Wednesday, August 26, 2009

[HAPPY] BIRTHDAY








It’s that time of the year again when you grow up

When you are up on the stage

And the spotlight’s on you

And action

Cards, flowers, chocolates

A thoughtful book

A foreign smelling perfume

Messages, calls, WhatsApps

Dutiful Facebook reminds your friends.

“Many happy returns of the day.”

Hey it’s your birthday.

A yearly ritual dearly held

Not by you.

A day of expectations,

An anxiety of performance

Dress well, talk well, play well,

Tell everyone that you are so happy,

It’s HAPPY birthday after all.

When you are a kid-you grow UP

When you are a grown up-you grow OLD

A candle more every year
25-55-85-??

Surprise party…everyone screams,

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!”

You are the star tonight,

A shooting star trailing bright.

Friday, June 26, 2009

From the Bus


Sometimes little things strike you, makes you wonder why is it that life is so full of irony…!!

Incident 1:
Around two in the afternoon today, my bus was stuck at a signal. Kolkata roads, too many people, too humid and I wasn’t in my best of moods! Looking down at the road I saw a little boy of around five trying to cross the road. Small kid, fair and cute , wearing a white kurta and a cap. A Muslim cap, the white netted ones. While trying to take small steps towards the road, the traffic went green. He looked apprehensive at the lurching traffic.And then I saw someone leaping out of the bus I was sitting in. He went straight to the kid, took hold of his hand, made him cross the road and then came back to the bus. He was the conductor. Falling from his sleeve was his Brahminical identity-the Sacred Thread.
Incident 2:
Big banners of the movie New York floating in front of my eyes. Faces of John Abraham, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Irrfan Khan and Katrina Kaif. Good looking faces, truly! An ensemble cast. But looking behind the scenes, how many have thought how diverse it is?? Abraham, born to a Christian father and a Parsi mother, Mukesh comes from a Hindu family and Irrfan from a Muslim one. Katrina has a Kashmiri Muslim father and British mother. If this is not potpourri of cultural diversity, then what is?? And to top it all is that the movie is directed by a Muslim, Kabir Khan!!
I looked at the shop beside the pavement. The name of the street suddenly struck me- Mahatma Gandhi Road. North Calcutta streets which had once been ravaged by the August communal riots of 1946, the flame of the communal hatred which once threatened to engulf the entire city after Partition…the hatred finally held in check by Gandhi. His peace message might have been lost through generations, but the name Gandhi still stood as a witness today in the afternoon, where a man, and only a man, neither a Hindu nor a Muslim, stood by another man-on the street, in the poster. Some irony huuh??!…
…But we still believe in communalism, we still persist in ostracising the Other and when things go wrong, we never hesitate to chop off the hand which we once held to help the other one cross the road.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Am I still Alive?


Is there anyone there?
Can anyone hear me?
The flesh crawling under my skin
The ears like a dog’s
On the alert
The sense of being stalked….

Early morning coffee
Details of bursting skin
Broken limbs
Human bodies in a bloody pulp
Mothers turned to stone in disbelief
Lovers cursing the day when they fixed up that date
Son at the morgue, “Can you identify your father Mr. Patel?”
“…..yes it’s him…it’s the wedding ring on his finger….”
The gold band didn’t get charred you see….

Local calls, STD, ISD
“Don’t worry, I am still alive!”
Aaj Tak, CNN, BBC-
BREAKING NEWS-serial blasts in city
Government declares red alert.

Same stories, different places, same reasons perhaps?
Bombay, Delhi, Assam….
Or maybe august 15, 1947; December 16,1992; February 27,2002?
Or maybe rewind a bit more in past?

No one hears me when I am being hunted down
No one acts when a genocide tears us apart
A deaf country
A paralytic nation
A generation suffering from amnesia
Forgetting the past
Discarding the trauma
The newspaper crumpled in the dustbin.
Breaking news doesn’t break anyone’s heart anymore.
Living for the future
For the illusion, the mantra of “Don’t worry, everything will be ok.”

I am back on the street
On the alert
Murmuring to myself
“Thank god I am still alive.”

Monday, March 10, 2008

Wrting for the First Time


She came to me when I least expected her
Her mind bursting forth with lines
The dip of the nib in the pool of ink-
Scratch scratch scratch…
The virgin thoughts given a shape
Alphabets and letters and words
My white nudity is dressed in
Words words words…
Pregnant with ideas
Of ideals and reactions
She cannot hold on for a day longer.
Bursting out of her womb
Her soul is now imprinted on my body.
I am a sheet no longer
But her baby.
A proud mother’s smile envelopes her face.

Sunday, March 9, 2008

PERHAPS...

Sitting at Barista, I am waiting for a friend. Now she has told me that she will come at four but then she is quite famous when it comes to making people wait.
“Where the hell are you? How much time does it take you to come from college?”
“Coming right now…got stuck in the traffic at the bend.”
Hmmmf….Vodafone message-two bucks thirty reduced from my account-balance now stands at Rs.0.93. amazing! Can’t even give a missed call.

Getting stuck in a coffee shop where everyone comes with company is quite an experience-two lovers cooing at the back(I wonder why the owners don’t throw these PDA people off!??!), Auntyji coming with bachchalogs for a treat(kiddies look haggard, guess the imminent board exams don’t help much in looking happy!), a gang of friends(one of them with a fly on the chin before I realized that it’s a growing goatee), two surly looking men discussing business and there I am still waiting for my friend as my cappuccino arrives steaming.
Hmmmm….
Now as I look at the woman sitting in the corner I find myself staring-
Must be at the wrong side of fifty, a chiffon sari in mustard green and greying hair at the temple-not an out of the way figure but then she has a rose on the table. Come to think of it when was the last time people saw me with a rose??! Until I buy myself one, I don’t get to see often of these red flowers! So what is she doing with one?

My friend comes-“God these rickshaw wallas….they have to haggle down to the last penny!!”
-“Or is it you who haggles down to the last one?!!”
-“oh give yourself a break…let me order something.”
-“see the woman there…the one with the rose.”
She turns all the way back (embarrassing, she never learnt to be discreet!)- “Ya, so?”
-“You saw the rose? A middle aged woman sitting alone at a coffee shop with a rose. What do you think can the story be?”
Yawn!-“Must be somebody ya, why are you bothered? Now let me show you this, this polka dot top. You know how much I got it for?? Fifty bucks-beat that!!”
-“Huuuh?? Where from?? Why can’t I ever get things like these?? Tchaa!”

The story of the woman lies forgotten. She is still sitting alone.

-“Ok gotta go, my maid will be there almost.”
-“Heh heh, already the proper house maker are you?! Thik aache, will see you at college tomorrow. And ya do get your assignment; will need to maaro some ideas!”
-“Sure. Bye.”

My friend leaves. I stay back to use the loo.
Coming back I notice that the woman is gone. Time for me to pack and leave as well. And then I see this man coming- tall, with wrinkles near the eyes, the grey hair falling at his shoulder, the shirt untucked…. And holding a red balloon in his hand- a heart shaped one. He looks this way and that and goes to counter and asks something. Not finding the answer he wants he checks his watch and sits on the chair left vacant by the woman.
A bunch of college people troop in. All flushed, the girls giggling at the guys over some secret joke. All hold red balloons.

And then it dawns-
One more day to go for St. Valentine’s Day, the guy martyred for love!
A rendezvous- the woman and the man- a promise made perhaps ages ago- when perhaps they were still in college- perhaps a long awaited meeting- ideas burst out in my head!
Perhaps but then perhaps not.

I take my bag from the chair, leaving.
The man is still sitting on the chair….waiting…
The story of the lonely woman now complete.


Dated: March 9, 2008
6: 40 p.m.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

A Dedication


KAATHBIRALI

Kather moto noi to nirosh, biral-soman michke noi
Kathbirali naam tobuo, lej tule laf dichhi oi
Lafie choli gachher patay, laf diye jai boner dhar
Chokher polok falar agei ak nimeshe pogar par

Tomara bhabo niijer mone ichhemoto jai chhute?
Sokal-bikel sheet-grishmo bhishon moja ni lute?
Bhul bhebechho! Amar moner ichhegulo shobi hay
Lukiechhe oi gachher dale, khun hobe sei asnkay

Gachher dale laf die to ichhederi jai khuje
Keu roechhe ghapti mere, keu ba ache chokh bujhe
Ichhera keu bish kheyechhe, keu ba akhon niruddesh
Roechhe jara konokrome, tadero shob ashai shesh.

Nijer chhayai korchhi tara, morichika shobi hay!
Dhorte gele shobi kamon dur akashe milie jay
Futchhe kata, daler khocha khachhi ami nirontor
Keu janena amar kotha, eshob nehat obantor”.

Bolle kobi muchki hese, “Hay re tora bokar dol!
Brithai amon berash kede, brithai felish chokher jol
Katar khochay rokto jhore ei kotha to notun noy
Kintu shathe osru-khoron bahulyo boi kichhui noy.

Tui ki bhabis tori sudhu roechhe pother ei kata?
Tor kopalei likhchhe shudhu rokto-makha paye hata?
Dakh takie! Tori sathe hatchhe pothe oi jara
Sobar payei roechhe khoto, sobai ora potha hara.

Harano poth khujbo bolei namchhi pothe protteke
Hasir gane poth khuje ni. Kamon kore, jash dekhe.
Pother hodish pothi debe, pabii fire shob kichhu
Nijer chhaya ghurie mare, nish ne kobhu or pichhu.

Ichhera to gachher pata, nei re oder mrityubhoy
Shukno pata porle jhore notun patar jonmo hoy.
Patay-patay laf die jash, ichheguloy bhor kore
Doure berash Kathbirali, jamon khushi, praan bhore..

......Chitrak Gupta

The Refugee Memories


The thoughts come unimpeded
Like the burst of red ants from the volcano of the ant hill
And the stream of red that follows downhill
As they thread down in a crooked line
Searching for a new life
A new meaning
A new existence
The lava of thoughts as they pour down
Burn down the path the ants take
The trajectory of a life with sense
The red dot asks, the path is no more
How will I find the way to a new home?
The being asks, there is no more a meaning
How will I find the way back to life??