Election. The backstage drama!

11 May, 9.50pm.

I was taking a stroll around, with my dog.

Suddenly my phone blinked.

‘One new Whatsapp message.’

There is this group we have there, ‘Jobless a**h*les’ (asterisks to make it look less offensive).

Vicky- man, one of my maternal uncles is hospitalised. These people have hit him up real bad. I am super tensed.

Hem- sh*t. The same party people have threatened my dad as well, and then when we turned up to vote, they hit me up, too. You already know.

Arpita- these guys are despo to win the election already. There is this clash going on near my house as well.

Weird! They give us the right to vote and then take us through this hell-isque path of where They Want Us To Vote.

These above mentioned people are like me, of my age.

First Voters. And they already know what dirt it is in politics.

Vicky’s uncle, Hem’s dad was bitten up.

Reason- they don’t support the party that is recently taking pride in being on the newspapers for beating people up, hospitalising some, and killing many.

And then today, 12^th may, I DID vote. I mean, after these three months of going through the trouble of visiting the District Magistrate office with my voter card that spells my name TOTALLY wrong and then being returned saying ‘come after the elections get over’, I did vote.

Weird! And they talk big of taking care of the gen-Y people.

LOL! They can’t even spell our name correctly, let alone rectify that, pre-election.

Right now, I sit here with this blue mark on my finger that calls me a ‘Responsible citizen’. I would take much pride in calling myself, not one. Obviously the one I voted for, if that party wins, will surely change to the stereotype politician. I mean that’s what the pessimistic and the realistic me predicts and states.

And they say, ‘We create our government.’

Ignorant people!

 *   *   *   *   *

Totally out of the topic, but I would like to share.

Months back I visited this seminar. There, a prominent lady told me, "Tapatrisha, you should join politics. India needs young people to bring in change."

I still remember my answer," Ma’am, my family would never want me to join politics. To them, politics means ONLY throwing chairs and tables and often pepper spray at each other, in the parliament."

She just smiled, and left.

Culture, Dissected.

“Culture?“ he squinted in the daylight, as he looked up bewildered to her.

“Yes, CULTURE. What does that mean to you?” she pressed hard on ‘you’.

“Well, umm.. Culture is like.. you know.. a bit like Apur panchali, Rabindranath Tagore, Sukumar Ray, and, like theatres, nukkads, nice movies, and anything that has got a nice reference.” he said carelessly, as he took drags from his cigarette.

“Well, let me tell you this.  I have no idea what ‘Culture’ actually means, but I certainly know what ‘Culture’ does not mean. It does not mean creating rock music out of a Rabindrasangeet . It does not mean distorting a Satyajit Ray movie into something that has a lot of drop-the-clothes scenes, with no message to deliver. It does not mean visiting Shantiniketan to just click pictures for your Facebook profile. And it certainly does not mean puffing cigarettes in a culturally-rich area simple because, you feel, it makes you “cool.” She winked as she took the cigarette from his lips and killed it on the floor.

Well, I don’t know any of them. This whole conversation was eavesdropped by me. I preferred to throw the cigarette as well, when I heard her.

As the dusk grew darker, I sat on the stairs of Nandan and for a pretty long time I pondered on whatever I heard now.

Where is culture? Or well, what is culture?

With the advent and yield of globalisation, it’s more about head banging to music than listening to music. It’s more about mature pornography in the foil of art and culture, than creating a movie that has a strong message to give out. It’s more about shedding clothes than wearing them, and well, it all has gone down to money, than the feel-good air it brings.

A weird place I reside in. They smoke because Bob Marley used to. They shed clothes because film stars do that. They talk high about cultural and literary exponents because that makes them feel creative about themselves. They go around places of high cultural value, not to embrace culture, but to show off their photographic and pseudo-cultural flair. They mould Rabindranath’s compositions into rock music, because, ‘that’s cool.’ They shed clothes in movies, because that’s the present culture of merchandising the flesh.

The dusk had given way to night. I needed to get out of my world of deep thoughts and rush into the real world. One hour of hopeless dissection of ‘culture’, and I already needed a smoke for myself.

The scream, CAMOUFLAGED.

The windy evening. As I boarded down the bus, I saw the deserted street.

It’s going to rain.

And I had that spring in my walk, for I have always loved rain. That smell, when the rain drops fall on the dry soil-that intoxicates me, that ecstasies me.

The wind in my hair, the lone street, the occasional vehicles, the tea shop, and few urchins.

Life never felt better.

And then it happened- few hands on my dupatta, their animal lust, their groins, claws, teeth and..

When I woke up on the hospital bed, a few things have already taken place- a few candle marches, some fictional description of ‘My Rape’ in the newspapers, some ministers have cleanly connected my incident to the ‘sympathy quota’ of their election promotions, and a birth of another ‘Rape Victim’

.

.

.

Months have passed. The Indian Judiciary still call dates in the court. The media still asks me to give the description of my incident. DESCRIBE. ELABORATE. IN DETAIL. My family still seeks justice. Some students still arrange candle march. The political parties perfectly transfers the blame to each other. The RAPISTS laugh away.

And, I sit here, scared, afraid and tired of waking up every morning, being raped infinitely by the asking eyes and piercing questions of the Society.

The Weird country I live in.

WEIRD!

How a day earlier I gave a damn to what's happening round the planet, or even round my country.. and a day after, I start blogging about it..

Well, had I not attended the Annual Blogger's Meet, an initiative by Indian National Congress, yesterday, I perhaps would have remained the same youngster, chilling out and only bothering about my needs. but the discussion yesterday made me sit down and actually THINK about it.

How a nation is suppose to survive where every minute a girl child is murdered?

How a nation is suppose to breathe where secularism is just on rule book, but not in practice?

How a nation is suppose to get cleansed where a child is told to be a doctor or an engineer, but never a politician?

How a nation is suppose to smile, where the citizens have the right to choose the street food they want, but not their life partner, simply because they are of the same sex?

A funny country we live in.

They say, we have section 370 dealing with punishment of rape, but most of the rape cases don't even make to the newspapers. or to the police registers even.

They say, we have the Right to Information, but every time a reporter gets killed, people brag for a day, and forget about it.

They say we have the right to vote, but not fall in LOVE.

Where the best of the brains are lost due to reservation quota,

Where sex determination test goes on in full swing in remote villages,

 Where women gets trafficked to red light areas,

Where every minute a girl gets murdered before they are even born,

Where the rape victim is molested again through the eyes and words of the society,

Where the FIRST thing people do after a rape case is a CANDLE MARCH.

Where religions fight and innocent people are shot,

Where illiteracy forms the concentration, and

Where, WE the citizens hardly care about it.

A funny country I live in !

#Gibberish from a disturbed mind- Part 3

click here for the former part of the story!

Shraddha’s dreams broke as the clock struck ‘one’. She woke up in the dinner table and saw it in the condition, as it had been, when she dozed off.

She was starting to feel scared. Chetan haven’t returned yet. The heavily misty glass panes gave an impression of the intensity of the rain, outside. The distant street light looked like someone had smudged its yellow light. She drifted away to thoughts again, to that afternoon, when after the heavy rain, the rainbow coloured the dull sky, they, wrapped in one bed sheet, had spent it writing each other’s names with fingers, on the misty window pane.

Her thoughts broke and she grew more anxious.

Where the hell had he gone?

The phone said ‘Switched off’. She flooded them with voicemails. The last one, had her crying almost.

She opened the window pane, and let the rain hit her face.  Please keep him safe, RAIN!

The landline rang. She ran to get it. The receiver almost fell from her hand, when the expected voice whispered eerily, “ .. narrowly escaped death.”

She howled, “where are you?”

“On a pavement. Please come. I am so scared.”

She ran, broke open the door, and dodged the stairs. As she crossed the apartment’s main gate, she saw him.

The street lights showed blood gushing from his forehead. She ran to him, hugged him, and could barely speak, “How.. What happened?”

That followed a disturbing moment of pause.

“They want to kill me.”

“Who?”

For the whole time I thought about the incident, I thought it as someone’s else’s life. Anyone, but mine. This incident happened to SHRADDHA, not me.

Something in me smirked. You are Shraddha. YOU.

To the busy world outside, as I gazed at, I knew they take me for a girl suffering from emotional crisis, who lost her fiancé in an accident and was undergoing counselling, but all I knew was,

Chetan’s  death was not normal. It was anything but an accident..

.. to be continued.

Kolkata – Prettiest in her Festive Earrings!

Lights bloomed everywhere. From street lights to the LED decorations- the city was dressed in her best. The legs of the crowd made way for the main view- the puja pandel and the ten-handed epitome of power.

‘This city never stops’- they said, ‘This city walks on extra energy during festivals’- they never said. The funniest thing about Kolkata during Durga puja is- you don’t need to go around searching for the pandel, neither do you need to use the location-tracker application in your smart phone. Just stand in a crowd, and they will take you to the pandel, with the push.

Yes, Kolkata people are GPS trackers, when it comes to pandels, food courts, street shops, and almost everything under the sun.

And yes, we love to eat. And festivals bring with themselves, not just the feel-good air, but also the permission warrant of not paying a heed to the diet, and digging into any food and every food that catches the eye. From street food to restaurants- nothing makes Kolkata happier than FOOD!

Coming back to Durga puja, the pandels hum in the beats of the ‘Dhaak’- the best background score. And that unique smell you find in pandels- mixture of the smoke from the ‘Dhunuchi’, incense sticks, flowers, fruits- doesn’t it just make you smell for more? Addictive, isn’t it? And the good feeling it brings with itself, that happy feeling that leaves a curve on your lips..

Colours are scattered everywhere. The whole city dresses up- clothes, shoes, perfumes. I wonder what would my city look like, from over the clouds, during a festival- a haphazard pattern painted beautifully, or a colour palate that just slipped off a painter’s hand, and left an abstract scene, too mesmerising to describe.. WHO KNOWS..

But as Peter Parker says, “with great power comes great responsibility”, we Kolkatans say, with great happiness come Problems. Accidents, traffic jams, problems in parking cars, drains suffocating with garbage- and the listless problems.

But then as the Kolkata attitude says, ‘ Problems will come and go infinite times a year, but festivals come only once.’ The rest of the year is the WAIT.

Its only the festival time, when a school girl can give a damn to her homework, an office-going dad can stop worrying about his boring working-desk and threatening deadlines, a housewife mom can forget about pondering over what to cook for the breakfast, and a college-goer need not bunk classes to hang out with his friends. The best time of the year, it is. Happiness brims out of faces, and the reason is common!

Kolkata, being the home of a lot of communities, tastes all festivals- from Ganesh chaturthi to Christmas, From Durga puja to Eid. And, we, the foodie Kolkatans, the fun-loving Kolkatans, only need an excuse to celebrate- drop studies, drop work, and let down our hair.

But  then,  Life  is  all  about  CELEBRATING,  isn’t  it ??

#gibberish from a disturbed mind- Part 2

click here for the first part of the story!

I don’t know for how long I slept. All I woke up to was a very bad headache. The alarm clock was lying beside me, perhaps dead from the endless screams it did to break my slumber, but in vain. 

The afternoon sun rays hit hard on the eyes and I squinted to see the time on my cell phone.

12:30pm.

Not the time, but the notifications got my eyes hooked.

12 text messages. 9 missed calls.

I let out a sigh, it must be mom, reminding me of my psychiatrist’s appointment.

Wish you were here, Chetan.

Half an hour from then, I was back to the window. The scorching heat outside, the busy road, people, the rickshaw-pullers, made me restless.

There is a world out there, moving on, without me.

For having nothing else to do, I checked into my online account.

“Hi. Good morning.” The faceless, nameless text sender was there, again.

“Yes, morning.” Wake up with this bad a headache at late noon, and try saying ‘Good Morning’ .

“If you care, I am here to help. He won’t be back. Grow over it.”

I pulled back in shock. The mention of ‘He’ already sent a chill through my spine.

My fingers trembled as I wrote the reply, “WHO ARE YOU?”

How on earth do you know so much about me?

“Does that matter? I am here to help you.”

“Say the name, or you get blocked right away.” I felt the goose bumps, now.

“Miss, for all I know..

You WON’T block me.” And a smiling emoticon, came with it.

Who are you? A stalker? A friend? Or wait, CHETAN?

Irregular sleep, inactive days and wasting hours beside the window, looking at the disturbingly busy world outside, often makes you go beyond truths and hallucinate about impossibles. I was no exception.

“Miss, where are you lost?” the blinking chat box brought me back to reality again.

Fifteen minutes from then, I was driving to my psychiatrist’s chamber. I needed few words with her.

.. To be continued.