Losing Chunks.

Last night I dreamt of my kindergarten school. I saw I was walking down 8B more while I ran into this woman who knew me when I was 2, who taught me the difference between red and blue and between a circle and a square, among other things. “Mary Aunty” we used to call her. I saw Mary Aunty in my sleep-in a cotton sari and a big bindi, and she took me to my old school. I saw the dimly lit room which had colourful soft boards on all the walls. I saw the mounds of plasticine that were moulded into being pink elephants and green ducks. I walked around barefeet feeling the coldness of the ground where I learnt how to walk straight and I think I saw the green wooden merry-go-round too.

Having woken up from sleep, I called up my mother to ask her if the school still stands down that road in Jadavpur. She said it shut down a long time back.

It’s funny how we are growing old everyday, not by blowing off candles but by these little losses. The other day J.D. Salinger passed away and I felt I lost a big chunk of my growing up with him. I remembered my school leaving diary and what someone I totally love, had written. She wrote, “I always thought I was the catcher, not realizing that it was you who has been catching me all through.” Holden Caulfield has been a part of my growing up, he opened me up to a magic that only works once. With magic of this sort, the rabbit gets pulled out of the hat only once and you forever remember that ephemeral moment when the white gloved hand of the magician pulls a smiling rabbit out of his red ribbon lined black hat. You try and hold on to that moment of disbelief forever, because you know that, that is going to be the only time you will see anything of that sort ever happen.

“We are losing all our childhoods”, I said.
“It all has to go someday”, you replied.

I believe you. But I’m holding onto my moments of magic.

14 A, 14 B

India wasnt quite turning out the way she thought it would. It had been an hour since she'd been sitting inside the aircraft that stood stranded on the Delhi runway because of the thick fog that veiled the line of sight. Very little was visible outside the window except for the colourful tails of other aircrafts that stood stranded as well.She sat between this girl in a red pullover who didnt seem too keen on striking a conversation and another suited business man type man who was a bit too keen.The breakfast served in-flight was pretty good. To be honest, she didnt expect an Indian airline to serve such good food.Her eyes fell on this blue coloured book the red pullover girl was reading- The Bell Jar. "Ah, the morbid sort", she thought. And it was then that her grey eyes caught the two bangles that adorned the red pullover girl's wrists-circles of brown with little patterns of white on them. Were they made of bamboo or wood? Whatever they were, they were unlike any other bangle she'd seen before but they stood out like sore thumbs-jarring against the red pullover."People with negative fashion sense shouldn't own such pretty things", she thought, "if only she turned super generous suddenly..."

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

Her first trip to Chennai was being delayed because of the thick blanket of fog over Delhi. Bored,she decided to read this book from her course which she had abandoned after two pages the last time she tried reading it. "Too morbid",she had thought.She didnt really feel like chatting up with this firang who sat next to her."Portuguese", she said to herself after stealing a glance at her magenta passport.The shady North Indian businessman type person on the firang's right was giving her enough company-unsolicited though.Breakfast was over when she saw the blank green (or were they grey?) eyes staring at the bangles on her wrists. Self-conciousness spread through every inch of her body as she tried hiding the embarrassment behind this book she was reading.She knew they didnt match with her outfit in any way whatsoever and wished that the green eyes would only stop looking. Infact, she was even ready to give them off to her, she could keep them as her Indian souvenirs.If only she could tell her that the sari ate up all the space in her suitcase and she had no option but to wear these bangles,that matched with the sari, which refused to fit into the baggage.

Hairloss,exams and anonymity

I remembered those high school songs today-the stuff we listened to when our hormones had lives of their own...
Mohiner Ghoraguli was one of the bands i started listening to,at 15...from old cassettes Ma collected.does anyone listen to cassettes these days?are tape recorders available these days?
I think i have a carton full of cassettes lying somewhere in the Golf Green house,or maybe the Salt Lake house.I must look into it this time and maybe,i'll look for my walkman too.
Anyway,after about 5 years from when i was 15, i listened to these lines...

"Kauke cheno na tumi,
tomake chene na keu-
shei to bhalo..."
("it's good that you know no one,and no one knows you)

I realised that one may run from one city to another in search of that evading anonymity,but very few things change.You become a known face,your habits become known,everyone comes to know what you like to eat,everyone ends up knowing how much you love purple...
everyone comes to know how you lose hair during exams.
each year.every year.

Plasticine smell and Fountain ponytail.

I was on my way to teach the kids-running down the Khan Market-Pandara Road junction when there was this sudden waft of plasticine smell.It was kind of weird because there was nothing around me except a huge plot of Metro construction which didnt have a remote possibility of using plasticine!yet there it was...in the air around me.in the air that entered my being.
i remembered days,seventeen years back,in a ground floor classroom-not very brightly lit,with colourful boards on the walls.i remembered this girl who sat next to me,who later came to know the best, and perhaps the worst, of me.this girl whose cheek i used to tug at everyday-with so much force that she cried (the cause of my violent streak still remains unexplained).and the very next morning,there she would be-smiling at me,with a fountain-like ponytail on top of her head.
pains we cause these days, seem to stay on forever.
i wish things were as simple now.

We Bengalis have this weird obsession with names. While people from most other regions of the country get through life with one name, Bengalis have atleast two.One “Bhalo Naam” or the official name that adorns certificates, exercise books’ labels, etc. One could say the “Bhalo Naam” is the “written” name. While “Daak Naam”, on the other hand, is the pet name used by the family or its equivalents and childhood friends. It is, quite literally, the “called” name. (“daak” means “to call” and “naam” is “name”)
I have had a love-hate relationship with my pet name. Admittedly it is not as embarrassing as the run-of-the-mill Buri, Mummum, Mou etc, but I never really got too fond of it. What is really interesting is this strange sense of comfort that one begins to associate with one’s pet name.
Somewhere down the line, I guess I have begun to cherish being called by my pet name and perhaps, also the people who call me by it. There’s this odd sense of reassurance when you meet an old friend who introduces you to his friends by your pet name or when, in an alien city, in the middle of a market with people who only call you by your “bhalo naam”, someone suddenly calls out your pet name. Though I’ve often been embarrassed by such loud greetings, I admit that there has always been an accompanying sense of ease in knowing that there’s someone who has seen me in my most basic self-perhaps with my braces on or with my ugly middle-school girl bob. It is with these people I can laugh out loud or maybe walk around in my pajamas.
The sad part, however, is that as we grow older, the number of people who call us by our pet name decreases. Grandparents pass away, grand aunts grow amnesiac and para friends drift apart. That is when, to reclaim that little piece of memory that “growing up” consumed, we smile each time someone-anyone-calls us by the name that appeared on the envelopes our family gifted money in or the name that our playmates shouted out below our balconies to announce the arrival of another evening that was meant to be spent playing-completely unaware of the days when this very name would betray its nomenclature and be rarely called.

P.S: i am sorry for not having blogged for so long.let's hope this is the end of my step motherly treatment for my blog.

Leather

Love is like that fly and the fire.
The fire that burns irrespective of how dark the world around is.
The fire that warms inspite of all the cold.
The fly that flies around, no matter how still the world becomes.
The fly that always runs into the fire, irrespective of whatever else he can run into.

Love.
Is like that rose they etched on leather.

I have always felt brides look the best on the "Baashi Biye" day, that is the day after the wedding-the day when she goes away to her In-Laws' place. It is on that day that i feel the strain of the wedding, that shrouds the bride for months, is gone and yet there is a sense of nervousness in her sleep deprived eyes. The loud make up of the previous night is washed away and the hair is freed from the tight bun held together with an array of pins.
There is hardly any trace of make up and her face sort of lights up with the tinge of vermilion in the parting of her hair and the gold of the jewellery she wears.
When my sister got married, she looked her best on her Bashi Biye, though she got herself dark circles from all the crying. But inspite of all the fatigue and all the money that was spent to doll her up the night before, I feel she looked the best without any makeup, in a bindi and those unsure eyes brimming with new dreams. There's a beauty in the way she looked that day.A beauty no stylist can reproduce with bottles and jars of make-up.
And that's the way my sister, as the bride, will always remain in my heart.