guarder

Bengalis don't trust boxes.
Or even packages, rolled up posters, bundles, etc.
Basically if something can fall apart, we're pretty sure it will.

I don't know if this is an all-India trend, but I can vouch for the fact that Bengali mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and grandaunts prefer to secure everything twice over.

Especially lunchboxes. They don't trust Radha aluminiums, Milton plastics, or even Tupperware tuppers. They treat all 'tiffin boxes' with equal suspicion. They're all prone to leaks and suddenly springing apart and bathing the insides of your bag in whatever oily delight maternal hands packed for you that day.

And this brings us to a small wonder that all these ladies trust blindly. Something the world knows as a 'rubber band', a tiny, tubular elastic band in a loop, nothing more. But to the Indian woman, it is nothing short of a miracle.
Air-tight packaging, sellotape, even cement can crumble, but a rubber band is forever. Except they don't call it a rubber band, they refer to it with a peculiar bastardization of an unidentifiable term.

Have you ever heard of a 'garder'?
yes, that's what we call it. With absolute confidence that it's a real word.
I'm not at all sure if the word originates from the term 'garter' or something completely different, but 'garder' sure isn't an acknowledged synonym for rubber band, as far as I can tell.

But then again, it's only poetic justice that it has come to sound like 'guarder'.
So true. 

desk job

I ordered some stuff on Flipkart, and the high point of my day is going to be getting home to the books waiting for me.
Does that make me sound sad or what? :|

tribute

Two women sitting on a windowsill in the darkness. It’s long past midnight, but their conversation is far from over. They pass a joint between them, and share everything.


Between some people, laying their souls bare to each other is no more than a weekly ritual, and here are two of those lucky people. Their bond older than their egos, their minds attuned to each other in a curious way.

Emotional excess comes naturally to neither, and so they never address how much they mean to each other. But it’s not necessary, it’s mutually understood. There is an unspoken agreement about never being soppy about each other. What exists is an easy acknowledgement of each other as a significant part of themselves.

A shared passion for gory horror flicks and old Bollywood songs is about all they have in common. No other taste is shared. Not clothes, food, or even orientation. But again, it matters little.

What they share is on a different plane of perception. One that escapes even them. And so they don’t harp on it, just joke about how different they are occasionally.

And so it goes. and so it ends.

for those who leave

What keeps you sane, can't set you free.
At best it can help you live, ease your mind, keep you comfortable.
But it doesn't let the open road unfurl before you and let you take off.

It's only when you take that plunge, that first dive, ride, puff, swig, drag or leap of faith, that you can feel truly alive, completely free.
When your facades, diplomacy and secrecy fall away like tired props, and your mind opens up to dizzyingly new things, then you're free.

We overcomplicate, overthink, overestimate, override, overreach... but underneath it all we are just the sum total of all the things we'll never talk about.
It could be so much simpler if we could just let it.

rhododendron

on summer afternoons like this one, between hours of indulgence and languor, something bursts into bloom inside my head.
you made it happen.

birthday blues

My birthdays have always been bad.

For whatever reason, my birthday is usually the day the universe decides to pile misfortunes on me. This often extends to include the week leading up to my birthday. As the fateful day draws nearer, my days are littered with mishaps, both minor and major, making me increasingly grouchy till I just about want to curl up and die.

By this time, the blessed day has arrived and I begin it with a growing sense of dread as well as a complete sense of dejection and emoness. Nothing ever goes according to plan, and as the day progresses the series of unfortunate events increase in frequency and intensity. At some point during every birthday, I sit in a corner and brood.

I lose things on and around birthdays. Friends, wallets, little bits of my sanity.
So, new plan! now i get drunk on my birthdays! I know bad things can happen when I'm drunk too (perhaps they become that much more likely :P), so I do it in the safety of my home, surrounded by friends.
But no matter what I do, my birthdays are always a bit blue. (and yes, I rhymed. sowhat?)

love is the malady
love is the cure


Go here. Courtesy SohiniPal, my one and only. :P