That Dimpled Smile.

Posted on August 5, 2011 by Guria
So, I went visiting yesterday, to all my favorite places and places that have been temporarily shut down, much like mine own, which have been prey to the predators called careers and fast life. To me blogs are places, homes for your thoughts and sterling personality that often gets neglected or unnoticed in day-to-day busy lives.
And as I was blog-hopping I was nostalgic about my own blog and its erstwhile popularity. Yes, I didn’t much care about it when I had it- because that’s the correct thing to do. Now, I can safely say, I care as, alas, it’s no more!.
But then what’s better than a has-been blogger writing about a popular blogger on her sleepy blog? And add the layers of cream- when that blogger herself asked you to (not the way it sounds- she said, you haven’t for a while and you could). And finally add the icing- when she’s one of the best gifts of blogging and my dearest friend (there’s lot to be had from rubbing shoulders with the mighty and famous).
Now, words are her stock-in-trade. As is the dimpled, wide smile. I can’t seem to get over my fascination with the latter even after almost three years of knowing her. Is this what the more foolish call love?
She’s the most strong woman I have known whose fought more battles than people twice her age and kept on smiling for the benefit of others. She’s trusting but scathing, she’s stead-fast and loyal but get on the wrong side she’s lethal.
Sounds like a review, where I repeat myself in a new post every time (with an all-familiar tag once in a while), but she hates flattery and all the nice things about herself, so I can’t seem to help myself.
Well, she is good to my ego. There was a time when I was in her blogroll and she still claims I am one of the best writers around (or one of her favorites- same difference really). I would so like to be told so and flattered in public, so she does it in private. And she hates being lauded in public so that’s where I tunelessly sing her praises, always. And I am good to her ego, whatever she has of it.
She’s a writer with the gift of gab, a one-liner up her sleeve for every hour of the day and more likes on Facebook, re-tweets on Twitter than I can count. The latter was for the measurement of success these days. And she’s real easy on the eyes. I don’t want to get into how sexy she is, as I might scare the extremists and the conservatives off the site.
So, coming back to a has-been talking about the thing-of-the-day – it should earn me some notice, faint stirring of recognition and lost readers, shouldn’t it? Well, as I said there’s a lot to be had having a famous friend you love (who strangely enough loves you back)
By the way, anyone know who she is?
If you don’t, quit tweeting and then, blogging, dude!
Posted in Bloggers, Friends, Laughs, Reviews | Tagged | 12 Comments

Back Home – First Look

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Guria
Calcutta. India. Home. And the lure of the Soil.
Nothing’s changed but the fourth dimension. And everything’s changed! 
Red has given way to green. The traffic still bursts open at bottlenecks, screaming and loud. People still throng the roads in hordes and the footpaths are still catering to the busy vendors.
The favorite late afternoon snack is still the road-side phuchhka and chicken roll. And smelly, sweaty men still hanging off the buses and trains. Or fighting with each other to get into the already crowded metros, before the tired automatic doors close on them. The red-and-yellow mini buses roaring and almost flying over the asphalt like the king of the roads, racing with each other and competing with the shrewd, yellow-and-black auto-rickshaws, which would slither in and out and across as the fastest public transport. And all the while the rich and regal yellow Ambassador taxis fly to reach destinations or crawl by the farthest lane in search of its quarry. Hell, how I miss the constant screech and omniscience of public transport. How I love the noise, the crowd, the constancy- the life of my city.
Monsoons had just made its first rounds and I’m still waiting for its encore. But I couldn’t love it less.
Travel back from across oceans and you realize how beautiful, how rich your land is. And appreciate it with dawning comprehension, with a love and a pull that goes beyond time and you and the simple.
It is hot, humid and fantastic. That’s my Calcutta.
Posted in Calcutta and Bengali, Happy, India, Observer | 11 Comments

A Rainy Day

Posted on May 24, 2011 by Guria

The rain was a fine mist, incessant and untiring. The morning looked no different from the late afternoon – it was always the same stark grey till the lazy evening cast her shroud of darkness over the bleak day. It’s strange how it took the boring hue to bring out the green, when the sun wasn’t around with its warm and bright glare but was lost in the labyrinth of deep and angry clouds who had been lurking all week like intimidating warriors of the ancient times.

Spring was here. The calendar on the wall, the date on your phone would tell you that. But on the slow day, as you walked out, turning the collar against the fierce winds from the nearby lake, you shiver and try in vain to warm your hands, rubbing them together, against the chill that could reach your bones, if allowed.

A strange place to be lost in, battling the fickle weather, where the long afternoons give way to soot-black nights. As if evening is a disgruntled, haughty lady, making only the briefest entrance just to keep up appearances.

The wet shoes that would later squeak on the tiles, the moist, warm socks making your toes curl, as you trudge against the wind, uphill jumping over puddles and landing directly in some. The soft rain pelted tirelessly on your face, not quite drenching you but imperceptibly stealing the little warmth you had.

It was like walking through the damp and woolly clouds, as if they had stooped down from the heavens to the lowly earth for petty recreation. As the tired workers straggled home at the end of their day, pushing through the wind, scarcely guarded against the rain, the rain would sometimes come down roaring, like hoodlum teenagers playing games, their laughter apparent in the distant thunder, as the rains would catch the throngs unaware drenching them or making them run for cover, just before the downpour would become a trickle and the people would be left frustrated.

But the misty, fine rain at the end of a tired, slow day felt like sweet pricks of salvation as I dragged myself, homeward bound. You could almost taste heaven as you smiling closed your eyes against the soft drops.

And on my usual walking route home, as I crossed the barbed-bridge above the winding train tracks, I paused to stare at the myriad of greens lining the brown tracks like a mother clasping her child against her heart. I followed the trail till the tracks turned away from my view. And suddenly in a moment suspended in time, as I stood staring in that stolen moment of a busy life, as the sound of the cars disappeared in the distance, and all I could hear was the faint echo of the train that just passed by and the soft thudding of the rain around me, feeling the wet, cleansing drops on my arid face, I felt, momentarily, that there was a paradise in this world too.

Posted in Nature, Observer, The Other Side of the River | 3 Comments

The Conniving Bitch

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Guria
It takes all kinds to make the world.
With widened eyes, dropped jaws and a bewildered expression lending evidence to the difficulty faced by your consciousness to process “the kinds”, this is the only statement that can make you find sense within the unthinkable, improbable.
Money is not everything. Did our parents not teach that? Or have we very conveniently forgotten? Or is it the paycheck that comes in gives you the misplaced feeling of being indispensable, unique? Or is it a way to protect what you don’t deserve?
You come first, possessions next, people come last, if by some twisted form of “greatness” they do make to that list. Consideration, humility, honesty are not only over-rated, they are despised. Love, passion, joy, victory are all meaningful when you are the recipient.
And then you cry, when the others shun you. Have you ever thought of the ones you shunned?
You may not keep a tab, but someone does. Call it karma, call it dharma. Actions pay. Pretensions, hypocrisy, lies – they are not traits, they are the downfall. I could wait, agape and shake my head at the play, feel my values holding me back from crying out in anger. But not for long, because there is no such thing as the perfect act, the perfect lie. You do get caught and in the web woven of your own deceit.
I don’t cry with elation, nor with vindictive joy at your plight. I sympathize but cannot empathize, for I have been too smart to be my own nemesis. But you made yourself your own reason of destruction. I don’t gloat but I do sympathize for what I beheld, you suffer what you gifted yourself.
And your jealousy, your hatred didn’t kill me, didn’t hurt me, couldn’t even put the faintest scratch but I have everything that I ever needed, all that which you could never touch. But then you didn’t know, you and I were not at the same level to begin with.
I know what you think, people are ungrateful and life’s a bitch.
Life isn’t the bitch, dude. You wanna know who is, find the nearest mirror.
Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

The Girl on Her Birthday

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Guria
I am my own little girl, in my own sweet world, not quite set apart for the lure of an earth, once walked upon, is too great to be ignored. I could have been God, if not for the love that trapped me and bound me to the mortals, who’d live and die, born of the soil and returned in the rhythmic circle of life.
I walked unknowing, unbeknownst, for not even I knew the purpose of the reason I was here, flitting like the untamed from one goal to the next, restless and discontent in search of meaning. The meaning of being.
As the years pass by, slowly and then in a blur of colors, joys and conquests, I begin to slow as I feel me nearing what I set out to do. Yet not knowing what it was….
But there’s a reason why I walk the earth. Cynical and old, but young and idealist, I am here to make a difference. One pair of hands, and a head above strong shoulders, a whisper in the wind mingling with the other whispers, so alike till it turns into a roar, resounding off the skies, I strive as I search yet knowing I am here for a reason. A reason for which I will be remembered, even if my name will never be known.
I am here to make a difference. To prove again that amidst all the black, dirty and ugly, we are humans, with hope and love and kindness, with the true God residing within. That’s what I gift myself on the day of my birth.
Posted in Philosophy | 3 Comments

The White Corridor

Posted on March 26, 2011 by Guria
The screamed instructions
And the piercing whistles, 
Wheels screeching
Drown out the incessant wails.
The white, stark and desolate,
Suffused with colors 
Pale blue and green,
And with sudden splash
Of the vibrant red.
The flashing lights,
Soundless in the awry crowd
As the world waits
And the time looks on
Folded hands, closed eyes
Pained hearts and scared minds
The sun lost in a shroud of black
As frantic hands pump on
On a thudding heart
To keep beating
For yet another birth
The wait never ends
Coffee spilled cold
The hunger gone dry
Forgotten parched throat
The heroes trudge on
On fumes of adrenaline
Sleepless eyes of man
Who was God.
As the life slips through
The fingers, sweat and blood
The body turns cold
Beneath the warm touch
Facing mortality, visited by death,
Failure that haunts every try
And God turns Man, again.

Posted in Creations, Verses | 3 Comments

Love, Marriages & Love-Marriages

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Guria
The sights and sounds, the words and cheers of marriages and weddings have made me contemplate this phenomenon more often than I usually would. It has just started to sink in that in a few years time (quite a few years, please) I will also be “submerged in similar bliss”.
So after reading Ro’s post on marriages, I begun to wonder, yet again, what exactly are the arranged and love marriages.
To Westerners, as much as it is unfathomable, the concept of arranged marriages actually intrigues them. This is how we explained it to them what it is. When a boy or a girl is ready to settle down, but haven’t hooked up with someone already, they ask their parents (or their parents may ask them if they want to) to look for a match for them. Their first reaction is -oh, it’s like dating, only with parents involved. Exactly! We do not have the pressure of having to find a partner before we are twenty so that we don’t stay unmarried all our lives, because we can count on our family’s support when it will come to finding a partner, if we haven’t already.
How is it too different from dating? Except you are dating for a husband/wife and not a boyfriend/girlfriend, with the wisdom of your parents thrown in, along with your own choice.
Love happens. You cannot force it to. Marriages don’t ensure love, like neither do being in a relationship. A love-marriage that signifies falling in love before getting married, doesn’t really mean that. What a love-marriage actually implies is you chose your partner, without any help from your parents. Friends often set up dates, pair one friend with another but that’s not called arranged, but it seems no different to me.
In every relationship, you learn to love, begin to love on one fine day and it has nothing to do how you met, and when you got married.
Arranged marriages and love marriages are real misnomers. Love can be a part of both or neither, and the marriage is not the crux of the matter. The real thing are the two people in it. Love is different from Marriage. And entirely different from Love-marriage. No marriage can ensure you love, whether be it your choice or your family’s. And again, some of the most wonderful love stories that I have seen have been from arranged marriages.
The worst idea that we have is in an arranged marriage we don’t choose who we marry. It is the most dumb idea to have. We always can get to choose (with some exceptions of course, of the extremists that still exist today) who we marry, sometimes we do it with the pre-approval of our parents, sometimes we get the approval later (some do have to fight for it though).
Marriages should be just that – marriage. Arranged marriages are the wrong word as it’s either you or your family who ‘arrange’ the who-to-marry. And love marriages are all the ones that have love in it, no matter the how, the where, the when.
Personally, I fell in love when I wasn’t looking for it. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have “looked” for a love-marriage, searching for a person who I can marry. It just happened that I met the man I love before I married him, even before I thought of the word ‘marriage’. And I’m marrying him (whenever that is) not because it is the natural transition but because I want to, we want to (try prying me out of singlehood otherwise!). I could have married him the next day to when I learned he loved me back too, that was the height of enlightenment, the depth of understanding. It would have been the same if my parents had been looking for a boy for me. They would have chosen him, given the choice (if they had known of him – he is the kind of guy my parents would choose for me – being their daughter I had known what they hope, want, wish for me), and I would have had the same clarity of knowing that I had the first time. Only then we would have gotten married in a few months time, and now we have to wait a few years.
The best ever example of a wonderful love marriage that I saw first-hand is that of my parents. The wife of a couple (who are friends of my parents) after narrating to my mother the story of their love marriage, asked my mother, “You had an arranged marriage, didn’t you?” Before my mother could say anything, my father spoke up, “No, ours is also love marriage.” As the lady looked up confused, as her question was rhetorical, and my parents’ arranged marriage, legendary (people find it difficult to believe) and common knowledge, my father smiled and continued, “Yours was ‘love before marriage’, and ours was ‘love after marriage.'”
That is the most amazing thing I had ever heard anyone say. And it shut everyone up!
Love matters. How it happens, never does.

Posted in India | 15 Comments

Two Years on the Trot

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Guria
Maverick Misfit turns two today as do I in this enigmatic, surreal world that will always be a part of me, whether I be or not.
And it seems fitting in the history of Me, the Maverick and the Misfit girl, the history of joys and more joys, of friends and clashing swords, of winning and winning more, in a world where you can never lose, a world where I also could be fleeting celebrity, that the first birthday wishes, even the reminder, came from my (my blog and I) blog-twin, my soul-sister – the quintessential best friend across time and space – Neha. Of course.
This virtual world would be the last place a normal person would associate with love and lasting relationships. But that is exactly what we get out of being an invisible but breathing entity of this cherished space in our lives. I rediscovered my knack and love for writing, explored and learned, broadened my views, traveled my country, met people, found friends, read the myriad of gems of fertile minds, celebrated, laughed, wept and cried out in outrage – all sitting in front of a glowing screen with twenty-six alphabets at my fingertips.
I was tending to my creepy-crawly (right now, I am working with worms, my model organism to study aging – yes, this writer is actually a scientist by profession – don’t be too alarmed) when I received this post in my email (with an irritating post-script of explicit instruction saying ‘for your eyes only’), a post of celebrating love,  and a birthday.
“In every word I write, you write, being the smart and somewhat talented writers that we are, we can find each other some where between the quotes, among the sarcasm, sprinkled with love in every page of our blogs that we have traveled across… laid out in the open yet hidden from all but the one who knows”
Rephrasing what the best gift my blog ever gave me, wrote to me. the one who had written the hundredth post among others, for this blog when the blog had turned one.
In a more real world of struggling with moving ahead, balancing relationships with people you’ve seen and met, a chasm forms but in this world that is closer and more real for the honest beating hearts, there can never be distance, never be time lost. I pine for her, as I pine for the blog neglected in my pursuit to be the some body I envision myself as. But the love never recedes, but only deepens.
It is a virtual, surreal world but the people in it, real, more real than what they can dare to be.
So, it is my birthday today, one of a re-birth. For all people I have found, who have loved me a lot, sometimes not liked me so much (but rarely ignored me!), for the story in me, the words that now flow off my fingertips from the farthest, forgotten recesses of my mind, and to that person of my life who had literally compelled me to pick up the pen again, I live on.
And for all those who read me, for they want to, for whom I am the Misfit girl, known in spite of my forays away from this world, the ones who have kept me alive, loved me for who I am and not for what I couldn’t be, I thank you for being a support system and a wonder that sustains this writer and makes this amazing world (and birthday) even more beautiful!
Once I had called blogging an addiction, but today I call it passion of survival and this blog is my baby of that unbridled, uninhibited passion…. and here my baby completed two glorious years of the several more to come.
Happy Birthday to Me! 

Posted in Bloggers, Love | 10 Comments

And a Wedding!

Posted on March 3, 2011 by Guria
In the US of frickin’ A!!
I must have really looked pitiful that God could not not notice me any further, and sent a package of wonderful celebrations my way!
I had an invitation to the wedding of two very wonderful people I have the honor of knowing and being counted among their friends. A small, quiet wedding, limited by the fact both of them are still students, not unlike me (just a few years senior), it was in no way a small celebration of joy! Being a part of an unexpected occasion, and in arrangements, preparations and the final vows, looking at the wedding so closely made the elusive happiness reappear in my life with the promise of brightening up not only the weekend, but days afterwards. So far, it is staying up to its promise.
The bride and groom were seniors from home whom I had never met but heard of. The bride makes me feel like a younger sister that I never have been while the groom is the really a king of raunchy, witty quips, great company and timeless addas. They are two people who have made their home a haven for the bereft, the lost like me, in the US. So much so, that when I am with them (too less for my liking), I forget that I’m still in the other country!
Their families weren’t here but their friends from all other parts of the US were here, who had rushed to their side to share their happiness as they exchanged rings and vows. They were equally wonderful and the times we had, the fun, the laughter is something that I will always cherish. To think I didn’t know of them before, it is like we’ll never forget each other after. No one was family by blood but no one, witnesses to the wonderful union, was anything less than that.
We had a bachelorette party the evening before with hilarious outcomes. The bride-to-be had to clean, cook and work, which I found to be entirely wrong, a reason I chipped in to help. Indian brides, wherever in the world they may, shouldn’t work the day before they tie the knot! And as I said, she, to me, is the elder sister I never had and always yearned for. At the party, everything was simply fabulous. One of our another married friends had thrown an amazing bash for her, and by the bride’s explicit instruction it was not supposed to be dinner, but just high tea. We stayed at her place, on a weekday, with work calling the next day, till 3 am. And we (a friend and I) were the first to leave (since I had to go to lab the next morning and get out early to attend the wedding the next afternoon!). With great food, impromptu pasta dinner, edible chocolate body icing (don’t you want to know!), aborted attempts to watch blue films and settling for jab we Met (what a demotion and disappointment for us ‘kids’!!), dancing with (and like) Jeetendra to “O Taki, o taki…”, mehendi that the bride insisted on applying to everyone’s hands after hers had dried and loads of snaps, it was a perfect evening to set off the celebrations. While the guys decided to do something that they never do, since the women were not there anyway (and our hostess’ husband was prohibited from coming back home) – drink. Of course, give it to them to come up with something sooo original! But of course they can thank their stars that we didn’t follow up on our intial plans (and hopes?!) to go to a strip club! (The bride said that is the grossest thing she can think of, she’d rather watch a woman strip! ;))
The day after, I wore a saree!! A new one that my mom had given me before I had come for the Durga puja celebrations and one I had not worn. The bride not only looked resplendent but breath-taking. I’d never seen her look that beautiful. After a couple of hours of pampering at a salon, which was a lot for her, she was not only looking stunning but was glowing. As the hour approached for the Justice of Peace to arrive, the visits to the bathroom increased for the jumpy groom. (Men will be men will be men… and replace men with immature)
It was a wonderful ceremony! It was very moving, and almost brought tears to our eyes. The bride choked slightly on her vows, which was only when we realized amidst all the fun the gravity of the big step the two were committing too. It was awe-inspiring and humbling. Whilst the groom’s voice carried loud and clear when he repeated his vows clasping his bride’s hands firmly. It was really, really amazing. 
The fun, of course, didn’t stop there. It continued way after the ceremony with great Indian food, best since I have come to the States, unstoppable adda the way only Bengalis can, ribbing and taesing, unwrapping gifts, lots more photo sessions (must have clicked more than 1000 pics altgether) and sublime happiness for everyone. I had to leave early sadly, though my new friends wanted me to stay overnight, but I needed the weekend to start studying for the exam I had ignored until then.
It was a celebration – small yet unpretentious, significant and real. It was the best wedding ever!
It was a perfect picture of a perfect couple!
Of course, they are going to get married twice more in the coming year in India – a Bengali wedding and the nikaah, but this was, and will be, to them too, just special.
The groom will always remember asking his bride-to-be in the evening after work one ordinary day, chal, let’s get married (the way one asks out for coffee), and replying to her question (are you serious?), I am waiting for you by the car downstairs to go and apply for the license… And the bride shrugged, A’right , I’ll be down in a minute. 

Little did they know, my distraught state over missing all the weddings important to me and the pleas to God for letting me attend at least one wedding, would result in them being irreversibly tied them in wedlock, forever right now!

Posted in Friends, Happy, Love | 5 Comments

The Anti-Marriage Force

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Guria

That’s me. Or us. The ones who left the country just about six months ago constitute this huge task-force whose very presence in the city or even country was all that was required to keep away the marital bliss several miles away.

It can’t just be the “marriageable” age that suddenly appeared unbeknown to everyone in just six months! When I was back at home, there wasn’t as much of a whiff of the word “Wedding!” or even the faintest tinkling of the bells, forget the clanging that eventually ensued.

My very first-cousin, whom I talk about often as the brother who made me a tomboy (sorry, but to me he’s my brother even though we have separate parents), who incidentally promised me last March that he’s definitely not getting married before he’s 35, for he’s still too young, got hitched two weeks back!

Three second cousins got married last December and this January. Given I was very close to two of them, I was heartily pissed and sulked the mornings in the USA which was the evenings in Calcutta when the weddings were taking place.

One of my oldest friends got engaged last December and has set the date for the wedding for this December. Of course, given the time, I won’t be attending. She was so busy with all the preparations, she didn’t even tell me since I wasn’t in the country anyway. I wasn’t sure whether I should be utterly pissed and renounce her or whether I should tell her, of course, yaar, we have been friends from when we were babies, no formalities with me.

And every body had to marry right now and just could not wait till the monsoon season when I’ll be in town!!

And to finish in haste the incomplete list, girls I went to school with, boys and girls my boyfriend went to school with, people we both went to college with, all are tying the knot, fast and furious, right, left and center!! Is the world really is going to end in 2012?!

The thing is I am scared of marriage, at least for now. I mean, I don’t know about age but isn’t it about maturity? And I’m famous for my immaturity even on this blog! (The blog that was created specifically to document all the great things about me!!) But am I so lagging behind in maturity that all the kids, yeah kids, younger to me in school, in college (I will damn well call them kids still), are getting hitched to The One (I mean, a different The One every time for each of them)?!

Why the hell should they all get married when it’s the time to enjoy being single, erm, unhitched? I really love my status, I am in love with the guy whom I eventually will be marrying and yet at the same time, am unhitched enjoying a responsibility-free romance. Well, that is the scary word – responsibility. Why in the world would I take that on my head when I can enjoy a few more years as a baby daughter (sadly, also as a ‘baby’ girlfriend) who doesn’t have to take decisions?

My boyfriend however told me, unlike us, strugglers in the world of research, they are all settled in their lives, their careers, have been earning for a while to think about taking the next step and can do it happily. But I’m am stubborn enough to emphatically disagree that it is more reason to enjoy being in love (buy anything and not worry about monthly bills) without getting married right away (go back home to your parents). Though, my boyfriend shook his head indulgently at my argument, I still hold that they should have held a couple of more years. It’s just that they didn’t speak to me first.

Or maybe I am just jealous of missing all the great food, dressing-up, happy times and the magic of  togetherness for forever. The bride in red, the glowing faces, the look in the groom’s eyes as he beholds his beautiful bride in that first glimpse, the clasped hands, the laughter, the joy, the families coming together – yeah, envy explains it better. It is beside the fact that I missed the people I love, my family and the weddings that I looked forward to from the beginning of time.

However there are still a few other people, in my life and T’s (so in ours) who said it by themselves (without prodding from me) who’ll never get married without us at the occasion, for the event wouldn’t just be possible. His cousin (she said, who’ll be there to hold me (in a Bengali ritual) when I am given away if not my brother), his best friend (he said, I’ll schedule it when both of you are in town, hopefully there’ll be a muhurat), my best friend (she says, are you nuts… no hope of getting married without you prodding me along), my favorite cousin (he said, I’m too young anyway, you’ll get married first… I so like him), they won’t take us off their list. Ever.

But then I took a major decision and devised a foolproof method to make sure that we are not taken off the list. For everyone who gets married now, without us, will be taken off the invitation list of our wedding. Whenever that happens.

Posted in Laughs, Observer, People and Relationships | 5 Comments