scrub!!!!

'tare zameen par' reminds me, i had a strange teacher !!!!!

SAVITA WALI- class teacher of k.g.-D

she liked pretty children i guess.
i dont remember much of this...
i must have been really bothered by her constant nagging and scolding. according to her i needed a proper bath...and my neck which was darker than the rest of me would become clean.
the problem is that i was born with a skin color, which my mother says, was close to the winter grey woollen socks which i wore to school.i have always been very particular about getting the colours right.:)

i must have believed her... and i had asked my mother to clean my neck.

the part which i remember is this...


my mother, as usual was waiting at the bus stop to get me home.i must have told my mother that my class teacher travelled in the same bus everyday. when the bus came, i got down, my mother asked the driver to wait and then turned to me to identify the teacher.
Savita Wali.. had the time of her life that day , im sure.
she never bothered me after that...though she never could bring herself to like a 4 year old girl with a black neck.

you can see a picture of savita wali in a group photo.in my other blog.http://sanjukta-only1.blogspot.com/
under the cation 'class of 84'

dusting dust...

all babies look alike...
all old people look alike...
why fight to be different when we end where we begin....

nailpolish!!!!

an usual scene in kolkata's morning.
bus stop, tea stall..people gathered...all kinds of people...
some who are waiting the bus, standing there,
some who are on their way back home with bags of vegetables and fish,
bus drivers, conductors, beggars, shopkeepers,and the lazy good for nothings.
every one flocks around the tea stall under the banyan tree every morning. They chat, read the newspaper aloud, protest against govt system which wrap neighbourhood problems. everything here happens in chorus. everything either goes down with small gulps of tea or goes up with cigarette smoke.

among these men and sari clad women there stood a figure sipping tea from the clay cup. very short hair, not too tall, not too short,broad shoulders,masculine wrists with a round silver watch, a bunch of papers folded in hand. denim jacket over polyster trousers. rubber slippers....he turned around!!!!
its a woman...her face didnt show it...her body did...
the face had a tough expression.no sign of facial care...
people just passed her by, even pushed their way away, not even a second look...
not that she was too old, she must have been in her mid 40's.
no jewellery, no make up. men who bumped into her wouldnt bother to apologise, because they never realized it was needed.
she must have been like this since a very a long time.may be she lives alone and she doesnt bother.may she is too busy to bother. may be she had parents old and sick and she forgot all about herself while taking care of them. may be she is the only one who earns and she thinks spending on the look of a woman is expensive.may be she has siblings but they dont bother. may be they were dependent too and she thinks they deserve it better. who knows!!!
may be her heart broke and no one pampered her out of it.
whatever it may be ,she thought needed to become more of a man just to fight being considered as a 'woman' and she thought this appearance would help.
or may be she never liked being a woman and she thus never liked make up!!!??....

how could that be!!!!
she has awlays liked being a woman....

she had red toe nails....

november thinks...

She is November-Unpredictable.

When you have just about thought it was beginning to be cold, the afternoon sun would burn a hole in your skin. Just about when you would have started enjoying the pleasant sun, a chill would set in. It would never let you relax in your chair with a cup of tea. You would be kept busy figuring out the right way and the right words but it would always be mysteriously unpredictable.

She loves January
Foggy mornings that freeze her nose and finger tips.  She stays out when it rains. The icy wind on her eyes and hair thrills her. The smoke from her breath mixes into the fog that reminds her of a deliberately forgotten dream.

November often wonders-

People are often sick with cold; they know which pills to swallow to get well.
People are also often sick with fear but they don’t let go of them, or even try to. Maybe fears are enjoyable pains.

 January is addicted to it irreversibly.

Sometimes fears are like forgotten faces...you could loose sleep over trying to remember the names. That is why you need friends...to help you remember

Both January and the little girl needs friends to remember each other's names.
November wants to help January. But they don’t let her. Perhaps they both are scared. Their biggest fear- their own selves and both know about it. That’s why they want to run away from it.

Escape......
From everything...to nowhere...

January rears her fears like a consolation for escaping, the little girl simply loves being helpless.
One is being run over by himself, the other by the rest of the world.

November thinks they both are like hot air balloons with a little hole...they made themselves...

inkelab jindabad jindabad

colors were blotting out of the lights as i walked towards the aircraft...
this was my first international flight....to paris

i was so dizzy.. i had to share it with a friend...i had been talking since i reached the airport.

they got us into the aircraft.i was just settling with idea of my first international trip, etc etc...
the craft television had begun with its safety instructions...they cut it short

'takniki kharabi ke kara hum yeh uran nahi bhar saktey'

an accented male voice announced... easy dream was not so easy!!!!

i wouldnt call home...my mother knew im in air.
however i was not.
we were stuck at the kolkata airport till 7 in the morning without any arrangments from the airportor by lufthansa.the group of exporters participating for texworld were frantic. we just could miss the flight.first an indian fought with an indian, then a german fought with an indian, then a german fought with a german, and then germans and indians got together to fight in two teams of mixed cultures...
this can only happen in kolkata!!!!

we finally took a flight to delhi that morning!! and were boarded the air france next morning.i never got my window seat...:( so landing in paris, i never saw paris by night even from air. may be next time...

inkelab jindabad! jindabad!
jaliye dao! puriye dao!!
amader dabi mantey hawbe!!

inkelab zinda bad
burn them burn them
have give into our demands