1. This blog is not dead.
2. This blog has not smoked itself to non existence.
3. This blog has a middle finger which it is pointing at you right now.
4. My laptop is a piece of junk.
5. My laptop's motherboard is a piece of junk.
6. Never buy HCL laptops.
7. I do not have Rs. 17, 000/-
8. And I don't even friggin' care.
9. If you do not have a spine / I could lend you mine.
10. Samuel Beckett was a very strange man.
11. Wulfgar is a very nice dog.
12. This blog also has a butt.
*jiggle jiggle*

The last time I read Animal Farm, I was little more than a kid. I remembered today that I had cried for Boxer. Boxer, the old fool. Strong and limited to the notion of just working harder and harder. Perhaps my pity for Boxer was largely due to the fact that he never slept enough. Things have changed. I almost feel like I read another text today.        

The tears for Boxer seem to have dried out. And what remains is the deep disgust for Napoleon. The right word, however, is not disgust. There is something else.    

Boxer was not just a foolish horse working his lungs to death. He represents that part of us which wants to believe in the integrity of things, only to be deceived time and again.  

 

In the last few days, I have seen faces oddly resembling pigs. Faces indulging in an ugly transformation..."From pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again."

I could still cry for Boxer. But Napoleon demands nothing but pity.   

   

Merry Christmas

Heh. Merry Christmas. I mistyped Christmas as 'Christmans' and Crisstmas'. But that is because I am slightly drunk. I generally don't get drunk on three large pegs, but with the festive spirit and all the laughing with Raju and Rupesh, in the name of Christ, I am drunk. Slightly. But I have been acting quite stupid. Tee Hee. The Fantastic Mother thinks I have had whiskey. I refute. I have had rum. 

Another year is almost over. Time is slippery. It is like biulir daal. So damn funny man. It seems like yesterday when I ran after my friends for something as stupid as a tie pin or a refill. Gawd. And now my good friends, the Bhringi, the Bimbo, the Bhnodu... all of them are fucking graduates!!! 

Realization. I have friends who are graduates and in all probability, I will be one soon. (Although MadMad will beg to differ)     

Right now, at this very moment, I feel quite happy. That is because my mother has had a good birthday, my good buddy is back in town and we will party like crazy and whatever. Actually, I feel quite good about life. Somehow, I want music on my fingertips. Once again. I want to caress the strings. I want it all back.  I was thinking about music today. Somehow, I feel that it is the fear of not being as good as before that holds me back. Maybe it is not anger or whatever shit it was at all. I am scared, slightly. What if I am unable to play? I am rusty. But I have to admit, there is nothing, absolutely nothing in the world that thrills me more than weaving music out of thin air. The making of a brand new alaap, now cautious, like treading on sand, and then flippant, almost cavalier in spirit. And then the tehai, the energy that can drive you crazy. The crescendo. The gentle yet firm cajoling of the strings for the meend...

I want it back. I will be back. Someday soon. 

I have made new friends. I have lost old friends. I have cared about people. I have loved people.I have bitched my heart out I have smoked my lungs off I have hated my guts out I have shouted I have screamed I have fought I have hugged... 

All of us. All of us do all these things. It is nothing special. But it is so very human. 

I like this little life of mine. Although stupid Facebook says I will die when I am twenty and one old holy man said I will die young, I show my middle finger and my left butt and my big toe in my right foot to them. I give a damn. I will live and live fine till the time I stop living. I don't want to write that word here. Just. 

I love my friends and whatever family I have. 

Tonight, I drank to absent friends. I miss you all. 

Tonight, I want my music back. 

Tonight, mother, I am home. 

Tonight, I want to tell you that I will always take care. Yes, when you are old. 

Tonight, I want to tell all my friends, you who jump all the time like a monkey and you the giraffe and you who are the pink pig and you the moody mother like and you the thin dog and you the Dodo and you the Seventh Rhino and you the Birsa Munda and you the wannabe rockstar with long hair and you the one in trouble now and you the one with nine stitches in your left armpit and you the little one who takes taxi rides back home and you and you and you... I love you all. 

Tonight, I will talk to you, the wise one. :)        

Tonight, I hold no grudges. 

Merry Christmas, one and all. Merry Christmas.      

  

P.S: I wrote this last night. Read it once again now. Ki nyaka saala. Now that I am sober, I guess I take back all my words! Go suck! :P 

Simple Interest

S.I = (P*R*T) / 100

God I have said this so many times today evening. Strangely enough, I have also realised how simple interests are when it comes to the principal / principle, the rate and the time. What one cannot place is just the 100. Maybe it is the constant reminder of division. Strange are the ways of mathematical formulae.  

After reading a forty page tenure in 17th Century English for hours last night, marking out important bits and figuring out what the implication of each word could be, I have discovered one thing. 

What Milton says in all these pages, backing up his argument with citations from Classical literature, the Bible and the works of political writers and the Divines, is actually summed up by Akshay Kumar in the movie Singh is Kinng. He says, "Asli king wohi hota hai jo apne liye nahin, doosron ke liye raj kare."

Milton says the same in the Tenure, mamu. What will ADG do if I quote Akshay Kumar in my end semester paper? I will, though.     

  

 

"Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,

 Pray to the gods to intermit the plague

 That needs must light on this ingratitude"

Trust me, this is one thing I did not want to blog about. However, I had a talk with Antoreep and he said that there is only one way of letting people know and telling them on their faces what kinds of bastards they are. We decided that the only way to let more people know was to write.   

Go read this.

When I arrived in college, at around one fifteen, I saw that gate number four had crumbled down. One of my friends said, ironically, that she thought that the gate had been built and it was being opened ceremonially. At first I didn’t know what to do and went to the department, only to find people carrying on with their work and making yesterday’s biggest joke. Let me tell you the joke at first. There is this play being staged. It’s a big thing, you know. Every year the department puts up a play. Great academic and extra curricular enterprise. So one of the props in this play is an air gun. The joke is that just when this air gun was fired, the gate fell down. Funny, innit? I also saw a few of my professors in the department. There was a meeting, some moderation business and whatever shit I know not of. Everyone is busy. Very busy.

Once I got down, I gave Antoreep a call and he said that they needed people out there. After I went in, the worst day of my life had begun. What I saw yesterday cannot be described in words. When I went in, there was one more person trapped inside. There were not enough security guards. The workers out there, the security guards, the firebrigade…but there were not enough people. What surprised me was that there were very few students. I just want to know something. What if a student had been trapped inside? The boys we saw on television from the engineering faculty writing on posters… would they have come to help out? I couldn’t believe the curiosity of people. We were unable to remove them and had to shout and scream and push in order to ensure that the ambulance got in. None of the professors from our esteemed departments came down except for Amlanda and Manashda. Few were gawking from the ledges. Spectacle, it was. 

Students like you and me stood there. Smiling and taking photographs on their cell phones. Let me not open my foul mouth regarding the press. What do we call this? Sadism? Apathy? Indifference? Bastardy? I have no fucking words. 

How could people conduct a rehearsal when one person was buried a few meters away? One of them came and told me today that he was feeling useless. Indeed. That is what all of us are. Useless. If there had been more people, maybe one more life could be saved. But who gives a damn anyway, eh? The fourth labourer was inside the rubble for two and a half hours. I just pray that he died instantly.

I detest myself for being part of an institution which merely tries to disavow responsibility. I detest myself for calling these people my friends. I detest myself for having sat in a class taken by many of these professors who do not come down to help people when they are dying. 

I do not know what inhibitions, problems, instructions from authorities they had. 

I have seen the way in which many students and teachers behave when there is a problem amongst students. Few go down and involve themselves and try to sort things out. Oddly enough, it is the same group of students and the same group of professors who actually go out and do something. Others just fucking don’t care. They give a rat’s ass about what happens to the students. And when it comes to labourers, it fucking doesn’t matter. Even death does not stir them one bit. 

These people had also been employed by the university. These people were working in a five star university which is renowned for its engineering department. Nobody told them to wear helmets. Maybe they wouldn’t. But what about taking concrete actions and ensuring that these people take the precautionary measures? And what the hell happens to all the money that UGC gives us? Aritroda and I heard one of the officials saying that the same contractor had done the work for gate number three. The same materials had been used and so on. Well, if that is the case, it is mere luck that gate number three has not collapsed yet, as Sion said.   

Give me answers, somebody. I cannot close my fucking eyes. Each time I do so, I see the face of that man who was trapped inside for two and a half hours.  

We live in different worlds, all of us. Last evening, I was walking down to gate no. 5 with Antoreep and Paromitadi. Milonda was crowded, as usual. There was a gang of students in front of Worldview. Another group with one person singing Beatles and playing the guitar. Another group smoking up. Playing cards. How long will we pretend that nothing has happened? They say it hurts when its home. What about that? Has it stopped hurting even when it happens where you study? In your own university?    

Carrying on as if nothing had happened just a few hours ago. As if gate number four had not fallen down. As if no one had died. I do not know how. None of us knows how. One of my friends said yesterday that all of us have blood on our conscience. Well, do we have a conscience at all?

Toy

Little things like smell of sweat and leather from wrist watch or rare concentric smoke rings or one little toy after ten odd years tell that long forgotten story of one old battery driven car from long long time ago.

One little toy telling stories of myself which are memories with no good use. My first teddy bear was a dog, ha ha. And I called it something I forget. Someone bought a G.I Joe for me and I tore out its head and hid it under the bed. Many toys, them with bright colours and batteries and clockwork ones also. Toys with lights and toys that could fly toys that I could build little houses with and toys that could blink and even the hideous ones that would cry when I flung them on the floor out of curiosity, anger, disgust, boredom and about twenty other feelings you can only feel when you are a child. Colours are very nice I had all kinds of colours to learn. I never called the blue one red or the red one blue when I had the freedom. I did not know yellow or black from red or purple. But then I had to learn the fine distinction between the colour of rust and the colour of bricks they build houses with and the colour of soil mingled with blood.

Then came the Rubik's Cube and the chess board and the pack of cards and that bonsai of the instrument I loved like a toy. New toys excite and thrill and fill you with intrigue and tension and a new kind of anxiety. That feeling of discovery which is equal to invention because for you its the first time. That wooden instrument with the old world charm and the feeling of growing up twang twang twang and music was made. Suddenly out of very fine strings I could hear the sound of a million years behind me and a million more. History and future and other things and all I needed was to touch the strings with my fingers and that triangular little thing made from coconut shell. Music fascinated, enticed, amused. Held me captivated for hours together. A music that was ancient and a music that was newborn and just created that followed no rhythm but was music nonetheless. That beauty and that charm of old and new and real and dreamlike in the toy went wrong. Music went wrong.

Tricycle and the fall. No one said Marie Marie hold on tight when I stepped out of the door and cycled down the stairs. Stitch Stitch Stitch back the skin. When the skin opens up to show the flesh and veins and many other parts of the inside a lot of pain is all you know and nothing can be done but stitch stitch stitch. We are the cloth toys they make when they stitch us up. Inside maybe we have sponge and cloth and scraps of cloth and maybe even thermocol and wires you never know for how many times have you opened up your toys?

Other toys also come. With new kinds of lights and some are robots that can walk on their own but when the batteries die down you have to push them all of a sudden they spring back to life. Old toys are swept away from under the bed suddenly someone holds it up in front of your face broomstick in hand and asks whether you still need it or not. You say no because you are doing something so very important and have no time for silly old things so you say no they are not what you call important and they go away forever leaving no trace. Little pieces of old toys not so precious because they are broken and old and you need them no more. Some are very expensive ones. Relatives from abroad bringing them or very special memories like a prize thing so them you never get to play with. Kept in glass showcases the pride of your house like a little museum of memories they stay all your life, maybe for your children or maybe just there without a function and a purpose. Stupid dumb toys all of them with nothing no soul no touch no life in them shut up from the outside those little pretty ones.

This new one blinks feebly and still has a name because I name them still. After years I have a toy. It goes up and down and up and down and it is so beautiful because it tells a story I had forgotten. That old story of things all of us you and I we know we may not remember but never forget.