Homeward Bound

I am at work and am supposed to WORK. Instead, I am staring at a blank document with a blank mind. All I can hear are the sounds of the relentless typing on the keyboard, my colleagues speaking in low voices, phones ringing and the humming of the not required cool air of the air conditioners. I have papers on my desk, a blue pen without a cap, a half eaten bar of chocolate and the cold bottle of water. I lean back on my blue chair and wonder what makes me so melancholic today.

Maybe it is because winter has finally arrived in Gujjuland, without much fuss, without knocking me down with few bouts of cough and unruly cold. Here, the winter is like an imposter, comes out as the sun goes down.

Or maybe because I miss November in Calcutta. I miss the feeling of Durga Puja, Kali Puja, BhaiphoNta being over, the familiar feeling of approaching Christmas, the trips to Vivekananda Park for phuchkas. November used to bring the sunlight in my small balcony back home where Maa used to put the blankets out for sunning one last time before winter finally arrived.

My boss gives me a look with an arched eyebrow, may be its time for me to write – write about the boring job scenarios all around the planet followed by the humdrum of ‘Global Warming’. I smartly don an idiotic ‘opppss... I did it again’ minus Ms. Britney’s glam-doll-lollipop-sucking –duck-faced look and pretend to work, as my mind takes me to the lazy evening in Oly Pub.

It’s just a matter of a week. A week in my city. The time when my city dresses up, puts on some make up and spreads her arms a little wider to take in the maddening crowd. Unstoppable of energy bubble that bursts only after rueful New Year’s Day.

It’s been a while since I’ve been this homesick, it really doesn’t go too well with my feelings now (yeah, one more time, word is sucha bitch). I wanted to have cha and fish-finger in a crowded premik para of Nandan.  Wander mindlessly around the JU-r math whilst munching muri-alur- chop.

The mild winter breeze, grey skies, over bearing crowd, traffic snarls followed by the bells of cycle rickshaws. And the horns. And now, a list of my ever loving old-maiden Calcutta:

The CNG autos. The low floored buses.

The mouth watering rasogolla at the neighbourhood sweet shop.

The familiar smell of warm toast in the morning. The tinkle of a spoon against a tea cup. “You still prefer black?”

The endless fish curries. The waiting for biriyani.  The mutton rolls.

The plans changed. Times not kept.

The doorbell ringing in the morning. “Didi, aajkey oi baari tey ki hoyechhey jano? ” (“Do you know what happened in the other house this morning?”)

The news bulletins on CPM, TMC. The heated discussions on politics, ideals and beliefs.

The new literature festival. The book fair missed.

Smiles, laughter.

The walks around a park. The life that seems a little troubled. A friend’s shoulder. A patient hearing.

Evenings spent with relatives. Neighbour’s lives. Gossip. Smirks. Laughter again.

Shawls and sarees. Kashmir emporium. New Market.

Sitting by the side of a mighty river. Staring out into the open.

Dreams had. Dreams lost.

Peace. Home. Hope.

Heartache. Soulmate. Best friend.

Calcutta.

Back back BACK... you NOSTALGIA

I have spent a good part of my life in Kolkata where if I am honest, everyday has been a battle, and am still surviving. A fight for justice, a fight to love, a fight to give mercy when I have been hurt, a fight for a seat on a crowded metro or even a fight simply not to be cheated or taken for a ride by a local taxi driver. As a fighter or at least one who has had to fight to survive life in Kolkata, I have been very well equipped with weapons of war. I have a clenched jaw and a hard face that appears without my permission and a struggle to trust, a healthy fear of men who stand too close and some sweet evasive moves to ward off potential harm both physical and emotional.

I had an over-exaggerating urge to move to a city where I can thrive all alone, may be without much of these fights! The following next few months were again loaded with fights - this time with the inner demons. A battle between the two worlds of letting go! A world full of a 'brand new start' of a branded bandwagon and the other one was full of 'high hopes'. A random hunt for the 'grooviest' city and the fat cash - it continued. 

So! one day, quite unexpectedly, I chose a city where I was yet to make a bond with - Gujjuland - MY Dreamer's Gujjuland !!!! With all the stories that I heard, I made a collage of that place.

After much debate, calling my travel agent for another thousand times, checking and re-checking my checklists, folding forms, booklets, tickets, and much after carrying my favorite perfume - I landed in a city full of colors, loaded with religious differences, contrasting shades between the old and the new and a guy (whom I lost years back on a chilly night) named 'The lotus-eater'.

He took my hands and showed me the city through his eyes. Gujjuland doesn't fit seem to fit the bill at all, with it's everlasting demand from me to remain strictly alert all the time.

Season changed and so did my troubled bubble. With a lavish terrace and 'hand-picked' friends and luggage of boredom, I started venturing out in the city like a lousy traveler. I fueled quite UN-consciously, every curious eyes, every peculiar smiles from the colored crowd. 

...time evaporates and here comes Garba, the dancing act of men and women alike in mulch-colored clothes shedding all inhibitions aside. I've never been to a Bollywood movie set, but am sure there's nothing remotely dissimilar between them apart from the vanishing act of few super-stars.

As they danced and cheered with the 'taal' of 'dholak' , I stood there dumb-fucked with droopy eyes, buzzing head and heart-wrenching thoughts of my long, lost beloved 'Kolkata' . Whenever I am away from Kolkata, I impose a total media ban on anything related to the Pujo, taking a leaf out of the Government of India’s Ostrichian principle that if I bury my head in the sand and censor the flow of information about a certain thing, then that thing ceases to exist any more.

I was writing my puja post too. And it was very personal, and beyond the first three sentences I just couldn't go on (right words are such a bitch) and I was in a state of high-middle despair. It's Ashtami, dammit, when will I finish it and put it up? Which is when it occurred to me that I needn't, really, you know, put up a puja post. It's not a Pujabarshiki that I publish. Sit back. Hit 'save as draft'. Relax. Is okay.

Instead, I picked up my cell with teary eye and called " The Baul In Denims"...

 
   

...and it turned BLUE!

Sometimes the world turns stand still. It doesn't move an inch no matter how much you try hard! The emotions get replaced with a void - heavy with humdrum air and few of your past snap shots!

Sometimes a house where you have started crawling also takes the shape of an enormous jungle. Sometimes the broken fences and a room full of books become a slaughter chamber. Sometimes the green pastures at your back yard where you used to play with your lost childhood suddenly become unbearable. Sometimes, just sometimes you play-pause-rewind- replay the memories you thought you have flushed them all out of your system.

Don't need a bandage,
there's too much blood,
after a while, seems to roll right off.

...and then you meet her! The person who lives in the house. Her face bears no resemblance of someone you might have seen. Her eyes are inserted deep in her heavy tarnished glasses but no one ever even dared to steal the glint in her dark eyes. No one can fathom her age - it is more like age has refused to come to her. So she stays there like an old witch in a winter European castle. Alone. No thoughts. No feelings. No one left to blame. Just alone. When she smiled for the first time after I entered her house, it was more like those climbers which I just saw entwining her poor iron gates. One moment I thought she forgot how to smile. It gave me a shiver. Her webbed hands shivered while bringing me a glass of water. I was scared - scared to be eaten by someone as profoundly silent yet strong like her. I was in my late 20's then and there she was standing right in front of me - the mirror!

Yeah I was seeing myself in the house where I was born. The house which carries a plethora of my thoughts, my dreams, nightmares, love, hatred, confusion, solution - everything. And I am standing there alone in front of the mirror. 

  

A long pause.

Everybody has a secret world inside of them. All of the people of the world, I mean everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside, inside them they’ve all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds. Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands maybe.

Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgotten. And when I saw my reflection probably twenty years later than I am now! I couldn't help but laughed. Laughed like a lunatic - laughed as if am in a mental asylum where I am getting treated. If fate doesn’t make you laugh, then you just don’t get the joke - they say! Within a fraction of second my entire lifeless house comes to life. The house, full of children and their ever lasting pranks and banter. My mother along with my aunts in the kitchen or engaged in an afternoon gossip while knitting or sewing. My dad and uncles in the living room - discussing about the latest political upheaval over a cup of tea. My grandmother with her tooth less smile - the smile that still haunts me! At times I used to wonder how did she manage to smile so innocently every time. May her soul rest in peace - she even died with a touch of that unadulterated smile! 

I watched them whirling inside my little room. the dim light added to the extravaganza and I had no clue what I was looking for till I found him. It is the Illusionist. He tore down my childhood like a brutal animal and presented me with a life that I will regret to have years later.

My head whirled. I wanted to rest.

But I was adamant. I wanted to witness. I wanted to undo my past. I felt like an intoxicated beast. With no exit on the other side of that cursed mirror. I saw the world tinted red. He kept on knitting lies after lies and I listened to him. As if he is my shepherd and I am his sole sheep. There was this song by Denver playing at the back ground - "Country roads, take me home... To the place, I belong..." and like a fool I was travelling with him. In my heart. I saw him drinking bottles after bottles my eyes glued to his stories that used to make me laugh or cry. I saw him flirting with women, fighting with the world, trying hard like a lion to prove his point. I saw him with a face of a skeleton! I was scared, feeling claustrophobic, I wanted to run away! But guess my feet were too grounded. I felt his touch - the feel which churns my stomach now. He played with me like a magician would do with his puppet. He attached his strings to my body - mind - soul and I danced to his tune.

The stage is set. The vaudevillians are ready. The musicians are all set with their instruments. People waiting outside the theatre to witness the grand finale of the show called “Illusive Love". The crowd cheered. Trumpets rolled and enter the Illusionist. His gelled hair, strong jaw-line, muscular hands and rugged fingers greeted them like a ring master. I still can't forget the barbaric cheer of the crowd that night. People brought me on stage - the Wizard's only toy! He snapped all the threads bit by bit while humming a Hindi retro song. I was tired; I wanted to tell him the things I never sensed I could tell. I wanted to close my eyes. But there I was lying lifeless on the floor. The hall emptied every one packed up their belongings except ME.

Like a trance I woke up from that dream. My cat purred around my legs - dinner time! I checked my mobile. What time is it? Then put it down. What’s the use of time when I have all the time to say good-bye!

There's someone at the door. I wanted to deny his existence. Still, half heartedly I opened the door to find him standing. My Dreamer - my little sylvan retreat! Who says only a place can carry that charm?! His deep, dark eyes and dimpled smile acts as a dagger to my poor little heart! He hugged me and all my stage act vanished in a flicker of a second! I was there, here. In my house, with the Dreamer. 

It started raining while we clinked our glasses. "Abhi na jao chor kaar..." in the background. While we lifted the glass he smiled. I know what he wanted to say, " I have seen them all too."

...."ke dil abhiii...bhara nehi!”

Eternally YOURS..!!

We connect specific people to special images in our mind frames. The very thought of a particular person is related to his image in our intellect. The face, the smell, the sensation of that particular touch, the voice of that someone remains etched in our minds.

And memory has no age; it does not grow older with years and the passage of time does not leave a wrinkle on its visage!

As years roll by, walking down those cherished by-lanes of reminiscences, I stumble upon those old images of amassed senses, those warm passionate touches, that glowing countenance, the smell of a half burnt cigarette and a glass of whiskey.

A dark dingy room with old brown curtains and its little holes, through which the first rays of the sun filters in, encompasses my world of memories.


"Can you see the light there?" you ask me, pointing towards the dark sleepy glides across the sparkling Subarnarekha. The river's at her passionate best, shining like quicksilver on a gorgeous moonlit night. "Do you hear the rumbling of the maadol?" I ask in return. Somewhere hidden in those mysterious shades of green, grey and brown jungles, someone is offering a prayer in a language we cannot comprehend, but whose essence we can both construe—music. It's well-past dinner time; and on another night when there's a nip in the air, we could be happily tucked in bed, sleeping or talking; or perhaps awake and wrapping up the end of a long day doing little things that make us happy.


On another night, at this hour, you could be sitting next to the soft lights of the terracotta lamp (yes, the one with those little bells on its rim…the one we picked up after much bargaining from the Poush Mela that year when you played for the first time in Santiniketan) leafing through some new music reviews, or humming lines from a very old favorite ghazal…maybe Zafar, maybe Momin…or even the clssic tunes of Mohiner Ghoraguli. On another night, I could be reading excerpts from the latest Book that you bought  from Blossoms, or perhaps just scribbling over the last few words on my jotter, or just may be...playing that guitar tune again and again till you ask me to play the other lead. But on such an ethereally lit winter night as this one, wrapped up in shawls, we are both happy to be awake and to let our souls drown in what we feel happens rarely, and therefore cannot be missed—the milieu of euphony, moonlight and mystery. As the apartment lights and halogen lamps switch off one by one, and the whole neighborhood plunges into honeyed slumber, we stay awake, straining our ears to hear and absorb the distant reverberation of a rustic Santhali tune, wondering and seeking the origin of a music so secreted, yet so eloquent, untouched by the periphery of urban life or parameters of "civilized understanding". We stay awake in a trance, relishing the music, the forest fires, while the moon moves slowly and deliberately over the landscape like a seductress, enveloping and embracing the entire panorama of our vision in a mystical silver veil. We are at a strange crossroad of feelings tonight…assimilating the beauty of the ambience individually, yet together, in a way. Unlike our usual discourses, we leave nature to initiate and lead all the conversation. After all, even sharing a moment of silence with someone who can read your thoughts can be so beautiful. 

Light dims, music fades and returns….

I see the room as an unpretentious little penthouse of my very private moments and very personal experiences. I still feel that diffident air in the room that smelled of burnt cigarettes and moisture.

Even now, I picture the room in its old image, with half-opened Kafka and Richard Bach, lying on a dusty old burma-teak desk, an yellowing letter from an old associate in the drawers, butts of Gold Flake scattered in every corner of the tattered rug that was once a red carpet, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd and Fool's Garden booming from an old CD player on a smoky, dusky afternoon., broken guitar and You!

Starry eyed you, with a thousand dreams in your doe-like almond eyes.

Fiery, passionate you, with that furious Cancer rage, one that could destroy the world, your relationships and finish you!

Creative, talented you, singing "Country Roads, take me home!" in my ears.

Passionate adorable you, admiring my face in the light of a match stick one midsummer night!

Then I see us!

We sharing a sunset; we reading out pieces from Love Story together; we wishing upon a silver shooting star, we holding hands in a dark theatre watching a gripping thriller, we dancing in the terrace on a cold moonlit night to Ian Anderson's magical flute; we hunting for old tattered pieces of wisdom in the pavements of College Street, we making love in the rain!


Thanks to memory, it has a selective vision.


Memory does not age. Its images do not alter, amend or modify with time and relationship.


Is memory infinite with neither form nor definition? Unbound by time, emotions or space?


To all my memories, its images and metaphors, its senses and emotions,

Eternally yours...