Water

 Leaves rustle,

As the steady stream,

Rushes forth,

Like a horde of people,

Dashing to work,

Their faces blank,

On a Monday morning train.

Coincidence

These are the Heisenberg days of my life,

I am often in two places at once. Things

have begun to coalesce, days into weeks,

months into years. Things slip

into the hence, like shadows of people on

Rashbehari avenue.

Last evening I spied on the dahlias

from the verandah whilst you read

from The Statesman, an obituary of

Bidhan Roy. I am never quite sure

Of your political proclivity,

whether to agree or disagree, it all

depends on what’s for tea.

The lady,

in 40C calls her son, Babu,

back from the gloom,

barely audible over the bald Marwari

shouting into his cell phone. 
Is it a coincidence then,
that the dahlias are in bloom?

Acceptance

It is almost 5 years since that cold morning when I took you to the airport. It is not easy to navigate in a foreign city such as Paris especially for someone who doesn't speak French, but you were always self-assured. One hasn't ever seen you flustered. You could find your way out of any maze. But you insisted that I buy a return ticket and drop you directly at the terminal. Mom waited at Gare du Nord, she had to catch a train to London that morning.

I remember the delirious laughter from the previous evening, probably drug induced, for you had trouble sleeping, and the sleeping pill made you funny! The morning of your departure however is a bit of a blur in my memory. When Mom wasn't around, we mostly talked about economics, politics or cricket. Or you sermonized at length about something and I listened absentminded. So you would expect that is what happened on our way to the airport. But that morning you might have been quieter - for you had had a premonition. Perhaps you feigned your lack of assuredness so I would go all the way with you to airport to see you for the last time. At Charles de Gaule you appeared small and defenceless - how strange it seemed, the small boy whom you led around by his finger, who listened to everything you said for you were always right, was now showing you the way, carrying your bags, asking you to stand so he could check if the flight was on time. I told my mom when I was child, "One day I would be bigger than my father". That was not thought through, Baba. I am still your little boy, and that day you were only testing me to see if I could find my way in this world alone.

Bonbibi - Part 4

Accurate chronicling of history, I think, is a predominantly western concept. India has often relied on myth, epics and a rich body of literature as a substitute for historical accuracy. Fact and fiction are unashamedly in bed with one another and it's hard to tell one from the other. This couldn't be more true for the Sunderbans. To trace it's history is a futile task. What will it lead to - an account of how the British set up Canning as a commercial establishment, and possibly the words of an intrepid British explorer witnessing a native of Gosaba in his quaint habitation through his 'civilized' colonial glasses.

No I'd rather revel in the myth, to learn about that alternate history which recounts both the real and the fantasy (of the native), in his distinct voice / language soaked in cultural context and symbolism. Bonbibi's emergence as a forest deity has a literal narrative, as we have seen so far and a sibilant undertone that can be easily overlooked. Her family, the circumstances of her birth and her accomplishments serve two purposes to the native. Firstly to establish Bonbibi as figure of great power to be respected and revered. Secondly to reassure the local, that she is one of their own, with the same culture and values. It is this second aspect, that affords the outsider a glimpse into the culture of Sunderbans.

Consider the rise to power of Bonbibi and her initial confrontation with Dakkhin Rai. The battle supposedly takes place between Dakkhin Rai's mother, Narayani, and Bonbibi. Similarly, other stories of Bonbibi, describe her brother Shah Jangali taking on Dakkhin Rai. One might interpret this, as a clear segregation of sexes as far as power struggle is concerned. For though she is a feminine deity and her dominion is unquestioned, the native chooses to ignore what could happen in a battle between the sexes, perhaps out of fear for the consequence it might have on the social order and accepted roles that both sexes play.

Bonbibi - Part 3

That loving helplessness of the mudbanks brushing, scathed
by the rippling waves. The sound of your footsteps,
twisting your way, every inch of space, every drop of rain,
every bit of day is yours to take.
That drowning breath, my conversations encircled
by bubbles of air clamouring their way
to be lost on your face while you gaze. And as you walk away, I stay
watching the purple night and extend my arms to grasp as
much of this world as I can save.

Bonbibi - Part 2

Dakkhin Rai ruled the land of the eighteen tides before Bonbibi and her brother arrived on the scene. It is interesting to note that Dakkhin Rai (and his mother Narayani) are ostensibly Hindu, while Bonbibi and her brother Shah Jangali are Muslims. The myth talks of a fierce battle between the forces of Dakkhin Rai (led by his mother) and Bonbibi in which he is displaced as the ruler. A truce is worked out and thereafter Bonbibi rules the inhabited part of the Sunderbans and Dakkhin Rai retreats to the inhospitable nether reaches of the forest.

The truce is however a tense one, fraught with constant skirmishes. Different stories show how Dakkhin Rai tries to gain the upper hand, only to be shot down by Bonbibi. It echoes the realities of the land. The constant tussle between the mangrove swamps (with its wilderness and tigers) and human habitation. The struggle between the tides and frequent storms and the ever-changing landmass. The daily fight for existence that the native has to endure, against the elements of nature to bring back his catch of fish or just cultivate his land without falling prey to the tiger. The lure of the wild as opposed to the steadfastness of domesticity. Faith in her benevolence versus fear of his guile and ferocity.

Bonbibi - Part 1

As myths go, Bonbibi is a recent myth, born out of the culture, beliefs, topography, flora and fauna of the Sunderbans. Bonbibi is literally the wife of the forest, and she rules that part of the forest which is inhabited or accessible to humans. The rest of the forest, deep and inaccessible, remains the preserve of her arch-enemy Dakkhin Rai. What they represent is easy to guess - the familiar narrative of good versus evil, recounted through  the ages in Greek mythology, Norse mythology or even in popular Hollywood movies such as George Lucas' Star Wars or the Harry Potter series.

But while some of these accounts of fairy tales seem intangible and inaccessible, the narrative of Bonbibi feels as palpable as a girl born only yesterday in the forests of Sunderbans. Bonbibi is the daughter of Berahim (vernacular for Ibrahim) a faqir from Mecca and his second wife Golalbibi. But for her to become a deity, this is not nearly enough. The myth therefore asserts that Allah sent Bonbibi and her brother Shah Jangali (literally king of the jungle) to earth to fulfill a divine purpose - and thus they were born to Golalbibi. They were born deep in the forests of Sunderbans, where Golalbibi lay forsaken by her husband. There is a certain drama to this story of her birth, a familiarity with the story of Jesus Christ, except that Berahim had left his second wife to be with his first wife Phoolbibi unlike Joseph who remained by Mary's side. The plight and helplessness of Golalbibi must make her seem so real to local forest dwellers. And so to reinforce her divinity the myth reassures the native listener that Allah sent forth four maids to help Golalbibi deliver her twin babies.

The names, customs are common to any Muslim household of that area. But the apotheosis of the female child is perhaps inspired by Hindu goddesses such as Durga or Kali. Some sources also indicate that Gibril (Archangel Gabriel) helped bring Bonbibi and Shah Jangali to the land of the eighteen tides, but then again Gibril is as much a part of Islam as he is of Christianity.

That I might open an umbrella

That I might open an umbrella to a sky dripping like a leaky tap
And be blown away by the wind
whirling me by degrees and whispering into my ears
alarmist stories from the daily news about
political unrest or an outbreak of a deadly pandemic,
anything really, to keep me engrossed
while I am transported - no planned engineering works
or unscheduled stops - to an unknown destination,
with a book in my hand, the notion of time melting
into the warm bread of lassitude.

That I might look out of my window,
to the dome, glowing in half light,
reflecting the vicissitudes of regular clerks,
and programme managers irritated by
the constant flashing of cameras of
easily surprised tourists and find a path
of gravel or shingle,
gradually disappearing into a thicket,
emerging into the open overlooking
the sea of the insolent smile of a wastrel,
waves frothy with disrespect,
disorderly, disengaged and self-willed.

The Clown

The clown as a motif can be found in abundance in books, plays, movies and other forms of art. The chief difference between a clown and a stand up comedian is that the stand up comedian will often ridicule events, famous personalities or even the audience, while the clown will usually draw laughter by subjecting himself to ridicule. Often during performances, such as during double acts, clowns will assume different personality types. One of them may become the authority figure and the other might be submissive. Sometimes a clown may even act out a specific role as any serious actor would. 

By wearing make-up, a clown can make you look at everyday life and situations differently. The audience can become dispassionate and objective about a topic that can otherwise be quite sensitive. This is an interesting way to engage with the audience, and can be quite powerful in terms of the impact it can have.

Clowns in literature, plays or movies often deal with not just the on stage performance, but also the person who wears the mask. In such cases, the clown can be the central character or sidekick. As the main protagonist, the on-stage clown is usually relegated to the sidelines, and replaced by a gloomy person, often as morose as his stage personality is funny. The on stage persona will appear only at intervals, either as a reminder that the person can actually draw laughter from crowds as a performer or sometimes just to demonstrate the person is no longer capable of drawing laughter like he used to in the past. As a side kick, the clown (or the fool), connects to audience, engages them and helps them interpret the story and identify with it. Any attempt at fleshing out the character of a clown, presents interesting opportunities to the writer or director. For example a clown may enact a serious situation on stage with reckless frivolity, and then unmask himself to reveal a character as real as the viewer - a character often emotionally scarred by the impressions that he does on stage. Such a performance can draw from the audience a complex range of reactions, taking him on a roller-coaster ride of emotions.

We congregate

There are times we congregate,
like clouds,
to make thunder and rain.
A few hours or days
is all it takes.
After that things are parched again.

To make the city disappear

Kandinsky - Ludwigskirche in Munich 1908

There are things we like to lean upon - like the city for example. Surrounded by the gray curtains, the city is recognizable and palpable. Occasionally the curtains are drawn and we are bathed in golden sunlight. But even in the gray, we can find our way. Along the snaking river, we have laid sign posts, so we know what we are looking at. Take away the sign posts, or smudge them with your thumb, and the city will begin to blur. Wear your reading glasses, and the details will reveal themselves, through maps, books, photographs and Internet. Without them will the city lose its identity? No, the city may still remain - in my mind and in yours.

Often when you have left your glasses, somewhere in your house, by the sofa or beside the bed, they are hard to find. Especially if you cannot see well without them. My grandmother does it all the time - and it can be quite unsettling, a bit like losing your mind. For if you became insane, how would you comprehend the world around you? How would you recognize the city, despite its signposts and myriad references in literature and documented history? You would read the signposts and yet not know what it meant. Or you wouldn't care to read them at all - the mind, like the ageing autocrat, will do what it pleases. The city will therefore cease to exist for you, if you lost your mind.

If you were to go mad, how would you know that you had? The people who share your apartment might seem unfamiliar, and you would scarce believe the one who shook you and told you he was your son. To you it would be normal, to eat when you are hungry and walk out in public view in your state of undress. Indeed, you might even wonder what was wrong with the world, for in your frame of reference you would be completely sane. But if the city didn't exist in your mind, would the city still exist at all? For there are others in the city, who might recognize it. Yes the city would exist, for their minds would make it real.

But cities do disappear. The lost city of the Incas, would have been resplendent during the reign of an obscure Inca emperor. What happened to the city then, that it remained on a hilltop, unrecognized for centuries? Through disease, famine or human depravity, the city would have shed its people. They may have left in a hurry, or in a slow trickle, like water leaking from a broken tumbler. More significantly, the memory of the city would have faded from their collective minds.

Although it helps, it isn't necessary for the inhabitants to leave the city in order to erase it. Cities may disappear from right under our noses, especially if the citizens were to lose their minds in unison. The sign posts could become unintelligible in degrees - lose their meaning gradually, one letter at a time. As though before a senile father, the city would shake its people to rouse their dodgy memory. They would fail to recognize it. The city would then lose its identity. It wouldn't matter then, if you or me, were able to identify it. The city would have simply disappeared without a trace.

A revolving vortex

Matisse - Dance (1910)

It is a revolving vortex of messages. Or a baggage conveyor belt, with desolate bags moving round and round in circles, as hapless passengers look forward to something else.

Two people of different colors meeting each other at Cafe Valerie. One of them completely green covered in brown spots, the other one blue with long pink stripes. They speak the same language, and nod their heads in unison, like the sheep doll on my refrigerator, which shakes it head when the wind blows. Often they break into fits of laughter, as if they inhabit a Matisse painting. They hold hands and out of nowhere, there are white people of strange shapes who hold hands too, and form a ring. They go round and round.

Word bubbles float in the air, so that babies can point at it and go gaga. So much is said, that it begins to rain. But then it stops raining, and we have a deluge of white canopies. It is so hard for them to walk amidst the crowd of talking people. In the sky there is a geometrical shape from an engineering drawing - these are sparrows or are they pigeons, I don't know. They twist and turn and the shapes change.

Not much is said between the two people after that. The messages are probably lost in a vortex.

Apathy

Gauguin - Tahitian Landscape


That day, long-winded hands

appeared to reach in by the window

and molest the lanterns.

Even the shadows on the wall

were visibly perturbed

(oh how they shook

from side to side).

I wandered to my window

and noticed in the distance -

rows of houses swaying in silence.

Another day

the trees were struck by tropical fever

and the leaves sedulously dropped.

Hand in hand

(like quintessential commies)

they circled and drifted into the sky.

A storm had gathered among us -

a swelling congregation of whispers

carried me as I lay prostrate

ever anchored to centre.

Then one day the storm quelled.

A searchlight scanned the riverside,

Debris had rolled into a doddering sand.

Vapour

There comes a time when elaborate sentences swirl around anti-clockwise and disappear into the drain. When that is gone don't expect to find a figure, a shape, solid, palpable. Just vapour.

Sinister

Something sinister about domestic placidity.
The lady scuttling from the crackling garlic
in the frying pan to the waves of bedsheets engaged in
brutal skirmish with the pillows on the queen sized bed.
The man wrestling with the browned pages
of a tenacious constrictor, from whose tattooed body,
words and numbers burst out at the seams.
In the afternoon, there will be yarns to knit
loose ends together into an intricate mesh of memories;
an activity that requires pervasive, compound eyes
to trace and erase any semblance of unusual avidity.
In the evening there will be attempts to transgress
the bounds of moral rotundity, usually through
crinkling mugs of toothless sardonicism or a puerile
fascination for all things forbidden. At night,
bitter compunction will find comfort in clean bedsheets.

Vulnerability

Joan Miró - Person Throwing a Stone at a Bird (1926)

Then there are people who know it all, and have lots to say. They build bridges of eloquence, for us to connect an island of isolation with another. They are people with benign smiles and large bulging foreheads, with tufts of hair wiping against their pendulous ears. Utterances from their mouths are not to be heard, but seen and admired, for they are as beautiful as ancient cave paintings or Miro's mysterious drawings.

Usually their sentences are interminable chains, intricate, cohesive - converging to a point in the horizon, known universally as 'the opinion'. But sometimes they pause midsentence and wonder ...

Duplicity

Oh what did I say that slipped away,
Slithering down the staircase,
Silhouetted among the shadows,
Nodding to the gathered guests,
And winking on its way out.
Was it something that caught my eye
Moments before, or a voice lumbering
Through the corridors,
Of a smudged ancestor from faded times.

Was it merely accidental, a slight
Miscalculation of the weather that leaves
You drenched in the soaking sun,
Or was it the soft fumbling,
In the closet, of a persistent spirit
Waiting for its turn.
Was it a contradiction of a
Planted opinion,
Widely watered and gardened,
Or a corner table,
Cornered by the center,
Yet left vaguely looming around.
Was it a falsification of something
Immutable, so elegantly honorable,
Columned and arched,
Or an echo of the reality,
An abject reminder,
That words are loopy and return
To the fraternity,
Over and over again.

Jheeri Jheeri Chaitali Baatashe - 1957

Jheeri Jheeri Chaitali Baatashe - 1957
Singer - Geeta Dutt, Composer/Lyricist - Sudhin Dasgupta
(and my silly translation)

jheeri jheeri chaitali baatashe,
neel neel aakashe, jhil-mil taara je,
chupi chupi kotha koy,
chaand haashe

In this bustling breeze of melancholia
twinkling stars in the blue blue sky,
whisper words in hushed tones
while the moon smiles

jani na keno haay,
mon je taare chaay,
taare bhalo beshe,
hridoyo bhorejaay

Sheki amare go bhalo bashe?

Oh I never know why,
my mind seeks him,
and in loving him,
the heart fills to the brim

Wonder if he even loves me?

e modhu raat aaj boye jaay
tumi kothay aar aami kothay?

The sweet night, it flows by,
Oh where are you and where am i?

tumi je kache nai,
gaanero shure tai
ami je tomar,
she kotha bole jai

jodi tumi aasho mor paashe

But you are not nigh,
So through the tune of my song,
I keep saying to you,
that I belong to you

That you may come hither to my side

Lady with the accordion

Smiling lady with the accordion,
Broad lines extend from
The corners of your eyes,
Surround your cheeks,
And then subside.
Your lips so wide,
Like a chasm divide,
The curious song,
From the chatty wives.

The cavalcade of people dressed
In their Sunday best,
Search their pockets,
For faith and find no reason
To skip the charade.
Their faces are stretched
In elation, their hooves
Depressed in unison,
Da dum di dum,
They march ahead.

Immortality

Gods need to be understood. It's easy to dismiss them for what they appear to be - cold, capricious, vain, insensitive. Consider Abraham and how he is led west and then east, blessed and cursed, in a rather whimsical manner. Consider Poseidon chasing Odysseus around the seas. Or Lord Shiva's inordinate wrath and vengeance. One might contend that this is a clear case of misuse of authority; a wanton and almost sadistic subjugation of the weak by the strong.

Have you considered how much time they have on their hands? It is an eternity that they have to pass. They have tried sleeping through it, and I am sure there might be some wise Gods who lie asleep, having realized inaction is just as useful or useless as action. May be we haven't heard of them as they have been sleeping all along. Or they stay awake and conscious. Now that's a struggle - to stay occupied for an eternity. A God may spend his time chatting with other Gods, or in some form of entertainment, but even that can get repetitious, considering eternity is a long time. That is probably why they created the universe in the first place. As the bible suggests God created the universe in 6 days, and on the 7th day he rested. But surely on the 8th day, he was left with a choice. Should he rest some more or do something else?

Consider the consequences of either. Sitting by and watching could mean people doing what they pleased and we all know that means people killing themselves. Lifting a finger and interfering, could also leave people in a rather helpless state. They would realize that God would act, they would grow to fear God. And then of course they would try to appease God, by offering prayer or sacrifice. That would result in notions of duty, religion and right or wrong. Which would result in law and order, and of course depending on the interpretation of God's judgment, it could mean man acting on his behalf and dealing with the non-conformists.

Having observed the consequences of action and inaction, any God could easily work out that there is no difference in either approach. Besides even if a man suffered for a while or for years or if he lived his days happily, whatever be his circumstance, he would eventually die. In the course of an eternity, what difference does it make to anything. As a God, his primary concern would be to stay occupied and interested during his waking hours. Why would you blame Him for being insensitive or uncaring? It is not His fault - it is the curse of immortality.