Wednesday 29 July 2015

Random Ramblings: Two





The book cover of my first novel is ready. 

I owe it to Sayani Nandi, an energetic girl who volunteered to do it.

But so far I have rewritten only eight chapters out of thirty-three. Every day in the morning, after I get up from bed, I promise myself not to open the social media, whatsup and facebook to be precise, and concentrate on my work. The primary job, which provides me the daily bread, has become routine and doesn't intrude into my private space now. Besides, I have learned to moderate my aspirations and therefore I can squeeze out reasonable time for my new hobby, writing. But, even then why I am not able to finish what I had been planning? I was wondering about it for some time, and today, after I have read the news about Anuradha Roy`s third book has been long listed for Man Booker 2015, it has begun haunting me for “Banalata Sen” one of the best poems of Jibananda Das, that I have used in my novel, had found a prominent place in Anuradha`s novel too. At this rate, if I keep on procrastinating, soon people might condemn me for plagiarisation.

I have heard about her somewhere, sometime back, but haven’t read any of her books. I read what the blurb of the book”Sleeping on Jupiter”, and it seems interesting. Jarmuli, a temple town sounds like Puri, but the author had rejected the suggestion, that`s what the reporter writes. For those who are interested to buy the book or e-book, here is the link.

http://www.amazon.in/Sleeping-Jupiter-anuradha-roy/dp/9350099365/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1438232813&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=sleeping+in+the+jupiter

And for more discerning followers of yours truly, here is the link for long list of Man Booker award 2015.

http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/man-booker-prize-announces-2015-longlist


My Brother

My Brother

Tapas was born fifteen years later. I grew up almost alone but on the year I wrote my board, he, suddenly announced his arrival. I thought his birth was mistimed as neither my parents were ready for another child and nor did I need a kid brother at fifteen to give me company. Nevertheless, he arrived, unwanted, unwelcome.

Just after birth, he looked like a shrivelled baby monkey with big ears sprouting out of his puny head with eyes that had oblique slant. He didn't cry for a long time after birth that made everybody wonder if he was really breathing, and when he did, he didn't sound like other babies. Like an abandoned fledgling of shalik, he squeaked till a nurse held a piece of moistened cotton to his lips.  Later, when my mother came home with Tapas, I was relocated to my study room finally to make way for him. I wasn't angry, neither was I jealous. The tiny baby, who hardly cried and rarely threw its limbs, seemed too gentle to me. Nevertheless, he grew up slowly, never reaching the adulthood, both mentally and physically. We knew he was like a blighted seed; his DNA missing its sequence in the long haul of meiosis and that he would remain so for the rest of his life.

I grew up, finished my studies and joined a job while Tapas still learnt the alphabets and the nursery rhymes.

One day about a week before my marriage, mother called me in her room.

“You might find this a little disturbing, but I feel I must tell you this.” She said in a sombre voice.
“What`s it ma?”
“So far we three have been good and caring to Tapas. Now a fourth person is going to come and she might not be as considerate as us. It`s your duty to take care of your brother. Don`t let him feel that he is a burden to you.” She said and began to sob.

I didn't know what to do. Neither could I imagine what was going on in her mind on that particular day. Tapas was fifteen year old then, but he still played with my old stuffed toys and rhyme books.

“Don`t worry ma, I`ll take care of him.” I said.

Since then, Tapas remained as a fully authorised member with a fixed chair allocated to him at the dining table. My father passed away at seventy and my mother followed him a couple of years later. On both occasions, Tapas accompanied me to the crematorium, performed all the rites but in the days that followed, I found him aloof and hiding in the bedroom that he shared with mother in her last days. Finally he stopped coming out of the bedroom even and remained holed up under the bed. I tried to talk to him, cheer him up, but he gave me a frightened look of a mouse caught in a mousetrap.

Next week we had to shift him to hospital.

The doctors said he had fever, a chest infection perhaps, and there was no reason to worry. But I had my doubts for his eyes that were always cheerful, appeared blank and glazed. Despite all those strong antibiotics, he didn't improve and we were called on one evening to take a decision.

“I am afraid, your brother hasn't responded to anything we have done so far. His blood pressure is falling, urine output is decreasing. We are giving him oxygen by mask, but soon he will need assisted ventilation. He won`t be able to sustain himself.”  The attending doctor said.

“What do you want me do doctor?” I said.

“Unless you tell us specifically that you don`t want your brother to be put into breathing machine, we will put him into ventilator if required and keep all our resuscitative measures on.”

“Is there any chance of recovery?” I asked.

“See, it`s difficult to predict death.” He said.

I looked at my brother. His tiny body was hidden under the green bed sheet; only his head was visible, his face under a transparent cone, pumping oxygen to his stiffened lungs. I went close to his bed and put my hand over his bald head. He opened his eyes. I heard him say, sign up brother, it`s time to go.

I got the final call in the morning. The doctor said he passed away at four am. I could take my time and reach hospital after eight.






Friday 3 July 2015

Chronicles of a small town. Chapter five. Notes


On the first day of our new class, our class teacher while calling out the names of the boys stumbled at the first name. From that year the school had begun affixing student`s roll numbers according to his or her position in the merit list. Jahar sir, who taught us Mathematics, frowned deeply looking at the name written against roll number one. He always wore his glasses at the farthest point on the nose, and had the habit of peering above them when he had any reason to focus. Now, finding an unusual name at the top, he sucked his teeth then pouted his lips twice, contemplating to strike it off thinking it was a wrong entry or a bad joke the clerk played upon him. Then he looked up, swiped his gaze around in an attempt to identify the boy if he really existed, who had the audacity to ascend to the top displacing his favourite. Unable to recognise the face, he yelled, “Amit Roy!”

I stood up.

“Oh, you are Amit. Bah! Very good!” He said. But from his face, and also the subtle sarcasm that filtered out of his praise, I got the message that he wasn't happy. I never imagined the teachers could be biased, and they had their own favourites to root for.

“Subham? Where are you?” Jahar sir screamed.

Subham, the eternal first boy of our class stood up.

“What`s the matter Subham? Have you become a little complacent nowadays? Are you taking things too easy? When the time has come to gear up you are faltering?” Jahar sir said.

I saw, along with rest of the class, where it was going. I felt as if I had done something awful to beat Subham, as though only Subham could come first – a position he held since nursery and had the birth right to hold on. Bipul, who was the eternal second boy had kept his position intact, and therefore when Jahar sir came down on the list and found Bipul`s name where it always had been, was little relieved. At least the coup did not shake up the entire class!

He came back to me.

“So Amit Roy, what`s your favourite subject?”

“Bengali.” I said.

The whole class broke into laughter. I knew all of them thought I was acting funny, but the truth was, I wasn`t. I really started loving literature much more than Science and Mathematics, which were scoring subjects no doubt, but in my opinion, hardly allowed the creative minds to flourish. You couldn’t have worked out a problem in a way you liked; there were well-sorted steps already; you need to learn them. I thought Jahar sir might ask me the reason, but he assumed a poker face and threw his tiny head back. When the rumble settled, Jahar sir told us that Bengali was a language spoken by twenty crore Bengalis throughout the world and ranked fifth among all the languages. Our national anthem is also written in Bengali; so there was no reason to be ashamed of one`s choice if he liked the language. But, he added, for a professional career one has to choose Science and Mathematics, as they formed the basis upon which a student builds up his future.

“I don`t want to become an engineer or a doctor.” I said, inviting him into the debate.

“You said you like Bengali and want to go ahead with it. Are you sure?” Jahar sir asked.

“Yes sir.” I reiterated.

“Wonderful! So what do you want to be in your life?”

“A writer.” I said. As I said so I felt the whole class was looking at me including Jahar sir, who now stared at me incredulously, with his mouth gaping and eyes peering over his glass. In a moment however he resumed his composure. Then he sat down in his chair and because it was so low in comparison to the table, only Jahar sir`s head was visible, rest of his torso disappearing. He was stamped at my choice, an unusual aim in life of a boy who lived in a suburban railway town, where meritorious boys always became doctors and engineers while mediocre students joined banks or railways.

Writer? Is it a profession? Do you think you could actually earn your livelihood by writing books in Bengali?
I thought this was what he felt at that moment, though he didn’t say anything. Later, Gautam and Khokan grabbed me during the break when I, with a poetry collection of Jibananda Das, that I borrowed from school library, was sitting below the gulmohor tree, enjoying one of his famous poems.

“Are you seriously contemplating to become a writer man?” Gautam asked.

I looked at him. He had a sneering disbelief in his eyes.

“It`s not easy to become a writer, you understand! I don`t know if I am fortunate enough to pursue what I dream, but in any case unless I get first division in class twelve, no one is going to listen to my plans.” I said.

In my next letter to Banochaya I wrote that I wanted to become a poet and a writer and wanted to know her opinion. She said, she was planning to study Sociology at Presidency College, the most famous college in Calcutta and she flatly remarked that a man needs to earn first to get the household going. She felt, Bengali was an inadequate choice for a man to pursue; it wasn’t necessary to study literature if one wanted to write!



                                       ***************


That year I got a letter from Kaveri, a girl of our neighbourhood, who had the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. I regarded this incident  as one of the milestones in my life, an important point in my journey towards adulthood that was never linear but like saw-toothed edge of a hacksaw.

I was all too busy with my studies and tuition, and writing letters to Banochaya in my free time, who had become a good friend now.

The letter in question came in the disguise of a missile, a stone draped in a piece of paper that fell close to me on the grass when I was manning the goal post in a friendly football match and my all attention was fixed at the penalty area of the opponent where the action was going on. I saw something dropping near me, and then as the missile rolled, the stone and the peel separated with the missive taking a flight in the wind like a paper aeroplane. I sniffed a plot immediately because I heard stories from my classmates who had already hooked girls and all of them vouched about the layered missile to be the most versatile and faithful weapon in the beginning of the love-war.

It said nothing but quoted a time on a particular date at a particular place. The letter didn't have name of the sender, and immediately I appreciated the wisdom of the letter writer. The cryptic nature of the message was thrilling and for once I felt good that a girl had expressed to see me. I looked around. There were six houses nearby from where this could be flung, but which one? I knew all the families and like a student of mathematics I began my exclusion one by one.

In between the ball came flying twice to me, somebody trying to stun me from a distance by taking a blasting left footer, but my reflexes were too good for him. I gathered the ball easily and yelled at my stoppers to be more careful because I had, by then, reduced the number of probables into two and wanted few more minutes to deduce the most probable.

However till the match continued I couldn't identify a spoor that could lead me to the window from where the missile was hurled. Back home, I took a shower and changed to a tee shirt and trouser and came out whistling. Mother noticed me going out in an unusual time and became suspicious.

“Where are you going now?” She asked.

“To get my Social Studies notes from Gautam.”

“Are they your notes? “

“Yes.”

“When did you give him?”

“Yesterday, in the school.”

“Why can’t he return himself?”

“How does it matter ma? It won`t take much time.”

“Okay.” She cooled down for some reason and before going to the shrine room warned me to come back early. I knew she would remain occupied with her deities for one hour at least. I counted one day; she had eight Gods in total. Kali, Laxmi, Ganesh, Hanuman, Shiva ( a ivory lingam actually), Kamakhya, Ramkrisna- Sarada ma, Krishna- Balaram- Subhadra ( I count them as one because they are in one photo frame); all of them in the form of miniature idols and photo frames occupied the wooden throne in a dank small room labelled as shrine room, that had more cockroaches than anything.

I watched the time in the wall clock hung in our drawing room and walked fast to reach the designated spot on time. It was a narrow road, one takes as a short cut while coming home back from railway institute. A small pan-beedi shop on a raised platform of four bamboo poles lit by a kerosene lamp stood below a lamp post. The street lights had already come; however, half of them didn't have bulbs, so the road was quite dark – blessing in disguise I thought. I didn't know for whom I was waiting; all I knew she was a girl who was in a generous mood for friendship. I stood below the street light for a minute and saw the shopkeeper was watching me in suspicious eyes as if I was planning to throw a stone to blow up the bulb. I had stopped doing this kind of naughty things nowadays, but before a year or two, when four of us were together and there wasn't anybody watching us, we often hurled stones at the tiny bulbs of the street lights just to find out whose throw was most accurate.

I bought a packet of chewing gum from the pan-beedi shop thinking that the suspecting shopkeeper would now stop minding my movements and exclude me from the clan of boys known for shenanigans. Besides I`d have something to munch on to kill time till my lady love appeared. So, I gave him a reassuring look, a kind smile and peeled the chewing gum packet and began munching.

Then I saw silhouette of two girls approaching me, and as they came close, I knew who they were.

It was Kaveri and her friend whose face was familiar, but I didn't know her name. Kaveri was two years junior and she went to the same school as I. Both of them were talking and when they approached near, glanced at me beckoning with a half-gesture to follow them. I understood, there was somebody in the vicinity and it wasn't safe for us to talk. Therefore, I should just follow them till we had reached safe waters.

After awhile, when he entered a relatively deserted stretch, Kaveri said, “You topped in class?”

I nodded my head. I could make out she was watching me from the corner of her eyes.

“What did you do with your notes?” she asked.

Oh, heck! she was after my notes! I thought. Something told me, caution man! Be careful!

“What notes are you talking about?” I asked.

“Didn't you prepare notes before the exam? “She asked.

Of course I had made notes, especially for Science, Social studies and Maths. My sister, who would be writing her school final after two years, was the legitimate heir of my labour. But here was a situation where there was a conflict of interests. I decided instantly that I wouldn't commit my notes to her just like that; she would have to prove her superiority over the natural inheritor.

“I believe in reading the books thoroughly. And that`s what I did.” I said.

“You mean, you read only the text books?” Now she turned towards me. I saw her kohl-lined eyes. I felt she was the first woman who was looking into my eyes, the gaze reaching the bottom of my heart, a depth from where no one was allowed to come back, and I, getting transfixed by the surreal magic was losing out in my stand.

She picked up the cue instantly and smiled. The smile was an admission of what had transpired between us in last ten seconds and the combination of the smile and the gaze was a lethal one for a fifteen year old to survive. I didn't remember what I said to her but I was excited and felt pity upon everybody else I met on the road because it was I who was the fortunate one.