a realization, a prayer… and whatever came in between

I love dogs, street dogs more than the ones which live with people. Maybe coz they demand less or maybe becoz they are more deprived.. I don’t know.  Wherever I go, on seeing any dog or cat r so, I have this habit of making a special tut-tut sound to call them and it usually ends with patting their heads. The place where I come from, dogs are usually very friendly. U just look at them and they will come up wagging their tails and ears backwards. So you can understand my surprise on my first day here, when I saw a dog actually afraid of me and barking at me from a distance. I was like “OMG! This has never happened before, what did I do?”. I waited for a while, it tucked its tail between its legs and fled. I was left wondering what the hell went wrong. I could not believe it. While returning from my office, the same thing happened twice again. The third time, a dog sensing my intention came nearer. After a while when it let me pat its face, it was like heaven for him or so I believe. It was wagging its tail vigorously like it had seen its long lost friend. Slowly the other dogs came nearer, they gave the same reaction. Then I lifted my gaze from the dogs to the people around. There is a guy standing in the middle of a street with and army of street dogs.. Back in my place it would have drawn attention of at least one for sure. Here no one even looked at me. As if I and my army weren’t there at all. Realization dawned on me.. these dogs have never ever felt affection from a human before. To them a human being looking at them is a totally unknown thing, so was a sign of alarm. So are people around here. Back in my home town, we are used to a little nose poking from neighbours. Sometimes we enjoy it. Here neighbours are total strangers to each other, leave alone street dogs, cats and birds. People run and rush all day and night. Here enjoyment doesn’t mean an evening spent with friends on a few cups of coffee. Instead it means having an expensive dinner with a very few, or maybe alone. You won’t see anyone taking a leisurely stroll, instead looking very busy all the time. Expressionless faces, but hands busy rapidly typing emotions into whatsapp, facebook etc. No one just cares about anything at all. Sometimes not even themselves. I am not blaming people, we are all modulated by situations around. It is just a study in contrast. It is a mixture of my emotions, feelings and apprehensions. I don’t wanna be like them. I don’t want to lose my senses like them and be a dumb working machine. I wanna live actively with a an active presence in all the lives I touch. I wanna be remembered by all I come in contact with no matter if it is a dog or a cat or a human.. I might be no great one, but I should not pass away unnoticed. May god give me strength for that. Amen.

 

P.S. a little heads up for those who dont know, I have finally got a job. Now I am in Kolkata, working in Cognizant. Life is a lot, lot and lot different here. I will do a post on that soon. Till then, take care and thanx for reading this one 🙂

being Xaverian for a couple o’ hours

The thought of being able to attend an exam in the prestigious St. Xaviers college had me going “WAAaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAOoooow!!!”. It was a chance of a lifetime for an ordinary student from WBUT, to spend around 3 hours there. It was like a dream come true, (although I had never dreamt of it :D)

We started off on our journey around 8 am. Took a bus to Park street. Getting off there, we asked a policeman about St. Xaviers college. He directed us towards another road and we went off walking. It is no mean distance to walk, when it is a summer day. After some time, we saw a crowd in a distance.The first thing I noticed was a huge red building with yellow bordered windows. It was the St. Xaviers. There were some banners hanging outside. They were about the reunion of the alumni and some tech fest. I asked my friend Avinandan if I was dreaming, and he pinched me 😉 . There were around a hundred people. All waiting. The studious and serious were revising. Some were chatting on phone, mostly girls. And as usual, guys were gawping at the perfect figurines. There was one with so much of eye makeup, one might have mistaken her for having 4 eyelids! 🙂

Around half an hour later, we were asked to make a queue. There was a brief rush and the footpath was clear. The queue started advancing. Being at the last, I was looking at all the heads ahead. It was funny to see all those heads in a line, swaying to and fro, bobbing up and down. Reminded me of centipedes. Once inside, we were directed to our designated class rooms. My place was room number 12, 1st row from the door, 3rd bench. Then there was the usual exam scene. The room was buzzing. At the stroke of 10, the room fell silent. The questions were twisting my brain out of shape and I was telling myself “Shoot, how am I gonna spend 2 hours???”

Anyhow, I managed to spend the time answering 30 questions out of 60. Afterwards, I was very thirsty. Searching for water, I went further inside. A corridor led me to the playground. Rooted to a spot I did a 360 degree turn, and once again, I was going “WAAaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAOoooooooww!!!”. It was magnificent and huge.

There were some foreigner students taking snaps. With so many blondes all around, I was a bit uneasy. Walking past them, I was humbled. I wondered, “তোরাই জীবনে কিছু করলি, আমরা  শুধু বোকার  মতন  তাকিয়ে  তাকিয়ে দেখেই  যাব ”      (You r great, you guys have actually done something in your life, we the fools will always be left watching)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were walking back to Park street bus stop. On the way, we walked past “Music World” store and “Flurrys“. Flurrys reminded me of a  scene from the film “Parineeta“, where Sanjay Dutt bets a game of cards with Riya Sen. By now, I was quite used to so many blondes roaming around. Thus the Flurrys didn’t bother me much. Then there was the historic “Asiatic society“!! I was thrilled. For a moment, it felt like things were coming right out of my old history books. Afterwards, we walked to Esplanade. There I witnessed for the first time in my life, a gay couple. Among the two, one looked like a normal guy, but the other looked like a girl to the bone 😉

Today my Barber was frustrated

Tired of playing angry birds since morning, I remembered that I needed a shave and haircut. It has been over 47 days and counting..

At the first sight, the barber contorted his face, he hadn’t expected. He knew this wasn’t going to be another normal haircut (I mean the regular way, sprinking water, then trimming off with a comb and a pair of scissors, working smoothly etc.)

He pulled out a drawer from under a desk, took a bit bigger pair of scissors and went on a demolition derby on my head. He was “snipping my locks” without mercy and at random angles. I was noticing all of this, but didnt care much. Except for the occasional pricking pain at my hair roots, there wasnt much to care about. He didnt use the comb till the end. When he finally did take the comb, he raked down a ball of hair off my head, about the size of my face.
I was scared out of my wits!

Had I gone bald??

Had I gone bald??? I was starting to dream about horrible scenes of my friends making fun of me, right when the mirror told me that my hair was shorter than I had asked for. Thats all. I wasnt bald! phew.. Like a load had been taken off my chest..

P.S. Throughout the exercise till the end, I could feel his frustrated breath on my neck. 🙂

A day of protest at my college

I joined the protests on the 3rd day,  around 10 in the morning. The scene at the college gate was an unusual one. Students (around 600 by strength), all were squatting at the college gate. Heads were bobbing up and down throughout, all shouting slogans against the college management. It was the most unusual sight in my college. (I should mention, our college management is a Draconian one. Fully dictatorial. Nobody ever dared saying a word against. So, this was the most unusual sight.)

I went in, sat down with others. Initially I was silent. It took me sometime to warm up to the atmosphere of protest, then I joined the chorus. It was a hot day. So some students took initiative and arranged for water bottles.Some took rounds at leading the SLOGAN-eering. Pent up anger of years had got a vent. It was nothing like I had done before, and being a part of such a huge protest felt awesome! After what felt like 1/2 an hour, I took a look at my phone for the time. It was 1 pm! 3 hours had passed by without any notice! My stomach gave a slight growl of hunger, and within minutes I was on my way for lunch.

I returned around a hour later. This time, this following scene gave me goose bumps.

There was a whole police team armed with bamboo sticks and tear gas guns. My heart was racing fast, feet went cold, sweat drops were pricking me in the neck..Uff.. I could have fainted. Right then something brought me back to my senses. A group of girls were sitting right next to the policeman with the gun. If they could shout fearlessly, what was holding me back?? –I call this, “Inspiration, staring u in the face!“– I took my place on the ground and joined the chorus again. 1/2 an hour later, the policemen did retreat and left us even more confident, our voices grew even louder! In between, when we were tired of “Slogan”-ering, we had short chats about our 4 years of our college. There were short rounds of  narration, anecdotes, laughter and fun. But everytime anybody from the college management was visible, we started shouting again.

Around 7 PM we broke up the assembly. Telling each other to meet at the same place next morning, we came back to our rooms.

A tiring day it was. Lying in my bed, there was a feeling of accomplishment, inspiration and lots of fun. Most importantly, I was felt braver than ever. 🙂

My first metro ride!

The day began with an unusual excitement and slight tension. Tomorrow I got to attend another job interview. This time, I have to take the whole journey by myself,  all alone… After packing, I went to buy the tickets, the shop was closed. A look at my mobile told me, I had gone there early. To pass the time I went to visit my friend Arijit. 10 am in the morning, and he was still sleeping. Noticing that, I thought of running off, but aunty wouldn’t let me go. I was very much pleasantly surprised that Arijit wasn’t angry at me for waking him up 😛 . Helpful as always, he gave me some proper directions to reach my destination. He also gave me some contacts, whom I may ask in case of emergency and the most important thing!!! He had given me detailed explanations on the way to travel by Metro trains.

By 12:30 I was on my bus. It was time for departure. contrary to the cold and cloudy morning weather, now it was a warm noon, leaving me sweating under my jeans.. The whole journey was quite uneventful, except for a little jam at Panagarh. By 4 pm, I was at esplanade. Knocking down people with my huge rucksack, I was walking up and down around esplanade. For this is the first time, that I had such a  chance to explore a new place all by myself. No rules, no limits, nobody to tell upon me..

Keeping exploring aside, I called up my elder bro to inform him of my location. He straightaway replied “take the BBD-Garia bus, and come to my place”. Bit apprehensive, I asked him if I could take the Metro Train route. He paused for a few moments, my hair was standing on edge for the climax…

Finally he said,”yes, if u have traveled by a metro before”.. I went ecstatic!!!! Crossed the road in a run, and there it was. A LED display board over my head, inviting me into esplanade metro station. At first I couldn’t find the ticket counter. A policewoman gave me proper directions. At the counter, I was given a plastic token. Then I crossed the barrier. Took the escalator, down into the station. I asked a person where to wait for the train and went to the platform indicated. I was a bit nervous. But the height of it happened when a crowded train came on the opposite platform. People were jostling to get in and out of the train. I was thinking, “this is no 8B bus that will wait till I am in. If the door shuts with me in between, or worse, if  I am not able to get on the train at all…”  I must have shown some signs, or maybe for my perspiring forehead, some people were curiously looking at me. That was complicating matters even more.. that is why, I was both surprised and happy when I saw that my train was quite empty!!! The train came to a halt, the doors opened. Instinctively, I sort of jumped in, my rucksack knocking off two men 😉 . No empty seat, I had to stand. Standing near the door, my eyes were wandering over the numerous heads and faces. I was sure no one around me was a novice at riding a metro. Some were dozing off in their seats. Some blabbering among themselves, some others looking at them and listening as if students in a class. A few tall heads were towering over all. In the meantime, my attention was interrupted by the mikes announcing the station names. Some had noticed my curiosity and were trying to be curious about me :-P.. All of a sudden, the announcement said “next station, MAHANAYAK UTTAM KUMAR, platform on the left side”. I got ready. The train came to a slow halt. This time I got off smoothly. Following other passengers, a deposited my token and got out of the station.. My first metro ride, all alone!!!!

P.S. sorry to disappoint my readers, but I couldn’t get pics good enough for this post

THE LAST POST OF 2011 A.D.

Tonight is the last night of 2011 A.D. This is my last post of this year. I don’t have any special plan to celebrate the year end, so I am gonna enter the new year sleeping…

A little while ago, me and my friend Saikat (I hope u remember him from the previous posts) were chatting, mostly about the fun time we had at Kolkata.Yet, we were both feeling a little depressed coz, we haven’t been able to bag a job in campusing.Right then, I had a light bulb moment!!!

I told him          “Janis, chakri paini bhalo hoeche, age peye gele eto enjoy korte partam na”

He agreed readily “Ha re…seriously.. amar to kono kichui mone hochhe na….
bhaad mein jae chakri, life 1tai enjoy korechi..etatei satisfied”

What else? This one thought is enough to ban all the sadness and depression!!

as I have said in my last post, this year has been full of bad experiences for me,

still it has come to a ROCKKING END!! As we bongs say “chorom hoeche kintu, awesome sala!”

A JOB INTERVIEW, 3rd in my life,1st one away from home-> the journey ends..

Finally, a long awaited event comes to an end. Today we are returning back to durgapur.A few minutes ago Karthik left for his interview. we are getting ready, to leave. The caretaker has already told us to leave within 9 am, but I dont  think we would be able to get out of here before 9 30.. 😉

Well, it has been an eventful journey. A rich experience for the three of us and it is very hard to summarize all of this in a few words. Thats why i have tried to put it all in this collage

the whole journey, in a single frame..

For me, 2011 has been a series of misfortunes and bad experiences. Thats why, I had never expected the year to end on such a good note. Yet, it did.Someone said it right “All is well that ends well“. Lets hope, 2012 may bring happiness and luck for all of us… 🙂

A JOB INTERVIEW, 3rd in my life,1st one away from home -> Results are declared..

Today is my birthday! Thats why last  night my two partners, karthik and saaki gave me the B’DAY BASH!

We were supposed to get the results around 9pm last night. Yet, 8 am in the morning, and we were still waiting. Every now and then we were checking our mails, doing FB. My FB wall was overflowing with Happy Bday wishes..U know, in my life of 21 years I had never got so many BDAY Wishes in one day. Waiting for the mail, we were getting hungry..Then we went out for breakfast.

O! That reminds me of something. Last night we had seen a extremely lean dog, with a narrow face. It looked just like “KREACHER”, the elf of HARRY POTTER movies. So whenever we see any dog, Karthik says “Kreacher!!” and we have a nice laugh.. Today we were late for breakfast, so the “kochuri”s were finished. We had “paratha” and “Ghugni”. Then we returned back to our rooms and a surprise was waiting..

Guess what?? Our results had been declared! Karthik had cleared the test, me and Saaki didn’t. So after a short round of applause and facebook updates, we 2 settled down to watch “HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON”, an animation movie. I was also planning to visit my friends staying in HOWRAH, but there wasn’t sufficient time left, to go there and return. Karthik was supposed to report for his interview around 3 30 at the WBUT, salt lake today. There wasn’t much time left for him. So he went out,  took a chair and sat on the porch. He was revising all the topics and we were enjoying our free time. There is some benefit to failing after all..

Wishing karthik best of luck, we all went out. He took a taxi, and we went to a hotel for lunch. The manager was very talkative, he would go on speaking to u and u wud have to listen even if u don’t like that. Had a solid lunch. After that, I thought since we don’t have anything o do, lets go for a walk. So we went off roaming towards Alipore More. Saw a large number of high rise buildings, there was a whole high rise building labelled “GOLD’S gym”. We learnt a lot about bus numbers and bus routes. We walked for around a hour and returned back. On the way we had a chat about our favourite heroes and films. He told me to watch “shutter island”, featuring Leonardo Di Caprio whenever I get time. Having nothing to do, I went to sleep, Saaki was watching “the mummy” on my lappy. I woke up in the evening. Afterwards I went out to buy 2 eggrolls. Bad luck, then another idea struck. I went to a sweet shop, ordered for  3 “rasogollas”. Just like I guessed, the rasogollas were fresh and warm! They just melted in my mouth. I ordered another three for saaki. He too had a pleasant surprise!! And just as he was finishing them, karthik came in. His interview has been postponed to tomorrow 9 30 am. Again a little bit of Facebook-ing, teasing etc. Then we had dinner and came back to our rooms. Karthik seems quite tense. He is shuffling through the books and topics. And I am going off to sleep. Tomorrow, we shall return to Durgapur..

A JOB INTERVIEW, 3rd in my life,1st one away from home -> The written test

Today morning started with karthik waking me up. He was asking for the login password to my lappy. Unlocking my lappy, I went for my usual morning business. Saaki was still fast asleep. By the time I was back, karthik was busy practicing problems of “time and distance” on INDIABIX. I joined in. After sometime saaki woke up and joined us. By then we were practicing “permutation”, “pipes and cisterns”, “work and time problems” and etc, all on different tabs in the same browser. We were much tensed about the test. Saaki and Keto were solving the problems; I was just looking at the solutions lazily (to my surprise, that too helped during the test).  Next thing was to look at the watch and we decided it was time for breakfast. We took a short walk of around 10 min and found a shop selling “kochuri” and ”ghugni”. Had  a hearty breakfast. Then another short walk and we were back into our rooms. The mail had told us that our test was scheduled at 11am. A phone call to our TPO Mr. Francis  told us that the test was postponed to 1 pm. That was a good news. We got down to practice a few more problem types.

taunting saaki!

O! Did I forget to mention that in between all of these scheduled jobs, we were doing a lot of unscheduled chattering gossiping and lots of laughing!!

Got ready, and then boarded a taxi after a little bargaining. Like last night, this taxi driver too didn’t know the place we were supposed to go. Anyway, within 15 min we were at Esplanade.  This left us regretting. As last we had taken a karunamayee bus instead of the espalanade one, and had a lot of trouble getting to Chetla. Anyway, by 12 30 we were at the centre.

waiting and gossiping...

the EVER-SMILING Tanmoy, and our ABHIJEET KASHYAP

There were students roaming all around us. A friend told us to go to the playground, and register our attendance. At last we found the guys from our college. They were sitting in a group in a tree-shade. Then the long wait started. Every now and then our TPO would inform us that our exam time has been postponed. To our bad luck, our TPO had been temporarily hired by the campussing officials from WIPRO, as they found him very active. So, we saw him escorting students of all other colleges.

"Mastaar" da!

handsome guy!

Our guys were swearing at him aloud. At last around 4 pm we were allowed to enter the exam hall, a big auditorium.

Quickly, I took a place beside Karthik. Soon we were shifted to the gallery seats on the 1^stfloor, because only 2 students were allowed on 1 bench. Me and Saaki took a bench. We were given “career boarding pass” (a card) to fill up. Then the officials came in distributed the OMR sheets, gave instructions, and the test started around 5 pm. To my surprise I did fare well in the verbal and quantitative sections, but technical was a bit hard. The test completed around 6. Then we had chowmein, then went off roaming around the place.Karthik says he hasn’t fared well, but we 2 are bit more confident than him.After a little bit of “sight-seeing” we took a bus to sealdah, and another back to chetla.

OMG! I have again forgotten to tell u.  A pet monkey lives near to our guest house. It is a small one. Today morning it had tried to snatch Karthik’s  X6, while he was taking its snap. In the shock Karthik had dropped his phone.. Anyway, we did manage to get some snaps of this little monkey..

what is it doing?

 cute, huh?

looking for something?

A JOB INTERVIEW, 3rd in my life,1st one away from home

The story starts on a Wednesday, when we got mails for the off campus recruitment. Next day i was off to my college for more info. Took a look at the eligible list sent to us. My friend KRTHIK (keto) and SAIKAT (saaki) were on the list. We live in Durgapur Steel Township near to each other. So we decided that we shall go together. But the very next day KETO had done a big blunder at home (what we Bongs say, “CASE KHEYECHE!!”). I m not going to divulge all the “CASE” details, but we couldn’t book our place of  DSP guest house till Saturday 12 pm. then we had a hell of a time trying to get 3 bus tickets to Kolkata. The ticket counters weren’t functioning normal. at places the agents were not at their shops. By the time i got an agent who could give me he tickets, he said the main counter had been closed. To compound our problems, the UREKA bus transport service had been discontinued. at last on Monday I managed to get 3 tickets on the bus to Karunamayee, that too after waiting 2 hours at the ticket counter in biting morning cold.

Then I informed my 2 partners, and went home to get ready for the journey. i have a short-term memory, so I forget most important things with the utmost ease (I do get a lot of scolding for that). Anyway, I had my things packed, got a bath. All the time I was trying to remember if i had missed anything. Took a bus around 1 pm, the bus was to depart around 2:15. Went to city centre, after waiting for a short period of time, i found karthik with his “special somebody” at a sweet shop. RIGHT then he remembered that he hadnt brought his formal shoes. Leaving me with his luggage, he went back home to get his formal shoes. i was waiting alone, till CHANGA (aniruddha) turned up. He was boarding the Esplanade bus of 2 PM. right after he disappeared, Saaki appeared on the scene. He was carrying just a long blue travel bag. We had a short chat, and then Keto came back. He reminded me that I had forgotten my phone charger. Now, I was growing nervous and trying to remember what else??? By 2 13 we had boarded the bus, Keto and Saaki had given me the window seat, thanks to them.

Now, we were on bus chatting and taunting each other. All of a sudden karthik remembered that he had forgotten his papers for the Guest house. Without them he would not be allowed to stay there. We saw him perspiring in the cold. He tried calling the office phone numbers with no avail. At last, his mom went to their office and cleared the matter. It was around 6 30, we reached Karunamayee. we 3 boarded an auto-rikshaw to College More. There we had an endless wait for the bus to take us to Chetla. It seemed like all the buses were showing up except the one we needed. at last we saw a Chetla bus. Boarded it, but had to get down after a few minutes. The conductor wouldn’t allow us with all our lauggage. alas, we were again walking back to College More. By luck, we saw a empty taxi. the driver didnt know the exact place we were supposed to go, but he seemed to be confident enough to take us there. Then, after another long journey we did manage to reach Chetla guest house. We filled in the rooms. Keto was in one, me and Saaki in another. We had roti tadka for dinner. i am going to sleep, in my room, karthik and saaki are practicing apti for wipro..

Tomorrow is a big day

HAD A GREAT FALL

Today was my birthday. We had gone to mython for picnic with 40 people. There we landed up at a picnic spot overlooking the Damodar river in sparkling sunlight. After having our breakfast consisting of bread a banana and an egg, we went off on a walk to mython dam. it was a walk of about 3 km up and 3 km down. Anyway, after that we tried trekking the nearby hills. i climbed 3 hills successfully, but descended only 2 times successfully. Strange, isn’t it? How can one climb 3 times and descend 2 times successfully?

Actually I fell down the hill on my third attempt, and came skidding down on my chest. This last one was a steep one and had a landslide recently. That had made a way to climb up, but there were loose rocks all over. I climbed successfully, took snaps as well. While coming down my left foot slipped on a round rock which that sent me running down the hill slope uncontrollably. I could not stop running and I was accelerating down actually. Finally I made a choice to dive and jumped forward. Landed on my knees and hands first then my chest hit the ground and I skidded for another 5 metres before coming to a halt. My palms were bleeding and got scratches on my hands (so I am having a hard time to type this).I got up then n there and washed my hands in the river water and went to rejoin the party.

So, in short, sms had a great fall…..