Will O' the Wisp

We live between significance and insignificance. We live between being significant and insignificant. While there are some people who are very significant to you and you suddenly realise how small a part of their universe you are, you also feel happy with the passerby who behaved very sweetly with you, with the classmate of yours who was very kind to you,  with the kitten in the street who walked with you till the roads diverged. The sadness is as much as the happiness. The being empty is as much as being full. You confuse, you comprehend, you embrace and you grow. 

Sometimes you can't speak. You find yourself amidst so much happenings, good and bad, that you lose the strength to speak. The words in your head jumble up so badly that you also don't know what exactly to speak. The smallest words like no, yes, okay, thanks feel more difficult than the last novel you read aloud. But then you can't stay silent for long. You have to answer what happened to you. You have to go through interrogations and judgements. You have to know why this has happened to you and how you are better than so many other people. This continues for long. For longer than all the time you were feeling worse about yourself. The banyan tree which promised you to hide from the rest of the world either has died or is so far from you that even to reach it, you need to speak. Hence, you speak. You speak in the language of lesser loved people. But you speak.

The other ponds in the village are far away from hers. She desires to go there but she is too small to swim across rivers. The duckling doesn't like her pond at all because she is the only duckling there. She sees fishes, tadepoles, swans, flies but she doesn't see another duck. Still she assumes it to be her home. She doesn't understand home is where heart lies, she doesn't understand "family" is what we choose. She tries to swim in there, she tries to swim out of there, she can't. The little boy who comes to the pond everyday to complete his homework has grown older. He doesn't have homeworks to complete anymore. She doesn't grow. The paperboats sail away. The duckling tries to follow them. They drown. She doesn't. Sometimes they are picked by someone on the other side of the pond, she sails in vain. The flies buzz, the people talk, the birds chirp, every sound becomes malignant to her ears. She doesn't talk. She doesn't have an...

There is a favorite kid of mine who happens to be the daughter of a professor of Jadavpur University. She is in class five. Sometimes we talk about the story books she recently read and my honours syllabus as she finds it very fascinating how we both have Shakespeare and Bond in our syllabus. And she talks a lot. Like a lot. She can talk for any length of time with anyone (I assume) Today she got a few plantable pencils, pens and notepads from school as children's day gift. She showed me all of them. And while she was keeping the pens and the pencils back in the case, she asked for the cover of the nib of the pen (the itty-bitty white transparent cover). I told her it's not important, people throw it away. She said, "I'm not among the people who live in the astonishing world of nothingness" . . . She is in class 5.

The worst thing in India (which is because I am not much aware of the other parts of the world) is this parents often glorify their sacrifices. It might not be a story of many houses but I have come across a recent picture of parenting which could not stop me from writing this. I see the parents using words, words which are very negative, words which make the  children doubt their existential importance in the world, words which are atrocious and cruel, words which have huge implications. Though words are often said to be a way to purge the pent up emotions, it is asked not to take them seriously. But I see the mother spitting on herself for being the mother of the children in front of the children. I see her cursing them and herself and for what? For certain things which the children do because they are children, because they are unaware of a lot of things which make their parents worried.  From my limited conversation with the children, I don't find them insensible or...

Yesterday's rain had successfully made small pools on the roads. I walked consciously because I had to save my clothes from getting spoiled from the splashes of the dirty water which the vehicle on streets throw, voluntarily and involuntarily.  I carried an umbrella and held it in front of me. The kids who studied in local schools have started dispersing from their homes. We share the same institutional time. As I stood for the bus, two kids of 6-7 year old purposely jumped on the water and spoiled their dresses. I was not allowed to enter school premises with dirty clothes and in college, it creates an inferior image to the people. I was afraid of that. Soon, some more kids joined them. They laughed and shouted as they jumped on the water and the cars helped them in spoiling their dresses. I looked at my superior clean clothes. I didn't laugh. I didn't jump. I didn't smile. I didn't shout. Sudeepa thamma,  one of my neighbors watched me from her balcony. She alw...

Fare you well :) I have seen dust, autumn fall, spring set, disappearing of stars from the sky of Kolkata, I have let go of broken toys, rusted bicycles, torn letters, old teddy bears and half written diaries. None felt like you, none. I don't know where you were before we met, how much longer would you stay with all of me who always irritates you being an emotional fool and with her useless state of existence. Because forever is cliché. And always is never. Do you know I have a fascination for woods? The woods which welcome me everytime unfailingly, with a tree house, a burrow and a muffler in it? I keep walking there. I walk and I meet people, people I knew long ago, people I know now, people I never knew. They can't see or hear me. Yet I talk to them, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes consciously because resistance goes away from my mind. Sometimes on the roads, the unkept promises, the dedicated songs and the words of poems scatter along. They interrupt my tired j...