This time last year...

... I was on my way back from a totally INSANE trip to Goa. :-<MI'd gotten over early, and I woke up very late in the afternoon of 28th December. Met a couple of my wingies, still a little sleep in my eyes. We decided we wanted to go to Goa. On bikes!! We managed to coax (read browbeat) a junior to complete the group of four, and set off.

Tragedy struck early when we realised we'd travelled roughly 30 Kms in the wrong direction, towards Pune instead of Goa. We'd left the comfy confines of the campus at 5 pm, by 11 in the night, with an already sore butt, hands freezing in the cold wind, my friends choosing to fall asleep while driving, I was convinced that I'd made the biggest mistake of my life, yet :P.

70 hours later, the tally stood thus: 24 hours on the way to Goa, 24 on the way back, 2 hours sleeping on benches off Anjuna beach (where we were unceremoniously woken up by the prodding of cops, who for some vague reason turned all sympathetic and helpful when they found out that we were poor students from Mumbai who'd come to see the wonderful Goa and hadn't managed to find any acco :D), and the meagre balance we spent zipping around from beach to beach on our bikes! I so totally loved every moment of it!!!

I was back in time to spend New Year's Eve with friends, and Natural's ice cream :D. Much has happened in the one year since. Some of those friends are celebrating New Year in NY, some are sitting at home. In this past year I've visited the sandy beaches of peninsular Malaysia, the rocky beaches of Hokkaido and the brilliant fjords of Norway, but I wish I'd had the chance to go back to the sunny, dreamy beaches of Goa (NOT on bikes :P)!!

Big city life.

I'm just not cut out for it. There are too many people, too many buildings, too many cars, too many bits and corners you'll end up knowing nothing about, even if you spend you entire life living there. While I'm sure these aren't exactly life-threatening matters, the matter to me.

See, I grew up in this small town. Well, it was a small town when we first moved there.. then it became a big town. And then a few years before I left, it was officially declared a small city. But I digress. The good thing about Asansol was that it was essentially small. I have, on occassion, managed to cycle from one end to the other (east-west along the G T Road) in a single afternoon. The other good thing was that my Mum considered it small enough to let me roam around with zot constraints. Which is far from what I can say about Kolkata. My dad sold his bike before moving here. Primarily to prevent me from getting myself killed (read: riding a two wheeler in Kolkata traffic).

And now that I finally have a proper 4-wheeler licence and have absolutely free access to my dad's car, that same Kolkata traffic has managed to make me hate driving!! Something I'd have found downright ridiculous under almost any other circumstances.

What I really hate about my current state is that I can't go running around the streets. I'd get run over, or choke on vehicle fumes. I can't go kick a soccer ball in the field nearby when I feel like it. There is no field nearby. I can't go hang out with my friends when I'm bored of sitting at home. Everyone I know is somewhere else, spending New Year with their family or at work/college.

Birds in flight.

Okay, so I did spend the last four years in Mumbai, and totally loved it. But that was different. That was more like living in an island of sanity, and looking out onto the insanity of the rest of the city. And I knew people there!!!

Life?! Don't tell me about life.

Yes, I feel like Marvin. Manically depressed that is. No particular reason why I should though. Had a pretty nice Christmas, spending time with lots of relatives at my grandparents' place. First time I made it to such a get-together in 5 years. But at some point during the trip to Shantiniketan this thought struck me: Life's like this long long road. In the four days since then I've driven over 500 kms, and have been struck by the startling similarities time and time again. The beautiful stretches of smooth tarmac, the sudden potholes. The green canopied paths, the suffocating traffic snarls...

Right, so a belated Merry Christmas to everyone. I'm currently mourning the first Mood I I've missed since 2k1. Especially so, since I missed it by just 4 days :(. But then, I did have a great time attending Poush Mela :D. If only everything hadn't ended up happening at the same time :-<.

I am Turkish!

What Snatch character are you?
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Interesting thing is, I was kinda hoping I'd be Turkish! Okay, so the description might not be a spot on match, but it's cool nonetheless :D.

PS. Matches my haircut too :P.

The usual bunch of feelings...

The rush of warmth when meeting old friends. The sadness of leaving again. The pure relief of being back home after a tough stretch. Of course the length of my hair (or lack thereof) was an immediate source of amusement to everyone, from friends who'd come to pick me up at Mumbai airport to my Mum when she saw me at Kolkata airport /:).

This was my most lukhha visit to the city in a while! What with the Panama Consulate choosing to dispense with my paperwork in a record single day. But I'd landed up at a particularly busy time for everyone else - placements. So I had time enough for a nice solitary walk around the campus. Okay, so I'll not go into all the memories that it brought crashing upon my head... But these images I'll share.

Ironically, I spent my last night in campus in the room I used to call mine till about 6 months back.