Category: Snapped

Enchanted!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

I dont mind if you didn’t trust anyother post of mine. But this you must trust. I beg you trust this. Without the sparkle of my imaginations, without the innate exaggerations. Trust me when I say I had the most enchanted (in)sight of life just now. Two hours before typing this, I was enchanted!

Train and rain together isn’t rare but still beautiful. I just discovered the scary part of it today. Rain wasn’t calm and gentle and soothing. It was penetrating into me like needles. The wind was violent. In the lightening background, I could see criss cross lines of rain. Each drop visibly travelling at a different speed than the others. Hitting the moving train and scattering into a tremendous splash of freedom. Amazing was their dispersal, redefining all the discipline and pattern, beautified by a poet’s imagination. But it was just today that I saw the reality. Without order. Chaotic. Unpoetic. That’s what rain is all about.

The most scary thing about rain, and or or, train is the lightening. The silhouette of the dark river beneath the shaky bridge. The eerily and sparsely glowing structures in the patternless lightening. The abyss that shimmers below your feet as you lean into the gushing air. Scared to death. But I want the sight back again. Like the godly raindrops in my hand and wind that stroked my hair.

Chachummai!

~ Soumya ~ 2 Comments

My mom is employed. I have never thought anything about it. She goes to office every morning. And comes back home every evening. That was all about it. But suddenly, I’m extremely grateful that my mom has got a job. That she was busy and couldn’t stay with me all the time. I missed my mom. A lot. But never beyond compensation. She used to come home with hot samosas and ice candy. Whatever time she had, she always spent it with me. I was a happy kid. Just the usual happy happy childhood. But then, was I just plainly happy or was I more?

This is not about my mom. This is about my chachummai (Sarswathi ammai, shortened by a kid’s accent). She was ammaammai (mother’s mother) to my cousins and my sis, but always chachummai to me. After long, I felt an instant intimacy brewing between us. Or may be, only within me. We sat together. My chachummai, my twin cousin lechu and me. She was with a new assignment for both of us. Testing our Tamil vocab and language skills, she was reciting verses from the SriMurugan calendar (her trademark, if I may add). She wanted us to explain them to her, in senthamizh! It was a come back for me. From a dark vicious episode of mental imbalances and my innate insanity, I felt all normal and peaceful.

May be it’s her age. May be it’s her calm self. May be it’s her drawing charm. May be it’s just nothing but the closeness I have with her. When with her, the inner turmoil may not vanish. But it definitely stays away and gives me room to breath.

Back to where I started. I was a bit more than the usual happy happy kid. All my Mom’s absence was filled with my fonder chachummai! Absence makes the heart fonder indeed!

The double decker!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

A double decker bus doesn’t fascinate people much these days. Or may be I’m wrong about that. I dont see my sister or my little cousins desperate for a double decker ride. Compare to what it used to be for me or people of my generation, it’s not much wrong to say that people in the present dont find it enough interesting to travel a level above others on the road. And I wonder why! Come on people! Doesn’t that feel (or atleast sound) really cool? But then, it’s not completely right when I say people, as a whole, aren’t fascinated by the idea of it. There are still people, may be of a different generation, who still find it scary, (and funny), when someone shouts that there’s no driver in the upper deck! Why not? I’m still there!

My double decker experiences are as few as to count by fingers. But, every single one of them are cherished and relived as the most precious segments of my travelogue!(if ever written :P) The best part of it is, obviously, the journey on the upper deck. Ironically, that’s just once in my constrained memory. The most memorable!

The swing!

~ Soumya ~ 2 Comments

I aint a child anymore. I very well get that. But then, as in everyone’s life, there could be something in mine too, that can bring out a bit of a child in me. It kinda contradicts my own theory that I never felt child enough. Life was always very pragmatic and rational to me. Excuse the past tense. It still is so and will as well continue so. Eventually, I reckon that my losses are something that I lost in the mad rush of articulations. Knowing it to myself, that none was intentional, I assume I can live through the losses. Ironically, despite the whole missing of sweet naughty memories, I do have occasional reminiscences. Of a past that I never had.

My nostalgia and longing have always been mocked upon. I dont blame anyone. Nor am I particularly sad about being laughed at. I honestly understand that all of them have a point. For my nostalgia is ridiculously dwelling on a past that I never had. It’s difficult to fathom and empathise with me. Very so often, I fail at that all by myself. My birth and raising up was completely in a city, that’s continuously pacing to the “Metro” status. My life is pivoted around the city and the normal urban middle class scale. But every time I visit my dad’s native, something changes in me. From my very first visit till the current one,(typing from the very same home’s sit out), I have increasingly fallen for this place and the old ancestral home.I connect perfectly to the village, the temple nearby, the temple pond, the home itself, the extended backyard, the cramped bathroom, the dimly litambiance, the ear-bursting loudspeakers. Not to forget the dusty attic and the rickety ‘monuments’ and the ‘priceless treasure’ that I dig out of them, in every single visit.

I wish I could write more and relate my existence to something worth the survival. But instinctively, I believe that somethings are better unsaid. The aura that this place radiates, is amazing.I am spellbound by it’s charm. I am surprise how I am urged to write about one particular thing. The swing of my life. The only one that I truly admired for its rhythmic oscillations. As I sit on it and rock myself, it feels like the entire world is striving to do away with my sleeplessness and cradle me into a peaceful sound sleep. My swing!

For the first time, there was actually a choice to not rock myself. Somebody else did it for me. I am glad. Blissful.

Update : I guess the reference to the swing was very vague. But have a close look at the image just above this. Its an open gate with another opened gate within it. That’s where I sit and rock! 😛

The baby times!

~ Soumya ~ 2 Comments

Preface : https://soumyavg.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/disclaimer/

Me and baby? What relativity eh? Seriously, I’m wondering too. Eventually, it seems like there’s a lot of relativity though. Not that I’ve, out of nowhere, started loving all those ‘cute’ baby photos or all those pink ‘n blue things of life. But things have definitely changed between me and the babies.

My bro always pulls my legs on how I used to check if the diaper is on before getting anywhere near my cousin’s child. I dont think anybody believes him on that now. It seems a near impossibility now coz I’ve gotten that intimate with the kid. Back then, I had told only him about how I used to do that. Nobody else holds a reason to believe it now. I dont even realise how much has change swept over me.

Its a wonderful kid. I cant say the ‘best’ coz I dont know many kids to make a comparison. She’s the only one I’ve ever known. Known the best! Tending to her, reaching out to hold her hand, coaxing her, yelling at her. I’m loving it all. Love the way she calls me ‘athey’. Amazingly, I kinda even miss her when she’s away at her grandma’s. For people who have known the callous me, aren’t these ‘interesting and new’ developments? Lol. Hell they are! And I cant even bring myself upto believing it.

With all the preconceptions of people around me, I’m very much disturbed by their assumptions and notions. Its so much a relief to see her and believe atleast she knows me only the way I’m to her; nice but easily angered. I wish if things could remain that way with her forever. With someone atleast, let me sneak out of all the prejudices. She’s growing, soon losing her innocence. Life and its prejudices aren’t far from her. And I’m worried. Ironically, I crave to see her grow up into a pretty girl, yet staying the apple of everybody’s eyes. She’s one such whom I’ve loved so much that it causes envy. It might even asphyxiate her. Worry gets recursive! (Read the previous post to make some sense of the last sentences)

She’s growing. Already at the computer! Lol.

The final lap

~ Soumya ~ 2 Comments

Nobody ever makes it to the final lap. Knowing it all, I still run. Ran into an old friend today. Doing her bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication, she had her course of living. Facebook naturally lets you take a look. And what I saw leaves me awestruck! Instantly, I grew jealous of her. All those things, that she now does, were my passion once. Or may be, they still are. And I had no clue what would actually take me to my destiny, which truly would be mine, and make me happy at the same time. And now when I look at it through these camera lenses, I assume strange dimensions and weird hues to my imaginations.

Its too late for the right move. To the right thing. To the right position. To the right decision. To the person. I dont decide anymore. My decisions have started failing me. Leaving things to their course of happenings. Uneasiness is settling around everywhere. Fear gripping me tighter.

She does This!

The Fear

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

If there’s one thing that completely occupies me other than a book, it always will be a journey. Travelling around has been something that I always loved. Unknown roads, uncertain destinations. That’d be how I love it. But yeah, considering my limited resources for such an expedition, I tend to be more than happy with a planned itinerary through the ever same roads. Being alone, having time for yourself, talking to oneself. They are the best parts of a travel. The plugged in headset and the book in hand ruin the tranquility a journey offers. But now if you see me travel, I always have either one of them or mostly both of them with me. They spoil the fun. But they are indispensable to me now. Having time, talking to myself. They are all tiring me. I just dont need time alone. I’d have chosen to write. But now, I dont write that liberally. My writing is limited to my stipulated time slots. So I read. I dont sing. And I dont want to talk. So I listen.

Fear is something that never crept into my journeys. I dont know how could it be possible that I’m actually afraid of something relating to travel? Afraid of bus travel? What phobia is that? Whatever that is, that’s what I’m suffering from. My most dreadful six hours were today! The ones that I’d not forget a life time. The darkness rushing into you, the chill running down your spine. Shivering in the cold outside, and fear inside. Crying and consoling yourself. Acting normal to avoid the stares, dying within to shut down everything around you. It was a wreck. A mishap. Never again happening. Never alone. The fear is abysmal. As much as the darkness. The journey is eerie. As much as the memories that gush out.

Talking aloud your fear calms down, is the crap that I always hear. I have no such stupid notions. My fears go with me to the grave. It gave me a good blog post. That’s all the idea behind ‘screaming’ out your fear! So, all those who read. Dont come and advocate me how pointless is my fear and convince me to get rid off it. Thanks. 🙂