Happy wala luv

On popular demand, this time a happy one. So happy that this will make you cry with joy.
There’s a love story with a happy ending. Boy interviewed the girl, gave her the job. She reported to him for days at a stretch. They met to discuss work. They discussed briefs which were too brief. Discussions became endless as did the projects. From one night out to another followed. Then one day, when the work happened till the wee hours, he dropped her home. Soon the late nights became a routine and he kept dropping her back. She started enjoying the ride and he, her company.
The days she wouldn’t come to office, he found the days a little too long to carry. The deadlines a little too tight and the irritation level a little too high. One day when she dropped her resignation letter for a better offer, the realization dawned on him. He was happy for her because the break was good and didn’t want to stop her. But something felt miserable. The fear of not seeing her face every morning shook him heavily. Yet, he didn’t know how to address the problem. After all, he was the boss and bosses are never known to miss their subordinates. He decided to take a break to fix his mind.
He was missing for almost a week then. She started missing him. His instructions, his bossism, his criticism of her work and everything about him. Bosses are never missed but why this misery within? She kept wondering and no answer came. She didn’t want to call him and he wasn’t willing to be disturbed. The deadlock was too much to handle. And everyone around them could feel the heat.
The colleagues decided that the situation was grim and getting grimmer with temperatures soaring high. Something needed to be done immediately for the larger goodness of humankind. A genius came with an idea to set them on a date without letting them know. The boss was requested to meet a client on an emergency basis at an upmarket restaurant. The girl was called to meet a client as emergency filler due to the boss’s absenteeism on the same restaurant. Both went and found each other waiting for the same client. The client didn’t show up but they made the most of the opportunity given. No proposal was made yet they knew that they were tied for life. They started seeing each other and the office suddenly became a better place to live.
She left the old to join the new office. And they started being with each other through the malls, movies, exhibitions, restaurants etc. More they met, more they wanted to meet each other. They wanted to wake up to each other and spend the rest of their lives together. Marriage was inevitable. They did marry against all odds.
Today, he watches her sleep like a baby. She listens to the comforting snores without which sleep refuses to embrace her. They fight a lot but still can’t live without talking to each other. When he shouts, she listens and when she erupts he discreetly disappears from the scene. But what matters most is that they can’t think of a life without each other.
He wakes up much before her. And before he goes to work, his job is to fix her tea and breakfast. Sometimes when she oversleeps and gets ready in a hurry. He even feeds her like his baby. She checks on him to find out if he hasn’t skipped his lunch. She lets him party but gets worried if he has overindulged. Babies never came in to the story because fate never let them have one. Yet, they don’t miss having one because they have learnt to babysit each other.
Are you all happy now?

Pic courtesy: Google

Let the festivities begin

The morning began with the all-so-familiar enchanting of the tale of Goddess Durga’s victory over Mahisasura, Mahalaya, as every Bengali household calls it. I had almost forgotten the prelude to the celebrations due to years of living alone; hence, nostalgia of the past took me on a trip to my childhood.
Every year we would eagerly wait for the Durga Puja with sheer anticipation of good times. The festivities meant nothing spiritual just pure undiluted fun minus the studies. Months before the shopping would begin; the special four days meant new clothes on each day. I came from a modest background; hence, meticulous planning was required to ensure that I have enough clothes to wear in the mornings and evenings of those four special days.
And when the days would arrive, we would hold on to every hour praying that the days shouldn’t end. Parents would be busy in shouldering the community responsibilities, while we kids would be busy fooling around and sampling the food in the stalls. Little older ones were busy chasing the attention of the opposite sex, plain painless flirtations would keep them entertained. The more arty ones would take the local platform to showcase their talents while boring the less talented ones (like me). Parents of the gifted ones would proudly announce their achievements making life really tough for people like me. All I would get to hear were comparative analysis of how bright my peer group was and still I couldn’t be inspired by my parents. Tough cookie that I was!
Then came the adolescence years when I thought nobody could look better than me. And Puja days gave me the platform to showcase my beauty (that the world was blind to). These were also those few days, when my conservative background, gave me a free ticket to fashion. I had the liberty to apply nail paint and lipstick without raising eyebrows. And I made the most of it. Any attention was welcomed and my eyelids would batter more, seeing some encouraging glances.
A sudden turn took in my tale with my adulthood days; I started evading the communal meet-ups. Because they became breeding grounds to the numerous marriage proposals and I had high dreams of a knight in shining armor coming to my rescue. The knight didn’t arrive and the proposals died down too. Age daunted on me and the festivities stopped exciting me. Now, they have become few days in the calendar which may/may not translate into off-days at work.
Wishing you all a very Happy & Eventful Durga Puja!

Tit for Tat

Once upon a time, women in relationships wanted commitment read marriage here. They were scared that the man will soon dump her for other greener pastures and she will be left with,”log kya kahenge?”
Maybe the sex ratio was healthier then and there were more choices for men. Maybe we were slightly more in number; maybe we never tasted real freedom then. Maybe neighbours were too nosy then.
Men had their share of fun and wandered freely, not that they have stopped wandering now. Habits are difficult to change, hence, don’t expect a drastic change anytime sooner.
The tables are turning now. So men, be prepared to get a taste of your own medicine. With depleting sex ratio and increasing financial independence of the fairer sex, watch out guys!

The women of the present, is as commitment phobic as men from the past. They love sex like men, would not hesitate to bed you. But that is exactly what they need sometimes. One night stands, flings have flooded the vocabulary of the modern women. They love everything that is easy to love in life, mostly expensive (I must mention). They love their jobs, career but most importantly they love their freedom. So pleasure is important but not at the price of marriage, in many cases. They never shy away from dumping you because they know they are fewer in numbers. One goes, the other is bound to come knocking down. So nothing but the best will do for them.

Oops! Is it scary? Indeed, if I was a man of the today’s time. Knowing that the competition is fierce, scarcity is real so obviously would try to cling and ensure that atleast one is guaranteed through marriage. But the moment, you utter the magic words, she disappears.

Things are harsher for you, guys! Times are changing and maybe this is the payback time!

U-Turns

My life was a smooth highway and I often complained, “so boring, will there ever be a turn in this long route, why is it so straight?” Little did I know then, that the Almighty was listening with a whole lot of intent. Even before I could realize, life took a whole new U-turn and ever since I am going in circles. My head spins with surprises but I can’t complain. After all I asked for it.
It began with my physical transformation, first. From a fatso I became the sexy babe, people had no hesitation in labeling me as “hot”. Oops, too much to handle for a girl who couldn’t manage to make even a head turn in her prime. To a thirty plus woman flooded with compliments who don’t look her age. Come on, I exercised and followed strict diet schedule. Nobody noticed the hard work?
Second, came a jolt in my relationship status. I became single, sooner. And I would have enjoyed the singledom, only if I was available. I just didn’t know how to be available, call me what you may but all the attention was not my cup of tea. I succumbed to the pressure and made a wrong choice. This turning point became the steepest and I am back to square. I have no regrets though because I tried. So what if I failed, but it is my life and I am allowed to make mistakes. Can’t I?
Age hasn’t mellowed down my spirits. I would still like to dance, hang out with friends, be in a relationship and everything that the younger lot eyes for. Aren’t failures allowed to live life? Do I have to perish like the rest; lonely, sad, depressed and suicidal. So what if I am not someone’s wife, someone’s mother, someone’s daughter-in-law blah blah. I am still that daddy’s girl who loves pink, loves Cadbury’s, mushy romantic movies and dying to get a bouquet of red roses. Being on the wrong side of age can’t change my gender, can it?
I never started with the intention of breaking the standards but life just bumped into series of accidents which broke set patterns. I tried and failed. So be it. Does it mean I lead a dream-less life?

Easy ain't EASY

‘Easy’ never came easy to me. In life, at work, wherever I went. What people get on a platter, I had to starve myself to get some share. My fate or the force above just ensured that I have a hard time.
I was trouble the moment I stepped into this world. I gave my mom quite a difficult time, when she conceived me. I gave her an even difficult time on the labour room. And later, my dad spent many sleepless nights, just to put me to sleep.
The growing up years weren’t easy either. Every year was a new school for me and by the end of the session when I had just managed to make few friends; another new school would be waiting for me. The result being that I remained friendless most of my schooling years. College remained constant but the everyday travel was another saga better untold.
Job did happen and I managed to keep up the jobs too. But whenever an appraisal was expected, the company would do badly and although not my fault, I never managed to get my share of the extra work and night-outs.
Love life was even more agonizing. It always ended up in one disaster after the other. My failures could inspire a movie dedicated on love lost. The impact has been so legendary that my own people have acknowledged that I am incapable of being loved.
To top it all, I was born very average with no-killing looks to melt million hearts. Hence, no Samaritan comes my way to take my fall or make life a little easy for me. The only way it has been is to work hard, harder. And I know complaining will solve nothing at all. As if God is saying, “this is the way for you, take it or leave it.” Even leaving is not in my hands, so ‘taking all’ is the only option.
Yet, one thing that keeps me going is my undying spirit to get up and move on. The ability to dream and believe that good things will come to me, even if it is taking a long while than usual. The tenacity to tell myself that my time will come.
It hasn’t come by now and don’t know whether it’ll come at all.

The Grand Fall

While the rupee falls, values all around us have already fallen to unrecoverable lows. Atleast there is some hope for the economy to recover, if not now then sometime later. But will we recover, ever?
The holy men caught in unholy acts. In the name of who, I wonder! When caught in the act, these spiritually uplifted men have no qualms in victimizing the victim. In this world, when the traffic makes it so difficult to be on time, how can we expect God to find us on time?
Rape seems to be a favourite sport of the nation with no age limit. From the old to the young, it seems whoever is bored and wants some media glare, goes ahead and commits a gang-rape. Guess the Dark Ages where less dark for the fairer sex than this!
Relationships don’t last and we seem to move on too fast, faster than our city’s metro. The funniest thing, is those in a relationship are looking for opportunities to be free. And the singles are desperate to tie themselves down. What we fail to understand is that nothing comes for free. From the effort to pursue, to depreciating bank balance-first to impress, later to depress leaves most frequenting the counseling sessions.
Cuts in every form rules our days. Job-cuts, cost-cuts, budget-cuts, power-cuts, water-cuts, road-cuts…but what about the morality cuts? The feeling of deriving pleasure from the cuts of others and being oblivious to their pains, so much so that we drive away seeing the bleeding wounds of a fellow traveler just because our time is too precious than their survival time.
It is time we at least give a thought to the value-fall, maybe not as much as the rupee-fall but some thought to begin.

Black Beauty

On one of my morning drive to work, I bumped into the “Dark is beautiful” campaign of Nandita Das. The FM radio presenter started with the phrase “agar rang nahin hain, roop nahin hain…” and went on a sympathetic tone. I felt offensive.
Well, well! I am dark and I don’t belong to the category of crowd-pullers. But does that mean that every person who has dark skin colour is ugly? In other words, if you are dark are you ugly? I know few people who are dark complexioned but extremely beautiful. They are successful and do manage to get admiring glances from people around. And mind you, I am not talking about celebrities. I wonder how they will react to this perception and media-popular image of beauty.
As a kid, I too had an obsession towards fair skinned. I knew I was dark and did many things (under elderly guidance offcourse as they were more worried than me) to lighten my colour. Nothing worked though and with age I began to accept myself. Especially with a sibling who is much fairer and beautiful, I managed to get quite unhealthy comments on my looks. To be honest, it was painful but I learnt to live with it. And now I am even celebrating my difference. But the question remains, why do anybody, for that case, have to go through this phase? Why can’t we keeping feeling good about the colour we are in? Why don’t we grow up to the idea that a beautiful face may not be a fair face? Why do the matrimonial sections in leading newspapers still scream for fair-skinned sometimes even “extremely” fair-skinned candidates?
Why does our society not live without the various fairness cream, in all fairness why do we even need a campaign like “Dark is beautiful” to tell the world, that I am dark, I feel beautiful irrespective of the fact whether the world acknowledges it or not…I do not need celebrities to speak up for me. And if you think I am not, so be it?