Earth Cries

I hardly see stars in the Bangalore sky...smog, as if, has robbed the sky of all its beauty. The first showers are no longer beautiful...Rainwater is damn dirty and black. For all these and more...Thanks to pollution which has certainly become more than a menace now! And adding to our woes, we have all the world leaders staging a drama at Copenhagen while the earth bleeds and cries!

Prithibir Chitkaar
Produshon chhine nilo, prithivir roop
Taai dekho Udaashin, Aaakasher mukh
Groho taara bondi Dhowashar kaaragaare
Baaka chaad eka tai, cheye aache chup.

Beesh Dhaale charidhaare, kol aar kaarkhana
Progotir pothe aaj agowan desh
Raastay gaari joto, bere chole obiroto
Amader chahidaar, keno nei sesh!

Socchhota nei aaj, gongaay, jomunaay
Bhoktir naame hoy taader aaj opomaan
Gaachpaala kete shob, sobhyota gorchi je
Ekdhare baare tai prithivir taapomaan.

Ei taapomaan niye aaj
Utheche je kolorob
Nongra raajniti
khomotaar khela sob!

Aakashe, baatashe , tai eto hahakaar
"Bachaao aamare" aaj prithivir chitkaar!

Prem je aamay chhare na.......

Taar email gulo jotne raakha aamar mailbox-e
Esob porei kaanna hashi roj
Facebook aar orkute edik odik,
Shudhu taari kothar, taari chhobir khoj.

Prem aami chherechi kobei
Kintu prem je aamay chhare na
Se to barte thake moner bhitor
Amar ekta kothao shune na

Bidrohi prem je aamar
Riti niti manei na
Shey beporowa, bodmejaji
Obujh kichui bujhe na.

Aajo taake shopne dekhe
Hotath uthi kepe
Taar kothai bhabte thaki
Raatro jege jege.

Jemon poraay amaar boshto na mon
Ami aaj office-e aanmona
Amar take niyei lekhalekhi
Aajgobi sob kolpona.

Etto bochhor, shey etto dure
Tobu takei dekhi ami
Haay korto jodi sheo omon
Amar moton paglami

Ekhon notun raasta, notun saathi
Kintu mon to notun noy
Moner bhitor prem purono
Tai to koshto hoy

Sobai bole “Haay kolonko…
Morbi je ei Neshay”
Ami kolonkito hotei chai
Priyor bhalobaashay.

HOME BOUND

My joy knows no bounds today!! The last few days have been very stressful for me but today certainly the excitement of going home has taken over. Yes just 15 hrs for my flight now.....I M GOING HOME AFTER AN YEAR. Two weeks....TWO WEEKS I will be in my own world, with all my near and dear ones...in my sweet Silchar. No office...no bugs...no coding...no traffic...no tension. ..Huh..two weeks out of the confines of my hellish cubicle...far away from this mess.
Will come back with stories from Silchar......WISH U ALL A VERY HAPPY DURGA PUJA!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Busy May and a Lazy June

I have become very lazy and my laziness accounts for my disappearance from the blogosphere these days.

For me, It was a busy May and an equally lazy June. I had an exam in the office in April –May and given the bad times, I could not risk flunking. I gave my first attempt April last and tried all my luck rather than labour…….I wore my lucky dress, did my morning prayers with an extra bit of pseudo devotion, sat at the 7th system in the exam hall and etc etc. I was sure that I knew something of everything in the mammoth syllabus but in the exam, as I was running through the questions, I could not help feeling like Alice in Wonderland! Hoping against hope, I submitted with exactly seventeen minutes pending and kept praying till the result page loaded…..but alas ..there in front of my eyes were the most hated words “ You scored 55%. Better luck next time”. “Better labour” , I thought and started my preparations…No blogging, no reading novels, no freak outs. Studying after office hours, that also technical stuff, was maddening, I tell you, but somehow I had to. With all my crazy preparations, I attempted the assessment on last week of May and thankfully I cleared with a more than desired 83%.
I had become very worked up by then and so felt like taking a break…..Break for me this June meant doing nothing. Yes I had to go to office(no body was lenient enough to grant me leaves) but the workload was ok-ok types. I sneaked into a virtual slumber…yet again no blogging, no books, no outings. Mid june, I started reading the “KiteRunner “ and “The Autobiography of a Yogi” . Both the books are awesome but I had no mood to carry on beyond the first few pages. By this time my ma also had come to Bangalore and I was relived of the burden of cooking and other domestic chores. My laziness now had enough reasons to grow. Off late, I hated even walking….wished if the floor beneath would drift forward taking me along. Probably I was thinking just that when I was climbing down the stairs last week…..I am not sure if I had slipped or tripped but in a second I fell down in full public view..with everybody looking at me as if something very wonderful had happened. I badly sprained my foot and am still trying to limp back to normal.

Enough of being lazy….Hope to have a very vibrant and lovely July.

It's not a happy weekend...here I am working on a Saturday compensating for the holiday declared on the election day in Karnataka. It feels all the more sad sitting in front of the lifeless monitor and typing some dull code when the day is "Pochise Boisaakh"..the birth anniversary of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore...the day which is so very special to me...so very auspicious for bengalis all over the world. I made my silent celebrations yesterday..all alone in my Bangalore home...reading out Gurudev's poetry..singing out his songs. Memories abound........i grew up with his creations...my childhood, my teenage,
my youth…. there was Rabindranath everywhere..in all my happiness..in all my pains. The more I read him..the more i know him...the more awestruck am I....
I miss the Rabindra jayanti celebrations back home....i miss the excitement of those endless rehearsals..i miss it all..

Would like to share with you all a bengali poem i wrote last pochise boisaakh.....i dont have the bangla fonts here..so using the english letters only..

Kobigurur proti

aamar dukkho betha bhoy bhabona kichui naai
jokhon tomar shurer jhornatole haariye jaai
jokhon edik odik baajte thake tomaar gaan
aadhar chire uthle hride aalor baan
shei aaloy aaloy bhaste thaki
aami tomaay bhalobaashte thaki
tomar kothar jadur kaathi..pagol kore praan


tomar shur tomar chhondo
taar poroshe je mor ki aanondo!!!
tomar bhasha tomar bhab
thakle hride...kisher obhab?
tomar shur baajle buke...aamar hoyna haashi mlaan
tomar kabbo,tomar kotha..pagol kore praan


tomar kothaay ek poloke
jaai bheshe kon kolpoloke
jetha soishob aamar, koishor aamar..aabar khuje paai
oshim tumi aanondomoy
pagol koro aamar hridoy
ami tomar shure chhonde kobi...miliye jete chai.


Feel like writing more on this day.....but am in a hurry..have my 6 oclock shuttle to catch. Its drizzling outside, as i see from my office window....Hope to have a beautiful musical evening..."Shubho Pochise Boisaakh"!!!!!!

Nobody writes letters these days..the world, it seems, has become far too fast paced. It is either the short emails , the quick orkut scraps or even the shorter and quicker sms........Its a 'e' world now..But when it comes to carrying 'e'motions..nothing can match the beauty of a conventional letter..afterall,it carries someone's handwriting..it carries the fragrance of someone's love........

I don't like writing poetry proselike but at times the music refuses to set in.........

A few torn pages of a laboratory notebook
And LOVE scribbled thereon
Defying distance they had reached me...seven years back.
Ah ! his bad handwriting ..was so good to read
And i had slept with it...all night long.

I treasure it still..
Yes, I open it still ..
Now, his love stares at me..with eyes tearful
A thousand questions these fainting words ask
Ah ! the splash of colors...A million memories they uncage
and i see the buds of joy bloom amidst pain!

Rebel these words are
Then they defied distance..now they defy time
As i cling on to that letter...
..And live his love all over again!!!!

An Ode to Poetry

an old poem..written years back. Have no mood and time to write this week and so felt like posting this.

O Poetry…a beauty you are
Matchless in your grace
I can sit back for hours long
Just gazing at your face.

You drag me down, you lift me high
You make me laugh, you make me cry..
You paint my wings in brightest hue
In strangest lands, U make me fly.

O Poetry, enchantress you are
In rhyme and rhythm clad.
With a veil of music over your hair
And a halo round your head.

With tearful eyes-as you I watch
You wipe my tears with loving touch
You inject peace to my troubled soul
You heal my wounds that pain so much.

Are you from the land of Gods?
Who brought you down to earth?
From whom you learnt this magic spell
That holds captive my heart???

The other day-when the night was dark
And stars and moon all gone
I saw you dance, O gorgeous maiden
With tinkling anklets on.

I heard you gurgle as the stream
I saw you sparkle bright…
I heard you murmer, I heard you whisper
In the woods all night.

And I saw you on the morning grass
As the dazzling dew
O lovely lady, in all your forms
I fall in love with you.

I fall in love a thousand times
So I can’t help but gaze
O poetry, a wonder you are
Matchless in your grace!!!!

The Pain of getting wiser !!!!

I never knew that I would teethe at this age!!! There at the end of my jaw line, angled away from all its existing counterparts…standing in its own unique style, is a cute innocuous looking tooth...my wisdom tooth. Yes I am definitely getting wiser and paying quite a heavy price for the same.
Now I know the pain tagged to wisdom and can loudly proclaim “IGNORANCE IS BLISS”. I started having the pain in my gums even when the tooth was not visible. I confused it for a gum infection and went to the dentist for a check up The dentist checked the interns of my mouth, hit all my teeth one by one, asked me all stupid questions ,and with all the happiness on earth, remarked “Congratulations, your wisdom teeth are coming up”. Down with the pain and already irritated with her incessant experimental hitting on all my teeth, I thought.."Congratulations to you rather, doctor, u definitely see some good money here and no wonder you look so happy about my pain”
The doctor gave me some painkillers and asked me to wait till the tooth comes up properly so that she can get it extracted. Days rolled on but the pain never abated..the crap painkillers provided some respite but only for an hour or two…by now my precious wisdom tooth had emerged out of my gums and had become even deadlier..soon my entire mouth got swollen... my ears , my head.. all started aching badly …the pain was so very throbbing that I could hardly open my mouth.. food, sleep, work….everything went for a toss…a small tooth was troubling me like hell…But despite all this, I was scared of going to the doctor and getting it extracted….i was somehow unwilling to part with my dear tooth (lest my wisdom disappears!!). It went like this for a month or so till the pain actually came down.. I am fine now but today morning only I could see another tooth emerging on the other side of my jaw line. And yes, thanks to my already existing wisdom tooth, I m definitely wise enough now to predict that painful times are not so far away!!!

FYI- In Korean, wisdom tooth is referred to as Sa-rang-nee which means love teeth referring to the young age and the pain of the first love

Happiness deceives

Now, this one is for Ramya…who is a kind of wise girl now with lots of lessons learned on marriage and ‘the right match’(http://ramyaal.blogspot.com/2009/03/wisdom-that-time-adds.html). Well, she desparately wants to fall in love……probably to escape the onslaught of marriage proposals and the weird guys involved. Dear Ramya and all of you who share Ramya’s woes and have somewhat become a rebel of sorts…this one is specially for you…love is beautiful,no doubt, but it certainly has an invisible price tag attached!!!

In my sunshine days….my tears rained
Life marched on and LOVE WANED
I dare not fall in love again
For I know..how bad it pained!!!!!!!!

I know the joys of first love
The ninth of may, the fifth of june
You feel like sailing in the sky
In the midst of stars and moon

O the time..O the joys
Happiness deceives, I must say
All the rosy dreams you weave
Leave you shattered end of day!!!

Yes..my pains have not healed as yet
And trust me , they never will
He haunts me in my dreams all night
Six years…and they hurt me still!!!

I HATE “LOVE”, for I’ve seen
All its colors end in haze
Love not if you wish to live
Cruel ..cruel.. is the maze.

Love and me? Naah.. not again
The greatest wisdom my heart has gained
I warn you against love dear all
For I know how bad it pained!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's Recession time!!!!

Recession……I am tired of this word now. You hear it everywhere around. Be it in the team meetings where the project manager scares you in the name of recession asking you to be aligned more than ever to the organisation's goals or be it in the coffee with your friends who are scared due to the dearth of projects and the rumours of pink slips around……..You switch on the TV and this word comes to bug you even there with the news anchors blowing it out of proportions with all their pessimism. It has been months now and nobody really knows when we can actually see some light. What started out with the sub prime crisis in the US hitting the financial sector has eventually affected many industries and traumatized the entire world. It has taken the shape of an all powerful job gobbling monster and nobody knows how to stop it. Individuals, organizations are trying out different ways to beat the recession…trying to adjust to the changed environment. As the demand seems to be shrinking, individuals are focusing on reskilling and upscaling. There was a time in the software industry, when people used to just love being on bench. “On bench”, if you are not aware of this term, means being in a company without a project…….that means no work and all pay. The bench people would swipe in and go off to dormitory for sleeping or simply go out of the campus itself and spend the entire day outside..the studious few would actually utilize the time for preparing for exams like CAT, GRE and stuff like that. With the profit margin on the decline and the organizations unwilling to entertain non performers, “bench” is certainly the biggest scare now. The once carefree and happy people on bench are the most frightened ones now and the competition to get into projects is simply at its peak. Technology, project, location, pay packages which used to get dictated by the employee once are at present being thrust upon by the employer and people can hardly complain. The software industry, as is known to all, primarily thrives on the work outsourced by the American companies and with the U.S deep in recession and the Obama regime hard on outsourcing, the IT sector is up against the toughest of times. With the customers cutting heavily on their IT budget, the pipeline tells no stories of hope. As a result of all these, organization is upbeat devising new ways and means to atleast minimize the effects of this menace. Thankfully, in Indian companies, till date there has been no random firing of employees but we can certainly see a increased drive on reducing the operational cost so as to maintain the profit margin even in this challenging scenario. Be it in the stopping of the free bournvita, badam milk etc in the pantry or the reduction of number of reams of papers for the printer, be it in the drive to switch off the unnecessary lights after the normal working hours or the reduction of the number of tissue rolls in the restrooms……..you can see the cost control measures almost everywhere around you. And if this means saving somebody’s job, we should actually welcome all these steps in the right spirits. It’s time, instead of getting scared and spreading negativity around, we help our organizations and in turn our own selves by being sensitive to the situation and sensible in what we do. Trust in our abilities and the mindset to keep honing our skills is certainly the need of the hour. I certainly am no pundit to give you tips on fighting recession but I would like to share with all of you a nice thought I heard somewhere which I feel is just appropriate in this troubled weather. Many times, we see a small bird sitting atop a delicate and slender plant. With the wind moving the plant to and fro, the birdie enjoys the swing least bothered that a small gush of wind would actually bring the plant down. Its fearlessness comes from the trust it has on its wings…..the bird knows it fully well that even if the plant falls down, it can easily fly off. So also in our case, recession or no recession, in a big company or a small concern, if we have trust on our own wing, we can definitely enjoy the swing.

The Darkest Night

Even I wanted to die till I realised that life is such a beauty..........even I sought darkness till i realised that i can't live without light!!!!!!!!!

The Darkest Night

No trace of moon, no sign of stars
In the darkness of this night
A stagnant sky stares at me
And fills me up with fright.

Not a sound - I hear around
Not a soul in sight
Clouds abound, no rains they pour
Stranger grows the night.

The fragrant flowers have closed their petals
The earth in slumber deep…
The birds and bees, the lofty trees
All are fast asleep.

Caught in shackles, is the wind
So I can’t hear its song
The wind that played, the wind that stayed
With me all along.

As I soar up, up above
Darker gets the night
Lone I tread in paths unknown
With no one by my side.

I hated earth….for all the tears
For all the pains I had..
I wanted peace, I longed for bliss
And sought refuge in DEATH

But never did I want this dark
This stony silent night
Where the stagnant sky stares at me
And fills me up with fright.

I can’t bear this deadly darkness
I can’t bear this night
I want my world, I want it back
With all its noise and light.

My Lost Music

Most of the times, pain brings out the poet in us..........but believe me, at times pains leave you far too shattered...far too weak to hold the pen.........and yes thats how i lost myself..that's how i lost my music......

My Lost Music

……...And I could write when I wished to
There was music in my spine..
I would fly about in worlds afar
And all the skies were mine.

I sailed above the highest cloud
And sang the loudest song
I screamed aloud------I played around
My heart it felt so young!!

Drenched was I in rains of love
And drenched I was to core..
My cup of joy was full to brim
So joys I sought no more.



And here I am….WRETCHED ME…
Even tears I cannot shed…
I cried so much…my eyes dried up..
My soul is nearly dead.

You robbed me of my music dear..
You snatched my earth.---my sky
You gave me scars..u gave me pains
You made my heart to cry.

…..AND I CAN NOT WRITE NOW
The words don’t fall in place..
I lost it all….all my joys
And the music of those days.

Laugh at me!!!!!!!!!

I admit, I am at times, very unmindful and forgetful. Due to this, I end up doing many silly and crazy stuff. The stories of such stupid acts of mine have always been a great laughing stock for my friends and family and I feel so very proud that even in these stressful times I give people enough reason to laugh. But sometimes I wonder was it really me doing all these crap……..m I really so unmindful and forgetful? Strange seem the workings of my brain.I bet, I never forget to turn off the gas regulator or to switch off the geyser. I bet, I can recollect all the questions in toto after I give any exam. My concentration is so very good that once I was working and a fire alarm went off….believe me all the people ran out of the building but there I was still glued to my system unaware that there is nobody around me. But sometimes I am completely lost in my own unknown world and I simply act weird.

Once in my home at Silchar, a beggar was at the door and my mom asked to get a bowl of rice for the beggar. I went straight to the bathroom and fetched one mug water from the tumbler….I came to the beggar and was about to pour the mugful water in the poor man’s bag when I suddenly came to my senses and realized what I was doing.From then on, whenever I give any food or alms to a beggar, I cant help remembering that incident.

Then another day, My mom asked me to get the clothes from the courtyard which she had put out in the sun for drying. At the same time she had asked me to throw away some waste water in the drain. I collected all the clothes, took the bucket of waste water in my hand and can u believe, instead of throwing the water, I threw all the washed and dried clothes into that dirty stinking drain. I thought that I would get some good thrashing for this but the act was so very stupid that my mother, instead of getting angry burst out laughing. Multitasking is such a risk with me you see!

Then once in Bangalore..I was going home and had a flight at 5-30 in the morning. It was 3-30 and I was about to catch the cab to the airport .I was supposed to carry the luggage in my hand. I told bye to my roommates, made my usual prayers and you know what, instead of picking the bag, I picked the bucket and went to board the taxi. I never realized what I was doing……could not even feel the difference of weight. Good that my roommate noticed and screamed out laughing “Dear, where are you going with the bucket”. She got me my bag and saved me from the scare of reaching the airport without my luggage and tickets.

Then another day in Bangalore, my roommate had a kept a fast the entire day for the “Ganga Bachao Andolan”, urged upon by Baba Ramdev ji. She was making payasam with suji to break her fast. Hungry and tired , she was desparate to have her first grains of the day. She was making the payasam with great care……ghee, cashewnuts, raisins..she was putting all nice stuff to make the dish really tasty. The only mistake she did was to ask me to add sugar to it. I don’t know where I was lost but I added salt instead. As she put the first morsel in her mouth…….Yuck……she screamed “Tonoya..wat have u done?”..bloody me…..i could immediately realize what a mess a I had done. Poor my roommate…..i felt so sorry for her and so ashamed at my stupidity. It was 10 pm in the night and we had to get all the stuff from the nearby shop and make the payasam all over again. And this time she dared not ask me to add anything.
Then another day, my nephew Siddharth was trying to reach my place. He did not know the exact location and so after coming in the vicinity, he called me up. He told where exactly he was standing and asked me to guide him. With great confidence, I told him that two steps further on, he would find a big statue of hanuman and he is to take a right from there. Now my dear nephew kept searching for the statue but could not find any…he however found one picture of Lord Ganesha in the same place. Going by my track record, he immediately realized that may be that was what I was referring to and ultimately reached my place.

So these are some of the incidents in which you can get a very true picture of my extremely stupid self. Hope you have enjoyed reading and thank you for making fun of me!!!!!!!!!

THE MOONRISE

The worst part of staying in big cities like Bangalore is that you always stand to miss the sweet and simple beauties of nature. For most of us it has been really long since we last saw the sunset .. the western sky all ablaze with the last golden rays of the sun….yes, it has been long since we watched the night sky ornate with thousands of stars. Mostly we do not have the time or the mood to watch these all and even if we do have both…..there is this pollution and the skyscrapers blocking our vision. But that Sunday evening for me was indeed very special….I was lucky enough to see the full moon rise.
My nephew has rented an apartment in BTM just opposite to the madiwala lake and the view from the balcony is very very beautiful. It was more so that day with the full moon rising against the backdrop of the evening sky and the lake waters sparkling beneath.
People since ages have enjoyed the beauty of the sunrise…….even I, when at Silchar, have seen and enjoyed many sunrises……the riot of colours in the east , brilliant tinges of orange scattered all across the sky….the red sun rising slowly above the horizon..it is all so very gorgeous. But that evening as I saw the moon, I felt that the moonrise has a divine beauty of its own which the much hyped and lauded sunrise can never match. The moon , closer to the horizon, was looking bigger than its usual size…much like a glowing disc..it was not white but more towards a very light shade of orange. The evening sky..not yet completely dark looked very calm…very serene and the young moon added to its beauty. Now I realized why all the poets across ages have so much been in love with the moon…why so much has been written and said on the moon……..why moon has always been linked to romanticism. I kept gazing at the moon which was crawling up slowly and steadily…..at the same time I wondered how man could manage to set his foot on the moon..I pictured that the Chandrayaan recently launched by India…made by our very own scientists is orbiting there somewhere very close to this beautiful moon. I stood there for a while gazing at the moon and much like Wordsworth’s “Daffodils” the pictures of the moonrise I carry in my heart is a lifetime treasure and indeed a “bliss of solitude”.

WELCOME 2009

BLOOD, TEARS, PAIN....

I CAN STAND NO MORE

NOW THAT U HAVE COME

HOPE THE BIRDS WILL SING ................................

HOPE THE HUES OF MORNING SKY
BRIGHTEN UP OUR DAYS
NOW THAT YOU HAVE COME
HOPE THE MUSIC REIGNS !!!!!!!!!!

Christmas at Silchar

This was my third Christmas in Bangalore and as usual it was not that great. Yes…we did have celebrations in the office on Christmas eve (good they declared holiday on Christmas at least!!!!!!!!!!!) but nothing can match the joy of celebrating Christmas in my sweet home at Silchar…….thanks to the enthusiasm of my father. We are not Christians but my father makes sure that Christmas is celebrated at our home in our own sweet self styled way. We decorate a cross made out of bamboo and place a picture of Christ along with the cross in our Puja room. We invite all the kids of the neighbourhood to join us for the evening prayers. In the evening, we light the candles before Jesus, say our prayers and distribute sweets among the kids. Usually, a kid is dressed as father and he sprinkles holy water all around the house.

In our schooldays, Christmas time used to be the most exciting and happiest time for us.Our annual exams would generally be over by November end and the winter vacation would immediately follow…. A vacation of almost 45 days…..a vacation which we enjoyed to the extreme. Those days, in our lane we were a gang of about 10 kids, almost of the same age group…….we used to go to school together, play together in the evenings, laugh together for no reason, fight at the silliest things….and most importantly, we used to get together with full spirits for Christmas celebrations. Well let me introduce you to our gang members… there was Mou didi (Moutushi Paul)… presently she is an engineer with BHEL….Devon(Deboprosad Paul)… presently he is doing his Btech from NIT, Silchar…… boro misti didi (Lopamudra dutta) who is doing BE from Pune..Shivani didi(Debjani Purkayastha) who is practicing in Guwahati high court, her brother Rajdeep(Purkayastha), persuing MBA in Delhi…, her elder sister Narayoni didi(Narayoni Purkayastha) who is married now and blessed with a kid…….Shivam (rabijyoti Bhattacharjee) who is a content developer with Infosys…and then there was me and my siblings….myself Misty (tanaya choudhury)..am a Sr. software engineer with Wipro Technologies, my brother rajon (Sarbajeet choudhury) and sister Titu(Saswati Choudhury)..both of them are persuing Law in Assam university.
Though each member of the gang was distinctly different but there was one thing that was common between us..ENTHUSIASM……Courtesy this enthusiasm, we would start making preparations for Christmas from the very day our exams got over… Making the decoratives, the crib, rehersing for the programme to be staged on the Christmas day and what not.We used to tear off the cardboard from the old copies and make stars out of these….we used to decorate the stars with glitters …..christmas tree, santa claus, the streamers, baby Jesus and mother Mary..everything we used to make and decorate on our own with the minimum resources we had……There was an innocent joy in all these…….a joy which is impossible to find now despite all our cravings and efforts. Ours was a talented group, I must boast….we used to write the songs, set the music, direct the play, prepare the welcome speech and etc etc. Our father, as I have already mentioned, encouraged us a lot and used to oversee all our preparations and correct us if required. We would reherse for long hours…making sure that we perform our best on the Christmas day. And then there were those endless debates and discussions on what dresses to wear ……on what role each of us would play in the drama and etc etc. I remember how everybody wanted to be in the lead roles and so role allocation was indeed the toughest job…there was always a risk that whoever would be a given minor role might actually pull out of the team) On the day of Christmas Eve, we used to set up a stage in the courtyard……two wooden cots placed side by side and fully covered with some nice carpet…we used to get a structure built with bamboos and decorate the same with different bulbs and our self made stars and streamers. Queer to think now, we used to write the invitation letter with the aid of carbon papers just to get the feel of a printed one . We used to distribute these among our neighbours , relatives and friends.We used to get chairs from every house in the lane and set these all in front of the stage for the audience. On the Christmas evening we used to have such huge crowd gathered that the chairs would always fall short but the people never seemed to mind standing and watching our function. And why not, all of us used to get involved with such excitement and enthusiasm…lighting candles before the portrait of Lord Christ, prayer songs, Christmas carols , drama on the life and teachings of jesus, magic show ..every single thing used to be done with the greatest perfection and passion. Every little cheer from the crowd would fill our little hearts with joy…..every single clap would encourage us to perform even better!!

Well that was Christmas for us in our childhood. So many years have passed by….we are all grown up now…..busy with our career at different places of the country….may be not having enough time to wish each other “Merry Christmas”…….but definitely we all miss those golden times spent together at our very own Silchar.