The Nights Before Examinations

Midnights, creeping in, usually find me gaping at the window, absentmindedly doodling on the margins of my notebook. My doodles usually conform to depictions of typhoons, Chinese fans and noses. It probably reveals something deeply disturbing about my psyche, but I choose not to delve on it.

It is 12:30 soon and the cellphone tinkles. The first message of the day is a cryptic plea from an unknown number. I read it again and again to make sure I have not skipped a few words or sentences.

"Sweetie (it says), I miss u. V hv not met up for so long. I know u hv exams but cant u make some time. If yes, give me a missed."

I gaze fascinated at this epistle for a long time and then call up Bonky.

"Whom do you know," I ask wonderingly, "who would miss me?"
"You should really learn some phone skills, you know. How come you never say a hello?"
"But who is capable of missing me," I ask insistently.
She ponders. "Apart from the entire faculty in our department, I really can not think of anyone else. Why do you ask? Having a sneezing fit?"
Whereupon I tell her the story.

"Hmm," she says after a few moments reserved for giggling. "Give this person a call. See who it is."
"Is not that a bit desperate," I muse.
"Honey, when you can not recall any person who would miss you in the middle of the night, chances are you are desperate."
"We are not having this conversation. Go study."

It is now one hour and ten minutes. I have finished my seventh typhoon and am starting on my fifteenth nose. The cellphone tinkles again. This time it is a phonecall.

"I have not started Indian Economics. Do not ask me anything. Go away."
"Umm, Pongs," says the voice on the other side. "I am in love."
"Oh dear," I sigh. "Now?"
"Uhh, yes?"
"Who is it? Does he have any single friends? Please do not get married before I get a boyfriend," I plea, my voice trailing away into a whine.
"Well, I met this guy in the metro. I actually bumped into him and apologized. Then I looked into his eyes, oh Pongs, such dreamy eyes, and fell in love."
There is a pause.
"Uh," I say, breaking the pause. " Then?"
"That is it," she replies, matter-of-factly.
"You do not know the guy," I exclaim, scandalized.
"I do know that he is my soulmate," she mumbles in a small voice. I can even visualize her puppy face.
"OK, honey, you know I am all for this sort of thing. But I can hardly help you hunt for the love of your life. I shall be very busy the next couple of months."
"Oh no," she hastens to explain, "that is fine. Actually I called you to help me find a perfect song for this moment."
"Oh."

It is close to two. I have actually read something from my notes and fallen into a reverie, most of which involves ghosts materializing through open windows.

The cell phone tinkles again. I start the conversation with the familiar denial of ever studying Indian Economics when I am interrupted.

"Could not care less. Listen, I bought two club sandwiches for dinner today. You know the hostel food. But I could only finish one. If I keep the second one for breakfast, what are the chances it will not stink or something?"

I blink.

"Is this a probability question," I venture, flabbergasted.
"No, idiot, I am asking you. You are a girl. You should know about stuff like this. Food and rotting and things."
"Ohh. Right. But, you see, I do not," I reply, as gently as possible.
"I knew I should have called Deep. He would have known. By the way, we have to go to Chennai in a month's time," announcing which he hangs up.

Wherein begins a flurry of phone calls, messages and further downloading of application forms.

It is soon almost half an hour past three. I have now degenerated into spelling my name in Bengali. Succeeding in that, I now venture to spell the names of the characters in Harry Potter, faltering badly with Hermione, and shift to spelling the names of the characters in Feluda.

The next tinkle on the phone is Bonky.

"Want to go out for coffee tomorrow?"
"No."
"Eh, this is coffee we are talking about, something you have Freudian dreams about. How can you refuse coffee," she asks, taken aback.
"Bonks, I have been practically stuck in this house for three months. My face is now a deathly white, and my dark circles make me look like a poltergeist. I actually have a haze all around my face. I look like an indeterminate mass. If you take me out for coffee tomorrow, everyone would think it was the family ghost's day out."
"Want to meet up in your park and crib about our lives then?"
"Yeah, all right. Also, I need a couple of notes. Get me the text on commerciali.."
"Never mind, Pongs, I think I will take a nap tomorrow," she says, a little wistful.
"Bleh."

It soon is five. I close the windows, give the books a malevolent gaze, avoid my image in the mirror and thankfully go to sleep.

This morning, however, I blogged.

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Chronicles of Part-2 Exams: Bollywood, the Student and the Free SMS Scheme

From: Bonky
To: Everyone

Seedhi Zabaat zindagi bawal ho gayi
ho teri ek nazar se zindagi nihal ho gayi
nihaal ho gayi
nihaal ho gayi
etc etc

From: Me
To: Bonky

ya se...
Ye mera dil pyar ka diwana..(add appropriate sounds here)
Diwana, diwana, pyar ka parwana

Why are we doing this?

From: Bonky
To: Me

Neele, neele ambar par chand jab chaaye,
pyar barsaye, humko tarsaye

Pingu and Jo insist on spending all the free sms on their boyfriends. So I am reduced to this.

From: Me
To: Everyone

I finally have understood Cournot after like 3 weeks :D
I am so delighted I could weep, weep, weep. In fact, I will do so
(weep, weep, weep)

From: Jo
To: Me

Isn't Cournot, like, one page? In fact, even I have finished Macroeconomics. I am so delighted, I am going shopping tomorrow.

From: Me
To: Everyone minus Jo

Jo is such a bitch.

From: Bonky
To: Me

I have decided to spend all me free sms on you. So what's up?

From: Me
To: Bonky

Great, now even I will start wondering if I am a lesbian. Right now, I am having fried chicken. Diet be damned.

From: Bonky
To: Me

#@$#, I know. My regime has gone for a toss. My life looks so bleak I spent the whole afternoon watching Vivah today.

From: Me
To: Bonky

You too :D
We are such soulmates. In fact, I alternated between that and Swarg. Swarg has Govinda and Juhi. Govinda is Juhi's servant, then becomes all glamorous and Juhi falls for him. If our servant becomes rich, would we marry him?
(p.s., wish Mithun and Govinda had mated and produced a kid. He would be the greatest dancer on earth)
(p.s.2 OK, I have a crush on Govinda)

(n.b. I write long sms)
(n.b. 2 What is the plural form of sms?)

From: Bonky
To: Me

My heart is set on Mimoh. I doubt I would want any other son of Mithun, even if he is a hybrid of Govinda..am a loyal lover...

From: Me
To: Bonky

Mimoh is mine, woman :O
You always want my men. Mimoh is the only one who makes me see unicorns and rainbows when he dances. You know, I thought I would never know love. I never realized it would come to me in this form where my beloved is sundered apart by cities and superstardom. But someday, we will gaze into each other's eyes and realization will strike him and he will dance. He will dance Bonky like he has never danced before and love will envelope us. Then we will have a son and call him Gomoh.

From: Pingu
To: Everyone

I was playing diner dash on my cell phone and lost for the 12th time in a row. I was so frustrated I banged my head on the floor and now I am dizzy. Stop studying till I feel better.

From: Me
To: Pingu

Heh, I am busy telling Bonky my love story with Mimoh. You have no fear from us.

From: Pingu
To: Me

Mimoh is gay toh :O

From: Me
To: Pingu

Ki jata :O
More somman is expected from a Bengali towards Mithun's son. Of course, most people I fall for do turn out to be gay, so won't protest much.

From: Pingu
To: Me

Of course! Should have got the link. But there are better gays man. What is wrong with your taste? Jo ladki kabhi Karan Johar ke kwhab dekhti thi, woh aaj Mimoh pe utar aayi? Ghor kalyug!!

From: Me
To: Everyone

I am leaving Oligopoly. It has stopped making any sense. Nash can go screw himself.

From: Jo
To: Me

Oh, but that is the most major chapter. I have just finished Duality. I also bought (long list follows)..And is not Nash dead or something?

From: Me
To: Everyone minus Jo

Jo is such a bitch.

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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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The last ode to teenage-ism

Warning : Girlie post

Fellow blogger Doubletake, Doublethink has had a girlhood akin to all girlhoods, mostly spent in waiting for the dream man from the pages of a book (ranging from Danielle Steele to Gone with the wind) to materialize in flesh and of course, fall in love with us. This being the most significant experience for girls all over, one realizes the importance of preserving the essence of our first loves. Thus, while she rots with other more trivial pursuits (like Boards for instance), she, for us to remember her by, has started a meme, as she names it. In her own words,

"I'm starting a meme (muahahhaha). Anyone who has ever fallen in love with her version of the GHM, I tag you. Write a post, it doesn't have to be very big, about that person – literary character, comic book hero, some guy in a movie, a random person you'll never meet – we’ll start a list that will probably never end."

GHM would be the Georgette Heyer Man, a one of a kind lover an impressionable girl can easily be obsessed with. Doubletake has a more detailed description of him in her post.

And so, my GHM....

He arrived in my life at the very naive age of 14. He returned when I was 18. And, of course, till now, he displays no willingness to leave and someone real arrive. Harry Rayburn, or John Eardsley is a cross between Othello and Tarzan. He is rich but has given up all his wealth to seek vengeance for the death and defamation of his friend. He resides alone in an island in Africa and does more or less nothing but brood. Of course, he goes and seeks revenge, is often an impostor in the strangest of ships, is mind numbingly hot and threatens to beat up his love interest black and blue if she even looks at another guy.
A self confessed wife beater, an Etonian who has given up all his wealth for an African island near a waterfall, where he saves drowning damsels and then marries them (if he does marry them, hard to find a registrar in African jungles, I would have guessed). Paleolithic in his passions and general behaviour with the rest of humanity, rude, insolent and a woman hater, he is probably not every woman's dream, or even nightmare, but since the age of 14, Harry Rayburn has been the man I have woefully given my heart too. Of course, the fact that he catches diamond smugglers and can easily murder someone in the heat of anger just adds to his gentlemanly charms.

He is the chief protagonist of Agatha Christie's Man in the Brown Suit, and despite the impression I seem to have given, is wonderfully monogamistic. If it reflects sadly on my literary tastes, yes, I have fallen more in love with Christie characters than any other, except Feluda. And Lord Emsworth. And of course, Psmith. There was also these brief affairs with Rhett Butler, Buntschli, and Flambeau, but the Man in the Brown Suit stands tall and unchallenged.

I request all girls to take this tag up. Even guys if they have had their own female version of the GHM.
So, visitor, you are tagged.

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It is That Time of the Year Again

1) When colleges close up within a few hours notice. When you may suddenly end up in the first page of newspapers. When you might switch on the TV and see your classmate being beaten up. When everyone is fawning over you.

For College Elections have come to town.

I frankly pity students who have never studied in a politically inclined college. Nothing, nothing beats the news of college being closed down because policemen have gheraoed the area. And, of course, if you have ever had a crush on one of those politicians who would never deign to look at an unpolitical mite as you, this is the perfect time for the come-hither looks.

Let the Chinese have their New Years. Let the lovers have their Valentine Days. Let the chickens have their flus. I have more involved, passionate and dangerous events to look forward to.

2) When one realizes its about time one comes to term with reality and starts taking her graduation seriously. So the first thing one goes and does is watch Dr. Strangelove. Of course, after such an experience, it is hard to take anything seriously. Plans are in the offing to watch Elizabeth next. The probable inspiration one looks forward to is declare to the whole world one is illegitimate and go tell Bilawal Bhutto that one is the rightful heir to Pakistan's throne. Then again, it is not right to assume brotherly feelings for him after having lusted for that aquiline nose for months.

Then again, as discussed so minutely in the last post(specially the comment section), I am probably about to be declared non-collegiate. So do not think it is worth taking the pressure of examinations for.

3) Valentine's Day. When happy couples spend money on each other and single people go around protesting that its just a marketing gimmick. Of course, I do not believe in Valentine's Day. It is a marketing gimmick.

Bonky and I happen to be the only unattached (or as we prefer calling ourselves, detached) people remaining in possibly this entire world. And no, we have not had any lesbian tendencies. But it is a sad week for both of us while we take advantage of the Valentine sales to buy chocolates and wristwatches for ourselves. But we are a kindly lot. We want the other to be happily settled in commitment bliss. Which is why the following conversation took place

Bonky and Pongo, taking another never ending bus ride home. Pongo is immersed in a book. Bonky is immersed in watching cute guys. They are thrown together so much anyway that they have hardly anything left to talk about. Next time I make friends, I will go for the ones with commitment phobia. At least it will not lead to my mother harbouring doubts about my orientation, seeing that I only have one friend I spent most of my time with. The others are too occupied with their better halves.

B: Damn, not one cute guy. Oooh, Ritika, you got to look, it is your soulmate.
P (By now used to this occurrence): Oh, indeed? Long hair?
B: Check
P: Tall?
B: Check
P: Earrings?
B: Only on one ear.
P: Perfect. Unshaven for a day or so?
B: Yes. An out and out aantel. Plus, he is carrying a bag which looks as if it might carry books.
P(suddenly animated): You have got to be kidding me. You found my soulmate!! Where is he?
B:Oooohhhh
P(tremulous): Hot girlfriend?
B( nodding sadly): Check.

4) I grow older. With a difference. I will never be a teen anymore. I leave my teens with regrets, having never done a thing teens are supposed to do. No wild romances, no overnight wild blings(or is it bilge, anyway, something) and certainly no pyjama parties either. At 19, I am growing up to be a dowdy 30 year old.

Though there is still about a month left. A whole month to fill it up with all the wildness of seven years.

I think I will end up being a dowdy thirty year old twenty year old. I have had more fun that way in all these years anyway.

Valentine's Day is not only for couples. Its for all loved ones. I love you all for actually taking time out and visiting my blog. So, here is wishing you all a Happy Valentine's Day.
Also, please dress in black on fourteenth. We will have a collective mourning for Mr. Wodehouse.

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