Random Ramblings

It surprised me to see how quickly Neera adjusted to the village living. Old memories, like old habits, die hard. They reside somewhere within us, forsaken like childhood toys, forgotten like best friends from kindergarten, forbidden like innocent mistakes made during adolescence. In our attempt to evolve living the same life, refreshed several times, we bury the old under the new; yet, scrape the top just a little and they spill out, like fresh blood under a scarcely healed wound. Today is only the second day of her stay and Neera is already trotting the village path in her Abercrombie attire and Nike shoes. The village school that she remembered from her last visit had transformed completely, from a two-room mud-house into an eight-room brick-and-mortar box-house, complete with real wooden furniture. Right behind the school there used to be the only grocery store of the village, now replaced by a row of tidy shops, twelve in all. Neera saw one of the shopkeepers holding a cell...

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...

The gold bangles that you mother had put gently in my hands the week before your destiny took me away from you and brought me closer to my fate here, now await patiently in the old embroidered jewelry box. For the first year or two, about two times a year I opened that box eager and excited. Yes, the gold still retained the shine, the exuberance. I wore them delighted, glamorized and comforted. Now years have passed and I not even have time To ponder upon the time that went between, or the bridges of thought that separate us. The giddy gold I’ve traded for the purple and red earthy beads that guys tell me make me exotic. I wear the wear and tear, of cheap affordable life. (The bright shines blind me now) Don’t tell me now I’ve spread myself thin It’s an art you earn after you’ve lost everything. By giving up the living, I’ve learned to love. By giving up the pining I’ve learned to pain. The gold, like heart does not shine forever, for all. ~Proma (Feeling a little homesick this Diwali)

Today is Special. That was the first thought that struck him as he lay in his bed, woken up by the 5:00 am arati . Like every morning, the chants of the medieval mantras , the beating of the khols and the tinkling of the manjiraas , had together spun a magical weave into his dreams, even before he himself got out of them and embraced the risen world. The distance between the temple where the morning arati was going on, and his house was about one average-sized pond long, which, for you educated lot means about 50 metres or so. Every morning, he wakes up and slowly walks to the hand-pump in his front-yard, brushes his teeth and gargles loudly, frightening the sparrows gathered around the water source. And then on most days, he solemnly looks around, not particularly at anything. By the time the temple crowd disperses after the arati session, he wanders into the vegetable garden. He checks for new coconuts on the palm tree, young lady’s-fingers hanging upside-down on the rough-ste...

If hope be man's final destiny then every tear his eyes have shed, tells a tale of silent victory greater than hope itself. Is it his spirit? A madness perhaps that his shattered self, his broken heart, Recoils, rewinds and recollects and colors itself as Art ? ~Proma

It happens all of a sudden: The breaking of the dreams you called your own The demise of the world you thought was yours The curdling of, your ignorant heart. You cannot lie, it happens: You revisit tragedies. For you are aware that re-visits trivialize hard truths, the depth as well as the high. One sad evening you sat by that window, I know you did: And let anger burn you inside-out, and splinters split through you, as you sat by, the window to your soul. I saw your eyes speak to me: Your lifetime of holding sane, the pipeline of bottled pain, cycles running over and end, Only to begin, yet again. The only way out, the only respite: Avenge your sorrows not drown in your plight. At the confluence of bursting fire and simmering tears, the burning revenge ends on the pyre of fear. By merging defeat into an acceptance speech of life, You’ve become a woman, not just a man’s wife. ~Proma