Random Ramblings

Neera is in no way related to Lelin dadu by blood. She happens to be the eldest daughter of late Banshidhar, Lelin dadu’s best friend from childhood. Banshi was a few years younger to Lelin and even as a kid had dreams of making it big in life. That is why he moved to Kolkata after finishing high school, and started his own small business. He married late and all his children were brought up in modern ways, unaccustomed to village life and people. Since Banshidhar passed away ten years ago, Neera hadn’t since returned to the village, and had almost no recollection of Lelin dadu. Neera’s New York is as different from the village of two-lakes, as is Brooklyn Bridge from the makeshift bamboo lake-crossing that threatens to snap if more than two persons or one cow walks over it at a time. Unlike two-lakes, New York has running water and wide roads bereft of potholes. The many heroes of the city, the Lelin dadus , vein through city’s gushing life-forces, but their songs of glory are ov...

It has been twenty years since you left. Twenty years that I have not seen you. Honest to God, I don’t completely remember your face now. Only that smile, those hazel eyes, and your green striped shirt that later, someone stole from your clothesline on a summer afternoon. That summer remember, we stole mangoes from whichever garden we could, and attempted to cook chutney. And the aftermath – burnt coils of the electric heater and a blackened saucepan. I wonder why even after all these years, a gentle sprinkle of your memories, unleashes a strong flow of emotions that occupy those corners of my mind that normally don’t exist in my everyday life. I don’t like it. I don’t like that you come so close to me but only in a dream. I can neither touch you nor make you go away. You tease me like a freshly popped champagne bottle spilling out froth. That froth that burns my fingertips, but never wets them enough. And slowly, precipitates away into nothing. You are not “nothing” in my life. Y...