Dilwaali Diwaali

There is a dark gully visible from my window. Throughout the year, when the roads are dark at night, the degree of visibility in that particular gully is determined by the extent of waxing or waning the moon exhibits then. The reverse holds as well, and there is this half-finished abandoned-building of a project right across that gully. I have mentioned this building several times before. How certain guys hanging out on the rooftop remind me of Chandler and Joey, and how the moonlight incident on the unused, jutting-out concrete cables makes me poetic, Concrete-jungle moon-sparks et al, and also once about the Blue Windows on the finished portions of the building. Tonight, however, is not quite like the other days of the year. On the occasion of Diwali, there are heavy laces and frills of light wrapped around all the buildings lining the gully, for the purpose of beautification. And though, just like certain Elizabethan literature heroines, these laces and frills seem to suffocate the buildings, the end of beautification has been amazingly addressed. Also, Kali Pujo is the only festival celebrated at the tiny little club in the immediate paara, so there’s a typical Orange-white temple-shaped pandal erected in the grassless field between the gully and our complex. So my room is lit up, red, green and blue. The ‘tuni-bulbs’ lining the box-grills of my window act to the effect, and if only I was a little stoned, my room would have felt like a live hard-rock café, for I even have Vintage Rock from the 60’s and 70’s and some really mellow Sikkimese music playing on the laptop.
Tonight, incidentally, is All Souls’ Day. Bangalis refer to it as Bhoot Chaturdashi. Souls descend on the Western Hemisphere on Hallowe’en. And then their Eastern Counterparts follow suit on Bhoot Chaturdashi. The minute graveyards at Kumardhubi might come awake tonight. Mrs. Jean McGinn, my beloved kindergarten teacher, she might come to visit her son, who threw her out of home, forcing her to eke out an embarrassing living out of rendering private tuitions even after retirement. I hope her soul comes back to avenge the injustice meted out to her. I remember how she was the first person to have put me on a pedestal of importance, by making me class monitor in kindergarten. I have been dethroned from and reinstated into that pedestal a lot of times since, but she made me feel important for the first time I remember, so that love for her, that reverence, I can still feel, FRESH inside me.I didn’t plan this note out; it is just taking a shape of its own. I remember how, before the first day of kindergarten, when Ma brought home news about Mrs Mc Ginn being my class teacher from the orientation program, I had sobbed for an entire day, out of fear arising out of having been allotted the scariest teacher, ‘who threw dusters to burst her students’ skulls’, in the school as Class Teacher. Now when I look back in retrospect, how unfounded and baseless the worrying of that afternoon seems.

The other time, when on Bhoot Chaturdashi morning in 2002, we landed up at the Hazaribagh National Park, and Buiya and I hatched plans of staying back at the National Park, at one of the cottages without electricity, (because we had no such prior plans, there were no proper-cottages booked for us), and how excited we got at the prospect of being visited by spirits from the dead as also Indian Tigers and jackals in the same night, and how disturbed and miserable we had been left feeling, when our parents didn’t approve of the idea, and rejected such a brilliant adventure just because they were worried about the mosquitoes. Both Buiya and I had refused to speak through the entire journey back.
The Diwali of 2005, the year when a blast had ripped the heart of Dilli just before the festival of lights, and our Tarumitra Nature Convention at St. Patrick’s, Asansol, where we planted trees, and socialized with people from other schools, and marveled at the sheer size of the Boys’ Dorms at St. Vincent’s, and the wonderful nature walks, the magnitude of the combined complex of Patrick’s, Vincent’s and Loyola. Also, Francisco Almeida, his attempts at teaching me those little nuances of Portuguese, and the way I was taken into the Anglo Indian Dinner Ceremony, long after the others had made the phone-calls back home, and had returned to the dorms and taken to their beds, and how I saw the art works by the Christian Brothers, and how impressed I had been at the sheer creativity and talent of the young artists. Also, discovering the half-dead rat-baby on the corridors, and handing it over to the Big Man, the planner of the event. The staying up nights with Alok, and dozing through the seminars and sessions the next day. And how Mrs. Sriparna Choudhury, perhaps the calmest and sweetest lady, and teacher ever, passed away to a minor accident a fortnight after this, and how shocking the incident was for the entire neighborhood-town.
Diwali in Jharkhand was so cold, snug and cute. Diwali meant November, and Chhath, and the men and women walking towards the Chhat-Ghat in colorful, fluorescent sarees and translucent shirts, and the huge assortment of gifts to the Sun God they all carried on their heads.Chhat would also mean ‘thekwas’. Every building was lined with diyas, and tuni bulbs, and the temperatures would hover between 9 degrees and 12 degrees, and even then there would be invitations from every house in the colony for the ‘parsad khaana’. Since every house housed a patient of my father or a student of my mum, there would always be the extra respect associated with being Daktarshaab or Medam’s son. A lot of this I have left behind forever. There’s no returning to any of it. But I have tonight. Suddenly now, I’m wishing there wasn’t so much light flooding in through the window. Maybe I’d be visited by a friendly soul. Or maybe Peeves. Mayukh reminds me of Peeves, it is funny really. Tomorrow is KaliPujo/Diwali 2010. Another one in the history of my life, to be fondly recalled later maybe?

Udaan.

‘Udaan’ brought back a lot of memories. Much of the movie was based in Jamshedpur-the industrial city. Jamshedpur, like Maithon, is just another industrial small town in Jharkhand(the latter is probably one-tenth the size of the former). But watching the movie with Debadrita made it even more special. The lanes and the by-lanes, the picturesque colonies with neat rows and columns of bungalows- some huge, others just about qualifying for the name, and white picket fences, white low-rise gates, and children riding their bicycles in those narrow lanes strewn with yellow flowers that have withered off from the gorgeous, resplendent yellow trees that line the bungalows- all these were uncannily reminiscent of Maithon. Of course, the fact that the two towns are separated by a meager 150 kms, adds to the obvious similarities between the circumstances and the psyche of the people the protagonist in the movie faces and the ones I have grown up with. [I strongly believe that as towns develop into cities, they turn into mirror-images of each other. Every huge city is a clone of the other, but every small town is distinct in its affection, its vulnerability, its dream-weave-lores, its colors and its very flavor].

You see, you all are cool people. You listen to Pink Floyd while smoking marijuana and the ‘grass’ really makes you feel like you are dwelling within Elysian Lawns. So by virtue of such things that you do, you are more than perfectly licensed to laugh at me if I tell you that Ila Arun and her mustard-and-nicotine tonsils get me high.And I'm that uncool. Deal with it.

Also, I hear Mr. Ragupathi is retiring in a month. Surely that's a good thing in a way. But the question is how good is it? I mean Adolf Hitler too was a characteristic of 1940's Europe, right? With his (self-inflicted)departure, a lot changed in Europe. So with this man's departure(as well of his wife's, scheduled for two years later) a lot of things are going to change in De Nobili School, Maithon. Not that things have stayed the same ever since I left(2007) though. All the political/financial debacle that the school underwent, I am merely happy all of that is now over, and the school is back in experienced, able and dependable hands.

What I Miss....

Memories are infinitesimally more relishable when one has people to share them with. As a child, I had to move quite a number of times, owing to the nature of my dad’s profession. As he served the nation, by helping those that protect her and her people, with his medical services, I got to be a part of the livelihoods of a variety of ‘peoples’, but my own childhood became, to an extent, fragmented. We resided away from our hometown, our people, our cultural fabric. We had to anchor ourselves in waters which weren’t ours, and lived lives which we would have to abandon. I made friends that I knew wouldn’t be forever for me to keep. Those days are long gone, and I have been living in my home-town for close to the last three years, I have made friends in this city, and got on with life. But sometimes, I do remember school. A relic or a memento in some corner of the house brings to total recall the most wonderful, the diverse range of experiences that school was. It doesn’t help that I’m in touch with only one friend from the days I remember as ‘School Days’, and when I repetitively undergo epiphanies that most of my present friends are in touch with all of their miniature-day friends, and when I witness them discussing their days of school-uniforms-getting-stained, drawing-lessons-and-basic-math, junior-school-silly-revenge-tales and Noddy and Enid Blyton and Cartoon Network, it feels like pin-pricks that the people I shared them with are forever lost(well the Facebook and Orkut accounts exist, but in effect, they ARE lost).

Around a week back, a friend from Class 5, Rituraj Jain added me as a friend on Orkut. I remember the times when we used to sit together and discuss things like Civic-sense in Jamaica, and his Mc Donald’s cap. After he had left school, in the nine years of interim, I had thought about him, and about what had come of him quite a few times. So, naturally, I began frantically searching for a photograph of his the moment I came by his profile. While going through his three albums, I was actually picturing the head of the same ten-year old boy, from the Class 5 Class-Photo, on a grown-up’s body. Disappointment hit me when I realized that none of the twenty-five photographs in his Virtual-albums were of his own. He has evidently grown into a nature-lover and pretty much a family-guy. All the photos were either of trees, plants, and the encasing skies, or of his parents, sisters, and extended family. Neither has he replied to my “How and where are you these days, man?” query yet. This is the tenacity of the communication-cord that today connects me and my school-friends.

The world too is changing rapidly. What is true today ceases to hold any meaning tomorrow. Such disruptions even in minute things upset me. I have grown up watching the Filmfare Awards- India’s Academy Awards. The best and the biggest stars and planets of Bollyverse come down to celebrate the best of the bygone year. The grandest performances, the best attires, and the most-memorable moments – these are all what Filmfare is all about. Everything in Filmfare becomes a part of Bolly-history. I want to be a part of the legacy, I used to say to myself every year after watching the event on the television screen in my mundane, dichromatic room. This year’s event, which I watched last evening, seemed less colorful than my SAB life. The lustre, the magnificence, the visual opulence, everything seemed lost. The once-glorious stars and starlets seemed dull and pale, the smiles seemed mechanical, the speeches diplomatic and rote-learnt. Where was the old-charm, the life, the warmth? It seemed like an ugly-cousin of the more-restrained Oscars.
As I die every night, a new I is born every morning. Yesterday’s me isn’t today’s me. Last moment’s me died as the moment passed by. Nothing stays the same. Only the ghosts of yesterday permeate their way into today no matter how solids are the walls of indifference I create to insulate myself, and haunt the happiness out of me, and take it back to yesterday. Similarly shall today’s ghosts bring tomorrow’s happiness back to today. The balance is restored but the walls between the days dissolve resulting in such inarticulateness, to such incoherence of words and thoughts.

Bon Voyage... An Early End For Me ?

My bed at the moment is ‘infested’ by stacks of unread notes. They look way more perilous than sharks in the Tasman Sea. I’m in no mood to confront them tonight.

I’m sad because the Rolling Stones magazine didn’t include Queen OR Pink Floyd in their list of Top 50 Artists of all times. I’m hungry too, but that happens every night, when I’m awake at this hour.

I’m randomly remembering past incidents. Like in De Nobili when Debadrita would rush out of the classroom yelling “Bulldozer, bulldozer!” on catching sight of a mighty yellow bulldozer passing our school by. And the school-rules didn’t allow us to set our feet in the corridor between the classroom and the road-with-the-mighty-bulldozer because apparently, the students could be causing a breach to ‘De Nobili Discipline’ by becoming visible to the passersby on the road. And yet, we would follow Debadrita into the corridor, ripping apart every little iota of the notion of ‘De Nobili Discipline’ our class-teacher expected from us.

Somehow, most of my pleasant memories have a cool-breeze coming in through some window.
With Thammu and Buiya, I would play “Chhush Chhush”(sound of waves against the hull of a boat) in the guest-room. The game would have us embark on wonderful Sinbad-ish adventures, where we would be required to do everything right from fighting for our lives to dancing weirdly in order to please local tribal kings. No wonder ‘The Voyage Of The Dawn-Treader’ remains my favorite book of the Narnia series. No one was allowed to enter the room when the game would be on.
And sometimes, we would also dance to ‘Koi Kahe Kehta Rahe’ or ‘Brown Girl In The Ring’. Yes, Thammu IS my dad’s mom.

Life has been good to me. I’ve always had what I wanted. But, I’ve always expected a catastrophic future for myself. I’m not pessimistic. I’m not an unhappy person. But this is something I see for myself. I will spell my own early end, I keep thinking. However, the notion might just be wrong. All these years, and I haven’t encountered the catastrophe still, right? Let’s see what happens. If I wither off early, at least I’ll not be an Eleanor Rigby later.

I leave you with these four posters that I’ve designed and though they’re just amateurish stuff, I quite like them… :D

This, I guess, is my last post in October 2009.

Flavor Changes, Love Remains

As we grow older, the sugar-coatings and the gift wraps start coming off until the innermost skeletons of life start showing. The flavors change and everything starts smelling, looking and tasting different. Not everything attains bleakness or takes a turn towards the worse, but the ‘feel’ of everything changes.

It’s a Durga Pujo Saptami evening. Despite not having essentially been a Calcuttan throughout my life, I’ve always been in the city at this time of the year(apart from in 1998 –the year my family had insisted on touring the Garhwal and Kumaon hills). Exhaustive pandal-hopping to visiting relatives, scaling heights and attaining elevation with friends to donning those new-colorful attires- I’ve had a taste of everything that Pujos in my city are famous for. Yet some of the flavors of the yesteryears are no more. No dhaaki at Maddox Square, no Pirate-ship at Deshopriyo Park, no long queue at Bosepukur Sitala Mandir can replenish the certain warmly cosy and stomach-and-heart-churningly happy feeling in the crevices and recesses of my mind anymore. I wonder why? I’ve not undergone any major tragedy nor have I come to derive immense pleasures from any other quarters of my life. The various puja committees still contend for the position of the ‘Best Pujo’ of the city but the entire excitement surrounding the diversity of themes on display, like in the past, is no more. People still wear those new black tees, and girls still get their faces made up, and hair straightened, and cling to their boyfriends(and their potbellies) while riding pillion on their bikes, and the rains still come and wash off the decorations off some pandals, and the puchka-wallahs still make the extra profit, and the Pre-pujo sales still happen, but what the heck?? The flavor is different.

It’s like it was a different Pujo-time me then, and the me of 2009 are entirely different people. I hardly go out with my parents anymore. The memories of the Pujos of the past come back to visit me like visions of another life. These memories are generally lined with inexplicable silver coatings and red hues in my mind… I also terribly, terribly miss the car journeys that we would make from Maithon to Calcutta on Panchamis every year, after school would give over for the vacations. The music playing inside the car, the numerous small-pujas dotting the highway-sides, the awesomely cool(although sometimes smoke laden) air would keep streaming into the car when we would keep the glass-panes open. The highway-dhabas, the occasional tea and aloo paratha halts, the cold-drinks and the Anjan Dutta/Mohiner Ghoraguli or the corny Hindi songs, the plans surrounding the celebration of the festival- all of this would be enough to transform me to a different realm altogether… I fail to understand why I never derive joys from such little thrills anymore. Big city life, maybe?

Having said all this, this season still stays one of my favorite phases in the entire year. And Bijoya Dashami is still the day that makes me feel like I am losing someone very close to me. The wait of one more year-the newspapers say. The year will fly past without your realizing it, they add. “Yeah right!”, I say. A WHOLE EFFIN’ YEAR. Yet, indeed the year whizzes past. Birthdays come, exams come, depressions come, desires to go jump off the terrace come, happiness and excitements come, crushes happen, heartbreaks happen, differences arise, drifting apart from close ones takes place, patching up with certain other people happens, Diwali,Christmas,New Year,Summers,Monsoons go by, until it’s Pujo again. Flavors have changed, but the love remains. I know that even today if I happen to be compelled to stay this time of the year in anyplace other than this city of mine, I will suffer immense mental ‘monkemon’ and trauma-related-to-missing-the-festive-Calcutta…

P.S.: I know I’m an atheist, but sometimes I like to believe Ma. Durga and her family is a real concept. Not because I depend on her to resolve my life-issues, but somehow the entire concept of her family is very cute, especially in these times of fragmented families, where one constituent hardly has time for any of the others(and no one complains).

"Au Revoir, School Life"

College is going to start this week. School life ends here, finally. I had a most marvellous school life, totally free from bullying, problems like inability to fit in, like getting lost in the crowd, being not able to perform brilliantly in academics. I never really had problems in school, apart from my teachers never being too pleased with my antics, my clowning around in class, my unstoppable blabbering, my hanging around with girls, my not being adequately respectful towards them etc. And yes, I’ve also been let down by several friends, cheated on, manipulated, lied to, hated by many, envied by many more(several people have complained that I’ve done the same to them, and some of these allegations were definitely very true)…. And though these had really hit me hard towards the end of Class 10(and had caused me to sober down totally in Classes 11 and 12), I decide to forget all of that today. I will carry forward all the good memories (they are the ones that dominate), and will never regret anything about this part of my life. For every blunder I made, every person that tricked me, everyone I befriended, every Physics period I spent trying to take over school-journal-distributio

n duties- all of these have opened up newer avenues of realization, of hope, of triumph, of understanding life to me. I’m grateful for all of it, I’m grateful to all the people I met, I’m grateful to the several people I loved in this journey (and there were many), I’m grateful for every dreaded butt-pinch I’ve received as punishments from Mr. P.T.Thomas, and every ‘put eet een a baux’ I’ve heard from Mr.S.Chakrabarty. I’m grateful for every Aloo-Bhujia I’ve shared with Nancy Rakhroy at the back of the classroom, for every bulletin-board chart-paper I’ve brought from the Book-Store, for every Volley Ball match I’ve witnessed supporting my house, for every overnight camp I’ve participated in, for every ‘Iced Eskimo’ I’ve had, discussing things as diverse as Mamata Banerji to our life-secrets, with Arvind Rajagopal and Ikshaku Bezbaroa at Ballygunge Circular Road CCD… I’ve loved it all. And nothing will ever erase any of these from my memory….

Rains...

“Now I, Now I wish it would rain down, down on me
Yes I wish it would rain, rain down on me now
Yes I wish it would rain down, down on me
Yes I wish it would rain on me” : Phil Collins


I have always loved the rains and have never been able to quite understand why all poets and singers and normal people associate ‘Rain’ to distress and despair. For me however, it has been one thing that has made me happy. Maybe it has got a lot to do with staying in a particularly hot, humid, over-populated yet brilliantly resplendent country, that I love the rains so much. It washes down the yellow, orange and red hues of this tropical country, and mellows down the ambience to soothing shades of blue, green and purple. It washes off the dust and SPM from the air , and the accumulated filth from the city trees, making the leaves appear lush green and fresh. I am seriously of the opinion that the smell of the wet soil after a rain is one of the best fragrances in the world.


I think the first rains I remember are the Jodhpur Park rains. I was five I guess, and I can still remember that the verandah and the terrace of our flat on the eighth floor would be flooded every time it rained. I would be playing scrabble (mostly sitting beside my grandma,rather than playing) with my sister, grandma, mom and great grandmother when it would rain. Or rummy. Some other times when my mom would be away, my sister and I would erect a tent and would get my grandmom to play ‘Trekking’ with us, while it would rain outside.

The North India rains are pretty much the same wherever you go. They cool down the cities and are a welcome relief from the heated up city buildings. It, however, rains in winter in Punjab, so people there don’t like it much. It brings down the temperatures to one-digit figures. Delhi Rains from a Hauz Khas bungalow verandah are the only ones I remember of the capital.

The Bokaro Rains wash down all the coal particles from the air. The suffocating city air would freshen up and give us space to breath.. Dhanbad and Asansol rains are pretty non-descript, and hence I wouldn’t really recall them with any particular affection.

Then there are the North Bengal rains… On every visit to Darjeeling/ Gangtok/ Kurseong I have encountered this variety. It, in a way, spoils all the travel plans. Yet there is a romantic aspect about this variety of rain that makes one want to fall in love… not just with the rain, but with North Bengal, and Sikkim. A cup of hot espresso coffee, with a delicious burger at Keventer’s and the rain outside… These are some memories I’ll cherish forever.
There is a small town called Rabangla in Sikkim. The town is nothing to write home about, but the road along which one journeys, from Gangtok to Rabangla is one of the most haunting beauties of Nature I have ever seen. Add to it the rain, and the hot soup, the fear of leeches and the Army ambience of the Army Guesthouse that had been provided by Major Bakshi for our lodging made the Rabangla Rains totally unforgettable. If I ever shoot ‘Dark Truth And White Lies”, I’ll shoot the first half of it in Rabangla, for sure.

Of course no one can deny the existence of the Durga Pujo rains in Calcutta. It takes off most of the decorations from the elaborately done up pandals, and floods the city streets, making traffic conditions all-the-worse (and subsequently the Telegraph-Metro to rate the traffic conditions during pujo as 2/10 in its post pujo edition). It spoils the red sarees and the black shirts, the new cars and the crowds’ moods… Some wise people choose to stay at home and relish the Pujo over beer,vodka and shredded shuntki, or Aloo Paratha and Dahi(Punjabi Taste buds love this dish). However my darling parents have chosen to stay in Calcutta for every pujo. And not just that, we also go exhaustive-pandal hopping every Pujo… So the kadaa(wet mud) stains on my new dress and the hours spent holed up inside the car, watching it rain outside, and new lovers cozying up while walking, while listening to Anjan Dutta go “E Kolkata Sholo Amaar”… Despite these, I love the pujo rains too, and I was a tad disappointed when it didn’t rain last year during Pujo

I saw it rain from my Class 11 classroom in St James’ Calcutta. At that time I knew nobody in the school, and nobody knew me, so I would spend all of my time sleeping in class. Nobody bothered to notice, so it was fine with me. The rain outside would cheer me up however, and despite my loathing the grey sky, the grey buildings and the inability of the rain to make its way all the way to the ground, or the classroom window-sill due to the claustrophobically small distance between the school building and the surrounding buildings, I would be happy nevertheless. There was a garbage dump on the street beside the school,which would spoil the effect of the rain, but still…
I enjoyed the rain that transformed Calcutta into Venice in my 2nd week of St James’. I hated my new school so much that I was glad the rain gave me an excuse to miss school for four days.

I have enjoyed the rains sitting in Ballygunge Circular Road CCD with my friends (two of them mainly). I have enjoyed the rain in Park Street, from Bar-B-Q, Flury’s and KFC.

My favorite rains have been, no points for guessing, the Maithon rains.
There would be the school-time rains. It would make the school appear very much like the Hogwarts they show in movies. The lush green trees, the huge playgrounds, the dark corridors lit by light-bulbs, the rain drops coming into the classrooms through the huge windows. And there would be Parents’ Night or Sports Day practices, or Extempore or Debate practices. So I’d just skip classes at length and enjoy the storm and the wind outside. The nice thing about school and the town together was it was a huge school in
a small neighborhood, that wouldn’t even classify as a town, and hence it was very much like Hogwarts. The ChotaNagpur hillocks would give it a very Alpine/Scottish Highlands’ ambience, and the rains would make it appear like a place straight out from the fairy-tale books, a place in the surrealistic realm a la Narnia, Rhye, or Heidi’s grandpa’s cottage on the Swiss Alps..
And how can I forget the home ground rains. Every distant thunder would be a signal for us to get ready to go mango-collecting. The Kalboishakhi would get the yet-to-be-ripe green April Mangoes to fall to the ground, which we had to retrieve before the children from a nearby village had come and collected them. So the Mango-collecting(this sounds weird, I’d rather settle for ‘Aam-kurono’) sessions would occur while it would be still raining. We would make our way past the snake-holes and scorpion-dens, get down in knee-deep accumulated water, and collect the mangoes in our backyard-wood. When it would be dark(it mostly would be-kalboishakhis generally attack in the evenings, after a hot and humid day), we would even have to brave the prospect of meeting a few local ghosts and evil spirits.

Maithon rains would always mean opening of the dam flood-gates. Maithon would never be flooded, for it was hilly, but the West Bengal and Jharkhand districts surely would, when all the DVC dams let their flood gates open. While this action of DVC would invite a lot of criticism from state governments and newspapers, it would be a gala event for us, small towners. The release of the dam waters (sometimes the bridge connecting Mazumdar Niwas to the mainland would drown when the dam would be too full-much to the inconvenience of the Rao Parivar) would mean a local Niagara for us… Ooh! That would be fun! Pointing at the gushing water from the school-bus, politely asking the driver to stop the bus, and relish the view…

I have also enjoyed the Car- journey rains(the variety I would meet in some of the National highway journeys from Maithon to Calcutta or vice-versa, given that two such journeys would be made every four months). Stopping the car, and enjoying the tea/ snacks at a Roadside Dhaba would be immensely pleasurable…

I have always loved the rain for one more reason. There are beautifully picturised Bollywood rain songs… from Raj Kapoor and Nargis in Shree 420 to Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukerjee in HumTum, I have loved them all and so the Rain songs bring a smile on my face-ALWAYS!

I have always loved the rain, and will always do so…Right now, sweating profusely in this hot summer afternoon in Calcutta, I have only one prayer… “Aay Brishti Jhenpe… Dhaan Debo Mepe..”

Ek Bachpan Aisa Bhi

I am in a playground. It is huge, with very many trees. My friends are frolicking all around me. I am not at all interested in the games. Is it not ‘Hide and Seek’ they are playing? Yes, they are… I busy myself in looking up at the next building’s terrace. The building is much taller than my two-storey school building. There are some faces I love, looking down at me, waving at me. Gargi Ma’am asks “Those are your parents, aren’t they?” I nod and reply in positives, with my chest broadened and my eyes glistening with glee. I am sure not many have the privilege of attending a school right next door to their homes. “Dola Ma’am surely has none of her parents so close to her at the moment”, I note with some amount of self-satisfaction. My pained heart is soothed at the very thought of this very misfortune of the lady who had minutes ago told me off for dropping water in the classroom.

My sister and I don’t get along with the children of our colony. We think we are much too superior for their standards, which we are… We both have our perfect playground just at the back of our home, within the bungalow territories. It is our Enchanted Wood, a wood with bonmurgis, squirrels, goat kids(the occasional one that has strayed into this territory), peacocks(common in the early mornings) and foxes(once in a month?) The only things that prevent it from being our perfect Enchanted Wood is that the trees don’t go ‘Wisha Wisha’ here, neither does any of the mango, jam, jackfruit, guava, or the numerous other trees have Lands visiting its top. We don’t complain though. We are satisfied with the serenity, the tranquility of this part of our home. The only disturbance is the ‘Kaho Na Pyar Hai’ songs from the just-released superhit movie coming from the distant outhouses.

I am sitting under the ‘kaamini’ tree. The dew on the grass all around me glistens under the small-town December morning sun. The garden is not very maintained really. Its quite dangerous and is infested my numerous poisonous representatives of my garden ecosystem, especially during the rains. The kaamini flowers have the notoriety of attracting the snakes with their aroma(probably the best smell in the world) and hence I can hear my mother warning me not to choose that spot for myself. I don’t pay heed. The (bungalow-type)quarter is quite far away, anyway. I know Ma can’t see me from there. I lose myself, far away from the ‘real’ world with the possible perils of reptile-fangs piercing into my skin. I am transported to the world of Georgina Kirrin. I prepare myself to meet three new kids. Julian, Dick, Anne they are… Very soon we become good friends. Not after long, I am exploring weird ship-wrecks and discovering ingots of gold in some hidden dungeons in a tiny island called Kirrin Island. I think I hear a bell. Is it Anne’s alarm clock? Couldn’t possibly be … The ‘Famous Five’ have just hit their beds after solving a mystery and earning accolades from the local police. I look up. It is the lunch bell ringing.

Sir Fernandez ,our Class Teacher,and Geography teacher is the art-director for Teacher’s Day. He is not going to come to class. Rahul Aggarwal doen't have to tell me what we are to do. We rush out of class. Our classroom is the classroom in a secluded corner of the school, just beside the bookstore. So it doesn’t really come under the surveillance of the school administration heads coming on rounds. Today it is raining hard, and the rain water has created an artificial stream that leads straight out of the school premises. We tear pages out of our Science notebooks. Fifteen or twenty sheets. Then we create paper boats. (Leeza helps me with mine). We choose the unusual colors out of Rahul’s 101 color felt pen set… We use them on our boats… the Magenta, Cyan, Holly, Plum, Straw etc color boats are divided equally between us. We set them sail on the artificial stream. My first boat sinks even before I can wish it ‘Bon Voyage’. Almost similar fates make my other boats their victim. However, I see ‘Malena’ sailing smoothly past Rahul’s boats, most of which are still floating. It wheezes past them all and soon becomes the first one to go out on the streets. I jump up in joy, and Leeza stands beside me clapping at my victory. Rahul, with a pained expression on his face, explains the circumstances under which his ‘Magellan’ slowed down at the last moment. Leeza booes him. I suddenly notice how beautiful she is..

The Chemistry class is on. Mrs. Bhattacharya is explaining to us the circumstances under which the anode sludge settles down at the anode, and the pure silver rod, acting as cathode, goes on thickening. She is a strict ,but an expert teacher. I am not paying attention though. Sneha Kedia is holding up an interesting looking box and waving it at Nancy Rakhroy. I can’t understand what could be inside the box, and why Sneha wasn’t showing it to me(with her having the habit of presenting one gift to me everyday, all ‘Best Friend’ ones). I take it from her hand, almost by force and open the lid. I find numerous colorful easily-put-onable rings inside it. I get working. I put two rings on my lower lip, three each on each ear,one each on each eyebrow, and one on my nose. To avoid attracting Mrs Bhattacharya’s attention, I hide my face behind the ICSE Chemistry Part I book, and start making weird faces at my classmates. Rohit, Kunal, Ria, Mohana and Kankana break into suppressed giggles. I try desperately to make them stop. It’s too late. My favorite teacher throws one of her favorite students out of class. I stand on the corridor. My dearest mom is teaching Biology in the next classroom.


The Economics teacher asks the other students, “Does he smile all the time?” A mousy looking classmate, whose name I don’t know, replies, “Yes sir, Always. Even when he’s being shouted at. Or being made fun of.” Some intrigued eyes turn towards me. I feel uneasy. I’m not enjoying my time in this fifth school.

It is three in the morning and I am recollecting random moments from my eighteen year old life, not necessarily the most favorite or most important. My school final exams are over and I have absolutely nothing to do. I am severely bored, and hence type down these thoughts. Who says people can’t predict the future? I can! I know what character of the PC keyboard will be used after three words? A full-stop.

Transition

They solemnly stood there,on the other side
Of the gate,Unaware of the divide.
"Its going to stay the same",said they
"We'll remember you even after you've gone away!"

And he walked away,In his bosom a heavy heart.
Their cheers and whistles, his ears'd gotten jarred.
Despite the wide smile that remained on his face
He silently cried on, faster became his pace.

A car stood waiting,the moment was here.
He had to depart,to drift away, from all that he held dear.
The trees,the mountains, and the lakes outside
Sobbed,waved goodbye forever to their child...

...Two forty kilometres, and months twenty four.
The stay has been good, he's one of them at the fore.
Nobody would tell him apart from the Whoevers!
And deep in his heart, the image had begun to waver.

The faces had promised,"Nothing's gonna change!"
Everything has since fallen apart-but it isn't quite strange.
The high-rise buildings, cars, shopping malls-all the glamour
It all suits him so well, the glow makes him shimmer.

Only the shimmer is the surface, his soul is dented.
The trees', the hillocks' child is demented
Demented,and hollow, devoid of his 'himselfness'
What has replaced the joy was mere fake happiness.

The affectionate, happy faces have since become a memory just,
They dissolve into nothingness, if he scratches off the crust
Of his memories,of those past days of glory,
Adulthood is here! Childhood is history!!!

Naming An Epic...

I wanted to blog!!! Everyone around me blogs, so I had to blog!! However, I needed a name for my blog. A name, which would give the readers an insight into the content of this blog, or at a macrolevel, an insight into my personality. After much deliberation, I decided on the name… ‘Cogency, Cinema And A Childhood’. Here’s why:

1.Why Cinema?

‘No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.’ –Ingmar Bergman

I adore Cinema. I worship this form of art. I cannot live without movies and want to make a living out of conveying my vision and opinion about the world through this very medium. Fellini, Rossellini, Kurosawa, Ray, Godard, Bergman , Jean Renoir, Truffaut and others of their league made Cinema an effective mirror of our society, our lives, our thoughts, worries, emotions and passions. So, in my opinion, they, rather than the individuals described in mythology, are God(s). And a Cinema-hall(or multiplex screens, or whatever you call it) is Heaven! Though I would have liked to patronise more of the Fellini-Rossellini-esque Cinema, one hardly gets to lay one's hands on such DVDs regularly. Thus, I have to remain content in being a Hindi Cinema addict. And by the standard of Cinema they manufacture these days, I'm not complaining.

2. Why Cogency?

People who know me well tell me that the intelligence I have in me is the most attractive thing about me. (Some other people think otherwise.But this article is not about The Others). But I myself don’t want to comment about the ‘intelligence’ bit of it. I’d rather say it is my logicality, rationality and general common sense. As in, I can proudly say that I am among those very few people who question everything, analyse, reason and then derive a conclusion. I can always find flaws in myself(that, however, is no indication of any inferiority complex in me) and don’t blame others for anything that goes wrong in my life. Also, I listen to people speak. I’m not among those who’d inflict themselves heavily on others, by doing most of the speaking themselves. Even those who are not too sure of my intelligence, generally do admit that I base most of my actions on logic and reason. ‘Logicality’ or ‘Rationality’ thus would have been more obvious constituents of the name of the blog. But since the two other words had ‘C’ as their initials, use of ‘Cogency’ made the name an alliteration.

3. Why Childhood?

My childhood is something I have missed most in the last year and a half. At, 17, on the threshold of adulthood, I feel the pangs of having to bid permanent farewell to that delightful phase of my life. Everybody’s childhood is the best phase of his life. Mine is more so. Because I lived a serene childhood in an idyllic, picturesque town. And this despite the fact that I was never really deprived the advantages of a city. Calcutta, one of the hugest metropolises of India was always home and here was where I spent 4 months of every year. However, the neverland-like town which was my home for the remaining 8 months, was unlike other ordinary towns. Though it lacked the hustle and bustle of a city, it had the outlook, vision, technology and standards-of-living of any big city. I, thus had the best of both worlds. The peace and tranquility of a small-(hill)town life, as well as the imbibitions of all the uber-urban lifestyle , culture, outlook, tastes and EDUCATION. Despite having had 12 years of schooling in a school in the town, and 2 years in one in the city of Calcutta, I didn’t find much difference in the ways of both the schools. As the city school is reputed to be one of the best ones of this huge city, I can safely conclude my town school(with its administration, levels of discipline and the quality of education provided there being of the standards of the best schools of this country- the school being a part of those most prestigious inter-school associations and organizations in India), gave me the kind of education and training that not for once got me uneasy in a city school or a big-town life.


Hence, the kind of ‘Cinema’ I patronise , the ‘Cogency’ I am usually associated with, and my ‘Childhood’ are the three things that best define whoever I am today.

And this, I feel is the most aptly suited first post for this blog. I hope this also explains ‘neverlandthroughmylens.blogspot.com’
The future posts will,hopefully, be shorter.