Dead and Not Loving It.

I'm very down and out today.

I don't know what it is that makes me feel this way. It might be the fortnight-old cold that just doesn't seem to cure. It might be the fact that S and I are off to catch 'Aisha' today but without Ko, whose grandpa's down with malaria. It might be because my friend's marriage is on the rocks. It might be because I have so little time for myself nowadays that I don't know what to do with my leisure any more. It might be because I want to blog but not to rant and yet that is what I'm only upto right at the moment. It might be because the brand new sharodiya 'Anandamela' is lying on the bed but I don't feel like reading it. It might be because there's so much of household work all around that I'm sick of my very existence. It might be because I feel the girl in me is wasting away, careful always to not tread on anyone's toes. It might be because my life seems all too predictable right now and that's the last thing the Gemini like me would wish for.

There's so much yet left to do : learn a language, test my interior designing skills, write a book, complete my anthology (long overdue), have a child, build my own house, visit new places (so many !!!), become famous...

But nothing seems to matter now...

Am I dying ?

Not literally, of course. That might have been better.

FOR BRINDAS, EVERYWHERE :

This poem was composed in a fit of inspiration last night after watching 'Antaheen' ; it voices the unspoken thoughts of Avik (Rahul Bose's character) towards the 'end' of the film. I do not like the word 'end' as it seems to blight the vision of the film that its name serves to convey so faithfully...but for lack of a more apt word, I surrender.

Please do give me your feedback, it matters.

REQUIEM

I cry for the tears you never shed
I mourn those letters you never read
For now, alas, I am but a life unled
For you, I am emotion unsaid, unbled.

There were tunnels where I dared not read your eyes,
Remorse, that shared, would not be wise,
Silences I feared to tread on, believing lies,
Words hard and hateful, but no goodbyes.

And now, I stare into a vast unknown…
Treading tortuous, tortured lanes, all alone ;
Reliving moments love might have sown
Mourning the stranger whom I have always known.


------ GARGI MANDAL-MUKHERJEE

18-07-2009

Faith

My eyes were covered and closed: eddying darkness seemed to swim round me, and reflection came in as black and confused a flow. Self-abandoned, relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains, and felt the torrent come: to rise I had no will, to flee I had no strength. I lay faint, longing to be dead. One idea only still throbbed life-like within me--a remembrance of God: it begot an unuttered prayer: these words went wandering up and down in my rayless mind, as something that should be whispered, but no energy was found to express them--

"Be not far from me, for trouble is near: there is none to help."

It was near: and as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it--as I had neither joined my hands, nor bent my knees, nor moved my lips--it came: in full heavy swing the torrent poured over me. The whole consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my hope quenched, my faith
death-struck, swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen mass. That bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, "the waters came into my soul; I sank in deep mire: I felt no standing; I came into deep waters; the floods overflowed me."

Jane Eyre
Chapter XXVI






FAITH


Tears
Torrent,
Fears
Ferment,
Debts
Torment.
Words
Serpent,
Weapons
Dent.


The memory of
Yesterday’s
Unholy
Loud
Proud
Laughter
Coming apart
In slow
Hollow
Shreds,
Seizure of art :
The very thought
of
Today :
A Blasphemy.


The smooth
Uncouth
surface
Can no longer soothe ;
Serrates
Smashes into
A Million
Senseless
Smithereens;
Each staring
Ecstatically
Sarcastically
Into
Each other’s
Reflections.



*


I cannot recall
What
Whom
I walked away from
The prodigal
Why
Begging
Impeachment
Reproach
Mired in material
Mirages.


But
She accepts
Surrender
Submission
Forgives
Sweeps up
Forgotten fragments
Promises
Vows
Renews



*



I
Kneel
Before
Her
Head on heel
Humbled
No words
No tears
No fears
No spears
No arrears



The Omniscient



My soul
Stands redeemed
Unconditionally
For
Seeking within
I have found
In silence
A miracle :
Faith.


GARGI MANDAL
22-04-2009

And because this is one of those rare days when my soul bares itself to you all, this is for you :

Peace.

Depression

Yesterday evening, both K and I were feeling singularly low. There was no palpable sadness or boredom or wistfulness, just the burden of indifference and extreme detachment. I took hardly any interest in our shopping sortie at 'Stop N Shop' yesterday, which was a particular cause of concern for K, since I do usually display quite a lot of enthisiasm via exploration and experimentation every time we embark on a stuffing-the-fridge-to-death trip. K thinks we shouldn't have watched 'Oliver Twist' on a Sunday afternoon, we were evidently suffering from a hangover. But I couldn't be sure ; it might also be the betrayal of spring. Officially the first day of spring here, 20th March, was marred by flurries in the morning and extreme wind chill. The unusually warm weather for the past fortnight or so seemed to have given way with a vengeance to the last of the winter blasts. K had to pull out his thermals morosely yestoday morning and we slept with two comforters last night. Soundly, true, but a tad dejected. It might also have been the weekend hangover, you know...Monday blues and what not. For K, of course, he has to return to his office on Mon morning.

But what occasions this post is the recollection of my dismissal of the Twist hangover being met by K's extraordinary explanation for our bleak state of mind : the prospect of eating vegetables on Monday night (esp because I had made a cabbage curry, which he is rather bored of now; the cabbage I mean, not my cooking, silly !) after a shamelessly decadent non-veg (tandoori chicken kebabs + lamb rogan josh) weekend. He is, in fact, astonished at how he manages to make it through the usually veggies 4-day (Mon-Thu) week; since we usually reserve all our fancy non-veg preparations for the weekend.

Well, I've heard of umpteen reasons to feel down till date, but this one sure took the cake !

Paradise Lost

I was just wondering how we react to changing circumstances and whether that really makes us master of our own fortunes to the extent we'd like to be. A friend put up photos of her sister's newborn baby yesterday and that was the trigger for these reflections. I just can't get over the wonder of the process of growth of a newborn into a full fledged adult and then actually leaving the nest to discover life. The sheer contrast between the helplessness of the infant and the ruthlessness of the adult astounds me. I was watching 'To Kill a Mocking Bird' yesterday and the experience of innocence transforming into experience was a marvel indeed. It's been going on for ages, this metamorphosis, and yet one wonders. At the cycle of life that fuses good with evil and makes us embrace both to attain wisdom. No use grieving over the once trailing clouds of glory and the angelic (if limited) existence that we were cocooned in. Much as they might have wanted to, parents have never been able to shield their children from the darker, baser side of life. It will happen. One way or the other. And they all (even the victims, at times) remain unhappy onlookers (and even participants) of that momentous occasion.

Ma slipped and fell down the stairs of our home on 17th Feb, 2009. Her nightdress and chappals caught on the rails of the collapsible gate that looms midway between our ground and first floor and dragged her down several stairs, taking her by such shock that it was all over before she realised that something had happened, and further, not being able to get up indicated at some unpleasant development. Mitu called me up frantically here and I ransacked my address book to locate the phone numbers of a couple of neighbours and relatives who might be able to reach the spot fast before the situation took a turn for the worse. Both Mitu and K tried Baba's cellphone but it went on ringing without any vocal response. It was 11.45 here at night and we had just been about to turn in for the night. Finally, we managed to communicate with Dr Sur, our neighbour (a very old gentleman) and Pranab Kaku. They promised immediate aid. A couple of hours later, K woke up a headache-treated-with-crocin-groggy me to offer the information that Baba had arrived and they had reached Baba's hospital to get an X-ray done. Ma had torn 60 of the 1000 ligaments of her ankle, the condition being serious enough to be bracketed as a simple fracture and impair normal movement for more than 21 days. Three whole weeks has now been extended to a month, Mitu tells me. The whole world has gone topsy turvy at the small Mandal microcosm and I'm just sitting here and drowning my helplessness and pain in words. I now realise what most women in patriarchial society lose with marriage : the solace of happily executing their own small but well-demarcated duties to parents and siblings in an oh-so-familiar world. My own situation is not the general one perhaps. Not everyone is living in a different land after marriage. But you can't but concede that yes, it has the potential of developing into the permanent and general situation some day in this era of mass migration and globalisation. The trauma of being a hapless (n)on-looker of the trials & tribulations of one's immediate family and too far away to be of much practical aid is an agony I don't possess the audacity to express in words.

This is the same parent that carried me in her womb for 9 months and nurtured me for God knows how many sleepless nights and days. Maybe she continues to do it even now. And here I am. A sphinx of solipsistic splendour.

Blues

I miss you, Ma.

This one's for you.

Allergy Woes

I have known for quite some time that I'm allergic to seafood, of which the most common instance would be prawns. The realisation dawned on me after allergy attacks on four very disparate occasions, among which the only common factor had been prawns. On the first occasion it had been my maternal uncle's daughter's marriage reception at Behala, on the second it had been at my father's friend's niece's reception at ITC Sonar Bangla near Science City, on the third it was a dinner with my prospective husband and in-laws at Marco Polo in China at Park Street and the final one again with my in-laws at a friends' family function in GC Block, Salt Lake. Four times seems too many to be a coincidence. Especially since each of the dishes containing prawn happened to be cooked in very different ways at each of these places. Weirdly enough,the ones we call kucho chingri (miniscule/tiny prawn) don't seem to affect me in a similar way. But I had such an alarm after the aforementioned occasions, when I had been rushing to the toilet almost every ten minutes to either throw up or throw down the unacceptable remains of the prawns in my body or writhing on the bed, clutching onto my stomach which would send out spasms of acute pain every few minutes that .... well....I've given up seafood for good. The very sight of prawns, whatever be their size or however exotic the dish, causes me to just look the other way. Even the ads of 'Red Lobster' on TV here, in fact, make me feel sick. Very sick.

However there seem to be other nasty surprises in store for me. I found out in a very painful way recently, that I'm allergic to other untried variants of seafood as well. The latest on the list has been tuna. I was heading for a whale of an allergy attack last Sunday night, which I stalled just in time by popping two LevoCetirizines and an anti-spasmodic pill. But there was too much discomfort and gastro-intestinal pain even after that to partake of any dinner. I went to bed hungry. I'm scared stiff right now. Don't think I'll be doing any sort of experimentation in the seafood domain for a long, long time to come.

For all those who still believe in love...

SEEKING SHELTER

I do wish I too had a home
To return to at each sunset
To temper all my travails
To wipe my tears away
To bury my fears forever
To love me into a fever
For I know not where to seek shelter
Now that I’m caught dead in this storm.

My heart is broken, comrades,
For I have nowhere to go
Too aged for school classrooms
Too proud to pester parents
Too careworn for college corners
And too wretched to face myself,
Bravely confess to unrequited love.

I must have dreamed of heaven
Someone I could call my own
But night has already set in
And realization begun to dawn
You were just a stranger I’d trusted too much
Who had kidnapped my secrets and gone.

Come join me on my journey tonight,
All you who know no rest;
Maybe we can forge a vision
Even if we have failed life’s test…
At least we shall find our mission,
Some day we too shall be blessed.

The Dawn of Realisation...

Waking up to reality...that is the most difficult thing to do...all of us, I think, insist on living with our own set of illusions. And then, one day, you cannot lie to yourself any longer, because the veil has been lifted and you have seen your life for what it is and of course, more painfully, for what it is not; but what you kept thinking it was, simply because that is the way it might have been. If you had dared to take some other road perhaps. And then life stares you bleakly and bitterly in the face.

Sometimes I wonder... all those who have hurt me, was it because I insisted on misreading their expectations or is it because it is simply so difficult to know another person, however beloved he or she is to you? But the problem is that once you have seen the 'real' (not as in the real of reality), life (or the absence of it) is never the same again. You have been sobered and silenced.

In such a case, whose fault is it that we could never communicate effectively enough to forge a meaningful relationship? Language or the lack in us....Lacan's 'lack of a lack?'

Or is it simply because none of us had tried hard enough to succeed?

The only consolation I do have is that God loves me, with all my faults and flaws.

Great. I've attained insight. Now the only question is....what do I do with it?

My Mundane Moves...

The rain continues. And so does the pain. Neither can I attend office nor can I participate in any other productive activity. Tell me, now that India has won the World Twenty 20, what do I get as a reward for that knowledge? Nothing. So then.

It has been raining cats and dogs for the past 3 days and I’m sick of it all. Star Ananda and NDTV air reports to the effect that the myth of the area I live in never getting water logged has been shattered, but all the same, some people don’t seem to believe me. That I’m bored and tired of being cooped up at home. That I haven’t been able to get much pujo shopping done nor go catch the latest movie at the nearest multiplex. That I hate a life where I even have to go work on Saturdays and Sundays. That my poor K is sorely missing me because of my non-existent weekends. That one’s life is not equivalent to one’s professional life.

It’s true that I enjoy my work. And that I actually look forward to going to office. So much so that I overlook the dreary journey to office everyday…not getting the desired bus or shuttle, the incessant traffic jams, the waterlogged streets, the mud and slush on rainy days, the standing all the way when you’ve had the misfortune of boarding an overcrowded bus, the disgusted look on my parents’ face when I return home on Sat evening at 7.30 pm, feeling totally unsocial and undone. If only people realized that and empathized. But I guess it’s too much to ask for. Some people are just not satisfied with anything that you do.

Is it then a vicious circle? Sometimes I’m so tired, I just want to give up. And go home to K.

I miss the you I once knew...

EXISTENCE

I carry you about
Within me
Or
Maybe without :
A void
That gives meaning
To my presence,
The spectral past
That haunts
Daunts
Taunts
My formless future.

When we met,
Uncertain partners
In the locus
Of a labyrinthine doubt,
Our shadows struggled,
Strived, distraught,
To see
Through
The distance,
To ribbon
The romance
Of the present,
Our present.

My tomorrow,
For the moment,
Is fraught,
Just a stray, scary thought…
Wafting through
The wilderness
Of what may never
Have happened…

If so…
What am I…
Who are you…
Why is it we fought…
What is it we sought…
And
What have our memories
All been about?

We have, perhaps,
All been at fault…