I assimilate all the notes Srijita wrote, about me, about us and about other things, before she went away forever. I assimilate all the notes of conversation I took while I was with Ranja. And then I open my cabinet and summon the diary Pallabi left for me before committing suicide.
At five in the afternoon, is when I think about them and all the happenings when I was with them. Words flow in my mind, emotions are recalled from nowhere. But this is what keeps me alive.
“‘When I was in my primary classes, I wrote my life’s first paragraph on ‘myself’ – it was simple definition then in ten sentences. But today, it seems so complex to define myself in ten lines. Perhaps it is because I hold no more a pencil in my hands, and I will not be able to take back the words that come out of my mouth today.’ She said.
‘Well, you can still try.’ I smiled.
‘Okay. I guess I will try. I like being a 'son' to my dad. So do you. I like being a ‘kiddo’ to my mom. So do you. I laugh out loud when ecstatic. So do you. I cry bitter tears in pain. So do you. I scream my throat out in anger. So do you. I grow with each day. So do you. Time is my teacher. So is yours.
Not much difference, you see...but still there are, loads of them. Explore.’
‘Well, I intend to. Maybe one day I will write about you.’ I smiled again.
‘If you are willing to write pain, use a pencil. If you are willing to write smiles, use a pen.
I am selfish. That’s what I am and you too are. So that’s how I will summarize myself.’ ”
I kept my promise, Ranja. I tell myself, as I lose out my mind in the past again.
“When we were young, Friendship day meant going around tying pieces of strings on friends' wrists, thinking and hoping that those bits of threads would keep us connected forever. Today on the eve of Friendship day, being on a social networking site, writing on an electronic page and waiting for electronic impulses to put my thoughts and feelings across to the world, friendship has quintessentially remained the same for me. I may not have a riot of colours in the form of friendship bands waiting to adorn someone's wrist but I do have my words, which are as good as anything else. So here's wishing a world of goodness and happiness to those friends whom i had, lost and found again and those whom i never had but found and don't want to lose, HAPPY FRIENDSHIP DAY guys.”
I feel sorry for you Srijita. I thought. Not because you are not here with me anymore, but because you let me go away. Because you let me say those words, ‘I am going away, once and for all. You will never hear anything from me again.’ Because you never stopped me from going away, because you kept pushing me away until the day actually came when I had to put an end to our friendship. Happy friendship day, Srijita. I wish we could have been together. I wish we could’ve been friends, forever. But maybe it was not written at all. I still remember the day when we talked about love…
“‘Everything about it is clandestine, stripped of purity and comfort…the pulsating carnal taste of emotions. The desire to let everything go and plunge into the darkness of wrong. It takes a very long time to resurface from such a maelstrom but when you are sitting at a safe height, looking away from temptation, a flitting glint catches your eye, forcing you to look its way. And you are thrown right back into what you escaped from.
For some it is always a war, always a new enemy to overcome, always a different demon to slay. They keep shoving their way through disarray and confusion, never knowing when to stop, with no respite in sight. Forever a mass of disgust, unwillingness, cynicism and lassitude. Always lingering at the edge of sanity, threatening to topple over any time but always, always abstaining at the last moment. All of a sudden they hit a solid mass of black and groping in the darkness, they find only concrete. For they have reached their limits, there is nowhere to go beyond this. With their backs against the wall they face the onslaught, knowing only too well that unless help came fast, they would very soon run out of a reason or a way to keep fighting...’
‘I read what you wrote. Is that what your take on love is?’ I ask her.
‘I don’t know. A feeling of tranquility, I've locked away my heart. When people ask me how I feel about nothing in particular I actually have to ask that ever throbbing organ what it feels because it doesn't talk to me anymore. It doesn't cry, it doesn't laugh, it doesn't care, and it’s so scared that it refuses to face reality but then again it is loath to ponder over surrealism too. Strange, what I have let it become. Every second that it lets me breath is a blessing and yet it gets nothing in return. So much pain, I've broken it into too many pieces for me to even count, but what could I do? A heartbeat is not enough to survive when you are man. The very fact that you feel assures you that you are something more than a mere existence. All I wanted was to live but I guess it's not easy to come by, living I mean. So I've stopped. They say survival is more than mere existence but for me the line of difference exists no more. I'm sorry, that I couldn't give you anything more than what I did; I wish you had belonged to someone else. But selfish as I am, I beg you to not leave me because then I'll cease to exist’ ”
It’s her last note which said it all, in my opinion. She regretted that she left me. But then again we were in no position to get back to each other. Life had other plans…atleast different from what I thought. I had always warned her not to fall for someone who was committed to someone else. But love knows no bounds. It happened what I saw a long time ago.
“When you fall in love with someone you shouldn’t (especially if that someone already has a girlfriend/ boyfriend), you're lucky if the guy/ girl falls for you too and acknowledges it. You're luckier if there is someone else who knows that you're doing the wrong thing but resolutely continues to love you, while you are being a complete prick-head! One day your prince Charming/ Cinderella takes flight(or dies) and when you think that there's nothing to go on for, you feel a pressure on your hand and realize that there is someone holding it, encouraging you to live. If you can see the love in those eyes, you're saved because even if you can’t (or take too long to) love back, his/her love is enough for you both.
Now imagine the same scenario, when the first guy/girl falls for you but doesn't acknowledge it, while expecting you to behave like his/her consort. Also there is no 'the other guy'. What do you do when the person you fell for leaves (but doesn't die) and you think that there's something to go on for?
You pick yourself up, scrub your gritty face, look ahead and say Encule!”
I sit on one of the benches at the lake place. It’s evening. Someone is playing violin somewhere very near. A monotonous, yet sad tune. It is played for some time, then it ends, and then starts again. The gloomy notes hover in the air of the lonely lake place. The evening breeze takes the tune faraway, as an owl’s cry is heard from the topmost branch of a tree residing at the farthest part of Southern avenue.
I close my eyes.
“You fell in love with someone you shouldn’t, Soumyo…look ahead…A feeling of tranquility… I am selfish. That’s what I am and you too are…hah ha ha…I beg you to not leave me…why are you always unhappy…have you got your things back…happy new year Soumyo… but still there are, loads of them…I know you love me… you know my mother too…there is someone else…Soumyo… Soumyo!”
I open my eyes. The music has stopped. I take a cigarette out of the packet. I hold it in my mouth while striking the stick against the side of the matchbox. Once, twice and thrice. Silent evening is pierced by the sound of striking matchstick. It creates a flash out of nowhere and then it creates light. Darkness seems to go away from me for a moment. I lit the cigar.
“I am leaving something for you Soumyo. Something only for you. Remember me the way I was, in your life.”
And then she went away. Pallabi. Just like that. Left the mortal world as if in a hurry. And yes, she left me a diary, except for the fact that absolutely nothing was written inside it. So the question remained, why did she leave it for me, at all?
I don’t know. Or perhaps I never wanted to know. Maybe she wanted to give me a message through those words that were not said, were not written at all. Sometimes it is the silence, who talks more than words. Maybe she was out of words; maybe she was out of time, to write anything at all.
I stand up, and then walk towards my home. My home, my room, and the window by which I sit and write most of the time. The room attracts me more than anything else. Not only just because it reminds me of them, but also because I feel I am with them all the time, when I am with myself, alone.
At five in the afternoon I think about them, and how all of them went away one by one. At five in the afternoon, I sit by the window of my room facing the road, look at people coming in and going away and think about them. At five in the afternoon is when I cry, for the ones I have lost, for the ones who could’ve been here with me and for the ones who went away…once, and for all.
-Dec 19th '11
No comments:
Post a Comment