Listen to Southern Avenue

1


Midst of July.

Evening.

And it was raining heavily outside.

The deadly dark evening was being pierced again and again by the sudden lightning, but again, there was the return of the same darkness. The whole sky roared spontaneously squeezing up all its water down to the earth giving it a soothing effect, and the smell of the earth was in the air giving people an unknown reasoned happiness, some sort of madness to the newly wet nature.

But everyone was not happy around. A boy sat in his room beside the roadside window gazing outside. The raindrops rode on the stormy air to be sprinkled to his face through the windows. His spectacles were clouded with small drops of water and the sight of outside was being hazier to him. But he did not care. It seemed he would not care for anything – he was thinking about something.

“I wonder, if it is possible to go Southern Avenue tonight...” the boy muttered.

Sudden flash in the sky. For a moment, it was daylight all around. One, two, three... a few seconds, and then the thunder stroke. It stroke hard, on the earth, on the boy’s mind.

The boy, with his glasses, looked much older compared to his eighteen – eyes always fixed to far-off things. He used to think much, but spoke a little. That’s the reason he had hardly got any friends. Lonely he was, as his room, as the colony was, in the evening.

There was a little retardation of raining outside, and as the boy watched, some places of the road were already drowned to some extent on which children, carrying umbrellas introduced boats made of paper. He liked it, because he did the same at his childhood. But he didn’t smile. Seldom he smiled, and when he did, a sad note would always attached to it for which people thought that he had suffered a lot. But only he knew, days of suffering were coming ahead.


Presently, he was working on something. On the table, pen and diary rested. So he was writing. Perhaps a story! And what it reminds that for the last three years from his age of sixteen, he was writing regularly for his school magazine – but for a fruitless effort. Because when he deposited those papers to the teachers’ table, they used to go straight to they waste box. It was not because they wouldn’t like his work, but it was for they didn’t like him. They used to call him a snob and laughed at him outside even inside the class. What was worse, his classmates gradually joined the party. As a result, he became pretty aloof from the world outside him and fantasised for one day when he would be able to give a perfect lessons to those lafungas.



It had stopped raining now. The sky too, didn’t look like the darkest. People on the road walked hurriedly hopping over muddy places. A man passed down the window with a troublesome umbrella. A cool breeze, blowing off the curtains of the room, tilting the branches of the trees nearby, vanished somewhere, and on the road, a bicycle jumped sharply into a ditch spraying water to a beggar’s face.

He got up with a start.

The light of the room was switched off. And as he entered the front room, his eyes met with his parents.

His parents, brought him up well in a hostel, but since he has passed out from that place, they didn’t take care much of him. Rather, they liked to send him again to a boarding school – which he didn’t want to. And as he believed, there was a certain distance building between him and his parents. A distance, - he knew, which could never be replenished by anything in the world.


“I’m going out, for some time.” He said, looking at the other way.

Silence. And as he looked at for a moment, he saw his parents’ eyes fixed to him. They had stopped their conversation, and what was certain, it was for him.

“To Southern Avenue?” his father demanded.

The boy remained silent. His parents had found him going to that place in a regular basis, and anyway had a doubt about the cause of his behaviour.

“To Southern Avenue?” this time it was a louder one.

And again he had to remain silent, for he was bored of saying the same ‘yes’ everyday.

The atmosphere was getting tense.

“You can have a walk around the parks nearby. Why all the time you have to go to that far place?” this time it was his mother, and in a relatively cold voice.

Silence. Again. As if it was destined in the room. The way the boy always behaved, sometimes left his parents embarrassed too. It was not totally his fault, but he didn’t want to go into arguments.

He hesitated, hesitated for a long time, and making his mind said, “If I find any reason, I will tell you.”

And he went past the doors leaving the wide open astonishing eyes of the two behind.


2



...Thirty, thirty one and thirty two, as he counted the last steps and came down to the footpath. Rain had left its signs all around - muddy footpaths, wet road, pools of water at some places on the road. He stepped on the road and began to walk. A cool breeze blowing softly, played with the boy’s hair. As usual, his hands were in his pockets, and head down, as he walked always. He had to hop over the watery places some time, and as he passed the small temple, the local basti – the slum area began.

It was someone’s birthday at the basti, as some of the balloons were seen tied at a place. Children of the slam had started running to and fro due to their natural joyous character, after the much wanted shower had been poured to the earth. Just where he saw the balloons were tied, a boy started creating bubbles from soap water. The crowd of children came running in, and kept trying to catch the bubbles, floating in the air. He looked at those things some time, then smiled a little, and then again kept walking. Now there was the wooden bridge, below which the old Ganges passed, connected all these to the rest of the world. As he came on the bridge, he became one of the crowd, mixing in the whole lot. As the evening breeze passed the colony, it took the scent of the rains, giving the scent of earth. As the wind went away, the still and motionless crowd on the road became unnoticed. And in a while, it seemed that the destiny of mankind was written in a same way, to a same fate.



Three kilometres away, Southern Avenue lay. Still, motionless, freshened by the evening shower. The long avenue remained lonely and deserted. The most beautiful part of the city, as people believed it to be. The branches of the trees were tired of bearing raindrops and bent their branches to the corner of the road. The roads were wet, everywhere, and the dampness in the air was giving the feeling to people of another shower. The newly wet Southern Avenue was looking beautiful, as a lady after shower, freshened by her natural beauties, for which not only the residents of her, but also people from other parts of the city came to visit the place, more often than anything else.




Those stretched fingers he drew away now, as the late evening gust ceased to break out in a stormy way, with which the drizzle was starting to be sprinkled to his face. The atmosphere was starting to cool down, as the mid July nature reflected the onset of a winter night. The Neems and Eucalyptuses were mystic, standing alone beside the nearby lake, in the darkness, as if reflecting the very mindset of the boy. The deserted winding road had its only visitor tonight, and the person was taking account of every detail of the night.

It was a shortcut to the place. The road lied beside the local railway station. The train lines passed through the bridge, and the station was just behind the lake place, called Rabindra Sarobar. The roads, as said earlier, was isolated, there were hardly any vehicle seen on the road. No one had the urge to get out of their house tonight, in an unpleasant weather like this, save only the boy, mystified in his own character, in the middle of a road towards Southern Avenue, with an unknown reason.

Several theories were put forward…about the reason of his behavior, by his parents. They believed that it was a girl; a dominating one – who calls him every evening to meet with her, at a place three kilometres away from his house. And the boy was so madly in love with her, that he was ready to quarrel or silence away his parents for the girl. Also it could be this, the boy was in love with someone, but in the course of time he is unable to forget her, and was lonely enough not to share those things with his parents, and wander away. There was another prediction of his depression; he was probably much dejected, with his personal life, and also with his academic, so he wanted to stay away from his family fights, and this was his way to show the outcome.


So was it for a love he is here tonight? Or was it just because he hated his familiar cold fights – from which he had always wanted to stay away from his childhood, or was it because he liked the place so much that he could not control himself from visiting the place from time to time, watching the scenic beauty of the lake place to the farthest fraction of Southern Avenue. There was perfectly no one in the world who could answer the question, not even the boy himself. Because, for him, each of the answers remained correct. His love, searching for happiness, and his destiny of life, all three had come to an end in Southern Avenue. And in a way, he had found the answers of all the questions in his life by the journey from his house to Southern Avenue through the roads of Lake Place.



3


What is truth? As one of my friends asked me a few days ago. Truth is not what I know. Truth is not what you know. Truth is what we feel. Truth is what we want to believe, what happens with us, in our lives, that is truth.

You have probably guessed the reason why do I come here, three kilometers away from my house every evening. At primitive, it was my search for love, the love I had lost years ago. Then it became the search of consolation of my despair, my loneliness. And in the meantime I had passed a few years visiting Southern Avenue, and I was in love with the scenic beauty of the place. I kept discovering life, happiness, and also the very life of my love, only by visiting the place, where I had lost it.

I had reached the place which indicated my time to turn back. I had not discovered the place, where she lived, but probably, some day… I will be able to know.

It was the same road I was walking half an hour ago. The wind was blowing in a much harder way, and what was worse, I was on my way home.

On the way back home, I stopped. I stopped, looked at the sky and thought for a while. I was like the shepherd boy, searching for his destiny, searching for the reason of our lives set alone for a journey. But where was the Alchemist, who could show my path? Where was the Alchemist who could have shown me the meaning of omens and signs…?

The whole world was going in its own way. No one did care to answer me. The nearby station suddenly got busier because of a train entering into it. The wind had started blowing. The lake was not still now, creating small ripples around. And then a small branch of leaves fell from the topmost branch of the tree. The same tree I see everyday beside the lake, and at the Southern Avenue.

Everything is not a sign, but signs are hidden in everything. I remembered the first lesson of a nomad. The power I have, that I can use a pen, is my strength. But at the time of dejection, it’s my curse too. And the curse will remain forever in my life. With the wind far gone, and the time that will follow, I will be ready to go anywhere in the world…
I looked up at the sky. It was the same dark night I had seen three years back. The moon was there, but to the other side.

“Is there God?” I asked.

The evening train came running out of the platform now. And as it passed by the lake, its reflection on the water kept my eyes fixed on it. Seconds were passing. A cool breeze started blowing, and the Chhatim tree bent its branches so as to say something.

“Then tell her to help this atheist.” I muttered.



The lonely Southern Avenue remained silent, as the only visitor of tonight headed towards his own colony, as the lake remained rippleless, stagnant till its deep, as the heavy wind blew through the curtains of the window of a nearby house, and a girl of eighteen kept on staring through the railings to the deserted long road so as to say something, whispering in the ears of the wind, listen to Southern Avenue.

-written from Feb '07 to Feb '09

Eternal dancing

--Heron Ryan--


"Immediately after the first glass of wine, she told me, unprompted, that she had a boyfriend who worked for Scotland Yard. It was a lie, of course. She must have read the look in my eyes, and this was her way of keeping me at a distance.

I told her that I had a girlfriend, which made us even.
Ten minutes after the music had started, she stood up. We had said very little-she asked no questions about my research, and we exchanged only generalities: our impressions of the city, complaints about the state of the roads. But what I saw next-or, rather, what everyone in the restaurant saw-was a goddess revealing herself in all her glory, a priestess invoking angels and demons.

Her eyes were closed and she seemed no longer to be conscious of who she was or where she was or why she was there; it was as if she were floating and simultaneously summoning up her past, revealing her present and predicting the future. She mingled eroticism with chastity, pornography with revelation, worship of God and nature, all at the same time.

People stopped eating and started watching what was happening. She was no longer following the music, the musicians were trying to keep up with her steps, and that restaurant in the basement of an old building in the city was transformed into an Egyptian temple, where the worshippers of Isis used to gather for their fertility rites. The smell of roast meat and wine was transmuted into incense that drew us all into the same trans-like state, into the same experience of leaving this world and entering an unknown dimension.

The string and the wind instruments had given up, only the percussion played on. Athena was dancing as if she were no longer there, with sweat running down her face, her bare feet beating on the wooden floor. She was inhibiting other spheres, experiencing the frontiers of worlds that almost touch ours, but never reveal themselves.

The other people in the restaurant started clapping in time to the music, and Athena was dancing ever faster, feeding on that energy and spinning round and round, balancing in the void, snatching up everything that we, poor mortals, wanted to offer to the supreme divinity.

And suddenly she stopped. Everyone stopped, including the percussionists. Her eyes were still closed, but tears were now rolling down her cheeks. She raised her arms in the air and cried: ‘When I die, bury me standing, because I’ve spent all my life on my knees! ’

Later on, I learned that the words she had spoken at the end of her dance were an ancient gypsy saying.”

- From 'The Witch of Portobello'.

Another collection

For I am the first and the last
I am the venerated and the despised
I am the prostitute and the saint
I am the wife and the virgin I am the mother and the daughter
I am the arms of my mother
I am barren and my children are many
I am the married woman and the spinster
I am the woman who gives birth and she
who never procreated I am the consolation for the pain of birth
I am the wife and the husband
And it was my man who created me
I am the mother of my father
I am the sister of my husband
And he is my rejected son
Always respect me For I am the shameful and the magnificent one

-Hymn to Isis, third or fourth century BC, discovered in Nag Hammadi

History of railway tracks - Teaching from 'The Zahir'

1. THE TRACKS


I returned to the usual questions: Why had she said nothing to me? Or had she been trying to do just that when she asked me the question that Hans had asked? Had Esther decided to save the world, as she had hinted in our conversation about love and war, and was she preparing me to join her on this mission?

My eyes were fixed on the railway tracks. Esther and I, walking along parallel to each other, never touching. Two destinies that…

Railway tracks.

How far apart were they?

In order to forget about the Zahir, I tried asking one of the platform staff.

“They’re 143.5 centimeters, or 4 feet 8½ inches, apart,” he replied.

He seemed to be a man at peace with life, proud of his job; he didn’t fit Esther’s stereotype at all, that we all harbor a great sadness in our soul.

But his answer didn’t make any sense at all: 143.5 centimeters or 4 feet 8½ inches?

Absurd. Logically, it should be either 150 centimeters or 5 feet. A round number, easy for builders of carriages and railway employees to remember.

“But why?” I asked the man.

“Because that’s the width between the wheels on the carriages.”

“But surely the wheels are that distance apart because the tracks are.”

“Look, just because I work in a railway station doesn’t mean I know everything about trains. That’s just the way things are.”

He was no longer a happy person, at peace with his work; he could answer one question, but could go no further. I apologized and spent what remained of the fifteen minutes staring at the tracks, feeling intuitively that they were trying to tell me something. Strange though it may seem, the tracks seemed to be saying something about my marriage, and about all marriages.


2. THE ILLUSTRATION


I don’t know how I managed to get to my feet and look at that audience, who were still visibly shocked by the story of the man who had felt aroused by the thought of his wife having sex with another man. No one seemed to be listening, and that helped me make a start.

“I apologize for not being as direct as the two previous speakers, but I nevertheless have something to say. I went to a train station today and learned that the distance between railway tracks is always 143.5 centimeters, or 4 feet 8½ inches. Why this absurd measurement? I asked my girlfriend to find out and this is what she discovered. When they built the first train carriages, they used the same tools as they had for building horsedrawn carriages. And why that distance between the wheels on carriages? Because that was the width of the old roads along which the carriages had to travel. And who decided that roads should be that width? Well, suddenly, we are plunged back into the distant past. It was the Romans, the first great road builders, who decided to make their roads that width. And why? Because their war chariots were pulled by two horses, and when placed side by side, the horses they used at the time took up 143.5 centimeters.

“So the distance between the tracks I saw today, used by our state-of-the-art high-speed trains, was determined by the Romans. When people went to the United States and started building railways there, it didn’t occur to them to change the width and so it stayed as it was. This even affected the building of space shuttles. American engineers thought the fuel tanks should be wider, but the tanks were built in Utah and had to be transported by train to the Space Center in Florida, and the tunnels couldn’t take anything wider. And so they had to accept the measurement that the Romans had decided was the ideal. But what has all this to do with marriage?”

I paused. Some people were not in the slightest bit interested in railway tracks and had started talking among themselves. Others were listening attentively, among them Marie and Mikhail.

“It has everything to do with marriage and with the two stories we have just heard. At some point in history, someone turned up and said: When two people get married, they must stay frozen like that for the rest of their lives. You will move along side by side like two tracks, keeping always that same distance apart. Even if sometimes one of you needs to be a little farther away or a little closer, that is against the rules. The rules say: Be sensible, think of the future, think of your children. You can’t change, you must be like two railway tracks that remain the same distance apart all the way from their point of departure to their destination. The rules don’t allow for love to change, or to grow at the start and diminish halfway through—it’s too dangerous. And so, after the enthusiasm of the first few years, they maintain the same distance, the same solidity, the same functional nature. Your purpose is to allow the train bearing the survival of the species to head off into the future: your children will only be happy if you stay just as you were — 143.5 centimeters apart. If you’re not happy with something that never changes, think of them, think of the children you brought into the world.

“Think of your neighbors. Show them that you’re happy, eat roast beef on Sundays, watch television, help the community. Think of society. Dress in such a way that everyone knows you’re in perfect harmony. Never glance to the side, someone might be watching you, and that could bring temptation; it could mean divorce, crisis, depression.

“Smile in all the photos. Put the photos in the living room, so that everyone can see them. Cut the grass, practice a sport—oh, yes, you must practice a sport in order to stay frozen in time. When sport isn’t enough, have plastic surgery. But never forget, these rules were established long ago and must be respected. Who established these rules? That doesn’t matter. Don’t question them, because they will always apply, even if you don’t agree with them.”

- Read and assembled by me on the way to Hardwar on holidays '08.

A glimpse

On the way back home, I stopped. I stopped, looked at the sky and thought for a while. I was like the shepherd boy, searching for his destiny, searching for the reason of our lives set alone for a journey. But where was the Alchemist, who could show my path? Where was the Alchemist who could have shown me the meaning of omens and signs…?

The whole world was going in its own way. No one did care to answer me. The nearby station suddenly got busier because of a train entering into it. The wind had started blowing. The lake was not still now, creating small ripples around. And then a small branch of leaves fell from the topmost branch of the tree. The same tree I see everyday beside the lake, and at the Southern Avenue.

Everything is not a sign, but signs are hidden in everything. I remembered the first lesson of a nomad. The power I have, that I can use a pen, is my strength. But at the time of dejection, it’s my curse too. And the curse will remain forever in my life. With the wind far gone, and the time that will follow, I will be ready to go anywhere in the world…
I looked up at the sky. It was the same dark night I had seen three years back. The moon was there, but to the other side.

“Is there God?” I asked.

The evening train came running out of the platform now. And as it passed by the lake, its reflection on the water kept my eyes fixed on it. Seconds were passing. A cool breeze started blowing, and the Chhatim tree bent its branches so as to say something.

“Then tell her to help this atheist.” I muttered.

- A short part from a story of mine, expecting to hit on March '09

Alone I am

Alone I was
So I am again

Gardens full of roses
Which...of course, signed love.
'Fairest among women, she is.'
I used to tell myself then.
And the lone sigh now,
From the deepest of heart.
Faces behind the face
Which I know.

Is there 'love' or 'liking'
In the world of dejection
And treachery,
I ask myself.

Whole night rains...
Outside, or the eyes?

And then I got something
Precious; you can say.
My diary...with those lines
on the first page.

'A writer's life is yours
Whoever comes your way
Writings do not change
Writers do not change

Love doesn't change.'

-'07

Flower of love

I loved a rose once.
A small, red rose.
When I saw it,
I wondered of the creation of God.
I kept it in my pocket, and forgot.

The next day, I found it dead.
But it left a thorn at my chest.
A drop of blood, it caused.


I loved a lady once,
A nice hearted one.
Again I wondered the creation of God.
I kept my promises, and waited.

And this time, I lost her...
But she left words at my heart.
Words of love, they were.


I saw a tiny girl,
playing at a park.
And gave her a flower.
What is it? she asked.
Love. I answered.
And she ran away.
'Love it is, which does not die.' I said.

-November '07

Happy Princess 2

"I'll destroy him." The happy princess thought.

*

The boy had gone, but he tried to shove the girl's mind for the first time, and the effect, he had to suffer.

The girl had friendship with two elves. She went to them for help.

"Destroy him, by any means." She said.

For the boy, days of suffering were coming ahead. The elves made his mind weaker for the girl.

The boy forgot everything except the girl. From the first Sunlight to the end of night he found that girl in his mind.


One year passed.


The boy had become a loser now. He had neither a shelter, nor a job. He had lost everything that he had, except the memories of the girl.

He went to the forest again.

"Still I like you." The boy said to the girl, who was watching him on the road from the windows.

The elves cursed again. This time, it was the curse of death.

And the windows were shut.



Happy princesses change, but only in stories. Perhaps we will never see them changing into nice ladies in our real life.

-July '07

The Happy Princess

Once upon a time, there was a man, living in a forest. He had lost his wife. But he had his hut to live. He cut woods, sold them in the nearby village. With him, lived his daughter.

The girl was beautiful, but she was much proud of that. She did not care her father, or anyone living in the forest. Even other poor woodcutters got bad behaviour from her.

One day, a boy came into the forest. He wanted to pass the night in the man's house, and he permitted. The boy had already seen the girl.

At night, in the dining table, the girl found herself rude on the boy for no reason. So, the boy had to leave.

"You are happy princess now. But you will change, I know." The boy said, as he left the forest.


We are still waiting to see the happy princes changing into a really nice hearted lady.

Are you too?

-Written on July '07

"When you have great treasures within yourself, and try to tell others of it, seldom are you believed"

The Blood Hunt

He could never imagine he would be chosen for this bizarre game... to watch a horror film in an auditorium... alone.

The movie was a psycho thriller, to be specific. And the only thing he could see in the big screen was blood – somehow or by some reason the killer was psyche about blood, that’s the thing the film wanted to show, and that’s the only thing which horrifies him.

“The Blood hunt.” He muttered.

It was for the famous TV program he is here today – ‘The Blood Hunt’, for a massive hunt of brave teens. And now, when the final stage has come, they have arranged a sequence like this. The ones win; go for a meeting with an actor, famous for his onscreen braveness.

“...Blood Hunt.” He muttered again.

They needed a bunch of psycho people, not some brave persons, as he believed. They had to survive several stages to come up to here – had to lie with snakes, had to stay in a 5’*5’ gas chamber, bath in a tub consisting water mixed with goat’s blood and like so. Rule was simple, one expression from your face, and you will be out of the show. And now he thinks, would’ve he been out of this game long ago... he didn’t come here to be a psycho; he wanted to be only a brave person.


Back there, it was the bloody movie... still running – converting blood, from his veins into water every second, of which he could do nothing but to watch – blood, all over the screen.

He stood up on his weak legs. There were really nothing left of the competition in his mind. He was shocked, getting sick, and somehow, feeling red everything around him – His tongue was salty, and he didn’t know, it was the blood or for the hatred towards it.

He was on the footpath now. The auditorium was left behind – from which he managed to sneak away, through the back door.

“Blood...” he continued to mutter.

It was past midnight. A season wind, generating from the southern lake, tilting the branches of the trees nearby, vanished somewhere. And a white owl moved from its nest of the far-off tree towards the only open window of a high-rise building, with its glistening off-white feathers in the moonlight.

The chain of thoughts broke away as he heard some faint sounds – it was a beggar, poor, sick, about to die, calling for something to eat.

“Blood… that’s the thing they want.” He smiled.

And then, once again, the dark night saw blood and blood only. There he was, with a stone in his hand, in front of the beggar – head crushed…several times.

“The blood hunt has just begun… and it will continue.” The cry kept hovering and haunting into the dark.

-Written on September '08, for the TOI competition.

A love, forgotten

“Away on the horizon, Corsica buried itself in the darkness, disappearing slowly in the sea, from which it had risen as if itself to tell the story of the two humble lovers whom its shores had sheltered”
− Guy de Maupassant.


“My first love”, my friend said staring at us with a pinch of sorrow at his eyes, after we pointed to the photograph at his wallet.

It was a clumsy rainy dusk of late July. Monsoon had broken up with a flood of emerald green. Nature was converting to green, everywhere. We three friends were walking on the road, and large drops of water fell from the sky. In the haziness of flourishing water, three friends were on the road, destination less, nostalgic, feeling the touch of a familiar by those drops…. we were wet, but it felt good. The onset of the Monsoon brought back the memories of the happy past as if with a magical wand in a while.

“She was my first love.” He continued.

Branches of the trees beside the road bent themselves in the randomness of rain, in the weight of raindrops; but it seemed as if an old, forgotten though much remembered love has attracted all heavenly powers to itself. The wild bushes showed their colours, with new unknown named flowers and blossoms. And the steep road winded itself to the horizon as a never ending cord, cord of human binding.

“We both were in eighth standard in the same school. Though our minds were immature, we felt affectionate to each other. Often our eyes met, and I would see her smiling with her small, shy lips. Seldom we talked, because when we faced each other, we were so excited, that shyness covered us, and we could hardly speak a word. We would smile often trying to talk with each other…. Some things are there in our lives which bring back our happy past within a while, after years too.”

“Months later, I along with my family while travelling for Ghatsila by train, discovered her family just opposite to our coupe. And that journey to Ghatsila, I will never forget in my life – small stupid things I did, her gentle smile at my joking behavior. I was overwhelming in excitation for being with her. The bond of two hearts was getting stronger… I was discovering love – the only treasure which lasts for our lifetime. ”

“We were eighteen, and were admitted to the same high school. Days when our parents would not come to take us, we returned home together, holding hands. Days when it rained, we continued to walk alone in the street. We became wet, we shivered, but it was the warmth of our relation which gave us comfort. Our minds were opening up to each other. Flowers, songs, colours, seasons, happy surroundings – love was everywhere in the world to my eyes.”

“Days were passing, and my happy memories were becoming more and more. Different were those days, little things we do at some times in our childhood, and we cannot forget them throughout our lives. It reminds me of one day when walking on the road together, I jumped and crossed a pool of mud, and she couldn’t, I helped her holding her shoulder to cross it. Our fingers touched, eyes downed, witness was the sky, the heaven, and us…”


He looked up the sky now, taking some relief from the story. The water drops continued to reflect from his face. A cart passed us with its own rhythmic sound. As it passed us and went on, its sound kept hovering in the air. Darkness had already covered us, and as we eyed the sky, the downpour had started seizing slowly. Earth was already wet, at least our minds were. Our friend had not yet finished the story; still, we knew that they were parted. Maybe any family problem, or anything personal, I thought in my mind. No one spoke a word for a long time. The lone long neem and eucalyptuses beside the road stood still, freshened by the heavenly cascade. The distinct smell of the trees kept the weather fresh, nourished.

“Then how did you part from each other?” My companion asked now.

Silence. Leaves fell from the trees beside the road with their distinct sounds. In the half light of the dusk, sounds kept coming of insects from the bushes. And then from a deep zone of his voice, he uttered those three words: “Time parted us.”


What can I say now, it had something in his voice, or something in his tone, or something in the feeling which were reflected in those three words, which shoved and shivered us for a while. Years have passed, life has moved on, but still, in the darkness of a night now, in the loneliness of dejection, in the silence of a graveyard, I still hear those words, and feel how deep was the impression of the rain on his mind to utter those words.

In the darkness of evening, we became hazy, walking together, silent, thinking about the fate of love.
And that very moment, some words started moulding in my heart…

Away on the horizon, raindrops hid themselves in the sky, disappearing slowly in the evening July clouds, from which they had risen, as if thmselves to tell the story of the two humble lovers, whom once their shadows had sheltered.

-Written in April '08

Another Rainy Day

Raining hasn’t stopped for a moment from the past three days. The sky wept all its tears down to earth. Neither day, nor at night, there was relief from those water drops. ‘Monsoon has arrived’ – there were joyous exclamations at people’s face.

A pigeon came flying in the rain, and sat wet on the window of a house. As it continued to shiver resting on the window, drops of water began to form and drop slowly from the cornice.

The boy counted from one to ninety three drops of water which dropped from the cornice of the window. He counted people on the road, then people with umbrellas, and then cars passing down the window. But he got bored. Nothing was to be done, and what was worse, he was alone.

“Go to hell those rains!” The boy struggled.

The wind began to blow much harder. And for some strange reasons, raining seemed more vigorous.

The paths were knee deep into the water. Drains and manholes were out of order. Rain water filled the drains and brought them to road high confusing people about the presence of the both. And frequently, they stepped on the drains thinking it as the road.

“Public is a funny character.” – The boy muttered.

That’s the line, where his life of writing started, in a very uncertain way.


*

It was of his late maternal uncle’s home he was living in. His late uncle’s wife and his cousin chose the first floor leaving the ground one for him. And as far as the landlord is concerned, he preferred the storage room to be used as the living room of the boy for low cost.
As for the boy, coming from mofussil to a city like this for higher education, the first option was obvious of living with his maternal uncle’s family. He was mere a twelve when his father dropped him here, with his watery pale eyes. He had never seen his mother, but seldom he heard about a strange home, but he was quite a child to be familiar with those words, so he let things go like that. ‘It’s all in our fate’ as he believed, which drifted his mother to a strange home, his poor father to a mill, hundreds of kilometers away from his only son, his uncle to the depth of dark death, leaving his widow and a girl as his cousin with whom, so impossibly and so unlikely, the boy fell in love.


Nupur. As they called the girl. Though not among the fairest, still, her dignified manners attracted others. And those eyes, for which the boy was willing anything to do, seemed to seek something in everyone’s mind. Besides, she was charming, and she made everyone laugh – laugh at small excuses too, at least till some years ago.

He still remembers of the festival two years ago. His uncle was still alive then. Durga Puja was occurring at their colony. He saw Nupur for the first time in saris, and how beautiful she looked! From that very day he fell for admiring her. Times come in our lives when we are not ready to believe what we do, but the truth was, the boy thus, started in an obdurate way loving his only cousin.

Meantime, the boy started counting inner meanings of the girl’s behaviour. When she smiled staring at him, the boy started thinking it as the affection of her. If their fingers touched exchanging things, he thought that it was done knowingly. Everyday, from morning to night, he passed times thinking about the girl. Days, months passed likewise and one day the boy decided to approach her.

“There is a little difference between love and affection, if you see. A smile, or a staring at you doesn’t mean love, and the one who takes these signs as love, are themselves affectionate to the person. And what I think, that we cannot share any relation apart from this. So think twice before you say those again. I have seen many people, of different kind, of different mentality, and after facing you, I must say that they... the public, is a funny character – who are falling in love with their cousins too”

And that’s the line, where his thoughts of love ended, in a very certain way.


*


It was still raining heavily outside. The weather was getting worse. Monsoon had not affected so much in the recent years, as the newspapers said. The city was going completely down to water, or somehow, trying to do so.

The boy got up and stretched his hands through the railings of the window. As the monsoon water touched his finger, a soothing effect blew down his body. Air had a smell of mud, smell of earth. The nature was converting to green, everywhere.

“Some day, you will be great, Siddhartha.” The boy muttered to himself.

The raindrops continued to reflect on the glasses of the window, making it as hazy as outside.
“Some day... may be a writer too.” He muttered again.


It rained, rained and kept raining outside. The pigeon from the cornice flew now. It flew on and on. And as it flew, the boy, the window, the house... the whole colony got hazier and hazier and at last disappeared from the bird’s little eyes.

- Written in July '07

The Night Train

“Yes, you are hurt, man.” I told myself at dark.
Who had imagined, that the journey would remind me all those things again...


. . .


The night train was about an hour late, and I had to wait at the platform with my suitcase. And then it came, as the slowest turtle of the earth and managed myself to my reserved seat lastly.
There was some time for the train to leave, and vendors shouted much at the platform to my disgust.

But once it left the station, there was silence, and, and yes, darkness. I felt good. Both of them gave me comfort, for years. What was better, I was alone, in the coupe, as in my life.
Dark was outside. Distances away forest began, a dense one. It was one of the forests of eastern Madhyapradesh – through which the lines of the rail passed.

People try to sleep in darkness, when they are alone, but I do not. Rather I try to hear strange sounds, if any are there. I try to smell those things which are abstract, like the pages of old book, the wooden benches, the railings of windows. Have you ever tried to find the smell of night? It’s a soft, gentle, charming one – like those of chhatim flowers... What is the specialty that lies in chhatim flowers; I thought. We can’t see them generally. Do we? But the smell, to me which meant going back to unhappy past, - is a great one. Chhatim flowers, was one of my favourites, like silence and other things.

Now someone entered into the coupe. A middle heighted man, and to my disgust, switched on the light.

He was a middle aged man, placing his bag under the seat.

“Put out the light.” I said.

There was no answer. Rather, he turned to me and our eyes met. His was yellow, and had a painful look.

“Put out the light.” I said again.

He sat down the bench slowly, but nevertheless taking apart his eyes from mine, and smiled a little.

“Yes I will.” He said.

“Do it now.”

“Don’t you like it?”

I was about to answer something, but stopped. Months, years I’ve passed in darkness, but didn’t I like the light? Didn’t I want to join my friends coming out of my loneliness? Yes I did. But I feared to do, because I feared to remind...

And then he told something which shivered me.

“You are hurt, by some ways.”

I dumbed.

“May be any old liking, love – or something like that, have hurt you a lot.”

“...what?” I said anyway.

“Here... I put out the light.”

And the light was switched off.

The man lied down the bench, but I sat still. In the same darkness, the train ran at its highest speed.

I fear to remind, and he helped to do it again.

“Yes, you are hurt man.” I told myself at dark.

Who had imagined, that the journey would remind me all those things again...

. . .


Reminding past is never easy. The words of the man, chhatim flowers, dark night... took me to my twenty years age... the day... a sharp, lightened afternoon saw me hesitant before a girl, and for the first time, I was lost in the world of colours, seasons and happiness. For the first time, I discovered love and liking in this world, and afterwards, an irresistible force called me again and again to the place she lived. Love – I found in the first hours of sunrise, in the red clouds of sunset, in the night dark sky standing alone on the roof. Flowers... songs... happy surroundings... if you have ever been in love, you will know – if there is something called God..., it is love.


And I think it was a Friday she committed suicide. Not much news I got, but some family problems..., with which she could not cope up with, killed herself.

Since then, I am alone, inside darkness and silence... companionless..., perhaps waiting for her.


. . .


As the first lights of morning reflected into the coupe, I didn’t find the man on the seat.

-Written on July, '07

"The darkest hour of the night came just before the dawn."

GOOD NIGHT

“Another shock from a girl may proved to be cyanide to him.” I muttered.

I pushed the doors and shut them. Nobody was in the bedroom. I was alone. I sat at the corner of my bed and opened the windows. It was the night dark sky with its glowing stars. The moon had already covered half the distance of the sky. The moonlight had flooded my floor, to which I could not cop up. I wanted darkness, I wanted silence.

The bastiwallas were all silent tonight, unlike that of the previous, when they shouted and danced throughout the night at a marriage ceremony between two of their residents. I could smell the sweet fragrance of the chhatim flowers coming from the neighbourhood. A sweet smell. I breathed full, again and again.

A white owl crying sharply passed the window. A subtle and secret relationship exists between man and his environment beyond the borders of common perception. And it explores in night, when environment reveals its mysteries one by one. But people, unknowingly get drowned to their dreams then.

Has anyone watched the full night as they do the day? So often I wonder, night is like a death of the world which is broken by morn. Morning - is the beginning of a fresh day to everyone, except him, who has passed the night sleepless.

Before shutting the windows I took the smell of the chhatim flowers for the last time. Now it is a lonely, closed room with its only sound of ticking the clock. I switched on the table lamp and everything could be seen by that in the room. The half-open books and copies on my bed, the newspaper, the pillow, the half-ate biscuit packet and lastly, my diary. I took my windcheater and comforter, and let them hang from the hooks. I took my diary, kept it on the table and sat on the chair.

“Another shock from a girl...” I muttered again. The only line I have written on the paper. I was about to write a love story but my pen can’t write a single line beyond it. Perhaps I would be the first ever to write a story by a single line.

My story was about a boy who has fallen in love many a times, but every time he has got refused or detached from the girl. His mind gets affected every time and the thoughts of happy past weaken his mind. And then how his friend who happens to be a girl, brings him back to his normal life and they fall in love with each other, but fail to say it.

Right here my thoughts are not proceeding. Both the two think, the other one treats him/her only as a friend and a big doubt stands between them, whether they share love, or just friendship.

Actually this story is the reflection of my own opinion that a boy and a girl can never be just friends. One of their minds always thinks that the other one is surely in love with him/her. This strong faith resists the building of a relationship between a boy and a girl and that is the so-called ‘friendship’.

The doors opened, silently and suddenly, and my mother entered into the room.

“What are you doing?” she asked in a sleepy and astonishing voice.

I was about to answer something but as soon as I saw that her eyes have fallen into my diary, I changed my mind and went straight ahead, “Writing some answers on physics. Why?”

She turned back, and I left the deep breath. I knew about her poor eyesight without glasses, and got the best opportunity to lie.

“Who is Pallabi?”

“Who is Pallabi?” I questioned back.

The next moment was silent all along. But I was pretty quick in correcting myself and told, “One of my friends, why?”

“Why do you write her name so many times in your rough copies?” she threw the question leaving the room.

I closed my eyes and put my head on the hands. The night guards on the road whistled and I looked at the clock, 2.10. One can almost say good morning to me. I will not mind for saying that.

I have to think about the plot again. Girls will always treat boys as their friends only unless money matters come into the middle. Boys will continue to pass sleepless nights in the thoughts of their ‘friends’. Girls will continue to choose a safe bank balance than a lover. Girls will only know the presence of night when they wish each other ‘good night’. But boys will have to pass the nights, with each and every moment lonely, with a huge cloud of uncertainty about their future, their lives, the burden of responsibilities.

I switched off  the light and went to the bed. The light of the lamppost standing outside on the road came through the glasses of the windows. I kept my eyes shut, to dream them over a new world.

My strong opinion is that, if you have some work to finish, do it by night. I don’t know exactly why I suggest so. Perhaps night brings a power within me.

‘Friends’ of mine, have a good night.

- This was my first story written in December '06, when I was eighteen.

J for JOKER

I realized there were only stacks of cards in the room. I flipped through them and realized something; the joker was missing in all the packs... which, I had to use somewhere.

“CID thinks, may be a mentally disbalanced one is responsible for the murders, to which I contradict.” I muttered.

It was a dark December night, and my house, being some distances away from the core of the town, remained silent and darker, and as alone as its master.

There were dreamy blue scent of chhatim and other flowers coming from my garden, and the glasses of the windows – were pierced by the light of the lamppost standing outside on the road. Night, smell, loneliness... my only companions, after my wife left this world.

“CID thinks, may be a mentally disbalanced one is responsible for the murder, to which I contradict.” I muttered again.


Last week, my wife was killed, being the fourth prey of a killer, who leaves a certain sign after the murders.

I took up the newspaper and eyed the heading reflecting the four at a row murder case. “...and taking the last, four persons have been killed by the same murderer. The first three were inside the town, and the fourth is just nine kilometers away from the town. The killer, according to police, is a psychopath leaves his presence by a certain sign – a joker card. CID is investigating for...”


“Mentally unstable, joker card... hah ha” I laughed out loud breaking the silence of the room.

“They are searching for the mad person like bulldogs, and here is your murderer.” I said.


It was easy, very easy. I was planning to get all the properties of my wife, and suddenly came across a story heading ‘ABC murder case’. I turned my plan to ABCD murder, and at last here I am, with properties worth six crores.



From the farthest part of the city, where the Muslim-Patti ends, sounds kept coming of barking of stray dogs, and except that, sounds in my room of ticking of the wall clock.

People try to sleep in darkness, in silence, when they are alone. But I do not. Rather, I try to hear strange sounds; try to smell those things which are abstract. Like the railings of windows, the wooden benches. Have you ever tried to find the smell of night? It is a soft, gentle and charming one – like those of chhatim flowers.

I took my gun again. The bloody gun, which took all the four lives. And a last work is to be done. I have to kill my last enemy, tonight.


And the next day, police will find another body in the house. Similarities – joker card, the same murderer. Difference – case of a suicide.


-Sept '07

-written on Sept '07, published on 12th October in the same year in TOI.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Well guys(mostly boys), this is the acknowledgment part I want to write before I join the world of blogging, on this very day, 20th February '09, in an evening when I am not supposed to write at all. I have lost all contacts with my first crush a couple of months ago.

So here it is, Bipul Islam, I thank you for the opinion you gave me for my writing, for letting me know all about the world of blog, and encouraging me to enter into it. Thanks to Ananta Mondal, who asked me from time to time showing sincerity and love for writings, thus enabling me to give more time towards my writing. Also, thanks to my old friend Sandipan Acharya, who had the courage to stand beside me and say good things about my writing. Thanks to Sobitri Chatterjee, who gave his precious comments on my stories and helped me check the overwhelming emotions I had towards nature. Special thanks to Nachiketa Das, as not just because he gave me suggestions, but also because it is always nice to get applause from geniuses. Thanks to the series of criticism made by Siddhartha Roy Nandy, which only left me with a feeling that I am a writer of some importance. Thanks to all those persons who applauded me after coming across my writings. Thanks to Times Of India, and all their staffs, with the help of them I got a chance to expose my writing.


And at last, one thanking to the lady whom I saw for the last time at the Durga Puja '08, with whom I passed nine months of my life. She came from Varanasi, had feelings for Sanskrit and dancing, living a life of neither a saint nor a witch. This thanking is not for the love I had for her, not for the friendship we used to share, and not for the dreams she made me see.

But this is for she simply is.

With these, I am ready to go in the blog, and ready to take everything that comes towards me. As one of the characters in my story once said, with the wind far gone, and the time that will follow, I shall be ready to go anywhere in the world.




"When I die, bury me standing, because I have spent all my life on my knees." - Ancient gypsy saying.