Mr. Abanindranath Sen was, as one would say, the most perfect gentleman of the little town Aanjala. He did not owe money to anyone, he did not have any troubles with the tenants, he did not misbehave with anyone. Every morning he would take the shopping bag and set off towards the market to buy some vegetables and then he would go to the local post office to check on in the early morning post. Then he would return home, lean on his couch and read the newspaper for two hours. After that, he would take a bath and go to the library. He would return from the library at one and after having a delicious meal, he would take a short nap. At evening, he would spend his time with his wife in the garden. At night, he would go to bed sharp at nine. ‘Early to bed and early to rise’, he had always taught his son. Next morning he would wake up at six, hoping to be greeted by the early morning post.
It was the first day of December and thick fog pressed on the glasses of the windows. Not even a dog barked at such an early hour of the day. Abanindranath sipped his early morning tea with great relish. He sat beside the stove and warmed his hands over it.
His wife entered the kitchen, holding a red woollen sweater.
‘Wear it, Abani’, she said, lovingly, ‘or you’ll catch cold’.
He nodded and continued sipping his tea.
‘Wear it now’, she said.
This time he smiled and put down his cup of tea. ‘You’ve not changed in all these years I’ve known you’, he said, pulling on the sweater.
‘Have you changed?’ she asked, touching his cheek.
‘Um… I have made cup of a tea for you’, he said, getting up on his feet.
‘That is so sweet of you’, she said fondly.
‘You look beautiful this morning’, he said softly.
‘When haven’t I looked beautiful?’
She gave him a short hug and took up the cup of steaming tea.
He looked at his watch and exclaimed, ‘Oh, just look at the time! I had better be off to the market. And then I shall go to the post office…’
A shadow fell across her face but she quickly composed it into a lovable smile and said, ‘Sure’. He kissed her on the cheek and walked out of the house into the chilling early morning fog.
There was not even a single soul out on the road. The fallen dry leaves rustled past his feet. He breathed deeply in the cool morning air. There was a sharp tang of frostiness in it. He pulled on his balaclava, wound the muffler tightly around his neck and set off towards the market.
The market was a thirty minutes walk from his house. By the time he had reached there, the sun had come out and the fog had disappeared. People were out on the streets, ready for a busy day. After a frantic hour of haggling with the vendors, he swung the shopping bag over his shoulder and walked towards the post office.
As usual, the post office was empty except for the old postmaster snoring on his desk. Abani softly poked on his shoulder. He gave a violent jerk and sat up straight.
‘Good morning, Sen babu’, he muttered, gruffly.
‘Good morning, Haladhar’, Abani said, placidly, ‘got any mail for me?’
‘I’ll take a look’, he said and went over to the mailbox. Why doesn’t he understand… why has he to disturb in my sleep, he thought, ruefully.
‘No, Sen babu’, he said after checking few letters, ‘none of them has your address on it’.
‘Oh, well’, he sighed, ‘unlucky again. He will write soon, though. He had promised…’ he muttered more to himself than to the postmaster. ‘Well, thank you, Haladhar’, he said, gently, ‘see you tomorrow then’.
Abani Sen did not go to the library that day. He could not even concentrate on the newspaper for long. His wife thought that her husband was not feeling well. But she had no idea what was going on in his mind. He was suffering from a great sense of let down. May be tomorrow I’ll get his letter, he thought. But, then, he thought it every day after returning from the post office. He will write. I have taught him the virtue of keeping promises. He will not cheat on me… Even though he was full of hope, a small part of him was beginning realize that if he was going to send a letter, he would have done it by now.
The delicious smell of Manchurian wafted in the air. Abani breathed deeply in it and suddenly he was full of an unaccountable happiness. Manchurian was his son’s favourite dish. He went into the kitchen and said to his wife, ‘So, you’re preparing Manchurian? Pity Anu is not here. It is his favourite dish’.
‘Yes’, she said softly, not looking at him.
‘I wonder what they give him for eating in the hostel’, Abani said.
She did not reply, but continued cooking.
‘I’ll go and have a bath. Then we shall have lunch together’, he said and turned away. Little did he notice that fat drops of tear were rolling down her cheeks.
* * *
The next morning was exceptionally clear. There was not even a hint of fog in the air. The coldness, though, had not disappeared; which Abani, thought, was very good of it. Abani sipped his early morning tea with his wife, on the verandah.
‘You will be going to the post office again this morning, won’t you?’ she asked.
‘Of course, I shall. I go there everyday’, he said, taking a long swig from his cup.
‘And everyday you come back empty handed’.
‘He is bound to write soon’, he explained more to himself than to his wife, ‘he had promised me that he will write soon’.
Her hands shook as she fought back her tears. With a lot of effort she managed to say in a calm voice, ‘He will not write back’.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked sharply.
For two years she had not said anything to her husband; she had not let her husband come to know about the battle that was raging inside her. She had not let the pain escape her body; she had not let the poison spill. But now she thought different. She had to put a stop to this before it was too late.
‘I mean that he is not going to write to you anymore’, she whimpered.
‘What makes you think so?’ he asked, patting his wife on her shoulder, apparently surprised at her sudden breakdown.
‘HE IS DEAD. You must let him go’.
A shocked silence followed her words. The cup slipped from his fingers and smashed on the floor, deluging his feet in hot tea. He did not pay any attention to this. He was looking at his wife as if he were seeing a ghost.
‘He is not dead’, he whispered.
‘Why don’t you understand? He died in a bus accident the day we said goodbye to him. You saw it’, she said, getting back her voice.
‘He is not dead’, he repeated, stubbornly.
‘Please, Abani, you must let him go. You must accept the truth. You must…’
‘ENOUGH’, he screamed. His wife sat dumbstruck.
‘I have already said that he is not dead and that should settle the matter. I am his father and I know that he will write to me’, he said in a forced calm voice.
‘Please, Abani… I’m his mother…’
‘I don’t need to be reminded of that fact, Charulata’, he said, ‘as you are his mother, I expect that you will not speak about him dying’.
She cried silently.
‘Now if you can excuse me, I have to go to the post office’, he said, getting up. He walked down the lawn and banged the gate close, behind him.
It was as if he was walking in a trance, barely seeing where he was going. He let his feet take him where it willed. He is dead… he is dead… he is dead… When he came back unto himself, he found himself sitting on a swing in the park. When he was a kid, his son would come to the park every morning and play with this swing. He is dead… he is dead…
* * *
Back in the house, Charulata was getting more and more anxious every minute. Occasionally, between house work, she peeped out of the door to see if he was coming. So it was a little surprise that a look of relief spread across her face when she heard the front gate open.
‘Abani’, someone called. It was Subhash’s voice. Subhash was one of Abani’s very old friends. In fact, they used to be class mates at school.
Charulata came out and said, ‘Oh it’s you. Subhash da you have to help me’.
‘Why? What’s wrong?’ he asked, knitting his eyebrows.
‘Please sit’, she said, pointing at one of the chairs.
* * *
‘Excuse me, sir’, a little voice spoke into his ear, ‘can I play with the swing?’
Abani was momentarily shaken out of his reverie. A small boy was standing in front of him, looking expectantly at him. It took him a minute to register what he was saying. Then he jumped off the swing and said, ‘Of course’.
The little kid sat on the wooden seat and tried to swing, but his legs were too short to reach the ground. He looked up at him and requested, ‘Sir, can you help me?’
‘Come on dad, push the swing’, Anupam said.
‘First try it yourself, Anu’, he said, ‘if you are unable to swing then I shall help you’.
‘You know that I can not do it by myself’, Anu said, ‘my legs are still too short to reach the ground!’
Abani pushed the swing slowly.
‘Come on dad, you can do better! Please push it faster’.
‘I am not so sure about that, Anu. You may get hurt and your mum will not be too pleased with me’.
‘Don’t worry dad, nothing will happen. Just push’.
‘He pushed the swing faster and his son shouted, ‘Faster, dad, faster’.
‘Stop it Abani’, a voice shouted from behind him, ‘you are making him cry!’
The screen of past was abruptly lifted. The little boy was desperately clinging onto the chains of the swing and was crying at the top of his voice. Every head in the park was turned towards him.
‘What has got into you?’ the voice said again, ‘first you storm out of the house and now you make little kids cry. No wonder Charulata is worried sick’.
He looked blankly at his friend, Subhash, barely understanding a word that he said. The only thing he appeared to register was the name Charulata. He is dead… he is dead… he is dead…
‘HE IS NOT DEAD’, he screamed out.
‘Who is not dead?’ Subhash asked, shaking him.
‘My son. Charulata thinks that he is dead. She is wrong…’ he muttered.
‘You are disturbed, Abani. Come on, I’ll drop you home’.
‘The post office’, Abani continued muttering, ‘today I’ll get his letter and then Charu will be convinced that he is not dead’.
‘Come on, Abani’, Subhash said, pulling his hand.
‘What?’ Abani asked, suddenly realizing that his friend was still there.
‘I’ll drop you home’.
‘No’, he protested, ‘I have to go to the post office, first’.
‘Fine’, Subhash said, ‘I’ll take you to the post office and then I’ll drop you home’.
‘I can walk, thanks’.
‘Okay, then I’ll walk with you’. Before he could even finish the sentence, Abani was off. In fact, he was walking with such pace that he had to jog to keep up.
On reaching the post office, Abani rudely shook Haladhar awake and demanded to see his son’s letter.
‘There are no letters for you, sir’, Haladhar said, yawning.
‘Check again’, Abani said, desperately, ‘you must have missed it. He had promised…’
‘I assure you, sir, there are no letters for you’, Haladhar said, forcefully.
‘There you are’, Subhash said, ‘now it’s time to go back home’.
He was not listening. He walked out of the post office ignoring his friend and walked aimlessly towards unknown destination. He did not even hear his friend calling his name and begging him to stop. The only thing that he could hear was his wife’s voice. He is dead… he is dead… he is de…
There was a sharp pain at his side and he was sent crashing down onto the road.
* * *
Charulata nearly broke into tears when Subhash told her what had happened.
‘Lucky, it was only a bicycle. But it could have been a car or a bike’, Subhash said, soberly, ‘look Charulata, you have to take extra care of him from now’.
‘It’s all my fault’, she whimpered, ‘I should not have told all those things to him, this morning’.
‘Listen Charulata’, he said comfortingly, ‘do not blame yourself for what had happened. Everything that happens in this world has a purpose. In my life I have always perceived this purpose as something good and helping. Maybe this incident has some deep reaching purpose which you can not perceive yet, but I assure you, it is going to be good’.
‘Thanks Subhash’, she said, ‘I do not know what I would have done had you not been around to help’.
‘Is he sleeping?’
‘Yes’, she said, looking towards the closed door of the bedroom, ‘he must have fallen asleep by now’.
She was wrong. While he lay on the bed, Abani thought about his son, his childhood, the first day he had rode a bicycle, the days when he had to drag him to the nursery school, the meals they had had together, the jokes that they had shared. He was more like a friend than a son to him…
They were anxiously waiting for the bus. It ought to have arrived fifteen minutes ago but they had not even seen as much as its smoke.
‘Now what has happened to the bus?’ Charulata said, anxiously, ‘Anu will miss the train’.
‘Don’t worry mum’, Anupam said, ‘I’ll reach on time’.
Anupam was going to Chennai for the first year in college.
‘There is the bus’, Abani said, suddenly.
‘And about time, too’, she said.
‘Don’t forget to write every week, Anu’, Abani said.
‘Take care of your health’, his mother said, wiping her tears.
‘Don’t worry, dad’, he said, boarding the bus, ‘I’ll write as soon as I reach there. I promise’.
The dream changed. His wife and son disappeared and there was nothing left but swirling black smoke and smell of burnt flesh and blood splattered on mud. The bus had gone off the edge of a bridge and was laying at the bottom, reduced to a broken cage of steel—a cage in which his son…
He woke up, sweating and panting. He hastily pulled open the cupboard and brought out a framed photograph. Tears welled up in his eyes as he looked at the handsome face of his son. He is dead… he is dead… His hands shook. The frame slipped from his hands and shattered on the marbled floor. He tried to pick up the frame but cut his hands in the broken glass.
Alarmed by the sudden noise, Charulata rushed into the room. Abani was kneeling on the floor, looking at his son’s photograph. She sat beside him and placed her palm on his shoulder. He turned towards her. For the first time in two years she saw tears in his eyes and for the first time in two years she was truly happy.
He embraced his wife and keeping his head on her shoulder, for the first time in two years, he cried… and cried… and cried…
Sunday, June 14, 2009
The night-out.
[Author’s note: To a person who has never known me, this piece will appear as a fair story, but all those people who have seen what I really am shall see that these are the real thoughts of a real boy].
As I absentmindedly watch the sky, the dimly twinkling stars suddenly spring into sight and they are so distinctly visible that I am unsettled for a moment. Is this a trick of the lights or is it some biological process concerned with my eyes? Whatever it is, it is way beyond the scope of my comprehension. I wonder how the sky, which was inscrutably blank a moment ago, is teeming with brightly burning stars.
The fragmented wisps of white clouds float in the sky like some forsaken archipelago in the middle of a vast ocean of secrets. The wind, it seems, is playing with my imagination. The clouds group and regroup; they form and unform variety of visions that seize me with their enigmatic charm. Now I see a dog up in the sky; the clouds shaped curiously to form its face and there is a singular star, burning merrily, where its eye should be. The dogs on the streets bark, as if to remind me that it is earth to which they belong, not to the wind nor the clouds and definitely not the sky. Even as I watch, the face of the dog melts away, creating an array of disordered images of a pleasant phantasm.
There is a severe smell of ‘late night’ness in the air. The breeze blows against my face, fluttering my hair and raising goose bumps on my skin. I laugh at its futile efforts of scaring me with its chilling kiss and forcing me to go indoors, to my bed. I defy the wind, the night, the unusual coldness of late April and most of all—sleep. What wouldn’t I sacrifice to be out among such exuberant pleasantries, of the Nature, that we hapless city folks so scarcely receive? The chirping of nocturnal birds, the faint, but pleasant, kuhu kuhu, the air heavily laden with silence, only punctuated by occasional rumbles of distant traffics and an aura of supreme self importance and pride that I sometimes lose in the rat race. I smile in my heart to think that, perhaps, I am the only person in the entire city or, maybe, the state or, perhaps, the country, who is out on the roof of his small house, at such an hour of the night, savouring the company of a rediscovered friend—Nature. She whispers in my ears, seduces me with her honey sweet voice, touches me gently with her fragrant breath. It is difficult to resist from falling in love with her.
And in this stillness of the night’s fortification against the outside world, I hear a voice speaking distinctly in my ears; I recognise the voice—it belongs to a boy whom I had buried deep inside myself to protect him from the harsh reality that we live and thrive in. It says, ‘You have a long way to go before you reach the pinnacle, to be a man who lives with poetry. You are a dreamer and it is up to you to never let this dream end’.
The words are running out and have already been reduced to a trickle, flowing perilously through the ruggedness of mountains. There was something about this night, that particular hour when some unknown quantity was revealing the proof of its existence by flooding my mind with a gale of words and now the storm has stopped. I cap the pen and watch the faraway street lights. Doesn’t the trickle from the mountain transform into a mighty river? I ask myself. My heart lightens at this thought.
I lean against the support that my mother uses to hang wet clothes. The gamchha, wrapped around me, slips from my shoulder and gets caught in the wind. I do not resist its flowing movement. The wind washes over my body as it does through the clutter of trees beside the Kali mandir. The trees whisper among themselves and to me. Their speeches are followed by a sudden stillness which is broken by a fresh breath of air.
The words of Rilke echo in my ears—‘Life is lived in transformations’. How true those words are and how deeply I believe in them! It is all about transformation. I reflect—a person, who has turned eighteen, is expected to have gone through a series of mental developments and is ready to venture in to the final stage of transformation of mind. He\she is expected to be capable of handling all the responsibilities that an adult can handle. This transformation must result in the building of character by which the child metamorphoses into an adult and becomes self reliant and self decisive.
Being an adult does not only mean that I am eligible for voting, having a driver’s licence or watching ‘A’ rated movies. It means that it is time for the parents to step aside from being the rule makers to an advisory role. It is time to start analyzing what I like or dislike, what is right or wrong, to create my own beliefs, to discard all the unnecessary compulsions which stop me from being who I really am. This is the time when the already matured soul becomes truly independent. It is my life and only I have the right to decide what I want to make of it. Being adult means that it is time to get off the merry-go-round and take firm steps towards my desired destination.
This is the time when I should take TOTAL CONTROL of my life. I use the word control, not anarchy. Staying out late at night to enjoy the perks of ‘adulthood’ is utter nonsense and ‘unadultish’. Being an adult means that I become responsible—responsible for myself and for the few people I care about. Unfortunately, this transformation is hard to achieve and most people fail to achieve it. They eternally remain children. They may drink beer, smoke Havana cigars, drive race cars and have a lucrative job but they are no better than children lost without their parents.
All these revolutionary thoughts quicken my pulse. I look up at the sky and wonder about all the mysterious object that are up there. Then I think, who am I to judge what is up and what is down in this endless space? Of all those things that I have read in books about easily understandable astronomy, black holes attract me the most (the pun was unintentional). I think about those superbly interesting bodies and the theories related to them, when I remember Mani Bhaumik’s proclamation that India is a black hole on earth and I do not disagree with him.
We live in a highly conservative society (especially, the so called middle class society); even though we may call ourselves XYZ generation, deep within ourselves, the ancient black hole continues to pull us back. We call that black hole ‘culture’ to hide its grotesque and destructive nature. We shout our throats hoarse about equality of women and men. Then why are most women married off as soon as they reach a marriageable age? Why do the women accept such outrageous decision? Do they not have any dreams and ambition or do they kill them off to admit themselves docilely before some screwed vision of few people? We are indeed living in a black hole where a father announces that if his daughter ever runs away from home, she will be welcomed with a gun, if she ever comes back; where a father does not hesitate to rape his daughter; where a death sentence is brought down to a level of public entertainment; where street dogs eat little babies, lying helplessly on the roadsides with no one coming to save them; where it is a crime to fall in love but it is normal to urinate in front of everyone.
‘I am intellectually starved’, I shout at the night. I often regret and wonder why I was made as I am today. It would have been so much easy and better had I been like the majority of people, taking interest in pointless pursuits. But then I think rationally, would I be happy if I become what I am not? The answer is a spontaneous ‘no’. All along my life’s journey I have always craved to think differently, to do things differently and most of all, to be different. And now when I look back, I see that I have ended up at a place where I have no one to talk to, except the precious very few people who enrich my life.
I pace to and fro on the roof with my hands clasped tightly behind me. Suddenly, I hear footsteps coming up the stairs. My mother. She pushes open the door of the roof and sees me walking absentmindedly. ‘What are you doing up here at such a late hour?’ she asks. I ignore her question. Her presence seems less than welcoming to me. All I want at this moment is to be left alone. ‘Go to your bed and try to sleep’, she says to me in a tired voice. Suddenly, I begin to feel angry. ‘Do not bother me now. Leave me alone’, I say to her in a loud voice. She looks at me for a while and then without a word, slams the door behind her.
I am filled with guilt and regret as soon as she turns to leave. I shall make it up to her the first thing this morning, I promise to myself. I often find my mother to be the most amazing woman I have ever known. Coming from a village background, she is the bearer of a beauty which resides both outside and inside her. When she showed me the photograph that had been taken before her marriage, I could not stop myself from commenting that she could have been a film actress had she had the chance. Indeed she was beautiful then; to put it in her words—she was charming enough to impress my father at the first sight. She often says that we have so much less in common, except our eyes. But there is one thing, she agrees that we do have in common—the ability to trust people.
Speaking of trust, I remember what my best friend, Arnab (call sign Padfoot), had once said to me about trust—‘Trust is like a glass which, once broken, cannot be fixed to its undamaged form; it can either be poorly mended or be totally discarded’. I also remember what my girlfriend, Meenakshi Sarkar, has to say about trust—‘I believe that trust is the foundation stone of every relationship’. How true their words are! They are the assets of my life—my true gifts. A thin smile spreads across my lips as I remember the times when she had looked at me, directly in to my eyes, every time I have felt her touch, every time I have been close enough to her to be intoxicated by her fragrance and most of all, those times when I was filled with fear of losing myself completely into her, melting all boundaries. Undoubtedly, ‘Beauty is nothing
But the terror we can hardly bear’.
Her laughter rings in my ears and her voice echoes in the depths of my heart. She is the true embodiment of what Rilke says about love—
‘Look, we don’t love like flowers
With only one season behind us; when we love,
A sap older than memory rises in our arms’.
Suddenly, I become aware of the chattering crickets. Where were they till now? A small voice answers my question—they were right here, waiting to be discovered by you. I look down at the little garden of our house. I remember that one day I had been standing at this very place, watching a dog lying peacefully, probably asleep. The dog had looked up and had stared at me for a moment, as though it were sizing me up. Then it looked away and again it looked at me after sometime; this time it looked directly at my eyes. At that moment between our first eye contact and its breaking, a feeling rose inside me—a feeling that somehow brought me closer to that animal than I had ever anticipated; I felt that somehow our worlds had fused together and it was impossible to decide who was who. Now the words of the poet voice the feeling that had ran through my veins that day—
‘Some mute animal
Raising its calm eyes and seeing, through us,
And through us. This is destiny…’
I lie on the concrete parapet of the roof and close my eyes. The yellow feathered, buck-beaked, hazel eyed bird of fancies takes flight and I dream… I dream… I dream… of a future that shall never be mine, of the past that belonged to someone completely detached from me and the present that is slipping away from between my fingers like water. I hear a voice that can barely be heard over the din of loud voices. It speaks the words of wisdom into my ears—‘Never let your dreams die; for when your dream is dead, half of you is dead’. What is my dream? What is my ambition? I ponder.
I find myself sitting in front of few bright faces. Beside me, I find Arnab grinning at those young faces. He looks older. We are there to recruit the first employee for our firm—Padpro incorporation. All those young faces look at me as if they expect me to deliver a speech. What shall I say to them? How shall I motivate them to join us? I look at Arnab. He gives me faint smile and a thumbs-up. He is as nervous as I am.
An old man says into the microphone, ‘Now I request Mr. Souravmoy Gorai to speak’.
I get up on my feet. I survey the men through my glasses. Only a few of them appear to be interested in the proceedings. Most of them look quite bored and one or two look as though they would rather be somewhere else than sitting there and being bored by the imminent lecture. I clear my throat and begin, ‘Evening, friends. All of you know why I am here. So let’s not dwell under the false pretence that I shall have to introduce myself and my purpose. I shall begin with the incidents of a day that changed my life forever. That was the day when I first properly met the man sitting beside me—Arnab Chakraborty. (A round of applause). We became excellent friends from that day and like so many good friends do, we made promises and like good friends do, we have kept our promises and that is the reason I am standing right here, in front of you. Yes, we took a decision that we shall start a software company, by the name of Padpro incorporation. It was our dream, our ambition. Sounds strange, doesn’t it? That what was our dream was our ambition, too. It is still our dream and it is still our ambition.
‘I can bet that every one of you, sitting here, has dreams and you also have the determination to achieve them. And I assure you that every one of you can fulfil your dreams. Yes, every one of you can. The only thing that you have to do is to chase, chase and keep chasing without any stop until you reach where you want to see yourself, today. The important thing is to never give up.
‘Let me ask you, each one of you, a question. All of you, undoubtedly, have high ambitions. But how many of you truly want to be different?’
A silence follows my question, which is then punctuated by soft murmurs and whispers. One or two people put up their hands. Another two follow suit and then the rest of them join them, too.
‘I presume that you understood what I meant by being different. All of you have high hopes of being called for an interview from the leading companies in the world market, namely, Google, Microsoft, Apple Mackintosh. I accept that my firm is not as well established as theirs are. So what am I here to offer you, when you have the chance of joining up with the top companies? I shall tell you what. It is the chance to do things differently, to take a new company from its infancy to the summit, the zenith of success. In other words, I’m here to offer you the chance to be different.
‘I accept that the road ahead of us is difficult and uncertain. But think of the reward you shall get when you are at the top. Think of the satisfaction, the feeling of being successful, the gratification of being able to contribute to the rise of a team. It will be your success as much as it will be ours. (Another round of applause).’
The old man says into the microphone, ‘Now may I…’
After the seminar, few of the interested men follow us outside the room and ask us about their prospects. We smile at each other, Arnab and me. The wheels of success have begun to turn.
I look up at the sky once again and see that a thin sheet of cloud has obscured the stars out of sight. Even such a pleasant breeze can alter the reality, which is a ghost of the past now! The wind is gathering speed and the pages of my diary flutter in it. The rhythmic whooshing sound brings back the memories of an imaginary life, lived by an imaginary person—a boy sharing my name, my body and my thoughts. In a matter of few minutes, the storm brews up from a void that the imaginary boy may call ‘the eternity’.
I rush in, clutching the diary onto my chest and the pen resting inside it as a bookmark. I shut the door with great difficulty as the storm rages outside. I am about to descend down the stairs when I stop on my tracks. I hear the clattering sound of the falling drops of rain on the corrugated tin shed over my head and I realize that I have come to the point where words begin to lose their purpose and fail to regenerate the magic of the extraordinary sensation. I find myself out of expressions.
As I draw a close to this little adventure of the night, here is what I dedicate to all the thinkers all over the world— As the waves approach the shore, they rear up, ready to strike and wash away even the tiniest vestige of the former world, which is an illusion, and leave behind the wet sand of a new world, which is another illusion that is destined to be washed away by the waves returning from the sea of tranquillity. The process of transformations goes on.
As I absentmindedly watch the sky, the dimly twinkling stars suddenly spring into sight and they are so distinctly visible that I am unsettled for a moment. Is this a trick of the lights or is it some biological process concerned with my eyes? Whatever it is, it is way beyond the scope of my comprehension. I wonder how the sky, which was inscrutably blank a moment ago, is teeming with brightly burning stars.
The fragmented wisps of white clouds float in the sky like some forsaken archipelago in the middle of a vast ocean of secrets. The wind, it seems, is playing with my imagination. The clouds group and regroup; they form and unform variety of visions that seize me with their enigmatic charm. Now I see a dog up in the sky; the clouds shaped curiously to form its face and there is a singular star, burning merrily, where its eye should be. The dogs on the streets bark, as if to remind me that it is earth to which they belong, not to the wind nor the clouds and definitely not the sky. Even as I watch, the face of the dog melts away, creating an array of disordered images of a pleasant phantasm.
There is a severe smell of ‘late night’ness in the air. The breeze blows against my face, fluttering my hair and raising goose bumps on my skin. I laugh at its futile efforts of scaring me with its chilling kiss and forcing me to go indoors, to my bed. I defy the wind, the night, the unusual coldness of late April and most of all—sleep. What wouldn’t I sacrifice to be out among such exuberant pleasantries, of the Nature, that we hapless city folks so scarcely receive? The chirping of nocturnal birds, the faint, but pleasant, kuhu kuhu, the air heavily laden with silence, only punctuated by occasional rumbles of distant traffics and an aura of supreme self importance and pride that I sometimes lose in the rat race. I smile in my heart to think that, perhaps, I am the only person in the entire city or, maybe, the state or, perhaps, the country, who is out on the roof of his small house, at such an hour of the night, savouring the company of a rediscovered friend—Nature. She whispers in my ears, seduces me with her honey sweet voice, touches me gently with her fragrant breath. It is difficult to resist from falling in love with her.
And in this stillness of the night’s fortification against the outside world, I hear a voice speaking distinctly in my ears; I recognise the voice—it belongs to a boy whom I had buried deep inside myself to protect him from the harsh reality that we live and thrive in. It says, ‘You have a long way to go before you reach the pinnacle, to be a man who lives with poetry. You are a dreamer and it is up to you to never let this dream end’.
The words are running out and have already been reduced to a trickle, flowing perilously through the ruggedness of mountains. There was something about this night, that particular hour when some unknown quantity was revealing the proof of its existence by flooding my mind with a gale of words and now the storm has stopped. I cap the pen and watch the faraway street lights. Doesn’t the trickle from the mountain transform into a mighty river? I ask myself. My heart lightens at this thought.
I lean against the support that my mother uses to hang wet clothes. The gamchha, wrapped around me, slips from my shoulder and gets caught in the wind. I do not resist its flowing movement. The wind washes over my body as it does through the clutter of trees beside the Kali mandir. The trees whisper among themselves and to me. Their speeches are followed by a sudden stillness which is broken by a fresh breath of air.
The words of Rilke echo in my ears—‘Life is lived in transformations’. How true those words are and how deeply I believe in them! It is all about transformation. I reflect—a person, who has turned eighteen, is expected to have gone through a series of mental developments and is ready to venture in to the final stage of transformation of mind. He\she is expected to be capable of handling all the responsibilities that an adult can handle. This transformation must result in the building of character by which the child metamorphoses into an adult and becomes self reliant and self decisive.
Being an adult does not only mean that I am eligible for voting, having a driver’s licence or watching ‘A’ rated movies. It means that it is time for the parents to step aside from being the rule makers to an advisory role. It is time to start analyzing what I like or dislike, what is right or wrong, to create my own beliefs, to discard all the unnecessary compulsions which stop me from being who I really am. This is the time when the already matured soul becomes truly independent. It is my life and only I have the right to decide what I want to make of it. Being adult means that it is time to get off the merry-go-round and take firm steps towards my desired destination.
This is the time when I should take TOTAL CONTROL of my life. I use the word control, not anarchy. Staying out late at night to enjoy the perks of ‘adulthood’ is utter nonsense and ‘unadultish’. Being an adult means that I become responsible—responsible for myself and for the few people I care about. Unfortunately, this transformation is hard to achieve and most people fail to achieve it. They eternally remain children. They may drink beer, smoke Havana cigars, drive race cars and have a lucrative job but they are no better than children lost without their parents.
All these revolutionary thoughts quicken my pulse. I look up at the sky and wonder about all the mysterious object that are up there. Then I think, who am I to judge what is up and what is down in this endless space? Of all those things that I have read in books about easily understandable astronomy, black holes attract me the most (the pun was unintentional). I think about those superbly interesting bodies and the theories related to them, when I remember Mani Bhaumik’s proclamation that India is a black hole on earth and I do not disagree with him.
We live in a highly conservative society (especially, the so called middle class society); even though we may call ourselves XYZ generation, deep within ourselves, the ancient black hole continues to pull us back. We call that black hole ‘culture’ to hide its grotesque and destructive nature. We shout our throats hoarse about equality of women and men. Then why are most women married off as soon as they reach a marriageable age? Why do the women accept such outrageous decision? Do they not have any dreams and ambition or do they kill them off to admit themselves docilely before some screwed vision of few people? We are indeed living in a black hole where a father announces that if his daughter ever runs away from home, she will be welcomed with a gun, if she ever comes back; where a father does not hesitate to rape his daughter; where a death sentence is brought down to a level of public entertainment; where street dogs eat little babies, lying helplessly on the roadsides with no one coming to save them; where it is a crime to fall in love but it is normal to urinate in front of everyone.
‘I am intellectually starved’, I shout at the night. I often regret and wonder why I was made as I am today. It would have been so much easy and better had I been like the majority of people, taking interest in pointless pursuits. But then I think rationally, would I be happy if I become what I am not? The answer is a spontaneous ‘no’. All along my life’s journey I have always craved to think differently, to do things differently and most of all, to be different. And now when I look back, I see that I have ended up at a place where I have no one to talk to, except the precious very few people who enrich my life.
I pace to and fro on the roof with my hands clasped tightly behind me. Suddenly, I hear footsteps coming up the stairs. My mother. She pushes open the door of the roof and sees me walking absentmindedly. ‘What are you doing up here at such a late hour?’ she asks. I ignore her question. Her presence seems less than welcoming to me. All I want at this moment is to be left alone. ‘Go to your bed and try to sleep’, she says to me in a tired voice. Suddenly, I begin to feel angry. ‘Do not bother me now. Leave me alone’, I say to her in a loud voice. She looks at me for a while and then without a word, slams the door behind her.
I am filled with guilt and regret as soon as she turns to leave. I shall make it up to her the first thing this morning, I promise to myself. I often find my mother to be the most amazing woman I have ever known. Coming from a village background, she is the bearer of a beauty which resides both outside and inside her. When she showed me the photograph that had been taken before her marriage, I could not stop myself from commenting that she could have been a film actress had she had the chance. Indeed she was beautiful then; to put it in her words—she was charming enough to impress my father at the first sight. She often says that we have so much less in common, except our eyes. But there is one thing, she agrees that we do have in common—the ability to trust people.
Speaking of trust, I remember what my best friend, Arnab (call sign Padfoot), had once said to me about trust—‘Trust is like a glass which, once broken, cannot be fixed to its undamaged form; it can either be poorly mended or be totally discarded’. I also remember what my girlfriend, Meenakshi Sarkar, has to say about trust—‘I believe that trust is the foundation stone of every relationship’. How true their words are! They are the assets of my life—my true gifts. A thin smile spreads across my lips as I remember the times when she had looked at me, directly in to my eyes, every time I have felt her touch, every time I have been close enough to her to be intoxicated by her fragrance and most of all, those times when I was filled with fear of losing myself completely into her, melting all boundaries. Undoubtedly, ‘Beauty is nothing
But the terror we can hardly bear’.
Her laughter rings in my ears and her voice echoes in the depths of my heart. She is the true embodiment of what Rilke says about love—
‘Look, we don’t love like flowers
With only one season behind us; when we love,
A sap older than memory rises in our arms’.
Suddenly, I become aware of the chattering crickets. Where were they till now? A small voice answers my question—they were right here, waiting to be discovered by you. I look down at the little garden of our house. I remember that one day I had been standing at this very place, watching a dog lying peacefully, probably asleep. The dog had looked up and had stared at me for a moment, as though it were sizing me up. Then it looked away and again it looked at me after sometime; this time it looked directly at my eyes. At that moment between our first eye contact and its breaking, a feeling rose inside me—a feeling that somehow brought me closer to that animal than I had ever anticipated; I felt that somehow our worlds had fused together and it was impossible to decide who was who. Now the words of the poet voice the feeling that had ran through my veins that day—
‘Some mute animal
Raising its calm eyes and seeing, through us,
And through us. This is destiny…’
I lie on the concrete parapet of the roof and close my eyes. The yellow feathered, buck-beaked, hazel eyed bird of fancies takes flight and I dream… I dream… I dream… of a future that shall never be mine, of the past that belonged to someone completely detached from me and the present that is slipping away from between my fingers like water. I hear a voice that can barely be heard over the din of loud voices. It speaks the words of wisdom into my ears—‘Never let your dreams die; for when your dream is dead, half of you is dead’. What is my dream? What is my ambition? I ponder.
I find myself sitting in front of few bright faces. Beside me, I find Arnab grinning at those young faces. He looks older. We are there to recruit the first employee for our firm—Padpro incorporation. All those young faces look at me as if they expect me to deliver a speech. What shall I say to them? How shall I motivate them to join us? I look at Arnab. He gives me faint smile and a thumbs-up. He is as nervous as I am.
An old man says into the microphone, ‘Now I request Mr. Souravmoy Gorai to speak’.
I get up on my feet. I survey the men through my glasses. Only a few of them appear to be interested in the proceedings. Most of them look quite bored and one or two look as though they would rather be somewhere else than sitting there and being bored by the imminent lecture. I clear my throat and begin, ‘Evening, friends. All of you know why I am here. So let’s not dwell under the false pretence that I shall have to introduce myself and my purpose. I shall begin with the incidents of a day that changed my life forever. That was the day when I first properly met the man sitting beside me—Arnab Chakraborty. (A round of applause). We became excellent friends from that day and like so many good friends do, we made promises and like good friends do, we have kept our promises and that is the reason I am standing right here, in front of you. Yes, we took a decision that we shall start a software company, by the name of Padpro incorporation. It was our dream, our ambition. Sounds strange, doesn’t it? That what was our dream was our ambition, too. It is still our dream and it is still our ambition.
‘I can bet that every one of you, sitting here, has dreams and you also have the determination to achieve them. And I assure you that every one of you can fulfil your dreams. Yes, every one of you can. The only thing that you have to do is to chase, chase and keep chasing without any stop until you reach where you want to see yourself, today. The important thing is to never give up.
‘Let me ask you, each one of you, a question. All of you, undoubtedly, have high ambitions. But how many of you truly want to be different?’
A silence follows my question, which is then punctuated by soft murmurs and whispers. One or two people put up their hands. Another two follow suit and then the rest of them join them, too.
‘I presume that you understood what I meant by being different. All of you have high hopes of being called for an interview from the leading companies in the world market, namely, Google, Microsoft, Apple Mackintosh. I accept that my firm is not as well established as theirs are. So what am I here to offer you, when you have the chance of joining up with the top companies? I shall tell you what. It is the chance to do things differently, to take a new company from its infancy to the summit, the zenith of success. In other words, I’m here to offer you the chance to be different.
‘I accept that the road ahead of us is difficult and uncertain. But think of the reward you shall get when you are at the top. Think of the satisfaction, the feeling of being successful, the gratification of being able to contribute to the rise of a team. It will be your success as much as it will be ours. (Another round of applause).’
The old man says into the microphone, ‘Now may I…’
After the seminar, few of the interested men follow us outside the room and ask us about their prospects. We smile at each other, Arnab and me. The wheels of success have begun to turn.
I look up at the sky once again and see that a thin sheet of cloud has obscured the stars out of sight. Even such a pleasant breeze can alter the reality, which is a ghost of the past now! The wind is gathering speed and the pages of my diary flutter in it. The rhythmic whooshing sound brings back the memories of an imaginary life, lived by an imaginary person—a boy sharing my name, my body and my thoughts. In a matter of few minutes, the storm brews up from a void that the imaginary boy may call ‘the eternity’.
I rush in, clutching the diary onto my chest and the pen resting inside it as a bookmark. I shut the door with great difficulty as the storm rages outside. I am about to descend down the stairs when I stop on my tracks. I hear the clattering sound of the falling drops of rain on the corrugated tin shed over my head and I realize that I have come to the point where words begin to lose their purpose and fail to regenerate the magic of the extraordinary sensation. I find myself out of expressions.
As I draw a close to this little adventure of the night, here is what I dedicate to all the thinkers all over the world— As the waves approach the shore, they rear up, ready to strike and wash away even the tiniest vestige of the former world, which is an illusion, and leave behind the wet sand of a new world, which is another illusion that is destined to be washed away by the waves returning from the sea of tranquillity. The process of transformations goes on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
