trying to be a good man

You hear people say and as a school going boy you read in your thin moral science books- Honesty is the greatest virtue. At some point in your life you realize, indeed it is so. The best thing you can do in this mortal life is to maintain your honesty. So you try to be honest, to be known among your folks as an honest man. However there is not honesty alone, there is kindness too. You do not want just to be honest. You also try to be kind. Apart from honesty and kindness there are so many qualities that define a good person and you try to imbibe all of them in your characters; ultimately you want to be one whom people may describe as a good man. As days go by, through every moment you deal in your everyday life your effort is untiring. Then sometimes along the line you stop, turn around, and cast a long look behind you. You ask yourself, how good a person you had been till date? You remember some instances that give you assurance. But at the same time you recall some that disturb you. With a sad feeling you realize, you had not been a very good person after all. And there is a secret or two; imprisoned somewhere deep down within you, which you would never dare to set free. A sigh churns up in your chest and escapes. You take a look around, you look up at the sky once and you set out to try again, to be a good man, knowing well that the moon cannot rub off its black spots but it can surely make them less prominent in the glow of its light.

a face in the crowd

You look out through the window of the crowded train you are traveling in and you suddenly see something on the platform out side that takes you by a pleasant surprise. Tired and surly you hobble along the overflowing sidewalk and suddenly in the sea of sweat smelling people you see it. You get only a glimpse yet that is enough to make you forget your tiredness, even if for a moment. I am talking about a face of a beautiful girl. You see her when you least expect. When you see her you don’t become leery or start fantasising about her. A feeling of well-being fills you. She comes to you as a whip of fresh air among all the unpleasantness that wraps you around. Long after she disappears the feeling the glimpse of her divine beauty stirred in you remain with you and you sense a new spring in your footsteps until she becomes one of the crowd in your stale memory.

exams!......exams!

It has been long since I had posted my last entry.But I had no choice other than keeping any thoughts about updating my blog out of my head, for, it, my head was full with things related with exams. Exams! yes another exam. This was our 1st semester. The whole process took up almost a month and I had no time to visit the cyber cafe( I have put my internet connection on hold; very bad service).Some times these things called exams really put me off. I look back and with amazement I find that I had spent my last fourteen years sitting in exams big and small. Hopefully three years more and I would see last of these exams. But again I may get rid of those particular type of exams whom I fight with a pen and paper, but will I escape exams as a whole? How to face them? Ok let us say we love challenge. It sounds good.

god won't ask

God wont ask what kind of car you drove, but He’ll ask how many you drove who didn’t have transportation. God won’t ask the square footage of your home, but He’ll ask how many people you welcomed into your home. God won’t ask about the clothes you had in your closet, but He’ll ask how many you helped to clothe. God won’t ask about your social status. He will ask what kind you class you displayed.
God won’t ask how much material possession you had, but He will ask if they dictated your life. God won’t ask what your salary was, but He’ll ask if you compromised your character to obtain it. God won’t ask how many promotions you received, but He’ll ask how you promoted others. God won’t ask what your job title was, but He’ll ask if you performed your job to the best of your ability. God won’t ask what you did to help yourself, but He’ll ask what you did to help others. God won’t ask how many friends you had, but He’ll ask how many people to whom you were a friend. God won’t ask what you did to protect your rights, but He’ll ask what you did to protect the rights of others. God won’t ask in what neighborhood you lived, but He’ll ask how you treated your neighbors. God won’t ask about the color of your skin, but He’ll ask about the content of your character. God won’t ask how many times your deeds matched your words, but He’ll ask how many times they didn’t. God won’t ask why it took so long to seek salvation, but He’ll lovingly take you to your mansion in heaven, and not to the gates of Hell. God won’t ask how many people you forwarded this too, but He’ll ask how many people you didn’t because you were too ashamed!

(courtesy :newsletter of Burdwan St.Xavier's School alumni association)

two man two different stories

If you are a frequent traveller on the local trains that start from Howrah station and head out for the suburbs you would certainly not miss them. One day or the other you will come across them. They, these two men, both are blind and yet so much different, different in their attitudes towards their lives that are shrouded in a perpetual cloak of darkness. You, seated in one of those wooden benches, only if you are lucky enough to claim a seat defeating the jostling crowd, munch on nuts you bought for a rupee from one of those many hawkers and wait for the train to roll and this is when you see a blind young man in soiled clothes and a bag slung across his shoulder walk along the aisle, finding his way with the aid of his walking stick, and plead for a coin. His heart-rending pleas would make you, like many others among your co- passengers, reach for your wallet and fish for changes. After he has moved on to the next compartment, you would notice a hawker selling chocolates that he carried in a large transparent plastic bag enter the compartment. Actually at first you would barely notice him but a few passing glances and you would like to take a closer look at him. You would realize that this young man selling chocolates is blind. This unexpected realization makes you happy. The happiness you feel when you see a man go beyond his limitations and do something extraordinary. He could have easily chosen to beg and reap the benefits of sympathy of people who can see the colors of this world. He could have as well sit at home and let his family feed him. Yet he has chosen to do something, which probably none expected him to do. The first man to me is just a poor blind man who begs for living and who needs some pity from all of us. But this second man is a hero to me. I don’t like the kind of chocolates he sells so I have never bought any from him. I don’t want to buy from him out of pity because I feel a hero does not need someone’s pity and perhaps he too does not want any one to show him pity.

weapon of mass destruction

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.