Cat woman

“Who is that lady?” Titas asked her cousin.

They were standing side by side on his roof, a middle aged lady was feeding a huge battalion of mixed species of creatures- birds, cats, dogs and a cow was visible.

“We call her miao aunty.” He giggled.

“Why?”

“She picks up all strays from the locality and shelters them.”

“Do her pets bother you guys?”

“No. they are so stuffed up with food that they don’t eat any thing they are offered by others.”

“Then you should appreciate her having as your neighbour. Respect her. Her heart is huge. Even if those naive animals sometimes bother you, you can forgive them. You know, animals too have a right to live, eat and in huge towns or metros their lives are miserable.”

“I guess you are right.”


sharmishtha basu

Brothers

Four brothers, two sisters. Five of them doted on their baby sister. She slipped into dark alleys and stayed there because she initially was not allowed to go out and then the lucrative bonuses of sold soul captured her.

Everyone doesnot wants to sell their soul, so once a girl walked in but walked out, challenging them to touch her if they dare.

The baby sister was the one who was trying to pull her in the darkness; every head meant lot of money. She saw red when her prey fled. She called out to her family-the SOS reached them before the brave-heart could reach her home.

So the brothers started to chase her, pretending that she was engaged to one of them and ran away just before marriage, because her parents have found out a BBD (bigger better deal) for her. Leaving him fuming and heartbroken.

This trick worked because they found out quite a lot of sympathetic persons who tried to make the lovers meet each other.

They succeeded; a good Samaritan tracked the girl and promised the killer that he will make arrangements of his meeting the love of his life, the girl was fooled into their lair and killed.

But they forgot one thing – she too had brothers and family.

Evil intentions

We often meet these people in walk of life. People who hide their deadly intentions behind the cover of friendship or sweetness.

I have a strange power of feeling the true intention of people. No matter how much a person sweet talks with me, if I see him face to face or mix with him for too long I can feel his real intentions.

Still I believe in giving my hunches a long spell of time before I turn them into belief. Sadly, in ninety nine percent cases my hunches turn into belief.

Is it a God given gift or all of us having this power? Only most of us ignore it? This power of looking through the outer covering and observe what is inside. I think we all have this power. Some of us cherish it and some ignore it.

Cruelty

Cruelty is cruelty, right? These days I feel a little confused if I got the statement wrong. All of a sudden a voice is gaining a large volume an eye for an eye. And the advocates of this view call others cruel. How can I be kind if I believe in eye for an eye?

I believe we call name to every thing which doesnot fits our views. We never even try to walk a meter in shoes of others, forget about a mile.

We call military invasion just, but we call terrorism heinous act. We ignore lockup, starvation deaths calmly, as if there is nothing wrong in that, its just a part of life but we lynch pickpockets if we can get our hands on them.

Sometimes when I look at ourselves from a distance I can feel how the viewers of roman circus were in middle ages. Every thing which is socially permitted or legally permitted is acceptable to us; we watch it sipping our tea. Every thing which is out of social tracks is disgusting to us, it brings out the beast inside us.

Sharmishtha basu

Bibhishan and karna

Bibhishan is admired in Indian society. A just man who betrayed his own tyrannical brother Ravana and helped Ram to fight and conquer him. He became king of Lanka when Ram conquered it.

Its true I don’t appreciate all of his actions, may be what he did was needed for betterment of society. But somehow he fails to earn my respect.

Karna, the eldest of Pandavas, discarded by his unmarried mother at birth, brought up by a poor couple. He chose Duryodhana because he was treated with respect by Duryodhana. He even joined some of his dark deeds like insulting his own sister in law Draupadi.

This man, with quite a handful of vices is not a much admired character.

I personally can’t feel that disrespect for him. His loyalty toward a person who has honoured him when the whole world insulted him.

His giving away his magical shields to Narada, knowing very well that it meant signing his own death warrant. Just because he never refused a beggar. These few are quite noble trait to me.

I think India has produced quite a lot of Bibhishan. At-least one in every historical event. Not much of Karna though.

I wonder if we had looked down upon Bibhishan, would there have been less number of traitors?

Beautiful earth

Being born on this magnificent planet we take it as a right. And take so many, so magnificent things for granted.

Was just recently watching a sci-fi movie, twelve monkeys, just like all doom day movies it too had the same basic story, a strange virus attacks human race and human beings have to leave the earth and build some place above ground to dwell.

Earth goes to wild creatures. Who roam freely all over it.

In a few of its scene, bruce willis was ecstatic to breathe freely. To see the trees and birds. Hope we wont invite any thing of that sort on us and start giving this priceless planet the respect it deserves.

Three vultures

Mr. Mitra, Mr. Das and Mr. Gupta. Three respectable senior citizens. Above sixty. All three of them millionaire, factory owners owned factories attached to each other in same industrial complex.

They were as close as three friends can be.

That was one side of them.

They had grown up kids who did the main running around in the business. These three friends mainly handled the finance side. They had to stay in the office all day to handle the payments. Too much time, too little to do.

They used to spend most of their time on internet, visiting chat rooms, befriending young girls using photographs of their handsome ex employees. Once befriended prying out their phone numbers was an easy game.

The second thing they used to do was calling the girl up and offer her a job. The girl naturally used to walk in the trap, thinking she must have submitted the c.v.

Once the girl entered their lair the three old monkeys used to start their game. If she joined Mr. Mitra then Mr. Das and Mr. Gupta used to try to lure her to the path of easy virtues and huge cash- if the bird was killed then they all shared the meat like good friends. If she did not she was dismissed or harassed to no end, resulting in her resignation or job change.

This game continued for quite a long time till they made a mistake. One of the girl found her cyber friend in their ex employee register and started to ask questions to other employees.

But her spirit sank

She was basking with happiness. The red bridal attire burning on her body. Her parents have bought the exact shade of red which will look good on their dark complexioned daughter. Her husband was as handsome as Adonis. Theirs was a love marriage.

She came down from the car. He was looking at her from the corner of his eyes. Soon giggling girls and women took her inside. She was sitting there, her heart full of happiness and dream.

When she heard, “Ketan could not find a better match for himself? She is ugly. There must be some defect in Ketan, otherwise he would have never married her.”

“Hush aunty. The defect is in you. You showed it by saying those cruel words loudly, its her day, don’t ruin it. Ketan knows a diamond that’s why he picked up one.” Another voice retorted.

But her spirit sank.

Sharmishtha basu

Privacy in webworld

Privacy is the most illusive word in internet. I have been harassed to no end by a gang of trolls for more than two years so I mostly keep a check on my visibility on internet. I practice all the safety measures like gurumantra- deleting private files and every thing etc etc.

Even after that, I feel a little sarcastic when I see that if someone is obsessed with me, like those trolls were, they can find out even the comments I have posted on the blogs of my friends. How close am I to a specific cyber-friend, and after that they can play their games.

They won’t have to take trouble of tracking me; internet will do that favour to them.

Will it be rude if I say it’s a gross invasion in one’s private conversation with one’s friends?

Pixie trixie and family

It seems pixie is growing up in leaps and bounds. I had the vague feeling since the day he revolted against being kept indoors. The desperation of his attempts told me there was something more than I was seeing. It was aka is, it is trixie. A kitten who looks just like him. The similarity is quite ample. She spends most of her time at my window these days.

I am trying to play matchmaker. But she is not very keen to allow Pixie near. She is cute as a button for sure. Hope things will work out fine.

LOL a bizarre twist in my feline love story. Last evening trixie introduced me to her two priceless possessions- two kittens as small as my cellphones I guess, or a little bigger. Today morning she came with all three of them.

They are so very beautiful. Good sign is trixie is not defensive against pixie. And pixie is only curious about the tiny ones, not hostile.

Sharmishtha basu
15.07.10

YOU

Janie had her own problems. Sad memories. But she never showed them to outside world and kept them to herself. She never believed in pillows to sob in.

Her best friend lived a normal life, that is she thought that Mel was her best friend. She loved sharing her happiest moments with her. And when Janie was out of her sight, Mel used to confide into her circle that Janie was jealous of her. How did she knew that? Because Janie was never happy to hear her happy stories.

Then one day someone told Mel, showed her the mirror. Only monkeys can show their teeth with/without happiness. Human beings laugh when their heart is happy. And your happiness may not be the reason behind someone else’s sadness. There is so much more in the lives of other people than YOU.

YOU are a MAN

Jayesh was only fourteen when both of his parents passed away. They left him shattered and a millionaire.

He was the only child and so were his father and mother. He was studying in hostel and stayed there.

He met a friend- he called her she was his angel. She won his heart and soul. They ended in bed when he was just twenty one. Her being fifteen years older than him did not matter any thing to him.

Their love bloomed and died like a night flower. The age gap was too great. He clung to her out of gratitude and started to compensate the lack of love by money.

Then he found someone of his age and fell head over heels in love with her. He asked his lover to bid him goodbye. And he realized that his angel was actually a python.

One year later he was facing the wrath of society and law. Every point was fingered at him – “You are a man. You should have acted with dignity and properness.” Was the chant he heard wherever he went.

Warning signs

The Ghosh family was happy beyond words. Their only daughter has received a marvelous proposal. The would be groom was a millionaire. There was no question of refusing. The groom and his family were settled overseas.

Uneasiness crept in from other side, one after one accidents started to happen after the marriage was initially accepted from both ends. Very bad things started to happen in the family- death, loss to name a few. Feeling really bad about the signs Mrs. Ghosh bluntly refused to further the relationship. There was uproar but her tears won.

To settle their scores most probably, they got their son married to Rishita’s cousin.

Ten years passed by. One day Rishita was returning from her office when someone called out to her. She was surprised to see her cousin standing there.

“When did you came to India Chandrani?”

“Eight years ago. You were lucky didi, you were saved by God.”

“After going there I came to know he already had a mistress there, he took away every thing I had. It was just sheer luck that I could get away from there.”

“He used to hit me. Trying to make me do the dirtiest things, knowing I won’t be able to go anywhere. He used to lock the house from outside. It was in a desolate place, far away in the mountains.”

“One day a man came knocking after his car broke down and I told him every thing. He informed the police and they rescued me and contacted my family.”

Rishita hugged her tightly and thanked God for rescuing both of them.

Silly girl

she was a student of class nine. In one of quite reputed schools. The school has strong reputation in field of results, most of the boys and girls were from cultured families.

She lived with her elder sister, only eight years older than her. Who married in a hurry and brought her to live with her as her husband toured too much.

The elder one was neither capable of taking care of herself nor was she capable of taking care of her sister she has brought over. So the little one used to prepare her own tiffin and bring it to school, which was mostly dry breads and some left over curry, smelling funny. She just nibbled it partially, the rest used to return home with her to be sneaked away with the garbage.

One day they were standing in the playground when she saw a dog, she was about to give the Tiffin to the dog when she heard a child’s voice, “Didi are you throwing away that food? She turned and saw a small child; a child of one of the labourer’s working for their new building.

“Can I take it? I am hungry.” She handed the Tiffin over to him. He ate it hungrily and returned the absolutely empty box to her.

“Thank you didi.” He was about to turn back when she called out to him, “Whenever you feel hungry you can come to me. I sit in that class. You know when our Tiffin hours are? Don’t you?”

“Yes didi.”

It became a daily routine. A food which was disgusting to one was nectar to other so the child became a daily visitor for those tasteless breads.

A few months passed by, one day she noted that some of the boys of her class were threatening the boy.

“They were saying that he steals things from their bags.” One of her friends said. “They are lying but who will argue with them.”

Silly girl part 2

Silly girls are supposed to grow up into silly women. Right? So did her. A few decades passed away in her life without changing her point of view on poor people, especially poor children much.

She used to commute from a small town of west Bengal to Kolkata to work. Every day. Every evening when she used to sit in her window seat to watch outside she used to see street urchins huddled on unused tracks. Rats crawling among them. A deep pain used to shot through her heart. Thinking about the plight of these innocent souls.

One day she was sitting at her window seat when she heard a sweet voice, “Didi you want a packet of snacks?” she turned to see a very young and extremely cute looking boy. She did not have the heart to refuse him and told him to give her a packet. He handed her over a packet costing two rupee. She gave him a five rupee coin, he returned her eight rupee and was about to leave. She called him and softly cajoled him; she knew that he will have to submit all his income to the person who gave him those packets to sell.

Thus began a loving relationship. His name was Kishna, whenever he saw her he knew that she will buy at least a packet from him. Soon a lot of other girls too started to buy from him.

Then one day a mishap happened. The bags of a lady was lifted while she was sleeping in her seat. The fingers were certainly pointed at these boys; she heard some snide remarks because that lady has often seen her talking with the child.

This time she ignored her remarks and kept buying things from the child and talking to him. She did not repeated her mistake.

Ragging

Well, let me state in the very beginning- I am anti- ragging. I don’t see any rhyme or reason behind harassing newcomers, no matter to which sphere of life they are entering.

This ugly practice should be stopped. In a very few cases it is mild but in most cases it takes an ugly form. So may be the school and colleges should just ban it. Firmly and finally.

Parents send their children to school to study. Not to be sent back crippled, dead or psychologically shattered.

In schools of west Bengal there is a way of receiving fresh students and bidding goodbye to old ones. This is done under the guidance and presence of teachers. If mixing with fresher is so important the same thing can be applied to colleges too. After all, no matter how busy the professors are they can manage a day for a function.

Luckily the college in which I studied had ragging banned. So we breathed quite easily through out our first year. Not all colleges are that sensible.

In the name of ragging these days (or in old days too) it appears that some students satisfy their ugly bullying urges, why do the authorities let it happen?

If dress code and other codes can be applied in colleges then ragging can be stopped too. I think it should be. It must be.

Corporal punishment

Students and teachers- a relationship as old as human civilization. It is an essential part of it till date. May be in future computers and other things will replace them but not now.

When a student is wounded by a teacher sometimes the teacher is cruel and sometimes the teacher is driven to cruelty. Its easy to say that a teacher should control him or herself but I have seen that one kid can drive the whole home crazy, so, what about the man who has to teach such 30 kids per period x at least five periods a day?

Being a teacher is not that easy. But hitting children is simply not the solution. May be the teachers and the parents should have a clear cut talk. They should give some strict guidelines about what the kid should not do in the school, and if he is caught doing that nth time he should be transferred.

The wealthier schools can opt for cameras in class room. The poorer schools can simply elect class monitors and give them the protection and power to control the class.

I have been a class monitor once, my class teacher and another teacher stood behind me like rock, as a result girls seven or eight years older than me listened to me and stayed silent when there was an off period.

I personally am dead against hitting a kid, but whenever I read this type of news I wonder if the teacher was cruel or was driven simply crazy by kids.

If parents and teachers work in harmony, like ours did, I think these things will be a past.

When I was a child I knew one thing, if I go home sobbing that teacher has spanked me the first question I will hear is, “What did you do?”

My parents always gave the teacher “benefit of doubt”. That taught me obedience and adjustment.