Why I Wait For 'Durga Pujo'...

That time of the year…..”maa aasche” (the goddess is coming)

The annual ten day affair, the most awaited time of the year, “SHARADOTSAVA”, the quintessence of being a Bengali, has come and gone. The intensity of emotions attached to it, linger. The sound of "dhak" still ringing in my ears, the sight of the glorious durga protima(idol) etched in my visual memory. The sights and smells of this festive season carry even more meaning than my first poetry, and just how inconspicuously that happened is a big mystery to me. Yes, indeed a very intriguing puzzle for a non-religious agnostic. Today, I attempt to unravel some of the mystery.   As I watch the whirlwind of cultural and religious rituals being manifested in an age-old ceremonial celebration, that never loses its sheen, I wonder, “how a ceremony, a festivity, has evolved as a prominent cultural identity of a community?”.

We know, every community, religion, state, nation has a well-defined or obscure cultural identity. The way they talk, what they eat, what they wear, what they find acceptable and what not…. “Their CULTURE”, something that’s not lawfully implemented, but it emerges and thrives within the community as an essential member of it. The culture goes beyond  politics/ religion, nevertheless, the latter influences the former in some way (to sound politically correct). But our culture is a self-organizing element of our community, something that binds us, something which we don’t create by set of rules and laws but something that emerges spontaneously from the intrinsic need of social interaction and creative and artistic expression of men and women. The culture defines how we interact, how we create, how we experience life. It’s the keyhole through which we look at the world. No wonder, different cultures have a different way of seeing life.

“Culture is the intersection of life and people itself. It’s how we deal with life, love, birth, death, disappointment…all of that is expressed in a culture.

-WENDELL PIERCE

Here, I stand right next to the Durga idol with my mother, as she bids farewell too Maa Durga on vijaya dashami. It is a bittersweet moment. There is nostalgia, there is sorrow as the goddess is leaving, and happiness as this festival has brought people together. Relatives, strangers acquaintances, we are all brought together in this grand carnival. As she kneels in veneration in front of the protima, I just stand in awe at the beauty of this wonderful piece of art forged out of mud. I probably wouldn’t understand her devotion to the goddess, but because of my skepticism, would I do away with the ten day affair with the wholesomeness of life?  A resounding ‘NO’. I owe my identity to this culture. The way women carry themselves, the way the men in our community have learnt to respect women, we derive it from the worship of the goddess. The way we have always been artistically inclined, paying emphasis to the trifling of life, making poetry out of it, we owe it to our culture. The way we go out and gorge on food, the way we talk pseudo-intellectual gibberish when out with friends. It’s the way we make friends; it’s the way we talk, the way we dress…. It’s the way we live life, and there never is any right or wrong way to live life. All other thriving cultures out there, they are bound by their festivities and rituals, as these festivities overpower the resentment between people. It’s a conduit of emotions between people, a way to feel human again, and the way to experience the bliss of living and not just existing.  And that’s why culture goes way beyond religion or law or any other artificial human construct. And that’s why i wait for 'durga pujo' every year, that's why 'durga pujo' will always hold more meaning to me than my first poem (it wasn’t original, anyway). I owe my identity to it and  now, I know ;

‘acceptance’ is the biggest religion there can ever be.

ON GROWING UP...

Growing up is difficult!

Looking back, i realize, there wasn't much i had as a kid! But i had "the moment”, i had the present moment, i had "everything". The world was small, yet there was so much to explore. Everything was new and fresh and like magic.

I was a shy kid, yet unbelievably vile and talkative sometimes, and that depended on how warm the person with me was. You see, Kids aren't stupid. Kids, have an inherent capability of finding people who can share their warmth with them, the one with life in them, and the people who have stories to tell! Kids do it better than us; we have been taught too much of non-sense on how to judge people in this world! But Kids love to love, love a lot, cry a lot, and then love again. If they hate you, they will make sure you know that as well. They don't choose between originality and falseness. They don't plan, all they have is the moment, and all they know is what to do that moment. It was just that simple. But is just as difficult to feel like that again!

Focusing on things is difficult for a child. 

But for a child there is immense devotion and focus even in their distractions. Life was jumbled mess of distractions. There was beauty in the randomness. Now, what slowly happens is that we try to bring order to this randomness. It is not an easy task, but necessary, nevertheless. It is absolutely necessary, as with order we bring certainty to life, with certainty we bring security to life, with security we plan to live safely till we die, of course. The entire life plan is for being safe till death. You have to grow up before you die; you have to learn to get over all your heart breaks and failures. You have to be happy before you die. You have to bring that order. I don’t need to explain, but there is even a social code of conduct of what order you need to follow, you know, getting an education, getting a job and getting married and so on. That order indeed, can save your life, before you die, isn’t it?

What do you do at the age, when you are too old for being randomly stupid, and too young for being methodically wise? Well, of course, you write ambiguous blog posts and confuse people! But I am doing something more! I am trying to bring randomness to the order of life, and I am trying to do random things in order. All of us are planning our life ahead. It’s important; a person without a plan is no better than a flower pot sitting in one corner. A person with just a plan and no idea how to add life to it is, well, a zombie, a machine. Now, growing up, is NOT a part of the plan! Growing up is inevitable. We don’t have to give up on the randomness of life to grow up. We don’t have to grow out of sweet little things to grow up. Growing up is a constant of life! Like time, time is a constant.  Like mason says in ‘boyhood’, “It’s just — it’s like it’s always ‘right now’, you know?”  We are constantly learning and growing up every moment! We are constantly growing up as we try to order things out, by making plans for future, by working for it, by following the order we want in life, by sticking to the to-do list. We are growing up when we stop for a while and appreciate the sunset. We are growing up in those moments when you stumble upon a stranger and abruptly decide to go have coffee with them, and bare your mind to them. We are in a constant process of transformation, yet we are still the same. I am still the same person who used to dance in the rain, still the same person who laughed at sentimental movies, still the same person who years later ends up crying all night for a broken relationship, I am still the same person who went on a coffee with a stranger and took my mask off…. All events just separated by this illusion of time. The aim of life isn’t to grow up. The aim of life is to still be that kid, with focus in life, yet accommodative to the distractions. Growing up is just the same as ‘being’, its like seizing the moment, or should i say, " let the moment seize you". 

Growing up is easy after all!!!

In the Eye of the Storm

let us assume, you are in a dream, and you sit away from the ocean current that drives your life and your world. you sit aside and look and contemplate and learn, sitting at a place where only gods can be ( let's assume you believe in one). but all we can do is assume!







It is quiet outside,
So, it is within.
In the eye of the storm,
Let's take a moment aside!
Let's see what we are leaving by,
Let's see what we have picked up on the way.
Let's us see how much of 'US' is still left!
Don't you see how cold you are?
The storm has put off the fire inside;
And you stopped looking within.
You lost your vision and left your belief;
And you let yourself get carried away.
Did you get what you want?
Do you even know what you want?


No matter, from what way you looking,
The world will still be a maze!
The bright trail you follow will soon be lost!
You see, a bigger storm is coming!

In the eye,
Let's take a moment aside.
Let's remember the mother's words and the lover's smile.
Let's remember our own dear song.
Let's go back, and pick up the dropped penny.
Let's make our own path.
The storm is coming;
You can stay here for a while.
Later, you can get carried away,
Or you can set your strongest sails high.

Looking Beyond the ZERO

i was wrong…….

That is how I will start……

I was wrong that I had finally hit saturation of misfortunes of my life. Indeed a bigger tragedy awaited me. I had finally reached the black hole, and there’s nothing beyond it and nothing below it. I had finally hit the zero percentile. Yes I have a zero in a test…. And I have a hole in my heart (the statement is 100% non-fictional and original and it purely resembles the life incidents of the author). I had never been a more humiliated lemon.

My dear lemons, has something like this ever happened to you? Just when life was looking up and you had stepped out in the sun............ it suddenly rained....

Well times come when we start questioning our own beliefs just because our decisions went wrong. But are we really wrong? Right or wrong! Who decides? Who cares? (At least I don’t)…….. Well we have been living in a world where everyone thinks everyone else is wrong. Well I am not that much of a dumb ass to get a zero in a test but if I do get a ‘zero’, does that make me a dumb ass? No I am not, that’s what I believe, “well maybe she is”; that’s what you might perceive. So it’s all about perception. It’s about my faith and your faith and let’s just keep them separate. Whatever family or religion or community you are born in there is a certain belief in your heart totally exclusive to you, the belief rising from your personality type, although, whether you exercise that or not depends a lot on how you have been raised. There is always a reason why some kid grows up to be rebel while having been raised by conservatives and it’s probably why I am an agnostic atheist in a family of firm Hindus. It’s my belief, my faith that I have deep in me. This faith constantly tells me what I am capable of, what are my strengths and weaknesses. It’s constantly in the back of your head telling you what to do. Your faith defines how you see the world and it defines what all is right and wrong for you and this defines what you want to be in life (in the real sense). But unfortunately the universe doesn’t follow our beliefs. There will always be times when your life pattern utterly dint match the general scheme of universe, like you failed a test, you lost your money in business and things that put you behind all others, There will always be mistakes in life, not because you were wrong but because there was some logic you missed. If it was a failure, you were not wrong, you just slipped a little from the perfection. No other person has any authority to call you wrong, that’s a dumb-ass calling you wrong. You have your belief, stick to it and you will finally achieve something beyond right or wrong……happiness. If you see, the biggest entrepreneurs, leaders, artists weren’t the ones who scored 100, who listened to mom and got married, who did exactly what everyone was doing to avoid unexpected losses. The history belongs to those people who had a belief and worked on it day and night irrespective of whoever said they were wrong.

I have a tiny little belief that helps me look beyond the zero. It’s quite legendary… “Getting a ZERO in a test”. Isn’t it? Got something funny to tell my grand kids, they will love me!

P.S: do tell if anyone of you ever got a zero in test and felt really bad, and if you really had a zero and still aren’t saying beware of  LEMON CURSE

P.P.S: those who aren’t scared check the internet, lemon curse is real!!  

loneliness and the World

There was a survey once “what’s the unhappiest moment in people’s lives”………….. Among several indisputably horrendous situations like death of spouse, losing a limb etc. featured one very interesting and intriguing situation. An unproductive day spent lamenting about past, away from the world.

It is intriguing for the fact that, this has probably or definitely happened in the life of every sane human being alive. It so highly probable for any human being who decided to skip a day’s work and who has absolutely nothing else to do to think about life’s stupidities and failures and it can be potentially psychologically traumatizing at times. No, not everyone has a perpetual grey-sky thinking to make it fatal but this day has something very powerful that can make you feel like a stale lemon, although just for a day.

It starts with a morning yawn and some tiny malignant body ailment as an add-on. You think “let’s just skip all the shit for today!” You keep sitting and sitting and continue it for hours. If you could define void, your mind is what describes it. You are the retro Buddha- calm, at peace with the surroundings, no thought to contaminate you( no thought whatsoever), no agenda, no willpower, less and less of everything else. This takes your consciousness to a new level; nothingness. Momentarily you forget about your present and you can feel the presence of your present life. You forget about people you enjoy with, about people you work with and all other people who make up your life. It’s just you and your aloofness and you can get nowhere with it. This is where a vague sense of anxiety starts. You have lots of things to do but a dusted mind stops your life. This is where uneasiness spreads all over your mind and your mind stalks back at all the flashbacks of your life, most of which were not pleasant. You are conscious of your inabilities your loopholes and it seems you are paralyzed to do anything about it. Although pretty irrelevant all these thoughts are, as they arise in your mind just because you have nothing else to do but they do create a sense of vainness.

See, you alienate yourself from the world and put yourself at the risk of dark psychological hazard. (Not if you inherited a top grade happiness/enlightenment gene). Without the world we lose all sense of competence and the desire to make things better dies…….why? ………...because a solitary person can only seek for things but cannot create things. All the beautiful creations in this world were created solely because of the musings derived from the world. We can create only when we contemplate on the things we observe in this world. We meet new people and every time we encounter myriad varieties of thoughts and flavors of life. It broadens our mind then one day alone you try to connect all the dots and there………………. You created something wonderful; something mesmerizing enough to fascinate all the people who were part of this creation. We need the world for all our inspirations and just because there exists a world, creations happen. New lives are born because men and women meet and unite. Our mind is engaged in constructive thinking because the society we live in, is progressive. We are saved from the stagnancy that comes from loneliness. We keep creating things that the world probably doesn’t need and it increases the burden on nature but that doesn’t stop us because it widens our mental domain and breeds mental fulfillment. Look around……..the world is the muse. I had been saying a bit too negatively earlier, that we are what we are because the world sees us that way. We are artificial. But even the positivity and negativity is relative. If I say we are social monkeys then probably we are meant for that only. Alone we are something that no one needs and that’s a recipe for unhappiness. In the world we are someone’s friend, sister, brother, son…………….. We are a part of someone’s life and that brings them happiness. That’s where we derive all our happiness from……all the happiness we pined for when we were alone. We get happy when what we do has an impact on this world and we are appreciated. But the human race does make mistakes, by placing our ambitions in all the wrong aspects of the world. But we do learn and we learn from this very world. Otherwise hiding up all alone away from the world, doesn’t teach us anything. We find ‘ourselves’ when we are lonely, but the world gives us the matter to contemplate on, when we are alone and we find ourselves in the process.   

This whole human world is a bunch confused emotions. Every now and then we bump into someone who disfigures our emotional mind map. But every time it happens we are gifted with a thing called experience. We experience learning and we get wisdom. And with every little chapter of learning in our life we come closer to our fulfillment and we get all the answers in life and we discover WHY THE WORLD NEEDS US…………..

 I still don’t know why the world needs us, but I might have perceived the logic behind WHY WE NEED THE WORLD!!!

The Human Race: a curious case of mistaken identities

We are humans…………..and we are nothing without our world. We think and we contemplate and we seek goodness because we live in a world…………..a world we created. We get our identity from our world or else who else will certify. We can be the self proclaimed dudes but who are we to flaunt then?  We are someone because people see us in that someone’s form. Otherwise alone we would be an animal and nothing else.

We get up every day, eat, talk, work and then sleep and usually in the vacant times between we never realize how our lives are changing by things beyond our control. From being kids to grownups we see the world change and old things get older. But if we dig deeper mankind has come a long way from the tree climbing primates to hard headed lemons (humans). I don’t see the absolute necessity of animals with brains like ours in the food chain in earth. We almost eat anything that’s not poisonous and nobody eats us and our survival strategy or I should say prolonged existence strategy is to seek every resource on the face of earth and destroy ( after it has been used)………………  long time back all man had desired for was a cave and a few berries to relish upon. Then necessity dawned upon the sinned men and invention dawned upon the doomed mankind. Thousands of years later we still need those things but we need money to pay the price and we need a job good enough to pay the money and we need an education outstanding enough to get that job. We are called men and we think and we are a part of a system and a large scheme of things they say. Where does our system get us other than taking us far for our own nature?

Do you see how complicated your life is? You sure know about your natural instincts as a human but you probably are more conscious of your obligations as a social monkey. When we go out meet with our kinds…………we aren’t aware of our self but our image the world perceives as real. We spend years polishing, educating, training and feeding the false image and our real self goes along like the unattended step-son. We all are hiding behind a false over-rated (blingy) identity and that makes the world in a total identity crisis.

We grow up and we have to be human++ or else no money no identity and we would be a pest on the face of earth. We have to have education, ethics, civic sense , common sense, monetary sense, oratory sense, diplomatic sense and a lot more……………. Then we stick our identities up on our nose………….I am the businessman, lawyer, tailor, janitor………………..

We have myriad varieties here…….. the business man is doing his business but gets in the bureaucrat’s way………………………..the governor is doing what he should but it’s getting in the students’ way……………….the industrialist is doing what he ought to but it’s getting in the farmers way and everyone is getting in everyone’s way. And this all becomes a fucked up economy. What started as the system to uplift human race became a game, a race to an undefined height. We don’t have the need to join but still we have the urge to win. And not getting in anyone else’s way just wouldn’t do. But why? Isn’t it all about the berries and the cave? You say you need order to regulate the evolved monkey circus, you need a system to control it, monitor it, optimize and mechanize it. And see where we are getting. No don’t look at the moon we just stepped on, look at the earthly grounds…….was it how god made it?

It all began to make the mankind survive longer and now it all will end by pushing earth to its doom. But who is at fault? Mankind? As we grow our civilization also grows. We still are naïve. We haven’t identified the purpose of mankind. I don’t say I know the answer…………….

It’s a question for everyone

What is the real identity of a man?

What is our purpose?

I won’t ask why we need the world…but why the world needs us?

Thinking, Believing and Feeling

Close your eyes and think, ask your heart……… when it’s you, only you what’s the verse you chant…………”I think”, “I believe”, “I feel”……………………..

When you are alone and the world is out of your head, do all these lines converge to the same idea or they move away in different planes leaving you in the biggest dilemma faced by any mentally sane human!

The truth about 21^st century is that there is no truth about it. There is nothing right, nothing wrong, no reality, no theory………………….. Everything we see is a big illusion!!!!! It’s rather hard to explain the new millennium situation but it best matches with a quote I read a long time back, which said “we are always trying to impress people we don’t like by buying things we don’t need with the money we haven’t earned”. People are running behind something, something they don’t know but pretend to know it and call it money, success, perfection etc. and within all this running we forgot who we are, with our mind being a victim of the 21^st century social model. We are machines made to work according to a social code. It’s like being the electronic mass productions of a manufacturer having one operating system. Yes! We are humans! But we are NOT programmed to think autonomously! We are not free to think, all we can do is switch modes of our thought process, situationaly. We are made to think, dream and aspire for the things which the economy wants us to dream about, think about and aspire for.

When we are treading in this world trying to make a name, trying to get noticed we switch to the “I think” mode. Suddenly we want to be what makes the bank balance look good. Suddenly we become good in economics and analysis and (profit and loss). suddenly our mind soars high with our feet still chained to ground and there is nothing else you can curse more than it. you are not alone, there are thousands alongside running, pushing, waiting for you to fall. You say you think, the screen shows you think, but its not the truth……………its all preprogrammed. Our mind processes in terms of preconceptions, images, monetary value. This I think, cannot be deemed as ‘thinking’ in any way in  human standards. Suddenly we don’t remember what we were like when we were kids. Suddenly we are hungry for something we are not even sure we like. Suddenly all the humans are the same but still are enemies. You say you are being ‘reasonable’ and ‘wise’ and ‘practical’ and are ‘thinking’, but the reality is you are just made to believe that you have thought your way out while the real thinking has been done.

Then you get back home, are caressed by the people who love you. They ask you to swear for your love when they themselves aren’t sure about their love for you. You give out a false promise and feel sorry for it. you feel how stupid you had been all the day neglecting the love you had in life. You feel touched. Suddenly you don’t remember who you want to be or what you need and that you still have to pay the bills. Suddenly you are selfish about the only drop of love in your life. Suddenly you want to grab it and trap it within your reign like your parents did to you. Suddenly you “believe” all you need is love and since you don’t have any you try to imprison whatever you have. suddenly you are scared of being alone, scared of being in the dark. you now “believe” in love and its power. You now “believe” that you can make it through life with your only drop of love and nothing else. You “believe” in yourself your love and love itself but you aren't quite sure what’s the belief about. you  suddenly believe you are happy but from the inside way too much scared to lose what you have.

Then you are alone, no one there to influence you, touch you, command you, torture you not even to kiss you and love you. You suddenly bump into someone you think you knew a long time ago. You have a telepathic conversation with a familiar stranger. He reminds you of good old days when we weren’t machines. He reminds of laughter, of simple wishes that fueled your life long time back. It reminds you of the paint brush you lost, of the pen you loved to write with, of the song you loved, of the neighbor you thought you would marry someday. It reminds of something inexplicably sweet but you are disappointed that you can’t fathom the sweetness anymore. It reminds you of how you wanted to be the person who was loved, who was read about, how badly you wanted to write and make people read it. It reminds you of the long lost diary full of poems about things you can’t remember. Suddenly you want to “feel” just what you felt when you were young. Suddenly you remember yourself and how you felt about things, how you didn’t care about what someone said. You were too happy with yourself to be pissed off by anyone else’s comment. Suddenly you feel you have woken up after a long time and realize how far you got away from how you felt at that time. You try hard to bring back that feeling but fail. Suddenly you know how you “feel” and how you want to “feel”. Suddenly you realized its not about obligations, formalities of love and life, but its all about how you feel about love and life. You want to go away, turn back time…you really want to? I guess! …………Will things be like that?........maybe! but……………..

THE CYCLE REPEATS!!!

And life goes on like this until we are too rusted to linger. We think whats profitable, but believe in the things that give us pleasure but our real self is lost in a deep sea of feelings of love happiness and contentment.  As we grow up we learn of numerous things and our city isn't the world anymore. We want to know how they live in Venice, what they wear in  Paris, what they eat in Beijing, we want it all. We want to breakaway. We want to forget whats good for us and want to discover what lures us believing that it will be good. We start aspiring for unexplained things, yearn for love and cheat our own heart and feelings.  We  see the planes of our thinking , belief and feelings go in different directions and we see ourselves becoming  one of the most pathetic creatures in the history of earth. Don’t you think it would've been better if we were like dogs or cats or elephants?………… simple desires- territory, food and mate (all in raw unprocessed form)! No running around, no pushing, no cursing, no thinking at all. Its better than not wanting to think while being the thinking creatures.

Well its not about, ‘just thinking’, ‘just believing’ or ‘just feelings. It’s about the perfect balance. You can’t fall in love just based on how you feel. You have to believe that its true and you have to think if its worth the risk. When it all says the same thing jump into the risk like you love it and save yourself from the agony of divergence of your “thinking”, “believing” and “feeling”………………