That Morning.

Saturday , 14th November being a holiday made me stay in bed longer than usual. I got up late to the shocking news of Paris being attacked again in barely 10 months time. Another terrorist attack ?? Again innocent lives lost for no fault of theirs ?? I messaged a friend in France to know if she and her family were safe. She replied back telling her sister lives in Paris, her friend saw someone getting shot and they are all very scared. Till date she tells me how scared she and everybody is , how she cannot sleep properly at night , how she has nightmares , how they are given training at their workplaces to save themselves and others in case of another attack.

This is not the first terrorist attack. The century started with terrorist attack and it has been continuing, only the frequency is increasing every day. There has been war all around, pictures and news of war is disturbing, specially when innocent children are killed ruthlessly. There has been lots of talks , analysis , political views after this attack, as it happens after every attack but the bottomline is we are scared. It can be anyone of us tomorrow. I am scared as it is tough to apprehend the irrationality of these attacks. I am scared to see how a generation is growing up viewing hatred , violence , acts of revenge all around them. I am scared to realise how young minds are channelised to judge a sect of people on the basis of religion only. Scared how people are failing to understand the real meaning of religion and forgetting to think with their own minds. Scared to see some young faces , fresh and full of life, are responsible for all these massacres . When I look at these boys, I wonder did they know what they were upto and why ?? What a waste to young , precious lives !! Scary part is those invisible masterminds who are taking advantage of these young minds and we are rarely able to get hold of them.

When I look at my son I am afraid , afraid to see in which world he is growing up in.
Afraid to see the intensity of hatred and insecurity increasing everyday. Motherhood has made me vulnerable , I want him to grow up in a different world. I know after some years when he will leave home I will live on the edge every minute, waiting for his news , news of safety , of security and with each such unfortunate news my fear and insecurity will increase. As my friend said , " I don't understand this world " , so very true , with each and everyday we are failing to understand and anything that cannot be understood is scary !!

It is easy to fall in love.

A junior today while telling about her life told an incident how she fell in love with her ex-husband. Her ex-husband gifted her a CD of Yanni with a soft kiss and she fell in love, it was that easy.

Yes, loving is easy. It is actually very easy to fall in love. The tough part is the denial or the fact when one starts to think with one's head the relationship becomes so complicated. It just takes a moment, a moment for the cupid to strike and before you know you are in love. It takes time to realise that you are in love, the revelation to yourself is again a lovely feeling.

My brother fell in love with his colleague , when asked what was it that made him fall in love with her, he candidly said it was a SMS in the morning of 'Mahalaya' from her when he was on his way to click pictures at the Ganga in his newly bought DSLR camera. He was just about to get down from the bus when his phone beeped , it was a SMS from her , it read what does the eye on the lens see?? A simple message but enough for my brother to start seeing his colleague differently.

A friend once told that he fell in love for the first time with a girl whose name he doesn't know , whose face he doesn't remember , he only remembers two pair of bright eyes , eyes which spoke million words without speaking any. He was in college, he visited one of his relative's village and went to a fair held there. In a merry-go-round he sat opposite a girl unknown to him. All through the ride of 10/15 minutes when there was shouting , screaming , chaos all around ...they just looked and kept on staring at each other's eyes without even speaking. Time over, the merry-go-round came to a halt they got down and went their way , never to meet again. He says that after that he had many relationships but he never experienced that feeling ever,

A simple word , a simple phrase , a simple action , a simple gesture can make you fall in love...can also make you fall in love all over again. The moment matters...maybe that action or that phrase told in some other circumstance, to some other person would never have that effect. You never know when that moment comes in life. Someone once told a simple phrase told by the lady , ' I feel suffocated if I don't talk to you for one day ' was what he could never forget till date.  Or  , ' I need someone to talk to , I have no one with whom I can talk ' are million words spoken in one sentence.

There is no particular day , no lovers day...your day can be any day  , a sunny day , a humid day , a cloudy day , a stormy day...absolutely any day...what matters is how and when you connect . The moment you connect you get hooked for a lifetime. It is actually very easy to fall in love ...it is not tough to stay in love either...the space there is really beautiful.

" I fell in love the way you fall asleep : slowly , and then all at once . "

Who is a Mother ??

Is ‘motherhood’ only about gender ? Has ‘motherhood’ to do with giving birth either ? Can we really identify a person who gave birth only as a mother ?

Ustad Alauddin Khan,the famous musician,teacher,composer had two daughters. His younger daughter was a famous sitarist Annapurna Devi . He had another daughter,his elder daughter,who was a simple girl,did not study much and was his father’s favourite. She was married off at a young age. At her in-law’s house she was one day asked to cook beef . Alauddin said that though we re Muslims,we worshipped cows and didn’t eat beef. Jahanara,his elder daughter , requested her husband with folded hands not to force her to cook beef but her request went unheard and she was forced to cook beef. She did,but was so upset and felt so guilty that she left eating. And died. Alauddin writes, “ ...aar meyeta amar na kheye more gelo. “ (and my daughter died fasting). Simple words but in each word we can feel his grief,his loss,his feeling of guilt,his helplessness. Here, can we say that Alauddin was any less a mother ?? Was his loss any less than any mother’s ?? This piece was read to me by a male friend of mine. While reading this my friend had to take pause, control his tears to go through the whole piece. His reaction made me think , is his feeling any less than mine just because he is a man ?

I have a friend,whose mother unfortunately died at a very young age leaving behind her and her little brother. Her father at that time was at a complete loss...two little children,no one at home to look after them and his job where he had to travel extensively. Whenever he was away in his office tour he would call his children from 6am in the morning till they got up,instruct them to get dressed up,take their tiffin box,arrange their books,go to school. It was early 80’s ,  a time when cell phones didn’t exist and very few homes had telephones. Her father though away physically was always on the phone instructing and running his home , his heart and mind was always with his little kids. Here can he be called any less a mother ??

When a 4yr brother has to take over the role of a mother to his 2yr sister as they lost their parents due to natural calamity , or when we see a dog feeding young kittens as their mother cat died under a car...the question always arises does only giving birth make one a mother ??

                                                

My  son calls my mother “Maa” , something nobody taught him. When he learnt to speak,he one day suddenly addressed his grandmas “Maa”. His calling his grandma Maa was so natural and appropriate. It was my mother who literally brought him up, stayed awake at nights with him...and he has a different attachment with her,ofcourse more than he has with me . She is actually more of a mother to him than me . Only giving birth don’t make one a mother.

Motherhood is a feeling , it is an attachment , it is a responsibility , it is about selfless love , it is about loving someone more than oneself , it is about someone giving meaning to one’s life . Motherhood definitely has nothing to do with only giving birth or gender. 

" Shrabon's rain "

It is not because I chose today to start my new blog that I named it 'Shrabon's rain' considering the fact that it is a rainy day today in Kolkata. Sometimes natural depression makes you depressed and today is such a day no doubt.

I don't remember now from when my love for writing started. From my childhood I was a very dreamy and imaginative child , a very shy and also a bit timid , unsocial also...it always took me days to get comfortable with someone and open up. My only refuge  , books. I loved reading. I could read all night,all day. With a book in my hand I could spend days without feeling lonely. And then there was my imaginative world...my world. I guess every child has her/his imaginative world and a shy child carries her world with her for a long time until it starts co-existing with her. In my world I always had things according to my wishes naturally...I was either an actress sometime,or a journalist,or a pilot or also a simple girl in love. That world was mine. Then as days passed by I started putting my thoughts,my realisations , my feelings, my experiences in pen and paper and kept them to myself. Later I realised it is only through my writings I can be myself, my real self...if you can follow them and understand them, you almost know me ! I realised I only had one medium to express and let out my anger , my frustrations , my depressions , my sadness, also my happiness... my writings.

Social media with all its negativity brims with lot of positivity too. I got friends whom I never knew and they became a part of my life. They have encouraged and inspired me in various ways for which I will consider myself blessed forever. I started writing small pieces of my thoughts and people loved them , they said they could relate to them , they said I told their stories...their feelings. These words are such an inspiration only the person who writes can understand. Through social media I am lucky to make friends whom I have not met in real. One such friend ,  who is very encouraging and always urges me to start a blog like many others, suggested this name. He said 'Shraboni's rain' which I changed into 'Shrabon's' as for some unknown reason I always liked the name SHRABON. I thought the name(shraboni's rain)  is really very apt...like rain in this blog will pour down my thoughts .

Social media for me is also another world,where I don't belong, I don't exist but I am a viewer from outside. It is like a cinema, you know....you see but from outside. I have known many people through their writings,their opinions,their comments who don't know me. I have experienced their joy , sadness , anxiety without being a part of their life. Today , one such lady...who is not in my friendlist but a very dynamic personality, a very creative and lively person succumbed to her illness and left this world really early living behind a very young and loving family. Her death makes me feel as if I have lost someone whom I knew for a long tome... though I never met her,have never seen her live...it is strange how death can attach complete strangers ! Another reason for me to start my blog today.

In my writings I will write about my thoughts , about people who touch me in their unique way in my daily life , about my experiences . Even my fictions will be on people who exist in real life. I hope my readers will enjoy  my journey with me. Welcome to my world !