A Full Round

What does a year constitute for us? Has it become just a fad to celebrate the passing of one and ringing in of another with handful of resolutions which merely sustain themselves for a couple of days ? Do we really get perturbed with the passing of a year which makes us to be fortunate enough to live for another 365 days? Or we just love to give it a passing glance as the most granted reality?

Endless procession of Q and A starts passing across my already disputed mind (which keeps me irked and excited simultaneously) leaving me with no definite conclusion (now, that has become a part of every query of mine). However, all these incubous and succubous  somewhat in a semifinal way ( as I am a habitual changer of my own line of thought )have taken me close to at least my realisation about the importance of one long year.

Yes, a year as an accumulation of 365 or 366 days in the Gregorian Calendar , now divided into 12 months, reckoned as beginning January 1 and ending December 31st or if you want me to be more astronomically specific then it should be put like,a division of time comprising of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds , representing the interval between one vernal equinox and the next. All this cumbersome detailing should better be overlooked as it is another most granted reality which we live everyday. But can we? Should we? Will we? Some will definitely do so and the rest of us will keep on blinking with all doubt and disbelief.

In my growing up years ( I think I am still in that phase though) I heard a saying "Let bygones be bygones" and I have always been suspicious about the value it holds. Can bygones be bygones? Does the past hold no water in our life? Can we just erase it with our present and a more optimistic future?

 Removal of spent days from life has never been easy for me. To be more precise I never want it to be actually as over and done . Past has always remained as a slice of my stealthily developing being fraught with moments of splendour, bliss, uncertainty, hesitation and sublimity. I feel rooted into my existence through my already completed days, each of which has taught me a different story of life.

The year which has come to its threshold has been a blissful one...it has given me some more ambiguity and tried to sewn them with some more conviction; it has given me the lessons of the pleasure of walking through untrodden paths smeared with dust and mud, holding every pace with more firmness. My pounding heart is not really mourning the last few moments that the year is spending with me, it's telling the year, instead " You can never die ... Nobody can make us apart...You are and always will be holding a very special corner in my deepest self... No need to bid adieu my friend"…

Every split second of the passing year deserves my gratitude for keeping me alive with moments fortunate and deprived. The time has come that I should look back and cherish all ups and downs with orange satisfaction.

Oh! Listen...there's my soul is singing with all delight and disquiet, "There's time for another, there's time for anew"...

Homeland

What is to be at home in this world? Is it a person's historical position or the much celebrated conviction of  'same pool of blood' ? The midnight oil kept on burning faithfully leaving me ever vigilant  for getting an answer. After much drilling all I could settle for was the penchant for feeling 'rooted into' , a place which smells of one's desire, the gentle blossoming of early knowledge and not yet fully developed fantasies . It is the land where the diasporic lot wants to come back and die. It is a geo positional entity which exists not only in map but also in mind. Let me put it into some rhymes and give it a name ...

     
                  Coming into Being

    The journey was arduous
    But she kept me in care
    Opening the door to my new being
    Made me feel precious and rare
    Started with a bang I cried,
    "Mother, let me slip into again,
    It seems so barren and dried ,
    Clutched all in vain ."
    Kissed my forehead and blessed the angel
    Held me in coiling hands
    Muttered , "Child you need not fear
    This is your Homeland.
    Kings have come, crowns have gone
    Leaving shadows behind
    Gushes of blood , forces of love
    That'll keep you bind .
    A twitch in heart , a bloated throat
    Leave you with a smile ,
    Away from it in a far away land
    You will feel exile ."


And this careless verse of mine helped me to be landed as  the winner of a Creative Writing Competition organised by British Council Kolkata and Outset India. More than the chunk of  silver what I got was a newly earned confidence to follow 'the road less travelled'...
               

      

The Fact Penetrating

Tonight let me talk about something still considered formidable in Indian context, the much thought about and hardly spoken about subject 'Virginity'. Just a while ago some lines written on a friend's wall on a social networking site caught hold of my notice. The person who happens to be male by gender stated that all the women he had already slept with concocted some false stories about tearing of the hymen thereby claiming their state of being still as a virgin. 

VIRGIN... Yes, that's the word creating all illusions and their later transformation into disillusionment .

Virginity according to popular concept is a state of being virgin that is determined by the inexperience of penial-vaginal penetration , connected with the sexually inexperienced women. But the term has not confined itself within physical definition . Down the ages it has expanded itself to traditional ethical concepts which are culturally specific. As culture and religion are interwoven , so as virginity, sex and society. 

If we go by the jargons of societal norms ( specially in a country like India ) then sex is something best preserved for marriage where an important precondition on the part of the girl is purity and physical self restrain ( however misleading the terms are ). Another important contributor to this whole concept is the omnipotent hand of religion that tries to regulate every aspect of human life. Leave apart Christianity , Hinduism or Islam, even a religion like Buddhism that is considered favourable to progress or reform instructs the monks and nuns of most traditions to refrain from any sexual activity. 

Now the question which haunts me is that " what is the yardstick of the state of being pure? Is it only the lack of sexual activity before marriage? " If it is so then marriage can be taken as a mechanism to loose a girl's virginity thereby giving her a coupon to gratify her sexual desires. This I think narrows down the beauty of marriage as a union of two souls to the union of the private parts of two individuals. 

I am quite apprehensive about this degeneration of man woman relationship owing mainly to the concept of Virginity and Sex. In a desire to prove herself chaste and pure girls often tries to take resort to false stories by faking virginity thereby failing inadvertently the foremost stipulation in a relationship and that is honesty. The consequence reaches far beyond than this making woman a puppet in a show case incapable of voicing her wishes and desire... Here breeds the paternal hegemony of the society. 

Don't you think therefore, that the whole concept of Virginity is a conspiracy to propagate influence on people's choice of life in general? Time has arrived that we drag down the wall between falsity and honesty ... between virginity and heart's craving for liberation from any narrow confine.

Tonight

The Night...the ever engulfing Night. A time meant for foreboding, a span for taking us to a world of long lost love and laughter. This is one such night which only brings out the pain piled up secretly in some hidden corner of my being. Some dreams buried alive,some wishes born to be unfulfilled,some sorrows ever chasing me are creeping into my soul telling me stories of my unsuccessful running after a world of cherished dreams.

The Night came crawling up to me
Whispered "Sleep no more"...

This night of  agony will bear witness of the birth of some rhymes coming out from my lost soul...

A VOICE CHOKED

A smiling sun, a temperate breeze, an empty apartment and a cup of tea…the day started with a perfect note. There was no other choice before me other than feeling at peace. It was a day of foreboding, a day meant to be delved into some rhymes. A line struck me and my pen showed some magic. Another fit of joy, a state of feeling blessed...I thanked Almighty (or the Universe, as you may call it) for making me able to put my musings into words. ”My day is made”, I thought and tried to pay attention to the world outside that I generally do by checking the news through online sources. Is it a reality? How come? But why? And I felt unnerved…

ndtv says, “Indian author Sushmita Banerjee shot dead in Afghanistan”. Some ten years back I read her first book ‘Kabuliwalar Bangali Bou’ (‘Kabuliwala’s Bengali Wife’) that held some amazing descriptions about the landscape of Afghanistan and the formidable plight of Afghan women. More than her style of writing what caught my attention was her vivacity and courage to bear the result of marrying a man from a land of chaos, uncertainty and colossal destruction. However Banerjee’s decision was not proved a blissful one compelling her to flee from Afghan shackles. Later she penned two more books on that part of her life named ‘Taliban, Afghan O Ami’(Taliban, Afghan and Me), ‘Ek Barno Mithya Noi’ (Not A Grain of Untruth). Her writings showed her valour and undaunted spirit, a refusal to confirm to the way of life.

Of late Sushmita Banerjee moved back to stay with her husband and was simultaneously working as a health worker in Patika, Afghanistan to uplift the condition of women. The provincial police chief indicated that the militants had grudges against her for her writing against the Afghan kind of society. She held a voice to protest, a life to serve the downtrodden female folk of the much turbulent country that awarded her with twenty gun shots and some portion of her hair ripped off.

With laden eyes I looked at the words I had written some moments before…My bloated heart asked the Almighty “Is it a curse to put our thoughts into words even in the twenty first century?”

The Outset

With a plentitude of elation I have finally arrived in the world of blogging. Some conflicting thoughts and vacillating musings prompted me to share my ideas in this bigger podium. Devoid of any specific agenda my blog will bring out a portion of me, my illumination on life in general that consists of some moments felt and realized. However, you can expect a slice of poetry, little cynicism, some romantic spirit or even a candid observation on our day to day existence that elucidates the meaning of being alive. Exchange of ideas is always stimulating enough to generate a new world of vision and that is why agreements or disagreements from your end are welcome. Criticism of constructive nature is something I always look forward to. Therefore, feel free to share your views with me.

Here starts my journey on a new boulevard reminding me of the lines I went through in Walt Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass'-

"Not I, nor anyone else can travel the road for you,

It is not far. It is within reach.

Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know.

Perhaps it is everywhere-on water and land."

Therefore, Dear Visitor, arrive with pleasure in my blog and contribute to my vision of life, a journey travelled inward...