Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Faith

My eyes were covered and closed: eddying darkness seemed to swim round me, and reflection came in as black and confused a flow. Self-abandoned, relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains, and felt the torrent come: to rise I had no will, to flee I had no strength. I lay faint, longing to be dead. One idea only still throbbed life-like within me--a remembrance of God: it begot an unuttered prayer: these words went wandering up and down in my rayless mind, as something that should be whispered, but no energy was found to express them--

"Be not far from me, for trouble is near: there is none to help."

It was near: and as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it--as I had neither joined my hands, nor bent my knees, nor moved my lips--it came: in full heavy swing the torrent poured over me. The whole consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my hope quenched, my faith
death-struck, swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen mass. That bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, "the waters came into my soul; I sank in deep mire: I felt no standing; I came into deep waters; the floods overflowed me."

Jane Eyre
Chapter XXVI






FAITH


Tears
Torrent,
Fears
Ferment,
Debts
Torment.
Words
Serpent,
Weapons
Dent.


The memory of
Yesterday’s
Unholy
Loud
Proud
Laughter
Coming apart
In slow
Hollow
Shreds,
Seizure of art :
The very thought
of
Today :
A Blasphemy.


The smooth
Uncouth
surface
Can no longer soothe ;
Serrates
Smashes into
A Million
Senseless
Smithereens;
Each staring
Ecstatically
Sarcastically
Into
Each other’s
Reflections.



*


I cannot recall
What
Whom
I walked away from
The prodigal
Why
Begging
Impeachment
Reproach
Mired in material
Mirages.


But
She accepts
Surrender
Submission
Forgives
Sweeps up
Forgotten fragments
Promises
Vows
Renews



*



I
Kneel
Before
Her
Head on heel
Humbled
No words
No tears
No fears
No spears
No arrears



The Omniscient



My soul
Stands redeemed
Unconditionally
For
Seeking within
I have found
In silence
A miracle :
Faith.


GARGI MANDAL
22-04-2009

And because this is one of those rare days when my soul bares itself to you all, this is for you :




Peace.

Prioritisation

From :

The Times Of India, Kolkata
22 April 2009


Power staff put on poll duty in midst of crisis

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Kolkata/Durgapur : It was a freak technical snag that blacked out Kolkata on Sunday. On Tuesday morning, in the middle of a power crisis in the state, two units of the Mejia thermal power plant under Damodar Valley Corporation had to be shut down for five hours because 150 employees from the crucial generation stations were sent for election duty. Employees of emergency supplies, like power utilities, are generally exempted from poll duty — a fact chief electoral officer Debashis Sen confirmed to TOI — but for some reason, the district administration ignored this. Amal Sarkar, chief engineer of Mejia, DVC’s biggest power plant, said Bankura DM Sindar Majumdar had ordered the release of the employees for training as election ‘microobservers’. West Bengal Power Development Corporation managing director S Mahapatra said he had heard nothing like it during his career. As the 150 employees duly reported for poll duty, the second and third units of Mejia that each generate 210 MW were shut down at 8 am. Later, the DVC brass intervened and secured their exemption. With 420 MW out of the system, the crisis that had developed following a transformer blast at the national grid in Durgapur on Monday night deepened. Seven DPL units went out of commission at once. By Tuesday evening, two smaller ones were back on track but two others with combined generation capacity of 460 MW remained inoperative. A DPL spokesman said the seventh unit, DPL’s biggest at 300 MW, would take at least three days to restart. That’s really bad news when unrelenting weather has pushed demand in Kolkata — which endured a sweltering blackout on Sunday and is still facing intermittent power cuts — to a record 1,528 MW. Across the state, it peaked to 3,600 MW. A demand that the state power utilities are not capable of handling. Anger over the power cuts led to protests and road blockades in Kolkata.





Protests in city over power cuts


Kolkata/Durgapur : The shutdown of two units of the Mejia thermal power plant — thanks to the staff being roped in for poll duty — made its effect felt quickly. Kolkata, where demand had peaked to a record 1,528 MW on Tuesday, ran short of 188 MW in the evening. For the state, the shortfall was a whopping 450 MW. It led to intermittent power cuts in Kolkata and elsewhere. Unable to watch Kolkata Knight Riders play for the second time, angry citizens blocked roads at Dum Dum and other places in the city. The state power department may argue on whether it was a “load shedding” or a technical snag in the system, but it means little to citizens who cursed the government for power cuts. With Lok Sabha polls a week away, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee gave a piece of his mind to power secretary Sunil Mitra who called on him to explain Sunday’s blackout in the city. The technical snag apart, state power utilities are suffering from a shortage of good quality coal. State power department officials are in touch with Coal India and have ordered for additional 2 lakh tonnes of coal from Indonesia. However, the amount is too meagre for the huge demand. “It will keep the Kolaghat thermal power plant running for not more than eight days,” a state power official said. But poll managers won’t listen to such excuse. They want power minister Mrinal Banerjee to act in time before public resentment goes out of control. Pushed to the wall, power officials are looking for options to import power during the evening peak hours, even at higher rates.


Opinion : To me, it's very simple. The election enables us to choose leaders who'll help run the country better. So it's ironic that we are actually choosing politics over the people. It's all about priorities and one would assume there would really be no choice involved in this occasion, at least, not when Kolkata is suffering one of the worst summers ever. It's shameful. Shame on us.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

MOHE MOHE TU VOTE DE

I was just reading the most recent buckets of rain post and happened to recall an article that I'd written for The Telegraph way back in April 2006. Ahh, nostalgia seeps in...






MOHE MOHE TU RANG DE BASANTI


Jo log uncha sunte hain,unhe dhamakon ki zaroorat hei.
- -- Karan in Rang de Basanti


They say the youth are the backbone of our country. Well, unlike the friends of Rang de Basanti, I cannot conjure up any miraculous, not to say radical idea to make our politicians sit up and take the notice long overdue of our collective grievances. Honestly speaking, I don't see how we can make any overnight difference in the moribund political machinery of Bengal. Assassinating a minister doesn't really appeal to me. Bengalis are notorious for their inertia anyway. Neither will any of the local TV or radio channels care to put me on air to air my views (literally) since I don't resemble a celebrity, actually or potentially. Nor do I wish to die prematurely like Flight-Lieutenant Ajay Rathore in Rang de Basanti. Who knows – maybe I'll be remembered for my bad deeds rather than my good thoughts ! Not implausible, considering the fact that Veerappan and Abu Salem get more media mileage than the recent research proposals of Jadavpur University, where I occasionally take the trouble of attending classes. And of course,please don't offer me the alternative of student politics. Been there, done that. A rare SFI supporter in my graduation years, I soon suffered the shell-shock of Lakshman Pandey during my apprenticeship period and withdrew just in time to save my ideological spine. The shock of disillusionment was more severe perhaps since I had hitherto been cushioned from day-to-day actualities by the solipsistic Romantic poetry of Keats and Coleridge. I realized that I had been too estranged from practical possibilities. Like DJ, Sonia or Karan, I needed a Rang de Basanti to jolt me out of my complacent stupor into an urgent desire to matter, to shape (however ineffectually) the course of events rather than just be shaped by them. To be a good citizen and not merely a good student. Maybe, I thought, I should just vote.


Hold on. I'll pre-empt the arguments you'll offer to invalidate my choice. One vote cannot make or mar a government. True. If fake ration cards abound, so do false votes. True. Besides,the option of not voting for any of the projected candidates, a 'neither of the above' alternative is yet to materialize. (My mother's suggestion of 'not feeling like venturing out in the heat' doesn't count, by the way.) But the problem is tha tif each of us come up with similar excuses, as a mass, we are being apolitical and that itself is undoubtedly a dangerous political stance. Remember the proverb 'united we stand,divided we fall'? It still holds good, I've learned from my limited political experience. Neither Gandhi nor Bhagat Singh could show the path to utopia in Rang de Basanti. The passive protest before India Gate wasn't allowed to take place peacefully. Neither did the murder of the defence minister ultimately qualify as a cause for glorious martyrdom. What held the eye instead was the shot of multiple TV screens offering a collage of students voicing their disturbed diatribes on the immediate issue. In terms of ground realities,this would translate into voting. Change, like charity usually begins at home. And I for my part am still idealistic enough to speak through my vote. Maybe you could join me. Maybe we could create our own dhamaka. Think about it.

Well, it's a bit late in the day to comment on this perhaps, but I'd still say we do need a lot of fresh and young blood in the political arena right now to make a real difference. So I'm with you all the way, buckets , if you think my cheers would help urge you onto implementing your idealism some day soon !

Nymphiad's Tag : Random-osition

How Nymphiad's tag works to create an abstract modern poem :

1. Go to wikipedia.
2. Hit "random"or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random.
3. Set the title of the first random wikipedia article that appears as the title of your poem.
4. Go to "Random quotations"or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3.
5. Select the first three or five words (or suitable) of the very first quote on the page for the first line of your poem.
6. Select the last three or five words (or suitable) of the next quote on the page for the second line of your poem.
7. Select the first three or five words (or suitable) of the third quote on the page for the third line.
8. ...and then use alternate quotes until you’ve made it to the last quote.
9. Go to flickr and click on "explore the last seven days" or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days.
10. The fifth picture, no matter what it is, should be your poem image.

What I got :

Toscha Seidel

I take it as a man's duty
and a courageous person afterward.

Many persons have a wrong idea
(of )the real value of a job.

We are continually faced with
contempt - and children.

Have you ever observed that we pay
who have themselves been born. (?!)

Cocooned inside our private dramas
travel - not a destination.

I didn't upload the photo as I didn't want to get into copyright related issues, so I just provide the link here.

Well, at least I had fun in terms of anticlimaxes galore ; and now I'm having splendid fun analysing this curious specimen of what might be the language of the unconscious itself, so curiously bizarre and yet potentially meaningful it seems !

Monday, April 20, 2009

Yeahhhhh !

Ok, so my favourite couple is back. Moumita and Sabya Da, of course. Yesterday evening, by Lufthansa (on which the food seems to be getting cheesier, both literally and metaphorically), via Frankfurt. Spring's certainly the harbinger of better things !



Not so in Kol, it seems. Apparently, the temperature there was 41 C yesterday, as Titai announced over the phone, sounding thoroughly disgusted. Mamoni tried to sound merry as she described their collective efforts at minimal yet decorous attire, but wasn't very convincing. With elections approaching, power cuts are likely to get more frequent and worsen the already bleak scenario. It was only 24 C here on Sat and people seemed to have gone berserk with joy. We could hear children playing outdoors till almost 9 pm and past, the neighbours were all outdoors in the skimpiest of attire : shorts, spaghettis and tanks, hosting full fledged barbecues ; we ventured out to clean the car and then take a walk, without a single sweater or jacket and me actually in a skirt ; K got a haircut and we kept on downing bottles of water. We actually had to switch on the AC on Sat night. Wonder what on earth we're going to do back home. Well, at least we'd be returning to summer from summer, so there won't be as drastic a change as it could have been at any other point of time during the year.



Abir's film, Cross-Connection is ready for a May release and the crowds at South City Mall are getting worse. Moumita was astounded by the spectacle of a queue that stretched right till Jadavpur Thana ! That reminds me, I again forgot to congratulate Mamoni for winning a prize at the Spencer's Hypermart quiz, organized by Sananda Club. Mani Square seems to be getting its fair share of attention too, what with irs first IMAX and the inaugural Rs 177 worth food buffet at Haka. However, people are as ill behaved as ever, disowning all etiquette when it comes to getting their money's worth of meat. Well.



K got his narus (he calls them 'diabetes inducing agents') and I got my medicines (he calls them 'diabetes reducing agents') and my hair serum 'Silk-n-Shine' from back home. So we're both happy people right now.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Poila Boishakh

I decided to inaugurate the Bengali New Year by the actual (and long overdue) implementation of some healthy (quite literally) determinations. We went out jogging today.



I discovered that I was horribly out of form. We had to stop every 5 mins so that I could catch my breath. I myself wasn't very happy at the discovery, especially since we'd quite dressed the part (in our new purchases) and were secretly feeling very upbeat about this new-look us. Both of us have gained weight, as I did confess earlier, and we are eager to start losing all the unwanted excess. We have acquired a habit of going out for a brisk walk for over a month now, but as K (and Madhav) love saying, no pain without gain and I couldn't really expect to see any dramatic difference by mere diet and walks, though they did of course matter for people who didn't entertain such gigantic expectations from one's own thoughts and actions (like me) at every point of life. So...



K has really impressed me though. He does reiterate that he is quite out of form and seems to mean it, but oh, the gulf between our so-called forms cannot but make me flush with sheer embarrassment. I have been medically diagnosed with low lung capacity (after lung function tests at repeated intervals) and have been advised to increase my exercise sessions in slow steps. It used to try my patience earlier and I'd often disobeyed it but have now learned my lesson, by being at the receiving end of the rebellious tendencies. I was a health freak once upon a time, one of the fastest runners in my class way back in school in MHS, having fared well in broad jump, badminton and relay races in those ancient days. After that, throughout my 5 years in JU, I kept up with the habit of skipping, floor and freehand exercise continuously except for a brief period in 2002 when I had had a breast tumour removal operation and was strictly debarred from any form of exercise whatsoever except walking for almost six months, which ended up in my gaining a nightmarish 10 kg that in a slow and insidious manner, turned me from athletic to fat almost overnight.



I will not bore you with my reaction. It's predictable. But what might entertain you is my discovery of the sheer extent to which gaining weight had transformed my features, so that I was scared and scarred by the shock of the chance discovery. Baba and I had gone to Guwahati to attend the Annual Urological Conference (USICON) and while Baba was participating in a seminar, I humoured one of the commissioned artists at the entertainment zone by posing for my portrait. When he finally handed it to me, I stared. He smiled expectantly, hoping for a heartfelt and enthusiastic thanks. I had simply smiled wanly, unable to oblige him. I was in shock at what I saw. I looked like a married woman, the mother of 10 children with plump cheeks and a hint of a double chin. I hated it.



I went home and read up everything on weight loss I could lay my hands on. I finally found my dream workout solution in a theory offered by a nutritionist, which claimed that the body had a peak metabolic rate upto an hour after every meal and hence, could work out to its optimal level if put into exercise mode at that point of time. I began to implement the theory with a vengeance, after each major meal of the day i.e. breakfast, lunch and dinner. Within a month, I could fit into all my old salwars and didn't have to stick to the jeans-kurti routine any more at college. After a couple of months, friends at college ( I particularly recall Jhinuk) asking about the secret to my achievement. I began to regain confidence. And within 5 months, I had lost more weight than I'd ever hoped to. My parents congratulated me on my perseverance, despite their secret fears that I'd been overdoing it. But I had never overdone it, that I'd made sure of. I just decreased portions at each meal, gave up fries and fried sweets, started to have pulses and raita for snacks and ate sensibly at invitations. It worked. Later I included pranayam in my routine. I felt even better, both physically and mentally.



That's why I'm not scared now, even after gaining more than I did the last time. I know I'll work it off. But not by torturing myself. I know the limits and limitations of my body now and my weakness for desserts and potatoes. I know my target weight and the clinically recommended one, too. I mean to strike a balance between the two. By increasing the amount of jogging I do on a daily basis. I'll reach the goal slowly and steadily. Nothing and no one else can discourage or demoralise me. I'm a survivor.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Cabbage Jungka recipe

Bandhakopir (Cabbage) Jungka

My source of information regarding the Goanese origins of this dish is a well known cookbook by Leela Majumdar (the same) and Kamala Chattopadhyay, published by Ananda Publishers Pvt Ltd in Aug 1979 and titled quite simply 'Rannar Boi'. It was priced in those days at Rs 15.






Quantity :

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

Cabbage, 1 whole
Besan (gram flour), half cup
Lemon Joice/Tamarind
Green Chilli, adjustable
Curry leaves / Coriander Leaves, according to taste
Shredded Coconut, half
Whole mustard (shorshe/sarson) seeds, 1 and a half tsp
Salt
Oil, 2 serving spoons (even better if mustard)


Method:

Shred cabbage very finely.
Keep besan dissolved in half a cup of water.
Heat oil, then add the mustard seeds, let them splutter.
Add cabbage, stir fry for 5 mins.
Add dissolved besan and curry leaves/coriander leaves.
Stir for a while.
Then add 1 cup of water and simmer for 15 mins.
When almost all the water has been absorbed, add salt, lemon juice/tamarind, shredded coconut, green chillis and cover.
Remove from gas after about 5 mins.

Tips :

Add water promptly after adding besan and stir well to prevent the formation of clumps.

Addition of a little thin coconut milk enhances the subtle flavour of the dish.

Voila !


Friday, April 10, 2009

Chick-Chihuahua

Awwwww. Now this is really sweet, don't you think ?

Thursday, April 09, 2009

For the real slumdogs

FLOWER OF THE SLUM

Give it just a little love
Even if it’s all
You have
Every day at dawn,
Each night forlorn,
Some grey,
Some bright,
Meet offerings of critique or spite
With an even gentle sunnier smile
And let it sleep a longer while
Allow it the taste of sweet respite.

And love it just a little more
This soul that seeks
Soft succour.
It’s wandering,
Mud meandering
It’s learning to walk,
Trembling and tottering,
Support its unsteady steps
From embracing the cold floor.
It’s wondering,
Vaguely blundering,
Grant it some credit
To reach desire’s door;
It needs a guide
It needs a family
Throw it some anchor
To safely shore.

Let every slumdog
Grasp at one fair chance
Wreck it not
Into doomed defiance.
For every Twist,
One loving glance
May work miracles
To treat its
Malnourished trance.
For every Apu,
Orphaned so young,
A gentler glance
Might glean romance.
For every Jude
Who speaks so rude
Our prayer might redeem
Foul mischance.


We who may torture it to tears
We who may fan its furtive fears
We who steal its childhood joys
We, who’d willingly die for our own boys :


Let’s coax out
the best
In a being
So small
Whom our careless barbs
Could weedy wounds befall
Let us not crush it
Beneath that wanton wall


Of indifference


Basking in the sunshine
Towering above all
Let it bloom
Beautiful
A credit to us all.

GARGI MANDAL-MUKHERJEE

08-04-2009


RACISM EXISTS

from Gargi Mandal-Mukherjee <mandalgargi81@gmail.com>toservice@youtube.com

date : Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 1:15 PM
subject Fwd: Comment posted on "Sandy Hook Beach, NJ"
1:15 PM (1 hour ago)

Dear YouTube,

Youtube has been one of my favourite websites for a long time as it has allowed us all to upload and share all our beloved videos. But recently people have been abusing your infrastructure and facilities by propagating racist messages and insensitive comments & videos, provoking ill feeling among international communities.

http://www.youtube.com/user/killswitch6988 : this person is one of them.

This morning I was shocked to find the dirty, insensitive, foul-mouthed comment he had posted in my profile. A visit to his profile revealed a series of racial comments and hate messages that I, being a non resident Indian, found in very poor taste. I intend to post a review to our local newspapers and local magazines and in my blogspace, mentioning the way people are misusing YouTube. I would expect you would take immediate action against this member, and prevent the spread of such racial abuse and dangerous separatisms in future.

I enclose below the forwarded message from your site itself, notifying me of the comment I received this morning.

--- Forwarded message ----From: YouTube Service <service@youtube.com>
Date: Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 12:07 AM
Subject: Comment posted on "Sandy Hook Beach, NJ"
To: sosostris9 mandalgargi81@gmail.com

- Show quoted text -

killswitch6988 has made a comment on Sandy Hook Beach, NJ:

go the fuck back to your 3rd world country and stay the fuck off my beach and out of my state

You can reply to this comment by visiting the comments page.


© 2009 YouTube, LLC

-- Regards,
Gargi Mandal-Mukherjee (sosostris9)

P.S. I'm sorry guys if you think this post contains offensive language, because I feel the same way too.

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Of untimely phone calls and undesirable etceteras

I was indignant at being summoned from the depths of sleep by the monotonous staccato of our landline phone. Thankfully K attended to it and I was just drifting back into sweet slumber when I heard his voice, out in our living room, where he seemed to be talking to a certain colleague back at his offshore office in Kolkata and enquiring about the reason for the call at such an ungodly hour (somewhere around 6.30 am, I think). My first thought was that of killing K, my second was that of killing the same colleague, my third of blowing up their offices both here and back at home. After such successively violent thoughts, you can hardly be astonished if I tell you that I was wide awake. I did my best to keep my eyes shut and contemplate nothingness. But there. I had been rudely woken up by all those unholy noises and there was no going back to neverland. K says I was so angry that when he tried to wake me up gently after my alarm clock rang (an hour or so later) and I showed no sign of reacting to it, that I actually smacked him on the nose and almost damaged his eye as well by flailing my fist wildly in the air. I vaguely recall hearing him groaning in pain and grumbling at his even trying to be affectionate in the morning. It was so obvious that I preferred sleep to him.

But it wasn't the phone calls alone. An elderly couple had been occupying the apartment below ours for an astonishing 19 years. They had recently left and been replaced by a young fellow who seems to have musical fits occasionally and more perplexingly, very early in the morning, that is, just when I'm clinging on for dear life to my last REM session. Well, he was apparently afflicted by the same sort of symptoms this morning, so that all my attempts at retiring back under the comforters proved to be of no avail. The entire world seemed to be conspiring to wake me up prematurely.

Well, I was in the kitchen preparing breakfast and hurling imprecations at every do-no-gooder around me I could recall at that point when I saw the pretty young musical fellow swaggering down the complex path towards the main road, armed with his usual outdoor musical accoutrements (IPod et al). For one minute I seriously contemplated pushing up the kitchen window and screaming out "Damn You" at him but thankfully, the seed in the plum I was dissecting was determined not to be dislodged and its resistance forced me to concentrate on the job at hand, thus allowing better sense to prevail. I did however notice that the creature crossed the road to board a van with the picture of a janitor painted across it, which seemed to belong to some company named 'Worldwide'. After that, I somehow lost the heart to remain annoyed any longer at him.

Talking of companies, things seem to be going very wrong almost everywhere nowadays in terms of jobs. Employees of K's company have been losing jobs left and right in Kolkata and Chennai. When last heard of, 800 of the projected 1400 had been shown the door in Kolkata. Those unallocated for more than a month or more and those with poor annual appraisals are the unfortunate majority to be handed pink slips at the earliest possible opportunity. One indeed wonders how times have changed when you even have a target of sorts to meet in terms of terminating employee contracts. Yesterday, K shocked me with the news of the mysterious 'resignation' of one of his colleagues who'd returned to India to get his visa renewed, had had his papers processed and formalities over, was supposed to fly to the USA next week. His wife and child are still here. In fact, his wife is working here right at this moment. God knows now how they are all going to handle this catastrophe. My heart goes out to them in sympathy. I hope things work out well for them soon. On two disparate occasions, two of K's colleagues, one based in Minneapolis and the other in Maryland (the latter in a managerial position) were prematurely packed off to India and asked to continue in their respective capacities at their original locations. Work hours have been increased on weekdays by an hour (a total of 9 per day), promotions and increments have been indefinitely stalled and all this means we are ourselves living under constant fear of some obscure sword vaguely hanging over our heads. I think I'll try out more recipes and improve my cooking skills (and bring them up to the high standard set by my indubitably superior half) , since we might have to consider alternative avenues of employment very soon.

On a lighter note, we've been going out on regular walks, now that it's spring by universal consensus and the weather is occasionally warm enough to allow the heaters to be switched off, the window let up and comforters left untouched at night. Just by virtue of sitting on our backs at home (to avoid the unmentionable anatomic technicalities), we've managed to gain what small chapbook size self-help by-the-cash-counter books at Walmart are euphemistically terming 'winter fat'. We've bought jogging attire for our considerable (pun certainly intended) selves last Sunday and intend to start on a sober daily regimen of exercise to shed the excess masses of unshapely fat that our bulky and then what we apparently (and obviously wrongly) considered body-friendly winter garments had helped conceal for so long. Amen to that.

Jogging Outfits :

For me :








For K :




Now if only the thundershowers would hold up...

Thursday, April 02, 2009

A Rainy Romance

I think I must have some strange bond with the rain, for it makes me come to life as I never do at other times. The poet in me is possessed, stirring up longings and desires suppressed on otherwise arid, sterile days. You have to encounter me on a rainy day to know the real me. Like a slowly peeled pineapple, my rind dissolves, my resistance gives way and you approach my core, me. Then you encounter her who you only glimpse in flashes in my poetry, the perennial peripatetic prophet ; the subtlest manifestation of the soul. I give you all the fruit of my first, fraught romance with the rain :

'Rain evokes nostalgia. Not only in the poet’s mind, but in the mind of every single person who spares a moment to watch the rain from his window and lets his thoughts follow their own course. Invariably, he will find, with bewildered enjoyment, that numerous bitter-sweet memories crowd into his mind and jostle for at least a fleeting, if not elaborate, recollection. And even the most rational person will find the sweet smell of moist green lime-leaves, the fragrance of the pale jasmine, khichudi, Rabindrasangeet and paper-boats transport him into a perhaps lost world, an age of mirthful innocence and simplicity. And if his heart is not yet hardened by cynicism—owing to the bitter struggles for survival he has been forced to go through—he will pause, perplexed by the overwhelming sense of poignant purposelessness, timelessness, that slowly but surely, floods his aching heart.

Rain is a season of pain. The pain of having loved, lived and left behind. And it is a dangerous domain that we now tread—a cordoned-off sacred plane of prolonged private suffering. Of longing, languishing and losing. Of overlooking the obvious—that we learn to love by making mistakes. Having happily hypnotized ourselves into hasty attachments and consuming ourselves thereafter in cold flames of keen, cutting self-contempt. Wishing we had been born wise. And forgetting the fact that we are only human, after all.

Rain reminds us of sleepless nights. Of thunder crashing and streaks of sensuous lightning dazzling the desperately scared senses, yet giving way to a dry dreamless thirst that darts across the heart in flickering flashes and makes us peep out warily through the stark darkness within for only one, two, a few stolen glances at the desolate scene without. And finally going back to sleep with an awed, yet full heart.

Rain causes emotional catharsis. We weep because nature is now wild and furious, aware all the while that we are safe and secure ourselves and that the outside world really means nothing to us. Yet the jasmine is merciless – it drains our heart of a year of pent-up anguish – our mortal misery melts. And as the rain ceases, the Phoenix in us emerges anew. To love and lose. Once again. '



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