The leap

‘I am surprised to know this about myself! I never knew I could write. But talking to you I recollected the poem that won the appreciation from someone who hated me, Ms. Narayan, our science teacher. Of course it was Venkatachalan who got the accolades because I wrote the poem, ‘The ungreatful moon’, for him. Let me spell it out for you ha ha ha! The spelling mistake was corrected by her while she was profusely praising the lines you know. She was praising me, wasn’t she! Now I realise why I never make spelling mistakes; I always check.’

‘I must also confess something. Although I am known as a black sheep, a bad apple, an outcast by many, chatting up with you was cool. It helped me rediscover myself. I made Pari smile. During Vishwakarma puja*, my friend, a next door neighbor looked pensive; he did not have money to buy kites. I had money the day before from my visiting aunt from Delhi. I took him to the market, bought two kites, threads with latai (thread reel). We went to the rooftop and started flying kites; I was holding the reel, encouraging him. We won and lost and won a number of times fighting the flying game. (Smiles)'

They were complete strangers a night ago. By sheer accident, came to the echo point of this hill station in South India, Kodaikanal* in the middle of the night to take a leap into its lap and end their lives. There, the whole night they sat around reading to each other bits and pieces of their past. Now, with the dawn, they are climbing down to the city holding hands, to face life. Once again.


Notes:
Vishwakarma puja - the god of work, celebrated one month before Durga Puja. It means a holiday for all menial labourers, small and big businesses, for children it is an occasion to celebrate flying kites.
Kodaikanal - it is a hill station which is famous for its beauty, the smell of eucalyptus trees and also for its echo point; it is said that the voice can be heard very clearly for a long duration

The anniversary

Till death do us part, we promised each other in our honeymoon at Conoor, in South India.

Twenty-five years! What am I still doing in office! I should be there with her now. I am well equipped; a diamond ring, a diamond necklace, earrings and a bright yellow kanjivaram, its dark green borders promising the evergreen forest in the most predictable sunshine; I remembered my honeymoon, post Conoor, lost in the wilderness of Periyaar; what must she be cooking?  We decided to spend the night at home; the place we begun our journey. I am driving along, but why am I feeling so uncomfortable, as though in a crowd I wondered.

With me behind the wheels, things we did together flashed. Raising our child, taking care of the bank balance, looking after our parents, travelling twice a year; into the jungles of Kenya in August to watch the migration of animals from Tanzania to Kenya, to the snow-clad Himalayas to the most romantic involvement - that of preparing good food together at home. Picture perfect, our friends would say. She had been a housewife throughout, took up a job just three years ago when we sent our child to a nearby city for further studies. I changed my gear listening to Frank Sanatra in my travelling mind, thinking of the tender moments when we promised to be with each other till death and beyond, and of course how we’d grow old together. We drenched in the rains, dried in the sun, spent hours on the beach, on the bench of some obscure parks, in the mountains; regularly visiting places, hitting the cinema halls with popcorn and coke; on the whole a fulfilling journey. Not to forget our long conversations that went on for hours over anything under the sun.

Since I had to travel frequently for my job chasing for a better career, more visibility, there were times when we’d be in different cities for months; she was taking care of the home and me trying to earn more of what was better than sunshine. She knew how much I hated staying alone, months of opening the doors with my keys, entering a strange place to rest at night and leaving the next day to work, leading a life of a married bachelor, a very modern trend, just postponing staying in the warm company of the family set up with care and concern.

For me ringing the doorbell was a fascination… I remember everyone’s worried face when I had rung only once… they thought something was seriously wrong, either I lost my job or I was seriously ill…for in the normal circumstances, I would go ding dong ding dong ding dong; my angry child would say, ‘uff Baba, coming…stop it… you are quite grownup now, she’d then open the door to follow with the warmest huge hug where her mother would invariably join; Shadow, our pet would also struggle and surely find a place somewhere in between, with a woof woof;  and in that hug I would smell her apron, replete with food smell, flowers, incense sticks; all together would make her the queen of the family; in that hug I would discover my world again and again.

I am already in my neighborhood, just five minutes drive and I will be home… but why is the seat not so comfortable, I thought for a moment; I could already sense what she was cooking; could smell her along with the food. I will dress her first, ‘no one could do the pleats like you’, she would say. I would bend down on my knees and ask her how many pleats she wanted; I remember for silk sarees there would be more pleats than the ones in cotton or the tangail she’d say with pride! I would fold it patiently and very gently as though I would pleat the years that went by!

Coming from office, when I honked, the first thing I’d hear was a woof woof and then a warm screech meant for my child…open the door baby…Baba has come!

Yes I have reached my new home where I now stay with my memories. I parked my car long ago; silently opened the door with my keys. Imagination of good food, gifts, warmth of the hug and the woof, job; all ended one after the other; the phase of my splendid honeymoon was over last year. I have just returned from a long directionless journey on the bus to celebrate the first anniversary of separation today.

Another world

Oh, his Adam’s apple was so disturbingly attractive! For quite some time, I wasn’t able to concentrate on what he was trying to say. It moved up and down, like the face of a peacock hiding behind the bush and then peeking again, from the well-groomed white formal shirt’s collar holding a silk blue stripe tie that went so well with a formal gray pair of trousers; I could see his pomme d’Adam appear and disappear in every second mellowing the sound that was originating from his well-defined broad gorge. Undoubtedly, he was gorgeous! While his shoulders, muscles, and postures told me he dates with the gym every single day, his English was another reason any girl my age would fall for. 'Good morning young lady, this is Dr. Makhon Mukherjee, I feel fortunate to be in your company for some time.' Outrageously flirtatious, he laughed when he knew the purpose of my visiting the place, a 650 acre protected space for those unfortunate men and women on whom I wanted to write my lines.

'Yes they move freely here, there aren’t any restrictions for as long as they are not hurting themselves or anybody else. I would like to give a background first of what we think of them and then take you around, we do this with all visitors, so they can at least empathize, some of them even think they could have been here too, a cathartic experience you know miss?'

'Vaijayanthi', I said.

'Thank you, Miss Vajayanthi, (it felt good to hear my name from a husky voice, he must be in his mid-forties, else how’d he get this affectionate way of talking I wondered)… The line between sanity and insanity is so marginal that anyone could lose it anytime, don't you think?'.

'True!'

'Come with me.'

I followed him. Saw a lady in front of a mirror plucking her eyebrows. The background was that she was about to leave with her husband to celebrate, for the first time, their ninth wedding anniversary; her husband had booked the most expensive seat of a well-known five-star hotel that became famous introducing a space called lover-corner, the most cherished arena for lovers to spend some romantic moments. The husband, on his return from office, was supposed to pick her up in the evening; his blue Merc met with an accident, he died on the spot because of a reckless young brat who was on the high driving with friends. A long stick made of polystyrene was lying on her bed. In a minute I saw her taking the stick and hitting a young boy, an appointed servant whom I thought was no less than an activist, acting like a reckless driver.

Bhavin (the boy) took the beatings from Swati and bled tomato sauce from his head, shoulders, everywhere. I heard her cry Shantanu, a sound that would stay with me until it found an expression on the pages, I promised myself. Now this scene would be enacted then on every alternate day, doctors thought it was a remarkable improvement because earlier it was done twice a day, Swati was slowly losing her tenacity to be a part of it which, in clinical terms, meant she was gaining more and more on sanity, they observed.

Out of nervousness, I held the doctor’s hand, he sheltered me for a moment and left it slowly saying 'easy young lady…easy'.

I visited both, the criminals charged with rape as well as the victims, the tortured and the torturers all deranged in their own ways, talking to people seeking forgiveness, pelting specially designed stones for Bhavins to absorb. Felt an excruciating pain running up and down my nerves while I was taking notes and recording his voice, but I was also happy to know of the existence of such a healing place that was taking care of the sinners and the sinned in the same way.

Suhas was thrown out of his job on grounds of sexual harassment. He was innocent because Susmitha, the one who complained against him, had come later and confessed to Suhas saying the case was orchestrated by their common manager Asif Iqbal who wanted Suhas out apparently appeared as his manager's potential threat. Asif also influenced senior leaders like Lakshmi, Shubha, to team up against Suhas. He was not only thrown out, but he was also escorted out by their HR, like a convict. No, but this was all enacted to heal Suhas, shocked into derangement; whether he was innocent or not was known because Susmitha never came and confessed! Neither did the other stakeholders; they were far too occupied, moving out on the loose in society as normal human beings to engage themselves in healing Suhas, all this was staged regularly to heal a deranged soul, I learned. Suhas, in one moment, would laugh and say, 'Look they are escorting me out, I am an important person you see. They love me, they take care of...' and in another moment...' you brutes...for heaven's sake... didn't I know you were teaming up against me? You did that because my salary was too high, wasn't it? Didn't I ask you to reduce my salary...just to be there with you...but to get rid of me, you made such a heinous ploy! You need to be brought to book for my character assassination..you scoundrels!'

After spending hours with the doctor, in his company, with his kind of vivid and engaging description, he points out Dr. Sen to me, fat and bulky, who was smiling and watching us from the first floor’s balcony. He said Dr. Sen would walk me through the remaining area that was at the other end of an open compound. 'Not fair', I thought. In a moment, I felt the arrival of Dr. Sen and the departure of Dr. Mukherjee at the same time, as though I was watching a film.

While leaving Dr. Mukherjee told me that he wished he could accompany me till the end, but he wouldn’t be able to do so as that would mean him crossing the compound exposed to the scorching sun, that despite the umbrella he always carried with him, his throat if exposed to the sun, would surely melt as it was made of butter.

The first thing I learned from Dr. Sen was that all this while I was with a patient who lives in his world with the fear of being exposed to the sun. I wish him to recover soon. While it was sad, but it was also fascinating to experience a glimpse of another world. 

The Child is the Mother of the Woman

Wednesday 23 August, 1995

'I have a bad news for you Stitodhi. Your sister Raka passed away, Anup has rushed to the spot, he has asked me to inform you about this; I am very sorry…your aunt’s daughter, wasn’t she?…So she must be your cousin, but Anup was telling me your sister passed away…I was a little confused…because as far as my knowledge goes….'

Stitodhi stopped listening to his colleague 2000 hours ago. 'Raka, no more' and she being referred to in the past tense enough for him to switch off! How must be the baby, did she deliver? He knew she was extremely scared of her pregnancy…she told him 'Unto, (Stitodhi's 'pet name', …Bongs have two names, one for the family members and friends and one for the professional world) what if I never return? Tomo (her husband, Tomonash) will not be able to take it.' 'Oh, shut up', he yapped…'gone are those days Raka when such unfortunate things happened!'

From the office to the hearse, he kept on meandering from one folder to the other, of past memories;

hide and seek of childhood days,
reading stories together in the lazy winter afternoons,
having oranges and squeezing the skin onto each other’s eyes,
a routine monthly visit from his school to their place,
Pishibhai’s (maternal aunt’s) mouth-watering dishes,
ভাই-ফোঁটা (bhai-phota),
a festival after deepawali where sisters put a bindi of chandan
(paste of sandalwood) on the forehead of their brothers wishing them long lives,
her grand wedding.

Memories flashed like steps with huge blanks on either side, wide hollow spaces he could climb up and down. In the mind it also patterned like a prosaic poem, a brain bank where the death is soon to be refreshed for good.

His first encounter of Raka’s hearse was when he saw her eyes closed, white smiling horrid face, (he wondered why) being taken by four men on খাটিয়া (khatia, the death bed; back in those days, in 1995 this was still the norm of the extreme poor and the extreme rich, to take the body on the shoulders to the cremation ghat). He looked at the body (Raka, a marvelous name that meant full-moon, chosen with great care, after searching thousands we were told when we grew up, has been replaced as ‘body’), and in a moment her laughter ran into him, much faster than the smells of those incense sticks which, to him, didn’t seem to make any sense.

When she laughed, her belly also laughed with her, in fact her whole body chortled, it was infectious and made everybody around laugh, it enlightened the whole atmosphere, could make anyone laugh for no reason at all, her brother Rahul (sorry cousin again…form her father’s side!) came upto him and said, 'Unto it seems like হাস্যকৌতুক (hassokoutuk, stand-up comedy) that we are carrying Raka at the wrong place at the wrong time, isn’t it?' 

She was laughing at him..ha ha ha!!! Unto….আমি আসি (ami asi, Unto, I am leaving… expecting him, as it were, to hide her flip flops… uff Unto, where did you hide them, I am getting late…please for God's sake), there she was now, above everyone, beyond everything, writing in thin air her own departure.

Raka went away leaving her daughter, her Tomo and all her dreams behind.

Stitodhi was thinking of her husband Tomonash, a professor of philology, a very nice and kind-hearted gentleman. After marriage, an arranged one, they were madly in love with each other; we are রাজজোটক দাদা, (rajjotok, we are made for each other, dada meant Stitodhi); he was obsessed with ঠিকুজি-কুষ্টি, (thikuji-kusti, everything is about horoscope, he would say). Stitodhi was determined to be by his side, but before that he should meet his Pishibhai, he thought.

'খুনি!খুনি!খুনি!আমার মাইয়াটারে গলা টিইপ্পা মারসে..শয়তান…আমি অরে ফাসিকাঠে ঝুলামু (Khuni! Khuni! Khuni! Amar mayatare gola tiippa marse…shoitaan…ami ore phasikathe jhulamu, these were the very words of the mother yelling about her son-in-law meaning Murderer! Murderer! Murderer! He has strangled my daughter to death… culprit… I will hang him…and it continued…

...আমার মা-বাপরা সাধ কইরা কিনা আমার নাম রাকসিলো অশ্রু, কী যাতা রুসি…বসর বসর কুকুর-বিালের মত বাস্সা বিয়ানো, আর মাইয়া হইলে নাম দেওন অশ্রু, কৈ অরা  কৈ, ডাক অগো…অরে আন্টু…এক্কেরে মাইরা ফালাইল আমার মাইয়াটারে…এক্কেরে মাইরা ফালাইল…সব আমার মায়ের দোষ…সে
আপত্তি করতে পারল না…কেমন মা…মেয়েরে অশ্রু বইলা ডাকে…অরে আন্টু..অরা অশ্রুরে মাইরা ফালাইল! (Amar ma bap shadh koira kina amar naam rakhsillo OSRU, ki jata rusi…bochor bochor kukurbiraler moto bachha biyano…r me hoile naam deon OSRU… koi ora koi… dako ogo…ore Unto…ekkere maira phalailo amar mayatare…ekkere maira phalailo…shob amar maier dosh…she apotti korte parlo na…kemon ma…meyere OSRU boila dake… ore Unto..ora OSRU re maira phalailo! My parents, with great hopes, named me OSRU, what bad taste…… naming me OSRU, huh… breeding every year like cats and dogs…and when a girl is born, you name her OSRU?...where are they…summon them …. O Unto… they killed my daughter completely…they killed her completely, everything is my mother’s fault…she could have protested… what kind of a mother was she…to be calling her own daughter OSRU…O Unto… they killed OSRU!'

OSRU means tears.

All he could make out from the incoherent speech was that she was shocked, for he was unable to understand if it was the mother crying for her daughter, or the daughter complaining against her mother…'what is happening to the motherless daughter that is born of Raka', a thought burnt in him for a moment, like those incense sticks and those garlands clinging on to the dead mother, some hours old by then. 

His Pishibhai was howling for the untimely loss of her daughter, she was also imagining her own death, with her. Needless to say she was put on sedation. In between her clinically governed sleep, she would scream saying,

‘আমার মেয়ে ‘যা তা, যা তা’ বইলা মরসে, খুনিটা অরে যাতা করসিল (Amar meye ‘jata’ ‘jata’ sesh kotha boila morse…khunita ore jata korsilo…

My daughter’s last words were ‘jata’ jata’ (means disgusting, horrible), the murderer must have tortured my daughter.’

'Why is she talking about her son-in-law like this, he was the best of the best, Raka herself was scared, she may not have wanted to die…maybe that was the reason she said disgusting', he thought, it made perfect sense to him to understand why she had that horrid look on her face! But at the same time he did not have the heart to judge Raka’s mom at the moment. Who would!

Five years passed by. Pishibhai never met Tomonash, neither his daughter, which also meant her grand-daughter…nobody dared to judge her. ‘খুনি, খুনি, খুনি (Khuni! Khuni! Khuni!...Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!’ - this was her refrain until she died in 2005.

Yes, Stitodhi knew it was an overdose of anesthesia… which happens in very rare circumstances. Some relatives suggested suing the nursing home for their negligence for a second or a third degree murder he wouldn’t know, but Stitodhi said there was no point, already Tomonash was shattered, wounded and broken, with a daughter to take care of; he doesn’t deserve all this he reckoned. When he went to the nursing home, he met the unfortunate anesthetist Sujata, also the matron, Dr Jibon, the owner of the nursing home and a whole lot of them willing to bear all the consequences for their inattention that cost Raka’s life. They were all good people, contrite and shocked; per their records, that was the first case ever, so what was the point… besides Raka, his wife, to whom he was devoted, will not come back. Therefore Stitodhi, together with Rahul, Anup da, Shampa di (Raka’s cousin) and others decided to call it off.

After Pishibhai’s death, on one late evening, he thought of visiting his brother-in-law. Strangely a flabbergasted Dr Jibon opened the door, Stitodhi also heard a female voice from inside…’দাদা, কে এসেছে গো, ও এল? (Dada ke  esechhe go…O elo?) Brother, who has come? Is it him?’

Stitodhi and Dr Jibon for a moment gawked at each other, buried questions of the yore surfaced in their glances like furious mindless waters breaking through a dam, flooding the neighborhood; words seemed redundant; Stitodhi ran away hurriedly from the place without meeting anyone; it was pointless to inform the dead son-in-law about the dead mother-in-law, who was dead a decade ago, he could have easily informed him over telephone, but his number somehow got deleted in time, he also had this urge of meeting his niece who must be 10 years by then, he thought; but it was good he came; otherwise how could he witness that, nothing died, all the doubts were sleeping inside, perhaps waiting to come out at the nth time… he remembered why they actually backed out from the case… for it would also mean Tomonahs’s harassment, Sujata was Tomonash’s childhood friend; remembered him recounting once that they couldn’t get married because his parents never approved of it, Dr Jibon and his sister were very poor at the time and belonged to a lower caste;  so this ‘jata’ may not have meant disgusting, it could have meant Sujata; but he still thought it was the right thing because of Raka’s  daughter, did she deserve all that; the newborn child who would grow up linking her auspicious birthdays with her mom’s death, who would have the heart to put her father behind the bars too?

As he stepped down, he remembered the horrid face of Raka, angry tears refused to leave his eyes, clouded him, each stair, he counted twenty-three, his childhood fascination was to count stairs, now he could have skipped some, they were trying to tell him something bouncing the words of his Pishibhai, Osru, a name she so disliked.

Climbing down those stairs he also played the childhood staircase game holding the banisters, the house-garden game with Raka and others… does her child ever play these games… with whom does she play; with her step-siblings…how horribly they erred; instead of bringing his Pishibhai into confidence they were putting her in sedation, ashamed at the preconceived notion of a deranged mother shocked with her loss and naturally speaking non-sense, she was speaking sense, wasn’t she.

The last time he talked with Tomonash was six months after Raka’s death, on the child’s মুখেভাত (mukhebhat, also called অন্নপ্রাসণ, ‘Annaprashana’, a Hindu rite of passage ritual that marks an infant's first intake of food other than milk; the term annaprashan literally means "food feeding" or "eating of food" usually fed by Mamu or maternal uncle who also has the right to name the child) Stitodhi was invited, he declined because Pishibhai took an oath from him that he would never see Raka’s murderer; but while talking to Tomonash, he suggested that the child be named Sujata, (means birth) the name made so much sense to him at the time; he distinctly recollected Tomonash’s vehement disapproval, ‘No! Never!’ and his abruptly ending the call; they never spoke again. Those stairs that belonged to Tomonash, where his sister Raka also walked up and down for some time, seemed to have taken him back in time, appeared endless, took him almost a decade to climb down and have his feet on the ground.

He came out. Through the moonlit night, he felt Raka, could clearly see a closed chapter he has to reopen for the sake of his sister. He discussed the matter with Anup da, Rahul, Shampa di and others, but the grief it seemed had died an inevitable death in the hands of time.

The case was easily dismissed as a frustrated attempt by an irresponsible brother, a cousin so to speak, to malign a respectable family ten years later with a hidden agenda of extracting money besides a definitive motive of character assassination. 

Thus Stitodhi came into writing, like a beginner in the beautiful arena of pages, his first lines emerged climbing down the steps of the world, his feet to be deeply rooted happily ever after in the ground of a beautiful garden, that of fiction

Laws have their claws
that break the jaws
of the innocent with guffaws
foolproof, without flaws.

Now, in 2018, twenty-three years later, Stitodhi’s lost case was brought in black and white from his archive of thoughts, like those skeletons in the cupboard despite his clumsy style of writing, thanks to the encouragement he received from some of his well-meaning, indulgent sibling-friends he made on the virtual space who said he could at least write, just like them, about the unfinished story of his Pishibhai Osru and his sister, Raka.

But how would he name the story… Making of an artist seemed so much eclipsed with self… he is not into all that anymore… with a narrow escape from the prison on grounds of defamation by his once-upon-a-time brother-in-law, who, with his ex-lover, now his second wife, would have been brought to book for the cold-blooded murder of Raka twenty-three years ago, Stitodhi  has become bolder; he decides therefore to borrow the title from Wordsworth. He thinks a little shift in the gender would best go as the name of this absurd fiction.

He will have its birth in print and let the burning story see its day, so it rests in peace in a virtual space on and from Sunday 14 January 2018.

Based on a true story. 

Thanks!

Traffic jam. From my car, a metallic gray duster, I saw a lady standing on the other side of the junction. She must be heading for work. Wait, I will offer her a lift, will she say no? I stopped, she got in. 'Thanks!'

'Daku! How many times have I asked you not to offer lift to strangers, especially to beautiful ladies, but you won’t ever listen, huh?'

Mita, my ex-wife Madhumita would tell me with a mild irritation on her face, so dear to me, when I would recount my day in our late evening tea after work. Yes I was driving and listening to my favorite Frank Sanatra; ‘All or nothing at all’; I could see from the corner of my eyes that she was appreciating my well maintained car.

You cannot ding me anywhere I know. I am still a complete DIY when it concerns my car. Many times it so happened I cleaned it for two hours before going out, she would come, look at the car and simply go away saying the car wasn’t clean enough, then I would plead and ask her to point me the places, invariably she would be right, some unnoticed litter (damn it) here or a bit of dust there playing the spoilsport. Taking Mita as my helper was no help at all you know, she would use the looking glass as her mirror, just when I needed to have the rear view, I would invariably see it turned towards her. I would be mad at her but she would melt my anger with her heavenly smile all the time.

How many times this has happened! When I was speeding on a highway at more than 100, she would scream saying, STOP STOP, DAKU STOP, I would screech to a halt thinking there must be something seriously wrong; she would either point out to a flower smiling from an unassuming shrub, a lamb, or a cow carelessly crossing the road; at other times, she'd simply say, 'Daku…look at the Dhaba…let’s stop here and have tea!' 'Okay Mita, but don’t scream like that, you are my helper, my navigator, if you have to behave like this, go sit at the back.' She’d be sad until it’d be me pleading guilty, 'it’s all right Mita, you can scream… you can say STOP like the way you do,' and this would continue. I was complimented by her many times for my driving, I could drive, talk, sing, and do many more acrobatics in the car to impress Mita, she became a habit in my car. My favourite time was teasing her.

Where have all those days gone! I am alone now, Office-work-office, I know she does the same thing too. Modern life is so strange; you separate from your partners at the drop of a hat. My friends have the similar stories too. Corrine separated from her husband because of his parents, and Sujoy from his wife because she was not presentable, too old-fashioned. And Anirudhha broke off from Ishita because she was becoming fat… imagine, mother of three children Anish, Anita, Nita named combining both their names now abandoned just like that… he left all of them and is now living together with Ishita’s friend,  of course he is not my friend anymore.

We failed because we were always finding faults with our in-laws; why couldn’t we drive past those avoidable impediments I wonder. Now-a-days, you leave your partner for such trivial reasons why! We set out for a journey together, give up so easily! I was engrossed in my thoughts... wondered what she must be thinking of right now...I mean the lady who is beside me right now! We seem to perpetually in search of the ideal person, like a thirsty traveler in a desert taking a mirage for an oasis. I am not a writer, so my examples may not touch you, but I am a lover, I still love her, whenever I drive I miss her by my side. Why is everyone so horribly changing partners... like we change our clothes…what is the guarantee that the next and the next will not be free from their own baggage. This story of separation is fairly young, hasn’t begun more than twenty years. Mita and I were born at the wrong time it seems.

I was driving and thinking of my parents who would go out to be with each other just for half an hour because their house was full with people, my six aunts, my deranged uncle, and my ailing grand-parents. Since when did this change happen… no, if you say from the time ladies started looking out for jobs, I wouldn’t agree, my mother was never a housewife, it happened because of our unconsciousness, we cannot blame the West for everything bad, I am only looking at myself all the time from the looking glass maybe, and asking myself why I had to lose you Mita why! Can’t I be with her again?

'Thanks I will get down here', she said.

'Wait Mita, no problem. I will take you till your office, everybody knows me there'.


'Thanks Daku!'

Speak the truth

Speak the truth

‘Good morning all of you! A warm welcome to the Organization.’

‘Good morning Sir.’

‘No, no, please don’t call me sir; just because I am facing you from the wrong side of the table doesn’t make me your sir, and you are definitely not my students. We are all colleagues, although I understand you have all come straight from the campus and are still smelling college, but here, right from the word go, you are participants, not students, I am your trainer, not your sir, right?’

‘Yes sir. (class laughs)’

‘Seriously I am Samiran for you.’

‘Okay Samiran sir’ (some unsure voices chuckling, perhaps amazed at how naturally they say sir)

‘Come again please, this is also a part of your learning’

‘Okay Samiran’

‘Hmm…sounds better. Alright… In all these two months of your induction, there will be a lot of team work, so it is important to know each other, do you agree?’

‘Yes Samiran’ (a much animated one), some still said sir and corrected themselves, giggled like those streams of those brooks which sometimes chuckle hitting the stones on their ways and topple them with an awe-mix whimper and then a chortle or a guffaw; the first class with its unmistakable freshness, with that fresh innocent wind; Samiran adores that!

‘Okay, the first day we kickstart with an ice-breaker game called the dish game. I will explain. Listen carefully. I will say my name first, like Samiran and then the dish I like the most, it could be a dish I enjoy eating outside, or the one my mom cooks. Like this, Samiran chicken… (pointing to the next participant) what is your name young lady?’
‘Padma Sir, uff sorry sir…uff Samiran’ (smiles and almost withdraws like a touch-me-not)
‘So you say Samiran chicken Padma what…’
‘idli sir…sorry idli…’
‘thanks…so for you, it’s like Samiran chicken, Padma idli…’ he dexterously points to the third and there they go…’ but STOP…(the class stops)… there is only one rule…you should speak your heart out, don’t be ashamed to declare what you like to eat the most…like it can be dal-chawal or roaches, even frogs…(the class bursts into a chhiii).. no no seriously you never know where you will be posted, your base-branch may be Beijing, or Paris (there is suddenly this sound of awe in the class… and everybody’s body language changes) with globalization in, we need to be more inclusive, so this game has a lot of lesson… will discuss that after the break…so for now, say whatever you like…we are not going to eat you up… (smiles with the class)’

In a minute the class was vibrating with the music of the dish game; occasional slips, ah no's…I am not dum aloo, I like dum aloo, then it went like this…Samiran is chicken, Padma is idli, Abhay is dum biriyani…and at other times, pointing to people and saying the dish, like Chicken, Idli, Dum biriyani and it went on with the participants taking charge. Samiran is playing the musician, but he is also in the game. The first day of transformation, from campus to corporate had well begun.

Samiran would sometimes play the role of a trainer, at other times a friend, he has been doing this well over seven years, never got bored, everybody said he has a passion for what he does. For him, he feels lucky to encourage budding professionals who join his organization with hopes in their minds and dreams in their eyes. He thinks it is his duty to show them the right way, he is also called a stellar manager.

‘So now guys you know where you should take your friends for week-ends, don’t you?’

‘YES!’ (to this enthusiastic yes, Samiran says shh… lest the class beside didn’t get disturbed)

‘Tell me are you enjoying the game?’

‘Yes SAM’

‘Oho…already I am Sam for you?’

In his circle of colleagues, he is also known as Sam, some call him Samaritan too. He doesn’t mind as long as he is accepted in the game of life.

The dish game, this way came to the penultimate participant… he smiled wisely and the whole class was looking at him… like some others, he had the names written. Well Samiran doesn’t mind that, he has been trained to think that even when participants write down the names, they are engaged…he said all the names and the dishes flawlessly with occasional help because the chit wasn’t a foolproof one, he stopped after reciting everybody’s names, with his right hand quickly rubbing the nose (Samiran noticed that) said,
‘I am Barkat…hmm puri sabji’; after him was Suhasini who emphatically stood up, hers being the last, recited everyone's names and mouth-watering dishes and said,
‘This is Suhasini, I love Upma, I think my mom makes the best Upma in the world’.

At the end of the game, the whole class clapped, except one. Sam had taken note of it, but ignored, thought he would talk to the participant later. With his head hung, he appeared to be a loner, but Samiran is extremely kind and patient with loners and ensures they don’t become losers.

'We will go for a quick break and come back in 10 minutes, okay?'

‘Okay Sam.’ Everybody left. Except one; Barkat. Samiran approached him and wanted to know what the matter was.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes Samiran, I am good.’

‘Won’t you go for the break?’

‘Yes’, he looked him in the eye.

‘What? You want to tell me something?’

‘Yes,’ with a trembling voice, he hurriedly said, ‘my mom makes the best beef in the whole world Samiran’ and whisked away for his break.

Strain

It seems someone has plucked all the flowers from my garden. Yesterday before going to sleep I left the garden full with beautiful buds of Jasmine, Hibiscus red, blue and white, Lilies with their hues, Roses, Chrysanthemums, Lotuses, Daffodils, Dahlia, but now they are all taken away! There are no signs on the ground, is it possible for any one person to tonsure the garden in this way I wondered.

With gates wide open, a shiver ran down my chest imagining silent footfalls of unwanted visitors inside my house. The house that was built by my husband years ago, the one that saw my children grow up.

From yesterday, a familiar melody, a Tagore song, was ringing in my ears, I wasn’t able to get the lyrics, only the tune floated in my head, came and went away; my barren garden as I see now helps me recall a sense of oneness with the lyrics but no, I am fooled by it. Home alone, I never felt so insecure. Is this a premonition? Then why is the tune acting like a burglar. I have been suffering from excruciating pain in my right knee for a long time, like an unwanted guest. I overlooked the two baskets of flowers disappear from their place; when I noticed, trying to touch my knee, I broke down into tears, O God today is a Thursday, Lakshmi Puja*, (uff, I can't write footnotes for you all the time, it is a puja offered to Goddess Lakshmi by every woman, mostly married, well I am a widow, but I am doing this on behalf of my daughter-in-law, who is not with me at the moment... did you understand?) how will I do without the flowers and the leaves, can somebody help! Who would have come, wait a minute… have they also taken other things from the house; how many times have I asked Papon to surround the garden with a wall, I had this image of a beautiful green ivy falling from the boundaries, but no, my healer of a son says thieves will come if you build walls, if you leave the garden open, no one will come, same reason why he asks me not to buy medicines for my knee, he says if your medicine box is full, diseases will come and refuse to go; and it so happened, years ago when Papon was in his teens, the day I bought Dettol, a household name for antispetic, Papon had a fall and bruised both his knees…but does that establish anything…for my knees, he came the other day after his office and whispered a mantra in my ears, ‘My knees are pain-free now and forever’, ‘I have zero pain’, and asks me to chant the mantra and use my hands as healers, visiting, patient doctors on my knees slowly touching them and chanting the mantra… I was really angry at this, but couldn’t say anything because within a week’s time I felt my knees were healing…he told me that all our mental pains could be resolved like this, even the bigger pains like tension between neighboring countries…O shut up!

He and his silly thoughts! Now what… why did the thieves come and plunder my garden on a Thursday, have the walls been made…uff… the tune again…it came and sat on my mouth like a fly and went away! Where! To Darjeeling?! Oh my God, PAPON! Are you all right? My darling TIKLI…I hope nothing has happened to my grand-daughter! Oh no! Something bad must have happened to them, why did they go to Darjeeling! Fourteen thousand times I asked them not to!! With all these thoughts running up and down, I somehow saw myself walking upto to my Pujor ghor (room of worship) like a somnambulist, I screeched O MA GO (O God), nearly swooned to see the axe lying on the ground and some muddy footsteps! No utensils, those expensive ones and no…all my idols made of pure gold… missing… all stolen… on a Thursday! PAPON!! TIKLI!!! There must have been some landslide or a terrorist attack in Darjeeling, I ran to my room to call Papon, surprised to see him calling as his name flashed on my mobile he gifted to me on my last birthday, but listen, I really don’t have the heart to talk about my birthday now… PAPON TIKLI are you guys okay?!

‘Thammi (granny), it’s me don’t worry, we are all right here…Baba has booked a very nice hotel, how are you? I am so happy Tikli was made to say Baba and Ma and not Mom and Dad, I was very strict on that and so was Papon and Purnima. Hearing her tender voice, I got my body and soul together and said, 'Give to your father.’ And no sooner he held the phone, I recited the panchali to him (the book one reads on every Thursday to Goddess Lakshmi for wealth, here it means all that happened). With his usual calm he said, ‘Wait a minute, you are telling me you came running to call me from the Puja room…bravo Ma… you knee-pain is gone it means' Papon, will you never be serious, is this the right time for all this, I snapped, he hanged up telling me not to worry. He has nothing of me in him, his Baba was exactly like this, I didn’t talk to him for months when he told not to brood over my lost diamond wedding ring; it was stolen, my pretentious sadhubaba of a husband thought that the burglars needed it more. I remember he apologized on my birthday and gifted me another ring, but never asked me why I lost the ring, and how! The call from the Police Station woke me up from my sleeping past. ‘Mrs Dasgupta, we will be there in five minutes, do not move, there is a terrorist on the loose in the neighborhood and we had been alarmed, we will be there.’ I kept the phone with an O MA GO…terrorist! My overwhelming fear did not acknowledge Papon’s prompt action at all. He may talk silly, always with his usual quacks, but he is efficient too… my strain and stress overlooked that at the moment. Oh there comes and goes the tune. Again?

Wonderful! My knee is much at ease now; maybe because of the running around it had done coupled with other scary thoughts! Then is the pain in my mind real? Does everything stem from thoughts… no…can’t be; I am much too occupied with the loss, my idols, my utensils and also the flowers… flowers… I am shattered…but what would a terrorist do with flowers… you never know.
Somehow with the assurance from the Police, and on hearing about the well-being of Papon and Tikli, I wasn’t feeling alone and helpless. I walked upto the Pujor Ghor again and what I saw now was completely different from what I apprehended; saw with my clear unafraid eyes, the most beautifully decorated Pujor Ghor I have not seen for a long time. In such a short span of time! How long was I with the phone... God what is happening…have you come to me; I haven’t seen this type of shaaj (Oh I know you don’t know what shaaj means, it means dressing of idols with flowers and leaves) for years on! No one other than Shanti can do this, has she come, it must be Shanti…Shanti, Shanti I called… but they are in Hyderabad… after their marriage in 2007, she has never ever come.

We do get to see her family, with two loving children on whatsapp and Skype… (I also have two more grandchildren, I was only thinking of Tikli all this while, a feeling of shame and guilt overwhelmed me…why…is it because Shanti is not my biological daughter… because we adopted her when she was violated and thrown in our neighborhood to die, until we found her… and my remarkable husband readily accepted to adopt her, but was she ever our own…then why did I forget my own grandchildren…what a shame, at least once I seek your forgiveness, please do not mind my irritation explaining you things, else how would you know). Hers is really a story we tell everyone. So one more time sharing it with you will not hurt for sure. She went to Hyderabad with her college friends to do a research on the Golconda Fort, in August 2007; and on one fateful day when they all went to Gokul Chaat shop to have chat (an Indian dish with lots of spicy things with potatoes and vegetables) there was this bomb blast on 25 August when Shanti was enjoying chaat with her fellow research associates. In an instant, out of nowhere, the horrendous storm of terror and yowling spread blue horrors in the eatery first and then in the entire neighborhood, trotted around the world through various medias as breaking news; but while she would have died that moment, she found herself shielded in the lap of Shahid, now my son-in-law (or my brother-in-law who cares), who rolled over the ground with her, protecting her and taking on the blow; bleeding profusely; he was senseless but never left Shanti, then a complete stranger to him. 

We immediately flew off to Hyderabad, found them and several others wailing for life at the hospital; it took months for them to be out of danger and trauma of rubbing shoulders with death; but even in this disgusting whirlwind of hatred and mindless killing, there was also this magical merry-go-round of Shanti in the hands of Shahid, and love triumphed; they experienced near-death and love at the same time. While the spirited Hyderabad came back to life in a couple of days, it took time for them to heal; but these souls were determined to marry each other. No one, literally no one from either families objected to it; feels strange how situations change our visions; in any normal circumstance, this would have raised conservative eye-brows, but their folks (we and all of us) were overjoyed at the victory of love, no one could imagine love to be born out of such a shameful act. Such is the power of love. Magic and miracle…all at the same time! Ah! At last! The words ran into me, I got the lyrics!! ‘Pushpo bone pushpo nahi, ache ontore’ (Okay…I know you don’t know…I will explain… it means ‘flowers may not merely be found in the flower-forest, they bloom and rest in the heart’).

 I turned and saw Shanti coming with heaps of washed utensils from the Koltola (uff it’s the place where utensils are washed...you firangis and lesser Indian readers, you don’t even know that, don’t mind my words, I am only kidding, don’t I know I exist because of you!), I looked down and saw Raushan, her five-year old son and Ruma, her four-year old daughter, my loving grandchildren coming with their mother, I thought of calling Papon..in my mind…’Papon, next time please take me to Puri… the knee-pain has disappeared’ to her ‘I have to tell you a thousand stories and get to know a thousand from you, something that whatsapps cannot do…a slight push… Why didn’t Shahid come, huh? After all these years, he let you come… okay let me see (I touched her tummy)…she smiled ‘O didi, no not again’. (right from the day we adopted Shanti, when she was nine years old, never called me ma, always didi, I conceived two months after she came into our family…now how’d you define these things, everything doesn’t really fit in, life is full of questions and doubts, fears and worries, but it is also full of magic and miracle, of faiths and trusts, it is more of love..life exists because of love, isn’t it?)

 ‘Let me go and quickly close the gate, Shanti…I am just coming’. I was as light as a feather.
‘Oho…so you have come’, I threw those unworried words gently at the two Policemen trying to enter the gate, I continued, ‘no nothing to worry anymore, it’s my sister-in-law who has come with her family; sorry to bother you.’ (now what would facts like she is actually my daughter but calls me didi do here I wonder, in a scripted world that sees one plus one leading as two, not as one, these facts rest in peace, I remembered my hero of a husband’s dialogues, never understood it then)
Wonderful! So for records, can we have their names please…
Okay, it’s Shanti; you want the children’s names too? (a nod), they are Ruma and Raushan.
What? Raushan…what is her husband’s name?
Shahid… the Policemen exchanged looks in a way to let me notice their astonishment, and just because of that, I ignored. (I am an expert at this, déjà-vu with many of my in-laws, the most notorious one I remember was when my mother-in-law tried instructing me with her stern eyes to touch the feet of a scoundrel of her uncle whose hands touched me in all the wrong places, like a potential terrorist, or a rapist…much later when I explained this to her, she never understood and threw me an Oh I see, but you should have been careful!) But I would let them do their work, how can I ignore that, in view of what the family witnessed in 2007?
(Silence)
Okay for now, this will do… but we may come back to you should we need any further information.
What information, I snapped…
No nothing, but as I told you Mrs Dasgupta, we have information… um…has your brother-in-law come?
No.
Why! (again that expression and doubtlessly followed by my expert overlooking!)
I don’t know I will have to check, but why do you ask? Do you know how they came in together?!
How? (I narrated the whole story, but it didn’t seem to have any impact. All I could read from their faces was the same Oh I see)
How would you spell his name? Is it S H A H I D?
Yes
We will bother you only if it’s absolutely urgent Mrs Dasgupta. Bye… and off they went.

Disgusting… the names frighten them…the names… I thought once of the countries, God what have they done to each other…why they…what have we done to each other; fighting mindless battles 50 years ago, will do so 50 years later (yes I learnt all these dialogues from my husband in the unending and indolent morning tea we enjoyed for years). As I was closing the gate, I took another look at the garden, saw signs of buds in most every tree… preparing to groom the garden again as a loving bride for no reason at all; the phone rang…sure enough it is Papon. Yes it was him…narrated the whole story… I was on speaker, I feel so important when they put me on speaker; Purnima, Papon’s wife was happy to know about Shanti, said they’d return next Wednesday and celebrate the Lakshmi Puja in a grand way.

 ‘Where is Pishimoni (paternal aunt), Ma?’

 She is in the Pujor ghor. Oh I will call again after some time.’

 I kept the phone, and re-started singing the song that was troubling me for long and hurried to the Pujor ghor, hugged Shanti, kissed my grandchildren.

 Didi do you remember you used to teach me this song…  I nodded and continued to sing, the kids were also singing with me and Shanti (Gosh,when will Tikli sing like them, when my husband sang, time stopped; so that runs in her blood, she should also sing like this…look at me!!! O Mind! Look at what you are singing!! Unpardonable, I almost hanged myself at this pettiness, hugged the children, and said sorry myriad times, kept on singing with them).  To Shanti I said, may be, and kissed my grandchildren again…it felt as if the whole house was responding to the song, a strain it was looking for me, with me since yesterday.

 For us, it didn’t take one minute to get back into our lost comfort zone; it felt I never left them! (Strange….doesn’t it happen to you too? Oh I know I am in a perpetual monologue with you, but you know what, I like to step out of the script and talk to you… I have this enormous desire to know what exactly you think when you read the lines, strange, isn’t it?)
‘The children are also learning the ‘Shahaj Path’ didi (book of rhymes for children, written by Tagore…shahaj means easy, path means study, I am paraphrasing all of this for you, so you understand me, not misunderstand because I speak another language and eat differently, ha ha ha!). You will be surprised when you see Shahid in a day or two, he has picked up Bengali so well, from books, TV, from Bengali friends; he can even cook ‘macher jhol’ (fish with spicy gravy)’.

 ‘What a loving boy, I thought. O I forgot to tell you, Purnima will call anytime. Just then the phone rang…
Hello?’

 ‘Calling from the Police Station, Mrs Dasgupta… um…’



©Supratik Sen