Avik's Story

  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 ...

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...

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...