Random Reading Project: Day 6

 So this is from a reel by Thera.find whom I follow on Instagram.

It made me think that this is one of the lessons we all have to learn in life, sooner or later.

A poem I wrote...after a prolonged hiatus...

MEMORIAL

Did I think you were the answer to all my sorrows ?

I do.

Did I think you were the messiah of my tomorrows ?

I do. I do. I do.

I cradle you to the cross of my soul

A baby never to be.

My dreams beckon you into my sight

A river never to swim to sea.

And yet, despite you, I spite you

Because you were never my chosen.

I dare not wish for wisps of you

I myself have burnt and broken.

Will you ?

There are tears, there are fears

Bitter, battered years

As I mourn my own dead.

And yet I walk, how yet I talk

Scanning a senseless yoke

Legacy of a vampire undead.

Do you ?

Your touch is almost on my arm

A weapon of pain I cannot disarm

Your voice a tune I clutch in my palm

Your ghost the secret of my psalm.

And yet, before you ask me,

I must one day unmask me

And tell you the truth :

I do.

Love All

I've often wondered why people bother to hate when they can have an easier way out : love. I know Gandhiji isn't around any more and it's easier to preach than to practise in todays' world but I've tried in my own way to believe in the force of love. A positive emotion is always easier to act on than a negative one, I've found. And no one's asking you to forget after all, just to forgive and move on.

But I find it increasingly hard to nurture this streak of benevolence within me. When words become weapons and someone else's weakness your strength, then the very axis of your mental sphere collapses. The hurt, the bitterness, the resentment become so overwhelming a lump that there is a sense of agony that is almost physical. Your self-esteem takes a nosedive, your confidence suffers a blow and your darkest side comes to the fore. All that is repressed in the unconsciousness then returns with a vengeance.

How can I then love ? I have no love with which to defeat the hate in me.

But as James Baldwin says, "I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain."

So I shall love again. Come what may.

And yes, let us consider what Somerset Maugham says : "We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person. "

Makes sense, methinks.

What about you ?

Wonder to Wisdom

DEAD FLOWERS ON OUR GRAVE

Sometimes, love just isn't enough.

When windows light up the city sky
But darkness dawns on my eyes,
It's time to draw the curtains
To mourn the need to arise.

For he lies drunk in slumber
Having done his good deed of the day ;
But I must stand, silent and sombre,
Sober mistakes rankling bloody and grey.

We travelled a morning misty but magical
Flowers smiling our way to a home...
Now their corpses rot out of rainbows
Bitter yesterdays serenade their tome.

Doom descends on the departing horizon
As I stare truth into these dead hands :
He crushed the blossom and tore out their scent
While I wept witness to the war in our lands.

------------- GARGI MANDAL

Death in the Family

Dimma (my maternal grandma) died around 5.10 pm on Sunday morning. Ma called me up early in the morning. Having received news that Dimma had lapsed into a coma, she said she'd be leaving within a couple of hours for Panagarh (of the military base fame) where Dimma had been staying with my mejomashi (my middle aunt) for the last few years. Because of my back problem , I needn't go over and stay at Salt Lake. My parents-in-law were away in North Bengal, so I couldn't have shirked my responsibilities here in any case. All I needed to do was check from time to time whether everything was ok with Mitu (my sibling) since Ma doesn't have much faith in my father's sense of responsibility when it comes to family (he's a doctor, so you get the drift). She said she didn't expect Dimma to live beyond that day or at the most, the day after. I called her again around 2 pm, and she said that she'd just reached mashi's place. Dimma, too weak and physically incapacitated, couldn't possibly be removed to a hospital, so a doctor had been called over. Other relatives had come over and there was a tangible sense of impending gloom. I said I'd check on her again later, in that case.

We were supposed to go over that evening to Salt Lake to my parents' place. Baba was attending a seminar at the Hyatt and there was a cocktail dinner at the Rowing Club to round it off that night. Mitu would probably not feel like attending the event if we guys weren't around, so I persuaded K, explaining the logic . (We had had Rashi and Saugata sleeping over the previous night and had had a whole lot of rich food in this sultry weather, so he didn't really feel like partaking of some more of the former at the invitation in question.) We had just taken a nap and I was sitting on the bed, contemplating whether to make tea first or decide what to wear when Ma called.

Some intuition told me that Ma's calling at that particular point of time did not augur good news. I remember K's puzzled look when I kept on staring at the mobile screen and then turning to him and telling him in a lame, lost way that it was Ma calling. Eventually, I must have answered the call for I could distinctly hear Ma's voice sounding strangely and unnaturally clear, telling me that Dimma had 'just' passed away. Her matter-of-fact voice injected stupor into me, for I can't remember anything of what she told me after that. There was already wetness on my cheeks and along the sides of my nose and somehow, in between all of this, I was lying down, turning my face away from K because I was conscious of this being a moment of personal loss, something he could not possibly understand, empathise or sympathise with. It was something that was intensely personal, a bereavement that would mean different things to different people but somehow, none of our emotions would be the same. There would always be a difference, because I was mourning at the shrine of my own personal existence, grieving for one whose birth had inevitably predestined mine. I was reliving family, blood ties, shared memories. Somehow, in those few moments, I felt like Ma was no longer just a mother, I was no longer just her daughter. We had been promoted by an entire generation.

But we could have done without it.

Dimma, I'll miss not having you around. Memories are not a very good substitute for the physical presence of a person, are they ?

Blaring Horns

Why is it that I feel like seeking sanctuary at the Osho ashram in Pune everytime I'm out on the roads of Kolkata ?

Is it because I seem to hear nothing but car horns honking all the time : a cacophony that penetrates into my eardrums and threatens to deprive me of my sanity for good...a noise that I've been used to since school-going days and which I still can't suffer without feeling my blood beginning to boil and my senses reel from the almost tangible assault on my ears, my mind, my consciousness, my being ?

Is it because I feel like doing what many there were allowed to do (I wonder whether it's valid even now) : get into one particular sound proof room and scream their guts out like Preity Zinta's character in The Last Lear ?

Would that help ? Would it help get all that anger, frustration, annoyance, disgust, agony, angst, stress out of my system once and for all ?

Would it ?

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.

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.

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

DISASTER DRAMA

This is the incredibly sombre, sobering forward I discovered today morning in my mail-box :

"Subject: A330: AIR FRANCE CRASH PHOTOS, AMAZED BY GUY'S INSTINCT......2 photos after Collision and before Death....


Feel so sad for all the passengers including the extraordinary photographer, who kept his cool even in his last moments of life and took this photo. Hats off to him !!!

Yesterday the world saw the disappearance of an A330 Air France during a trans-Atlantic flight between Rio and Paris. Very ironic that a day before, I got a mail of the photos taken by a passenger on a flight mins after a mid-air collision, and mins before the crash of the said aircraft : two shots taken inside the plane before it crashed. Unbelievable!

A B737 had a mid air collision with the Embraer Legacy while cruising at 35,000 feet over South America. The Embraer Legacy, though seriously damaged with the winglet ripped off, managed to make a landing at a nearby airstrip in the midst of the Amazon jungle. The crew and passengers of the Embraer Legacy had no idea what they had hit. The B737however crashed, killing all crew and passengers on board.

The two photos attached were apparently taken by one of the passengers in the B737, just after the collision and before the aircraft crashed. The photos were retrieved from the camera's memory stick. You will never get to see photos like this. In the first photo, there is a gaping hole in the fuselage through which you can see the tailplane and vertical fin of the aircraft.



In the second photo, one of the passengers is being sucked out of the gaping hole.


Photos taken inside the GOL B 737 aircraft that was involved in a mid air collision and crashed.....

These photos were found in a digital Casio Z750, amidst the remains in Serra do Cachimbo. Although the camera was destroyed, the Memory Stick was recovered. Investigating the serial number of the camera, the owner was identified as Paulo G. Muller, an actor of a theatre for children in the outskirts of Porto Alegre. It can be imagined that he was standing during the impact with the Embraer Legacy and during the turbulence, he managed to take these photos. Just seconds after the tail loss, the aircraft plunged. So the camera was found near the cockpit. The structural stress probably ripped the engines away, diminishing the falling speed, protecting the electronic equipment but not unfortunately the victims. Paulo Muller leaves behind two daughters, Bruna and Beatriz."

Last words : Sukanta Chaudhuri, one of our most respected professors at JU, once told us when teaching 'Macbeth' : "Disaster is what we think always happens to others. Until it suddenly dawns on us that tomorrow, we may be the others." I just remembered that.

What else, in the name of CPM ?!

I've been struck speechless ever since I read this article today morning...what hope or scope of improvement is there in a country where people are more concerned about milking the poor and sick for their own private monetary benefits rather than happy to witness them being provided for medically by people as selfless as this particular couple ? And where political parties exist only to fuel such selfishness instead of curbing it ? None, methinks, none at all.

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JS00vMjAwOS8wNi8xNCNBcjAwMjAw&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom

Doomsday

"I'm tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. We are supposed to work it. " ~Alexander Woollcott

Source : THE TIMES OF INDIA, 05-06-2009 (HEADLINES)


Diarrhoea grips Sunderbans

70% Aila Victims Suffer, Govt Sees No Crisis

Prithvijit Mitra TNN

Kolkata: Sunderbans is in the grip of the worst diarrhoea epidemic to break out in south Bengal in three decades. Nearly 70% of Aila-affected people are suffering from the disease as they have no choice but to consume contaminated water.

The sachets of water being supplied to the mangrove islands are but a trickle for thousands of thirsty villagers. And a poor distribution system has prevented it from reaching villages in the interiors. Voluntary organizations working in the cyclone-ravaged areas have come up with shocking data and warn that things could get worse.

The government, however, paints a completely different picture. It says the situation is under control and not more than 5% of the population has been affected.

Doctors, voluntary workers and paramedical staff working in the area say the disease is spreading very fast. Figures compiled by the South Asian Forum for Environment (SAFE), an NGO, reveal that 67% villagers in the Sunderbans are suffering from enteric infection and diarrhoea. A further 18% are victims of snake bites, dog bites and accident injuries, 9% are suffering from skin infection and 6% from other diseases. Which means there is hardly any healthy individual on the storm-struck islands. And less than a dozen doctors to treat them.

A team of doctors from the Medical Service Centre (MSC) — a voluntary organization — confirmed the figures. It could be even worse, they fear. “There is not a single safe water source left there. Millions of gallons are being supplied, but they are either diverted elsewhere or do not reach the people at all. Medicines are sent but unless steps are taken to provide potable water, the epidemic cannot be curbed,” said Angshuman Mitra, who led the MSC team. No more than 30-35% of the victims have access to relief support system, the NGOs said. The only drinking water sources in the Sunderbans — tubewells and PHE pipelines — have got contaminated.

A Sandeshkhali resident fetches water amid the debris on Thursday

How about us all pitching in for a change, instead of playing the old blame game all over again ?

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.

Prioritisation

From :

The Times Of India, Kolkata
22 April 2009


Power staff put on poll duty in midst of crisis

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Kolkata/Durgapur : It was a freak technical snag that blacked out Kolkata on Sunday. On Tuesday morning, in the middle of a power crisis in the state, two units of the Mejia thermal power plant under Damodar Valley Corporation had to be shut down for five hours because 150 employees from the crucial generation stations were sent for election duty. Employees of emergency supplies, like power utilities, are generally exempted from poll duty — a fact chief electoral officer Debashis Sen confirmed to TOI — but for some reason, the district administration ignored this. Amal Sarkar, chief engineer of Mejia, DVC’s biggest power plant, said Bankura DM Sindar Majumdar had ordered the release of the employees for training as election ‘microobservers’. West Bengal Power Development Corporation managing director S Mahapatra said he had heard nothing like it during his career. As the 150 employees duly reported for poll duty, the second and third units of Mejia that each generate 210 MW were shut down at 8 am. Later, the DVC brass intervened and secured their exemption. With 420 MW out of the system, the crisis that had developed following a transformer blast at the national grid in Durgapur on Monday night deepened. Seven DPL units went out of commission at once. By Tuesday evening, two smaller ones were back on track but two others with combined generation capacity of 460 MW remained inoperative. A DPL spokesman said the seventh unit, DPL’s biggest at 300 MW, would take at least three days to restart. That’s really bad news when unrelenting weather has pushed demand in Kolkata — which endured a sweltering blackout on Sunday and is still facing intermittent power cuts — to a record 1,528 MW. Across the state, it peaked to 3,600 MW. A demand that the state power utilities are not capable of handling. Anger over the power cuts led to protests and road blockades in Kolkata.





Protests in city over power cuts


Kolkata/Durgapur : The shutdown of two units of the Mejia thermal power plant — thanks to the staff being roped in for poll duty — made its effect felt quickly. Kolkata, where demand had peaked to a record 1,528 MW on Tuesday, ran short of 188 MW in the evening. For the state, the shortfall was a whopping 450 MW. It led to intermittent power cuts in Kolkata and elsewhere. Unable to watch Kolkata Knight Riders play for the second time, angry citizens blocked roads at Dum Dum and other places in the city. The state power department may argue on whether it was a “load shedding” or a technical snag in the system, but it means little to citizens who cursed the government for power cuts. With Lok Sabha polls a week away, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee gave a piece of his mind to power secretary Sunil Mitra who called on him to explain Sunday’s blackout in the city. The technical snag apart, state power utilities are suffering from a shortage of good quality coal. State power department officials are in touch with Coal India and have ordered for additional 2 lakh tonnes of coal from Indonesia. However, the amount is too meagre for the huge demand. “It will keep the Kolaghat thermal power plant running for not more than eight days,” a state power official said. But poll managers won’t listen to such excuse. They want power minister Mrinal Banerjee to act in time before public resentment goes out of control. Pushed to the wall, power officials are looking for options to import power during the evening peak hours, even at higher rates.


Opinion : To me, it's very simple. The election enables us to choose leaders who'll help run the country better. So it's ironic that we are actually choosing politics over the people. It's all about priorities and one would assume there would really be no choice involved in this occasion, at least, not when Kolkata is suffering one of the worst summers ever. It's shameful. Shame on us.

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.

Of Slums & Slum-Dogs

Life even after 'Slumdog Millionaire' (from an email forward):

The more things change, the more they remain the same, it has been said.
Ironic.

Do we still feel like celebrating ?

Blues

I miss you, Ma.

This one's for you.

Trailing Clouds of Glory Do We Come...

I just woke up from a deep and refreshing nap, glancing around sleepily, tantalised by what seemed rather pleasantly different about today. I sat up and wondered. All of a sudden, a wave of happiness swept over me, washing out all pains and pinpricks from my past. I felt young and light-hearted, frivolous and frolicky, cheerful and tender. And then I realised the source of the subtle change that had been wrought in my mood. I had opened my eyes not to coldness and darkness but rather warmth and wistfulness...suddenly it seemed summer again and I was the self I had loved and proud to have owned possession to in the early days of college, in the early days of school, in the early days of my life when spring and summer seemed the only seasons of life and autumn or winter myths that existed only in a book.

What had happened to me in between ? The pressures to perform upto the expectations of my peers ? The wilful wisdom that had been imposed upon me by marriage and its myriad implications ? The troubles I had brought on myself by brooding over too many relations gone wrong, too many tensions not worth the terror of self-mortification over ? My vain notions of achieving valour, Atlas style, in too many circumstances that were beyond my destiny and strength to set straight or reverse the course of ? Maybe one of them ? Maybe all ?

Who cares ? Who indeed ? So long as I believe I tried my best to choose the correct path at each crossroad, I can go to sleep with a guiltless conscience knowing I've always been consciously conscientous ; I shall still hope to see, as I did today, another bright bold flash of gold as the sun disappears along the breathless horizon, breathing benedictions on all those who blessed its way and even for those unfortunate enough to have stayed on napping and missed the clouds of glory that trailed alongside, timeless and tearless, in its infinite, iridescent trajectory.