This is what terrorism has done to us.

We find a purse lying abandoned near the steps in front of the Worldview Bookstore, a regular hangout of many. We suspect it as a potential carrier of bombs, however minuscule, though it is pink and has teddy bears on it. We try to finish our lunch quickly and move away.

I was taking pictures in the department today, randomly, looking for moments of frivolity in a serious life, and I was focussing on the students in a classroom when the class was in progress. I hear a girl enquiring her friend if I were a terrorist. At other times, this might have sounded funny. Today it didn't.

My friend A, one of the craziest friends I've ever had, one who has pulled my hair innumerable times in class,has hit me with fat books in tutorials, calls up from Madhya Pradesh, his voice taut and helpless at the same time, asking me to take care of myself, because he lost two of his batch-mates in the German Bakery blast. I had never heard him sound so broken.

Nothing changes. Nothing will change. Power will always be a love, stronger than love itself.

Memory is a yellowing photograph.

Madness is fun. Madness is fashion. Madness is the sign of genius.

Madness is scary.

Undesirable.

Disorienting.

Take it from me. I'm the mad girl.

Sweet lover

So why is it that lovers must address each other as 'honey' or 'sugarplum' or 'sweetheart' and such stuff? If I had to call my lover by a name that moistens my mouth and creates just the mood for loads of love and mush wouldn't '4 number gate-er fuchka' be more apt? Or 'Biryani' for that matter? If you insist love is sweet and so is the lover, why I'd much rather call him' kaju-barfi' or 'jilipi' instead of honey or such like. In any case you can have only about a spoonful of honey or sugar before it makes your mouth cloy with a sickly sweetness.

Be original. Remember Pantobhutni.If you must commend the sweetness of your lover, let it be in the name of a sweetmeat you like truly. [ But please rosogolla and mishti doi are way too overused by 'oh-I-love-kolkata-drool-drool-ohthemishtidoiandohtherosogolla!!!' celebrities. But if you must, who am I to stop?]

BON

Sometimes I am just a huge ball of nerves (Not that I'm huge, why one must have lied shamelessly if he told you I'm huge! Nor am I spherical. Again you misunderstand. All I mean is-sometimes I am just a huge ball of nerves.That's that.) Nerve ends prick the inside of my skin, eager as fishing-hooks to catch the slightest of slights and insults and cold shoulders and you-name-it. In short I become sensitive to insensitivities. God save my friends on those days.(Now I have three classes of friends-college classmates, school friends and club friends. With the latter two this ball of nerves phenomenon occurs very very rarely, if at all. These are the people I'm most comfortable with despite their teasing me ceaselessly on the most delicate of matters. But it would be a falsehood to say I'm not comfortable with my classmates because with some of them I share a rather strong bond and can discuss the most delicate of matters. But most of them are formal, entirely civilised, very prim and propah, horrified at the idea of teasing someone about what one would rather keep a secret... why then am I a ball of nerves around this super-sensitive, uber-sensible bunch?)

So I'm upset if they forget to wait for me at the canteen, or leave without saying bye, or snap at me if I ask why they feel bad...oh you get the drift I'm sure. Now this is extremely idiotic, but at the same time rather painful.

There are also a kind of people whose nerve ends are probably so entangled in zillions of knots that they fail to carry any impulse at all. In short, they are insensitive to sensitivity. Now I could cite instances galore, but would refrain. It's rude to criticise, won't you agree?

(Between you and me, I can't give such examples-was only looking for a chance to say half clever things.:D.)

So on some days I occupy the middle ground and on one such day,because I had asked her to stop rubbing her shoes, each against the other, producing a noisy distraction in class, a classmate glared at me with her really scary glare, , which I failed to notice. :) Lucky!

(That nonplussed poor dear D. isn't this habit of quipping in parentheses rather infuriating? There's only one thing worse than reading stupid quips...Chetan Bhagat is a pro at that-making stupid quips I mean,not reading them. D'UH!! He makes you want to say that every time he tries to make a wisecrack. Okay so getting back to the point-there's only one thing worse than reading stupid quips, that is being told your own quips are stupid. Now dear readers, surely you won't do that to me? REDALERT!! I start feeling like a ball of nerve already!)

Are you a BON yet?

P.S with reference to quip no 3.-I'd like to add that I remember one example at the least-the man driving the car that hit me this saraswati puja. The front wheel kept pressing onto my leg, despite my loud screams. The man just stared vacuously. Poor man! his nerves need stronger medicines than my injury does. Oh, and that part of my leg is now blue and black and red.

Day before yesterday, on the phone, he said."but you never write of me." and I realised with a pang that indeed I haven't ever written truly about him, my boyfriend, except some rather stupid mushy and to undo the mush, cryptic posts. It has taken me a while to realise that like so many others, like in so many relationships, I have perhaps taken him for granted. I don't always realise the urgency in his across-the hemisphere calls-just to hear my voice, I don't always deal patiently with his need to feel my presence, even virtually before he goes to sleep, whereas he doesn't fail in taking some time out of his uber-busy schedule to call me as many times a day as I want him to. There are so many beautiful little things that he does, so many natural little flourishes here and there to make me smile, even though he can't see me smile across the oceans, so many times that he tells me I'm pretty (which is untrue) and so honestly, so earnestly that I start thinking I'm beautiful... It is he who is really beautiful. But I let him be the mirror and revelled in my beauty, and rarely ever let him revel in his. Strangely I sound like Martha in 'Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?' I don't know how to end my post. He's the support. I could have lived without him but I don't want to. Love you Souvick.

I had a nice day. Took some nice shots that made me very happy. The only bad part was getting shouted at by a beggarly woman sitting alone picturesquely, poetically on a small flight of stairs,when I tried to take her photo. The language she used wasn't poetic at all. Very scary in fact it was. I fled.:( Truly, poverty and insanity might seem poetic to us but it is not to those who suffer under their yoke. Sorry woman.