On The Roof

I have Chemistry, Physics and Math tests tomorrow, but I'm on the roof........it's beautiful here. It's about 7.10 pm and that in Kolkata means complete darkness. In the sky anyway. The city has lights brighter and brighter.................................Brighter than the stars. There are so many.

I'm sitting overlooking the street. The lights from the construction site are the most gorgeous now. They disperse and become round like they'll swallow you in their warm orangey yellow colour if you could go near them. Festive lights are coming up as well. Light is such a remarkable thing.

It defracts, disperses, bends, reflects.....no wonder scientists had a hard time deciding what it was ( with reference to the wave and particle theory). Another attempt to understand something we cannot control. If we didn't do that, we would probably fear it. LOL. A race of control freaks.

It must take real courage, real fearlessness, to be satisfied with everything around you. To not desire more. To just be happy with what you have. Because that means no more. No dreams, no hopes, no aspirations....utter stagnation. Isn't that what happens when you are happy? You don't want anymore.

If that's true, why can't we understand that right away and respect people who are happy the way they are. Don't want to be or have anything more than what they are or have, respectively. I'm rambling.....but this is the way my head works. Anyway, I guess it's because happiness and satisfaction, if not temporary, is counter-productive....opposing progress. But maybe that's what we need for sustainable development, and I'm talking about ecological development. Yes, I believe in global warming. I'm not daft....I know when there is a problem.

Anyway, I know I'm not happy. I'm sitting up here on the roof. And I'm surrounded by such beauty.....such beauty. But even I know how much more I could enjoy this if I wasn't thinking about other things. I wonder if I'll remember this.
Sometimes life is cruel that way......it doesn't let you enjoy all the beauty around you, cause you're so busy inside your head. But I'm not fearless, I'll probably have to wait a long time before I'm happy, in a permanent way. Here's to smiling and laughing along the way.

Signing off,
your Miss Calcutta,
with her glass half empty. 

The Desire to Do

The best way to learn about a culture is to learn their language. I am fascinated by cultures. Absolutely FASCINATED. But passion is sometimes detrimental to the self. Like a fire that's built up with sticks pointing upwards towards the sky. It'll keep you warm, it'll fix your gaze, it'll inspire, maybe even make your blood boil...but get too close, and it'll burn you, don't get too close, and eventually you'll be able to watch it collapse on itself. What then?

Life is about passion. But life is not about perfection. It doesn't require of you the fastidious excellence that say a job, or career or profession might demand of you. This is no longer a world of mediocrity. People are brilliant beyond their wildest imaginations. My brother kept going on and on about these words he heard in this movie...it was an American film, called 'Coach Carter'. The words were:

Our deep­est fear is not that we are inad­e­quate. Our deep­est fear is that we are pow­er­ful beyond mea­sure. It is our light, not our dark­ness that most fright­ens us. Your play­ing small does not serve the world. There is noth­ing enlight­ened about shrink­ing so that other peo­ple won’t feel inse­cure around you. We are all meant to shine as chil­dren do. It’s not just in some of us; it is in every­one. And as we let our own lights shine, we uncon­sciously give other peo­ple per­mis­sion to do the same. As we are lib­er­ated from our own fear, our pres­ence auto­mat­i­cally lib­er­ates others


REalistically, it's not true for everyone. To be powerful, you must truly feel powerful. Well, I know it can't be said for many poeple, but I do feel powerful. I feel like I can do almost anything I want to do. And whatever I can't do automatically, I'll find a way to do. I might seem vague now. Kevin Spacey sounded vague at the end of 'American Beauty', but like he said, "I'm sure you have no idea what I'm talking about. Someday you will." 


But my passion's getting in the way of my perfection. I can't be perfect at what I'm passionate about. So I decided to do something I am perfect at, or atleast can be, with the requisite amount of work. But that doesn't give me the satisfaction or thrill I get from learning languages, or travelling. So I've decided to balance it out and do BOTH. I will do it. And for no other reason than the blissful blissful fact that I want to. I wanna be able to play a piano for someone, if not just myself, and hum a ditty tune, and speak to random people in their mother tongues, and help them when they most need it, and travel to far and distant places with my friends and a camera. 


I saw a piano in Canary Wharf one day. It was just there to be played. It was just there. It was being offered to me. If I had the innocence of a child, I would've just sat right down, and banged something off it. But I'm not a child anymore. I'm full of fear. And I didn't wanna touch it unless I knew what to do with it. Such an offer, and I had to turn it down. I can't forget about it. And I won't ever let it happen again. Never again. 

To be Miss Calcutta you have to know 2 things. Firstly, that Calcutta is the anglicized name for Kolkata, because imperialist British pasties couldn't wrap their tongues around a couple Indian words. And secondly,that Calcutta is the capital of West Bengal, which is one of the, what, 28  states in India and is situated in the east of India, despite the fact that it's called 'West' Bengal.

Simple reason for that too. When India was partitioned in 1947, the province of Bengal was divided into 2 parts. The eastern half of it is now called Bangladesh, and the western part of it is WEST BENGAL. Hmm, I guess 'West Bengal' doesn't exist anymore. The state has been renamed to 'Poschimbongo', which means the same thing in Bengali.  (*wonders what they're going to do about all those car number plates). 

Well, hello from India!!! 

To be Miss Calcutta you also have to be 19 years old, surrounded by people who love but irritate you, in fact, they're doing it right now, and learn/do something new everyday!!!

I'm going to make a list of things to do before I die....and then actually do them. No mucking about. Oh yeah! But in the meantime, doing something new everyday will have to suffice. :D Tee hee