Pritam's Blog
All You Need Is A Little Love… And Bournvita
This lockdown has given me ample amount of time to think about a lot of things that I thought I had forgotten or at least had moved on from.
No, Work From Home isn’t easy. It’s actually more tedious. You have to be alert all the time. You never know when the phone will ring.
Also, because there is no one around to supervise you and ensure your productivity, the onus is on you to show that you are actually working. I usually end up working 10 hours every day.
So, it’s not like I am not working because it’s WFH and hence, have a lot of time to ponder upon my otherwise extinguished past.
It’s just that the daily fight with autowallahs isn’t there anymore - something that used to exhaust me more than any sort of work at office. That’s a great relief.
Also, a lot of mindless, cursory conversations are not happening and that’s saving a lot of my time and energy.
Hence, I have time to ponder upon the debris of my broken dreams.
Like today, after a 3-hour meeting, I was so exhausted that I couldn’t help but think of the time I wanted to become an artist and paint the cafes of the world, sing love songs at pubs, and write stories and poetry about free-spirited people with no names. I wondered… actually, I wished I had chosen that life and not this one…
If I have to sum up my aspirations and expectations from life before I met Pallabi, it would be, simply, “Books, Booze, and Boobs”. It’s because of her I have given up on these, become more practical, and chosen this balanced bohemia instead. I don’t regret it.
But then again, these are hard times and keeping your sanity intact is becoming difficult with each passing day. Probably, that’s why I indulged myself in fantasizing about choosing the other life.
After a while, reality hit me. Irritated, I got up. I felt a sudden urge to have something sweet, preferably chocolates. I picked up my mobile phone to order something but then I realized I can’t wait. I NEED IT NOW.
Then, all of a sudden, another vision from my extinguished past popped up in front of my eyes. I ran to the kitchen, grabbed a bowl, and took some Bournvita in it.
And as I savoured the Bournvita, in its powdered form, curled up on my bed, the room dark, and a movie playing on Netflix, she messaged, “Kheyecho? Truffles theke steak order kore dao. Onekdin dhore khaoni…” (Had food? If not, order steak from Truffles. It’s been a long time…)
I realized even this life, the one that I have chosen, is so beautiful…