To the ones who dream

I create as I write
I create as I speak
I create as I believe
I create as I think
I create as I endeavour
I create as I imagine
I create as I decree
I create as I persuade
I create as I run
I create as I pursue
I create as I catch
I create as I compose
I create as I dream.

An ode to 2016. What a year it has been(with still four days to go). :)

"Root Cause"

What if I had not been the studious little girl and had been more interested in music?

Wasn't that my mother's secret desire? That I will grow up to become a world famous vocalist one day?

What if I had continued with the classical music lessons that I left after a year or two of training when I was ten?

Would I have been world famous by now, made many world trips, visited the exotic places of the world that I wish to visit one day already for my musical concerts?

I would definitely have achieved by now what I mean to achieve ten years down the line(travel wise at least) with the life that I have chosen, probably.

Would I have been  happier then?

What if I did study very seriously for medical entrance examinations during my Plus II?

What if I had become a neurosurgeon by now or be on my way to become one?

Would I have been happier then than I am now as I would be more respected and revered for my job, probably?

What if I hadn't been so smitten by Economics during my undergrad days, pursued law instead and became a judge like my father? I would have all the requirements and highly placed contacts in the Indian Law Circle to have had an accelerated career. Unlike present where I am having to prove my worth to everyone at every stage of it.
Would I have loved it if everything had been laid out to me on a platter?
Wouldn't that have been a monotonous life, gifted by someone and not self made?

I'd like to believe that none of the above choices would have made me happier or would have given me greater peace than I am at today.
I have always taken the road less traveled, did the opposite of what I had been advised to do and have been usually been good at whatever I chose to do(or so I was made to believe).

Because this way, I go to sleep every night thinking this life I chose has not been super-imposed upon me by anyone and I do my best to make it work.
I try to find happiness even in the not-so-happy situations.
Because this life of mine is entirely mine. My creation. My design. My baby.

I choose to stay in a city away from family, because this way people adore me for who I am and not just pretend to due to a family name that I may be associated with.

Someday probably I will go back to my roots, but not before I have grown magnificent branches of my own that are independent enough to flourish without those roots. 

Someday when people will find it more interesting to talk about the magnificence of the branches themselves rather than that of the roots.

P.S. Lets not go all scientific about how the roots give rise to the branches. The genetics of it all. That is not the point being made here. :/

I will come with you to the end of the world

A dream broke that day.
She was jerked back into reality.
The day was bad.
Two separate worlds.
That she had nurtured so well.
Never to meet each other.
The worlds had collided that day.
But it was not just the shock.
It was the surprising ease with which the worlds met each other.
And she is tired of pretending to be strong.
It was time he came along to take the load off her.
It was time that he said to her "Hey girl,
I will come with you to the end of the world!". 

Inspired

I write after a chasm of more than a year.
I write because I should.
I write because its what keeps me grounded.
I write to make up for all those times that I wished I had written.
I write because everyday I hear the wind whisper in my ear asking me to write.
I write because of my failure to understand certain existences.
I write because I am disappointed.
I write because I am overwhelmed.
I write because my heart skipped a beat a few minutes back when I was unable to find this blog on the internet.
I write because I am hurt.
I write because I believe.
I write because I have learnt to float, to loosen the grip.
I write because I have realized the clay is yet to harden.
I write because I have learnt to appreciate this treasure.
I write because I am in love with the not-so-lovely-situations.
I write because I am high.
I write because I look forward to the adventure, the unpredictability of it all.
I write because I have broken the wall around me.
I write because it would have taken a lot to not write.
I write because your eyes spoke a thousand words.
And I write because I understood them all.

Transition

Did you ever feel numb due to so many emotions at once, so many people, so much happening around you and to you, so much that you have to do, so much that you are responsible for, including people that you stay away from writing your thoughts down, that you think it might be unhealthy for you? A less pensive me would have called this  stage "Happy". But now that I am looking at things in a different light altogether, I refrain to describe this phase of my life as "Happy" or "Busy".
When I came to Mumbai, I had taken a vow not to go about life the same way that I had gone about when I ventured out to Delhi from Calcutta. I did things differently this time. Things had to be different too. I came here to work.
I will start from the very beginning. After my fourth and final semester got over, I practically had no break. The Sealdah Rajdhani was running late as usual, we got down at Durgapur and not Calcutta, went to Dad's bungalow and was in continuous tour mode as it was my Dad's last stint outside Calcutta. When I finally reached Calcutta I had only two days to go for Mumbai. Only two days to pack, to find out all my contacts in Mumbai, to listen to people's suggestions on how to live in Mumbai, prepare myself for the next phase of my life, to say goodbye to everyone. Couldn't complete everything on my checklist, but I made a fairly good job of it, i'd like to believe. I was going to Mumbai with mom and bon 7 days before my date of joining. This was for two purposes: 1) To look for apartments, hostels and 2) To search for internships for my sister. We were betting everything on a city that three of us had never set foot in, in our not so long lives. The city didn't disappoint us. Bon got through a fairly good firm,I found a fairly good place to stay at least initially. Dad came to complete the rest of the job. He dropped me off at the 5 star hotel in Pune where all the supposedly elite Chrysalis B-school(we 3 from DSE were the only non-MBAs) batch for the year 2013 would have a 5 day induction program. When dad freshened up in my very posh hotel room, for the first time in my life I think I figured a look on his face that told me that he is actually happy that I am where I am. He is generally very disapproving of anything "corporate".
The induction was a very general overview of all Business Units of the Company("the most popular IT company") and the Consulting people( us and 30 others like us from the A,B,C B-schools) were all lost in the Technology part until the last day when our BU was explained to us. We were relieved to have had a break from the HR and engineering stuff. Bonding with the rest of the 130 MBA grads was a bit difficult, given our non-MBA backgrounds, but at the end of the week, some became really close. I guess when you go through the same ordeal, you can't help but become friends. Some of the MBA people had packages so high, that we were dumb-founded when asked ours and muttered something back like "privacy policy".
We came back to Mumbai and we were allowed to stay in the guest house for a about a week and that was the week all the Chrysalis batch did their house hunting. I was relaxing back because I had the hostel booked and had no intentions of moving to an apartment immediately(yes I'm saving a lot of money, that the rest of my colleagues aren't).That weekend was the the rainiest, just like this one.
Office first day was not that scary. Our manager, seeing the "timid" look on our faces actually asked us whether we were missing our classes, that consultants should be confident. I felt happy, distinguished as I was the only one who got a laptop on the 2nd day itself, the only one to get a laptop in the first week of joining out of the Chrysalis batch of 134, just imagine! My team was already decided, I was to be in the predictive analytics team, which had a very efficient, a very bengali team leader, who is from the same undergrad college as me from Calcutta. There are other team leaders from IITs, NITs. On the 3rd day itself, we were bombarded with a data set and had to give analytical insights(using SPSS) to a mock client on the 5th day. We had just one laptop, one day to learn SPSS, prepare a PPT. We somehow managed to present some story.
That weekend I shifted to my hostel, found rather amiable people there. We have a 5 girl gang group(including my sister) and we stay in each others rooms so much that people confuse our room numbers.
Working can empower you in ways more than one. The grand architecture, the reverence, your handsome and pretty colleages, the team work, the parties, the cafeteria. I am just a one-month-experience-old fresher, still being trained in softwares,still being given only mock consultation projects, so can't say much on how it is when you have real work pressure, but as of now,office seems pretty cool. I don't expect much but to enjoy and love what I do.
I still can't conclude whether this phase is "Happy" or "Busy" or neither or something else altogether. Just that a lot happens and it numbs you.
The city is friendly, the sea numbs you again by its vastness, the people helpful( an autowallah came all the my back to my hostel to return my Company ID Card), the undulated roads give you the feeling of a hill-

View of Vikhroli Hills from the Conference Room

station, the city is beautiful when it rains as long as you are under the shade, the green-hills from our office are picturesque, SRK's Mannat rather disappointed me(I had expected something more grand), Antilla, the Ambani Villa, I found gaudy as well.

Crazy things that I did/do:
1) Posed as a TISS student and got special discounts from a beauty salon.
2) Ran after a very rare bus with my heeled formal shoes, fully clad in formals.
3) Lost my phone, purse all at one go, got it returned on the same day.
4) Refused a date with a much-sought-after guy.
5) Wore skimpy outfits and make up just to impress myself.
6) Bought a 10K watch with my first salary.
7) Sent 10K home(so i'm broke now).
8) Decided that I will stay and manage in the working women hostel even though all my Chrysalis batchmates have taken luxurious flats.
9) Laugh out so loud in the Office Cafeteria that people ogle.
10) Laugh out so loud in the hostel room that whenever I'm silent or thoughtful my girl gang thinks that something is wrong.

Delhi

Delhi taught me a lot of things. That gender matters. That your life could be so constrained ( by your gender, by society, by a zillion other things) that you have hardly any space to breathe ( just following the routine) and still you manage to "live", never questioning, never trying to break free and be almost proud about it.
No one ( read NOT PARENTS, NOT FRIENDS) had ever told me that ,I can't go to all GIRL trips alone, that you NEED a BROTHER/ BOYFRIEND/ MALE PARENT to accompany you. Delhi (or should I say a particular female around me) told me so. In Kolkata, me and my gang of girl friends would sit in a dark alley smoking even at 9: 30 pm in the night. We'd do things that even guys would never dare. I thought Delhi would be one step ahead of this. But alas, it didn't keep its promises.

I first discovered this massive gender discrimination (that culminated in or culminated from a low female: male work ratio, its a vicious circle anyway) while boarding the Delhi Metro for the very first time in my life at New Delhi Metro Station. The male queue was unending. The female queue was hardly 2-3 aunties long. I was momentarily happy, but then had to wait for dad and was delayed anyway. I was simply stunned by this very low female: male ratio. Where did all the women go? This is true for any station, other than the DU Metro station. Now, ofcourse I don't feel elated or disappointed anymore, when I see this. I've gotten used to such stuff.

In Kolkata when I would tell agony aunts and ever so curious relatives about my friends, they could never tell whether its a girl or a boy that i am talking about. Its because he/she doesn't figure in Bengali. I immensely enjoyed when they speculated over the gender of the person that I was referring to, sometime nervously trying to joke whether it was my boyfriend that I was referring to. In Delhi, when I talk to some-one aunt-like he/she invariably comes in(in Hindi) and the gender's no longer a secret. Why should gender come in speech anyway? Isn't it the greatest and most used form of gender discrimination ( well it does in English too, and maybe in many other languages but not in my mother-tongue and I am so happy to brag about it).

Without parents, I 'grew up' in Delhi. It taught me manipulation, politeness. You are always polite and laugh , even when your heart is burning. Or your heart never burns, you are just a stone, unaffected by whats happening around you so you laugh/smile always. Either way, lesson learnt. I had never learnt to fake stuff, to not speak out my mind out before coming to the National Capital.

Lastly, being an economist, I would also allow for the possibility that all these above attributes may not be city specific,  that my sample size is not large enough to draw such conclusions, but alas I'm a human being too who is just noting down her own observations and inferences.

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. :)