A few words about nothing

For the last couple of days, I was down in Influenza. But now, I am better, and fitter, of course.


As I have always spoken that every thing has two sides to deliver, if you expect always good things from a certain object which has always delivered right things in the past, then you should probably give it another thought. Just like that if you get depressed with a common shock or illness, then you should probably reconsider the truths they make you see when you fall ill, or you just lie at your home thinking about the rest of the world, and about life and also about human fate, how do we get attracted to the place we belong, and how our lives get complicated with the more and more offerings of the recent world.


I realised there were a lot of ‘get well soon’ wishings on the day I updated my current status on the social site in my profile. Now this is the problem with getting some famous. Think this way, if only I had kept a low profile on my writing side, these things would never happened. I could have said that day at ease that I do not owe any blog, and I do not write at all, as I had said to 'S', that I hardly read stories and novels, as she has turned her face away from me now, and I can once again fancy about the offerings a love could. But once again, that was another thing, and this writing thing, is so different. As it is said, that “No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlesticks, that they which come in, may see the light.” Now I did not find any reason to hide the candle in a bushel, that’s all, after all, I am no Athena.


My head suffered from a pain, and the cold and cough from inside, they were all coming down to me, at the same time. The whole day I spent before my laptop, either staring blankly to the ‘yellow pages’ or going to the ‘My computer’ and then once again coming back to the ‘Desktop’. The evening proved to be some fruitful, as I managed to do some of the BRM tests (I still don’t know what is the full form of BRM, it’s just that I’ve started doing these because they seem to be interesting and thought-provoking) with my wristwatch around the pen and paper.


I dropped my head on the pillow when my mobile said it was 11.38. It was the famous ‘Janmastami Puja’, and the sound of Dhol and Khanjani kept coming from the nearby Hanuman temple. I tried to see the blind boy who comes and sits here under the lamppost every night, but as I found out, he wasn’t there tonight. I clinched to the railings of the windows and kept staring outside. Now as I say that I keep looking outside, you would probably get wrong information that perhaps from the window I look, there are some beautiful sceneries which can be seen, but that will be so untrue. It is actually a window of a flat which resides nearly opposite to a long road, but as previously stated ‘nearly opposite’; there are not a lot to see at all. But this is the very window, where I sat and wrote stories like ‘Another rainy day’, ‘A love, forgotten’, and others. So it’s kind of favorite place for me to sit and write. The lamppost stands at the left corner, the main road passing down, and the closed room of my favorite neighbors, the Punjabi family, who does not live there any more.


Now this has been a frustrating thing. How much the Punjabi family meant to me! I remember how I introduced them in one of my stories, ‘The no-private room’. I feel I should copy the whole paragraph from there and quote the thing here. So here it goes:

“Beside the road, to the opposite side of my room, lives the Punjabi family; my favourite neighbour, and it is a nice job for me often to watch them. They have two cars, and both the cars shout like bulls, and the little boys at the road shout at them. But, you can curse them, laugh at them though you can’t help but love the two daughters of the Punjabi parents, the same two girls aging between 18-19, who were the popular topics of the boys’ talking in the town.”


And now when they are gone I can do nothing but watch the glasses of the windows of their rooms. I watch the lamppost standing in the day, in the half-light of evening and in the darkness of midnight. I look at the third floor of a nearby house, which is under construction. But after a certain period of time, they all seem to be boring. Yes, yes, a writer gets bored sometimes.


I remembered the entries I wrote under the heading ‘Thoughts of a wanderer’. The whole thing was based on my visits to the lake places and Southern Avenues, and the experiences and considerations I made there. I remember how I discovered her place, how I discovered her ancient home, and how I discovered her, out of nowhere suddenly at the previous Puja. But for once again, I have become the thing I was. S-I-N-G-L-E. This whole loneliness thing, it is kind of a creepy thing in itself. I mean, I am kind of a sick and habituated in it. Like, I am dying to fall in love once more and this time, for real; and yet again, even if a girl comes to me and asks me out, I am going to freak her out by saying, that I am so sorry and it’s a matter of fact that we should not hang out at all, because we have our responsibilities to take care of, and all that nonsense. And why the hell am I talking about nonsense? Have I forgot about the phone call made on the 1st January, 2007? Anyways, that is past.


Right, anyways, it is midnight, and today is 15th August. I don’t think I am the right person to talk about the gravity of the day at all. But, just reminds me when I was in N.C.C (Navy, to be specific) in our school, back in Narendrapur, we used to do a lot of things on this day. But the past days are gone now, today is not real, and the future coming ahead, is going to be as hazy as grey (apparently, grey means death, doesn’t it?). So I close the writing on a note where I see a few plants surrounded by steel covers, with the following thing written all over it: “This is our city. Please raise your voice to stop pollution. Plant and preserve trees”, a few people sleeping in the footpath with their sheets on (yes it is New Alipur and still, people from the nearby slum comes out at these footpaths for a good night sleep), and with the silence all over the colony. Just as a matter of fact, I saw two monks passing the road a couple of minutes ago, as they stared astonishingly to me and I continued to neglect them; childhood habits.


So it is 1.00 A.M now, and as I also need a good night sleep, coming out of an Influenza, I would not risk anything at all now, so good night and all, and yes, always remember that the darkest hour of the night came just before the dawn. Someday, you will understand the inner meaning of this. Chao.

- August '09

The last question

“What’s the relation between an I.T professional and a Microbiologist?” – That’s the last question Jannabi asked me. Yes, she was Jannabi Bhattacharyya, with three consecutive double consonants in her name, passing nine months with me, leaving me alone at a time when I was losing everything in my life, my academics, my aim, my friends and everything.

I was eighteen, about to start my life in an engineering college, and was calling at her landline for the fifth time, with my trembling fingers on those numbers, as usual.

“It’s over.” This was the first reaction from her.

“What?” I astonished.

“You and me, it’s not working.”

I had no idea how on earth did she think that the relation was just over, but I argued.

“Well, I can change.” I survived.

“It’s not a matter of change, it just can’t continue any more. We look least like boyfriend and girlfriend anymore. That spark of love, liking and attraction has gone from our relationship. I know that if I need something, you will be there. But I am not sure the same about me. I don’t think I want someone right now in my life. There are studies to do; there are a lot of other things to do. Besides, can you remember how both of us loved physics and came close to each other by that? And now, see, how our fates have taken us to different paths of life. Can you tell me what’s the relation between an I.T professional and a Microbiologist? Our lives are taking different routes, and so should we do.”


Troubled, sad, confused, I had to pay the bill for the call. A cool refusal from a girlfriend in lieu of just 2 rupees! Well, that’s some special for a loser.

But at the end of the day, the truth was that, I had lost her from my life, and nothing could bring her back. My new engineering college seemed to be a disgusting one. Friendless, halfhearted, unmindful, I kept pouring tears on engineering physics, mathematics, and computer. In the college, the whole first year proved to be a trash for me. I didn’t like the college; I didn’t like my specialization- which was information technology. I even didn’t know what I was going to do after studying information technology.


But some changes came with the winter of second year. I was declared the class-leader. My co-curricular activities became popular in the college. I was good in table-tennis, could sing a little bit; I played guitar and flute, and above all, had a good sense of humor. People were fond of me soon.

At the third year, grey matters mattered. Circuit theories, web technology, software engineering covered up brain cells. I had to attend group discussions, seminars, had to write reports for the tech-club. Opportunities kept coming, and responsibilities were more and more.

Another year passed at the college and at the end of the fourth year, when I passed out of the college, brain consisted only c, c++, programming language and all that – just ideal for an I.T. professional.

But I didn’t join the industry as yet. An MBA degree, I thought, would be a better option for me.

It was another six months from the time I joined another B-school to do MBA, I found my diary of class twelve from and old desk.


The first page was very familiar which showed: - “No one can discover life without love. So for the girl I am able to write, these stories are dedicated to her.”

Then, I explored my old stories after about five years. They were like completely new ones to me. Here is my first story written when I was eighteen named ‘Good Night’ in which a boy on a given night reminds of the girl he loved, who treated the boy only as a friend but never as a boyfriend. The thoughts of the happy memories with the girl keep weaken his mind and turn him an insomniac person. After it, there is another story named ‘Happy new year’, in which a boy calls his girlfriend on the first day of the year to wish her ‘happy new year’, and when the girl wishes the same and encourages him to call her again, he begins to think that the girl also likes him. “What can one expect in the whole year if he is greeted by a girl on the very first day of the year?” He kept wondering in his mind. But as time progressed, he found himself being detached from the girl.

Then came my favorite story, ‘Listen to Southern Avenue’ in which a boy goes for a walk every evening to a place three kilometers away from his house, leaving his studies miles apart, in the search of a girl who used to live there. Years passed, the girl detached herself from the boy, but he didn’t stop visiting that place from time to time, out of love for the girl or the place itself.


Stories are some special, I thought. We move on, our lives change. But they exist in the same way, being the proof of our happy or unhappy past. And afterwards, when we go through them, we find another person inside us- hurt, troubled, ill-fated towards some direction.

Do you think still I hope to get her back? No, I do not. Because after so many years, I have understood that it’s not always what we lose, but it’s what we have that matters.

It’s love, which connects two unknown people from different places and decides their fate. Our paths can go different ways, but the subtle and secret relationship exists, probably for the whole life.


I lost you from my life anyway, but you were in my stories and will be there for a long time. And I shall love to write those stories, which will be the only relation between us.

- May '08

The Blood Triangle

She was bored. The music was pumping. The drinks were flowing. And she was dressed to kill. She stood in front of the bar, running her eyes over the couples’ slow dancing. And then she saw him…and her best friend with him.

He was drunk. They both were. They had sense left at their bottom. But they were together… and that’s the thing which left her in agony, hatred. And as they tottered forth through the floor to the front door, she stood up to her feet. Tonight, she will have to follow them.

It was not destined to her, as she reminded of old days. She and this girl, they used to be something more than just best friends. They loved each other. But three years ago, this man came into their lives, and how madly she fell in love with him. But eventually she knew that he was actually attracted to her friend, not to her. Days passed, and it became a love triangle. Lastly, today, the climax has come. They have chosen their path for being together forever, and she has also chosen a path for herself – a path for all of them. The three sides of the triangle are going to have the same destiny, tonight.

It was the lake nearby she reached following them.

Just next to the lake, the couple sat on a bench, unknowingly that just ten feet after them someone was standing with a 9 mm pistol in her hand. And then what next? Two shots from point blank range and all the happy dreams of them shattered within a moment beside a heavenly lake.

The dark water of the lake remained stagnant till its deep, where traces of life found their way somewhere.


She was crying silently. She had to kill the persons she loved. But once she had chosen this path, there was no stepping back. She stood up wiping her tears.

“The debt that all men pay.” She muttered, holding the gun beside her ear, as tears rolled down her eyes again.

As the December wind had stopped blowing, the farthest fraction of the city remained silent, and dark. The lone long trees fervoured by the night fog kept them mysterious. The lake was covered by a thick layer of fog. The silence was on. The city was in their sleep, for some the sleep was forever.


As the growing moon started hovering up in the lone sky, the three bodies remained still in the park beside the freezing lake, as the three distinct sides of a triangle – the blood triangle.

- Written for the Spellbound competition '08