One life, many worlds!

When I searched the word "world" in oxford dictionary, then I found that the word has a number of meanings. One meaning that we are all so familiar goes something like this "(the world) the earth with all its countries and peoples". Another meaning says " (one’s world) a person’s life and activities". It is the latter usage of the word "world" that inspired me to give the name of my blog "world of amitava".

We all live in a world of our own. We sleep, we eat, we drink, we work, we have fun -- all in our own world. We share part of the world with our friends, relatives and neighbours. Its a cosy world we all live in - knowingly or unknowingly - quite like the atmosphere that surrounds the earth. We move with the world around us, with its set of views, principles, knowledge. We accept other people's world when we find something common or interesting in their worlds. We have fun and make merry when the worlds match each other. That is why sometimes even two complete strangers can be seen talking for hours in a park or in an airport lounge. Their worlds have something in common. They have something they can talk about. But if the worlds are different, then even the closest of the blood-relationships cease to talk to each other. Its just that the cats and the dogs can’t dine from the same plate and even if you force them to, you don’t expect any conversation on the dinning table as they don’t understand each other's language - each lives in a different world of its own.

The most interesting part is, these worlds keep changing! Thats why, even after five-six or more years of successful marriage, people file for divorce. Their worlds have changed. Once their worlds shared lots of common things between them. Alas! Today they don’t speak each others languages.
I first got a feel of my world getting changed when I had to leave my first school, St. Joseph's Convent in standard four (the school allowed boys and girls to study together till standard four, from standard five only girls were allowed to study). I remember the last day in that memorable school, when I felt really sad that I had to leave the school, some of my best friends and teachers in the school, the environment. It was also the first realisation that life moves on. Since then I had stepped into many new worlds with butterflies in the stomach and stepped out with a heavy heart. There was my life in my next school. My world in my engineering college; my world when I joined the Indian IT firm TCS and was in Trivandrum for some months; my world when I stayed alone in Bangalore in the initial days of my job; my world when I was deputed to USA from TCS; my Cranfield world and the world I live now. Each world is different from the other. Each world had its own taste and flavour. Most importantly, in each of these new worlds, I have lived a new life.
A very good way of revisiting those "lost worlds" is to read the mails that were exchanged during those periods. The mails that I had written when I was about to join Cranfield is different from what I was writing when I was studying in Cranfield or the post-Cranfield period. The mails are the proofs that my views, thoughts, dreams have changed its shape and form. In short, I call, my world has changed. Like the transition from day to night, I slowly stepped out of the world I was living and entered a new one. About a year and a half back, when I was in Cranfield my world was class lectures, team meetings, assignments, job search, Fedden Flats; today my world is completely different. I do not live in the Cranfield world anymore. I am equally sure that today's world of mine will eventually fade into oblivion and I will step onto a new one some day.
My age is thirty one now. And within such a short time I have explored so many worlds and lived so many lives. As I have mentioned a couple of times in other blogs, the journey of my life gets more and more interesting, especially, when every couple of years I discover new worlds, meet new friends, have new ideas, learn new things!

Its the same for all of us. We hear of explorers discovering new worlds and how Columbus discovered India and the adventures and stories about it. But we fail to take note of the fact that each of us is explorer in his or her own right. We discover so many things in the world we live in and then one day we leave that world and start exploring some other worlds. We also go through the storms, the rough weather, the high waves, the uncertainty as we set out for the new exploration. Whether we like it or not, this journey of life will eventually come to an end one day for all of us. But in this one journey we can have so many small journeys, in one life we can live so many lives and in this one world ("the earth with all its countries and peoples") we can have so many worlds(of our own)!

What's there in a song?

There are quite a few times I have come across a thought; but am not sure whether those thoughts are so universal that I should write about them and share them with others. However personal they might be, at some point the readers should relate to them. If my thoughts are weird and meaningless then its really no point trying to share those with others. But then I find echoes of many of my thoughts among different people. In one of the blogs, I wrote about the feeling of loneliness in a crowded football stadium. The other day I was watching a documentary in Youtube about Mecca. There one person said how he felt lonely even when he was in a crowd of millions in Mecca. In another writing, I vented my opinion on Indian universities and the newspaper reporting; some of my friends wrote to me how they shared the same view as mine. All these give me the confidence to nurture my thoughts and develop them to a well-composed piece. Today's thought is something that has been doing rounds in my head for quite a few months; its only when my younger brother said something similar last week that I felt the thought is universal. And I decided to pen down that thought - a difficult thing, but let me give it a try!

Orange candy! Ah! Thats what my favourite ice-cream is. And I think its the best ice-cream in the world. I know its a bit too much, but thats the way I like it to be. But why do I think so? Because when I am down and stressed, an ice-candy sort-of relaxes my nerves, wipes off my tension and anxiety and I feel so relaxed. Perhaps, nobody else feels so having the same orange candy! Even the most rigorous scientific tests would reveal that there is no such chemical in an orange candy that can act as a stress reliever. Actually, to me, an orange candy is more than an ice-cream. When I have it, it reminds me of my childhood days - the days when there was no tension and anxiety in my life, everything was so jolly and happy-go-lucky. The taste of ice-candies reminds me of those days, of those times...and I am happy again!

Similarly, a particular smell. That smell may bring to you certain memories, certain times - good or bad. Certain food or certain movie clippings.

One of my bad times in the recent past is the time in Calcutta, working for IBM and I have no qualms saying so. Perhaps thats the reason I have developed a hatred for the city. Whenever I think of Calcutta, the life there, whenever I see any Bengali (language spoken by the people of Calcutta) TV channels, they remind me of those days. I no longer see the Bengali TV channel, but visualise my life during that time, instead. And I dont want to see them.

And then there are songs. It just amazes me how a song can have so many different meanings to so many people. When we (brother and I) were school boys, we used to listen to songs of a Bengali singer, called Anjan Dutta. We were die-hard fan of his. I thought, "Yes! Now I have got somebody who speaks my language, understands me." After more than a decade, his songs no more appeal to me. And yet once a month I just play his songs when I want to re-live those younger days of mine. When I listen to his songs, actually I dont listen to his songs, but take myself to those days. And I still remember, when I went to USA the first time in 2002, I used to listen to at least two Bollywood movie songs - one from "Kaante" and the other from "Devdas".
During my last days in Cranfield things became a bit confusing. I was dilly-dallying with the idea of whether I should go back to India, or should I stretch myself for some more months to find a job in the already-squeezed job market of UK. At that time I listened to songs from some other Bollywood movies called "Race" and "Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na". When I listen to those songs I cant help but get those feelings inside me again. What appears in front of my eyes is the Fedden Flat studio apartment of mine; the yellow bulb at the centre of the room, the big windows, the community centre view from my room, the car-parking lot...I get goose-bumps. And these same songs have different meaning to different people. Some may remember these songs as it was played when he/she was going on a certain journey or may be it was being constantly played by the local club at a function or simply his/her better half gifted a collection which had those songs!

So, even though I dont find any good sense to the songs of Anjan Dutta today, which at one time I simply loved, I still listen to them when I want to re-visit my adolescent days. My wife did not find any meaning to his songs at any point in her life. So, today, even though we both share the same opinion that those songs are too childish, she fails to understand why I listen to them, anyway!
Isn't it strange how we live in the present and then occassionally some incidents take us back to our past? For a moment or two we go back and live in a different world, which may be good, which may not be so good. But, nevertheless, it is a world we once lived. It is a phase of life that we passed.
One day in my newly-bought home in Bangalore I was relaxing on the terrace, when a parrot's twitter suddenly caught my attention and what immediately flashed in front of my eyes is the gorgeous mango tree that we had in our house. When the mango used to ripe, parrots used to come in flocks and nibble at them. I was too familiar with that twitter then, as a child. Alas! Today that mango tree is not there. Needless to say, those sweet childhood days have also quietly sailed to some distant fairytale land!