Erratica

It was another windy afternoon and I was trying to make the baby sleep, humming a rather incoherent lullaby which can barely reach my three-month old. Motherhood leaves you enchanted. So much that I can spend an entire day feeling my baby’s little pink self, his curled fingers, swollen eyes and the innocent face engrossed in a blissful slumber. Yet the thought came with the gust of wind and hit my heart taking me back to another rainy day leaving my little one behind…..

I was riding my cycle on my way to college, post snow and drizzle. Most hilariously it was the first vehicle I could think of buying after coming overseas. It was only a week in college and I bumped into Navin for the first time. I have rather an impertinent demeanour when it comes to accepting my driving fallacies and driven by that I got engaged with him in a spat instead of a nice sweet apology. Following this were a few whimsical incidents that led us to speaking terms. No sooner did we become the best of pals dreaming to overwrite an already decided destiny….. We bonded over Beatles, Shubha Mughdal and imported wine, we fought over Tolstoy and Bourgeoisie and we stayed for sleepovers and elongated flight travels all the way back to home. Our talks became esoteric, our friendship ripened and love remained beneath its sheath, visible only behind a mist. We were in love only in philosophy, not in theory.

 New York indeed grows in dreams and talks of thousands of people, and the people here grow while weaving them. Indians were plenty here then, each having different destinations all of which were concurrent to the same alley. Hence friends were easily available even on foreign shores, friends whom you won’t take a second to remember and again not a second to forget. The days were running fine, the talks growing louder, the bond only strengthening day by day till graduation. Till then we had made epic advances in our growing chapters. We had spared Tolstoy and reached Marxism, we have wandered from Mussolini to Monroe, and Pinkfloyd has already grooved over the population I guess.  Only the wine could not grow any red, and thus we remained in love, not in theory only in philosophy.

Youth sweeps by rapidly and so does its years. After Oxford it was Boston who showed interest in me and Navin went to Sorbonne, by the only journey which he made secluding me, to pursue liberal arts and photography. Initially there were postcards and epistles, considering the poem which flowed through both of our pens, which flew between the continents. However priorities change with time and they soon make you realize the urge to get over an unspoken love blooming in daylight reveries at the face more crucial duties. Boston led me to Sid and Sid to marriage which gave the best creation of God, my son.

The Boston years were not a cakewalk like the times I spent in the New York attic with Navin. With amma’s faltering health and dad’s retirement, life left me few choices to remain like an elitist. I left my German and Latin courses to save pennies, started working at a consultancy to gather some more and even gave up weekly operas and Shakespearean sessions. The only non-curricular tutorial which I always managed to afford was brisk French, expecting an apparently uncalled letter form a distant Monsieur. My marriage also came hastily; though chopping the grandeur from it also took away the sense of ordeal which often comes handy with conjugal occasions.

It was my first post-nuptial vacation to 6^th Ballygunge Place, Calcutta during the autumn festivities. The city was dazzling in Durga Puja pomp with shimmering lights embellishing the rather sordid lanes, the crowded avenues giving your olfactory perception an aroma of the ethnic culinary delicacies. At these times I often feel as an erratic amidst all the surrounding hustle. And on Ashtami morning, when I was going for the customary anjali to the nearby pandal radiant in a yellow saree, that I bumped into Navin Banerjee, seven years fourteen weeks later. The rendezvous was brief indeed, lasted over a few minutes only enough to enquire each other’s well-being and bid adieu. That was exactly what we did then, though a million thoughts clustered and jostled through the memory lane later that night making the serenity outside more like an oppressive languor.

Soon after our Indian jaunt Sid and I became proud parents in the following year’s fall. It was indeed like a utopia in hand as I was coming out of the hospitals corridor to my way back home with my baby cradling in my arms and on that fateful hour I peeped into the neighbouring coup only to find my New York mate striving through his last days after combating valiantly for two long years in acute Leukaemia. It was the first snow of the season that night and long after my better half had slept in the dreams of our cherishing future which came with the new life, after receiving goodwill from friends and fosters, I wept silently amidst a shivering chill for a long-lost bond, the snow and the darkness being the only witnesses.

I often accuse myself for not being justly happy on the day my son was born. When I was a teenager, my mother often used to tell how complete a woman gets to be after motherhood and how unparallel is its essence. Amma herself was hell of a mother, friend, teacher and saviour. Thus idolizing her only adds to my guilt. I had not seen or tried to see my American cohort since that day. Only at times I have wished to hear from him or reach to him in a lone afternoon. We indeed had a lot of catching up to do. Today after three months, when I was erecting another heap of useless thoughts and futile wishes, a beneficiary of Navin Banerjee came all the way from New York to Maryland to hand me his few belongings dedicated to his dear friend on the sad event of his demise two weeks ago.

Life gives you ample reasons and moments to lament, lament about the past and for the present. With Navin I had no broken promises, no untold truths or unfulfilled duties. His friendship was more like a jest of lifetime, happy happy and happy I was with him. We enjoyed a carefree time together that were never to return. And life after that has also been kind enough to me. However even peace appears to be punishment at times as I tried to fight back the lump which suffocated my throat while opening the treasured collections of my dead amigo. They consisted of few antique French letters by Shakespeare, my twenty-something love and…… a bunch Sepian photographs of mine taken behind his lens at moments which went unnoticed even by me. I gaped at them as if the woman in the portraits was not me. As if it was a beautiful apparition of a girl who was lost ages ago in the cafes of New York. As if the girl there was waving at me and talking, telling the story of times which were vivacious, depicting someone more than me. I’m uncertain about the tenure for which that intoxicating trance was lasting till my baby rescued me from it while the twilight rays made my lap crimson. I looked at his face as he smiled and suddenly the wounds healed. I kissed him with all the love that was due on the day he was born and with that I also treasured my love story which existed only in philosophy not in theory.

Sweeping Imageries

Was sitting by the window-pane on one of the innumerable wet days of the season.  My lazy vision tried to devour the inebriety drenching the earth till the horizon. Rain reminds me of an insanity that is inscrutable in all possible addictions. Every drop of it brings to us something inexpressible in words…. May be an unadulterated love, or the touch of an unblemished relation, a relation that all share with it. We lose our tears in it, even the recurrent breaths fall in the bait it sets only to lose in the effort of keeping up to its pace….. Only the lyric stays, lyric that is composed by every mind while weaving a collage of many vibrant memories that often descend in after hour downpours…

                It seldom showers in my mind like it did that day. Yet, while glancing to the farthest juncture my eyes witness, I suddenly found dida sitting beside me with a smile that had all the years’ love which we had to live without after bidding her good-bye. She did not talk much, but asked a lot through her eyes. I brought back the primitive habit of nestling my head on her lap to let her gentle caress brush my hair. I spoke to her, like I have never spoken before. I spoke through my heart, I spoke through my eyes and then I spoke through my words. I spoke about life as it has appeared all this while. I spoke about the hot rice puddings she used to serve during the customary pujas and I spoke about the palatable pithe-s over which I and dada used to have vociferous combats debating on who will be served the first one. Invariably she never let us know which was the first one to be fried out and served both her culinary gifts that, to our much disappointment, had uncanny similarity. I talked animatedly of growing up over the years since she has left the abode and at this grinned with a queer silence which voiced that the very thought of my aging was imbecility to her. Since the days of tiny-tots my age has been a senile entity to her, I’ll always be that little. I told her about how the trees of dahlia and chrysanthemum withered the very next day of her departure and added how I missed watering the flowers that embellished our patio. Dida nodded as if she knew this all and there was nothing prodigal about it.

I drove the topics from esoteric to those which elucidated our lives more vividly. I fetched each and every relation encircling me and the silence prevailing amidst them. I told her about friendships that were lucidly penned and about bonds that entangle every passing day. I told her about life being an act of mime and she laughed to this. Yet I could distinguish a vague astonishment which was then acknowledging my transition from nursery rhymes and triplets to classic romance. I told her about my pursuit of love and how impaired it has left me at the end. To this she cradled my face close to her bosom. I also explained how my friendships have fumbled throwing people miles apart in ocean of solitude. Tranquility was much like a quest for pleasant cacophonies these days and she could not miss to appreciate my oxymoron. I recollected those birthdays sweetened by her payassam which now pose as eighteen stand-alone events of life. I continued talking with a sudden vibrancy quite unmatched to the grey that gloomed the world beyond the window. Then came a time when the downpour ceased to descend and a crescent rainbow gleamed elegantly. I pulled my head up and we both stayed speechless for a while, letting serenity to levitate the void which the years have left till this day.

The rain ended and so did the day…. Now an impervious darkness opened up kissing all over my face which was drenched by now, but not by the rain. The stillness was finally interrupted and I found myself lone again. Dida had to leave I knew. But before going she made the honeysuckles blossom. I watered them……

And it rains!!!

At 5,

Rain rain go away, come again another day

This was the song I was taught amidst my play

Little did I know while playing back then

The spirit which breathed within the mighty rain

Yet at the time of sailing my paper boat

And tracing the ripples made while its float

I stretched my hand out and made it moist

With raindrops that descended as if from a hoist.....

At 15,

With adolecence at its crescent and with fresh blood in veins

I felt an all new romance in the after hour rains

Not knowing whether it was a madness of a growing love

Not getting whether it was the peace marked by a flying dove

I drenched myself in the oozing downpour

And kept wishing always for a liitle bit more

There was an incompleteness, a raging impatience

As I sang in the rain before an imaginary audience.....

At 25,

Not the correct age to set your soul free

When maturity hasnt left much choices for a spree

But when love is the cloud thayt ushers on you

Even the dingy lanes of the wet city give the view

Of a distant abode of dreams at their end

Where togetherness is waiting for the angel to descend

He came in your form to steal my heart and bring down a bliss

All started beneath the umbrella with a beautiful kiss.....

At 35,

Now I am a woman, a wife with motherhood coming twice

Each time gifting gems to me with a feeling nevertheless nice

Now I dont sing but dance in the rain

Yelling with my kids, reviving childhood again

I stay in their games,in esoteric talks and laughter

Saying silent 'touchwood' to secure this as a perpetual chapter

For nothing lasts for ever, not even your child's need

But a mother craves for it with an innocent greed.....

At 55,

Life is slow and settled, gripped with monotony

Impending oldage humming a constant symphony

My little ones have outgrown and run to chase their dreams

With solitude replacing their presence and merry screams

Getting used to serenity has given a present though

A thrill that I feel now when it drizzles and the wind blow

Something that I have never felt before this while

I guess it was kept in store for the days when I'll be old and senile

At 85,

I dont believe in counting my days with sheer arithmetic

Instead I think of the days gone by in vigour ecstatic

With weak bones and tender heart and complete loneliness

I recall my happy days with an unmatched clarity, you cannot even guess

A smile always lingers now, at my crooked face 

That even out the wrinkles left by age and phase

And I outstretch my hand in a glee mingled with pains

Sitting by the window of my oldage home everytime it rains..... 

A Letter To a Daughter

Dear Susan,
Holding this in your hand you might just think mommy has become crazy enough to write a whole letter to you instead of just telling you during many an esoteric conversations we have when we dine.....No Susan somehow mommy could not gather the courage to tell you these words that are too poignant to float in the jovial air which we spread every night at those late hours......Susan, love, this letter will portray a side of your mother that never reveals itself.....But as the deal of no secrets was made last night.....or rather I was compelled to abide by since last night....I'll be loyal to it and to you.....Mommy loves you a lot Susan.....And she loves your impervious faith in her.....

Susan you have been more than just a daughter......A friend....a partner.....a teacher.....and sometimes even an inspiration......When you came to my life, the people who used to surround my life till then have already desserted me. With them vanished my reasons to live, my reasons to stay happy. Few others remained only to pinch me every day at the place where infidelity has bruised real hard. Infidelity that came in the disguise of all pink and love, which lingered for years in the air with a charming fragrance and then left in a harrowing black, making me ugly and my sombre.....And when this languor became just oppressive enough you came in my sordid life as the last beacon of hope....You arrived Susan I suppose not because of the laws of nature....But its my stringent belief that you were a Magi, sent to rescue me and present me a life with an all new vigor.....Thank you Susan......

The initial days with you were not easy. Motherhood was never a cakewalk, but with you it has never been a duty rather it has been an eventful expedition. Coming out of the dingy clinic with you in my lap I had nobody beside me. For a moment a seed of fear sprouted in my heart making me almost dizzy and claustrophobic. But then I took a glance of your beautiful face which was engrossed in her slumber in absolute peace, craddled in my lap. That was the first time I felt what it is like to be a mother.....The security that was etched on your sleeping face when I held it in my arms gave me courage Susan, made me valiant enough to resolve to combat with all the troubles which might come in my way of raising you as my daughter, provide you with everything that is essential to grow old, love you and be with you till, as they say, death do us apart......The dubiousness was wiped away, the unsurity sent to a distant ignore, a gust of wind instilled a fresh breath and with that I headed off to the busy metropolis which, I thought then, was waving its hand towards me, summoning to be a part of its flow. And there I went....Sorry, and there we went........

With my first salary being a very humble one, I could not give you all that was required for well-being. This pricked me all the time but you, you never seemed to have even the slightest speck of complaint. You were satisfied in so little. Your face became brilliant in surreal delight just at my one sight, my bosom was just the place for you to sleep in paradise and you made me believe that no matter how impoverished and renounced your mother was, you could not be any better than at her two room flat with a tiny balcony. Even at that tender age you taught me a lesson which even the most experienced and wise men failed to explain. You made me realize that a person who finds solace in scarcity never finds it difficult to cope with the handicaps in unfulfillment of life. Since then all the silent turmoils during sleepless nights, dealing with betrayals, heartbreaks and solitude.....Your love and faith me glued my shattered heart...Your cries, your giggles replaced the serenity that used to bother and you filled the dusk with the colours of Twilight!!

Our journey has been a museum of moments.....Your first words, the first call of 'Mama',your first birthday celebrated in a crowd of just two, your first day at school, our cricket matches, late night movies, dance in the after-hour rains........What and what not to cite....Happy birds we were Susan, chattering and chirping, dancing and enjoying. Your innocence touched my innermost wounds. Only fools say that children are inexperienced....You might not have the wrinkles of age but the absence of prudence hardly changes the fact that you have the best nurse possible to all my maladies.....Your warm kiss when I am feeble with fever, your caring hand erasing tears from my cheeks when I am low.......your massage at the hours of headache after a hectic day.....your gift as a cup of coffee on my birthdays.......the tenderness oozing from your eyes really makes me wonder in astonishment at the efficient companion you are in the being.............

Life has shown me all seasons Susan....of love, of loss, of bereavement, of frolic, of despair......I haven't been an obedient daughter, a doting friend, a worthy lover....the idea if being an eligible spouse doesn't even occur at the faintest daydreams....Yet the wonderful person you growing old to makes me bear the confidence in my role as a mother......Susan I have learnt to see my dreams through your eyes.....You make life so simple, even the most tangled riddles which life set to pose before me are unleashed so easily when you say,"Mommy what's worrying you?".....You have all of me love, my eyes, my ears, my hair and yet with every passing day I find something novel in your beauty......The most elegant part of yours is the unsullied love with which you have painted every room of my heart eradicating the last drop of despondence....and I need not share this with anyone.....This is what bliss is all about, to me.........

Words are poor representative for anything which is inscrutable and the journey with you has been more than so........Who said that my love-story was incomplete? It is you whom I have loved with all my life, unconditionally and irrevocably.....without the expectation of getting in return and yet I have got so much.....We have proceeded hand-in-hand without any looking back, showing the world what strength can love imbibe when it is elevated above all conditions.....Thank you Susan, thank you from the heart which has no bottom......
                                                                                                              Your Mommy......

In your fond memory

The first time you were gifted to me, little did I imagine what you will end up being in my life....As I cradled you in my lap that day, admiring your pretty face, with a tinge of smile as I waved my hand past you, you touched my fingers tenderly....We tangled our hands and we set off to tread together....Since then I can hardly think of a time when you were not with me....You have seen me during all seasons....vibrant during the spring of joy, jubilant at the breeze of success, ripped off by misery, pensive during a recovery and melancholic while fighting with segregation....I filled you with my senses, I filled you with my words....There you carry with yourself the black stain of smudged kohl that oozed with my tears when I suffered the first heartbreak.Like an unfailing friend you bore all the words with which I filled the space between us....There you have all the scribbles which I unleashed when I first tried my hand on poetry.........You were the only one to witness me trying to catch up Celine Dion "Every night in my dreams" at the onset of another spring in my life....And you were the only one to see me ugly and timid when fate left my hand........You knew even the darkest secrets of my life....My pleasant dreams, my secret crushes, my latent anguish, my unsaid despair....From the sins I committed to the victories I established, you had all of me!!!....You, in the true sense, are the only soul mate I can have....
I can recall the time when I flunked in my Physics test and returned embarrassed by the show of my failure. I retreated back to my den, held you in my arms and sobbed...Kid as I was then, I just pulled you closer to my chest and found solace in your surreal presence.....There was the time when the first hymns of 'Jibonmukhi' inspired me to play with lyrics, lyrics that could have been a poetry of folly for many a minds but you preserved them like ballads of our love story!! You possessed the rose petals that caressed my  face during that kiss in the rain and you contained the solitude that gripped me during the days I had to obliterate the magical ecstasy  which molded the then-so-genuine emotions....You portrayed my juvenile wishes and the innocence that lingered with them and you also express the gradual disappearance of the unsullied child who used to fly kites in the crimson of the setting sun.........Yes, I have emancipated her as she deserves no place in the museum of sensibilities.....
You gazed with open eyes the relentless trail of tangy water which were flowing freely the day my heart was bruised at Dada's demise. Only you halted for me at that harrowing hour even when the rest of my world learnt how to move on even being pulled back by strings which were voluntarily tied. There you were... There I were and there was serene night with silvery lunar dim light.....Even those years passed by......Sands of time!
I'm delirious now of those times when your mere presence was the key to my gaining hope and will for a new sunrise even in the most tumultuous storm of life. Because you had the assets of my life... Because my feelings became tangible when they were within you and you became the true imagery of my entity......
I have been  disgrateful at times, becoming oblivious of your existence when happy ripples and jovial people summoned me to mingle in their revelry. But you never took them to your heart.... You were benevolent, forgiving.....You were wonderful! You speak of my life....Even days ago as your brittle yellow leaves creaked when they were disturbed they took my name....Now that you ruptured entirely, I am left with an inexplicable enigmatic unsurity.....Where to find nostalgia again? Where to get hold of 19 long years?.....Nowhere....Because I said before....You had it all, you had all of me.......
p.s.: My dear notebook just passed away this night.....She was the truest friend I ever had.....Let her soul rest in peace within the paradise of all the love my heart can provide...People might say it belonged with me but to clarify dear ones it was I who belonged with her! Bidding adieu at this touchy hour....Amen!

Do You Remember?

Do you remember the time we first met?
Not at a distant island during sunset
Not at a dim light cafe with jazzy music
But at the crossroads of life.....So very prosaic!

Do you remember the time we dreamt with eyes wide open?

And wrote our name across the sky with imaginary fountain pen...

Dreams for you dreams for me
Dreams that were for no one else to see
To flutter with wings that spread wide apart
To collect precious delights for filling the cart
Little birds we were, in love with the sky
The urge for blue....a reason enough to fly

We covered thousands miles without being weary
Distress was the word absent in our dictionary!!!

Do you remember when we just had yesterday in our store?

The thought for tomorrow sent to a far-off ignore

And today was the time in our heart and soul

And today was the day which defined our goal
Living the present was all you taught me
And I taught you how to forget destiny......

Do you remember the time we made the world our playground?

We jumped and grinned in that happiness, so profound!

We painted the sky with crimson red and flowers radiant yellow

Touched all around with surreal magic and a scintillating glow

We nurtured our relations with love and proximity

Never letting distrust even tread their viscinity

And even if there was a speck of quandary

We held our hand during this revelry

As life was nothing but a ceremony for us

To be enjoyed with emotions so very boisterous

Do you remember the night when darkness gripped

With a mist so impervious that we nearly conceived

The myth to break free, the courage not to stay

It was then that the faith in each other came to play

We realized what wonders can hope make in reality

Because the inner self was a strength not to go in futility

Thus with you I won a victory glorious

And a belief even stronger, truly miraculous

This was how the journey was traversed

A bliss impeccable, not a single moment cursed

This was how I felt while growing old with you

An experienced that can be achieved only by a few

Even now when the wrinkled eyes gape at your dusty portrait

The wedding kiss comes to my mind with a feeling more than great!

Remembering You..........

One of those few gifted days when there is a rendezvous between just you and me......Rest all are lost in oblivion......Those few days when people around me have severed themselves from me....No happiness, no misery, just one feeling and that is you Dada...... Yes, after all, what are you now more than that, if I am to materialize? Bunch of cherishing memories, sudden echoes of masculine giggles audible in a gust of wind, trail os silent tears, impenetrable tranquility, in which exists you and only you......
You know, today, devoid of any introduction, 'King' came to my mind...... Yes that crazy dog of yours, who used to eat everything around. Didn't even spare my shoes, that schmuck. No, don't you dare frown!! And then his terrifying demise flashed before my vision.......Poor creature.......
Some days ago I was going through dusty albums seeking for photographs which have captured you and me together. After two days of futile effort of gaping at old tarnished pictures I recalled that silly promise which we made of taking no pictures of ours, thinking we will never need them, obvious of the fact of never segregating from each other.We were too hasty to define our destiny brother.Separation was a mighty joke for us back then but little did we know that fate has a nasty habit of playing pranks with mortals. It snatched your hand from mine and here I am dying to get one sight of your dear face but deprived of any. Life is nothing but an unjust gamble, a biased probability.........
This is a world weary of despondence Dada. People around you only want to see you happy, and when your eyes are swollen out of crying, when your face is wrinkled out of wailing, they do not want to take even a glimpse of that. Sometimes I feel that I want my loved ones to be happy not because of the sake of their delight but  more because of the sake of my peace. People are scared of providing compassion, too much insouciant to cry at your grief. You know sometimes I make that imbecile folly of declaring our departed relation to be surreal and every time by doing that I end up making a fool of it.......I totally accept the blame. Forgive me if possible..........
The past years have gone with the wind but things relating to you have hardly altered. Even recent times are accompanied by midnight madness, choking pathos, excruciating pain and trauma which portrays your loss.......The incurable wound......Yes it has become sordid with time but even old scratches hurt when pricked......
You went and with you went our guffaws, our delightful screams, the unsullied completeness of my life, the spectacular love, the undemanding friendship and lastly the reason to live........You know, off late when I committed a precarious tomfoolery, my friends rebuked me as selfish.......But am I that brother? Tell me am I that??? Had I been selfish I would have accompanied you to paradise the very day you set for its journey.......But I let you go and I stayed, I breathed, I grinned, I enjoyed, I lived life as we used to say 'queen-size' just for the sake of others........Then why? Why have I been tagged selfish? Just because of those very rare occasions during which the yearn to meet you surpasses all other worldly ties and I am unable to resist myself? I vowed to you that even if the urge takes a toll over me I'll not allow to culminate to an end......And I won't break my resolution, not the one given to you at least......Even then I am rechristened as a 'psycho bitch'.....Hilarious for sure.Years of pretension goes to vain....Alas!!
Even now I get wet in July in the after hour rains......Twice to be precise....On my birthday to feel the girl I was and on your death day to feel You...... And oh yes I do succeed in the effort  though the heart wishes something more than an inscrutable feeling.........
A cloud of question accumulating at the corner of my mind......may be another proof of my insanity......but am I not living enough for others and more for you, or rather your reminiscence? Only you could answer this but even the voice has perished leaving behind a helpless sister and her unfailing emotions......

Relations

What are they? Things which bind our life in some way or the other?? A bunch of abstract emotions which end up becoming the assets of our life??? Which co-exist with our entity till  its last breath ??.....Relations comprise all of the above :-) Every relations has its own definition, own significance, distinct and important in its own way, leaves its footprints at place which none can occupy......Whats more fascinating is the variety in which they appear before us.....Some formal, some informal, some of friendship, of love, of care, of warmth making our life radiant and elegant........ While others are of hatred, of anguish, of contempt, offspring of Adam's sins....... Some like that of a mother and her child are unsullied. They bloom in our life with fragrance and grandeur, offers it a new vitality and grow old only to strengthen their roots......Some are tender, passionate, over-flowing with emotions like that between two lovers. No matter how much you caress it with utmost concern, left secluded for a while it fears of wilting dry.....Some are carefree, flutter in their own vigor yet never tend to tire, never tend to fade out.....And then comes the last type in the clan that is unnamed rather indescribable.....

Often there exist a colloquy that "this relation just left my hand".......But this, I believe, is the most hilarious of all misconceptions possible......Relations never leave us altogether and even if they do their antonyms come and substitute their places.......Think of a couple seeking for divorce.........A grim story to visualize....but point lies that the moment the divorce gets executed their conjugal relation obliterates only to give birth to the relation of "exes".......He becomes the 'ex-husband' and she becomes the 'ex-wife'.Strange but prosaically true....Apart from relations that are cognate, there are some which jump from the bush all of a sudden.......much like a gusty blow of wind........They might not be perpetual in their stay but makes their tenure felt all through our life........A whirlwind affair, a stormy friendship or even an estranged brotherhood------All of them have terminate only to poke your heart intermittently..Some bring with them aroma of a long lost flora while others are accompanied by ghastly trauma.......However either case can be equated like a nostalgia felt while turning the lemon pages of your old diary!!!

And then to name the misnomer, and then to define the undefined......I speak of the last category I mentioned.......It includes relations to which we are entwined yet we do not consciously connect......What is the feel when you gaze from the window of your moving vehicle at an urchin sleeping sleeping by the pavement? Its a relation of sympathy........What do you feel when you hold the hand of a blind man trying to cross the road? Its a relation of social duty......What do you feel while watching sunlight beautifully scintillating on the ripples of a lake? Its what The great Wordsworth felt, a relation of admiration...Yes all unspoken emotions attaching us to nature, rather to everything around us, in relations which do not coin a name from the usual jargon. How intricately are they knit, yet they do not tangle-------fine works of a weaver as if. Such is the beauty of subtlety......Amazing to appreciate!!! Think from the mind of the rationalist you might feel that they are mere 'excess', enough to congest your life.... But look from a poet's heart, it is this relation with nature which might make you enjoy few idle hours of a tranquil afternoon when you are left with no errand other than recounting the monotony of life......

 And with this note I feel grateful that I can relate myself...to thoughts, to people, to surroundings and last but not the least to my own entity.......I end realizing every relation is precious, just adds to the completeness of my social being.........

Sigh!!!

It was a spring you know

With warmth after a heavy snow

With blossom and bloom

With chirp at the loom

But the earth was sordid

Not a place for the splendid

And my tears are a part of it

To mess the elegance so well-knit

Raise me up from this fall

Oh Almighty I need from you just a call

Cause to flutter in glee is its deed

Its just that it was left uncared

And a ruthless unknown was what I feared

Why was it enticed?

And then utterly surprised

To feel the bliss for the moment

And then alone it was left

Why was it summoned?

But when it did go there

You were not any near

It was left to die and famish

But Oh Almighty it’s too precious to perish

More so when it was a spring you know

With radiance after a heavy snow

I offer to every gay heart

All the delights from my cart

They might not be any more of my use

But they’ll give you content you won’t refuse

The spring to me might be a tragedy satirical

But you lucky souls should not waste its beauty, its magical

Oh almighty you might not wipe my tears

But don’t deprive the dying, ailing from their share

As far as comes the concern of my tear

It does not need any further admirer

They watch it yet don’t realize

They just hurl plaintive advice

Which in turn make it suffocate

Instead of helping to overcome and emulate

I wanted a drop of love to meet the thirst

Was this a demand too unjust?

Perhaps it was for you and Him

Though I did not want it till the brim

Just enough to make the heart not wilt

Not to make the water dry before leaving the silt

Especially when it was a spring you know

With warmth after a heavy snow

Recovery

I don't really know what to name this post of mine........Of late I've been often delivering deliberate confused statements that begin with phrases like "I don't know", " I can't figure" etc. as life is continually making me travel a loop.....But its just at one of those many moments of self-realization when pictures before my eyes are less blurred that I made my mind to write up something in this apparently passive blog of mine........No I won't blame time or pressure for my irregular blogging.......Rather it was an intense grip of lethargy added to recurring delusions that sent the pen of my mind almost to oblivion........The last month has been full of incidents.......though every day had the same sordid color of a grim monotony lingering to it, the exercises which it offered to me were always novel...This is what you might say "heights of oxymoron".....What was new to me absolutely was the changed self of mine which at some point of time , like a true lover of colors , used to paint her days with VIBGYOR even if the sky had a sheath of cloud, but now even she has become adapted to grey......*SIGH*

Life, as I always believed, is a jukebox of incidents and there was enough of it......Adventure I mean......They made me vibrant, the emotions which moulded my heart all these years rippled beautifully in it and there used to be a perpetual sunshine in the world that existed there, with the ripples scintillating in the radiance of my own Sun which, according to me, was my personal beacon of hope,courage, confidence or whatsoever........ However lately the Narnia which I so dearly preserved in my bosom was also having a season of fall.......The blossom no more touched the loom...the ripples had become huge waves of turmoil which out of an engulfing hunger attempted to devour all those which defined me......My friend Tuhin was correct.....Sometimes I tag him to be obtuse, overtly-practical but matured as he is, he correctly highlighted that I was waging a combat out of no reason, was trying to be a martyr out of no need and in the end like a true piece of satire all my efforts got reduced to hilarious futility. Impulsive is how he defines me but through all his taunts and scoldings he taught me one big lesson of life which was required to be learnt.......Its good to be complacent at times in stead of reacting to each and every minuscule issues......So having enough of all possible flavours of grief, enigma and all those eerie feelings......Its time to bid adieu and say Good Riddance!!!!!!
A thing which I realized while pondering for a moment is that all this while my emotions were claustrophobic enough to choke and mutilate me.They got saturated.Long ago I heard a line of wisdom " Every relationship has a high point of its own, but if we base our expectations all the time reminiscing those high moments, the rest of the relation is bound to despond us."As a matter of fact I was just doing that.......I fought with the sweetest person I've ever came across....I was stubborn and brash at one moment but submissive at the very next.....I was, what people say compendium of contradiction........But just before it was late enough to say never the little girl rejuvenated........She came and pulled the back of my coat.......She kissed my cheeks....touched my heart with her magic and with her tender healing touch I recovered and regained myself.....It is just this moment when maybe quite unreasonably I find contentment, I find solace even a condensed salvation you might say.....

Yes I'll rise and flutter with my wings...

Yes I'll giggle and charm with my grin...

Yes I'll love with all my passion......

And never let my heart fall short of compassion....
Just as I was uttering this mantra of the new-found vigour of life,the girl left.......I couldn't even ask her name......Who was she? An angel? A magi? Or was she just the very little child in me on whom I have unleashed ruthless atrocities out of no cause? Whoever she was, I pray she rules and rescues others in the same way.......While heartfelt gratitude is being dedicated to her,I am hereby driving breeze towards my own Narnia........I just got it back.......What?????? Sunshine, spring, VIBGYOR, melody, delight,in short......A Complete Bliss!!!!!!!

ইতি তোমার

দুটো শালিখ পাখি  ঝগড়া  করছিল  দুপুর  বেলায় আর  কবিতাটা  মনে  পরে  গেল

“তিনটি  শালিখ ঝগড়া  করে  রান্না ঘরের  চালে ”

হারমুনিউমটায়  ধুলো  পরে  গেছে বহুদিনের ………গীতবিতান খোলাই হয় না ……কিন্তু তুমি  আছ  ,আমার সাথেই আছ, আমার পাশে ………একটা দমকা হাওয়ায় ,একটা বৃষ্টি ভেজা বিকেলে ,একটু চাঁদের আলোয়…..আর অনেকখানি আবেগ নিয়ে,অনেকটা হৃদয় জুড়ে ……দিনগুলো অনেক বদলে গেছে জানো ………আগে শুধু আমি ছিলাম, তুমি চিলে, গান ছিল, লেখা ছিল…….ছিল চারুলতা , ছিল সোহিনী, ছিল মৃনালিনী , ছিল বিনোদিনী,ছিল nostalgia ……….আর, দাদা ছিল ………..এখন  দাদা নেই ,ওরাও আর মনের দরজায় টোকা দেয় না, শুধু  আমি আছি আর  আছে দীর্ঘ্য্বাস ………..আর তুমি ? তুমি  ছিল , আছ  আর  থাকবে………..

কাল গান গাইলাম বহুদিন  পরে ………রাতের বেলায়, আশাবরী রাগ ধরলাম আর বহু বহু দিন পর ফিরে পেলাম ....... কাকে ??...... নিজেকে......

জানো রবি ঠাকুর আমি হারিয়ে গিয়েছিলাম কি একটা খুজতে গিয়ে………না পারা গুলো কে পারব করতে গিয়ে …….না গুলো কে হাঁ করতে গিয়ে …….বিনোদিনীর বিহারী খুজতে গিয়ে …….দৌড়তে গিয়ে , বড় হতে গিয়ে,শিখতে গিয়ে, উপরে উঠতে গিয়ে………আমি হাপিয়ে গেলাম, হেরে  গেলাম আর তারপর যে গুলো তুমি শিখিয়েছিলে সেগুলো ভুলে গেলাম……..ভুলে গেলাম গান করতে …….ভুলে গেলাম উড়ে যেতে……ভুলে গেলাম  “তোমার খোলা হাওয়া লাগিয়ে পালে” গা ভাসতে……..

এখন আর  পঁচিশে  বৈশাখে আমরা সবাই নাচ করি না আমরা তোমার সুরে……..বড্ড ব্যস্ত কিনা …….শুধু তোমার ছবিটার সামনে এখনো দাড়াই  মাঝে মাঝে আর ওই গানটা খুজি “যেদিন পরবে না মোর পায়ের চিন্হ ” আর তখন খুঁজে পাই তোমাকে, দাদাকে……..মনের শান্ত অচিন কোনে…….

কলকাতাটাও পাল্টে গেল পাঁচ বছরে অনেকটা………তবে একা রাস্তায় হাঠলে এখনো ভালো লাগে……..তার কথা মনে পরে, তার হাথ ধরতে ইচ্চ্ছে করে……..চিঠিটা এখনো রেখে দিয়েছি রবি ঠাকুর……….এখন পরলে হাসি  পায়…..কতবার তোমায় জিজ্ঞেস করলাম দেওয়ার আগে ঠিক করছি তো…….আর তুমি হেসে গাইলে “প্রাণ চায় চক্খু  না চায়”…….বহু দিন হযে গেছে……..বাক্স বন্দী স্মৃতি গুলো এখন হাসির খোরাক ছাড়া আর কি ? শুধু ধুলো …………

তবে এখনো যখন বারান্দায় দাড়িয়ে বাতাসের সাথে মিশে যেতে চাই কি একটা যেন ছুয়ে যায় রবি ঠাকুর……….কি বলতো ? কে জানে…..বোধহয়   তোমার সেই “অতিথি” …..”তারাপদ”……….এখনো ইচ্চ্ছে করে ওর সাথে হারিয়ে যেতে…….অসীমের উদ্দেশ্যে অজানার খোজে…….বোধহয় ও হাথছানি দেয়………কিন্তু আমি এখন আর উড়তে পারি না যে ঠাকুর………বিহন্গতার ডানা গুলো কেটে দিয়েছে………পায়ে শেকল পরেছে …..সে হযেছে " খাঁচার পাখি ”……..কিন্তু তার তো উত্স “জীবনস্মৃতি”……..তাই তার প্রেমিক তো হবেই সেই তোমার ছেলেবেলার “বনের পাখি ”……….তুমি ঠিক বলেছ “সীমা আর অসীমের মিলন অপারগের মনের সপ্ন ”…….

তোমাকে বলিনি রবি ঠাকুর এখনো আমি রাত জাগি, ঘুম খুঁজি , গান খুঁজি……….বালিশের কোলে মাথা রাখি না……..গুমরে কেঁদে উঠি, আর কাজল  ভাষা অশ্রুর সাথে জলকেলি করতে করতেই আমি হাত বাড়াই………আমি ধরতে চাই…….এক মুঠো স্বপ্ন……..আর সেই “বনের পাখিটিকে” যে ধরা দেয় না প্রেমের খোলশে, চিঠির শব্দে কিংবা উথলে পরা আবেগের জোয়ারে ভেসে আসে না আমার কাছে………

তোমাকে এখনো বুঝতে পারিনা রবি ঠাকুর………তোমার অনেক কথার সুর খুঁজে পাইনা ……..কিন্তু যেগুলো ধরা দেয় আমার মনের চার দেয়ালে…….সেগুলো আঁকড়ে ধরে থাকি …….কারণ সেগুলোই তো হলো আমার “বেঁচে থাকার গান”…….আকাশপানের মধুর চিত্রলিপি এখনো ধরা দেয় মনের খেয়ালপটে…….আর “সাদা মেঘের ভেলার” আড়ালে  এখনো দেখা দাও তুমি…….আমার রবি ঠাকুর ……….আমার প্রানের পথিক……অনেক দিন পর গল্প হলো…….লেখা হলো….আর সবই হলো তোমার আমার একান্তে…….

ইতি তোমার,

খাচার পাখি

And yet I dream again….

A serene idle afternoon of the metropolis……. A pensive hour on bed…….The soothing breeze kissing my cheeks…..A fading hum of a known melody…….And then I thought as I drank the wine of solitude…..The rhythm of life……”The Rhythm Divine”…….

When we first learnt to walk

We stumbled but then rose back again.

Little did we give a thought

What a lesson this effort taught us then.

To fail and to seek a chance

To watch success even though for a glance

When hopes are broken like brittle glassware

The sting of defeat pricks us hard

In spite of that we nurture, unaware,

                Novel thoughts only to discard

The sordid saga of hapless misery

                And gain as well a quick recovery.

When the last time I broke my heart

                With the endless trail of pungent tear

I hardly knew that months apart

                A smiling face might just appear

Not only to caress me with a healing touch

                But also to set an end to my search

And just when this thought was sinking in

                You set my heart free from your bond

Again came back the tale of ending

                Of which, by now, am quite fond

Because quite well I’ve learnt the lesson

                Never ever to cease dreaming again

The world might not be surreal enough

                But you don’t gape at it when you weave

The intricate knits of imaginations

                Which are the only things that never leave

So I see with eyes wide open

                My fairy tales get wet in the last hour rain……

A Miracle

I didn't used to believe in it.......but it just happened with me........A Miracle!! Though just once you but it was profound enough to change my life entirely.......
Many a random incidents happen in our life  almost every passing day........In fact every passing day is an incident itself.........It is just that when such incidents leave their footprints on the road of your life that you realize not only their impact but also their existence.......
Honestly speaking, now I surely believe that even the very next moment of life might have something unpredictable in its store......You never know!!!!
It started like any other day.......late rising, a cup of tea, a short while of study, a long chat on phone, a trip to JU, a yummy phuchka meal and then perhaps the most trivial thing of the day an auto ride.......But halt was it just that?? AN AUTO RIDE??????!!!!!!
There sat a lady beside me in the auto along with her relative.....She had her own story to say....a sad story, to be precise,of illness and demise...........Yes of her own demise due to feeble financial conditions that are not immune to expensive and deadly maladies....(Really even life shows its true colors in terms of money!!!!! *sigh*). Sitting in the shrunken pillion of the auto, I could not help but overhear her mourning......It touched my heart and returning home I wept like a freak thinking about her......It is just then I made a call to share my grief with the person who is meant for this purpose and with whom I interact for the umpteenth time that my life took a different course all together.......
I cried my heart out to him and patient as he is, he consoled me and made me calm only to give me the rudest yet most inevitable truth of my life.......A shock will be a better word to fit in.....
As I was sobbing and panting he coolly drew a comparison......of the sympathy that I feel at the death of a human and the apathy which I show at the brutal murder of an animal for the sake of our culinary delights.......CONTRAST should be more apt.......Nevertheless, I was left dumb-founded.....He drew a picture....a rather sordid one.....of sins and resurrection..in simple words.....He shot back interrogations as to how we usurp the right to kill other creatures bestowed with life on His will but his questions were unanswered......and then, with the calm modesty that is so akin to him, when he equated my entity to that of a haughty scoundrel, I was only left to lament.........Seriously, the turn of events still now baffles me,keeping me speechless........
A self-eroding despondence followed my lament and I drank deep the wine of repentance. As a repercussion of all the regret, I took the vow of my life.......I took the path of abstinence......a difficult one but at least it promises to be bereft of guilt........
Clarifying the miraculous part of this tale........The miracle lies not in the conversation, not in his advices but in him..........  I owe my virtue to him, the savior of my conscience........And I don't mind being indebted to a miracle......Thanking this miraculous friendship from my heart's core, I bid adieu!!!!!

Being A Woman

Obviously I’m writing this today at the end of the much talked-about ‘Woman’s Day’….Nevertheless when I started pondering about my own womanhood for a while, it was a bunch of mixed feelings that gripped me……..It was a journey down the memory lane, a reminiscence, a realization and above all ‘It is what my life is all about’……..

Firstly to begin with what does womanhood mean? How is it like being a woman? How do we women strive in the ‘patriarchal society’? Or is it the story of our valiant achievements in spite of facing the handicaps of being the weaker sex? .......... It is none of these things and yet it is all about these things. A woman no doubt plays many roles and plays it well….. She can nurture as a mother, care as a sister, support as a friend and love as a lover……..She is a soldier, a martyr and a creator……. yes the creator of life…….And this perhaps is one of the greatest achievement in a woman’s life as what can be more beautiful than being able to give birth to a life…..Even the almighty has been prudent enough to give this magic only to a woman, not that I’m being blasphemous by questioning his capabilities…… I hereby take pride as well as a humble bow…….Long live my feminity

Coming back to my own story……….Yes it has been amazing…………I have played only a few roles among the many that a woman does and yet I have learned so much and loved so much………A sense of completeness grips me here.

Like any other girl I have grown up seeing my mother. The fighter that she is, she has raised a family with love and care and yet made me what I am today….. Mothers are always an inspiration. So not being an exception, my mother has taught me to love to live and to endure…….The last lesson has a tremendous impact on my life because for feeble mortals like us the only thing that helps to strive through this life is endurance and for a woman this lesson is unavoidable. When I was a child, my mother was more like a protector…….She was a cocoon within which I grew…….Over the years her role transformed to a friend or rather a support……. The cocoon ruptured and the worm that was once in a slumber was taught to fly….And now that I’m growing before her eyes she herself is maturing as a woman in this new-found definition of motherhood…….To be honest, this is another beautiful yet astonishing fact of womanhood……The variety of roles that remain under the veil of a single one…….

Apart from being a doting daughter, perhaps the most significant part of my womanhood lies within my being a sister. Friends close to me know about my late brother, who in the short period that he lived, have nurtured me to become a lovely individual by doing many a wonderful things…… Bountiful I am to God for gifting him to me and despondent on the same note for snatching him away from me so ruthlessly….. His haven might have been segregated from me yet he still lives and breathes in my heart…….For I know and he knows there cannot be a better abode for him than the place where my soul resides……He taught me to love , showed me to play and showered me with care………..Yes he remains an intrinsic part of my womanhood, of my entity…….

Till date, if you ask me one role in which I have been the best, I bet it is as a friend…… And that is just because I have been blessed with so many lovely friends…….. Friendship is the beginning of every relationship, as the adage goes. And what is a woman if she is not a friend? She is non-existent. A woman befriends her parents, her husband, her children and above all she befriends her own self….. So without you my friends , life would not have shown me so many vestiges of colors. My friends have paved the way through the thick and thin of life. When I lost my brother it was you Jeba who hugged me to your heart and had it not been your healing touch I myself would have departed by now…….Had it not been all you beautiful ladies, my schoolmates, this girl would not have learnt to grin and giggle and combat through every battle………For we have bloomed together and we will charm this world together……….Long live our friendship……

This was my story……….very prosaic and yet so dear, at least to me…………My gratitude to every woman who has shaped my life and every man who has admired it………Just praying to fit well in all the other roles I am yet to face I bid adieu!!!!!!!!!

A Winter Sermon

Here comes the much-awaited winter
With joys for some and some left to suffer
It rips off the blossom and paints with white
Though honeysuckles grow with indomitable might
It covers the nature with its silvery cloak
As people come home to reunite with folks
But winter isnt the season of cold and plight
As Christmas makes life charming and bright
There far away the churchbells ring
While gifts are exchanged and children sing
"Oh,Holy Lord Jesus Christ
Let your benevolent hand stay upright
To usher blessings and spread glee
So that our miseries start to flee"
And next in line is the New Year
Lets all embrace it forgetting our fear
Of what made us sad in the distant past
Live up the present while the merriments last
For when the monotony of life will return
You wont regain these joys by taking a U-turn
So here i leave a message to all
That winter isnt only the season of fall
It marks an onset,a new beginning
As well as essays a happy ending
It teaches us to enjot life to its fullest
While combatting with griefs and mental unrest
Brace urself up for this festive spree
And collect happiness coz its always free :-)

A Letter To Be Delivered

Dear bro,
Usually I start my letter inquiring about the ‘pink of your health and blue of your mind’…………but this time I won’t go for it……….I am fine…….doing great……….growing up and so is the world around me. In the hustle and bustle of life, I hardly get a chance to recall you……….Bad sister is the epithet I can earn for  this…….No qualms.
It’s been ages since I’ve met you………. five years to be precise……Yes I know all those questions that will be jostling in your mind had you been reading this. So I’m going to answer each one of them…….
1>No I haven’t become a fatso (:-P) though I’m still ‘pleasantly plump’.
2> No I’m not tall enough……. rather obscenely short to some extent.
3> No I still don’t have a boyfriend :-)
Do you remember the last time we met it was at that same weary railway station? A whole different time it was…….Our annual family gathering, the picturesque Siliguri with all its flora and cool breeze, the late night chats, those loud ludo-games(yes you have to accept, even if with a frown on your face that we shouted like urchins ),the ice-creams that the two of us secretly had renouncing our remaining cousins, the innumerable fights, the sessions of ‘no talks and silent glares’ and the consequent sagas of teary-eyed reconciliation.......Yes those were the days we lived for each other. You know, even now, when we are miles apart, all of them complain about your unjustified biasedness towards me…. When you were near me I took it for granted, as if I was meant to be special, but today I admit how proud I was actually of your ‘unjust inclination’….At this point my nostalgia cannot help itself from ringing a bell for all those mischievous ventures we undertook and then beautifully managed to put the blame on someone else’s shoulder every single time (*Giggles*)…..Real jerks we were eh!.....
Then came with a bang that tall girlfriend of yours….the innumerable telephonic conversations that made me red in jealousy and anger (yes I was envious after all she took the man of my life)…….In fact I even hurled curses at her and when she deserted you, though your pathos were beyond watching, I felt a tinge of happiness and relief deep inside my heart. After all you were an entity who was not worth sharing…Amazed to hear? I can see your smile J
What was the name of your crazy dog which used to get overwhelmingly excited watching me? Well it used to chase me the entire house dude unless you yelled …….Crazy creature it was……And exactly how many days were you severed from your pocket-money when you boiled all the fishes of your aquarium by keeping its heater on? 7 I guess…You were one freak!!
All was fine until then……You were there with your king-size heart which cared for only one person on earth……Me…..And then the next scenario that flashes is the small cabin of a local hospital……a bed……your DEATH-BED…..where you were lying in absolute peace…….29th JULY…….9:30 a.m. ……..MASSIVE CARDIAC ATTACK……….All this while we were playing ,the world being our playground, and the next moment I’m lost in the ocean of humanity with you holding me no more…….I whined and screamed that day…….as if I myself will strike another attack…..and well now I’m surprised at how I survived from one considering the impact with which the void was punched through my chest………The next day at school, my matured friends told me ‘People whom God loves die young’…..But I wonder how could you be possibly one of God’s favourite? I mean you were naughty, impatient, rude…..not at all a ‘good-boy’ material……..You might be close to the conceived heaven…….But I wonder whether you ask Him which shirt to wear everyday…..
Over the years the tears have dried and the pain has left behind a pungent trail of solitude. But the memories…….they have grown to become the assets of my life. And now, when your umbrella has been snatched away, your sister has set for a mission to find a person who will be my ‘hearth and haven’ like you were.
A rather long epistle considering the impatient weirdo you actually are……….This heart still beats and bleeds for you
                                                                                                                                                                                        Yours and only your sister
( A tribute to my late cousin)