Life in Progress - Interlude

Conversations around birthdays

I

"Did you arrange all these for me?"

"Of course you idiot! Do you see anyone else around us, who have their birthday today?"

"No. But there might be! You know one of my grannies also has her birthday today. And you know the Rocket Scientist,...ummmmm....something Kalam..areh the man who has a haircut like me..he also has his birthday today! Do you think I could become a scientist like him?"

"God! You are truly an idiot! Instead of enjoying the arrangements taken care painstakingly by your best friend and thanking her for that, you are talking about some scientist with a haircut like you! Like, seriously?"

"I am so sorry, so sorry! You know I always get distracted by all these ideas running in my head, and then I have to blurt them out! I am sorry, truly sorry."

"Whatever. Now say thank you profusely."

"Yes!Yes! Thank you so much for making all these arrangements painstakingly to celebrate my birthday. You are the simply the best!"

"Hmm. Enough of flattery. Now eat this Chef's special tuna dish that I have prepared solely for you and don't you dare and make any funny face while eating it. I expect top class review only." 

"Eww! It looks weird, and smells weird too!"

"Shut up and eat!  I don't care how it looks or tastes! I have cooked it for you so just eat! Else I will kill you!"

"Okay. Okay. I am eating! But do you know Shakespeare has the same date for birthday and death day?"

"Do you wish to have the same?"

'Huh?"

"No, no, if you wish to have the same, just continue with your stupid blabbering and I will make your wish come true!"

"Umm.."

"Now eat!"

In the distance, a landline phone rings.

"Must be your mother. Pick up the phone and tell her that you are going to return home in the evening, only when I am done celebrating your birthday."

"Aye, aye Captain! By the way, do you think I can become a Rocket Scientist like Kalam?"

"Ugh! The only thing you can become is to be a certified loon bag! Now go get the phone!"

II

"Listen, I am warning you, don't you dare and pick up someone else's call before mine. The first person to wish you should be me and only me, nobody else!"

"Why are you being so emo?"

"It's not being an 'emo', it's called 'the unspoken right of a best friend'!"

"Yeah right!"

"Yes, right!"

"Hmm, but I stay in a different time zone, so how can you promise that you will be the first person to wish me? I mean, midnight here will not even be early morning in your place."

"It doesn't matter. I have put an alarm and I will call you at your midnight."

"What if you are unable to get up. I know you, you always put the snooze button on, whenever the alarm rings."

"I will not this time. You will see."

"Hmmm..."

"What hmmm? Don't you believe me?"

"Areh! When did I say I don't believe you?"

"But you did 'hmmm' just now!"

"Yes. And what does a simple 'hmmm' mean?"

"Well, it sounded like as if you don't believe me!"

"Oh God! When did I say I don't believe you?"

"But you said 'hmmm' in a weird way!"

"Stop psychoanalysing my 'hmmm'! Sometimes 'hmmm' is just a 'hmmm', an expression!"

"Hmmm...."

"Ugh!"

III

"Will you stop sulking!"

"I am not sulking!"

"You are! And even pouting like a child!"

"I am not! And stop saying I am a child!"

"I didn't say you are a child. I said you are pouting like a child. There's a lot of difference in the semantics of both."

"Okay, whatever!"

"Accha, tell me why are you so upset?"

"Who said I am upset?"

"Your face."

"Have you suddenly become a face-reader? Next you will say that you have become a mind reader."

"I am neither a face reader, nor a mind reader. But I read you far better than anyone else. So just tell me what has happened."

"Uff!"

"I am waiting."

"Ugh!"

"I am still waiting!"

"You idiot! Why did you leave me alone today? You had promised that you would spend the whole day with me and then you did not confirm anything in the morning and so I had to go out with that guy instead."

"Hey! That guy is the one you are supposed to be dating now. And I did not want your guy to start hating me for taking away his girlfriend from him, on her birthday! Anyway, most of the guys you date end up hating poor me!"

"I am not his girlfriend! I am just dating him! That doesn't mean being boyfriend-girlfriend!"

"Okay! But since you are dating him, I thought that he should rather spend the day with you and I will see you in the evening."

"But he's he! You are you! I wanted to spend the day with my best friend, not with the guy I am dating! Friends come first!"

"Okay! Don't get so excited! I understand and I am sorry. But I am here now!"

"Yes! But I was looking forward to spend the entire day with you! I wanted to have a fun day, instead it felt like a valentine's day! And I don't want my birthday to feel like a valentine's day! And I told him so."

"Oh God! You didn't!"

"Yes and I told him that you would have planned the day differently!"

"Good Lord! Now I know why all your guy friends hate me! It's because of your comparison! And all this while I had been nitpicking my behaviour in front of them!"

"But I don't compare! I tell the truth!"

"Whatever. It's the same. Learn to be little diplomatic."

"Hmmm...And where were you the entire day?"

"Well, I was with my boyfriend."

"What? You left me for your boyfriend!"

"I didn't leave for you for my boyfriend. Unlike you I understand that it is important to give time to other types of relationships too and there is nothing wrong with that. And that is certainly not the end of the world."

"I don't care.You left me on my birthday with that guy, and instead spent time with your boyfriend!"

"Ugh! It's impossible to make you understand! You idiot, I didn't leave you! I wanted you to give some time and effort in your dates instead. And that there are other people who might want to spend time with you and you might also start enjoying your time with them, if you give them the chance."

"Hmmm..."

"And hey! I am not going anywhere. I am always with you. But you are growing up. So you need to also have grown up relations, which requires other relations, beyond friendship."

"But what if I don't want to grow up? What if I want to remain like this?"

"But we have to someday, whether we want or not."

"Ugh! I don't like this. You are making me morose on my birthday!"

"I am not trying to make you morose, idiot. I just want you to be aware of the reality."

"Stop being so practical! Uff!"

"Okay sorry, sorry. Come on, I want you to listen to this song from this upcoming movie. This song is appropriate for our friendship and is my dedication to you on your birthday."

"Hmmm...Okay...but I am seriously not able to understand what it means!"

"Listen carefully. It means that deep inside my heart I know that if you are there with me, then I will always be doing alright.."

"Oh that's pretty cool! You mean if I am there, you will always be doing alright! Great! I knew it! I knew that I am the most important person in you life!"

"Actually what I meant that the lyrics appropriately describe how you feel about my presence in your life. Which means I am the one who makes it right in your life."

"What? No!"

"Yes."

"No!"

"Yes!"

"I hate you!"

"I know."

Didi Ma'r Jhuli Part II

More than 13 years ago, I had written for the first time anything about Namma. More than 13 years ago, Namma had her brain tumor operation. Nearly 14 years ago, she had a road accident, where she got struck from behind by a taxi and had a possible concussion. Nearly 14 years when we had gone to visit Namma at her place after the accident, I realized for the first time that our indomitable Namma can also be a bed-ridden person for a change. More than 13 years ago after seeing Namma with a bandage all around her head, lying unconscious on the hospital bed, I made the realization for first time that one day there is a possibility of not having her in our lives.

But somehow she bounced back. Somehow she bounced back from the brain tumor surgery, subsequent delirious states, bed sores, personal and family setbacks. She bounced back in the way only she could do it, showing skeptical people like us that she is made of titanium. In all these years, she has seen deaths in her family – losing her husband while making her slow but gradual recovery from her prolonged illness following her surgery; losing her younger sister while she was admitted in a hospital and only getting to know of the death after the sister's funeral services were over; losing both her son-in-laws to cancer, attending both the funerals and watching her grandchildren performing the rites. Yet she never completely broke down, but stood strong and steady for the rest of us.

She has been a witness to so many life events in our lives, naye, she has been involved in so many life events in our lives that I don’t think we can think of a time when she had not been part of our lives. At least I cannot imagine any such moment in my life. And now we are at the verge of losing her to inevitability. And this time, we are losing hope as we are watching her in her frail body fighting against the ticking crocodile. This time, even she seems to have given up all hope. All she wants, is for the pain to be over. Now we are just waiting and watching and praying to buy some time. And as for me, I don’t know what will happen when the eventual thing will happen, all that I can say it will be like half of my universe would obliterate with a snap of a finger. My Thanos seems to have arrived and I am no Bruce Banner or Tony Stark to res-snap and bring things back. All that I can do is to pray for her to be happy and peaceful when the time comes. And to know that she is very much loved and forever will be.

No or Know

Do they know you
The people that you go out with these days?

Do they know how you take your coffee
Your favourite colour
Your favourite time of the day
Your favourite comfort food?

Do they know which books you like
The movies that you secretly indulge in
Your choice when it comes to music
What it means when you say,
"Let's do something!"

Do they know what your every expression mean
The grimace, the frown, the smirk and smile?
Do they know how to look beyond your laughter?
The nervous tics you do, when you suddenly feel shy?

Do they know that you cry when you watch mushy movies
A head butting trouble when there's any comedy scene on?
Do they know that you have tried out all Bollywood dance moves 
When there used to be nobody around home?

Do they know that you fancied your school to be Hogwarts
And named your nemesis the maths teacher Snape, before 'Always'?
Do they know secretly you used to doodle on your copies
And write love poems while trigonometry classes would be on?

Do they know that you still have a small child inside you
Who still wants to be a Jedi or Indiana Jones?
Do they know about the spacecraft that you had designed in your head?
Do they know you always wanted to run away from home?

Do they know you 
Or know what you show them
Or have you become lately what they want you to be?

Do I know you
As I used to earlier assume?
Or a figment of my imagination 
I conjured you up to be?

Knowing makes a lot of sense
Unknowing makes it hard.
Say I to Say I.


"Out beyond the ideas of knowing and unknowing, there's a field. I will meet you there." 

-Shamelessly lifting and misquoting Rumi

Fundamental Rights

Not allowed to see (anything),
Not allowed to seek (anything),
Not allowed to show (anything),
Not allowed to break (anything),
Not allowed to mourn (anything),
Not allowed to forget (anything),
Not allowed to end (anything).

Waited, waiting and still keep on waiting.
It never gets over,
Only the faces and the names change.

Small things

Part I

It's the small, small things that you miss the most.

In your routine automated life

Sometimes there happens something

That makes you pick up the phone and dial a certain number,

And halfway through the call you realise 

The number and the receiver both don't exist anymore.

Part II

I just realised today

Half the numbers on my speed dial list are non existent

As are the owners of the numbers.

Two I am out of touch with for years,

And for the rest few, I meet them everyday.

I don't know if I should reset my speed dial list or not.

শূন্য তবু শূন্য নয়

১

চিহ্নগুলো আজ সাড়ে পাঁচ টাকা দরে

বিক্রি করে দেওয়া গেল।

শুধু স্মৃতিগুলো গেল না। 

২

সব ঝগড়াঝাটি

তোমার আমার ছাড়িয়ে

রয়ে গেল শুধু দেড় সের ছাই।

Ramblings of the mind

I don't know why am I writing about this, but somehow, somewhere this idea had been in my head for a long time....someone who was a stranger to me for so long..someone whom I was distantly acquainted with but is slowly but stealthily getting into the inner circle of my companions. I still don't know what to call it, a stranger or a friend but it is there in my life - period.  It is Death.

When you think you know everything about life, death comes and gives you a gentle reminder about your perception about life - "Wake up! And smell the coffee!" 

What is more painful? Seeing someone dying gradually or a sudden death? How nicely and ignorantly we plans about life and then death comes and completely makes all of these irrelevant, inconsequential. As it is mentioned in the Vana Parva of Mahabharata, when the Yaksha asked Yudhisthira about what is the most surprising thing in this world, he mentioned that even though everyday we humans see countless living entities dying, we still act and think as if we will live forever. As one doctor friend had recently mentioned to me, "Run as much as you want to run after whatever in life, death will eventually catch hold of you." Maybe how you look at this eventuality determines your approach towards it.

I had been acquainted with death long time back when I was a child. Unfortunately I didn't possess the maturity and understanding to delve about it that time. The earliest memory of a very near one dying is of my paternal grandmother and that was nearly twenty years ago. I was taken aback and I was very angry at her for suddenly dying and then when the anger went away suddenly the reality struck me and I was afraid...very afraid, don't know about what but I was. And from then onwards I realised that death scares me as it reminds of that eventuality that once it comes you can't turn back the clock any more...you won't be able to see the person any more, won't hear the person anymore, won't be able to touch the person anymore. Someone whom you knew, had loved, had loved you back would turn into few grams of ashes and that's all...that's the end of the story! 

So what if you tell yourself that the person will remain in your heart, in your memories, in your DNA or Collective Unconscious - in that particular moment you discover that whom you knew as a person has left you and what is in front of you is but an empty vessel - a Dead Body. 

We find in psychology there are five stages of Grief being described- denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Accordingly, to adaptively overcome any emotional pain resulting from loss, we need to successfully go through each of the five stages and perhaps after that we might be able to move forward in life. This entire concept is all about recovery, but what about prevention from the same? Isn't prevention is better than cure?

Unfortunately we are not taught nor try to learn so. We rather choose to remain in our cocoon, our delusion and ignorance. Maybe that's why it becomes so difficult for us to assume that philosophical nonchalance that this body is but a vessel and the spirit was never born nor it will cease to be as it is birthless and deathless. Nor can we be poetic and look as death like the dark colored Shyam (Krishna) and thus welcome it as a solace and emancipation. 

To cut things short, right now I feel that it is Death that provides us with the truest meaning of life, the biggest existential question and thereafter we make own derivations. And thus sometimes it is good for us to consider the existence of death. Maybe then we will learn to appreciate the value of life and relations more than just the materialistic gains. 

But again, today I might be feeling so, tomorrow or may be after few hours all these thoughts will vanish from my head and I will get lost in the different self created alleys and by lanes of life. Till then let's pretend to be philosophical...

                                                  

"Death is but only a beginning."