Tell them I went home cause it was getting dark...

When I reached home, it was 3.00 pm and I was hungry. I only had a couple of bread with jam in the morning and I got up early. On top of that, on the previous night we drank whiskey, so slept late. It happens when the house is all for yourself. While putting the food in the microwave I noticed the wall clock above the dining table was not working. Actually it was ticking but was showing time of probably some other place. It showed 3 hrs less than the right time. The weather was good. With chilly breeze in presence of soft sun rays. Oh, I had a beer then. Took a bath. Ate lunch. Smoked a cigarette.

I was nervous. In the evening I was scheduled for a dinner with a girl from the past. That also in some posh restaurant. I was checking my spoken English and was making sure I kept the debit card in my purse now and then. Then I had a beer. Slept for an hour.

I canceled my martial art class in the evening, for which I originally took the day off from office. Nearly at 5.30 when she canceled the diner I was too late for the class. I missed it. I really should have been there. The mistake has taken its toll 'again'. Let me have a beer. Why have I not stocked some whiskey! I made a note to get some for the night. Later she said how sorry she was etc.. Probably we are going to exchange some more "sms" ( how I take to the things which I hate so much!). I remembered a song by Bee Gees "I started a joke, which started the whole world crying...But I didn't see, that the joke was on me..."

Nowadays probably there are no night time here. Yesterday, the light and the darkness used to have it in shifts, but probably light became greedy. Night used to shelter the dark. Kept it under control. It had its empire where it ruled peacefully. But slowly light invaded its empire. Drove him to corners, alleys and other small pockets. There it learned to lurk. Wounded it learned to become evil. Became a pervert who due to void of human bodies finds sex only in pornographic disc. Without an empire he forgets that he was also a king .

In a peaceful night in an open field under the big sparkling dome which was the sky, people don't lie down to see the beauty. They nudge there friends beside them, longing to go home. Because its dangerous. The horizon always stays in a yellow glow. Showing the fresh open wound of the night.


Epilogue- SMS continues. She takes the 8.18 am metro everyday. I am to attend my martial art class tomorrow morning at 9.00 am. Its fine by me even if I take the metro which comes after 8.18 am. But tomorrow lets catch the 8.18 am metro. The whiskey? Dump the remaining portion, I already had enough. The Earth is round, it goes round and round, so whats the problem if sometimes we also go round and round and round and...

Time wrap...

A small pan shop, a barber shop among blinding lights of the main road, an irregular bus and some other things like this - so what can be similar among these things?

A small pan shop - We used to call the field "kachuri pana r math"(field of the pond weeds). Now I get amazed and never manage to remember the names by which people call it. Name changes. I recently picked up smoking. Maybe due to that I also started noticing the pan etc. shop on the border of the field. A radio keeps playing in the shop and an old man (sometimes an old woman) with wrinkled face and movements like that in a slow motion scene attends the shop. Point behind mentioning the radio is, it always plays a music of memories, nostalgia of days with warm sunshine and times when sky was visible from our windows! I never manage to get that feel when I rush back home and try to tune the radio to that station. Some times I get the feeling that I wont be able to find that frequency in my radio and even though I can tune into that frequency it wont play the same song in my radio. Maybe it was playing one of the same stupid channels which radio have given birth, but the shop adds a flavor of its own to whatever the radio plays. Or maybe it wraps everything in its own time wrap and tune things to its own frequency inaccessible outside the boundaries of that tiny shop. Previously as a boy I remember the carpenter shop and the old bottle, newspaper weighing and buying shop but I do not remember this small shop. Things come with new habits. It keeps happening in fantasy though.


A barber shop among blinding lights of the main road - The place is called Sadhan da's shop and holds quite a heritage. Sadhan used to cut hair wearing a safari suit. Now he is dead but the shop remains. New buildings, lamp posts etc. have washed the place with stinking glamour and brightness. But the shop still has its dull yellow door. In my recent visit i saw that they have installed a new 14" black and white TV in the shop. It reminded me of the one(of West On) which we had. When I was much younger I used to go there with father and sit on a wooden plank kept over the chair handle (as I was small) and cry my eyes out as soon as the hair cut session began! After a hair cut my demand was an 50 paisa orange candy and I was happy again. After I was promoted to sit in the chair without the wooden plank, I was more interested in the magazines kept on the bench. With those magazines of sexy models, I never regretted waiting for my turn. Now the previous things are not of much interest to me but I just like to sit there and wait for my turn.


An irregular bus - Nowadays I got an office which pays me for not wasting my time watching movies, reading books and on other fragile things. To reach office there is only one direct bus from my place and 90% time it remains overcrowded. Recently another bus has started to run in that route. It always comes out of the blue at irregular time intervals with its number written on the wind shill in white paint and bad handwriting. I never remember not getting a seat the few times I managed to find that bus. Irrespective of the time, this bus is always comfortably vacant. The fare is also a rupee less than the other regular/popular bus. Whenever it comes, it is a relief for me and I like the way it mocks the other regular or "normal" bus.

Continuous

We used to have a blue scooter(Vijay Super, I wish I could have said it was Vespa. That would have at least given it some class) with a side car. It used to attract people when we went out but accommodated all four of us comfortably. Me and my elder brother in the side car, me on my brother's lap. I used to get the feeling like being on a boat. Probably that is how people feel in these new age cars without hoods. Sometimes I like to think that I had that experience a long time back. But surely no one would agree.

Soon it was becoming a joke, a scooter with a side car! So father removed the side car and the scooter used to run solo. Soon it was also getting out dated. The day my uncle bought a new scooter (Chetak) I was sure that our scooter was having a hard competition. Uncle's new scooter was light in weight. More so the main difference was probably the seat structure. The new scooter had a continuous seat, where as the older ones used to have two separate seats. I always found it hard to sit in uncle's scooter as I had to hold the handle, which was behind me.

Today in the morning, nearly 8 years after my father has sold his scooter, I woke up by a sound. Coming out I found my uncle struggling with the scooter, making it move over the steps into the garage. I helped him and told him that he was getting old and should stop riding the scooter. Maybe he should let me ride it nowadays. He gladly offered me the keys. I don't know why but I don't cherish the thought of driving a scooter or car, so I gave the keys back.

When my dad was thinking of selling the side car, people said there was only one way. Sell it in Kilos of metal rate. Emotions stopped him from doing that. Eventually he gave his scooter to a guy who also promised to take the side car separately. Father took only a token money. Nowadays I think I understand why dad was unable to sell it.

Maybe people are afraid that a day will come when they may also be sold as pounds of flesh. It would be hard in those days if there are no one to find another way of disposal.

Previously it was a complex or a high funda thing to drive a car or get a bike. Nowadays it is just a everyday fact. When there were few, the process was complex. In past it was probably easier to drive your vehicle in the road. When there are many and the odds have doubled, things have become straight as an arrow!


[Picture: DEFINITELY not the scooter my father used to ride. I don't have a digital version of that one right now, but this one more or less looks like it. At that time father used to use an original tremendously complex Leica camera(that's another story). So we used to take occasional photos.]

So what have you found...

I got it for free. So what did you buy? Why do you want to know? Very true, my mistake. In these times when a bloody head with a berret comes for free with anything, who wants to know what you are paying for? It also got a star on the berret! Increase the volume of the rock music man! What is revolution? Get lost, we want that head. In my wrist band, pant, t-shirt etc..Tell me "...are you in these revolutionary things or not?" Searched the web with the word "free". There were no result with only this word. The word always came accompanied by other words. I think the only place where we can find a plentiful use of this word is in shopping malls. So from when did it become a commodity?

Our pavements got decorated with hour glass shaped concrete pieces. Now you can urinate with style standing on them on the vertical walls. It is raining with money man. You can also find poetry in there. In those pavements with tree shadows and yellow lamp post lights. What the fuck are you up to man? There is a centrally AC complex with girls in dresses which reveal more than what they hide! There are chilled beers. Well can we have wine, woman and biscuits there? Come on you piece of shit, from where did you get that biscuit? It doesn't match. Well i thought you were not looking for poetry.

A woman was telling (probably) her son...he will come back, when you will behave well, when you will etc etc.. The little boy was crying with both his eyes and nose. Who will come back? What is lost? You, me or is it the little stupid boy? The rain will never come, you can cry your eyes out. But you can have coca-cola in one hand and cigarette in another. Come on, why leave behind the mp3 player inside the ears? Yeah, right. A small store on this side of the road don't have electricity. But the shop owner have a couple of beautiful kids. They distinguish between Filter Wills and Flake smoothly and handles the buyers but the little boy was having problem distinguishing between "A" and "B" while writing in his exercise book. How small is the boy, his father should be put to jail! Keeping a boy that small in his shop when he went to urinate! Why does these in betweens even exist! I saw them in both the roles. Why dont you have electricity, its pretty hot? It requires license. I talk with my customers in the tone of respect and some people keep on coming back to my shop. I dont wish for more. Why do I need the glitters? Poor looser. You can sit in the nearby bench while you take a puff. The shop owner is ill, so he is not opening that shop. The electricity control box is there. I noticed a blade placed on that box. For some days now the blade is there. Maybe you will slit your wrist when you wont be able to resist the temptation of pirated electricity. For these people the voice in the head is louder than the devil outside.

Sale. Oh how beautiful is the art! Before bringing the new thing home it becomes old. My father said once wait son, a better thing will come soon and then you will again crave for that. So make your wishes cleverly. Tell him to go to sleep, he is old. The money, you earn that much? Who told you that, why do you think my father saved up all the money? He is going to die soon and wont be able to spend all of them now. See I am a noble son! Come on I bought him his ration for this month from my money! The days are marked nowadays. Today play only bengali songs, today wear only saree and panjabi, today kiss one and all etc.. The days come with names. Why play with the devil? Give him your soul. Are you using it? Where do we stop friend? Lets go on mate...

Nothing

I would have been happy. I am sure I would have been happy if I ever learned to love the present. Or at least if I was ever capable of living in the present. But the done and the to be, always smoke my mind. The same way in which currently the glass windows are hiding the view to the street. I often believe that "let there be light" killed a lot of things which should have survived. The things which should have been killed, only threw away there night vision gadgets and survived with there eyes wide open. They got careful not to kill there own kind by mistake and killed only the others. There breed got successful. Quantity killed quality and they became legal.

Right now I am in office seat number CAL5AA01 with a comp which is defined to be an asset and also got an asset number. I only got an Id. I think the more inert, dead you become the more prestigious becomes your description. The sealed glass windows only reflect the lights of the room and shows it in its decomposed form.

I have not seen too many things. But as everybody i have seen things change. Among the many changing things, one is the color. Colors were added or taken away from many things. Yellow bulbs were replaced by white ones. First the excuse was the dullness, the headaches, the straining red eyes resulted from the yellow light. Excuses doesn’t matter much and thus the white lights were expensive and few. Then the global warming came. A big thing. Excuse got promoted to reason. You do not matter, but to save earth the white bulbs started to become available.

Although the sun, the big yellow ball kept on winning over the moon light. The moon, I think after a couple of year or so will become a "what is that?" or “have you seen it today?" kind of thing. Even now we have to search for it in the sky. It’s like making a peg of whiskey and then forgetting the glass. The bottom of the glass becomes yellowish and the top portion remains relatively transparent. The day is when you make the peg. You forget about it in the evening. In the night various perverted light sources wrap you in noisy colors. Maybe the tranquil moonlight is above it somewhere. Day, have the tree leaves depressed, ash colored, covered in dust, drooping in blazing temperature. Night, have the tree leaves in perverted colors. Where is the green?

The high dome of the sky in night looks as if my mother was cooking an omelett with lots of oil and cooked it for some overtime. The saucepan, after this kept aside for a good wash, pretty much describes the dome of the sky at night. Its edges with burn marks and the center with the shine of the yellow oil and protected just a bit from burning. Everybody seems to be waiting for a "The day I sold my saucepan” before seeing all these.

About stones and yellow lamp posts

"....then you better start swimmin', or you'll sink like a stone........for the times they are a-changin' ...."


It is 2.05 a.m. now. Rather it was that time a couple of minutes back. Then I was lying on the bed outside my mosquito-net with the lights turned off. The mosquitoes were yet to locate me in the dark, as they are very active in my room in the ground floor. But they or avoiding them was not of my interest at that time. Recently the road in front of our house got some new lamp posts with yellow bulbs. The street and part of my room is filled with halogen like light, crisscrossed by shadows. The lamp posts, embraced by countless wires going in all directions, were busy with the bugs humming around the light.

The rooms are getting painted. They smell of fresh paint. Oddly its in the night that the smell becomes strong. Its worse when you go to sleep. The smell makes you feel like choking! Some kid probably has his birthday in the flat opposite to our house. Because little lights from wires are hanging from the roof top to the bottom. The lamp posts could use that extra help. Its winter time. So fog/smog tend to challenge the yellow lights from the lamp posts.

The road in front of our house is a small one. Nowadays nearly each lamp post have a car parked for their company as garages are hard to find or maybe people are too lazy to put the cars inside the garage. Like a sight-screen we have the huge South City residential towers. I saw the moon struggling to get higher than the towers many a times. When you look at the towers from the beginning of the road, you will feel maybe the moon is only 36 stories higher nowadays.

In the evening when I was walking back to my house I realized again how huge the construction is! Its bigger than a child can ever outstretch both of his hands side wise and tell I want a ice cream this big. I suddenly had a sinking feeling. It was one of those like taking first swimming lessons. You throw your limbs desperately but still find yourself off balance. Your head bubbles up and down and you choke on waters entering your mouth. Or maybe it was like the space around you is contracting. It wont squeeze you but gives you an eerie feeling. Like suddenly having cobwebs in your face.

Bob Dylan must have written those lines about swimming for the old fashioned people. Advising them not to stop the young ones. The problem is I am quite young and those lines came to my mind easily. Maybe nowadays the old fashioned people are changing things and fresh minds are struggling to float around.

The joke

When we define something as "strange" don't we kill it then and there? If we can define an incident as strange then were is the pleasure of having those times when we cannot just explain what we are feeling? We give things a name to represent it, make it adoptable for the society. But to do that pleasure we destroy the feeling.

If jokers were so happy and laughable then why use all those make ups? Don't they some times make us feel that some how "the joke was on me"? We watch a guy getting kicked or being made a fool of and feel good, happy. Maybe to the jokers we are the real jokes. Paying others to see what we have already got. To relieve us from different forms of pain we impose those on others! People watch serials trying to forget there problems by seeing others in trouble!

So where's the bloody greatness? Where is the joke? Is it that we are afraid to think or are we to ashamed to laugh on our own? Is that why we pay others to create the emotions for us?

There are things which should be left to individuals to understand them in their ways and only when the situations arise. Its like knowing something for ages but suddenly realizing them. Others can just tell us what they came to know after so many year of hard work, but we should realize that we only have known them by hearing. Realizing something is different. Its like the question why there are no more great ones when there preachings are available? Its like knowing that your dear one will leave soon and preparing yourself hard but suddenly realizing the void after there departure. Its like loving a girl knowingly that she was going to leave and preparing yourself for that but getting caught off guard in front of every emotions after she has finally left. Like seeing her face in every crowd.

Posters for all

I am new in the office. So I do more or less whatever is told to me. The latest is going to office at 1 o'clock in the afternoon and coming back around 11 o'clock in the night. I always thought that the night in Kolkata would be a nice thing to see, but never got much chance to do so. Although I nevertheless expected a surprise such as this.

My narrow lane from the main road to home has shot to fame nowadays. It begins with lines of make shift food stalls in the left side and rickshaw stand on the right. The wall on which the rickshaw pullers support themselves while having a biri is covered with posters. And the posters are covered in layers of other posters. So even if someone wants to read them he have to work very hard. Here also lives a lunatic, probably on the street, in the food stalls, in the shadows from lighted buildings or in a way in nowhere. He is just there. The other day when I was beginning my walk to home from the road to perdition, I saw this lunatic standing and watching the posters. Then I realized that he was writing something. The poster was written in Hindi. He was writing (probably copying) those literals in the vacant part of the poster in exact way. The pen he was using must have been different. The pen was giving an effect like those with which black and white graphics novels are drawn. Where the pictures were like as if they were created from long lines.

I always liked that kind of painting but never tried it. As I was not good in drawing, like everything. Maximum I did was to eat a friend's head requesting to teach me to use those kind of calligraphic pens. What I failed, even to try and most "education for all" type of programs all over the country failed to do, a poster , a lunatic, a pen was doing with ease and peacefully in that chaotic place.