there she blows...

Life limps back to normalcy - almost. i try not to think about him, i console myself that he is in a better place...It has not been even a month...i think we tend to forget because it is so much easier than to remember....what wisdom from so unwise a soul???

i did not get the job i coveted. Just like the fox and the sour grapes, i begin to think maybe it was for the better, i don't know whether i want to shift base this soon...maybe someday, Singapore, you will have to welcome me..For now, i will have to be contend with the fickle english weather...but before that, i get to spend some more days in my favourite city - Calcutta. It is my second home - crowded, dirty, polluted but still lovable - maybe it reminds me of myself - so many warts but still loved by those i want to be loved by...

i get tired of the many times i have been told i speak such good Bengali. My sister actually snarls when she hears it - i think she may be jealous! i used to get flattered and if i were honest, i still do get flattered but sometimes it grates. Yes, i am ungracious too.

i honestly want to give up my job. i am so done with analysing and whatever else i am supposed to do. Yes, it boosts my ego that i am missed when i am not around but i want to break free. If only i had enough sense to have married an old millionaire...Money, i work only for money. i am a mental prostitute. i think life is too short to be working for money but money makes the world go around and so, i hawk my brains for a living...since the mind is considered more precious and sacred than the body, isn't selling your body less morally wrong than selling your mind? Yes, i am going mad.

i actually ate 5 jalebis yesterday and i got a stomach ache for the trouble. i am a glutton and i weigh only 45 kgs now....what is the connection??

i have been reading them silly romance novels and shedding tears. i am ashamed. No, i am not. i love my cheap thrills and Mills&Boon i thrive on these days. i do not want to read any thought provoking novels just now...i just want to gobble up stupid stories of incredibly sexy macho man and impossibly beautiful damsel falling in lust and love and doing all such things that they are supposed to do to make stars explode and waves crash. ummm, maybe i am with the wrong man because i have never experienced such galactic and oceanic impact.....food for thought...definitely.

i coloured my hair again - mahogany or something...i will do cherry black next....i want my hair to fall off and become bald....anything for a change...would i look cute? or maybe horrible...colouring my hair is the only adventurous thing i can do with my looks. i want a tattoo but i don't have the guts...i could go for a gothic look but since i hate using make-up, it would be incomplete. How would he react if i went to the airport to receive him wearing a mini-skirt and full blown make-up? And maybe stilettos? Would he disown me? But he does not own me to disown me....What am i writing? i think i should think before i write...But would you get to read such inanely sweet words if i censored my thoughts? Oh god, please silence this woman...

Back

I am back from Imphal after all the ceremonies. How fickle is the human mind ... although it still hurts, life continues even when such an important part of my life is gone ...you begin to realize how dispensable you are...Life will continue even when you are gone.

Maybe because I so wanted my father to have some relief from all his pain, his end was something I had wished for- does it sound so cruel?But when you see someone you love tossing and turning ,
in so much pain, stripped of his dignity to perform the daily rites we perform so thoughtlessly and easily you begin to wonder whether it is not cruel to wish him to stay on just so you do not want to lose your father. It was so tough to see the man always so enjoying life unable to even eat and wasting away slowly before your eyes. You begin to wish for his miseries to end, for him to sleep peacefully, to be in a better place.

At least, I got to hold his hands and tell him I love him, that he need not worry about my other
and my sisters and that I would always take care of them till I die..,

I am returning back to normal life but when I see his smiling face in the photos, a pain gnaws at my heart...my father, a man who stood by his principles even when he was alone on one side ith the world on another side, a man who taught me by exampe to have the guts to stick to what you feel is right...he did not live in vain.....

Baba, I miss you..I miss how you always provoked me just because you found it so endearing when i get angry and start grumbling, I miss how you always pampered me, how you used to be so proud of me and showed me off to your friends - how I hated it then but now, I wish you would call out my name..how you always find something for me to buy for you at the last moment....your childlike demands...

Oh baba, I love you....

baba....

Baba, i love you and i know you are in a better place without the pain to rob you of sleep. i hope i have the strength to take away Ema's and my sisters' pain. Baba, goodbye. i have not been the best of daughters but i have loved you in my own ways....

....

....i rescued a bag of books from his evil clutches. i found a bag of books on the balcony of his (our) place. i knew he had kept those books there because they were all lying unread, untidy. i think he meant to throw them away - i could almost hate him for that - but i guess better sense prevailed and he dumped them there.

It had been lying there for ages. Of course, i knew the bag contained books but i thought they must be the read-once thriller books bought second hand from the library.

Since i have the book case now, when i visited his/our place, i opened the bag and horror of horrors, what do i see but all my precious first-hand books i bought from the boi mela- some of them still untouched. And to think he was thinking of throwing them away. i lovingly dusted them and dragged them all the way to my place where they now reside peacefully.

i am thinking of dumping his Bose sound system on the balcony.

incoherent ramblings..

i find it most amusing that i think some of my deepest thoughts in the loo and when i am in a bus/taxi/car by myself. The loo, ah, isn't it lucky for my thoughts that i am a constipated soul - now, what does that mean?

i like long rides - in fact sometimes i just wish life was just one long bus ride where i could sit back, doze and think, dream, look out the window and stare at people wondering what their lives are like. i think i am a voyeur...

i am re-reading some of the books - it feels a bit like renewing old friendships..The boi mela starts next week..i would love to buy more books. Ema looked at all the books in the book case and said something to the tune that there were too many books and wondered why when i would not have the time to read them ---i was offended and told her i have read every one of them.

He thinks all my silly ideals arise from the books i read. Maybe he thinks i would have been more human if i read less...everyone seems to think i am too different...

i have a craving for swans - i know, they are such beautiful creatures and who but the wicked would even think of eating them...i remember the wild ducks that used to swim in the lagoon and how i used to tell SM that we should ducknap one for the wok...i am such a heartless glutton...no feelings for the other living creatures...

i feel the need for a career change - maybe it is midlife crisis or something like that..i know i do what i am expected to do very well but i am getting bored of it...There used to be a time when at least i was motivated because i had the kids at work to nag...i think i want to open a candle shop...or maybe a roadside dhaba...or maybe a paan dukaan but i hate paan...or maybe i should become a homemaker - i will make a poor one at that..i have neither the skills nor the patience.

My sister installed solar panels back home at Imphal so now she says there is light everyday...that is like a luxury back home...How sick is that something essential like that is a luxury for some in this age?? And that everyone accepts it as a way of life...

Yesterday was Emoinu - it is a Manipuri festival worshipping Emoinu - i don't know whether she is the goddess of the kitchen or something else. Even though i do not believe in anything that says 'worship', i bought sweets and flowers for Ema so she could at least feel happy..and maybe because i wanted to eat sweets...glutton...

Life drags on...the same day, the same night...with some variations thrown in...Is this what it is all about? There has to be more to it...now, if only i can find out what....