Hope Joana..

Now that the three colours have successfully cheered together, there is hope, perhaps comes out of desperation, evidently and eventually it is still hope. Not that the lotus failed to provide one of the penultimate hopes to 1.4 billion people (half of that number has voted, for the remaining half hope is yet to reach them), but prematurely it has died. At this juncture, a song comes to my mind, the song which has been ruled out by Supreme Court recently, supposedly it has tinkered our National Anthem. It might have, for the good, however. The decision is ours. Following the lyrics closely, it is of little doubt the song intently tries reiterating Fanon's words that in a new independent country like ours regionalism and racism within the nation state proliferates, all of us at some point of time could not refuse the desriablitiy of speaking/thinking/making generalised ill considerations about other class(es) or region(s) or community(ies) . There seems to be a thin line in believing and judging whether the message of uniting against terrorism, regionalism, racism is good for the general public. The Supreme Court might have taken the liberty of overlooking the content of the message to uphold the law for the sake of law, less somebody tampers the national anthem into a remix. This, yet again, testify to the blatant fact that we continue to see the world and its different dimensions in two binaries. This brings me to closer to annoyance and desperation and I see hope in these three colours. I am sure the people who are at the helm of affairs this time are sensible enough to understand the nuances and subtleties and different shades, not just see the independent object with an objective outlook. At least, they appear to be, perhaps they are seen to be (they were chosen by aam-admi).

I might be devastated and frustrated, yet again, after five years.

hijibiji

I'm amazed and disenchanted..
It has a life to follow...a route to be taken..a manzil to be reached..
Colours have their glory speaking out to humans
I have lost my name and meaning
Mirrors are cleaned everyday with yellow newspapers
Nails are longer and whiter
You cannot separate me from my little hungry wings
I am no more I, me, you, he, she,
I sip cough syrup one, two, three,
The rat is eating the torn and eaten doormat
It once talked to me about its colourful checks, and white
There is life watched and waited for outside the mosquito net and black shoes
I am enchanted and fascinated
To sit on the stairs of the white Catholic Church in Hazratganj
There was coffee to be sipped and conversations to be finished while walking
I have not read Gita, or Bible or Quran
The Whiskey Lullaby sings to you
Read your feet; it has a different story
I died falling from the eighth floor
There were incomplete conversations and desires and arguments
I walked on the river which once talked with the colourless sea in a lonely beach
I bought and sold my portraits and paintings at your doorstep
You will fail hundred times if you search for the meaningless you in my colourless feet
I will sing to you instead bondhu esho jole bhasi dukh bhasanor sukhe..

Dusty Musings

I have been enchanted by life..the zig-zag route..we shelter ourselves under a pink star..childhood calls every moment ..I'm inspired and fascinated in moments...somebody asked me to be myself...I looked for myself...those years, I wore different colours simultaneously indulging in different secrets of attractive people..I was he and she..violet and green..and pink..and black...I walk on confusions and indecisions...chimneys and night lamps..nails get whiter..maddening lamps strike thunder..let it be...let it go...pump your thoughts and emotions..I indulge in the secrets of my life..

P.S. - Those were the curiously sad and entertaining thoughts of my life. Don't indulge in them.

..

Respected Asafuddaulah Nawab,

Your messenger must have been astonished to find this letter in your letterbox. Travelling all the way from earth, the letter must be in tatters by now while changing its hands from one angel to another. I type this letter on my laptop sitting in my room in your city, Lucknow, watching the twilight giving its way to a clear sky moonlit night as I ponder upon, when the messenger of heaven will deliver this letter to you. Your ministers initially, I presume, were a little disrespectful to me. As I walked on the streets and discovered new lanes in turns, I received offensive stares. Too much of freedom is being curtailed here, I concluded. I eulogized the descendents of Shivaji. I thought some exchange programmes can be organized between both the groups. Many a times, the shadow of claustrophobia tried to entangle me as I walked alone on the streets of some beautiful evenings. Back home, criticizing lucknowi adaa and its ways of life was a usual business to do. Two years were spent in sneering at the dwellers and their city. Now the time has set in to move on to some other city leaving the shadows of my footsteps in your guard. I write to inform you that your ministers do administer well in your absence and they deserve to be applauded for still being able to guard the Nawabi traditions. Your forts, Bhulbhulaiya, Bada Imambara, Chota Imambara are still in good shape and have not lost a bit of their charisma. Not to mention, I took real pleasure in trying the Nawabi delicacy and they later on entered my regular menu. My world has been broadened. Perceptions are amplified. I plan to retrace my footsteps perhaps after a score of years spending some beautiful Lucknowi shaam as I will walk down alone in quest of discovering new lanes. I duly apologize to you for being biasedly critical before I could experience Lucknow in its full glory.

Regards,

Arpita Chakrabarty

Lucknow, Hindustan (now India)

2008.

Dedicated to a Kaleidoscope

Lucknow. A world spreading tangible sun, imaginations of a tree-house built on the widespread Neem, an openness piercing our cells, and a world of confessions and confusions. A world carrying me to the ruins of motimahal in some far-fetched coming century where the moon was breaking down in silvery powdery glitters. A world had been incomplete without someone. The city we despised in the first place, now has to be put in our memoirs. Come home. The journeys from Motimahal to Indira Canal, to Gomtinagar, or to Allahabad showed us the insights of our companionship. Different lives roll together. We see beyond our La Marts and Lohia Park for something strange and unexplainable, and with all delights. The Terabithia has been calling us.

To Terabithia...

I close my eyes. A brighter moon. We walk towards it. We wander. We meander.We traverse the path of unknown delights. Some feet desperately want to tap on the floor. The silvery is peeping from behind the trees. Every word leaves behind. A subtle touch of blue overshadows the sky. I walk on. He holds my hands. We walk on. We move on. Traffic lights get blurred. We fall back on the grass with hands in each other's. The moon reveals herself barely from behind the trees. It had never been so simple and so warm. So intoxicating. An enigma runs inside me. Another Notting Hill. A stream is crossed. A walk. A touch. We have reached the Terabithia. The stillness and fits of passion grows in me.The evening drizzles.

I open my eyes. We are walking...

I fancy again. I will wait.

Feeling unhappily bluish

This is my sixth post. Except two, all are waiting to be published. Did you feel dislocated anytime anywhere? Feeling of dislocation never leaves me. It clings to me as a child does to her mother.
Wherever I go, I carry my broken emotions of dislocation. There is something that always tells me I do not want to stay here ( "I should not" can be the nearest words); I should not work here (I believe I can do better work in a better way than these fools, but I cannot prove myself a better fool.). I remember someone's words," 'manzil' looks beautiful, appealing but the way to 'manzil' will be ugly and obnoxious". There is something that always tells me I want to go back ("go back " - where ? I could not find an answer ) ; something tells me I want to go back to my future ( as if I already exist in the future; as if it is a past nightmare I am living through once again. Future is some delightful moments conceived by my imagination). Something always tells me I hate the people around and I should go to a better place with a hope of meeting better people (eventually I fail, as always, and I find same faces all around) ; something tells me I want to go home, to my room for a fresh breath of air through my window ( But I do not want to go back to Calcutta. Yet I long for the day when I will be together with my parents) . I hate the smell that arises from the hair (from oily, sticky hair that hasn't been washed for months probably) of "nobody(ies)" standing, sitting beside you in the bus. The men try to make their penis touch softly somebody's arm, somebody's shoulder ; make their sweating backs feel somebody's breasts. I often observe these when I do not have a book to spend my strange journey twice a day.

Sometime, once in a while, I want to sleep under a partially cloudy breezy night sky. It takes me away from the crazy, uncouth and confused facets to seek peace within myself (even for some moments) .





P.S. Did I sound frustating? I did not want to. I think it should not matter as long as I can put across my thoughts ; as long as it does not become an issue of displeasure for my readers (I hope that hasn't happened either).

blue rain touches my window

Dec 19, I last posted. It has been really long. Where was I lost? Sometimes I keep tracking thoughts. Thoughts that are lost over the grasses, behind the sunrise, in the epicenter of an earthquake or a second before a kiss ends. I realized I no longer belong to any community of following a particular path. I am drawn towards a continuum state of being completely lost with faltering words and blurring images, and again recovering out of nowhere. For a moment, it is chaos and madness running through my mind. I loathe the stagnant character of myself. It does not make me feel fulfilled. My graph is an extent of incredibly up and awfully down. My nest is vulnerable; my words fail me. I emerge out of nihilism. My eternal search for a glimpse of moon from my window leaves me desperate. I long to come back home. The street bulbs at nights create a non-tangible, enchanting shadow of the plants on the curtain; my lovable dark room comes alive. My childhood memories flash by. They were left unattended, abandoned in the balcony for years. May. Summer. The birds have flown into cold countries. They will forget the path of return. My memories will remain fragmentary.

My tales always remain unfinished. The rain is washed blue with care. Kalbaishaki happens every now and then. I traverse the path of unknown territories. My feet pause in the moments of longing and loneliness. Impulses run through. My road traces lanes, streets and sudden ends. Once in a while, my feet cross dungeon. I give birth to an array of running street lamps. My madness provides solace to my isolation. I get up. I walk on the road side of the highways.