Just short of death line..

Who invented the word deadline? Most apposite. Feeling like a sacrificial goat. Asked for an extension. Want some lifeline to live a little longer. Not much. Just a little.

Back with a bang

Much illuminated. Just 3 days left. Sorry less than 3 days.

Off to MOL

They come they go...

A finally did not show up. Why?

The first question that I'll ask: Is it possible that I'm responsible for A's disappearance? Two great guys -- one is an Austrian called Sigmund Freud and the other is a Greek by the name Plato -- would have been supremely interested to find the answers, had they been alive today. But alas!! Anyway, I anticipated this was going to happen sooner or later that A would run away leaving some clues that I would, characteristically, tend to ignore. I said I anticipated. Didn't I? Boy! Grow up. Please. For God's sake. Why anticipate? This has become a rule now. P (13x7), D(+6), S (+3), V(+3) and now A(+3). Or, does A deserve to be included in this elite group? Did A do anything or at least, endure any of my idiosyncrasies to join this august company? Of course, not the same way as others did, but from a different angle, A qualifies better than the rest. Ok. Enough. Now, in absentia let us bid good bye to A and wish A very very best of luck. There is no looking back. OK. Move on. ...Done.

Let's now wait for welcoming the next one, if at all there is still anyone left who can outshine, or at least match up to A. Otherwise, register for the club B which is not bad either, believe me munnu. So many men of wisdom -- K of Germany, N of England, K of Denmark and many more -- would be euphoric to decorate you with a bravery award.

I think, I'm not too cryptic here, for me to deduce what this post is all about, let's say, after 30 years.

Isn't she very caring?

I need an ergonomic chair at home too, if I want my spine to survive the onslaughts of long hours at the computer.

Ouch!!!!

Perhaps injured some muscle/ligament/tendon/tissue on my left shoulder joint while working out on the pectoral machine. But the good news is that I finally discovered with 24 hours effort, how it happened. My gripping was very much faulty. Your arms should rest against the pads completely so that all the force in your pectoral muscles can be mobilized to lift the weight, while, in my case, only the palms were used to draw the arms of the machine. Please use your elbows to pull the wieght, NOT your hands which will remain relaxed. Otherwise this very useful machine will cause death to your shoulders. For me, hope things will be alright soon. Remember that the shoulder joint is the most sophisticated and therefore, the most vulnerable joint of your body. Appreciate how delicate the design is, for the arms to have infinite degrees of freedom, unlike any other joint.

Chandrabindoo rocks

I'm in office now, working aganist time, for the 30th deadline and at the same time, listening to Chandrabindoo on headphone. At times, my moods match so well with their songs that I think, whoever comes near me at that time, I'll force that person in joining me in dancing and shouting loudly behind Chandrabindoo.

Gabgu bagu..gabgu bagu
tomaye paoyae moron bachon
muguur haate turki nachon
tomar babar neem er pNachon muukh..
nahoye du-chokh buje raasta haate bechara ujbuk
mathaye kore rakhbe tomaye sokol jhaaka muute
tomar jonyo laal baatsha urbe horir luute
station road e fuchka khaabo bhishon chete pute
maiiri bolchhi esob vebe diary likhi khuuub .....
gabgu bagu....

Wishful thinking: medicine for sleeping disorders

Let's just think for a while that whatever you wish is going to be true to the last bit-- at the right time, right space -- everything happening exactly the way you want. No, not just think. Believe that. It is a very healthy feeling. Calm, peaceful, placid. The result is: Eyes go on strike for a vacation. Lovelorn eyelids, on sensing the presence of sweetheart, suddenly become very restless to kiss each other, before slipping into a passionate intimacy for the night. Puffiness of the pillow and blanket looks irrepressibly seductive. A state, torporific, soporific, deific. It's raining also. Sound of rain on the roof, all are in perfect harmony.

Still Want more?

Five of them (P2, I1, I3, N, G) are broken and therefore, shown the exit door. Isn't it enough for 30th May? However, what can be done about H, I2, P3 and Sc? Are they good? I don't think so. None is good. Only that sometimes we are unable to show that they are bad.

Good boy

Today is Mother’s day. If I call her and say, "Today is your day and I’d be thinking of you all day, for the kindness and care you showered on us all your life and what we are now is only because of you." She would first purse her brow to get the inkling of exactly what I'm trying to say and then, as initial confusion paves the way for a realization, completely her own derived from her experience of life, she would finally gush forth, “thak, onek hoechhe" (enough is enough. Please stop that now). But I’ll not let such thoughts deter me from going ahead. kring, kring..."Hello".

update: She is out in her singing class; so, any last hope to wish her before the day passes by, is practically crushed. So, here is wishing my mother a very happy and healthy life. Hope the message breaks free from the pages of my weblog and flows to her.

Finally managed some time...

I’m going shopping. List.

1. A pair of darkblue jeans + a pair of darkkhaki jeans (waist is now 2 inches less than the last time; target : a further reduction of 2 inches in the next two months) ,
2. Two T-shirts: 1. full-sleeve, lightslategray 2. half-sleeve, multicolored (black/blue/darkred), unattractive slogan on the front, to my great relief,
   


3. A pillow + pillow cover (size: 65cm x 65 cm) ,


4. A blanket plus cover (size: 140 cm x 200 cm)
   


5. A pair of exercise gloves (not found)
   


6. A pack of 10 razors from Gillette.
   
7. A few assorted stuff for daily use (go to comments space).

Note 1. Blue/red colored part was added later.
Note 2. Colors were determined according to the convention here.

Yudhishthira's Wisdom

Yaksha: Who is happy?

Yudhishthira: Those who can act with confidence.

Yaksha: How to maintain a constant supply of confidence?

Yudhisthira: Absolute and dispassionate awareness of reality.

Yaksha: What is the difference between knowledge and awareness?

Yudhisthira: Knowledge is unlimited, therefore, can never be attained in entirety. Awareness is the state of mind having a clear idea about what you know and what you do not know.

Yaksha: How to remain aware?

Yudhisthira: To build a mindset that searches for truth fearlessly.

Above is an excerpt of a conversation between the mythical Yaksha and Yudhisthira, as documented in an unpublished manuscript which is recently found in Bolivia.

My application returned

The audit committee did not sanction my earlier claim for refund of asiacrypt costs. They are unable to accept bills with 6 to 8 large drinks of expensive liquor such as Chivas Regal, Johnnie Walker etc. I hardly drink. Those were spent to treat my friends whom I met last December/January after a long time. Now why would my employer pay for my personal costs? I somewhat took them for granted and concluded that I would get away with it, in view of the pampering they did to me in the past. Now I cut down on many costs and resubmitted. Let's see.

Feeling uneasy

Last December when I arrived in Kolkata after a hiatus of one year abroad, on looking at me right at the NSCB hawai-adda (one of my favorite words in any language), my mother couldn't hide her disappointment and announced that I grew visibly overweight and I could well match a Penguin in appearance. For those who do not know what a Penguin is, like me who never heard of that species till my mother compared me to that; it is a black-and-white biped bird with flippered wings and webbed feet, fat in the middle and tapered at the ends mostly found in the South Pole . Loved as Penguin indeed is very much as a cool and intelligent bird trotting about on the vast expanses of snow covered fields, it is not, at any rate, an honor for a homo sapiens to be compared to that biped in appearance.

So the best possible way for me to sink again into guiltless self-indulgence, is to brush aside the allegations as over-attention of an uber-protective mother who cannot resist the temptation of hyperbole as a part of her strong adherence to Bengali culture. But my daydreaming was not long-lived and only lasted till I took the opportunity of that vacation to go to Mumbai to visit P for a couple of weeks. A one-liner about P may not be out of scope here: P is my only classmate in school who somehow rode out all the tempests and the tornadoes and the cyclones of a relation to go on to win the title of my most trusted friend of today. OK. So I am now on an Air Deccan flight to Mumbai eagerly awaiting a tryst with P after almost four years of estrangement. When P came to receive me at the Chhatrapati Shivaji hawai-adda, it was an emotive moment quite natural for a reunion of two close friends separated for a long time, he hugged me passionately, took charge of my luggage and then the thunder struck on my head. P whispered to me, "You are looking like a sexy thunder thigh Tamil Heroine."

As P dropped off that comment very casually and wandered off with my trolley toward his car parked far away from the airport exit, I sank into a private contemplation, a deep contemplation. So, really I'm looking soooo.... Oh. Jesus.. I can't think any more. As P pressed the accelerator at full throttle and his recently bought 10- year-old -second-hand Maruti 800 sped past motley images of urban accoutrements on both sides of a Mumbai highway, along with also rushed my fears about my recently confirmed doomed future. Many deadly images flashed through my mind.

The more I pondered about that, the more did I feel utterly hopeless, tremendously insecure. As it seemed to me that I was descending through a bottomless despair, from which my rescue appeared impossible, giving me the feeling of a fast approaching damnation -- maybe a long overdue nemesis for my past guilts -- suddenly, very suddenly, surely by the grace of God, a piece of paper rolled down through the broken glovebox of the car's dashboard and fell plumb onto my feet. The paper sported a big picture of a person who, defying all popular wisdoms, attained the most glorious success that one can imagine in his profession, despite arguably having no merits for that. If he can, then why can't I? I took no time to make my mind up. Yes he is my inspiration. My idol. My beacon in my desperation, in my puerile failings. He is my God. The moment I saw his picture new hopes bloomed in my mind, my emotions were promptly rearmed. The very moment, I took oath in the name of the newly found messiah-- my only resolution for 2006 -- to go to a gym without responding to the calls of auto-generated excuses even if there was a tsunami or a Katrina or a devastating earthquake, till I developed at least 8 distinctly visible biscuits of tight, strong muscle in my abs.

Till yesterday I very austerely followed the course of action that I struck out while I was traveling with P in his car in Mumbai. But today I missed it. I missed it because the gym was closed much earlier than normal for reasons not clearly known. I sinned. Clearly I sinned. That is why I am feeling uneasy.

In case you are curious about that adorable person who showed me light at the time of my abysmal despair by setting an example of his own life, here is the man. Let me take his name once again with all the respect he deserves.

G's five year old daughter died

G is a 23 year old girl. Her family is inextricably tied to our family. My mother today gave me the news, that G's five year old daughter, who according to my mother's description looked extremely cute, has died a few days ago of kidney failure. As for me, I did not see G in the last seven years. I do not even know what the name of G's daughter's was, let alone ever saw the departed girl. I never met G's husband either. That fact is that I was always afraid to meet them. Why was I afraid? Only now I came to know that G's daughter was actually born with dysfunctional kidneys. Therefore, she was destined to die sooner or later. In the last four years I visited India thrice and stayed there for more than one month each time. My folks never raised this sore subject in front of me. They never wanted me to be bothered by these things. They were not wrong. I was afraid. G's father, who was a habitual drinker, also died prematurely at a young age of 42 some six years back, after suffering from multiple ailments such as liver cirrhosis, tuberculosis and a heart condition. My mother also disclosed that, to make matters worse, G has now been abandoned by his husband too (who is 25 years old and a cabdriver by profession), because her in-laws now consider G to be cursed and, in future also, they think she would never be able to bear a healthy child. G now lives with her widowed mother and an 18 year old brother, all dwell huddled up in a tiny room; needless to say that their living condition is not very hygienic. As far as I know, to make a living for her family, G's mother works as a part-time maid washing clothes and cleaning utensils in some neighboring households. Nobody told me, but I can presume that G's brother must have given up his studies and taken up the job of a rickshaw-puller by now, to support the family.... .... I think I must stop now...

I did not want to record this incident because I knew that it would make many past events pop up in my mind that were better kept buried forever lest it might call into question many bitter facts. But, for reasons not very clear to me, I was weighed down by conscience and desperately wanted to feel lighter. I am unable to answer any questions on this post. Forgive me.