Thoughts of a wanderer 4

Once again I find myself on the paths of the lake place. Dark becomes the world. The lake is still. The evening couples continue their love talking and love making. The breeze from the southern horizon rides over the lake and touches my face, as I return to the usual question.


Why had she said nothing to me? What could be the reason of her behavior?


I walk alone. I walk as if I am a ghost. I do not feel anything. I do not see anything that is related to the real world. I do not feel love. I do not feel pain. I do not feel the need to be loved or the need to be felt special. I see faces as if I dream, as if they exist in the virtual world. I feel sorry for those persons who exist. I feel sorry for those persons who fall in love. I envy those persons who have hungry kisses in the Moonlight. I feel hungry when the Chhatim flowers awake my soul. I feel the urge to be happy when I imagine her drinking vodka. I feel stones in my heart when I see her holding his hands or dragging him close in an old picture. I feel I would bet the world when I see the curtains of the windows of her bedroom flying in the wind. I feel myself losing away when I keep looking at her old pictures. I feel rejuvenated when someone calls her name at my presence. I feel the most beautiful dreams of mine become true one day. But I do not feel her. I do not feel her consciences. That’s the reason I do not feel anything that is related to the real world. I do not feel anything. I walk as if I am a ghost. I walk alone.


The smell of the Chhatim flowers bewitches me. I feel the blue snake at my forehead, as I remind of the last words of the clairvoyant. I see the smile at the end of his lips as he took my hand, and said those words. I feel the gust at my face, I turn my face away. I turn my face away from all the pleasures of life- love, liking, and relationship. I just become an unhappy person sitting in the corner of his room, like the character portrayed by me in the story ‘The Night Train’. I remember the fact that someone said I was going to write the story of my life myself. I shiver, because I know that I am a tragedy writer.


In my dream, Pallabi comes. And when I walk here at Southern Avenues, I clearly see her footsteps at the roads and humbly step away. I stare to the place where once we stood in the times of Durga Puja in front of a house. I think of those few seconds I got the chance to stand beside her. I feel myself special when I think of these happening. I feel myself special when in my heart I travel to the holy places of Varanasi; from where she came when she was just nine years old. I feel myself special when I praise of her writing and she doesn’t answer. I keep looking for a word, a sign, rather an omen, but I fail. And the more I fail, the more I feel. I feel because I don’t tell. I write because I don’t tell. I fail because I don’t tell.


In my truth, Pallabi comes. I place the Urim and Thummim in my heart and let them lead the path. My legs tire, but I walk. The stones lighten the path of my life and I follow the toughest path. I seek the truth from the liar. I learn to live from the depressed one. I learn to smile from the distressed. I feel the sorrow of the street side beggars. I keep looking at their face and they smile. They do not smile because they get money. They smile because they know what’s happening. I stretch my hands in the dry summers expecting the raindrops at my palm. I keep looking to the southern horizon where a flight of pigeon goes round and round. The picturesque descriptions sometimes drag me to the past, as I lose myself away to an unknown zone. I fear I might not return. I fear because I love. I get back because I fear. I love because I do not get back.


I walk across the cinema hall named ‘Menoka’. I become unmindful. I walk past colonies in search of her. I come near her house, and see the meeting. I see the curtains of the windows in her room. I walk past the Nava Nalanda building, and everything starts to fade away.


I give second thoughts in writing the novel ‘Friday’. What should I write now? Should I write about all the virtual interviews I am going to invent myself? Should I write about her Varanasi background? Should I write how a serene, holy girl turned into a gypsy, in the flame of the lies of a city? Should I write about those innumerable smiles those lips threw to a boy, who came from a Mofussil, passed his childhood in a hostel loving the nature and worshiping the truth? Or should I write about the wry smiles I see in my nightmares in the face of her?
I fear I might lose my story. I am afraid, I have lost the girl.


On the way back home, I stop. I stop, look at the sky and think for a while. I feel myself like the shepherd boy. I search for the Alchemist, and I find him in each and every face of humankind. I place Urim and Thummim at my heart. My eyes become narrower. My hands stiffen. My legs cramp. I feel the hunger at my stomach. I walk till I get tired. And then I start walking again, till I get tired.


I feel the urge to ask her the question, why had she said nothing to me…but I realise the answer. It’s not only just because this is what happens if you want somebody from your soul and that somebody wants another from her soul, but there may be other answers.


May be because I am the chosen one.

- Oct'09

A few words about nothing

For the last couple of days, I was down in Influenza. But now, I am better, and fitter, of course.


As I have always spoken that every thing has two sides to deliver, if you expect always good things from a certain object which has always delivered right things in the past, then you should probably give it another thought. Just like that if you get depressed with a common shock or illness, then you should probably reconsider the truths they make you see when you fall ill, or you just lie at your home thinking about the rest of the world, and about life and also about human fate, how do we get attracted to the place we belong, and how our lives get complicated with the more and more offerings of the recent world.


I realised there were a lot of ‘get well soon’ wishings on the day I updated my current status on the social site in my profile. Now this is the problem with getting some famous. Think this way, if only I had kept a low profile on my writing side, these things would never happened. I could have said that day at ease that I do not owe any blog, and I do not write at all, as I had said to 'S', that I hardly read stories and novels, as she has turned her face away from me now, and I can once again fancy about the offerings a love could. But once again, that was another thing, and this writing thing, is so different. As it is said, that “No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlesticks, that they which come in, may see the light.” Now I did not find any reason to hide the candle in a bushel, that’s all, after all, I am no Athena.


My head suffered from a pain, and the cold and cough from inside, they were all coming down to me, at the same time. The whole day I spent before my laptop, either staring blankly to the ‘yellow pages’ or going to the ‘My computer’ and then once again coming back to the ‘Desktop’. The evening proved to be some fruitful, as I managed to do some of the BRM tests (I still don’t know what is the full form of BRM, it’s just that I’ve started doing these because they seem to be interesting and thought-provoking) with my wristwatch around the pen and paper.


I dropped my head on the pillow when my mobile said it was 11.38. It was the famous ‘Janmastami Puja’, and the sound of Dhol and Khanjani kept coming from the nearby Hanuman temple. I tried to see the blind boy who comes and sits here under the lamppost every night, but as I found out, he wasn’t there tonight. I clinched to the railings of the windows and kept staring outside. Now as I say that I keep looking outside, you would probably get wrong information that perhaps from the window I look, there are some beautiful sceneries which can be seen, but that will be so untrue. It is actually a window of a flat which resides nearly opposite to a long road, but as previously stated ‘nearly opposite’; there are not a lot to see at all. But this is the very window, where I sat and wrote stories like ‘Another rainy day’, ‘A love, forgotten’, and others. So it’s kind of favorite place for me to sit and write. The lamppost stands at the left corner, the main road passing down, and the closed room of my favorite neighbors, the Punjabi family, who does not live there any more.


Now this has been a frustrating thing. How much the Punjabi family meant to me! I remember how I introduced them in one of my stories, ‘The no-private room’. I feel I should copy the whole paragraph from there and quote the thing here. So here it goes:

“Beside the road, to the opposite side of my room, lives the Punjabi family; my favourite neighbour, and it is a nice job for me often to watch them. They have two cars, and both the cars shout like bulls, and the little boys at the road shout at them. But, you can curse them, laugh at them though you can’t help but love the two daughters of the Punjabi parents, the same two girls aging between 18-19, who were the popular topics of the boys’ talking in the town.”


And now when they are gone I can do nothing but watch the glasses of the windows of their rooms. I watch the lamppost standing in the day, in the half-light of evening and in the darkness of midnight. I look at the third floor of a nearby house, which is under construction. But after a certain period of time, they all seem to be boring. Yes, yes, a writer gets bored sometimes.


I remembered the entries I wrote under the heading ‘Thoughts of a wanderer’. The whole thing was based on my visits to the lake places and Southern Avenues, and the experiences and considerations I made there. I remember how I discovered her place, how I discovered her ancient home, and how I discovered her, out of nowhere suddenly at the previous Puja. But for once again, I have become the thing I was. S-I-N-G-L-E. This whole loneliness thing, it is kind of a creepy thing in itself. I mean, I am kind of a sick and habituated in it. Like, I am dying to fall in love once more and this time, for real; and yet again, even if a girl comes to me and asks me out, I am going to freak her out by saying, that I am so sorry and it’s a matter of fact that we should not hang out at all, because we have our responsibilities to take care of, and all that nonsense. And why the hell am I talking about nonsense? Have I forgot about the phone call made on the 1st January, 2007? Anyways, that is past.


Right, anyways, it is midnight, and today is 15th August. I don’t think I am the right person to talk about the gravity of the day at all. But, just reminds me when I was in N.C.C (Navy, to be specific) in our school, back in Narendrapur, we used to do a lot of things on this day. But the past days are gone now, today is not real, and the future coming ahead, is going to be as hazy as grey (apparently, grey means death, doesn’t it?). So I close the writing on a note where I see a few plants surrounded by steel covers, with the following thing written all over it: “This is our city. Please raise your voice to stop pollution. Plant and preserve trees”, a few people sleeping in the footpath with their sheets on (yes it is New Alipur and still, people from the nearby slum comes out at these footpaths for a good night sleep), and with the silence all over the colony. Just as a matter of fact, I saw two monks passing the road a couple of minutes ago, as they stared astonishingly to me and I continued to neglect them; childhood habits.


So it is 1.00 A.M now, and as I also need a good night sleep, coming out of an Influenza, I would not risk anything at all now, so good night and all, and yes, always remember that the darkest hour of the night came just before the dawn. Someday, you will understand the inner meaning of this. Chao.

- August '09

The last question

“What’s the relation between an I.T professional and a Microbiologist?” – That’s the last question Jannabi asked me. Yes, she was Jannabi Bhattacharyya, with three consecutive double consonants in her name, passing nine months with me, leaving me alone at a time when I was losing everything in my life, my academics, my aim, my friends and everything.

I was eighteen, about to start my life in an engineering college, and was calling at her landline for the fifth time, with my trembling fingers on those numbers, as usual.

“It’s over.” This was the first reaction from her.

“What?” I astonished.

“You and me, it’s not working.”

I had no idea how on earth did she think that the relation was just over, but I argued.

“Well, I can change.” I survived.

“It’s not a matter of change, it just can’t continue any more. We look least like boyfriend and girlfriend anymore. That spark of love, liking and attraction has gone from our relationship. I know that if I need something, you will be there. But I am not sure the same about me. I don’t think I want someone right now in my life. There are studies to do; there are a lot of other things to do. Besides, can you remember how both of us loved physics and came close to each other by that? And now, see, how our fates have taken us to different paths of life. Can you tell me what’s the relation between an I.T professional and a Microbiologist? Our lives are taking different routes, and so should we do.”


Troubled, sad, confused, I had to pay the bill for the call. A cool refusal from a girlfriend in lieu of just 2 rupees! Well, that’s some special for a loser.

But at the end of the day, the truth was that, I had lost her from my life, and nothing could bring her back. My new engineering college seemed to be a disgusting one. Friendless, halfhearted, unmindful, I kept pouring tears on engineering physics, mathematics, and computer. In the college, the whole first year proved to be a trash for me. I didn’t like the college; I didn’t like my specialization- which was information technology. I even didn’t know what I was going to do after studying information technology.


But some changes came with the winter of second year. I was declared the class-leader. My co-curricular activities became popular in the college. I was good in table-tennis, could sing a little bit; I played guitar and flute, and above all, had a good sense of humor. People were fond of me soon.

At the third year, grey matters mattered. Circuit theories, web technology, software engineering covered up brain cells. I had to attend group discussions, seminars, had to write reports for the tech-club. Opportunities kept coming, and responsibilities were more and more.

Another year passed at the college and at the end of the fourth year, when I passed out of the college, brain consisted only c, c++, programming language and all that – just ideal for an I.T. professional.

But I didn’t join the industry as yet. An MBA degree, I thought, would be a better option for me.

It was another six months from the time I joined another B-school to do MBA, I found my diary of class twelve from and old desk.


The first page was very familiar which showed: - “No one can discover life without love. So for the girl I am able to write, these stories are dedicated to her.”

Then, I explored my old stories after about five years. They were like completely new ones to me. Here is my first story written when I was eighteen named ‘Good Night’ in which a boy on a given night reminds of the girl he loved, who treated the boy only as a friend but never as a boyfriend. The thoughts of the happy memories with the girl keep weaken his mind and turn him an insomniac person. After it, there is another story named ‘Happy new year’, in which a boy calls his girlfriend on the first day of the year to wish her ‘happy new year’, and when the girl wishes the same and encourages him to call her again, he begins to think that the girl also likes him. “What can one expect in the whole year if he is greeted by a girl on the very first day of the year?” He kept wondering in his mind. But as time progressed, he found himself being detached from the girl.

Then came my favorite story, ‘Listen to Southern Avenue’ in which a boy goes for a walk every evening to a place three kilometers away from his house, leaving his studies miles apart, in the search of a girl who used to live there. Years passed, the girl detached herself from the boy, but he didn’t stop visiting that place from time to time, out of love for the girl or the place itself.


Stories are some special, I thought. We move on, our lives change. But they exist in the same way, being the proof of our happy or unhappy past. And afterwards, when we go through them, we find another person inside us- hurt, troubled, ill-fated towards some direction.

Do you think still I hope to get her back? No, I do not. Because after so many years, I have understood that it’s not always what we lose, but it’s what we have that matters.

It’s love, which connects two unknown people from different places and decides their fate. Our paths can go different ways, but the subtle and secret relationship exists, probably for the whole life.


I lost you from my life anyway, but you were in my stories and will be there for a long time. And I shall love to write those stories, which will be the only relation between us.

- May '08

The Blood Triangle

She was bored. The music was pumping. The drinks were flowing. And she was dressed to kill. She stood in front of the bar, running her eyes over the couples’ slow dancing. And then she saw him…and her best friend with him.

He was drunk. They both were. They had sense left at their bottom. But they were together… and that’s the thing which left her in agony, hatred. And as they tottered forth through the floor to the front door, she stood up to her feet. Tonight, she will have to follow them.

It was not destined to her, as she reminded of old days. She and this girl, they used to be something more than just best friends. They loved each other. But three years ago, this man came into their lives, and how madly she fell in love with him. But eventually she knew that he was actually attracted to her friend, not to her. Days passed, and it became a love triangle. Lastly, today, the climax has come. They have chosen their path for being together forever, and she has also chosen a path for herself – a path for all of them. The three sides of the triangle are going to have the same destiny, tonight.

It was the lake nearby she reached following them.

Just next to the lake, the couple sat on a bench, unknowingly that just ten feet after them someone was standing with a 9 mm pistol in her hand. And then what next? Two shots from point blank range and all the happy dreams of them shattered within a moment beside a heavenly lake.

The dark water of the lake remained stagnant till its deep, where traces of life found their way somewhere.


She was crying silently. She had to kill the persons she loved. But once she had chosen this path, there was no stepping back. She stood up wiping her tears.

“The debt that all men pay.” She muttered, holding the gun beside her ear, as tears rolled down her eyes again.

As the December wind had stopped blowing, the farthest fraction of the city remained silent, and dark. The lone long trees fervoured by the night fog kept them mysterious. The lake was covered by a thick layer of fog. The silence was on. The city was in their sleep, for some the sleep was forever.


As the growing moon started hovering up in the lone sky, the three bodies remained still in the park beside the freezing lake, as the three distinct sides of a triangle – the blood triangle.

- Written for the Spellbound competition '08

A FLIGHT OF PIGEON

A flight of pigeon they were..., flying in the lonely sky in the direction of season wind, backing the massive red ball in the west... Dusk was the time, and my early childhood. Alone on the roof of dreams and fantasy, eyes fixed to the white-off white-grayish far-off feathers, wind playing with soft hair, with those pigeons hovering in the southern horizon, one after another after another...

I used to call them ‘friends’. Friends of a lonely child. They were companions of mine since my early childhood, from when I was seeing them rounding the southern horizon by days after days, months, years. It seemed to me that they would continue to round the horizon till the end of time...

Emerald green was the nature, spring...did we presume. I considered myself as being the nature. Joyous I was, for no reason, save the loneliness I was in; if it could be. But nevertheless, friends I had, from the moment I went to the roof, I was no more alone, sky was there to watch over my footsteps, wind was to listen to my songs, and above all, those pigeons covering feather around me, embracing me from any harms that could be caused by the fluffy old world...

Days passed, years progressed. Days of my early childhood ran through the late ones to reach me into my age of eighteen. But I was fresh. Fresh like a seed, before it is put to sprout, wet and muddy, all set to create a new magic to the world.

And that is how life made my paths easier to meet with Purabi. Later, much later I have thought about it, that what could be my fate if I was not to meet with her. I mean, the whole world goes in its own way, even time doesn’t stop for anyone, but again, between that, we do come to meet with someone special at a certain point in our lives. We meet, our minds meet, but perhaps the invisible cord, which binds us to human periphery, does not have enough time to bind us to that deep and strikes us far apart... where from there can be no sign for a comeback...poor men can not believe, if someone has gone from our lives its a hell hard chance to bring her back.
So that’s the way, I met Purabi. At primitive, we were just friends. But as time, as well as life started moving on, we realized that there is something more in the world also than friendship we can share of. That’s the day we knew each other. Our heart beated as one. Love was in the nature. Never had I saw the world more colorful as I used to see then. We never told each other that we love, but it was all in t he belief of us.

And that was the time when life took us apart from each other. It was not that we tried to push things and make our lines cleared, but the truth is that, we accepted it.


After she went from my life, I started writing. It was by writing, I kept those happy moments behind me, which used to often trouble me. Not long after that insomnia affected me, the only suffering which has no medicine for itself. The thoughts of the happy past kept weakening my mind. I nearly broke up. But writing kept me alive all the time. Here is a short poetry written some days ago keeping her in mind:



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.



There are many writings like this. And because of my suffering of insomnia, I like prefer night over daytime. No one watches the full night as they do the day. I have seen nights, like the old man watches the clumsy evenings shattering day after day.


Monsoon came. The dry dust of the earth got wet. The scent of the newly wet nature was in the air giving people an unknown reasoned happiness. I, packed up in my room had nothing to do, and started climbing the steps to the roofs. It was a long time I had visited the same. And as I stepped forward, I saw something. I stopped and watched. A boy, of age around twelve, standing alone in the roof, looking at the southern horizon. The season wind playing with his hair, eyes fixed to far-off. As my eyes followed the direction of his eyes, I saw greyish, off-white spots moving in the horizon...FRIENDS!


Nearly one and half decades have passed. But the picture lays the same there. For me, life has moved on, but for the roof, the wind, the massive red ball in the west, life hasn’t changed as yet. Friends will be there...perhaps till the end of time. The boy of twelve will be there, playing and watching the nature for eternity. It’s not our lives, its not the time that move on, it is you and I who change, and the rest of the story remains unchanged. For ever and ever...

-March '09

MEMORIES OF A NO ONE

DECEMBER, '06


“Why do you write such stories which end up with a tragic situation?” she asked me.

“As because I do believe that life is a sad song” I said.

“But life has some glad sides also. Relationship with your familiars, smiling nature, love, happy surroundings, - don’t they keep your mind fresh, alive, happy?”

“I don’t believe in relationship, love or likings, so they don’t excite me.”

What did I say? God, I was talking to the person I had loved for over a year. Days, months I’ve only waited for the day when we will talk something about love. I was eager to talk with her about her views of love, and what I’ve done? When the right time came, I just said that I do not believe in it? But, after all, what could’ve I said? From the day she had stepped into my life, I’ve only feared of losing her. It seems I was destined to meet with her in some part of my life. And now, when I have fallen in love with her, I would better accept the fact that our paths are different, and whatever relation we have now, it’s not for eternity. As I was destined to meet with her, she is probably also destined to meet with someone else. And the best thing for both of us would be probably to be what we are.

This time she gave no answer. She was immensely thinking about something. I couldn’t make out if my stories had done any effect on her mind. I was even in doubt whether she had understood the stories or not. Now another question raised in my mind that, she has certainly noticed that most of my stories contain her name, then why didn’t she ask me anything concerning that. Has she understood my feeling for her, or she is just ignoring this possibility. If considered that she has taken it so simply that no curiosity raised in her mind, but one should get some clicking in her head seeing a name so many times in a diary. And if considered that she has understood it, and just ignoring that related talking, it will be better for me to keep a safe distance apart from her.

The class ended. I came back home. Night came gradually. I kept my bedroom dark and sat at the corner of my bed facing the window. “…keep a safe distance apart from her”, I muttered. If I had thought so ten months before. The golden months, the months deciding the route of my life. If I would have thought so before they had passed, before I passed them so callously thinking about her leaving my studies miles apart.


JANUARY, '07


“It’s me.” I said, as she received the call.

“Oh yes, say”

“Listen, the date of our Friday class…, I mean the timing of our class has been changed. Now onwards, it will start at 2.30 and end at 7.30. It means the biology class will be from 2.30 to 4.30 and chemistry class will be from 4.30 to 7.30.”

“Why this…”

“See, the syllabus can not be completed if the change doesn’t occur. Sir told that the extra one hour may lead to the completion. ”

“Oh! Five hours class!”

“Okay, listen, are you coming this Wednesday? “

“Yeah, I will.”

“But sir told that he will get us out if we can’t answer the questions. “

“No, no, I will go. See, I’m not going that class for two weeks, so I don’t really think that, later he will keep me inside anyway. ”

“Okay.”

“Happy new year, anyways.”

“Happy new year, happy new year.”

“Okay, thank you, bye.”

And I put down the receiver. My heart beats were going faster and faster. My fingers were trembling.


“How much for two minutes’ call?”

“You give four rupees.”

I walked down the footpath. The most remembering day of my life! I can’t believe myself. I called her, and she recognized me! Colourful butterflies flew around me. I could not see the people around me, but only the smiling face. I could not hear the buzzing crowd, but the soft voice asking hello at the telephone in a tender voice. What can one expect in the whole year if he is greeted by a girl on the first day of the year?

I didn’t sleep that night. A tender but sharp voice echoed at my ears, “Hello, hellow, hellow…”


But surprise was waiting all the time for me. She didn’t come that Wednesday, not that Friday too. I astonished, my heart broke. She told me that she would come, but she did a treachery.

My nights seemed to be my only friend then. I thought, I spoke, I cried, I laughed, but it was all the night who was my companion. None other was there to share me.

After a few days, she comes, and wants my copy to note. I give it to her and ask for the questions of the tests. She promises to give those and tells me to remind her at Wednesday by phone. These become very formal talking, but my journey through sadness starts from that moment, even though I think that it is going to be the opposite. If atheists have a god to pray, I am ready to pray for her, at any cost.

Days pass, and I suffer from some sort of uncertainty. I call her on that Wednesday, but she doesn’t come. She doesn’t come even that Friday. I become a little bit angry with her, and call at her home that Friday night.

My trembling fingers become once again on those numbers; it starts ringing, and I can hear the every beat of my heart.

“Hello”

“Hello, is she there?” I ask.

“Yes, you have to hold a few seconds.”

“Okay.”

“Pam…, Pam… it’s his phone…” her mother shouts.

“Hellow” she takes the phone now.

“Hey, what’s this?”

“Why, what happened”

“What’s about my copy?”

“Hasn’t your friend Ratul given you that?”

“He didn’t come today.”

“Oh, I’ve given your copy and the questions to him and left for home as he told that he would be at the chemistry class.”

“Its embarrassing, my copy…, by the way, what happened at Wednesday?”

“Yes, yes, I am telling you that. See, you called me at 3.30 but at around 4 o’ clock I realised that I was not ready for the question answer session. So I called Mashie and asked for your phone number, but as she failed to give it, I told her to tell you that… but just a second, Mashie didn’t tell you that?”

“Yes, she told me, but you see…, my copy…, if Ratul forgets?”

“Hey, is there any problem for it? I mean, is there any urgent need for your copy?”

“No, that’s not. But I’ve to write in my rough copies and have to rewrite them.”

“Oh, don’t do that. Just stick those pages right in your copy. By the way, not a bad idea, no?”

“Yeah, okay then… bye.”

“Bye.”


FEBRUARY, '07

Time. And it was passing like rainy stream. Control on mind was lost previously, and now, I was losing control of my own, my nerves, my soul, my behavior. And all things around me were suddenly very disgusting to see, to hear, to feel, to judge and to accommodate.

Midst of February passed without any happening. None! Neither I called her, nor she did. A big, big question of uncertainty covered my mind; does she want to step out of the relation or is it the pressure of time which keeps us apart?

If anyone reads this, will obviously support, that in this world, something happens somewhere concerning us, which we do not know, but we have to suffer the results, whether it is good or bad. My opinion is the same too. If someone assesses you and takes decision governing you, which may go for you, or against you, but you have to accept them, because it is possible that you have done the same with someone other also.

It reminds me of the first conversation between us, which I can’t forget for the rest if my life. The day, the first class took place at the other building. I was the only person around her. “Tapan sir’s class?” she asked me, and I was pleased. I was pleased because she talked to me. I was pleased because at the time of answering her question I could look at her face, I could look into her eyes.

But all these were very primitive. And the last conversations were...

“Have you got your copy?”

“Yes, Ratul gave it at last.”

And it seems a formal, normal talking. But I know, relations don’t end anywhere. You can’t end them. Yes, it is true, that we are not going to meet after this, but you will know someday, the world is very big, and people themselves do not know, what they are going to do, or what they have done, with others or with themselves.

How much I felt for her, how would she know? So many things I thought about her, about me, about us. So many things I knew about her... Many had been told to me. I can even remember about the night when I dreamed her saying those magic words to me. But just then I woke up at the bed and realizing that it was just a dream, tears rolled down my eyes. It cried me badly. People often say that, what we see, we hear, we think, comes in our dreams..., but I haven’t thought it for a while, that she would tell those things to me..., but still it happened, and it happened, just to hurt me.

And time has taught me, to understand all, to understand the situation I am in. And..., and yes, I have to stop loving you. I have to stop loving you because I want to live. I don’t want to die just thinking about you throughout my life.


But I will never forget you. The small things you did, you told. I won’t forget your eyes, your lips, your gentle smile, all things concerning you, and just you. And I can’t forget the first day to the last day I passed with you, the days I passed with you, or thinking about you, because..., I can stop loving you, but I will not stop loving those days I loved you.

- February, 07

Thoughts of a wanderer 3

I stepped on the road and stopped near the slum area.

It was a drama being played by some local people. Two persons, one dressed as a god and other as a lady in distress, perhaps suffering from leprosy wanting some food in a horrible manner. The laughter of the half-mad lady keeps hovering in the crowd. The colors from their faces dazzles in the spotlights. Red, blue, yellow, green slip into their faces, making them look celestial, as the lady character keeps reminding me the dark sides of the world, the other character keeps fading away, and I start walking towards the lake.


I return to the usual question: why had she said nothing to me. What could be the reason of her behavior...as I enter the lake place.

I check the time. It is 7.56 PM. No train is going to come now. So I continue walking.

It rained last night. Also the whole of today. This place becomes fairly wet whenever it rains. I see trees that fell down the other side, perhaps the consequences of the rainstorm last night.


I get the smell of a costly scent from a girl’s body who just passed me on the way. An attracting one. I look back, and find her looking at me. I continue walking.

I see six couples kissing lip to lip in the dark. Embraced. I see the water of the lake. I see the South City far across the lake, the Merlin's’, and the Golf Green tower.

I am all set to cross the neon once again tonight.

And that’s what I do. The neon becomes far behind me, and my shadow becomes longer in front of me. I step into the dark.

“Will you sit?”

No answer.

“What? Will you sit?” a lady calls me standing just in front of me.

Once again I remain silent, dare to look into her eyes, walking away from the woman.

She is above forty, a bag in her shoulder, wearing a sari and calling in from the dark. She is elder than the previous one that called me the previous evening.

I astonish.

Back to back evening I get these proposals of sitting with ‘them’. What do they think? Do I look like one of them?

The downpour affected the lake place a lot. The signs of path are lost into the bushes and pieces of wood fell from the trees. The mud created problems in walking, as I keep thinking of the last words of the prophet.

I am not that fearless to sit with them, yet. Perhaps someday, I will come back, and say yes.
The bushes on the both sides of the path and the lake remain mystified to me. In the dark, with the wind, they remain as one of the darkest characters in the world, being the evidence of a darker world.

I cross the cinema hall and once again come into the crowd. I continue to walk until it’s her home.

The meeting is on, in front of her house. I look at them, they do not care me. I look above, to the curtains, which continue to swing in the cool breeze. The neon from the room of her came through the windows and fell in the balcony. I lower my eyes, and continue walking.

A song comes drifting into the air...I stop for a few moments, listen to it, and once again I am on my way. The paths take turns and I keep walking. Southern Avenue falls behind.


I think of the proposals once again. It’s a matter of fact that I am 21 and I desperately need a girl to fulfill my thirst, discharge my man-ness onto her. I remember the thirst of ‘The Sensualist’, which had a terrible end. But what a catastrophe it has been on the fate of mine. Just three years ago I was in love with a girl of seventeen. She dejected me, and now a lady of forty calling from the dark. What a sad end it’s becoming of the whole story. I don't know, perhaps it is the beginning of a greater thing. I don’t want to be another sensualist, that’s for sure.


I walk on the busy road and come under the overbridge. The evening train leaves the station now. It comes like a giant, panting in from far, passes the overbridge with heavy, metallic sound.

As I walk back home, I find the drama still on. I watch it once again for some time, and somewhat like it.


Life plays different dramas with us. We have to just sit back and watch. There is no chance of changing the script, whatsoever.

What can we do, else?

Thoughts of a wanderer 2

I returned to the usual question, why had she said nothing to me, as I stepped on the narrow paths of the lake.

Evening was the time as usual. And then the station got busier – the evening wagon came running in, and passed by. Against the dark blue horizon, and in the reflection of the water of the lake, it looked as a ghost.

I continue walking as I think of her. The eve couples make love as usual, talking to each other, laughing out merrily sometimes. As I walked down the path the second train comes in from the opposite side.

And now I will stop to watch it.

The train comes in. The reflection of the each lighted coupe comes down to the shadowy black water of the lake. The neon, from the train dazzles the eyes. I stand still. The wind plays with the water, creating ripples, which strike to the ‘ghat’ and goes back. It plays with the soft hair, which come down to the forehead, sometimes flying high. Eyes remain fixed to the vanishing train as the body and mind remain mystified about the whole world.

One of my stories had this feeling, that a boy remained stagnant standing on the very scene. As I have always said, if you are a film director, shoot a scene in here with the train coming in and passing the lake, with the reflection on the water. It has always fascinated me, as it has been with the place Southern Avenue.

I continue walking, and keep on listening to the love-making couples.

And it is then, I get the proposal.


“Will you sit sir?” a lady of around thirty, calls in from the dark.

Open invitation. The first word came to my mind was body. And after then it was love, and once again it became body.

I knew previously, the place was known for its so-called girls, calling out from the dark after evening with not so-called ‘decent’ proposals. Just a sitting of an hour or so, try your hand-at-anything at the cost of some. I lower my eyes, continue to walk, and start fancying about the lady.

I remain mystified about the whole idea of love and lust. The couples I see everyday, I now start doubting whether they are real. How many people are here like them? Who knows, anyway?


It’s like the fact that I don’t smoke. It’s not that I hate smoking. It’s not that I like smoking. But it is that I have a deadly attraction towards the ‘thing’ that I know after all my knowledge about the ‘smoke’, I will not be able to resist it someday. Curiosity. That’s the word. It’s like the fire that draws the moths towards it. As the smell of a man attracts a woman, as the physique of a woman attracts man, as the lips reach out to the other, as the hand to the hand, the bodies coincides, words stop flowing, just the sigh, moaning, panting. The moths go round and round the lamp, darkness becomes still outside, the moon becomes fading under the July cloud. They go round. Sigh. Up. Sigh. Down. Round and round. Colors. Now. Now. Now. And they fall upon the light. The truth is like that.


But what am I writing?

I cross the lake place and came near the local cinema hall, ‘Menoka’.
And it was then I remind of our fate.

The fact that the prophet told me to get married after thirty surprised me. He had, certainly foreseen the divorce and a probable suicide in my hand. But the whole thing shook me a lot. I had previously known of an accident at thirty by another clairvoyant. But who knew it could be an attempt to suicide? The thirsty part within me is longing for a girl. Once it comes, pleasure will flow around. But the fate says, downfall will start at the very moment. I am confused. I need pleasures of life, I want to see those dark parts of our lives, but on the other hand it contradicts with my would-be fame, all the things I am going to do in my life to earn money...retarding the writer soul within myself.

I hear the mike shouting the political speeches.


Did I mention it is the time of vote in Kolkata?

It is. The 87 block Trinamool congress committee is shouting in the full blow. I walk down her house, see the dark room of her, the curtains flying in the air, and turn right.

Does it always happen that our past relationship teaches us how to move on?

I remember the answer given by her at a social site to one of her old friends back at Varanasi. People in the big cities don't really have much time to forget things. The life is fast. There are malls, shopping centers, restaurants, places to enjoy. And she added saying that Varanasi is still the loveliest place to her because she had passed her most enjoying and memorable days there.

Probably.

She has told many things to many persons that contradict.

She is diplomatic. And one is out of adjectives how much cunning she could be in a given situation.

Anyways, they do not matter now.

I cross the Kali temple where once I tried to follow her. I buy a cold drink, and Standing there for some time.

I look at the sky. The moon is there, but surrounded with clouds. And the color of the sky is changing from dark blue to black.

“A storm will come, perhaps.” I mutter.

The wind keeps blowing. I don't know why they all agree with me.

THOUGHTS OF A WANDERER

I returned to the usual questions: Why had she said nothing to me? I wondered, as I kept wandering in the paths of the lake nearby, or staring to the ripple less water, stagnant till its deep...

What could be the reason of her behavior...?

The wind is blowing hard tonight...no signs of rain though... and I continued to walk on the road, head down, hands in my pocket...smell of Ruskin, is it? Can't help much again.


I went past the boating post and site, and the sitting arrangement where once a man asked me to sit thinking me as a person waiting for his lady friend to come...I look at the room once again from where they give the passes and the food. I pass bye...the shadow of mine becomes longer and longer as I leave the neon behind me. I am waiting for my lady friend to come...but where will I place her anyway...

I do not look at the right side as it is forbidden to me. It repels me every time I pass the road...this repulsion has a strange thing inside it...it attracts too.


Kisses in the moonlight. Hungry kisses. Bodies fall upon each other, clinging tight, mouths unable to do anything but to suck the other, palms sweating, a faint moaning and panting....and in the midst of all these, a boy of 21 beating down the paths...but what am I writing....?


Three years have passed...

Every now and then as I think of her, I can remember the eyes of a person who was rigid from inside. She was firm, and the firmness is now preventing me to enter. Funny old world, isn't it?

I pass the popular cinema hall. 'Menoka', as it suggests. I go past the semi-colony thing as told by her once, and saw a crowd, dancing in joy.

A birthday party, or a marriage ceremony, I thought. People in these days have a lot of money to spend on nothing. I preferred to walk away.

And it was then I changed my mind.

What if one day I leave visiting her colony and see a crowd cheering. My life in the recent past hasn't cheered for anything, save it be a late night dream, but that's another story.

It was a Puja at a nearby temple anyway; I managed to figure out all. I took out my mobile, took a couple of shots from a distance. The pictures proved to be hazy, and nothing seemed to be clear in the photographs...but I didn't care...I want the lighting and the crowd afterward for my gloom to keep away; I don't want a megapixel for that.


The colony is as lonely as I have been seeing it in the last few years...I wonder, I only wonder why does a religious person come all the way from Varanasi to stay at the heart of Kolkata, here at Southern Avenue, with his wife and a seven - eight year old daughter...what could be his conscience, his sufferings, his family... the little girl, who had seen a very small part of the world, in the narrow lanes of Varanasi...running down with her friends, or playing sometimes alone on the roof of their house, or in the rooms...playing with dolls...


I wonder about the life of her family at UP, Varanasi. They say things never change, but they had to change, after all, it was not the same city, not the same language, not same type of familiarity and hospitality one can ask in Varanasi. Which school she used to go, by which lane or road, the paths she beaten, how badly I want to go someday to the places she has been... my idea of Zahir keeps growing with each and moment I am without her. I want to go to the places she has been, I want to see the places she has seen, I want to feel the things she has felt, I want to utter those words she has uttered with her lips...


I am not that lucky to write something like 'A time to reap and a time to sow' which I can expect to be in her lips, but I am lucky enough that I came into contact with her, not in the most difficult time of my life, but certainly, the aftermath has been torturing, and worst part of my life. Yes, I have known things I never thought of, or heard of their presence in the world....the sunshine, and the blue sky, how does it differ from the usual when you are in love, and you lose her..................

Perhaps someday, I’ll have someone, who'll say that she has come to rescue me...


It was the same road that leads to my colony. Southern Avenue was left behind, as every evening; I leave it behind hoping to come again tomorrow. Tiring legs took me to the roads I walked an hour ago, or rather; I was walking for the past three years.


These trees here will remain, like the only proof of my love. The love I had for her, I couldn't express to her, nor will I be able to express any time in my life. So I just decide that I will love her as I saw her in a very short span of our meeting. We never talked that much, we were not close, never close enough so that she could call me a friend in public, but she was, and she will be...just the way she is now...with me, as I type these words in my lone room. When everything leaves you, be sure that someone is with you, not that loneliness, not that darkness, not that silence, but it is her...................


Many works are unfinished..........'Friday', 'From the ghats of Varanasi', 'the no-private room', and so on........

I need myself to be more matured for 'Friday'. I guess it will end in around 2012 or may take even more time.

I remember some lines from one of my stories..."Options are not finished, that's the main thing." But as time has passed, the line has come in the very life of mine.

One thing is for sure, I will not ask for a love in the upcoming years, the rest, I will have to concentrate on my own life...I want to follow my fate...wherever it drops me.

Options are not finished, that's the main thing.

- April, '09

A LOOKBACK

Thanks to the God and life back to normal as the reports of Peerless proved to be wrong, thanks to Roy Trivedi... what kind of a tension building in the house I had never seen in my life before....but all's well that ends well and the revised reports have confirmed of the 'thing', which in turn not proved to be cancer after all, and signs have revealed of a minor percentage that it could happen again...let's see what happens....

This whole thing, though proved a life stirring experience for me. After all it's not everyone or everyday you come to know all of a sudden that your father is suffering from cancer. And its not everyday you prepare yourself for what is coming ahead of your family.

Things in the recent past haven't gone so easy, but yet, I am happy for what has come out of all these...at times I have stopped thinking about people in distress, and tended to concentrate more on my own sake and happiness...my search for the truth of our life has often found it's way into the lakes and at the Southern Avenue. But as the situations changed, I found myself above all these, above my goal, above my search for love, the reason why I am living my life....they start hovering around the head whenever you come to know that someone's gonna die...

Recently, I came across a person who keeps saying that she dreams about the most fascinating things in the world, which remind her the very purpose of her existence........a very fascinating dream, I guess, whenever I read these lines.

No offense, whatsoever...but as once again I remembered of the Zahir, whom I was lacking...I found that our lives have been divided in two parts...in one, we learn things, we understand why we are here, and learn how we should deal our lives....but once again, as they say, people know early in their lives what's the reason for their being...probably that's why they give it up so early too...but that's the way it is...we've been taught to dream, to apply ourselves, to earn money so as to feed our wives and children, be happy in public, irrespective of our family problems, discuss recent TV shows with friends...

In my life, I have seen that things never go either right or wrong way. It is as if we ourselves, write them in our lives, this is going to happen with us, and this isn't.

Once again I remind of the Zahir...Esther understood what does it mean to leave a person and get him back...just as all the stories can deliver...that's why I keep saying that whatever novel or story comes from whoever famous person...real will be always like the exception to every rule, defying the every story of love and liking. Funny old world, isn't it?

Much though, I love the way things are. Irrespective of the fact that I thought I loved someone and she turned her face away from me...that I always wanted to be a writer in my own life, that my father has a low feeling about me, that I am unable to do any constructive thing in life...the facts go on...

The darkest day

It couldn't get any worse.

Just when pieces were starting to fall in place, today on 23 rd March, on my 21st birthday, I got the present... in the evening of today, as I now know that my father is suffering from facial cancer.

I don't know how to write this, as my heart is trembling in the upcoming fear...what would happen to him, I don't know whether it is the early stage or the final... I don't know how much that old disease has eaten and digested out of him....just the hurriedly call from him, the voice is as usual calm, but I recognized as a deserted one, telling me that doctors are suspecting at last....

O God... I don't want to write, forgive me.

I don't know what is it that is going to come to us, to our family. Oh.. I am so deserted, no one is there, after all.

I pray to you God, wherever you are, just listen to my last prayer...never again will my watery eyes will seek your help in distress, never... not for my own fate, not for my love...nothing in the world... just make sure he will be all right... I am a no one to you, absolutely no one, I didn't believe you, I had the anger and vanity that I shall have my life of my own... I have done wrong things... don't do this to him...

"Dubious in nature" as the reports are saying...as my father says from the chair across the room.

Mom is still not fading... but she will soon, I know.

Oh...why don't they give wrong reports... can't they?

The maternal uncle of my father had the same one... I don't want to remind... and he ended up in death.

Genes follow... they say.

It's a hard time for me...I hope I can smile in public, as always, bettering all my tensions and gloom. Should I be able to? Who cares now anyway?

He is still sitting on the chair...consulting the dictionary, what every word in the report means... just killing the time...he is tensed, I know, I am his son.

The phone rings. Didi has called. She will be worried too. She has got her family, but she loves him more than I do...

I am a worthless son.

I am a worthless son.

Why didn't I pressurize him to consult a doctor before?

I talked to didi...she is okay, everything is going slow...but going where?

If chemotherapy happens... I don't know what's gonna come...one of my friend reminded me that of our teacher from Narendrapur, who had cancer in his throat, survived after a chemo...but he had got innumerable students and x-students behind him, many contacts...had helped him, I suppose, but we don't have that.

Things have got worse in the past few years...I remember now a saying, 'easy things do not enter into grown up lives...'

Now as he assures, it is cancer. Doctor has written in the report, 'carcinoma'. As the doctor has written it as either 1. Carcinoma or 2. Dermatofibroma. I check out the net and be sure that the second one can not happen, as it is mostly found in ladies and in the lower legs. So what remains, is cancer.

No one in the world will be so elated as me if I come to know that after these reports too, things really don't mess up, and it really doesn't proved to be what it is feared...let's just hope, and pray...

The house is silent tonight. Dad and mom are talking in a lower voice, the old fan which we decided to carry all the way from Midnapur at the time of shifting, continues to struggle, as I at one corner manage to type these at my laptop.

I don't want to stop writing tonight, because whenever I am stopping, these thoughts are covering my mind. I have lost many things here at Kolkata, but nothing more I want to lose. Oh God, how badly I need someone beside me today, is it all really written?

Bad things and possibilities are hovering here, I want to stay away from those...

Write, write, write...

All my writings are smiling at me...the smile is wry.


Past 9.15.

What is going to be?

God. I don't want to know...

I am a bad son, and I will be. But when I pray, it's not for me, so do justice to the persons for whom I am praying. Punish me, as you have been doing from my childhood, since I was 10, but let them be happy... at least content with what they have...don't let them go. Please.

Last hours

And when the dark moments
Will end as a nightmare
No pain will be, nor any gloom
As the stars would come
to my feet; as a welfare

The light will fall sharp
From the heaven on my head
Tears will be there
In the eyes of those
Who would not let me fade.

From the path of sky
Will come an angel
To whom, I shall sacrifice
All my belongings
In the world of mine

And from that morning
I shall smile like I never had
In the corners of your heart
Truth, belief and passion
Never let down a man in his life.

-December '08

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"