Bits and Pieces

I remember being a pudgy little girl, short hair, dungarees, mostly covered in mud, chewing my Barbie doll and following the "big boys" (most of them around the venerable age of 9). I wanted to, inexplicably, do "boy things". What these boy things were, I never was very clear. But I had a pet theory that it involved climbing a lot. Hence, I would tumble along, being properly ignored by them, until, after seeing me trip on my own shoelaces for the eighteenth time, a rough, kindly "big boy" would take me back home. The message back then was very clear. "This is not for little girls."

I would spend the rest of the evening wailing to my mother about being a girl, and wished that girls my age would care less about their frilled frocks getting torn and more about climbing things.

You see, I am a climber. My motto has forever been "Show wall, will climb." I never enter through gates if I can successfully scale the walls. In fact, I have never really entered parks through gates. Scaling park fences gives me the sort of thrill I get when drinking well made coffee.

But you get older. You do not display ambitions of ever climbing the Everest. You do not expect a twenty one year old in distinctly feminine garb to climb muddy, moss covered walls. An ensemble of eyebrows rise and a twitter of tongues are tutted (Yes, I make up my own collective nouns. It amuses me.) This girl, it is universally announced, has not been brought up correctly. I, unmindful of mostly everything, jump, shake the dust off me and walk away, head held slightly higher.

The new college is built on a hill. The way from the rooms to the college building, hence, is a whirlwind of winding pathways, each leading to the same destination, but catering to different needs. There is the straight road for the females in extremely correct clothing. There is the one which requires a bit of jumping for the health conscious. There is one which has slightly slippery stones for the person who wishes to skate and there is the Magical Road of Obstructions. It involves a fair amount of scrabbling on mossy, moist walls, one after another. For the student who is in a hurry, it is the shortest route available. No self respecting woman ever chooses this route.

Then again, I stopped respecting myself many years back.

There was I, in what was for once, very correct, and incidentally, white, feminine garb, grumblingly going to an early morning class, cursing the sun, daylight and other people, when I saw a couple of "big boys" (These were big, they are doing their Ph.D.) taking the Magical Road of Obstructions. Heedless of correct grab, heedless of gender, heedless of the fact that I did not really know the route too well, I followed them. Climbed a wall. Jumped over a stile. Jumped over a pond. However, correct white garb, being of the very feminine kind, was proving to be restrictive. A kindly boy, after seeing me dither near yet another pond, advised me to take another road. This road, the wise boy said, is not for women.

There I was, against my own gender, fighting for my right to climb a wall, because I was a girl who had not worn her trackpants to college that day. I now had the option of womanfully fighting the inevitable tears and taking the female friendly route. But why? Women had achieved so much. Women...Women had babies. Women could do anything. I just had to jump over a smallish pond and climb more walls.

"Why not," I asked and jumped over the pond.

I did end up getting very mud strewn afterwards.

My six year old self, however, was very pleased.

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Domestic Issues

My parents and I were wandering around a random department store, the sole idea behind whose interior decoration seemed to have been devoted to directing customers to the frozen food section, when my mum, with the uncanny knack all women in love with cooking seem to possess, finally located the cutlery section. My father and I, innocent souls with nothing more in our minds than how to escape without shopping bags, were, hence, unceremoniously dragged down to it so that she could avail of our discerning tastes in La Opala dinner sets.

"What I never seem to understand is," I mentioned in passing to my mother while she tried to tell me how she felt peach plates looked better on white tablecloths than periwinkle blue," is why people think people want dinner sets and cutleries as wedding gifts. What sort of a person feels joyful on opening nice, huge looking gifts and finding plates buried under lots of straw? Why can not we give them something fun? Like a playstation or something. At least they will have something to distract themselves with when trying to murder each other. No Mum, I still think we should buy the purple plates. No, I am not a purple maniac. No, the fact that my room, my bedsheet and most of my clothes happen to be purple has nothing to do with this. Gee Mum, look at all those utensils there."

Having successfully distracted her from the topic of my monotonically increasing purple fetish (x being my age and f(x) being, well, the fetish), we strolled over to steel heaven, accompanied by my increasingly depressed looking father, who sighed at everything and then tried to dismantle anything which had more than two parts.

"Oh, it is beautiful," suddenly gasped my mother in the rapturous tone I usually reserve for puppies, mountains and shoe shops.

"What is it," I queried, looking down at a bowl with dents in it.

"I have no idea, but it will look so good on the third mantelpiece on the right," my mother replied, in the dismissive tone she uses whenever I ask her whether she could make an elaborate cheesecake for dinner. I, being as stoic as the next person, merely blinked and looked for its cover.

"It says it is a paniyakki something maker. What is a paniyakki?"

"Hmm, well, we will have to learn, won't we? No point buying a paniyakki maker if you do not know how to make paniyakkis," was her reckless remark and we soon had a dinner set designed with huge square blocks coloured various frightful shades of pink and blue my mum considered charming and my dad felt, as he remarked sotto voce, was revolting, a paniyakki maker, three types of spoon sets and a blender which had fascinated my father. I felt I was lucky enough to go back home to actually ask for anything more than a purple cup.

There we were, a picture of a happy family, with absolutely no major disasters in the offing, until, that is, my mother realized I was almost 21 and did not know how to cook. If I was to live alone from next year, I would have to learn how to cook at least a few basic things, or else, threatened the woman I had always looked upon as my safety net, you stay here and study under Calcutta University. She knew, like every mother knows, what would motivate me most, and I, inspired, decided to make brownies.

In my first attempt, I realized microwaves and ovens do not really work with the same time settings and overcooked the brownie for some extra 20 minutes, resulting in a hard rock we had to use a hammer to break. We pretended it was a biscuit and softened it with chocolate sauce. In my next attempt, I learned the importance of proportion of ingredients when I absentmindedly poured in the entire contents of the milk carton, unmindful of the fact that 100 ml of milk is hardly the same as 500ml. To compensate, I increased the amount of the rest of the ingredients, and the batter had to be sent in three batches, making more brownies than I had bargained for. In my third attempt, I learned the importance of mixing, when I poured eggs over the flour and then tried to blend it, which made a super strong glue and would not smoothen the batter at all. Why don't you, suggested my mother after my third failed failed attempt, try something simpler. Like toast.

Muttering loudly about lack of support and encouragement, I put three slices of bread on the pan used for toasting bread and promptly fell asleep. I woke up half an hour later to a rather irked mother and smoke. Before throwing them away, I managed to take a picture which is faithfully reproduced below.


My mother, rather discouraged, realizing the safety of her household was at present more of a necessity than the nutrients I required on a daily basis in a city devoid of devoted parents and well trained cooks, crushingly asked me to stick to maggi before rushing off to get rid of the smoke.

Maggi is supposed to be the simplest possible thing one can ever cook. Boil water, put the maggi in, pour in the flavouring and you are done. Hence, it was a considerable shock to my mother when she heard me screaming that I had burnt down the house.

"What, why, you have not burnt down the house," was her agitated response when she saw a flameless kitchen.

"But I will, I poured water on the gas ring and now, when you switch on something electrical, there will be a blast," I wailed, drawing on my memories from late night movies.

"But, why do not you just switch off the gas," my mum gasped and immediately proceeded to do so.

"Will you now explain," she asked after she had done that and calmed me down, "why you poured water on the gas ring?"

"You see, I boiled the water. Then I had to put the maggi in it. But I did not want put the maggi in the bowl over the gas ring, in case I did something wrong and the hot water splashed all over me. So, I took the bowl down, put the maggi carefully in, then picked up the bowl and kept it back on the gas ring. Except that I lost my balance and well...there you are."

However, I did not lose my heart. This story also has a happy ending. After days of practice, I have finally learned how to make hot chocolate sauce.

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Chronicles of Part 2 Exams: The Results of the Toil

One always ends up learning something from life everyday, regardless of one's willingness or open mindedness. Like how simple it is to distract oneself. You can spend the entire day changing the look of your blog and then recreating widgets, you can spend nights watching Tashan, and if sleep does not come, you can always write a blogpost.

This template was not my first choice. I had selected a rather sad looking fish for an image and a dark blue background, something, I felt, which went with my image- sad and inconspicuous. But the fonts displeased me. They would not be inconspicuous. They were large, overbearing and completely dwarfed my poor sad fish, who was soon lost among the verbosity of the written words. So I bade goodbye to the fish and got these water droplets. Fiery yellows and oranges, loud, brash and blatant, everything I would not let my blog be. But I let it be so. For the one water droplet waiting there at the top, to cool off the heated shades someday when they rage too fiercely.

I kept my fish too. Look around, you may find it, a tiny red thing in a sea of blue amidst a sea of yellow. Sad and inconspicuous. The fish of the Fish Faced Follies. Does anyone realize the title makes no sense? That I am not referring to myself as fish faced. That it is there for the sake of alliteration. That Fishface is a tribute to college, the way ad libber is a tribute to school. Like milestones referring to what meant the most at one point of time.

It is curious that I chose a fish as a motif for the blog. I have never been very fond of fish the way Bengalis are usually fond of fish. Perhaps the most important role a fish ever played in my life before the blog was in Finding Nemo and as a Fish Fry.. A cow would have served better as a symbol. Not because I like consuming it, but because I am obsessed by them. I use them for self deprecations, for insults, as metaphors and examples. The literature in my mind is a cow dominated one. Sometimes, I feel my rather surprising crush on Karan Johar evolved from the fact that I had recently studied about a cow breed known as the Swiss-Karan and had immediately associated it to DDLJ (Cow - Swiss-Karan - Switzerland - DDLJ - Karan Johar). But a fish it was and a fish it is. If I ever make another blog, it will have lobsters. No, I am not fond of lobsters much either, either as food or as entertainment. I think the only food I really like is Begun bhaja and Brinjal does not attract me as a blog motif, purple as they may be.

While recently re-reading some of my blog posts, I realize that the same time last year, I may not have been a brilliant blogger, but I was a happy one. Lately, my posts seem to be rather depressing and doom tainted. As I try to trace back the reasons, I receive a message announcing that results come out tomorrow. Stupid world, stupid university, stupid this-time-the-results-are-important-they-decide-your-stupid-masters. Last time, the results led to a multitude of blog posts. This time, they just lead to incessant brooding, insecurity, an irritable temper, loss of friends, and a probable heart attack. Of course, they also include nightmares where my HoD insults me in front of everyone for failing everything, where my results are not published to save the country humiliation for producing an imbecile like me, where everyone refuses to speak to me, where I am socially boycotted. Sometimes, I think, I perhaps am a little paranoid where results are concerned.

Someday, I may have to accept the fact that results are things beyond my control. That I study under a despot University with whimsical examiners who thinking making paper boats out of exam papers are fun. That if I gave a horrible exam, I may get horrible marks and I will deserve them. Right now, all I know is that my results come out tomorrow and if I do not do well, nothing untoward may happen, but it may mean a end to a lot of things. Perhaps more nightmares. It is always results. Never ghosts, never tigers, never parents, never crushes. I do not prioritize things well.

I will now go back to a sleepless night and a fear laden morning. I will go back to what promises to be the most devastating site since my Hindi paper in class seven. I will go back to listening to Kung Fu Fighting to remove depressing thoughts. Perhaps watch The Graduate on Sony Pix. Brood more on a future which seems bleaker than ever.

The world is a very damned place to live in.

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As I entered the once hallowed assembly hall, I wondered what had I feared all those years back. The choked throat, the rubbing of grimy shoes with ties, the hurried glance at the noticeboard glass to check any errant hair strands- scattered reactions I could recall but not really comprehend. Now, really, I muse, how could such a sunshine filled room have inspired such dread at the fearless age of ten?

An evil twist of fate had brought me back to my old school, one I had escaped from for a better, happier High School, and the fact that it was a school holiday and I would not be meeting anyone I remembered did nothing to alleviate my mood. Somewhere, there was a vindictive ten year old student in me, still waiting to prove to her class five class teacher that she was not a below average student. That she had done far better than the girl who had shown so much promise and had won the General Proficiency award. That Mathematics had not led to her academic downfall.
"There you go, you cow," I announced to an empty, lemon yellow classroom decorated with diagrams of the human body and sketches of Tagore and Napolean, " My Maths teacher said I was one of his best students. Did anyone call General Proficiency girl that?"

The previously grey, grimy walls had been altered to a cheery yellow, effectively removing the impression of being trapped in a dungeon. The school should have been full of atmosphere of things gone by- crushed teenage hopes, squabbles founded on monthly class tests, haunting whisperings of the morning prayer, secret crushes, teachers- snappy, kind, funny, pure evil- they were all there in the mind, the memory blown slightly out of proportion after five years, but not around me. Just impersonal lemon yellow walls, interspersed by chrome blue windows, which may not have been out of place in a poorly made science fiction movie.

Who would have known, I remark to myself, that I would be capable of a trip down a memory lane devoid of any form of sentiment. A dry, choked feeling still remains in the throat. School never is easy for ordinary people. There always are others who are better at everything you hope you are good at. The slight disappointments attempt to haunt, once again, not unlike a horror movie you try to forget when you are alone at home at midnight. I look out of the window for a respite. The sight of the sports field makes me twinge. Badminton was not considered a proper game and kabaddi meant running, pushing, dust, and violence, things a fat, slow, fourteen year old never cares for.

The library is a pleasant sight. How can you harbour an ill will to the place which gave you Anne? I stroll over to the water filter, the hang out zone for the popular kids. I remember falling in love for the first time, wonder, slightly amused, how I could not have seen the fact that he was gay. Everyone else could. I wander up to class ten. A class I had spent some of my happier days in, mostly secure in the knowledge that I would be leaving soon. The madness of the last working day. People suddenly realizing they loved other people, water balloon fights, outbreaks of weeping in the corridor, sudden appearance of beer bottles, all adding up to a day one does not forget in a hurry.

This school, I speak to the blackboard, is probably out of my system. I do not feel anything for you anymore. Not fear, not love, nothing.

As I leave, I decide to look up class eight once. The year I made some of my closest friends, the year I thought Bonky was an oily haired, geeky woman I could not deign to speak to (yes, I was the school snob, it has been mentioned often enough since), the year I made up my mind to study Chemistry, the year of first love, the year, when, apparently, everything happened.

The classroom did not look familiar, like the rest of them. More cheery yellow, with huge windows giving a view of the main gate, reminding me of sudden honeybee attacks we always welcomed. I walk over to the desk Sakshi and I had shared for one year, unsurprised by the scratched scrawls all over it. Every teenager needs his Hyde Park. Then I notice it.

Year 2001

Ritika: Hey, what is that word scratched there?
Sakshi: umm, I think it means (whispers)
Ritika: No way, let me look up my dictionary (yes, I was the sort who carried one to school and then used it to understand the writings on the bathroom walls). My dictionary does not list this word.
Sakshi: It is a Student's Concise Dictionary. Check mine.
Ritika (does so): Wow! People our age know such things? How did you? You are the most innocent person we have in this class.
Sakshi: I noticed the word before you did.

Seven years later, I stand there, in front of the desk, which has, miraculously, never changed its position, the F-word, scrawled in blue, a standing testimony to the fact. I look down, a wretched, despairing hollowness filling up every pore. Every essence of my school life, contained in that one, dirty word, a benediction to every hope and every joy, to what every day and every year meant once. What went far deeper than a few teachers and Physics.

School was over and I had made my peace with it.

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My Bomb Post

There has been a shower of bombs (again). People have died (again). A news channel makes a couple of gaffes and announces names everyone else is trying to keep under covers. Political parties make statements, everyone eyes the upcoming elections, including Mamata Banerjee (whoops, wrong post) and the hangover is exactly what it always is like after a big bomb party.

Last month, after a reunion with old friends, enemies and embarrassing memories, eight o' clock in the evening found me far away from home, with messages flooding in with the very cheery note that a bomb blast would occur at City Centre exactly at 9. Intrepid as ever, I made up my mind to be near City Centre at zero hour, and, mind reader as ever, Goopy announced she would personally see to my safety. And thus, at ten to nine, I found myself on a rickshaw, being bundled home.

Rickshawwallahs, unlike autowallahs, refuse to be friendly to me, possibly sensing the lack of philosophical depth. However, after recently being part of conversations where people proudly mention their philosophical tete-a-tete with the tribe, I made up my mind to have a conversation worthy of blogging about later on. Hence, with an iron resolve and a cheery disposition, I remarked airily, " Say, know anything about the bomb?"

The calm of the night air accentuated the silence. By now, blushing profusely, yet undeterred, I persisted, " The bomb, you know, which is supposed to go off any minute now."

Success finally found me, and an old, garrulous voice, cold and disinterested, not unlike my class ten Physics teacher's while I tried to explain to her why I thought my bathroom mirror was an example of refraction since I appeared fatter in it, queried back, " Where?"

Delighted by the breaking of the ice, I exclaimed excitedly, "Oh, City centre. Amazing, no?"

The man mused on this for a while longer, and then replied again, this time showing more than a little curiosity, "Oh, you mean here?"

Looking at my right, I realized we were going past City Centre.

"Yes," my voice trailing off, in a mixture of fear and curiosity, "right here."

He stopped pedaling for a moment and we just looked at it. All I managed to see was a few policemen thronging the place. The place had been emptied apparently, and possibly, even then, someone had come to know the warning email had been a hoax.

As he took his money, he remarked, I will always maintain, rather wistfully, "We did not die."

I looked at his face. Lack of adventures had made gawkers of both of us. "Kindred spirit," I whispered rather foolishly and came back home to announce to surprised parents how close a brush their daughter had had with death. Unsurprisingly, the replies were,

"Gimme the remote. Oooh, animals eating other animals."
"Go, wash."

I look at the news reports this morning and remember Karol Bagh. I remember convincing auto drivers to take us to Miranda College, remember the feel of homecoming the street had given me after a long, hard day. If I close my eyes, I think I can recall a green sign, brandishing the name of the hotel where Stinky, Berry and I claim to have been the happiest in our stuffy, claustrophobic lives.

A news report says people have taken the recent bombings very philosophically. No fear, no retributions. Bombs happen, people die, someone mentions the undying spirit of the city. The numbness with which people greet the news is, in a way, pitiful. And scary. Then again, I am not the one who girds the loins of mind to write something deep and meaningful.

(For people who do not know, City Centre is a mall)

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What ho

Apparently, dinner parties are not hosted to give one a chance to practice their incinerating skills. Hosts tend to look askance at guests who forage toothpicks from the appetizers and burn them on floating candles. Yelling "Burn, you heathen, burn" and jumping up and down excitedly is also not advised. It is little things like these which make parents dub you as an anti social and talk about psychiatrists in hushed tones.

Being a final year student abruptly changes your life. The subject stops seeming like something you decided to take a vacation with before finding your niche in the world. Companies actually attempt to provide us with jobs without blanching inwardly. Everyone around you looks younger, and teachers and students fall back comfortably into a back-slapping relationship. This is the right time to call yourself an adult. Unless you are doodling tornadoes in your notebook while your professor gives you a lecture mostly wandering around the topic "You are the future."

Hence, having kept aside everything I love the most, days and night are spent mostly on oil, oil prices, inflation, more oil, cartels, complaining incessantly about why hair styling prices rise with rise in price of oil, interviewing rich, snooty people, even more oil, and discussing with bus conductors what they think the political impact of oil price rise is. As fascinating as the exercise is, all it seems to lead to is frayed nerves, an impatient attitude towards oil in general, and a hatred towards buses in particular.

So, on days not spent wondering about oil, we take photographs. Which I will now proceed to unveil to the discriminating public, for one of them (the pictures, not the discriminating public) is very dear to my heart, namely,

which is the dearest view on earth. You are viewing Presidency, from my secret spot.

The world viewed from under an umbrella is a very beautiful place. Specially when its three people under a very purple umbrella and you are walking on a very unknown road to a very known destination.

The known destination. Accompanied by very buttery pao bhaji and what seems like people shooting a Bhojpuri movie.

And how such trips are destined to end.

Being a senior is turning out to be a most interesting experience. Though random thoughts about burning toothpicks in Indian Economy classes require to be quelled. Specially since they do not provide us with floating candles.

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Rants, Birds, More Rants and Stuff

Once upon a time, I used to dabble with the idea of taking to crime. It was the same age during when any man over 21 was supposed be called an uncle (At 20, everyone under 30 is hot). The idea did not really last. Possibly it had to do something with my abject inability to shoot balloons. As a four year old, I would get agitated at my inevitable failure to pop even one of them and would have to be forcibly restrained from beating up all those balloons with the same rifle I was holding. 16 years later, I wish my father would be around to restrain me again.

I have never really known why my father would take me to shoot balloons at an young, impressionable age. It has been proven in time that he never harboured dreams of raising a sharpshooter as a daughter. Common sense tells me it was probably because he had no idea what to do with me when babysitting. Paranoia tells me it was the best way to quell any homicidal tendencies I might otherwise visit on delicate furniture. He is a smart man, my father.

The above paragraphs has nothing to do with the theme of this post. In fact, this post does not have a theme. I have absolutely no idea what I am even typing right now. Its early morning, the birds are chirping away, welcoming the world in a trilling, mad, joyful, soulful song and giving me a headache, and I have to leave for my morning walk in half an hour. It will probably be another furiously hot day and I will melt away, sweat droplet by sweat droplet. In fact, if you have not guessed it yet, right now, I am not a very happy blogger.

I spent all my money in buying the Gameworld trilogy and finished them in under a week. This has had very strange developments. Like a spate of re-attendance to college, where I spend hours gazing happily at the seats and wondering if Samit Basu's posterior ever adorned them. (He is an alumni from the same department as me. If you think that motivates me in any manner, think again). There has also been cases of tattooing the name Kirin on my arms during Maths classes and later explaining to questioning parental figures that its just a misspelling of an old Enid Blytonian term.Parents, but obviously, refuse to believe such tripe. But are reassured by the fact that the elder daughter is not the closet lesbian they were fearing her to be. Today, a fictional hero, tomorrow, a living breathing man is the motto they are trying to live by. I am still wording the speech which should be informing them about the celibacy vow.

There was a week spent in un-idleness in Delhi. College packed three of us pseudo-economists off under the hope of keeping the beacon of Presidency Economics high. Siblings sent us off with joyful good byes in the hope of the splendour of gifts brought back. We went there in the hope of meeting some proper guys for a change (Dear Kolkata guys, please do not get offended, we love you all. You are intelligent, stalwart men who will always remain the people our parents hope we will end up getting married to. This is just the rebellious phase every just-left-teenage girl goes through. But we always come back to you. Maybe we leave you again later. But we will discuss that in some other post).

We did meet them. It was a wonderful eight days which we spent falling in love over and over again with every man in sight, not even excluding wonderful looking professors from Pakistan (Pakistan has everything, good looking professors, good looking men, even, for crying out aloud, good looking women, and an actual interest in Economics. Wish to reword those Partition clauses again). We also realized Kolkata is not an undisputed World number one in aantlamo. Very, very curiously, Delhi comes close. Frighteningly close.

However, the trip's main impact laid elsewhere. Not being one to keep people with their breaths held in taut suspense, I will be quick to come to the point. It was the washing of clothes (Cue, quick drawing of breath). It was while we washed clothes, past midnight, with the aid of shampoos the hotel beatifically provided, we realized that we had actually transcended to adulthood. That we were women in the real sense of the word. Also that we would make terrible washerwomen and that washing clothes would also have to be struck off from the list of alternate careers. There were also instances of impromptu dances which involved jumping on a rather bouncy bed and which ended with loadshedding and meeting cute looking guys in the lobby to discuss the electricity problems in Delhi and why that meant the Stock exchange was about to crash(The mating calls of economists are not very attractive. We are reduced to either discussing the Stock Exchange or questions on how to become millionaires while trying to get Ph.D. degrees. The first ends in fistfights, the second in MBAs).

I realize I must have mystified my readers (Gasp, I have readers, it feels good to say that while planning crazy attack on chirping birds). The college sent us off to Delhi to attend a seminar on (held breaths again) Economics (gasps) with a few other South Asian countries. Scores of undergraduate economics students were bunched of in a scenario reminiscent of Goopy Bagha Phire Elo where Bikrams are caught and imprisoned (this is for my non Bengali readers. Bengali readers, skip this section before getting an aneurysm or something by the mind boggling description) by a mad yogi of a sort, whose death had been predicted by a boy named Bikram. The imprisoned Bikrams in the story become his housemaids and washerwomen. We, instead, presented papers and listened to endless babbling by famous people on how to achieve the Indian/Bangladeshi/Pakistani/Nepali/Sri Lankan Dream. Since none of us were even particularly clear about which dreams they were focusing on, we would utilize the time to run away to Connaught Place and visit Nirula's. Or some other equally wonderful, ambrosial joint (Cue: Wipe away nostalgic tears).

Delhi stories might keep on appearing by bits and spurts. So might murderous attempts on birds. The balloon story, however, appears only here. I have no idea how to conclude this piece. So I will inform everyone that I am going to have chocolates for breakfast. Also that I have begun to resemble a blob. A nice, shapeless, green and brown blob. Which still does not sound like a conclusion. So I will try again.

This is the conclusion.

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Dead Turtles

Which was mostly what the weekend has been about. Dead turtles lined up in a broken line, buried ostrich-like in an otherwise pristine beach. At twilight hour, a lone turtle being washed up on the shore, a lone moon directly above me with a lone star underneath and I, plopped down on the golden, silky sand, the sound of the sea enveloping all other sounds and the wind in my hair, the best caress one could ever receive. A seemingly endless beach with two occupants, one of them, sadly, dead and the other, feeling the waves lap at her feet.

And highlights from the world of Television :

• I watched Apna Sapna Money Money for the third time. Watching it for the first time somehow numbed me from actually providing an opinion. Decided to watch it a second time and write a review. The third time was accidental. However, the sneaking suspicion drew on me that I was starting to enjoy the experience. My system is not only immune to ASMM, but considers a regular dosage of it a health option. Is ASMM to me what Gunda is to Greatbong? Or Ingrid Bergman to Alfred Hitchcock? Or Shahrukh Khan to Karan Johar (more on this later in this post)?
• The trip was on a bus which played (horrors) videos. My poor earphones knew when they had been outnumbered. The insomniac in me gave way helplessly to songs from Muskaan, Kasoor, Raaz and songs from a similar genre. Of course, newer movies did get a chance with special preference to Fool 'n Final. Needless to say, today, I am a changed girl and will never ever abuse Himesh Reshammiya again. FnF has shown me light. In fact, while I type this, I am downloading three of its songs.
• Spent a Saturday evening morosely biting a biscuit and watching Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gum for what seems like the 42nd time in the last six months. Its when you do this that you begin to wonder whether this is how you thought you would end up once in college.
  
  Then again, you forget all about wondering that and begin wondering why you find Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gum so morbidly fascinating. You just stay numb and watch the idle rich fight the injustice they face from the world, the dictates of their hearts, moribund traditions and, of course, their sacrificial, all suffering parents who do not seem troubled watching their sons, husbands or even the occasional elderly father practically making out with the neighbour's daughter, but take offense at the slightest hint of theirs wishing to make the affair legal by the sacred ties of matrimony.
  
  I seem to have mixed up too many movies in this description, but then, who has not watched these movies. You may pretend to like Apocalypse Now and cry over Casablanca and argue about the significance of title of The Streetcar Named Desire, but you have, on the sly, watched all of Karan Johar's movies and have caught yourself laughing and sighing along with it. There is no solution to the eternal problem named Karan Johar. But its scary to think that a hundred years later, a new generation would be looking at our world and its culture through his eyes and find similarities between the the Greek and the Indian culture. Greece had its Helen, Menelaus and Paris. Our country had Shahrukh Khan, the rest of the world and Karan Johar.
• Kyle XY now has an additional character who looks uncannily like Michael Jackson and claims to be a female in love with Kyle. All this is obviously a diabolical plot by the producers to prove that Michael Jackson is actually a female android which is the reason he feels attracted to young boys. Boys because his soul is of a girl. Young because as an android, he lost out on the first 16 years of his life. Its a compensation for a lost youth spent under microscopes and brain scanners.
  

Okay, so I have just watched TV endlessly for the past few days and have nothing to write about and just desperately want to update this blog thing of mine.

Oh, I caught an oyster at the beach. It did not have anything in it sadly.

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The Month That Was

As the year ends, I realize I have absolutely nothing to post about. There are no more ideas, no more thoughts, and sadly, no more useless rendezvous in front of the computer. I have suddenly started living usefully. All those hours I would spend in front of my blog, blankly hoping a comment would arrive just by sheer force of will power, have now been replaced by hours I give very serious thoughts to what to wear to this year's new year party. Clothes are now sadly occupying a major part of my brain functioning, thus leading to unfounded comments about my sudden embracing of my femininity. Thus, my year end post is mostly going to be about conversations regarding this and other feminine topics. I assume it would be vastly uninteresting to the male segment of my readership and hence, to entice a bigger audience, this post is being rated as adults only, due to allusions to topics the censor boards happily imagines 17 year olds do not know anything about.

Conversation 1
(Bonky and I, while on one of our expeditions)
P: So, I have been thinking, all these guys I know, they look at me in a very..umm.... asexual manner. What could be the reason? My demeanor?
B: Dude, you realize you just said 'I entreat..' to a guy while trying to juggle two handkerchiefs. While each by themselves are not very appealing, both of them together are fatal for your romantic chances. What you need to do is be more feminine. No more coming to college with unbrushed hair.
P: Feminine huh? So how do you go about this feminine..uh..thingy?

(A few minutes later, the time interim having been spent on saving a centipede from a professor's footsteps)
B: Since we did save it, should we adopt it? It is one of our responsibilities now. You know, once you save someone, you are doomed to protect it for ever?
P: Oooh yes, and you could be its mother. I am obviously the godmother since I am too creeped out to touch it. We could call it Pintoo.
B: Huh? I was thinking of Albuquerque. Why Pintoo?
P: Association of ideas.

(after 5 minutes spent in profound thought)
P: Say, a centipede bites a man, and the man becomes centipedeman, what colour would his costume be?
B: Hey, it could bite us too, so why not centipedewoman?
P: Dude, you really want a hundred legs?
B: We could have retractable legs. Though I wonder what use they would be. Does not look as if a hundred legs make him any faster than two.
P: Uhh...their extreme hairiness which protects us from bullets?
B: (after pondering long and hard) You are right, there can never be a centipedewoman.
P: So, chrome and platinum should be ideal, what?
B: Yup, chrome outfit with platinum legs.
P: That should do it.

Conversation 2
(Berry and I in an auto)
P: So, this femininity thing..I got this new jacket, you know, and it does make me feel very girly, not the usual tomboyish self. I have been thinking, is femininity about what you feel rather than what you look? Coz, I guess I look the same, but you know, the feeling thing is there and are you even listening?
B: You? Feminine??
P: Uh..
*pregnant pause*
B: Can I borrow it?

Conversation 3
(Gupi, Sakes and I, meeting up after two years. The first line spoken goes down in history of first lines spoken between friends after 2 years)

G: Hi, yeah, I need you guys to help me rob a teacher of a law book.
P: Get in the room, if he is there borrow it, if he is not, steal it.
S: But why?
P: Eh? How does that matter?
S: I am sorry. What was I thinking?

(Gap of fifteen minutes)
G: Of course, Sakes can not have non vegetarian.
S: Yes, never had it before. Never will.
P: Er.. you have. Once at school. From my lunch box. Class 7.
S: I was a kid then. I will not be losing my religion over that surely.
P: Ahh, but you see, religion is like virginity. Once its gone, its gone.
S: *blushes*
G: Still the kid, are not you?
P: Say, suppose we end up as single mothers?
G: (dumbfounded) If that happens, one has to be really unlucky. What with all the technology and stuff...
P: Do you deny the possibility completely then?
G: Hmm..OK, what if we do end up as single mothers? How is that fun?
P: But don't you see it? We would have full freedom with its upbringing. He could grow up to be a Kalahari desert tribesman. Or the King of Cannibal Islands!!
G: And eat you?
P: Course we tell him relatives are not food. But it could eat all the people we do not like. We won't even need to worry about disposing the body.
G: Oh no. I am not murdering anyone. I stick only to robbery.
P:Hmm..we could be like Iago, you know. We instigate others to murder and just use the body to feed the kid.
G: You realize we just created a foolproof plan to feed a cannibal child we are supposed to be giving birth to?
P: I know! We rock!

This post, though seemingly senseless and pointless, is meant as a tribute to one of the happiest years of my life. To all the friends and to all the laughter. And Economics. I guess. Someday, you will be my future. I guess its about time I started liking you. You are my New Year's resolution.
And my blog readers.
Thank you.
I will probably be out of ideas till next year.
So here is wishing you a mad and silly New Year.

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The Perils in the Life of the Indian Student

While the whole country discusses in a hush tone the degeneration of the moral responsibility of students regarding the all important question of the health and mortality of their fellow classmates, one remains tolerantly amused. Yes, murder is a serious threat to the peace our society is accustomed to, but it is such a rare occurrence that one glances over the newspaper, tut-tuts, and promptly switches over to semi-naked pictures of Hrithik Roshan in the entertainment section.

OK, one does not do exactly that, but one does exaggerate a bit. But let one go on to what one means to post about.

The average student life is fraught with enough mortal dangers. Even if one decides to forgo the possibility of self annihilation, education is not exactly a path of strewn lilies. There are blood thirsty teachers, spending years of their lives waiting for that one particular bit of homework, which inspires and alleviates one to the level of hair pulling younger siblings. Of course, they take it too literally, and there is a certain amount of one sided hair pulling involved, but one does not go further into it either. The case in point was never very satisfactorily solved. Of course if the teacher does not get you, there are always your classmates. Even if most do not have access to revolvers, they could always get you with a good hard shove in the back. Of course if you manage to dodge classmates, its usually the volleyball which has it for you, or the chair has a faulty leg, or the chalk gets you in the eye. If not facing enough impediment from the inanimate world, you could of course get yourself. Let the shot put drop on your leg, be a boy, or just find yourself dozing in the class. Danger lurks at every corridor corner, behind every library shelf, inside every cobwebby desk shelf.

But these, are of course common dangers. There are also the more unusual, though not unknown forms of dangers. These kind of dangers are first intimated the day before voting day for election of the college union. Knowing one's perfectly apolitical stance, party members and hopeful representatives, people who never look twice at one during average, non-political days, begin calling you up and talking about providing bodyguards on your way to the college. When the same one is not exactly built on slender lines, and is accustomed to carrying The Suitable Boy as a light read in ones bag, one begins to wonder on what diabolical plans the opposition might be planning to actually nullify the effects of both of ones strongest weapons. Kidnapping- possible. Threatening- probable. Sexual Harassment- not unheard of. But one braves all odds. One refuses guards. One goes to college and immediately realizes both parties are waiting for one because most votes are known except one's. One revels in the importance. Then one feels foolish. Then one gets disgusted. One somehow manages to elude the hypocritical fools and vote for one she hopes is lesser of the two evils. One thankfully goes back home. Then does the excitement start.

News starts pouring in. Two members of one of the parties have been kidnapped. There has been a lathi charge. The winning CR has been gheraoed. The principal has been gheraoed. Students have been arrested. You switch on the news and see the person you usually sit behind of getting beaten up. It becomes an unreal world. Not the place you drag your sorry behind to morning classes. More so when the kidnapped guys actually have been arrested for eve teasing a woman. And these are the people we vote as our representatives.

The actual danger all this while had been the idea that a couple of eighteen year old students actually believe they realize what political ideology is all about. But then, how many older people can claim knowing it either?

Of course, there is another sort of danger, which does not really lead to physical harm...I think. At school, a girl with lovely, shiny hair used to sit in front of one. One and her were never particularly good friends. But one envied her lovely hair. One used to wonder whether ones superior intellectual skills ( modesty is not one's besetting sins) was a compensation enough.

One day, one grows up. One enters college. One decides to do the ultimate grown up thing. One consults a few friends. One goes out and buys beer. One drinks beer illegally at Forum. One actually opens it with her teeth in the bathroom at BURP! Transfers it to a cold drink glass and drinks beer openly. One gets a little high. Ones friends actually get drunk on beer, having no constitution whatsoever. One meets the lovely haired girl. One knows she is in one of the city's premier colleges studying some obscure subject. Girl says she is very happy. Girl is 18 and she is getting married to someone seven years older than her in a matter of two weeks. Ones friends and one keel over in shock. One thinks one is having hallucinations. Three weeks later, one meets the same girl, in jeans and sindoor.

An year later, when one struggles with her first University examination paper, shiny haired girl struggles to bring the first of her many babies to this world, education and ambition long forgotten. Girl is perfectly happy. One is perfectly happy too. In different worlds. Where one is still a child and another a mother of one.

One wonders, is one too judgmental?

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The Terrible Two and the Mystery of The Reluctant Child

Prelude

Scene : Near the Gariahat flyover. One surprised looking man, one bawling child, two girls, one angry and the other with a crude mask over her head. The unmasked girl glares at the man. The air is charged with the essence of an unanswered question. The masked girl seems to be shaking with rage. The child continues to bawl. No one else seems to care. No cute guys around. Both girls carrying bags where huge notebooks do not seem to fit.
Time: somewhere around seven in the evening.

Chapter 1
The Only Chapter There Is

It all started one fine Thursday afternoon when I realized I was not receiving respect enough for my existence. On roads, I am either passed over, or have the wrong body parts stared at by the all and sundry of the eve teasing population. It was while my dramatic soul cringed against the unfairness, my sister came in sporting a laboratory coat all Science students are expected to wear, as an impenetrable protection against the deadliest acids. Needless to say, the selfsame cloak of invincibility was stained and holed, her entire class having had the mind boggling idea of having an early Holi party with the more dilute versions of the same acids and a few bases. But, like the sight of those who bring good tidings to the mountains, the coat lay in front of me, bright, shining and beautiful.

The lab coat, in all principles, resembles all lab coats in the world. Specially the coats worn by the unfortunate few in the medical profession. It was not surprising that a few hours later, I started out for my Maths tution dressed up as a medical student. Who does not respect medical students? Someday, I might presumably be saving the very lives who give me a blank stare and add to my insecurities.

It was a nice trip. But nothing unusual. Apparently, there are too many doctors in this world and beyond for people to bother. The conductor did manage to find me a seat though. Was it because of my gender, my alleged profession or the fact that I perpetually look like a helpless cow, I will never know. But at my tution, I caused sensation. Its a different thing only one person was there, but she was curious enough. But as usual, Berry took it very sportingly and even came up with a madcap idea to justify the presence of the lab coat. After the diabolical lie was cut and pruned to perfection, we realized the brainstorm had made us hungry and we went outside to forage for anything which looked cheap, unhealthy and fattening.

However, our journey to the world of further obesity was cut short by the sight of a man dragging a child of about four, who, as was obvious, did not want to go and was using his lungs to its fullest capacity to state his objections. Since all detective novels require a description, the man was of North-eastern descend, dressed in something blue and cheap and his front pocket seemed slightly bulgy. The kid looked like all kids, snotty, wailing and at the stage of life when kids stop being cute and become noisy. Berry and I looked like ourselves, sharing between us neither egg shaped heads, nor pipes, nor moustaches, nor trenchcoats, nor even knitting, the trademark of Miss Marple. Our detective trademark, if any, would be bags filled with ill-fitting notebooks and wrappers of chocolates hidden from discerning parents.

Both Berry and I read the papers. She reads them to know what is going in the world. I read the comic strips and the TV guide. But I have read enough crime stories to know an attempted kidnapping when confronted with one. We both shot a look at each other and decided to follow the man. All this, of course, was done wordlessly. But we had enough time later to exchange words. People who belong to Kolkata might be better able to estimate the distance. We started at the beginning of Ballygunge Phari near Merlin Court and ended up near the Gariahat flyover. Our dialogue during the stalking went on these lines :

P: We are not exactly very inconspicuous, are we?
B: You find trees and bushes on this footpath, and I name thee Mrs. Feluda.
P: Shucks, you are too kind. How did you know I have been totally in love with him since like when I was fourteen?
B: Will you kindly concentrate on the matter at hand? You talk too much.
P: Oh yeah, the kidnapped kid? Do you think people know what we are upto? I have been catching a few glances.
B: None of that, I assume, has anything to do with your weird choice of wardrobe today, eh? Darn, its seven, sir must have arrived. What are we supposed to be doing today? Testing?
P: Test? Test? What test? Did he say anything about a test last week? Was that when I was looking at Zombie. He is kinda sexy, you know, in a very warped sort of manner.
B: Its the name of a chapter, woman, the one we did last week. And Zombie is shorter by a few inches. Oh God, we are just behind the man, what do we do now?
P (while opening coat): OK, how about I put the coat over the man and you grab the child and run away with it? Also, FYI, all guys in this city are either shorter or younger.

Berry, not very impressed with my idea of re-kidnapping kidnapped children, decided to put things in her hands. While I crept up close to the man, ready to muffle him with the acid stained coat, Berry shoved me aside and decided to confront him, woman-to-man.

"Oi, mister," she demanded in her most severe tone, "where do you think you are going with the child? Whose child is it?"

Thus arose the situation described in the prelude. I promptly put the coat over my head to prevent the man from recognizing me in a line-up and began laughing hysterically behind it. The man looked amazed to say the least. The kid, of course, could not care less, his lungs being the envy of all asthmatics worldwide. Berry continued to glare in an uncanny resemblance o my eighth grade Biology teacher.

"I..you...this kid..you see...my employer's child. He asked me to get him to his home...making too much noise...office being disturbed...says mother will see to him," the man faltered, either in nervousness (having two mad girls attack you in the middle of the street can never be easy) or having hopelessly fallen in love with Berry and thus rendered semi tongue-tied.

"Figures," I commented laconically from behind the coat.

Berry was not easy to convince though. She demanded proof. The brave, brave woman, standing in the middle of the street, ten minutes late for tution, walking up to a random stranger and asking him to prove he was not a kidnapper. This girl is so gonna grow up into a social activist. Or a policewoman. Or a mugger.

It all ended when the man finally offered to call up his employer and convinced us that it was indeed his child. Finally satisfied, she permitted the poor man to withdraw with the yelling kid to the mother, possibly a harassed, tired woman prematurely hard of hearing. We trudged back to our classes, complaining bitterly about how nothing exciting ever happens to us.

Case satisfactorily solved.

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War and Peace

"Once upon a Time," says my Grandfather at story hour, " we had a curfew. This was even before your parents were born. I was a young boy then."

Look of disbelief in my face. Are not grandparents born silverhaired and wrinkled?

"Back in our days, we had real curfews. Lasting for hours, with armed policemen, ordered to shoot on sight. No newspapermen to warn us about numbers to call if one falls sick. Back then, if you fell sick, you waited. You could recover or you could die. The alternative was certain death. So people waited. People nowadays get it all on a platter. Yet they complain.

"We used to live on the first floor of an apartment building. Not an apartment in the truest sense though. They were two roomed flats. And we were eight brothers and sisters. We were a bit hard pressed for space. Look at you. You insisted on a room of your own because you could not stay with your one sister in the same room without breaking into free-for-alls."

I have two cousins. Were all those brothers and sisters celibates? Or was my grandfather a black sheep and casted off from the family tree?

"On one those curfew nights, all was silent on the streets below. The girl living on the rooms above looked out of her window to see whether anyone was about. She was shot through the head. Her age? Possibly fifteen. Maybe fourteen. Definitely not more than sixteen. Her religion? Its more than sixty years now girlie, I do not think she cares anymore."

Tonight, I passed through all those areas war was declared in yesterday. The bus I took included sleeping men, lecherous men, blank faced women, absolutely no cute guys and me, trying to look like a sad faced Madonna (the Raphael version, not the pop star one). However, as soon as we entered Park Circus, everyone suddenly got alert. Eyes began to search the roads, stripping it of all humility. What were we looking for? The illogical fear that someone might decide to stone us? Or, like the vulture every human is, for a remnant of the horror yesterday, one sign to show us how civilization died? But there was nothing. Just common men walking around for common businesses. The city had moved on. Not proudly, not with a head held high, but with sheer doggedness and force of will.

Which is how I will always identify the spirit of the city as. A bent backed sweeper, sweeping all signs of sins committed yesterday to create a cleaner place to live in. There is hopelessness, for one knows it will get dirtier during the course of the day, but, as always, there is no dearth of new beginnings. So the sweeper sweeps on, too proud to beg, too ashamed to forget, yet, too desperate to give up.

Yet, not a shard of broken glass...


Results come out this Monday. If you hear a silence on this website for more than a week, please assume I have gone on a self-induced coma.

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Bonky and Pongo's Day Out- II

The all-pervading aroma from the door on the right proved to be a unisexual bathroom while the door on the left was stoutly locked, which led to an inevitable choice of the center door. The first room turned out to be a hall which had been converted into a sales counter. The compulsive shopper in me called out to look at the delights at display, books mostly, with cheerful titles like "Governor Generals of India during the British Raj" and "British Trade Policies (1870-1930)" . It was again the more practical Bonky who came to my rescue by reminding me that if we pooled our funds, we would only be able to scrape a few hundred bucks for a book we would end up gifting to our grandparents. Better sense prevailed and we moved onwards.

Actually we did not. The sales counter man doubling up as a security guard asked us to halt and said visitors were supposed to go the rooms to their left, the rest being private quarters. Our conspiratorial minds immediately went haywire, forming theories of a room where skeletons were kept, hung from the overhead chandeliers which where the last governor's wives' corpses after he had consumed them (cannibalism happens to be one of our many interests). However, remembering the fact that even Scary Movie 3 scared me out of my wits, we dutifully went leftwards where the treasures of Metcalfe Hall were laid in front of us in all its splendour and glory.

"Bricks?"

The query resonated throughout the room. All the room contained was glass cases with bricks laid lovingly and protectively in them. Wondering slightly at the hobby of the last resident of the Hall, we roamed around, trying to fake an interest in stones, if only to please the septuagenarian
looking wonderingly at us from his post at the sales counter. It was then that we discovered a brick derived from the foundation of Bethune College. (A query here. How do people acquire foundation stones? Do they dig the place up? Or do they take it out before the rest of the building is made. If so, then can it be technically called a foundation stone since it never was allowed to remain a part of the foundation?) College loyalists that we are, we made it the mission of the next fifteen minutes to hunt up the foundation stone from our college among the fusillade of bricks collected in the room. Sadly, the stock of the foundation stone of our college had apparently been low and the room lacked severely in any bricks ear marked thus. On a happier note, none other bricks were found from any other college and we left the place, disappointed yet pleased.


Bonky suggests an inventory to be made of the bricks we met there so here it goes:

• some bricks from a temple
• many other bricks from some other temple
• ditto
  
• ditto
• don't remember much else

The next room had a few canvases with pictures of less known temples in West Bengal but a cursory glance was enough for them. What really intrigued us was a couple of spiral stairs at two ends of the room leading to a balcony giving a bird's eye view of the room (not that it needed it). The conversation which ensued between us brilliant and absorbing conversationalists went like this :

P : Stairs.
B : Guk.
P : (in case something had missed Bonky's eagle eyes)Two stairs.
B : Indeed.
P : You take the right and I take the left, I guess?
B : (as always the more practical one) The balcony will fall down under our combined weight.
P : (avoiding looking at the carved structures which were an excuse for supports) Not really. People must come here sometimes and use it.
B : Oh yeah? How many brick lovers have you exactly met during your lifetime?
P : (hazarding a guess) Sweepers do come, right?
B : Oh, lets do it. At any rate, we might be able to avoid looking at our results.

And on this happy note, we comported ourselves on the stairs when we deduced the main reason why the balcony had not needed ample support. The stairs had been made to fit Chinese women in the age when their feet had been bound in yards of bandages owing to the lack of shoes for size ten feet. Holding on to the banister for dear life and almost tip toeing on the stairs (which had hollows, which meant a wrong step could lead to a foot hanging mid air from one of the steps), we finally reached the balcony. The next conversation we had went like this

B: So, sweepers, huh?
P : What I can't fathom is how do birds reach a room where there are no windows?
B : Mysterious indeed. So, do we get down the other end?
P : Hey, descending was never a part of the contract!

For here, a forgotten fear of heights attacks one of the protagonists and she begins to find excuses to remain on the balcony until she loses enough weight to have her knight in shining armour arrive and carry her downstairs. She was wondering at repercussions of the plan when

B : Dude, I believe that is the secret room.
P : (Immediately closing her eyes) Can you see the skeletons? Is there muscle peeling away from the bone. Will I be able to sleep tonight? Oh, THE HUMANITY!!!
B: Yeah well, all I can see is more books. I guess that's the stock room for that sales counter. Who do you think buys these books? (The economist in her perks up) Is that like an inventory investment?
P : (giving a look no one should give a friend and a fellow sufferer in the cause of education) Will you please concentrate on how to get me down from here? In case you don't remember, we have a movie to watch in, like, three hours and neither of us likes the idea of watching a movie alone. Also, the food is in my bag.
B: Oh, come on. The most that can happen is that we break our necks here and die, our dead bodies undiscovered till two more jobless girls come around here. On a brighter side, death can't be that bad. After all, we did give miserable examinations.

The question of dying thus admirably settled, we proceeded on our way down. It was the classic RDB moment. We had faced so much fear in the name of the impending results, that we had actually gone to a point beyond fear. It was more with the hope of death in our hearts that we tried to fit in our big feet in the tiny foot rests.However, as it is during times when you actually want to die, we did not manage to break our necks and came down, with clammy foreheads and hands a mysterious shade of brown as the only memento of our great climb.

Our journey back from Metcalfe Hall was eventful enough, what with absence of trams, burgers for ten bucks each, visits to haunted churches, trying to find our way to a movie hall in the middle of nowhere, having softies, gazing enviously at young people for their youth and the fact that all of them had boyfriends (at 19, we are aging young), happily gazing at tall guys in blue shirts, green shirts and white shirts and of course, cheering loudly at the women in Chak de India when they beat up the guys at MacD. However, that is a tale for another rainy day and as far as Bonky and Pongo are concerned, the tale of their day out is over.

Next story in line is hopefully the results of using a candid camera at Elliot Park.

p.s. The cartoons are highly amateurish in nature since I have never drawn anything in my entire life and used photoshop even less. Their purpose is nil and will probably be removed someday. They are to be taken in a humorous stride and all evil critics commenting against them will have the curse of the backside itch put on them. If you are a nice critic, may you have a harem of your own :)

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Bonky and Pongo's Day Out- I

(This post is dedicated to Bonky, the person who has always inspired me to never follow my own decisions about dieting, but to go and stuff my face if I have the money, and, if possible, lend her some too.Hence, I openly proclaim that I will name my first child after you, regardless of its sex, if your husband murders you before it is born.)
It all started with the usual level of frustration with life for Bonky and me. Looking comprehensively at the fact that we were turning into amoebas, hated our graduating subject and had mistakenly arrived an hour early for our morning class on a warm, gentle Saturday morning, the next obvious step was walking dejectedly towards the college gates, wondering which stagnant waters would we end up being mosquitoes in. One of us opined (at this precise moment, I forget who, but it doesn't matter, both of us still think that) that we were total losers to be hanging around in the college for classes on a Saturday, when other people our age would be
a) sleeping
b) preparing for some date hours later
c) sleeping
d) getting rid of a hangover
e) sleeping
f) staring at the ceiling, blowing air bubbles and wondering what would be there for breakfast.

At this psychological hour, a tram crossed our path. We, pseudo economists and self proclaimed unicellular organisms when it comes to survival, think alike and think different. A tram with an unknown destination was accepted as our calling and we got up on the next one (we had missed our first inspiration while we were busy reading each other's minds).



This wasn't our first ride. We have had many such impromptu escapades from the humdrum menace of classes. Yet, the first foolish questions in a series of foolish questions happened to be, "where does this tram go" to a bemused conductor, possibly unused to absent minded, bespectacled, foolishly blinking young girls with as little clue of their destination as he himself. We got two tickets to the last stop, hoping against hope it would not be beyond traversed paths or recognizable tracts of civilizations. It was while we giggling away to glory at our daring, adventurous spirit (we are young girls who haven't been left alone beyond a fixed diameter around tuitions) that we suddenly found ourselves amidst a glory of British architecture and a bevy of business people amazed at the spectacle of two tripping teenagers staring goggle eyed at everything. The more erudite Bonky recognized the place as Dalhousie, the place which houses banks and churches with equal élan.

Traipsing around like little girls, an eye opened for food shops, it was not long before we saw a supposed minaret at a distance. Close inspection proved it to be the General Post Office. Following Rikki Tikki Tavi's motto, we went and found out all we could about it, which was not much. Though we did find a couple of cute guys we could stare happily at, our lack of post office etiquette rose a few eyebrows. Our girlish exuberance at the sight of the stamp corner and a computerized section was not well received and it was not long before we were looking somewhere else for luck and interest.

More aimless wanderings and a roving eye brought us to a building covered with beggars which proclaimed itself to be Metcalfe Hall on a disused pillar. Having heard the name in one of my rarer non-orkutting browsing of the internet, I dragged a bewildered Bonky to the bird defiled exterior, with its impressive rows of columns and wide staircases one could play hopscotch on (we did try to, as a matter of fact).

The interior was not very impressive at the beginning. A huge notice loomed proclaiming the legend that we needed to get permission of the security guards to look around, not that we saw any scope of doing anything illegal there, except, maybe, practice our cheerleading skills. Perceiving our hesitance, a man, posing as a security guard (oh, come on, why would Metcalfe Hall need security guards?), rushed us off upstairs, the ground floor being cordoned off for the birds, we presumed.
However, things started looking up with our ascent. Our journey was assisted by sweeping, wooden, carpeted stairs while the walls were adorned with pictures of Victoria Memorial in all its splendor (we suspect those pictures had been photo edited a bit, Victoria Memorial never looked like that ever since coloured photo films had been invented). Muffled footsteps accompanied us to a landing with three, yellow, paint-chipped doors.

Which door did we choose? Did the day bring forth further minor adventures? Were there any more philosophical musings? Did we discover a dead body sprawled across the middle of the Metcalfe Hall with an oriental knife sticking through its heart? Find out later in the sequel to Bonky and Pongo's Day Out.

(OK, fine, I am too lazy to complete this.)

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