The Joy of Staying in the 'City of Joy':The invisibles of my everyday. .

Between Development theory and feminism,
Babu ghat and Howrah Station,
The E.M. By-Pass, Patuli and Spencer’s outlets,
Fight with rickshaw drivers and walks along the ‘pukurs’,
Piercing sound of the dhak from somewhere not too far,
Oly Pub’s yummy beef to Flury’s chocolate brownie,
Watching idols on the roadside to yellow cabs zipping past SRFTI,
Amruta Patil’s bored urban life graphic pages on my wall,
Zeeshan’s biryani to roadside phucha to egg-chicken rolls,
Rinsing my mouth with the tap’s salty water every morning,
The posh South city Mall to fish selling shacks in front of Ambuja,
Kumartuli in the rains,
A curious two year old neighbor walking inside my house,
Lectures by a historian on photography,
Enjoying the Clown Prince at G.D Birla Sadan,
A post-midnight drive to Khiddipore for some more booze,
Posters on my bathroom walls to sleeping in a moshari,
A sip of lebucha between the ringlets of smoke and mutton chop at the canteen,
The screaching crowd of the bhadraloks at the film festival at Nandan,
Newspaper news about JNU’s democratic struggle to cricket match reviews,
The water boiling in the kitchen right now,

Remembering to chase shadows,

As things familiar become strange,
Back to the History of Sexuality and then The Symposium,

Queer Rights and Protection at Esplanade,
Reaching out to the ice cream in the freezer,

Turning away from the dominant,
Reading e-mails of photography events at Delhi and Protests in Bangalore,
Thinking about someone,

Bruises under the skin,
More black coffee and cigarette smoke in class,

Analysing the meaningless-ness of the landscape,
The sound of my neighbor turning his key inside the lock,
Getting surprised by life and its events,
Over-cooked burnt paneer to under-cooked beans,
The smell of fish fry from someone’s kitchen,

Missing the nights of full moon,
Chatting with friends on gtalk,
Napping between the hours,
‘Dostana’ at Fame,
Still getting late for everywhere,

Multiplying abstractions,
Staring at the Xeroxed copies of Xeroxed ones,
Wondering if I can nap right now…..

Thinking that I am here, but surely somewhere else,
In the middle of the normal pace of my world and its bizarre angles,
Being caught between the my silence and the loud laughter,
Hoping to rewind a certain part of life, still wishing for a spotless mind.

Remembering the presence of mind--still trying to read the context as things strange become stranger than ever.