A man came today and took away the monitor of our computer. Something had happened to the picture tube. The screen would suddenly blinker, grow darker and then fade. White bands would dissect the screen-white lines whiter than the snow-blanket clad farm of mine on Facebook. And Baba said it was time we got rid of the old monitor and got a bigger, better, flatter, snazzier one. I couldn't wait for the new monitor to arrive. But when the man came today, in a rather modest attire, it was so sudden and I was so unprepared that I dismissed him as the grocery man. Probably I thought that the chic monitor demanded a more stylish man. And suddenly I felt bad for my old monitor, that had been with us since we were in the 12th standard. I helped the man detach and disentangle its cords. He set the new one up, had a cup of tea and left, with the other one packed inside a cardboard box. I'll forget about it in a couple of days, I'm sure. But now the computer table seems wider, the picture on the screen more distinct, bigger. The result is better no doubt but I have this tiny clot inside that refuses to let me feel happy and agree whole-heartedly with Baba when he praises the new monitor. Weird sentimentalism for something I didn't even pay much attention to when it was there. Strangely I don't feel the same way about this year which will be cast away to give place to the first year of the new deacde in less than four hours. This year has taught me a lot. It has made me grow up. Which is why perhaps I am not quite half as sentimental about it. Anyway Happy New year to all of you out there. May you miss 2010 on the eve of 2011.

Fragility, is another name for life.

And death is the darkness at the other end of the tunnel of life, not all parts of which are illuminated with equal brightness-some parts may be darker than what awaits the end of the passage.

Years, fly a little slow. Let me yet touch my childhood without straining my outstretched fingers. Childhood,do not yet die. Memories, do not slip like silk from my clutch. Dreams, hold on a little longer. Weariness, delay a little on your way.

Why am I this morbid?

*Thunks head on poor wall*

The Rhododendron sanctuary in Hilley, when the trees are in full bloom, looks heavenly I've been told and I must visit Jorethang once more. For as long as I live, Jorethang will never leave my dreams.

I desperately need someone, something or some event to make me happy and keep me happy till I do not itch to plunge head down into a pool of wallowing sorrow, and monkharapkora again. Making me laugh for an hour or so counts, but I want something bigger and better and longer than that. Oishee isn't here to make things better. And even when she does make a fleeting appearance, the 'fleetingness' takes the joy of seeing her away and the moment of genuine joy passes hurriedly. I never thought one person could make such a huge difference.

Alone in a crowd. Only books sustain me.

Anyway, people have been complaining about my morbidity. Rightly so too! God! Had my writings been someone else's and not mine, I'd have definitely winced at the high morbidity quotient. Then again, I might not have. Most people find Plath morbid and I adore her. Positively worship her. However that isn't a case that furthers my argument. Morbidity minus genius is painful. Poor you few, rare, hapless readers!

Networking sites disgust me! Or is it really because I interact little with the hyperactive networkers and am generally ignored, rarely gathering comments or appreciations? The 'in-crowd' repels me, probably because I don't belong there. Gossipmongers irritate me and drive me into a shell. And I have serious issues against back-biting, spinelessnes, backstabbing and smoke.

Presumably I'm not having the best time of my life because inspite of being short-sighted as I am and happy to be happy (though this post wouls suggest to the contrary), I can see my faults too. And trust me life isn't easy when you can see your faults and become painfully aware of

your shortcomings.

I suppose I've got to work on myself. Thank God, you are still there despite me being as I am.

Bon Voyage

July this year was the shortest ever. So were these one and something years. Shorter than a day.You have been wonderful. :). Best of luck. And lots of love (more than this expression expresses). We'll do fine, D'uh.

p.s. I'll call you when I lose my way, and when I'm very happy, and when I'm terribly upset, and when I'm buying something for somebody,and when I've written anything new, and whenever I want to, and whenever you want me to, and even whenever you haven't told me so. you, I know will do the same and more.

Little glimpses of hell in a masquerade. I have lost my way and do not know how to sail through. Masks never remain constant. They change faces. Just when you think you've grown used to a face and started holding on to it as if it were the only branch however weak and tiny, on that barren crag you are hanging from...it changes its contours. People moult too. I don't know the ones around me. They have all moulted. Where do I run?

shob chhere palate ichhe korchhe. So tired.

Letting go.

It's difficult. Awfully. Especially when you aren't least aware that you have to, that situations have so alligned themselves that you just have to whether you want or not. On second thoughts letting go isn't difficult when you want to. Dumb sentence, the previous one. But one must grow used to it, over the years. But some seem never to get the hang of the thing. It only grows worse. I have had to let go of so many, I wish I didn't have to, ever. I still hang on to the hope that they will come back. It's not all that difficult if you fall out of love, I hardly ever do, not with friends.

I hope I never had to let you go A, I was so so fond of you, still am. Now when we talk I am dead scared that you might think I am just trying to be sociable, just trying to put up an effervescent front so as not to give vent to all the hurt stored in piles inside. I hope you see that I still love you a lot.
I wish I never had to let you go, either, A. You were the dearest sister ever, loved more than you could ever comprehend. I remember fondly how you used to cuddle up to me, tell me every little thing that mattered to you, wherever we went you used to come and sit by me. I can see that you love me still, but we aren't close anymore. And do you know it hurts! Awfully. When I have to choose between a sister and another, and I don't, I just lose one. I just wish I never had to concede that loss. But will you ever see? And will you ever understand that I never moved away, never wanted to, all I needed was a little time? We still love each other, I know, but where's the warmth gone? where's the unrestraint?
And you S, my best friend, my brother,the one who could say anything to me and I to him, critique each other openly...I have had to let you go because you would stick to some whims of yours, without even realising you weren't helping yourself, me or anybody for that matter, or perhaps realising but sticking to those whims nonetheless. I miss those hours of talking, my turning to you for support, your telling me everything. Hope everything gets better.
And you S, you grew so cold, so frozen, I was bewildered, hurt, couldn't understand a thing, never got a reply when I asked you. Now we have been trying to make up for all that, but do you know how obviously 'tried' it seems when you show your concern in a situation, in which, had it happened before our fallout you would have done much much more for me. But I don't mind. At least you try. At least I matter that much.
Now I am even scared of loving my friends too much. I'm always in for a separation. I believe I am at fault too, but I wish you guys would just trust my words and just step into my shoes for a while and see how I felt and feel. Hurt, lost, depressed. Nothing fills the blanks, nothing takes the pain away, not for long!

In less than 40 hours, I have a test to write on the Romantics, who though a favourite group of poets can not sustain much critical and analytical studying and I have a huge inclination to write a post on rain(yes again!), a temptation that I must give into, the Romantics, the test and the late hour not withstanding.
It had rained heavily last afternoon and satiated with my fill of staring out of the window at the ripples making and breaking, overlapping and dissolving anti-climactically, in the green pond and little muddy puddles, I ventured outdoors. The black pitch lane, blacker than usual, wet and sleek, lay before me and as I walked on this winding para path, the tedious and the quotidian came forth in newer shades-subdued and soft, melancholy but not morose. It seemed as if the same yellow house that glazed in the sun, and the tired green leaves that wearily languished over a high boundary-wall, and the dead looking moss on the wall been touched with a wet paint-brush, which despite the agency of softer hues, had infused life in them. I have often wondered if anything can contest the beauty of a cloudy sky silhouetted against which stand canopies of high- reaching trees. I declare, nothing can. The grey sky, with its cloud cover kept reminding me of Pelling and the walks under a very low sky on the winding, sinuous roads that I undertook more than a year ago. yesterday I kept returning to those walks through clouds,swathed in layers of warm clothing, when the only assailable body parts of mine that the clouds could touch mischievously were my uncovered nose and mouth, through which I had swallowed a little cloud, in a bid to sing at the beauty surrounding me. If I could only return to Pelling once again.
Sometimes I should paint Sikkim on this blog, before it gets written off my mind, however unlikely that may be.

And finally it rained!! And how it rained! I am grinning, grinning, singing, grinning.All the time it rained today the ends of my lips remained stretched to their last limit-you can draw a perpendicular to the limit points on either side from the ear-side limits of my eyes-and my facial muscles hurt. BUTDOIGIVEADAMN!!! ITRAINED!!! The only time I stopped smiling was when this arrogant, rude man refused to budge from near us and smoked to his cursed lungs' peril even after we told him that we had a problem with smoke, and claimed that he would do so because the shed(actually a building under construction) we had taken refuge under belonged to him! I wish Dr.Slop could read out from Bishop Ernulphus's book of excommunication and insert his name(whatever it is) in place of Obadiah's. And I met my best friends today, after a long time and spent a lot of time with the chubby bunny. And my best friend had a good news to report. And I am happy.
Oh thou happy happy raindrops!
Oh thy blessed purity.
arghh!
Whatever.

Ultrasentimentalcrap.

So once upon a time you were friends...of mine. you, you, you, you and you. Good friends, great friends. Friends to swear by, friends to stand by. And I had great confidence in myself and you...all of you, that nothing will change, ever, if anything(/one) does that won't be either of us. And I basked in the glory of our friendship, let my spirits be high with love for you, filled my head with words you said, delayed my walks back home and so did you...all of you. And then this nothingness. And then this void. Would it help to take each of our friendships apart and see where it went wrong? Would it help even if we did find that precise point and talked at length about it? I did. You did. You did. You did. You did. We did. You and I did not. Not clearly. We didn't know. I didn't dare go back and dwell on the one moment that destroyed it all. But you and I were two parts of the same world. Or so I thought. You never did.
So that world where you and I belonged, has been closed by a door. And there's rust and a lock on it. And I wouldn't open it, not once more. I wouldn't try to match my footsteps with those in the dust, they won't fit anymore and I want them intact, at least in memory.

It's so darn easy to say so and so has had a heartbreak...like it's some fancy toy or a porcelain bowl a corner of which has chipped off, when in truth, hearts don't break, not for ever. But something dies. Gradually. Inside. And there's a huge load on your chest and a lump in your throat and defunct lip muscles. And there's no reason why you should wake up the next morning just as there's no reason why people should tell you to forget, when everyone knows darn well it isn't easy to forget when everyone is actually helping you remember, rather than forget. And then one day you do. You wake up and go about your ways and don't even realise that you haven't thought of him/her even once. Wow, you think, you've moved on. Moving on comes easy to girls -some one told me once. I wish you were true. It'll hurt baby, It'll ache. And I can't do anything to take it away and I won't try. Just let it be. Sometimes when you need to cry badly, for no apparent reasons, blame it all on this one quiescent pain. And cry.

So there, I've lost a friend, a friend, a friend, a friend and a best friend. Mustn't have been worth it? But I have you, and you, and you, you, you,you. Thank God for you.

p:s- erm...mush, crap.Whatever!

I admit. It's my fault. I cross lines too easily, trust too easily, believe too easily that people will reciprocate my feelings, expect witha stupid conviction that they will try to understand me like I try to understand them. Serves me right! One doesn't have any right to stay this naive and stupid anymore. Time I grew up.

I've got such a lot to say that the enormity of the volume of words that seethe inside puts me off the track, benumbs my fingers and makes my key-board recalcitrant. Will write later.

Nothing ever gets better. Never! If I could only run away from everything, everybody around me. Because I try and try and in the process forget spontaneity but failure chases me. Not a moment of being what I am, without a feeling of guilt and defeat.Nothing remains.

If there's something I desperately want now, it is to write. To write endlessly and without a care or even a thought about what I'm writing. And write a poem after what I think must be ages, and a good poem for which I wouldn't have to try hard at all...easy like ink flows from a nice gel pen...a smooth green ink that shines a little against a white paper pregnant with possibility and breathless with anticipation...winding letters, small upright letters, little letters. Whether writing should be for the sake of writing or a cathartic exercise I haven't been able to decide. Just a series of words, side by side, sibling like, lover like, discrete, disparate, lonely...connected by an imposition they can only silently and mostly ineffectually rebel against. Does a smile and a laughter seep inside and travel deep inside through the narrow glacial arteries and reach the head-quarters of all emotions 'the heart' and down to the little toe nail? Imposition and appropriation and alienation are not just heavy sounding common words, they are the aftermaths of colonisation...mainly of intellect. I hope my resistance holds.

People say they have reasons that keep them going...big reasons...small reasons. Wonder why I keep going though, with reason or without. Most probably because I can't but keep going and I would, if I could stop, put an end to, terminate every business of 'going','moving','living'.
Waking up to the same old selfish angry world that claws and gnaws with its multi-coloured talons, squirming under the harmless looking baggages of expectation and then this self that is given to paroxysms and hysterical rage that builds inisde, seethes inside and then goes back to dormancy...inside...never an outlet, never an outburst that helps , fighting, fighting, fighting with itself and others...to sleep is to die...I wish. And familiar faces and familiar endearments,familiar names and limited free association, familiarity everywhere and such frozen oceans of difference in between...I am running inside a wheel. Nice looking familiar faces with unconditional love make me uncomfortable but they guard my peaceful sleep anyway. Thanks. I love words. They are the prefect examples of detachment.

I am black, bleak and blank
with layers piled in stacks
...cement of neglect
in between.
Do you see a tiny flame?
you imagine I'm sure.
It's all soot,
it's all ash
of a flame that once was.
All left now is a ghostly wick.

Bad, Sad, Mad.