শীর্ষ - ১

একদম টাটকা টাটকা রান্না করে ফেলবো?
না কি বেশ কিছুক্ষণ ম্যারিনেট করবো,
যাতে পুরো ভেতর অবধি যায়?
তোর কি মনে হয়?

তোকে ফোন করে এই কথা তো জিজ্ঞেস করা যাবে না।

এই এখন,
যখন একটা গনগনে শূন্যতা,
আমার ভিতরে আম্ফান এর মত পাক দিয়ে দিয়ে,
পুড়িয়ে ছারখার করে দিচ্ছে আমার অভ্যন্তর,
তখনই কি লিখে ফেলবো
তোর সম্বন্ধে আমার স্মৃতিচারণা, আমার আর্তনাদ?

নাকি এই অসহ্য যন্ত্রণার পক্ষাঘাতে,
জারিয়ে ফেলবো নিজেকে আরো কয়েকদিন,
আরও কয়েক মাস?

যাতে স্মৃতি-বিস্মৃতির তীব্র মিশ্রনে,
ফুটে ওঠে তোর প্রতি আমার ভালোবাসার সব স্বাদ গন্ধ।

দেখ, স্মৃতি কোনদিনই আমার ভালো বান্ধবী ছিল না,
যেমন ও তোর আর সুজনের ।
আমার সবকিছুই ভাসাভাসা, অগোছালো, অসংলগ্ন।
আর গুছিয়ে ওঠার অধ্যবসায় তো আমার হলোনা!

স্পেস টাইম কন্টিনিউয়াম ভেদ করে
টুকরো টুকরো ছবি - অতীতের;
তুই ক্লাস সেভেনে এলি আমাদের হোস্টেলে।
না, তুই আমার রুমমেট ছিলি না কোনো কালে -
আমার স্মৃতি বিভ্রম হয়েছিল।

কিন্তু তার পরের ২-৩ বছরের মধ্যে,
তোর সাথে আমি জড়িয়ে পড়লাম,
প্রেমে পড়ে গেলাম -
তোর বড়ো বড়ো চোখ,
তোর আঙ্গুল তুলে, ঘাড়টা ঈষৎ বাঁকিয়ে, কথা বলা,
তোর ছবি আঁকা,
তোর এস্থেটিক্স এর। 

জোর করে ছিনিয়ে নিলাম পৈতের নেমন্তন্ন -
নরেন্দ্রপুর এর একমাত্র প্রতিনিধি। 

HMT র হাতঘড়ি উপহার নিয়ে,
পুরো শহর টপকে,
পৌঁছে গেলাম
৬ নম্বর (৬ নম্বরই তো?) হরি ঘোষ স্ট্রীট।
তুই দন্ডীঘর থেকে বেরিয়ে
আমার সাথে গল্প করলি,
দেখালি তোদের সাবেকি, শরীকী বাড়ি,
তোর ঘর, তোদের ছাত।
তোর ঠাকুমা জানলেন,
আমি ব্রাহ্মণ সন্তান সুবীর মুখার্জি।
তোর মা আমাকে আসনে বসিয়ে
যত্নে খাওয়ালেন পৈতের খাওয়া।
তখনো আমি আর তুই বোধ হয় ফুডি হই নি -
তাই মনে নেই কি ঘটী বিশেষত্ব খেয়েছিলাম সেদিন।
কিন্তু আপলুত হয়েছিলাম এই ভেবে যে,
তোর পৈতেতে আমি নিমন্ত্রিত।

পৃথিবী-র রাজনীতিতে, উত্তর দক্ষিণের
চিরকাল চাপান উতর।
আমাদের, মোবাইল ছাড়া, বাসে চড়া,
কলকাতা-র ভুগোলেও বেহালা আর দর্জিপাড়ার মাঝে
এক অপার সমুদ্র। 

তোর উত্তর, গ্রে স্ট্রিট, স্কটিশ চার্চ, জয়পুরিয়া আর
আমার দক্ষিণ, আরো দক্ষিণ, ঠাকুরপুকুর, যাদবপুর
ক্রমশ সরে গেলো দূরে।
তুই বামপন্থী রাজনীতি আর নাটক করলি
তোর উচ্ছল উৎসাহে, আর কুড়িয়ে ফেললি
অনেক ফ্যান, অনেক নারীর হৃদয়। 
আমিও দুটোই করলাম -
প্রথমটা প্রতিবাদী insider এবং পরে "বিশ্বাঘাতক" হয়ে ,
আর দ্বিতীয়টাতে আমি মঞ্চে কম,
পিছনে আর মননেই বেশি।
হৃদয়হরণ হলো না ঠিকই, কিন্তু
পেলাম হৃদয়ভঙ্গের অবিস্মরণীয় অমূল্য প্রাইজ।

আমার গল্পটা তুই জানলি না,
তোরটা আমি অনেক পরে আন্দাজ করলাম -
আমাদের সবার মনের লেখকটাই যে জুড়ে জুড়ে গল্প বানায়। 

গৌতম দা'র তারাদের মতো, আমাদের মধ্যেও,
এসে গেলো প্রায় অনতিক্রান্ত আলোকবর্ষ।
সাংবাদিকতা, খবরে কাগজ, টিভি, আর কোলন, জার্মানি। আর,
চাকরি, এমবিএ, টাটানগর, চাকরি, বোম্বে, মুম্বাই।
এর মাঝে তোর প্রেম, বিয়ে।
আর আমার বিয়ে, প্রেম।

তোর ঢেউ এপারে নেই, আমারটা পৌঁছয় নি তোর তীরে। 

জুকারবার্গের দুনিয়া থেকে আমার পালানো
২০১৫-র নভেম্বরে।
মুছে ফেলেছিলাম সে সব -
তাই মনে করতে পারছিলাম না,
সেখানেই কি আবার তোর সাথে আমার দেখা।
আমার দস্তাবেজে তোর সবচেয়ে পুরোনো
ই-চিঠি চৌঠা মে, ২০০৯।
শুধু মোবাইল নম্বরটা পাঠিয়েছিলি। 

তারপরে জমে থাকা হিমবাহ থেকে
ধীরে ধীরে স্রোতস্বীনি হয়ে ওঠা আমাদের
কত কথা হতো -
ফেসবুকে বেশি - কখনো বা ফোনে 
ক্যামেরা, লেন্স, চাকরি, চাকরি ছাড়া - তোর আর আমার,
ওয়াইন, রান্না, ভ্রমণ, রাজনীতি, বই লেখা।
"শীর্ষ, তোর zoom টা কি fixed aperture?"
"নাগু, তোর অনেক পয়সা, তুই ওই লেন্সটা কেন আর
আমাকে ধার দে"
"চল একটা ভালো প্রাইম লেন্স কিনি"
"নাগু, চাকরিটা ছেড়ে দিলাম"
  - "এবার কি করবি?"
"বই লিখবো ভাবছি"
"শীর্ষ, চাকরিটা  ছেড়ে দিলাম"
  - "কনসাল্টেন্সি কর তাহলে"

২৩ অক্টোবর, ২০১৪ -
দেখা হলো সপরিবারে
ইটালিয়ান রেস্তোরাঁ সেরাফিনাতে।
প্রথম দর্শনেই আমাদের ভালো লেগে গেলো
নন্দিনী আর রায়নাকে। ভীষণ ভালো।
তোদের সবার সপ্রতিভতা,
তোদের সবার 'তুই',
তোদের উদার মনস্কতা,
প্রসারিত world view, এবং,
ছোট্ট নিটোল ভালোবাসার
সংসার।

যেন ঠিক আমাদের প্রতিফলন।
আমি ভরে উঠলাম তোকে আবার ফিরে পেয়ে।

১৫-১৭ আমার জীবনে অনেক ঝড়
উড়ে এসে পড়লাম আবার কলকাতায়। 

বাবা মা চলে যাবার পর,
যখন বুঝলাম আমি ফিরে সেখানেই,
যেখান থেকে শুরু করেছিলাম,
সেই তখন থেকেই, তোর সাথে আবার জড়িয়ে পড়া। 

"এই শীর্ষ, ভালো পোর্ক কোথায় পাবো রে?"
"শীর্ষ, ভালো বর্দু/ বোরবোন পেয়েছি"
"শীর্ষ, অমুক লোকটা কি গান্ডু ?"
"শীর্ষ, ট্যাংরার জেসি ইউং takeaway টা অসাধারণ!
    সামনের রবিবারে চলে আয় !"
বা
"নাগু, তুই চিয়াং মাইতে যাচ্ছিস?
    আমি যেখানে ছিলাম সেখানে থাকিস"
"নাগু, ডিজিটাল মিডিয়ার সম্বন্ধে তোর কি ধারণা?"
"নাগু, চল একটু বসি"
(আমরা অবশ্য বসার চেয়ে "চল বসি" বেশি বলেছি,
তবে বসেওছি কম না )

আর স্কুলের হোয়াটস্যাপ গ্রূপ তো আমাদের
পার্শ্বসংলাপ-এর অফুরন্ত খোরাক।
কখনো তুই আমাকে শান্ত করছিস,
কখনো তুই আমাকে উস্কানোর জন্য উসকাচ্ছিস।
আর কখনো ফোনে তোর সেই অবিস্মরণীয়
অট্টহাস্য আর খিল্লি হাসির অদ্ভুত ঢ্যামনা বর্ণশঙ্কর !

আমরা সেলফি কেন তুলি না রে, শীর্ষ?

৩০শে মার্চ তুই লিখলি
"চল একটা বিজনেস লাঞ্চ করি"
তারপরে দু দিন ধরে জল্পনা
কোথায় যাবো, কি খাবো।
অবশেষে তোর পাড়াতেই আমি ঠিক করলাম।
এপ্রিল ফুলের দিন
তুই গাড়িতে ওঠার আগে একটা সিগারেট খেলি।
আবার খাবার পরে একটা।
খিস্তি করলাম, তুই দাঁত কেলালি, বললি
"কমিয়ে দেব।"
আমরা ভিতরে খাবারের ছবি তুললাম,
কন্যাসমা নারীদের দিকে
আড়চোখে সোজা চোখে তাকালাম,
বাইরে এসে আমি ক্যাফেটা-র ছবি তুললাম,
তুই সিগারেট খেলি আর আমরা
আরো দুই  ধূমপানরতা ইউরোপিয়ান তরুণীকে মাপলাম। 

আমরা সেলফি কেন তুলি না বল তো?

তোর বাড়ির টেরেস,
আমার বাড়ির বারান্দা,
তোর বারবিকিউ, আমার স্প্যাগেটি বোলোনিজ
এতো গল্প, এতো খাবার, এতো পানীয়, আর
আর 
আর
তোর এতো সিগারেট!!

আমরা সেলফি কেন তুলি না বল তো ?!

এখন কি হবে?
তোর আর আমার বাংলা পডকাস্টটা
হবে না
তোর আর আমার ছবি তোলার ট্রিপটা
হবে না
তোর আর আমার বিজনেস লাঞ্চ
হবে না
তোর আর আমার বোম্বে গিয়ে মাহিন্দ্রা ব্লুজ দেখা
হবে না 
অন্য সব বন্ধুদের সরিয়ে দিয়ে
   তোর এক নম্বর বন্ধু হয়ে ওঠা 
হবে না 

এখন কি হবে?

মনের ছবিগুলো যদি আবছা হয়ে যায়
তাহলে কি হবে?
এতদিনের ব্যবধানে তোকে পেয়ে
যে অবলম্বন তৈরী করেছিলাম, তার
কি হবে?
এই শহরে এতো কথা বলার
তুই যে ছিলি আমার প্রায়, প্রায় একমাত্র সাথী
তার কি হবে?

এই যে, তুই,
  যার এতো কিছু করার ছিল, 
  যে এতো কিছু করছিলো, 
  যে হালকা চলে চলতো আর রেখে যেত গভীর দাগ,
সে নেই,
আর আমি রয়ে গেলাম,
এই যে অপরাধবোধ, তার
কি হবে ?

যদি ছবিগুলো আবছা হয়ে যায় তাহলে কি হবে, শীর্ষ ?
যদি আমি তোকে ভুলতে না পারি, তাহলে কি হবে, শীর্ষ?

যদি আমি আর এই লেখাটা লিখে না উঠতে পারি,
যদি আমি এই লেখাটা আর কোনোদিনই শেষ না করতে পারি,

তাহলে কি হবে, শীর্ষ?

কাকে জিজ্ঞেস করবো?

ফোন এর ওপারে তো তুই নেই আর। 

This morning

This morning, I am sad

My life will not fall into

   one of these nice looking designs

A tune hums itself in my head

An old smell lingers in my nostrils for a moment

I seek refuge in the

   unreal sweetness of black & white films

This morning, it all seems meaningless

On other mornings I don’t care

Dusk at Shivaji Park

When I come and sit or stand here, in front of you, a deity, having improbable and superhuman features, a statue which blends the affection of a mother, the sensuality of a lover and the darkness of a wizard, do I really come to pay you obeisance, expecting that there is somebody on the other side, who may, if pleased, will solve my problems, will ease my troubles, will unwrinkle the path in front of me? Perhaps. Because sometimes despondency sends us to depths of irrationality. But most of the time I come to you, because of the silence around you. Because of the gentleness of the air in your presence. The gentleness that is the decimation of all egos, because when we genuflect in front of you, when we stand with our hands folded in front of your tongue-out visage, we submit to the truth that we aren't in control. Our illusion of control evaporates at your gate. In that atmosphere, a lot of weight suddenly lifts off my shoulders. And I can become a bit of myself and talk; to myself. I sit, away from you, in my shoes, looking at people, at the deepening blue of the evening sky through the trees, the empty cricket nets, at droves of runners, walkers, joggers, talkers surrounding this brownish green patch of urban open space. I sit there and watch as silence and noise battle within. Occasionally it's the silence that triumphs. I sit there and watch. In my thoughts there may be a prayer, may be a puzzle that needs to be solved. But as I sit and watch, I feel it's me to whom the prayer is and it's me who has to solve the puzzle. And then slowly I realize that like you, even I don't exist. This sweet ephemerality, like the memory of dusks of my childhood, like the sounds of conch in each household and the melancholy of the hour captured in the footsteps of the children returning home, becomes the only reality. It's time to go home.

the incessant weight of staying awake

Waking up at the middle of the night, to be confronted by all your fear, indignation and negative thoughts. You know nothing lasts forever, not even this darkness. But for those moments, the pall feels like an impenetrable, interminable and inevitable destiny. All you can do is to accept it and grow tired under the unbearable burden of being, and hope sleep will come to ferry you to another morning.

Ship of Theseus - A Review

Given the fidgetiness that I witnessed during some of the long, dialogue-less, apparent hiatuses in the movie, I realised that patience is a great virtue to enjoy the film, which is not available in oodles these days. For me it worked smoothly because I just let it happen, let it just spread its wares in front of me to ...take it in slowly, to let it seep in gradually, in stead of judging and analysing it intellectually. Just before I got into the theatre at 10.45 pm, I met a former young colleague of mine, who made a tongue in cheek comment, that being a Bong, it was expected of me to watch this movie. Racial slur or compliment whatever it was, it insinuated that this is an 'intellectual' movie, to be enjoyed at the level of intellect. In the very first place, I have a little discomfort with this perspective of appreciation of any form of art. I can be posthumously famous for my oft used sentence, whenever someone says, "I don't understand Western/ Hindustani Classical Music/ Abstract Art etc". My usual retort to that is "Do you understand Chicken Hakka Noodles/ Rogan Josh/ Sashimi?" Any aesthetic work, and that includes the now popular culinary one, first grabs us through our senses and goes straight deep within, before it resurfaces at the level of our intellect so that we can articulate to ourself and others, if at all we can, why we like what we like.

That is how Ship of Theseus worked. Not through my intellect, although it had more to offer to my infamous faculty than half a century of Bollywood. Because life has taught me over the years to be a patient, detached observer of the world as it goes about its business, I let the ship sail all over me. And it did not leave an inch of empty space. It worked at the level of senses, intellect, emotion and pervasively at an anatomical level.

The first story is about the senses, of sight and sound, the two most impactful sensory inputs in our lives. Alia's explorations in visual imagery through the help of sound, her creative conflicts as a budding photographer who is also visually impaired, her struggle with her apparent fall in creativity when she gets her sight back and her final moment of peace at the lap of magnificent nature.

The second story of Maitreya, the young Jain Monk with erudition, strong resolve and robust sense of humour, is partly at the level of the intellect, as it debates the religious position taken by the spiritual atheist (brilliantly portrayed by Niraj Kabi) with the moral question whether we have a right to hurt even ourselves over such beliefs. But it is much more than that. It is the most visceral of the three stories with the painstaking and painful portrayal of the drastic degradation of his health. While the entire film is on the anatomical backdrop of organ donation and trafficking, this is the most physical of the three narratives.

The last story of Navin, the young Marwari stock broker with provincial ways, having an urbane, liberal, social worker maternal grandmother, is a story of transformation, of final bonding across apparent cultural differences and of universal empathy, works mostly at the level of emotion especially on the protagonist.

I am a sucker for script and editing, two cornerstones of moviemaking and the two most neglected aspects in Indian films. Ship of Theseus, given the structure of the film, does a brilliant work of both, comparable with the very best in the world. The performances, backed by crisp, realistic dialogues with sharp wit and insight, are outstanding. I do not want to dwell much over that as then I will never finish writing this (and I am hungry for lunch), but Niraj Kabi stood out for me, along with Vinay Sharma. Aida was very convincing in her unusual role and portrayed the struggles with ease. Sohum Shah, looks like, played himself and thus was very believable.

The Paradox of Theseus as an identity conundrum is not very relevant for me, although it is a visually interesting question. For me this movie, as I said, worked on several layers simultaneously, and on the level of intellect, this paradox is not something that was my moot takeaway from the film. But what I took away at my subconscious, I guess, nay I am sure, is much much more than that. The tapestry is so rich, so surfeit with themes, issues and motifs, that it could easily turn out to be an unpalatable and uncontrolled smorgasbord. However, unburdened by commercial aspirations or concerns (Kiran Rao be blessed), endowed with the sincerity of any first major work and abundance of talent, and lastly of great teamwork, this, is a tour de force, and IMHO, is a singular movie in the history of Indian cinema.

Death - the God without the halo

No, I still am not afraid of death. I am not afraid of my death as an eventual event. If I start thinking about how it may come, then some scenarios may be frightful. But I am not really very scared to think about death. I was not.

Of late I have been having visitations of various forms of death – permanent silence, permanent darkness and permanent absence. And of being alive but not being able to reach out, or being communicated to.

Last year when Chaklada passed away suddenly, I was suddenly extremely shaken. It is not the first death that I have encountered in my life of 46 years. And in this case I was not even physically near to that tragic departure. But I think for a long time, no death has moved me so much. It’s not that I used be in touch with him very regularly. An occasional phone call, sometimes as rare as once a year or so; an even rarer meeting during one of those trips to Kolkata. Birthday text messages, as his birthday was on my birthday alarm database. That’s it. But when I suddenly got the call, I broke down. In the office. Chaklada was an immensely likeable guy. And the exceptional quantum or degree of his geniality dawned upon all of us when we realized he is no more. As and when I talk to Natu, my friend and Chaklada’s brother-in-law, these days, even after six seven months of the sad event, I realize that even if we are not discussing him, a bluish grey patina of the reality of his absence is hovering in the airwaves that is carrying our conversation. And I start to wonder, how is he and Chaklada’s wife and daughter dealing with the fact that he is no more.  I met him around 18 months back; a few months after his bypass surgery. He looked his affable usual, although a little bruised from battle with the illness and perhaps more with the mundaneness of life. I told him that perhaps this surgery was a good idea as it may bring in much needed discipline in his life style, and that I have seen much older people get a fresh lease of life from this surgery. I did not think that I will not see him again. That I will not be able to pick up a phone and talk to him for two minutes on some obscure trivia. That he will not address me as “Ponting” as the way always does and tells me that he cannot forget the similarity my face has with that of the former Aussie skipper. I cannot understand how Koli-di or her daughter deal with that absence, which was so unexpected, sudden and most of all permanent. Irretrievable. An absence which will never be filled.

While death is something from which we are hidden in the beginning and from which we try to turn our eyes away all our life, it slowly lets us know that it is inevitable. And we, sort of make an uneasy truce with that knowledge.

But another form of absence that I came to observe, and get completely traumatized by, is what happened to my uncle – Nanukaku. Last July, on a Saturday I got a call from his brother in Bangalore that Nanukaku had a massive cerebral stroke and it is doubtful if he would survive. This was out of the blue. I had met him just a few months back in his residence in Dubai. A man with immense joi de vivre, he has been insisting that I visit Dubai with family and enjoy the riches of the city, before he departs from there to return to Kolkata permanently. That never happened – our visit with family. But I managed to go and see him and Renu Kakima, his wife during one of those hectic business trips and managed to spend an evening with them. While we hadn’t met for a few years, it did not feel like it. Comfortably ensconced in the airconditioned comfort of their small apartment, scotch in our glass, we forgot the hot desert city outside, and it felt like Kolkata of 70s, only him playing my father's role, and I playing his, in a manner of speaking. He showed me his small refrigerator where he stored his perfumes and deodorants, something for which he had passion and he was quite famous for. He gave me his tips and theory about pairing deos and perfumes. We reminisced about Kolkata, about which both of us had love but not steamy eyed and impractical romanticism. He certainly wanted to go back to Kolkata and settle there after being all over India and Middle East most of his life. He was looking forward to it. But what I noticed most in him was that he did not have that fatigued demeanour of someone who has worked for too long and cannot wait to hang his boots. He seemed to be enjoying his job, and although he was in his mid sixties, He did not seem to be lacking the vitality, which is missing even in me quite frequently these days. He complained when I stopped after two whiskeys, and insisted to come out in that stifling heat of the desert night to put me in a taxi. I remember him standing on the curb in his creaseless white kurta-pyjama, his nightdress for years, looking as dapper as he did in his suits in the 80s or as trendy as he did in his Saibaba hair and multi colored shirts in 70s. Those are the indelible images of him in my mind. 

Which is irreconcilable with what I faced when I went to visit him and to meet Kakima in a hospital in Dubai. I was not prepared for what was waiting for me. I had not, till the previous evening, heard about anything called permanent vegetative state, till my other uncle, the medic in the family menioned it over phone. As I was led to his enclosure and bed by Kakima, I saw the body of a man in an unusual slumber on a reclined complex bed, with tubes going in his nose and mouth and underneath the sheet. After sanitising my hand I approached the bed and Kakima gently rubbed his hand and shoulders and started saying in his ears, "See, who has come to see you!! From Bombay! Has come to see you!" The mouth was open with dried dribble at the corners. The face sunken to another face that I do not know. There lay a body which was perhaps completely oblivious to outside world. Or perhaps not. As Kakima continued to talk to him, and tried to relax his stiffened shoulder muscles and arms, and kept on saying my name, I saw the eye moving. Without any focus or visible recognition, without a meaning, without that warmth, vivacity and conviviality that it was always filled up with. My doctor uncle explained to me that unlike coma, some of the parts of the brain is functioning, but it is not known which parts. It is not known if he can see, hear, feel the external world. If he has some or all cogitative powers left intact. There lay a body which perhaps knew that there was an outside world but could not reach out anymore.

This thought is a choking fear that keeps revisiting me in various forms. When I have my morning shower and wash the soap off my face under the streaming water, I suddenly start wondering, in that momentary helplessness and breathlessness, what if I turn blind? What if can't see this world anymore? And then I have been having this dream or vision or thought which reminded me of the medieval practice of throwing people in deep dungeons under the earth and cover the mouth of the hole. What or how would have they felt? Fear of death. Thirst. Hunger. And not being able to reach out to the world or to be reached out to. And still be alive. At least for some time.

But this darkness is as much true as the light if not more. This permanent absence is perhaps truer than the tactile presence we live with everyday. Perhaps this IS the ultimate destination, the ultimate truth.  For ages, man has sought meaning and has sought to throw light on things that we do not know. All spirituality is thus likened with light. But the truth might be that there is no meaning, and this eternal darkness, stillness, quietitude and absence is the reality, is the real presence. The God, without the halo.

Us and them - philosophically speaking

(This is an exact copy of a mail sent, on a Saturday morning, to a colleague, who is into reading a lot of high quality self-help books emanating from the West)

I was reading the HBS speech by Clayton Christensen, titled "How will you measure your life?", which later on became the core of the book you are reading. As I read it, I was slowly discerning the similarities of approach between him and Covey. In both cases, there is a hidden zealot of the hard line Christian thought. So I wasn't surprised when I found out that he was born in Salt Lake City, to Mormon parents.

The middle eastern religions provide instructions and dictats, and are more application oriented, in the external world. The Hellenic influence on Christian thought has brought a lot of focus on reason and certainty. Thus the western thought is about how you should behave in the external world, with a huge emphasis on determinism. Only recently they have started looking inward, and even then their analysis of self is in light of the external world. It is struggling to flow from outside to inside.

The oriental thought, on the other hand recognises that we still, after 2500 years since Buddha, do not know more than 0.05% of the universe, and thus real knowledge attainable by us is not the knowledge of material world, but our own selves. Our discourses are thus flowing a little more fluidly from inside to outside.

This isn't a critique of the western thought, for there is nothing good or bad in things that exist or come into being. It is just the way they are.

The matter in hand is our situation. We come from a diverse thought culture which in one sweep embraces, the profoundly philosophical, rational and almost atheistic treatise of Kapil's samkhyasutra, deeply spiritual and only symbolically religious Mohamudgar, or Nirvana Shatakam of Shankaracharya, and pantheistic tendencies of the semi-religion, wrongly known as Hinduism. On this, when the deterministic and narrowly focused western thought on work and god and country is imposed, for almost 400 years, it is bound to create some terrible confusion in our minds.

China, has avoided that to a great extent. And I believe that is a key difference (not necessarily bad or good) between us and them.

Have a great weekend!!

:-)

music and those things

I was listening to a CD of S D Burman's Bangla songs. On a Sunday morning. An agenda less Sunday morning which comes with that indescribable restlessness that modern urban living brings to us when we find we have nothing to accomplish that day. Music is a legitimate way to distract on such occasions, without extracting any commitment. Rostropovich would not like it. In the introduction to "The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection", he writes: "Real, great music should never serve as a background for activities or chores not connected with it. Our world has been cursed with "Elevator Music". Waiting in an airport or visiting the doctor or dentist, we are so often beset with canned "Classical Music". I will even visit cafes, especially in Japan that serve classical music as they serve your food. Many's the time that I would leave, paying my bill for food and drink I had neither eaten nor drunk. Because my attention has been captured by the music playing in the background."

Good man Mstislav would not like us to use music as a background. But unable to run away from our banausic lives, while longing nothing less but a total escape, we continue to use it that way. However Music is a clever master.  Relegated to background, it stills works its ways to the resonating ear, to the restless mind and to the heart ready to give in. And before you know, something else is happening to you than just getting distracted.

Actually I started writing this not because S D Burman’s music worked on me to write this.  I was not even planning to write about that music or any music at all. I was not even planning to write. But in fact I started writing to distract me; to distract me from completely breaking down in tears.  Tears, which had no reason, absolutely no reason whatsoever to burst forth. The tears were caused, in a way by the music, but not by it again.

So, as I was saying, on a bright Sunday morning, I put some old Bangla classic by the maestro S D Burman and lolled on the couch with news paper.  As the music filled the room, I was kind of swaying to the melody in a prone position. Medha came into the room, and settling down at the table to drink her milk, started complaining mildly about “old and boring music”.  I got up from the sofa, and to sort of taunt her, started making exaggerated and slow dancing gestures to the music.  But soon I was lost in my own mind and my own thoughts, or no thoughts at all, while my body kept moving in a slow pace, much, I am sure, to the amusement of my family and the maids.  Soon there was some song on the speakers which I cannot recall at all, and the melody, the interim music that goes in Indian songs between two stanzas of lyrics, started to work on my mind. It started to conjure something, which I could not touch although it was almost tangible. I could not see it but it had a picture and hues. I could not identify the flavor but it had some and more.  It created that sense of déjà vu that visits me occasionally, and always completely without any announcement. While I say déjà vu, I have this premonition that it may not be from my past, or from my life at all, at least not this life.  These fragments, intense and almost tactile, show themselves up, and saunter albeit rather transiently, just outside that invisible line beyond which I cannot reach out and capture them.  I stand there, lost in that moment, feeling inadequate every moment. Inadequate, for not having the perseverance, the dedication, the commitment to go chasing it.  And perhaps not having the tools or dexterity to capture it so that I can show and or tell about it to others.

I grope around desperately for a few moments, looking for something but not knowing what it is. I stand or sit or lie there, enjoying the color, hue, melody, texture, taste, smell and everything apparently sensory but actually unreal, associated with that ephemeral object. And I suffer my intense inability to catch hold on to it and paste on a piece of paper. And my throat chokes, my eyes start welling up and I slowly start descending to the prosaic surrounding that I am never to escape.

It’s not about music. But I have observed that music has been the trigger for most times when I have had these visitations, these satoris, that make life worthwhile.  Perhaps someday, I will be able to catch the note, the notes and the melody and put them on a ruled papyrus for others to listen to.

Till then….

catharsis in D minor (on a friday morning)

my journey into western classical music started when i picked up a slightly scratched LP of Brahms (i forget the work) from a pawn shop in mirza ghalib street (erstwhile free school street).


then it went through the usual johan strauss jr's waltzes (my favorite is not 'blue danube' but 'tales from the vienna wood'), and vivaldi's 'fours seasons', both of which I liked.

i loved (and still do) brahms's 'die ungerishe tanze' - the hungarian dances. i love his short pieces. havent heard enough of his symphonies though.

and of course johan sebastian bach. who can forget the prolific master?!! i have two cassettes of bach - the second one is the deservedly famous brandenburg concertos. the first one, which made me fall in love with him is the "Violin Concertos Nos. 1-2, BWV 1041-1042; Concerto for Two Violins, BWV 1043". Unfortunately, with the impending arrival of the new system that was delivered yesterday, I had parted with my Sony cassettes player.

before joining XLRI, when i was being given farewell from my job in Siemens, i had my friend jayanta banerjee as a company, as he was also leaving for IIM-B. we were asked what would we want as our farewell gift. jayanta, very practically, asked for a mid-sized VIP hard top suitcase and some stationery. i just asked for a six casette western music collection of EMI/ HMV :-) Predictably, Jayanta has done well for himself in later life :)

the first day after my release from Siemens, a job I had started to hate, i woke up very early in the morning, exhillerated by the release from bondage, and went to the terrace of our suburban home. it was early summer, and there was a storm in the air. and in my ear was a Sony Walkman, playing Haydn's cello concerto. I can still smell that air in my nostrils. I should have understood that day that the journey I was to start was not mine to take. But I did not. Haydn stayed with me. A couple of years back, one of my juniors gave me another EMI collection, this time in CD, which had one of Haydn. and it is this CD I was taking to try out all the systems.

I havent yet mentione the 2 stalwarts yet!! Well Mozart is impossible to ignore and I love his concertos. I had his Concerto for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra, probably conducted by the superb Karajan, and it was awesome. His talent and ouvre is unmatchable. Mozart's, that is. So is Karazan's.

I have listened to all of Beethoven's 9 symphonies. But then I am not a symphnoy person. I like lots of movements within. But neither am i trained nor do i have the patience to pay such prolonged attention and understand the 'motivic development' or such other things. i need to discover him.

i love chopin as well, and some stuff i have heard by dvorak, berliotz, mendelsson.

i like strings, but not so much paganini, whose 'caprices' i have in cassette. i love the bass of cello.

and i like piano. need to get some good reco on jazz piano as well.



my god!! seems like i have just had a "cathertic outpouring in D minor" early on a friday morning.

Poetry or Verse - for better or worse

(this was written in an email on September 9, 2008, in response to a long mail trail between friends, which was taking place in verse)

Bong am I without a doubt, (and thus)
Poet I am; but not a metric one.
At metres I am quite undone
So on verses, count me out.

My "phorte" were metaphors
And it is too late to change the course.
Thus like a ship rather rudderless
I float from one figure to another face.

There were years when Bacchus ruled
And evenings spent in "herbal" haze;
Love and pain had us all fooled
And Poetry had its zenith days.

Now, numbers have me as its slave;
And living in a cushy enclave,
Poetry is just a distant shore
To which I would return no more.

But this was verse, a small mercy,
Which my friends enjoy, I see.
And who knows, some word play,
May keep the shrink away.

I wish I could say that

Between chance and will
I stand still,
Choosing none.
I am all done.
It's time to say goodbye.
Giving up hope, of
Desiring this woman's art
Or that man's scope,
It's time to say goodbye.

Godhuli gogone meghe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJWsrqN5TFI


Sometimes the dusk smells like the past that cannot be brought back,
Of a breeze that ruffled your hair and ravaged your heart
After it had a frolicking intercourse with the early monsoon rain.

Sometimes the dusk sounds like the melody you have been waiting for
But never heard;
The tune you continue to look for among all the din of a city in a hurry to go nowhere.

Sometimes the dusk looks like the face that came in your dreams
In a room lit by oil lamps, in a land not very far from your heart,but
Hundred years ago.

Then you realize you haven’t been watching dusk for a very very long time,
And you don’t know if that absence preserved your sanity
Or just left you desolate in an insane world.

Oda a la nariz (An Ode to my nose)

(with due tribute to Pablo N)

I have ignored you for long
my dear friend.
You have been with me all this while,
walked with me through the garden
and the cesspool.
Up in the hills, the thin air
burnt you dry but you loved it;
and then deep in the womb of mother earth,
you were choked with sulphur and tears
but you did not close yourself for my sake.

Often you protested
when I fell unduly asleep and others heard you;
but not me.
You could not wake me up. I wish you did.
I grudge you that my dear friend.

I thank you for your undying service of 44 years 9 months and 2 days.
But I grudge you that.You do not talk to me.

Sometime,
when I should set my eyes free
over an unending pasture rolling to meet the horizon,
I can’t see beyond you.

And then
there are moments,
when I can’t see what’s lying there just under you
for me to see, acknowledge and embrace.

You do not talk to me,
do not show me the direction to look at
with the index finger that you do not have.
You sulk for being ignored;
you are hurt assuming that I hate you,
for your obscene rotundity,
for your telltale signage of my mysterious hilly ancestry.

But how can I not love you?
You are my mother’s biggest gift to me,
you are what I have passed on to my daughter.
What am I without you?
Who am I without you?
Who will they remember when my photographs fade,
and virus hacks the .jpg files?
You or me?

Don’t envy the eyes for their power of distraction.
Don’t envy my tongue for its dual rein on me,
one that robs my health in exchange of pleasure, and
the other that makes me a fool while I think it gives me greatness.
Don’t envy my ears as I pay too much attention to all the noise that comes through them.
And don’t envy the all encasing leather that teases, pleases, cuts, burns, and hurts
but also protects me.
He’s the one who is less loved than you.

Don’t envy them my dear friend.
I promise I will pay more attention to you,
but please talk to me.

Next time please show me where to look,
tell me how to smell chance,
teach me how to smell rejection, deception and hurt,
send signals to me through your short passage
when love comes and goes,
and,
as they say, “last but not the least”,
give me the gift of smelling the lucre.

Stay where you are,
ahead of me,
right in the middle
and show me the unwavering way forward.

I bow to thee my nose.
tat twam asi.

smriti-r rong

বিস্মৃতি যদি ধুসর হয়,
মনে পড়ার রঙ কি তবে আকাশী নীল?

যে শব্দগুলো হারিয়ে গেছে,
     সাদা পাতার থেকে খসে পড়েছে
     নোনা ধরা distemper এর মতো
সকালের চায়ের কাপে,
বৃষ্টি-তে ঝাপসা ফরাসী জানলার কাচে,
সেই শব্দগুলো যখন আবছা দেখা দিয়ে মিলিয়ে যায়,
Sternum এর পিছন থেকে উঠে আসা যে আর্দ্রতা
চোখের কোনে থমকে যায়,
সে কি বর্ণহীন?

না কি স্মৃতি-র রঙ শোণিত লাল?
--------------------------------------------------

bismriti jodi dhoosaur hoy,
mone poRAr raung ki taube AkAshi neel?

je shobdogulo hAriye gyachhe,
     shAdA pAtAr theke khose porechhe
     nona dhaura distemper-er moto
ShaukAler chAyer kApe,
brishti-te jhApsA faurAsee jAnlAr kAch-e,
shei shobdogulo jokhon AbchhA dekhA diye miliye jAy,
sternum-er pichhon theke uthe AsA je ardrotA,
chokher kone thomke jAy,
she ki bornoheen?

Na ki smriti-r raung shonit laal?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

If oblivion is grey,
is the color of remembrance sky blue?

The words that got lost,
that peeled off from the white pages
     like damp-destroyed distempered wall,
     When those words appear hazily to fade away
In the morning cup of tea,
On the rain washed misty French window,
The moisture that comes from behind the sternum
And stops at the corner of my eyes,
Is it colorless?

Or, is memory the color of blood?

Novocain

Beauty
Like a needle
Pricks its pictures in ruby blood

You'd wonder
How
More than half of this world
Die without knowing
The pain
       The love
             The beauty
That life
Drips endlessly
Like a leaky tap
On our crowded days.

A world
On a megadose
Of Novocain

Numb.

Endlessly

Between the storm of desire
And the calm abyss of renunciation
My boat rocks endlessly

... koi naam na do

I cannot read the words written on your lips
My lips are not young enough to touch them

I can hear the songs that come through your throat
But my ears cannot lay themselves on your chest where they come from

The digits that type out the searing lines
Are too tender for me hold to my Corinthian ribs

The eyes that seek out fresh and fair flesh
Are not for me to practice my backstrokes in


Diaphanous impregnable wall of almost two decades
Is our cautious chaperone on this long prom night

We just send words up in the ether
That fall on each other
      in
   a
       broken
  rhythm

And I worry if somebody puts a name to it

Haiku Day

my still and stranger breath
phantom roar in the sky
distant dew on the forest floor
..................................................

emptiness is freedom
mortal fear on the ledge
we walk back home

O shit, I can't write

My days are filled with moments, seconds, minutes and hours when I cannot write and/or do not write. This includes times when it is physically impossible to write, or even scribble, like, when I am driving or when I am lying face down under a towel on the massage table of a spa with a woman’s tender hand on my thoracolumbar fascia (is that a bone or muscle or one of Jupiter’s satellites?) or I am having my half yearly single lap in the swimming pool. And then there are those occasions when it may be possible to write but it requires a lot of ingenuity, effort and determination. Like when I am in the midst of a rehearsal of a play or a very boring meeting, or having a drink in a noisy and half dark bar, or having a frosty argument with my wife or just while taking a shit. Come to think of it, it’s not that difficult to write while taking a shit, unless you are taking one of those emergency dumps at an airport or a five star hotel or a mega-mall. But my love for reading and unstinted commitment towards time management for last 25 years, has forced me into a habit of reading when I am in the loo. It’s such a compelling habit that at times I am in a state of nerve wracking distress on the ledge of the bathroom door, while my daughter and wife are desperately rifling through the bookshelf or magazine racks to find something suitable for me to read inside. Ok that’s all about my scatological routines; in gist, I read while shitting and thus I cannot or do not write. There are some other times when I can perhaps write but I do not because of simple ethical dilemma. Like when I am in office. No. I was lying. I do not write in office, not because of an ethical dilemma, but because of the fear of being found out by my juniors and other colleagues and thereby facing a disgraceful end to a brilliant career and the sight of my daughter going to a municipal school and me drinking arrack in stead of $40 vodkas and single malts. Life is tough for a truant author. Or should it be a truant corporate executive having delusional aspirations to be an author?

Anyway, it is an imperative to come to the point after a fairly long digression at the very beginning (my fatal weakness, and natal too). It is just that my days are filled with times when I do not or cannot write. Interestingly, it still leaves me with a fairly decent amount of time in a week or month (aggregated over the miserable days) when I can write. But funnily, or rather sadly I must say, sadly in a totally pathetic way of a loser, during these times, I do not write. I do not write when I am free to write, because I cannot figure out what to write. I do not have anything to write; no ideas, no stories, no heart rendering emotions to write a poem about, no visions, nothing, nada. Zilch. So, if at all I open an empty page and wield a pen or pressing ctrl+n in Microsoft Word, with an intention to write and with some modicum of determination to persevere for at least 15 minutes, then I sit for all those 900 seconds, in front of the blank page in a blended state of fear, anticipation, crappiness and emptiness. Like a woman heaving on the delivery table with no baby inside her womb. What a fucking pain!!

On the other hand, when I am not in a position or disposition to write, I get all the ideas. But that is a different story altogether.

silence and questions

Silence is what you have chosen

As a shield or a spear, I know not

If a shield, then cast it away
For I do not wield a sabre

And if a spear, then stab
At will
For I do offer neither a shield nor a battle

All I have are these hooks
Of questions
Which stick to my flesh
And pester to be answered

They will fall off with time

Which, they say waits for none.
But it seems, with me,
It has found a stable partner