Call of the Wild - Chapter One

It was back in the summer of 2012, pretty much before than the formal inception of Wanderlust as a gang. But, the spirits were nonetheless free and friends. It was considerably our first venture into the woods. For the four of us - Gour, Dadu, Prads and Me.

My birthday was just around the corner and Dadu was visiting us in B'lore from Calcutta. The brisk plan for the weekend getaway into the forests near the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border was flashed green just over a couple of phone calls and a Swiss Cottage deep inside the Mudumalai forest was booked.

Just to add a pinch of clarity about the geography and slight brevity to the narrative, Bandipur National Park is located in the southern state of Karnataka - slightly barren in terms of flora - was once a private hunting reserve for the Maharaja of  Mysore.  The same forest, as it extends toward the state of Tamil Nadu on the northwestern side of the Nilgiri Hills is known by the name of Mudumalai National Park. Mudumalai is comparatively thicker a forest than Bandipur.



We started earlier than the sunrise and had reached close to the forests by late morning. Our stay was booked in Mudumalai, hence, the plan was to deny a stopover at Bandipur for whatever might have been the lure, as we would come back there the next morning.

We were already basking in the spirit of adventure and the nature’s charm at its utmost degree of mystique serenity was taking over our senses. The engulfing lush foliage, the murmur of the leaves in the sweet tease of the flowing breeze, the burble of Moyer river that runs parallel and the rippling sound of the small makeshift waterfalls touching down the road at regular intervals, all, were aptly juxtaposed with the frequent glimpses of prancing deer herds and the fluttering wings of the world's most colorful butterflies. Needless to say, it was just perfect for the cozy lap of mother-nature. Indeed, a gifted break from the humdrums of our banal city-lives.

We were slowly moving deep into the forest, quietly reminded by the road markers that animals have the right of way. Slightly ahead, we spotted a tusker on a stroll, on its silent rampage eating up every tree-branch or twig on its way. It was huge. The massive size of the animal tickled both, awe and fear, in all the four of us. But, we couldn't have been doing away with such an opportunity to capture the moment of wild amidst the wilderness, given the kind of lens-freaks we are.

We ran close, froze quite a few moods of the tusker on our cameras and realized its mahout was nearby. The elephant was not a wild, wild one. We were told, in that forest, it was probably the biggest 'yanai', that's what they call elephants in Tamil. It was a trained one. It helps find home to other wild elephants, when they get lost from their herds at times.




For three of us, our first close encounter inside the forest was sheer blissful. Prads had almost started analyzing the elephantine gestures in his head with drawings inside his mind to presumably design his next animated character. For me and Gour, we were happy with the clicks. But, Dadu didn't say a single word and looked a bit alarmed. Almost evidently, he was a bit tensed and was trying to hide that behind his dark shades. With the friendly leg-pulling and the fun, we wheeled in deeper inside the forest.

By midday, we've had reached our deep jungle home and it was decided we'll gear up for a sunset jungle trek after resting for lunch for some time.  Our cottage was a cozy hearth, much like a big tent, camped just by the bank of a jungle brook. The swampy surrounding of the cottage must have helped invite ‘slytherin’ visitors but Prads was smart to have brought along carbolic acid to keep the reptilian friends at bay. So, there was less to worry.  Meanwhile, we were hungry and the lunch served at the cottage tasted scrumptious.


As we were gearing up with our lenses, water bottles and backpacks, Dadu said, "I think I'm not coming with you guys.  I'm damn sleepy..." And, we were like, REALLY! Well shielded with his excuses of past night's drinks and travel fatigue, he managed to convince us and didn't come for the trek up the jungle slope, into the frontiers, apparently where the predators dwelled. The rest of us, we were enthused a little too much for the experience that was in store -- to walk the lands of the tigers. We were excited and hopeful to spot one of the carnivores from close but we literally had no clue or idea what to do next if one actually gets up-close-and-personal.

Around 3:30 in the afternoon we started with our guide in a small group of eight-nine odd heads. And frankly, it will be kind of a futile effort to try narrating the exact intricacies of the journey’s experience. The songs of the wild winglets, the unfamiliar hoots and chirps of the unknown aves were for a constant company. The thin forest trails were deceiving enough to have led to nowhere inside the forest territory and we were repeatedly told to stick together. The captivating smell of the jungle flowers and the zest to capture the colors of nature through our lenses were persuading us to override the warning again and again. 

The first amusing thing that greeted us inside the forest was a squeaking ball of fur hanging from a high branch. It was a giant Malabar squirrel. I could have never imagined a squirrel as big as that one, if we had not seen it. 

As usual, engrossed with the cameras, Gour and I, were left behind and was lost, yet completely oblivious of that fact.  Meanwhile, we had found something extraordinary. It was a huge tree that appeared like a giant African baobab with its trunk resembling a face, a human face. Had we not been lost, we would probably not have seen something like that. I thought it was something like that comes in fantasy stories of some demigods being cursed into a life on earth as a tree, serving its punishment. But again, thoughts are thoughts and an imaginative flight means no practical limits. When we realized we're lost, it was late. We were already an-hour-long-walk deep inside the forest and it would have been stupid to try figuring out the way back ourselves. We chose to wait thinking our fellows might spot the missing two and our guide might trace us back where we have been left stranded. We were lucky; they did come back for us.

My nitpicking nose for a journalist was not helping me entirely believe on all that our guide was saying. He was a middle-aged Tamil man, who has spent most of his life in and around the Nilgiri forests and working as a guide. He had is fair share of stories inside his bag about those close encounters with tigers and wild boars. He said, "Stay close. There's something nearby." The way he said it in a scampering low voice, we could understand, it was probably something serious. It looked like he had smelt something. We marked his words and followed suit. However, the slightly unwarranted skepticism in me was raising eyebrows on how much his words can actually be believed. Come on! He has been doing it for a living, so probably he can be given a leeway to beef up a suspense scene just to add kicks to the journey. But then, at that particular part of the forest it was actually a belt of dense long grass -- a righteous habitat for tigers. It was getting dark and the sun had sunk behind the hills.

We moved in further with nothing yet in sight. Then all of a sudden, there was a quick loud rustle of dry leaves at a distance and a chain of howls screaming thru' the silence of the forest. "It's a pack of wild dogs," the guide said. "Must have been feasting on the leftovers of a tiger's kill. That’s what they do."  For a moment, I won’t deny, it had sent a shiver down my spine.

He drew our attention to something, couple of yards away. It was a fresh carcass. It sounds like an oxymoron, I know, but it was the flesh-ripped skeleton of an antelope, lying on a big patch of darkened blood stain.

It was quite obvious, that big an antelope can only be a tiger's hunt. Yes, we were standing at a place where perhaps, couple of hours ago, the big cat was having its supper. A few pug marks here and there confirmed our assumption. Thankfully, the heavens timed it right that we did not comprise the carnivore's meal.

It was already beyond sunset. We were asked to pace up as it would not be safe to ramble inside the forest after dark. In order to save us some time and tire, we chose a short-cut route that called for a river crossing. It was a typical hilly stream, not much deep but filled with strong under-currents. With broken branches and hands for support we crossed the running waters. 

It was another 45 minutes of walk to get back to the mainland and we were told from there the route will be pretty much straight. However, the path didn't seem as straight as we thought it would be. Minutes later, our guide, who was walking in front at a visible distance shouted back to us to hold and stop. We couldn't decipher what has happened at first, then we realized the way ahead takes a downward slope and our guide came back to us running and said "this road is not safe as there's a mad elephant tearing and knocking down the forest belt ahead." He was worried we cannot take this route, but going back again all the way in the former path would definitely get us trapped within the forest in the darkness. It was a precarious situation. We didn't know what to do.

"Is there no way possible that we can stealthily walk past the mad elephant?" asked Gour. "It's on the run so can we not avoid its path and run past it too?" It made sense. Or, at least, that was the only option that we had. I thought to myself, this might gift us that one moment of fame, to frame a wild insane mammoth on its riot. I'm sure; the same was going in Gour's mind.  We were forbidden to make the slightest of noise and we trod ahead.

Elephants have always fascinated me. But, I never had delved deeper into their lives. It was the first time, I learnt that sometimes elephants are so attached to their partners that they go mad or even might die if one passes away or gets lost. Same was the story for our mighty friend here. It was a bull elephant that had lost its partner couple of days back and was found to have turned frantic. Our guide had heard about it in the morning from the forest rangers and now, fortunately or unfortunately, it was there, blocking our path. As we tried making our way, we could see the animal at a distance, slightly lower in a slope, going crazily berserk and banging its head against almost every tree and taking them down. I'm not sure why, was it sorrow, was it pity, but it was for one single time I actually didn’t care to take a snapshot. The camera kept hanging round my neck and all I did was to see the big creature running amok in sorrow. Our guide said, "it has been two days. By now it should have calmed down but it hasn't. If this continues, this one too will die soon." It felt weird.  On this deep jungle trot, in a land far away from my home, how could something be so sensitively emphatic that I feel bad for a creature, way bigger than me and way beyond my breed?

And then, someone in our group, a dumb college kid, used his flash to take a photo of the animal on rampage. It happened as was expected. The blinding light of the camera flash had attracted the elephant's attention and it charged on us. We had nothing to do but to run for our lives, literally. Some stumbled, some almost fell, but everybody ran their fastest. Luckily for us, the mammoth was too preoccupied on its own to continue the chase and we were left panting and alive. It was another first of its kind in our kitty.


Famished and tired, we completed our eventful jungle trek. We reached back to our cottage discussing what all Dadu had missed and that he should have come along with us. Guess what, we could hear him snoring from outside the cottage door. Despite all the weary, we broke into a raucous laughter. And then, there was more to come…

Pics Courtesy - Koustav Samanta, Gourav Bakshi, Pradipto Sengupta
[Disclaimer: This piece is written for mie biker-gang, Wanderlust on Nov. 27, 2013]

Journey To A Newer World - A Tribute to Rituparno Ghosh

  Hail to thee, blithe spirit!  

        Bird thou never wert -  

      That from heaven or near it  

    Pourest thy full heart  

     In profuse strains of unpremeditated art... 

"Eminent filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh passes away" -- that's the ticker on a news channel that carelessly caught mie eye while stepping into the office on a regular weekday morning. And, the walk from the reception lobby to mie cubicle had me in a weird state of awe, disbelief and a sense of an irrepairable loss. there have been loads of instances of rumors about famous men's deaths and i kept praying why can't this be another on those lines.

one of the the most erudite man of our times was no more. it's indeed very tough to decipher in words what He meant to me. excusing all the adjectives, for me Rituparno Ghosh meant a deeper world of knowledge, sensibilities, charisma and yet an individual adorable to the utmost degree of perfection. for the typical bengalee boy in me, if Tagore was God as i have not seen him in flesh, Ghosh was God-sent. pardon mie prodical words of praise. yes, i'm a little too biased about him and i'm not denying...

the man marked an era of his own, but certainly it would be a falsity to state that his death marked the end of it. rather, it was him who gave a whole new meaning to the Bengali cinematic art and in the most sophisticated style carved a niche for the vernacular motion picture medium amidst the international
audience. it'll always be less, as much as is said about how Ghosh brought back the literate bengali middle-class to theatres in a post Ray-Ghatak-Sen period. His style of film-making waved the green flag for a fresh new breed of directors, who in the days later could muster the courage to venture outside formula-films or box-office-appeasing cinema.

a man, who understood the multifarious shades of human emotions and defined his own ways of sensibilities that was agreeable to some and eye-sore to others,  was advertently a true-versed artist in the craft of movie making. Ghosh said many a number of times that it was Satyajit Ray who inspired him to make films and Abanindranath Tagore taught him unaware how to tell a story. "Among all the things i do with my limited knowledge, i think i've been able to do one thing consistently and that is making films. so, in the end, i would most likely be remembered for mie films," said Ghosh, who lived his life under his own dictations.

Ghosh mostly made films in bengali, a language he was immensely proud of and felt was his very own. He felt he knew his language and it helped him express aptly every time. Somewhere, the Bengali audience identified him as a successor of Ray or Ritwik Ghatak, while i personally feel Ghosh was more of a modern-day scion of Ajay Kar or Tarun Majumder. but, that's a subjective quotient and is hence, debatable.

"Ray set a masculine prototype for film directors. People were proud of his height and his English. People (like me) who wear danglers and kajol to parties (were regarded) as an insult to Ray," Ghosh had said. the succession of creativity probably brings along loads of responsibility. the fans, the followers never wished him to get distracted, at least that's how Ghosh looked at it. they thought, now that he's in to acting - portraying prosaic and the ever-discussed-about-him gender issues, he won’t make good movies anymore. then, they thought just because he's more into dressing differently unlike common men,  his focus was getting distracted from directing good movies.

Coming to his films. The first venture Hirer Angti (1992) was not a remarkable box-office hit. i still feel, it was one of the tidiest of flicks ever made for kids after Joy Baba Felunath, Fatik Chand and the likes. He arrived in the scene permanently with his second film Unishe April (1995) that bagged him his first National Award. Since then, there was no looking back. From Dahan ('97) or Bariwali ('99) to Noukadubi (2010) or Chhitrangada (2012), in his film-making career spanning about 20 years, he dealt with the quintessential nitty gritties of human emotions, sentiments and characters. But, we never ever felt he was being preachy. Or, he was trying to impose his beliefs and his thoughts on us. it always felt so comfortably justifiable.

Ghosh always made it appear so affirmatively look-believe. He touched our lives. the most average, and yet in their own existential way, little but special stories of the middle class Bengalee. here, please allow me share an excerpt of what one of mie closest pals and a fellow scribe, Nivedita had to say -- "When he told a story, you listened. Watched, but you know what I mean. And because Ghosh was an extremely intelligent man, he knew exactly how to hook his target audience: the well schooled but very averse-to-change middle class.
So his characters would sing Rabindrasangeet and quote Tagore and Shakespeare, and the middle-class erudite would feel safe in his movies. Look, these are people just like us!”

the unpretentious portrayal of physical intimacy in Antarmahal created a subtle discomfort among his middle class Bengali audience. perhaps because, the posters have not had given them the cue. and this happened, despite the fact that his earlier film Chokher Bali depicted the young widow Binodini menstruating in a rather poignant scene and yet did not have to greet out-of-the-window criticisms just because the director was working with a Tagore novel and the sexual explicitness was tolerated for the novelist’s essential ‘sanctity’. even after all this, when he acted as a gay adman in Memories in March or the parallels of the Chapal Bhaduri in Arekti Premer Golpo, and in the same tune as Rudra in Chitrangada, a certain section of his audience seemed to have forgotten about all his past ventures in representing sexuality and showcasing the intricacies out of real-life lures, but only juxtapose the homosexual imagery and full stop. Rituparno lived with a strong gender connotation and vice versa, but i'll came back to that later.

just because, i've talked about his first film let me also quickly touch upon his released last. Chitrangada - The Crowning Wish. i firmly believe, if it was not him, it would have never been possible for anyone else to have woven the characters out of Mahabharata and the famous Tagore novel in sheer poetic narration in the context of a present day plot. the whole idea of Kaamdev being some kind of a plastic surgeon or a beautician to transform the conceptually Kuroopa princess to the Suroopa (beautiful) Chitrangada in order to make Arjuna fall in love couldn't have been more neat.

however, Ghosh, who won twelve National Awards out of his nineteen released movies, always credited his luck somewhere behind his exploits and said he was an overrated director. "how much i try i will never be able to feature among the first 200 filmmakers of the world, so might as well spend rest of the time watching their films," he had said to Moon Moon Sen on her chat-show for TV Southasia.

an ardent lover of hilsha and sleep, Ghosh loved his city Calcutta and said he probably cannot live without it. Unlike Ray, who composed many of the scores for his films himself, Ghosh said he loved all kinds of music but did not understand the intricacies much himself. He loved Rabindrasangeet more than anything and that probably reflected in his films too. Renowned music composer Debajyoti Mishra, who also scored music for many of Ghosh's films, said he knew music like nobody else. The lyrics of various songs penned by Ghosh, especially the ones in Maithili for his own film Raincoat bears testimony to the fact that he was no less of a remarkable poet or a lyricist.

now beyond the world of films, for which people better know him for, there are much more to the versatility of the maverick. Ghosh had been into costume designing for acclaimed theatre director Suman Mukhopadhyay's plays. He was an elaborate fashion connoisseur himself as designer Sarbari Dutta describes. He had also been into jewellery designing. After having started his career with advertising, Ghosh laster had edited copies for ABP, was appointed the creative head of the Bengali section of Broadcast World Wide, popularly known as Tara, hosted two most prominent chat shows on Bengali television, scripted one widely-followed tele soap revolving around Tagore in a modern Bengalee mindset, etc, etc, etc. however, Ghosh once said, due to the entire limitations of a regional channel and the dictates of a market, he couldn't enjoy TV just for the sake of creative joy. for him, making a film was like having a picnic with all the unbound creative fun involved.

despite all his achievements and the following he garnered to himself, somewhere somewhat his mannerisms drew undue attention. He was tagged as an LGBT activist, a gay icon or even a transgender elite. He never denied he was effeminate and admitted that his success as a celebrity entitled him or, rather gave him the freedom to choose his own terms that many common people cannot.

in his own words, "gender is fluid. there's nothing called a gender monolyth." how can one ensure that a man is bound to behave only as a man oozing only machismo all the time and in no way entitled to be vulnerable or even unwillingly bestowed with the rigidity that he cannot let go a woman-like expression ever? it's not about a sexual minority cause minority is a subjective quotient. he was definitely not the only man effeminate. Ghosh never demanded that he can rope-walk between the loose nooses of sexual boundaries.

"Yes. I enjoy being in the third gender. I am not a 'man-man'. Neither am i a woman. I've heard people asking if i'm now going to wear a saree. my answer is no. the whole concept of being unisex has been usurped by women. if a woman wears a pair of jeans, nobody questions her. but if a man wears a necklace, he is never called regal. i have not worn anything that Indian men have never worn traditionally. indian men have neither worn a saree nor a ghagra choli. hence, i don't see myself doing that either. there was so much speculation over whether i had a sex change operation. i haven't done that. to reduce my waistline, i have only done an abdominoplasty for "Just Another Love Story" [Dir. Kaushik Ganguly, 2011]. i don't want to be a woman. if i ever consider it, i would not be secretive about it. After all, there is no shame in it," Ghosh said in an interview.


putting aside the calculations and miscalculations of the differences between sensitivity and weakness, appropriate sensibility and unwarranted tenderness, or even that of learning and pride, for me, Ghosh can never be dead. His works will forever keep nurturing all the fondness towards him. just that, his untimely demise snatched the opportunity from us to amaze ourselves with -- movies on Jorasanko Thakurbari, where Ghosh thought about putting Tagore only as a side actor, a biopic on Bankim Chandra Chatterji's Debi Chaudhurani - the bandit queen of Bengal, a movie on the life of Buddhha or, a new-age narration of his
favourite epic the Mahabharata -- Ghosh had been planning to work on these projects, which are now going to miss out being interpreted by His genius.

for me, there'll be no more wait for his movies, no more arguments with friends on his plots or his consciously-forced-upon-himself cissy acting, no more showing off pride just because he belonged to my alma mater... for me, Rituparno will continue to stay as an inspiration to knowledge, class and sheer sophistication, just as Tagore stays with me as a part of mie living...

"For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,

And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again."

Credits:

Various Interviews given by Rituparno Ghosh
Percy Bysshe Shelley - To a Skylark
William Shakespeare - Venus and Adonis
academia.edu - Koustav Bakshi's interview with Ghosh
Saregama Bengali Channel
http://nivisbollywoodblog.blogspot.in/ - Nivedita Bhattacharjee
Picture Courtesy - Google Images
And, lots of love and respect for the Man

A Rainy Few Minutes

she was coming down from another city, slightly distant. back to base that was also not the home-town but had become more so with the warmth of pals and the cuddles of youth during the post-graduation days. it was just after the months of summer and she was finally coming back completing her extended internship. 

he was done with the apprenticeship couple of weeks ahead and was back already. but, like never before, the two weeks seemed like two months and was not willing to end. 

they were friends. not the best ones, but endearingly closed ones. they used to talk over phone for hours at times. at times, they used to sit at the open empty amphitheatre humming the tunes they both grew up with. and at some non-existent times, they used to share notes. he was the bookworm and she, literally the butterfly.

his two-week-long wait was finally coming to a close. but conspiracies galore, for the last twist in the tale, her bus was late for about four hours. and his plan to surprise her, waiting at the terminus, went for a toss. ohh c'mon! "what am i thinking? she isn't mie girl or something," he tried telling himself after the text tingled on his cell phone noting the delay.

erasing the suprise-plan and evading the wasted few kilometres he rode back to his room. the next few hours were weirdly the longest. itched a bit with the sweet lil' scheme being flushed in the morning, he was trying to figure out what could be some other welcoming happy note for her.

bingo! he ordered for her favourite sweet meat and flattered the confectioner enough that he promised to deliver on time.

she called twice. he missed them as the bathroom shower kept him away. minutes have passed and when he called back, she was stuck on the highway as the bus-driver stole a respite. "i hope i'll reach in about an hour, go home, freshen up and come to see you. so, keep waiting," she said before hanging up with that typical giggle of hers that always unassumingly teased him.

that means, one hour to reach plus one to greet the roomies plus another to sizzle herself up plus another probable hour to leave home and walk down the hill. he was definitely not going see her till the late evening or may be even night, he thought to himself as he kept wondering what else to do in the meanwhile. "how i wish she knew i was waiting for her at the bus-stop in the morning," the one inside him exclaimed.

sunset behind the hillocks was always neat in colours and flapping wings of the home-coming songsters complemented them surreal. that particular dusk was however, not that vibrant as the long-due monsoon clouds had started seeping in. the darkness of the evening was slightly early that night. 

his phone rang. the hour-clock said she must have just reached the terminus or may be in the autorickshaw on her way home. "where are you? i've been standing at your door for more than 5 minutes now. what's wrong with the door bell?"

contrary to all his calculations of time and plans, she had already reached and that too his place a lil' too early to be true as he was busy reminiscing the older moments kissed by the evening breeze on his terrace. he ran down the stairs. Trying to restore all the idiocies. 

she shouted trying to put up a fake angry face. he knew that was not true. by then, he had already learnt almost all the grammar that made her. that was her, just being herself bossing over the closed ones.

the childish grin on his face and a "sorry" on his lips was enough to get a hug from her. the eyes whispered how they've missed each other and they both tried pretending they were oblivious of the fact or the feeling.

"i didn't go home. i thought i'll come to your place first, chew your head a little and then... wont you drop me up till mie cave on your wheels?" he nodded and carefully hid a smile.

with all the pretends that it was lying in the fridge and assuming she would be hungry, he got her the pastries. the ones that were specially ordered and was crafted with added finesse after the old man at the shop had winked guessing something special. huh! what was he thinking. "it's just that i need them delivered on time." - he had thought presumably.

time in the frame of minutes turned into hours called moments as she kept sharing her share of the stories - what all happened during the toddling days in work, first stipend spends, crush on a fellow intern and how a hunk he was, and how she wished the days didn't end to get back to studies. he was never an avid listener. but, she was just a tad tolerable. 

it was time to take her home. as happy was he, having gifted a good evening that was almost turning to its nightly hours as time flew and she was in a hurry for the last couple of hours to go home. just that the talks seemed never ending.

there was a pinch of dampness in the air, a strong breeze around and a proper silver crescent lurking in the sky. perhaps, it was raining somewhere, the sweetness in the air deciphered. he kicked start the bike. and the clouds rumbled in sync. it was an amazing weather, they both agreed. a very rare occasion indeed when these two agreed on a same thing.

"you're already late. let's take the way roundabout. just a few minutes more. please..." he said.  just for the sake of the roads and the welcoming winds, she allowed. a few metres and the second turn round a corner, a jolt of the bumper as she held him tight from behind and it came pouring.

it was an empty road as far as could be seen. two lazily gleaming street lights drenching in the rain and the ecstatic foliage by the both sides of the road amid the darkness of the trees. he cursed himself. it was all his fault. it was an awkward moment with the joy of soaking in the season's first rain that was to relish and the worry of her backpack getting wet, that she had forgotten.

he wanted to take cover. some sheltering shade nearby. she insisted. happiness had its choice. it was just the two of them and a heavy shower for company. a streak of her drenched hairs was kissing her cheeks. he had stopped the bike on the middle of that slanting road, looked at her in her eyes such that he could see right through her heart.

the first time he saw her blush. the first time he felt she would let her be the boss amongst the two. the first time nothing else mattered. the first time the sweet chivalry in him wanted to let go of the consequences.

cold was the air, colder the raindrops. and amidst all that, warm was her presence, warmer the embrace. the breath was heavy and the spirits high. the cuddle grew tighter and the bonding felt shy...

their lips parted themselves and rested in each others. a moment of sweet submission. a moment of their lives. a moment when time stood still.  and a moment only the rain had witnessed and the monsoon clouds had seen. 

Picture Courtesy - Nickolay Khoroshkov via khoroshkov.com

Google Images

To Stay Fallen Apart Together

those were the lanes and alleys known to me intricate by every nook and corner.
but, those were also the same paths i haven't had taken in the past one decade
not even in the unwishful dreams, unknowing thoughts and unpriced memories.

those passages always used to bring a picture -- with colours so vibrant,
aura so blissful and smells of happiness unscathed
never it appeared to me why those boulevards were forever tranquil and yet jovial
with a never-ending spirit of care...
was it because at the end of the route stood the little hut that stored all the warmth
that just the two of us shared --
where pamper was our pride, where one's mere presence was the other's gold
i knew every inch of your body & i knew every bit of your soul...


now, these are the lanes and alleys seemingly familiar but not so obvious
and i sometimes confuse between the corners to take.
and these are also the same pathways that i've taken everyday for the past decade
in mie wishful desires, nurtured realizations and overtly possessive conscience.

these passages always bring along a picture -- starkly tepid and darkly grey
smells foul and toxic almost often and wrapped with anxiety justified
never it greets me why those avenues are forever noisy and ostentatious
with an endless exhibit of disregard...
perhaps it's because at the end of the route stands a castle burning, smeared with flying ashes
that wasted the purity of the bonding we shared --
where we annihilated our attachments, where care was jinxed and hatred was bold
had i ever known a slightest inch of your body or, had i ever known a slightest bit of your soul?


the roads jittered and slowly led to the zenith
ornated with flowers of lead and leaves of gold
the distance between us grew and grew apart
as fondness turned cold and the longing pricelessly sold

and, we forgot every reason of our existence
thus, we forgot every allegiance to our soul

One for the Night

just as the way you cannot say that you've felt the ocean yet if you have not waded down the shore with the rippling waves kissing your feet, making a love-like gesture and then breaking up and leaving you for the sea, again and again

just as the way you cannot be a lover of the roads or the open skies as long as you haven't set sails or packed your bags and geared the wheels with the dust and smoke burning your eyes, the raindrops pinching on your face or, sometime have had only the stars for company

just as the way you cannot decipher it's spring only by looking at the calendar dates until and unless you've felt the nip of blossom in the air or heard the inimitable tunes of the little winged ones accompanying the sunrise or the moments when it sets



in the same same same way you cannot infer how much i love you if you do not have a clue how often i dream about you, how often i wake up in the middle of the night and crave to call you up just to hear your voice and then flip thru' your pictures on mie cell phone, smile all by mieself and hug the pillow so tight as if it has your smell in it...





[Picture Courtesy - The Chronicle]

'marry-me-dotcoms' -- the Meena Bizarre of relationships

Indeed. We've come off that age, when a bride and a groom used to catch the first glimpse of each other only on the marriage podium, evidently late enough to call the wedding off. Sooner, the vows happened to seal a life-long togetherness of two strangers who have had chosen to take care of each other just because their parents felt they'll look good together. Quite presumably, those were times when the tally marks of compatibility criteria were preceded by an imposed mutual trust and perhaps, lots of compromises. But, above all what was considered sacrosanct was commitment towards the bonding. Most of us belonging to this evolved generations would agree that the loveliest of love stories they've spotted in their real lives are that of their grand-dad & grand-mums. And, there's no denying that most of those stories run on similar lines of strangers falling in love -- truly, madly, deeply and eventually -- as they tied the knot and tried sharing their lives with each other.

Our urbane tweens, who take pride in their fast track creed of being and having educed the mindset of 'moving on'-induced-innumerable-love-affairs, prefer commitments towards compatibilities than commitments towards relationships. Hence, the moment the idea creeps in that "oh! we're so bloody different!" they run seekin their love sanctuary in newer people. Most of us think arranged marriage, at least as far as the connotation of it runs, is not our forte. Either it's too geeky or, too old-school. Still, many end up with that when it comes to settling down. The reasons can be many. It may be all study and no play made Jack a dull boy to have a Jenny for himself, or too many cook and choicest varieties on the platter spoilt Mr. Pickwicky or, maybe the randomly common story of 'all was going well for years till “we” realized it’s not working anymore', or sometimes it can even be the parents' undaunted zest to get their wards happily married as soon as possible. Now, arranging an arranged marriage is much bigger a task than even that of the Cupid for a matter of factual farce. And, no brownie points for guessing, there are 'n' number of matrimonial web portals to come to the rescue.

The matrimonial match making business thrives as it takes care of almost all the odd perspectives associated with the celebration of love, even though mostly it might be giving undue importance to the frugal and trivial corners to the building of a new relationship and might pay lesser heed to the solidarity of its foundation. Love, Care, Affections are just few words. In the automated world you need to be robotic enough to fall in love or just simply marry in terms of the binary digits of preferences. “Suits You,” will say “the lunatic, the lover and the poet” as they grin about your tough luck with love and relationships. Stop complaining. At least someone’s trying to help out, don’t you see?

Pay to Peep

Just like a typical middleman’s nuances the modern-day match makers have their own tantrums. They’ll boast about an enviable database featuring thousands of prospective married-to-be, they’ll poach you to the extent that you start feeling that marriage is the whole and sole aim in your life, they’ll lure you with the promise of helping find your ‘the’ perfect match and they’ll also make you realize that perhaps, all that you’ve achieved so far is not worth to make you lucky enough to meet the one of your dreams. What happens if you ignore to pay them despite creating a profile? Every now and then you’ll be greeted by prettiest of prospects staring at you from your screen but, the designed-to-make-you-helpless portal does not allow you to contact them even by any crooked means of chivalry. Then, as the agony aunts’ pestering bowls you over to give up the lost battle of bachelorhood, you promote yourself to be a paid member. There await the payment slabs, deciphered in acute metaphors of the cumulative values of the precious. Be a Gold member and access the database that lets you fetch say 25 contacts. Be a Platinum one to reach out to 50, or be a Titanium, Plutonium or Unobtainium to be spoilt for more and more choices up the ladder. And, as i said, just like the ladder, the comparative degrees of the memberships also adjudicate how many prospects can reach out to you. Try your luck. So, the more you pay, the better panoramic the view appears thru’ the window.

Brandishing the Brand You

A profile can be created for a self, a son, a daughter, a relative or, even a friend. But, instances testify that the website executives cannot and will not disclose the identity of the friend who might have created a profile for you, apparently for security reasons. Don’t be amused if some father creates a profile for you at the matrimony junction and your own father denies that. You’ll never be able to know that other father, again for security reasons. Let’s assume someone creates a true profile with an honest desire to find his/her perfect match on some or the other hook-me-up dot com. First and foremost, You need to synopsize your life-story so-far in a restricted space of word limits and touch upon the saleable intricacies of your past, present and future (if that too is possible). Speak upbringing. Speak pedigree. You can probably give hint if your great-great grandfather missed the Nobel prize by a whisker or perhaps, emphasize that you have the tenacity to be the next Laika (dogs are faithful, so) or, maybe you can do many things together with precision and hence are versatile (watching TV, eating and texting your gfs, all at the same time DO NOT count). But whatever you say, you need to tell them in a make-believe manner and you can never forget that you should be doing all these with the utmost resonance of humility, modesty and sweetness. You don’t want your prospect to run away annoyed from the loud beating of your drum, do you? So, master the art of making cacophony sound like music.

Fatter the wallet, Fitter the choice

So much said about the nitty gritty of tastes, preferences and compatibilities. Yet, most tend to weigh the life’s happiness in terms of a prospect’s annual salary package. In fact, that seems like the most crucial and determining factor to qualify to be a match. Agreed, it’s much more comforting to cry inside a Ferrari than on the pedals of a bicycle. The former gives you privacy too. But, you’re crying anyway. I don’t want to make any sexual discrimination here, But this needs mention. Father of a would-be bride aged 25 and who earns say, INR 2 lakhs per annum seeks a groom for his daughter, aged not exceeding 27 to have an annual income of INR 12 lakhs. I mean, come on, what is he thinking? And, this kind of an example is not one in a million. They are in galore. I’m just trying to put up a sliced matrix of expectations here. So, don’t get astonished if you’re proven useless by a bracketed demand of some individual unknown despite the fact that you’ve always thought you have done good for yourself so far and you earn just enough to lead a life much more luxurious than many of your friends. The universe is miniscule that encompasses people who care more about love and commitment and less about thicker wallets. Hence, all said and done, the nuptial knot-welders tag men and women according to their earning credentials and their salary ‘packages’ decipher the yearnings for them. You as a man might not matter, but you as a man in terms of money does does matter.

Horoscopic Heracles

On one hand, we’re proud flag bearers of advancements in crude terms of various social stimuli; On the other many still cling to the apparent foreseeable futures in the cross grids of horoscope charts and astrological hula hoops. It may be that two individuals (read a boy and a girl) don’t even have a single trait in common and yet the horoscopes suggest otherwise, many upheld the match to be literally made in heaven. And, god forbid if such a marriage doesn’t work out in the long run, the match makers once again blame it on the planetary shifts et al. So, be prepared to get rejected even though you might have had started speaking to someone you met on the marriage platform, had started liking a bit and had started planning to begin the new journey of life together. You might just get stuck, perhaps for reasons that does not involve the either of you but thanks to the planets on which you’ll never get to live even, just because horoscopes posed a red signal. Sometimes things you always thought prosaic and ignorable might just decide your fate. Crush, infatuation, love do not decide here. They are considerably the lesser important ones in these grids of mindsets and the matrimony pandits are well-fed and perhaps, well-read too to forecast the bonding between a man and a woman in percentages. So, wonder wonder a couple whose horoscope charts suggest they are 82 percent preferentially matched will never be able to love each other fully. It’s like peeping through the keyhole outside locked doors to steal voyeuristic pleasure or like watching porn and believing oneself inside the screen.

Castaway in Casteism

Agreed, there can still be reasons that one can buy against inter-religion marriages just on the basis of the slightly presumable difference in the ways of living of two individuals belonging to varied faiths, but that too barring any associative corners of spirituality. However, the unreasonability has had never made sense to me that how does it matter to others if two people from different religious upbringings choose to stick together and share their lives with each other. Forget communities, the century old caste systems inside one or the other religion continues to live deep-rooted in the so-called modern society. A Brahmin wants to marry a Brahmin, A Kshatritya to a Kshatriya, and likewise. Shouldn’t the choice of just a man marrying a woman be the order of the day? I wonder where would have been the world and its most rational creatures, had Adam thought about all these before making love to Eve. Or, was it Adam happened to be a rich brat and Eve was from his own community. So, as the river of mindly narrrowscopes keeps flowing, the match makers provide enough room to nurture them and lets you allow segregate prospects of your same caste universe even before delving into the other asteroids. And in the process, thus erases clean, the scope and the hope of ever meeting your perfect one, who might have been just a caste away.

And, the story of the marry-me-dotcoms go on and on as the butterflies keep spreading their wings and touch upon human souls to crave for someone very own. And the intricate design of lure doesn’t make one ever realize that in order to fall in love, he or she meanwhile falls out of it. Is it even possible to give shape to the one in your dreams in the intricacies of money, caste, horoscope, age, stars, citizenship, eating habits, and all that jazz?  I doubt the eternal bond between two sexes can be dubbed in the ways and means of an underlying bargain market, or for that matter, in winnings of jackpot games. I pity those poets who made believe that love seeks love and not a thing else. I guess, we’ve come a road too long and away to care just about love and nothing else while seeking for a partner to spend the life with. Hence, cheers thou match makers, our friendly neighbourhood jokers of practicality, eat well and be happy. But, please please please keep your fingers crossed that your sincerity in work only creates happily ever after stories.