We Smelt The Woods...

Year 2010 saw my first tryst with the woods...
A fruition of the innumerable dreams of adventure I grew up with…
Campfires, tents, sleeping bags, log houses deep into the heart of the forest, occasional roars of wild beasts and GOOSEBUMPS!

To touch the misty horizon...

Well, that's what I had EXPECTED it to be when the four of us finally set out for the forests of Duars^* (or Dooars) in the foothills of Eastern Himalayas on a cold January night; - all thanks to my Dad’s lifelong obsession with jungle movies, and also to Ms. Enid Blyton – who penned the daredevil ventures of Secret Seven that formed my staple diet as a kid.

The Fasting Female Engineer

Our first awakening reveals that our mind,
Conditioned as it is to superstition and tradition,
Is the prison-house in which we dwell.
- Joel Goldsmith

My Dad belongs to a generation that had always seen engineering as a male bastion until their hair greyed, and then - IT happened in India. They blinked their eyes, and lo, the number of engineering colleges in the state had quadrupled! They blinked their eyes again, and their own daughters had enrolled themselves for Electronics or Computer Engineering! The third time they blinked, hosts of young lady engineers had bagged lucrative jobs with the top multinational corporates of the world! And then, their skepticism made way for claps of acclamation, and their fantasies took flight.

“What do you girls talk about when you sit together after office, Papai?”
“How did your friends react on this particular piece of news?”
“Since you girls spend so much of time together, why don’t you undertake a group project to intercept and decode the terrorist intercommunications in India?”

A Strange Afternoon and Teach For India

So? Joining ‘Teach For India’?

“So? Joining ‘Teach For India’?” asked the baritone that could put Big B to shame. My heart jumped and bumped against my larynx even before my eyes could affirm the quick diagnosis by my auditory senses – it was unmistakably the voice of God!

Now, not many expect God to be seated directly across their dining table on an unassuming Sunday afternoon! Neither can many, I suppose, handle uninvited Divine curiosity after such an unapologetic apparition! I didn’t know what to make of it.

“Not really.”– I said.

Figments of the subconscious, or a mere fancy

And then I take a dip into the eternal wonder of mankind. Do ‘I’ get dissolved, dismissed at death? Just like my memory cells, my genes?

‘Na hanyate hanyamaane sharire*’, says God, and asks the smoky ‘me’ rising from my pyre –‘So, what did you do with your life, my friend?’

‘Well, I studied, made a career, had a nice warm family, made some really nice friends, performed my roles kind-of satisfactorily, you see!’

God: ‘And is that what you were sent for?’
Me: ‘You never specified something else!’
God: ‘Huh! Don’t frustrate me, you!’
Me: ‘Uh! I felt insignificant, Lord… powerless. What could I do?’
God: ‘Shooh! And I had placed you in world’s top 5% privileged lot!’

I give my habitual blank and confused look to God.

God: ‘Fine! 50 rebirths as chicken to adorn the pizzas of the IT youth! Howz that?’

The Skylark

November 28, 2009 (Modified: April 14, 2010)

She seemed to be caught in a whirlwind of mirth. A frail, bony structure... a mess of unkempt hair… she looked like an other-worldly being, as she rotated on, naked, amidst a sea of onlookers.

Otherwise, it was a usual busy evening at the pavement outside the Dumdum Metro station. Srijan, Amit and I sat at a corner, chewing homemade ‘murki’, occasionally knocked by some slum-dwelling toddler who wouldn’t move without a share. The kids had mastered the art of begging before they learnt to arrange words.

How old could she be? At least twelve … or thirteen. Not exactly an age to move around unclothed in public, though she looked barely a toothpick. Swarms of people walked up and down the pavement – some stared at her, some turned their glance away. She rotated on around herself – unaware of the surrounding world. Her entire body arched backwards, her hands spread out as she moved. She looked straight up and brimmed with unearthly joy. And once, when her eyes caught glimpse of a flock of birds flying across, she laughed out loud. She ran behind them in pure ecstasy. She was more than a bird.

The Rendezvous

Dated: End of 2002 ( B.Tech. 1st year)

It had just stopped raining…the air was still heavy with the smell of the sodden grass. Almost as deftly as a cat, Brishti stole her way up to the terrace…careful not to awake her parents. Was it past midnight? …She had no idea. The entire locality buzzes with life throughout the day…now it was a reign of death. An unknown enchantress had cast her magic spell over the entire world…everything was serene, silent, tranquil…. .The sweet music of the water droplets dripping down the leaves of the monstrous trees occasionally broke the calm of the hour. Brishti flung her arms up in the air casually …it was a rare sense of absolute freedom….” O my sky, my dear friend…will you too turn your face away from me?”, she whispered.

Brishti was groping for herself…. her restless eyes pierced through the darkness. Who was she? Where lay her real self? Year after year, she had looked at herself from others’ viewpoints; she had meekly slipped into the roles designed for her by her “well-wishers”. She had been burdened with the dreams of her parents, she had secretly groaned under its tremendous weight…but she kept on running and running and running, without the minutest complaint…. emerging as the school topper in each and every examination held in the past five years. And now that she had faltered in her steps for the first time in her life…why, the world around her seemed to crumble to pieces. Her entire life was rendered to a bundle of nothingness. Even the familiar affectionate faces had become so unfamiliar…

The Tears of the Sky

Dated: 10 Nov 2000 (Class XI)

“Twelve cops killed in Nepal clash”, “Bengal annex hockey title” … and well, it seems, “Suicide attempt by 1998 Madhyamik Calcutta topper”! It was the last news that made me jump to my feet, as I was glancing through the newspaper headlines before leaving for the school. Hey, didn’t I read the name Akash? Akash Bhattacharya? But why on the earth would he …. No, the idea seemed preposterous!

As I stood sweating in the overcrowded public bus heading Bhavanipur, where he lived, I wondered what left this amiable, tender-hearted, bit impractical but imaginative and versatile young boy without an option. A bright, happy collage of our childhood days flashed across my eyes. To think of the numerous afternoons we had spent together! The passionate discussions about Satyajit Ray, Shombhu Mitra, Lopamudra and Srikanto Acharya ….. about Spanish guitars and mouth organs, about the poems of Joy Goswami… putting in brief, what not! A couple of years older than me, Akash was then my next door neighbor and my best friend in the world. With a superficial air of seriousness and introversion, he was known by the entire circle of his acquaintances as an ideal “good boy” – rather, a bookworm. Who but me had realized that his true self was a hidden treasure-once you take the pain to dig it out, the wealth dazzles your senses! Akash had the heart of a creator. He had good potential in fine arts and music, and he secretly wrote wonderful poems too. Though it was primarily his exam scores for which he was cited as an ideal among his cousins and classmates. I still remember how boastful his parents were when Akash was declared District Topper in the Secondary exams’98.