of manipulations of course! ;)) I remember Sourav did an experiment (kepler’s pendulum) in my absence once and he gor very accurate results... so accurate that our Agam Sir was dead sure that he had manipulated (though he hadn't) n we had to repeat that !!!

I used to notice Sourav starring at Neha in middle of doing experiments, but then I never thought it was something so important to notice. I used to see them exchanging letters and I think I saw Sourav crying once. But u see I was a bit dumb those days… these things I understand very late… you see this subject is not as easy as physics is! I didn’t realize what was going on between them till one day Ayushi told me explicitly that they both like each-other.

Coming to Miss. Neha Sengupta, a small… little… chubby… chulbuli kinda girl, full of life and masti. She rocked the fresher’s party and the ragging session with the dance on a peppy song from ‘Bunty aur Bubli’. She was no less than Rani Mukherjee!!! First impression – Baap re!!! kya ladki hai!!! I was horrified to see her dancing in front of the whole class with just 2 students known to her (from her school, one incidentally her cousin). I preferred to maintain distance with her. Not my type! I don’t really remember exactly when my ideology towards her changed… and before I realized, she was my best friend! She suddenly seemed to be the most intelligent, matured and sensible person in the world who was my secret strength! She could read me like a book… she was so understanding and sweetttttt!!!!!

It was the fest of our department and I was the JT. Secretary of our physics society when we were asked to make many posters and charts and that was when I saw how damn creative Neha was. I mean she was just amazing!! And the amount of head-work she had put, really impressed me thoroughly. In second year, I was elected the Vice-president and I was the in charge of the fest. I will end up writing a 1000 page novel if I start off with the fest details but other than tortures… tensions… tears… fears… disappointments… excitements… achievements… satisfaction… thrill… fun… etc. etc. I got a few precious friends who actually stood by me… and these two belong to that class! Sourav took half the burden off me by taking some of the major responsibilities like arrangements of sponsorship, posters, flowers etc. etc. and Neha was sure there to guide me carefully through each step. Though these two didn’t had a post for themselves, the dedication and the hard work they put in was simply out of the world. I felt blessed and really really lucky to have them by my side and I will ever be grateful to both of them for everything they did for me!

They both celebrate their ‘temporary anniversary’ on 13th September. I didn’t knew about it in first year but in the second year it was a high class drama. I remember Sourav had ordered a cake in the nearby bakery and he asked me, Shibu n Avek to collect it and get it to the resto ‘colonel’s special’ (in front of our college). Megha got a DVD writted with romantic songs (all English so I didn’t really understand much). As far as I remember Sourav gifted a ring I guess… n chocolates too. We were all so despo to eat that yummy black-forest cake (1 KG!!!). Their treats were ever fantastic… let it be their birthday or anniversary… it used to be simply awesome. We used to get a share of the chocolates Sourav used to get for Neha… and I remember Neha used her college locker to keep cards, gifts etc while ours will be running short of space with so many books!!! In third year on their birthday, I was on the way to college when Sourav asked me to get a bouquet of 5 flowers for her… and I remembered I asked so many doubts that am sure he would have thought ‘kisse bol rahaan hoon!’. I called up Ayu n Shibu for help n together we got 2 red, 2 yellow and a white flower. It was a bit colorful but a nice bouquet… and Neha liked it!

Best things used to be those days sitting in canteen, and me and Neha sharing the hottest gossips around… the word ‘gossip’ used to bring color into Neha’s face and Sourav used to get so irritated with that! Initially he used to feel a bit uncomfortable when we do our girly-girly talks but then he got used to it soon (didn’t had a choice!) Watching movies was something very regular that time. We really had an amazing time in Mt.Abu where we went on a college trip and the video game parlor (near the hotel we checked in) was the best thing to have had there! How can I not mention that I won the car race against Sourav when we went to Appu Ghar (fantasy park).

Its really difficult to summarize all that happened in 3 years in one post… but am posting all this so that I can cherish at-least some special moments when I re-read it after say 5 or 6 years later. Am really proud of them and am glad that they are my friends. I pray to god that they should always be happy and together… They are a lovely couple [TOUCH WOOD].