Previous Work
People have been tolerating so many things of mine. So I thought they would tolerate the audacity of my pen too!! Hence I got the courage to publish some of my stories and poems both in English & Bengali.
I’ve been writing since quite long, mainly for filling up the pages of school and college magazines, with which I used to be always involved. What do I write? Well, there’s a very good anecdote about this. Once I was idly killing a lazy evening on the grass of Gyan Ghosh, a stadium in IIT KGP, along with my friends Anirban, Atish and Soumitra. Both Soumitra and I have the bad habit of writing, whatever comes to our mind. Atish asked me about what I write. I really can’t categorize what I write. I didn’t have any straight answer. I fumbled with his question and finally replied that I write standard things…….!! Then Atish commented, if that’s so, then I’m a standard Kavi, and my book can be named as “100 Model Kavita, by a Standard Kavi“!!
Here are some model poems and stories by the standard writer.
Neurika
One of my first few short stories, written in July 1995, in IIT KGP. It’s a science fiction. I don’t remember now what exactly inspired me to write a science fiction in Bengali. One of the inspiratios was surely the Professor Shanku series by Satyajit Ray. On his father’s transfer, little boy Deep had to leave his Malachkhand, leaving behind his best friend, a sweet little girl of her age, Neurika. He kept in touch with his friend through letters. After many years he plans to go to Malachkhand to meet Neurika. At the same time he gets a letter from Neurika’s grandfather……
Swapnamay-er Ma
This was one of the first stories written in Noida in October 1996, little after joining my first job. It’s a simple story of sweet love between two young, romantic and passionate people. Their relationship comes to a wierd situation when they come to know about the past life of their parents.
Swaakkhor
Writtten in Nov, 95 in Noida. This was inspired by the exotic beauty and serenity of Tsangu Lake near Gangtok. A newly married young couple Joy and Rika go to Gangtok for their honeymoon. During their trip to Tsangu Lake they find an inscription in Bengali on a broken stone burried under bushes. Upon deciphering the inscription they find that it’s a part of a lovely poem scribbled by someone on the stone. In a very interesting turn of events this very poem unfurls an unknown past about Joy’s father.
WME 1886
Written in April 1998, this was the first story after I moved to Bangalore in September 1997. I was very much fascinated with Hauz Khas complex in South Delhi. The dilapidated fort is in the background of a number of posh restauants and shops. The contrast attracted me a lot when I first saw the place. I always wanted to write something about the place. I used Hauz Khas as the backdrop for this story, which is semi-autobiographical in nature. The first car that my father got from his office had the number WME 1886. I was about five-six years when the car came into our family. I got very attached to the car. But when my father left the company the car was also gone. I never forgot the car. I used to always think that someday somewhere I’d surely see the car again. In reality I never saw the car. But in this story I see the car again on a day when I was feeling very nostalgic, when so many things of the past were coming to my mind and taking me away from the present…..
Camelia
The last short story I wrote, way back in 1998. After that I never got chance to write any new story in Bengali. It’s a humorous story of a girl that a guy meets by chance at the old Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong and falls in love with. Was the meeting really by chance or pre-planned?
Hijli Detention Camp
Written in 2007, this is the culmination of my long time wish of writing something about the fascinating IIT life. The story is about a first year student who meets a mysterious girl at the Hijli Railway station. They both fall in love but the girl vanishes suddenly after a few months and never returns back. The guy searches for her for all the four years and also afterwards. Will he ever know who that girl was and where did he vanish?
All For You
Written in August 2009, just to have something for the Bengali souvenir that I edit forSarathi Socio Cultural Trust during Durga Puja. This is totally different from all the other stories I’ve written so far. I’ve tried to experiment with a few things – like it’s subtly set in future. Like the previous one, Hijli Detention Camp, this one also has, though partially, a backdrop of the college life – but spaced apart by more than a decade from what is depicted earlier. The story is about a group of people who completes a decade of their graduation. It revolves around two main characters Ira & Aryan. Many things from the past unfold before Aryan when he meets Ira after more than a decade. Few days later Ira dies mysteriously keeping many questions unanswered. Aryan and Ira’s brother try to unravel the mysteries left behind by Ira.