The Familiar Lane

Walking down again 

Through the same lane

Just like the previous day

As the leaves on the trees swayed.

Its different though this time

For the cool breeze plays with her hair

Urging him to tuck those strands back

Her scent was omnipresent

Her blush bright pink

Its the same lane

Yet seemed so different this time

For they found each other

And the road showed a new path

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RED

The first news of her existence was conveyed by this color. The reddish pink mark on the pregnancy test kit made her mother feel like in heaven. Happiness is an underrated word for her at that moment. She was nurtured carefully inside her mother's womb, loved tenderly. Everyday her mother's loving hands groped the bulge on the belly and whispered to her soothingly. She was safe. She was healthy and carefree. She was the pride of her mother.

She came out of the womb that day. Her mother saw the most beautiful thing on earth. The red-blooded creature, screaming and crying looked like a little princess clad in red gown to her mother. She made her mother proud just by breathing in oxygen through those tiny lungs.

Slowly this wonderful girl started crawling, and then started running. Her little pigtails tied with red ribbons made her famous in her street. She felt happy and excited. Her favorite color was Red.

Few years passed and her life changed drastically with that little red stain on her white skirt. The world looked different to her and she started adjusting in it. Womanhood dawned upon her and she started being conscious of her dupatta more often; sometimes hiding her bosoms with it from the gawking eyes and sometimes instinctively setting it properly in front of elders.

It was Holi. The day of colors. She was smeared with her favorite red color all over the face and ran gleefully from her friends who chased her to complete the red painting of hers. Little did she know of those cruel red eyes, waiting to pounce on her, ready to steal away her happiness from her life.

Now the beautiful girl's color-smeared-red face looked pale. All of a sudden, the red blood which used to gush through her cheeks when she saw her crush pass by is frozen.She's covered with a white cloth, stained by blood-red between her legs.The eyes which rejoiced when she took birth are now filled with tears. The incessant flow of tears washed away the red on her face, but couldn't get her cheeks blush. She looked strangely beautiful; but pale.

She never got to know how it feels like to have the red vermilion on her forehead. Never got to know the ecstasy her mother felt with the test-kit. Never played with red color.

She's dead.

Before Sunset

When you are 21 and old, you either happen to fall in love or be a supportive shoulder to someone who already are in love. Fortunately or not, i belong to the second category, although it involved a lot of phone calls to my friend in sharing her ecstasy about her 3 year anniversary or sometimes consoling her, saying her boyfriend is anyway a douchebag(yeah! we girls do that a lot; blaming the boyfriends of poor little drama queens although their mistake is of miniscule amount) for not bringing her favorite chocolate cake on anniversary. Sometimes, being a friend to these love birds can piss you off. You spend a whole good hour on consoling them about their supposedly overrated breakup and an hour later, you get to know they patched up! I mean, dear girl! i am happy for you..but what about my shoulder which got drenched with your tears?

After all this, we just give a good sigh on how madly and deeply our friends are in love; and forget the trauma that preceded. Such is Love. I am not the best person to describe an alien emotion; i must say i stumbled a lot in finding its true definition...and finally i settled to "Crazy Stupid Thing". And recently i came across this amazing movie "Before Sunset".

Known for its conversational type screenplay, this is about two strangers, who meet after 9 years and talk away the whole runtime of the movie on how things are going on with them. Its a sequel to Before Sunrise, where Jesse and Celine meet in a train, get down unintentionally and spend a night together (okay now,come on people! be romantic; its not just a one night stand, they chat and drink and dance) merrily only to realize they have fallen for each other. Except one glitch for their perfect story. They don't exchange their contacts.

Our dear Jesse, the American dude who is lost in life and adventurous, and Celine, the sweet, pretty French lassie with lot of ambitions drift apart for reasons unavoidable. Fast forward their life to 9 years, they meet again in France,Jesse's last stop of his bestseller book promotion.

These strangers, who just met for a day, connect so deeply and couldn't forget each other after so long time even after their lives changed completely! The whole conversation between them shows how they longed for each other, and how they can be perfect each other.

Just as its prequel Before Sunrise which ends with a suspense whether these two lovebirds meet or not; this movie too..ends with Jesse looking at Celine with loving eyes and she telling him "Jesse, you are gonna miss that flight"; for which he nods intently, as if he knew its inevitable and would love to miss it. After watching this movie and its prequel, one would start believing in the phrase "Made for each other".

One day had changed their lives. Before Sunset is a definite watch for those who love romantic movies and encourage variety in the screenplay. Awesome performance from Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, along with their screenplay credits, this movie occupied my favorite list. Before Midnight(2013) is the sequel of Before Sunset, where Jesse and Celine again chat away their lives' issues, only making it more interesting.

So lemme end this article by saluting those friends who are a supporting system in most of the love stories and a recommendation to everybody to watch this amazing movie.

Adios!

Strangers.

You will never gonna guess it

If they were lovers last summer

You will never gonna guess it

If they used to be perfect for each other

Even they themselves are amazed

How beautifully they are pretending to be strangers!

------------------Mandrika Sarkar

The Jasmine Tree

Years ago, we had a Jasmine tree at home. It started as a small sapling when we were kids and grew into a large creeper climbing the 2nd floor of our house giving lots of fragrant flowers which caught the attention of the whole colony and people couldn't keep their hands off the flowers when dusk fell. It connected to us in a serene way, being with us through thick and thin, listening to me when i was alone at home, being a home to a sparrow's family when they still used to chirp in the mornings, being a good background when we clicked random pictures, silently with us. It almost substituted the idea of a pet. Every morning we opened our door to a lush green leafy tree during rainy season and the autumn made its leaves drop at our door step.

Now as i look back into the past, i feel nostalgic. We lost a friend, a pet, a companion, for circumstances inexplicable and random. When i brood over past, it brings beautiful memories to light, although its impossible to stay there forever. I must say, past is a place where you can go for, as a vacation, visit few places that brings you happiness and then come back to present. 

Its always amazing to recall those hands which wrote what the heart wanted to write, the fingers giving shape to the exquisite thoughts; the half filled coffee cup he sips and keeps aside, only to write the rest of the sentence of a story or an article and letting the hot coffee go cold which clearly annoyed me every single time; the twinkling stars i used to stare at and wonder if i could ever reach them when i was a child, the lonely lamp-post on the highway which illuminated its surroundings with the yellow light and made the leaves of the trees look golden yellow, forming a clear portrait of shadows which were occasionally disturbed by a speeding car or truck. 

One can treasure those moments and cherish them and be happy for it happened. My mom expressed her thoughts about missing that Jasmine tree. But when i asked her what she's gonna do now, she replied nonchalantly "just plant another one and hope it grows as the previous one did, filling our lives again with its fragrance."

Its HOPE. Hope that makes us look forward for what we want in our present. Hope that we could encounter those moments again and be blissful with those moments. Hope is  a powerful tool for someone who looks forward for things they want.

So i hope i get to see a new sapling of jasmine growing in our house when i go home for a summer vacation this year. 

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Sunday Morning Craziness!!

 So i was thinking candidly that i don't DO anything on Sundays. Especially Sunday mornings. I tried to remember what i used to do every Sunday, only to find that there's nothing exceptional about Sundays. So i took the book beside me (my birthday gift btw..yeah! i'm shamelessly flaunting about it.back off!!) and there's a pencil and tried to write a poem. But came out with this sketch. Without erasing, i used a lead-click pencil for the sketch(just so you know). And every time i wonder what i do on Sundays..i should be able to remember this. So this post is kinda self-inspirational. And yeah,i acknowledge that its not a 'really great piece of drawing', but i DID something okay! Enough of rant.
P.S. You can appreciate me definitely after seeing the sketch :P

Mirror~~|~~ Mirror

I look at those faces and poses

Them untired of the whole focus

Examining every flaw, every detail i show them

Sometimes admiration and other times desperation.

I wonder if my unbiased nature

Ever tried to nurture

The beauty they are born with

And hide the grotesque reality of their worth.

Thousands of faces pass through me

Gawking at me, in a way looking at themselves

Can't help it, since i am a Mirror

And then one day, she came to me.

Different as Bumblebee and Simple as Amoeba

Beautifully crafted hair locks and almost almond shaped eyes

With innocence drawn on face and vigour filled persona

She stared at me, as if she knew my liveliness.

A moment later did i realise

That she almost is a glass with little silver paint

And can be easily looked through

Emotions welled up her face failing from grand concealment.

An infinite images reflected between us

Yet undeterred was she from the pose

The unfathomable depth of her eyes

Challenging everyone sane to muse.

Mentored many a people indirectly did I

Also disposed their vulnerability 

But this girl didn't let me do anything

Just the expressionless stare was enough to shook me.