Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
On Women's Day
Know what? Let me tell you about a true incident tonight, about which so far only one person other than me is aware of (and he happens to be my best friend).
It was just another evening of October in 2006. The Puja vacation was drawing to a close. The next day happened to be Laxmi Puja and I was waiting for my father to return home from office, because we were scheduled to go to the local market to make arrangements for the day to come.
I was curled up in the study-room easy-chair, doing nothing, and enjoying the quietness of the otherwise empty house. Suddenly the phone began to ring. The unexpected ringing of a phone somehow manages to make me uncomfortable and it was no different this time. Then again, perhaps it was my father. So I went and picked up the receiver. . . .
"Hello?"; "Ke? Rudrashis naki re?. . . ." Hang on! This was definitely not my father's voice. . ". . ami Kuttimaasi bolchhi. . . ."
For a moment or two, I couldn't tell how I felt. Kuttimaasi is my mother's khurtuto bon and ten years older than me. That was the first time I was hearing her voice in more than four years. But it hadn't taken me more than a few seconds to recognize it. . . .
Please do not misinterpret me when I say that I think for all of us there is a special place in our memory for someone (who is older than us) from our family, or neighbourhood, from the days when we hung a water bottle around our neck as our mothers tied our shoelaces before we left for school. I won't call it love because love is for grown-ups, right? But it's that kind of a feeling which makes you skip a whole day's meal just because that someone had spent the whole morning playing with your cousins/nephews/nieces and forgot to ask you to join in. "How could he/she be so cruel towards me after all that I've done to please. . . ." well, you get the picture, don't you?
But "The Times They Are a-Changin" and you change with them. So does many things that once mattered. Yet you are left with a touch, a smell of the seasons gone by. And a question that might never be answered - "What was it all about all those year's ago?". . . .
. . . . meanwhile Kuttimaasi had been speaking. However I sensed a change in her voice now - "Jaanis Rudrashis toke anekdin dekhini to, tai tor mukhta ar mone pore na." Then a hint of a distant smile.
The rest is a blur. She asked how my mother and my father was, and asked all of us to visit her at her in-laws' place. Her daughter was six years old now and would love to play with me. After that she hung up.
I came back to the easy-chair but found it to be far from easy. ". . . . Tor mukhta ar mone pore na." It was (and still is) the most frank and honest confession I've ever heard and probably the most painful commentary regarding myself. I was not angry. Neither did I skip my dinner that night. I was not that me anymore. She was no longer that Kuttimaasi. But still I write to you about that phone-call in an October evening. Do you know why?
Happy Women's Day!
Buona notte!
It was just another evening of October in 2006. The Puja vacation was drawing to a close. The next day happened to be Laxmi Puja and I was waiting for my father to return home from office, because we were scheduled to go to the local market to make arrangements for the day to come.
I was curled up in the study-room easy-chair, doing nothing, and enjoying the quietness of the otherwise empty house. Suddenly the phone began to ring. The unexpected ringing of a phone somehow manages to make me uncomfortable and it was no different this time. Then again, perhaps it was my father. So I went and picked up the receiver. . . .
"Hello?"; "Ke? Rudrashis naki re?. . . ." Hang on! This was definitely not my father's voice. . ". . ami Kuttimaasi bolchhi. . . ."
For a moment or two, I couldn't tell how I felt. Kuttimaasi is my mother's khurtuto bon and ten years older than me. That was the first time I was hearing her voice in more than four years. But it hadn't taken me more than a few seconds to recognize it. . . .
Please do not misinterpret me when I say that I think for all of us there is a special place in our memory for someone (who is older than us) from our family, or neighbourhood, from the days when we hung a water bottle around our neck as our mothers tied our shoelaces before we left for school. I won't call it love because love is for grown-ups, right? But it's that kind of a feeling which makes you skip a whole day's meal just because that someone had spent the whole morning playing with your cousins/nephews/nieces and forgot to ask you to join in. "How could he/she be so cruel towards me after all that I've done to please. . . ." well, you get the picture, don't you?
But "The Times They Are a-Changin" and you change with them. So does many things that once mattered. Yet you are left with a touch, a smell of the seasons gone by. And a question that might never be answered - "What was it all about all those year's ago?". . . .
. . . . meanwhile Kuttimaasi had been speaking. However I sensed a change in her voice now - "Jaanis Rudrashis toke anekdin dekhini to, tai tor mukhta ar mone pore na." Then a hint of a distant smile.
The rest is a blur. She asked how my mother and my father was, and asked all of us to visit her at her in-laws' place. Her daughter was six years old now and would love to play with me. After that she hung up.
I came back to the easy-chair but found it to be far from easy. ". . . . Tor mukhta ar mone pore na." It was (and still is) the most frank and honest confession I've ever heard and probably the most painful commentary regarding myself. I was not angry. Neither did I skip my dinner that night. I was not that me anymore. She was no longer that Kuttimaasi. But still I write to you about that phone-call in an October evening. Do you know why?
Happy Women's Day!
Buona notte!
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