Emotional Atyachar

out to me and would console me saying the books were for both of us. The most glaring discrimination against me was that I was not even put to a school till I was almost eight years old, when Reba masi insisted and took it upon herself to prepare me for a high school.
I still remembered the first convent school she took me for admission. It was Diocesan Girls High School in Elgin Road. It was a very renowned school at Kolkata its Head Mistress being the famous Miss Das. Every body said that Miss Das knew each and every student by their name. I stopped with a throbbing heart at the huge gate which was kept open as it was the time for students to report in the morning. I was bowled over to see the huge compound inside, the main building standing in the middle, a two storied yellow building huge and inviting, surrounded by green grass covered playfield, where a few gardeners were at work, it seemed . At the left side of the main entrance there was a small brick room, where stood the school darwan in uniform and smiling invitingly at us. From the gate to the building there ran a path of red bricks and soil and I crossed it with Raba masi with a trembling heart. I wanted so much to be a part of the school, it was a love at first sight. The written test started at 10.30 sharp. When I got the paper, I felt like crying. How could I even dream of being admitted to such schools; I did not know anything; I felt so utterly inferior, so ignorant, so inadequate, so inept. In the English paper I could answer the grammer part some how, but I was not at all sure about myself; but the passage writing was beyond my capacity and knowledge. First it was a foreign language, secondly I never was tutored in an appropriate manner to write a lengthy passage in English language. I could write small basic sentences that too while translating them from Bengali. To write about anything straight away in English was expecting too much from me. The Mathematics paper was equally bad. Rebamasi was not at fault, for she was, till then, not aware of my exact standard and level of education provided to me, or the lack of it. Masi took me to a number of renowned schools at Calcutta but we had to come back disappointed as it was quite apparent that I was not at all adequately prepared for the standard three levels, my knowledge of English and Mathematics being utterly inadequate for standard three.
Though it was not my fault that I was not prepared for the school, still I could not but felt miserable at my inadequacy. I felt so ashamed of my inadequacy. But apart from being ashamed and feeling low, I could do nothing to improve matters. Being a child I kept forgetting that I was a failure and acted, played, screamed and howled as any other child would and thereby fuelling my father’s anger to no end. On this matter my father, my loving and adorable father, failed me miserably. He kept on forgetting that it was his duty only to prepare me for the school, and if I was found to be inadequate, the onus fell on him and not on me. They way he talked about my failure really made me wish I could vanish into thin air or I went underground like Sita. He would say angrily “How can such a dull girl be my daughter. Look at Bumba how intelligent, how bright he is. “He said “Reba , stop wasting your time. You can’t make a house out of a donkey, however much you may cane it” and when he said “what is the use of scolding her, she stares like a stupid girl as if understanding nothing. It is so frustrating to talk to her, as if I am talking to the wall”. No body knew how hurt and humiliated I felt and how hard I tried not to show my hurt. Might be father took my studied composure and silence as a show of defiance and that angered him more.

Faith in Love

A suppressed sigh after a word or two ,
I have no doubt that you love me too ,
Then what for is the barrier
Why can’t we be but one ,
Like the gentle dew drops on the grass ,
Kissed away by the sun .

Today I feel so wild
I don’t know why ,
Must be your magic ,
Bewitched by your eyes .

I know you won’t stay ,
I know we can’t be one ,
Still I feel so happy ,
Together we had sung ,
Music that is life ,
That my love for you had won .

I breathe you in and out ,
I hold you deep down ,
I feel you every moment ,
The jewel in my crown .

A word or two and a deep breath ,
You answered my faith .

SONAJHURI

Hi everybody, I am in the process of expanding SONAJHURI to double it's original length, as such, for some time now, I won't posting any part of it.

SONAJHURI [8]

Rebamasi was a nurse by profession. She came from a well educated and well to do Brahmin family in Faridpur in East Pakistan now Bangladesh. Her father was a scholar in Sanskrit and was a teacher in Brojomohon College, Faridpur. Her mother was a graduate but she never worked. Rebamasi and her brother both were graduates. They had a small temple on their compound and her father himself performed the duties as the priest and they organized Durgapuja and Kalipuja every year. Both their Muslim and Hindu neighbours alike held him in high esteem and would come to him seeking advice on many occasions. He was known as Mastermoshai locally. Before and after the partition in 1947 most of his Hindu neighbours fled but mastermoshai refused to believe that there would be any danger to him and his family from the Muslims. The Hindus and Muslims lived like a family before partition and no one ever dreamt that one day they might be for each other’s blood. One night after they went to their beds after dinner, they heard a lot of people shouting and making breaking noise out side their house, chanting Allaho Akbar in a very threatening manner and stones were thrown at their closed doors and windows. The family clung together shaking with fear but dare not come out. In the morning their neighbour Karin Khan knocked softly on their door and when the door was opened came in swiftly and closed the door again. From Rebamasi’s Karim Chacha they came to know that the night before their temple had been wrecked, idols broken. He advised them to come with as little valuables as they could and hide in his place. The whole day they sat trembling in the shed where Karim Cha Cha kept his goats. The locals did not dare invading his place as he was the second officer of the local Police Station. Karim Khan’s wife Reshma Bibi brought them food and milk, but none of them could eat or drink anything except water out of extreme fear and anxiety. They could hear from the shed people shouting and breaking into their house, and realizing they have fled they looted anything that they could lay there hands to. About one O Clock in the night Karim Khaan brought out his old black Sedan and they traveled on it toward the border. Many times the car was intercepted by patrolling Muslims on the look out for escaping Hindus and they would crouch over the seat and Karim Khan being known to them and being a police man, they let him pass without searching. That it was a long and tedious journey as the border was a long way off and they had to change a lot of track to reach it; Karim Khan never leaving them until they were completely safe and out of danger. They still did not believe that all Muslims hate the Hindus because then how could they explain the love and compassion shown by Karim Khan and his wife. That night was the worst night in their lives.

Once in India they had to go through a long and tedious process to enlisted themselves in the register of refugees and under the Government of India Refugee Rehabilitation Scheme her brother got a job as a clerk in a Bank in Kolkata. Although Rebamasi was also a graduate she had to be satisfied with a Nurse’s job after going through a rigorous training in a Govt hospital. They could not bring much of their belonging with them and had to live in abominable conditions. They were very poor people . Rebamasi took me to her parents once. They lived near a slum in a one room flat, all four of them. In one corner stood a giant wooden cot on which slept Rebamasi her brother and their father and her mother slept on the floor. There was one narrow passage between the bathroom the bedroom where they cooked and also took their food. They came to Calcutta from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) after the partition and could not bring much of their belongings with them. The room, that the well to do family from East Pakistan lived in, resembled rooms that you may find in any of the present day slum. I felt very bad for her. I now guess it might be the poverty and the injustice of that life meted out to them, induced her to act so mean and selfish with a small motherless boy like Bumba. Circumstances some times influence peoples behave in strange manners.

Before Rebamasi came to our life, Bumba and I were inseparable. We played and fought with each other without anybody interfering. He would tease me and pull me by my hair and I would and run after him and pinch or box him as I wished. Some times when the fight lasted longer than desired and became serious, daima would intervene, scolding both of us or cajoling us as she wished. Enter Rebamasi and we stopped playing or fighting spontaneously. If we fought Rebamasi would separate us and scold only Bumba , saying “You are a big boy and should be ashamed for fighting with your little sister”. She was extremely partial and to be frank I did not dislike it. While Rebamasi would scold Bumba I would show him my tongue from behind her and he would get angrier and would try to catch me ignoring her and that would anger her further.

Ma was gone in early October, just before the Durgapuja and on January next I was put to a high school. My school started early in the morning and by the time daima prepared me for school and put me to the school bus that came to pick me up, Bumba would be still in bed in his room. The bus dropped me at our door in mid day and after taking bath and having lunch I was put to bed for a short nap and Bumba came back from his school about four , four thirty and went out to play after changing and having some snacks. Daima would take me to the park in the afternoon, there I would play with some neighbourhood kids and come back and after about an hour. This was the time when Bumba and I played and talked among ourselves. But on some pretext or the other Rebamasi would intervene and separate us. We slept in the same room and the nights were our private affair. We had so many secret things to share, to tell each other, which the elders never would understand. And we relished this privacy but it was not to be like this. Bumba used to tell me stories of his school and his friends and he was very good at caricature. He entertained me with funny stories which were mostly true but exaggerated to make an effect. He was also very good at reciting and recited my favourite poems , written by Sukumar Ray and Rabindranath Tagore. I don’t exactly remember when, but it seems after a year or two Rebamasi moved to our house permanently and made separate arrangements for us. So far she was sleeping in her own house but she shifted to our house and my room and Bumba was relegated to the anti-room that we used to refer as the “choto-ghar” or the tiny room . In the beginning I missed him terribly, his stories, his recitations, his funny caricature; but gradually with time I became accustomed to the new arrangement. Rebamasi knew stories of kings and queens, prince and princes and demons and witches and I started liking those stories better. From then on Bumba and I met only at meal times and in the evening when we both returned from our respective play fields and daima would make us drink some hot milk and also on the long school holidays when we went together to visit our grandpa.
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