Girl Child

The city malls throb with glow and glamour, cash and curry,
Outside the wet city is knee deep in water,
You stretch out your dirty hand sitting on the muddy street;.
And I drop a few coins may be to atone for my sins.


But Coins rusty or shining, tiny or big
The stepping stones to the throne can they be?

God has given me so much, both health and wealth ,:
Gratefully and proudly I flaunt my georgettes, gold ,
And blood red ruby drops adorning my lovely form;
People look at my glowing beauty in silent awe.
Yet I stop even for a second to look at you,
Stretching out your dirty palm for mercy and for alms:

In you I witness a savior’s might!
I stoop before you, clutching a skinny girl child
Desperately searching and crying for milk.
In your dry and emancipated chest
My full breasts give me so much pain,
Only, Oh if only I could feed her once,
My own flesh and blood that I left at your feet,
Stealthily at the dead of night.

Rejection

REJECTION


Ma has to come. Kona declared. No, no, nothing doing, she hastily added as she saw Suresh opening his mouth. Lolita has given notice, she is leaving this Friday.

How can she leave so sudden! Suresh was exasperated. What does she want! Increase her salary, yaar!

She won’t stay. She is providing a replacement, her niece. But she is raw and has just come from the village. Knows nothing of city life and moreover, she is to be trained as a cook .

But why can’t you do that! Why call your mother on the drop of a hat. You know how I feel, Suresh sounded irritated.

Yes, so you say every time I call her .Pray tell me how I manage everything single handed! Tell me, na!

Teach the new maid everything including cooking. Prepare nasta for Birju. Prepare him for school. And who will be here to receive him when the school bus drops him at the gate, hungry and tired. A little boy, all alone in the flat, with a new maid, who knows what type she would be. Or are you suggesting I leave office and stay home to look after your home and son!.

So Mrs Malati Roy arrived with her baggage to the utter discomfiture of Suresh.



Didu , why are you leaving so soon! Please stay a few more days. Birju tugged at her pallu. Malati looked affectionately at the face she loved so much. The cute little nose, innocent eyes , and the full mouth, curled in a pout.

I have to go beta

But why!

Well, my house is empty. Your dadu is lonely. There are so many more things to do; but you don’t worry I will talk to you over phone from time to time! She tried to console the little soul.

Why did dadu not come? He whimpered.

Darling dadu had some work to attend to. Next time we would come together, ok!


. She had a lot to do in the beginning. Both Kona and her husband usually returned late from office. The maid was new and Tamil. She did not speak Bengali, nor did she knew how to cook, specially the Bengali dishes. Malati had a trying time teaching her the basic dishes like dal, sabji and fish curry,the Bengaly way.. To her relief, Christine, the maid, had picked up very fast and she turned out to be a good cook.

“Malati, have you noticed whether I have taken my medicines, I can’t remember” . Biman stood at the kitchen door looking lost and vulnerable. Malati missed a heartbeat, he is so helpless. They have traveled together such a long path. They got married very young, Malati was only sixteen and Biman twenty, when their elders fixed the match. From then on they have lived on and had become so used to each other that the thought of being separated, the thought crosses her mind very often these days, makes her extremely sad. Who says life loses its colour for the aged, that old people find life boring, that they just live life for the sake of living. Nothing is more wrong. Malati clings to life these days, these days of the twilight , she feels that she has not seen life enough, that she has not lived life in the full, that she cannot bear to be taken away from Biman. It was nearly a month and a half that she had come here. The Durga Puja, the most revered festival of West Bengal was due in October and Malati had a lot of preparations to make. The house had to be dusted, washed and cleaned thoroughly. Gifts for all are to be purchased. She felt happy to go back where she belonged.

She was lost in her thought when Birju came running –“Didu Didu, come see, there is another didu sitting on the steps. Birju was only about twelve years of age and he referred to all aged women as didu. So they came out in the small varanda of their first floor flat. There on the steps sat a lonely old woman. She had fresh but cheap cloths on her and had a small cloth bundle beside her. Malati noticed the woman was wearing glasses and a pair of chappals as well. Malati asked her what brought her here and whether she was waiting for some one. But the woman looked at her dazed and expressionless , obviously not understanding anything. Then it dawned on her that the woman did not know Hindi or English. Briju came to her rescue. In fluent Tamil the boy conversed with the woman The woman was a dalit widow with two sons and lived with her elder son and his family in Avadi in Thiruvallur district . The son was poor and without a regular job and had five mouths to feed including the mother. For some time the son had been coaxing her to go and visit his younger brother who lived in the city and so he helped her board a train with some money and advised her to get down at Chennai and wait for her son, who was supposed to come to receive her in the station itself. She waited for her son to come for the whole morning and then came out of the station and started walking. Her second son was also married with two children and he worked in an eatery near JJ Road It appeared that her sons had taken her for a ride and had abandoned her as an unwanted baggage. Malati, offered the woman some tea and biscuits. The woman seemed very scared and withdrawn and might be because of the trauma of being left alone in an alien place appeared a little disjointed too. Malati called her daughter and apprised her of the woman’s plight. Kona and Suresh arrived, irritated and distraught, why should your mother take the trouble for a complete stranger and she is not even a Bengali. There were others in the neighborhood, who were Tamils, but oh no , your mother…….

Suresh called in the Police and they took her to the Police Station. Next evening they were informed that thankfully the Police could locate her sons, both residing in the city as well as in the suburb and called them at the police station. The sons arrived hanging their heads low in shame and after apologizing for their beastly behavior took back their happy mother with them.

Birju gave his parents tight hugs and declared “You are the best parents in the world”.

Suresh laughed and asked “why so generous Birju “.and pat came the reply” Because you are not cruel like those sons of the new didu, abandoning their own mother on the streets. You will never do that to my didu, will you ever?” He asked seriously.
“Of course not beta..” Their eyes met over their son’s head.


One night before Malati was to leave for Kolkata she felt Birju tossing and turning on the bed. Birju suddenly sat up and asked her in an urgent voice..
“Didu will you take me with you to Kolkata.”

Surprised, Malati said
‘of course, if you want to. But have you asked your parents”.

Briju shook his head vigourously:
‘I don’t want to tell them anything. I just want to leave them’ and putting his head into her lap started crying uncontrollably”.

Panicked and flustered Malati said
“What is it baby, what happened, shall I call your parents?”

Again Briju shook his head vehemently and said in atrembling voice ..”

“No please don’t tell them anything. Promise me you won’t”
“OK, but tell me what it is. “

Briju took out a crumpled paper from under his pillow and handed it over to her . Malati found to her surprise it was a letter. She switched on the bedside lamp and went through the contents. It was a letter from the Sarkarpool Mental Hospital, Kolkata to Suresh Dasgupta, dated 3rd October, 2008 , about a year back and it read as under:



“This is our third reminder of our letter dated 23/02/2005 no. SK/M/2034 regarding release of patient named Mr Abhoy Kanti Dasgupta. As you have been informed earlier, your father Mr Abhoy Kanti Dasgupta, aged 81 , who was admitted by you in our hospital on 05/01/1996 and was diagnosed as suffering from acute depressive disorder is now cured and can be taken home . The patient is 80% cured and once put under the loving and friendly family care, is sure to regain his normal self as far as possible in such cases. It is also seen from our records that the patient had no one visiting him for nearly three years. You should know that rejection by family members is dampening and quite a deterrent to the treatment of such patients. We therefore request you once again to please come forward and take back your father with you.”

Words

Memories small and tiny
Joyous or sad,
I cradle in my heart.
They give me peace and solace
On happy days and turbulent nights ,
Words lost in time
Keep coming back ,
Making designs on my wall;

My heart aches that my words too
Will turn to ashes and be lost forever.
But I can’t let that be,
Come whoever you are listening
And I would keep them for you to read
And hope you cherish them as I do.

My wall I must clean of stinking and soggy sadness
And darkness of despair.
Let there be light, let there be song
And let there be love .
And with this mixture of juicy fluid
I put down my words for the world to keep.

Space and Time according to me

When I watch a movie in a theater or in the television; or suppose watch a video clipping of a family gathering, I have a strange feeling, as if these images are there and will remain there in the universe, independent of the cds or the reels or of the viewers, for ever and ever into the eternal space and time. It is a kind of feeling that comes back to me day in day out, as if there is a super computer encompassing everything, all images comes from it and melts into it. I get confused about the relation between a thing and its image. An object can have its image, even before it comes into existence, in the creator's imagination and the image would remain even after the object is destroyed, in so many ways , like a picture, a video or simply as a memory. Does it not sound strange and self contradictory. But , on the contrary, we know space and time exist and they are eternal....but can we imagine what it really is.....
Space and Time is only a concept which engulfs everything in the universe. If the universe is a reality then space and time must also be real; but then, is a concept as real as a physical object. But some philosophers say that the universe is only a hallucination but the question bothers me is whose hallucination is it! If there is a brain that can imagine the universe then is it that the brain is independent of its imagination/hallucination, i.e. the universe.
But space is relative to the object that occupies it. We talk of space that we occupy or that which separates us, then how can we say that space both limited and endless.
Each moment in our life we are inching towards death, the only logical end to life, the ultimate truth and oh it is so contradictory. We are born , so we should die. Anything that is made is perishable but how can it go ad infinitum there must be something that was not created, some intelligence that was not created, something without a body. I feel so strongly that there is this intelligence governing every thing, all pervading, all pervasive and all knowing intelligence. The feeling is so strong that it almost becomes tangible at times, the feeling, I mean. Look at the universe, look at science, think of the infinite space, don't they all point to a super intelligence that is working through it all. The design, the perfection, the intricacy , each points towards an intelligence that guides it, that created it and put such a design in it's creation that one day it would automatically lead to its destruction.

Every thing in this universe points towards a dichotomy, like life and death, white and black, true and false and most prominently He and She, the route to all creation. She creates the baby and holds it inside her but not without His help. So it seems the intelligence alone could not create the universe, unless it is , as the Vedanti's says, only a Maya or Illusion. But even then it remains to be answered - Maya to whom, illusion to whom and the dichotomy begins. So it seems the illusion which appears before me is "my illusion" and therefore there need be only "I" for the experience, the illusion being a non entity. So we may presume that "The Universe" including us is only an illusion to the one and only intelligence. But it is rather hard to digest. So I would now take rest and try to think logically that I am only an illusion and that to an illusion to me only.
It is strange that anything that we have is limited but without the concept of unlimited, how can there be limit. I go on thinking and thinking on this 'unlimited' concept and it appears that I can only believe or accept it as a true concept and can not really reason it out, as we ourselves are only limited being with everything about us being perishable and it seems only natural that everything can never be destroyed for out of nothing something could not come out and something can never become completely and absolutely nothing. Whoops... if we burn a tree , it becomes ash and particles and of course it's form changes but science says it does not become "nothing." When and if, the whole universe is destroyed, what would remain of it ! more specifically what of the infinite space and infinite time, to which the universe belongs. Scientifically speaking the universe, if destroyed , would only change its form and would remain in some form or other in the infinite space and time. And many many billions and trillions of years later may be new universe would emerge, but , we would have to admit, throughout all these process of being, destruction and recreation, runs a design, that needs an infinitely intelligent and scientific consciousness and every steps, every minuscule point is detailed to perfection and how can that be possible if there is no intelligence running through the process!!
And one more thing to ponder about, the infinite time and space, we must remember space and time are there so long there is something to occupy space and time; and once everything is destroyed, so would be space and time, but the fact remains according to science that nothing is absolutely destroyed but only changes it's form only -so even if the universe , at a point of time, is totally destroyed, it would still remain in some unknown form and that form would require some space and also some time as well to continue in that form until it is transferred into some other form and ad infinitum and thus goes on infinite time and space.I do not know why I should write and why should I want people to read it. It might be quite natural to try and keep in writing the various thoughts that crowd my mind, so that, in a different space and different time I may go back and re-experience what I felt once upon a time, but the deep urge within to share it with strangers points to our inherent insecurity for this fragility of life. We know we will be here for only a limited time and we definitely do not want to vanish into oblivion once we become none entities and thus we wish to be remembered through our words our writings, our stories and poems. Is it all? Isn’t there some thing more to it? Only creative people, politicians or serial killers are thus subject to public exposures ' but what about the rest ! Do they not hanker after some sort of permanency ! But ofcourse they do, and may be that is why they become fathers and mothers to be remembered through their offsprings. It is no secret that the enlightened, the seers don't really care for recognition or publicity of any kind. Why is that - how can they be so stoic ; what have they seen that gives them so much peace, so much satisfaction, so much bliss that makes them so great ! I wish I knew ! But at the same time I am afraid of knowing something that would make me indifferent to all the pleasures that life offers even indifferent to life itself. It might sound like "grapes are sour..." but really, believe me , that is exactly how I feel. I feel awe whenever I think of this vast universe with its infinite space and time engulfing us, like grains of sands, yet appearing so important to ourselves. The universe is so magnanimous to allow us to feel so important, however small we are, giving us everything in abundance. In comparison, how selfish and how smug we are that we consider us superior and godlike and treat the ants and insects, with disdain and scorn at our mercy, forgetting that a man and an ant are the one and the same to the universe excepting that a man has a brain, all the more reason to realize that there is no place of pride considering his own
humble condition.