What makes a real man?

Its not every day that I am in this mood. This mood makes me realize what this life has given me and what I am giving back in return. This mood doesn't let my words get influenced by my parents, sisters and friends. This mood makes me speak truth.

Every true man, once in his life time should have wondered what composes a real man and I consider this as my beginning.

I have thought in every imaginative way I could think but still I feel I am far way from the answer. When one thing in your life changes every thing and brings shadow on every thing else that you have done, it is really hard to get your mind work the way you want.

Once in my life I have been a very successful man, so much that I have thought I wouldn't need any thing more. That was long time ago. Right now? its kind of very difficult. So much that I have no words to describe it.

I am just 27 years old, and already success and failure in my life has been so distinct that it could stretch any man so wide apart, to the extent of killing. And yet I have survived the initial impact. Of course the side effect is making me an immoral. So the question of the hour, does this dynamic nature of man to observe all happiness and equally all sadness and still move ahead in life makes him a true man?

I guess, it is not what is inside me but it is what I do that defines me!


Subho Deep Ghosh

Title song

This is the title song of this blog.



Subho Deep Ghosh

Trip to Lower Granton Road

Finally I got some time to publish some of my pictures. These where taken on 16th July,2008.


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Photography by Robot. Sandhia Prabhakaran (MSc in Robotics)


Subho Deep Ghosh

What I hate about a day!

When one thing changes every thing and brings shadow on every thing else you have done so far... believe me its really hard to embrace.

Right now, the best thing about a day, at the end of today is that. Tomorrow, its starts all over again .... joking! That's what I hate.

If this is it, then what have I been doing so long (since 30th May)? Well, why bring trouble on those who repeatedly refused to understand when I had a valid reason. May be they did, may be they dint. Their silence is making it more difficult for me.



Subho Deep Ghosh

Guest Book

Guest Book

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My Short Stories

My Short Stories

This is going to be the place where I am going put links to all short stories that I publish in my blog. The content of these stories are written by me and original. Please do not copy this.

Please read my Terms of Service.

If you have anything to say here is my Guest Book.

Story Name

1. Requiem of my dream Incomplete
Description: About my experience.

2. Food Shortage Complete
Description: Expedition

3. Blistering barnacle Complete
Description: Nightmare


Thank you for reading my stories,
Subho Deep Ghosh

blistering barnacle

Part 1

A few seconds is all it took me to activate and push the button.

Then came the voice of Second commander "Stand by" and the countdown began "5 .. 4 .. 3 .. 2 .. 1"

Millions of dots on the screen which until now was immobile and represented individual stars, all of a sudden became ray of light.

Flash back:
We are at the middle of inter planet war. Three of our mother battle ship has been destroyed. We lost our captain when one of their bomb was able to penetrate our control room. We couldn't take more risk. So second commander who took over after captain ordered to speed away.

Every thing was happening as expected until the security breach alarm tipped off. This means CODE RED. Code red signifies the situation when we put every thing that is available from man power to guns to any thing, even a rod that can kill has its mention in the war manual, to bring the situation under control as soon as possible.

My duty as the security chief was to confirm the alert. No wonder why my security badge says

Security Chief
Some thing or the other!

As I looked at the Alarm screen, with my experience I knew some thing was wrong. I said "FREEZE". FREEZE has a special meaning in the war log. This is a special command which basically orders every one to stop doing what they are doing and prepare for the next. This is applicable for every one on board.

I picked up the alarm and murmured my self "What's this?". "What is this?" voice of second commander. Well, at war when a seconds delay can prove fatal this is not the usual type of words you would expect from a officer.

I replied it says 'Donkey get up'. Second commander ordered two of the men to assist me and rest to proceed to the junction point, armed!

I thought in mind this has a very strong familiarity with my sister. When ever my sister steals some thing in my absences she always leaves behind a resembling mark, so that I know she has been there. I guess she thinks her self as some sort of legend of all thieves.

Does this means she has been here? What did she do? what else she could have done? is that her who triggered the alarm? is she on board?

As thousands of such questions raced through my mind ... the other officer said "whats that? I have never seen some thing like that before?" Almost instantly I replied back " Thats a cell phone you nuts". Their face went blank. I couldn't understand what is so damn about a cell phone? I mean, these days even a child has a cell phone.

It took me a while ...

Blistering barnacle!

am I dreaming in my sleep?

Part 2

My usual way of getting up from the bed is to jump of the bed in single try. It's a routine that I have been following for ages.

It all began when the owner of the field gave away the ground to a foot ball coaching center. The coaching camp operated every evening from 4 to 6pm. That was our time to play. Being the only field near my home we were left homeless. Only way to get around this was to join the camp. I did and so did many of my friends. We had our own camp inside the camp. It was fun.

Life at camp was tough. They spent every seconds to teach us how to be the next foot baller. We began by playing football. Slowly the training picked up, in four years time. We not only played football, we talked football ( leg pain, back pain after match), dreamed football ( Nightmare), drank football (extra protein), saw the life through football (I would occasionally dream about football at night and kick my sister thinking her as a football, when I walked on the old street by chance if there is a stone on my path.. that has to be kicked off!) and most importantly I incorporated the rules of engagement in a football match into my life.

I could no longer walk strait as very man walking on the street appeared to be my opponent and I had to dodge them. If I had to cross a brick I would jump like, I am jumping over a man. I stopped wearing black shoe for canvas shoe, to be always ready. It was a whole new life inside a life.

That was childish. At the age of eight you cant find any thing better than this.

Part 3

Both the hands stretched apart, one leg crossed over the other. I began my morning push up. Soon my breath became heavy, mouth opened wide and tongue almost out. I thought thats enough for today.

My computer's power button is broken, so I used the pointed side of the pen's cap to switch it on ( my power button needs to be pocked!). There was insufficient light in my room so I stretched my left hand to reach the curtains.

When I looked at the sky, I thought, is this real? The dark clouds which completely covered the sky almost made me believe I was still dreaming. For a second I thought this is November, when every morning I woke up to see the sky ....

It is some times so amusing to see
how your mind plays with you
with some thing that you really wish,
if it could really happen!

~ THE END ~

Subho Deep Ghosh

Requiem of my dream

Requiem of my dream

Chapter one: The sleep

I almost jumped off my bed when I heard that loud voice. Its none other than my mother! She was inquiring if there is any thing that she could do so that I begin packing my things. I am going to Uk in 3 days. Being in a boarding school all my life, I was under the impression that I am a master when it comes to packing luggage and leave. Well, thats not a complete lie. I do pack my things very quickly. I learn it from my grand father who was a colonel in British Indian Army. It's just that I always forget some thing or other.

Following 2 days was very boring for me. I became very lethargic. I couldn't focus my mind on any thing at once. My mind was completely flooded with different imaginative ideas. The thought of me being a foreign educated kept bothering me always. Once I even thought of being a cobbler. Why not? an intellectual person being a cobbler, how creative that would be!

It is September 7th and the heat out side is deadly. After long hours of sleep I looked at the fan's blade to see if it was still rotating. Long hours of sleep in this hot afternoon made me so tired that I couldn't help my self, I slept back.

In the evening I went to see my grand mother. She is 88 years old and lives with my 3rd uncle in our inner building which was built up on our courtyard. Looking at her, her eyes drew my attention to the Almira which stands right in front of her bed. Due to her old age she lost partial eye sight 6 years back. Some times she looks to the opposite direction and talks. I always take due care to make sure she is looking at me while talking. Not to mention I find it funny to do this. It dint take long for her to understand the 'funny' part of it. So, these days she looks strait at the Almira and talks. That Almira is a Pandora's box to me. It has a small secret shelf. I wouldn't mind opening that shelf now to see if it still has those Rs.1 coins which she used to give me secretly to buy chocolate when I was 7 years old. I was sent to a boarding school at the age of 8, so I really still dont know what that secret shelf looks like.

Back home, the moment I switched on the TV. The electricity went off. Damn, being in Chennai for so long I forgot Barasat is still a village with few extra high rise buildings since my last visit. Fortunately, dint had to sleep without fan. Thanks to our old fashion inverter.

Chapter two - The Departure

Twenty fours hours to go. I thought well, for once let me begin packing early. I have already bought the suitcase, most of the things that I am going to carry are already dumped on a separate bed. Every one in my family does this. If we are to go on a long trip, few days before the departure we start dumping all the essential things that we would like to carry into a common place. This helps to prevent leaving behind things.

I thought this should be an easy job. I quickly made a pre-departure plan. I am going finishing packing within five hours, evening I am going to spent with my old friends partying, whole night I am going to watch HBO and then I am going to surprise my parents by leaving at 4 am (4 hours before schedule time). My parents are kind of old fashioned. They would prefer to wait at the airport/station for 2 hours before departure than arrive right on time. I hate to do this, why spent 2 hours waiting at the station when a 5 overs match can be completed in an hour, isn't there a point in my argument?

I suddenly remembered, I have given few pants for alteration which I forgot to collect. Those pants suits me perfectly but thinking this is going to be just another hostel life I want to be on safer side, so I decided to reduce the waist size by 3 inches. Hostel food always kept me fit; home food makes me ugly. I looked at the watch one hour to go before 10 am. In my locality shops dont open before 10 am because if they do then they pay more tax to the local political parties. I call it free style tax because there is no VAT on it.

It was just another ordinary day. Mother made her morning tea, sat on the sofa. Father brought out his bundle of secret files out of the Almira just like every other day and began his calculation ( I call it recalculation), aided by a 10 years old calculator. After every calculation he turns the calculator to get a better reflection to see the display. In simple words, the display dont work. Anyways, who am I to interfere when it doesn't bother him? He called me and asked "did you speak to Mr. Banarjee yesterday?" Damn, now I also have to visit bank. By the time I called it a day it was 11 pm.

In the morning it was more like dumping things into my suitcase. Well, 'dumping things into suitcase' happens when you graduate from 'packing things'. The cheering screams of my mother/uncle/aunt and the sweet voice of my grand mother was working wonderfully. My father has a different approach. After working as captain for nearly 20 years he likes to have a back up plan always, probably he was now thinking what to do next when I miss this flight.

Dont pani..ccc..CCC, I am here at Edinburgh now. I caught the flight at right time, dont want to remember any thing more than that though.

I wouldn't say my pre-departure plan had lots of miss calculation. I would rather like to think it was just that there were to many unexpected external factors which stretched my plan a bit too wide but who gives a damn about what I think!!!

Chapter three: The arrival

I got introduced to Sayak at the kolkata International Airport. Although we have already spoken but never had the opportunity to meet.

Once in the flight I realised I got a middle seat. Flight was full and we were late so had to quickly squeeze into my seat and settle down.

First few hours I spent fiddling with the various buttons attached to the seat. In a 13 hours journey you got to be busy you know. If you dont have any thing to do then you certainly have the opportunity to do any thing you want. Squeezed between a 13 hours sleeping man and a lady, I couldn't really take enough brake from continuous seating. Following hours were really bad specially the last hour before landing at Heathrow. I had to twist and turn in order to put my weight on one bump in order to rest the other one.

I saw this girl ( Damn, I dont even remember her name!) walking before me, she had a small bag. I immediately offered to help her. Well, I guess that's basic instinct of a preying character! We had a quick conversation. She was from Dum Dum, a few kilometres from my ancestral home. A Bengali, travelling to Newcastle university. We dint have a common flight. I thought it wouldn't be nice if I ask her for email ID. So I gave her mine and so it was the beginning of the end. Today after 11 months, she remains the only Bengali girl I have spoken to in UK. I dedicate this song to her



Does this make you feel I had a crash on her? I guess no, there are no ordinary moments in life!.

Landing at the Edinburgh airport was as usual, pilot dint fall sleep, wings remain attached to the plane, beautiful ladies in red ( my favourite color) walked up and down the plane... what else can I expect?

But there was .... some thing wrong. Within me I was upset through out the journey. I just dint have the thrill.... was that a sign for what was to come?



To be continued...

Subho Deep Ghosh

Food Shortage part 2

Experiment on my new food continues "from my previous post Food Shortage".

My findings are based on the following theories:

- For a food to be popular, it has to be available in abundant
- For a food to be popular, it has to be multitasking

As you can see from the pictures. It is available in abundant and it is multitasking - rest while you eat.

isn't it amazing discovery?










Subho Deep Ghosh

A girl who thinks she is a Tomboy

A girl, who thinks she is a Tomboy !

I was not on the list, I was not even invited but I ended up being there.

It's 7 pm, I have both of my suitcase opened on the floor and searching for the right dress to wear. It's my first Diwali night at UK and we are going to spend the time in a homely Indian party. I was tipped off by my friend that there would be Indian girls. What could be a better chance to wear a traditional Indian dress and impress them all at once? That excitement was enough for me to trial wear both the Indian dresses I had. I would occasionally turn to Nithin for his advice.

What's the dumbest game have you ever played? I would say Blood Wars. Nithin plays it all the time! It is such a boring game that after every move, you need to wait for a day to make another move but clever Nithin found a way to go about it. He opened multiple fake accounts and for each account he hosted a new game with a different partner. This enabled him to make several moves every hour. With great difficulty he raised his head from the screen to look at me and said ' this is nice '. A few moments later, seeing the other dress 'this is also nice'. When asked which is better, he replied 'both are nice'. Bastard!

As we walked in that cold night to a meeting spot to join another group. I looked at the sky, there were no flashing of lights, there was no sound of bursting crackers, it kept me wondering how different a night could mean to people from different societies.

As we walked into the kitchen which was converted into a spacious place to host the party, I had already began counting the number of heads. Sadly, there were more boys than girls.

Every one was new to me except few of my own friends. I had this weird expectation that the party would be hip hop kind and if all goes well, in half hours time I should be able to walk away with some one, perhaps for a private party??? but every one looked so comfortable in their seat I thought it would be a bad idea to ask.

What's up with these two girls? They seems to be the busiest people in the party and fortunate enough to catch my attention. I had no bad intention though. You know, bad guys can also do good things at times.

"Can I help you with cooking?" One of the girl looked at me with disbelieve. I thought she is being nice and not expecting a guest to cook food. So I immediately said ' I am a nice cook, I can help'.

So I began frying fish, she stood by to help me, after all I am an unknown guest and me? already in to business. In minutes my preying eyes measured her up completely. Medium long hair, Kajal in eye, full sleeve black T-Shirt, ash color pant and of course she is curvy. Indeed attractive but being in the land of Blonds, I would prefer, you know!

It was a perfect night. Had good food, although all of the fish fry which I cooked was actually half cooked but she dont think so, good for me! I was really tired when I went to bed.

It was almost a week when I thought of contacting her again. She was quick to remember me. Following weeks I spent knowing her more. Mainly for two reasons. One of the reason being we had lots of things uncommon. Some times its nice to know your opposite type. The other reason being, well, if there was any way I could fit in. No, wait. Let me put it in this way, I was actually seeing if she was interested in me!

She is definitely not of the kind who would listen to you if you speak nice and very hard to tame. It took me days to plan but 15 mints to convince her for a walk. Nope, I am not genius. I guess I was lucky to figure out that she was in the mood to go out and I knew she likes walking. So, it was the right combination at right time which clicked.

Meet the commander in chief:

Once the plan was fixed it was time to execute. She gave me 15 mints to be there at the meeting place. All my request to extend the time was promptly rejected by her on the ground that if she makes it in time, being a man how can I make her wait? Oh yea. She is demanding and she would like you to behave a like a true man when you stand by her. But I had other reasons. I have always known to be a later comer specially when I meet girls. Ask Payal, she will tell you 10 such instances. May be this time it is different. While I ran like a horse to be on time I was thinking if this was same the same girl who was reluctant come out with me some time ago.

My perception of beauty is different. Nudity to me is sexy but looking sexy is not always looking beautiful. It's some times amazing to feel how small changes such as keeping hair open could make some one look so differently beautiful. I was flattered. The only other time it happened when saw a picture of Payal. Surprisingly they both belong to the same zodiac sign and they both can scream people to death... uppps.. did I just leak her secret weapon? I guess so no.

She arrived few moments later. My first impression: You have to be before her and you also have to wait for her but if you are late? you better run, you know what I mean!

Of the other things we talked, she told me about a guy in her work place who is very much interested in her and how she is trying to avoid im. That's strange. I never heard a women gossiping like that in her first meet. Did she mean she is expecting me to come to her rescue? Damn me! I am so poor in understanding women.

She made a short guy feel like a short guy when I was standing by her and she looked at me to check my height. I guess she was confused, It should be the size and not the height which matters, may be she was not aware that that her high hill shoe was just to high for me, may be the light in the street was not enough, may be ... there could be other may be ..s. Guess what? ask me who is taller? I will say ' I am'. Ask me second time I will again say ' I am'. Ask me hundred times I will still say 'its me' but if you dare to think other way around, I can kill!

Initially she had only 2 hrs time but as the time rolled so did 2 hrs. It wasn't our mistake. It was the 'time' which refused to freeze. What can we do? We couldn't abandon the fantastic moments we were spending together in that cold night walking around the city through most deserted streets and run home. We weren't very late when we reached her place at ~ 11.40 pm. Time to drop off the package.

You must be wondering how can a guy like me be so clean? Well, that's not a bad guess. I did have other things in my agenda. When I was about to say/ask "hey, uuumm.. good night kiss ?" who..whose that in the shadow? is it Spagatti? Damn!



5 things about her:

1 - She thinks she is a tomboy

2 - Wont play games (running & jumping), in case she breaks her ankle again? I know it Doesn't make sense given the above!

3 - Excellent cook. Most importantly loves to cook for others. So much that I wouldn't be surprised if she drops the idea of a hip-hop party only to call her best friends to home for dinner and spends the whole birthday evening cooking food

4 - Moody. Like every other moody person she too has a key to her mood. It took me a while to figure out. It's easy if you do as I say: show her what you want her to do and pretend that you had no intention of showing it to her. Then swiftly (with considerable time delay) take it away. Again pretend you had nothing to do and be cool. If she like it she will go for it ( be prepared, some times it takes time). Dont make the mistake of asking her. Rest, its for you to figure out!

5 - What kind of hobby can such people have? may be blogging? well, from what I know she likes flipping through videos in youtube. Very strange. To me it looks like she is one of those person who does some thing else in order to avoid doing some thing that they should/may have to do.

5 things I would do when she is around:

1 - Stand tall and prove I am taller.

2 - Prove her, I drink not to get drunk but to socialize. Some times I do pretend that I am addicted to drinks. Pretending what I am not is another (fantasy) side of me.

3 - Hold her hand firmly and run 100m as fast as I can to see at which point she starts running faster then me.

4 - Take her for a movie to watch the longest animated film ever directed. To me this is another way to commit suicide.. (being funny)

5 - Say this to her : " If you ever dare to try me again? I will break your neck"


Well, thats about the girl I meet twice in party, once for a walk. Last time when I saw her on 14th May 2008 after my Bioinformatics 2 exam. She was there at old college. Perhaps waiting for some one.

If you ask if I will see her again? well, I would be to lazy to rewrite this post again.


Subho Deep Ghosh