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Monday, May 28, 2012

It's Been a Long Time

Hello friends,
It's been a long time, but I've been quite busy. I created my own website, and I write there now!

Please do check it out at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More

Looking forward to your visit and feedback. thank you!
LGL

Monday, March 5, 2012

Rivers Reborn



Hi everybody,


It's been a long time. Hope you've all been doing well for yourselves.

Just wanted to give you a few updates. I quit my day job to follow my dream and become a writer (God I sound like a precious little hero when I say this)

Apart from other writing projects, I have also taken up blogging again. But Rivers I Have Known has a new home now, and a new Avatar. Rivers is now at WordPress, and it is now a blog about books, which are my first passion, and book reviews, which I have always loved to do.

Rivers will also occasionally have guest reviewers to review movies, music, and art. But mostly it will be me being me.

I hope to see all of you following the new blog. I had a lot of fun writing for you, and I would love it if we can continue our journey together.

Visit me at Rivers I have Known at Wordpress. Leave your honest feedbacks in comments, and don't forget to follow.

Thank you,
Amritorupa (Little Girl Lost)


Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there!

Friday, January 27, 2012

Internet Memes, or Why We are Moving Towards Comfortably Dumb

If you have spent any significant part of last year wasting time on the internet, you will probably know what these images mean:
The concept of meme, introduced, I believe, by Richard Dawkins, means an idea that replicates itself in the minds of other brains and spreads very quickly. The Internet memes, aided by the invisible superpowers of the net, have lit up its unproductive nooks like a forest fire. You can understand their almost addictive appeal- they don’t need you to do any thinking, any idea that can be described has a template of images to describe it in, the celebration is not of the new and the unique, but of the comfortable herd.
It’s not just the internet and not just the memes, anywhere you look you see a gradual dumbing down. The TV channels that used to show music ten years ago now show young people having cussing contests. The newspapers that once gloried in brilliant editorials today have nipple expose scandals as front page news.
I realize how judgmental these words sound, but that is not their intention. Being dumb is not per se bad; it may even have become a requirement. What if we have gotten as wise as is evolutionarily feasible, and now if we get any wiser we’ll be jiving our way to extinction like lemmings. Perhaps a herd mentality and a low intellect are precisely what are needed for humankind to continue thriving? It will certainly bring down suicide rates, destructiveness, wars, and all other dark spawns of deep thought. It makes me think of the dual society in HG Wells’ Time Machine. But no doubt its better for people to watch Roadies or browse 9gag for hours rather than plot murder, mayhem and/or self harm.
Hello everybody. Sorry for this pathetically bad piece of writing. I haven’t written in years and I am creaky. But I plan to write regularly, hopefully daily now, show I might be able to shed off the years of gathered mucus.
Thanks, all.

Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there!

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Tonight we drink to heartache




Tonight we drink to heartache, and we can't get drunk enough

You crush each individual grape between your toes.

Your eyes are numb as you sense the juices flow.

And we curl our fingers around your momentary love.

We lay down in your coalstack but we are not warm enough.

You crush each individual grape between your toes.

Each lover kisses your drying blood to life before he goes.

We hold your head steady in your pool of eternal love.

We light ourselves a fire around the secrets that you grow.

Each moment is eternal that you crush between your toes.

And before you bury us we hold you long and deep.

Eternal is a moment in your drunken dreamless sleep.

Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there!

Monday, March 14, 2011

tor kobita shombondhe amar motamot



Tui hoyto bhabish je tui agun.

Tui hoyto bhabish je tui jhor.

Udiye niye puriye diye jabe

Tor kobita amar e shohor.


Hoyto tui nijeke bhabish pakhi,

Kon shokal-e ghum bhangabi shobar.

Hoyto bhabish ekla samurai,

Kobita tor motto torobaar.


Tui jetake bhabish sheko beesh

Ashole ta makha chirey-dudh.

Lekh tui tor joto icche, tobe

Acid bhebe chhetashne ar muut.

Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there!


Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Ami Prem-e Aro Hasi Chai

hasi maity-r jonno-


Morche pora
Pagla Heera,
Shomoy bujhi paltalona?
Sranto-olosh
Albertross,
Tai ki chhero nijer dana?

Krishno heere,
Tomay gheere
Jolche koto neon pakhi,
Jolche koto
Shonar pidim,
Konta feli konta rakhi?

Duiti hasi
Pashapashi
Ekti heera ekti meki.
Kolshi-r nyaye
Bhangle aamay
Prem debona tai bole ki?

Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there!

Monday, May 17, 2010


Din namcha-r anatomy
Aakash jure rokto bomi

Shohoj ruosh-e ghurche churi
Andha-mukhi, dhongshogami

Ar ekti raat bashor shajay
Ar ekta din haarai ami

Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there!

Saturday, April 24, 2010

to a commenter


Buno Mainak said...
"good,intense,tight but cliche.overused words and images crowd together....we want sum freshness from ur pen,dear"


Your constructive criticism
Does not help me grow.
I am a rodent size person
With a whale size ego.

Treat this as an entreaty
from a much pampered friend.
If you like it, exaggerate.
If you don't, pretend.







Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there! 

Friday, March 12, 2010

For Almond Eyes




I try to write
Inside my head.
I play with words all day.
I paint with them.
I sing to them.
But I cannot make them stay.


I tried to write
Of castles built
With matches, cards and strings.
Of hours spent
In slow regret,
And blowing perfect rings.


I’ve tried to write
Of why I sought
A downward curving smile.
And how we interred
A girl who dared
To love with tasteless guile.

Doing the math
Of collision paths,
And vows that sound sublime.
And motherhood
Tied hand and foot,
Sneering, biding time.

Of all of me,
Together to be
A small domestic army.
Of words that scald
My faulty world,
And blows that merely scar me.


Of Almond Eyes,
And all the lies
I’ve told to get this far.
Falling in love
With a man I thought
I’d been loving from the start.

I’m trying to make
These words behave
The way I’m perambulating.
Words are all
I’ve ever screwed
(But that’s me, deviating)


Almond Eyes
I want to write.
That’s all I’m trying to say.
I want to write
For you, my love,
But you take my words away.





Amritorupa Kanjilal alo writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there!

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Regressing.




I’m the girl who does not care
If I’m gaining weight or losing hair
If my husband has a damn affair
I simply wimply do not care.

My boss is aloof & my colleagues are mean
Stuff in my fridge are turning green.
Not a single shirt is clean
I’m not bothered. I don’t care.

My boyfriend tells me I’m a mess.
I’m the cause for my parents’ stress.
My friends all like me less & less.
It breaks my heart. But I don’t care.

I know squat about corporate law.
Cigarettes are rubbing my trachea raw.
I cook bad enough to inspire awe.
I know I should, but I STILL don’t care.

So I turned fifty last week
So I’m getting wrinkles on my cheek.
So strangers tell me I’m a freak.
Do I look like I fucking care?

And my writers block is here to stay.
So the one thing I had has gone away.
And my first poem in months reads like juvenile crap.
And it doesn’t rhyme, by the way.





Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there!

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Hiralal-er Biyer Aage Ekta Kobita

Kon hashi ta kothaay haashi, ulto-palta birombona.
Bus-er bhire hothath dekha buuk-er khaajer uttejona.

Udor theke pitthi hoye uttejona golaa-e othe.
Ghamchi ami, gilche aamay kolonkito toshok-khana.


“Biye-er porei meye-ra emon pichon theke mutoye keno?"
Aar kota mash, tarpore to kol-tola te aar jabo na…

Chobi ta ki chena gelo?


Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there! 

Monday, October 5, 2009

Prithibi-te Maash Khaanek


Bristi hole shwopnoneer-e hurhuriye jol dhoke,
Nachte gelei achhar khabi, shamle dhori mon toke.
Baranda-r dorja khana pokko haather surgery.
Kaada jol-e paa dubiye raatri jege paayechari.

Rosh paayi na bhaath-er fyan-e, rosh paayi na bisna-te.
Rosh-er khoj-e shukno manush, nidra chhanchi majh-raate.
Aar jonmer jomaano beesh daag enke deye shorir-moy.
Sheera-ye sheera-ye beesh dhelejaai, hoye jodi hok bishokkhoy.

Raat puriye bhoshmo kurai, raat furaleyi ondhokar.
Ondhokaar-e huul futiye, jonmacchi barombaar.



Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there!  

Friday, September 11, 2009

Reality continues to ruin my life...


Help! Help! Aliens!

They kidnapped my homework!!

Wish they'd take me too...
.

A slushy snow ball.

Aim tight! No! Look behind you!

Demented Snowmen!!
.

This planet can be

Magical , but only if

You have a tiger.
.
very many thanks to Kriti for the awesome link.


Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there!  

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

A Month Of Love



Things are happening.
A lot of things are happening, even as you sit on your ass and browse through the internet and wonder where all the love is.
Love is. It simply is. And if its not, at this moment, making your life or breaking your spine or rendering you useless or giving you ideas or giving you the flu or laughing in your face, then you are probably the exception rather than the rule.
Love is out there. Doing things. And never more have I realized it since the last one month, when nearly all of my close friends have come to me with some love story or the other. So, names weirdly changed, this is what I have brought for show and tell…

My friend Sash, after years of bugging me to introduce him to my girl friends, has finally found love, in the avatar of a beautiful South Indian girl. His only problem- her family hates him, because he is from a different state and a different caste. My advice to him is to be thankful she is South Indian and not Hariyanvi, or her brother would be coming after him with not sarcasm and disdain, but a butcher knife. Good luck buddy.

The Gothic Angel, a young lady I admired immensely for her very noir style of writing, her dark, dark humour, and her love of morbidity, has stumbled out of the dark and damp into a sunny field of poppies that love can be. Being a very talented person, she expresses this new discovery deliciously, in poems and prose. But I hope she is still morbid. It would be a great loss to the world of blogging if she loses her sense of irony.

Happy, has fallen in love with a girl who is much younger than him and who doesn’t love him back, and he has been, I’m sorry to say, acting like a goat for the past many months. His Lolita has him twirled around her fingers. This week, he found out that she has been lying outrageously to him about most things. But he will not believe. No he won’t. I just want him to know that I’m really sorry all this is happening to him, but he needs to take charge of his own life. People can take advantage of you only as far as you let them.

The grasshopper, who had been ditched by his girl several months ago, insisted on staying in touch with her, contrary to my advice. He said he could not live without her, could not fall out of love. Well, it was fine till one day her new boyfriend picked up, and told him to bugger off and stay away from his girl. GH spent the next few days reeling with shock, humiliation, and misery. Let this be a lesson to all of you- never call up people who have ditched you, unless you want to invite them for your wedding.

My friend Kit lost her boyfriend of 8 years in a very avoidable accident. She was telling me one day on Gtalk about the doubts she was having about their relationship, and whether he was really good enough for her, and how she knew several people who liked her who were smarter, better looking, and more sensitive, and also how she really fancied a guy at her office. Well, he checked into her account that very evening, and went through her chat history. Well, you can probably imagine the rest of the story. No amount of groveling apologies could rescue their relationship and induce him to stay. Kit is today a very humbled, very lonely, very miserable person. Moral of the story- do NOT share your password with your already insecure boyfriend.


Nirvana’s love story is straight out of Ekta Kapoor’s worst nightmare. He loves this girl and she loves him back, but she has been in a relationship for the past eight years, and though it has been long loveless and dead, she cannot leave him because when she was a child, her mom left her dad for someone she loved and now though she respects what her mom did, she does not want to follow her footsteps, and she loves her dad a lot and her dad loves this other guy and blah blah blah bleggghh. Don’t worry, none of this made any sense to me either, so I told him that the only way for him to swim out of this psychological quagmire is to hire somebody to have the girl’s first boyfriend picked up and castrated. I even offered him the number of such a ‘somebody’, but good advice is never appreciated. Sheesh!

Closer home, LGL has shifted to a new city, a new job, and has moved in with her (same old) boyfriend. And she is a much wiser little girl since her last post.

LGL is wiser by this grain: A stuffed bunny will take five minutes to wash, but 2 days to dry..



A lot of things are happening, even as you sit on your ass and browse through the internet and wonder where all the love is.
Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there!

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

What The Hell Do YOU Know About Heartbreak, Little Girl?


She used to say
It’s so girly to cry.
So I’m trying not to.
Trying.
Not to.
Cry.

She felt like home.
She felt like the mountains and the forests and the rivers back from where I come.

And you tell me, Little Girl, to make a nick in myself and let all my sorrow leak out.
What I’m trying to tell you, Little Girl, please listen, I’m not lost.
I’m not lost.
I’ve only lost my map.


For my friend the Grasshopper who cried all summer.
Photograph by Bokom.


Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there!