Sapitals

The history

One dark, rainy afternoon (or maybe it was a perfectly dry afternoon—I don’t remember), I noticed that I had developed a habit of using capital letters here and there, a habit I had not had in the first fourteen years of my existence. On deeper contemplation, I realized that the habit had been acquired as a result of long association with a certain Ms. Deyasini Dasgupta who had induced it to me.

So, when she came online, I decided to make her day by informing her in a sentence that I had got capitals from her.

However, one little quirk of destiny—(finger, rather)---ensured that the sentence would make history.

Me: I’ve got sapitals from you!

Now, I could easily have put a *capitals in the next line and drawn an end to it, but for some reason, I didn’t. Let’s see what she makes of the word, I thought.

Sapitals? What are sapitals? A volley of questions ensued immediately, which made me resolved not to correct the mistake at all. It occurred to me that an unknown word like that could imply various things for various people, and it would be fun to see how different people could interpret the same word differently!

Thereupon, ladies and gentlemen, began the Grand Sapital Quest.

The quest

So I set about to collect meanings for the word. And the more I did, the more amazed I was at the variety of the answers I got. But I succeeded in tracing a pattern in most of the replies, and it became rather fascinating to watch for the underlying patterns beneath the answers, and how the answers revealed something about what kind of the person the answerer was.

Now, the job wasn’t all that easy. Many people I tried to chat up went invisible, muttering curses. 
On certain occasions, I got accused of being "high", but at least I got answers! Some chats earned me questionable compliments.

 me: Hey!

ramyajit: hello

 me: I don't even know you: but still, will you mind if i ask you a very weird question? If you aren't busy, that is.

...[chat ensues]

 ramyajit: hmm.....u know u r a bit strange.

“A BIT strange”? Should I be happy that he mentioned “a bit”?

I suppose I should be thankful.

Out of self respect, I leave out the insults of the three girls, one of whom called me mental, another accused of whom accused me of "pressurising the volatile mind", another who informed me I was "spamming her for the 17th time" because my SMS provider goofed up.

The meanings

But nothing can daunt Lady Roy that easily. I did manage to collect 19 meanings (spending about 35 SMSs, and one ice cream in the process). 

So here follows the list of all the answers I got--

      1. Devpriyo:

Taal kheyechis konodin?

 Oi je 3te khob thake? [he meant taaler shaash]

Those khobs can be called sapitals according to me.

:)

  2. Rohitashwa:

They are obnoxious brown coloured noses, which when let go from a height, do not follow the laws of gravitation, but soar upwards and fly away into the night.

  3. Rohan:

Scandinavian mermaids.

 [Deyasini added:  As enchanting as Circe, as tender as the whisperings of the pines, as beautiful as the sunset from the peak of the high mountains draped in furs of snowy white...]

 4. Deyasini: 

Sepia hints of melodious prosaic poetry in words and thoughts floating gently in the wind and flying with the clouds, etched on the fabrics of time, and represents vaguely what your feelings are..

 5. Niladri :

 I would say it is a state of mind...when you are not sure of something....u feel like u want it but not sure if u deserve it....

 6. Sumit: 

Sapitals i think must be referring to some kind of person whose decision making capability is questionable.

 7. Ratul:

 A struggling guitarist!!

 8. Koushiki:

 Capital sapiens, rather, the awesome beings that we are..

 9. Shuvroda(or is it Shubhro?):

 SAP bole ekta company ache, tader capital investment division er naam hote pare.

 Ba Mittal er natir naam Sapital Mittal.

 Or...swapner taal gach. 

 10. Amrita:

 It could be another word for ascent of sap.

 11. Adrija:

 Semi capitals. You know, when you're not sure of your punctuation, and use something an between small and capital letters!

 12. Sohham:

  Me thinks it's some sort of green gooey plant juice. Works wonders for boils.

 13. Prithviraj:

 Well, to me it means going nowhere. Small capitals. They've got to cancel each other out, right?

 14. Aditi:

 A wet slimy snaky slithery something?

 15. Barnamala:

 Sister of capitals? Maybe when a region has more than one capital, the other extras functioning at particular times of the year, they are termed as sister capitals or sapitals.

 Or maybe the petals of some rare, sepia-coloured flower.

 16. Ramyajit:

 Er, it could be the name of some plant part.

 17. Poudhi:

 A new galaxy to be discovered by me!

 18. Debayudh:

 Something related to literature, like a definite metre used in a poem.

20. Sreyam:

 A very strong laxative and cure for constipation, 15 long trips to the bathroom a day - Guaranteed.

The future
You are entitled to question exactly what I gained from this whole process of lunacy. And honestly, I don't have an answer. But hell, it was fun! What more reason can anyone want?

However, I have lofty dreams regarding the future.

me: i'm always trying to articulate things and never cusseeding!

 Riddle: cusseding. yes, i can guess.

 me: new word!

  yay!

 Riddle: right.

 me: Typos are good things!

 Riddle: we are making new words very frequently these days.

 me: I like them!

 Riddle: yes, sometimes.

 me: Sapitals, cusseding...we just need a few more typos and then we can write a dictionary.

 Riddle: well, you are on the right track.

  just keep this up.

 me: It will sell like hot cakes1

 Riddle: in all likelihood.

 me: And...we'll have all the money we need to buy processors for our band!

  And then we can make superhits!

 Riddle: Right. that will be very nice.

 me: And then our songs will sell like hot cakes too!

 Riddle: yeah.

  And we'll be rich,

  good.

 me: And we'll give the money to you, so u wont need to get into 9 to 5 job!

  And we'll all live happily together ever after!

Restlessness III

Am I spelling the word right? That's the third time I spelt it. I'm sure I've got it wrong this time. Jamais vu. (Or maybe I spelt it wrong right from the beginning!)

Warning: Anyone who looks for coherence in my blog right now is a dimwit. Go somewhere else. I am just taking my restlessness out here.

So, weeks gone by, and I still have nothing to do. Mum won't buy me a Physics book. I'm tired of asking her. Dad won't get me an sms card. I shan't ask him any more either.

One of my friends just smsed to say that he is going for Physics tuitions from today. I envy him. Sigh. I want to go to a tuition too! I want to study, get scolded for not studying, catch myself daydreaming when I'm supposed to study and then scold myself, and hide story books beneath text books and read them furtively. And feel my heart jump violently whenever anyone enters the room, grin sheepishly at the person if it happens to be Mum, and make a display of the very fat and erudite volume of Chemistry that I'm reading. Where is the fun of reading Agatha Christie first thing in the morning if there is no one to catch you at it and shout their lungs out? Story books seem more a lot more enjoyable when you're not supposed to be enjoying them, just the same way Hide 'n' Seek tastes doubly delicious when you have them mid-class, passing them under the desk to your friends while Sarbani Aunty blabs on and on about Cotton Textile Industries.

I have Amitava Ghosh, George Eliot(no, not Silas Marner), Thomas Moore, those complicated-named authors whom I can't spell (Dostoevsky and so on), and Maxim Gorky to occupy me. Yet, I'm unoccupied. To what extent can you read on and on and on? Before the Madhyamiks, I wouldn't have believed that it is possible for any normal human being to get tired of story books. But now I am, and I don't know what to do about it. Riddle's comment on my last blog was scary. But the thing is: I dunno how to spoil the day and treat it like my only child (or whatever it was that you told me to do), I can only let each day slip through my fingers the same way I did before the Madhyamiks. And there is no regret at the end of the day, no fervent plan-making for the next day...nothing.

All of my friends are in the same condition as I am, and yet I am the only one who is getting so restless as to post three consecutive blogs on the topic of restlessness. I wouldn't blame people who get tired of these posts, as if I myself am not tired! I wish someone's birthday or mum-dads anniversary or something similar would come up. Then I could at least get busy making them a gift. No such chance till May! :-( Why do all my friends have their birthdays in the same season? Its not fair! Birthdays should be scattered all throughout the year. And people should have at least two birthdays a year.

Okay. High time I stopped ranting to myself. I've just realised that I have never posted a single picture on any of my blogs. All my friends have. I think I shall end with a picture.




I wonder who is going to have tea there. Perhaps it's a table laid out for two people who are meeting each other after a long, long time. They don't even know that they were friends at one point of time. Suppose it's me and Deya. We haven't managed to open the joint xerox shop after all. Through the years, we have drifted apart, and we are living our lives to the fullest. She is the head of the leading advertising agency of the US. I catch rare insects in Canada, and do some professional photography. We don't remember our childhood in India. It has grown to be a series of blurred colours, and we don't have time to splash those colours into our present lives. We have no time to look back; we only know the way forward.

She has contacted me for some photographs. She needs them for her advertising agency. It's a strictly business-like affair. Our meeting has been arranged by some people we don't know, at the spot where I am supposed to do my bit of photography. (Interruption: Why the picture looks so cosy, I don't know! People hardly have tea under such circumstances! Well, better not try reasoning, coz it won't get me anywhere.)Nowadays, whenever I see a beautiful scene, it has grown into my habit to photograph it. After photographing it, the second thought on my mind is to utilise the photo somewhere professionally, to gain some money. I don't know when I stopped photographing out of love, and started doing it out of habit. But then, I'm a professional.

She's a professional too, and we have agreed to meet at 9:00 a.m. sharp. The table has been readied a few minutes early. Soon, we are going to arrive. I am never late anywhere, so I shall probably arrive a minute or two early. She will, too. And maybe we'll spend the extra minute warming up to each other. Maybe she's going to face a sudden problem with her contact lenses and will have to take them off. Maybe her eyes, as I knew them in my childhood, will stir something in me. Maybe my toothy grin, something that I have carried unknowingly from my childhood into adulthood, will stir something similar in her. Maybe something will go wrong suddenly, and unwittingly set something right. Maybe I shan't want to photograph my surroundings all of a sudden, but just drink them in with my eyes and my soul. She will make a comment on the surroundings that will suddenly make me wonder....! Maybe we shall recognize each other, maybe we shan't...but...at the end of the day...the meeting will change us somewhat...change something in our lives. I'll go home and look up my old photo collection that has grown so dusty that I can't recognize anyone any more, and she will try to remember if she really did lose her old diaries...


Okay, okay, okay...I really got carried away. Nuts! It's 1:50!! Bang, and I land back to reality. Sorry folks, restlesness does strange things to people. I'll take a bath now, thank you. And do some diary writing. I hope Jupiter has something good for lunch.

And don't be scared away from my blog by this post. I promise I'll post something coherent next time!
:-)

Restlessness II

Restlessness has reached an alarming climax.

I cannot sit at the table throughout the lengthy business of eating. I take one mouthful in my hand, roam about while I chew it, and then come back to the table to collect the second mouthful. And I ate only half of my lunch today. Got too impatient.

I wonder what I'm looking forward to? Nothing seems to be happenning.

Oh, Monday, hurry up!

Restlessness I

Restlessness is not nice. And life's not all that nice either. I hate both my parents and Prithviraj and Rohitashwa.
Everything is bleak and dark and gloomy. Nothing seems to be working well. I think I shall take up Calvin's principle. "Nothing helps bad mood like spreading it around". Wise kid!