DARE TO DREAM

All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams. ~Elias Canetti

Some days are just not made for waking up.

Open your eyes and the whole of life seems a lesson in disappointment. There is no sepia-tinted crumbling fort to spend a heady afternoon in. There are no forbidden rooftops where you can take in the whole countryside at a glimpse and weave enchanted dreams in a shady corner of. There are no passionate encounters where the hero is neither black nor white but a delicious grey, tempting you to succumb and yet himself resisting your desires. There is no mesmerising moment in a dangerous alley when your cherished ideals are dramatically deconstructed. There is no friend whom you can adore and give up your life for at a moment's notice, with the sweet certainty of its being a cause worthy of such a sacrifice.

Instead, there are umpteen shopping malls where you can go and squander all your hard-earned money on silly trinkets and superfluous garments. There is a flat which is located in a dusty neighbourhood still under construction, with rickshaws, handcarts and lorries competing to blow dust into your weak respiratory system. There is a husband who loves you, but is unable to empathise with the tragic poet in you. There are friends but none who merit such utter devotion.

In short, there is no drama in your moribund stream-of-consciousness. The last time you thought you had somewhat approached it, you were languishing in a 12 hour long flight, watching Jodhaa-Akbar and your psychedelic euphoria was exhaustion-induced and alas, too short-lived. You woke up to realise that you were a bored and unwilling participant in the rat race that is the professional arena. Where socialising mainly involved bitching about one friend or neighbour to another, success was measured in terms of your take-home pay, your financial stability was reflected in the size of your car and the tip you paid at each restaurant you ate out in, your personal worth depended on your eloquence in self-appraisal and the depth of the romantic in you was revealed in the expense of your honeymoon destination.

What shall we do then ? Where shall we find a more glorious retreat ?

Sleep on, I say. And dare to dream. Or maybe pen another post or poem. The virtual world is still virtual enough to tantalise !

Dare to Dream

Dare to dream of far off lands,

Dream of deserts, covered in sand.

Dream of rainforests, trees high above

Dream of finding your one true love.

Dare to dream of lies or the truth,

Dream of never losing your youth.

Dream of battles, dream of a spark.

Dream of light, a light in the dark.

Dare to dream of fighting and sadness,

Dream of men, succumbed to madness.

Dream of warmth and heat and flame,

Dream that your life is just a game.

Dare to dream of hate and mistrust,

Dream of all that’s true and just.

Dream of drowning, drowning in the sea,

Dare to dream of dreaming, yes dare to dream with me.

Lexi Smith

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS ...

Marriage does strange things to you. It not only takes you out out of your familiar surroundings and circle of acquaintances, it also gives you a new home and if lucky, a whole new family. But it is not to talk of the happier side of marriage that I sit today, but of its sad, sombre, sobering aspects.

I’ve just come from my former home to my present one. This is the nth time I’ve done the same and yet, I don’t know why, I feel like I’m doing something wrong. There’s this overwhelming sense of wistfulness and aching sorrow welling up within me every time I cross the same threshold to head for another one, 20 mins’ away by road. I don’t have a brother. I only have my younger sister, Moitreyee (aka Mitu), who wanted me to stop till later in the day and go watch ‘Wake Up Sid’ with her. I turned her down and her expectant smile changed into one of confused hurt. She asked me why I couldn’t return to my shoshurbari (in-laws’ place) later in the day. I’m not employed right now after all. I channelised the conversation into a different direction. There really was no reason why I couldn’t have gone back much later in the day. I could. Except maybe, the more I stay, the more difficult it is to persuade myself to go away. The more I feel I have to go, the more I feel like putting it off for the morrow. The more I know this was once my only home, the more I cry inside, knowing that this is no longer my only home. That I am emotionally committed to going back home. To what I need to fashion into a home. To what shall some day, when I have my own children and no living parents, be my only home.


I comprehend Mitu’s perplexity. Maybe she was thinking of what fun we had had the night before when the three of us (K, herself, I) had sit in what was once my bedroom, playing ‘Calling Bray’ late into the night, me laughing my guts out each time Mitu lost a card and looked absurdly crestfallen or won a card and looked gleefully exultant. Or how we traced our collective way back through the memories of our childhood as we helped K through our old and dusty photo albums. Or how Mitu and I had sauntered through our neighbourhhod park as we returned from the confectionary shop with 500 gm of lal doi (sweet curd) which I had had the audacity to question the increased price of, quoting in the process an ancient rate of Rs 70 for a kg of the same, causing the shopkeeper to sarcastically ask me how long ago I’d made such a curious purchase. Or how we made our slow way through the park, checking every sandy corner for the newborn puppies we’d spotted a few days ago, which we finally distinguished in the darkness and Mitu meowed to, causing me much hilarity. And well, so much and so many more things that recalling would only cause more hurt, more sorrow, lay many more crosses on my already scarred soul.

And let me not even begin to enumerate how I feel when I leave my mother and father behind, lest I cannot sleep for many nights and days, relentlessly wondering why society is so obstinately patriarchal and why girls need at all leave their parents and siblings to adopt another family when there was no lack in the older one. Yes, in my case, there have been and are differences galore with my parents and sometimes, they almost seem ridiculous to me for their want of actual substance. There have been days before my marriage when I went to office hungry but unable to eat at home because of the grim hush that hovered over the household after a quarrel with my parents over the issue of my marriage which, as the day neared, became a foreboding reality to them, not because of any financial troubles but due to its emotional implications. That their gaining a son by marriage was more a cliché than an event since the son would not live with them but rather take their daughter away from them. My parents have become teenagers once again since then, behaving illogically when it comes to awkwardly trying to show that they are still my parents and that although they try, they really can’t help not feeling possessive about me, when it comes to their reaction to my divided loyalties to both households. Even this morning, Ma shoved 4 apples and a packet of biscuits into my bag at the last moment and unlike previous occasions, I didn’t resist, knowing she would be content thinking she'd contributed her bit to my evening snacks. I understand now, after a year of living alone in the USA and singlehandedly donning the mantle of mother, wife and daughter to K, the true implication of her gestures, the material manifestation of a self-effacing love that only a mother can bestow.

Dimma (my maternal grandmother) is a few days or maybe weeks from death, in her 80s, having suffered several consecutive falls, the last probably having led to a clot in her brain. She doesn’t open her eyes, cannot sleep on a proper bed any longer, has bed sores all over from the floor bed she lies in, cannot brush or sanitise herself any longer without total dependence on my mejomashi (middle aunt), whose residence she has been living in, for a long time now. Her own sons, my two mamas (maternal uncles), are a worthless duo, too occupied with their own petty regards and resentments to pay their maybe very last respects to Dimma. I went and managed the household at Salt Lake a couple of weeks ago while Ma went to visit her. Dimma couldn’t even recognize Ma and kept mixing up her grandchildren with her own children. Ma came back in tears. I kept telling Ma that she needed to strengthen herself mentally, prepare herself for the departure that was bound to take place, sooner or later. But this morning, as I was returning home, I wondered whether I myself could ever practice what I had been preaching. One’s family is a habit one may never get over, after all.

I never felt I’d say this, but now I must be true to myself and confess. I sometimes feel I’d have liked to have a brother to bring back his wife to my mother to take my place when I married and left the fold. But on second thoughts, if my brother was like any one of my mamas, I’d rather we sisters took over their roles. But would we be able to do as much as a son would ? I wonder. The phantom of patriarchy remains to haunt my dreams.

MY FIRST BADGE :-))))))

Well, here I am, at last with enough time and honesty at my disposal to accept with great humility and happiness the first badge that I’ve been awarded, and that too, by one of my favourite blogolleagues : Discovering M.

Yay !!!!!!!!!!

Dear DM, here’s a big THANKS for the honour and a bigger SMILE for cheering me up with your flowers (for the confused majority, I suggest checking out his comment on my last post) !

I live upto the legacy of my illustrious predecessors by naming 7 honest blogs and revealing 10 honest things about myself :-)

The honest blogs I can personally vouch for are as follows :

Barnali's World

Sunny Days

Crumbs of Life

Buckets of Rain

Just Like a Watermelon

myselfpallavi.com

The City in July

And well, here's a random 10 honest things about me :

1) I’ve a thing for colours. Almost an obsession. I can't function in a room where the colour of the wall jars on my senses.

2) I believe in the supernatural. But I’m not scared of it. Death has always fascinated me. I don’t think I’ll be afraid to die.

3) I can’t be bothered to small talk or go out of my way to try and impress my intelligence on others. You have to draw me out. Lots of people consider me aloof. I think I’m just reserved.

4) I often hate my closest ones as much as I love them. There. I said it.

5) I detest alcohol. In all forms. Even if I happen to say it’s ok to drink socially.

6) My first ever crush was Ajay Jadeja. I even wrote a 37 page romantic novelette starring him and me. Man.

7) I can’t write happy poems. Sadness inspires me.

8) To me, plagiarism, racial discrimination, gender discrimination, war-mongering and snobbery are crimes. When caught, the guilty should be hanged. Well, at least boycotted.

9) I need to learn diplomacy. But using tact somehow makes me feel like I’ve been lying.

10) I’m afraid the Kolkata Metro automatic ticket checking gates won’t let me past some day. No particular reason. I might have an ‘I, Robot’ or ‘Eagle Eye’ hangover, perhaps.

For more on this note, you're welcome to check out a former post that was actually a response to a Facebook Tag.

tada, guys. I'm off to arrange a belated badge-day celebration !

YOU KNOW WHAT HURTS ?

When you have tried your 100 per cent to be your best self and no one acknowledges it.

When your family shows that they really don’t care about you as an individual.

When you have to justify yourself to people who you thought had at last learned to believe in your integrity and worth.

When you realize that however much you try to improve yourself, others will never let you forget your past.

When you realize raising your voice in protest against wrongs can be read simplistically and crudely as bad-tempered behaviour.

When you realize that love is futile, because blood always turns out to be thicker than even the most self-effacing affection.

When you have to struggle to survive, to establish your self on sterile grounds.

When you realize you are considered a burden, rather than an asset in what you had almost accepted as home.

When you realize that you have given up much of what really mattered for people to whom you don’t really matter.

When there are thoughts, wounds, tears you cannot share with anyone except your own little blog.

MADLY BENGALEE : DURGA PUJO, HERE AND THERE

During our stay in New Jersey for a period of 13 months, we happened to visit the pujos at Ananda Mandir and Bharat Shevasram Sangha, the closest we could hope to approximate in terms of pujo porikroma in 2008.On the evening of Shashthi, after a sumptuous lunch at our friends’ place, a film at Regal Cinemas and a bit of grocery shopping at Patel's Cash & Carry in Somerset, we finally sauntered into the pujo at Ananda Mandir. The milieu was entirely akin to that of a ghorowa pujo, my perception owing much to the thinner but quite-at-ease crowd and the friendly banter that floated to and fro, across the hall when we ousiders entered it for the first time. It was rather chilly that day and the warmth of the gathering was infectious. We left after paying obeisance to the goddess and the ubiquitous round of photography. A tall gentleman in a rust coloured panjabi politely solicited us to partake of bhog. We said we would come back. We had other plans, none of which included paying $40 per head for a single night's dinner. More so when you still haven't outgrown the habit of calculating the rupee equivalent.

Bharat Shevasram Sangha was a pleasant surprise for the senses. It had already distinguished itself from the other pujos by its determination to rigidly adhere to the Indian time of worship. That was a feat, taking into account the fact that US pujo takes place only on weekends, auspicious time or not. But now, apart from that, there were other novelties. I wondered at the presence of so many Bangalis when I had already reconciled myself with the significant absence of the commmunity from the locality where we lived, Somerville. We were greeted by a crowd that jostled but did not push, where sarees and skirts, dhutis and jeans shared wardrobe space, where the infectious rhythm of dhaaker baajna intersected with the American accents of NRIs and an announcement of the "recitation of a kobita", where patiently queueing up for choronamrito, proshad and vegetarian bhog ( jeera rice, alur dom, chholar daal, papad, chaatni ) did not deter the public from generous donations in dollar notes and where traditional christmas tree decorations cohered with colourful hand-painted thermocol cut-outs of dhaakis. I was impressed at the disciplined mass that offered pushpanjali to the goddess and stood eating a spartan bhog in open spaces around a makeshift tent, respecting the spirit of the festival and the essence of the gathering. The volunteers were simultaneously friendly and firm, the children playful and difficult, the worshippers devout and doubtful but the atmosphere was indubitably peaceful and pious. My heart went out in reverence for the monks at the ashram who were managing so many and so much with so little help and so much humility. Tomosho ma jyotirgomoyoh.

What struck me most about Durga Pujo 2009 was the fact that it was the presence of our friends and family in Kolkata and the re-igniting of familiar sensations that made our homecoming so special for us. There was nothing very radical we did this year as a matter of fact. We did the routine rounds of Maddox Square, Dumdum Park, Labony Estate, Ekdalia Evergreen, Ballygunge Cultural, Paddapukur, FD Block, Bosepukur, Bagbazar etc amidst the usual maddening crowds and uneasy humidity. We did not cook at home, eating out instead at a couple of new restaurants and a few old favourites (by default, mindlessly opting for the standard Chinese and Bengali fare), totally oblivious to the mounting calories. We wore what the media impressed upon us as very unique and trendy attire this year and muddled up our aantel intellects by trying to make mental notes of the latest fashion dos and don’ts. We devoured the latest sharodiyo shonkhya of the traditional pujo magazines. We kept aside our most expensive and arresting attire for the Ashtami-r anjali and waited irritably for the pongkti-bhoj to start so that we could soothe our growling stomachs and disappear soon after for some wholesome adda and the indispensable diba-nidra. We sat fidgeting, only half-attentive to the nrityogeeti and natok at our respective para functions, wondering where the lady in the next row had bought that awesome dhakai jamdaani (damn it, she was looking so irresistibly glam) and who the neighbourhood heart-throb was spending the time of day with on such intimate terms !

What then was unique about this pujo ? Maybe it was the sheer creative spectrum embodied in each pujo mondop, big or small, defiantly countering in art the lurid political panorama looming over our deceptively stable social microcosms ? Maybe it was the relief at being able to sense anew what every Bengali feels during this festive season : that these sacred five days will pass by all too soon and then there shall be the entire one year (of endless bandhs, bypass surgeries and bland jhol-bhaat) to endure before we are all together in spirit once more, celebrating our culture and our lifestyle. Maybe it was the realization that this one time of the year, we manage to forget our mundane existences and live on in a trance of dhaaker badyi induced psychedelia, certain that we can garner from the auspicious montro and the blessed bhog the shokti to metamorphose the humdrum into the hallowed, the chaotic into the cosmic.

Otherwise why was it that after a whole year of absence in my motherland, my pujo reconciled me to all that I had missed in a whole year and made me feel that it did not matter after all : I was home at last ? Ma Herself had accompanied me here and although she returned to her husband’s abode all too soon, she did leave me a happy human being : Madly Bengalee !