Shuvashree Chowdhury's Blog, page 38

A POEM

On the eve of World Poetry Day (21st March)

http://www.un.org/en/events/poetryday/����

…this is my humble attempt at defining a Poem.

A Poem

A propelling word, and then a few lines,

Spurting compelling thoughts in my mind;

I first mark them down at the nick of time,

Lest they involuntarily leave me behind���

These lines delve into a maze of thoughts,

That chase unconscious unravelled tracks:

I now let myself get lost in their troughs,

They lead in my core to veiled grasslands.

I���m surprised by the intricacy of my soul,

Whose thoughts I unconsciously abhorred.

Yet it was that momentous fleeing thought,

That has led me to myself – otherwise lost.

From deep within the fissures of my mind,

A well of experience, emotions; wisdom arises:

Infusing repertoire of words, language imbibed,

A poignant, myriad kaleidoscope I inscribe.

Must You Judge Me In Comparison?

A week after the launch of my first book at the Oxford Bookstore in Calcutta, one of my close friends from school, while we were driving back together from visiting another friend said ���R and I, we were just discussing yesterday, that getting celebrities to launch your book, also the numerous reviews and coverage from reputed publications was easy isn���t it, your husband is after all in the media and has good contacts.���

Shocked and hurt, but more than by her insinuation, the annoyance towards the man who was getting the credit – and my realisation that it would be collective thereon, when none was due, I retorted ���Every person you saw at my event, those you will see in the ones to follow in other cities, all the media coverage, is due to my own initiation and perseverance.���

���No, but he knows so many people.���

���Yes he does,��� I replied vehemently now, my voice betraying my attempt to stay calm, ���but it is not of any help to me. I have had to fight for myself at every step as I will continue to do.���

Then after the Chennai launch of my book, one of husband���s close friends (a journalist) told him, which he conveyed to me – ���K (another journalist) was asking me about Shree���s book, she was laughing – what has she written���will this book ever sell? Who will buy such a book?���

���So what did you say?��� I asked husband sharply.

���I didn���t say anything, but my friend told K ��� you never know she may just get lucky.���

I gave husband a disparaging look, and angrily replied, ���Does being journalists give them the exclusive rights to becoming an author? I well see the excellence in ���writing standards��� in Indian journalism and I wonder what gives them the smugness to judge or write me off?���

He obviously looked at me nonchalantly, reminding me of the queer if not amused looks many of his journalist friends (he’s always been one too)had been giving me, since hearing of the launch of my book ��� as if to say now you���ve written a book too. So far, they had been tickled at my PR and promotion efforts at the launch of husband���s books – they had not come across such yet. Though I must admit those journalists in various cities, including in Chennai, I approached personally, have been very helpful and obliging, at various stages of my struggle.

In any case, I was so irritated with Ms K, that in rebellion I immediately removed her from my FB friends list, just as I had a good mind to do more, but better sense prevailed.

All through this process that saw the launch of my book in Calcutta, Delhi and Chennai, I must mention, I was inundated with the continuous rejection slips I received for my first manuscript a collection of 18 short stories, as I was not about to abandon my first child yet. I looked upon husband���s writing path dejectedly, assuming mine would light up as automatically as his, even bring to the fore a spouse who would pick up on the relay-run, where my baton fell off in exhaustion, as I always did for him – with the use of my work experience as many as his though in varied fields.

Thus my struggles were always and forever seemingly magnified to alarming proportions in my mind, as I have the first row seat to watching husbands game or race if you like, take shape. Now I���m not complaining, far from it – I am proud of where husband is in the race, way ahead now. I set out on this path rather late, while he always knew his assigned path and followed it diligently, built his readership and reputation over time. I cannot obviously expect to do it over night. I���m still on the lower rungs of the ladder, and I struggle on with the confidence of my many years of working – that if not the writing skills or practise yet, I���ve definitely brought to this ���writing��� journey, the wisdom and maturity that is relevant to what I wish to achieve.

But don���t I have the right to be upset, when people think I have it easy, as my husband assumedly does it all for me. Let me assure you, he has not read my first novel yet, insists my short stories are absolutely no good ��� even says so publically if someone asks to read them; that my current novel needs that I change the plot completely to stand any chance at all. Even as he mentors, guides and handholds others in the process, introduces them to publishers and media people, but yes only whose skills he is convinced of unlike mine.

Now will someone please come and run this race I���m in from my lane, see how it feels to run alongside a professional, who has no time to invest in a beginner jubilantly skipping on the track following him as if only impressed by the neon lights – insignificant to the world even close friends :) But I will continue, you will see, till I reach the end of this race I so inadvertently joined, leaving behind a life that I was sure of excelling in, even if I���m the last to arrive at the finish line and it takes me a lifetime to do so.

A WOMAN AM I…

��

A Woman Am I…

Purple, Orange, Green,

Vermillion, Gold,

Are the myriad colours I���m made up of;

They stand for dignity, compassion,

Enthusiasm, determination

Which drives my passionate triumph.

Yet, ever since I was born

I was solely reared,

To be a perfect match

For someone, to whom I���d be wed.

So I was dressed with the utmost care,

To ensure I was special and rare.

Thus at school I was trained

That I am always to behave

Tender, obedient, obliging and humane;

Also that I must cross my legs when I sit,

Eat with my mouth shut,

That to burp or fart was a sin;

I was to excuse myself if I cough or sneeze,

Not wear my skirt high above my knee.

Then in college I was allowed to Date,

So long as my chastity in line with my life, was intact;

While the man I was to marry one day

Could test his virility on all and sundry,

For then would he be, man enough to wed me.

At work I was again amongst those men,

Who were always and compulsively more efficient;

For they supposedly had intellect, and physical capacity,

Always superior, and unequivocally above me.

So even if I was more persistent,

Worked harder, to prove my worth over them,

Yet I would at the end of the month go back home,

My pay packet lighter than those,

Who could share a drink,

And a smoke,

With another man after work���

In their mirth collectively decide my self-worth.

After I���d put in my might, proven myself alright:

I might just get a promotion like the men,

But then also be termed loose and trite;

For I���d supposedly slept with

The guy who���d been allotted to decide;

For wasn���t I pretty, with a body to incite?

Then I���d marry the man

Of my dreams,

Thinking he had a mind of steel,

That he���d be honourable and proud of me;

But then it was always his

Pride for which I���d watch out.

For where was mine to be found -

It was lost in the shadow of his clout.

So then I had to be happy

Like the moon is

To shine in reflected glory.

Till when children came along

They���d expect it was their life I live from then on,

For how can a mother think of anything else?

Isn���t she born only to give birth above all else,

To bring up children in the world;

But yes, only proud if they are sons,

Even if they leave their parents and run

When in old age they need them the most.

A woman am I���

So lifelong I must relegate, must I -

Into reflecting the colours of your choice,

Into the forms that you callously paint?

Would you not lend me some spotlight:

So I may shine in my own colours,

Thus show you my light?

My Dream Home

My Dream Home

In the deep woods, by the brook,

Amidst lilacs, parrots in the bush,

Where Mynas chirp, Cranes hop,

Is our cabin of brick and wood.

A tiny bridge over the clear brook,

Pretty in yellow, green, cheery in look;

You cross it, as you would a gateway,

Step into a garden our lodge embraces.

Up the stairs of trunks from the woods,

Atop the tree – it has my home in its nook;

On the fireplace, lie open two poetry books,

By a bottle of red wine, two glasses stood;

Awaiting our return from an evening walk,

Through winding tracks around a waterfall;

Over trails on which squirrels cross our path,

But Wood peckers don���t stop to stare at us.

The setting sun soft, tender on our skin,

Pink, Orange, Gold as is Love – it streams;

We stride close, hand in hand in the woods,

Flushed from yearning, of a Love that soothes

�� �� �� �� ��

Homeward, On A Dream Trail

Homeward, On A Dream Trail

The narrow winding mud road,

Ran into the deep green woods;

Even as I looked at it enchanted,

I rushed by, on tracks by the brook.

Where might that road take me?

How I wish I had followed its trail���

Maybe to a stream gurgling by hills,

So I���d stretch on nature���s green pad.

I���d watch the birds regale a blue sky,

Forming patterns only I could read;

The sun beaming, guiding our spree,

Through green trees joining our binge.

A white rabbit would hop over, greet me,

Distinct, amidst the lilacs and blue daffodils;

Offer his hand to any aid I might need here -

If lost in his home of beauty and such quiet?

Sprinkled by a waterfall on my face, I���d smile:

���No, I���m not lost here��� I���d reply, ���I���ve just found������

���A home like none, no friend, no family, or joy��� -

���Can I live here, would you not make me your kin���

Yet, as he accepts, I chugged by, on steel tracks,

Never to traverse that narrow winding mud track;

To return to my own world, to reality, and home,

Where there is life, a struggle, but always Hope.

���It Is My Personal Approach That Creates The Climate.���

It was in my earliest supervisory assignment, in employment with an airline, that I first discovered this truth that – ���If we treat people as they ought to be we help them to become what they are capable of becoming��� ��� Wolfgang von Goethe.

I was assigned a secluded office on the periphery of the Calcutta airport, along with a dozen smart, young men, who were nearly about my age of 25 years at the time (they were about 22-23), along with a single lady of my age. As opposed to the team being intimidated by me, as is to be the case with one���s boss, I was in my heart – though never let on in the slightest, was highly intimidated with them. What with us literally cut off from the rest of the world due to the office���s location. Before they reported to me, I was briefed on each member of my team who had just joined the company, by our sales as well as regional head, along with the two trainers from head office who had taken the team through a series of theoretical trainings in preparation for their role.

One of the men, I was told specifically, was ���very troublesome��� and had an ���attitude problem��� as in addition to all else he did, he chucked fistfuls of paper balls on the two male trainers��� heads, in the course of the training. I was told to watch him for a week, he given a chance as he was otherwise bright, but more due to the high cost of recruitment and training. If he proved to be what the trainers branded him to be, I was at liberty to bid him goodbye, as would the company, for good. However, I took him on as a challenge and was as polite to him, as with the rest of the staff, in fact exceptionally so. Then going a step further, I went out to the airport bookstore and bought him a self-help book on improving his attitude. I don���t know what it was, whether my kindness and his ensuing guilt, he opened up to me about his personal problems, on how he was going through personal hell – with a divorce and child custody with the barest of means, from a very early marriage.

After I listened and empathised, he promised me not only to be good, but help me train and help other staff, not as sharp as him. I then had as asset at hand and not a liability as anticipated and branded by those ready to give up on him easily. However shortly he was whisked off as a good performer, by another department – with more claims for the need of such staff. In the months ahead, I had another similar case of a man who had landed on my team from Chennai, due to a personal exigency ��� his bride-to-be threatening to walk out on him, if he did not get his hide to Calcutta immediately, also branded having an attitude problem as he made more errors, than the real work he did. The company had no need of him, as he was a complete wreck and did not even pay his salary for months – from such forced transfer on his part. Yet he was ready to work, just so as to keep his job for the wedding ahead. He turned out in time to be another asset, even though the threatening girl was not to be his bride from having run away anyways.

Then I spent a few years thereon, being thrust upon with troublesome men to train and turnaround every few months, and then other departments grabbed them, till I got quite tired of bringing up grownup boys and quit the department myself���this followed my bringing up quite a few more young men – as women are not so troublesome to start with, in the numerous jobs that followed, never to wish bringing up another boy or girl again :)

��

The Loss Of My Face

                                                                      

It was a Wednesday in early December, of about a decade ago. We had just come out of Mocambo a well-known restaurant off Park Street in Calcutta, after dinner, at about 1030pm. On our way to our car parked at a distance, my friend and I stopped at one of the tiny cubbyhole shops for him to buy a packet of cigarettes, before we proceed to a discotheque on Camac Street. I like to have a paan sometimes from these shops, after an Indian meal that is, but I did not on that day, as I had just had a continental one that Mocambo specialises in. I stood a few steps behind my friend on the pavement, looking around. As I soaked in the delightful weather, with the after taste of tutti-frutti ice-cream, the smug feeling in my stomach of a meal of baked fish over a bed of spinach and white sauce with garlic bread, and headiness of the two Bloody Mary’s I had started the meal with.

My friend was taking longer than I expected, as the shopkeeper was preparing a series of paans, before attending to him. I began to feel self-conscious, of being overdressed for the roadside, in a chocolate brown, full-sleeve ankle-length dress, my waist length hair then that I usually wore open – flying all over my well made up face. I stepped forward to ask the shop keeper to hurry up, when I felt a sudden hot flush hit the right side of my face with such force that I froze to the ground, one feet ahead of the other. Instinctively, I took my hand up and touched my right cheek, to feel a hot liquid, just as hot as the sting on my cheek. I looked at my hand and it was blood red, I looked up to see my friend staring at me, the fear written large on his face. The red was now dripping all over my hair, my dress, even as the hot sting now shifted to a hammering beating of my heart from the fear of now no longer having a face from the acid bulb thrown at me. With every drip of the liquid from my face, I felt my face charring, melting away, of losing my face forever.

It was only when my friend started to run behind the bike that had climbed over the pavement, with two riders who committed this dastardly act, did I react. I called out to him ‘please don’t go…don’t leave me here’…in fear, like I’ve never felt before or since. If he left to go after them, the rest of a gang might take me away into a car or somewhere now that I was absolutely mentally disarmed. My friend stopped right there on his run, from the desperate sound of my voice. His face, as he turned around, was of one caught between raging anger – to go get the hooligans versus the need of the moment – to save me from further abuse. He ran back to me and then scrutinized my face. The look he had was one scared to view what had become of the face he had always complimented right to the colors it wore. My face was intact, he realized, even though red all over with a thick fluid still dripping all over, which might have been as we deduced chewed paan residue. He got a mineral water bottle, poured it all over my face, before we walked to the car. By now I was calm, really calm. I didn’t care whether I had a face, I was just happy to be alive and safe. On the drive back home, our plans spoiled due to the muck I was in, I went over the incident in my head.

All I could recall accurately was how I felt the moments when I thought I had lost my face forever. This was an invaluable lesson, to know how it feels to lose my face, even if only for a few moments, without actually having lost it. The first thing that would happen perhaps, I had thought then, is I would lose my job with the airline I worked for, with no marriage prospects ever. After this experience, how could I ever take my looks seriously, if ever I had done so before? I was determined thereon, that I had to have an identity far superior than what my face would ever give me, marry someone who liked me over and above my physical looks, so if ever I really lost my face, I would survive – as I would still not be Faceless.

PS: This post is elicited by the article “14-yr-old writes to man who attacked her with acid” that I read a day before in the link below:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/agra/14-yr-old-writes-to-man-who-attacked-her-with-acid/articleshow/45735331.cms

Myths About Introverts:

At the semi-final round of my interview to join the service quality department of a reputed airline back in 1997, I was asked by the expatriate head of service quality and training “are you an extrovert or an introvert.”

I paused, my heart sinking, frantically wanting to lie, to ensure I qualified for the role. But true to myself, I sheepishly blurted “I am an introvert” sure that this was the end of this road for me.

But to my astonishment, looking me straight in the eye, I was gently told “but why are you hesitant…introverts make much better service personnel, as they can relate to people one on one, much better than extroverts. I beamed, almost brighter than a lighthouse – the ship of my confidence coming to shore. It would sail to numerous ports thereon, starting with the final round of the interviews with the head of customer services, which I now smoothly sailed through, when asked “tell me, why do you think we should select you from among the numerous applicants we have.”

Sometimes all me need in life is a little reinstatement of our potential, that we can do it too, that we can be achievers as well, so we run in leaps and bounds. Luckily, I’ve met a number of people later in life who have done that for me, after I was always passed over in school and college…let’s do this for our juniors, for youngsters, show them their potential…shall we?

Please read this list of myths on introverts in the link below and let’s not leave introverts out of important jobs/roles as they may turn out as the strength of your classrooms, departments, or organisations for that matter.

http://www.carlkingdom.com/10-myths-about-introverts…

An Attitude Of Openness

I started writing seriously in 2006, a few months after I married and moved to Chennai. That is, if you will consider blogging, anywhere near serious writing. My first blog was initiated and encouraged by my husband, to keep me busy while he was staring at his laptop – busy with his by then popular blog, chatting online, and with the weekly Sunday column he wrote for his paper. This blog address, that he created for me – I didn’t even know what a blog was yet, on my insistence was anonymous and with a vague picture. I’ve not deleted it to date, as it is and will always remain a very honest account of my early months of marriage, and my new life in Chennai, but over that of my foray into the world of the written word. The spoken word, I was by then fairly proficient at, from a long and varied stint in the service industry, more so as a trainer for much of that time.

In this anonymous blog, I bared my mind though not my heart, assuming husband would have better things to do than track my thoughts and amateur writing via my blog’s progress. It was months later, much to my consternation, when he showed it to my sister and a friend visiting Chennai, all reading together from it, that I realised my blog now not only had strangers as regular readers – who I was growing increasingly proud of. This revelation of my blog to my sister and friend, even though they encouraged me to continue writing, made me livid, much over husband’s bare-all blogs and columns on our life that already troubled me.

This was the second time in life, the very private and reserved person I was till then, that I had faced a forceful and severe breach of my privacy. The first was, when in standard seven, I had walked into the study hall at boarding school, to find my diary lying on my desk, 3 girls – two of them who were two batches senior, reading aloud to each other from it. I had pulled my blue-green hardcover diary; I always managed to get one out of father’s printing press’s yearly giveaways, away instinctively from the desk. Seething with rage, yet unable to question the girls due to my reserve, on their pulling out my personal diary – I had thought was well hidden inside my desk. They had obviously seen me writing regularly. It upset me so much, that over a stream of angry tears I shredded every single page – of months of writing, sitting outside on the parapet.

I hated boarding school already, and this incident was as much as I could tolerate of being in a place where I had no privacy, not even to hide my thoughts in a diary. I had sulked, ignoring the smirks on the faces of these girls, each time I walked to my desk at study hours. This ended my initiative to write for a very long time, or who knows I might have published a book much earlier in life from this rough draft. Not even at the encouragement or insistence of my English teacher to participate in competitions, did I write again except unless mandatory. Till date, I’ve never mentioned this incident to anyone, held it close to my heart, as it is and always will remain one of the most upsetting incidents of my young life.

After my awareness, of my anonymous blog no longer remaining my hideout, I stopped blogging altogether, in spite pf my husband’s encouragement. Something inside just froze my thoughts thereon. It was almost a year later, challenged by my husband and his friends’ attitude on ‘the wife’ that I once again created a blog to prove my mettle, this time with my real name – but there was no way I was going to upload my picture or my identity.

I blogged for long under the name ‘Shuvashree’ – even after my blog picked up a good readership with a steady flow of comments, along with it frequently being featured, so long as no one knew who Shuvashree, really was. It was only much later, under the insistence of a senior blogger – a reputed lawyer, who read and commented on my blogs, who challenged my views often – saying I was shooting from behind a wall and I should come out of hiding to argue with him, I uploaded my picture and bio-data. Thus I took him head-on in a battle of wits and I am so grateful I did – it was his constant challenges that sharpened my wits over time, helped me debate issues logically in writing, and to look at varied perspectives simultaneously.

It was one of this lawyer friend’s challenges that I held my writing very close to my heart, and thus would never make a good writer, that I wanted to defy. Thus I wrote my first poem ever, and the second getting published in an anthology, encouraged me. In time, to prove him wrong on my inhibitions, I wrote romantic stuff, moving on to sensual writing and slowly I evolved to writing anything that came to mind without flinching. I recall the first romantic short story I wrote – I went round and round to explain – yet cringed at the thought of my regular readers reading it, much to his amusement on reading it. He was one of the most daring bloggers, with a very humourous and open style of writing.

It took me months, years actually, to reach a stage where now I am able to write, describe anything I want to, explicit bedroom scenes included – as in my debut novel Across Borders, with an absolute lack of shyness. If something’s on my mind – I now dare to state it, say or write without a flinch, so all I have to concentrate on is the right use of words. You cannot recreate yourself overnight, even by a sheer force of will; it is a series of tiny steps that lead you to becoming the person you wish to become. This openness, that I have painfully constructed, starting out as a quiet, shy and reserved girl – not only as a writer but also as a person, comes in good stead today, impels my creative ideas in every sphere of life.

How And When, I Became A Calcutta Loyalist.

(Please click on the picture to enlarge and read)

How and when, I became, a Calcutta loyalist, or self-appointed brand ambassador of the city – if you like: why I feel such a deep sense of personal achievement on the release of my husband’s book “Longing, Belonging, An Outsider At Home In Calcutta,” and more so, that he dedicated it to me.

In was in early 1998, that I joined the service-quality department of the most reputed Indian domestic airline of the time, reporting to the expatriate head of service-quality and training, at the head office in Mumbai. He had just joined then, from a reputed international airline. My joining the department was after a three year stint with the airline, wherein I had worked mostly in Calcutta and had also been a trainer in east India. In my new role with the service-quality department, singly based in Calcutta, the rest of the department in Delhi and Mumbai, I had the opportunity – on roster, to audit the ground and in-flight services of all stations, which by that time were all major cities of India. At the start, since the first week of joining, when I attended departmental meetings in Mumbai, later inter-departmental ones, I was the recipient of much humorous criticism, on behalf of the city I was based out of – namely Calcutta.

Everything seemed to be wrong with the city, or so I was communicated – in all exasperation and sympathy. This was by the rest of my 6-8 member team based out of Mumbai and Delhi, who like me had also just joined. But Calcutta’s maligned reputation, didn’t need much prior research to establish. I being its sole representative could only but swallow the information with much stinging humility. The criticism, as humorous as it seemed to the rest of the team, ranged from lackadaisical attitude of staff and management with examples, to defiant non-adherence of codes of conduct. Some of the examples being – Calcutta airport loaders were never in uniform; they were missing from designated customer-interface points and well…the list was rather long.

Now, it’s not that I can defend the issues that were thrown at me on Calcutta, but I was, in the next few years, privy to much that went on in all other stations including Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai, which was never as much an issue as it was when it happened in Calcutta. There were times, in Mumbai, when on an audit or a meeting, I personally offloaded baggage on to conveyor belts in the arrival hall, along with senior management, after all staff went on an indefinite strike with little prior warning. But when it happened in Calcutta it was oh, so funny! Then the staff in Delhi, they were often rude and arrogant – including the loaders. In fact, our team members, only two of them, in Delhi were ignored by the rest of the larger team – no one would talk to them civilly, let alone have a meal with them for the reports they churned, though it was their job to do so. But the Calcutta staff and loaders were always the ones who were: oh, so insubordinate! Then in Chennai, the lady staff could care to hoots about grooming regulations – it was against their cultural norms to wear makeup or wax their limbs, shape their eyebrows, but…oh! In Calcutta staff grooming is pathetic!

I can go on and on quoting examples of how when a place or person is maligned, everyone points their fingers at every given opportunity. Thus out of this gross unfairness I encountered, this in latter organisations I worked in as well, arose a sense of loyalty and a need to show Calcutta in a better light and awareness. But above all, to inculcate a sense of pride and belonging to the Bengali/Calcuttan who is usually the most vociferous critic of all, and sometimes unreasonably so.

It took me 5 married years, to sell Calcutta to Bishwanth Ghosh! And over 8 years, to have him release a book “Longing, Belonging, An Outsider At Home In Calcutta.”

All I hope for now is that the book, available at book stores in India, on Amazon, Flipkart and other sites, makes one look at Calcutta in a new light.