A City Night

Up on the attic
Of skyscrapers and whispering sighs
Melting in crazy dreams
Dizzy with pretty lies
I fall, fall, fall…
Oh that bottomless trench
It moves forlorn by
Along the roadside stench.
Some dimming stars
A pitch-black night
Cars whooshing highway tracks
Psychedelic lights
My desk is dusky
Windows near,
Breezes breathing smoky dust
And faintly I can hear…

My city sings of lonely voids
It touches, oh it feels my eyes!
The evening rain has died so long
Now it’s time for more goodbyes.

Shaggy motels along murky lanes
Cheapness flooding women of doubtful birth
Trudging tramps with staling cigarette ends
Singing aloud the tunes of drudging earth.
Skinny dogs rolling in wetted sands
The puddles still mirror-clear,
All I need is a sleep ahead
But still a throb can hear…

My city sings of lonely voids
It touches, oh it feels my eyes!
The evening rain has died so long
Now it’s time for more goodbyes.

Cozy cafés, heated warm in neon beams
Secrets clogged with stories old
Spilling bins and vodka tins
Caffeine, pleasure, bought and sold.
Dreary bus stops staring blank
Lovers huddling empty parks
Darkened trees all swishing past
Painted walls and watermarks.
Bygone music, records known
Transistors fade with use and age
The stubborn baby still cries alone
The labor-man still counts his wage.
Oh my tongue is dry,
With laze and fear
But hark once more
And I can hear…

My city sings of lonely voids
It touches, oh it feels my eyes!
The evening rain has died so long
Now it’s time for more goodbyes.

Kalboishakhi...

The gray whirlpool of the dead dust has leapt to life again. At last. At long, long last. A strange afternoon, I’d say, of swishing trees and fluttering plastic bags. And yes, the dimming lights of a faded day. It held many stories, mostly unknown, and some, half-forgotten among the everyday sweat… among a lull that brings anything but sleep… among the lifeless groan of tedium and monotony… among dreams that only enhance disenchantment.

The rain did not matter. Or may be, it mattered less than the wind, or the dust that revolved round a spirit of aggression; very characteristic; very familiar; yet enigmatic in a way that inspires nothing less of an unfathomable awe. In short, nature at its paramount in an indiscriminate brutality.
Every kalboishakhi is special. Each brings a different darkness. A different aroma. A different tinge in the psyche. A different solitude. A different rapture. A different whisper. The ruthlessness breeds ache and alleviation with the same intensity- twin sisters rocking in the cradle of quivering fervor with the sudden strikes of lightning thunder.

I let in the dust. Through my window. Through my eyes. I let in the storm… the lightning… the rain. As my body felt their cruel touch, I allowed my mind to soar into heights that seemed unreachable before. That seems unreachable every year before this moment… this dark… this music… this unrest.

It’s a moment of rebellion. Strong. Wild. Mysterious. Passionate. Beautiful.
I’m too moved… too feeble to resist…
I’m giving in…

Journey

I confess. I saw eternity the other day. In the bustle. In the grey platform. In the bird-like animals along the high rising over bridge which must have been men and women in reality. My eyes were moist with silhouettes. I couldn’t see anything… only voices and noises flew along the heating air. I felt the dirty water licking the hemline of my long, flowing skirt…

The train was rushing in…
The world was spinning fast…
I gasped for breath…
My stomach gave a lurch…
A farewell smile blurred out of view…
The whistle could burst my ears…

I wanted to look away. But anyway, I couldn’t see anything… only sounds resonated inside my throat. I was dry and full. So I decided to keep still. Okay, I admit, I couldn’t have moved in any case. Roots, strong… adamant… rowdy, kept me fixed to the spot where I stood.

Did I stand at all?

And then the train came… Chugging and shrugging into a slothful halt.
Finally, I saw countless moves… the sea of unleashed colours which must have been men and women in reality.

The chocolate was melting inside the warmth of five clutching fingers…
My jaw was stiff with ache…
My cheek-muscles twitched…
And then…

Nothing happened. Only that I became deaf. Blank. Numb. It was an age before I discovered a change. A slight change. A beautiful change. A change that was not a change at all. It was all the same… the crowd… the fading sounds… the smudging colours… the ash jeans and black skirt… only that another five fingers clasped the melting chocolate over the previous five. It didn’t feel like a change, in fact. It was an end. A completion most obvious. A gift. An eternity.

One more shrill screech, and the train slowly left the station. I wanted to crane my neck for a last glance. But I was too full. Too heavy. Too captivated to move. The blue kurta and ash jeans still hung loose inside my skull… a smile that I tried to recollect couldn’t find a way out. My lips were parched and dead. Yet the train gathered speed… yet the crowd was scurrying about… yet the blue bench stared blatantly into my eyes… yet a waving hand disappeared among a thousand businesses...

Only I remained. Rooted. Quiet with inertia. Frozen with light. I wanted to close my eyes. I wanted to cry. I wanted to flee… to die…
But there I was! Standing amidst distorted images of reveries, realities and dreams. The whole of my consciousness was flooding with a glow… the beam was drenching my soul… liberating my pains… sweeping away all shadows of dilemma and doubts.

I knew at the instant, that I’ve undergone a journey... it was a religious cruise down my psyche. I felt it too deeply to deny.

I didn’t care whether my eyes were red… whether my hands were sticky with the remnants of melted cocoa... all I could manage is to utter “Happy Birthday”…
I needed it.
I was indeed born again.

Questions and Answers

But of course some questions do not have any answer is all that I manage to convince myself. Finally. No, convince will be incorrect to use. Argue would be better. It shocks me every time I realize that questions and spring are independent of each other. The temporal similitude of origin disturbs me. The co-incidental complement between the two seems extremely vexing. May be its only my unimaginative nature that refuses to accept any impediment to the linear flow of sense.

Or may be, I’ll say, I imagine too much. That is what makes reality all the more incoherent and illegible. Images simply swim inside my cerebrum. Sounds flutter and then fade away. All what remains is a set of questions that seems to have no answer. Bloody shimuls rain over my shoulders while the answers that never were lulls me dead.

It’s weird to die everyday.
It really is.

I have a fetish for communication. For touching finger-tips instead of kisses. For phone calls instead of Bournvilles. It might make me odd… but one can hardly deny one’s dislikes. And likes, of course. Communication leads to lesser questions. Better answers. And bonding. The attachment that I am always deprived of.

Am I complaining?
Do I know what satisfies my queer needs?
Am I still the child that Mom tries to spot in me every time I get out of control?
Can unconditional love exist but for in myths?
How long will I be able to persist with this search?

Questions never fetch me any answers. Instead, they take me to mellow winter afternoons of orange dust and dreamy smokes. Of the telebhaja breeze. Of the chill making my nostrils arid. Of the golden light trickling down my ruffled hair. Of gutters blocked with empty Pepsi cans. Of the cozy constriction of the Cornfield Road. Of ripened suns and neon lights.

I no longer feel too tempted to stop seeking answers. I dig into myself. Into others. I go on trying… and trying… and trying…

I’m a creepy creature, eh?

Cuckoo-Phobia

I fear the cuckoo sing. It brings fever. And phlegm. And unwanted footbaths. It’s very tricky you know… makes me rush to the window, stand clutching the railings, look at the resurrected krishnachura tree, inhale the pollen-rich happy-go-lucky breeze, gulp in all the light pouring onto my window sill and then…

I miss my childhood springs. Times when Ma would read out slices from different texts- English, Bangla, History, Geography, Life Science, even Physical Sciences and I would lie under a bed sheet groaning in fever. The Annual Exams were always such a pleasure so. I could jolly well manage excuses to fail. Or rather, to do badly. Or… umm… rather to do not so well. I fear gratifying expectations too.

The cuckoo brings my favourite sun.
So I really fear the cuckoo sing.
Suns are too infectious to escape. They bring light. They shoo darkness. They inflate me with smiles. With bliss. With confidence. And hope. I die to jump and snatch a lump of the beams they rain.
But sunlight burns my eyes. I thrive on antibiotics. And vomit. Am very bad at swallowing things. The vomits are often green. Even pink. Or red. All depends upon the cough syrup I take. My windows are kept closed to the sun. But some lights always manage to peep in. I fear intrusions too.

Fevers are like dreams. I easily catch my pet butterflies once again. The moths that were butterflies to me, that is. I gave them ants to eat. Both red and black. And I can once again teach the red ants to swim in empty ice-cream cups and help them out with a piece of wool. I can’t remember the colour. Only the ants come and go and tickle my fingers and caress my palm and jump into the water and struggle and swim and climb up the wool back to my finger once again. I miss the insects these days. Really. But the dreams persist. Nothing less than occasional violent shudders of cough can keep me awake in these times.

The cuckoo is a lovely bird. But I don’t like it sing. It reminds me of some old paintings. Some songs that I never managed to sing and so killed silent. Some cravings incomprehensible yet. Some myths that faded half way through. Some stories that were never woven. Some soliloquies that failed to find any readable expression. Some cold clouds that always bring fever.

Ah! I just realized. I fear long pent-up thoughts as well.

Dead Passions...

Dead passions never die.
Buried, indeed they are…
Latent, dormant, sleeping flames-
Damnation follows their murky trail
I clasp the corpse behind sweating breasts
The passion burns more
And myths are curved along
The lines of forgetful love.

Foggy shadows are not all,
Much more remains for the voyage.
The touches and oaths haunt all over
August clouds bursting inside
How it rains! How it pains!
How I gain one lifetime more
Each time they come
And go and come
The bliss overflows in frenzied calm.

I do not mean to live in past
But dead passions are never dead.
The threads are blocked in a smothering knot-
No life no death will slash them away
They wake in graveyards, ancient ghosts
And never let me sleep alone
With whispers filling the air around,
“Dead passions do never die.”

Strange Times

I have seen strange times. Times when everything was too normal to breathe. My family was at peace. Exams, presentations and term papers keeping us fussed and frustrated. The yearly spring was in the breeze, especially in the campus of Jadavpur University where every March the grass is soft (without ants), the sky is a violent shade of ultramarine blue and the breeze too seductive to resist.

By strange I mean normal.
Always!!
Err…
No...
I guess… sometimes…
There is an unimaginable pleasure in believing that I’m mad. Whimsical. Totally. Good-natured. But essentially crazy. May be its because of my irritating habit of escaping responsibilities. Never know. But all the same, loneliness comes as an indispensable corollary to business. And madness. And so it came. Tiptoed. Through Literature and the Other Arts. Through the Book Fair. Through regular visits to the Film Studies Department for the term papers. Through Hiroshima Mon Amour. Through Valentines Day. Through Sanskriti. Through the fossils of a yellow rose. Through Oresteia.

There were only two alternatives to escape. Hugging the pillow. And not awaiting those goddammit missed calls. I chose the first. Way lot easier an option.
I prefer easier things to effective ones.
Always!!

Err…
No… I mean, most of the time.

I’m not good at telling stories. But then, good for me. Everyone is interested only in reality. Or Art. And of course there are people who claim to write about Art and then give us the same old utterly personal hotchpotch. I don’t care. I look for stories. In reality. In Art. In life. But I have seen strange times. Times when love was just a fact. Kissing, formality. Touches, habit. Literature, duty. Family, pretentious smiles. And life had come to a stalemate.

By strange, I tend to mean normal… just tend to. But then, what is normal anyway?