PERFECT LOVE

PERFECT LOVE

I saw him walking away with long resolute strides, unknowing and oblivious of his shadow , of golden pink of the western sky, permanently  lighting my being, the mist of a winter evening  clouding my eyes, the soft scent of PARIJAT (Flower of Paradise) blocking anything unpleasant and my heart  was crying with ecstasy - I am in love, I am in love , I am in love.

I gazed lazily over the fresh green leaves after the sudden rain, the long winding path that vanished with him, filling me with acute longing bordering  on pain- and I the sky, the trees , the birds all crying in unison- you are in love, you are in love , you are in love.

You are here and i was looking all over the house- i looked back at my husband , the boss in office and home alike, where is my towel I am getting late- how funny , how ordinary and how awfully smug, the towalia lao type.

But strange was my response even to myself ,as I found myself smiling at him with indulgence and went back into the confines of the four walls more as a caring mother than a wife.

Yes, ten years of our marriage was fruitless, Mohon, being the successful business man head over heels in love with his work, his day and night devoted to Lakshmi and Ganesha, happy and content to have a pretty wife competent to run the house single handed.  And I Sarita was happy to be the mistress of a grand villa at the outskirts of kolkata, a well fed, well looked after ornament in it. Apart from business Mohon was also a dutiful husband.

I was busy looking after my villa, my terrace, my garden and my ornaments and never piped into my heart, my thirst for a violent love, drowning me into the strong currents and waves of the rough sea, satisfying my emotion and imagination. I sighed at the rainbows on the distant sky ever expanding and infinity, i was mesmerised with the buds on the bushes happily blowing itself into a flower, i marvelled at the birds for being eternally happy to sing at the world, the eternal love that Nature was filled with.

I failed to pick up the poetry book on the mantelpieces and just dusted and put it back in its place, i looked more into the television at the unending and tiresome serials than at the landscape outside- in a word I was tuning myself into machine –the ideal house wife.

Last week when Mohon started for his business tour of one whole month, I looked into his book case and was startled to find in such a poor state, dust lairs have blocked the cover page, one by one I turned the leaves and in horror found the words being eaten by worms. I picked up a hard cover book with the title “Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained”. It was a book gifted by father when I was still a school girl; I wondered how it intruded in to Mohon’s bookshelves.

 My mind went back to twenty years when one day father came home with a pink book in hand and came to my bedside, I was down with jaundice and bored and lonesome as I was confined to my bed, away from my school, friends and siblings. Sarita, always remember there is nothing like a good book for our companion, when lonely and bored. Child, I want you to develop an interest for reading good books, anything from poetry, novels, journals, anything to occupy your mind and brain from being vain and shallow.

I shied and searched the selves for books, good books and thus I met Parijaat. Thank you baba I said.

 Parijat came with all his strength and weaknesses- with all his sense of beauty, laughing at the worldly thing; he came like flood and washed away my loneliness, bitterness and apathy. He took me by my hand and together we toured the world of poetry, filing my days with his benediction of Tagore and Shakespeare, of Sunilda and Shakti Chatterjee, Wordswoth and Keats   hand in hand we entered into the world of Pagla Dasu and Alice forgetting our advancing ages, and Nischintapur , laughing and crying with imagery. Parijaat took me in his bosom and I cried after a long dry spell, which melted the ice grown hard and cold and blocking fresh winds from the wonderland. Alice was as loving and forgiving as ever, and Dasu as funny. How could I have forgotten you all , amazed at my own clumsy ways, I took Parjat by hand and ventured into his Nischintapur, a place where the age stops growing at twenty seven, where nothing matters so long you are  true to yourself, eternally peaceful and poignant with possibilities, a place  next to Heaven.

Our nights we spent together seemingly two but body and soul we were the same. For a whole week he stayed with me, singing and dancing along, looking at the mirror for an eye-catch, for our eyes could never meet. For a week we ran with the breeze, we drenched ourselves in the rain, tugged along together in the desert wind and embracing each other as if there will be no tomorrow.

Parijat opened the door of the gigantic cage of my collection of precious and rare birds, I was proud of and a must see to all my guest. Are you sure, they can still fly, I was hesitant. Let them die in freedom rather than  live a life in captivity, is  all he said.

We were standing together on the portico -expecting Mohon back any time from his tour , a month has gone in a flash, savouring the last moments together.  I looked inside my heart and bed him goodbye, he came out and stood in front with his back facing me, I must leave you and I laughed nervously and cried - must you -can we not stay together? I knew we cannot- he is part of me- he is a fragrance of Parijaat the flower from no-where , he can not stay with a businessman and his dutiful wife and her proper ways.

So he went away with my imagination but instead filing me up with Love, where there is no body , no   entanglement no bindings

  .

I laughed and cried with ecstasy I have found my Love and my whole world laughed and cried - you are in love .

STAR JALSA SERIALS

.MAA (a tv serial running for years in Star Jalsa) with ALL  its actors is quite old now but the imbecility of the makers is growing STRONGER AND STRONGER. I am really at loss, how can a so called family with retired judges and lawyers and others educated persons have not heard of a DNA test. It is shamefull to see people of our educated society to be so naive as to accept a bride who is switched in between the marriage and still accept it is as legal and are totally unaware of the law of the land.

It is further awfully sadistic to continuously project a child who was kidnapped , going through all shorts of tortures even by her own family, who refuses to accept her as their own and use her first as maid, then hand her over to the police as a thief  and lastly while the grown up girl finally finds a reasonable , intelligent and loving forster mother , to force her to opt out of the grand marriage that her forster mother arranges for her in the middle, and sneak in their own child. 

All through the serial had been a mental torture to the viewers, mostly children (including my own grandchild) and uneducated mass, including my own helping hand who comes from the slums. 

These BLOCK HEADS should be taken to task for polluting our society with wrong notions of ethics and morality. As it is we have more illiterate viewers in city and suburbs who take it as acceptable .

In a bid to carry on with the show, they project weakness and submissiveness to wrong doings as an attribute and take the child, now young girl, almost to the alter of godliness in her abject submission to coercion , wrongdoing , blatant misconduct and lies . It appears that they are tryin to send a message girlchild/woman should sacrifice and sacrifice and suffer in silence to get a GREATEST WOMAN award from the society. It is absolutely disgusting.   I am really worried of the future of the children of our society, who might accept  it as heroism and true, just like our by gone era of  satidaha and  perverted notions of the IDEAL WOMAN by the patriarchal society.

We should teach our child that no character is ABSOLUTE BLACK OR WHITE.   We should encourage and help them to determine what is wrong and what is right.  The majority of our society is below poverty level and they do not have much luxury except a community tv to watch. We are duty bound to educate them through media .

The media is responsible to send right message and educate people and not mislead uneducated people and children to become victim of intellectual pollution.

After the Amri fire incident and arrest of the Directors

After the Amri fire and arrest of the Directors, who belong to the elite and rich business class, media, controlled by businessmen have taken a pole-vault . It is so sudden and so obvious; it does not call for much intelligence to understand the altered scenario.

But the fight here is between the elite and the non-elite, the rich and the not so rich, between the educated and net savvy and illiterate, between the well-fed and the hungry , which constitute the majority population in West Bengal, thanks to the previous Government.

Mamata Banerjee has made it a habit to offer comments on serious issues without checking out the veracity. She, for her own benefit, should refrain from speaking out before going through the facts.

When the  then Chief Minister Jyoti Basu remarked off handed and callous, “ why did she went there and so late in night’( oto raat a okhan a jai kano?)  referring to the heinous, brutal. Infamous and fatal rape case in Bantala, the reporters just looked the other way, because they were scared stiff to protest. Both the lady and the culprits belonged to the same political party.  And now that democracy rules the State and    we are free to judge and comment on any matter whatsoever, the media look for the mistakes only. People out side the State and also out side India are fed with the news that influential media houses prefer to serve them with.

They cry hoarse that government libraries are not keeping some particular papers but they never mention that  during the left rule, only  three party controlled papers were being purchased.

They are so concerned about Damayanti Sen, that perhaps even her family will fall behind in the race; that they are shouting every day to misinform people of West Bengal and outside, that She had been unfairly transferred for the good work done in the Park Street Rape case, presuming at their own sweet will that she did the good job against the wishes of the Government, that fail to mention that she has been promoted along with other IPS officers (60 ) and  transferred to other departments, which is the sole prerogative of the Chief Minister.

It is a sad affair, as people of West Bengal , has brought her in. They are looking up to her for development, which touched the nadir recently, to take the poor and illiterate mass towards new highs. The media houses are  looking after the interest of  a handful of rich and influential  and not the mass.

But  we should be happy that such people are fewer in number and can only try to malign the present Government with malicious news feeds and articles. But the truth will prevail and the common people of West Bengal will win .