Sunday, March 7, 2010

Is there more to chats than meets the eye?



I was trying to be persistent, inspite of kicks on the butt and pokes to my sides, I was seriously trying to be persistent with my routine. Infact had slowly started getting comfortable with my work-studies-walk-studies-dinner-sleep-work routine!!



But the itch does take over in the end. The nag that simmers and is shoved behind the daily chores, finally reaches the boiling point and overflows with all its gusto at the moment when you are most susceptible.



Something similar happened to my blogging. I have been away from my page for a long time now, have not even replied to comments and thanked my readers, I plead guilty. But with just a pair of hind and fore limbs and with kids who are gleefully riding the wave of independence, I am at a serious loss of me-time and that is the only reason I can offer as justification.



But what drove me to this page then? What strain of thought boiled and over flew while I was preoccupied? What made me rush to my lap top early today morning to key in this post? Well, all in a minute guys..



'She sent him kites'.. thats how the story starts. The story of Miyage and Snehomoy. A mathematics teacher from a village in Bengal, India and a girl from Japan. The story traverses twenty years of their life through their letters to each other. It is surreal in it's innocence, tragic on a materialistic level, fulfilling in a soulful way. The Japanese wife, I read it a few days back, and could not let go of its fragrance. Through my daily chores the characters lingered, played, wrote letters to each other, fell in love, married, lived an almost normal life apart from the solitary fact that they never met.



It happened over borders, transcending swollen rivers and mighty forests, time and age, sickness and solitude, images of a smile that remained as enchanting since the first photograph carried by a postman, inspite of accumulated laugh lines and numerous crows feet over the years.



The days of pen friends are gone. The changing times have given us access to chat rooms, gtalk and texting. We no longer put pen on paper, no longer do we have time to play with words, to delve into their beauty and lyricism. The restless wait for the local postman on his creaky bicycle is over. What we have instead is a green light against a name on gtalk and a ping!!



A lot of men I know chat with strangers. While their wives sleep, they test waters as well as try their limits. What are they looking for? Are they just killing time? Stimulating their brains(above or below the belt) from the sanctity of their homes? Or is there a Snehomoy lurking behind every man? Wandering through meandering courses in search of a companion, whose omnipresence is so comforting that the actual meeting becomes unnecessary.



This is not a book review..this is a culmination of a book that I loved and an incident that occured.

37 comments:

Aparna said...

Welcome back.

I will refrain from commenting till you let me know whose chats inspired you to write this one. And I have met my share of those men too. More about them in my chats with you. Looking forward to them. ( the chats, not the men.)

Gymnast said...

Hey..

Good to see you back after a break.

Monogamy.Is that really possible in a long course ? Is that our natural instinct?

If people feel trapped in a marriage and bored of the same person after years with them...isnt it natural ?

I suppose it is , but the stronger at heart supress this natural instinct..

Suraj said...

I missed your blogs !

I guess most of us are never satisfied with our present and we try and change it only to complicate things or to realize that the past was better :-( The same applies for human relationships( to know the unknown) but then i believe that strong minded people like Miyage does exist even today !

Unknown said...

Welcome back! Glad to see you after a break. The way I look at it is that we're never quite happy with the present and always harp about the past being happier. The same applies to human principles as well. Yes, there are girls like Miyage who exist even in the modern ages. Btw, don't forget to catch the movie by Aparna Sen with Raima Sen and Rahul Bose. It releases on April 9.

R. Ramesh said...

suuuu hey nice to c ya back.. thought u had given us up 4 good..hey who told u abt my secret story...me too chat with lots of blog friends..yes i was sitting next to my wife and was chatting with a canadian blog female friend..but no malice..no nothing..omg anything wrong or what?

Balachandran V said...

Monogamy or even marriage, if you look at it objectively, is a social institution. I do know if there are any single man or woman, though married happily, hasn't yearned for another person of the opposite sex, however briefly it might be. Where societal sanctions are rigorous, they remain in wedlock; in societies of the west and elsewhere, they indulge in extra-marital affairs. No society where there are sanctions on monogamy and marriage is free from it. Perhaps it is the 'tied down to one' feeling that arouses this tendency in humans! :) . To me, there is another aspect involved, that of deception. What I can never understand how one can lead a double life ( I know a few friends who do)full of pretension. Unless one gloats on deception.

R. Ramesh said...

just 2 add a truthful spice to the story..i have adopted this canadian friend as my sister..well, i know society will laugh..already so many told me, what brother sister nonsense? u r bluffing...welll, who will know better than me and she?

sujata sengupta said...

If I said your chats.. do not provoke babe! looking forward to a green light next to your name!

@Gymnast it might get boring after a while and ragged at the edges, but so it does with every relationship, we dont go around changing our brothers and parents do we? Its just that a lot of options creates a lot of confusion..


@Suraj good to know that you missed my blogs. I hope you are right, a favourite poet of mine says..a tiny room becomes the world when two parts become a whole.. the catch is that theres no fool prrof matching code available with people!

Thanks akshay, I will surely catch it, hope it will live up to the book.

@Ramesh why the panic in your voice? Your canadian sister hmmm!! good good, I am not smiling ok..just rolling on the floor laughing!!

@Bala it takes courage to be true, that was a prayer we sang at school, now I know what it means, it really takes a lot of courage to be true to ones own self, the rest dont even matter really.

Kavi said...

Welcome back ! Its some break that you took !

There isnt more to chats than what meets the eye. Eveybody knows whats in there ! Dont they !?!

:)

Great to see you back !

The Holy Lama said...

Testing waters... Good thing, I don't chat

Vineeta said...

A very difficult topic for men :D Coz they will never ever agree to this!!!! But yeah bottom line.. its so very true :)

Destiny's child said...

First thing, I want to read the book which made you think so much :)
And while I was new to chats and chatrooms I met a few of the category you mentioned. Must say, it was NOT AT ALL interesting.....

sujata sengupta said...

@Kavi trust you to nail it bang on with a smile!

@The Holy lama its quite a waste of time actually.

@Vineeta dont we all know it only too well.

@destiny's child forget being interesting, they are silly and beggarly to the point of being funny.

BK Chowla, said...

Good to see you back after so long.
I ,for one am no great chatter.

Anamika Sureka said...

Hey....welcome back Sujata.....
I think i am one of the biggest chatter on this planet alive...will surely would like to read the book.:)

Sumandebray said...

Its perhaps better not to meet in person...... but offcourse it depends on what one wants and what are the limits!
By the way watched a movie on relationship ... Antoheen. Which reinforces the fact that stumulas doesn't necessarily come from being physically present

nsiyer said...

Was missing your posts. Too long a break. Marriage consists of two words - marry and age. The trick is not to age and be young.

PNA said...

I'm thinking, why is the grass always greener and a thing called satisfaction elluding..beats me:)

Hey first timer and right time again
:)
Ashes

subu.ps said...

Whatever you said might be true.
But it all boils down to the chemistry between the couples !!

sujata sengupta said...

@BKC its good to be back into the circuit.

@Anamika Sureka aha!! so what kind have you met in the virtual world will look forward to a blog post on your experiences!

@Suman Deb Ray I saw Antoheen as well, though it did not strike as much a chord as The Japanese wife did, but still it is on the same lines..

@nsiyer thank you for saying that you missed my posts. I am glad to be back too.

@PNA welcome to my page. Hope to hop over to yours soon. we are an unsatisfied lot arent we!!

@subu PS and you are saying that chemistry can be judged over chat rooms? I think people are just to scared to come out and talk, express their love or lust, they just hide behind their screens and fool around

Nona said...

Nice to see you back in action.

Where do we confide our darkest fear? Is it with our spouse? If so, then we are lucky. If not, then I guess we all need a Snehomoy!

More than the serious topic, I liked the way you construct the sentences. It is beautiful and loaded with emotions. For eg: "The nag that simmers and is shoved behind the daily chores, finally reaches the boiling point and overflows with all its gusto at the moment when you are most susceptible."

Excellent writing!

R. Ramesh said...

hey that was a good quote ya- mark twain , " If I had more time, i would have written much lesser." thanks for sharing...

G S Pillai said...

What a way to come back, Sujata!

I think I can relate to your characters. Remember when I asked you not to underestimate the short text?

I too shall be going into hibernation from blogging for a while now, but hopefully it wont be too long before I can be back to writing regularly again.

Stay safe.

Kavita Saharia said...

Recently one of my very close friend told me that her husband has shifted to another room after the birth of their second baby who is few months old...the great excuse is that he needs his sleep so that he can work better in the office .She tells me that she knows that he is always busy chatting till wee hrs with others(women of course).Its heart breaking .We ignore and hurt real people around us and look for solace(fun) in cyber world.

I don't know what to say ..

sujata sengupta said...

@Bluebird please explain now the strength of short text!! Innocence fascinates me, and I am idealistic/naive enough to believe even today a relationship can exist beyond the realms of physicality, and so the book touched me.

@Kavita what do I say to this, I am not shocked because I know this is rampant, but every time I hear of such a thing, my stomach just feels like its sinking into a pit. This is the ugly side of technology I guess!

Sucharita Sarkar said...

Loved your post. Can identify with the loss of me-time, because I've been suffering from that, too.
Can identify with the lingering, life-changing effect of books.
But chatting is alien territory to me...I hate opening up to somebody whose face I can't see!

R. Ramesh said...

Su... keep up your wonderful sense of humour ya....heyy.joke is i was abt to say sister Su...then i got scared u will ROFL...so jus hi su..tc :)

Urmi said...

Very nice and interesting post. Keep writing.

Debopam Chaudhuri said...

Thank got you are back.. was missing you in some ways..
porey bhalo laglo..

indranil said...

every relationship how ever vibrant has an intrinsic boredom and hence "we look before and after and pine for what is not". i have my own take on realtionships but guess as a past avid chatter in yahoo rooms,it catalyzes the spice in your marital life.


((I am sure kunal basu has totally forgotten his Mechanical Engineering and now fully devoted to literature to bring in the topping for the bread which he brings home by teaching at Oxford. i do remember long "adda's" with kunal da and group during the heady days of JU and his out-of-box perceptions. would like to see what special appearance he does in the film of the same name releasing this April.directed by aparna sen with rahul basu playing snehamoy.))

Roshni said...

Wonderful post! Made me nostalgic about my penpals! Truly, today's kid will not know the thrill of receiving a letter after days of waiting!

I also took a bloggy break and its good to be back!

Anil P said...

Change is a constant, a metaphor even, to our own inability to stay the same.

And there's very little to stop us from putting pen to paper and waiting for the postman on a creaky bicycle.

sujata sengupta said...

@Sucharita maybe we are a bit out of league with the "chatters" of today!

@ramesh making everybody your sister is also shady ok!!

@Babli thanks dear

@Debopam Chaudhuri thanks for dropping by, it always feels good to be missed.

@Indranil our perspective on life is as different as chalk from cheese, and yet your take on life is envious ! To be a part of life and to enjoy it without getting pulled down by its oddities is a trait that I admire. Hows your USA trip coming along? heard that theres a shortage of stuff at the hard rock cafes because of an avid buyer!!

2Shaye ♪♫ said...

My dear cyber-friend, I have missed you. I haven't been that great about blogging the last few months with my schooling coming to the most difficult point (which should be over by this weekend).

In regards to your post, I think the we find many things that can take away from our marital relationships. Chat is only one of those and it usually hurts the other spouse more because there is communication and intimacy involved with another person...an exchange that affects feelings and moods and other matters of the heart.

Some people think that if it doesn't happen "in person" that surely it's all okay -- that it's okay to play house with another man or woman if our spouse doesn't know about it. I happen to believe that some of our deeper troubles come from the pretend world when we realize we cannot have what we *think* we want. Learning that pretend is not real can cause all sorts of emotional issues and bring great anger, as well. And I just have to say that it's certainly not only men who end up in this place. These days so many women find their way into this world when they are lonely at home. I hope they all find their way back to the love they committed their lives to. Nothing's better than the real thing. Some of us just have to learn that lesson the hard way and there can be redemption and forgiveness on the other side.

I know this wasn't a book review, but I still had to see if I could purchase a copy of the book and would you believe it's out of stack here at Amazon.com?! I also had to make sure I distinguished between this book and another item on Amazon named "The Japanese Wife Next Door." Ha Ha!!

I hope to be reading more from you, sweet Sujata! :hugs:

arvind said...

worth try a correspondence..
me use to sit long hours to draw a letter - atlest to make it so interesting..

not a ping and reply!

just have a taste of it..
u may fall in love with ur - POST MAN!!

arvind said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8atR6ZvR90&playnext_from=TL&videos=JXVC02ynP7A&feature=rec-LGOUT-exp_stronger_r2-2r-2-HM

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