Another journey begins

I began blogging in early 2005 on my first visit to Delhi. The first post (not on this blog) was written hurriedly at a cyber cafe not far from where I'm writing this. I was excited, because what I wrote, for once, was there for all to see. 

Blogging caught on. I, perched in a hamlet with no Internet connectivity, was left out.

Even after I began getting access to the Internet more often, my participation in the frenzy, at best, has been sporadic. I'm left with enough time to write, but not a will that is strong enough.

I started a Tumblr micro-blog more focused on illustrations and pictures. My intention was to encourage drawings and working on Photoshop. Predictably, I have contributed hardlyanything to it.

The idea of a personal website has appealed to me ever since I heard of it. The blog, too, was to be a sketchpad of sorts. But the limit to which I could customise it was a put-off.

I finally have a website now. I've called it Boxiwallah.com (this is why). I have been updating it often, thankfully.

Now that I have what I always wanted bittercurry.blogspot.com to be, and a Tumblr blog to top it off, it is no longer feasible for me support this blog. All the posts on this blog are available on the website. 

I may return to Blogger again, though. It's a lovely platform, and I like it more than Wordpress. 

Tell me how the website looks.

Shubhankar Adhikari

New Delhi.

August 6, 2013

Life in hours

The relentless hours.

They pass by me as grains of golden sand slipped through my hapless fingers in another dream.

The relentless hours go as I watch in dumfounded stupefaction. What can I do?

What can I do but to sit and cry?

Met life today

This is not my story. This is not how I wanted mine to begin. Or, to proceed and end.

This is his story.

This is the story of a man whom I see leaning out of a gate of a suffocating compartment of a green and yellow local train, where his trickles of sweat mix with the stench of other things and become a part of the early morning air.

His body retains the stench when he gets off, when he walks with countless others, and walks like them.

He walks because he cannot afford the luxury of a cheap bus ride, just like those he’s walking with.

He had a dream of being different and proud and rich, exactly like the middle-aged man with a balding pate who is walking by his side.

This world is not for everybody. Some must fall by the wayside and suffer. Man, in his idiotic endeavour to fight the logic of competition, has decided to take on nature. To end the suffering and add years to the weak one’s life.

But the attempts at reversing natural law has not found roots on Calcutta’s streets.

The balding man elbows past the young traveller, who -- used very much to indifference -- does not notice.

The road, malleable under the searing sun, clings to his frequently cobbled shoes, reluctant to let him go and face life alone.

His brown leather bag, heavy with a day’s work and weighed down by hope and desperation, slows him down, but only just.

Our man is in hurry.

Because expectations kindled by a teenage dream still breathe fire in his frantic steps. He still looks at the blank tall buildings with a sense of foreboding. He has ladders to climb, and others to leapfrog.

He smiles often. Despite life, that is. Smiling, like living itself, is not a choice he remembers making.

Today, he resembles everyone else. Or maybe he always was like them. So, he walks like everyone does, swears like everyone swears, and talks of Evam Indrajit when he feels like everyone else. It’s only the feeling that matters, he tells himself.

He snakes his way through the panting crowd into the white palace where his dreams lie broken. He attempts daily to piece it together, but how.

He wants to flee the grind. He knows about his betrayal. But like a million others, he feigns cowardice.

Until the day, when already half consumed by guilt, he would look to unshackle.

And, for once, he would smile because of life.

I typed without a second thought

Silence reigns. the night is feverish and hot. i sweat, but in little drops, no trickles on my forehead. I write to cool. my life.my sleep. my intuition. I need to write . i want to write. how long can i remain shut. silent.alone. why must i quit being who i am. what is it worth. does it matter to the world whether I follow my own diktat or someone else's? does anyone care as much. only i care. i care to care. the truth is that i can write, despite the chains, despite the gag. I can write and tell my story. no matter who listens and no matter who minds. i care, and that's enough. for me.
i need a break. from all this. from being me. from having to play my role. i want to break the campaign of terror, i know that's a cliche, that the world has gotten together to unleash at me. I want to watch the world from afar. not as a participant, but as one who happens to glance at a going-on out of sheer disinterest. I am tired. I need sleep. the kind of sleep not even ishani can put me to on her comfortable shoulders that i miss so much. If i leave your city ishani, its not because i owe you a grudge but because i am tired. i want to sleep. the kind of sleep i slept while in kalimpong. with the whistle of cool breeze playing somewhere near my ears, quilted under a blanket, protecting me from a motherly cold. i want to sleep. i want to go. please.humble request.

I am writing today

It's pleasant to be writing today. Three months have elapsed since this blog has been scripted upon.
When I first started blogging, I was among the first to do so among those known.
Now, blogging is fashion. And I am a guest.
It was painful shutting down The Rith. The blog, started on my maiden trip to Delhi (2004), saw my intermittent participation.
In a bid to revamp my fledgling efforts at building a formidable, online identity, I inaugurated this blog in 2007.
The intent was to represent a turbulent flow of emotions within me and to capture, in words mostly, my awed perceptions of Calcutta, the city I never managed to fall in love with, despite courageous attempts.
That I am here, training to be a writer (with mechanical qualities, nonetheless), has not, it seems, spurred me to write, or even jot down, what I could.
My "blogger" friends have surpassed me in discipline and productivity.
I write more for pleasure. But when writing does not cheer me up, I do not write.
Never did. Neither will.
See you soon.

Kochi celebrates a homecoming

We!