Lifebites...

Actually hello from the balcony of my hotel in one of the coldest places in the country today. Right in front of me is the small simple but beautiful town of Shillong spread across a couple of small hills. Yes, focus on the simple part. Even during their biggest festival,  the town is decked up beautifully but the decorations are very simple and jolly. Each house has a star in their balcony or on the Pine tree in their courtyard. All those lights make a delightfully warm view in chilly nights like this. Shillong is a rising star in the tourism front but the people here are so simple, happy and helpful.  Every time they will have a smile on their face.  As I was climbing up the last slope to my hotel while returning from a solo walk around the town, I could not help but feel the simplicity of the town catching up to me. Here I am roaming around the dark and lonely streets of Shiyap,  Shillong, feeling absolutely amazing, freaking cold and completely safe. I don’...

During the last drizzles of the passing monsoon and at the early set of autumn, every Bong,  be in West Bengal or else where in the world,  gets a very special smell in their nose.  It’s the smell of the crisp Sun warming down before the winter. It’s the smell of clear skies, with just an occasional speck of cloud at the corner. It’s the smell of new untouched clothes saved specially for the upcoming month. It’s the feel of an unsaid happiness from the pit of your stomach. It’s the excitement of giggles, indefinite smiles and an indescribable joy.  It’s called the Pujo Pujo gondo (the smell of Durga Puja). Pujo is used twice because a single mention is just not enough to explain the whole essence of the feeling.  Unfortunately it’s mostly restricted to the Bongs. Although we would love to share this joy with the whole world, but only few understand this and even fewer share the same level of excitement.  May be that is one of the main reasons why Bongs ar...

While sipping through my cosmopolitan slowly, I am experiencing something which I never had before.  Like the picture suggests I am here in T. G. I. F.  You must be wondering who I am with.  Well, that’s the new surprise.  Tonight I am on a date with myself.  Yes!  You saw it right. I am all alone sitting in a table for one in a pub on a Friday night. No, I am not sad or lonely or in desperate need for a drink and no, my life is not going through any shit hole. In fact I have not been happier than right now for a long time of my life. And yes, everything and everyone else in my life is absolutely fine. The reason behind this totally crazy move (for some) is that I am fulfilling my fantasy of sitting in a bar alone and writing while a sexy cocktail waits on my wake. Yes! I have such fantasies also. Crazy, right?  But then you already know that about me. So you must wonder how it feels.  Trust me when I tell you this, it feels really goo...

You say I am lonely,  I know I am a free bird.  You say I will drown in the ocean I know I will find my dolphin and my island.  You worry about the distance,  I care about the journey! You screech at the bumps and hoot at the humps They are like waves; I flow with them and lookout for the turns. You take shelter from the storms, I dive so deep, the storms can’t reach.    If the journey is not long enough, How overwhelming will the destination be??!!  You can see the glow in my eyes Only I know it is of joy and not of rage.. The light you shun today as heat, That light will shine as my glory tomorrow.  The darkness you bear in your heart, My hope will scare it away into a new dawn.  You try to hold your slippery past tight I look forward to creating memories right! You remember the smell of the red rose, I enjoy the bloody thorns as well. You hide the scars of fate and fight to mend the broken edges, I flaunt my bea...

He asked me, "how are you? How have you been ?" I said, "I am fine! I have been good!" Just that I have gained a little weight and lost a little hair. Just that I have lost contact with most of my friends Just that I don't talk that much or laugh that loud anymore I am fine! I have been good! Just that when I cross a wedding party I don't wonder about the bakra or bakri anymore! Just that my days are counted as weekdays and weekends now Monday to Friday is about excel sheets and 9 to 6 rat race, Just that I sleep through my weekends and hardly have any "special" plans. My camera may be a little rusty now, my travel bag a little dusty. I am fine! I have been good! They say there is a depth in my writing and that I am mature now Sure, I am loosing the count of the grey hairs now! Now that I can actually afford some of my dreams, I don't get any dreams at night! And I don't care that being lonely or alone is a relative term ...

Have you ever been food high? I bet you have! How does it feel when your taste buds and all the tasty nerves are transferring only happy and content signal to your brain? It seems like we have been transported to our personal food heaven and time has stopped for that moment. The trigger for this reaction can be different for different persons. Someone may find solace in chocolate, some in chicken or paneer or mutton, some may even find heaven in bitter guard! Who cares! It’s different for each individual but in rare circumstances you have four people completely toppled over for the same food item. That’s what happened on this Sunday! This Sunday will be saved in my calendar as my best food Sunday ever! From childhood, we had a ritual in our family- to have mutton on Sunday. Yeah, we are bongs and we love food! What do you expect? Every Sunday my Dad would take me to the market and buy the softest and yummiest mutton (also famous as Reaji Khashi in Bengali); while I would ensure th...

Being yourself does not mean being ecstatically happy, it means having a soft smile lingering on your lips. Being yourself means enjoying your own company. Being yourself is the comfort of home and warmth of your soul. Being yourself makes you happy and confident in your own skin. It lets you have your peace of mind. Being yourself sets your spirit free. Somewhere along the line, for a brief time, I had forgotten to be myself. It could be due to the work pressure, or other factors raging around in my life. But when I realized this, I was surprised. Not because I had forgotten myself, but because I was actually missing myself. I never thought I could actually miss being my crazy and weird self, but the last month at home made me realized how lost I was and how far I was drifting away from my roots. Being the farthest branch of the tree may give you height and more light and space to grow, but it also increases the risk of getting axed much more than the other branches closer to the ...

“Expectations are the root cause of heartache!” –William Shakespeare  Like Shakespeare put it, no expectations meant no heartache. It is so true. Most of our problems in life are due to things which did not shape out as per our expectations. We wake up in the morning everyday and reflect about the upcoming day and the past night. Our day shapes up depending on these factors mostly. When things don’t go as planned or expected, it might cause us pain. 99% pain is caused because reality shaped out completely different from our expectation. So what to do, how to stop expecting? That is not how human brain works. Human brain forms an image of every single thought that crosses our mind, of every signal we might have picked through our senses. That is how we perceive things. That’s nature. But when the image in our brain does not match the reality by greater percentages like say 50%+, we find it difficult to cope up with it. If reality is better, our brains are very easily adapt...

How many times have you flown in your life? When are the occasions when you fly? Is it only when you are in an aircraft that you fly? Or is it that only when you do not have ground under your feet you are flying? To many people being in an aircraft means you are flying. But actually, in an aircraft you have something solid under your feet, a makeshift ground you can say. That gives us only a partial sensation of what flying actually is. When you are sitting in a flight you are gaining an experience. Flying actually is a sensation. The sensation when actually you find your feet floating in the air, with nothing to hold on to by your hands and you are driven completely by the winds and by gravity- that is flying! I did have such a sensational experience once. I did fly once. Oh! It was indeed an once-in-a-lifetime experience. I was just gliding through the thin mountain air, feeling a lot closer to the sun, finding my mom and dad as very small figures on the ground. Every time ...