Just....

Nothing to write today. Tomorrow is Holi and it is my most favourite festival in the world. It is colourful and people really let loose! Celebration of other festivals is weird because it's all about the show. The expensive clothes, the rich display of lights, the elite guestlist and in case of Durga Puja, the big sponsors of these community Pujas.... the designer pandals and innovative murtis vying for the Sharad Sammans.

Holi does not entail any of that. It is pure fun. No new clothes, no great food (or is there?) I love this festival. Even if I am not playing Holi, just watching others play and enjoy is an experience.

In Calcutta, it's Holi/ Doljatra today. I think Baba, Maa, Maam, Mamoni, Papa and Bone are already drenched in colour, at least Papa and Bone are!

In these parts, Holi will be officially celebrated tomorrow but the madness has already begun. I am sitting in office..it's lunch break and I am pink (sorry...pank, if you will).. My face, clothes, chair, desk ..everything is a different colour, thanks to one of my colleagues....Rang de Gulabi!

I have already been hit with several water balloons and slapped a kid for throwing water at me in the last few days.

But, although I am a little irritated with all the colour on me right now, I am happy!

Oh, didn't I say that I had nothing to write about. How verbose am I?

I hope I get to play Holi tomorrow.

In this Holi spirit, I shall post a poem (not written by me, of course..Although I ramble, I am no poet!), actually parts of a poem which is too long. it is not a happy poem so to speak but it teaches us a lesson in life...to let go and move on!

Here's excerpts from "Ode to Broken Things" by Pablo Neruda:

Life goes on grinding up
glass, wearing out clothes
making fragments
breaking down
forms
and what lasts through time
is like an island on a ship in the sea,
perishable
surrounded by dangerous fragility
by merciless waters and threats.

Let's put all our treasures together
-- the clocks, plates, cups cracked by the cold --
into a sack and carry them
to the sea
and let our possessions sink
into one alarming breaker
that sounds like a river.
May whatever breaks
be reconstructed by the sea
with the long labor of its tides.
So many useless things
which nobody broke
but which got broken anyway.