Fright at dusk

Everytime a train chugged in , the speakers at the platform would go into an overdrive, cackling instructions , barely audible .
The tea , chana , magazine and snacks vendors would pump up their adrenaline driven selling, adding to the decibels of cacophony. Thanks to the red shirted coolies, and blinking neon signs, people still were able to navigate, from one platform to another, from the entrance on platform number one  , to the exit , on platform number six.

The passengers were of various hues. the coat-pant clad middle class gentlemen, the shirt and pant /pyjama clad brat from the village , exploring job options in this vast town. Then there were sari clad women , with bundles on their head , bearing the burden of centuries of poverty and want , ill-fed and grim, trundling along , with their male counterparts . The men mostly wore a flat footwear, and were bereft of any burden. The women walked barefoot , and carried , nonchalantly , all the luggage, however meagre. Uncomplaining, complying forever. Chivalry was probably unheard of, in this part of the country.

Three people peered down from the overbridge at the arriving and departing trains.There were hundreds of tracks , running into or away from each other. The crowd swelled and ebbed with each arrival and departure.

They had plenty of time to kill, as the person they had come to receive, had just informed them that her train was 2hrs late. The gent wore a khaki T-shirt, and that gave him a false air of authority, as khaki was the colour of police uniforms . He had two young girls with him . As all peered down at the trains , an old lady , her front tooth missing , stopped by , adjusted her grimy bundle on her head ,tapped her well-worn walking stick on the floor, and touched the khaki clad gentleman on his shoulder.

"Banaras ki gaadi kab aaiyil babuji?" She asked in bhojpuri. The gent turned , took one look at her and let out an ear splitting howl.

Here, we need to digress and explain a bit about the gent. The person in question was very much influenced by the stories of preternatural phenomena, afterlife , witches, ghosts , black magic and cults. Now, this happened at dusk, when the natural daylights recede, and human mind , especially the ones with fertile imagination, go into overdrive. The overbridge was deserted and dimly lit. The lady wore a saree that must have been white at some point of time . The missing front teeth and bulging eyes didn't help either.

In an alarm, the lady took two steps back. It was clear she mistook him for some one from the CRPF or some such informed personages.

The gentleman had obviously, mistaken her for one of those wandering , evil spirits that populate  books on ghosts, B grade hindi movies and horror flicks of yore.Besides, he had no faintest idea about trains leaving for Benaras.

After the lady had beaten a hasty retreat, muttering curses about madmen, and the laughter of the two children had subsided, the heartbeat from the gent's heart did not calm , even when he slid a  lopsided grin at his kids' hysterical mirth.

Right to Privacy

I Think of
Right to privacy
When a stranger on a train wants to know the amount my husband earns.
Right to privacy
When my well-meaning neighbour wishes to know my menstrual history.
Right to privacy
When my child locks her voluminous diary away, and the key is , of course, missing.
Right to privacy
When patients spill their painful pasts , sitting in the draughty dressing room, waiting their turn at wound dressing.
Right to privacy
When your relative cries on the phone over a silly argument she had with someone close.
Right to privacy
When your maid confides in you of her unspeakable affairs.
Right to privacy
When your beautician decides to unburden her soul, or you unburden yours.

At the OR

1. “The patient , Sir.”
   “What about him ?” He was busy writing the recovery notes. Recovery after anaesthesia. The surgery had gone well.
   “Not responding , Sir. Not breathing either. No pulse.”
   Cardiac arrest!! Everyone ran pell-mell. Adrenaline was loaded, and injected. CPR started. Paddles charged.
   “Clear.” The patient heaved and fell back on the bed , limp.Repeat!!
   Everyone worked , non-stop for 20 minutes.
   Suddenly , the cardiac monitor beeped , once ,twice. From the dreaded straight line , the ECG became crooked, once and then struggled to its feet. The PQRS!! A cheer rang out. Some one shouted -“Intubate!” After intubation and ventilation was over, he went back to his seat.
   New notes. Resuscitation and Ventilation notes.
   All in a days’ work.
   He sighed as he scratched his forehead.His hand smelt of sterilium from the OR 5.

   
   

The visit to Sunderbans

It was a routine tracking event for Biswas babu and his team .
The daily flooding of the shores at high tide had hidden pug marks, so they had to patiently wait out the time. In their boats, that bobbed in the muddy backwaters, their heads scraping the low hanging branches, of the mangrove trees.
When the waters receded, the slush glistening muddy underbelly of the Sunderbans shore was exposed to view, with the tree trunks still wet. The air smelt damp and fishy, from all the rotting and wet decaying logs , vegetation. Some logs floated desultorily amid the waters hanging around between the aerial mangrove roots ,reluctant to leave.
“If you stare at them too long, you will see them turn into crocodiles,”Biswas babu cautioned me with a nervous laugh.
True enough, I could see the bark on the back of a log , transform into scary looking bristly scales. I hated this job.
Biswas babu and his team nonchalantly took out their kit and busied themselves in the slush and slippery mud , their pant legs rolled up high.All of us wore masks, back-to front. This was done , apparently to confuse the tiger, who attacked the humans , behind their backs .They had come across, what was obviously a pug-mark, but to my untrained eye, it just looked a small depression in the clayey mud. Measuring and making POP cast of the paw print took some time , and a lookout shouted , after scouting a bit ahead that he had found another pug -mark. After two hours and couple of pug marks more, the trail now grew cold.
We were standing on this rickety bamboo bridge, surrounded by mangrove trees and “logs”, when we heard a twig snap , behind us…

Some one screamed-"baagh!!"(tiger)and a deafening roar was heard, from a disconcertingly close quarters.

And we all ran. Pell-mell. 

Slipping and floundering , in the slick mud , we ran , as best as we could . No one looked behind to even ascertain , if we were being followed, so great was our fear. Some one slipped and fell into the smelly,swirly , muddy waters, with a sickening splash. We stopped and turned . A local raced to offer his hand and pull him out . It was then that we saw the cause of our fear had changed shapes. 

A giant" log "was determinedly following us , his evil, unblinking eyes focussed on us .

The "baagh" was nowhere to be seen .

Now we were pursued by a new predator.

We breathlessly piled into the boat, with our wet and muddied friend . Some of us lost our footwear in the melee, and some one had dropped his expensive handicam , in the tiger and  croc infested Sunderbans . 

For some nerve-wracking stretch , the boat had to be manoeuvred out of green gullies surrounded on all sides by mangrove roots, by hand held oars. The glad splash of the oars, was marred by the swift, silent pursuit by the crocodile , his unblinking mud covered eyes, focussed on us. His giant tail moved soundlessly side to side, not even creating a ripple.

The  entangled roots of the mangroves sat just beneath the water ,waiting to ensnare the motor and pull us down. It was one of the scariest , heart-in-the-mouth ten minutes of my life.

As soon as we were clear of the greenery, the motor purred to life , one of the most happiest sounds we'd heard in a long time . The boat raced to mainland, and civilisation.

Biswas babu, with none of his humour lost , asked us to look back.

The island looked breathtakingly beautiful in the gathering darkness.

 "A beauty best visualised from a safe distance ," A visitor echoed my thoughts

The peacemaker

The mynahs hop silently
the soil sleeps fitfully
the blossoms outburst
from the earth’s heart

So much happens here
My friend my dear
Where you headed?
To the land of dead!

The sighs of the dying
the screams of the dead
all night replaying
inside your soft head….

I remember,

last belligerent furore

When there

 broke out a war

you told me 

with conviction

You'r going,see

for negotiation

You came back broken

your  spine was  bent 

your resolves torn

your patience spent

What fountain of hope

you've drunk from?

It seems like dope

the drug taken firm 

Hold on you, lad

you cast pearls,so sad 

before the swineherd

Often I have heard

You are again headed

to the dark land of dead

with your torch of hope

your brand of dope.

With Clinical Precision

Meesha was no longer young.
Her midriff had long since stopped obeying her dictum , and knees did not bend to her orders.
 Her eyesight was failing and her hip would start creaking when she perform these tasks that asked for youthful agility.
For instance , high -dusting. When was the last time she climbed onto her high stool, with a broom in hand to clear the cobwebs gathered on her pelmets. And boy!! The dust!! It is amazing , how everything horizontal gathers dust ,and everything vertical becomes a cobweb magnet.
Sundar used the term "Graveyard". It sounds more colourful in hindi. "Kabristan ", he used to taunt her . "Every picture you hang on the walls , becomes a veritable "Kabristan " for lizards, cockroaches and spiders."
Meesha was determined to clear her kabristaans today. And she had to solicit help. A help that was slippery and elusive . Sona would finish her contractual mopping , sweeping and scrubbing the pots with genie-like efficiency and speed and would be off, before Meesha could even contemplate beyond the apple pie recipes on her Facebook home page.
So , she had to go alone . On the dusting spree.
As Bryan Adams crooned soothingly in the back ground, Meesha attacked the dust with vigour.
The Ganesha painting in the sitting room had puffed up visibly , in the past , two months , and that meant , either something dead and rotting (ugh!) or that the cardboard back had puffed up with moisture and mold.
As Bryan Adams encouraging voice urged her on, Meesha swept her broom in an arc behind the pot-bellied picture, and a packet fell off onto the floor.
"What the heck?" Meesha thought. The first thought was , "Probably concealed love letters."
But the packet was covered in several layers of polythene, and felt hard, irregular. As , Meesha sat on her high stool, struggling for breath, holding back a sneeze, she fumbled and the packet fell to the ground with a metallic jangle and clank.

"I should have stopped then , and replaced the packet , then none of this would have happened ." Meesha was to repeat regrettably , several times , later. But as others would say, it was fate, and Meesha was too soft-hearted.

Well, as fate would have it, Meesha, whose father was trained by the KGB , and who was a master sleuth,in his heyday, had bequeathed some of his inquisitive nature to his favourite child , and Meesha, forgetting all about cleaning graveyards, sat on her dusty stool and opened the packet with her kitchen scissors. Four large gold kangans,(bangles) a nose ring and a well worn wedding ring with a"p" inscribed on it rolled out onto the floor, gathering dust-bunnies , as they went .

Mesha knew exactly whom they belonged to . She had seen them , adorning the living person of the wrinkled Mrs. Priya Bhuyan who lived three blocks away, in the same colony as Meesha.

The difficult part was establishing contact with her.Mrs. Bhuyan had locked her home and gone some where , no one knew where , for the past two weeks .And now , her jewels make an appearance in Meesha's drawing room.

That evening, Meesha gave the gym a miss. A strange mis happening, as it doesn't happen very often. Not that she was really into gymming , heavy weight lifting or running aimlessly on treadmills that went nowhere, its just that she attached great deal of value to the gossip that she gleaned from the gym. How she learnt of new releases and movie stars extramarital affairs from huffing Mrs. Pritam on the treadmill and from puffing Mrs Pinto on the cross-trainer, not to mention the valuable gems of her own , which she scattered so carelessly. But we digress.

Meesha did forgo her gym that day, to take a walk around the Bhuyan House. The driveway was unswept , with dead deodar leaves that sighed upto the doorway with every sad gust of wind. The lawn overgrown. She walked around the house , with a nonchalant air , but took in the house carefully. The lock on the main door was a strange one , not the glistening triple lock , chinese masterpiece which hung on Mrs Bhuyan's wall from a hooked tile.

The bed room windows were sealed . "Sealed , with clinical precision."

Whenever a new turn of phrase appeared in Meesha's mind , She would stop,in her tracks and search, with her mental browser, so to speak, as to its origin.

 Hah! Got it! First time her new maid Sona had chopped cucumbers and carrots for the daily salad, her husband had murmured- "Chopped , with clinical precision"

Sealed!! Who seals their bedroom windows , when leaving for sudden inexplicable absences? Mrs. Bhuyan, in particular ,was more likely to trumpet her goings and comings with more vigour than any one of them.

Then , it was sealed with cotton padding , as one would seal one's AC vents , with a layer of brown sellotape. Broad brown transparent sellotape. Now , that rang a loud bell in Meesha's head , which wouldn't quieten , even with tandoori chicken for dinner. 

After dinner , She went into a hush -hush whispering session with her husband Sundar, which made the kids roll their eyes.

The two were busy on the laptop and the phone for a long time into the night, and Meesha got up the next morning looking fresh and determined , not wilty and bleary eyed , after a night of little beauty sleep.

Sona came at her predetermined time of 9am, sashaying and salaaming, and finding her employer busy with the laptop, as ever. 

Sona marched into the kitchen, kept the small bag she always carried on the counter, and hitching her salwar, busied herself with scrubbing the pots and pans .

Mesha spoke from the table -"Why did you take the brown sellotape and cotton from the kids' room , without telling me ? Lene ke pehle bata to dena tha, Sona !(you should have told me before taking)"

A pause in the clattering. Now , Meesha grabbed her open laptop, and marched into the kitchen . With her baffling habit of mixing the serious with the trivial, she asked "How did you dispose off Mrs. Bhuyan ? Alone , or with help."

Sona's back was turned till now. Now, she turned and faced her employer. She had a strange expression on her face . A fearsome calmness , almost contentment , which was never seen hitherto. She calmly wiped her hands on her kurta, and walked till her packet , from which she extricated a pair of surgical gloves. 

Meesha smacked her head almost, why , the gloves , of course , how could she not have seen the gloves?

Sona had a half -smile on her face . "You should not have done the high-dusting yourself Mem-sab, now you will pay the price ." With this she lunged towards the Knife stand , which Meesha quickly slid out of her reach. The knives clattered to the floor. 

"Tumhe pakde jane ka dar nahin tha?" (weren't you scared of being caught?)

Meesha continued calmly. 

"You will be the one to be caught, Mem sab, I leave no fingerprints anywhere, Gloves see?" 

Sona raised her glove hands , and with amazing athletic agility, flicked a knife off the floor with her toe , and caught it mid air.

"Is this a good time to intervene?'

A disembodied voice asked from the laptop, and Sona's hands froze.

"Yes , it is." Meesha answered breathlessly.

The door crashed open , and in a moment , the house was full of bristling gunmen. Police arrested Sona for charges of murdering Mrs. Bhuyan and looting her personal effects, plus attempt to murder Meesha.

Mrs. Bhuyan's home was forced open by police , and her decomposing body recovered from her bedroom.

On the third day, Mrs. Pinto, while skipping  the rope, in gym , asked Meesha, "Tell me , how did you deduce that Sona was behind this from a mere sellotape."

A smiling Meesha ,running on the treadmill, huffed -"The secret lay in just one phrase," with clinical precision"

The bump

They were a bunch of brightly dressed people, in a sea of grays and off-whites.
“It is a village dammit.You don’t have to show off your Guccis and Pradas there.Wear something sensible .”Her sister had cautioned , but human nature always triumphs. “Sensible” for her meant wearing the new Swarovski encrusted “Ghagra-chunni” she had bought from a show -room at Jaipur. She was a multi coloured macaw in this drab hill station of Hardwar.
When grilled later on, she would parrot the same explanation to all, "I was wearing ethnic -Indian wear, wasn't I ?"
 She was accompanied by a bunch of like-minded cronies , wearing Manish Malhotra creations to a place of pilgrimage , visited only by dusty, tired villagers , or National Geographic teams .
They were neither. Hence , they created quite a flutter.
First they were gawped at, and everyone kept a safe distance , as one would from a wild animal. Then they were besieged, by taxi-drivers , and beggar-children . Both out to fleece them , each in his own pitch.
A party of eunuchs materialised from some where, and mistaking them for a bridal party, sought alms , clapping and dancing, aggressively around them .It took half an hour of translated threats and negotiations , plus an unwarranted baksheesh of 500 rupees to get rid of them.
Then, Jane was bumped by a country bumpkin. She turned in alarm, and the guy made a sweeping gesture of fake contrition,his grin revealing rows of paan-stained teeth. The crowd laughed, till an elderly taxi-driver shooed him away. 

It was much later, in the hotel room, when she was rummaging in her purse to tip the bell-boy, that she discovered , she had been deftly pick-pocketed. The purse was intact, the contents weren’t. Everything, from her passport to her cash had been stolen.

The secret

Finally, the sobs petered out , and the chest heaved rhythmically, with every breath. The edges of the eyelashes were still moist , from the recent wailing, but for , now, were blissfully shut. Hallelujah! Putting this child to sleep was nothing short of a miracle. Mira had to cradle her for hours, crooning soothingly , as she howled and wept and cried herself to sleep.

Mira came here ,  to be able to go to college. The place was a stone’s throw off, and the Ghose’s were an old friend of baba, Mira’s father.

Today , being Sunday, Ghose uncle and auntie, had decided to go to the city for some time to themselves. They had three children. The elder two were college going , like Mira. One was in the boarding at IIM, Joka, and rarely came back home, even on weekends, despite living in the same city. The younger one , a girl, lived in IIT, Kharagpur, and came back home twice in a year; once during Christmas, and the other, during, Durga Puja.

It was a sultry noon of July. Air –conditioners were on, full blast , in their sprawling bungalow, as their third child “a mistake “ called” shubi”, slept fitfully.

Mira found it strange, this child. I mean,” shubi” must be at least 20 years younger to the last child. Why not just tell the world , that she is adopted? What was so unusual?They had lots of servants, a sprawling bungalow , on the outskirts of Kolkata, quite visible signs of ample wealth, despite the failing health of Ghose auntie and the profusion of gray hair on Ghose uncle’s head.

                                  $$$$

“Didi!! I am going to the library!!”

Mira called out to the cook –cum –maid, as she climbed the stairs to the library , on the first floor.

“Uthle deke debe.”( call me if the baby wakes up)

“Aaaahchhaa!” the cook replied from the bowels of the cavernous kitchen.Quickly followed by an enormous clatter, as she rushed out –“Kintu , library jawa baron je ?”(Don’t you know library is out of bounds?)She looked up, blinking in the blinding sun, shading her eyes with her atta covered hands.

“Toder jonno hobe, amar jonno noye.”(Out of bounds for you, not for me .)Mira snorted,disdainfully.

The cook , watched helplessly, muttering curses beneath her breath.

It was true. The Ghose’s spoilt this brat, some distant relative from Burdwan , as if she was their own daughter.There were no restrictions for her. Humph! The cook bunched up her “Kuchi”(folds of sari), tucked it in her ample waist, and disappeared in to the kitchen,smarting with indignation.

                                              $$$$

Mira’s eyes took some time to adjust to the darkness inside. It was cool, musty. The key was lying on the peg at the front door, labeled plainly-Library.It is amazing , why no one even bothers to clean it up?There are cobwebs everywhere, and the dust, atchoo!! Mira’s thoughts were interrupted by a loud sneeze.From a nest outside, a pigeon flew away in alarm, only to settle down and resume its cooing, moments later.

Fishing a hanky, Mira clamped it to her nose, and proceeded in.Switching on a black and white nipple switch , belonging to the seventies, she was bathed in a eerie glow of a yellow bulb. She was thrown half a century back. It seemed like time travel.

Here was the old model of telephone, with separate earpiece and mouthpiece. The rolling dial face , in blackened brass, still glinting gold from places. There was a foldable writing desk at a wall, with a lamp affixed to the bracket , next to it . “What a shame ?I would love to work here.”Mira thought, as she mulled over what Didi told her about the Library being out of bounds . It really seemed as if no one had visited it in years.

As she freed the latch, the desk fell forward , with a crunch and a loud creak, raising a minor dust storm.

Mira sprang back.

As the dust settled, Mira gasped. The wall behind the desk was an intricate pigeonhole. Containing hundreds and hundreds of letters. Yellowing envelopes, brown, green inlands, blue , white and red airmail envelopes,millions of brown postcards, frozen into curvy shapes , as they were tied into neat bundles with twine, now cobwebby, and old. Each pigeon hole was labeled, for the month and year. The oldest read Oct 1935,Gosh that is even before the Second World War!! Thought Mira.

The last pigeonhole, on the right hand corner read May 1970.

Wait a minute!! I was born in May 1970, wasn’t I?

Without a second thought of voyeurism, invasion of privacy,etc. ,Mira snatched the bundle and rolled out the twine,impatiently.

                                                        $$$$

“You are the babysitter, right?”

An irritated male voice spoke up,making Mira jumped out of her skin.Ghose uncle stood in the doorway,looking daggers at her.The cook, simpered behind him, shaking her fat finger at her,smirking  with a look of malicious glee.

Mira fumbled,and clumsily tried to gather the letters together, tying them together, the twine snapped, and the old man sprang forward, with a cry, as if she had trod upon his exposed heart.

He snatched the bundle from her, and gave her a withering look. Then he , deaf to all her mumbled apologies, shooed her , unceremoniously out, shutting himself inside.

The cook rudely stuck out her tongue, and sashayed with her large hips down the stairs. Ghose auntie stood in the foyer, holding an inconsolable shubi in her arms. Fighting tears, Mira  walked back to the bedroom, guiltily following her elegant host.

                                                  $$$$

The old man continued to give her the “silent treatment.”

At dinner, that night, the  Ghoses pretended Mira wasn’t there. She felt miserable, and picked at her meal ,for pretense sake; fleeing to her room the moment plates were picked up.

Mira thought of leaving for her home, but what would she say to her parents? That she was caught snooping! No way, she decided to stay put, and chin up.

For the next couple of days, the old man was busy in the library, dawn to dusk. He wouldn’t allow any one, except the cleaning lady, who, tied her “pallu” around her mouth, and swept and scrubbed, till the wooden floor shone. The old man engaged the services of a carpenter, got the floor and furniture of the library fixed, and waxed. Every evening, when Mira came back from college, she heard loud hammering and tinkering emanating from the first floor, which would be awash with lights, and humming with human presence.

Mira wondered what process she had set in motion. There wasn’t much to discover either.All she had seen was a load of hippies, holidaying in the Europe.  Wonder why the elder Ghose was so touchy about the whole lock-the –library-up-thing? She put it down to the eccentricity of a genius, and forgot all about it, by the by, as the mood of her hosts improved.

In fact, she thought, some sort of dormant insanity had been awakened in the old man, as he was seen rubbing his hands in glee, at the sight of “shukto”( a bitter vegetable dish, traditionally despised),chuckling to himself, at odd times, staring at Mira, with a twinkle in his eyes, till she blushed beet root red, and most discomforting, bursting into Beatles and other songs from the 70s, without any provocation.

                                                     $$$$$

Mira still remembers the sultry afternoon , when she was busy with her intricate  drawings of avian fetus, at 72 hrs of fertilization, when the cleaning lady poked her head in,”Baba dakchchen”( father is calling )

“Kar baba?”(Whose father )Mira had absently countered , even without thinking.

She got a frown and a shrug in reply.

She could never get used to this . The concept of the old man Ghose getting himself called” baba” by all his servants . As if he had sired them all! Mira was giggling at her own private joke, and entered the study , smiling broadly. She saw the old man hunched over his newly resurrected study table , his bald pate shining with several glistening spots , where the numerous, newly installed CFLs reflected .There was smell of varnish in the air .

“Today is Mahalaya.”

He intoned , without looking at her.She looked around, wondering if he addressed her, with this piece of irrelevant information.

“Do you want to go home this pujo?”

Mira knew the daughter was due to arrive from IIT, by the evening local. So , he wants to get rid of me ?Fine .

“Okay, I will go by the evening local to Burdwan.”

He looked up sharply. “No, no, I was just asking your plans . Your college has not shut down?” Mira shook her head. He should know! He used to teach there not a long while ago. Even for pujo, the Christian College for Girls shut down only for a week. The last week of pujo.

“Sit !” He motioned for her to sit on an old chair, revarnished , next to him.

“That day,”He paused, wincing at the memory of his invaded privacy, “when you opened the letters, what did you see?”

“I saw some hippies holidaying in France .”

“Some hippies!!” The old man chuckled with maniacal intensity, and rubbed his hands . Mira saw the same mad gleam in his eyes.

“Any chance of you recognizing those “Hippies!!”The old man whispered almost conspiratorially.

Mira shook her head. She didn’t like the drift of this conversation. It heralded a storm. A far off voice told her to run.But it was too late.

“This is “Old man pointed to a young mustachioed gent in dark glasses and a nauseating floral shirt , bell-bottoms;his gnarled finger quivering in excitement.

And then it hit her, She would recognize that lop-sided grin any where!

“My father!” She shrieked.

“And this is “ He pointed to a nubile girl grinning behind the big man,he paused for effect,

“Ghose auntie.” He smiled as Mira correctly placed wrinkled faced names against youthful people staring out in their sepia images .

This carried on for an hour or two. Mira began to enjoy herself. Picking out famous landmarks in European nations , and familiar faces in strange get ups, it tickled her to no end .

Outside , the sun had set, and darkness set in.A cool evening breeze brought some dead leaves rustling to the screen door. A pigeon cooed in its contended homecoming.

Then the old man gathered all his snaps and tied them up, putting them neatly away. The he pushed his specs back onto his bald pate and stared at Mira.

Thoughtfully making a steeple of his fingers , he asked Mira-“You know why I called you here.”

“To show me old snaps .”She giggled.

“Yes, and ..”he hesitated for what seemed a long time . “to see if you haven’t stumbled on some dirty family secret, that day when you came snooping.But I shouldn’t have worried . It is clear you know nothing. Neither have you discovered my skeletons . They are safe in their closets.”

The old man laughed his insane laughter again.The paternal soft gaze was again replaced by the mad gleam.

Mira was really scared now. She gripped the arm rests tightly, bracing herself.

“In those snaps by the French Riviera , did you notice some one strange .”

“Yes, the French lady with a bicycle .The one you said was your land lady’s daughter.”

“Yess! Simone , That was her name .”

“What about her?”

Mira almost knew the answer before he could say it.

“She is your biological mother, your progenitor.”

The old man certainly chose his words with great care. Then he waited for her response . Mira shut her eyes. Took great gulps of air , and denounced the old man in three , clear , stone –like words-“You are lying.”

Then with her back ramrod straight, she gathered her dignity around her , like a fluttering dupatta , and slowly walked down the stairs.In a daze.She heard some snatches of old man’s shouts-“Ask your mother on phone . She will tell you if I am a liar. Haven’t you ever wondered why your hair is the colour of hay, and eyes light brown? Come on now, it is obvious. That much of intelligence we all have “

And later , when she had almost reached her room, the faint sing-song, taunting, haunting, -“Aami mithe bolchi na(I am not lying)”

Mira shut the door and lay on her bed , across her intricate drawings of avian fetus, the pencils digging into her back. She couldn’t feel them. There was a numbing storm in her head, a loud ringing, that drowned all other senses.

“Bastard, bastard!” She felt as though she was standing atop a hill , like lion king, but instead of felicitating, the gathering chanted, “Bastard, bastard!”

                                                  $$$$$

“You could have at least told me once ma . I have to hear this from strangers. I don’t know why I am even calling you ma.”

Mira’s mother, or at least the one she called mother, was at the receiving end on the phone. Mira had climbed the rooftop, and was unburdening her heart. Not bothering to even wipe the flow of tears.She was hysterical, understandably so.

After a prolonged one-sided haranguing, in which , her mother couldn’t get a word edgewise, Mira ended the call, wiped her tears, and with bosom still heaving from long sobbing, looked out at Ganges with mixed emotions.

“My!my! what a show of ballooned self-pity!”

A small wiry youth, bespectacled , had perched himself on a concrete block, and had heard every bit of the fiery exchange.

“Eavesdropping seems to be your familial pastime.” Mira retorted. She had expected the Joka undergrad to be fleshier, taller. At least that’s what he looked like in his framed photos hanging in the living room.

“So, the old man is at it again. Spilling beans , I see.” He ignored her barb.

“Again!He’s done this before?With whom?”

“This home , Mira di, is crawling with secrets. Skeletons are banging the closet doors, begging to be let out.”

He dramatically cupped his ears,Mira smiled despite herself.

“That’s better. You sound horrible when you let loose in Bengali. This smile is better, quieter, and can be heard in all languages.”

Mira broadened her smile. She liked him. But his father, humph!!

“I know , he can be a real pain in the you-know-where!Besides, I think, senility has finally caught up with him.”

The boy read her thoughts. This was uncanny.

“You are Shibi, right?”

“Yeah” He sighed.”Shibi,Shubbu and shubi.The old man got his rhyming all right. It was a riot when they called us in for dinner.”

“Us? But shubi is just a toddler.”

“Okay, okay, fine !! Just the two of us.Shubi came much later.”

He shrugged resignedly,got up,dusted his bottoms and announced-“Now we must get going , or they will think we are smooching here.”

Mira giggled through her tears and immediately felt guilty. So , she silently followed Shibi to the dining hall. She dreaded seeing the “family “ there.

All sorts of persecutory thoughts crowded her head. Was this why her parents sent her to Kolkata?To learn about her morbid past, a secret they could never bring themselves to utter! Cowards! Hypocrites! Her heart bled and fresh tears splotched onto her “maach-bhaat”.

Shibi nudged her gently and shook his head. He had decided to play the protective –elder-brother , and taken his seat next to her .

Her appetite gone , she was still mashing her maach, when payesh , the dessert was served. She had made up her mind. The sight of “nolen gurer payesh”, an old favourite, revolted her into speech.

“Aami kaal ke jachchi( I will leave tomorrow) Thank you for taking care of me .”

She left with her bhaat smeared hands , before the startled people could stop her , and before she melted infront of all that affected politeness.

Ghose kakima sent paayesh to her room , in a show of genuine affection. Mira returned it back, she had had enough of pseudo-love .

As she packed her bags , she thought of the startled looks on her hosts’ faces and the fact that she had left the word “home” out. She did not know if home was the right word to use any more.

                                               $$$$$

Mira banged her bags on the floor , and skipping the usual niceties, asked her mom, where was baba?

Her mother wordlessly nodded to the study. Mira marched in, and without so much as a preface, announced with a tight throat-“I want to go to France , to meet Simone.” Her father looking at her tiredly, through his glasses, and said nothing.

Later that evening, Mira sat in the kitchen, sullen and brooding. There was no cook here. Ma did all the cooking. In vain, she tried to engage her child in conversation.

Suddenly, there was a commotion at the gate . Some one , a male voice was talking to her father. After a little while , the owner of the voice entered the spacious kitchen.It was Shibi, the Joka undergrad.

“What was he doing here?After all it was her private war , wasn’t it ?”Thought Mira. The first thought that came to her was , ‘what is he doing in her home ? ‘Then she checked herself , having reminded herself that , the concept of “home “ was very shaky , right now .

As before , he plonked herself next to her and made small talk about weather and lousy politicians. Mira’s parents were thankful for his light hearted banter .It broke the ice , and made things seem normal till dinner time .

After dinner, as the spoons scraped the bottom of payesh bowls clean, Shibi licked his spoon with elan, and studied his own reflection on the curvy underside, “Aren’t you going to ask Miradi, why have I come here, on your heels?”

“This is a free country.” Mira was determined not to let go of her bitterness.

Her parents looked at each other in alarm, and Mira’s mother quickly got up to gather the dessert bowls and spoons , to leave for kitchen, her sanctuary when any storm approached.

“Kakima, I think you should sit.How will we all face the truth , if our parents keep running from it?”Shibi put the glistening spoon down.

Very slowly, kakima lowered herself into her chair , still clutching spoons.

“Miradi, the only truth here,” he turned to face her,”is that none of us , you shubbu , me or Shubi have any biological parents left.We were all orphans , brought up by the amazing people we call parents.”

“You remember the year 1971. Lots of families displaced, people killed in Bangladesh. Hundreds of refugees came in streaming. Starving, displaced.Our parents, biological if you will, were some people , in that crowd. When they died, the police put us up into overcrowded orphanages. We all were rescued from there, by these souls “he gestured towards her parents,” so we wouldn’t die of hunger or worse.”

“But what about the simone story, that Ghose uncle told me ?”

Here everyone smiled at her .

“It was a piece of fiction concocted by the old man to get his revenge . After all, you desecrated his sanctum sanctorum, didn’t you?”

“How can I believe you ?”She turned her gaze upon her parents”Is this true?” Her father nodded wearily , smiling faintly, her mother had taken refuge behind a wall of tears.

As she got up to hug her mother, Mira heard a distant voice reassuring her , “Kaku here will show you the adoption papers, if you want , but not today, it is really late now.” She smiled and hugged her sobbing mother, her own chest heaving with the burden of unshed tears of relief and gratitude.

My dreams

My dreams are many
zany and uncanny
some are surreal
some earthy and real

In my dreams I can be
whoever I want to be
I can leap across bonfires
and be amongst high fliers

I can scale heights
I can wear tights
things improbable
well nigh impossible 

at my age/size
but for my dreams
which make me feel
otherwise

Bald head

My kids took one look at my head and screamed , or laughed ; you couldn't tell.
 Being two years apart, they are both infested with teenage behaviour, simultaneously , and often , you cannot  distinguish a smirk from grimace , a shout of laughter from a scream of disapproval, and a yes from a no. I chose to play it safe , and pretended to be offended, firmly seating myself in the parents' chair.
On the weekend , my younger one , having tired of playing inane games called "Temple Run " ( ever heard of a temple running, so weird!)and "angry granny", ventured , as if she had put a great deal of thought to it;"You could grow a mohawk, you know !"
I had to google it up. It is an outlandish hairstyle adopted by the teens of today to resemble red-Indians of yesterday, or Roman Gladiators.
Elder one , squinting in the sun, looked up from her "One direction "CD, added -"Yes, with pink tints."Then the two looked at each other , and burst into guffaws.
This was too much. My hairless skull was being the butt of jokes . I had to express my disapproval.
I moved away, hurt.

My friend rings up from across seven seas and addresses me as ,"Hello! skinhead !"

My spouse wants quick results. An assortments of lotions and potions have started accumulating on the usually deserted dressing table.Whenever he finds time,he mixes up various aromatic oils and rubs it on my scant scalp.So, for the rest of the day, I walk around with an odoriferous reminder of espousal love,on my head.

My sister, being the quintessential fish-loving bong, is of the opinion that eating this and drinking that will help me regain my lost hair and honour, in that order. The dietary supplements are working , but on parts of my body other than my scalp. As a result, I may end up being a well-fed , hirsute Amazonian, minus the hair on the head.

The other day we watched a program on TV featuring that famous head-butter,"Zinidane Zidane", and I thought being bald was not so bad after all . All the famous people I loved and admired were bald , beginning with G for Gandhiji and ending with G for Gorbachev.

My daughter was the one to puncture my balloon of happiness,"But ma , they were all men !" 

Ode to a bald pate ( On hair-loss)

This happened last week
feeling ok , not entirely weak
on the phone I did speak
volumes "bout the illness freak

That has left me fat and bald
On the verge of sounding ribald
Hair loss not as in growing old
but as sudden as entering the fold

Of people one sees often
in Orders,like a penitent nun
No offence here , no pun
but being hairless is no fun

 After a long sojourn
your spouse does return
 lifts your cap, knits his brow
asks,"hmm why did it not grow?"

"You tell me, you should know!"
my kids shriek, "show , show!"
I have a good mind to begin
charging,  one glimpse, one coin

Last week , for need of air
the weather being sunny and fair
I walked out of my lair
phone glued to the ear(not hair)

A girl with a glistening long mane
one whose I can't recall name
normally walks with extreme
composure, in her youth prime

Gave a startled gasp
her hands she did clasp
a fleeting look of intense
alarm, crossed her face

then lowering her countenance
biting her lips , hiding a grimace
her pace she quickened
I learnt a lesson , as I turned in

by looks chastened
I ran a hand, mid sentence
my scalp I encountered
recently tonsured

I forgot my headwear
hence the looks, sneer
Took there and then a vow
never to a glimpse allow

of my maneless mien
my stubbly field
six o clock shade
or my pate shining.

Canine retribution

She used everyone as a footstool. Figuratively, I mean.
Anyone could incur her wrath for whatsoever reason, and become the victim of her lambasting . She could rant and rave , making a public spectacle of the person's inabilities, and as if that was not enough, She would make the entire class laugh at the said person's follies . This was unforgivable . She was surely and certainly making a place for herself in the most-hated -list of most people.
But she remained unfazed. And as most inexplicable things have been known to happen , in this strange world , she scaled high in the corporate world, with consummate ease .

Her ability to suck up to her superiors was as phenomenal, as was her ill-behaviour towards her juniors. Both were opposite sides of the same coin. You could say, one begat the other.

She would sit in her den, with her foot on a footstool, eyeing everyone with a hawkeye, and all would feel like the miserable footstool.

A dog lover adopted a small stray pup, feeding it scraps. The pup took to napping in the cool corridor of the hostel, when all had departed for various classes and "lambastings".

Once it crept into the big ladies' room and slept under the footstool. She left in a hurry , and was gone for a couple of days' , over the weekend .

The dog lover missed the pup, but did not put much thought to it , as "after all, it was a stray".
Monday morning brought the house down , with mingled howls of agony , from canine and human (feminine) throats. The pup howled at the slippers thrown at him, and the lady howled at the state of her room.

It was , under these straitened circumstances, not safe to exhibit any affiliations to the canine , hence , it faced rejection from the "dog -lover " too.

The inner cup of joy , however,brimmeth over, and all were seen smiling , for no apparent reason.
Some one also suggested a medal of valour for the pup, for having performed a feat , which all could just dream about .

Ironies of life (1)

 The ladies sat in a large circle . They were swapping jokes and hilarity was high. All held glasses in their hands , and talked ill of the weather and the snacks. Never too much of a dresser , Sona always felt left out in such gatherings. People were dressed to the hilt, with multiple layers of make up. They talked of brands of eye-makeup, and Sona felt as if she belonged to a different planet.

She remembered a similar emotion gripping her when her sister took her to a famous jewellery shop in Kolkata. The ground floor was dedicated to gold, the first floor to silver and kundan jewellery, and the second to precious and semiprecious stones . It was like visiting a different world altogether. Gunmen bristled at every landing and at every entrance . It looked like a fortress, as well-dressed women , reeking of expensive perfume , tried out jewellery , with varying degrees of desire glinting in their eyes . There were cameras that whirred , clicked and swivelled . The billing clerk sat behind a bullet proof glass enclosure . All walked with their noses high up in the air , like princesses. Sona saw more crocodile leather bags , gucci shoes and faux fur , than she had ever seen in her entire life .

What was amazing was that this was still the same Kolkata that she knew . Of overflowing storm -drains , where high tide inundated entire "paras"( localities), twice in a day , and lepers begged with their battered aluminium bowls , right outside the jewellery shop.

It galled her. This nauseating display of wealth and poverty together.