From the Dairy of a Daily Passenger : Chapter 05

The man asked, “You are a Bengali and you stay in Jharkhand?”
“Yes. My parents work here.”
“See, I am a Bihari and I stayed all my life in Kolkata and you are a Bengali and you always stayed in Bihar.” The man laughed.
Anindita smiled at his amusement.
When he was done, he continued, “Bengalis have a good culture. I like it, maybe because I have lived in Kolkata since my childhood. The best things about them is their ability to adapt to this changing world, take up the good things about the upcoming culture. We Biharis don’t do this. Look at us. Most of them still get emotional over dowry and caste and creed.”
He stopped for breath and looked at Anindita. So, she said, “Maybe because Bengalis were already much more unorthodox compared to others. So, the advancement is equal in both the cultures, just that they started from two different start points. And since we compare, we think the way you are thinking.”

The man was amused again. He said, “You are an intelligent girl. I don’t find girls talking this way. In fact this generation does not talk about these things. They have much more important things to do, like go to night clubs.”

Woh! That took Anindita up one step towards self praise. She found herself amused at his sole example of night clubs. She wondered why that was only example he could find. There were hundreds. Even she belonged to that group. It was just that she said these golden words at the right moment and left the man impressed. She said, “No uncle it’s not exactly like that. Maybe you never met such people or maybe they never discussed such things in front of you.”

In response he just uttered a “Hmm” and got back to his topic, “It is very difficult to change something in the society single handedly. I tell my friends that dowry is a bad thing. It should be avoided. In return people tell me that I am saying this because I have two daughters to marry off. If I had at least one son, I would have supported dowry. And whenever I promise myself that I will marry my daughters to someone who will despise dowry, I have this fear in me, what if I do not find such a man. It is very difficult not to think about it without worrying myself. You will know when you have children.”

Anindita thought why every grown up person uses this same sentence while explaining. She wondered if someday she would do that too. After all the statement did not leave any scope of arguments.

The man continued, “This is one of the things I like about Bengalis.”

Anindita replied, “No uncle, there are Bengalis too who indulge into the dowry system.”

“Yes, of course, exceptions are everywhere but its better among your culture. But then there are things I don’t like about Kolkata. Politics!”

Anindita smiled, “If you talk of politics uncle, I hate politics everywhere in India. And West Bengal’s problem is CP(I)M being in power for so long. But overall it is all the same everywhere.” And then Anindita smiled at herself. She was dumb when it came to politics, yet she loved the confidence in her tone. She did that every time. She knew Jasidih wasn’t far enough.

“Yes, yes you are right. But still, West Bengal, Bihar Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh are worse.”

Anindita replied, “Yes” and she got up, put her bag on her shoulders and smiled at the man.

“Oh, you are already at your place. It was nice talking to you. At least I had a nice conversation with a nice young lady instead of keeping shut all the way.”

Anindita said, “And I too had a good time with you instead of sitting and doing nothing.

The train pulled into the station. Anindita went near the gate. The train slowed down and then stopped.

Author's Note: I dont remember this conversation very well. Whatever I presented in this part is a short form of what we talked about. There was more. I liked talking to him ! After all he liked Bengalis ! :D

From the Dairy of a Daily Passenger : Chapter 04

The day Anindita traveled in that ladies compartment on Balia Express, she made that promise to herself, never again in a ladies compartment not at least on board Balia Express. She knew there was humanity, but it was uneasy. She did not feel comfortable with them. Sophistication always took over. And who knows maybe someday the bunch in question wouldn’t like her and she would have to stand there in that jungle of uncivilized women. She would hate that. Since she always came back to Deoghar every weekend earlier, she had seen regular passengers always getting into sleeper compartments. She realized, this was possible in Jharkhand and Bihar. Something assured her, nobody is going to fine her or anybody else for getting onto a sleeper class for a couple of hours. So, after that experience of the ladies compartment, she always boarded a sleeper class, usually the last or the second last.

There was another woman, who got into the same sleeper class compartment everyday from Chittaranjan and traveled till Jasidih. When Anindita reached Chittaranjan station, she sat there quietly. She always found the woman with a man. They would talk and laugh. Sometimes one or two other people would join them, ask them how they were doing and then they would go their own ways. The two always stayed back together. In the beginning, Anindita thought the two were married to each other. Most probably they worked at the same office and then they must have fallen in love and then married each other. “Perfect Couple!”, Anindita thought and smiled to herself. Anindita had a specific seat at the station. She always sat at the same place and waited for the train. The couple also had their specific place, but since it was far enough not to be heard, Anindita never heard them talking. She would look at the woman, and stare at her, until she would realize that she had been staring. Then she would look away. The woman wasn’t beautiful. She was a little healthier than could be classified under the beautiful category. She hadn’t great looks, a thick nose, wasn’t fair, though not dark. She did not have dark waist length hair or a wonderful hair style. She had her hair parted in the middle and Anindita saw the vermilion line that helped society to classify women into the married category. She had a little ponytail, well oiled and made up. Anindita did not like her. She did not know why. She could not give one single reason why she disliked her. So, even if they usually got into the same compartment, they never talked to each other. They could have, if Anindita would have initiated, but she didn’t for the sole reason of dislike.

That day Anindita did not see the woman on the platform. She thought maybe she was on a holiday. She sat there all by herself. She noticed the man walking up and down on the platform. The train arrived. Anindita boarded the train. She never asked anybody for a seat. She felt bad. These men were traveling a long distance and they were justified if they expected to relax themselves instead of offering her a seat. But, all the days that she traveled, somebody always offered her a seat. Sometimes she did sit down by herself, when she found only one or two people on one whole big seat. And as she sat, she always told them that if they need to relax they could tell her so, she would leave the seat. But they always eagerly offered her the seat. And some of them even had a chat with her.

Well, that was not exactly the idea. Anindita knew rejection of a seat would be very humiliating. So, she never asked for one. And the second reason was, politeness always worked. In this case too, it did.

She got into the second last sleeper compartment. She kept walking through the mass of seats and people until she reached the last coop. On the seat for three only one man sat. This was an exception. Anindita sat down at one end. The man turned to look. Anindita said, “If you want to sleep or something let me know.” And she smiled. The man said, “No, its okay.”

The man busy looking out of the window. Somtimes he would rest his head on the seat cushion behind , close his eyes. Then all of a sudden he would look outside. Anindita watched him doing that.

Sometime later, the man turned towards towards her and asked, “You study here?”

Anindita explained, “No. I am on training.”

"Sorry ! Cudnt hear you!", and he moved a bit closer.

What followed was a set of questionnaire as to what kind of training, her schooling, her qualifications, etc. Anindita explained.

The man said, “I have two daughters. They are younger than you. Still in school!” He smiled. Anindita smiled back and asked, “Which class?”

“The younger one is in ninth. The other is doing graduation in commerce. They are not very brilliant. But I made them study so that later in life they can look after themselves if anything happens.”

He paused. Anindita reciprocated the conversation with a smile.

Side Effects of Increased Readership

I have been blogging since March 2007. (Check my profile). That would mean I should have been an expert in blogging. But, unfortunately I am not. Reasons??? Well, the main reason is blog deletions.

The first time I created a blog, i.e., in March 2007, I maintained it a month or so and then I deleted it. I don't exactly remember why I deleted it. It was long time back. But I guess it was maybe because I did not know what to write. I was into college then and most of my time was taken up by Google talk, Orkut and college fun. I did not sketch as much as I do now-a-days.
What followed was a series of creations and deletions of which I don't have count. Every creation lasted about two to three in number of posts and about one month. If I plot a graph of my college events on the x-axis and frequency of blog creations on the y-axis... It would look like ...



There were other reasons too like mood frenzies, boredom, process of releasing anger, lack of readership, etc. I do not wish to go into detail with them except one because others do not concern the topic here. The one reason that concerns the topic is "new ideas of blogging". And when I say new ideas, I mean new ideas for blog type, new ideas for blog headers, new ideas for blog content.
My first blog was named, "Mou's Blog". I had no thoughts about the blog content then. Then another of my blog was named, "Mou speaks". A series of "Mou *this*" and "Mou *that*" followed. Then I turned into a little more expert. So titles changed into innovative phrases.
One of them I remember - Words at sunset. It was meant to be a daily diary of events.
I deleted that because, it sometimes went too personal and I had started deleting posts once I was out of the phase that made such personal posts. So... Blog gone !

The second last one that I deleted was named "Drops on my Window Shield". It was named after my book of poems and the blog was meant to be a poetry blog. I deleted it for two reasons. First some anonymous guy said my poems were copied, because they were too good to be written by me. I could have taken it as a compliment and I later did, but that moment I was hurt. The second reason was, I cherish my poems and had plans to get them published some day. So, the poor blog goes extinct again.

The last blog that I deleted was "My Sketch Book." I actually merged it into this blog.
And the current blog was earlier named as "Drops" as a tribute to my book of poems. But just before I joined indiblogger I changed it into "A Damsel Fly" (just an idea). And then I went popular. Readership improved. And now I have ideas again of blog headers but i dont think people would like to read a blog that starts a new identity every now and then. So, I accept this state of stability for the first time in my blogging lifetime just for the sake of preserving my blog readership. After all why would someone want to write something that people do not care to read or see. :P

So, much for readership !

Pencil Work :The Mackenzee Tree

Leisure in Water Colors!

A little Closer....








And I forgot to paint their ears !

Poor children !!!

55 Word Fiction : Devoid of Dreams

I know I know... my 3rd post today !!!
Remember .. Quote for today was "Love your Blog !" (Check earlier posts)

Anyways, No idea who had come up with this concept and didn't try to find it out... I read it first on Dhiman's blog. 55 word fiction is a story in 55 words. I am good when large number of words are concerned, but i thought it could be exciting, so here is my story...



He was dreaming.
Mohan, village school, Sita's face , fishing net, fishes, a plate of rice, Fees for the doctor...

Sita sat by him, putting wet rags on his burning forehead. Mohan slept peacefully.

Next morning. Sita cried, little confused Mohan clutched into her lap. The dead body lay still, devoid of dreams.

Pencil Work