Stay

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Isn't the kindness of strangers also an acute and painful realisation about how needy we really are for kindness that it is acceptable even from strangers?

Do we really need people so that when it is time to say goodbye, we dont fire blanks?

Does every object of immaculate beauty stem from great pain or great joy?
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Where is the apostrophe in Blenders Pride? 

Rant

As kids we heard the story 'Who Will Bell the Cat'. I was reminded of that as i read that the Dar-ul-Uloom is hailing Rushdie's decision to not attend the Jaipur festival 'a victory for democracy'; the Congress, playing safe as usual, says, "There are no restrictions on his visit."; the BJP blames the Congress govt in Rajasthan for not providing him adequate security.

Inspiration

Failing and Flying

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was 
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars 
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say 
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.


by Jack Gilbert

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Together

I cannot do without you I think,

as I listen uncomprehending to their words

tumbling out quicker than diamonds,
out of a bandit’s purse string.

Eager promises, stupid condolences,

Earthy philosophy they offer too.

I turn a deaf ear and cast my mind

To times when you were my sound.

Speaking on my behalf, knowing

 their stares alone would bring a silence profound.

I was told it would be impossible

To live under the same roof.

Never once did you complain

As I read late with the light on,

When your speakers blared, not once did I frown.

Perfect harmony is made up
of two of a kind.

At the busy corners, my hands and lips,

Would beat a wild stacatto,

in sync with the tap of your stick on the ground.
As you held my hand,

Often I asked, ‘what’s on your mind’?

They asked me what did
it all amount to?

Sight and sound and amber

and incense and fulfillment and knowledge

that i was not alone. 
Reading lips, fleeting touches,

The letters in Braille,

Such was our holy grail. 

Ebar Ashi?

One of the things I love about being a Bong is our language: the melodious, clean , rounded sounds of our vowels and consonants, the forms of respect accorded to each address based on one’s relationship with the addressee, and the meanings behind names. I find great beauty in my language, little that I know of it. Often these days, I meet people, both in mumbai and kolkata, who are ashamed of speaking in the vernacular, who stubbornly answer in english even when you address them in bengali. I find it annoying. Anyway, that’s not why I started this post.

One of the pet Bengali phrases that was once commonly used and is slowly dying is ‘ebar ashi’. Used as a signature at the end of epistles, and also in speech, its direct translation would be, “now, let me come.” But it is actually a form of goodbye and the ‘ashi’ or ‘come’ is actually a promise to ‘return’ soon. Whenever we Bongs bid goodbye, we never say ‘jachi’ or ‘I’m leaving/going’. It is always, ‘ebar ashi’ – ‘let me go now so that I can return soon.’ More beautiful still is the ‘ebar ashi?’ - the question mark lends a dignity and sanction to the addressee that should be at the heart of all meaningful interaction. I don’t know if similar forms of leave-taking exist in other languages but I have asked my marathi and gujarati friends and it seems that they don’t have anything like this.

I don’t know anything about the genesis of my mother tongue so it leaves me free to imagine how things came to be. I imagine this graceful leave-taking must have its roots in the young boys who had joined the Swadeshi movement and who touched their mother’s feet and bid ‘ebar ashi’ before leaving their homes for the eternal home. Or maybe, it was the only consolation a husband could offer his wife as he left home to eke a living in some far off land. For, poignant as these moments must have been, can you imagine a more hopeful and pregnant goodbye than this?

Not a Rainmaker

I realise this blog is getting too dark; as I read my writing, I see it’s stopped breathing; the spark has vanished. The last time it took 6 years to reappear; I have no idea how long it’ll be this time.

My boundaries of self and other are extremely hazy. The fact is, I am fine and have suffered no great misfortune. But many of those who I care about deeply are not, and I haven’t been able to do a single thing to assist them.

My boss in Europe paid me a compliment after our first long meeting – rainmaker. Yeah, that was KV’s epithet to me when we were discussing a long, arduous project where I was wary of stepping in. He assured me, “You are the rainmaker; you and Lara will get this done, I know.” I was pleased; I felt cherished.

This tag of rainmaker is something that’s part of my psyche – it has got nothing to do with me being especially talented or smart. I somehow always manage to get things done and my family and colleagues know it. Getting the faulty electricity line fixed, taking care of the household chores, meeting demanding deadlines, teaching D, dragging my parents for their check-ups, helping my girl friends when they want me around, overcoming my fears abt losing people, I juggle and struggle with these daily. That is my life and I have always felt, I could make a difference and make life smoother for those around me. Occasionally I felt tired, but satisfaction never eluded me. It’s not so anymore.

When I talked to H after ages, I sensed the weariness in him and I know there’s nothing I can do to help him; R lies bedridden at 32 and her hubby, my cousin is jobless; I couldn’t do anything for them either. My aunt lies injured; not a day goes by when I don’t think of HP, but when I message her, she refuses to meet me. Her mother calls me up to talk about her but I haven’t been able to get past HP’s grief. My latest assignment is to prepare a communications package on ‘change management’. We are sacking close to 200 staff in our head office and I have to build ‘clear, compelling and compassionate messaging’ for my colleagues. I haven’t even written a rough draft yet and I don’t know how to begin. The truth is difficult and unprintable, yet we all know it. My draf can only be insincere and unauthentic.

I had managed to leash my horrible temper considerably, but in the last year I have seen it rear its ugly head. This stems from fear and a feeling of abject helplessness. I hate helplessness. Life is about active effort; efforts reap results –I believed in that. But all around me, I’m witnessing people whose efforts are not paying off; who are being punished for no ostensible reason. I feel anger and resentment at this. I know I’m not the only one and probably everyone needs to find ways to calm their mind. I will do it too. Eventually.

Our deepest hurts flow from people as do our greatest joys. I cannot end this post without talking abt AS who really surprised and moved me immensely. I had written about AS and P here earlier. Let’s just say, his recent behavior has caused a lot of pain to P and I was mad as hell. When P lost her mom last week, he did something that surprised all of us. His thoughtfulness has filled my heart; apart from my daughter, I don’t think I can think of a single thing that has brought me so much joy in recent months.

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Nobody

I learnt I am nobody

Did you too?

Why the pallor? Despair not.

There’s a pair of us yet.


Don’t show it,

That you have me around.

They’d banish us, you know,

Bury us underground.



Relish the thought,

You are invisible,

Truly free,

Neither the volcanic ash,

Nor the minstral, can stop your departure.



Didn’t you find it dreary,

To pose for the camera the livelong day?

To perfect the collagen pout,

And colour the hair,

Modulate your clear voice,

And tone your skin?



I know you did,

‘cause I did too.



Terrible it is to be somebody!

How like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day

To an admiring bog!

Just when you think the worst is behind you, something attacks you out of the darkness. It is this hidden, furtive, completely arbitrary and cunning aspect of life that I detest.

My aunt is a decent, god-fearing woman. Earlier this year, my uncle passed away, but she has coped fairly well with that loss. After all, he was ailing, aged, and his demise was anticipated. My parents and I have always been quite close to them and I have vivid memories of spending several vacations at their place. To my grade 6 sensibilities, Naihati with its moss-lined ponds, bamboo groves and wells attached to each home, seemed more rural than it really is. It is what you’d term as a small muffassil town. Whenever I think of their huge sprawling house, always I recall the cloyingly sweet smell of ripe jackfruit and guava. The orchard outside the main house gave us all kinds of seasonal fruits – mango, grapefruit, guava, betel nuts, pumpkins, jackfruit, and of course coconuts. These would be plucked and stored underneath the bed in the storage room with the black cement floor. The room was always dark, and very, very cool - in striking contrast to other parts of the house which received direct sunlight and were unbearably hot.

I also remember bathing in the pond behind their house, and drawing water from the well in a small blue plastic bucket which jemma (my aunt)  had purchased especially for me because I couldn’t  heave the bulky metal buckets traditionally used to draw water. It was all fun, the thrill of doing things I’d never done before. We moved to Calcutta when I was in grade 5 and this was my first encounter with a place where you had to take the crowded local train to visit.

One of my most vivid memories of those days was the elaborate Gopal puja that jemma used to offer. Gopal is the Bengali term for the infant Krishna and the rituals of his worship are quite different from those of the adult deity. First thing in the morning, jemma would wake him up from his slumber (shoyon bhangano) and take off the tiny mosquito net that she draped around his polished brass throne every night with loving care. From brushing his teeth with white toothpowder to sprinkling rose water over his small mattress before she put it away for the day, she did it all. Breakfast, separate bhog for lunch, purple nayantara  flowers offered in the evening, changing his clothes for bed time, talking and singing to him in hushed tones, the routine never varied. I think I was more curious than skeptical of her preoccupation with Gopal. I recall that many of the other relatives and their children were a little amused at this elaborate ritual of care, but mom and me participated whenever we were there. Maybe it stemmed from something mom told me once.

My uncle and aunt are childless and part of this caring for Gopal stemmed from some deep-seated maternal instinct. Young as I was myself, something about this simple rationalization moved me immensely and I heartily assisted her in her daily chores whenever we visited them. The years passed but neither her love for Gopal nor the attentiveness with which she expressed that love, changed. I know the number of times I have shouted at her in recent years to reduce her fasts on Janmashtami and other auspicious days.

I am in touch regularly with jemma and was cajoling her a few days ago to stay with us for a few days in Mumbai. Yesterday, mom informed me, she has met with a terrible accident.

Last Wednesday she was offering the evening meal to Gopal when the prodeep (oil lamp) accidentally set her saree and her long hair on fire. No one knows much about what transpired immediately afterwards. She’s been hospitalized and has sustained terrible injuries to her back. My parents came to know about this incident yesterday when they called her up, and one of the    neighbors informed them. They would have reached her by now.

Thoughts scurry about that I can’t shake off: society works because people care for each other, take care of each other especially in old age and sickness; how unfair then then that one has to lie alone in an hospital uncared and unasked; how ironical that the accident should strike her at the time when she was engaged in one of the purest acts of her working day; how unkind and uncharitable this year has been.

As this year fades, to you dear reader, I hope 2012 brings:

Good health to you and your family

A stable job, financial security

Enough kindness in your heart to help you steer at least one relative/friend/stranger who has lost their way