Lonely and Shy Boisakh

Yeah bitches.... I am back. And you know why? You wanna know why? Because it's the Bengali New Year that announces the advent of summer and all things warm, it tells you that your prickly heats are back and are gonna stay the season and back in old Kolkata, power starts to "come" at certain times of the day and not "go" as they shed the loads. And somewhere in Kolkata people are eating Ilish and wearing finest and crispestly starched Dhakai sarees and cotton kurtas and visiting friends and foes. And that brings me here today.

As of now, 8.09 pm in Edmonton, we have the Christmas lights (yes CHRISTMAS FUCKING LIGHTS!!) on since it went dark(which was rather early, let me tell you that) and Rantoush and I had a very sombre dinner listening to Frosty the Snowman un-showered and in our pjs because... it's snowing like hell since last night without a break. Just before eating our sad meal(which was by itself the yummiest ever) I was putting the lights on to pretend that the sign of festivities has not died in this household and then I stood at our picture-frame window of the living room looking at the snow-pile outside.

I was probably shaking my head to myself while I heard Rantoush muttering under her breath sitting at the kitchen table:
-Yeah , yeah, I know you are trying to deal with it... Just as I am trying to find a suitable Christmas song on the fucking internet..when it decides to show it's face ..But you know, this is ...surprise.. APRIL! We're all dealing with our issues you know..!
-Yeah man.. What.. This.. I HATE this..
-Yeah, Melancholy is my family name..

...and then she kept muttering about whether the shower was gonna happen, or whether she should go out in her pjs and the hilariously childish striped t-shirt and sandals for a smoke at which point I decided to retire to my perch and write to all you fine people that we are still alive.. So, YOU may begin your debaucheries and assholeries for another year, I permit you in the finest grace and charm that I can summon at this moment. I. Don't. Give. A. Shit.

The Cinnamon Peeler : Michael Ondaatje

I am trying very hard not to fall in love but ..it's hard.. "Nuf about me..Why don't you just read this?

If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
and leave the yellow bark dust
on your pillow.

Your breasts and shoulders would reek
you could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under rain gutters, monsoon.

Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbor to your hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler's wife.

I could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
-- your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
I buried my hands
in saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers...

When we swam once
I touched you in water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
You climbed the bank and said

this is how you touch other womenthe grasscutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.
And you searched your arms
for the missing perfume.
and knewwhat good is itto be the lime burner's daughter
left with no trace
as if not spoken to in an act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of scar.

You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
peeler's wife. Smell me.

I am not a Clydesdale but...

Apparently when you live in -30s, you adapt. Also people remind you daily that being bfff with the double-duvet is not a great socializing option and they mind if you are not paying attention. So you grumble, put on about twelve layers of clothing and go check out the winter festivals.. as if you didn't have enough of the snow already. After about three such expeditions, the festivals become more or less a continuous walk-on-the snow, try-to-warm-yourself-by-chopping-some-wood, failure-acknowledgement, hot-chocolate-and-hand-warmer-in-pocket process. I have a feeling that unless you are a Shiba Inu or a little Clydesdale, you are naturally at a comparative disadvantage as far as frolicking in the snow is concerned. However, I am not any variety of dog or pony. So my feelings are not that hard to decipher. Yet, today I went out of the house with absolutely no provocation and stayed out for an hour shooting my feathered neighbors in the Mill Creek.

Since then I am in bed with no amount of hot chocolates making any difference. Somebody kill me now.

State of Chhayanat

Alrighty!

Chhayanat has come hobbling back again to your darken your virtual doorstep! Honestly speaking these days sometimes I feel like a teeny weeny leetlil chicken running around with its head cut off. This Prairie winter's been howling outside my window for so long that finally I am giving in. My tropical fucking bones need the heat sometimes thank you very much. So however much I liked to meet the magpies in the Mill Creek ravine while they told me how they brought Aurora Borealis from the north pole on one endless dark winter night, squawking and cawing, I want to go back to my effing crowded city full of little brown sweating-profusely people. As it is, half of my time these days is spent lying on a table exposing my slender back to the Chinese horrors of Acuneedles. Believe me or not, I am the Reverse Bhishma Revisited on the bed of arrows.

On other news, I am getting sucked into the lomo-whirlpool big time. So much so that one of these days in spite of my stupor I managed to haul the fishycam to the table of Acuda and demanded that he take a picture or several of my thorn-adorned bare back. Remember Matrix?

Talking about movies, apparently the big Oscar night came and went. I was kind of engaged in some other stuff that required more attention. One such is my first drag show. May be I am at the far end of the spectrum but I miserably failed at seeing the point of nightclubs and drag shows. Nightclubs may be fun for some but they do kill your eardrums. And since I am not planning to get into the whole serious discourse of the politics and economics of sexuality, let's just say that I was not impressed with the drag either. It was a drag queen pageant and it was as sad as any other beauty pageants are. Thank you but no thank you.

The much-promised Lomoland

Here goes the first batch of Lomos from wintry Edmonton! This has been so much fun that a bunch of clydesdales won't be able to drag me away now from my cute Lomosh. I am totally hooked!

State of Chhayanat

- Alive and sore!
- Lomo pics coming soon! May be..
- A community "what if .." fiction coming soon! This basilisk is looking at Scribbler, Dip Narayan, Ketchup Girl and any volunteer that willingly ventures to open that chamber..
- Managing to keep my dick out of crazy, so far!
Hang on tight there buddies!

The Cat's Cradle

So the day before yesterday, this housecat had a funny feeling about going to yoga. It's not an easy job - moving. It fucking sucks even though the end-product is great. I had finally moved most of my stuff and was contemplating an early evening nap as is the custom of the housecats. DV was out and had said that she would come back for yoga. This is what happened afterwards:
- Decided not to be the little sucker (bad decision, being a sucker suits me)
- Hauled ass up to Yogaloft
- Found it closed
- Cursed
- Told self on the way back that I should pay more attention to my funny feelings
- Came to the big intersection
- Waited for the pedestrian light to come on as any conscientious citycat should do
- Started crossing and looked left while almost in the middle of the street
- Saw a car coming towards self pretty faster than is good for my health
- Tried getting out of the way of the tires
- Got hit in the legs and tossed into the air (Yay, Housecat is now Flyingcat!)
- Spent the next six hours in the ER having the greatest time with DV and RN.

State of Chhayanat

Okay, just for documentation's sake.... it's -25 degree centigrade out here today with a wind chill of -34(only! and not even snowing anymore!) and I tried to walk across the street to get some nourishment in shirtsleeves, froze, tucked my tail between my legs and took the pedway on my way back. The prairie winter bullies you into submission. But I must say it's a nice day. Sun's a-shining, pigeons huddling on the glass roof of the greenhouse that my window looks out onto - it's the only surface without the snow-cover anyway - and I have only a remnant of last night's Saawariya-induced headache. Awesome! The randomness of life has reached that level where I get out of my house and walk seven blocks in the snow with the intention of doing some yoga and end up watching my brain getting arse-raped by the Kapoor contingent. There! I have said it! I was hoping to muster enough courage, conviction and emotional maturity to deal with this trauma on my own, but I fail! Epic FAIL!

The Hundred Club

A question that I have been mulling over for some time now is whether I am living in excess. I know, a grad student living in the great Northern Whites - how do you even define 'excess'? Apparently other people thought about this when they reached a life and an apartment choked with stuff that they didn't need and probably forgot that they possessed. Other people in the North Americas - makes sense. So they started the purge and described it as an "emotional process" drawn over several years of prioritizing possessions. And since a hundred seems be a nice, friendly number, some people are trying to reach the state where they can live with just a 100 of most essential objects. However, this is the area where it gets a little blurry as far as the goal definition goes. 100 Things? 100 Objects? 100 Items? Clearly, if I had ever possessed 756 pairs of shoes and about 21.6 of past and current love interests, then it would probably make sense to club them as single items. Having had none, it was still kind of unclear to me as to how should I exactly proceed. But being a grad student living out of a suitcase should make it easy, right? This is when my friend DV suggested the name "The Hundred Club".

Given that it is a difficult journey to SHED (Separate the treasures, Heave the trash, Embrace your identity from within and Drive yourself forward - yeah yeah, I know, Baloney and Marshmallow Clouds raining M&M Candies), I am gonna use the safety net of not being obsessive compulsive about whether it's a hundred items or objects. My housecatty self finds it challenging to even start thinking about making a comprehensive list of the things that I happen to possess but give it a try I must.

Writing all this wearing my newly acquired tweety-colored life-saver jacket and jungle green hat. My life is the biggest consistency challenge I have ever known.

Chupa Chups

I am kind of worried at this moment because I guess the neighbors are gonna complain to my dragon of a landlady about the Floridian hurricane that's been blowing through my lungs since Saturday. I don't blame them. I have been wearing my sound-block headphones most of this time.

Did you know that the logo of Chupa Chups was designed by Salvador Dali? I didn't, well at least before Saturday morning. Oh Yeah! Grad school Saturday mornings - how I love thee! Wake up hung over and being a nerd for weird and useless facts, google Chupa Chups. Am I great or AM I GREAT!!! All my future girlfriends should hurry up and meet me now.

Talking about meeting people, the last week was somehow all about connecting to bloggers, for REALZ. And also about handing out relationship advice like relief packages after flood - thrown from the army choppers so that you get a packet of milk powder and soy granules and are left to figure out how to save your soul with those.  HAHAHAHA! Ha Ha hrmph.. I guess after having an eight hundred dollars weekend stand and another eight hundred dollars break-up tour, it really qualifies me to talk about relationships, or not. Take your pick and let me know if you need some nerdy help to go around town.

KTHNXBAI.... Oh and I guess you already know why Dali's mustache is the way it is?