The glowing tip.

How many times do we take time to appreciate the beauty of a glowing cigarette. Mostly we are too involved to even notice the brilliant glow of it. Before we lit, it's just another tobacco wrapped white paper with a speckled yellow filter at one end. But as soon as we lit it, it evolves into something which shouldn't go unnoticed. And here I should point out that serious smokers take a lot of care while lighting one, the way they hold it, particularly not to sooten the stick. Once lit the glowing ember is hypnotizing. The serpentine smoke slowly rising, parts reluctantly, leaving it's memoirs of ashes. Soon the tip is burdened with it's ashes and the luminance starts getting obscured. Then we jerk off the ash and give a drag, rejuvenating and revealing the glory of the tip, the smoky blue stream waving and swaying with the air. When the air is absolutely still and we hold the cigarette with a steady hand, the smoke will rise vertically, dignified to some distance before changing it's mind and starts flirting with the air. It's really amazing to see how the insignificant stick burns out with grace. We should really respect the fire at the tip of our fingers and stub it, not throwing it away carelessly to perish unnoticed, certainly our fag deserves this much attention.

Adieus to you my friend, my companion.


P.S. IRRESPECTIVE OF YOUR SUNSIGN SMOKING WILL EVENTUALLY TURN YOUR ZODIAC INTO A CRAB.

Puja of '08...

It's Autumn and for us Bengalis that translates to a season of festivities with the grandest of them all, Durga Puja. It's been two long years since I last celebrated my Puja at home. I'm an aethist, and so the religious part hardly holds anything for me. It's really the congregation of friends, the contagious smile on everybody's face, the warmth in greeting strangers, the nip in the air, the sound of "Dhaak", which allures me to be a part of the celebration. Even here in Chennai, a few Puja's are there, but it's very nuclear and lacks that general exuberance and genial atmosphere. So I prefer to stay away from them.


I have grown up counting the days for the Puja's. It always used to be the time for the month-long school holidays, the time for getting a lot of dresses and gifts, the time to start bursting crackers, happy times with uninhibited freedom to stay out with friends. I grew up with these anticipations for the whole year until it culminated into those 4 days of pure euphoria. And even before I had time to savor it all, another long wait used to shake me up from my elation. I didn't mind, eagerly waiting for next year while reminiscing the last year. But now times has changed and the uncertainty of the hiatus perplexes me.


The time since I came here, I have felt a general lack of enthusiasm among the people during the festive seasons. Personally I feel that people in the rest of the country share a greater feeling of camaraderie and celebrate with greater fervor and excitement. Maybe this fact along with the knowledge that all my closest friends are having a blast together back home, is acting as an anticatalyst for me this festive season. The days which would have been charged with energy are passing by blandly. But there is always a next time and even before the Puja's are over I'm eagerly waiting for the next Autumn, full of colors and fireworks.


WISH EVERYBODY THE BEST OF TIMES THIS FESTIVE SEASON.:-)

The namesake

When I was a young kid, I remember calling an ancient lady as "Mahabharata" because every few alternate days she used to come to our house at dusk and then read out verses from the Mahabharata and explain the stories to me and my elder brothers. She normally used to come in the late afternoons and chat with my grandma, mother and my aunt about the going-ons under the different roofs which she used to visit, just like ours. Once she was done with her renditions and comments on the worldly issues, she would take out the old, dilapidated thick volume of the Epic from the room where our family deities were kept and worshiped. The thick volume, I vaguely remember now, used to be covered in a maroony, moth eaten velvet cloth which might have been red when it was first wrapped around the book. Then she used to place the volume of text on an X-shaped wooden cross, and carefully unwrap and open the book to the page where she had taken her break last time. I don't remember to have seen her ever starting from the first few pages and my memory tells me I never saw her finishing the last pages. It almost always used to be the three-quarter of that thick volume where she started. The bounded volume was in itself a testimony of the times and generations of readers who have gone through it's sheets of wisdom and tales, and in the process had gained an ivory tint and tunnels for bookworms. I lifted it occasionally and it took a real strain on my back to do so.


So by the time the dusk set in, and our mom,aunt and grandma had finished the evening Puja, me and my two cousins were all huddled up to listen to that day's tales. Even the ladies joined us and then "Mahabharata" with her wrinkled face and strained vision started reciting from her namesake. It was a shrill voice but which was equally apt at describing the modern tales of common households as well as the ancient tales of valor and betrayal, the myths of lords and larger-than-life humans. She used to chant the Sanskrit verses and then after every few lines explain it in vernacular. Many a days, the power would go out and we'll be sitting around a kerosene lamp with shadows playing with the mythical characters which seemed to come alive with "Mahabharata's" hypnotizing portrayals. And soon she would finish yet another episode of magnificent fable, leaving footprints on our impressionable minds.


I don't remember when she stopped visiting our house, which was such a gradual process that by the time I really noticed it, I had grown up for B.R. Chopra's epic TV serial. In all those years I never really got to know her name, certainly she had an existence beyond the gossip circles and the Epic but for me she'll always be the lady who illustrated the mythology in all it's grandiosity and detail.