Reflectively random

Warning: This post is about nothing in particular

It has been a year since I have been propounded the insensitive, cold, manipulative mannequin and I am at peace with it. It took time, but I fought the battle alone. Yeah! alone. My mom still ponders how come I was never my lachrymose self in this matter. But truth be told, I have become great friends with my mom and sister after the incident. May be what we try to describe as best friends. And it also calmed down a brash side of me. None, and I repeat, none is your friend in this world apart from your immediate family. I have learnt it the hard way round. There may be acquaintances and better acquaintances but nobody is your friend. And the F.R.I.E.N.D.S tune reminds me that it was just a great television show, one I would like to watch over and over again. Betrayals became a part of my vocabulary a few weeks later since this day a year ago, when I got to know the whole story and it was scripted by none other than a person I trusted my life with. Do I sound bitter or pessimistic? No dear, am just being very very practical. And I still trust people. I am a born optimist. That’s one trait in me even my worst critic would like to envy about. I am happy about the fact that it was a great birthday gift for someone. Someone I had a hunch about, I wish I was never there in the picture. The situation could have been a tad less murkier.

Optimism keeps me waiting for the elusive one. The ideal man you see. Yes! I still believe in Yash chopra romances. Facebook says it might just be a cancerian or a virgo and years ago the smuggled Linda Goodman in a boring maths class in school agrees with the prediction.

But the day holds more significance for me rather than being just a day of mud slinging match……when the Court ordered the end of ceremonial celebrations, I agreed. I remember I was merely a law aspirant then, dreaming of getting into one of the top three national law schools. And today after spending almost three and a half years in NALSAR I imagine myself being a loner. I feel detached. Single rooms kill you, literally. I was very excited about getting one. But I hate this cold, lifeless hostel.

Do I live life in pockets? May be. All of us do. Right now I seek solace in reading another suchitra bhattacharya creation or planning about submitting my SOP for the long awaited campus magazine. I don’t know if it’s an alternative to the blog that was initially planned but this definitely sounds better, sounds serious businessJ. But coming back to the celebrations, I think I still quite like the idea of a birthday! It’s just another way of celebrating the spirit of a city which has been called “Tillotoma” by some or “Mumursho Nogori” (the dead city) by some or the “city of joy” in the eyes of a visitor to the city. It is this balancing of divergent opinions that keeps the city going. Happy Birthday Calcutta! Just like you have no beginning, the end never dawns on you. Even after so many hiccups- lack of indutrialisation, the naxalabari andolan, pathetic work culture, lack of political will, intra country brain drain to places like Hyderabad or Bengalooru-blah, blah, blah……people had condemned death for the city long ago. Surprisingly you still survive. And how! The “rock” or “royaks” of North Calcutta might have died a silent death but the adda lives on and so does our argumentative tradition. Umm! The place might just be an ashtami gathering of old friends in Maddox or the wine festival in the city.

And when social historians marked the turbulent 70’s as the beginning of decline of the city, we shouted discrimination during the times of partition (its still the hot potato). time and again Calcutta and Calcuttan’s sentimental outbursts or its fascination for everything old has been earmarked as causes for its stagnation. But that’s what gives the city a character of its own, completely different from others. This is the city which makes you feel home. And that holds true for the steel tycoon who still calls himself a Calcutta boy. His namesake in Burrabazar agrees, so does the inhabitants of Bow Barracks or the people who feed Calcuttans the yummiest of Chinese. Who told Calcutta is not open to anything new or cosmopolitan! Eons ago a Calcuttan showed the world through his cinematic trilogy that life was a melodious song on the road to eternity. And unlike a recent Oscar winning production it didn’t sell third world poverty. (even I have contrary opinions on that) :-)

(Talking about anything old and rotten, our national politics can still feel the stench of a certain incident in history called Partition, Jaswant Singh and Jinnah..and Advani a few years back….does that a ring a bell!)