a death in our house

It lived a lifetime in our household and then it died a quite and a not so dignified death. It was our radio, a large black Philips with sharp angles. I remember the day uncle brought it home. He took it out of its box and setting it on the table he tuned into a station that played bengali folksongs. We, standing in front of it as though we expected it to perform some miracles, looked at each other and smiled. Since then, years passed and through those years the radio remained as another member of our family, as we shifted from place to place. Through the day it would sing and talk, sometimes it would make strange noises and while at other times it would remain silent, put to sleep by turning its knob.
I left my boyhood behind and entered adolescence, uncle became father of two children, and much later he became owner of his own house. And all this while the radio aged as inconspicuously as the hour hand of the clock. Its corners became rounded, paints came off in shy flakes; one day its handle went missing and later it lost its original knobs one by one. In its early days I would subject it to lot of torture. I had immense curiosity about the inside of every electronic objects and often I would open up its entrails on the sly and on some occasion like this I would damage it so badly that it would refuse to play until uncle took it to the neighborhood mechanic. Uncle would haraunge me to no end. However once it was old enough it frequently stopped working on its own.
It was surely dying .It died the day the TV came home.
Although we all had our own private moments with our late friend it was Baroma (uncle’s wife) who was really close to it. While she worked or relaxed it would faithfully sit beside her and entertain her throughout the day. She always listened to Bangladeshi stations, which played Bangla film songs sung by voices whose ascent always felt strange to the ears. When aunt was not listening to it, it was my turn to wind the knob back and forth in search of some hindi film songs which were a rare commodities, however if there was a cricket commentary on, the radio belonged to me for the day. In the evening, after uncle returned from his clinic in Pandua, it belonged to him. He would invariably tune into Calcutta station and listen to the news and other news related programmes.
Today when the radio no longer plays, I feel nostalgic about those Bangladeshi songs, voices of those anchors and newsreaders who became so familiar that it was very easy to imagine how they would have looked in person, and also those ads of coconut oils and auyrvedic medicines that promised a happy stomach and smooth bowel movements.
Let the soul of the radio rest in peace.

once...at times

· I play simcity and the gridlines get etched on to my retina. Wherever I go those crisscrossing lines hover in front of me. I stare at the blackboard and I see them. I look up at the display board at the Howrah station and instead of the timings of the trains I see the gridlines. And when I close my eyes they become more prominent, against a backdrop of dirty red. And when I dream in my sleep I see every thing from behind a screen of persistent gridlines.
· I travel in a crowded train, a train full of people returning home after their days work. All the seats are full beyond their capacity and so are all the available spaces in the compartment. Their sweat drenched shirts press against each other and they breath down one another's neck. I stand sandwiched among them. A pall of stench hovers overhead. As my legs ache and my lungs get filled with unpleasantness I think of a journey when I had had an entire seat to myself. I remember that I had leaned back against the backrest and stretched out my legs and cool wind was blowing through the window against my face and playing with my hair.
· I travel in a crowded bus, a bus full of people who apparently have to board a single bus although hundred other buses are plying on the same route. The bus gets stuck in a traffic jam. For a minute I feel the vibration of the engine beneath my feet and observe my co-passengers. A old man. Two guys who think they are cool. A businessman with crates of some unknown goods at his feet. A row of sad looking middle-aged women occupying the ladies seat. Then suddenly the engine die a sudden death and all become very still. A grunt rises among the passengers in an angry chorus. A man mutters something and few others mutter something more in support. The clock ticks by. I become restless. I bend down and try to catch a glimpse through the window and I see a sea of vehicles, hopeless and clueless, presided over by huge hoardings with smiling faces. The air inside becomes stale. Minutes pass but nothing moves. I hope the bus will move again soon. Then I become angry. Anger gives in to frustration. But nothing changes. Gradually I begin to take a sadistic pleasure in the proceedings. I love the aching in my leg, the revulsion I feel from nauseating breathings around me excites me. I look forward to the prospect of being stalemated here hour after hour until we have to disembark and take to the street on our foot. I envisage every road in the entire city being filled to the brim with motionless cars. Suddenly the engine spring back to life, the bus starts moving and fresh air rush in through the windows. I heave a sigh of relief.
· I travel by the early morning train. The train is nearly empty and I take a seat by the window and as the train rushes along, disturbing the morning stillness I see men relieving themselves by the side of the railway track. One of them stands up with embarrassment written over his face as the train pass by him. All other men study their own private parts.
· I start to keep a diary with the novel intention of keeping an account of my life, which at times drives along a long stretch of road that runs through an expanse of flat land and sometimes negotiates the dangerous curves of the mountains. Every night before I go to bed I duly fill up a page and at the end I look a t the blank pages and wonder what will be their contents. Somewhere along the way I lose my zeal and subsequently the whereabouts of my incomplete diary. Many years later I come across it while executing a cleanliness drive in my room. It is soiled and moth eaten. I take a break and go through its pages. I smile, while at times the smile goes away as I read words that I had once written. Then I come across the blank pages. For a moment I stare at them. I notice they are no longer white. They have become yellowish from dust and grime.

understand me, please

During the recent puja vacation I did not go to my village deliberately, while others, uncle,aunt and their children went. I knew a visit to home would not have been a pleasant affair. Given that I have been disqualified from sitting in the final exam resulting a loss in a year my parents would have only talked about this certain mishap that I had incurred upon myself only because of my , I cannot deny the fact, carelessness and negligence. On every slight opportunity that they would have had they would have certainly broached the subject and point out endlessly how I myself had landed my life and future prospect in a mess. Presence of uncle who is too happy to find fault with me would have only made things difficult for me. So I stayed back. However I had my suspicion. And yesterday when everyone returned from their weeklong stay at Malda the suspicion proved to be a valid one. My father came too alongwith them and from the very start he had only one thing to speak about. I told him repeatedly that I don't want to talk about the past but he kept on going on and on till it was dinner time. I was really frustrated when he resumed his harangue after the dinner was over. I actually got angry with him. I spoke in loud voice. I asked him why they were looking to make my life more difficult. I told many other things that I should not have said. Afterwards I felt very bad. But what could have I done? I want to forget the past. I want to start afresh with a new zeal and zest but they always keep me reminding me of that past seldom . I understand they all are very concerned about me but perhaps they should understand me.

the other side of floods

In West Bengal, at least in most parts of the state, this is the season of floods. The rain had poured down tirelessly all these past two months and now the rivers are flowing over their banks and flooding villages and crops. Every year during this particular period of time newspapers and tv channels depict the loss and destruction that come with the flood. My village, which is situated in the basin of a not so well known river in a remote corner of Malda district has always been a victim of this annual ritual of flood. It is a low lying area. However the village, a long row of houses, is perched on a high ridge that spans from west to east across the basin. It is said that a king built this ridge as a road which could be used in times of flood. I don't know whether in past it managed to remain above water but in present times it often get submerged and the use of the village path had to be put on hold for a month or so. Every house in the village is built on a ground much higher than that of the path. So, as everything around- the fields, the ridge itself with the unpaved path, the forest that faces the village in the south- go under the water the houses , some clustered together in an unbroken line, while some alone surrounded by water on all sides, floats like an archipelago from a mysterious watery world. It is the beauty of the flood that I have experienced in my village. It is exotic with water stretching to the horizons. Sometimes it feels almost surreal and one tend to ask oneself is this belongs to the same world that has Kolkata or for that matter Burdwan.Boats, only means of communication, ply from house to house. Voices slips on the water surface as men talk while they fish with their nets sitting in their boats. In these few days everyone in the village with a boat of his own turn fisherman and it is a great fun to do so with such a vast expanse of water at their disposal, and they fish in water beneath which lie the lands that they would cultivate once the water recedes. Women go out on boats to collect the succulent stalks of water lilies which ,with their flat round leaves and beautiful flowers stretch out over large expanse of water.Every house smells of fish. On market days boats of every size loaded with men and women make their ways through the water in a colourful and noisy procession. The moonlit nights are particularly spectacular. As a cool breeze sweeps acroos the water every ripples sparkle with a crown of silver,as far as one see. Tops of submerged trees stood like ghosts, ghosts that come out only in moonlight. One has only to take a cruise on a boat through this water gently skimming the glittering surface while the land below the water sleeps.After all a coin has two sides.