The perfect road trip….

The road was clear…the weather was all windy. May be a perfect mix of emotions dominated my dawn that day!

Years of happiness showered by my role models made me restless each day, each moment to make them feel at the top of the world. I planned for no destination but wanted to make the journey blissful for the furious four of my life!

My first cousin, two years elder to me, stood like a pillar through the thick and thin episodes of life.

My aunt, Dad’s elder sister, taught us how daughters are daughters throughout their lives.

My mother, a fighter against real life troubles, an epitome of confidence and courage.

My granny the practical lady who is the best mother I have ever met and who gifted me my mom.

And I, 21 years old newly employed who shall remain indebted to these ladies all my life!

I and my sister knew to drive and we said a big NO to hire a diver. I booked an AUDI, a white one for the trip. Silent phones were allowed and watches were exempted. We decided the sun and the wind to guide us that day.

The AUDI was classy and so were the five ladies (including me), pun intended. However the white king was loaded with all kind of desi cuisines to accompany our mom-called picnic. And before the summer sun would have a toll over this stuff we had to gulp them, we sisters thought!

 And there began our journey….with excitement….with uncertainty but with curiosity to have a perfect day out. No men to guide and rule. A desire to live it on and break free!

Driving lavish cars seem to be cool but once you have that you realize women have never loved diamonds and money over family and freedom. They say if you lock two women in a room for a year and open the door after 365 days, they would ask you for another five minutes to complete their chit chat. And when our journey began it all started with words like ‘relieved’, ‘free’, ‘thank god’, ‘peace’, to name a few. And gradually it extended to anything and everything under the sky!

It was the GS Road…..and may be the subconscious mind drove us from G (Guwahati) to S (Shillong). Shillong, a frequently visited vacation destination, yet that day the locally named Scotland of East was real peace!

And once the car reached Jagiroad….the wild trees enraptured us with its silent lush greenery. The turns and twists of the road make us drive up an intrinsic low volt roller coaster. The sky was blue with little shades of haunted black clouds. May be we did want a drizzle. May be we wanted to get charged up with the summer sun. And in one hour thirty minutes amidst stories of past, we reached Nongpoh!

You take three hours to reach Shillong from Guwahati by road. But your real journey begins from Nongpoh. A ‘feel good’ milieu is going to chill your senses. Nature at its best!

My sister was not just driving the car but she was literally racing it against the odds of time. The car had insurance, we were at stake though. Yet the three elderly young ladies at the back were mesmerized with the speedy wind kissing their faces and letting their hair go unfettered. They loved the Mother Nature and we loved them!

The strange yellow spiny fruit with a green crown-like top jammed the Step Farming of the hills. The little Khasi unknown hands waved us with happy eyes. And our mothers would go crazy on their insanely cute faces.

At times we were quiet at the ravishing time we were blessed with and at times we were chatting of the men we left behind at home. And may be freedom wasn’t walking alone but to be free with each other by side.

We reached Umiam Lake or Barapani, the movie starring Shahrukh Khan, Dil Se, has scenes at its hydroelectric project. But for us people it’s like get down the car and let the clouds thrill you with its exotic fair beauty.

I clicked a lot of snaps and may be for the first time it was for my personal collection and not for updating my Facebook account. I realized that good minds give great captures even in the absence of DSLR.

A lot of tourists were merrily exaggerating the geography of the place and we were leaning on the railings and enjoying the puri sabji which travelled two and a half hours with us. Company matters in journeys like nothing else. I know a very humble person who has been travelling India alone but at the end of the day he meets new local strangers and explores the place with them. And this makes his journeys perfect…I guess so!

We got up and restarted our journey. Travel another half an hour and we were to reach Shillong, the capital city of Meghalaya. But we urged for a spontaneous journey and not a planned destination. My sister stopped the car abruptly and gave me the keys. Our eyes glittered with mischief and another three pairs of eyes dazed with suspicion.

We never reached Shillong. The AUDI u-turned hoping the road would take us to another stunning location, Diphu at Karbi Anglong in Assam and the journey continued!

Sometimes…..

Sometimes I so badly want to hear your voice,

Sometimes God just doesn’t give me another choice….

Sometimes life is so cool with its weirdness,

Sometimes you just drop in at my loneliness…

Waited since yesterday, even today is yours, hopefully tomorrow you will rule too,

Dated none, liked a few, hopefully loved one and will always do…

Amidst pain, pleasure, business, life was cruel when I fell for you,

I wasn’t supposed to feel the way I feel, but life was cruel when I had to tell you…

 I am jealous like hell when I find myself making no sense in your life,

But now on, you and my love is free, finally making sense in our life…

Indubitably we are perfectly imperfect for either,

Questionably our friendship remained intentionally unintentional rather…..

Do say that silent thank you on your birthday at twelve,

These little lips will pray for the one who always stays in the heart valve….

Sometimes even if relationships are off, faith and feelings are always on,

Sometimes even if we meet near about, do bless me with a minute to tighten my eye bone!!

Waiting…

Waiting to walk down that school street together,

Waiting to knock down each other with our sarcastic wit,

Waiting to fight with you tight and not apologize,

Waiting to ignore calls more often,

Waiting to treat you as my brother and sound insane,

Waiting to be that friend like before,

Waiting to see you happy always,

Waiting to talk to you like never before,

Waiting to get your glimpse and cry my heart out,

Waiting for these moments as I always did,

Waiting to get hurt again, may be….

They were born equal!

India is under the surveillance of 33 crores god and goddesses. And I am a hardcore devotee of none. Neither do I consider myself to be an atheist for again god has given me the perfect reasons to have faith on him. However I believe in Gandhiji who said that it was apt to consider truth to be God rather than considering God to be the ultimate truth.

Getting a bit philosophical…..but who cares as life is all about it. You cannot ignore it! And the main motive of uttering such philosophy is that India at times is overshadowed with numerous beliefs and superstitions which turn out to be vague most of the times.

How long you will be ignorant of the fact that it’s the XY chromosomes of the men that determine the sex of the baby? It hurts when I see the women themselves are engaged in the accumulation of dowry on their sons’ wedding. If a girl drinks and smokes, people question their character. If a man drinks and beats his wife, India says –“Chalo yeh toh hota hai!” Come on, it’s a myth and there is a dire need to break it.

Don’t read Raja Rammohan Roy or Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar just as topics of History books. Centuries ago they initiated the fight against child marriage, sati and promoted widow remarriage. It’s a shame on our part that while the developed countries are moving towards gay rights and lesbian marriages, we are still somewhere in 17^th Century but with branded clothes and a posh lifestyle.

I belong to Northeast India. Well, here we do not witness dowry cases as such. In Assam, we have a ritual that at weddings, the bride cannot wear even a thread of her father’s house. Her clothes and jewelry are gifted by her in-laws. In Meghalaya, the youngest daughter of the family gets paternal property due to the age-old matriarchy. Nevertheless, we have to break the myth that women are totally safe here. As long as men possess the denial syndrome, women abuse in some form or other is ought to occur. Or else, there would have been no cases of witch-hunting in Assam or cases of rape and violence in Manipur.

Mythology, history as well as our present shows how women have greatly contributed towards the development of mankind and civilization. There is a Mother Teresa, a Kiran Bedi, a Irom Sharmila, a Sampath Pal and a Lata Mangeshkar in every soul. Just ignite your mind. Break free. Educate yourself and become economically independent. And if you cannot afford to study, then work and then study. Walk the extra mile, get the knowledge and know the world.

Well writing this stuff is easier than to redress the grievances of women folk. But I guess every effort counts. I hope we don’t allow patriarchy to stop us from enjoying our womanhood, what we have seen with our mothers, bitter but truth!

Women empowerment is the hottest topic of debate and discussion in recent times. It demands participation of women in economic, political and professional spheres. However I won’t recommend anyone to solely rely on government and NGOs to bring women abuse to a halt. You have loved your family a lot and they have hurt you a lot. So take the chance and move on. Holding on people and things will bring no good, but letting go may bring better upshot. But before that make a clear distinction between sex (biological) and gender (social construction)!

They say, “Sons are sons till they get their wives and daughters are daughters throughout their lives.” But I don’t believe so. At times we see things the other way round. So why not train your kids on ethics and equality from the very childhood rather than making them run after scores?

And at the end of the day, I promise to abide by whatever I wrote all this while for every change does begin at home. And this is the ultimate truth!

Beliefs and Zodiacs….predicting unpredictable life :p

Not once upon a time but everytime a cat crosses my road, I feel like giving him/her a two way slap. Afterall he/she is eishan faramosh of the highest order…..they bring bad luck to the person upon whose Amul Taza and fresh fish, they get fed :p  But do they really bring bad luck???? Believe it or not those fellas used to cross my road four-five times everyday I go out…and subsequently I have given up the belief of taking three steps backward, before walking on further! It hardly matters…to be precise.  And now not giving anymore footage to he and she TOM, lemme promptly jump onto the backdrop of this note….afterall a Humanities student loves to reason and place views, but its upto the reader to judge whether its coherent or fallacious:p

Luck and destiny….nevertheless the extreme truths and parts of life. But beliefs, superstitions no way can avert your luck from dazzling or destructing your life. We decide our day-to-day lives on the basis of the five stars that get published in morning newspapers. And once I was surprised to see the same forecast being published twice a month. But this is the extent to which we believe beliefs:p

I wonder and wait for the time when there will be no Ganesha Speaks on Google but something like Ganesha Shouts:p  Now I am getting confused which brings bad luck- a right eye wink or a left eye wink:p  If oil falls from  your hand, you will get money….last day I dropped a litre of oil, that too refined Dhara….and I hardly increased my bank balance! They say, if you laugh a lot, you have to cry soon…but does that mean we will count smiles before placing them:p  You get hiccups and you confuse them either with love bites or hate bites….drinking a glass of water will solve your problem, I guess:p  If you eat anything round before going for exams…..they say may God bless you. But since childhood, I am fed upon potatoes, my favourite vegetable, and my scores are average:p  Snakes in dreams indicate money, fish in dreams indicates you are lucky and you should buy a lottery ticket and falling of a tooth indicates someone you know is going to die….unfortunately the third one always came true in my case,again another beliefL

Linda Goodman in her SunSigns gives a detailed account of our lives…from a child,man,woman,boss,employee…we get almost every answer in her thick forecaster! The practical me says, these are bullshit…but the curious me says, huh how come she knows!

Some say keeping a eucalyptus leaf under your pillow on a full moon, makes you see your soulmate in dream. Now yeh jyaada ho gaya but kehte hai, shayad hota hai aisa:p  Wearing whites and avoiding blacks on interview dates to avoid bad luck….but wearing blacks on personal ‘dates’ to look stunning is ironical:p  In childhood, there was a typical paper game for predicting love called-FLAMES (friendship,love,?,marriage,enemy,sister)……literally this lovemetre means combustion:p

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai brought the concept of wishing for something and everything the moment you see a falling star…..but some people say seeing a star fall brings bad luck....ab maro jahaan marna hai:p  They say if you encounter with an elephant or a group of eunuchs or a dead body on the way, you gonna have a good day ahead. With the onset of Fengshui, Laughing Buddhas have hit our shelves big time. Earlier it was a parrot bestowing us with the luck factor and now its astrology, palmistry, numerology, tarot reading that have made us fall in love with our future foretell. Tuesdays and Saturdays, don’t start journeys….Thursdays don’t spend money- flights should be cancelled on the former and banks should be closed on the latter days then:p  Falling of a comb brings guests home, the singing of the owls indicates marriages at home, crying of animals brings bad luck to home.

Wishing for something when you spot a couple of Maina birds, wishing for something more when you see a running train and getting all the wishes shattered when you see a monkey on a journey:p  Crossing fingers were not just ample, so some end up crossing legs too…anticipating for some good news!

Don’t sneeze in good occasions, don’t look back while going out…..don’ts are lot when it comes to beliefs, but as far as zodiacs are concerned, you can heal your future accordingly:p  Buy a start up package with 500, and you get all solutions of unpredictable life. If it’s still much, then go for daily packs@ re1/day, on mobile networks these days!

Stretching from Aries to Pisces, I don’t know What’s your Rashee, but reading these zodiacs bring so much oddity,optimism,poise at one point of time that at the other point of time you gonna mess up big time:p  So no matter it’s a two star or a four star day on newspaper, you can still have a fine day provided you have done your homework well:p  Yet till the time you wed, enjoy having faith in these beliefs and zodiacs and predicting this unpredictable life….kyunki after that there will be a standard kundali matching occasion again predicting your unpredictable life leaving you to sing why this 3(kolaveri) di:p

Last but not the least, amidst everything, don’t get murky if next time you spot one star beside your zodiac as life is like a paheli and you never know when the tables are turned, stars are on your side and Rahu Ketu sending you a friend request:p