The Adventures of BongMan and Me - Part I

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and she said, "The two things that Bengalis can ever think of spending money on, are Food and Travel." As much as I hate putting large sections of people into tiny boxes labelled this and that, this I could not deny. For someone who hasn't interacted with a lot of eating and travelling Bengalis (Bongs), these labels would seem perfectly harmless. I mean, who doesn't appreciate good food and the joys of backpacking? But when you talk about Bongs and food/travel, most words fall short of expressing their true attachment to either. And this is by far the most delicate way of putting it without enraging an otherwise-peaceful-mostly-sleeping-Tagore-quoting lot.

Excerpts from my travel journal :

-  I am a really quiet traveller by nature (only when travelling alone ofcourse). I stare outside the window, read a book like nobody's business and mostly keep to myself. I'm not antisocial. Far from it. Some might even call me garrulous. But I'm not your typical chatting-up strangers-on-the-train kind of guy. In the name of social courtesy, all I can ever manage to say is a half-baked Hello, which almost always comes with an awkward pursed-lip smile. I've tried replicating that in front of the mirror a couple of times, and it looks hideous to say the least, the best I-have-no-intention-of-talking-to-you smile that anyone can come up with ( Ya. Its an achievement. Let's see you do it! Ha! ). But somehow, most Bong travel companions I have had in my life don't seem to be able to read it well. Maybe they're just too social for my liking or plain daft (The latter sounds more believable.) Here's a typical exchange with my fellow Bong Indian Railways travel mate :

BongMan (tugging furiously at my duffel bag trying to fit one of his five suitcases, under the seat, which by every estimate won't fit into that tiny space; yelling): Who's bag is this?!!
Me: It's mine. (Duh!)
BongMan (an immediate lowering of voice, embarrased): Oh. It's yours? Sorry. I was actually trying to fit my suitcase under there, and was wondering who's bag this is. (Stating the obvious.)
Me: It's okay. (Hideous fake smile in place. Gawd! How do I do it? *Applause*)
BongMan (still struggling to find place for his humongous suitcases): Excuse me. If you don't mind, could you shift your bag a little to the right? I can squeeze my bag in easily then.
Me (visibly irritated with the mild accusatory tone): There's no space to the right. I'm sorry. I can't shift it further.

BongMan seemed almost offended at my lack of extending any sort of help. Well, in my defense, I was travelling alone. With one duffel bag. Inconveniencing no one. Reading an extremely interesting book. And was in no mood to wrestle with unnecessary large pieces of luggage belonging to someone else. His luggage. His problem. And trying to fit things that were obviously larger than the spaces meant to store them was not my ideal pass time. However, BongMan's incessant grunts and frantic efforts melted me a little and I offered to keep my bag in the top bunk, much to my own inconvenience. Blame my mother for giving me a weak heart!
BongMan's face lit up at my suggestion and he thanked me profusely. Note how he did not bother to ask if it would be inconvenient for me. Even for courtesy's sake. Selfish prick!

Anyway, I thought this brief annoying exchange would be the end of it. I guess I spoke too soon. The moment the train made its first chugging sound, BongMan plunged into business with gusto. The business of getting acquainted with his unfortunate fellow traveller. With shoes off, smelly feet on the seat, grabbing his pillow, and with curiosity brimming in his eyes, he started with his volley of questions:

BongMan: So where're you going?
Me (vowing to be largely monosyllabic): Calcutta.
BongMan (finding this very funny): Me too. Haha. What a coincidence!

Being from the same city made us brothers of some sort I believe. Hence the excitement.

BongMan: So where do you live?
Me (being my antisocial best): Calcutta.
BongMan (finding this funny too): Where in Calcutta?
Me: New Alipore.
BongMan (obviously unaware of the lack-of-counter-questions-meaning-no-interest-in-making-conversation theory): Oh. Bhery close. I live in Behala. (unperturbed by my lack of enthusiasm continues) What do you do in Delhi? Do you work there?
Me: No. I study.
BongMan (not giving up just yet): What do you study? Computer engineering? Medical?
Me: No. Chemistry.
BongMan (convinced that I'm an underachiever): Oh! (pity in place) Din't get through the engineering or medical exams, did you?
Me (wishing I could be invisible): No. I made it through to a few engineering schools. But I didn't want to go in that direction.
BongMan (sighing at my stupidity): Why didn't you take up engineering? What did your parents say? Chemistry pore ki hobe? ( meaning "whats the point in studying Chemistry?" )
Me (refusing to look up from my book, and not interested in justifying my career choices): Nothing will happen. I won't get a job.
BongMan (finding this strangely funny too. I stopped trying to figure out his sense of humour at this point): Haha. I didnt mean that. I was just curious.
Me (feigning some interest): What do you do?
BongMan: Me?! I work in a bank.

I knew it. Yes. He had to work in a bank.

He went on to talk for a few more minutes about how an engineering degree would have led to a 'sure-shot' job in the IT sector (which incidentally does not require an engineering degree in the first place ) and how he's worried about what his kids would do in the future. At this point, I sank in my seat and buried myself in my book, trying my best to drown his voice out somehow. If I wouldnt have been initiated into the school of Ahimsa by my beloved peace loving parents, I would have slapped him in the least or hurled my shoe at him. But I resisted my violent urges, so much so, that it made it difficult to breathe at one point. I think all that personal struggle with ambivalence was showing, cos he seemed to finally read my vibes and decided to back off, not willing to compromise his personal safety over 'seemingly' harmless travel-chit-chat. But BongMan was not one to give up on adda. He quickly started a parallel conversation with another fellow traveller  (who was eagerly listening in with wide-eyed amazement all this while) on the lines of how youngsters these days are not respectful to their elders, the entire generation going to the dogs, and how it will adversely affect the growth of the Nation, and so on.

I had never been happier.

                                                                                            (to be continued....)

The Moon looks good from up here!

Dear Reader(s),

When I started this blog approximately a year ago, I decided to make it an insanely funny one. I tried for some time, relentlessly searching for that elusive funny bone hiding somewhere in my body. And considering I started writing because a friend of mine (who incidentally never read anything I ever wrote in my life) convinced me that I could write well, didn't really help. Ya ya. I'm THAT gullible. But I guess everyone came unto this Earth with the belief that they are meant for greater things. And I thought writing was my true calling. I remember after publishing my first post, I could somewhere in the future, see my name being called on stage for the Pulitzer or the Man Booker. I'm still confused why its called 'Man' Booker. Are they only awarded to Men? Or is 'Man' supposed to be a prefix symbolizing some kind of inexplicable greatness? Either way I thought I  totally deserved it and I was this close to being written about in the Guardian ( If you're dreaming, why bother about the Dainik Jagran. Make it big I say! ) and having tea with the Queen in Buckingham Palace, yada yada. All I had to do was to send out a couple of emails and facebook messages to friends/cousins in the name of publicity and then sit back, relax and watch my fame take over the world. What happened in reality was slightly different from how I had pictured it to be. I apologize for my unfounded megalomaniac fantasies. Really sorry.

I have approximately two readers ( that was a rather hard number to count! ) one of who, was the friend who convinced me that I could write ( But now I think maybe that's not a widely accepted opinion. ) and the other needs constant reminders and more than subtle hints to visit my blog ( is it that painful?! *shedding a tear* ). I tried making them leave comments, to the effect that the blog-surfing world thinks its a life-changing blog worth spending some time and a few words of appreciation over. In the process, I discovered that one of them was severely techno-capped ( technologically handicapped I mean! I'm awesome at word play right?! *nudge* ) and the other just stopped commenting for some reason ( I'm this close to falling to my knees and begging for a comment. But I would like to believe that I'm a self-respecting individual. Well almost. ) I tried blaming the world, for being filled with people who are shallow and my 'deep, insightful' reflections deserve a 'niche' audience. But it ended up being more niche than I would have been proud of. I thought of advertising my blog posts on facebook, but then held myself back with the fear of coming across as needy (ya ya. I think too much. *sigh*) After endless efforts at subtly hinting through Blackberry status messages/facebook/artfully disguised lines in disjointed emails, I thought of reading it myself from the unbiased point of view of an average reader ( a voice within constantly screaming out how awesome I was often proved to be an insurmountable distraction I must say! ). What I read was quite shocking. What happened to my funny bone? I sounded like a depressed hormonal pregnant woman who hates her husband, resents her unborn child and constantly stares at the ceiling fan wondering whether it'll hold her weight. One tight slap. Well I guess I had it coming.

So without much ado I'm setting out in the search of that darned bone that's supposed to tickle you. And unless I lose a leg or something, I promise to be funny and not in a rambling painful alcoholic sort of way.

I love you dear readers. Sincerely hoping you exist.

Overtly apologetic - bordering on desperate - blogger.

P.S. The post should have been ideally titled Rude Awakening or Open letter to the Elusive Reader or something. But I decided to go with the Moon in order to accost the unsuspecting blog skimmer. Sue me. 

Landfill

I'm twenty five. Single. Recently started graduate school. Someone asked me 'So what next?'. Frankly I dont know. As far as I'm concerned I have a lot on my plate right now. I'm two months away from completing an entire year abroad and a lot has changed since I moved here in August last year. A lot of time was invested in settling down, getting to know more people, picking up the common parlance, the accent, the way of life, in brief, carving out my own little niche. Now I have a weekly time table, the confines of which make me feel comfortable and at peace. The roads don't seem new anymore; I know what to expect round the bend up ahead. I know what to bring to a 'barbeque' and what makes for an evening of healthy 'American' small talk. Time is no longer my biggest enemy. I almost always have something to do around the house, and my phonebook does not stare blankly at me anymore. Books, movies and Skype take up the few hours of leisure. Reassuring monotony of everyday life. 

Someone said, 'But don't you feel incomplete?'. Not Really. What more would I want? 'You need a girl. A relationship.' Oh right. I almost forgot that I need a relationship to feel complete. Someone who knows me will say I'm being sarcastic. Truth be told, a little. But just for the sake of humour. I'm not opposed to the idea. Absolutely not. But how do you 'get hold' of a relationship? Do you go to a relationship doctor and 'get fixed'? Maybe you go to the nearest store where they sell 'relationships' for two dollars a piece. The nearest store is probably miles away from my apartment. Forgive me. I'm lazy. But that's what you need to do to get into a relationship in the quest of completing your life, I'm told. You need to go scouting for the perfect girl/boy in your spare time, cos what you have is definitely not enough. Even if you feel it is, you're either in denial or there's something severely wrong with you. 

Some of what I just said might be gross exaggerations, a product of my constant need to be over-the-top, but there is more than a grain of truth beneath it all. Everywhere I look, all I can see is a bunch of unhappy people (not the ones worried about the incessant gurgling hunger cries rising from their stomach, mind you) trying to fill that 'void' in their lives, struggling to reach for the stars in the search for happiness. Their friends, family, career; nothing seem to be enough any more. They want more. They want life to get better. And this 'relationship' is supposed to hold the key to all doors of happiness. So they set out in search of their perfect complement. This search ends up in a series of dates, random hook ups, facebook stalking, friends patching friends up with their friends' friends, until the world looks like an endless blurred stretch. Meeting people of the opposite sex (or same, whatever the preference) is no longer about discovery, about marvel, about developing new perspectives. Its merely a route to quench this undying and constant need to feel whole. For the more 'forward' people, it almost always involves a lot of mindless sex with people they often fail to remember names of, the next morning. For the less outgoing, it involves fancy dinners and hours in the mall staring at the same shops selling the same designer clothes and eating ice-cream off of the same cone (for my aversion towards unnecessary, bordering on corny displays of affection in public places I reserve a later post). I don't judge people for doing these things if it is for the right reasons or for no reason at all. But to do them with the often obvious agenda of finding the 'right person' makes me more than a little queasy. Call me archaic, but my idea of a relationship is appealing only till its spontaneous, not engineered. And the constant awareness of the ticking clock racing against the arduously worked out school-college-job-marriage-bachhe     timeline makes it even worse. The 'best-selling' authors (aren't they all?!) who write 'self-help' books about 'How to meet your perfect partner in 7 days' should be thrown in a ring and fed to starving lions and a pack of hyenas to clean up the ribs. They're obvious target audience is the space-age ATM-addicted time-deprived (rapidly aging) youth of today who are spoilt for choice but don't have the brains or the patience to make the right one. In the quest of not being alone, they're inching towards isolation every single step of the way. I'm not sure where we're headed with this. Not to a world of healthy 'relationships' I'm certain. 'You'll end up alone this way', is what I'm told. Well Newsflash. So will you! And since I am an infinitely more interesting person than you, I'm sure I'll have a blast. Alone, happy and complete. 

Moving on...

From one bend in the road to the next. From one end of the world to the other. From smoky brown eyes to twinkling blue. Night and day. In search of what? I don't know. All I know is that he had to keep moving. On and forward. In the hope of filling a void he never knew he had. In the hope of achieving everything he scribbled on a post-it when he was a kid. Go to the best school in town. Check. Graduate at the top of your class. Check. Go to a reputed college. Check. Leave home. Check. Leave your hometown. Check. Leave your country. Check. All in the hope of building a resume. A piece of paper that sets eyes rolling. One that made everyone around him feel little and insignificant. A piece of paper so big, so fat, so heavy that he could barely carry it on his shoulders. He needed a few extra hands to lug the weight around. But there weren't any. Its like they disappeared into a ball of smoke. Poof!

'You left them behind remember?', the annoying voice inside him said. 'In the hope of reaching the sky, to be blinded by the light, to soar above everybody else, you forgot the earth you used to smell so often, laying on the grass, soaking up the sun on a cold wintry day', it went on. Mocking him.

He remembered the day he last saw them. 'Don't tell me its the last time we're meeting. We'll meet again right?' His voice cracked while he tried forcing those words out which seemed to be clogging his windpipe. They laughed. 'Of course', they said in unison. Without batting an eye. Without listening to the voice within screaming the opposite. Every time he reached somewhere, he thought reclining in his armchair, 'This is it'. But it never was.

Before he knew he was packing his bags again. For a better life. For a better future. For being a better person. Was this life bad? Not at all. But its not good enough. It never is. 'I can't live without you all', he said. While in fact he started living without them the next moment. A second is all it takes to look ahead and never turn back. 'They'll be there when I come back', he thought, while in another part of his head he began dreaming of never returning. Thinking of how life will be when the train pulls over at the next stop. New surroundings. Unfamiliar faces. 'Oh this sucks. I hate my life'. The next day he woke up thinking how gorgeous the day is. The smiles were broader. The faces less unfamiliar. 'Its not that bad. What was I thinking'. He smiled. And in that moment he moved on. Just like that. In a second. Past trees. Into the sunset. With wind in his hair, he walked. On and forward. 

Nice and empty

Its been almost six months since I moved to Seattle. A lot has happened since then. I have changed I believe in more ways than one. Living on your own makes you feel more confident and self-sufficient than ever. The fact that you're answerable to no one but yourself gives you a strange sense of power, weightless freedom and is equally nerve-wrecking at the same time. You feel like Icarus. You have wings that make you soar, but if you fly too close to the sun and singe your feathers, you have no one else to blame. You are the sole reason for your success. You are the only reason for your failure. Your world revolves around you, and only you. Its a free, independant, selfish, shackle-free life. A life you've always dreamt of having. Only once you have it, it seems like a vast expanse of emptiness.

My day starts with a steaming cup of coffee, in my favourite porcelain mug. Nice and strong. I relish nothing more. I walk to campus. A leisurely stroll. No running. No stressing that I'll miss the bus at eight. The air feels refreshingly chilly. The smell of dewdrops. I catch a waft of the incessant drizzle. I have my favourite song playing on my iPod. I can't help but smile. I go to work. The day goes by in a haze. A flurry of activity. Mindless conversation with friends in class. Laughing at a perfectly innocent question from an unassuming undergrad who happens to think I'm the most knowledgeable person around. Scratching my head over a problem set for hours. Getting together with friends to solve them, and getting almost no work done as the focus was not on the ridiculously hard problems but how unbelievably awesome pretzels are! Amidst a cloud of smoke and smelly chemicals, the lab suddenly erupts into a bout of guffaws the moment Justin Bieber or Rebecca Black shows up on the playlist. Before you know it its  a couple of hours past sundown. People start heading back home, cribbing about how non-productive the day was, like all other days in the week. Some light hearted humour. Some serious frustration. I walk down the stairs onto the street. The same leisurely stroll back home. The same song running in a loop on my iPod. The same smile escaped me. Dinner was a mix of rice and chicken I made the night before, all this while catching an episode of my favourite TV show. A day well spent. Or so I would like to believe.

But here's what really happens. My day starts with a steaming cup of coffee, in my favourite porcelain mug. Nice and strong. I relish nothing more except that I would have loved to have it in an unflattering, horribly stained glass, on one of those old, wooden mess tables. I wouldnt mind having some mindless conversation about how someone's hair, and the angle at which they stand up, or the colour of their eyes, gave more than a fair hint as to whether the person had a lazy or a rather 'busy' night. I walk to campus. A leisurely stroll. No running. No stressing that I'll miss the bus at eight. The buildings on my side are still strangely unfamiliar. No comfort of the red bricks I leaned on once for support. The air feels refreshingly chilly. The smell of dewdrops. I catch a waft of the incessant drizzle. But the earth smells different. A strange, foreign, distant smell. Nothing that has a history. I have my favourite song playing on my iPod. Except that its in Hindi. A song I once sang on stage with a thousand familar voices cheering me from the dark auditorium. I can't help but smile. I go to work. The day goes by in a haze. A flurry of activity. Mindless conversation with friends in class. Except that I dont remember a word of it a minute later. Nothing that resonates with my sentiments. Nothing that makes me miss the conversation while I'm having it. Scratching my head over a problem set for hours.  Except that I didnt want to care about it as much as I have to do now. Getting together with friends to solve them, and getting almost no work done as the focus was not on the ridiculously hard problems but how unbelievably awesome pretzels are! Except that pretzels or peanut butter don't hit home. Its sexy anda and Mississippi mudpie that still make my heart ache and my mouth water. Amidst a cloud of smoke and smelly chemicals, the lab suddenly erupts into a bout of guffaws the moment Justin Bieber or Rebecca Black shows up on the playlist. Except that I can't bunk lab more often than I made it to it, and catch a movie in a rundown theater instead. Before you know it its a couple of hours past sundown. People start heading back home, cribbing about how non-productive the day was, like all other days in the week. Some light hearted humour. Some serious frustration. I walk down the stairs onto the street. The same leisurely stroll back home. The same song running in a loop on my iPod. The same smile escaped me except that I want to sing it out loud. Dinner was a mix of rice and chicken I made the night before, all this while catching an episode of my favourite TV show. Except there is no conversation. Only a few printed words on skype. No waiting for anyone. No making a ruckus while eating. No walks down silent alleys to follow. A day well spent. Nice and empty.

My head hurts...

"I have a math exam today. But nobody seems to care. I stayed up all night trying to cram integral calculus. But still no one seems to care. Mother didn't even bother to get me my cup of morning coffee. She knows how groggy and cranky I am without it. Yes. I can make coffee on my own! Thank you! But still. Where's mother? She's not even kept my uniform on my bed. I love it when she does that. The shirt smells of mild detergent and feels so crisp on my shoulders. And the note she leaves me on top of it saying 'have a good day son!'. I love my mother. She loves me too right?  If she does, why is she sleeping till now?! Mother!!!! I must go and wake her up. Mother!! My voice is sore with all the screaming.. Is she all right? I need to go and check on her now. Right now. My head hurts.. Mother!!!"

"I like to write poems. Did you know that I always topped literature class in school? Ya. I was good. People always told me I'll be a great poet one day. Some even called me "the Modern day Eliot". They ran a huge article in the Daily after reading some of my poems published in the school magazine. The State even gave me a scholarship to go to college and pursue literature. But I don't know why, I didn't like college too much. The kids were mean. They used to call me 'The Thinker' and laugh behind my back. I didn't care for them. I hated Shakespeare and they told me that I'll lose my scholarship and my place in college if I don't get good grades in Elizabethan Literature Appreciation. I didn't like the way they talked to me. I don't like being told what to do. So I dropped out. I can still write wonderful poetry without a college degree. I tried writing one today. Will you hear it? It's about the rain. Its called "Splash". Its wonderful. I just have to run down the corridor and get my fat notebook of poems. It'll just take a minute. Can I go? Please.. Please!! My head's hurting again...Why don't you let me go?!!

"I feel like a queen today. I spent a long time braiding my hair in the morning. The Prince is coming to see me! I have a strange feeling of uneasiness at the bottom of my stomach. This is what they mean by 'butterflies' I guess. The slightest mention of anything is making me blush. Roses, squirrels, the banquet in the evening. I'm being so silly. Almost like a school girl. But I've never been in love before. Its such a wonderful feeling. When I was strolling in the garden with my girls last evening, I couldn't stop humming. The world looked so much prettier all of a sudden. The trees in the garden , with their age old gnarled branches, the squirrels playing hide and seek, the canaries chirping animatedly to each other. Everything felt perfect. Mother never allows me to wear make up. So I secretly went to her room last night and stole some of her scarlet lip colour when she was sleeping. Shhh.. Don't tell anyone! But you know, some strange men came into my room today, wearing white. They took away all my hidden makeup. They said I look like a 'queen' wearing them. No. The ugly sort. The male sort. I cried. I screamed. I threw a fit. But no one listened to me. They locked me in the room and didn't let me out. I have to go meet my Prince. Please! I want to see my Prince! Now! My head hurts..."

"I don't like the look of that guy across the table. I think he doesn't like me too much. He keeps following me everywhere I go. He always has that sick smile on his face when he looks at me. I'm scared. I think he wants to kill me. I can't sleep at night anymore. I tried to tell a few about him, but they just laughed. They think I'm crazy. But I know I'm not. He wants to kill me. Sometimes I have this urge to grab that kitchen knife and bludgeon him till he can't look at me and smile that sick smile of his no more. I even tried that once you know. But then they put me in this jacket and tied my hands to the back like I was some animal. I fought. I screamed for help. But no one paid any attention. They didn't give me food for two days till I stopped screaming. I want to run away from this place. I want to go back to Mother. They say she's become a star. I stare at the sky for hours trying to find out which one of those million twinkling lights is my mother. Whenever I'm in my room I keep praying. Jesus will protect me won't he? I managed to steal a fork from the table the other day. I keep it under my pillow before I go to sleep each night. What if that man comes and tries to smother me in my sleep?!! Ughh.. My head hurts.."

A tale of two cities..

"A relatively large and permanent settlement" is how Wikipedia chooses to define a city. And a definition couldn't have been more incomplete. The rational mind will of course take offense to a statement like that. "Are you nuts? How else would one possibly define a city?" Well I don't know. But it's surely a lot more than a well organized cluster of high-rises and criss-crossing flyovers. It shapes the person you are and you hardly ever realize it.

I was born in Calcutta ( yes it hadn't been renamed then ) and for a significant amount of time the city meant  nothing more to me than my house, my school and a bunch of other addresses which came in handy during letter-writing assignments. A typical day started at six in the morning and somehow making it to the bus stop by six twenty, with granny limping behind me with the lunch box, shoelaces running haywire, socks in hand and bag open with text books spilling out. Once in the bus, no time was spent before we grouped ourselves for a relentless, ruthless game of 'Stone, Paper, Scissors'. Heated discussions on who was in form, and who emerged as the undisputed champion for the third day in a row, went on well past the morning assembly. The rest of the day was majorly drowned in sleep. Be it History or Physics, I failed to notice any difference in the basic treatment of both the subjects and often wondered why our teachers were not professional lullaby singers and were languishing in some private school, frustrated and underpaid. Lunch breaks were more of a relief though and all that sleep surprisingly made one hungry. Before I barely managed to open my lunch box, the food just seemed to disappear amidst a flurry of foreign hands, making it almost impossible to answer Granny back home, whether the curry had less salt or not. School was mostly followed by a string of more soporific tuition classes, the ones I seemed to detest going to initially. I loved to sleep in the afternoon you see. But things changed once I started going to them on my own.When I was fifteen, Ma thought I had grown up enough to not get lost in the city, be able to read bus numbers correctly, and not pay the conductor extra before getting off. That's when I first got to explore the city and discovered how beautiful Calcutta really is. Tuitions ceased to be centres of study and ended up being non-virtual versions of present day social networking sites. Classes were always followed by an hour of random strolling on the streets, couples making excuses and leaving, eating croissants and pastries at Flurys', digging into chicken tikka rolls at Badshah and catching that random evening show at Priya. It was a carefree life I led back then, where all I had to worry about was to get back home in time so that Dad will spare me a volley of inconvenient questions and I could make it to the bus stop at six the next morning. The most stressful times were during term tests. They seemed to be life changing then and I always managed to be under-prepared for every exam no matter how much effort I put in before. To see your own brother emerging from the next room at dinner with not even the faintest sign of worry, exuding confidence about next day's paper, didn't exactly help. Ma was mostly baffled by the difference in our levels of preparation and resulting confidence. She kept telling me, "Can't you learn anything from your brother?" To be honest I really tried. But he seemed to be born with that Midas touch. He was good at whatever he tried his hands at. He aced exams, topped classes, sang well, played the guitar, won essay and table tennis competitions with equal ease. You try living upto that man! I did my bits in school too, but they always paled in comparison, and being taught by the same teachers and judged by the same set of parents and relatives wasn't particularly easy. So to say that my self-confidence was on the loftier side would be wrong. I had days of unmitigated self-doubt, when I couldn't see myself going anywhere and dreaded the prospect of my remaining the underachiever in the family. All I did at times like these, was to open the window and feel the soft spatter of rain on my face. It made me forget everything. The houses in the distance were just a haze. The air was filled with the muffled din of rain lashing against the asphalt. It lulled me to sleep.

I was happy.

Things changed when I moved to Delhi for college. Stephen's gave me a sense of pride and all that apprehension that once clouded my mind day and night seemed like a distant memory. I turned a new leaf. I distinctly remember the first day I spent in Residence. Ma had left for home a couple of hours before and I suddenly realized that I wouldn't see her for at least three months. My first time staying away from home and for so long. All on my own. No one knew me and I knew no one. I bolted myself in my room and tears rolled down my cheeks. I had never felt so abandoned and lonely in my life. I wanted to be left alone then. Just then there was a knock. I opened the door to an unfamilar face, six-foot tall and a booming voice. He asked me for my 'Intro' and then pointed to a pile of tin trunks, a mattress, pillows and a couple of huge bags which could hold nothing but stones, I thought. I was expected to carry his luggage to his room. A first year's initiation into the fold. I wiped my face and walked out. Walked out into the world and never looked back.

The next six years went by in a blur. All those countless hours I spent at Barista, ordering a single Cappuccino to escape ragging, tiptoeing back into my room after dinner, only to switch off the light and sit on my bed in the darkness silently, to give wandering seniors in the corridor the impression that I was asleep and not available for 'entertainment'; all those walks around the Vice Chancellor's lawns animatedly discussing a Scorsese movie; all those trips to Kamla Nagar to hog on momos, skipping inedible Saturday dinners in the mess; conversations with all those special people over 'Maggi' and a cup of 'badi chai' in the cafeteria; all those impossible Rahman songs we tried and messed up royally on stage; all those victories; all those heartbreaks; all those choices; all those surprises and all those unexpected disappointments. They all seem like a mashed up, hazy continuum to me now. But I was settled.

I was happy.

And just when I thought I could live like this for the rest of my life, snuggled up in my comfort zone, it was time for me to move again. And this time away from everything I ever knew. Amidst a myriad of freckled faces I'll keep looking for the ones I knew and grew to love, the words that kept me sane, the laughter that reassured me and made me feel lucky. I would have to get accustomed to sorting my problems out on my own. People might not have the time and patience to hear me complain, a lot of which I had almost taken for granted till now. A part of me says life is unfair. The other reminds me that it was a choice I made. I was born in Calcutta. I was reborn in Delhi. And what Seattle will be like, only time will tell. But I hope to finally grow up there.