challenge has been postponed

So just when I was getting into the swing of things & announced the 30 posts in 30 days challenge to the world, I was deprived of a computer :P So just in case you were wondering, that's why I couldn't live up to my word.

I will try again in August but for now, hopefully I'll still keep writing...lots :)

I haven't finished reading Superfreakonomics yet so don't ask me for a review. I just put it on hold as I'm re-reading The Fountainhead. It's one of those books that I read over and over again and different bits inspire me at different times in my life. Howard Roark speaks to me as I've mentioned before and once again, I'm discovering new things about the book and about the way I look at things.

sand between my fingers

This was inspired by my friend Jen D who recently wrote a Pantoum as well. I don't write poetry much but just thought I'd give it a shot anyway. Not the greatest...but oh well, at least I wrote a poem. ;)

you & me

what we had

and what could have been

questions...

what we had

was it just me?

questions

for the answers that will never be heard

was it just me?

the reminiscences surround me

for, the answers that will never be heard

are haunting

the reminiscences surround me

but were you ever here?

are haunting

memories worth holding on to?

but were you ever here?

i don't see you any more

memories worth holding on to,

slipping like sand beween my fingers

i don't see you anymore

the questions are pointless

slipping like sand between my fingers

you & me

Day 5: Stress

I really thought I would write something good today. An actual post, not just some words for the sake of a post.

But I'm very, very stressed right now. Don't really want to say why so I'll just say Hello All and now I'm going back to watching Good News Week.

Oh, and cheer for Netherlands tomorrow. Do.

Day 4: I have nothing to say

Really. I don't.
I've had a very long day and I'm only posting because I promised I would.
Plus I'm watching Rafa & Berdych fight it out at the Wimbledon finals. I don't want Berdych to win because he beat Federer. Haha, yes I can be like that.

I also hope Spain beats Germany at the semis because I really, really don't like the Germans (the team, not the people) and was so heartbroken last night. Yes, I know Germany played very well and deserved to win yada yada, but I really don't like the team Ha ha.

Okay, so good night all. Hopefully tomorrow will bring more interesting things to write about.

Day 3: Football - it's in my genes

It's almost time for the Argentina-Germany game so let me hear you say it

A.R.G.E.N.T.I.N.A!!!!

I love the World Cup. I don't follow football as much as my sister and don't know too many players or anything but I love watching it during the World Cup. It's one of the few sports I find interesting (and understand!), plus I think it's also a cultural-genetic-hereditary thing. I'll explain in a bit, but first -

- yes, it *is* football. When you kick a ball with your foot, it's called football. It's not football when you run around a field passing the ball to each other, tackling each other to the ground. Yes, I'm looking at you Aussie rules "football" fans and yes, you American "football" fans too. But back to what I was saying....

Calcutta, the city I grew up in has 2 major football clubs - Mohun Bagan and East Bengal and when they play, the fans can get pretty aggressive.  We also love to claim Baichung Bhutia as our own. Anyway, so for this reason, Bengalis (or Bongs, as we are "fondly" known) are pretty passionate about football. What we're also passionate about is Brazil and Argentina. Football is big in West Bengal (the state in which Calcutta is, for the uninitiated) and if India *ever* qualified for the World Cup, I'm willing to bet anything that the most passionate supporters will be from Bengal. Anyway, so every World Cup the city is divided into its Blue and Yellow factions and well, things can get pretty heated.

I'm not sure exactly when this Brazil-Argentina obsession started but it's pretty strong and I can tell you I was being very un-Calcuttan & un-Bengali by supporting Netherlands last night. Haha ;) So I Googled to see if I could find any answers & I found this (read it!). There were clashes in Bangladesh between Argentine & Brazilian football fans. FYI, Bangladesh & West Bengal share the same language, culture, food etc, back from when we used to be the same country...so there's a shared passion for football as well.

The article says the Bengali obsession for Argentina & Brazil has to do with Pele & Maradona but doesn't explain much else. But anyway, it does explain my point - football, is my genes (watching it, not playing it).

India may have a long way to go till they qualify for the World Cup (if you're interested, this article I read on the BBC website explains a few things about the dismal state of Indian football). In the meanwhile, as the article says "Bengalis are passionate people" and I'm going to cheer loud and hard tonight so let me hear it one more time:

A.R.G.E.N.T.I.N.A!!!!

Day 2: Cheat post ;)

Okay so this is a bit of a cheat post but today has been a very, very long day and it's the Netherlands vs. Brazil quarterfinals so I don't really have the time to frame coherent sentences right now. It's a cheat post because I'm posting something I wrote when I was 17 and some of you have read it before I'm sure.

It's my attempt at poetry...(I really struggle with poetry btw). I wrote it while I was meant to be studying, the night before an English exam. Though I know it's no fantastic piece of poetry, it's still one of my favourites! :-)

I want to sit and read on top of a tree

I want to run like an animal who’s just been set free

I want to learn how to cook a French meal

I want to learn how to train a seal

I want to listen to Mozart and Pink Floyd at the same time

I want to write a good poem without a rhyme

I want to jump off a building to see if I can fly

I want to laugh so hard I begin to cry

I want to read every book ever written

I want to understand the working of the minds of men

I want to never have to apologise

I want to know the true meaning of ‘wise’

I want to write like William Shakespeare – The Bard

I want to write the invitation on my own funeral card

I want to learn to drive a bulldozing machine

I want to never step out of my teens

I want to be interviewed by a famous journalist

I want to be able to tell my life story in a gist

I want to adopt a dog, a monkey, a lion cub

I want to remember an itching nose becomes worse when you rub

I want to love like I’ve never loved before

I want to keep loving more and more

I want to travel to the north and south poles

I want to believe in the existence of souls

I want to travel abroad without a passport

I want to be old enough to vote

I want to be able to laugh at myself

I want to know what Enid Blyton meant by ‘elf’

I want to scuba dive from Kanyakumari

I want to know what its like to break your knee

I want to be brave enough to say I don’t know

I want to know what its like to be a crow

I want...

I want... 

I want, more and more

But most of all…

I want to be me.

LIFE, question mark

Sometimes I tend to abandon this blog because it gets too personal. It orders me around and demands I reveal more of myself than I'm comfortable with. I don't like being told what to do so I do what I do what I do - I run away. Sometimes we run into each other on the interwebz but I can be cold-hearted. Blog looks at me with the fond smile of an old friend & I just ignore it, pretending we've never met. But then, on days like today I come back, arrogant in my certainty that Blog has no choice but to take me back. I have things to say and Blog always wants to listen and thus begins another "On" chapter of our tumultous, sometimes toxic, sometimes comforting on again/off again relationship.

Also, on the spur of the moment, I have decided to challenge myself to the 30 posts in 30 days thing that a lot of bloggers do. (well 31, as it is July). Starting today, I'm going to post here (however big or small) every day until the 31st of July. Forcing myself into being a writer by leisure, not just by profession so I can remember why I used to love it so much.

So anyway, yesterday my dear friend S wrote a note on Facebook "When I grow older..", which is now on her blog. Please read it and then come back and tell me she's an amazing writer. She's smart, she decided not to make a career out of writing. That's where things start going downhill. But I digress. S's post is a series of questions and realisations about the crisis of growing up. (Yes, it is a crisis, an unfortunate unavoidable one at that.) She inspired me to write this so at the end of it, if you think reading it was the biggest waste of your time, feel free to blame S. haha. :)

I'm curious by nature and I ask people (or Google, as the case may be) a lot of questions but this time around, I've been asking myself a lot of questions. Ever wish you had an internal Google that would just give you all the answers? Do you think if it were possible to measure the speed of thought, we would measure distances in space in "thought years"? (seeee - so many questions and I haven't even started the "actual" post.)

Do you ever reach a point in your life where you look at all your dreams, goals,achievements, ambitions and even materialistic pursuits - and wonder - "Why do I want this?"

The things you thought you wanted from life - do you really want them or have you just been conditioned into wanting them? By people? By society? By advertisements? ;)

Can anyone ever really be beyond cultural influence? So why do you think you are so special?

For all your independence and pride, did you really make all your decisions "independently" or have you surreptitiously been conned into them?

If I asked you "Who are you?", could you really tell me? Not your name, not your job, not your skills, not your hobbies, not your relationships - but who YOU are?

Can you evolve overnight and become a different version of yourself or are you just trying on a new skin for shock value?

Is it normal to regress to your teenage years as a form of liberation from your adulthood? Can you be living your life in reverse?

Do you feel passionate and blase about the same things in alternating bursts of dizzying euphoria and mindnumbing dullness?

Can home bring you comfort while also frighten you into depression? Can home be home without the people? Can you be home and still be a nomad?

When you don't cry - is it because you are really happy or are you too scared to feel...anything. If the happiness is bittersweet, is it really happiness?

If you are asked "What did you want to be as a child?" and you cannot remember, is it because it was that trivial or have you lost a part of yourself?

Do you find yourself wishing you had some psycho babble analysis to blame things on but you can't because you had such a perfectly normal and happy childhood?

When you meet someone new who knows nothing about you or where you come from, can it be a relief to hide behind the lack of identity? Or is it simply a chance to create an identity without pre-conceived notions?

Remember when your naivete and innocence was lovable? When did it become laughable?

"Good things happen to good people" they say and you believed it because you are an optimist. But are you sure? Are you really, really sure? No, really?

Can you be a cynical optimist? Why not? It's like believing Evolution was followed by Creation. Or being Agnostic. No?

Is faith (in anything) good or are you just kidding yourself? But you're a daydreamer - do you really want to let go of that just yet?

Are you being impulsive and "listening to your gut" or is it just the devil-may-care attitude frothing up to the surface?

Why is it when men are nice, you think "he's a nice guy" but when a girl is nice, she's flirting?

If being nice was cool, would more people be nicer or is bitchy always going to be in?

If you put yourself before anyone else, is it okay not to feel guilty about it?

Do we put too much pressure on ourselves to be perfect?

Do you feel like you're constantly falling short of expectations that no one has of you but yourself?Once you start falling short, do you stop trying or do you just go harder? Are you running around in circles then or is it a marathon with an eventual finish line? Do you stop if you run out of breath?

When your heart tells you you want to do something that will "make a difference", why does your mind shut it up with "wise" words spouting "impracticality" "no future" "what will you do for money?" and even "rubbish, what difference could you possibly make"? Is this part of societal conditioning or are you too afraid to take the leap? Will you do it anyway?

Can we really have it all? What is this "all" you speak of?

P.S. Don't ask me "What brought this on?" or anything to that effect. They're just questions...at some point you've probably asked yourself some of these too.