The Time

Yes, the times are a'changing. I never really realized or appreciated how much times are a'changing, till I checked my blog and saw that nearly six years have passed since I began blogging. I began it with a few JUDEans and I never really paid much thought to what was going in there. It was, truthfully speaking, a place where I made some noise. Because I like Attention. Hence the name Panu. Jaar Maane, if you are a non-Bengali, you would NOT understand.

Its easy for me to leave the blog and go. Very easy. But it is not easy to pick up from a phrase and begin again, which I don't want to do. This blog is not ended here, just an infrequent writer's infrequent visits to a place which stinks of old memories and friends who used to make her happy. Now Panu no longer knows whether those friends come or not.... the comments, the footfall are nearly gone.

Okay, sorry, melodrama. Its just me pouting because no one commented on the last few posts.

I want You... I'm not gonna cry.

I need you. But then, there is this thing deep inside of me that I hate about me. Its someone else inside me and I hate that core.


The Key


Dream about me for the rest of your days
Like lightning tearing the darkness
With the jagged light, enough to stun.

Why is it always this way?

The frightening feeling of emptiness deep within
That threatens to encapsulate the very deph of me
But no, there lies the hope of the broken images that flit
Across the bottom of my ragged feet
Tears me apart with the force of truth
The light fantastic, the light so incadescently bright
The dream of something better, far away
In the distant fairylands
That beckons me to let go
Of the control I insist
On my self

Tear apart the seams of my being
And let loose the beast within
The darkness within that threatens to choke
My spirit.

I stand in the middle of nowhere
Between the darkness and light
And I search for the key
That would merge them into grey.

And I shall fade into sepia-sweet memories
Live and die within those bounds
Pounding the walls to let my self free from it all
And turn away to rise,
Then slowly fall.

Posting from a Place.....

As I write, I can see my time running out on me.... I have around 10 minutes to go before my break ends so I better finish fast.

I miss our old trainers... This room gives me the chills.... I miss Abhik, i miss Vivek and I miss Prateek. I met Prateek today... He looked strained. He identified me at the gate (because I had forgotten my own ID) and let me enter Wipro. I dont know why but I felt sorry for the poor guy.... Imagine, having to leave for Hyderabad on a few day's notice.... If I had a chance, I would hit on the decision maker's head and make him see sense.... That will teach him a lesson not to interfere in other people's business.
Driftwood. That sort of takes care of this post's issue. I miss home sometimes.... home is not home anymore. There are so many different things that I miss nowadays............. the crowd of JU, the people who used to be with me.... Andromeda and others.... and then I miss Sir, and Kaichu.
This sounds so desperately like a testimonial on the number of misses. But I do. I miss them, I miss them.... I really wish I could stop missing them.... but I cant. I cant believe that there was a time when I would spend hours in the end with people I loved, talking and laughing and having a gala time with them. Now I just go to sleep and remain thankful when I am not awake because some dumb idiot has called me in the middle of the night (which is basically three o'clock in the afternoon and therefore a godly hour for the rest of mankind )....
Anyway, there are things that I remember, when I go for breaks I do believe I wish sometimes I see Andromeda, from across here to the godawful place she works at..... But I wish her happiness. Because if this is what she wants, this is what she would have.
Momentary glimpses from a past life sometimes haunts me.... I feel paralyzed when I am suddenly attacked by a vision of Sandy quietly laughing as A Lal poked fun at Queen, and Bohemian Rhaphsody.... or ADG looking contemplatively at a copy of Antigone and just scratching his brow with the adorable "I dont know where my dog is, and I have no clue what the Anti Bitch's problem was.... And I think I am stuck at this terrible Miasma that is haunting me just as badly as the Choerephorai...." expression.
Ah, those Sophocles classes where Babel used to enter around fifteen minutes after the class had begun, and ADG smiling at her and giving her an indulgent "I know where you came from... and I really wish I did not but I do" smile and told her to sit with an imperial nod.... I felt like going "ZEUS! O Lord of Lords!!!" everytime he did that.... he had such an impact.... it was like a bolt of lightning. I might even compare him to Thor.
And Tintinda, dear Tintin da.
The name... the name...
I felt Loki.
Perfect. He is the ultimate mischief maker. I read Sandman the other day. I felt Tintinda in Loki. I felt Loki in Tintinda.
And sometimes I wonder what will I call myself. Delirium? Delirium is apt. I dont know where I am going and I dont know where I came from. This mind remains in a perpetual state of blankness, a state of numbness. I live in presence. Am I suffering from Permanent Cathartic Effect (PCE) ??
Dearly departed souls of this mortal cloth, I do feel for those who are lost, those who are gone to a different frame, and is lost in translation. I feel for you because the fallen IDOLS all turn to dust in the end... everything is lost, everyone is emptied of their own selves, and they follow the path... the path they think is shown but is actually something they have chosen on their own.
Everyone makes choices. All the choices are actually made for them, but they make them anyway. And with each choice they move forward, look forward, while living in their past, because every moment is a living history, a thing of the past the moment they are created. The illusion is perfect... we actually live in the past but look before. And we pine for what is not.
Maddy. My Maddalena, my Madeline, my Mado....
The other day I felt the warm tang of the morning breeze and I felt your smile with it. My sunshine, my glory, a love I love.... She believes in goodness. And she shatters just a little more as her belief is taken apart at the seams and torn. Like wings from a fragile moth. And she is as attracted to the hypnotic rays of light as the moth.
Which reminds me of someone who is better not named. Like Voldemort, he is to be left in the dark... Let him be the soul of this particular post. He colours the edges of the text... In spirit, he supplements the vermouth... caustic but succulent, leaving a bitter-sour-sweet aftertaste in the mouth and something that I really cannot define... A sense of denial? I hoped to become friends. I do not know now whether we are... foolish, thoughtless comments break the tender bonds we humans forge with threads of recognition of the pain that we all face and overcome, and face and face again.

I end here. It is a good time to end this particular post which brims with nostalgia, that beckons me towards the momentary need to forget oneself... we long to be in nothingness, and our longings often are realized.

The Thief

Ah the sound of thunder outside, with the knowledge that some one stole a good 5000 rupees from the room where I was asleep, from right over my head.... literally. I was so in the vestiges of my dreamworld that I did not note when reality stole in and took away fifteen days of suffering's result.

Damn.

My face fell the other day and hit the pavement along with the rest of my body. OUCH!

So then I picked myself up, looked around, quite embarassed... and walked on, and suddenly felt a sharp pain in my left ankle. Again. Damn.


I went home with my leg aching, and sore throat, and the next day I got myself a job.

Nothing fancy, though, but still, a job.

And this is how life goes on... mundane, moral and misogynistic.

I used to call my friends up and they used to tell me that nothing much went on in their lives.... what about me? And me being the one leading the "exciting" life, told them all how weird it was to look outside the window and see the clouds make patterns or something equally normal into something supernatural, out-of-this-place, just to tell them that life is not all about looking at a thing from the angle of a practical, dead vision............. expand your mind, free it, and the rest will follow.

I sound Osho.

But thats it. You have to let go, and see how wonderous this world is... I can fall for it over and over and over again, and realize the beauty of it, and the ugliness, and it fills me up with pleasure to know that I can perhaps tell others and they can convey it to others, and maybe I will be able to spread the message.

And at the moment of enlightening, the sky darkens, and the wind blows, and the earth goes Kaplooweeey.... and thats that.

End of the story, people, move along now.

As Time Goes By...

So the last few days have been a whirlwind in motion, what with my never-ending interviews with no luck and the trip to Sikkim and all... *sigh* painful, painful days spent at Oly, sweating and sipping long glasses of alcohol-tinged soft drink drowned in Ice.... and then waiting to get the return tickets confirmed... Ah what extreme life I lead!!

And then the Peep and I over dark darker darkest chocolates discussed the pains of being alive, and how to drown it by getting a tonne of lard and God-knows-howmuch caffeine in our veins in deliciously shaped packages... Ah the horror, the Horror.....

So then I was returning from Cheeni Kum the other day.... The MAN can still run, I say!!!! I was bowled over yet. Somehow a man above 60 should not be allowed to be that sexy. Its just me. I just saw him.

And I was coming back and the auto was amazingly packed, and I had the side seat and was getting all the air on my face, doing Lord-Knows-What to my already unmanageable hair. And I was quite outrageously happy despite my Mother who had come to see the movie with me... and been gushing lyrical over it. So I got down from my auto and what do I realize?

The print on the auto seat was one large picture of Gerard Butler from 300, this one to be precise.




And well, his mouth was open, and I had been sitting on top.


Btw, I shall be imparting erotological wisdom pretty soon so stay tuned to the next light year or so.

"I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,

But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,

Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;

And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,

Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire:

I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion. "

Dowson knew what its like. When the pain in your gut eats you away and you hide your face against the pillow and scream and cry your heart out but still there is no relief, and you promise to the distant North Star at three in the morning to make you forget.... to heal... but it does not help.


It just does not. Its so pathetic... this sham of indifference that you adapt. "I Do Not----" is such a lie, and your friends listen to you sympathetically but you still feel guilty because half your mind is not there, its been locked away for life, and the effort is so much that you feel drained.

Damn I am being sickeningly pitifully "nyaka"....


So dushhala, I dont bleeding care any longer. I dont think I am all that bad. I am healthy, apart from the ache I have from the Topple... and all, I think I am just fine. I am dancing and boozing and singing and basically my exams are over and I have got myself a JOB. So I am fine. Fine.

Wonder of all wonders, why must I turn my head and smile graciously at every mistake I have ever made in my life?

Because I am a pushover.

A pushover who knows she is a pushover. That's the worst kind.

So screw me!

Anyway, whatever. All these amazing love affairs just pass me by, and I am left holding the glass of Vodka (Fuel, by the way).

So there was this man who told me he was going to come down in the merry month of May, but did he?

Nooooooo. He is too busy getting screwed up by his job and his precious CEO who is as big a jerk as he is.

And is Panu getting any thing out of this? Just because this is just another time a jerk has stood her up (well, except, this time, she has been stood up for a whole frigging month rather than a lousy two hours… but anyway, how does time matter here?) and all this humongous annoying shit is just buggering the hell out of her, and I am tense and wary because this world has ended and the bleeding sky has fallen, and yet another fabulous faux pas has been committed by the DAD early this night, and well, MA being Ma, is rattling on about her historical lessons (Chapter One: So in 1984 your mother told me that she did not want the curry too salty and I was only a child of 24 who barely knew anything……) and the SIS was being nasty and painted a few masterpieces on her canvas in revenge and I ended up throwing caution (read carefully charted out diet plan for the next lifetime) to the wind and indulged in a plate of Chicken A-La Olypub (and Oh Lord was that Bliss or What) and then came back to a roomful of nastiness… not to mention the half an hour I had to stand outside a seedy joint, waiting for someone to come out who did not at all like me standing there waiting…

And that's where this post ends.

Twist... Twist....

so everything went sort of surreal this evening.

There I was walking down College Street in the afternoon, my mind clouded with worry over my impending doom (read MA finals without studies) and Andromeda's general physical condition, and I was on my way to meet Maddy for a simple tete-a-tete at coffee house, only to find out other members of my gerobaaj group

So over Chicken Kabiraaji and cold coffee and The Diary of Don Rigoberto and Tutu Bhutu and lots and lots of adda I was basically relaxed, and it stretched till Paramount where over cold glass of cream green mango sherbet we were discussing Satyajit Ray and Soumitro and Sibram Chakraborty and whatnot.... and I looked at the shining faces (sweaty and glistening) and realized that this was what I was going to miss.... this sense of relaxing shall just leave.

And suddenly I did not want to stay with them any longer. I felt like the serpent in Paradise and I wanted to get away. But then I was stuck in a little shop around College street corner, and I was back five years, when I used to pay 5 rupees for one book and come home loving the bargain and the book. Animal Farm.

The man looked at me with accusing, yet strangely gentle eyes, and said, "Why have you not come for so long? "

I gave some non-committal reply, feeling guilty. It was as if I have not looked after my best friend... and I was guilty of ignoring them.

And I looked at the books and I walked on.

And then the world went *topple*.

Can topple be a sound effect? It so is what happened to me this evening.

And I looked at the scattered books and my purse and my ankle turned in a strange angle, and I vaguely realized that it was not the way it should have been.

So I pulled it back to normal with a little twist and then crawled into a taxi that one of those pedestrians called up and then the world went black for around five minutes.

I woke to pain and pain and pain.

And then My Dear Dad gave me the dose of two painkillers and two large whisky.

And yes, I am shot.

I am twisted and back on line. I am BAAACKK!!

Unki yeh shikayaat hai ke hum kuch nahin kehte,

Unki Yeh shikayaat hai ke hum kuch nahin kehte...

Par apna to yeh adat hai ke hum kuch nahi kehte.

Kehne ko bahut kuch tha agar kehne pe aate,

Kehne ko bahut kuch tha agar kehne pe aate...

Par apni tp yeh adat hai ke hum kuch nahi kehte.

Kuch kehe to tufan utha leti hai yeh duniya,

Kuch kehe to tufan utha leti hai yeh duniya...

Chup rehe toh duniya kehte hai hum kuch nahi kehte....


Ghalib.

You told me lies tonight. Showed me no future. None. I hate you.

I hate you and I love you and I know I can never get over what you mean to me.

If only you knew. If only.



Meandering through the narrow roads to eternity... all falls down. This world is mine. I own it. Worthless shit.

Fringes of hair fall on my face, the whirring motion of the fan irritates me, but I still walk on, move on... never give up. Don't look back. Don't please give me this shit about you caring, because I know you don't give a damn, but I do and that is that.

Question to myself: am I losing in this situation? Am I the biggest, sorest loser born on the face of this sorry-assed universe?

Sadly, yes.

I am. And the tragedy is, I can't even stop it. Or unwind it. Or give up.




I just have to give in.

No... it is not working

To tell you the truth, I do not know if I am fit to write all this in the state I am in. I have not slept in 23 hours and my eyes feel like they will pop out any moment. But this I can't resist. I know this is not really my forte. I do not know if I do emotions well. My one display of true emotions got turned down as Illogical Psychological Reaction. So there!

But today after we were coming back from Milonda's canteen at JU, I was lagging behind Peep, watching her butt sway slightly, enticingly as she moved like a dancer, and Fish was giving me little, concerned looks behind her back that made her eyes glow in the dusky lamplight... I do not know how often have I seen a scene more beautiful, the sky darkened to an iridescent shade of near-midnight blue, transluscently the dusk fell all around us and I never wanted that moment to end, just stand there and have meaningless chit-chat with the two of them and let the moment continue. But that moment reality called, and I was on the bus to my way home, and on the way I was thinking of the way our farewell in Xavier's went where there were long boring speeches interspersed by Saru pulling on his tie because he was getting sweaty and hot, and Anni's yawns that were never-ending, and Sabby wanting to go to the loo and T S clicking photos. Andro was the rock, sitting beside me and letting me play snake in her cell-phone.

Afterwards we had gone to the little coffee bar where over Nestea and hideously sugarless coffee Anni had suddenly asked, "Achha what do you think about me?" to everyone else. It led to a long discussion about how everyone felt about everyone else and in the end nothing was resolved or said really, just a list of what we liked/did not like about everyone else in the gang was established.

And then there was the time in my school when we were given some glitter powder and asked to sprinkle it over someone else's head and confess whatever we wanted to. I remember wanting to use it on the crush I had, only to find someone else getting there first and being readily accepted. I stood back and let the couple move away, then charged on the Professor whose classes I hated because I was a perpetual mathophobic and he was the worst of the lot....

And then on Friday, I did not quite understand the impact of leaving JU. It was only after I came home and was preparing to go out, I received the full impact of it, and I was suddenly afraid. I hated feeling lost, and it was exactly what I was feeling.

But then, I have regretted my life sometimes, and loved it in moments. And today I was being jerked and thrown virtually everywhere on the bus, and finally I hung on to the window ledge and looked back and wanted to tell all those people whom I have met in JUDE and around JU exactly what they were to me... but I failed to tell them.

I wanted to tell Fish that I would miss her because she is one of the people I care about in JU.... but I forgot.

I wanted to tell Kaichu that I love her, but I was too afraid.

I wanted to tell Rimi to be a bit more responsible in real life, but I wondered if my advice would be welcome or not.

I wanted to tell Mou that people come in all shapes and sizes, and are loved for it. And she too shall be... but she was not there.

I wanted to tell Bimbo that she was the most beautiful little thing in JUDE I have had my pleasure of meeting, but she slipped away.

I wanted to tell Peep that she will always bounce back because thats the way she is... but I was sort of dazzled by her splendour.

And I wanted to tell my agesake to not impart wisdom where it was not required, but I realized that the effort would be too great... and it would not be appreciated at all!

All this, and more. Sometimes, I wonder why I do these things... tell people. But then, I do. I have seen that putting things out in the open tend to make them lose all their importance.

Another Day....

Just when Panu was thinking about giving up on life, and love and everything in between, I found out that there is more to life than the occasional grief... you know. And it passes pretty soon, leaving a void that I had to fill up.

So there I was shouting at the top of my lungs : "Whose Kubla Ij It?" and smearing chocolate cake on general unsuspecting (and suspecting and appreciating a choco-facial) public who were equally maenadian in their gestures, and among the sound and the fury, I walked off to see 300.

I dont care what other people says, I loved it. It was the beauty of savagery in motion, and I liked every bit of it. Panu thought it was perhaps a tad too on the scary side, but it was all right until the hunky guy she liked lost his head (literally).

Home, heart filled with joy at the sight of my cousin, my Guru... I lay my head on her lap and inhaled the smoke-powdery sari and mild sweat flavour she wore on her. She is so cool and untouched, poised and benign. My first love, my first protector against the ministers of darkness.

And the night brought on something new. Panu found on her message box a friend request at orkut. What was interesting was, this person was NOT interested in scrapping. When asked, he gave the following reasons:

U have a point there - about the scrap heap of this life being already too littered!! Though never thought about it from quite that perspective. (But, my objection to the scrapbook is sort of related to it.) Obviously, it pays to interact with perceptive people! Well, I have a three-fold distaste for the scrapbook.First : The scrapbook is accessible to everyone and there is no privacy. Somehow, I am not comfortable about some third party( or parties - to make it worse) being a privy to what is essentially private communication - however innocuous - between two persons. (When I say 'I am not comfortable....', I 'd rather like to share a personal secret with u; I am more with the British in the penchant for understatement!) Second : I find the other connotations of scrap rather disturbing. Scrap as a verb is really abominable; I just can't think of scrapping anyone !! Scrap is not a word of choice for me here. And so .... I don't send scraps and I don't scrap anyone! (yea, it takes all sorts to make the world - particularly some quaint types!) Third : I find most entries in most scraps just that - a heap of scrap! And, I prefer more august company. (Pardon me if I sound too bloody egoistic!)

At this point, one must pause and think. And wonder.






Okk and I found a friend. One who loves music as much as I do, If not more.

leaving on a freaking train....

which is at 10 tonight.


Miss you already Kolkata.


Havent left it though.


I hate best friends getting married. I will miss my first best friend. I dont care even if people think we rule the greengrocer's shops.




I dont wanna see her hitched. I DONT!!!!

Hmm. The season changes with misty murkiness, and Panu realizes that her time in JUDE is almost up. Another three months, and she shall be able to put the words M.A. after her name. And be off to the wider world of nasty, annoying superficiality that awaits her star-struck gaze.

So what’s so new about the world that she has not seen already? Now, now, lets not pretend here. Panu has seen the world. She has seen this little universe she inhabits to the minutest details… and experienced and criticized in her mind, analyzing and putting away the bile that has been stored up within, only to vomit them out here, in this particular post she is writing.

No, strangely enough, this is not a bitch post, as her friend Rimi calls them. Panu cannot bitch about people all that much. She really can’t put people down at the drop of a hat, either. That's because Panu believes in looking into a person’s face and telling him/her exactly whom he/she is messing with.

By the way, to tell the truth, bitching does have its advantages and sometimes Panu does indulge it in a bit, but nothing she cannot repeat in the face of the person concerned.

You know what? Lets make this a funny post, filled with nothing in it. I would like to be superficial. I do believe that it takes a lot of depth to be superficial. But to be nasty and superficial, it takes a lot more.

Panu is becoming famous. People are bitching about her behind her back. Wow!! That's like… super good, cause that means, they somehow feel threatened by Panu’s existence. It means, they consider her to be a challenge, and therefore needs to be put down. Panu would like to say that she feels like Shylock, who had to be sent out of the play for all to be better. Or like Feste in Twelfth Night who became steadily numb as “rain it raineth every day”.

What else? All right. This was not a post in defense of me, or an apology for being me, although this might be called by the backbiters both… This is an acknowledgement of me being me. I am, and therefore I am. And I will be me. No changes. I wont change… not become anorexic because my haute friends thinks I should lose 20 kilos right away, not change my attitude though people might think I am slow and stupid… and yes, basically be exactly the way I am, and remain uncaring and unconcerned, and in general the Mary Poppins attitude I do possess.

P.S. this post was to vent the irritation. I hate losers who have nothing else to do but be nasty to others, however learned they might be. Otherwise, I’m cool.