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Songs and Stories
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2021-07-12 11:07:42Related chapters
Cycle of Cliches Insomniac
InsomniacFor one hundred and four hours I’ve lived like an insomniac. And then they became irksome. Insomnia as well as the clichés.Irksome to the extent that I felt compelled to pick up my laptop while sitting on the hearse van to this crematorium.You are not the white-robed in persona Christi on the other side of the confessional, and I’m not looking to get my sins absolved or my actions validated by telling you this story. I’m not trying to quench your stream of curiosity as well. I’m just trying to flush out the solidified lump of a yearning settled in the left corner of my brain. One hundred and four hours ago when I was sitting at the airport lounge in Kolkata, waiting for my flight to this city, Guwahati – my adopted hometown – this yearning wasn’t a lump. It was an acidic fluid running through my veins. It left a burning sensation wherever it passed through, like cheap whiskey leaves when it goes down your throat. All I was doing then was listening to Chester Be
Last Updated : 2021-07-12Cycle of Cliches Nico-Tar Urge
Nico-Tar UrgeThe small, six-by-four smoking room looked like Delhi in a winter morning.Smoggy.Smothering.If not for smoking, nobody would like to be there even for a minute! Worse still, there weren’t any chairs to sit. Trust me, with all the drowsiness and fatigue, I couldn’t stand more than a minute.Men drowned in their smart phone screens, cigarettes tucked between their fingers, welcomed me with as much indifference as I sometimes show to people talking about binge-watching web-series. The only aberration in the room, was this woman, standing far opposite to the entrance, with her gaze fixed at the wall to her right. Holding a pack of Marlboro Gold and an iPhone in her right hand, she was staring at the wall-mounted electric lighter. Her Hamlet-like dilemma, I thought was: To light up the next one or not? Curse my stealthy, sluggish, perverted eyes! Wish I could stop them from measuring her up! I slid my left hand into the pocket of my jeans for the packet of
Last Updated : 2021-07-12Cycle of Cliches The Nineties’ Thing
The Nineties’ ThingPehla nasha, pehla khumarNaya pyar hai naya intezarKar lu main kya apna haal, aye dil-e-beqararMere dil-e-beqarar, tu hi bata…The first tipsiness, the first hangoverThis is new love, new waitWhat do I make of myself, O restless heart!My restless heart, you tell me this.Do you remember the tragic heart-break scene which followed this song in the movie Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar? The scene, when Anjali finds her beloved Sanju engaged in a celestial lip-lock in the aesthetic privacy of a derelict hill-top fortress? Do you remember, how many times you might have watched that same scene, each time, risking a scandal of a life-time? How many times you might have fanned your hidden desires of having such moments in your own life too? When I had watched this scene for the first time, I was in the eighth grade.By the time, I saw Junali for the first time, and that was two years later, the desire had already reached its zenith and the mo
Last Updated : 2021-07-12Cycle of Cliches Bohag
BohagI should have put on the windcheater jacket before coming out of our apartment in Guwahati. A full-sleeve tee shirt wouldn’t have been bad either. The morning breeze in the terrace felt a little unsettling after the comfort under the blanket. It had been more than a month since winter was officially over. For those who wore sweaters in March were taunted as kaso – tortoise. Cold-blooded animal. Among my acquaintances in Guwahati, only Birinchi, the fast bowler in the local cricket team I had started playing for that year, wore sweaters in March. He would always be shivering while fielding.Now, it was April. It had rained the previous night – the first showers of the year – and the breeze carried with it the scent of petrichor. For the first time in a while, I wasn’t startled awake from sleep. It was a gradual waking-up. Someone was playing the Pepa – the buffalo hornpipe – and the tune was gleefully calling everyone around to join the merriment. As the drum-beats joine
Last Updated : 2021-07-12Cycle of Cliches Pursuit
PursuitSummer brought in heat alongwith hope. The heat and humidity in the city cursed by recurring power-cuts was suffocating. In Tezpur, trees around our house offered shade and kept us cool with intermittent breeze even when the mercury soared as high as 40° Celsius. In the six hundred and fifty square feet railway quarter where Ma, Nisim and I had moved in Guwahati had no trees around. There was an adamant stillness in the air. The heat felt more with every passing day owing to a pursuit that I hadn’t chosen, but had been pushed into.That was the year when my intellectual prowess was to be tested against the best in the state, and in a broader sense, with each one of those in our country who either had chosen, or were prodded like me, into that pursuit. It was like war-time preparation. Everyone who knew me, wanted me to win it for them, and for my own self. The success of High School Leaving Certificate exams were to decide, as it appeared then, all our successes there
Last Updated : 2021-07-12Cycle of Cliches A Lot Can Happen Over Coffee
A Lot Can Happen Over CoffeeIn the airport smoking-room, the monochromatic images evaporated into the spiralling clouds of smoke just as Junali’s voice struck my eardrums, “Where are you lost? Hullo!”Her hazel eyes, almost popping out in wonder, her lips gaped like O.“Disbelief.” came out impromptu, after a long, deep breath. I didn’t have to care for my English pronunciation anymore. Courage had killed the inhibitions with my spoken English, long ago. From struggling with my sha and cha sounds to being a Voice and Accent Trainer before being promoted as a Training Manager in an international Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) company, for me, it’s been a worthwhile journey so far in terms of spoken English. “Disbelief?” she repeated after me.“Yes…a…world…of…disbelief.” I couldn’t resist the insane spurt of thoughts, uttering every word with a deliberate slow pace. Looking straight into her eyes! Without a blink! With a half-smile!“Hmm.” She said with a sigh and too
Last Updated : 2021-07-12Cycle of Cliches If a Writer Falls in Love with You, You Will Never Die
If a Writer Falls in Love with You, You Will Never DieWe walked into the smoking room, lit our cigarettes and settled down beside each other, leaning against the wall. Conscious of the presence of other people in the room. Conscious that time was running away fast. The large display in the lounge in front of us shows the time: 04:12. She said she would leave for the departure gate in five minutes. She hated last moment boarding.“Next week I will head back home.” She said, taking a long drag from the cigarette she had lit up.“Next week? But you’ll reach today itself.” I assumed that Delhi is her new home.“Oh no, no. I don’t live in Delhi anymore. Just dropping in there to catch up with old friends.”“Oh ok. Then where do you…?”“On the other side of Luit,” she cut me off. I didn’t quite get her.“Just kidding…that line just popped up.”On the other side of Luit – it was the opening line of a poem I’d written thinking about her. It was a sad poem. Of hopelessness and
Last Updated : 2021-07-12Cycle of Cliches Rushdie in a Nightgown
Rushdie in a NightgownI call out Biswa and a few others in the playground at the top of my voice, but it seems that they can’t hear what I’m saying.I’m saying that I don’t want to bat at number three anymore, and I don’t wish to play for the club too. I have made it to the national team, I have got the blue jersey with Number 4 and my first name embossed on it. I’m going to open the batting with Sachin. It’s, kind of, I want to say goodbye to all of my teammates before boarding the bus to the airport in the big city…but all of them vanish in thin air, leaving me with a trace of fear! I wonder if I have just seen ghosts. How can real people vanish?And then I run towards the bus stop. There’s a big tourist bus with huge glass windows and navy blue curtains waiting there – a video coach that’s going to play ‘Jigar’ once the bus starts moving. Halfway through our journey, the bus stops at a restaurant for refreshments, and I feel I can’t keep going all the way waking up other
Last Updated : 2021-07-12
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Cycle of Cliches Touchdown
TouchdownWe will have our respective touchdowns today – Jahnobi at 6:30 PM British Standard Time at Gatwick, and I at 6:30PM IST in Pune. Nineteen days have elapsed since I am away from my workplace (you may read Karmabhumi). I have no clue how my team members are performing their daily rituals of chanting “Thank you for calling…”, “I understand your concern, however…”, “the options that I can give you are…”, “I apologize for the inconvenience…” to appease a bunch of unknown, unseen, fatally wronged, over-promised and under-delivered voices and names on the other hemisphere of the world, trying their guts out to get the best possible solutions to their issues. It’s not easy, going through these iterative bouts of supervising all these computer-screen-facing, headsets-clad, wretched souls engaged in those precarious rituals. It sucks the blood out of the brains and when I return to my flat in the morning, all I desire is a sound, undisturbed, dreamless sleep. When I wake up in
Cycle of Cliches Missed Turns
Missed TurnsNineteen days ago, I was greeted here, in the same airport, with the concerned and impatient voice of Jahnobi over the phone, “Have you reached?” Junali’s full and wide smile and the whiskey-dipped lines written for her transformed into a maze of eerily quiet corridors in in the main building of Gauhati Medical College Hospital. Every minute counted during my hunt for the single occupancy cabin where my mother was admitted. Even after a running-around for about ten minutes, following the directions of the old man sitting at the May I Help You counter, I was, kind of, lost in the maze of alleys, corridors, staircases and closed rooms in that mammoth building. “Yeah, reached, but kind of lost. Where’s the cabin?” I asked her. I wasn’t sure whether Jahnobi expected an assurance of my presence, or if she was just reminding me of the urgency – every moment can be the last moment“Just ask someone which is Ruplekha Baideu’s room. People know that she’s here.” I could
Cycle of Cliches Like a Free Bird
Like a Free BirdAt the door, there’s this tall, lanky fellow, with a week-old stubble on a pitifully undernourished jawline and a face with unusually white patches of skin standing with a tilt to his right. He has an aluminium forearm clutch in his right hand and he is emitting a strong stench of inflammable oil, a stench which is common among city bus drivers and conductors, diesel engine technicians working with the Railways or in the car-repair workshops. For me, it has really been hard to recognize people in the neighbourhood, because in this colony, people keep moving in and out. In the last eight years, every time I came for my vacations, I met at least one new family in the immediate neighbourhood, or came to know about at least one, who had moved to some other part of the city or to some other part of the country. The biggest bluff that our movies show is that the characters don’t recognize other characters when they wear a disguise. We usually recognize people’s eyes
Cycle of Cliches Beyond Binaries
Beyond BinariesThe ninth and the tenth days have been the busiest in terms of visitors. These were mostly repeat-visitors, who were doing a little more than paying just courtesy visits. Relatives, friends, and Ma’s close aides in her office. So, whatever means I tried to keep myself aloof, I had to come out more often than the previous three days. Thankfully, the what-happened-to-her questions had gone down significantly by then. These visitors wanted to help us in whatever way possible. My friend Rajib wanted to take an entire week off from work, but I said it would be fine if he made himself available on the eleventh and the twelfth days. I think he didn’t quite like the idea. What was he up to? Be by my side, like Ranjita was by Jahnobi’s. It would be rude to tell him or for that matter, anybody of those visitor, that they could be of greatest help to me, only if they let me be on my own.I missed Biswa though. He is in a remote village in the bordering areas of Rajasthan
Cycle of Cliches Distant Realities
Distant RealitiesThere’s nothing uncomfortable about the navy blue suit. It’s tailor-made unlike the other ones purchased earlier from online stores or from ready-made showrooms. The white two-ply twill cotton shirt with a double fused semi cutaway collar, the French cufflinks, the black Oxford shoes, belt, wallet and the wrist-watch strap can’t have complemented the suit better. I like the distinct tapping of my shoe-soles on the spotlessly clean chequerboard floor with every step I take through the corridor.Level 5 Function Room at the Southbank Centre. London. Dream destination!The black bow-tie is a bit of an annoyance though. Never wore a bow-tie before. Never needed to. Never attended an English dinner before either. Never needed to. I can bear the bow-tie though. The company of people will make good for any trivial annoyance.Right on time. Half five it is. It’s a Carrera Calibre 5 Automatic by Tag Heur. The most expensive one from my collection. I was pleasantly
Cycle of Cliches Worldly Wise
Worldly WiseOne morning, when Nishant was barely three months old, Papa and Mummy came to see him. Jaanvi opened the door to them, but was in a fix whether to let them in. Ma called them in. She not only called them in, but offered them to sit and also brought Nishant to them. Papa held Nishant in his hands for a while and then gave him to Mummy. The next moment, both of them were in tears, crying like children.Jaanvi was sulking within. Those tears didn’t mean anything to her. She was living in a strange, robotic world. A world which looked perfectly normal from outside, but whose insides burnt like hell every moment. She waited for Papa and Mummy’s collective weeping to come to an end and their tears to dry up, while Ma excused herself to the kitchen to make tea for them.When Papa and Mummy’s sobs mellowed down they kept looking at Jaanvi. Perhaps in anticipation that she would say something. She didn’t. Rather, she didn’t want to. Mummy’s curse had muted her.Ma enter
Cycle of Cliches Ode to Scientific Socialism!
Ode to Scientific Socialism!Bomb blasts make corpses of people. That’s what they exactly make, nothing more, nothing less. Bomb blasts make corpses of the people who live after them. Nothing less, nothing more. Bomb blasts are not committed by any other animals, because other animals suffer, toil and struggle for survival. They don’t care much about who the victor is and who the victim. That’s why they grow without complaint, live full until they die.Bomb blasts are by the dead, of the dead, for the dead. Basically, bomb blasts are democratic – they ensure the right to bring lives to surprising ends suddenly without caring for caste, creed, religion, language, complaints, desires, wishes, dreams, vision and mission. Bomb blasts are the season of Boxonto – they usher in new buds of hope for those who live by them. Bomb blasts are the best odes to Scientific Socialism.The bomb blasts in Guwahati and elsewhere in the state on the bright, sunny day of 30th October 2008 made a
Cycle of Cliches Cursed
CursedThe doctor’s appointment was at 2:00 PM. Nisim told Jaanvi that he would be home by noon. It was five past one, and he was still not back. Nisim was great, the way he was, except for being late for household needs. Jaanvi had been vocal about it, right from the time she had moved in to the Bhattacharya household. She never wanted Nisim to change because of her. She would never want to. But she definitely wanted him to be a bit more responsible towards their household needs. He managed to be on time on some occasions, but then he would mostly be in a hurry. The doctor’s personal assistant categorically asked them to be on time while confirming the appointment. They were late by ten minutes the previous month, and the doctor had refused to see her outright. It was only after a lot of requests that he had agreed, that too, reminding every two minutes during the check-up that he was getting late for a C-section surgery at City Heart Nursing Home.Now, every passing minute
Cycle of Cliches Being Mother
Being MotherThe QWERTY keys on the pallid black computer keyboard became a nightmare for Jaanvi ever since Nisim started going out of town for work. She felt that the letters are so nauseatingly jumbled up – the first row had Q in the extreme left and P on the extreme right, X came before Z in the third line, so did M before N. They could have placed at least B and C beside each other, as they were in the same row, but no, C came first and then there is V between C and B – it took long for her to find each of the keys while typing with the right and left index fingers. And then there was this irritating stuff – every time she needed to type something in upper case, she had to first turn the Caps Lock on, type the letter and then turn the Caps Lock off , so that all letters didn’t get typed in upper case. Nisim had shown her an easier way to do this – press the Shift key and letter to be typed in capital letter simultaneously – but she found it more frustrating. Many a time wh
