love and other such inane stuffs

Sometimes, I think ..yes, please don't smirk, I can think. I think love is so over-rated. And sometimes i think I don't know what love really means. Is it the passion driven, lust stained, fight-infested thing I share with him? Am i capable of caring for anyone other than myself? Sometimes I think I lay too great an emphasis on my desires, my feelings that I come across as heartless and at times, I think what is life if it has not to do with me. I go void of all emotions at times - when I think 'to hell with everything, even me'...these days they prey on me more - my demons. And even sleep, my ally, seems to desert me. I hate the feeling of laying awake trying to lull my senses to sleep, of trying not to think of things that should not be thought of.
I could do with some LSD tablets. That or a whack on my head.

I thought I would take up candlemaking again after a hiatus of nearly 4 years. I wish I could start a small candle shop somewhere quiet, at the corner of a cobbled street, with bells on the door that will tinkle when someone walks in, I would serve tea to them and we would gossip about the weather...I will make candles in all colours of the rainbow and smelling of green apple and jasmine and rainforest and the rain..I will have quaint rugs on the floor, wispy curtains shielding the windows. I will paint the walls red and black ...I will have pictures on the wall- the one painting I fell in love with of a rain soaked street of Calcutta, the painting I never bought but I will find it one day..on rainy days, I will sit by the window with a book and watch raindrops play sliding games on the window panes..I will sip hot tea and though the tills would be almost empty and i would have to count my changes and think twice before I buy myself a book, I think i will be happy.

Imphal, nungshibi Imphal

Traffic lights and traffic jam - red, green and yellow lights; still functional and traffic jam on a road I have never seen crowded...this is what welcomed me to Imphal this time ...and the cold...and the darkness once the sun sets.At first I had decided I would not linger, that I would go back once the ceremonies were over. But i stayed back for another 10 days or so.

Yes, the power situation makes me want to holler- load shedding every other day or rather hour. And even on the day the much awaited electricity is supposed to make her rare visits, she ditches you. My mother and sister says almost defensively, phase sudabane, meidi lak-esidi...(apparently the voltage is so low that all it can light up is maybe a zero wattage bulb). And for the first time in my life I see water being supplied from the reservoir - miracles would never cease - so no more lugging heavy pump to the river to get our much needed h2o..yes, I am not talking about some far flung village in Manipur but right in the heart of Imphal...and nobody complains...they buy inverters, generators, even buy water. People seem to accept this as a way of life. I want to shake them and tell them they should not accept everything so quietly, that they should protest like only we manipuris can protest - JACs and sit-in-protests, rallies and hunger strikes where people on full stomachs gossip...

But, when I look up at the blue sky, I think I have not seen a bluer one...at night when I look up and see the sky studded with stars, I think I have never seen as many stars as I see here..in the lazy afternoons, when I hear the silence, it pierces my heart with its loudness. And you want to cry and ask whoever is responsible for the mess my motherland is in - why have you spoiled her so we can no longer dream of coming back for good, can never think of bringing our children here to grow up like we did...

From the window of the plane, I bid my adieu not knowing when I will be back...

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....