HARMONY IN PANDEMONIUM

               

The seven shades of the rainbow,

The seven latent deadly sins,

The seven transcendental stars of the Great Bear,

-         The three pillars of mankind:

Colliding

Uniting

Exploding!

Haiku 4

      You sleep with a smile

      I pluck the morning flowers
     

      To say goodbye.

Haiku 3

                    They say ‘Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder’.
        

                Beauty , the fortune of the blind

                For beauty is elusive to the eyes that feast on material pleasures.

Haiku 2

                  You dream of building an ocean          

                I remain content

                By diluting myself in a drop of water.
     

Haiku 1

                                               When I prepare to sleep

                The wolves and vultures awake

                In me.

2.

COMEUPPANCE: THE DESERVED PUNISHMENT

A small and dingy room.

Suffocating.

Disheveled.

Clothes stacked up on the lone bed placed against the wall.

The only window,

Grilled,

 Bordering the bed,

Kept closed

Firmly enough to eschew any light from piercing inside.

Trespassers prohibited.

A frail old man seated at the edge of the bed

facing the neatly placed coffin on the floor

and its owner beside: his 27 year old daughter.

Conscientiously, she unscrewed the coffin

While her father kept staring,

Unflinching,

Undaunted,

Waiting…

She silently placed the cover aside

On the floor

And turned her gaze to look indoors:

A stone-studded necklace

Resting on the bosom

Of the blood-and-flesh-liberated skeleton!

The red pendant dazzled and blinded the unvoiced spectators.

The drooping and sagging old man asked:

‘Do you need my help?’

‘No’, she said,

‘I’ll bear the yoke of my remnants;

I’ll have to bear my own cross, Father!’

Out of the room

And

Into the dense woods,

A young feminine frame kept under her own steam

Digging the soil beneath

With the bones of her own carcass

Hanging from her shoulders…

Untitled

Amidst troubling days and disturbing nights
Black Hole permeates in me.

Decussation

We are concurred in a web of intertwining events.
Intersecting.
Vice and Virtue.
Good and Evil.
Love and Hatred.
Peace and Chaos.
Sinner and Saint.
Eluded by the Night and restrained by the Day.


Blackness conceals,
Brightness conceives.

Plunge into your Dreams....

Plunge into your dreams and grab them by their neck. Twist their roots till they rip off and come in your grip. Stop them from haunting you, luring you. Make them your own before they turn into your deadliest nightmares. Play with their folly and exploit their righteousness before the flibbertigibbets take a toll on your life. And “when the virtue has slept, it will arise the more refreshed”, to dig you out of your slumber, to refine upon your livid and dreary soul! 

PRELUDE

When the beautiful memories of bygone days start luring, I cling on to those hellish nightmares I was thrown into.


It gives me an excuse to avoid being TRAPPED again. 


A Serpent shouldn't be allowed to bite so many times!


Satan had come down to take me to his kingdom.
'Heaven', I had thought.
'Take me to yourself, my Prince Charming.'


Taken I was and obliterated.

DEADLOCK

It was the final day of the term before I went on vacation. I had taught for just 3 weeks which means I had only 9 classes, in other words, 18 hours with the class, with minimal scope of personal interaction. She waited at one corner of the classroom till everyone else left for the day, with laconic parting words.

As usual she looked elegant and vibrant. Light red lips, nails painted with a subtle pink, an understated but sophisticated suit and a flashy white pair of slippers; her straightened hair neatly combed and eyes intense.

I smiled at her, “Yes, how can I help you?”

“I brought this for you”, and she handed me a bar of dark chocolate (my all-time favorite, but how on earth did she know about it?) and a card.

“Oh thank you so much! But my name is spelt incorrectly. It’s DebarAti, not DebarOti!”

With a withdrawn smile, she said, “My son had told me but I didn’t listen.”

“Really? I thought your son is young, I mean 3-4 years old”, she didn’t come across as a mother of a grown up boy!

“No, he is eighteen”, she said as a matter-of-factly.

“Oh my god! Are you serious? How old are you then?” I asked with staggered eyes.

“How old are you?”

“I am 26”, I never faced troubles revealing my age to people, unlike many of my contemporaries.

“I am ten years elder than you.”

“Okk.” I tried to calculate if that was an age old enough to mother an 18 year old boy. After my mathematical brain solved the equation, I reverted, “You became a mother at the age of 18 then?”

She smiled and said, “I got married when I was 17 and within a year I became a mother.”

I couldn’t hold on to my probing mind. “At such an early age? I mean… you know… Was it a love marriage?”

She shook her head.

“Was there any… any kind of… ?”

“Financial problem?” she cut me short.

“Well… err.. yes!” I felt guilty of hinting at something which might have coerced into some un-trodden territory.

“No, not really”, she smiled.

“Then?” I was inquisitive.

“ Even though I got married at 17, my maturity was of a 12 year old girl. I was very happy the day I got married; all decked out like a fairy.  I danced all day in front of the mirror. After the reception, when it was time for all of my family members to leave, I joined them to head home, thinking that the party was over and ‘twas time to get back home, when my mom clarified that my house has changed address and I was supposed to stay with those new set of people from then.”  She went on, “My husband was 24 years elder than me.”

My brows shot up, trying to fathom what reason could there have been to get an adolescent girl married to someone as old as her uncle! “Didn’t you ask your culpable parents the reason for this unjust treatment?”

“I did. I still do and they never have an answer. I didn’t know anything about the matrimonial responsibilities. But I tried hard to harmonize with the confines of matrimony. My in-laws never wanted my husband to get married for he was a mint of money. They never wanted a share of his property to go in the hands of his wife and child. That would dwindle with the proportion of wealth transferred to the other members of the family.

“My husband and I never got on well with each other principally because of the gap of a generation in our ages. Our tastes and preferences didn’t match, obviously. On our anniversaries, when I wanted to have a candle-light dinner with him, he would rather invite friends and family over for a party. I hated the noise and the crowd. But I attuned myself.

“One day, within a year of marriage, I realized that I have conceived. I was 18 then. My son is 18 now, exactly 18 years younger than me. My only best friend.”

She went on. And I still didn’t know that her narrative so far was just a drop in the bucket.

“I have an elder sister and a younger brother. 14 years after marriage, my sister first conceived. She had twins, a boy and a girl. It was a great moment for the entire family.” She paused and then continued. “Three years ago, my husband, my sister, my brother-in-law and their twins were driving down to a place and on the way the car met with a terrible accident. Right on spot, four of my family members passed away- my sister, her daughter, the driver and my husband.”

My jaws fell open. I blurted out, “Didn’t you say, you help your husband in his business on the first day of class in the introductory session?”

With a smile on her face, she said, “I said I take care of my husband’s business. My brother helps me too. He is more of a father to me, now that he has lost one of his sisters. He keeps phoning me every now and then checking if I am alright. He has become over-possessive of me these days. ” She said the last sentence more to herself than to me.

I tried remembering her introductory speech.

Her words brought me back from my wonderland.

 “I always detested the life of a widow, the treatment dished out to the unfortunate women and the hardships they encountered for the rest of their lives in the name of family and society. ‘You must not wear red garments now’, ‘You should turn into a vegetarian’, ‘Concentrate on spirituality, devote yourself to God’, the list of advice was endless after my husband’s demise.”

‘A storm is as strong in its aftermath as in its raging’- I had read it somewhere. I saw the truth of the author’s words that day in my student’s eyes.  Blistering eyes going red as her mind transported down the memory lane.

I stared at this young lady in a red salwar suit, with a dazzling pair of slippers, glossy lips, glistening-but-moist eyes and a languid smile. She had kept her chin up.

I wondered how this lady instead of steeping down into her troubles, geared up her courage and oiled the hinges of her troubled life in an attempt to make a mark. She had plunged into the depths of pulchritudinous life and revived her education. She was doing her graduation in English, her favorite subject and wanted to do Master’s from an international university of repute. She had picked up the threads of her life from where she had left them. She hadn’t lost her bottle yet. She still hadn't encountered Zen-like disconnections from the realities of life. Mere survival wasn’t enough for her any longer. My mind inclined with respect and admiration for her.

“I always believed that everything happens for a reason but I could never justify my bizarre marriage or my husband’s sudden demise. Until this evening, I couldn’t even reason out why I started learning English language. But now I know, I had to meet you, Debarati. “

I gave a faded smile, not because I was unhappy at her declaration, but because I was pondering on her every word and gauged what made her open the book of her life to a stranger. I was only a teacher who had never before spent any private time with her. What made her rely on me so much to unmask her life in few minutes? I didn’t ask her anything and the question kept hanging in my mind without any answer.

Hours after our discussion had ended, her words went on spinning in my mind.

A month later, she called me up on my birthday. Wished me and invited me to join her on a trip to Goa. Because of some professional engagements, I turned down the lucrative offer with a gloom. She was travelling with her son, her closest pal, who had promised to get her married to an eligible person who would fill up the void in his mother’s life with all the love on earth, who would not let the soil crumble again.

I wished her a happy journey and sojourn. She deserved to be happy and embrace life with both arms.

Before she rung up the phone, she promised to bring me back an exotic drink as a souvenir and compensate for my loss.

I was informed about the day she was returning. So I waited for her call, waited to listen to her stories and adventure.

Few days passed by before she called. I was leaving my office premises and took my phone out to check if there was any text pending to be read or any call missed. There was. 2 missed calls. Instantaneously I called her back.

“Hello”, came a deadpan voice.

“I have been thinking about you for a while. Where have you been? When did you return? Did you have fun?” I said in one breath, hardly giving her a scope to answer.

When I paused to breathe, she said, “I was dying to talk to you. I tried your number a couple of times with no effect.”

“I was giving classes. I just saw your missed calls and phoned you right away. I was thinking about you for the last few days yearning to listen to your tales of adventure. So how is everything?”

After a terse pause, the castrated voice of my student uttered, “Mom passed away today morning.”

Impatience plagued me like never before. 

The fog continued to hang over and I failed to lift it from my shoulders.  

Surreptitious Memories

Memories are eccentric and clandestine. They are languid and phlegmatic, slapdash at times, never following any rule or chronology.  They nictitate in our brains, peep into our hearts and stir them, even before we realize we are drowned in the ocean of our memories. They play hide and seek with us, intermittently. When we try to delve deep into them, they tend to move away far beyond our jurisdiction, dampening our spirits, and then, all of a sudden, come forth for a quick consolation.

We never even know when they have us knocked down. But then when we try and trail them, they seem to scoff at us and run away...far beyond our vision, finding shelter, perhaps in the womb of some star or in the centre of some milky way, or else, escape through a black hole into some primordial universe...

Love

“They do not love that do not show their love. The course of true love never did run smooth. Love is a familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love.”

William Shakespeare.

Love’s ways are hard and steep, but follow it when it beckons to you. The sword hidden among its pinions may wound you, but yield to it when its wings enfold you. Its voice may shatter your dreams, but believe it when it speaks to you.

Melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. Know the pain of tenderness and be wounded by your own understanding of love.

Bleed willingly and joyfully.

Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks to another day of loving.

Rest and meditate love’s ecstasy, sleep with a prayer for your beloved in your heart, and live your love once again.

When I sit down to write about love, more than ever in life, I feel the futility of words.

It seems ages now that words have faded into oblivion and transformed into images, images which speak of love, a love whose divinity has surfaced every other thing, a love which has transpired silence; a profound silence which delves deep into the existence of the world and gives life to this universe.

We are the treasured children of Almighty- He created us for love, for tenderness and soothing, for benevolence and anodyne. We were born together and together we shall be evermore. Together we shall be when the white wings of death scatter our days. Together we shall be in the silent memory of the Lord.

The wings of heaven will blow for us and the stars and constellations will dance between us.

It’s the beginning of a new earth; a new world has born with the birth of a love- so profound, so kosher, a love whose existence gives life to this age-old universe...

Do we need a 'training' on Morality and Humanity?

I just watched To Sir, with Love and the first thing to come in my mind was, "Why didn't I watch it all these years?"
Being a teacher myself, it was quite an enriching journey to watch Sidney Poitier win over the hearts of a bunch of hoodlums. The movie reminded me of my English teacher, more popular as Sir. When the scaly arms of this world wrap me up, it's his words that keep me sane. It's his wisdom, his guidance, his teachings that help me keep my chin up, head held high. All my life, I have grown up seeing men like my grandpa, my father and Sir. And now I know that it is never possible for me to idolize someone who is not even close to their stature.

The other day while talking to him over phone, Sir mentioned a raucous experience he had in his class. He had just finished reading aloud Guy de Maupassant’s famous 1884 short story, The Necklace. And few of the students laughed at it(he has also posted about this in his blog). Shocked, I asked, "Mane?" Sir replied, even he was shocked at their reaction. The students found the damnation of two lives funny! Unbelievable!
And if this doesn't shock you, I'm sure the following news will... Read on.

Today's news about the gruesome murder of a wife by a software engineer in Dehradun tops the inhumanity in man.
News report says:
"On December 13, 2010 the Pioneer reported that in a gruesome incident, a software engineer battered his wife to death with an iron object, chopped her body into eight to ten pieces and kept her body hidden in a freezer in Dehradun for two months. Rajesh Gulati, 38, kept updating his wife’s status on her social networking websites so that her Delhi-based family and others could not learn about her death until a week ago." Though 8 to 10 pieces is just an under statement, since 27 pieces of HALF her body were recovered.

What else is left to be done? If this is not inhuman, what is? It pains me to think that today's world is filled with such INHUMAN WRETCH OF MONSTERS! And to survive with sanity amongst people who are always trying to pull me down in the grimy and lackluster world, I must say I am thankful to those few people I am blessed with: the three venerable men of my life and last but certainly not the least, my mom!

Their words of wisdom and knowledge have always guided me to stand upright and abhorred me from doing anything for which I would lose my self-respect. It shivers me to think about the future of this world. Who knows what is in store for these people and for the generations to come!

The Prophet, The Wanderer.

For quite some time I had been hunting for an anchor to restore my tranquility. Failing to think of any fruitful option, I landed at Starmark. After traversing through the floors and inspecting almost every section( and shelf) of the book store, I stumbled on a big fat Omnibus edition of Kahlil Gibran.

I had read Prophet earlier, but the sight of the complete collection lured me to empty my pocket.
The second book after Prophet in this complete collection is SAND AND FOAM. It is a collection of short stories and aphorisms which will not only amaze you but also make you wiser. It throws light into the deeper layers of life, which, unfortunately is missing from the superficial life of "hi-tech world".

I went to the mountains a while later after getting my hands on the book. All throughout the journey, this book was my only companion. Every time I read and re-read the short stories and aphorisms in SAND AND FOAM, I was dumbfounded. I went taciturn for hours, lost in a different world.

I am quoting some of the Wanderer's words here:

"Now would I fulfill myself. But how shall I unless I become a planet with intelligent lives dwelling upon it?
Is not this every man's goal?"

"A pearl is a temple built by pain around a grain of sand.
What longing built our bodies and around what grains?"

"Once I knew a man whose ears were exceedingly keen, but he was dumb. He had lost his tongue in a battle.
I now know what battles that man fought before the great silence came. I am glad he is dead.
The world is not large enough for two of us."

"My house says to me, 'Do not leave me, for here dwells your past.'
And the road says to me, 'Come and follow me, for I am your future.'
And I say to both my house and the road, 'I have no past, nor have I a future. If I stay here, there is a going in my staying; and if I go, there is a staying in my going. Only love and death change all things."

"When you long for blessings that you may not name, and when you grieve knowing not the cause,then indeed you are growing with all things that grow, and rising toward your greater self."

A new addition to the history of blasts!

"History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends."
-Karl Marx


Around 60-70 years back, an Argentine writer, named J.L. Borges, wrote about BENARES, without ever visiting the holy( now blood-stained) place.

Today morning while I was surfing through the news of the pernicious blast at Dashashwamedh, couple of links related to the blast popped up. But then I was bemused to see that a scroll bar on the right hand side of the page gave links to 15 pages(!), each containing news of about 20 blasts that took place this year around the globe.

It's the 63rd year of 'independence', as per historical records, but the innate disdain in our souls continues to goad us into destruction. We are still prey to the divide and rule. Perhaps it's rightly said that "the sun never sets on the British empire" because its span across the globe ensured that the sun was always shining on at least one of its numerous territories. And that certainly includes our hearts and minds, if not geographical territories!

"History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this." -Karl Marx

Then why are we still so eager to repeat that history at the cost of our lives?

The Notebook

Episode 1:
(The letter: Aberrations from a dulcet girl)


Some soul mates spend their lives together, while some others are unlucky! Some just happen to stumble on them, while some others keep looking for all their lives.
I had loved him alright, dreaded to even see his face at some point of time and happily fell in love with him head over heels again! Sometimes I felt insecure and died to know if he felt the same.. And at other times, I basked in the glory of being in his arms! I built small castles in my dream bubbles about reigning in his heart’s kingdom just when my nightmares started looming large, hovering across like a blood-thirsty vulture! I fought with it, tried to kill it once and for all, to foolishly discover thousands more waiting in the queue! Surrendering, I paced my steps back to sketch another of my cloudy dream bubble, with a new hope, for a better day. But my conflict remained subdued in my subconscious no matter how much I tried to battle them out.....

I don’t want to sound a weepy dame, alright, but, like you said the other day, am just talking of my innermost fears. They have ruled the last few years of my life.. 
I had never dreamt of a PRINCE CHARMING to come trotting (not literally, though, on a horse I mean) but I definitely wanted a secret keeper and secret sharer in my beloved betrothed. I wanted a BEST FRIEND who would be as crazy as I am, a bit more if not less! How can I afford a DECENT, GENTLE GUY from EARTH? I needed a crazy fellow from MARS! Oh yes, I m a proud resident of VENUS! You bet!

I probably sound childish but I’m afraid to grow up at the cost of my life! May be I sound funny even, but it has been one of my many foolish dreams carved on my dreamscape- I nurtured a wish to be held in the strong arms of a person who would willfully keep my innocence intact. I do all the grown-up things only to come back to that one man always eager to take me the way I am, in my virtues and vices, in my successes and failures, in all my follies; who would know my deepest emotion without me even having to say it. 

But before you scare the hell out of me, let me confirm that this not a matrimony advertisement ;-). All I want to say before I fuss anymore and before you start dozing off, is that I just wanted to make it work, really work, building a real castle(not that gigantic castle, if u might think), not in my dreams anymore but in real life, before death do us apart! Well u can make a flat-stle if you want to; so long there is serenity in it!

Episode 2:

I had written this for a person who had been very special to me once upon a time, and still is, but the interpretation has changed now. How foolish some people can be! Well if not all you ‘educated’, ‘sensible’ and ‘matured’ people out there but I can certainly bet on my foolishness. You might be thinking, “Is she out of her mind? How come she sounds so proud for being foolish?”  Well, the answer is, I am not proud, not exactly, but certainly I laugh at myself, pity myself. 
Yes, PITY is the word. I hated this word once upon a time, abhorred showing this emotion to anyone whatsoever. Irony of fate: it has hit me back like a boomerang.

I have never seen a vulture in real life. Probably won’t be able to recognize it even if it comes in front. But one thing that I know about it is how it feels when it chews on someone’s flesh.

Are you thinking I meant it literally? Well no, it's the other way round.

When you feel the ground beneath your feet and the roof on your head absent, and a naughty mouse or rabbit chewing on your flesh, a leech sucking your blood and a serpent continually nipping your arms and head while you are in empty space, it feels no better, I guess.

I chased the flying castle, tumbling on every stone on my way and finally hurting my head when I fell flat on my back. When I opened my eyes, the ground and the roof were in their allotted places, proudly reigning their kingdom. I was confined within the unwelcoming silence in my jail, once again. Every day seemed to be a stretched long dark night which had no end.

I am a prisoner who is not accused of any crime. 
Then why am I imprisoned? 
Because I have chosen it for myself. 
And why did I choose so? 
For I was blind enough to consider it  ‘home’. 
Why didn’t I leave or run or escape from this prison? 
Since I am blessed by 'well-wishers' who would cry buckets of fat, salty tears and hurt their hearts if they found I am not ‘happy’ as per their understanding of the term. Hence the disguise. 


“Yippy, I have braved the ghosts of one more night, mom!”

I want to collapse, scream and shout out all those exceptional French words which might pacify my exasperation. But are there words enough to metamorphose me into a phlegmatic soul? Others may be creative, but I am a failure in this aspect of ingenuity. 


Episode 3:

It’s a new installment now, a new episode: I don’t need an adhesive anymore nor do I need to uphold a brave face. I don’t lie to my parents any longer, don’t need to- it’s a blessing in disguise. I have learnt to exhaust myself enough by the end of each day to avoid confronting any more ghosts of the dead cold night.

The night is peaceful like a corpse. Inert, meek and docile. I have gained control over its flaccidity, once and for all. The sagging night and its poltergeists have lost their existence now.

They rule me no long.  The manacles of my life are in my hand now. I have triumphed the biggest battle of my life: the war with my deepest qualms.

All are at harmony and I am serene. The flickering stars have returned with their smiles. I smile back in response…

Zarathrustra

A strayed vagrant midnight squall last night sang to the ears of the dreaming dark sky,
" Dream of me, and here I rain. Dream of God and the blessings pour"' and the sleeping sky smiled as in its dream as Zarathrustra said, 'Tathastu".

By Debotosh Mitra.

SHELL

Monsoon arrived late this year.
But didn’t forget to visit nonetheless.
The stars of our solar system peep in and out of the horizon on time.
Mothers are feeding babies, lovers making love.
Idols are worshipped and priests are earning profits.
Schools, colleges, offices and shops open on time;
Doctors and lawyers are busy filling their pockets in the name of service...


I watch the rotating wheel of time.
An observer.
I hear a knock which keeps growing louder;
A scream behind closed doors, a thump on heart’s walls.


The stillness in silence resonates throughout the universe.
A monster’s face evolves on the walls of my womb; its teeth pierces out.
My frown smoothes.

But this is not my reality.
My world is inside my shell that shuns out everything.
No memories, no reality, no mystery.
Just being... unflinching.

Life's lesson

When the entire world descends into their sleeping abode, I keep talking to the stars alone, seeking answers to my innumerable questions.

There's a voice that hunts me down...
There's a tune that lures me...
There's a tornado that whirls around.
Pillars of light pierce through me and battle each other.
When the winds of fire burn inside, rainbows emerge from the gorge of silence-the vacant niche gets occupied.

"And they lived happily ever after"--has been the first tutor of mankind-so do people say. And the WORST by far.
It inflates the patience in man till he transforms into a piece of stone!