Probash e Pujo

Since I have started working for SNDU, my Pujo has been highly erratic. Sometimes, I manage to go back home, sometimes the images and the colours of Pujo come knocking at my door. Sometimes I miss all that makes Calcutta the city I have left behind, sometimes I find a small Calcutta in the heart of whatever place I am in. This was my fourth Pujo at SNDU and I missed going back home again.

When I first left Calcutta for the 2001 Pujo, I had felt miserable but within the deserts of Rajasthan I found something that will remain the definition of the Pujos for me. Working weeks to ensure that the Pujo happens without any glitch, acting the senior as well as the obedient junior, running back from classes to give the Anjali and never going back, dancing with the hot dhunuchis, Pilani defined Pujo as it should be. Bangalore was difficult but with the bongs around things was always nice. Whether it was the shamefully expensive buffet dinners we had to the time we made up for it by gorging on sweets at K C Das, it was nice to be around friends watching a new city celebrate the festival so close to our hearts.

My first year in Mumbai Pujo was a crazy trip around the Maximum City trying to soak in as much as I can; the essence of all things Bengali and that had made me yearn to go back to Calcutta. It’s not that I could not find a place to go during these five days. I believe that it’s easier to find a Durga Pujo in this world than finding any semblance of sense in my posts.

So finally last year, I was back in Calcutta. The city, at least the part I have grown up in, had decayed even more. Wherever my travels have taken me I have found that some parts of the city always remains forgotten; a ghost of the glorious past. And no where is it starker than in Calcutta. The glory of the North is lying today amidst forgotten debris. And that’s how life is. We Northies are a dying breed, still stuck in our memories as the realities of life have pushed us out.

Have you seen the new Hero Splendour ads? That’s where I grew up in. The decaying walls, the political graffiti, all that my childhood was made up of.

This year SNDU sent me to a course and thus I was staying back in Mumbai again. And I had time to think about what Pujo means to me. Sitting during the lunch break on Worli Sea Face, looking into the bright sunlit ocean, I wondered. From the times when seeing the maximum number of idols defined Pujo, to the time when we “grew up” at Trincas and wondered about Maddox Square, life has indeed changed a lot. But what has not changed is my endeavour to explain to people, especially non Bongs, why we celebrate the Puja as we do. Why it’s about the daughter coming home and not necessarily of good triumphing over evil. When the family is together, there can be no evil, can it? I remember the generations of Bengali mothers who have sung for their daughters. It’s painful, how a mother and daughter accept their separation when the daughter is married. I have seen the pain in my parents’ eyes when my sis got married and I have seen their eyes light up when she comes back. Who cares about Raavan dying?

But when I stood at Shivaji Park, swamped by people all around me, I could hear the sound of the dhak reverberating through every vein of my body. The most primitive of all sounds, the drums raise the call of the forgotten nomad in our bloods. Its earthiness reminds us who we were, who we still can be. I missed my family and realized that sometimes the strongest bonds are of blood, not necessarily of love. And it’s not a bad thing.

Some called, from Delhi, from New York, from other parts of the world. Others I did. Many I forgot to call and I am sorry for it, but to whoever is reading this post, Shubho Bijoya. Asche bochor abar hobe :)

Spear Sister

Spear Sister. Good bye. Who are we but mere pawns in the Great Game? Rand Al Thor, The Dragon Reborn is the One who knows all. We merely followed him. We believed he will be fair. But Spear Sister who would have known The Master might fail us.

I still remembered the first time I danced with you. Surrounded by wolves, wounded, spent, I lay on the ground. Proud, unbent but almost broken. Then out of nowhere you came, spears flying, moving through the pack of the beasts and stood by me. I didn’t know who you were. I didn’t know where you had come from. But I was glad you came.

Spear Sister, do you remember the time we faced the yellow beast and were the first humans who wounded it? You moved all across, jabbing at it with your weapons, I just had to ensure I guard your back, stop you from rushing into danger and our bond just grew stronger everyday. But then you opposed The Dragon Reborn and no one survives his wrath.

Farewell, sister. We danced well while it lasted. The blood of the adversary is still warm on our blades. I still follow Rand-Al-Thor but my heart shall always sing for you.

May you find shade.

Bro-Vorce

So G left a while ago. The room’s completely empty after almost 2 years. I thought it would be ok. But in reality it’s pretty horrible and painful. As I watched his packed bags in the morning, I somehow felt like a person who is going through a divorce or a mutual separation and I knew I would be writing tonight. But there are two ways you can look at things – you can really feel bad about someone leaving or you can just imagine all the great times you have had and be happy that they happened.

And I know it’s not like a divorce, and I might be trivializing it with this comparison but then it can always be called a Bro-vorce, Bros moving to different cities, diverting their tracks.

The worst part is that I have never felt it before. Till this day, every time I have parted with a friend, it has been a firm handshake as life took us on different tracks. We had parted like men do –

Dude have no tears,

Here’s a red bull and a beer.

Sometime back Russian Princess told me, actually taught me, that it’s ok to accept goodbyes with a smile. And that’s what I intend to do. So here’s to what we did over the last couple of years.

We took coffee breaks at every coffee machine in the office. We ensured that there was not a single coffee machine that we had not drunk from. And then we made the chaiwala at the crossing rich.

We skipped lunch for work and then rushed to the sandwich joint outside KC College to stuff ourselves with grilled sandwiches, less butter no cheese. We made Oxford Bookstore turn profitable as we indulged in the food and the ‘Sau mil ki chai’ there and then engaged in the sweetest sin of all - impulse purchase of books which we would read after six odd months.

We went to Geoffreys together and he would order a Bloody Mary just so that we get the free nachos. And then we would get a taxi and sleep off.

We walked all across Bandra, late into the nights as the world slept around us. We would return home from work, eat at Subway, drink coffee and then walk till we were done with our cribbing on life and all that mattered. In other words, Hum Bandra ke Badnaam Galiyon ke Betaaj Baadshah the.

We bought all our electronics together, mostly from Alfa :) after spending a complete Saturday morning searching for the lowest rate.

We went to Bachulal Cycle Shop together to buy our cycles and discussed with Mr. Bachulal how we had only Rs. 30 with us apart from our debit cards.

If anyone has ever sold anything edible in Bandra, we have eaten there, whether we could afford it or not.

We have entertained complete strangers just because they were the other person’s friend and have become friends with them.

We have searched extensively in the matrimony sites for one of our closest friends, 600 less than devil, and have returned heartbroken with only 11 possible matches.

And the list goes on.

G’s been a good friend to A, V and me. He has been the guy who you could depend on anytime. In fact, even the otherwise not visibly emotional tall gentleman says, “It feels like the end of an era.” Tomorrow as I leave Mumbai for another whirlwind trip across the country, I feel nice writing this post. It has been fun and it shall always be there. But it’s not like it’s the end. We knew it would happen. It just happened, too fast, too soon. I guess that’s ok.

You know what’s the best part? I was always the lone wolf in the prairies howling at the moon as I danced through the mountains. Having a friend taking care of you when you are sick, when you are mentally drained following certain meetings sometimes makes you pretty domesticated. I am back to being the lone wolf in the prairies. Growl :)

There’s suddenly too much space in my room.

Rage

Yesterday night I was angry, really really angry. Given the fact that few things ever perturb me to the point of anger, even I was surprised. But I had every right to be. My country was afraid yesterday night, afraid of fanaticism, afraid of the enemy within, afraid of a verdict that was necessary.

The city that taught me my trade refused me entry because the Government was unsure if it can protect its citizens. My own government spent its time and energy to ensure that the nation remained at peace with itself and did not tear itself apart. I was stuck in Mumbai keeping my work aside as the country had decided to stay in.

I felt impotent. I felt helpless. I felt naked. Everyone was afraid around me.

Way Way back in the second year of the decade when India slowly started on its journey towards economic decentralization, a young boy in Calcutta was deeply upset as his school decided to shut down for a week in the last month of that year. He could not understand why he was not being allowed to go to school. His politically literate family was also at a loss. Nobody knew why the country was in a state of confusion and shock. And he did the only thing he has known to do whenever he has faced a question. He read.

Sometimes questions have no one answer. He realized answers evolve as time passes by. And the same answer presents itself in different forms.

Hope the greatest intoxicant known to Man - As two young students in a lonely room in Vishwakarma Hostel believed with Samwise the Brave, “There’s something good in this world and it is worth fighting for.”

I want to Believe

Agent Mulder wanted to believe in what he thought was true, rather believed was true. Once upon a time, I believed too, in sorcerers and goblins, in princes and knights. Then someday in the mad rush of believing “Impossible is Nothing” I began to lose my power to believe. My stories no longer had my dragons; my quest was for Market Share than for the Legend of the 13 Crystal Skulls.

But the other day I spelt Djinn with a D and I felt nice. I felt I was back to the days of the Arabian Nights where only men and djinns were allowed free will by Allah. But the Hindu philosophy strangely complicated matter. If I am God myself, I must have Free Will, yet then it undermines the doctrine of Karma. And if there was Free Will then Kayanaat would have conspired to give anyone anything they wanted.

Bruce Almighty did not have Free Will. And if he didn’t who would?

But I digress. Free Will is too big a concept for me to grasp yet. But the point I was trying to make is that when your day goes in fighting corporate battles, your mind often fails to fight the Fenrirr as you used to do when you were The Great Odin yourself.

All my life I have believed in symbols. But somehow even the signs were not coming through. In moments of despair, I lacked words to describe what I felt. And then an old friend’s blog told me exactly what was wrong - Sometimes I miss my non recurring dreams.

In a very forgettable adaptation of a classic Asimov, the protagonist was told, “Detective you must ask the right questions.” I did. And the answer came in the form of a little known movie, The Fall. And in my mind as I watched, it gave Pan’s Labyrinth a tough competition. The last 15 minute were extraordinary where I fought with the characters on screen to begin believing once again on our imagination, on the world we create.

For in all our fairy tales, we ensure that there is a happily ever after.

Tonight as I post this, I notice the Unicorn outside my hotel window heading towards my sisters’ homes to see if my nieces and nephews have slept.

Their childhood will start with the likes of Ben 10, but it doesn’t matter who you imagine your foes to be - Demons, aliens or Dragons. What matters is if you believe in them and believe that you can beat them.

Tonight, with them I again shall start to believe.

The Last Image

“Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity

To seize everything you ever wanted…One moment

Would you capture it or just let it slip?”

He stared at the blade in his hands. For the first time in weeks he smiled. It was a smile which he knew was hollow, almost sarcastic to be honest. Honest! That was a joke. He wasn’t honest to himself over the last few months and no other honesty matters when you are dishonest to yourself. He looked at the photograph in front of him. It was their last one together. He pressed the blade to his palm. Millimetre by millimetre, the pointed edge moved in and a red drop of tear formed on his hand.

She always smiled when they were together and he felt peaceful. A certain calm and serenity which had been lost to him since she had left. He had made peace with himself but at nights when he lay on his bed and the lightning streaked across the sky, the memories came back to haunt him.

He needed to focus and the pain on his palm helped. All his energy was directed towards it and his mind was becoming numb. Millimetre by millimetre, the pointed edge moved in and a red line of pain formed on his hand.

The night they parted he had cried, a silent cry that none heard but since that day tears were lost to him. The heart turned into cold stone and the world to his playing field. He kept himself busy, never thinking about the past. Millimetre by millimetre, the pointed edge moved in and a red river of unfulfilled promises formed on his hand.

On her wedding night he could have told here once again, how much he loved her. He wanted to tell her that she completed him and yet all he could do was smile. She never understood the pain behind that smile. They hugged for the last time and the white rapper sang in his ears.

But he chose to “just let it slip.”

He looked at the picture one more time. Something snapped within him. With one jerk he pulled out the blade. And smiled. Millimetre by millimetre he had let go of the pain. Sometimes not seizing all that one ever wanted was the best gift he could give. He would be there, all his life.

Adding Up

A now forgotten letter published in all major Indian newspaper spoke of riding a tiger without knowing how to get off it. The entire nation was shocked. But few realized that we all do it in our day to day lives. Taking on commitments that ensure we run and run and run. A recent confectionary advertisement actually realizes this – stopping by to smell the flower on the side of the road; that’s what you forget when you ride the tiger. To sit under the shades of a tree and watch life pass by – that’s a luxury few of us have anymore.

Last few weeks have been different. Probably the process of growing up is finally trying to start amidst strong resistance. Whatever it is, the churn is telling and the worse affected by it is the boy who was always happy, no matter what life dealt him.

There are two ways you can remember the old days. You can revel in its glory or you can let it be sweet memories and move on. My life is made of memories, like everyone else’s. However, what I realize is that our brain filters out the images that we do not want to remember always invariably making the past seem romantic. That’s where my hyper active brain creates problems. It loves to remember images and memories as they were to savour the pain and love, suffering and exhilaration, just as they were all those years ago.

The past has a strange way of mixing and messing up the present. Over the last one week I have met men and women from my past and what I realize that every one of us remembers incidents that are extremely trivial to the world around us. We remember the debates on tram cars in Calcutta, we remember an article accepted at the cost of a sketch and we remember a broken promise forgotten unwept.

There have been meetings with people who could have been friends had we known each other better, there have been meetings where old friendships have asked for their cheques to be cashed, there have been moments when the world has come crashing down. And all these incidents have taken their toll on the smile. The worry lines make their appearance beneath the eyes, the eyes droop every night unable to bear the burden, the weddings get missed and the mood darkens.

The closest friendships are the ones built on trust of yesteryears but the reality of the present. A friendship which does not evolve with time is slated for doom and that’s what I see happening all around me. Imagine your parents still considering you a two year old still in dire need of some toilet training. Gross right? Exactly my point.

But then someone messages “Happy Teacher’s Day” and you remember the innocence that still exists. Strangely, you feel happy again even though feeling old.

The people in the US are nice. They are the ones who prove to me that things don’t change much post your closest friends in college get married. I mean they do to a certain extent but the world does not come to an end as had been predicted. When my friends here are in their deep slumber, the phones from US come to ask if I was doing alright. And the world seems nicer again.

The next weekend is a long one in Mumbai and the keepers of my sanity plan to descend on the city. They are needed, to restore the balance, to bring back the faith, to clear the webs of confusion. Because sometimes to add and subtract, you need to lend and borrow at times.