New year, new musings

Well, a new year has come. I spent the first few hours of the new year with old and dear college friends partying in California. A great start I should say. A few new year resolutions made only to be forgotten and renewed during the Bengali new year 3.5 months later.

A few trends I have observed. A increase in the number of blog readers. Makes me happy but sad as well at the thought that though people are reading, even those who used to comment, do not comment. And I could trace various reasons for that. Most important is being lazy to type. The second most important reason is that most of the times the topics are so vague and out of the world that people won't connect to it. For example my last 2 cookery posts. Even the 2 posts related to West bengal was not that appreciated. Only bengalis will care about bengal. Whatever, I have decided to go on with my present style of writing irrespective of people's perspective about the blog. The trick is to have good titles to increase the readership. For example, te title of this blog is very vague and will never come up with possible searches. On the other had, things like potter pandal, tasleema nasreen will be widely read.

Coming to the third point, different that I am, from everybody, this one, is another characteristic of mine which right at this moment I am cherishing immensely. There is a bus service in Natick: Natick neighborhood bus, going all around Natick. Nobody except the really old people ride in the bus. those who can't drive or don't have money enough to have a car. Well, as I still haven't got mine, I sometimes travel in that bus. Even a few friends of mine did. But they got scared. They feel depressed seeing all the old people. But for me, it gives me hope, a lot of hope. A hope that I want to live a long life (bolte nei). That during the long life though my children will desert me, the government wont. I can still talk about how Mr X of 72 is dating Ms Y of 76 and how Mrs Z made pudding by mixing pudding powder as per instructions on teh back of the pack. All of them know each other. Today all the 3 of them scolded a 4th lady for not wearing enough winter clothing. I liked the whole fact a lot. Though I feel out of place. Though it should act as a motivation to buy the car soon that I do not have to look out of place, but I think even after I have my car, I will intentionally travel in this bus and sitting in a corner window seat in the back of the car, listen to these old people.

4th point is about doing things alone. People want to do several things alone and several things in groups of different size. To talk a bit yuck, even though bath with your partner may be a good idea, one never wants to potty with other people. While this is straight forward, some other things are difficult to generalize. Like eating food. Some people like it alone and some people like big group. Shopping is another such thing. Now for watching movies at the theater. As far as Indians are concerned, it is very rare that one goes alone. But today I made up my mind. Nobody was ready to see 'Atonement', so I went alone. And it was not bad. Neither was it good because I did miss sharing my ideas about beautiful Kiera, I missed talking about the wonderful transition of typewriter sound to music. But it gave me a lot of self confidence. That I can do even the unimaginable things alone.

Tublu