Maharaj Eki Saaje

In what form have appeared thee, pouring into my soul

The Universe melting in thy footsteps

Bereft of Ego,  genuflecting,

Mind and Body in resonance with thy Song

Pain is but pleasure, carried by the gentle breeze,

The forest showering its petals in thy stead

Not a wink in my eye, Time passes me by

I behold Only the beauty at thy Core

  

One of those nights, when one is whole in pieces... when absence makes complete! When contradictions become unambiguous, realizing past will always be the present and future!

O but what a waste, when one needs to cross entire furlongs to realize he is just where he started... And that is where he has always wanted to be... and where he needs to be

Everyday is but a means they say... to what end I ask! Living in the moment I realize the moments aggregate into a lifetime... Isn't it all One has?

Listening to that which resonates with oneself, that old man long gone leaving behind a beauty that is absolute!

Of crests and troughs, but there is One true, always by my side, even in absence... that terrace beckons me to do what's  true...

The years gone by, a handful of memories... each one lasting a lifetime... but all of them pointing home.

Maharaj eki saaje ele hridoy puro majhe

Charane tabo koti shoshi surja more laaje

Gorbo sobo tutiya, Murchi pore lutiya

Sokol momo deho mono bina somo baje

Eki puloko bedona, bohichhe modhu baye

Kanone joto pushpo chhilo, mililo tobe paye

Polok nahi nayone, herina kichhu bhubone,

Nirokhi sudhu ontore Sundoro biraje

For more... www.jehomach9.blogspot.in

Kolkata - May of 2014

I guess it's just one of those things that 'We' do... 'we' implying the proud race called the 'probashi bangali,' (Bongs-in-foreign-land' literally but more like 'Bongs-in-exile' in terms of sentiment), which probably can now be conferred an 'independent race' status given the mass exodus from Calcutta over the last few decades... for that difficult-to-swallow moment where you realize that 'Your' not being here is indeed what makes the 'City' so lovely...Cannot imagine another 15 mn over and above the existing 15.. We already have Bombay!!!

Coming back to what it is we 'do'... what do we do?? We reminisce... about the 'Past' while lying on the bed on a glorious afternoon staring at the spotted ceiling of a 100 year old house with bits of dry paint falling on your face every few seconds...listening to the groan of the metal-ceiling-fan that until recently ran on DC... It is I guess what can be termed Bengal's favourite 'Past'-time... be it Sailen-Pankoj-Netaji-Jyoti-Mountbatten... a Bongs collective memory is like a history book recently discarded from the syllabus for being outdated...and true-blue-blood-bong-class can only be shown during 'adda' (I-better-not-have-to-define-that-one-for-your-own-good) by not referring to even a single person-still-alive! And we obviously have the usual suspects of people from the past with their approved gestures- 1.Kobiguru (Tagore)-one is also allowed to do a little-baol-dance at the mention of his name or sing 'Aaji Dhaaner Khete'; 2.Netaji -shake the fist and yell give-me-blood-and-i-shall-give-you-freedom; 3. Karl Marx - pretend you actually know something about Communism other than sitting outside Presidency gates; and the most recent addition to the dead-or-been-killed-in-public-list 4.Amartya Sen - a little Jagdish Bhagwati mention will do I suppose!!!

Frankly there is not much else that you 'Can' do after a 'staple' Bong-meal of bhaat-dal-mach bhaja-aloo posto-muri ghonto-koi macher jhaal-tomato chutney-mishti doi-sandesh... Yes now you know why Bongs look so much nicer when living outside of Calcutta... no cook outside of the City will do that for less than half-your-monthly income!!! And to all the 'un-cultured-healthy-eating-lovely-looking-other-races' one needs to sit them down and politely explain for the 18th-bloody-millionth-time what 'posto' is...

Posto is to a Bong what Ganja was to Lord Shiva (and am sincerely hoping you stop yourself just-in-time from thinking of Amish-*#!$%-Tripathy... the idiot who has forever made it difficult to take even the Lord's name without feeling a bad taste in the mouth... and wait the movie hasn't even been released yet)... Coming back to Posto... they are these delightful little poppy seeds (read opium) which with the help of the two-true-loves of a Bong-boy (Ma and Aloo) turn into something heavenly during lunch... and trust me you are rendered so-completely-useless after a gentle dose of posto... that you completely lose the will to argue with all-the-idiots who refuse to believe that posto is the reason Calcutta-can-never-work in the afternoons...

Often i cannot help but put a spanner in the often-correct-arguments of Calcutta and Bong critics... especially the ones in Bombay... to let you in on a secret the following 'Absolute-Truths' works every time... 'It take a typical bong 'atleast 90 secs' to traverse every square feet of his HOUSE' - regardless of speed, distance and of-course the size of the pot-belly... just 'this' simple fact gets each and every Bombay-based critic of Calcutta momentarily speechless... while the home-of-his-dreams-for-which-he-just-paid-equivalent-income-of-18-bloody-Bombay-monsoons-for just doesn't seem as right anymore...

To be... one needs space... and Calcutta provides plenty... it is almost like a collective space... my-house-your-house-neighbours house-relatives house-college-school-Victoria-maidan everything feels like your own home...it is almost like the literal communist ideal of collective ownership... so much so that often in college one had to have blinkers in one's eyes for want of intrusion!!!

On the point of intrusion, one of the loveliest behavioural traits of a typical Bong is that 'We-just-land-up'... Till date I have never had to call up before visiting anyone... It's what Bongs-do-best... we just-land-up...like at any given point in Calcutta history... you will always be wondering who is going to knock on your door...whether the Nawab, the British, the Bangladeshis... it is always an adventure much like the beginnings of a Byomkesh Bakshi novel... which always starts with the door-knock... that is the average life of a Bong-family...and then ofcourse begins the Adda...

Adda-and-Roll (Kathi roll for the posh)... are 'One' thing that a Bong-kid learns early on in his life... this simple routine along with the timeless guidance of the village-elders that money-is-evil has successfully reduced the Bong-GDP by the value of Gujarat! Indeed instead of Modi we could have had our very own Sunirmal-Sutirtha-Sourashish (yes we do like the albhabet 'Esh')... doing 'Gola-baaji' (yelling at the top of your-mine-his lungs) about 'Rahool Baba' and 'Korrrrrupshonn'... and frankly if anyone has the right to do 'Chai-pe-chorchha' albeit 'Lebu-chai-pe-chorchha' it must be Us... much before the Brits got their hands on the green-yucky-tea leaf from China, I'm sure a couple of Bongs here-and-there were already exploring the deadly combo of Lebuu-Beet noon-Cha (Lemon-rock salt and tea) bhitout meelk... mhiind youuu... while exploring 'Culchaaar' (Culture)!!

Which brings us to the most precious item in all of the millions-infested Bong-land... Culture...sometimes it is wondered aloud that if culture could be a valid-barter tool Bengal would be resembling China by now... The Bong culture essentially is the juxtaposition of the Nawabi-Agricultural-British-Communist-Literary... While one is only subjected to the nawabi-agricultural-communist-literary cultures only sparingly, for instance music emanating from every loud-speaker in the City, huge swarms of masses clogging the City-lifeline daily in Brigade, imaginary farmers dancing to 'aaji dhaaner khete' and 'gram chhara ei raanga maatir poth', community kids dancing /singing /painting /reciting /karate-ing magnificently during Durga-puja, the British culture is one that has forever cast its shadow on the hearts and souls of Bong men and women alike...

As I truly hold... the 'Real Bread-Butter-Muffin-Jam-British' is found in one place alone in the whole wide world... and that is Tolly-club... Early mornings at 6 am... the only Brits that you will find at any golf course on the planet wearing leather-elbowed tweed jackets playing golf at that time is at this holy grail where all of Brit culture was cultivated... it is often being discussed how students from Eton and Oxford and Cambridge are being sent for their winter courses of 'being-a-Brit' to Tolly Club regularly year-after-year... of course the ones who pass can choose to be in South Africa, New Zealand, Hong Kong... while the ones who fail are almost with utmost certainty sent to the US of A... the cultural equivalent of a hedgehog!! It is often rumoured that the Queen's birthday each year is celebrated in a private party in Tolly while the body double (the one with James Bond) behaves stupidly at the Buckingham gates each year... I mean you can take the Bengal out of Britain but you can never take the Britain out of the Bangali...

As I begin to wrap-up this semi-lunatic piece cannot help but mention the two aspects of life that have the most impact when you begin to compare Calcutta with Bombay...

(One) - By a stroke of luck as the flight touched down (literally-touched-down-n-up-n-down-n-up on account of the lovely artistically created wavy tarmac at the Calcutta airport), I was greeted by the first few drops of heavenly rain... In Calcutta denizens look at rain as Anil Kapur may look at 'any' Hollywood role (including the role in MI4 of a hirsute sleazeball)..Bongs are absolutely ok to make a complete fool of themselves during this season... Next to the Durga-pujo, rain is the Bong's favourite friend... hours are spent aimlessly (i-mean-'additional'-hours-over-and-above-the-posto-timelines) on account of rain... much like the peacock opening its lovely feathers during the rain Bongs too open out the hearts and souls of their seldom explored colourful personalities... in the moist sultry windy atmosphere the near-cyclonic whirlwind romance of a Bong-boy and his 'lady-love' (obviously the-mother-can-never know) take shape... During times when i-was-on-a-paper-boat-with-my-lady-love-in-the-flooded-corners-of-college-street, one sees the City being red-blue-green-violet-crimson but never the literal grey... indeed the Bong is found outside of his home more during the thunderstorms than during any other season...

And then there are the rains-of-Castamere-silly-Game-of-thrones-reference that Bombay chooses to shower upon us poor souls for a total of twenty-one-hundred-hours-straight without any respite... with absolutely no-love-lost-between-the-commuters-of-the-Bombay-local... i have come to realize that during the monsoons there are two types of people in Bombay... the ones-that-are-already-wet and the ones-that-will-be-wet... and there is never any love lost between the two...

(And-Two) - The other most significant exclusion that the Bong needs to make while moving away from the City is the Bong-Grandmom... they are an exclusive breed... they just don't make them anymore... from the time you are three-year-old-two-foot-nothing to the time you are thirty-year-old-six-foot-something the Bong-Grandmom's favourite way of passing time is patting your thighs telling you how thin and dark you have become... if Bong-Grandmom's had their way Calcutta would start looking like a society of milky-white-bowling-pins... albeit very koraishuti-kochuri-well-fed-happy ones...

Signing-off-this-once-in-four-year-piece one often realizes how much the City provides in terms of character and thought... for all its shortcomings (often-read-as-Momotaa-in-the-present) there is an inherent underlying Beatles-let-it-be song that underscores the temperament of the City... there is an undying belief that Ma-Dura will take care of it all... Joy Ma Dugga...