Hell or heaven?

Staying up on a Friday night without alcohol means sorrow. Well, most often. And what do you do about it? Everyone's asleep. And you don't want to talk to humans--you are practically done with them. So? You blog.

Sitting alone on my window sill today I wondered so who goes to hell and who goes to heaven. Who decides? We all have lied, cheated and broken hearts at some point of time. Then? Who is the less cheater among us?

That gorgeous woman I saw at the bar last evening--she looked sad. Somehow. Her heart may have been broken. But then again she may have broken a thousand of hearts too. That cute guy sitting on the next table, waiting for his girlfriend maybe, may have blamed people for his faults. Several times.

And I realised, there maybe no hell or heaven at all. It's what we carry with ourselves. The bad memories are hell, and the good ones are heaven. But somehow hell always overpowers heaven. 

You are not supposed to like...

What do you when you start liking someone you are not supposed to?

Why are you 'not supposed to'? Well, because your life has certain rules. You are supposed to abide by them. You have made promises that can't be broken. You are to follow a path that you created, you decided. If you decide to like that someone, they will say you wronged too many.

But. What do you do when you like someone you are not supposed to?

You do not want to, you know it is wrong. Who says it is wrong? They. You. Everyone. You heart knows it's not fair.

Yet, what do you if you like someone you are not supposed to?

I wonder.

Scold yourself and get back to work.

Where are the fairies?

There was a time I couldn't think beyond you. The thought of you not being there in my life, would kill me. You came. We loved. We conquered. A chapter was written.  And I thought to myself who said fairytales don't exist? I am living one.

We lived that fairy tale for quite some time.

But I don't remember when all the fairies died. They wouldn't cure if we were hurt. They wouldn't listen to either of us. We were left on our own. And that's when we realised fairies can create magic. We can't.

I don't remember falling out of love. Considering how passionate I am, about almost everything, I can never stop loving a person.

I know you can't either.

Maybe you will continue to make music, and me? I'll continue to wrestle with words.

Maybe that's how life will go on till me find our fairies.

It's not the same. Anymore

Without you..nothing is the same. And why should it be? You were the difference.

The waking up isn't the same. I don't have to tell anyone it's morning.
The breaking news isn't the same. I don't have any calls to disconnect and say "I am busy."
The smoking isn't the same. There's no one to tell me.."not much, please."
Neither is the buzzing phone same nor is the 5.0 mp camera.
The shopping isn't the same. Google chat, or bread with ham--nothing is same.

There's no you.

But. I know. I realize. My role in the your movie is over. I accept.

Without you "Hrid majhare rakhbo" will never sound the same.

Kolkata...makes me happy. And sad

There's a lot about Kolkata. When the pilot announces, "We are landing in Kolkata, Nejaji Shubas Chandra Bose Airport. Temperature outside 30 degree Celsius"... Your heart skips a beat. You feel those butterflies yet again. The thrill of hearing, speaking and eating Bengali is a feeling that just cannot be described.

And then, a day passes. Kosha mangsho, shutki mach, chocchori, chaa and cigarettes after cigarettes are just the beginning to an awesome holiday you believe. The air makes you feel that you belong here. You tell yourself that this will be the last holiday. Next time you'll be Kolkata's again. But well, it doesn't turn out that way.

Slowly, things happen. Things that make you sad. Things that make you angry. Things you thought you will never look back at when you left the city 3 years back.  Things that remind why you left, why you decided never to come back. And then you feel you need to leave Kolkata again. Just, this time you don't know if you can ever say "home is where heart is."

Dear FM, your 'women-friendly' budget isn't what we need

So, our Finance Minister P Chidambaram said today that India will set up a special Public Sector Unit bank solely for women. Noble idea. But how will that help?

Will this ‘all-women’ bank give me more interest rates on my savings account? Or will it give me cheaper loans? If it does neither, what’s the point really? Last time I checked, banking didn’t differ much based on whether you were a man or a woman. We find it to be equally easy or difficult. And it’s not like I feel particularly unsafe there rather than anywhere else. Then, why this exclusive bank?

He proposed to set up ‘Nirbhaya Fund’ and allocated Rs 1,000 crore to it.  He also proposed to provide an additional sum of 200 crore to Ministry of Women and Child Development to design schemes for women belonging to vulnerable groups.

Very populist I must say. But how this going to be used?

Last year, Ministry of Women and Child Development was allocated Rs 18,500 crore and the year before Rs 12, 650 crore. Have they been able to improve or make our society secure? No.

What we need is education, for both male and female. What we need is fast-track courts for crimes against women. What we need is development at the grassroot level– one of them being more toilets for women. And what we really need is security. Maybe, more funds to increase policing on the streets, as well as more female police officers would be a better idea.

It was a plain populist budget.

Most women will still be groped on the streets – perhaps even on the way to the all female bank, men standing in crowded buses will still make those lunges at our thighs, chest or butt, they will keep gesturing from a passing cab and complaints about molestation will still be taken lightly.

Isn't it time, Dear FM, to put some action where your words and your money seem to be?

Let it end

Everytime something nears its end, we try to pause it, hold it, hide it..do everything to not let it end. (Remember: Your favourite TV series?)

But, how many times can we possibly do that? When something has to end, it just has to. And maybe, it will make way for something new, something differenet (can't vouch for the better though).

It's time. It's my time to let this go. Every time I thought, oh this can't end...this is the best thing of my life..this is my life, I have been disappointed again and again. Every time I realised it's the end, I stopped looking. But, well..like evreything, this too had to end.

I am not waiting for something new. As they say, save the best till the end..this was it. I did save it. Just couldn't keep it for too long.

Nothing lasts forever. And I know it now.