Bipin Chowdhury’s Memory-loss

               Bipin Chowdhury loves to spend more time amongst books, than amidst people. Every Monday while returning from office, he stops by at Kalicharan’s bookshop in New Market to pick up his weekly dose of fiction. He is addicted to racy thrilling novels, whether it be crime fiction or one of those tales of mystery and horror. If people drop by in the evening and stay over till 8pm, he starts getting uneasy and lies to them, making up an excuse like he has not been keeping well, his doctor has advised him to take his dinner and rest early. As soon as the guests leave, he quickly finishes his dinner and lies down to finish a book till late in the night.

            Bipin has been following this routine from God knows when. Today is a Monday like any other. Bipin is at his favourite bookshop, engrossed in carefully reading the first few pages of books which catch his attention. Suddenly he becomes aware that someone is standing too close for his comfort.  He looks up from the book and notices an average looking bloke, smiling creepily at him.

“You don’t recognise me, I guess.”

Bipinbabu was caught off-guard. He couldn’t recollect having met this man before. This face seems completely unfamiliar.

“It’s my bad to expect that you would remember every random person you meet. I know what a busy life you lead.”

“Have we, by chance, run into each other before?” Bipin babu asks.

The stranger is a bit surprised. “Every day for a week! I used to arrange the car for your daily trips in Ranchi. You had come there for a vacation in 1958. Then you took our car to Hondru Falls. My name is Parimal Ghosh”.

“Ranchi?”

Bipin babu felt relieved that it wasn’t him who was forgetting things, rather this stranger had mistaken him for someone else. He had always planned to visit Ranchi, but the plan always got cancelled last minute. He smirked a bit and enquired, “Do you know who you are talking to?”

The stranger’s eyes almost popped out, “Who wouldn’t know you? You are the legendary Bipin Chowdhury!”

Bipinbabu shifted his gaze to the novel at hand and softly corrected him, “But still you are confusing me with someone else. These kinds of mistakes happen sometime. I’ve never been to Ranchi.”

At this point, the stranger laughed out loud.

“What are you even saying? Don’t you remember you tripped and fell at the Hondru Falls? I was the one who finally rushed to you with the first aid kit. You stayed in a bungalow, because you hated the hotel food. You insisted on getting your food cooked by a hired bawarchi. Do this ring a bell? You were accompanied by a friend- Dinesh Mukherjee. Dinesh was staying at his sister’s. Remember that massive argument you had with him about going to the moon. Also, I remember you used a satchel filled with novels. You said that was a must-carry anywhere you travelled to. Am I correct?”

Bipin babu asked grimly, “Which month of 1958 are you referring to?”

“Just after Mahalaya, either the month of Kartik or Ashwin.”

“You are clearly mistaken. That year I had gone to friend’s place in Kanpur during the Durga Puja. Goodbye.”

But this didn’t deter the strange gentleman a single bit. He kept gawking at Bipin babu.

“That’s ridiculous! One of these evenings in Ranchi, I had tea with you at the bungalow. You told me that you didn’t have any children, your wife had passed away some 12/13 years back. You had an elder brother who was diagnosed with schizophrenia. That’s why when you visited Ranchi, you couldn’t bring yourself to visit the mental asylum. You said it triggers memories of your brother- “

When Bipinbabu paid for his books and was leaving the shop, the stranger stayed rooted to his spot, staring at him in disbelief.

Bipinbabu’s Buick was parked next to Lighthouse cinema on Bertram Street. He asked his driver Sitaram to take a different route today, down the side of the river.

As soon as he felt a little calm in the moving car, his mind was beset with numerous confusions. That rogue kept making up stories about him for no reason at all. Bipinbabu has never been to Ranchi, and it’s not possible for him to go there. Why would anyone forget an incident that happened hardly seven years ago-?

Is Bipinbabu falling prey to dementia? The sheer possibility of it made his head spin.

Is he really losing his mind? How could that be possible? He holds such an important position at his workplace. There has been no lapse at work. Even today, he gave a smashing presentation at the board meeting. But then-

How could that person know such intimate details about Bipin babu’s life? These facts about his wife’s demise, his satchel, or his schizophrenic are some of his private truths. But he got the story of the Ranchi visit all wrong. In fact, he deliberately made it up. He is sure that in 1958, he was visiting his friend Haridas Bagchi in Kanpur. The best way to confirm this would be to send a mail to Haridas-

But he suddenly remembered, Haridas has left with his wife on a Japan visit. There was no way of confirming this detail with him. Then again, why should Bipin go into this much of a hassle. He hadn’t committed a murder at Ranchi in the month of Ashwin, that the police are now looking up details of his alibi. Bipin knows for a fact he hadn’t been to Ranchi. That is that.

While crossing Hastings, Bipin babu rolled up his trousers to check his right knee. He can clearly see a scar there but he just can’t recollect how it appeared on his body. He tries very hard to remember if he was part of an accident in the childhood but the scar remains a mystery.

While crossing Charakdanga four-point, he remembers the detail about Dinesh Mukherjee. Dinesh lives close to Charakdanga, on Beni Nandan Street. Should he pay him a sudden visit to confirm this Ranchi incident? What if this was a lie? Bipin knows he can’t handle the caustic humour of Dinesh. He was sure to make fun of Dinesh, if the Ranchi incident was a lie and the rogue had taken him for a ride. Dinesh would laugh on his face, proclaiming loudly that Bipin is finally going mad. No, he can’t handle that kind of an insult.

Bipin returns home. Cooling down with the help of a sherbet, in the cold spell of an Air cooler, Bipin convinced himself that he has been pranked. These were just obnoxious people, out to prey on innocent, hard-working citizens.

By the time, Bipin dozed off with that night’s novel, he had completely forgotten about the man in New Market.

Next morning at the office, Bipin couldn’t focus on his work. That man’s face with dreamy eyes, an unassuming smile and his insistence about the Ranchi trip kept haunting Bipin babu. If he were correct on so many counts, why did he get this incident wrong?

- “two three five nine seven four?”

-Am I speaking to Dinesh Mukherjee?

-Speaking

-Hi Dinesh, this is Bipin. I had a little query. Would you remember if you had taken any trips away from Calcutta in 1958?

-Umm, I think so…let me consult my diary.

-Yes, twice. The first time I had travelled to Ranaghat around February. And then, this you must remember too. Ranchi. We had taken the trip together. But why do you ask?

- Oh, it’s nothing much. Something has come up. I’ll talk to you later.

Bipin kept down the phone receiver and clasped his forehead. His world seemed to be falling apart. Is he really forgetting his past? Under these circumstances, it’s not possible for him to work at office. But how can he take a mid day off? He was known as a workaholic; everyone was in awe of his track record at this office. However, today must be an exception. He left office and returned home by 2pm.

He shut all the doors and windows of his bedroom to calm himself down. Once he was able to think straight, he started devising a plan to get out of this dilemma. If he were really starting to forget things, how was he able to perform so well in the competitive workspace? Whenever he travels out of the city, he is accompanied by his man-servant. But the present bearer is a new one, he wasn’t around in 1958.

Just then, the bearer knocked on the door to inform him about the arrival of Seth Giridharilal Prasad. He was a big wheeler-dealer of the city and it would be very rude to turn him away.  But today, he just doesn’t have the strength to entertain anybody. He conveyed his apology to the bearer and retired to his bed.

Once again, there was a knock on the door and this time he was informed that it was his friend Chuni babu, on an extremely urgent visit. This irritated Bipin to no ends. He knew the exact reason for this urgency. Chuni was his schoolmate and was now calling him because he had recently been laid off at his workplace. Bipin told his bearer that he won’t be able to meet Chuni not just now, but for some weeks.

Suddenly, it struck him that Chuni has been visiting their house on and off, since his childhood. What if he cross-checks the truth of the Ranchi visit with him? Bipin stormed down the staircase and caught up with Chuni as he was about to exit the apartment. Seeing Bipin, Chuni’s face lit up with the hope of some help.

- “Hi, Chuni, sorry I have a very random question for you. I remember that you’ve always had a very sharp memory and you’ve visiting us for some years. Would you happen to recollect any vacation of mine in Ranchi, around 1958?

-Yeah, I think so. Or was it 1959?

-Are you sure I went to Ranchi and not somewhere else?

-Do you have doubts about the destination or the year?

-I am not so sure…

Chuni sat down on the sofa he had got up from. He shot a sharp glance at Bipin and started, “What’s the matter with you? Have you taken to drugs or something? As far as I knew, you had no such bad habits. We’ve always known you a short-tempered person, you don’t have much patience for old friends, but you always possessed a clear head. At least, till the recent past.”

“I don’t know what’s happening to me. It must be the work pressure; it’s finally getting to me. I should consult some kind a specialist-

Seeing his friend in this messed up state, Chuni didn’t raise the purpose of his visit and left quietly. Bipin babu sat there for sometime and then booked an appointment with Dr. Paresh Chandra. Dr. Chandra can be considered to be a young professional. He was below forty years of age, he possessed an intellectual disposition and in this short period, he already had a prestigious clientele in Calcutta. When Dr. Chanda heard the facts of the matter, a look of grave seriousness came upon him.

“Mr Chowdhury, I am unaware of any permanent solution for this kind of a problem. In fact, this is the first time I am hearing something like this. If this is a case of short-term memory loss, then I would suggest you visit Ranchi once. That might aid the recovery of the memory. In any case, you seem to be losing sleep over this. So, here’s a prescription for a sleeping pill. A good refreshing sleep can do wonders!”

Whether it was the sleeping pill or the doctor’s consultation, Bipin babu slept peacefully that night. Next morning, he rang his office to inform them about taking a leave and by the evening’s train, he had set out for Ranchi.

As soon as he set foot in Ranchi next morning, Bipin babu was convinced he had never been to this city before. These bungalows, streets, shops, Mora Badi mountains, all seemed unfamiliar. Should he go to Hondru Falls to remove any remaining traces of guilt? He booked a car to go there and explore the place on foot.

Around 5pm, Bipin babu gained consciousness of his surroundings. He had apparently experienced a vertigo at Hondru Falls and fallen on the rocks. Fortunately, a Gujarati family happened to be picnicking close to the spot and they chanced upon his body. No sooner had they revived him, then Bipin babu mumbled, “All is lost. I have been tricked.”

What happened after this, Bipinbabu can’t even imagine or wouldn’t like to imagine.

By next morning, Bipin babu was back in his baithak khana, holding an icepack over his injured head. The bearer had called on Dr. Chandra and he was to arrive any moment. Just then the bearer came in with a telegram, which had the words Urgent written on top of it. Bipin babu paused his preparations and opened it-

“Dear Bipin,

Suddenly coming into wealth at your middle age brought out an ugly side in you. Was it really impossible for you to help out a childhood friend in his dire straits? I don’t have your financial or social capital. What I have is my imagination capital, and I expended that a bit to take revenge on you. That man you met at New Market, happens to be my neighbour. He is a fantastic actor. I was aware Dinesh Mukherjee doesn’t get along with you, so it was easy to get him on board. You must remember how you got the scar on your right knee, at Chandpal Ghat in 1963…?

What else? Now you will recover what you have lost. Meanwhile, one of my novel’s manuscript got selected for publication. I should be able to survive some months with that.

                                                                                                With love,

                                                                                                            Your friend Chunilal.

As soon as Dr. Chandra arrived, Bipin looked up and said, “I am absolutely fine. It all came back to me as soon as I landed in Ranchi. By the way, can you check if my hip bone got dislocated or something. I had a minor accident on my trip. The pain is shooting up since last night.”

(First published as part of the anthology, Ek Dawjon Goppo or A Dozen Stories on 25th Baishakh 1377 or 8th May, 1970)

 

 

 

 

 

Revision

I shift through flakes of memories which remind me of times lost, and which contains our moments crystallized with its imperfections. You have left me with snowflakes, snowflakes of your kindness which showered on me out of season.

The day i met you, i ran to the wishing well and dropped a sack full of old foreign coins, wishing that we get to meet quite often. The coins tossed down the ancient stone staircase and disappeared without a sound. I really wanted us to meet over and over again. I knew that like the coins, you'll flash through my life and vanish like a magician beckoning you over to an unknown realm. But I really wished I get to meet youagain

I was attracted to you. Not because your fish-shaped eyes were restless, looking hither and thither for some love and distraction, not because I wanted to sit by your head and caress your hair while you slept in someone else's arms, not because i wanted to imagine some warmth in your cold palms, not because you leaned against his face in the metro and I kept staring at the lines of my fate. No. Because I felt anxious about life with you.

I will forget the moments we sat opposite each other, measuring life out of coffee spoons, discussing who you should be with, in a romantically inclined fashion. I will forget how you have talked with all those people, simultaneously, people whom I felt jealous of, because I couldn't impress upon you as much as they did. I will forget all this because this might carry on and I might keep on feeling strangely moved,

You told me about your numerous relationships, the way a family destroys itself in an excessive act of love, about how you accepted the ego of men who brushed past you in thoughtless gestures. In all that you told me, I saw a mixture of satisfaction and uncertainty about the things you described. These dual states played out in your eyes, when you looked hard at the delicate porcelain cups or at the traffic that rush past us. I was holding your hand while we were crossing. You were watching death approaching. The roads circled around the old and the new city. We are alrady midway through those dangerous lanes when you stopped, undecided about which way to go. I tugged your hand and decided to sprint. You stood and smiled as automobiles of time hit you.

Futile

I can't complain, really. I knew a person who valued impatience like I did. Who understood that waiting is futile, that waiting only meant things growing cold over time.

I have waited once, I have known people close to me waiting for something to happen. I have seen how the waiting has amounted to nothing. I dont discourage people from waiting. If you have something to hold onto before you start waiting, do wait. Otherwise, dont hang onto promises. There's a major possibility the wait will amount to nothing.

I waited once, for sometime to be told not to wait anymore. I still wait, for new things, new people, new moments, knowing I am only waiting for myself at the end. Because anything outside me, that I am waiting for, doesn't come with the guarantee that something will amount from that wait.

First Chapter

I was barely out of my teens then. It was one of those periods of my family when the fate of the new generation seemed uncertain. I was failing in physics and my brother had received a second class degree in his graduation. I was lying on one side, hiding the phone between by ears and the pillow, hoping that my mother wont notice it. I was waiting for someone to call, when instead of the phone vibrating, i heard stifled sobs. I turned to my mother, asked her repeatedly whether she was feeling alright or did something happen when I was away for tuition. Instinctively, I went to my brother and urged him to do something to make my mother stop crying. My father hadn't heard us till then. I felt confused, even more when I discovered my brother was in tears, asking for forgiveness. I heard that my mother wanted to leave us and go away. It had something to do with her "failure" to raise us properly, about my father never taking stock of his duties as the head of the family. I was standing at the doorstep, guarding it, hoping that that symbolic barrier would make my mother reconsider her decision.

And somebody spoke from behind and I went into a dream...

My brother was born in the year 1982. The year Thomas Keneally won the Booker prize for Schindler's Ark and the census was conducted all over the country. Sex ratios were found to be severely skewed.  The Jadavpur University(where I'd study eventually) campus was under siege. SFI activists from the neighbourhood were pouring in with seriously violent intent. Within five minutes, the girls on the campus linked hands and put up a human chain, vowing not to let the goons in. The girls, not the boys. That day, it was the girls, risking personal injury or worse, who protected the boys.

My brother was closer to my mother than I was or will ever be. The irresponsible younger son takes after the father, so much so that he had once expressed a desire to put down in print, the illustrious life of his father. If you ever come over to our place, you will find the drawing room bearing a distinct mark of my father having inhabited it. Portraits, trophies, plaques, his graduation souvenir from the Royal College, his crystal ashtray tucked underneath the sofa in a desperate attempt to quit smoking. I looked upto him for one of the reasons my mother disliked him. He never told us what to do or not to do. His taboos were unspoken and carefully avoided. His liberal progressive behaviour couched a strange malaise. 

I left the city to discover myself, almost selfishly. I will do it again, despite being reminded of the family values passed on to me. The need to stick together, to grow in society, not in isolation. Can we ever truly isolate ourselves before death? I can't,which is why I come back to this house, the Calcutta house. It was the summer of 2012, when my mother spoke about his problems to me for the first time.

When my mother first found out I was going out with our neighbour's daughter, she dragged me by my ears, from the community market to our little flat. She tried to reason with a "rebel." How our first loves envelope our consciousness, how we spend hours being infatuated with the idea of being loved and how Bollywood manufactures a notion of how love is supposed to happen. It seemed funny and irrelevant back then. All my childhood grievances came rushing back to me. 

I remembered how she had dropped the popcorn when the love scene in Titanic was about to screened in Globe. I only heard gasps, all around, while i meticulously picked up the things someone else spilt. Everytime, a kiss was shown on Star Movies or HBO, the channel was promptly changed till one day, while watching a film with my father, I changed the channel before the "thing" happened. 

My mother dealt her trump card by bringing up the issue of their marriage. I suddenly stopped thinking about my childhood experiences and weighed every word she used. She claimed theirs was an extensive period of courtship, culminating in a marriage, when they suddenly realized they are not meant to live and love under the same roof. My father had never taken my mother out post marriage. I shuddered at the strange parallels that were being setup in my mind. Owing to low pocket money, I had taken out my the-then girlfriend on dates, only thrice in three years. I really hoped I wouldn't take after my father.

My mother was crying again. If I were in her place, I would have either run away or cried every single moment. She told me how my father had neglected her, all his married life. He didn't have other vices, he was always a godly figure to the outside world. She lived in his shadow, he-a flame which disregards what feelings live or die in his shadow. He likes spending time with his guy friends than my mother. I used to see my mother going out for films or plays, alone. She often asked me to accompany her to the plays, explaining how I might enjoy it all. Who knew I'd evolve into a theatre addict. My father never read a single story book or watched a single film after his college days. He has survived on an unhealthy diet of three bengali daily and four different news channels, for some 20 years. He has been a stark contrast to Ma. Only once I went to the book fair with him and he gave me a total of 10 mins to choose the book I want and leave as early as possible. My mother held my hand, in queues outside bookstalls as I grew up poring through the books she thought I'd enjoy reading. 

My father's malaise was that  he never discussed things which seemed alien to his own culture. His beliefs had to be our beliefs. We were to laugh with him when my mother screamed and shouted at the cook or when she squabbled with the domestic help for bungling her work. We never had a male domestic help. But my father sometimes helped with cooking. Sometimes, when my mother was ill and couldn't get out of bed, baba cooked for us and Ma took care of herself. Baba seldom asked Ma whether she was feeling better or if she needed any medicine. Strangely, I followed my father's precedence and didn't ask her anything. Are doctors supposed to take care of themselves, counsel their own psyches, heal their own scars?

On Christmas eve this December, after shutting the doors and windows to the mosquitoes and the Yuletide spirit, I ventured to switch on the light in my parents' room. Ma was sitting up, with her hair open, leaning on one side, looking at my father. My father had turned his head to look at me. In my mother's hand was the machine to draw blood from my father's hands and test his blood sugar level. They were lying under one blanket.

Ma wiped her tears after telling me about baba's neglectful nature. I confessed to her that i might have inherited some of that attitude. Then, almost in a confiding tone, she whispered,

"Ever since you and your brother left for work/studies, your father and I started sleeping in the same room. I hope you don't mind."

Boro Din

Aaj amader borodin. Shob cheye shahoshi meyetar barite olpo decorations, khoob grand kichhu na. 

Shokol opekkhar ei shesh holo. Ajo bujhlo na. Kyabla prithibi, kobe tumi jege uthbe.

Shomoy Kate Boro stobdho akroshe

ghumeri nirghume khon

shalik basha khoge harano nil deshe 

na jene ferari e mon

Shokale bikele 

utheroj okale 

gole male fack tale 

bashe jhule behale 

aj nei kal nei mal nei

ghure ghure gal dei 

akashe batashe 

mukhkhana fakashe 

tai bujhi eka she 

mone mone vabe she 

shokale bikale okale 

tale tale bus e jhule behale

ghur ghur fur fur

nake hawa shur shur

lagie bagie 

lokjon ragie 

tikatoli baddae 

oli goli addae

bokabe thokabe 

shudhu die cha khabe

roj roj khoj khoj

je bojhar shei bojh

dim poch

Bhalo thakben :)

In between eggnogs.

I write as Brandon today, Brandon Sullivan. I write about what happened when after I met that woman on the metro, passing through 28th Street.

I have had a problem of failing to get intimate with people. As far as you remember me, I live for fleeting encounters, brief meetings, and I stress the importance of timely departure. But you know something, I was always waiting for something to happen. Much like Alain Leroy who couldn't stem the fire within.

I am glad I met Alain before he read Rigaut and pulled the trigger. Alain told me certain things which made me stop and take stock of things.

Alain was trying to avoid the responsibility of adulthood.
You used to say, "Its hard to be a man. You have to want it."
I found him obscure them. I was surrounded by stereotypes of masculinity, in every direction i stared. Maybe he meant man in the sense of the elder state of a child?

Alain was a victim of his habits. He never could stick to anything for long. Which is why him talking about masculinity seemed unprecedented. He used to speak my mind's words, "Women still find  me fun and nice. But thats not enough. I have no hold over them. And yet it is through women, I have felt some hold on life."

These words, this realization will haunt me through my life. It is an acceptance of the fact that not just through women, I have felt some hold on life, only in relationships. I tried to run away and take care of myself. I still can, I am self sufficient. But I dont just live for material satisfactions. I wish I was not this weak now and the cognac is still not having its effect.

But which relationships are the ones which have made me feel a bit in control of life, have lent otherwise routine things a sense of purpose? I dont think I'd be able to select them out.

This is about the bravest person I've ever met.

I call her that because she is not cynical, unlike the rest of brave people I have known. And yet, I can't accuse her of having loose morals or none of it. She is a religious person. She belongs to a family which knows how to live passionately, which believes in the value of sticking together despite realizing the futility of it. Sticking together can be fatal, if we dont respect the people who dont leave us, who remain by our side. She has doubts whether she'll stick around if she finds an opening out of the cyclical violence she witnesses everyday. Somethings have a future, they need to be provided for, sometimes from a distance.

My friend loved Alain. Alain, who left back a note saying-

I am killing myself because you didn't love me, because I didnt love you. Because our bonds were loose. I am killing myself to tighten them, to leave you with an indelible stain."

One and a Half Years

In the year 2011, I shifted to Delhi for starting a new phase in my life. Unconsciously, I was celebrating the centennial anniversary of the shift of Capital from Calcutta to Delhi. This post is being written as I soar through the smog enveloping Northern India at 6am on 5th January, 2012

[Aside]

a) In Delhi, I stay quite close to the site of the historic Kingsway Camp. Its still an unique canvas of the multiethnic fabric of India, with students and immigrant labourers and wild animals coexisting in harmony.

b) GoldFlake Exotic Orientals, part of their Centenniel Series, has just been launched in New Delhi. Its good value for money, specially on late night walks with friends, down the historical pathways of  Purani Delhi. However, couple it with a 15 rupees matka phirni,easily available opposite Gate One of Masjid-i Jahān-Numā. You'll suddenly feel thankful about life and whatever little joy you've found in it.

My third semester exams were an experiment in higher academics. I forfeited the hope of scoring well and studied bits and pieces of most syllabi texts. In the end, I found some good essays to take back-

a) A.N. Kaul's Theory of the Critical Romance by Tapan Basu
b) David S. Reynolds' Walt Whitman and Politics:Leaves of Grass
c) Terry Eagleton's The Rise of English
d) Ranciere's Poltics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible
e) Modernity and The Men of 1914 by Peter Nicholls

But all these essays were read when owls are preternaturally active and not having slept for 4 days, I almost passed out on my flight back to my Lazarus Pits.

[Aside]

Lazarus Pits were accidentally discovered by Ra's al Ghul in an effort to cure a dying prince of the sultan he worked for. Ra's al Ghul dug a pit where he discovered the restorative chemical pools that he dubbed Lazarus Pits for their abilities to heal those at death's door.

I dont quite like Nolan's interpretation of the Pits. I rather liked the tubs of healing fluids shown in the 2008 Angelina Jolie starrer Wanted.

In these 18 months, my relationship with the city has undergone transformations which I could never predicted at any point of my life. From getting awed in the presence of the cosmopolitan culture of Delhi to realizing that its not very much unlike the City of Joy to appreciating the subtle shades of either city, its been quite a refreshing mental and physical exercise. I used to consider my experience of any city being a composite of two things-the people I meet there and the artistic wealth or challenge it offers my sensibilities. The experiences are now being governed by a more robust vision. Something like this song-

Dekhechho ki take
Oi neel nodir dhare
Brishti paaye paaye
Tar ki jaano ki naam
Jole bheja mathe
Akashe haath baraye
Megher arale bheshe thaka
Shei rongdhonu ke chay

Have you seen the one 
Who tiptoes through the rain
Along the banks of the blue river
(What's her name, again?)
Through the wet fields
And reaches out to the grey skies
Where she searches for the rainbow
Hiding behind the clouds

The song makes so much sense as the Spicejet pierces through clouds, in the direction of the rising sun. And who would have thought that the otherwise routine experience of 2 hour and 10 mins will be punctuated with a nice up-the-river aerial experience of romancing the City of Joy. So this blog was born when the Pilot announced a detour owing to some ruddering problem and the plane gradually started tracing the path of river hooghly and we witnessed a city generally seen in maps.



I have read in novels how the existence of a river through the heart of Delhi and Kolkata, influences much of the culture on both banks of it. I have never understood its emotional purport though. Today's little detour, aerially nonetheless, put things in perspective. I fell in love with the way the snaking water body made sense of the spectacles of uneven development. I was amused by my distance away from the city, in the same way I flirted with Delhi from the eyes of a perpetual tourist.

 In those little houses down there,
my friend sits staring out of her window
Her text on post modern critical theory
Gathers dust or flutters in response
To a chilly December gale.

She wonders when I will announce my arrival
Or maybe, its just my delusion.
She is probably thinking about what to eat next
Or how to push her mother off an imaginary cliff.

Hello Nirvana. Meet Samsara.

When Celine Dion sang," Its all coming back to me now," she meant two things. In context of the whole song, it means the sensual memory of the estranged lover. Out of context, it means, what you do, so shall you reap. Not necessarily from the same person or group of people. Human nature pays you back in your own coin. I am making an organic thing out of human nature.

Your curse still reigns supreme.

Now my foresight comes back to haunt my foreskin.

Devaluation

The perfect title for the first chapter on you.

How selfish an act it must have been?
Equating our relationship into an exchange value between clusters of people
And not class.
Because we all belonged to more or less the same class
Except you.

You were always classless
or you stood for an entire community of people
Whose lives have enticed me
So much so that I grew to love them
Through you.

I objectified you because I needed an abstraction from you
Exclusive love is an abstraction
If you come to see life in philosophical terms.
Somewhere down the line, I felt I have started caring about you
My class thought that always.
Not the class which studies with me
Or doesn't turn up in class.
But it happened that day, I started to question
why I care about you?

These are not questions of travel
but Questions asked during moments of travelling
From Vishwavidyalaya to Kailash Colony.
Its a one hour and ten minutes ride to a coffee shop
Which saw us order one espresso every evening
For Some months and some days.
I use some these days
Its a better adjective to quantify the times
We spent walking together but alone.

After the Sun arrived
These words shouldn't have seen the light of the day
But they are.
Maybe with the hope that you might just pass by
Read through this
and not claim
to have understood what I've meant so far.

I didn't want us to be sorted out in definite terms.
I wanted to hurt myself and everyone else in
this indefiniteness that misplaced desires could give us.

You live with your misconceptions.
I'll live with mine.

Good Shit. Finally.

The reading for the Nineteenth Cenury Novel paper has been boring till about 6 hours before the end semester exam. Just then I read Dorothy Hale's summary of Benjamin, Lukacs and Jameson's Marxist approaches to the Novel as well as this-

http://thowe.pbworks.com/f/WattNotes.pdf

Kind of cool, no?

These are the moments I look forward to before every exam. Which is when I take away some theoretical formulation which will prove useful in life and not just for those measly three hours.

Here comes the Sun!

There's something extremely refreshing about a hot bath on a winter afternoon in Delhi. What is it, I dont know. But the activity cleared my mind and gave me a new perspective of things. I have reading novels about adultery, of late. Also something called Triangular Desire. I have come to the conclusion I have not been in love so far. Just like the characters in those books who seem brilliantly confused. Now This is not my bildungsroman, so you cant expect me to jump onto railway tracks or be guillotined  or undertake community development projects. I shall not be unhappy about nothing.

Only the best lies ahead of me!

This is not pOetry

Get into a new set of clothes. Exchange your shabby sweater for navy blue thermal. Be superficial enough to wonder whether you should paint your face before you meet the friend. Take up strip of bamboo, dip it in white poster paint, make a magnetic field around your left eye, accentuate the fact that you were wearing lenses by putting on kohl. Smudge it out, in a vain attempt to hide the crow's feet. Leave.

Stagger a hundred metres, push through a line of bodies, wondering when to blow up the tightly surveilled entrance to the metro. Wait in the queue to check into the station, before flashing your Metro id, check your sms. If your friend has fallen asleep, take a step back. You put your feelings to sleep the night you confessed it again. This time, the Big Sleep. Because it clearly aint a person you'd ask to call you up when you see 5 deaths back to back.

Mashup your thoughts. Second image.

Text to clear up confusion. Clarify your position with regard to an event, maybe a sheaf of poetry mistakenly addressed to the wrong person. Clarify that you like the imagery, you like the thoughts, you like the textual help that person can wield. But clarify as well, you dont give it much of a thought. You'd rather figure out people who come across as complicated. Because complicated people are the most perceptive and the most sensitive and well its important to put on a sad face when somebody dies. 

Somebody jumped to his death. Three deaths in four months. Three suicides. Three people away from exams, misplaced feelings, failed ambitions, and the tiring business of proving yourself everyday.

Actually three human deaths. 

Repeatedly insist on the fact that you need to find an answer to your dilemma. Depend on human beings to hand you the golden ticket to soul satisfaction. Get bewildered knowing that the world actually speaks your language of there being no-labels and shit. Live and let live. Meet people, smile, be friends, be like a breeze, never be a storm, pass. 

You are in control of your life. Not your death. 

Sit by your lover. Gently caress her trembling legs. Realise you are sitting in a pool of blood and that you'll start feeling cold soon. Be dumb so as not to realize that maybe you could've prevented this blood loss or whats to come after that. Dim the lights, when you smell the odour which greeted you as you trapezed down the hospital morgues. Watch your friend get afraid and rush out of the room, when the first still born arrives. Put on your headphones, shuffle your blues playlist, and pick your lover up and place her on the bed. Get down on the floor and read british modern poetry while the children arrives in kidney shaped packages, dead and hanging from a lifeless umbilical cord. Smile at your lover while she stops eating her children and looks at you. Go upto her and kiss her and when her mouth's adequately bloody with the flesh of the newborns, gently sing her to sleep. Pick up the remaining two babies, place them close to her deflated tummy. Assure her its alright and leave for the friend's place. Its time to sleep.

There are so many lives and deaths to choose from. Its pointless wasting words for people who are vague or beside the point. Travel for yourself. No use compromising, no use pretending that this companionship means anything to you.

I never thought I'd deal with horror with the help of a blogpost. I am attempting that right now.

Winter's here, getting food for you has become tougher than useful. They have installed artificial eyes all over the place to keep track of rationed food being used for non-human purposes. I stopped eating the juicy pieces of chicken or weekly quota of eggs that I am allotted as part of mess food. I pack them in tiffin containers when apparently no one's observing, hide them in my jacket and rush back to my hostel room. You aren't always around and when you are, you seldom listen to me. Tasty food is all that  you look forward to.

This evening was supposed to be like the previous few winter evenings. You'd express delight on rediscovering the weekly mess food, wag your tail while you munch on it and after some time, you'll doze off to finish your daily habit of 15 hours of sleep.

It didn't go as planned.

I returned to my room to find the entire placed bathed in blood. I have seen bloodshed in my life. I spent half my childhood in operation theatres, observing my father sew mutilated limbs and reset bone dislocations or mend fractures. Blood used to flow out then but there was a very strong disinfectant used all the time which masked the smell of warm blood.

The eternal search for the next stranger. When does 

The Show

A large portion of our facial expressions are lost if we wear glasses. Those of us, who bear the scars of ageing, look like wizened old fools with glasses. And if we don't clean our glasses everyday, half the things we want to communicate gets lost in the process of face to face conversation or even acting. Over time, our facial muscles freeze. We stop trying to emote with our face, rather we modulate our voice or control our unforced bodily impulses. But our faces express so much! How can we not desire to let go of glasses and reveal our entire face to people.

My naked eyes have a dreamy lost expression chained to them perpetually. Maybe, this expression was evoked because, on reflection from a mirror, the eyes were looking back at themselves after a lapse of 14 years. Eyes finding eyes. Realizing they are not the color we supposed them to be. Realizing that the face beneath the eyes has lines which mark the moments when we had to tighten our faces and bear through the best or worst of times. With glasses, you fail to share yourself completely with people. But who wants that part of the bargain? I took off my glasses. I wanted to put down my guards and meet you with all my troubles, lining my frame  like a silhouette. Till I realized, that silhouette, like my pair of lenses wont come off at the right moment.

Because you just wanted the happy moments between us, when we shared interesting or funny thoughts and laughed or lamented together. You never wanted to know you might be the cause of the lament or the reason behind the happy thought.

As you rightly put, its fun knowing me as a person, talking and learning about so many new things. An intellectual companionship. But that's about it! Don't overstep because there is nothing more for you.


I will go back to my glasses. I realized there is no point revealing my eyes to everyone.

Because the eyes express so much. 

Hailey's Comet

Sometimes when I am feeling jobless and just plain ignorant, I go through the contacts on my phone. I dont like playing mobile games much, Snakes is okay but Sudoku is too demanding on one's lack of concentration and that music thingy is noisy. I use a basic nokia handset. I think in this relatively pointless exercise of going through these names and their numbers I do something more productive than fantasise about my past.

Its surprising the rate at which people zoom into our lives and then fade and then in some strange cyclical fashion come back. Really strong emotions like love, hatred, disgust, lust are experienced with such  Hailey's comet like personalities. You will stay up nights and talk with them, wait outside their house or hostel (if you are not let in past the curfew hour), imagine breaking into the same residence, text till your phone runs out of text balance and you resort to mycantos or way2sms. After all this talking, when you have find each other interesting and all, someone makes the mistake of liking someone else. Then suddenly the conversations stop because feelings have got involved, feelings of a definable nature. Expectations have been created, routine affections need to be expressed! And then the comet departs and we wait till the next new comet arrives.

But in all of this, there are some people we think about all the time. Or maybe things they said or ponder over, repeatedly, a moment we spent with them. It can be simply a moment when you stared into their eyes, from behind dust stained glasses, wondering whether they are thinking what you are thinking at that point of time. Or it can be someone standing outside your door, pretending to be a weight-lifter with a tiny umbrella.

Change is a vital force in my life. Its positive effects make me realise that loosing sleep over failed relationships is not really worth it because hardly any relationship fails per se. Maybe the way we wanted to remain in the other person's life changes but seldom does anyone leave completely. Because even the strongest of bonds becomes loose and transforms with time. I like the idea of stimuli jumping over synapses from the loose ends of dendrons. I have a feeling that after a point, my best interactions with people are like that. Jumping stimuli. If it comes for a sustained period, my nerves become tense.

The value of departing from a person's life at the right time, with just the right amount of information left behind becomes all the more essential now. I have embraced the traveller side of my personality. Two rejections in ten months was quite enough to make me realize that I'll not find happiness in love. And I have an excuse from God as well. One ex notes, "Being in love with you is like being Man Friday on an island, where you are Robinson Crusoe." I guess that has changed in several ways but its a handy divine excuse, through a human messenger.

So I leave. Knowing that the person I care about has other greater problems than me and I can visit other planets for the time being.

And text people or call those who still haven't appeared in their scheduled time.

"Like many folk, when first I saddled my rucksack,
feeling its weight on my back-
the way my spine
curved under it like a meridian-

I thought: Yes. This is how
to live. On the beaten track, the sherpa pass, between Krakow
and Zagreb, or the Serbian white
cells of scattered airports.

it came clear as over a tannoy
that in restlessness, in anony
mity:
was some kind of destiny.

So whether it was the scare stories about Larium
-the threats of delirium-
and baldness-that lead me not to a Western Union
wiring money with six words of Lithuanian,

but to this post office with a handful of bills
or a giro; and why, if I am stuffing smalls
hastily into a holdall, I am less likely
To be catching a greyhound from Madison to Milwaukee

than to be doing some laundry
is really beyond me.
However,
when, during routine evictions, I discover

alien pants, cinema stubs, the throwaway
comment-on a postit-or a tiny stowaway
pressed flower and bottom drawers.
I know these are my souvenirs

and, from these crushed valentines, this unravelled
sports sock, that the furthest distances I've travelled
have been between those people. And what survives
of holidaying briefly in their lives."

Waiting for the world to change.

Different subject positions in different parts of the same day. Sometimes I am the person who waits and sometimes I am the person waited upon.
Hours pass in anticipation of something to happen, a word of confirmation but nothing occurs. Its as if the world has conspired to envelop me in a coccoon of diplomacy and keep things neutral. Emotions, like an excess of energy, are waiting to pour out of my mind and body and yet there is no conduit to receive it.

The Trap

By Nicanor Parra

During that time I kept out of circumstances that were too full of mystery
As people with stomach ailments avoid heavy meals,
I preferred to stay at home inquiring into certain questions
Concerning the propagation of spiders,
To which end I would shut myself up in the garden
And not show myself in public until late at night;
Or else, in shirt-sleeves, defiant,
I would hurl angry glances at the moon,
Trying to get rid of those bilious fancies
That cling like polyps to the human soul.
When I was alone I was completely self-possessed,
I went back and forth fully conscious of my actions
Or I would stretch out among the planks of the cellar
And dream, think up ways and means, resolve little emergency problems.
It was at that moment that i put into practice my famous method for interpreting dreams
Which consists in doing violence to oneself and then imagining what one would like,
Conjuring up scenes that I had worked our beforehand with the help of powers from other worlds.
In this manner I was able to obtain priceless information
Concerning a string of anxieties that afflict our being:
Foreign travel, erotic disorders, religious complexes.
But all precautions were inadequate,
Because, for reasons hard to set forth,
I began sliding automatically down a sort of inclined plane.
My soul lost altitude like a punctured balloon,
The instinct of self-preservation stopped functioning
And, deprived of my most essential prejudices,
I fell unavoidably into the telephone trap
Which sucks in everything around it, like a vacuum,
And with trembling hands I dialed that accursed number
Which even now I repeat automatically in my sleep.
Uncertainty and misery filled the seconds that followed,
While I, like a skeleton standing before that table from hell
Covered with yellow cretonne,
Waited for an answer from the other end of the world,
The other half of my being, imprisoned in a pit.
Those intermittent telephone noises
Worked on me like a dentist's drill,
They sank into my soul like needles shot from the sky
Until, when the moment itself arrived,
I started to sweat and to stammer feverishly,
My tongue like a veal steak
Obtruded between my being and her who was listening,
Like those black curtains that separate us from the dead.
I never wanted to conduct those over-intimate conversations
Which I myself provoked, just the same, in my stupid way,
My voice thick with desire, and electrically charged.
Hearing myself called by my first name
In that tone of forced familiarity
Filled me with a vague discomfort,
With anguished localized disturbances which I contrived to keep in check
With a hurried system of questions and answers
Which roused in her a state of pseudo-erotic effervescence
That eventually affected me as well
With a feeling of doom.
Then I'd make myself laugh and as a result fall into a state of mental prostration.
These ridiculous little chats went on for hours
Until the lady who ran the pension appeared behind the screen
Brusquely breaking off our stupid idyll.
Those contortions of a petitioner at the gates of heaven
And those catastrophes which so wore down my spirit
Did not stop altogether when I hung up
For usually we had agreed
To meet next day in a soda fountain
Or at the door of a church whose name I prefer to forget.

For no one in particular

আমি বৃষ্টি দেখেছি, বৃষ্টির ছবি এঁকেছি

আমি রোদে পুড়ে ঘুরে ঘুরে অনেক কেঁদেছি

আমার আকাশ খেলা দেখার স্বপ্ন থামেনি

শুধু তুমি চলে যাবে আমি স্বপ্নেও ভাবিনি

আমি বৃষ্টি দেখেছি...

চারটে দেওয়াল মানেই নয়েত ঘর

নিজের ঘরেও অনেক মানুষ পর

কখন কিসের টানেও মানুষ পায় যে খুঁজে বাঁচার মানে

ঝাপ্সা চোখে দেখা এ শহর

আমি অনেক ভেঙে চুড়ে আবার শুরু করেছি

আবার পাওয়ার আশায় ঘুরে ঘুরে, ঘুরে ঘুরে মরেছি

আমি অনেক হেরে গিয়েও, হারটা শিকার করিনি

শুধু তোমায় হারাব আমি স্বপ্নেও ভাবিনি

আমি বৃষ্টি দেখেছি...

হারিয়ে গেছে তরতাজা সময়

হারিয়ে জেতে করেনি আমার ভয়

কখন কিসের টানেও মানুষ পায় যে খুঁজে বাঁচার মানে

ঝাপ্সা চোখে দেখা এ শহর

আমি অনেক স্রোতে বয়ে গিয়ে অনেক ঠকেছি

আমি আগুন থেকে ঠেকে শিখে অনেক পুড়েছি

আমি অনেক কষ্টে অনেক কিছুই দিতে শিখেছি

শুধু তোমায়ে বিদায় দিতে হবে আমি স্বপ্নেও ভাবিনি

আমি বৃষ্টি দেখেছি, বৃষ্টির ছবি এঁকেছি

আমি বৃষ্টি দেখেছি, বৃষ্টির ছবি এঁকেছি

আমি বৃষ্টি দেখেছি, বৃষ্টির ছবি এঁকেছি

আমি বৃষ্টি দেখেছি, বৃষ্টির ছবি এঁকেছি

আমি বৃষ্টি দেখেছি, বৃষ্টির ছবি এঁকেছি

Riding Streetcars

Dear Blanche,

I got your letter just a while back. I have dispatched a cruise ticket to help you sail all the way upto the Caribes. I'll be meeting you there! Don't get distracted while sailing past Bahamas, those sailors have a penchant for playing with people's emotions.

It was so, how should i describe it, so nerve wracking to receive a letter from you. I heard your husband shot himself some months back. But the person who gave me the news, he was gay. He spoke longingly about your husband. And at one point, he broke down and cursed you for your husband's death. He asked me to pass on this letter to you. Said it was meant for you, when you were putting up at Hotel Flamingo.

Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you
Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you
But in your dreams whatever they be
Dream a little dream of me

Yes, dream a little dream of me

I crave for your attention.

Its not that you arr attractive but all my heart grew active when you came into view..

I crave for your attention more so, when I realize that you systematically, unconsciously, treat me as a person without significance.

I  stopped talking with him and that's why I have not been talking with anybody over the past few weeks..

Where does that leave me? As nobody? Do you just pick up your receiver to talk to a dial tone which soon grows dead? Do you talk to a receiver then? A receptacle, like a jug your pour water into when you have no better use for it or you cant drink it. I wonder. How you manage to do what only Enlightenment thinkers did with such aplomb. Obliterating a person's significance, his individuality, his desire to be wanted. Yes, desire and some answered questions. Thats where this hallucination started. Some months back. Or maybe some 9 years back.

Whenever I return home these days, a home where i live with my family and not alone, I realize I have no one apart from my family.

Well, you know, it could have been much worse.

Ah yes, what did that night yield to us? An evaluation of a pair? As to who is a good human being and who is not? The guilt function had one positive effect, it erased all possibilities of a weakness. The bad effect, the nullification of an identity to a sub-zero level. I am reading all the meanings I want to read, into a pretty simple situation among three drunk people. But i learnt that from you. What did I learn from you?

When we maximize our potential to desire, we effectively rewrite the meaning of the past, the present and the future. For ourselves. for people who are trying to connect with us.

But who am I to infer maxims from your life, Blanche DuBois? After all, we are so alike in the way we selectively choose to tell our stories, erasing out our ugly deeds and smoothening out those reckless desires which we couldn't reciprocate. Both of us have found comfort in the company of strangers.

All our conversations are forced. They have to be forced because we aren't really attracted to each other. We are each other's compromise. You, being the Tarantula, always have new victims in the waiting. New people to chase and get over once the chase is over, because even our desires turn out to be flawed creatures. Inflexible mostly. They leave us, isn't that what we conclude. Isn't that what i wanted to conclude about us as well? That you left me?

No.

I didn't conclude that. We were never together in the first place. I miss those 11-4 conversations when we sang paper moon together, for 3 months 2 days, 1 year 4 months or 5 years and a semester.

The world's a temporary parking place

A bubble for a minute

You smile, the bubble has a rainbow in it

Say, its only a paper moon

Sailing over a cardboard sea

But it wouldn't be make-believe

If you believed in me

Yes, it's only a canvas sky

Hanging over a muslin tree

But it wouldn't be make-believe

If you believed in me

Without your love

It's a honky-tonk parade

Without your love

It's a melody played in a penny arcade

It's a Barnum and Bailey world

Just as phony as it can be

But it wouldn't be make-believe

If you believed in me

Our conversations never ended. I just grew quiet. I wont talk unless you feel that you need to talk to me, not as a substitute for your desires.

I really share nothing in common with you. Your sibling was wrong. I am not anyone's part 2. I am me.

That's why, sometimes I regret asking certain questions. I step back, I say sorry without explaining my apology. I really have no right to ask you any question. You underline it everyday, that I am a nobody for you.  

I don't know where this is coming from, but the man looked troubled and underslept. Guess he still cant get over the death of his homosexual lover :P

See you soon,

Love

Your college sweetheart,

Shep Huntleigh.