Speechless!

আমার প্রথম চাকরিতে বছরখানেক হয়ে গেছে। আমাদের টিম লীড ইংরাজীতে খুব কাঁচা না হলেও অনিচ্ছা বসত কিছু কিছু ভূল বলত। যথা - ফ্য৷য়সল বলে আমাদের টীমে একটি মাত্র ছেলে ছিল, বাকি আমরা পাঁচজন মেয়ে। অরিজীত দা ফ্য৷য়সল কে খুঁজে না পেলেই বলত,
"ফ্য৷সল কোথায়, ওয়্য৷র ইজ্ শী?"
আমরা এটা প্র৷য় প্রত্যহ শুনে শুনে বোর হয়ে গেছিলাম। আগে কখনও বিরক্ত হয়ে আমাদের মধ্যে কেউ কেউ অরিজীত দা কে শুধরে দিতাম, পরের দিকে আর সেটাও করতাম না।

একদিন দুপুর নাগাদ আমাদের খুব কাজের চাপ চলছে, কারুর কীবোর্ড থেকে মাথা তোলার অবকাশ নেই, এমন সময় ফ্য৷য়সল অনুপস্থিত এবং অরিজীত দা'র সেই এক উক্তি।
আমি কাজ করতে করতে, অন্যমনষ্ক ভাবে অরিজীত দ৷'র উদ্দে‌শ্যে একটা কথা বললাম। পরক্ষণেই একটা ধপ্ আওয়াজ হয়াতে পাশে তাকিয়ে দেখি, দেবোনীলা চেয়ার থেকে মাটিতে পড়ে গেছে এবং পেট চেপে ধরে খিল্ খিল্ করে হাসছে। অরিজীত দা দেখলাম মুখ লাল, ঘাড় নীচু ও মাথা নাড়তে নাড়তে চেয়ার ছেড়ে উঠে বাইরে বেরিয়ে যাচ্ছে, আর বাকি সবাই ভীষণ কষ্টে হাসি চেপে আমার দিকে তাকিয়ে আছে।
অরিজীত দা'র ঘর থেকে বেরিয়ে যাওয়ার সাথে সাথেই আমরা কেউই আর হাসি ধরে রাখতে পারিনি।

আমি খুব বিরক্তি সহকারে, তবে অন্যমনষ্ক ভাবে সেদিন সবার সামনে বলে ফেলেছিলাম,
"উফ্ অরিজীত দা, তোমার না, "হিশী" তে সমস্য৷ আছে"।

An aged lady was walking on the road, bent due to her age and bent further due to the weight she was carrying - an iron bucket filled with water. She was bringing home, drinking water from the roadside tubewell about two hundred metres away.

A black Austin car silently parked. The chauffer got down, took the lady's load and carried it the distance for her. Upon returning, he saw her engaged in a happy conversation with the occupant seated next to her in the rear seat - the ten year old beautiful daughter of his mistress, upon whose request he just completed his latest task. Pratima, lived with her parents in a big mansion on the same street, four houses after the lady's. Theirs was the only big mansion on this street. Pratima's father owned several such mansions all over the state, hailing from a family of zamindars.

Pratima was the only child of Vibhutinath and Supriya Roy and was not only extremely beautiful but also tremendously caring and merciful for her age. On her birthday each year since she was five, her parents arranged for a free clinical camp within their grounds and opened their gates to one and all. She observed their house physician take charge of the event and strolled with her parents and sometimes alone, affectionately asking people sweet questions, which transformed into more meaningful and relevant ones with each passing year. Last month on her birthday this year, she even worked errands for Dr. Sanyal, following the footsteps of her equally caring and efficient parents at the camp. The Roys' were influential people and had several men and women working for them, however they did not believe in just ordering others around while relaxing themselves. Both Vibhutinath and Supriya were hands-on and active. Pratima was growing up well trained by both her parents - hard working, honest, kind and caring.

The more we press sand inside our hands the more it slips through. Some souls just visit us for spreading love and light and leave us behind before their time is done, the harshness of it all making us question the very existence of God. Pratima was adored and admired wherever she went. It was in September, 1958, when Pratima was diagnosed with Malaria, a life threatening disease which forever silenced her sweet pearls of laughter and stole the light from her merciful eyes. What it couldn't take away from her, however, was the love she was leaving behind, the seeds to which, she very carefully planted deep in the hearts of all those she met and touched with her affection. An invisible shroud of muteness covered not just the mansion but the entire area. The receding monsoons stopped to let the sun peek from behind the gloomyness of the clouds. Both man and nature hushed that day to give farewell to a beautiful eleven year old girl, a lovely sculpture, Pratima, decked up in wedding fineries - a bright red Benarasi saree, gold jewelry,  her hair tied in two thick, long plaits that rested on both her sides Over two hundred people accompanied her on her last journey to the crematorium that afternoon.

It rained incessantly that night for one final time that year. After returning home from the crematory services, Vibhutinath,  in a fit of madness thrashed and beat Supriya till he collapsed senseless on the floor. Supriya, bruised, battered and dazed like a lifeless statue, closed the door to their room and sat by her husband's bed, affectionately tending to him and to their loss just like Pratima would have done had she been there.

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Vibhutinath and Supriya a couple of months later, gave away the mansion and relocated to the countryside, never to be heard of or seen again.

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(Based on a true story.)

The stream was a beautiful shade of green and wherever the waters tripped on rocks, it bled white.
Polo drank from it to his heart's content and rested by its side. Around him were hills covered in a lush green carpet of grass. The soft touch of slumber snoozed his eyelids shut and drifted him to a peaceful nap.
A week ago, Polo had run away from his house with a bag containing some food, two sets of clothes and bare minimum money. He was always the quiet kind with a mind, full of questions. All of fourteen,  Polo thought about the source of life, of happiness and sorrow, the extremes - of people having food, money or a complete lack of it.
When he woke up, the daylight had already faded. Far away, on the other side of the stream was a mountain and the sky above it was subtly lit. Confused about the source of light he stayed still and kept gazing. Moments later, to his surprise at first, followed by delight, a beautiful off-white colored full moon peeked from behind the mountain. He witnessed a moon-rise for the first time and sipped with his heart and soul, the ethereal scene.

Weeks later, Polo's lamenting parents, who belonged to a hill tribe and of limited means, visited a monastery. They had received word from this religious abode; word about their only son. After waiting for several minutes in the open courtyard, within the monastery, they finally saw him. His mother kneeled on the ground before him, wrapping her arms around his knees; weeping. His father took his hand to his forehead and cried uncontrollably. They found Polo, only to lose him forever.

Polo stood before them; head shaven, wearing saffron robes and a calm smile. Tears trickling down his cheeks.
Tears of joy and of his divine calling - Monkhood.

It was a huge property, walled and surrounded by a big garden. The bungalow in the centre could be seen from the other side of the fifteen feet high iron gate.
Mr. Alok Kumar Ray tried to visualise his property while sitting on the lower berth of a train several miles away, in a different country. The place where his property still stands has two things to talk of today - an IIT and a railway platform, but Mr. Ray's fondness for the place was beyond everything else.
He didn't realise when a big drop of tear, unrestrained by his thinned and grey eyelashes fell on the wrinkles of his hand.
On the eve of his eightieth birthday, he just gave away his bungalow.

Mr. Ray wiped the teardrop off his right hand and held it closer to his face. The hand had performed some very difficult tasks in the last few weeks.

He met her when he was twenty five and still doesn't seem to know if it was her golden perms, her pearly white teeth, the nape of her neck, her slender waist, deep blue eyes or her kindness that he first fell in love with. All he knew was that, they were meant to be together from that day forth to all the days that was there till eternity.

She looked beautiful on her wedding day, as he recalled pecking her lips after the minister said "You may now kiss the bride".

As they both walked out of the church, hand in hand, he was completely unaware as to how, Edwina, his German bride would one day learn to speak bits of bengali, would make the perfect rasogollas and tomato chutney that he was so fond of. He didn't know how much she would sacrifice for him while they were both at Germany for buying that property in Kharagpur, a place that meant nothing to her but everything to him and his parents.
Edwina and Alok were married for thirty eight years after which they separated. They never had a child and Alok shifted base to Thailand post his retirement from Germany. Living out of their respective pensions, they always remained in touch and never fell out of love. The distance made their hearts grow fonder and they met twice a year, every year. Their decision to get separated never made any sense to them.

Alok's tears were no longer coming out as drops, they now formed a steady stream on his face. As he looked at his right hand one last time before taking it to the searing pain on his left chest, Edwina's wedding ring glistened around his little finger. He felt his left side go numb, there was darkness everywhere.

He was returning home after burying two of his most precious possessions on earth, Edwina - to heart attack and the Bungalow - to charity.

Like any other normal day, I set out from my home to office. My office cab was always on-time, it took me thirty minutes to reach Saltlake, where my office is situated. As I disembarked in front of the gates and lighted a cigarette, I walked past a group of girls. I heard them chirping behind me -
Shruti: "Hey check out that new guy on the block; isn't he handsome?"
Angela: "He sure is, must be in his mid twenties".
"Stop flirting girls", chipped in the more serious Bhavna, "No chance for you, 'heard, he's already engaged and going steady with this pretty girl called Savi".
Angela: "How do you manage to get these informations Bhavna, you idiot".
Bhavna: "Yeah, yeah...call me what you want to, but the bottom line is that you've got 'no chance. I also managed to see Savi's snaps on his mobile, by God, she is good looking. Oh and by the way, your handsome hunk is called Tatya".

I reached the lift, pressed the button, still slightly tensed from the conversation I had last evening with my new Lines Manager. After a three-month training period, I finally managed to clear it all and today was going to be my first day at floor.

"Hi Tatya!! Everybody here, meet your new colleague Tatya", introduced my Lines manager, Gora. I shook hands with Riddhi, Kaushik, Vivek, Rohan, Sampriti, Sagnik and Briti.

It wasn't like this always. Things had gone drastically wrong several months ago and I was completely broken down when Savi rebelled to my atrocities one day and said that she was tired of my not being able to commit to her for my a, b, c, d reasons and that she wanted to call the affair off. I realized my mistakes and tried my level best to make it up to her, but by then, she had lost faith.

Today, as I look back to the torments our relationship has gone through, I only look up to heaven and thank God that Savi and I are finally getting married in another two weeks time. Briti di was right, Savi is mine and will always remain so in this birth and in all the rest to come.

It was a long day in office, I was glad to be back home. A shower and a cup of steaming-hot coffee did wonders to my system. After watching the back-to-back repeat telecasts of Friends, I decided to login to my favorite time pass, Orkut.

One friend’s account led to another and then to another and then, suddenly, I found him. The most handsome, honest and bright boy I had ever befriended.

The cool breeze from the window to my left, forced, the tired me, to drift back into time.

10 years ago...

It has been more than a week that we moved into this new locality. I felt like a sapling, uprooted from familiar soil and being re-planted elsewhere.
After spending twelve years in a girls' school this was my first year in co-ed college. The whole thing was ironically similar.

Prior to this place, we stayed at the ground floor of a two-storeyed building. This time it is the third floor of a four-storeyed house, that did not have an elevator in it. The pain staking process of alighting those seventy two steps, several times, each day, was reason enough to complain. More so, because none of us were used to, this steep task before. To add to the discomfort, we were yet to have a telephone installed at the new place, hence, emergency calls had to be made from some PCO booth at the corner of the street. So, going down and coming up those six dozen steps could not be predicted.

I had only recently joined my tuition classes. For my Maths tuition, I had to travel a very short distance by bus. I was a little late in joining my batch, which had already begun about a month back. As I entered the class for the first time, I met eye-to-eye with this very good looking guy sitting right at the opposite side of the door. I sat next to the wall, consciously avoiding the unoccupied seat next to him. Sir, buzy with a formula derivation, raised his head and asked me to fill up that gap. The good looking guy smiled and lifted up his paraphernalia off the seat I was asked to take.

The first sum given by Sir was from dynamics. This guy, his name was Apurv Basu was the first one to complete the problem.

I was completely lost. Having finished the sum, he did not have anything else to do, other than staring at my copy and finding me unable to put even a scratch mark. He smiled again, “They did’nt start dynamics at your college?”

“I am yet to attend a Pass class”, I smiled back.

“Brilliant!!”, He chuckled. “You want me to help you with this?”

“If you want to”, I answered.

Sir took three pages in finishing the sum whereas Apurv completed it in one and a half pages. I raised my eyebrows approvingly at him. “Do not be surprised, I am majoring in Physics”, he whispered.

The other students in class bullied him a lot because he was always amongst the first to complete the sums, always the highest marks getter in class and was intrinsically a quiet person. We walked together that day and all the other days to the bus stop, he spoke a lot, about where he studies, where he comes from, his friends, his parents, what he wanted to become in life.

“I had initially thought you to be an introvert, you know”, I had said and he had given me a meaningful look, the meaning of which I could not decipher.

One day I saw a copy literally being thrown around in class, it came to me at one point of time and I saw beautiful pencil sketches at the last pages. Sketches of Aishwarya Rai’s pictures. I asked someone, “Who’s copy is this?”, a girl said, “It is Apu’s”.

He gave me an unperturbed smile. “Let them do what they are doing to my sketches, I have several of them back home”, he mouthed at me.

He had stopped attending classes since that day, or so I thought, because I did not get to meet him for several days till on a Wednesday, our last class before the final exams I met him again. He entered and stopped at the door when he saw me.

“Where have you been?”, we both asked each other at the same time, after he came and sat next to me.

“I come on Fridays not on Wednesdays”, He said.

“Oh! And I come on Wednesdays not on Fridays”, I smiled back.

After class that day, all of us wished Best of Lucks to each other. That was going to be our last class and probably the last time meetings for several of us. Apurv and I walked to the bus stop in silence.

"Give me your phone number", he said.
"Phone number?!?", I was almost inaudible.
"Yes, phone number. How else do you think we can keep in touch?", he tried to immitate my voice.

All these two three months, he had always spoken so much that I never got to tell him much about me. I realized it was too late for explanations now.

I looked up at him, I knew he would not believe what I was going to say, my heart sank.
He sensed the pause and looked up from his note copy to meet my eyes.
Nudged me to hasten the precess, "C’mon, tell me fast, your bus always comes early”.

I pursed my lips and let the words go, "We don't have a phone at home".

This time he stood still, staring at his note copy, still holding the cap of his pen in between his teeth.
After those several numb seconds, he looked at me. Disbelief trickling down from each wrinkle on his face.

“We recently shifted to this new place and so....”, I tried to explain.

You know how men look when they are shocked, angry and sad at the same time. I will never forget those red, watery, brown eyes.

That day, bus number 237, that he travelled in, arrived very early. Without exchanging a single word, he climbed on to the bus. It waited at the stoppage for as long as ten seconds. Here I stood on the pavement and watched him clasping the rod tight at the ceiling of the bus, as he stood facing his back towards me. The conductor signaled the driver to move on, the driver shifted gears and as the bus rumbled, he turned back and gave me a last look over his shoulders. Then, like an animation flick, the bus disappeared behind a cloud of grey exhaust fumes.

That is the last visible memory I have of him.

A loud slap of the windows made me wake up from my slumber. It had started raining.

I sent him a friend request with a message, “Hi, remember me?”

His profile revealed him to be well settled in life and married with a one year old kid.

Would he remember me? I retired for the night.

Next day came in his reply, “Whoa! Of course I remember you. How have you been? Know what? My wife and you share the same date and year of birth”

Dramatic-irony?? Co-incidence??

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All that an eleven year old girl has to do, is - study, listen to her elders, go to school, enjoy her holidays and play. My final term exams had just got over, 'was promoted to a new class and now, I was enjoying my summer vacations. My hometown is in a place where the difference between summer and winter is frustratingly extreme. You have to experience both in order to realize, how bad or good it can get. The house in which we stayed had a total of fourteen rooms. Behind the house there was a huge well, used for our daily washing, drinking and cooking requirements and further beyond was our garden, some 4500 sq ft in area. It had several seasonal plants and trees, including mango, pineapple, guava, sweet potato, lady's finger and many others, whose English names I do not know.
I used to spend half my holidays exploring various things and places all over the big house. I was at the attic, doing what I was not supposed to do, exploring my uncle's secret drawer. There I had found the previous afternoon, a real pair of binoculars. I went up to the terrace last night and watched the moon with it for a very long time. It looked beautiful. I had a toy binocular, which my mama had given me, but this one was real.
"Mouri !!", called my mom from the kitchen. Mouri is my pet name. It was time for shower, then lunch and then a well-deserving afternoon siesta.
I dashed downstairs.
After having finished with the shower and lunch, I went back to the attic, took out the binoculars and gazed through it, at my latest interest, out in the garden. Well, to tell you about that, let's take you to last winter.

January
I was getting ready for school and was already running late, when I heard it for the first time. I paused, and then I heard it again. “Mouri, hurry up, or you’ll miss your school bus”, interrupted my mother. I had forgotten about it completely when everything repeated itself the following morning. It was coming from the garden and I promised to investigate the next day.
Next day was Saturday, a weekly holiday for me. I woke up early, perched myself on a stool out at the small terrace leading to the well from the first floor, which looked out at the garden. Yes, I heard it again, and this time I saw it. It was tiny, beautiful and was blue in colour. It was a bird, which had the most tuneful voice I had ever heard. I kept staring at it and named it Shuri.
Spring followed the rough, cold winter and Shuri was joined by her male countepart. He was a very handsome looking bird as well, having a brighter and a more attractive plumage. I named him Shur. In unison they were called Shur-Shuri. My eldest cousin gave me a big Milk chocolate because he said he really liked my christening abilities.
After a few more days, I could no longer find Shur. Shuri was all by herself and she was preparing to build her nest.
“Has Shur died?” I asked the elders at home one day. To which, my grandma said “Spring is the season, when one has all the choicest of friends around, it is only when the tough summer draws nearer, you get to realize who is worthy enough to be even called a friend”.
Needless to say, I did not understand what she wanted to convey.


I went to the garden one evening last week and to my utter joy, found a tiny nest made out of twigs, in between a v-shaped branch on the guava tree. It was built on a low stem, so I could clearly see two small off-white coloured eggs kept at the centre of the nest.
I ran back home and told my grandma what I saw and she asked me “ So, what will you call the two tiny birds once they’ve hatched?” I thought for a while and said “Katu and Kutu”. This time I got two milk chocolates, one from my cousin and the other from my uncle whose binoculars are coming very handy for the last two days. Now that the summer had set in, I was not being allowed to go to the garden every now and then in order to inspect the nest. Since yesterday, the binoculars have solved my problem.
I felt sorry for Shuri because I thought it was wrong for Shur to have left her all alone.
The heat was getting unbearable, the loo during the early afternoons was suffocating and one person died of heat stroke two days ago, I read in the papers. Obviously everybody was thirsty for the monsoons, I’m sure, so was Shuri.
While I was still gazing at the nest through the binoculars, I heard a loud banging noise right next to me. The door to the terrace that stood ajar shut hard because of a gush of wind. I heard someone scream from downstairs, “ Someone go to the terrace and see if the doors and windows are shut properly, it is the Kalboishakhi (norwesters)”. I had just turned around, when I saw my uncle staring at me. He had come up to check whether the shutters were closed, I was still holding his binoculars. I knew I would never again find the binoculars there at the attic. Little did I know that I would not be needing it anymore.
I kept the binoculars in place and ran downstairs to welcome the moisture-laden clouds.

“Aye brishti jhepe…dhaan debo mepe
Aye rimjjhim borosharo gogone re e e
Katfata rodey agune , aye brishti jhepe aye re.
Haye bidhi boroi daarun…
Pora mati kende bole,
“Phoshol phole na,
Ki debo tomare, nai dhaan mor khamare , mor kopal guni”.


It rained for an entire hour, giving water to the dried up land and to its beings.
Ma said from the small terrace that a few flowerpots were overturned during the storm. I jumped at the thought of what could have happened to the fragile nest. I rushed to the garden bare footed, the humid air feeling wonderful as it touched my skin, the grass under my foot was wet and cool. As I reached the guava tree, I spotted Shuri, perched on a Shiuli plant on the opposite side of the garden, all wet and untidy. She gave out a cry, this was not as sweet as her usual tone, it was abrupt and short.
She was no longer thirsty… but it came to her for a price – a few meters away from my feet, lay her nest and the broken, off-white coloured shells of the two eggs, of Katu and Kutu.