Aavjo Amdavaad

 the disappearing 'ha'...it was soon becoming 'am'...the aham(ego) was lost as we flew away towards different terrain...

*Ahmedabad through a photo chromatic lens…

82months&13 days halt…

Those many days back… like the millions many rootless wanderers in bigger better cities, we rambled around this vast one too. Tall buildings, broad streets, lights, crowd, eateries, discos, NID, IIM, CEPT, Darpana Academy…what else would a gremlin far from North-eastern part of the country want! The sight was so devouring. What tugged at my heart all the more was the freedom with which we could walk along with the crowd. Anybody from NE would know how it feels when you are categorized as ‘outsiders’. They who were out in the streets didn’t call us that. We were just anybody. There was nothing at all to worry about, time -2a.m.we were in a lane where the fete just seemed to have begun. Those were something new to me & as I drew closer to my little nest, there was a lot of appreciation for this part of the country that didn’t advertise but opened the window of freedom to us.

*Ahmedabad sans make up… 

Just after marriage with a tag ‘just married’ we tried hard to knit along with the mass. Little accounts from the man who went out & earned the bread for the two of us repelled both of us. The ‘su bhao che’ nature of the natives just left us pretty dejected. Not that I returned with a different tale from my work place. (My tales are almost case studies.)There wasn’t too many decent places where one could sit, chat, unwind. CCD’s, the malls, the shopping centres didn’t much appeal to our taste. Very soon it sank in us. We were here for work, and a new beginning didn’t much begin here. Wake up, go to work, come back home: fatigued, irritated, choked up, dine& go to bed. That was a routine: we followed the prescribed table. We were travelling almost on that very line when slowly and unhintedly, we started catching up with people…our little network just built. That was towards the last two years of our stay. 

We had couple of social visits, went for long drives, called up our friends and planned for late night dinners, gloated ourselves laughing out our brains when on one such late night picking up and going for dinner drove us to Udaipur. We didn’t have to wake up, we woke up Udaipur! And then onwards we have begun to store in the bare minimum essentials for travelling in our vehicle. Lest we end up purchasing things from every part of the country…I still remember ones we reached Udaipur, our friend puts up a proposal of driving up to Delhi, U.P. the list endless. I was so petrified. I swear I had my heart out. Because I know that ones a thing is spelt, somehow my hubby would do anything to meet it. Thankfully we were not carrying our plastic money, it saved me from the horror. Nevertheless, our discomfiture about the natives and also about the place continued along the line. We somehow managed to create a niche for ourselves in few pockets of the city. 

*Ahmedabad was just about to make us social…

When one fine day, the transfer letter reaches. Happily we pack and load all that was assimilated in those living years. The same apartment I came in as a bride, the pharmacist who stayed awakened days in and out to check on our health, the rooms where poems took birth, where we debated upon nth no. of political/apolitical issues, ruffled the neighborhood with our anarchic laughter& re-discovered a bond with my colonial cousin& discussing issues related to our north-east corner. It was getting way more difficult to scratch out the images of hundred of students who never left me alone. I remember Principal HK trying to track me down through the cctv& saying"jahan bachche bheer mein honge,wohi madam hogi"(madam would be in a place where a flock of students would be huddled). In just few moments, we set all of them free in the open to let another dream weaver hop in.

The thought of leaving A’bad hit us hardest the day we loaded our household stuff. We were uncaged. And then it was time for both of us to weep in our respective spaces. As we jounced in to a rickshaw I just couldn’t bid farewell to a family friend of ours. I realized I was crippling. Veiling my face with a dupatta off we frizzled out in the heat. 

Pain weighed.

Yes, it is difficult to close down A’bad chapter… it just absorbs one, as it finally did to us when we had left behind its terrains… 

I gathered that it rained two days later, just the day we reached Kolkata. 

***************************************************

Shillong- trois i'an plus tard

45 degrees and still surviving…

Years back when I got married to a Journo work-based in Ahmedabad, least was known that behind all the glitz and glamour of this history draped city, life would be arduous in the western wing of the country. North-east’s Shillong glistened every next hour after fresh downpour. That was the place I was born& brought up in. Temperature not shooting up over 18 degrees( that was long back, I am told!)! The handbag has to be loaded with umbrella, raincoat.

This was our 2nd visit after seven no moisture years. The outside temperature was 46 degrees as we were all set to escape to the east. It was just a while later that bumpy flight reminded us of cloud, rains, thunderstorm. Heat wave had long back frothed away. Flight delayed and we reached Guwahati airport pretty late in terms of North East time. All our happiness to reach Shillong seemed such a dreadful venture. While our co-passengers skirted away much before we actually pinched out the reason. We were left almost helplessly wandering. It was almost 8 p.m and things were darker than black. North east shuts early. Which is why it becomes pretty unnerving to be left marooned in any part of NE. There are options in other cities from Kolkata onwards, if ten vehicle wallahs refuse, there will be ten others to strike a deal to drop you to your destination. It is really different here and we were proven sophistic in believing that things had opened up in NE. Assimilating little gumption, my throat made some crackling sound and that happened to be in Assamese. Trust me, that helped us get going. Soon a young lad approached and in no time we were zoomed out of the departure after a flat one hour ordeal. The fella helped us with a connecting vehicle that would trip us through the hilly turf. And off we were! Half past 3 hour sojourn: the akin, unaltered bumpy-dusty road led us. We snaked our way through smirking at the same old signboards ’work gong on’ just with the ardent hope to reach home at the earliest. Finally we did, but were soon aware of the never acquainted load shedding. Lights went off before we could unload.

Next morn inhaling fresh cold air eyes strolled all over. We perhaps had come of age. Things did not seem as pleasant as it did in so many years to love the place from miles, miles and miles distanced.

Our place has lost the European cloud. The sky is dusty now. The streets so anti-anglicized. And lo! The skull caps, the veils which we never did see during our growing up times are almost everywhere. From selling fishes, eggs, vegetables, qai ( betel leaf combined with areca nut) to darting away on the threadlike Shillong lanes on an SUV. One could now confront feminine frames veiled! Missionary schools introduced salwar-suits as school uniforms! Missed out on noticing School girls from Loreto Convent though. (It was difficult to commute during school hours). Another eye-brow raising observation is that the Assam type one floor houses have been replaced by high rise buildings and flats. One strong tremor and everything reduces to brown.

Next noteworthy transition is, all of a sudden every house now has begun to flaunt more than one four wheeler. Now, a hill station with very narrow lanes is failing to manage traffic congestion. Hours of getting stranded in the town is just another acceptable situation.

Yes, things sported a pretty liberal and unchained look. But where are the denizens? PB was thronged by all kind of people in different plaintive shades, bizarre to an aging Shillongite. Young graduating faces were amiss. Reason: soon after exam results there is a craze among youths to hunt out opportunities outside NE. (Irrefutably no options left, no opportunities built).No doubt development, liberalization is a crunching need to make a town visible. For the first time, seeing the barren hills, the waxed up lands, fashionable hill station draping in not so different attire that was left behind, proper political leadership, people’s movement, proper media reporting, academic lip services were felt a must.

Interestingly, Shillong streets too kept my mind churning. The local taxis/cab which drove us from one corner to another in mere Rs5 (share taxi), now affirmatively nodded only when the drivers had a mood to!!! If you are fortunate enough you could “book” a cab and that remember would charge you tongue-out rent. Just a reminder, the city buses are no longer plying on the streets! They’d be placed well, soon at the Shillong museum. Don’t miss out on that on your next trip!

Since hiring a vehicle to commute within the city was an ordeal, walking was picked up as the best(est) means. And trust me burnt down out the adipose tissues accumulated. In just two weeks my love for the crowded Shillong was nearing tail out. But. It was during a very hasty drive to Mylliem and The Sacred Grove that emotion flung wide open. And then was it recognized that it wasn’t easy enough to fall out of love for my birth place even though it was wearing out of its natural glow. Half an hour drive from the snarled- up slim lanes just let me rekindle my love.

A thought crossed as I sat stretching my ken far and wide all around me, while I sat on the lap of green mattress (read grasses): the sacred grove needs to be left appreciated from a distance &not ventured within. One can do away with commercialization. As we moved towards the skimpily stretched town, prayer was left for its survival.

.

We are the selfish lots and nothing pleases us more than responding to our needs.

Sacred grove, Shillong

The need of this moment is summing up. I am for reasons believable not being selfish but considerate. As I sum up, the cerebral hemisphere is knocked upon by truck full of thoughts. Why do we always crave to hold onto whatever we grow up with, why do we fail to appreciate change? How does one justify a positive or a negative change? Yes, change is indispensable but to what extent can we let it expand its tentacles?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

weekend

My factory has been lying sealed

since days,

no weeks,

months now…

The words have gone on for a fall out

picketing away in the heat of the night

Leaving me

poetryrupt.

Turning on the pages of accounts

Not a line turned over,

Wordless yard stretching yellow brown

Sinking in my own torrent,

not a little courage let out

the old lock,

on my half shredded diary

makes me feel little awry.

46 clicks, and

I am on

churning

alphabets after alphabets.

smelling, oiling, packaging them

my fingers chore,

tooling for a centless reward

what the mill so long reaped

Poetry baby steps

in the wee hour

praying, I close my eyes

seconds later

out of the window, Monday cries.

WANT

Wondrous we are left, thick and fast

On words pelted

written or lip operated

carnage struck island carried

Floating caricature

On our faces at all times studied.

Tears most frequenting

summer dry,

prey we make

as He from above smiles

yet gallantly enough we pack bags

full of sabbatical joints.

White peace strewn

pedaled along roads.

Brown urn leave us uncut,

ashes grey sculpt us one.

Well serves all mouths water, distilled

and pronounces man, man even today.

A days bread earned tilling the land,

but thinks not twice as he shares his meal with smile spread.

Journey along the paths

Brown green blue aqua

appetence thus never falls shorter.

********************************************************************************

The Dockyard

Afar in the nautical smacked land

the seafaring songs seemed funereal

lost very mistfully

in the winking blinking nod of the palm tree.

The dockyard was resilient

the gushing waves of the Arabian Sea

knocked my glacial door

freezing me almost to death.

fins lapping, nibbling lips

splashing Sonata

slided me back and forth

in the lap of the sedimented sand.

Innumerable folklores whirled around

shriek, shrill voices: whispering tales

appeared temptuous

and then, the parrot

cracked a nut in your palm

we rambled along the sanddunes

in reticence,inscripting skin burnt tales of deception

all in the land of the burgeon fishermen

nursing the desire to leave

our footprints behind.

as the horn blew

cacophony approached

splitting the moan of the sea breeze

We walked, all jaded

towards the city ahead of us

hoping for a bowl to hold onto the saline fluid

the fishermen held for us in their netted eyes.

__________________________________________________________________________

The sooted eve

It was long

when you cushioned your head

on my virgin breast

that was sometime in the dusky hour

of a setting day.

The sun had packed off its bag,

while the crickets made ruckus in a nearby pothole

the vigilant bees pulsating in the hives

the fallen leaves crumbled, making hissing sounds

the snake seemed cautious

Nature drumbeat, the birds and animals harking back

you, my dear, clammed up

silent

sunk

as the sun in the depth of the ocean

the bright moonlight too failed to put you in motion.

My hair on your sable sleeping face

jostled you

unclasping me, you melted away

somewhere in the sooted eve

never really wanting to kiss me good-bye.

********************************************************