malady

okay, let me explain my situation to you.
i have swollen lymph nodes on my neck, which means that my face is now round, so that i look something like this:


I'm also running a temperature,have the most spectacular neck-ache, and every time i try to chew something, my lower jaw hurts like it's going to fall off.
this has compelled me to sacrifice, among other things, a steak sizzler lunch.

also, my belief that my parents either
a) have the mental development of five year olds, or
b) secretly want to kill me
has been reaffirmed by the fact that they tried to give me a disprin pill, 'dissolved' in cold water! upon remembering that disprin is in fact supposed to be dissolved in warm water, the heated the entire mess, half dissolved disprin and all, and then made me drink it.

I've been surviving on liquids for the last couple of days, and because my Dida is away, i have absolutely no one to fuss over me.
my cat only sticks around so that she can curl up under my blanket, and my Dad has been trying, in his own special annoying, nagging-tone, to convince me to wrap a scarf around my head.

and there's never anything good on T.V. *sigh*

eventually, they get used to everything.

my family now knows how to walk in a little semi-circle around the cat to avoid stepping on her...it took them a year.
the same way as they pick their way carefully around unsaid things.

eventually it grows on you, you stop noticing the empty chair, conversation returns to the dinner-table, happiness seeps in through the cracks.

and suddenly there's a way to start over. but there are some things that never go away.
even if you do get used to the new, the old seems to linger.

loss

do you ever get the feeling that some things are too large, too stupendous for you to accept, or even register?
maybe when it does sink in, i'll be able to cry.
right now, it's this dead weight i cannot shed, a mass of emotion that i don't know what to do with, that i can neither escape, nor express.
i don't know whether to love them for trying to protect something they believed to be fragile, or hate them for depriving me of what i deserved to know.

grief is not something i'm quite used to

celebration

i don't understand why people want to 'escape' the mad excitement of Pujo in Kolkata.
it's everything, the people, sights, sounds, foodsmells, dhuno-smoke. absolutely everything about pujo is intoxicating, happymaking.
but the lights are the best part :)

Pujo (and pre-pujo week) has been absolutely fabulous this year. i've spent just enough time with family to keep them happy,and still managed to have fun in the time left over! thankyous to the peoples that are my fraands. :)
i have even braved Bijoya...the part of Durga Pujo that makes me want to duck under the bed and stay there.

it's all good :)

okay, except this one incident:
i ran into a whole bunch of my friends from school, the one time i was out with my mum! i mean, what are the chances??!

also, the only booze i've had this pujo, was with family :(

and i was groped on the bus :( and all i could do was ask the guy what is problem was, and tell him to back off. but he didn't.
it was a really crowded bus.

okay, three.