Welcome to the World of Idiosyncrasies

Hello and Welcome to my world. Here, you are free to feel as you feel without guarding your emotions, without acting matured and rational etc etc etc. Its an idiosyncratic world and you have every right to feel happy, sad, upset, cheerful, grumpy or whatever else you feel like! No judgements at all.
Oh, and while you enter, please leave you judgmental thinking, and stuck up attitude outside. It's a mad world in here already; and the least you could do is not add to the troubles. No one loves a drama llama ;)

Monday, May 25, 2009

Rains - Relief or a Reason to Wonder and Worry?

What with all this rain and my laptop and my cell phone all going dead for a good couple of hours (there was a power cut in entire of North Kolkata due to the power disruption caused by the cyclone Aleya [Ayala according to some] that took about 30 lives in Kolkata alone) , i decided to stop procrastinating and start writing. Just general chit chat events, if not amazing things, which i cannot write anyway!!

Went to sleep at three this morning and saw that it was drizzling. Pleasant breeze blowing. Jaak babba!! Uttopto Kolkatar buuk ektu thanda holo! But by nine in the morning, what was then a slight drizzle had turned into a torrential downpour accompanied by heavy gusts of wind and the frightening howl that only a cyclone can bring.
Ma and myself were running frantic in an attempt to keep the house dry as no matter all windows and doors that remained shut, the wind and the water somehow found their way through. All afternoon went in an effort to keep the water out. The water that was so welcome a couple of hours ago, had turned into nuisance and was soon turning into a terror!!
It was not without its reward though!! With the rains came the reason for "khichudi" and "kosha maangsho", the leisure of "muuri" and "peyaaNji" and the relish of coffee and long forgotten bits of anecdotes.
And then there was the television. It's perhaps not wrong to think that the Bengali always keeps a keen eye on all events that happen around him... no matter how material or immaterial!! We too keeping true to the tradition, tuned in to the news; partly because there was little else to do apart from eat and chit chat; and partly because we were concerned about the condition of the traffic with Baba not home yet. Tit bits of news kept floating around me as i munched the papad with concentration. People dying due to uprooted trees. Colonies flooded as water gushes inside. The adversely hit villages of Gosaba and Patharpratima in Sunderbans. We click our tongues and discuss about the sad plight they are facing at the moment.
Politics zooms in and we agree on Mamata Banerjee's accurate strategy of visiting Kakdwip instead to going to Delhi. We smile knowingly about the Chief Minister's decision to visit the affected areas. Babba.... etto din toh jaoya hoyni!! Mamata ashtei bujhi chhowk palte gelo? We are after all, the sitting-at-home-watching-TV-but-know-it-all Bengali!!
But then, the media has been always known to be a great influencer! The rains, the swaying of trees, the water making a mad rush, the upturned autos, the breaking down of the bank of the Ganges....it sends a chill down the spine. All of it does!! Just the enormity of it if not anything else.
Its just that all this rain and storm makes me wonder how trivial, how insignificant, how helpless we are in front of nature!!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey...good to see u bak...interesting blog...true...we r so insignificant...but we can be better prepared next time...but in India...everytime is a next time...anyways...kool expression...though quite a simple one by ur standards...appealing nevertheless.........

Anonymous said...

I missed all the action ... although am in Kolkata for a week ..somehow could not go out and see "aleya". As my office guest house is in the same building as the training room. My mom called me up to say one our home has been hit by aleya too.. Infact it's hit one of our boundary wall.

:(

somehow cannot romanticize such aweful weather !!

but anywaz am missing those college days when I never missed a chance of getting soaked in rain... be it playing football in rain.. or maybe to hold her hand and walk the walk of life ....walk of love ....
Sometimes I feel so lonely in Mumbai !!!

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Hmmm ... wish it was like that a month ago.

Keep us updated about Kolkata.

কবিতার উঠোন said...

durdhorsho lekha sutapa just khub bhalo. sotti emon ekta attempt er jonno tomake kono proshonsa korai jabe na karon tumi sob proshongsa r urdhe uthe likhechho. keep it up memsaheb.

kapil said...

it's dance of nature.sometimes it gives pleasure and sometimes it make us worried.

ravi roy said...

really after reading this u made me imagine the situation well written carry on this skill.

Sutapa Mukherjee said...

@ anonymous and anonymous:
Thanks for your appreciation but plz mention your names the next time.

@ Sagar:
Thanks... will definitely keep you updated.

@ Namanush:
u praise me too much!!

@ Kapil:
yes... you are right. A dance can be mann mohini and the same dance can be a taandav!

@ Ravi:
That was the precise idea. Thank you so much for appreciating.

Unknown said...

well,I hope u didnt fall sick from eating everything uv mentioned in there...I got sick just reading about all that.. :P

Casuarina said...

Khub bhallaglo pore..the alternation of little homely details and that of the greater world outside has been subtle and sensitive...it helped me visualise what everyone might have gone through at that point of time (and believe me, when you have an imagination as limited as mine, that's a huge achievement !)...very well described...looking forward to many more such posts in future !