Love of my life - a plea for patience.

I remember our mornings as clear as the sparkle on the window pane after the neighbour had cleaned it to absolute perfection.
Pardon my similes, because you have pardoned my thoughts so far.

I am praying for our yesterdays. I am praying for a moment where things fall into place like they always do.

Tell me, did you memorise the lights, my toes, our mingled thoughts?

Do you feel like I am tightening the noose around your slender throat?

Know that my insides are permanently ravaged, and I beg to come to you with all those broken pieces - because nothing else
gives me that semblance of being a part of a whole.

If wishes could scatter like leaves in autumn in a place far away, I would give you a million happy ones. If my thoughts could be a part of the
drill - I would beg them to traverse the conveyor belt in a straight line.

I see that you look sad. I see that you are slowly giving up, but trying to still fasten the belt, because, hell,
you love me. But they say, love is a verb, and you think I hardly try. You tell me "It's all in your head." and I know that
you are speaking the truth. But what do I do with my head, I ask you. It's a barren, empty battlefield, pitted with
dead bullet shells. Some days are worse than the others, and it's physically painful to drag my body out of bed, and somehow numb
the numb head and go about trying hard to follow a routine.

How long will you keep planting flowers?


How long?

Lucy in the sky with diamonds.

There's nothing more to do really. 
Lucy left, with her particular quips, her giggles and her baton. It seems to me that the parting has mellowed the memories of her, with her. 
I'll miss Lucy. 
She told me how important it was to be independent & self-sufficient. 
She had been my mother when I needed a mother more than ever. Mine was distant, in more ways than one at that juncture. 
Lucy had a really bright laugh. And, she could take problems on head-on, and always find a solution. 
She always wanted to do things. She wanted to create, she wanted to store, she wanted everything to look gorgeous. She was young, childish yet really mature.
She told me that there is nothing to be/feel helpless about.  She made me believe that happiness is not illusory, not really. She made me chocolate milk at 2 AM, and helped me pick up my broken pieces. 
She loved me in her own special way, and I know that. 
Lucy was brave, she was braver than most of us put together.

It was a deep affection that ran between you and me, despite the undercurrent of foolish irritability. 
You told me I could write even when I was absolutely certain I couldn't. 
I'm sorry if I have been stupidly stubborn and snapped at you. You knew. 

Big hug. 

Stay//

Full-blown adult

I still look at the sky with naive wonder.

As the week wraps its grimy fingers around me, I don't have much else to do.
I think I am running out of things to say, running out of that weird, adolescent rage, running out of laughter.
It frightens me.
I don't want to calm down that much.
I react less, and it feels like there's a fevicol-strength bubble wrap around my head, protecting me from myself.

Yesterday for once, for a couple of hours, I felt like I would explode.
The bubble wrap came off, and my thinking disintegrated.

Seemed like I stepped out of a noiseless place.
It hit me like a tornado.
I thought my ears would bleed.

But nothing happened.

I held on to my sanity, slept and prepared for one more meaningless day. 

Today, I feel like the inside of a lift. 

does the distance matter/ mind over matter

while on a cab to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus to catch a train to Calcutta, I saw three eagles floating happily and a little recklessly with the wind. I was light-headed from a persistent fever, and somehow this sight made me feel a little in tune. I loved how they stopped using their wings and instead let go, steadily.

I often wish I could do the same.

Everytime you are miles away, you decide to go further. 

ignore the ignorance

Pray tell an old soul if this is what music is, or should be? Tell me where the beauty lies: in the woods of mechanical noise interspersed with bits of our routined everydays? Is it not supposed to be a distraction or an escape? Is it supposed to be like existence itself? Is that where the beauty lies? In the future of sound? Should we re-christen it sound then? So tell me, this peculiar music needs a backbone of projection mapping to support itself? Shouldn't we maybe, then, call it an installation, instead?

The real rocks.

They all just keep telling you to jump right in, and everything will be illuminated: your life like out of the pages of a glossy brochure.  

But you still sigh at the mirror, stare despairingly at your paycheck, squeeze the fat between your fingers & chomp down on McDonald's. You do everything you swore you wouldn't. You get pushed over, you get your heart broken, you pay your bills on time, you ditch a night of debauchery and stay in watching television. 

And, sometimes when you can't take it anymore, you call your parents and cry. You do that despite knowing they'll worry, you do that because you know they are there for you no matter what, you do that because you actually want to see them so badly the lump in your throat refuses to go away. And you decide to let it all go for a while. And you feel warm inside as your mum tells you - " But we are always there for you", and you know there's no greater truth than that. 

While we are at it, let's practise.

One wise man once told me : don't write, talk. Being quite inept at conversations, with a history of stage fright and blunders while reading poetry or even opening my mouth in front of large gatherings of people, this was indeed a challenge. It continues to be so. When I write here, I don't pretend to talk to anyone. I don 't have a target audience, I don't have a brief. I just vomit. I do so because for me, this is coping mechanism. Or a journal of sorts, you can say. This is an album or a scrapbook, where I store certain memories, thoughts, people & lines. Sometimes, I craft. I craft after the vomit is over. Mostly, I don't. Does that make me a bad writer?

You might say I am not confident enough, you might say brevity fails me every time, you might say I can't tell a story, you might say I can't sell a product because I can't talk. 
 
Death of a salesman, or death of yet another writer, I wonder.

.........

Monday Mind Munch

I was thinking about a fleeting moment, the kind you witness when you are speeding past roads, shops & an endless throng of humanity. Just the tiniest snippet of dirty toenails, the flutter of a dupatta, maybe a giggle, or a discarded Mirinda label - the orange popping against the grey of the asphalt. It all happens so fast, and you catch a glimpse of these utterly everyday things and maybe give it some coherence in your head. 

That reminds me of Calcutta buses. Huffing and puffing, I would aim for the window seat. If I got lucky that morning, the road & its people would be mine. I would shut out the angry tussle, the sleazy stares, the endless chant of "ticket ticket ticket", the very high-pitched mashimas and meshomoshais and weave the lazy patterns only a daydreamer can. After 40 minutes, I would be at the Minto Park crossing, or on Park Street, and would run to college, with my backpack swinging to and fro.

I wonder sometimes why Calcutta is such a recurrent pattern in my life. Why do I keep revisiting every detail of my beloved city so relentlessly. I know how nostalgic I am, and how home is home, after all. But can I not move on? Can I not find that feeling of wholeness anywhere else?
Then I realise that I am trying. Trying very hard to keep the image of the city alive & throbbing in my heart. I might be anywhere else, in close contact with another city, but I never really got over home. Maybe I never will get over the lazy beautiful sleepy city. It's a poetic & platonic relationship. It's the kind of love which won't be affected by everyday nuisance and the dirty palm of routine. It's the kind of love that uplifts, inspires & comforts. 

It's a Amit - Labanya kind of love. 
 

A well-established pause & some eye-contact. There's a big voice in my head, which feeds me more often than I want, and I feel it's all rehearsed. It's a part that's being played, just a chapter cherished, for reasons unfathomable - much like everything else. For those who wander, how would you hold on - with an iron fist & starry eyes? I would have no right. 
I just try to convince that big mean voice inside my head that things happen for a reason, hold on to the best thing that has happened to you - I tell her, hey! you won't fall face-first, bum-second, into a disaster.
It's maybe, just maybe time enough, in this quarter of my life, to sit and stand and ponder and laugh belly loud, the laughter which came back to me after what seemed like an entire era. Uproot & levitate two inches from the ground. 
Who would understand? - you keep asking yourself, persuading, pleading over and over again, now running, now waiting for the monsoons, now falling into potholes of predictable plunders. 
Honestly would you embrace the idea of me now? 

.......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 



   

existence

this morning was slightly de-saturated, and there was a bug on the wall. A common bug, the one which comes with a home, a soft, shell type object and you can see its head poking out slowly, a rather narrow head. I stared at it for two minutes, not with love, but with a slanted sort of curiousity, and the clock ticked its way to 10:45 and I stubbed out my cigarette out, moaned at the mirror and with no particular fondness or inclination, moved on.

Enjoy Mango Juice - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Stop starting sentences with sometimes. That could be a slice of change. 

Wisdom comes at a price - sleepless nights, holding your jaw.

You start later than ever, and then you lose yourself. 

If you tell your mind to stop with the nightmares, it might just listen to you. Surprise!

And you realise with a jolt of utter shock - you are a full-blown adult, and you have to somewhat stop with the bullshit.

Some sort of yay

happy day today. 
riotous music in my head.
groove thrice, shake twice.

 

When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose

Because, I thank God every single day that there's Bob Dylan in this world, who has with his raspy voice and his poetry, drawn patterns in my head, even when I have been sad happy destructive destroyed drugged crazy plain bored howling travelling mocking singing. I have loved him all my life, and I love him/will love him more as every day passes, as I grow older & more disillusioned. 

 .....................................

Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin' high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
"We'll meet on edges, soon," said I
Proud 'neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now.

Half-cracked prejudice leaped forth
"Rip down all hate," I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull, I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now.

Girls' faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, thought, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now.

A self-ordained professor's tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
"Equality," I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now.

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My existence led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now.

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now.

- My Back Pages, Another Side Of Bob Dylan, 1964

oh dear sisters, my brainfucked, beautiful broken ones, the ones with the laughter and spirits as free as the floating birds, the ones whose dark days tie up despair in a tight knot.

oh my free sisters, I crave for our lost times, and our wild streaks.

oh my sisters, emptiness comes and goes like an errant summer breeze, don't let it get to you.

don't let them get you down.

.....

I wish it rained rained rained like crazy across this city, I wish I could be happy. My happy place is so far away, filled with doubt, filled with sadness. I don't know how to calm myself down and repeat in my head some 30 times, like an imbecile that "hey everything will be okay".

separation anxiety

your month, different from mine, in a stranger's world, wish for the sun to keep you warm and happy & a cup of tea and a lot of words for myself to burrow in.

Chapter 1

We hear some sort of scrambling noise outside, on the tin roof. Not the tantrum of raindrops, but a silent sort of humdrum, of paws and feet. 

The usual office chatter, minds gathered together, rapid thinking in process. Somewhere inside the kitchen, a tiny cat lies sprawled on the felt mat, his claw marks forming an intricate pattern on the purple. A young boy, thin, bright-eyed follows the little cat around, talking, cajoling, mind-bending, pampering. Amused eyes dart here and there, trying in vain to keep up with the lightning-quick swish of a brown tail, a jump here, a prance there and sudden slumber on top of the microwave. 

Tiny cat in trouble. Dogs, otherwise innocent-looking with big melting saucers for eyes, surround our little junglejoy. He stands his ground, hair standing on top of his head, the slim tail puffed up in aversion and maybe just a little bit of fear. Our boy arrives out of nowhere, we can almost see a cape flutter in the air. He runs right into the circle of menace and picks up our little fellow. We can see the dogs back away slowly. We observe some imperceptible shrugs. 

Bombay evening falls slowly, the sun disappearing behind the pale pink sea-sky. We see the silhouette of boy and cat against the gate, in silent companionship, the best kind there is, you know. 

-----

 

   

সেকি সে যে বড় সেয়ানা। যেখান সেখান থেকে চলে আসে ঝাপিয়ে হাপিয়ে। এসে বলে, "শুনছ !" আমি এদিক ওদিক তাকাই  অনেক্ষণ  ধরে। কাউকে দেখতে পাইনা বড়। কখন আসে বুঝতে পারিনা কিচ্ছুতেই।তোমরা  দেখতে পাও নিশ্চই। হঠাত ঘুমের চোখে , কখনো কোনো আদরের চাহনিতে, কোনো সম্বাদে, কোনো দেশে।কখনো খারাপ লাগে না ?  তখন কি করো? িশ্বাস কর, আমি কখনো কারোর ক্ষতি চাইনি। তোমাদেরও নয়. আমি চাই সবাই খুশি চাই. ালো থেকো। 

I keep forgetting how much I put you through, and hey never say I didn't warn you. I came with enough issues to last an year in Iceland. And I lose my sanity to nightmares and nothing's ever enough. I wish some calming white substance, a recurring theme, would come to my rescue right about now - this afternoon that the trees noisily declare SPRING and it's an assault to my wrecked senses. I can see your brown eyes becoming sadder with every passing day and I want you to be happy. I wish I could extract some teeth instead in this lost world and hang it around my neck like a trophy. There there, I tell myself, everything will be fine, doesn't it always happen that way? How else would you want it, the world on a platter? So what if tonight I can't sleep and the bile reaches the roof of my tongue and all the thoughts and voice are an incoherent mess, lapping against each other like possessed twins. I have to accept and inhabit this atomic space provided to me in this world and  not make sense at all.

It was all good, she said. She blinked slowly. She mentioned the pain but not the slow, throbbing drumbeat that accompanied it. Nor the voices that had to be curbed every night. Nor the little things that had to go on happening, daily things, you know. Just the usual stuff. Just the stirring, the brushing, the waking up, the sloth, the tea peppered with a just a tiny pinch of cinnamon powder, the looking ahead. She mentioned nothing at all. 

Prothomoto, aami tomake chai.

Pete Seeger forms an integral part of my childhood memories. 

I remember me, Baba and Ma traipsing through the old Book Fair at Maidan, three tremendous lovers of books, tremendously excited. It was 1995. I was already an ardent bookworm, gobbling Enid Blytons and Upendrokishore Raychaudharis with equal voracity. 

Dusty old maidan, scores of stalls, hundreds of hungry Bengalis. Winter evenings, bright with the promise of crisp new pages. And, Baba suddenly chances upon a shabby looking man, reading a little magazine, with gigantic black and white posters of folk singers spread out on the matted grass in front of him. Baba stopped, and immediately picked up old man Pete, eyes crinkled at the edges, huge happy smile, a blur of a guitar and it said - 

'Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls have picked them everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

The poster was there for the longest time in our Bijoygarh and then Lake Gardens house, in my parents' bedroom. And the first time I hummed "little boxes', Baba seemed really happy.
He used to take me for all the Sumon concerts as he loved young Sumon and his 'chena dukkho, chena shukh' and probably wanted his daughter to love as well. 

I remember Ma telling me that since I was a baby, hardly a few months old, I would only sleep when Baba would rock me to sleep, and there would be Ravi Shankar or Kishori Amonkar or Vivaldi playing in the background. She  would laugh and say "Baba bhabto tumi bhishon boro musician hobe" (Baba thought you'll be a great musician when you grow up). 
Unfortunately, that never happened. But I'll always be thankful to Baba for making me listen to such eclectic forms of music from an early age.

I have always been a Babar meye (Daddy's girl) and as I see him grow older, something tugs at me loudly, like a crazy jazz trumpet. 

I see him once/maybe twice a year, so worried about me, always wanting to help, always making me curious about new things. And I miss him. I miss the time I could have spent with him if I was in Calcutta. I wish I was there to talk to him more, or maybe help out more. I wish I wasn't angry at him. His restlessness is contagious, and I pray that he always stays this restless, this curious, this lovable, always.

  

Today I want winter. I want the mellow sun on my back like a lover's kiss. I want the chill to wrap it's little hard fingers around me, so I can bury myself inside my blanket, deeper. I want the comfort sleep that only such winter can bring. 
Bombay is getting relentlessly warmer. The pleasant cool breeze which made me shudder slightly has dissipated, slowly but surely like wounds heal and leaves fall. 

One fine morning you wake up with the strongest urge to not conform. You feel like going yaw yaw yawwwwwwwww, screaming, hair in disarray, scantily clothed, running as fast as you can through a busy thoroughfare, making faces at everyone who stares at you, gaping in their starched prim office clothes. You feel like sticking your head on the windowpane, as they fumble for (any kind of) reaction. You lapse back to a childbrain, words hardly forming, happy gurgles at the corner of your mouth.
For the last time that fine morning, you go back to sleep, rolling over in shared glory, and only a wide yawn, surreptitiously escapes. 

.......
  

Like a discarded bookmark from a novel you were ploughing through. It saddened you, maybe your shoulders drooped. The words were not a mouthful, but the length bothered you. It pulled you down a couple of inches and  you never knew when you left it on the shelf, and the bookmark slipped out, unnoticed.