Rajrupa Gupta's Blog, page 4

ফুটবল বিশ্বকাপের ফাইনাল - বাঙ্গালির সেরা উৎসব

পাড়ায় পাড়ায় আজ উৎসব। দেওয়ালগুলো সব পোস্টার আর স্লোগানে ভরে গ্যাছে। টিভি তে খবর পড়ুয়ারা সারাদিন ধরে একি কথা ঘ্যানর ঘ্যানর করে বলে চলেছে। মিষ্টির দোকানে দাঁরে বসা কাকাতুয়া টা পর্যন্ত শুনে শুনে নির্ভুল পরিসংখ্যান আওড়াচ্ছে!
সকালে বাজার যাওয়ার পথে দাঁড়িয়ে একবার আলোচনা সেরে নিয়েছেন অ-বাবু। ক-বাবু টেক-স্যাভি। সেকটর পাঁচ এ কাজ করেন। তাই মাছের দরদাম করার ফাঁকে নিজের স্মার্ট ফোনে চেক করে নিচ্ছেন, বিশেষজ্ঞ দের মতামত জেনে নিচ্ছেন। মাছওলার ও কৌতূহল কম না। তাই ক-বাবু কে জিগ্যেস করে সেও জেনে নিল বিজ্ঞ ব্যাক্তি দের মতামত। দ-বাবু দুধ-অলার সঙ্গে এক ঘণ্টা ধরে পুঙ্খানুপুঙ্খ বিচার করেও কিছু স্থির করে উঠতে পারলেন না।
শিশু থেকে বুড়ো কেউ বাদ নেই। রকে রকে মেলা। রবিবারের দুপুর, খেয়ে দেয়ে ভাত ঘুম দেবার বদলে দলে দলে সবাই যোগ দিচ্ছে রকের আড্ডায়। এমনিতে যাদের রোদে বেরোতে খুব আপত্তি, ঘর থেকে বেরিয়ে টুক করে এসি গাড়িতে উঠে পড়েন আর অফিস পৌঁছে বেস্মেন্টে গাড়ি পার্ক করেন, তারাও হাফ হাতা শার্ট পরে আজ বাইরে বেরিয়েছেন, পাড়ার চায়ের দোকানে এসেছেন।
ফুটবল বিশ্বকাপের ফাইনাল বলে কথা। গুগল অব্দি ডুডল বানিয়ে বসে আছে!
কোনদিনও বলে পা ঠেকিয়ে থাকুন বা না, আজ সবাই ফুটবল বিশেষজ্ঞ। জোর আলোচনা, বেজায় তর্ক। জার্মানি না আর্জেন্টিনা – জিতবে কে? চুলচেরা বিচার চলছে দু-দলের সব খেলোয়াড় দের শক্তি আর দুর্বলতার। মেসি কি একা পারবে? শেষ হাসি আজ হাসবে কে?
এর মধ্যে শ-বাবু খবর নিয়ে এলেন বিখ্যাত তারকা রা কে কাকে সমর্থন করছেন। উনি টালিগঞ্জ-এর এক প্রযোজক এর অফিস এ কাজ করেন। তারকা দের সঙ্গে ওঠা বসা আছে ওনার।
পাঁচু ওর বন্ধুদের সঙ্গে দোকানে গিয়ে সাদা আকাশি রঙ কিনে এনেছে – মুখে আর্জেন্টিনা-র পতাকা আঁকবে। দ্যাখাদেখি আবার গোপাল-ও জার্মানি–র লাল কালো আর হলুদ রঙ কিনে আনিয়েছে বাবাকে দিয়ে।
পাঁচু আর গোপাল - দুদলই গিয়েছিল পাড়ার দাদু, ৯০ বছরের বটলোচনকে বলতে কানে তুলোর পুটলি গুঁজে ঘুমোতে। কিন্তু উনি একবাক্যে এদের দুর দুর তাড়িয়ে দিয়েছেন – ছোঁরা-গুলো ভাবল কি করে যে উনি ঘুমাবেন? বয়স হয়েছে বলে কি খেলা দেখবেন না? আজকালকার ছেলে গুলো বোঝে নাকি খেলার মাথামুণ্ডু?
সময় যত এগোচ্ছে, বাড়ছে উত্তেজনা। নখ খেয়ে খেয়ে আর রাতে কিছু খাবার খিদে নেই।
হোক না মাঝ রাত। থাকনা কাল অফিস। আজ বাঙ্গালির সারারাতের উৎসব। সাধে কি কথায় বলে সব খেলার সেরা বাঙ্গালির তুমি ফুটবল! 
Love,

© copyright 2014 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

A Meal to Impress

Perhaps the greatest advantage of growing up in a suburban home in the southern West Bengal is the abundance of great fresh foods and the faith that grows with it – food is sacred. And when you pair this with a family of traditional food lovers, the result is nothing short of magic.
It is therefore imperative that food was as ingrained in our lives as was possible. A lot of our conversations revolved around food. We had our seasonal specials like the sundried raw mangoes marinated in fragrant spices and dipped in mustard oil in summer, or the ripe and juicy plums in a spiced jaggery sauce in winter. The Ilish wrapped in banana leaves and steamed for that smoky flaky texture meant a day of heavy rain and staying inside all day. Those heavenly sweet “pithe” of the fall could make me go weak in the knees. And there was the “bhog-er khichuri” to die for during the Pujas.
But not only the specials, our regular meals were most meticulously planned too. Mother spent a significant amount of time each day deciding the next day’s menu while I supplied her with my choices. A typical lunch platter in my home consisted of pearl white long grained rice along with some fries, some greens, a vegetable dish, dhal, one or two types of fishes topped with fresh homemade yogurt and rounded off with something sweet. Each dish cooked differently using different methods to help keep their unique taste and texture while enhancing the flavour and the aroma – home was truly a foodie’s paradise. And my mom – the world’s best cook.
But then like all good things, the permanency and safety of home also came with an expiration date. When I had to move to a new city, my mother’s primary concern wasn’t about my living arrangement but about my food. Because even though I loved to eat, I didn’t know how to cook. 
But oddly, this was liberating, my exile from home exposed me to different types of cuisines, acquainted me with their unique styles of cooking. This was like the Pandora’s box – the stepping stone of my never ending culinary journey – to find myself in the subtlety, to lose myself in the boldness - of tastes.
As a result, the new kitchen in my small rented studio in the new city started to represent an eclectic ensemble of everything related to all food that was good.
So when my mom was visiting me for the first time in the new city, carrying with her food more than she could carry, I wanted to surprise her with a well-planned meal – foods that I knew would suit her taste buds, yet belonged to a type of cuisine she had never tried before – less to acquaint her with new foods, more to relieve her the worries about my foods. It was not an easy feat to achieve, for I was setting to impress my mother – an incredible cook herself.
On the holy day of her arrival, I awoke early. With a blue tote under my arm I went to the local marketplace. Fresh white mushrooms just big enough to pop in mouth, the greenest of the spinach, the green onions, colourful bell peppers with their supple skins, red and juicy tomatoes, the aromatic oranges – the plethora of colourful vegetables – oh so beautiful. They lured me in – take me, take me, they screamed - and soon my bag was overflowing with bright red yellow and green. At my next stop I got the freshest, juiciest soft chicken breasts and jumbo de-veined shrimps. And then on a whim I threw in some yummy soft cream cheese, some tangy cheddar and the crunchy parmesan.
Back at home my preparations began. Food always made me joyous and combined with the happiness of seeing mom – my soul was brimming. I hummed with the peppy Bollywood tunes playing in the TV and set to work.
I chopped the vegetables, marinated the chicken in flavours of salt pepper lime zest and refrigerated it. I steamed the spinach and let it cool.
The olive oil was flavoured with garlic and the shrimps were sautéed till just pink. I mixed the tender shrimps with chilli flakes, chopped ginger, fresh cilantro, steamed sweet corns, shredded carrots, dash of lime juice, soy sauce and little sugar. My shrimp salad was ready. Spicy with just the right level of tanginess. I placed it on a fresh lettuce leaf in a Borosil fluted dish. And sprinkled it with oregano flakes and chopped green onions. The transparent glass was perfect because all the beautiful layers, all the colours were vibrantly visible.
I cleaned and dried my mushrooms. The stems of the mushrooms were chopped really finely and sautéed in vegetable oil. I added green onions, onions, garlic, some broken walnuts, and some chilli flakes and fried till they were cooked. Mixing this mixture with cream cheese, parmesan cheese, black pepper I made a thick paste. I filled the mushroom caps with this paste and dipped them in melted butter and lime juice and placed the mushrooms on a rectangular glass dish in a pre-heated oven to bake. In another 30 minutes my stuffed mushrooms would be ready.
I sprinkled the chicken with plain flour and fried it till brown. In olive oil flavoured with garlic and sesame seeds, I added the chopped vegetables and sautéed them till soft. In a large mixing bowl brown sugar, honey, soy sauce, hot sauce, fish sauce, chilli flakes, coconut milk and Thai red curry paste were mixed and poured over the vegetables. The rich simmering brown of the sauce mixed with the colourful vegetables made my saliva glands work overtime. The final touch to this already beautiful dish was the addition of the crispy tender chicken pieces. Sweet, spicy, creamy – an explosion of flavours, my fusion chicken in coconut milk was waiting to be savoured.
It was nearing 30 minutes so I took out the mushrooms, rich golden now. A few bits and pieces of green onions, parmesan and tomatoes on top for dressing and the perfect appetizer is ready. Placed on a Borosil variety platter it looked even more appetizing.
My spinach brownies were even easier to make. In another mixing bowl I combined flour, salt and baking powder, mixed it with milk, egg and butter. In a glass dish I layered this mixture, the steamed spinach, mozzarella and cheddar alternatingly. I baked it for half an hour, took it out and sprinkled with chilli flakes, oregano flakes, dried mixed herbs. I cut them in squares, just like brownies and poured a cheesy sauce over. Crunchy and creamy in layers of tangy cheese – perfect. I placed it in a clear glass dish again, so that the layers of green crunchy spinach and white creamy flour and cheese mix were visible.
My last course for the day was Baklava. A Turkish dessert I had tasted the other day and hopelessly fallen in love with. I knew my mom, being my mom, would love it too. Hence out came the baking dish again. I layered it with the paper thin phyllo dough, brushed liquid butter on top, then covered it with the cinnamon-y, sugary, nutty mixture I had prepared the day before, and kept repeating till the layers came up till the half of the dish. I ran my knife to make small triangular pieces and then drizzled with liquid butter. In my oven it went. Meanwhile the syrup of honey, sugar, vanilla and water kept boiling on the stove stop filling the room with its vanilla scent. Once off the stove, I flavoured the sweet syrup with orange zest to give it the fresh orange-y aroma. I knew my Baklava was done when my whole apartment started to smell like the best candle shop in the world. I took it out and poured the syrup on top covering every nuke and corner.
Placing all my dishes on my small dining table, I stood back to take a moment and appreciate my own efforts, pat my own back. Beautiful foods, served in beautiful clear glass serving platters made my knees go weak. My stomach grumbled and my mouth filled with water.
Not yet, I told myself. Mom would be here soon.

Love,

This post is written for the ongoing contest My Beautiful Food  in Indiblogger in association with Borosil - a brand synonymous with beautiful glassware. Visit http://www.myborosil.com to shop online.

© copyright 2014 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

Of Mountains, Lakes and a Few Great Humans

    How time flies! Just looked at the blog and realized that I haven’t posted anything in over a month. I have been away too long. I have been busy. Like a busy little bee.
    My work is as bad as ever, I moved to a new place, setting it up and settling down. Plus I took a mini vacation to a cosy little town in the foothills of a snowy mountain.
    Truth is, it was exhilarating. While the rest of the world was busy in the live commentary of their lives on social media, it was liberating to live in an exile. Away from all prying, cyber stalking; un-glued from my couch, with a larger and more vivid palette of blues, greens and browns than my 15” laptop – the whole thing was refreshing.   
  But now that I am back and firmly settled cross-legged on my couch with my laptop, I’ll tell you about my wonderful vacation.

    During a long weekend we took off to Colorado to meet a dear friend and see the scenic Rocky Mountains. We’d been planning it long, too long in fact. And then it was almost not happening. We had even tried to cancel the flight tickets. But then everything eventually fell in place and we found ourselves in our car heading toward the airport.
    “Huh!” we exclaimed! We were finally going. We almost didn’t care when we remembered that we forgot our coats at home. You see, even though its summer here, mountains are cold, always. “We will buy or borrow”, we said and happily drove on. But by the time we reached the airport, our list of forgotten-at-home was long enough to cover our car. Yet we were indomitable, like starched stiff cotton.
    We found the airport unusually crowded. Families in all shapes and sizes with fat luggage trotted in every direction. The moving walkways could hardly move with so many on them. Food stores resembled bee hives (thank god we ate at home). The waiting area was clearly divided between two groups of people. One had people with noses buried deep into their phones and the other didn’t.
    On the flight a small girl sat beside me. She told me that she was going to visit her grandma because she made world’s best coconut cookies and I could come too if I liked! Tempting though it was to tag along with her to taste world’s best coconut cookies, I preferred to stick to our original plan to unravel ourselves in the mountains. But she won my heart. Inviting strangers to your home - only children are capable of such generosity. 
    When she bade me goodbye at the Denver airport, I had already started smelling the mountains.
***
    The next three days were about mountains. Icy trails more slippery that wet algae. Lakes as clear as the sky above. Or as stormy as the wind. 
    During the three days of my vacation, I saw a lot of things, new and old alike. Heard those numerous sounds nature presents us with. We drove hundreds of miles with a fierce stream on our left and vertical walls of rocks on our right. Lakes, trails, hikes, woods, animals and mountains aplenty – the serenity only nature makes possible. I soaked them all in. I spread my arms wide and let the wind spray me with water it carried from the river. I clutched the rock to climb and let its warmth spread through my body. And then I re-discovered that there were still plenty humans who lived with the nature as one, literally.
   One of them was Amanda. An artist. She collects uprooted or fallen trees from rockslides and makes sculptors from them. That’s her living too. For every collected fallen tree she made sure to plant a new one.
    I first saw her when I was walking on the trail around the Lily Lake set in the valley between two mountains. She was standing on a paddleboard in the middle of the lake. How was she balancing herself erect on that thin a board? I was impressed. As I watched, she took the paddle board in the center of the lake and started doing yoga. If I was impressed earlier, I could only gape now.
    An hour later when she came down, she smiled at me. She had noticed me watching. “What would be a better place to bow to the sun? With water under your feet and wind in your face, with the mountains standing tall as your guards, where else could you thank the sun better for such great tutelage?” She said.
    Then there was Cato. I met him at the valley above the Horse Tooth Lake. Losing both his legs in a rock slide didn’t stop him from loving the mountains. He came there often just to sit and to take pictures. During the day he taught seventh graders. Even after that, he treated wounded birds at his home. Sitting on his wheel chair, he told me, “Watching the hues of orange and reds when the sun sets behind the mountains while sitting by this lake is the best thing that can happen to a human. I will not give up this privilege for anything in the world. Not even expensive prosthetic.”
    The trip was awesome. But meeting Amanda and Cato was the highlight of this trip. Their humility was a direct consequence of living so close to the nature. Or so they told me. “When you live with the mighty mountains - so vast, capable of so much destruction, yet so calm, protecting - it reflects on you. You learn to recognize your smallness and that automatically makes you humble.”
Love,

© copyright 2014 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

An Open Letter to the Advertising Masterminds

Dear Advertising Masterminds,         Good morning. You probably are too busy now, brainstorming the next catch-phrase that would take the nation by storm and make its way into common man’s vocabulary. I understand. And I promise I won’t take much of your time.
But before I begin let me introduce myself. My name is Rajrupa and I am someone you would call a target demographic or perhaps simply a consumer! I love the commercials you make, so much so that I never let my husband change the TV channel during a commercial break. I also religiously spend half of my each month’s salary buying things I don’t need, solely because I love the commercial.
I am someone in awe of your creativity, the way you tell a story in thirty seconds.
But then I watched the Veet Ad last month and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I turned to my husband and asked, “Are you seeing this?” He simply nodded with his brows raised.
Now, I do get that your bread and butter depend on how well you manipulate your consumer’s psyche. Their insecurities, their egos are the Turup’s cards you have up your sleeves. And normally it’s funny how well you play them.
But this time you blew me off my feet. This was really all I had needed at the end of day to collect my drooping limbs up and rush to the nearest pharmacy to buy a box of Veet. After all I too hadn’t waxed/shaved my legs for some time now!
But then even if I were to go out, no taxi driver would stop for me because of my stubble. Or worse, what if, god forbids, I encounter an accident on my way and the medical practitioner cringes at the sight of my stubbly legs! What will I do then? I would die of shame! Wouldn’t I?
So on second thought I ditched that idea. But still there was a more important issue to handle. So I asked my husband, “Do I turn into a man every morning I get up? See I have got stubbles!” He confirmed I didn’t.
I wonder why you thought of making such an advert! “Don’t risk dudeness!” That’s your tagline, isn’t it? Oh, you think it’s funny! I know. I read this! But I think you are way too smart for me, because I simply don’t get the joke!
You say all you want is to help women who choose to stay smooth! Is it not more like forcing women to “stay smooth” by shaming them?
After all, is a medical practitioner really all that judgemental to cringe at the sight of an unshaven leg? Then why add the fear factor? Why must you make a woman worry about her stubble when going for a health examination? Maybe in some twisted way it seemed fun to you, but I completely missed the point. It was disgusting!
Or even the taxi driver? A sweaty dusty taxi driver doesn’t stop as soon as he sees the hairy armpit! I mean what more insult could you throw at a woman?
Oh yes, turns out you could! A wife turns a man magically with a day old stubble and the husband is scared of waking up beside her! I mean, really! What fun!
I understand that you have to sell a product that propagates the cruel and unnatural social myth that woman hair is repulsive. It shouldn't be okay for people to say they are disgusted by female body hair – the very nature of our bodies. But it is okay for people to say that, because in our society female body hair is such an abomination that it incites repulsion and shame.
But to do what you have done in your commercial is way too much. Agreed, you have taken it off! But there was no sorry said! To think that even in today’s world, supposedly modern and smart men/women like yourselves making such regressive adverts that manage to be sexist and homophobic at once, and calling it a joke, is scary in itself. Don’t you realize that?
I do hope that it was an isolated tangent idea of yours and soon you will be back on track making meaningful commercials that relate to us! Because you have just lost yourself a bunch of loyal customers! And I think, in time, your business sense will appeal to you, if not the social sense.

Love,

© copyright 2014 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

Z Zaps!

     And zap! Just like that four years were over and it was time for us to leave, creating space for others. There was no return now. We had grown up. While I wrap my reminiscing up, I am relieved too that the blogging marathon is finally over! As I run to rest I leave you with this video:


Love,

© copyright 2014 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

Y yaps Yet

Yet, those four years were magical. Very possibly the best years of my life. It appears to me suddenly that in the previous two posts I have been coming across as a cynic. Perhaps now that I am sufficiently distanced (7 years a long time) from the life we had in college, I am able to develop a different perspective.
Yet, no matter how I wonder now at our naivety, somehow those feelings of joy, ecstasy and bliss spring up and scream “we were real”. And they were. No matter how silly they seem to me right now, those carefree days were something I am still proud of.
I am content in my current life, yet, parts of me still want to go back to reliving those days. It was not a utopia. Not even close. We had our share of cunning, plotter, backstabber. Yet, there was a simplicity that underlined everything else. No deep down grudge that destroys. We fought but yet our friendships were true. We stood up for each other when required keeping aside our differences.

We were just a bunch of naïve idiots then, yet what I would not give to go back to that life again!
Love,

© copyright 2014 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

X Examines the X-es

           In a community that was as tightly knit as ours, it was scandalous to have ex-es around. Raw tensions, fist fights, cat fights, cold wars and what not.
          Girl#1’s ex is boy#1. Girl#1 dumps boy#1 for boy#2. Now boy#1 is girl#2’s boyfriend. Boy#3 likes girl#1 but girl#1 takes him only as a friend so he is with girl#3. Boy#4 likes girl#2 but is upset because she’s already committed. Girl#3 chose boy#3 over boy#5 even though she likes boy#1. Boy#3 tells girl#1 how much he hates girl#3. Girl#1 tells girl#3 that boy#3 hates her. When confronted boy#3 denies and rebukes girl#1 for telling lies!
          Are you seeing stars? Yes! I know! Many such complicated cases of ex-es. And more serious consequences. Backstabbing, dangerous politics, bitching to smear one’s name.
          While all this happened in college few couples still maintained it steady with commendable commitments toward each other ignoring all those deliberate misinformation that came their way. Yet most of them fell apart after college following bickering infinitely bitterer than those in college.

          It makes me wonder. Was it just the airheaded youth that was responsible for these sets of people to be together? What was it that had kept them together all these years and that fell apart so quickly after college? Is it just that people suddenly found themselves all grown up and completely different persons? What else?
Love,

© copyright 2014 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

W walks (the) Walk

          Those of us who had a boyfriend or a girlfriend walked a lot. Evenings saw couples walking their heels off (literally) along the picturesque roads of the township.  
Past the hospital, around the main gate, by the administrative building, round the theatre hall and along the lake we just roamed and roamed. Couples – tall and short, thin and fat, happy and grumpy.
But almost all with a paper bag in hand – a paper bag of snacks. A samosa here to a cutlet there – sharing food, conversation and love.
The walk almost always started from the girls’ hostel. After the girl joined the guy who waited for her like the chatak waits for the rain.  The couple then would start taking steps that smeared “walking”’s face with humiliation but made even the slowest turtle proud of his speed.
They walked literally measuring the length of the road with their feet – past the college gate into the township, past the park into the theater compound, past the hospital into the sports ground. Sometimes they got tired and sat down on one of the numerous culverts to rest.
An ice cream or soda seller would pop up and if they felt rich, they would buy one from him.
A tree in full bloom in campusIn the half darkness of the approaching night the duration of their togetherness was easily determined. No not by their proximity, but how they acted if a professor happened to pass by on foot or bicycle. The newer ones tried to hide while the veterans stood proud with straight necks and high held heads.
During semesters the classmate-couples carried their notes during the walk. Preparations and revisions – where better than on the tree lined roads?
Five miles a day, at a snail’s pace in more or less four hours – the “walk”. You could not be a college couple if you didn’t take that walk! There were names, mean names for the odd ones.
Oh the youth. The stupid naivety to want to be cool by conforming. And the sadistic kick from trying to bring down those who defied.

But that’s what college is all about – rules, disciplines, traditions and groupisms. College is hardly ever about individual choices! 
Love,

© copyright 2014 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

V vitrifies Vodka

       It’s true. When Vodka is vitrified it becomes Bhang. Or something like that. Ok I am blabbering. Thinking about the episode back in college always makes me blabber.
         Engineers celebrate Vishwakarma Day. In our college it was a pretty big festival. Inside the Engineering Worksop lab the deity was placed and worshipped in an elaborate manner.
          But the most looked forward part of the day was the afternoon when after participating in the day long kite flying competition, boys made the bhang. In the most un-traditional way! Along with all the traditional ingredients went some other stuff which only the “chefs” knew. No the “chef” knowledge was highly coveted and every year the final year chefs passed the knowledge to only a handful students from the third year. How those worthy of being chefs were chosen was a secret knowledge, something I can never claim to know.
          Anyway, that night, when our batch mates were the chefs we girls took a special request to them to share the amrita with us too. As a result we got two bottles of Smirnoff full of that milky concoction. We girls drank through them happily, feeling nothing.
But then slowly it started. Some of us started to laugh uncontrollably while some others couldn’t stop crying. Too quickly we (the still sane people) were outnumbered as more and more girls started behaving in the weirdest ways.  We had to keep them on leash because we didn’t want to draw the matron’s attention who was always breathing down our necks. But with each passing second the task became more difficult with our own heavy heads.
Think I am exaggerating? Let me give some examples. A girl went in the loo and locked herself in. Then she started crying and shouting and kicking the door violently begging everyone to let her out. No amount of talk could convince her that she had to just open the lock herself.
Another girl, very shy and inwardly on a normal day, decided to hang from the rope that we had tied along the open balcony to dry our clothes shouting, “I am spider-man” repeatedly.
Yet another one kept throwing off her clothes. Some kept telling their sad stories crying uncontrollably to people who were laughing their heads off.
After some time of wrestling with these stunt stars I decided to return to my room. I closed my door and started laughing. Hysterical laughs came out of me like bubbles from a can of soda. I kept laughing till I fell asleep.

The apocalyptic silence and calm that greeted me twelve hours later when I woke up told me that the night before wasn’t my imagination. 
Love,

© copyright 2014 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

U unfolds U-phoria

          U-phoria indeed. The rush of joy that washes over when it all comes to a sweet conclusion. It was the same feeling when they announced my name off the list confirming that I got the job.
I was ecstatic. With such a great headache gone even before the start of the next term, the final year promised to be a lot of fun. But there was more. The beckoning of a new life, altogether my own, as a grown up independent individual was alluring too.
Oh life was going to be so fun now! Own place, own decisions, eat pizza as often as you like, watch TV the whole night, go dancing! Wear those smart suits and work in those swanky offices making important decisions! Hah! It was long before the flying fantasy came zooming from the sky and buried its face in the ground, but during the short period that the euphoria lasted this was how we handled it.
It was intoxicating like being high on Ganja. Oh I got a job. Such a big deal! I own the world now! Those of us who had managed to get the jobs behaved more or less this way. We were insufferable imbeciles.
We stopped studying altogether. We went to the class tests without having read a word and participated in a competition, “who submits the paper first?”
We took pride in defying the teachers and breaking the rules, stayed out late, came and went to classes as we pleased. Basically all we did was promoting anarchy.
Anyway, it was good while it lasted but soon it was all over and it was semester time. Our euphoria gave into blind panic. We couldn’t keep the job if we failed! It was also the time when the exhaustion from all those late nights and rule breaking started taking toll.
          Another important lesson learnt. Fly but keep your feet grounded.
          Well, we passed alright. If engineering taught us anything truly bone deep, it was, to get things just done only at the last minute.

          During the final year, our euphoria was back in full swing and we continued our we-own-the-worldact forgetting all about the suffering just before the semesters. Guess that’s what the youth is about! Or probably somewhere within us we knew that it was going to be last year of such fun with friends and were trying to make the most of it.
Love,

© copyright 2014 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random