Poetry

When I was a kid I thought Poetry only meant a collection of lines with sometimes intelligent and at times ridiculous rhyming words in the end. And it was something which always sounded fun in totality.

But when I grew up I came across such pieces which didn’t have a single rhyming word in the end or any overtly synchronised rhythm in the content for that matter. And yet people termed them Poetry. Perhaps of a different kind! I surmised.

One day, I tried to translate my life so far in simple sentences as in each year of my life equating to one line. Surprisingly, there were no rhyming words in the end and some of the lines were scary as hell!

It took some time but eventually I accepted and later respected the fact that those lines -defining my life thus far - taken together was also Poetry.

Perhaps of a different kind! I know. And I thus realized, its not how a particular piece is written but how it all sounds and what all it evokes that is the point of it all!

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Few words..

“A Thing Beyond Forever” [written in 2007-08 and published Sept. ’08 by Srishti Publishers and Distributors] was a personal story. The essence of it was something that troubled me constantly during my adolescence. The book's working title was “Something In The Air.” Honestly speaking, am yet to find an answer to the question I put up in the book: is attraction really the missing link between souls? I think, yes.

“That Kiss In The Rain..” [written in 2008 and published in Nov. ‘09 by Srishti Publishers and Distributors] was inspired by all the women who touched my life at different times in various avatars and helped shape the man that I am today. The book's working title was ‘Three Cubes Of Sugar.” I strongly believe love ‘is’ the weather of life.

After my second novel I promised myself I will not churn out novels for the heck of it. The ordeal of penning a story, I told myself, should take me on a journey within me and thus give me a once-in-a-lifetime chance to meet the strangers – one at a time – who live inside me thereby helping me explore and realize something new and concrete about myself be it beautiful or ugly. My first two books definitely did that for me. When I finished them I felt I gained few things permanently and lost some, forever.

In the months that followed I started a total of three novels which I was sure were great stories but left all of them in-between simply because that desired inward journey was not happening. After months of frustration and speculation a plot happened to me. I started developing it, made notes, researched and the like. The more I involved myself, the more scared I was because of the epic scope of the plot. “Will I be able to pull it off?, was my prime fear. But the best trait of Fear is it ‘takes’ you somewhere unexpected if you allow it to. Right then I knew…this has to be my 3^rd novel!

After thirteen months of preparation now am ready to pen it down.

And what is it about? Well, at this moment all I can confess is that the book will be:

FUN. DARK. PRISTINE. SCANDALOUS. PROFOUND. EROTIC. ETHEREAL.

The acronym of the working title is ‘S-B-T-F’. Shall disclose the full name with time and if it stays as the final title.

Would need all your best wishes :))

Stay blessed!!!

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Music

Last week, I visited a musician uncle of mine after a long time. The moment I entered his music room I was baffled to see a plethora of musical instruments; from the Sitar to the Saxophone to the Flute and what not!

“Uncle, can you really play each one of them?” I found my awe-struck self ask.

“Yes. Actually, I was very young when I started.” He began. “The first musical instrument I ever saw was the Sitar. I was afraid to even touch it. I was so small compared to it! But then, I did touch it, sat down with it and slowly but steadily started playing it well.

Then I was introduced to the Tabla. Again, the same thing happened. I was afraid because I didn’t know if I would be able to learn it, understand it or synchronise myself with its sounds. You see, Music is when an instrument’s sound and your soul are having a tête-à-tête. But within a few years I became a good Tabla player. After which I taught myself to play the Flute, the Sarod, the Saxophone and all the other instruments that are present here, one by one. And every time, my relationship with each of these instruments started with a noise and ended with music. Now, we are a part of each other.”

I realized there is no inherent Music in Life, nor is it within us. Music (of life) happens when our problems – the instruments – and we sit together and copulate spiritually.

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The 420-characters Quota

Early in the morning I was trying to update my status message in Facebook. But I wasn’t allowed to publish it since the full message exceeded the limit of 420 characters. Thus I refrained myself from publishing it all together since half of it wouldn’t have made any sense.

And I wondered how important a single character – a small deed – can often become. When something in life reaches its 420 characters quota (if at all!) it’s these characters – one seminal part each that was supposed to make up the whole but somehow didn’t – that become all the more pronounced for people to judge and for us, as an individual, to criticize, treasure or infer, accordingly. And when it does happen all we are left with is a sigh which, if given words, shall read, “Wish they knew the whole. Wish I realized the whole.”

How does it matter how many pages of Life’s calendar we flip back in our heart everyday when in reality nothing can ever be flipped back, erased or corrected entirely if and when something abruptly hits the 420-characters quota.

Quiz Show

Last night I was watching a popular Bengali quiz show on television. And each time the celebrity host shot a question to a certain participant he made a face as if the answer was there, waiting to pop out, and yet it was so not there. While his competitors around jumped with excitement already sure of the answer.

But this particular participant, too, became restless with zeal, dead sure of the answer, once a different question was asked to one of his competitors.

And I wondered…his competitor knew his answer and he knew his. I know your answers and probably you know mine. We almost always know each other’s answers but seldom our own. Guess that’s one of life's oldest tricks!

BILLING QUEUE

A day before I was in a small departmental store. I dutifully picked up whatever I had to buy and added myself onto an already long billing queue. Getting bored since the line was moving slowly I started looking here and there. My eyes hooked onto a huge mirror kept right beside the billing counter. It reflected almost the entire billing queue.

And this is what I saw in the mirror:

Each one of us in the queue, it seemed, had hand picked our own dreams and then were waiting with a hint of impatience to reach the counter of destiny hoping the self chosen dreams that we were holding onto so tightly would soon be handed over to us within the packet of reality since making oneself a part of the billing queue simply meant we all were ready to pay the marked price.

SPEED BREAKERS

Last week I was travelling in a car with a friend. We were constantly bantering. But our faces transformed into a temporary sad emoticon when the car hit a steep speed-breaker. By the time we relaxed there was another steep speed-breaker. And from then on my friend didn’t talk to me. He drove slowly and carefully all the way expecting a third speed-breaker…which never came. From a joyous drive it became a quiet one.

And I thought how the steep speed breakers suddenly started controlling us and our behaviour. The brewing anticipation of a third speed-breaker didn’t allow us to relax and also, to an extent, altered us for the rest of the journey. And thus made us forgo all the happy talks which we would have done had the control-shift not happened.