The Night in her Days

It had been months since I had been there: crossed that busy road through the impatient halt of vehicles to the other side, breathed the sweet smell of freshly baked muffins rolling out from Flurry’s kitchen, sang along the songs played upon by vendors selling cassettes and CD’s on the footpath and that is just when walking with the tide of people, I had caught her sun kissed face; smiling at her own reflection on the granite wall and since then she had been in my eyes, in the back of mind, in the prayers of my heart, through every single day that I have lived after that.

She sat upon the stone pavement, enfolded in the innocence of her own world. In her short hair I figured twigs from a birds’ nest and a speck of feather. A soiled kurta almost slipped from her malnourished shoulders, covered till her thighs. No pyajama. Her bare legs crossed one another as she sat on her hips, her back towards the crowd and a burst of glee in her otherwise broken eyes. Her untidy world had the wounds of poverty cut into its skin, yet, for what I saw through my eyes, standing amid the rush of crowd, the color of the sun slanted across her beaming face, I saw nothing less than courage that even the wealthiest and the most powerful would struggle to summon.

I then watched her lift a toy gun from her lap, load its barrel with a dart and aim across that shinning surface of the wall. As her finger pressed upon the trigger, the dart flew of its front and got stuck to the wall. She smiled at it, at her reflection on the same wall, pierced by that dart and continued with her play, while I stood there engrossed, swept over at how something as trifle as a toy gun with a sticky dart can suffice for the clothes she did not have to cover her bare legs; for the food that her body seems to have been craving for long; for the safety of a house that she doesn’t even know and for all the sleep and the dreams lost with it.

In a moment I found myself curse her situation, her family too, which I doubted she had, for not being able to give her the growing up, the basic amenities that almost everyone deserves. I cringe wondering how feminists across the world were trying to fight the darkness out of the lives of millions of women and here, right at the heart of Kolkata, a little soul was scaring me with its suffering. I struggled to see a future out of the small girl. I failed seeing her getting educated, making a life, lending direction to her ambitions. I succumbed at the weary thought of how love will forever elude her and even when she grows up it will always be the shadows of her own loneliness, her struggles of dragging herself to the night of a new day that will trail her till the end.    

And just then as I stepped off the road, I saw in her something larger than life. I saw her roll over to a man lying just beside her: shrunk, looking almost dead and sleeping beneath a tattered blanket. She sat upon his chest with a thump as the sleeping man slowly opened his eyes. Smiling, she aimed the toy gun at his forehead and then lowered her head over his face. I watched their foreheads touch, as the frail man gently kissed her nose and drifted back to his sleep.

There it was before my eyes, the big damn answers to my hopeless wandering. The slap of realization. The love, whose happening I had questioned minutes before to my thinking mind, was right there before me, blooming in a purity that I might spend a lifetime to attain and still not seek it completely. Deep down, between the beats of my own heart, I just knew that had it been the girl holding a real gun with real bullets in it, aiming across the man’s forehead, he still would have closed his eyes in faith and kissing his trust into her, would have fallen back into sleep.

That is how love is supposed to be, don’t you think? Putting your life on the line without a second thought and being each other’s forever in a world of trust, where you believe it is day or night not at the sight of the sky, but by the light in your lover’s eyes.

I looked around gathering myself. The clear sky, that day, looked almost at peace, embracing the gentle autumn sun that held the city together with its golden warmth. A stray dog slept untroubled on the steps of the renowned Oxford bookstore, crossed over by shadows of the quickly slipping day. Noisy vehicles continued to stream through the play of traffic where thousands of lives rode their way to their destination and a countless still sought for light in their dark, dreamless lanes.

Shame rose in me and crowded my senses, as I watched her lift an aluminum plate and hold it out at the passing crowd. My own questions then came stabbing back at me, punishing me for analyzing a world I had not spent a day in. Her playful darts that she shot with innocence might well had her laughter rolled over it, but each of those darts, I had felt, land right at the heart of my assuming, calculative mind and mock me with shame.

The shrunk man somehow slipped out of his quilt and leaning against the wall, sat up by his daughter - limbless, helpless, and still not hopeless.

Author - Sobhan Pramanik

Those Lovely Prayers

The Ashtami evening draws onto the lit up streets endless queues of pandal hoppers, as they stroll their way into the puja premises. It is as if a giant hand had scooped the stars from their constellations and have let it slip through the fingers across the heart of Kolkata, alighting every corner of the city in a fascinating glow of celebrations.

I step off the road following the collective ringing of conch shells to enter a locality pandal and occupying a relatively empty corner, watch the rituals of the evening aarti pack the air with an unsaid devotion. The priest, up their on the makeshift platform, clad in a vest and dhoti, moved in a slow dancing rhythm, waving a bunch of sandalwood incense before the idol. His one hand relentlessly rolling over a brass bell. The metallic jingle in sync with the set of enthusiastic Dhakis, as they drummed their heart out at the foot of the platform. At once striking life in the heart of people, as devotees thronged into the pandal in large numbers. Women adorned exquisite silk sarees. Their laughing faces, perhaps, sealing off some painful truths, beneath a delicate touch of colors. The mundane world suddenly sidelined in their eyes. The heart, at once, rid of sorrows. Light and full of loveliness. Men, in long embroidered kurtas, stood their ground. Often participating in a candid conversation. Their eyes laden with promises they wish to uphold. Kids, all too indulged in their new found freedom, chased one another in a game that brings back to me the sweet memories of my childhood evenings.

Every face in the crowd had a different prayer written over it. I tried to read their silent pleas, all of which, knotted around the undying love for the Goddess. Above all the humdrum there, I feel I could hear them in my heart. A lady wishing for the well being of her family. A young man praying for his beloved. A graduate promising an offering in exchange of job. A mother begging life for her ailing son. An old man calling for his peaceful death. Every single prayer of those and many more, I knew, had their struggles written over their very utterance.

However, it was amid the wonderful chaos, above the lilting of bells and the hollering music from the Dhakis, the sandalwood smoke lending to the evening a scent of liberation, that every other pain seemed diminished. Washed away beneath the heartfelt celebration of the Goddess visiting her paternal house. The immortal Shakti blessing her children with health and happiness. A middle aged man then, I saw, in a clean white kurta, pick up the Dhunuchi, the incense burner, and dance out the joy within as an offering to Goddess Durga. Thick smoke wafting from dried coconut skin, makes my eyes water.

With the aarti drawing to a close, I curl my palms around the flame on a brass burner to seek warmth and pressing it across my forehead, I close my eyes and write to the air my soul offerings.

Author - Sobhan Pramanik

The Balloon Seller

It was the Navami night. The much awaited Pujo was coming to its end and every face that I saw leaving the pandal that night, had a sadness sowed into its skin. The city that was all erupting with the energy of its people, was unusually quiet that night. The lanes, somewhat sparse. Music reduced to a mellow. It was also this year that Ashtami and Navami was happening on the same day. A day less of celebration. A day early into the struggles of life. Unacceptable that it was, all we could do was to hold on tighter to the hopes of tomorrow in our crying hearts and to the eager longing of 'Aasche bachor abar habe'.

With the mesh of stars melting away in the early morning light and even before the tired hoppers would be fully awake in the beds, the priests would make way to various puja premises and amid the loud strumming of Dhaks, the final Bishorjon Pujo will be conducted. Vijaya Dashami, the customary good-bye to the Goddess. Dusshera wishes will be all over the web. For few days that will follow, the world will come remotely close. Relations will overcome distance, as everyone will reach out to other with feelings of love and oneness.

It was while I stood outside the pandal and watched the thin crowd disperse into the night's darkness, my eyes caught sight of a balloon seller in the shadows of the abandoned food stalls across the ground. Not an unusual thing within a puja premise, but considering the time, which was past 1 in the night, it was certainly curious, if not alarming.

I walked over to him as he stood bent over a twisted cane stick. Two balloons tied to it, floated just above his head, casting a colored shadow across his face.

‘Ato raate r khotai khodder paben, dada…’ (You won’t find a customer around at this hour, dada…)

I mentioned looking around the empty ground hoisting the puja.

‘Ami eikhane amar poribar er jonno royeshi, babu…’ (I am here for my family, sir.) He replied looking past me. ‘Amar boumaiya thakur dekhte khub bhalobase’ (My daughter loves visiting pandals.)

He paused to shift the stick to his other hand and then continued.

‘Babu, din-kal ja porese, tai ato rattir e oder k aka chari ni…oder k songe niyei phirbo…’ (Sir, these days the streets are not safe for women at nights. So I am staying back to return with them.)

I followed his shady gaze to see a woman leaving the ground. A baby asleep on her shoulder.

‘Kintu ora toh chole jacche?’ (But they are already leaving, I think.) I exclaimed.

He laughed at that. The sound of it roughly dissolving in the low music that played in the pandal.

‘Nah…nah. Ora amake nah niye jabe nah’ (No…No. They won’t leave without me.)

Soon, I looked over my shoulder to find a lady in a faded blue saree and a small girl in a cheap, shinning frock walk into the ground through the wave of people. She ran ahead of her mother. Her short pony bouncing at the back of her neck.

‘Baba chalo…’ (Let’s go, father)

She said as her mother joined him and took the cane stick from his hand.

I stood there in the darkness in awe and watched the little girl lead his blind father into the dawn of Vijaya Dashami. I saw in the tired man’s walk, the reason why we celebrate this festival of Durga Pujo. And it was from behind his pair blind eyes and the immense goodness in the poor man’s heart, that I saw the world really win over its evils.

***Happy Vijaya Dashami***

Author - Sobhan Pramanik

Vernacular translation - Aparajita Dutta 

Beyond the Indian-ness of it all...

It was not the first time that I was in the city of Hyderabad, yet, somehow, the truth of its existence, the screaming passion and solidarity among its people, came to me just yesterday evening during Ganesh Visharjan in our township, while I walked the tail of an erupting crowd leading a colossal idol of Ganesha on the deck of a tractor. In one word it was sheer madness. Madness that bore the stifling cold evening with colors of life, laughter and music.

It was a whole nation of people intoxicated with excitement that flocked the streets, as Bappa, heaped with garlands, strolled through the aisle of buildings. The DJ rolling out the chartbusters. The thumbing blare of the speakers at once striking fire in the hundreds of souls that danced through the possession. Men, women, kids everyone seemed to wear their heart on their sleeves. Saffron ribbons tied across their head, their faces painted in colors, as they let themselves drown in the celebration. Their nonchalance, for a moment, defeating the world of worries we otherwise carry around ourselves.

Amid the magnificent glory of it all, what touched me more than anything else, was watching a Swedish lady drench herself in the hues of the festival. The very festival and its customary rituals, whom I believed to be ours. Something exclusively Indian. But watching her gyrate in the middle of the crazy crowd, with hundreds of bodies and limbs pressed together through the sweat of celebrations along the cypress lined roads of our compound, it was a wonderful, wonderful sight. Her blonde traces that fell against her radiant face, like the soft beams of dawn on an ice capped Kanchenjunga, every time she raised her hand into the electric air and broke into the exceptionally Indian ‘thumkas’. Rockets were fired into the night sky and they erupted into flaming flowers. Fistful colors floated in the wind above our heads, as I stood in the shower of it all, feeling the music echo in my veins with a sense of oneness. It was a sacred feeling of humanity that crossed through me amid all the chaos and insanity of this world.

For over six hours the possession continued to roll through the various lanes of of Rain Tree Park, with women coming out onto the streets with coconuts and diyas lit over a stainless steel thali to perform the religious aarti, the bidding adieu to the lord and promising, praying for his grand return the next year. Every soul present there, lent their voice to the thundering chants of ‘Ganapati Bappa Morya, Agle Baras Tu Jaldi Aa’. Their faces alight in a tender mix of joy and sorrow. It was like a smile whose reason was a tear. And today morning as I jogged through the quiet lanes, the mist feeling like frozen vapor against my face and saw the empty mandap, the confetti bursts splattered on the roads, it was their unanimous smile above everything else, that made me realize that being Indian is more than just a nationality. It is perhaps binding the universe together with a craziness called love.

Thank you Rain Tree Park, for what turned out to be an amazing experience.

By - SOBHAN PRAMANIK

LESSONS FOR LIFE

It holds me amazed at how our life, more than anything else, is effected at so many different levels by the lessons we learn in its course, than the episodes of joys and sorrows, we too often find ourselves trapped in. Unlike our emotional status that we subconsciously allow to define the face of our existence, it is in real those lessons, the teachings picked at the various crossroads of our lives, which rightfully depicts the picture of our existence. It portrays the person we are and we carry such priceless lessons in the depth of our hearts, unchanged against the onslaught of time. We wear it like steel armor against the hurdles of life. We tend to them like a lover to his soulmate, all the while deriving the indomitable spirit to be honest to yourself, even when the whole world seem to ploy against you.

There are two ways, how life writes to you all such lessons. One, the hard way of bagging experience, where you first fall and bleed and then come to know that pain is inevitable and no destinations in the world have ever been achieved without it. Whereas, two, is the more human way of learning where we attain wisdom through the kindness and generosity of our elders. They are landmarks on the map of our lives and every time we felt lost or broken in this journey of life, we have inevitably returned to those landmarks to figure out our respective ways.

I remember spending time with my grandfather in our ancestral house, in the village of Bardhaman. I was in my junior school then and long summer vacations contributed to the development of an eternal bond between us. In the afternoon, I used to lay alongside him on the hammock that suspended from the high ceiling of the long, echoing balcony as he recited me tales from Ramayana. He used to hold a coir rope that was connected from a distant pillar and every time he pulled at it, slowly releasing it back, the hammock swayed lazily through the afternoon shadows, my mouth split in a giggle as butterflies danced in my stomach. He would then tell me in his deep voice that evil, doesn’t matter how strong it is, always fails before the good. I would gently nod, half understanding the wisdom behind the words, slowly drifting to a sweet siesta along the swaying hammock, with the light of afternoon splashed across our pressed bodies.      

Every morning he carried me on his lap to the paddy fields on the outskirts of the village. He would talk to the farmers and assist them in their work, as I stood by him with my tiny fingers in the safe wrap of his clutch. There had been days when we had sat down under the shade of an enormous Peepal tree and ate our lunch on banana leaves. I would nibble grains and fries from his platter and place it in my mouth. Soon after he would bring me home on his shoulder, as I sat up high and threw a tantrum of questions to him, asking about who those people where and what they did on the fields by walking behind buffaloes. He would patiently answer me about the farmers and how over the years, they have become his friends. He would then turn back to look at me, his face alight in a smile and would tell me that they simply didn’t walk behind buffaloes, rather they were ploughing the field. I remember how he had enriched me during those walk back from the paddy fields about the importance of friends. He used to tell, ‘No matter how high you soar in your life, never miss an opportunity to make friends.’

Three years later, when I was in seventh standard and far too young to fully comprehend the priceless lessons he sowed in me, he passed away due to a cardiac arrest. Good, evil, modesty and kindness were still words that I studied in my text books of moral science and the reverberations of their meanings continued to elude me till then. That year as I laid down on the hallway hammock and held the hard coir rope in my hand, I knew what it was like to pull it for hours. As I relaxed and drifted to sleep, swaying with the breeze, he was braving the bruises of the coir rope on his palm. I felt strangely lonely there lying on the hammock as a series of realizations slowly tried to awaken me from within.

Today many years later as my younger brother in his mischievous act of plays, snatched a bar of my favorite chocolate from me and ran away munching, I felt my soul speak to me. The anger, that a minute before was throbbing inside my head is suddenly replaced by a stupendous calm.

It is there, in my composed self today that I find traces of my grandfather’s preaching. I recollect eating from his platter beneath the Peepal tree and suddenly realize the value of patience and sharing that he left within me in all his modest smiles and caring embraces.

As I walk into the room and grabbing a metal hammer, break open my piggybank with a shatter, mom comes rushing to find me seated amid scattered coins.

“What happened? Why did you break it?”

“I want to give it away to organizations taking care of the elderly people.” I paused. “In Dadu’s memories…”

As she walked away silently, I caught in her eyes the gleaming drops of pleasure.

*****

Please note – This post has been written as an entry for the 'SUPPORT ELDERS' initiative by Kolkata Bloggers.