IceAndBlood

  Recently, I went to Murshidabad with a few relatives, for a short trip. Relatives, as is in my case, would be the last people on earth whom I would like to accompany in a trip but then, sometimes, you have no other option than to compromise. Maybe one day isn’t enough to pass a judgment. Yet, I failed to find anything worthy of my wasted time and spree, over there. Historical places have never interested me and Murshidabad too had no reason to like me at all. So, I returned, broken, disgusted and enervated by the hardship of the journey.   On my way back, our bus halted near a petrol pump. I got down. It was a beautiful night. One of those nights that stun you. One of those nights that make you stop and listen to the sounds of silence. I wandered alone till I reached a small shop of chocolates, biscuits, spices, and other trivia. There were a couple of benches in front of the shop. About three to four people were sitting and lazing there. One of them grabbed a packet...

  Last night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking, pondering, brooding over all sorts of things. Eccentric. Ridiculous. Fantastical. Things that exist solely in dreams. I was born in the year of promises and hopes. The year in which Arundhati Roy received the Booker for her magnum opus ‘The God of Small Things’. The enigmatic masterpiece that has continued to stun hearts through years. The piece that cemented my fate overnight. I was born in the year rejuvenation and ruination. Just like shards of coloured glass, sunshine glistened over the glass panes of our cramped up rental house. Unwanted, unwelcome. I was born in the year of love and war. The year of all-or-nothing. I wailed into life. I survived. A miracle, indeed. Even now, I can’t help wondering what made my frail heart beat so stubbornly that moment? That moment of reckoning. The moment that made all the difference. What made me wail so idiotically into an empty world, that day? Was it determination? Was ...