Ei meghla dine akla, ghore thaake na to mon.

Did ever your spirits light up, listening to a song that probably your grandmother adored, then your mum and a 15 year-old you would have been indifferent to? It had happened to me just now and thus the need for this post. Other reasons might have contributed. For example, getting the opportunity to chat with your old school friend (who's also in the same part of the city as you) in pure bengali, about Bibhutibhushan's novels that had chilled you to the core, about Professor Shonku & all his adventures, about your resolutions, how you've turned into a person that probably a 15-year old you would have despised and last but not the least how today's weather in Delhi inspired a particular genre of Rabindrasangeet in you, how the night-watchman gave a start when he heard you singing "paagla haawa baadol dine" and "Aami chini go chini tomare". I was searching for video clips of Satyajit Ray's movies that had Rabindrasangeet played in them. Emaculate, each one of them. I came across this wonderful "adhunik gaan"( though its probably 50 years old, everything post-Rabindrasangeet is adhunik to mum's generation & beyond).
Biswajit lips in this song. And how delightfully he does so. You can be hopelessly in love, hopelessly not in love, waiting for some-one, not-waiting-for-someone..whatever your state might be, the melody will always delight you. Hemanta's sleek voice enchants. I'm sure I've seen this movie quite a few times. Will have to call her up to get the name.
There are times when for days at a stretch, you wait for something to happen that will break the monotony, to enthuse you with life again. This song did that to me, today. I think I will be a more active person tomorrow.
Its 3 in the morning. I better get some sleep.
Sweetdreams to me. :)

Hemlock Society

Shouldn't killing yourself be legalised, irrespective of whether you suffer from an incurable disease or not, whether you are terminally old or not? After all its your life! If you think the opportunity cost of living is too much for you to bear, isn't it better for you to be non-living ( Though I'm not sure whether you become "non-living" after death) ? This argument can be countered in the following melodramatic, filmy way: You have no right to take your life since you are not the one who created it? ( I'm not sure what exactly "creation" implies here, and when ''exactly" are you created? Is it at the moment that the first sperm penetrates the first layer of the ovum, or when the XX & XY chromosomes combine themselves to form a new DNA combination, or when the heart of the foetus beats for the first time )
I was in a convent school where the nuns used to describe the above phenomenon as "miraculous". Sister would say ''out of those millions of sperms, one was chosen and you were born" much before that joke in 3 idiots. That you should consider life a precious gift, given that many 13 year old girls had displayed 'wrist-cutting' tendencies in school. To look into the lines of your hand and see how special you are because the intricacies of your palm are unique to you and you alone.
But you might not think that way. You might be fed up or tired or simply bored of your life like the protagonist in "Veronica Decides to Die". I don't understand why killing yourself is a crime. Some wise man had once said this before he died, " Now I'm ready for the next great adventure, Death". Many great people knew the exact time of their death much before it actually came. There was the great Mathematician, Ramanuja who had calculated the exact timing of his death, there was Swami Vivekananda who knew that he was sitting for his last meditation. These people died young and if they knew they were dying and  did nothing about it, was it not voluntary? There are western musicians and idols who had innovated new ways of making themselves "non-living".
I am not arguing in favour of hemlock societies around the world.
Just a thought. I have watched a Bengali movie of the same name. It had the usual cliched ending. But started off in quite an interesting way.