Avik's Story

  Being a man is hard. Ask me. And being a less confident man is way too hard. Brutal. And then add three spoonfuls of bad luck, stir with placid life philosophy and then imagine the product. I stood up from my office chair. Felt for a cup of oddly mixed milk-tea from the office canteen upstairs. Walked towards the door, and I touched myself (not there, dirty mind! Let me rephrase it) - I looked for my mobile, and saw it lying among piles of files. I took it up and then saw a message. From TodayTix . I won a lottery ticket for a theatre! After trying for three weeks! I ran towards my chair - bent over to pull out my wallet - took out the credit card and when it finally happened, I threw my hands up - jubilant and unnecessary confident. Grinning, I turned around. A patch of the whole blue sky through the window. The product is awesome. TheLehman Trilogy returned to London's West End last month. It was a blockbuster in New York’s Broadway last year and then was a massiv...

  London is a collage - patched and stitched with pallets of colours, shreds of cultures and bits of languages. And a typical London double decker bus is the mirror of it. Following Taniya's transfer, I skipped driving to the office. This was mainly to save money from exorbitant parking fees and partly to save myself from city traffic. But if you always fancy for a closer-to-heart reason, then it is just because I get two hours to read - solid, without any distraction. But sometimes you can’t help cheating with reason and listen to heart, you can’t help but listen, watch and feel all the people - the passengers - they embark the bus, search for their seats, and find ways to kill the journey time. Tell you what, it is something I always cherish for, just like the thousands of moments formed and dissipated while I used to travel in Delhi Metro, and how some of those moments were powerful enough to be fossilised! The tiny bus stop of Beulah Spa reminds me of me. Mostly. It remains ...

  Today I dreamt of Kolkata. The morning began early when I heard the tune of Messenger. My window was faintly lit with the first light and wet from the night-long drizzle. I knew who was calling, and I was both eager and reluctant to touch the green button. I longed to see the face of my little girl and also dreaded her massive energy and questions and irrefutable demands to play. I opted green and I greeted her. Immediately, she began filters, games, backgrounds and incessant orders. I switched on the light, wobbly walked to the washroom and then held wooden railings, while slowly managing the stairs down to the kitchen for a cup of tea and then slumped on the sofa. We watched a few cartoons together (a cool feature in Messenger - we both love it) and then she got bored, and told me bye. Morning in London at this time is chilling. I stood up and switched on the heater. I returned to the lounge room and had a good look at my sofa - crowded with yesterday’s clothes, office bag, few...

The city skyline was never clearer this afternoon. Blue and crisp. This part of Waterloo Bridge, where I was leaning against the railing, above the mighty Thames, was too nondescript to describe, but was said to be the best for viewing the famous London skyline. On left, palatial creamy Somerset House, now hoisting a blue yellow Ukrainian flag in solidarity of their unspeakable sufferings. A little further, still left, giant Walkie-talkie and the humongous Scalpel, picaboo-ed the great bullet Gherkin tower. Mind boggling Cheesegrater stood along with them rather arrogantly. And St. Paul's Cathedral's eternal dome graciously lurked behind them. The astonishing cathedral is synonymous to the city itself. If one looked closer and was privy to this city space, and had 6/6 sight, then one might notice the Sky Garden in Walkie Talkie too. On the right, between the distinctive curvy Boomerang or Vase and bland tall Southbank Tower, the Shard pierced the sky and forever in talks with c...

I frantically searched one more time, now in pockets - both of my jacket and jeans, again through the small luggage - now literally rummaging it, and then the pockets of other spinners. I looked down to the floor and scanned the surrounding, hoping to find a piece of paper and a small white hardback, lying somewhere unruffled. I could feel an enormous hole inside, moving up, sliding down, as if it was bouncing against stomach.   I quit the line and parked the cart at a side. I called the young cab driver, in a faint hope that the folder would be still on the roof of cab or somehow, by any miracle, he kept that with him. After a few rings, he picked up. My voice shivered. “Hello. Hello brother. I am the guy you just dropped at airport.” He recognised me at once. “Yes sir. I remember. Is everything fine?” “I can’t find my passport yaar. Is it in your car?” For the next few moments, which in particular felt like millions of years, I didn’t hear his voice. All I heard was some static w...

Have you ever had a moment, when all other things of yours, including the ones which remained so dormant for years, that you already have forgotten their existences, like the rise of goosebumps or burning of lobules, get so buoyant that you want to scream out your tonsils? And you wish to keep screaming and yelling and screaming until everything before you just bursts and vaporises, and then you discover that you can’t even fucking move your own fucking tongue, as if it was never there, or underneath it, there is black void, just like space! I had. The airport looked otherworldly and shiny even at midnight. The massive thick glasses put a thin barrier between two worlds. Lit and dark. The ‘left-overs’ looked through the see-through wall and waved their loved ones, the ‘goers’, who soon would be vanished beyond numerous kiosks and then beyond the horizon. And I stood against a pillar absolutely in drunken stupor. My gaze was particularly at no where, but I am certain, it covered everyth...