life's a kick

I write this with the intention that I would return to read it, time and again, to stay in close quarters with reality. My grandmother, aaji, is nearly 95. We don’t know her exact age; she doesn’t belong to the generation that kept birthday diaries. This is our estimate, and the traditional way of keeping age has not been far from truth. Aaji is the oldest surviving woman of her village. She occupied a pride of place in her home turf. A dozen people called on her through-out the day, and farm accounts and village grapevine kept her busy. After 1993, when her husband and my grandfather passed away, she assumed the role of the head of family. She managed ghar , and duaar , located on either side of the village street, with elan. Called as a master manager by my father, who has seen her toil through her youth to ensure education for her children and status for her family, aaji was not a woman you could fool around with. Diplomatic to the core, she rationed power in thrift installmen...

On the last Saturday of every month, a white Esteem, numbered 1616, would drive down the tree-lined Copernicus Marg of Delhi. Judging by the smoothness of this drive, and the adroitness with which it negotiated bumps and curves, one could tell that the road was not unfamiliar to the driver. Month after month, year after year, neither the car changed, nor the driver. In the multitude of a national capital, nobody noticed this car, parked under a Chhatim tree. She used to say its flowers carried the drugged fragrance of romantic poetry. And that it injected life with each breath. He’d park his car right under that tree, adjacent to the theatre auditorium – at the same time and same day of each month. The man behind the steering drove in no hurry. Without exception, he came well in advance, not wanting to risk his religious ritual to haste. In the bee-hive of life, the syrup can be sucked best and deepest only by the bee of leisure. She alone obtains and derives the taste as it’s ...

“Bhaag chalein?” Her eyes lit up like twin flames as she clutched his hands behind the counter. It was lean hour of the day. The boys had left the shop in a discreet understanding, after exchanging some pleasantries with him. Outside, they chuckled at the delight of this real life drama. This was so interesting, playing live characters in an ongoing love story; not merely an audience by the ringside. Honestly, they too liked him. Even though they spoke about him and madam in a manner of sweet jest, a throbbing true vein within them knew that the two were meant to be a couple. It was too early for the customers to arrive and this visitor was well aware of this fact. His patronage of this shop had been a decade long. From the time he first brought his new wife to this shop and she had taken an instant liking to it, there had been no need for other tailor shops. He, particularly, didn’t bother much. Those were his early days of marriage, the time when all he wanted was to be lost...

There's a reason why I can't put you down on paper.  Take for instance today. I've been going through the day like a cottonseed goes through wind. With a heavy centre, yet light enough to be swayed at ease. Missing you turns into a floating feeling of loss. But then, we promised to each other that we can't let our love do us down...so I keep up the spirit. Strange, I still can't recall a single thing I did today to feel alive. This is not the first day I'm spending without you. Nor will it be the last. In such moments of desperate attempts, of reconciling with the fact that you aren't and won't be mine, the only other thing that can hold me back from the fall, apart from your love, is writing. Why then, even when my heart bleeds white, don't I write.  It's not that I don't have the required ingredients.  You are the kind of man even novels can't create. In many ways, beyond imagination. They could never get the entire sketch c...

“I learned all about life with a ball at my feet.” -           Ronaldinho, Brazilian footballer Chances are that a 13 year old boy raised on the streets of Kolkata would know more about Ronaldinho than the rest of us would. Traditionally, football is a sport played with religious fervor in the eastern belt of our country. It’s not uncommon for youth of Bengal to dream of becoming renowned national players. In the year 2000, one such teenager from the heart of Kolkata, Lal Kamal Bhaumick (then 13), with dreams in his eyes and football in his dreams, found himself in the SAIL Football Academy in Bokaro Steel City. Today, Lal Kamal plays for the United Sports Club, for an annual package of Rs 85 lakhs. For someone who has been through difficult days of sustenance, the story of rise of Lal Kamal Bhaumick is a study in courage and talent promoted by corporate intervention. Inspiration Incarnate: Lal Kamal Bhowmick For f...

Oh! Lord of Good Times where in the fucking hell art thou weren't you the cursed one to say "you shall reap, as you sow" Come out of hiding, you wretched thing grinning behind the curtain of time have you, I will, despite your chicanery owe you no prayer, no word sublime. Keep trying you may, to break my soul even resent being born on this earth hone your tools, train your devils I leave it to none, to measure my worth. Should you mistake, my graceful silence as a licence to gloat and thrill remember I'm a fighter, peaceful at best at my worst, I enjoy the kill. So come, unleash, bare it all, go to your ugliest extreme I will scatter, and I will gather and the good of me, will reign Supreme.

27 years ago, he sat her on his laps, turned her face to his, looked into her eyes and told her – she was his god. He loved her, above everyone else, and would do that for all his life. She absorbed each word, squeezing in the last drop of its meaning. And why wouldn’t she? If the decades didn’t change her feelings, his importance in her life…why should she assume that his too was a statement in exaggeration? Just another flight of romance? After all, men had come and gone before and after him, but he alone had stuck. While others had admired her, loved and pampered her, he WORSHIPPED her. Spoiled her mad. Really, she could put the entire world on one side and him on the other. And the balance would still tip towards him. He gave her more than everybody else put together. Much much more – care, love, attention, appreciation, inspiration, evaluation – so much that she had been full and fulfilled ever since. It would have appeared strange to a third eye, that she never ...