To be sad......peacefully

It's rather strange how man remains to be the social animal who takes pleasure in forgetting things that bring him great sorrow, and end up smiling all the more when his heart flutters against his chest begging him to shed a drop of tear. The more he runs away from his sadness, the more he excels in his performance to keep the show on. A kick in the gut reminds him of his losses and he desparately gulps down liquor to burn it out. A memory must be a fond one. So has somebody said.... some crappy stuff like fond memories bring the light the other days around me.... But it needn't be so.... memories are most often a sad one. I do not overlook the contributions of optimism in my life, but all half glasses inevitably share the obviousness of being half empty. Must it be so?

Ahh... a man as I started saying is allowed this. Not a woman. She is not allowed to be sad. If she is, she is most reassuringly surrounded by a masculine arm promising her to guard her against all of this. In fact, the more sad a lady is, more appealing is her nature to a man. She attains a different level of affection in the eye of a man. He enjoys a secret adrenaline rush of being her knight-at-arms. Her Don Quixote!

Strange huh? ....but that's how it usually is. Yes, usually.

Logic.... impractical.... what?

I find it so strange that I shall be leaving my mom in a couple of weeks. Four and a half may be. Never have I stayed a day without her around. And now, with Ba gone, I am leaving her all alone. I do not know why I am so persistent in going away. May be I need a break. May be I want a good career. May be I had considered other people's benefit in my going. May be because my dad had gone down himself to get a stamp on my passport from the Canadian Consulate. (You could say the visa office.) I miss my dad. Terribly. And now, I am going to miss my mom too. But I'll have other things to do. What about her? What will she look up to?

Ba, please take care of ma....till I come back.

Broken

I don't quite know why I am writing in here now. I logged on to orkut but well, didn't quite feel like scrapping people. What is this? Some shit? "Scrapping"??? How come what I write to you becomes a piece of "scrap" to you?

Shit...why am I like screaming? I don't know. You know what I wrote about myself in orkut? I'll tell you: "Its like a brick in the wall. No matter how low or high the wall is, you take out one brick, and the entire wall crumbles down. A rubble of red, intact bricks. So close together, touching each others very existence.....yet not the wall that they used to be. This is what happens when you take out one brick from the wall. I am one of those bricks now....used to be a wall. Don't remember when."

That brick that I am talking about, is my dad. Somebody took that brick out of our wall....and now, we're all lying on a pile of red rubble.
Me and ma we seldom talk. Even when we do, we're talking about how much she misses dad. I hate that kind of conversation cause- I don't miss my dad.
The worst part is, when you cant cry. Day light hours mean you are supposed to rush for your office. Once in, you can fool around doing what you are being paid for. Even if you find some time alone in the corner of the washroom, you find you are not in the mood to cry. On your way back you might find the tears planning to well up when the cars beside your start honking... Getting back home, reading the morning paper in the evening, a book...or may be a movie, and then you have your dinner, finally-- sit in front of the machine. Night crying is inadvisable as far as I am concerned. Why? Oh well, this region below my eyes ...right the place where I already have huge dark rings, it gets all swollen up. Ma gets to know I cried, and starts worrying. Asking me to forget the incident, and start with an effort to stay merry.

Can't always understand why she cant see that I am happy, I don't leave a single instance to laugh. To go out for a movie, share a couple of drinks..... Hey ma am happy. Don't worry about me, just look after yourself.... But shit, she'll never open up this blog of mine and go through what am writing. So, never mind.....

The worst part is, when you see nothing else has changed. The newspaper boy who never comes on time, is still late. Me and ma still come back home around 6 in the evening. Esplanade and Chowringhee is polluted still the same, and Rajabazar is still as congested as before. The pipelines that were being laid at Manicktala, has now shifted its loci. It's free-school street now.
But there's a difference. There's no one to call the newspaper guy and ask him to deliver the papers on time. None to enquire about- when I would reach home. No one to cough the black pollutants out before retiring. No one to ask where the "free school" in Free School Street is. :)

Every day before sleeping, I wish, at least something would change tomorrow that will make me stop thinking about him..... I wish for once I can touch his cheeks the way I touch this shroud of unhappiness around me. OK, as I write in here I realise I am unhappy. Very unhappy. But I laugh, I eat black forests, I do my office, I watch movies, I type in text messages, I try striking a conversation with ma assuring her that I am fine now.

Sometimes I wonder how it would feel like to actually be another red brick in a red junk of a broken wall. Just as how it feels now?

“What is a Pope ba?” I asked my dad.

“Not what, but who”, ma replied.

It was strange that both my ma and ba knew who the Pope was. Little did I know that by the end of that day, I would also know who he was.

Whoever he was, he was supposed to come to our place in half hour or so. Probably ma was preparing something for him to eat, and that is why she was in such a hurry. Di was helping her too.

Okay, I was proved wrong.

The Pope was not coming to our house… rather his car would go over the main road in front of our building. ‘Pope’ was Pope John Paul II. And I would be considered fortunate if I got to meet (see) him! My 8-year-old brain ceased to fathom how could fortune depend on a glimpse of some unknown guy who called himself a Pope and not a Mr. or a Dr. Nevertheless, I gobbled down my breakfast- as it is ma said we were getting late, and that the Pope would go.

The next thing I remember is that all four of us were hurrying down to get to the main road. Ba held my hand, ma and di were coming along. Once we were outside the main gate of the campus, ba hastened his steps and told ma to hurry too… “Cha cha cha cha…. Shiggir cha…. Pope choley jabe!”, he told di. I had to run in order to keep up with his steps.

Once we reached the field in front of our house, my steps slowed down. The specialty about this field was that it was the graveyard for hundreds of old rickshaws that were unlicensed, and were ceased by the police. Through the heap meandered a ‘pa-ey haanta poth’ and that was the shortcut if you wanted to avoid walking round the field. Ba suddenly came close to me and said- “Babu hath ta dhor dhor….”

I looked up, my eyes sparkling with an unknown expectation… and I held his hand tight.

Ba half turned, looked over his shoulders and shouted to di- “Ma k niye jhotpot esho baburam, Pope chole na jaay…”

He clutched my wrist and hastened his pace, and before long, he was running.

For a brief period of time, I ran along his side. And then,… I flew.

Yes, I was flying. As Ba ran, I was flying by his side. Beneath my feet I saw the undulated mud patches…. the broken pieces of iron rivets…. a tattered tyre… all lay beside our path….

I managed to look at Ba, he was running hard….he had to get me there on time – he had promised me that he would show me who the Pope was! The gravity of his purpose was clearly written on his face. I do not know whether I had actually understood the meaning then, neither do I know the exact time when I learned to decipher the unsaid language of love that Ba spoke in.

I remember flying high, my feet touching the ground for a second, and again bumping back into the air…. I remember hearing ma’s voice at a distance – “Shunchho, orom douriyo na, meye ta porey jabey. Lege jabey…” But then, that day he didn’t listen to anyone but his heart.

There’s another thing that I remember. Pope John Paul II. A white robe, an angel like figure, a divine smile, and a pair of eyes filled with compassion…. it was as though I had seen God.

If Ba hadn’t had run that day, I’d have never been able to see the Pope. I remember still the feverish rate at which my young heart had jumped that day… the feeling of security in those golden hands…. the surety of being able to see the Pope- coz my Ba was with me.

He cant walk alone these days…. not even with his stick. I remember, there was a time when he could run…..

Bullshit

For quite sometime I thought of writing in here....just anything. But couldnt manage time... Couldnt manage time? or was it that I was so confused wid my own self that I refused to publicize that? Dont quite know....
Life has been smooth....has gone over the hedge at times....and at times has taken the long drive...but now it seems to have come to a standstill. Am doing something I dont like doing...just for the sake of not staying in the phase of "not-doing-anything" anymore that I had been in for almost 6 months.... 'sucks' is the word I would like to use to describe that phase of my life but then, am not even in the mood to use the word.

Its the same old monotony returned in a new place. Faces of people u get accustomed with for being a regular student of the institution....see them and smile....like i often use the cliche: extend ur lips. Some of them know my name...others dont bother. I never bothered....nor do so now. Most of the time am sleeping...either wid my eyes closed...else open. And when they are open my pen scribbles some bullshit on the paper.... ok that reminds me...bullshit is another favorite word of mine.
The only thing I like about that place is the campus itself. Especially so when I look at the greenery from the 3rd floor.... the winds blow through the branches....makes a swishing sound..... gently shaking off the dead leaves from them.... good....looks beautiful....

But that's it. Nothing else.

Aamar Rabindranath....

An english medium girl finds pleasure in claiming her ignorance of her mother tongue....but point out for once that she has made a wrong statement in ENGLISH-- she goes mad and starts shouting back at you. I was not an exception. As a student my Bengali was very poor, managing somehow to secure a pass marks (it was a sin to fail as my mother was a teacher, and she would under no circumstances tolerate such nonsense!) Bengali was always that one period which started from class one with a book called "Anando paath- paathmala." Although I resented the very thought that someone could be happy reading such a pathetic language with so many AAKAAR, I-KAAR, II-KAAR....etc.....etc. Never did a line start and end with pencil markings. inevitably a red mark made its way in all my lines. English was atleast better in that way, cause those colours were seen rarely, I SELDOM WROTE. I was quite confused with language.

As I grew up, I learnt there was a man who had different titles in different languages (I seldom use language now, I say lingo). And, he supposedly was a great man, a "writer" as I was told then. I asked my teacher why Rabindranath was called TAGORE in English and THAKUR in Bengali? She looked at me as if I was the rotten piece of flesh available on earth, frowning at my stupidity as to not be able to make such an easy interpretation. The answer came: "DONT ASK SILLY QUESTIONS!!" My confusion went unbound as to how a man who had different titles could be assigned a "great man" whereas I who had voiced my opinion about that issue became "silly", to top that, I had just one single surname in all languages!!

Later, my dad (the most patient man I've ever come across) told me that during Rabindranath's days, India was ruled by English Rulers who could not pronounce THAKUR, and so, they said TAGORE instead...in fact my dad even made weird facial expressions to make me understand that. My recently acquired knowledge found its use when I said DURGA TAGORE that ashtami while offering my prayers to goddess durga...

Years later I realised that day I made no mistake. Rabindranath was God no doubt. Still now I seldom read poems I like to hear my dad recite them...somehow Rabindranath has a wonderful emotion which I realise only through my dad's voice. 'Debotaar graash' left me so touched that I could not complete listening to it...I left midway...my eyes brimming with tears.

Much later, I fell in love with a man who asked me to read a few lines myself....."Ei kshan tuku hok sei chirokaal....aasha jawa dudikei khola robey dwaar..." Rabindranath again bound me to this man in a much different way. The man, whose surname was the biggest controversy in my infant world, made me realise two different relations with two different men. Both loved dearly, both loved uniquely....aamar rabindranath aamar babar porey dewa kobita chhere kakhon aamar hridoye probesh korlo...jantei parlaam na...

Love again was never as good as I thought it would be. The best part of love was when you were falling in it...knowing there was no break to stop you....no accelerator to speed you up....you just fall...freely...unbound....quite like falling from a multistoried building in the U.S. but unlike it, you did not know your destination when you fell in love. The very feeling of meeting the man you love...the man who has no idea as to how much you love him....what you could do for him....that inexplicable feeling was the best part of love. Once you are already in love...its more like you have landed in a soup.... We split. Two years from when it started.

"Nibiro bedonaate pulok laage gaaye....kandaale tumi more.
Paraane baaje baanshi nayone bohey dhaara, dukhero madhuri te korilo dishahaara...
sakoli nibe kere...dibe na tobu chhere...
mon shorey na jete, felile eki daaye?
Kandaale tumi more....."

I had no idea that, that silly man as I had thought years ago.....managed to become a part of my existence..... aamar Rabindranath....sudhu amari. Bakider Rabindranath...tader...kintu ami jevaabe bujhechhi...sevabe keu konodino parbena.....amaar babar golay pora kobita....amar sekha kichhu gaan....srikanto, indrani eder golaay sona casette.....r ta chhara.....amar hridoye lokano Rabindranath....

Profile today

As I looked out of the tiny window of the multistoried building,
I saw-----

Vast stretches --- of concrete jungle
Of red rubble --- of brick, of unseen dreams....
And, my future.
A city --- of joy, of frustration, of success, of failure.
And there I was sitting comfortably as the manager---
Feeding on my dignity, fame, and money.
Not pausing to think--- how many live, how many survive
And how many exist in this city.
These words meant nothing after my schooldays
Now, everything I did, I did, as the world wanted me to do
There was a time when I did things I wanted to do.
When I said words, which made them, smile
Words that were said without a voice----
That which would draw a smile inevitably.
A smile it was and not the mere extension of the lips
As it was, now.
Then on meeting a friend I would've extended my arms,
Or probably given a warm welcome, or, embraced
Would've sat under a Banyan tree and erase the hands of time
Drink from the same glass and talk incessantly!
But now, the very thought gave me shivers

I was a lofty official---
Living on my ego, and a seven-figured salary.
I looked at the world through powerless glasses
I moved in an AC car with windows rolled up
For, I knew, the world had nothing to offer me
Because I never saw the rainbow. Not anymore...
It was only the glaring sun, when I looked up.

Memories.....of another day?

[ I looked out of my windows to stare at the rains...]

There were the huge black clouds in the sky,

Had the monsoons arrived already?

Aren't they too early this time?

A drop here...and another there....

One on the just opened rose in my garden...

I walked out...as though it would help me take in the smell of the wet soil....

The moist air...and the fragrance of the wet earth....

Aaaaah......So familiar....yet,so ruthless!

The drops, bigger now...fell in pours....and soon I was drenched

Drenched with the memories of another day...

A day which had been so perfect in my life....

With the winds caressing the few strands of unmanageable hair away from my face....

And whispers of I-love-you....in my ears....drenched with the rains...

I looked back to see if you said anything...but you were quiet...

Staring outside...seeing the huge drops splattered on the black pitch of the streets

Did you not say anything to me, I ask myself...

An urge to hold your hand and ask, well refrained...

An urge to let you whisper in my ears....

A prayer let out silently to the clouds above-don't stop the rains tonight...

A despair....of feeling the goodness seep inside me

What a day god! What a beautiful day......

To fall in a vast ocean of endless water of unfathomable waves

....to drift away....

A feeling so dangerous, yet so desired

To know death is imminent and yet do nothing about it....

Did I remember the story of the red rose?

Of the nightingale that sung....till the thorn pieced it's tiny heart?

Wouldn't I love to feel a similar pain?

Of wrenching my heart again and draining it out

To love....and drown in your love?

Till I could feel nothing else but love?

....A thunderclap....and I saw a huge mahogany turn ashes infront of my eyes.....
Has anyone ever seen the love of gods? Would it look somewhat like what I just saw?